Let us know how things go with Barkskins, rosered55. I’ve been thinking about reading it.
I enjoyed Lab Girl, too.
@nottelling I can’t wait for Michael Chabon’s latest. I enjoy his books and Wonder Boys is one of my favorite books of all time. He hasn’t written one that I love as much as that, but maybe this new one will be it!
I didn’t really like the only book of Chabon’s I read (Summerland), but I do think his website is a hoot: http://michaelchabon.com/about/
At 714 pages she should know about taking down forests. (har har)
The Sympathizer by Vet Thanh Nguyen was a FANTASTIC fast reading literary book- college son read it this summer and LOVED it so passed it on to me- its hysterically funny social satire, historical fiction, and thriller …funny,interesting, intelligent… I couldn’t put it down!!
PS it won the Pulitzer Prize, is out in paperback and on bestseller lists everywhere
Oooo – thanks for the tip about the Sympathizer; I’ve been wondering about it. One quick question – I know it is set during the Vietnam War and concerns the Vietnam War, but how much of the book (if any part) is actually set on the battlefield (or in the trenches, or whatever is the correct terminology)? I haven’t been in the mood at all for a true “war” book in terms of depictions of combat. Is that a big part of this book?
As I recall, there were not many combat scenes in “The Sympathizer.” That said, it is dark.
I would NEVER have bought The Girl With All The Gifts had I known what the subject was. That’s really REALLY not my thing. However, I have been hooked in. I planned to ride my bike today for only 30 minutes this morning because of some stuff I needed to do this morning, but I ended up riding twice that long simply because I was so immersed in the story. I still have a few hours of listening to go…
I just listened to “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance.
This book was a laugh out loud and then cry out loud book all at the same time. This 32 y/o Yale Law school graduate tells the story of his hillbilly (Kentucky/Ohio) upbringing and analyzes it both through the eyes of a child and reflecting back on it as an adult. The two heroes of the story are his grandparents who somehow managed to anchor him through a very tumultuous upbringing.
For those of you who loved The Girl With All The Gifts, did you know the film comes out on 9/23?
There has already been some criticism of it because they cast a white woman in the role of Miss Justineau.
@Consolation ,@anxiousmom1, @plantmom, and all the others who mentioned “Crossing to Safety” one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. I’m glad I didn’t read this as a twenty or forty year old, because the journey Stegner takes you on, is one I would not have appreciated or understood, without having lived for six decades. I marveled at Stegner’s ability to tell a straight forward, yet nuanced story of two memorable couples,Sid and Charity, Sally and Larry. I often reread sentences for their beauty. Genius.
Thank you all for recommending !
To become a movie
They need to get Ang Lee to direct it. The young William Hurt would have made a great Sid.
Has anyone else read The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead? I thought it was wonderful.
@GoldenWest It’s on my list of books to read. Obama recommended it recently when he was on Fareed Zakaria’s show. Glad it has your endorsement as well! 
I just finished American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin.
This is a fascinating, wonderfully written account of that wild time in the early 70s. I am old enough to remember this well but many will not be, and I think that it will be eye-opening to what was going on in the U.S. in those years. In this day of worries about terrorism, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that those early years of the 70s averaged 1500 bombings each year, in the U.S., by American citizens. The underground and counterculture groups were prolific.
The story itself of Patricia Hearst is interesting and there is detail here that has never been published before. Toobin’s research and access to tens of thousands of pages of investigation, by both prosecution and defense, of Hearst’s hearings and trial, as well as those of her comrades, provided an insight into the SLA and its actions that hasn’t been available until now.
Toobin’s knowledge of the justice system allowed him to show, and tell, a story beyond the spectacle of what was then called the trial of the century, some 20 years prior to the O.J. Simpson spectacle. Highly recommend the book!
I haven’t read it yet, but it is on my list. I have read several other Toobin books, and love his in depth knowledge of our judicial system.
@alwaysamom, thanks for your insights on the Patty Hearst story. I lived in the Bay Area when she was kidnapped – I remember the food give-away, the “Tania We Love You” leaflets in Berkeley, the wild trial and the calls for pardon. Glad to hear that the book has much to offer even to those of us who remember it all vividly.
@Nrdsb4 - I don’t think that the movie version of The Girl With All the Gifts has a U.S. release date yet, does it? I know it’s being released in the UK later this month. I’d really love to see it, even though I’m not so wild about some of those casting decisions.
So have you finished the book? What did you think? I know you said it wasn’t the kind of thing you normally read…