Faline 2 and epistrophy–if you get a chance to see Nancy Porter’s documentary “Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women” do so. It includes commentary from Geraldine Brooks. Brooks’ earlier novel, Year of Wonders, which is about a 17th century English village where the plague strikes and how the villagers deal with it, is also excellent.
I really liked Snowflower, too. Someone mentioned “The Year of Living Biblically” a while back on this thread, by a guy who tries to follow all the rules of the Bible literally for a year (have you ever thought about how one goes about stoning people in modern society?). That was a very good read.
One I read recently that really stuck with me is “Staying Tuned: A Life In Journalism” by Dan Schorr. A fabulous front row seat to both foreign & US history for the past 50 years. D liked it so much that she wrote a college essay about it.
And a book that made me laugh until I cried was “Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod” by Gary Paulsen.
this is the.best.thread.ever
carry on…
I just finished a history book that I thought was very good. Manhunt: The 12-day chase for Abraham Lincoln’s Killer. By James L. Swanson
It prompted me to start reading the book Lincoln by G. Vidal.
Back at post #532, padad wrote:
And what should sit atop a list of books recently recommended by the President-Elect?
Gilead.
[ArticleView</a> - Borders - Books, Music and Movies](<a href=“http://www.borders.com/online/store/ArticleView_shortlistobama]ArticleView”>http://www.borders.com/online/store/ArticleView_shortlistobama)
The Year of Magical Thinking By Joan Didion
Amazing writer always, but this work will touch anyone’s heart who has experienced profound loss, or wishes to empathize with the behavior of a friend or loved one. Didion’s circumstances do not have to be identical to the reader’s. She succeeds in extracting universal truths about how human beings process grief, and explains them in innovative and compelling ways. I couldn’t put it down, and felt healed by the gift of understanding.
I just finished Loving by Henry Green, which as I mentioned a little while back I recently received as a birthday present from my older son (who read it in a literature class he’s taking this fall). This was my first encounter with Green, and I was enthralled. The novel, published in 1945, is set in Ireland during WW II. The main characters are a group of English servants. Written heavily in dialogue, the book’s energy comes not from suspense, nor from psychological complexity, but from the poetry and liveliness of its characters’ speech.
In his introduction to the volume I read, John Updike writes, with “reverence,” that “Green, to me, is so good a writer, such a revealer of what English prose fiction can do in this century [the last], that I can launch myself upon this piece of homage and introduction only be falling into some sort of imitation of that liberatingly ingenuous voice, that voice so full of other voices, its own interpolations amid the matchless dialogue twisted and tremulous with a precision that kept the softness of groping, of sensation, of living.”
And in an appreciation that’s well worth reading, my son’s literature professor had this to say: “Speech in Green is both real and magical, observed and invented, a report and a dance.”
With the days getting shorter, the air colder, the dark stretches longer, this novel, often read while sipping a cup of hot tea, gave me a great deal of pleasure.
[Henry</a> Green, the last English Modernist - TLS Highlights - Times Online](<a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines)
[Amazon.com:</a> Loving; Living; Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics): Henry Green, John Updike: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Living-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140186913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226271295&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Living-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140186913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226271295&sr=1-1)
P.S. re Henry Green:
In reading a NYT review of a biography of Green, I just learned that his many writer-fans include not only John Updike but also Terry Southern, of Candy fame, who called him “a writer’s writer’s writer.”
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/25/reviews/010325.25mcgratt.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/25/reviews/010325.25mcgratt.html</a>
Perhaps it is fitting that I mention these on the anniversary of Kristelnacht, two books dealing with the holocaust. I found these both interesting (can’t really say enjoyable). Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum about a young woman trying to understand her mother’s past. The other book was more disturbing and is actually considered a children’s book- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. That one haunted me for days. I think I need to start reading some fluff books for a while.
Keep the titles coming, I’m starting to keep a list of them!
Also concerning the Holocaust, in addition to the book that started this thread, I strongly recommend Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939 by Saul Friedlander. Among its many other strengths, Friedlander does what I think is a brilliant job of moving back and forth between the forest (broad social movements, etc.) and the trees (vivid individual stories).
Friedlander’s second volume, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, which I have but have not yet read, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.
[Saul</a> Friedländer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Friedländer]Saul”>Saul Friedländer - Wikipedia)
I had been meaning to read David Halberstam’s last book - but never seemed to get around to it… then, on a recent business trip, wandered into the SFO bookstore and it was sitting there…
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Hyperion. ISBN 1401300529
Like all of his books, simply wonderful - and taught me a lot about a war which I seemed to have missed in history class - and only knew through the TV show MASH (which wasn’t really about Korea at all…)
Well worth the read…
A book I am re-reading now is Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure The World - incredible book about a Harvard MD - who decides to singlehandedly solve the health problems of Haiti - one patient at a time. All I can say it is certainly inspired me to do far more with my life…
A while back, someone mentioned Richard Yates’ novel *Revolutionary Road<a href=“coming%20soon%20to%20a%20theater%20near%20you,%20with%20Kate%20W.%20and%20Leonardo%20D.;%20my%20older%20son’s%20fiction%20class,%20mentioned%20above%20as%20the%20source%20for%20his%20recent%20gift%20to%20me%20of%20Henry%20Green’s%20%5Bi%5DLoving%5B/i%5D,%20happens%20to%20be%20reading%20it%20now”>/i</a>. Last night, I reread one of Yates’ short stories, “Doctor Jack-o’-Lantern,” and it made me realize, once again, what a clear, moving, satisfying conjurer of lives and illusions he is.
If you haven’t ever heard of Yates, you’re not alone - but chances are that one of your favorite writers considers him a favorite, as his many admirers include Michael Chabon, Richard Price, the late Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron and Tennessee Williams and Dorothy Parker, Richard Russo, and Robert Stone (who has written: “To me and to many other writers of my generation, the work of Richard Yates came as a liberating force.”)
[Amazon.com:</a> The Collected Stories of Richard Yates: Richard Yates, Richard Russo: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Stories-Richard-Yates/dp/0312420811/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226667887&sr=1-4]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Stories-Richard-Yates/dp/0312420811/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226667887&sr=1-4)
[Amazon.com:</a> Revolutionary Road (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage Contemporaries): Richard Yates: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Road-Movie-Vintage-Contemporaries/dp/0307454622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226667887&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Road-Movie-Vintage-Contemporaries/dp/0307454622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226667887&sr=1-1)
[richard</a> yates wikipedia - Google Search](<a href=“richard yates wikipedia - Google Search”>richard yates wikipedia - Google Search)
[Best</a> of Everything: The Richard Yates Archive](<a href=“http://www.richardyates.org/]Best”>http://www.richardyates.org/)
epistrophy,
A happy, belated birthday to you! If I could send you a book, it would be one that I read recently - An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland by Michael Dirda. A book about a booklover’s books, what could be better? 
Seriously, though, reading that book felt like sitting across from Michael and having a lovely conversation about the love of books and how then enrich and influence our lives.
scualum,
Mountains beyond Mountains is a wonderful book. Paul Farmer is truly a contemporary hero. Since reading Kidder’s book, and also several of Farmer’s, a few years ago, Partners in Health has become one of our family charities.
My book club read Jodi Picoult’s “Second Glance” (about ghosts, history of a small, Vermont town, family interactions). The author said it was her favorite, of all her novels. I didn’t care so much for the ‘magical realism’ but she’s a very engaging writer.
aam:
Thanks much for the thought and for the tip. I’ve read some of MD’s other stuff, but not (yet) this. Will look for it.
<hr>
Yo, mystery and crime fans:
[Confessions</a> of an Idiosyncratic Mind](<a href=“http://www.sarahweinman.com/]Confessions”>http://www.sarahweinman.com/)
(I heard this woman yesterday on the radio [and can’t imagine that CC’s general rule re blogs would apply here].)
thanks, everyone!
also:
child of my heart by alice mcdermott
friend of my youth by alice munro
ireland stories by william trevor
For anyone interested in reading about China I recommend “Wild Swans”. It is a memoir about several generations of the women in a Chinese family, from the bound footed great grandmother to the author, who is today a professor at an English university. It is beautifully written and really gives a sense of how women there have lived. I gave my copy to a Chinese friend when I was last there.
Someone mentioned Year of Magical Thinking which I didn’t like at all. That shows how people enduring a seemingly similar situation can react very differently. I kept wanting to shake Joan Didion and tell her “This is your life now, get on with it.”
Well, I am going to start “Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat.” I read one adult, one YA, one youngster, one adult, and so on so forth…I just finished “Whistling Season” after jumping over it for a few months for other reads…it has an amazing end! And Ivan Doig is right up there again as one of my favorites but then I love the wide open spaces of Doig’s America.