This is about a week late, but better late than never:
Barbara Kingsolver won the 2010 Orange Prize for The Lacuna.
6.18.2010
Your Next Book
For those of you who haven't acquainted yourselves with the Amazon's "customers who bought this, also bought this" feature, you might find Your Next Read intriguing, but for those of you who have, don't bother heading over there.
Your Next Read teasingly offers to select your next reading choice based on the book you just read, provided, of course, that you want your next book to be similar to your previous one. When I typed in The Last Town on Earth, the site suggested a couple of books on flu (woot), Into Thin Air, and a memoir that looked completely unrelated. Alice I Have Been brought up a few historical fiction books, Tracy Chevalier's newest amongst them, and a Lewis Carroll biography. No surprise that these books also came up in the"customers who like this, also bought this" section of Amazon.
The suggestions are based on Amazon buying patterns, rather than on similar theme, genre, or topic. Had the site suggested Brooks' Year of Wonders (a novel of a town that quarantines itself to prevent the spread of plague) for The Last Town on Earth, I would be willing to give it more credence, but clearly this is just a fancier version of what Amazon already provides.
The site does allow folks to suggest books, so perhaps it will grow more interesting and intelligent in time, but it's pretty limited right now.
To find your next read, I would stick with Amazon, a well-read friend, or this blog's recommended lists.
Your Next Read teasingly offers to select your next reading choice based on the book you just read, provided, of course, that you want your next book to be similar to your previous one. When I typed in The Last Town on Earth, the site suggested a couple of books on flu (woot), Into Thin Air, and a memoir that looked completely unrelated. Alice I Have Been brought up a few historical fiction books, Tracy Chevalier's newest amongst them, and a Lewis Carroll biography. No surprise that these books also came up in the"customers who like this, also bought this" section of Amazon.
The suggestions are based on Amazon buying patterns, rather than on similar theme, genre, or topic. Had the site suggested Brooks' Year of Wonders (a novel of a town that quarantines itself to prevent the spread of plague) for The Last Town on Earth, I would be willing to give it more credence, but clearly this is just a fancier version of what Amazon already provides.
The site does allow folks to suggest books, so perhaps it will grow more interesting and intelligent in time, but it's pretty limited right now.
To find your next read, I would stick with Amazon, a well-read friend, or this blog's recommended lists.
6.16.2010
Happy Bloomsday!
Gotta love the Irish and their literary spirit. Every June 16, the folks in Dublin celebrate Joyce's classic novel, Ulysses. The day includes dramatizations, readings, and, of course, pub crawls. There are other Bloomsday activities in other cities, but none compare to those held in Dublin.
The reason for June 16? Joyce chose this day for his novel because this was the day in 1904 that he took his first outing with his future wife. They took a walk to the village of Ringsend. The day's name comes from novel's main character, Leopold Bloom.
Never read Ulysses? Neither have I, actually, which I'm sort of embarrassed to admit. Fear not, friends, the Book Examiner has some ideas on how to fall in love with Joyce's challenging narrative, and for the overly mediated amongst us, you can catch the novel in graphic form on the Ipad - complete with nudity.
The reason for June 16? Joyce chose this day for his novel because this was the day in 1904 that he took his first outing with his future wife. They took a walk to the village of Ringsend. The day's name comes from novel's main character, Leopold Bloom.
Never read Ulysses? Neither have I, actually, which I'm sort of embarrassed to admit. Fear not, friends, the Book Examiner has some ideas on how to fall in love with Joyce's challenging narrative, and for the overly mediated amongst us, you can catch the novel in graphic form on the Ipad - complete with nudity.
6.14.2010
Web Wanderings: 6.14.2010
Maud Newton gives us a "week in one reader's life" in The Paris Review Culture Diaries.
Steven Pinker argues that the web, video games, and other media are not making us stupid.
Anthony Bourdain has a new book.
An interview with John Grisham
A University of Colorado prof tackles Ralph Ellison's never-ending novel.
Steven Pinker argues that the web, video games, and other media are not making us stupid.
Anthony Bourdain has a new book.
An interview with John Grisham
A University of Colorado prof tackles Ralph Ellison's never-ending novel.
6.09.2010
What's Good Now: What to Read June 2010
I don’t know about you, but the books just keep coming, and I’m beginning to wonder if the publishing industry will ever stem the flow. By the looks of the published pile out this month, I'm not holding my breath. In an effort to help sort through the deluge, I’ll be picking my top 3 picks each month. I figure 3 will give folks a fighting chance of keeping up…
1. Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Jackson's latest is riveting, hilarious, poignant, and thought-provoking as it follows Rose Mae Lolly on a path to a better life.
2. The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor
Finely wrought and eloquently presented, this historical novel follows one West Virginia mining family through the social upheavals of the mid-20th century.
3. The Great Lover by Jill Dawson
Dawson, herself a poet, imagines the youth of World War I poet Rupert Brooke in this beautifully written novel about a failed love affair.
1. Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Jackson's latest is riveting, hilarious, poignant, and thought-provoking as it follows Rose Mae Lolly on a path to a better life.
2. The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor
Finely wrought and eloquently presented, this historical novel follows one West Virginia mining family through the social upheavals of the mid-20th century.
3. The Great Lover by Jill Dawson
Dawson, herself a poet, imagines the youth of World War I poet Rupert Brooke in this beautifully written novel about a failed love affair.
6.04.2010
John Harwood's The Ghost Writer
Even though I’m afraid of the dark and would sleep with a nightlight on if I didn’t have my husband next to me, I’m not one to pass up a good ghost story. Stephen King rates too high on the horror scale (so high, in fact, that I’ve never had the gumption to read one), but a creepy, gothic goose-bump-inducing romp through dark houses full of family secrets? Now that’s definitely my style.
Enter John Harwood, whose The Ghost Writer currently tops my gothic reading list. (And, no, this is not the inspiration for the recent movie with the same name.) Harwood is a modern writer, but his imagination clearly dwells in the Victorian realm of ghosts and spiritualists, as this novel reads like a Wilkie Collins or Sheridan La Fanu classic.
The Ghost Writer follows Gerard Freeman, a pansy of a librarian, through the first 50 unremarkable years of his unremarkable life, as he tries to discover the truth of his mother’s childhood, which was not unremarkable at all. As a young boy searching through his mother’s private things (without permission), he comes across a faded photograph of a beautiful woman and a ghost story. He guesses that the woman is his grandmother, but when his mother discovers him in her drawer and beats him to cement message that he must never pry into her privacy again, he realizes that trying to get the real story from her is going to be difficult. A few decades pass, filled with lively letters from Gerard’s penfriend, Alice – a paralyzed girl who lives in England and prefers to confine their relationship to the page - until his mother dies, and Gerard determines that he must discover the truth of his mother’s past. What he uncovers is far more sinister, convoluted, and eerie than he ever imagined.
Spliced into this riveting narrative are four ghost stories – discovered serendipitously by
Gerard and written by his grandmother – that mostly give the novel real sparkle. The stories are intended to hold keys to Gerard's family's secrets, but the connections are not always as clear as they could be. Still, Gerard's mother's cryptic whisper on her deathbed, "one of them came true," will have you reading wide-eyed and quickly to discover the ways in which stories and family history intertwine in this complex, spellbinding novel.
Enter John Harwood, whose The Ghost Writer currently tops my gothic reading list. (And, no, this is not the inspiration for the recent movie with the same name.) Harwood is a modern writer, but his imagination clearly dwells in the Victorian realm of ghosts and spiritualists, as this novel reads like a Wilkie Collins or Sheridan La Fanu classic.
The Ghost Writer follows Gerard Freeman, a pansy of a librarian, through the first 50 unremarkable years of his unremarkable life, as he tries to discover the truth of his mother’s childhood, which was not unremarkable at all. As a young boy searching through his mother’s private things (without permission), he comes across a faded photograph of a beautiful woman and a ghost story. He guesses that the woman is his grandmother, but when his mother discovers him in her drawer and beats him to cement message that he must never pry into her privacy again, he realizes that trying to get the real story from her is going to be difficult. A few decades pass, filled with lively letters from Gerard’s penfriend, Alice – a paralyzed girl who lives in England and prefers to confine their relationship to the page - until his mother dies, and Gerard determines that he must discover the truth of his mother’s past. What he uncovers is far more sinister, convoluted, and eerie than he ever imagined.
Spliced into this riveting narrative are four ghost stories – discovered serendipitously by
Gerard and written by his grandmother – that mostly give the novel real sparkle. The stories are intended to hold keys to Gerard's family's secrets, but the connections are not always as clear as they could be. Still, Gerard's mother's cryptic whisper on her deathbed, "one of them came true," will have you reading wide-eyed and quickly to discover the ways in which stories and family history intertwine in this complex, spellbinding novel.
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