Dang it, madskye! Now I won’t get anything done today! (but seriously, thanks!!!)
“The Orphan Master’s Son” a fictional story about North Korea- I’m reading it now. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Fascinating but horrific. If even half of the world it depicts is accurate, then all of us here in the u.S. should truly feel deep gratitude for our lucky, lucky lives.
I have seen Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, and I definitely think YES! Though not George Eliot, I also recommend their North and South. It’s my all time favorite.
In fact, I think I may buy this collection for myself, now that you mention it! I haven’t seen the others, or read the books yet. I read Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda for school and watched the BBC in my dorm to accompany my reading and really enjoyed them both. I have Silas Marner on my kindle but haven’t gotten to it yet.
I’m in the midst of We Need to Talk About Kevin now, and I agree with the comments above thus far. Painfully honest.
I found the Orchardist just OK; same with Gone Girl, although my 20-something daughter is enjoying it. I recently read Wave, by Sonali Deraniyagala, who was featured in the NYT a couple months ago as a new, up and coming author. I liked her writing style, but have a hard time seeing it applied to anything other than her first work, which was non-fiction. It will be interesting to see if she has another book published soon.
Rules of Civility is on my to do list, as is Burgess Boys (I liked Olive Kittredge), but if you want some fun, mindless, classic beachtime reading, try Gods in Alabama or Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson. I got to meet this local author recently and she is just a hoot. Her wiseguy personality comes through in her writing and I found it refreshingly simple and quite funny.
Just finished “The Light Between Oceans” and even though I cried through much of the last two chapters (I won’t say whether it was out of happiness or grief) I really enjoyed the book. It will be particularly meaningful for parents I believe. I listened to the audiobook and was really swept into a different world by the writing.
I loved light between oceans, too. I was unsure at first but it swept me away.
I read Beautiful Ruins after that and liked that too. I think I found both on the same goodreads list.
I am reading Z: a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, or something like that, now. I just finished The Paris Wife and thought it would be interesting to compare the two.
I liked Beautiful Ruins too. I’m starting The Other Child by Charlotte Link tonight. It was recommended by the librarian friend who recommended The Light Between Oceans and Beautiful Ruins.
This is a novella, not an entire book – a Jewish fairy tale and horror story, all in one, by my dear friend Veronica Schanoes, just published at Tor.com:
[Burning</a> Girls by Veronica Schanoes | Tor.com](<a href=“http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/06/burning-girls]Burning”>http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/06/burning-girls)
You may think you know what it’s about from the title and the illustration, but it’s about a lot more, and I don’t want to give more away!
And of course I’m biased, but I thought it was amazing. And I don’t generally read that kind of story.
I also recently read, and loved, her story “Phosphorus,” about the London match girls’ strike in the 1880’s, in the anthology Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells:
<a href=“http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/03/review-queen-victorias-book-of-spells-ellen-datlow-terri-windling[/url]”>http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/03/review-queen-victorias-book-of-spells-ellen-datlow-terri-windling</a>
<a href=“http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7653-3227-1[/url]”>http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7653-3227-1</a>
Last week I wrote: "I’m in the midst of We Need to Talk About Kevin now, and I agree with the comments above thus far. Painfully honest. …but if you want some fun, mindless, classic beachtime reading, try Gods in Alabama or Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson. I got to meet this local author recently and she is just a hoot. Her wiseguy personality comes through in her writing and I found it refreshingly simple and quite funny. "
I finally got to finish “Kevin” during another insomnia night last night…disturbing. So much so that I had to start the first 50 pages of another lighthearted Joshilyn Jackson book just to clear my mind of “Kevin”.
I am really enjoying The Other Child by Charlotte Link. I hope it continues to be the page turner that it is now.
I just started Broken Harbor by Tana French. So far it has my attention. I read In the Woods a couple of years ago and then The Likeness. I think her books fill a need for “smart” detective stories with full bodied characters and rich environments.
I loved In the Woods and thought I would move right on to her other books but I got distracted with other choices. I will definitely go back to them.
Just read “Under the Banner of Heaven” by John Krakauer (author of “Into Thin Air”), which I have been raving about to anyone who will listen. The book recounts the true story 1980’s era grisly murder of a young Utah woman and her baby by her relatives who were members of a polygamist Mormon cult. Krakauer is a truly gifted writer and the way he interleaves the story of this murder with a history of the Mormon religion back to its founding by Joseph Smith in upstate New York, Brigham Young’s march to Utah, and the never-ending battle between this polygamous cult and the federal government is simply genius. Quite simply, this has to be one of the SCARIEST books I have ever read. I could not put it down and finished it in a day and a half. Five stars.
^^^
That sound like a good one!
I read “Under the Banner of Heaven” and was the same way. I had my dd and her boyfriend read it. It was crazy. I couldn’t put it down.
I loved “Under the Banner of Heaven”. Great book. The other book which held my interest like it was “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larsen. One of my favorite books ever.
The Famine Plot by Tim Pat Coogan. It is a sober, well-written account of England’s role in the Great Irish Famine. By role, I mean the causing of it, the perpetuation of it and, in important cases, the celebration of mass death as a solution to over-population. This isn’t in the book but key officials had essentially the same attitude the Czar had to the “Jewish problem”: kill 1/3, drive 1/3 out and convert the rest. That kind of bizarre cruelty is not merely something which affects others.
This book has affected my understanding of modern Irish reactions to certain world events, such as the casting there of Israel in the popular mind as the British in Palestine. It’s also affected my reading of the reactions in this country to poverty and need, in part because I see so many of the same policies being pushed today, policies which ratchet up the requirements on the poor to get relief, policies which treat the poor as though their poverty is their fault. The British decimated Irish industries to protect their own, not only failed to construct but prevented the development of infrastructure, etc.
There are many histories of the famine. Many try to explain it away as an accident of history: potatoes, lack of understanding. Others are polemic.
Has anyone mentioned THIS IS HOW by Borroughs? I finished it in one day- could not put it down.
You did it Lergnom. I bought The Famine Plot. Will probably read it when I go on vacation later next month.
I have always loved them and I find that it takes real talent to write them well. I’m not sure if someone here recommended this or not but I’m almost finished reading The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel, and they are wonderful. When I finish, I’m going to read them again, but more slowly so I can savour them. When I was about half way through, I went looking for reviews and found this one:
<a href=“'The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel' - The New York Times”>'The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel' - The New York Times;
It made me realize that I’d done the same thing as the reviewer. I enjoyed the stories so much that I can’t stop reading them, one after another, and have, thus, been reading them too quickly. The use of language is beautiful and that’s why I need to read them again.
So, if it was someone here who mentioned this book, thank you!