Seiclan, Just so you know, Grapes of Wrath is rather earthy. I was amazed that there where so many references to sex and it was okay with the school. But honestly, I thought it depicted life rather well, at least the way I think life may have been like for those on the road in the 30’s.
One use that I have occasionally made of email recently, after reading a book that really meant a lot to me in one way or another, is to let the author know, even if only very briefly.
Here, for instance, is what I wrote Daniel Mendelsohn, author of *The Lost<a href=“the%20book%20that%20started%20this%20thread”>/i</a>:
And here’s the response that I received from him (later that same day):
Well - I made a list of 10 books that were mentioned in this posting and stopped by the library this afternoon. I was only able to find 3 available - the rest were checked out, even the ones that had multiple copies. So everyone in my town must either read the CC book reviews, or else these are just really popular books. Got on the waiting list for 3 of them, tho.
Like many others, I just finished and highly recommend Water for Elephants. I loved it…a great story.
epistrophy, that is so true that authors love to hear from people who have read their books. Many years ago, I wrote to Paul Monette after reading Borrowed Time. I sent the letter through his editor in New York and a couple of weeks later I received a reply from Paul. He was very grateful to hear that his book had touched me. We became friends and exchanged frequent letters, then emails for several years until his death. I was fortunate enough to meet him face to face, as well, even though we lived thousands of miles apart.
I have a couple of current friends who are writers and they, too, enjoy hearing from their ‘fans’. They always reply!
Here’s another recent exchange, this time with David Kirby, a poet, critic, and English professor at Florida State, whose latest collection of poems (many of which are very funny), The House on Boulevard St., was recently nominated for a National Book Award.
My email to him:
And his response:
Just have to add–“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. If you like Caribbean (particularly Dominican) lit, if you like nerdy/geeky kids who read fantasy and play role-playing games, and/or if you are a fan of NJ, you will love this book–even if these things aren’t all true-but they are for me, and I absolutely loved it! His first book, “Drown” was impressive, but this book was magical–tough, poetic, funny, heartbreaking, and sweet-natured all at the same time. I totally recommend it!
loved three cups of tea, bought it for my kids and it’s still sitting around here. just finished life is so good about a 100 year old former slave who learned how to read when he was 98.
A friend and I have been doing the library method instead of the bookstore. Our library has an online site where we reserve books and when they come in they e-mail. At one point we had 10 books here, there are still six being waited for in line. I’ll have to do a few more of these on here.
I just finished the Thirteenth Tale, thanks to recommendations from this thread. For anyone who enjoyed that book, I would recommend the classic “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith. This has a similar cast of eccentric English characters, though not so dark and quite a bit more humorous.
Read an editorial the other day that skewered Jenny MCarthy’s statistics and assertions re autism, particularly in regard to vaccinations.
I read Botany of Desire a few years back and still think of it as a book I’m glad I read.
My latest discovery is Moby Dick. Somehow dodged that bullet in high school myself, but since S had to read it this summer thought I’d show solidarity, and really, truly enjoyed it.
On the light side, Secret Life of Bees was a keeper, so to speak.
And anything by Willa Cather.
I’ll second the recommendations for A Thousand Splendid Sons and Water for Elephants. Both were great reads. The one book that I’ve read recently that I’ve enjoyed even more is The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.
The Glass Castle by Janine Walls. Anyone who had a chaotic childhood, or loves someone who did needs to read this book. Humorous and heartbreaking a-la Angela’s Ashes. It provides insight into yourself and those around you. A great book club selection!
If (like me) a big part of the reason why you read is to learn what life is like for others whose experiences are very different from your own, you might find these recent memoirs of interest:
–Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life by Allen Shawn. Shawn is a composer and pianist who’s on the music faculty at Bennington College. He’s also from a famous family: father William Shawn was a longtime editor for the New Yorker and brother Wallace Shawn is a playwright who’s probably best known for the movie My Dinner with Andre. (Allen’s also the ex-husband of writer Jamaica Kincaid, who currently teaches at Harvard.) As this book demonstrates, Allen has the family knack for clear, thoughtful prose. And he has a fascinating, often haunting story to tell, one that interweaves his own personal experiences with a variety of deep-seated phobias (agoraphobia, claustrophobia, etc.) with discussion of some of the different ways that phobias have been understood and treated.
–The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks. Saks is a Yale Law School graduate, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, and a leading authority on legal issues relating to mental health. Oh, and she’s also schizophrenic. While she isn’t as fine a writer as Kay Redfield Jamison (the renowned authority on bipolar disorder whose memoir or her own experiences with this illness, An Unquiet Mind, has become something of a classic in the field), her story - at times harrowing, at other times inspiring - is so powerful that it more than makes up for any shortcomings in her writing style.
To read about a life that is certainly very different than my own, I just started reading “Madame Tussaud - A Life in Wax” by Kate Berridge. More than a biography - it’s a fascinating account of life before, during and immediately after the French Revolution and a terrific exploration of the marketing of news and celebrities before today’s mass media. And a great Halloween read - she actually had to make wax heads of friends that were beheaded on the guillotine, using the real thing!
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My now grown kids have been bugging me to read “His Dark Materials” series by Phillip Pullman; The Golden Compass, the Subtle Knife and the Amber Spyglass. This series is amazing with not so subtle anti church messages but I can’t believe it’s considered children’s literature, especially the Amber Spyglass. I’m looking forward to all the heated discussions that’s sure to crop up with the release of The Golden Compass movie.
AnyMom
Wow–I’m looking for that book–I love Madame Tussaud. My hubby thinks I’m nuts looking at wax people.
I also recommend Water for Elephants. Someone mentioned it here on CC during the summer and I reserved it at the library. When I picked it up I read what it was about and thought it didn’t sound like anything I would like. Decided to give it a try, anyway. Well, I loved it!
Re The Gathering, which someone recommended a while back, there was an interesting piece about author Anne Enright in yesterday’s New York Times:
<a href=“Anne Enright Faces Scrutiny in Britain Following Article - The New York Times”>Anne Enright Faces Scrutiny in Britain Following Article - The New York Times;
I’m reading a really interesting, although very sobering, book right now: Unnatural History by Robert Aronowitz. It is a “social history of breast cancer” 1800-2000 – i.e., focusing not so much on the science as on the oscillations in medical fashion and doctor-patient relationships. It alternates big-picture surveys of clinical and academic trends with case studies of individual treatments, based on letters, journals, and files of specific patients and their doctors, including a very moving chapter on Rachel Carson. The basic theme is a constant, good-faith search for better scientific understanding and better clinical methods with little or no actual progress towards understanding the disease or managing it, much less curing it, and fundamental continuities in the pattern of doctor-patient interactions around the essential hopelessness of breast cancer cases.
The author is a practicing physician and Penn history of medicine professor, with a linguistics PhD – very broad, humanistic interests. The book isn’t entirely successful in the way it tries to straddle academic discourse and lay tastes, and could probably use more summary of the scientific developments that have been written about extensively. But it’s very nuanced and generous towards everyone – the doctors (misguided and not, princes of the profession and GPs in the trenches, scientists and quacks), and above all the heroic patients.
Re: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Nothing illustrates the fact that in some respects the UK and the US still have some fundamental differences better than these books. Had they not been wildly successful in Britain, no U.S. publisher would have touched them with a 10-foot pole, much less marketed them as children’s books. In the last volume alone, you have crazed, homicidal Jesuit priests (the Church is, in general, the bad guy), the actual death of God on-camera (an enfeebled, demented God, to boot), and the universe being saved by two 14-year-olds having sex and then separating forever (but at least they are in love). That said, the last volume has little other than its outrageousness to recommend it. But the other two – especially the first, which is much tighter and more focused than the others – are wonderful.
I am about half way through “Into the Wild” by John Krakauer. Story of a new graduate of Emory University who takes off on an extended road trip living a fantasy of Thoreau and Jack London. Ends up tragically dying of starvation in the wilds of Alaska. I hear it is about to debut on the big screen as a movie directed by Sean Penn. Very good book. Krakauer’s book “Into Thin Air” was very, very good also. Have waiting for me at the library, “The Mayflower” by Nathanial Filbrick. A book about the Mayflower ship and it’s voyage to America. His first book “In the Heart of the Sea” was absolutely excellent. After reading everyone’s glowing review of “Water for Elephants” I am on the waiting list for that one at the library. Too many books, too little time!!!