Please explain – hard to tell anything from the pic on Amazon.
Do you remember the pressed and embossed covers from the fifties and sixties(generally found in grade school libraries)? The design and material is great and really needs to be seen and touched to understand. His next book is covered in fake fur.I used to dabble in book binding and I am a real sucker for this stuff----especially if a great piece of writing is included.
This is a fun list. Get out your pen and start checking them off!
[Audience</a> Picks: 100 Best Beach Books Ever : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106983620]Audience”>Audience Picks: 100 Best Beach Books Ever : NPR)
My library hasn’t yet ordered Russo’s, Eggers’, OR Lorrie Moore’s new books.
Sigh.
Well, I just finished Brooklyn, and though (because?) I found the ending almost unbearably sad (and all the more so because of its understatement and restraint), as I closed the book I thought to myself, yes, this is why we read fiction (or at least one reason why we do) – to see the world, at least momentarily, through another’s eyes and, in doing so, even if what you’re seeing when you look through their eyes is their loneliness, to feel less alone.
(P.S. Re Lorrie Moore’s new novel: I can’t wait to get started on it.)
My book club just read “The Help” and for only the 2nd time in many years we all really enjoyed it. It is about the relationships between women and their maids in Mississippi during the early 60’s. One member grew up in the time and place of this book and said it rang very true.
I have just finished “The Little Book” by Selden Edwards–and it was spectacular. It is the author’s first novel, but he started writing it over 30 years ago–and once you start reading you see why it took so long; it covers 1897 Vienna to World Wars I and II and up through the 1980’s–and involves time traveling characters skillfully intertwined with many actual historical figures. The interlocking lives of the characters are so skillfully written and the story is so compelling that you must run, not walk, to obtain this book!
Based on Tracy Kidder’s talent, and this review, I an looking forward to “Strength in What Remain” : <a href=“Book Review | 'Strength in What Remains,' by Tracy Kidder - The New York Times”>Book Review | 'Strength in What Remains,' by Tracy Kidder - The New York Times;
(a percentage of the proceeds from sales go to Partners in Health, Paul Farmer’s remarkable organization)
I really enjoyed Penelope Lively’s most recent book, Consequences. It follows three generations of (mostly) women and their lives from just before WW2 to the present. I love her spare style, and enjoyed her slightly quirky characters.
ohmadre, thank you for posting that! I have recommended Mountains Beyond Mountains in several book discussions here on CC over the years and Partners In Health is one of our family’s designated charities. Tracy Kidder is a great writer and I can’t wait to read this new one!
Freakonomics. I’m way behind on my reading.
Alwaysamom - I concur 100%. I recommend Mountains Beyond Mountains to everyone (and Kidder’s previous works in general), and I recommend that people see what PIH is all about - certainly something we support wholeheartedly. Go to the PIH website and you will be able to see what outlet to purchase the book from in order to make sure some of the proceeds go to PIH. My copy is enroute! And if you happened to have lent away your personal copy of Mountains Beyond Mountains - as I did - the new edition, which is not very costly, has an update. (boy am I a sloppy typist though - loads of mistakes in the post above, but you get the gist)
Just finished “River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey” by Candice Millard. Great story about his expedition down an unexplored river in the Amazon after he lost the presidential election in 1912. A really engrossing true account, he was lucky to survive it. I think it would make a good gift for anyone interested in natural history.
I’m reading Denis Johnson’s The Name of the World which I’m really enjoying. It’s not what I expected, my previous experience with his writing being Jesus’ Son. It’s much more of a “regular” story, no hallucinations so far.
The Lacemakers of Glenmara. What a lovely book.
Atonement by Ian McEwan.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier…by Ishmael Beah. Terrbily sad but an incredibly good book
I just finished *Zeitoun<a href=“plugged%20a%20few%20posts%20back”>/i</a>, Dave Eggers’ intimate account of New Orleans just before, during, and just after Katrina. It’s terrific – it moves quickly, and is deeply moving.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/books/review/Egan-t.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/books/review/Egan-t.html</a>
I’m just finishing Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. If you like slightly experimental narrative with multiple narrators, you should try it. It is set on a day in 1974 when Petit walked on a wire across the space between the World Trade Center Towers. Each chapter is told by a different New Yorker – a displaced, poor Irish monk who works with prostitutes; a Park Ave. mom who lost her son in Vietnam, and others. We are building toward the climax where all the lives intermesh. Beautiful prose.
Just finished Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, who writes beautifully. I’d highly recommend this book. Would also second the recommendations for Mountains Beyond Mountains and River of Doubt.