Books for Christmas

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Yes, the holiday is approaching and Borders is clearing its shelves. I would like some ideas for my dd who loves to read. She loves Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski. She also loves Anna Karenina. Any suggestions? I would really like to find some books that I wouldn’t think of, something a little different yet good.</p>

<p>I know we have a lot of readers out there, so let me know your favorite one to recommend to people.</p>

2

<p>how old is your daughter?</p>

3

<p>She is 23 and very involved with non profits and loves learning about other cultures. Definitely a left liberal art sort of person but open minded and willing to hear other view points.</p>

4

<p>check this thread!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/403424-one-best-books-ive-read-last-6-months.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/403424-one-best-books-ive-read-last-6-months.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Zeitoun. Great book sounds like her type of read and probably cheap now S it isn’t just out.</p>

6

<p>I just finished reading “When the Emporer Was Divine” today. It is a slim novel, but beautifully written about a US Japanese family that was sent to internment camps during WWII.</p>

<p>Has she read Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder? Definitely aligned with her interests if she hasn’t read it already, and it is an excellent book.</p>

7

<p>^That book was on the tip of my typing fingers, intparent…</p>

8

<p>Zeitoun is a great book but the fate of the dogs did me in. I had to quit reading it. Any more suggestions? I am heading to Borders on Thursday and who knows what is left there.</p>

9

<p>They are both older books, but I strongly recommend two pieces of literary nonfiction. The first is “My Own Country” by Abraham Verghese, about his time as a young physician working in rural Tennessee dealing with HIV/AIDS patients in the beginning of the epidemic. The other is “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman. It deals with a very young seriously epileptic Hmong girl living in a Central Valley California town. The American doctors and her Hmong family both want to help her, but in very different ways. The huge clash of cultures is unavoidable. Both books read like novels, and are tremendously thought provoking.</p>

10

<p>See if they have any novels by So Cal author Susan Straight. </p>

<p>This is one:
[Amazon.com:</a> Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (9780786860036): Susan Straight: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Blacker-Thousand-Midnights-Susan-Straight/dp/0786860030]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Blacker-Thousand-Midnights-Susan-Straight/dp/0786860030)</p>

<p>or Susan Choi: The Foreign Student, American Woman and Person of Interest.
[Amazon.com:</a> American Woman: A Novel (9780060542221): Susan Choi: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/American-Woman-Novel-Susan-Choi/dp/0060542225/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314062147&sr=1-4]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/American-Woman-Novel-Susan-Choi/dp/0060542225/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314062147&sr=1-4)</p>

11

<p>Jhumpa Lahiri books of short stories are great: Unaccostomef Earth and intepreter<br>
of Maladies.</p>