Have you ever noticed that sometimes you start to sense the building presence of a book in the zeitgeist before you actually register it as something to put on your reading list? For months my brain was half-aware of “that book with an octopus on the cover.” And then one morning in a mad book-buying spree in Target, I bought it and brought it home. Who can resist those 30% off stickers?
am particularly drawn to books that transport me to a different place and make me feel like I become one with the story. Both books that I’ve chosen to review this month are exceptionally atmospheric and did carry me away. Intimacies, relates the story of a young woman living in the Hague with a job as an interpreter at the Court.
In all honesty, I must admit that I read Gilead years ago and couldn’t really understand its appeal. But, I decided to give it another read when I realized that it had won the Pulitzer Prize and President Obama awarded Robinson the National Humanities Medal in 2013. Also, Oprah chose the Gilead tetralogy as four consecutive book club selections. I can’t say for sure why this time through I loved it so much. But there is definitely something to be said for reading certain books at certain times in one’s life.
Memoirs written by actresses aren’t the usual type of book toward which I normally gravitate. But boy am I glad that I read Finding Me by powerhouse Viola Davis. What an incredible, inspirational story she has written.
As I turned the last page of Five Little Indians, I honestly felt a sense of relief. My first instinct was to put it in one of the little free libraries near my house and be done. But over the next few days, I found myself thinking about the characters often and realizing that although their stories were brutal at times, they were also deeply affecting. Perhaps the book held more than I initially experienced.
Although this is only the second book I’ve read by Kristin Hannah, please consider me officially a Hannah fan-girl. (Read my review of The Great Alone here and Liz’s review of The Four Winds here.) In the last week, reading this book managed to make me feel excited when my 300th cold of the winter woke me up at 5am; I made a cup of tea and read for an hour before even my earliest riser got up.
Every year when the Giller Prize, one of Canada’s top literary awards, is announced, I buy the book. I finally got around to reading the 2022 winner, The Sleeping Car Porter. This book was engrossing and beautiful and I would never have discovered it if not for the Prize.
It seems December and January have been my months to read Irish authors. Thinking about the books, however, I realized that as large and exuberant as I found The Bee Sting to be in terms of character, plotline and themes, This Is Happiness is quiet and subtle. But in some ways, This Is Happiness may end up staying with me for even longer than The Bee Sting. It is a perfectly gorgeous read.
Rarely do I read a book that I enjoy, but can confidently tell my mother, “I don’t think this one is for you.” Britney fandom is a prerequisite for reading this book, because otherwise, it’s just a moderately repetitive memoir with a whole lot of trauma. To make it through, the reader should have a special emotional connection we all form with certain musicians whose lyrics speak to us in our early teens.
The Bee Sting amazes in so many ways that I want to ensure that this review does it justice. Paul Murray has created a big, exuberant book filled with a score of likeable characters, multiple plot points, heart-wrenching revelations and a good dose of humor.
In his intro to this massive tome, Barack Obama mentions how, as he began the project of writing a memoir about his time in office, the size of the book grew and grew until he had to split it into two books. Reading it then I thought, "Oh, so the first part must be Dreams From My Father," which I had read and enjoyed. But as I reached page 600, and he hadn't finished describing his first term in office, I realized there is another tome to come that will cover his re-election and second term. I am going to be honest with you all, I will not be reading it.
Jonathan Franzen is one of a very few authors of whom I would say that I am not a big fan. I think I am still scarred from the bizarre and disgusting scene in The Corrections where the protagonist talks to his own feces for 25 pages. However, people love him and so after a long interval, I decided to give Purity a try. Overall, I’m glad I did.
I first heard about Caitlin Shetterly’s debut novel when listening to an episode of Elin Hilderbrand’s Books, Beach & Beyond podcast (which I highly recommend). One of the questions Elin puts to each interviewee is what good books they’ve read recently. She and the author were both raving about how much they had enjoyed Pete and Alice in Maine. Well, I totally agree that it is a powerhouse novel!
I so appreciate my friend Ellen recommending that I read this completely captivating, non-fiction book about “unforgettable encounters during life’s final moments” (book’s subtitle). I don’t think it’s a book I would have picked up on my own, but it is an amazing read.
My second book recommendation is The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin. After setting out to identify those things that made her happy but which she never had time for, Rubin spent a year cultivating and tracking behaviors that would result in her happiness.
First is The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown. Brown offers straightforward advice on how we can enhance our sense of worthiness and cultivate compassion – two essential factors in happiness. She then explores ten behaviors that get in the way of happiness and how to work to eliminate those behaviors.
Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my go-to authors. When I see she’s got a new book out, I pretty much buy it and read it right off. And my admiration for her writing continues with Romantic Comedy. Main character, Sally Milz, writes for a weekly Saturday night comedy show, “The Night Owls.” Burned by past relationships with men, she has mostly given up on finding love. In fact, she becomes so cynical, that she writes a sketch for Night Owls about what she has dubbed “The Danny Horst Rule.”
I’ll admit, I’m drawn to authors who know how to tell a realistic, compelling story about families and the many relationships that exist between the two parents, each parent and child, and between siblings. Jean Hanff Korelitz tells an absolutely masterful story of one such family’s intricately complex relationships in The Latecomer. From the moment I read that Salo and Johanna first met at the funeral of Salo’s girlfriend who died in a car he had been driving, I realized this story would be riveting.
Ever since I read Bel Canto when it came out in 2001, Ann Patchett has been one of my favorite authors. She keeps writing the most amazing books
Rebecca Makkai has been writing books for a while, but she didn’t come onto my radar until she published The Great Believers in 2018. I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to pick the book up, but I’m glad I did.
