Sunday Caught My Interest

I have spent the past week in very rainy Oregon where, fortunately, we are high above the water. The only inconveniences we have had is canceled events, some rerouting of roads traveled and a small leak in the roof. Seeing the pictures on the news and the paper of flooded homes and the damage done, we are feeling fortunate. Youngest wanted to come down for the weekend to hang with grandparents and help his grandfather fix the roof. Eldest had his first car accident on a very icy freeway back home and once again we are feeling fortunate that no one was hurt – cars are replaceable and people are not. I have spent my time reading The Cat’s Table and The Tiger’s Wife, took a load of books to the used bookstore and purchased a book of essays for youngest along with Gravities Rainbow. I picked up All the Little Live Things by Stegner, Songs for the Missing by Stewart O’Nan and The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall which I am leaving for my mom. And joy of joys, she subscribed to the Sunday NY Times so this morning was cheerfully spent reveling in the newspaper.

Here is what caught my interest this week:

I haven’t read much South African fiction other than some work by J.M. Coetzee. Stefani of So Many Books reviews another South African author Nadine Gordimer which sounds fabulous. The Pickup (which was longlisted for the Booker Prize) is the story of an unlikely couple: wealthy,  white, rebellious Julia Summers and Abdu, an illegal alien desperately trying to not be deported from South Africa to his impoverished country. The first half takes place in South Africa and the other in Abdu’s homeland. This is a story of immigration, of dissatisfaction with your family, of yearning for something different and Stefani makes it sound wonderful.

Last year I read Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster and thought it was a little jewel of a piece – short, and evocative and I am looking forward Songs for the Missing. Now Diane from a Bibliophile By the Sea tells me about his latest work The Odds: A Love Story. What a like about O’Nan is his ability to convey vast amounts in such a short form. The Odds is the story of Art and Marion Fowler, married for thirty years, now both unemployed, in debt and in danger of losing their house. They cash everything in and go to Niagara Falls for a second honeymoon and Art convinces Marion to gamble their funds in an attempt to save their marriage and themselves. Ti from Book Chatter also raves about the book.

One of the best books I read last year was David Malouf’s Ransom and yet I haven’t look at the rest of his work. Now I have a second book of his to put on my list courtesy of Kimbofo of Reading Matters in her review of Fly Away Peter. She writes of the novel, “It is a truly beautiful and devastating story set before and during the Great War. I read it in two sittings and felt stunned by the sheer power and emotion that Malouf wrings from just 144 pages of eloquently written prose.” The novel is about three people, Jim a bird watcher (to be it simply), the well-to-do farmer Ashley, and Imogen Harcourt, an English photographer. Set in 1914, the two men go off to the trenches of WWI. With language like the following, this book is definitely going on my list to read:

Often, as Jim later discovered, you entered the war through an ordinary gap in a hedge. One minute you were in a ploughed field, with snowy troughs between ridges that marked old furrows and peasants off at the edge of it digging turnips or winter greens, and the next you were through the hedge and on duckboards, and although you could look back and still see farmers at work, or sullenly watching as the soldiers passed over their land went slowly below ground, there was all the difference in the world between your state and theirs. They were in a field and very nearly at home. You were in the trench system that lead to the war.

I am fond of book lists and The Boston Bibliophile describes what sounds like an excellent reference work 500 Essential Cult Books: The Ultimate Guide. Marie says these are “the underground classics, the ones that got passed from friend to friend, or the ones you picked up in a used bookstore and read when you should have been doing your homework.” I wonder if Steal this Book is listed. I bought my copy when I was in high school at a used bookstore and have never parted with it – in part because I consider it a classic. I can’t wait to get my hands on this one.

Finally, Wendy from Caribousmom has an excellent list of books about the African-American experience. The list is worth looking at.

Happy Reading.

Advertisement