I was walking through the bookstore and there it was again, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’d been seeing it for months, floating from table to table at my local bookstore, and that afternoon I had seen an Oprah promo announcing that she was going to interview the author because it was her current book club selection. So I bought the book (yes, that is the power of Oprah whether authors and bibliophiles like it or not) and I took the book home knowing only that it was a nonfiction book about a woman who travels around the world for a year. I often have a nonfiction book going along with a novel, although I must admit lately that with my mom’s continued illness I have been having a difficult time concentrating and reading one book, let alone two. Still, I began to read Eat, Pray, Love that day, and although I’m not quite done, I’m loving every page. Ms. Gilbert writes like a best friend, penning letters from her adventures that are filled with humor, intelligence, history, and spiritual insight. So far I’ve eaten pizza and sipped rich red wine with her at a cafe in Italy, sat beside her in cave at a sacred ashram in India as she battled to quiet her rambling mind and heal her broken heart, and now we’re off to Bali to hang with a medicine man. I hope she doesn’t mind the company because I really do need to get out of the house.
Category Archives: Books
book doings
Author Micheal Connelly
Okay, since I am the “book”babie here’s a quick roundup of some interesting book news that I’ve gathered from the vast webosphere for your perusal. Oscar Villalon, the book editor at The San Francisco Chronical did a piece on new books coming out this fall and he says the lineup is top notch. Bookreporter.com keeps a running list of books being made into movies. I know, I know, they’re never as good as the original books, then again I’ve read some so-so books that are better as movies! If you’ve burned through your summer reading list check out the Under The Radar post on Chasing Ray, there might be a hidden gem there you’d like. The Millions blog has a fun post for August 26th with links to books we can’t read (I just wish they’d fix that typo in the post heading! Edit: Max says it was a play on words as in objet d’art, duh, I get it now). Like Crime Fiction? NPR has an excellent article and podcast about Micheal Connelly, one time beat reporter and crime writer who’s’ character of homicide detective Harry Bosch prowls the mean streets of L.A.
wolves and wilderness
I finished the Costa Book of the Year Award winner, The Tenderness of Wolves last night . It reminded me a little of Cold Mountain, a wilderness adventure filled with interesting characters and rugged landscapes. British author Stef Penny’s fiction debut is written with confidence as she deftly weaves together a story of love and suspense set in the late 1800’s in Northern Canada. When voyageur Laurent Jammet is found brutally murdered in his cabin we embark on a tale of pursuit. Pursuit of a murderer, of love, of loyalty, of simple respite from the harsh realities of winter in the frozen tundra of the Canadian Frontier. The writing is clean and crisp, and although I did find myself getting confused occasionally as the plot line and characters shifted (this may have been due to my attention span and the plot line of my own life which is rather complicated right now), I’m putting it on my Good Reads list for this summer.
lost and found
The Department of Lost and Found is the debut novel of magazine writer and fellow blogger, Allison Winn Scotch. I zipped through it in a couple of days last week while sitting out on the deck enjoying the long summer evenings. It’s a character driven story about a workaholic young career woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer. The diagnosis stuns the thirty year old Natalie Miller sending her on a journey of self-discovery that includes a list of lost loves and a comical fascination with Bob Barker and The Price is Right. Heartwarming without being maudlin, The Department of Lost and Found is a triumph and I look forward to reading this talented authors next novel!
mulholland murder
I gave myself the day off yesterday and indulged in a little escapist summer reading. Michael Connelly’s, The Overlook, is a classic who dunnit murder mystery. The 13th in the series featuring Harry Bosch takes us to a scenic overlook on Mulholland Drive where a physicist with access to radioactive cesium is found shot execution style. The Overlook is a compact 225 pages packed with just enough character development and a solid fast moving plot to make it the perfect book to tuck under your arm when heading off to the beach.
splendid words
“It’s the whistling,” Laila said to Tariq, “the damn whistling, I hate more than anything.” Tariq nodded knowingly. It wasn’t so much the whistling itself, Laila thought later, but the seconds between the start of it and impact. The brief and interminable time of feeling suspended. The not knowing. The waiting. Like a defendant about to hear the verdict.
A well written book helps us step into the lives of people we do not understand, takes us to places we may never go otherwise, and if we are lucky we learn a little something along the way. In America we tend to look across the globe at the Middle East and shake our heads, we see what the nightly news shows us, the violence, the dusty landscape, the oil. Khaled Hosseini is a doctor who grew up in Kabul but was educated here in the United States, a world away from the turmoil in the country of his birth. When he began to write his first book, The Kite Runner, he stepped back into that distant world telling a tale focused on fathers and sons and friendship between men. In his new novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, we are again transported to Afghanistan and this time we experience life in Kabul through the eyes of two women, Mariam and Laila, from 1974 to the present. There are many good non-fiction books about life in the Middle East, but the beauty of a well written novel is its ability to lift us up and carry us along on a journey of imagination, a journey that allows us to live the lives of the characters in the story. That is what good storytelling does…and this book is good storytelling.
books on the run
I joined BookCrossing.com this morning. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s kind of like a free worldwide book club. After you’ve read a book that you’d like to share, or “release” out into the world, you go to the website and register the book, leave a few comments, slap an anonymous label in it, then pass it along to a friend, donate it, leave in a coffee shop, airport, or “forget” it on a park bench. Hopefully the finder will read your book and enter the number on the website so you can track it’s whereabouts. Very cool. I’m eyeing my bookshelf right now looking for candidates. Hmmm, my son and daughter in-law are taking a trip next week, I wonder if they’d mind scattering a couple of books for me during their travels?
murder, magic, and madness
This month my book club is reading The Devil in the White City by Eric Larsen. When it was first suggested, I didn’t think I’d like it. A book about the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893? Not so much on bookbabie’s list of must reads. Then again, a book with the subtitle Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America can’t be too boring, can it? Nope, it can’t. I finished it yesterday and it was a great read, wholly deserving of a non-fiction finalist spot in the 2003 National Book Awards, and being chosen as the winner of the 2004 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. The book is centered around two main characters, architect Daniel Burnham who built the fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes a psychopathic serial killer who set up shop near the fair. It reads like great fiction and knowing it’s a true story makes it that much better. A real-life supporting cast of historical characters such as George Ferris, Buffalo Bill, Susan B. Anthony, Clarence Darrow, Frederick Olmsted, and Thomas Edison helps bring life in America at the turn of the century alive.
My one complaint is that there were only a few photographs in the book. When I Googled the fair I came across a wonderful website full of photographs like the one I posted above of the grand, Agricultural Hall. If you haven’t read The Devil in the White City yet, but you plan to, bookmark the The World’s Columbian Exposition site at The Paul V. Glavin Library Digital History Collection so you can see, as well as read, about a fascinating time in our country’s history.
Hmm, I wonder who would be great in the role of Daniel Burnham if they make the movie?????
bookbabie 