I have apparently been on a non-fiction kick; after I finished John Hope Franklin’s autobiography, I picked up Einstein: His Life and Universe. Matthew had already read it. Again, this is a work of (auto)biography that you find yourself reading aloud to whomever is in the room with you at the time.
This really is an [...]
Einstein: His Life and Universe
John Hope Franklin: Mirror to America
A couple of years ago Dad asked for this book for Christmas. And, in the way that books are handled in my family, it was re-gifted to me this past Christmas.
This book should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the history of race relations in the U.S.
Franklin gives us a fascinating view of [...]
George Mikes: How To Be An Alien
My sister gave M this little bit of fluff for Christmas a couple of years ago. It’s very much a product of its time and place (immediately post-WWII England), but rather entertaining and great for bedtime reading as it’s just little two or three-page commentaries on random things.
Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain
I am NOT a reader of the Civil War novel, not at all. But we had a copy of Cold Mountain lying around the house and I picked it up. and then I was completely unable to put it down. It’s not so much a Civil War novel as it is a novel about two [...]
Jerome Charyn: Johnny One-Eye
I’ve been letting the kiddo pick my books again. This time she did a good job – I was looking for some Michael Chabon but instead she pulled Johnny One-Eye off the shelf.
Johnny One-Eye tells the story of the American Revolution in Manhattan through the eye of the eponymous main character, who may or may [...]
Carol Shields: Dressing Up for the Carnival
I read The Stone Diaries ages ago and so when I was at the library recently I grabbed Dressing Up for the Carnival off the shelf. Short stories are actually really good for me right now, because it don’t feel bad returning a book of short stories half-read and I don’t forget what was going [...]
Keats’s Neighborhood
I usually write about the books I read, but sometimes you come across a kids’ book that you have to read yourself. Keats’s Neighborhood really is more for the adults than the kids. It contains ten of Ezra Jack Keats stories, beginning with The Snowy Day and progressing through most of the Peter/Archie/Louie stories (but [...]
The Inheritance of Loss
I really, REALLY should have loved Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. But I didn’t. I didn’t NOT like it, and the language was certainly beautiful. There were points early in the book when her descriptions of Cho Oyu crumbling around Sai, the cook, the judge, and Mutt made me really, really uncomfortable. But for [...]
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
I grabbed Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh off of the library shelf three weeks ago. I was actually hoping for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, but it wasn’t there. I read Summerland years ago and loved it, so the combination of that and the reputation of Kavalier & Clay, made [...]
1984
Somehow I made it to the ripe old age of 31 before reading 1984. Clearly this is a failing of my high school education. (Let’s blame my AP English teacher who had us reading Othello, Lear, and The Inferno instead.)
