Just finished Meghan Daum’s book of essays “Unspeakable.” They were a bit uneven but overall I really, really liked it. I sort of hesitate to recommend it because I’ve been a fan of hers since her first book over a decade ago and have read every one of her books since. Plus she’s a columnist in my hometown newspaper, the LA Times. So, in some ways, it felt like checking in with an old friend. But still, more than any essayist I know, I feel she has picked up the torch from that most-personally-identifiable of writers, Joan Didion. Didion is more than a generation older than me and Daum is only about five years younger. I feel in many ways Daum captures the longing and fantasies of my cohort, who straddle the urban and suburban, cool and geeky, arty and totally mainstream, ultimately coming down as totally ordinary, educated, middle-class American, maybe slightly better read and more earnest than the average person-on-the-street. Her essays are completely specific to her own experience but nonetheless exude an appealing universality (at least for a certain cohort).
Has anyone read “Nora Webster” by Colm Toibin? I finished it recently, and, I have to say, although I admired it, I didn’t love it. I feel however, that this is a failing on my part. One of his prior novels, “Brooklyn,” is on my list of all-time-favorites over the last 10 years. But even though Nora Webster ploughs similar territory, I felt myself being impatient, my interest flagging, unable to muster up the sympathy necessary to become immersed in her world. It occurs to me it may be YOUR fault, dear CC posters. I sort of feel that my recent addiction to CC has ruined my attention span for nuanced and subtle character studies – especially since those literary characters can’t talk back!
What do you think? Has CC ruined your ability to appreciate the more quiet and subtle characters in contemporary literature? Or is Nora Webster just a dud?
I can’t seem to settle on my next book to read…a few I’ve really enjoyed over the years All The Light We Cannot See, The LIght Between Two Oceans, The Husbands Secret and several other of Liane Moriarity, a few JoJo Moyes. I also like Anita Shreve, Tracy Chevalier - I really liked her Remarkable Creatures. I even really liked Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos, though that’s several years old as is Time Travelers Wife. I didn’t care for Life after Life.
Can anyone see a pattern here and make a recommendation? I miss the days I could go to an actual bookstore and spend hours there combing the aisles. Now the closest bookstore is an hour away. Online just isn’t the same experience.
it’s on my list, but I may not get to it before the new semester starts, unfortunately.
I recently finished Richard Ford’s latest, “Let Me Be Frank” and found it sort of uneven. He’s a spectacular writer in many ways, and some parts of the four stories are wonderful, but I feel that some of the writing has an unfortunate, anachronistic stereotyping that might have been acceptable a generation ago but were really grating to me. In one case, a trans character is discussed in really denigrating terms. I realize it’s the 68 year old narrator talking, but he’s supposed to be all liberal and aware. more agregiously, in the last section there’s a totally cartoonish black nurse who says things like “I done gave him his medicine already” (NO ONE in New Jersey speaks like that–it’s a “black” vernacular written by someone who doesn’t talk to actual black people), and is fat, rolls her eyes, and in general fits the whole black Mammy stereotype. Yuck.
Also, for a guy who keeps setting books in New Jersey, he sure sounds like he’s never been here. all sorts of errors in how things work here and how people talk. Beyond the fact that everyone in NJ doesn’t sound like the Sopranos in real life, we don’t call the Parkway the “Garden State”, ever, and there aren’t trucks on it in the northern portion. And we don’t talk about “The Shore” in capitals. We do go “down the shore” (though he doesn’t use that phrase), and when we are there, we go to the beach. But no one thinks it’s The Shore, capitalized. Lots of little things like that. Basically, I feel like he used the Sandy tragedy as a gratuitous background while really knowing nothing about it in reality (hint, Mr. Ford: it wasn’t a hurricane), and it bothers me that he has a book out with the roller coaster in the ocean on the cover, as if it really has anything to do with that.
@eyemamom - I don’t know what you’d like from your previous selections, but why not try Station Eleven which is next month’s CC Book Club pick? I really like it so far.
Hi Eyemamom –
Based on your list, the following books popped into my head
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Us by David Nicholls
The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
These books are perhaps a bit farther afield, but maybe you’d like:
The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert
Old Filth by Jane Gardam (highly, highly recommended)
On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
Atonement by Ian McEwan
None of these is really “fun” in the way of Liane Moriarty. I’ll have to think some more. ( Haven’t read JoJo Moyes. )
Not telling, I haven’t read Toibin’s latest yet. I gave it to my mother for Christmas since we had both loved Brooklyn, so I am anxious to borrow it once she has read it. I don’t think CC has spoiled me for subtle character studies. Several of my most enjoyed books of 2014 could be described as such. Will let you know what I think after I read it.
I am currently about half way through Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement. I have been tempted to give up but, so far, I have kept going.
About a month ago, nottelling was pushing Elena Ferrante’s series of novels about two young women growing up in Napoli (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and a final volume to be published later this year). My daughter had been reading and recommending them since last summer, and I finally got around to starting the first right after Christmas. I am halfway through the second one now, and still completely engaged by the intertwined fates of the protagonists. For a work that is being taken seriously as serious literature, these are very, very readable, accessible books.
I thought Atonement was the best book I read that year - the year I read it. I haven’t liked any of his other books as much.
Did you read On Chesil Beach? Thought that was a pretty special book. Agree about the rest of McEwan (besides Atonement which is in a class above).
I am loving the second book in Peter May’s Lewis trilogy, The Lewis Man. I think I may like it more than the first, and I loved that one.
eyemamom: I’ve read each of the books you mention and like them too.
Let me second mathmom:
I’ve started the book and like it so far. Plus the discussions can be fun.
Recently I’ve enjoyed
While Beauty Slept - “Blackwell makes her historical fiction debut with a gripping tale full of romance, secrets, and promises made and broken. This beautiful, original reinterpretation of a classic story is engrossing and often surprising. Recommended for fans of fairy tale retellings or gothic historical fiction.” Library Journal review
and
A Man Called Ove - “If there was an award for Most Charming Book of the Year, this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down.” BookList review
I’m somewhat hesitant to recommend books because the books eyemamom mentions are so good.
While I’m on this thread, thanks to those of you who recommended The Martian. I read it and liked it, but even more important realized early on that it would make a great Christmas present for my son (engineer) and also my son-in-law. Both young men are now happily reading away.
I am currently reading Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1335479.Raven?from_search=true
It’s an absolutely fascinating book about a very disturbed individual (that’s an understatement). It’s long, but captivating. Reading about the political and social situation of the time, how naïve some people were (and of course with less access to information than now, it was easier to dupe people), and how Jones used all of this to draw people in and trap them, is fascinating.
I’m reading a fascinating biography of the amazing Victorian woman Gertrude Bell, who has been called “the brains behind Lawrence of Arabia” and was an important figure in the history of the Middle East.
It’s called Desert Queen by Janet Wallach.
http://neffreview.blogspot.com/2011/01/desert-queen-by-janet-wallach.html
Just last night, I learned that Werner Herzog is making a film about Gertrude Bell, with Nicole Kidman playing Bell!
^^We read Desert Queen for book group last year; I was amazed at the influence she had on politics in the Middle East. Didn’t pictured Bell as looking like Nicole Kidman, but I’ll definitely go see the movie.
Thanks all for the suggestions. I also read Bel Canto and Atonement. I will start searching the titles on Amazon!
I’m a book club dropout. I joined a new local one with high hopes. Their book choices have been awful, and worse yet I just don’t click with them. I may have to join the cc book club. The irl bookclub was disappointing that no one ever wanted to discuss the book, and they weren’t the type of people I’d normally have as friends.
I also recently read Orphan Train - while I liked it, I didn’t love it like so many other people who call it their favorite of the year.
My DH recently suggested I join an IRL book club, but I wouldn’t know how to find one.
The nice thing about the CC book club is that you can be quiet or not. You can take an extra day or two to finish the book and just join the discussion late. We usually spend a week or two discussing the book. The other cool thing about an online bookclub is that you can share links, interviews and reviews. When we read the book about the New Zealand gold rush, people found photos of the area - all kinds of fun stuff. It’s not at all like a real life book club.
@nottelling I haven’t read On Chesil Beach, but I remember reading a review and thinking it sounded like it would be worth giving a whirl.
I haven’t had a chance to see if this one was recommended recently (it probably was), but Unbroken is incredible. It starts as a story of survival, and then becomes the story of how tortured the POWs were during WWII, so it might not be for everyone, but the story is amazing and well worth it, imo.
eyemamom: The CC discussion of Station Eleven starts Feb.1.
(I didn’t like Orphan Train. My IRL book club discussed it and I think I was the only naysayer.)
I joined the book club at my local library. It meets once a month. I did not know anyone when I joined so I felt a bit awkward at first. Now I know (and like) some people in my surrounding neighborhood that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. My library book club has a good age range from those in their 20s to those in their 80s - and no I don’t like every book chosen. However, I’ve read some books that I would never have picked but ended up really liking. The libraries around here have all kinds of book clubs - classics or mystery or etc. The one I go to is just generic … whatever.
I want to add that once a book gets chosen the librarian does all the work. She orders enough copies for everyone to pick up at library whenever convenient. Downside: books in high demand go on a back burner till a later date.