<p>“The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova. This is one I’ll recommend for my book club.</p>
<p>tuftsalum12
A friend just gave me The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer.</p>
<p>I Read Suite Francaise over the holidays…The notes in the back were as good as the novel itself…Heart breaking!!</p>
<p>I send out an annual Christmas letter with my favorite books of the year. This year they were Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: all the funny details we’ve forgotten about growing up in the 1950s; A Woman in Berlin, by Anonymous: written by a German woman just after World War II, the book was suppressed but has now been republished, and it is remarkable; and Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, a quiet tale about a British boarding school that gradually becomes haunting. I also loved War Is A Force That Gives Our Life Meaning, by Chris Hedges, which explains why we humans are doomed to forget, over and over again, the harsh lessons of war.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I liked Atonement well enough, but, did you read Saturday? I liked that book a LOT better - it was one of my very favorites in the last couple of years actually; I couldn’t put it down…</p>
<p>I bought Atonement afterwards, thinking it would be as good, and it wasn’t quite all I’d hoped…</p>
<p>Recent Reads that I’d recommend: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Bel Canto, The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells and Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi</p>
<p>The Thirteenth Tale! I just loved this novel. I couldn’t put it down, and I was sorry when it ended.</p>
<p>Try the Glass Castle, I promise you won’t be able to stop reading it.</p>
<p>The Glass Castle is great. Have to choose Atonement above Saturday (and Amsterdam). My daughter has recently become a reader and wants to get a good verbal score on her GRE’s. I told her to read Atonement – all that British literary vocab!</p>
<p>I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. And * Kite Runner * was excellent, too.</p>
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<p>Oh I HATED Saturday. I thought the protagonist was pompous. I couldn’t bear being around him. I could appreciate the way the book was put together, but I couldn’t enjoy it at all.</p>
<p>Here’s another vote for The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Could NOT put it down. Beautiful book. Also liked The Tender Bar.</p>
<p>Suite Francaise by Nemerovsky
Sosha and Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt (nothing to do with the Tom Cruise movie)
Headlong, Michael Freyn
The Road, Cormac McCarthy</p>
<p>Terrorista! A study of Fayed.</p>
<ul>
<li>Bauer Press</li>
</ul>
<p>Reading Lolita in Tehran! <em>Sigh</em> Loved that book. A friend of mine is friends with the author. <em>More sighs</em></p>
<p>Fountain Siren recommends The Road too.</p>
<p>My mother dissected the title of Suite Francais with her French lass last week (my mother has been taking French lessons for 30 years!!).
</p>
<p>Curiousmom
I just ordered Suite Francaise form amazon. It sounds wonderful.
Try the other books on my list. You won’t be disappointed.
And add Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safren Foer.
I am also a big Ian McEwan fan. My favorite was Atonement.</p>
<p>Merci for the heads up on Suite Francaise. I read an account last year by a young British journalist who fled with thousands out of Paris picking strawberries in the fields along the way. I have never forgotten that image.</p>
<p>Two books stand out in my mind:</p>
<p>"China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future-and the Challenge for America "</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>“China: The Balance Sheet”</p>
<p>Oh, and “The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall” is interesting.</p>
<p>Sadly, grad school = no reading for pleasure.</p>
<p>Re the title of Suite Francaise:
The author chose this title as the finished work was to have five parts (she completed only two before her death). A suite is an entity composed of several parts, as in a musical composition with several related movements. The second part of Suite Francaise is called Dolce, which means sweet in Italian and is also a musical term.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this yet, but it made a huge splash in the literary world. It was chosen as the book of the year for 2006 by Amazon. There are a couple of excellent reviews posted on Amazon’s site.</p>
<p>Bumped into Tom Wolfe at an airport and asked him what he’s reading;
“Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry was his answer.
Great character development.
An awesome vacation book.
I’ve recommended it to many friends, and I’ve created a cult following.
It won a Pulitzer Prize and is the best book I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>For pure page turning Mary Mary by James Patterson. It’s about time for another Alex Cross movie, yes?</p>