I've been bogged down with an advance copy of Henning Mankell's latest Kurt Wallander mystery and haven't gotten a whole lot of reading done this month. I like this series, but there is something about the writing pace that just slows me down. Friend Nancy Maturo just finished
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey and is positively raving about it. Bailey was bedridden by an African virus and a kind friend brought her a pot of violets that included a snail, whose care was enough to give her something to hold on to. I can't wait to read it. This month's Duck's Cottage Reading Group selection is
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Have been getting mixed reviews, so am anxious to crack it open next week. Chris Cleave (
Little Bee) has a new paperback release,
Incendiary. The book is basically an open letter from a grieving mother to Osama Bin Laden. A woman who understands love to a man who can't possibly. Will be interesting to see if this matches Little Bee's popularity. I read
The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink over the holidays and found it to be an interesting story of the reunion of a group of college friends. The cause for their get-together? The long awaited release from prison of one of their peers. Also read Stephen King's latest short story collection-
Full Dark, No Stars. Really reminds me of his early novellas- good characterization, weirdly believable plots. (brief aside- Sarah's 7th grade LA class has been delving into Sci-Fi and she's gotten hooked on The Twilight Zone. Turns out Hulu has a bunch of episodes!) Some new hardbacks to start the year off with-
American Rose: The Life & Times of Gypsy Rose Lee (Karen Abbott), Susan Vreeland's
Clara and Mr. Tiffany (getting a lot of attention). New in paperback-
The Other Wes Moore (by Wes Moore),
59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute (Richard Wiseman),
Bloodroot (Amy Greene)- I liked this one a lot; and
Tales from the Yoga Studio (Rain Mitchell). Several people have read and liked
The Year of the Hare (Arto Paasilinna), a modern day Finnish fable. Indiebound just put out their Winter 10/11 recommendations for reading groups: leading the pack was Jeannette Walls with
Half Broke Horses. A few other contenders included
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger which I didn't like, and
Tinkers (Paul Harding).
Check out my end of the year post for the Reading Group guides blog in which I looked at how our bestsellers stacked up against the national Indiebound list! (note: you'll need to scroll down, it's towards the bottom of the page!)
12-30-10 RGG Post
The first selection for the 2011 Jamie's Book Club has just been mailed to members! Across the Universe, by Beth Revis, was just published on 1-11-11 and is a fantastic YA novel about Amy, a teen who undergoes cryogenic freezing in order to accompany her scientist mother and military father on a 300 year long trip to colonize a new planet. But Amy wakes up early aboard the spaceship Godspeed to find disorder within the order, and a dystopian society whose purported good intentions aren't always what they seem. I think this will be one of the hottest YA books of the year and can't imagine it won't make the crossover leap to the adult reader market. Here's the best part- its a book you and your kids can both read and discuss! Win-win!!
December 1