I just finished reading “Every Bitter Thing” by Monica Wood this morning, and it has made a powerful impression on me. I would recommend it highly. Several years ago I read her short story collection “Ernie’s Ark” and loved it also, even though I usually find short stories unsatisfying. I despise what I call “Suffering Woman Books” (Anita Shreve being a prime example). Wood treads somewhat close to that territory in terms of emotional intimacy, but somehow avoids pushing my buttons.
I just finished Jonathan Littell’s “The Kindly Ones”. It is a great book although I have waken up with nightmares since I started reading it. While it can be argued from the title that I should probably have displaced my Judeo-Christian morality with a frame of mind for a Greek tragedy, the events of WWII and the Holocaust are too close in time for me to read the work with detachment. Perhaps this is the intent.
Apologies if someone posted this last year when it came out; I don’t know how I missed it. Sweet and so funny! Really charming gay coming of age story. Some parts had me laughing so hard I had to put it down. A really good airplane read imho. I’ll have him on my list to watch coming up.
If this violates something I apologize up front. My D turned me on to this website, she wanted us to keep a joint list of books we had read/wanted to read. when I saw the website i thought of the obsessed CC readers.
Essays of E.B. White – he of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little fame. Some of the essay topics weren’t all that interesting, but most were fascinating, and ALL were so well written. A pleasure to read such clear, concise sentences. There’s a lot of (technically) poor writing out there these days, so this was a wonderful change.
Out Stealing Horses was a great book. I am currently reading House of Cards, which is the fall of Bear Stearns, familiar with many of the players so I couldn’t resist.
also just got The Gathering, looked interesting.
Year of Magical Thinking-- Joan Didion
The Road
I’m reading a fascinating book I learned about on another list-serve. It’s called The Well-Dressed Ape, by Hannah Holmes, and is a witty, engaging description of how the human primate fits into the natural world.
Usually I’m a big fiction reader, but lately I’ve been on a nonfiction kick.
I just read “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible,” by A.J. Jacobs. It’s really funny, especially as he gets more obsessive about following some of the stranger Biblical laws during his year-long experiment. But it’s also an interesting exploration of what different sects of Judaism and Christianity choose to interpret literally about the Bible. Very entertaining reading.
On the far other end of the spectrum, I also read “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart (or stomach), but it’s fascinating reading about what happens to bodies donated to science.
Heartily agree with the last two posters. “Stiff” is an amazing book, and “Once More to the Lake” a hauntingly memorable essay. I’m trying to think of the name of another E.B. White essay where he muses after watching a circus bareback rider. . . it’s beautiful and also haunting.
I am sure many of you read this book years ago. I am a little behind in my reading, I just read Angela’s Ashes. It sure makes you appreciate what you have.
Have you read Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet? It takes place just before the end of British rule in India, and is very well written. It was also made into a marvelous BBC series, The Jewel in the Crown, which is the title of the first volume.
SuNa – that would be “The Ring of Time.” Part of what made E.B. White’s essays “speak” to me was (1) I went to school in Maine, worked 2 summers in Maine, and have relatives there, (2) I was actually in Florida when I was reading the essays about that state, and (3) I know NYC quite well, so could relate to those essays, too. Also, as an American Studies, major, the 1939 World’s Fair was a hot topic in one of my particularly memorable classes. All in all, really great stuff, and excellent writing.