One of the best books I've read in the last 6 months is . .

[andreaaaaaa]

I just read Last Town on Earth by Thomas Miller. It’s a suspense novel set in pacific northwest during WWI. Influenza is sweeping the nation (true fact) and this small town decides to barricade itself in. I found it quite interesting.

sounds good. i will have to read it.

[epistrophy]

Well, I finished Anne Enright’s *The Gathering<a href=“discussed%20above%20at%20#113”>/i</a> and, if you have an appetite for this sort of thing, I’d strongly recommend it. Here’s a bit more about what this often unsettling but compulsively readable, at times tartly funny, and deeply moving novel is “about”: a very large Irish family in which the first-person female narrator and her many siblings are now adults; a death; a gathering in the wake of this death; attempts to understand what happened in the past, why one life went this way and another that way, and why a seemingly comfortable domestic life seems so unsatisfying at its core.

Among the book’s many other strengths, a longish chapter toward the end, rendering the interplay among these adult siblings (now all back together in their mother’s home), is one of the more emotionally vivid and evocative passages of fiction that I’ve read in a long time.

Here’s one last sampling of the voice that is at the center of it all:

No one holds you like that any more, except Frank at work who was gay, and is now dead.

<hr>

I just looked at the Booker Prize website, where this novel (this year’s prize winner) is characterized as “exhilaratingly bleak.” Yeah, that pretty much nails it.

[The</a> Gathering wins the Man Booker Prize 2007: Man Booker Prize news](<a href=“http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1004]The”>Features | The Booker Prizes)

[epistrophy]

Speaking of the Booker Prize, you’ve got to give the British credit:

When’s the last time you heard of someone betting on a literary competition in this country?

In the final day of betting on this year’s Man Booker Prize for Fiction winner even the two major bookmakers seem at odds over the likely winner.

Ladbrokes is predicting another win for Ian McEwan with his novel On Chesil Beach. For some weeks their odds were favouring Lloyd Jones to win with his novel Mister Pip but in a surge of final bets McEwan has come out on top.

Ladbrokes spokesman, Nick Weinberg, said: ‘Punters have struggled to make up their minds about Ian McEwan. He initially attracted support but that waned as the controversy about his inclusion raged. But he’s overtaken Lloyd Jones in the home straight.’

Ladbrokes has given McEwan the 6/4 market lead while previous favourite Mister Pip is 2/1 to claim the prize.

William Hill, however, still has Lloyd Jones as the 6/4 favourite to win, with McEwan flagging behind at 15/8. These odds follow what is thought to be one of the biggest gambles in Booker Prize history with a six figure payout should Jones’ Mister Pip win the coveted prize.

’There has never been a betting plunge like this on the Booker - Jones was 20/1 outsider of the field at the Long-list stage yet when the short-list was announced he had been so heavily backed that he became clear favourite, pushing former winner Ian McEwan out to second favourite’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe.

’If Jones wins on Tuesday night we are likely to be making our first ever six figure payout to happy literary punters’.

However, recent years show that the bookies’ rarely correctly predict the winner for the Man Booker Prize. Ladbrokes spokesman, Nick Weinberg, said: ‘Lloyd Jones remains the pace setter. But as the history books demonstrate, Booker Prize favouritism is more often a curse than a blessing.’

[Bookies</a> predict winner in final day of betting: Man Booker Prize news](<a href=“http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/108]Bookies”>http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/108)

“Bookmaker interviewed on television on the way into a literary awards dinner”? Try parsing that sentence in American terms – betting? on a book prize? that’s televised? – and it makes no sense at all. To understand it you have to realize that in Britain books are glamorous, television is high culture and gambling has a fond, permanent place in the national heart. (BBC Radio’s highbrow morning news program gives a racing tip daily to its listeners. I am waiting for this broadcasting scandal to be exposed.) The pages of newsprint devoted to the “horse race” that is Britain’s Booker Prize give prominent place to the bookies’ odds, right up to the day of decision.

It is fair to say that the Booker Prize has a prominence in London’s cultural calendar akin to that of the Oscars in Los Angeles.

[Salon</a> Books | Making book on the Booker](<a href=“http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1998/10/29feature.html]Salon”>http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1998/10/29feature.html)

[ArcadeFire]

The New Testament–the Gospels
The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell
Thus Spoke Zarasthura
The Lovely Bones

[nemom]

Pride and Prejudice - which is far, far funnier than I imagined when I was in HS.
“Old Man’s War” by John Scalzi - very good new SF somewhat in the Heinlien mode but even better.
Monkey Girl - on the creationist/evoluation wars

[Sarahsmom42]

andreaaaa, I read A Tree Grows In Brookline ten years ago and it’s still high on my list of favorites.

I ended up appreciating Eat, Pray, Love in the end, but still could not really identify with the author. It was very well written but I did not really love it or anything.
I DID love Water For Elephants! I read it over the Thanksgiving holiday. I laughed, cried and was unable to put it down.
I bought Atonement and Love In The Time of Cholera in the airport on the way back East. I read about 100 pages of Atonement and left it for the next passenger. I’ve heard good things about Love In the Time and hope to start it soon.
My college aged D’s read and enjoyed Middlesex, The Glass Castle, A Thousand Splendid Suns & The Other Bolyn Girl on our vacation in July.
Please keep the list going. I get into reading frenzies and I only have one book in my “cue”!

[katliamom]

“Away” by Amy Bloom.

An astounding new novel about a 1920’s Russian-Jewish immigrant who travels to Siberia to reclaim a 4-year old daughter she’d believed to have been killed in a pogrom. The main character, the brilliant story telling, and the powerful, original language make this book simply unforgettable.

[Sarahsmom42]

Thanks! I’m adding it to my list.

I used to belong to a book club, but we stopped over the summer and never started up again because everyone was so busy. I really miss all of the great books, so please keep suggesting.
Here are a couple of not so recent and older books that I’ve enjoyed:
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
I Know This Much Is True, and A Prayer for Owen Meanie by Wally Lamb
O Pioneers and My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
I love to hear others!

[parabella]

A Prayer for Owen Meany is written by John Irwing, love his books.

[franglish]

This is just a tad off the thread, and I am sure “Kite Runner” was mentioned earlier. I will mention it again, as a very good book, but also, a wonderful movie. My school got free tickets to a preview of the movie yesterday and I was a bit wary of going, as a movie made from a book is rarely good. This was wonderful! When it is finally released in a couple of weeks, I highly recommend you see it. It is really as good as the book.

[Sarahsmom42]

parabella, Thanks for the correction. I have enjoyed Irving as well, but Meany was my favorite. I didn’t have the books on hand, so thanks. Did you enjoy “Meany”?
franglish, I’m anxious to see the movie. I loved the book and I agree that movies are not very often as good as the books. It’s good to know that someone who actually read the book thought that the movie was good.

[skunk]

Anybody here find “Lolita” even remotely interesting?

[unregistered]

I thought Lolita was very beautiful.

[katliamom]

“Lolita” is one of my favorites. For a truly enlightening experience, check out the annotated version – you’ll discover entire new worlds in the annotations that you likely missed altogether while reading the novel the first time around.

[parabella]

Sarahsmom,

Owen Meany and Cider House Rules are my favorite Irving books.

I read Lolita both in Russian and in English, enjoyed it both ways, English version being a slight favorite.

[katliamom]

parabella – wow! You read Lolita in Russian! Who did the Russian translation? And did it capture the utter beauty of Nabokov’s English?

[parabella]

katliamom,

my native language is Russian so no problem here. Nabokov wrote both versions of the book himself, no translation required. English book came first.

[tokenadult]

Yes, Nabokov grew up trilingual in English (the first language he read), Russian, and French.

[Vladimir</a> Nabokov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov]Vladimir”>Vladimir Nabokov - Wikipedia)

[Sarahsmom42]

Oh yes! Cider House Rules was also one of my favorite Irving books. Some of his stuff is a little strange, but I kind of like a little strange once in a while.

[BunsenBurner]

An interesting fact: Wellesley’s Russian Department was founded by Nabokov.
[Wellesley</a> College Russian Department](<a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/Russian/rusdept.html]Wellesley”>Redirect to Wellesley College Russian Dept)
When I mentioned it to my Russian friend, she was speechless, “You mean the guy who wrote Lolita taught at a women’s college?”

Sarasmom, you mentioned Amy Tan. I loved her Bonsetter’s Daughter and Joy Luck Club, but her Saving Fish from Drowning was disappointing (another college fact: Amy Tan started her college studies at Linfield College in OR).