Recently I've reread a few books that I read a long time ago. They were good books, worth rereading.
The first was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, a coming of age story about Francie Nolan, granddaughter of Irish immigrants, growing up in the early 1900's in New York. France and her family are very poor, but find joy in life in simple things and the closeness of a loving family. Just as good in a second reading as in the first.
Then I reread My Antonia by Willa Cather. It describes the life of young Jim Burden, orphaned, gone to live with his grandparents and of Antonia, daughter of a neighbouring family, extremely poor immigrants living in a dugout on the prairies. These best friends spend their childhood together, forming a close bond that endures throughout life. The descriptions of life and nature are brilliant.
Water for Elephants is a much more recent book, well known also from the movie. Jacob Jankowski, a young man about to graduate from Cornell Veterinary School suddenly loses his parents in a car accident and finds that all their money and assets were consumed by the bank which held the mortgage that financed his education. Distraught, he cannot write his final exams, leaves the campus and wanders into a travelling circus where he is welcomed, after some ordeals, and becomes the circus vet. The story is told in flashbacks from his perspective as an old man living unhappily in a care home. Lots of interesting details about elephants, circus life and dangerous personal relationships. A "can't put it down" read.
Just now I finished rereading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This is not an easy book to read, a post apocalyptic novel of a man and boy travelling painfully through a dead, ashen world, dealing with roaming bands of predatory people, cold, starvation. Quite horrifying, but illuminated by the self-sacrificing love of the man for his son, with a surprising ending.
For our coming time in the car I bought Louise Erdrich's newest novel, Future Home of the Living God. She is one of my favourite writers, and I've read most of her books. I've no idea what this one is about. And we have along a copy of Walter Isaacson's Leonardo Da Vinci. That makes me remember our junior high school art teacher, Mrs. Post, who, we all joked, was in love with Leonardo, as she talked about him with such rapture. I've started reading this and find it very well written.
What interesting books have you read lately?
The first was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, a coming of age story about Francie Nolan, granddaughter of Irish immigrants, growing up in the early 1900's in New York. France and her family are very poor, but find joy in life in simple things and the closeness of a loving family. Just as good in a second reading as in the first.
Then I reread My Antonia by Willa Cather. It describes the life of young Jim Burden, orphaned, gone to live with his grandparents and of Antonia, daughter of a neighbouring family, extremely poor immigrants living in a dugout on the prairies. These best friends spend their childhood together, forming a close bond that endures throughout life. The descriptions of life and nature are brilliant.
Water for Elephants is a much more recent book, well known also from the movie. Jacob Jankowski, a young man about to graduate from Cornell Veterinary School suddenly loses his parents in a car accident and finds that all their money and assets were consumed by the bank which held the mortgage that financed his education. Distraught, he cannot write his final exams, leaves the campus and wanders into a travelling circus where he is welcomed, after some ordeals, and becomes the circus vet. The story is told in flashbacks from his perspective as an old man living unhappily in a care home. Lots of interesting details about elephants, circus life and dangerous personal relationships. A "can't put it down" read.
Just now I finished rereading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This is not an easy book to read, a post apocalyptic novel of a man and boy travelling painfully through a dead, ashen world, dealing with roaming bands of predatory people, cold, starvation. Quite horrifying, but illuminated by the self-sacrificing love of the man for his son, with a surprising ending.
For our coming time in the car I bought Louise Erdrich's newest novel, Future Home of the Living God. She is one of my favourite writers, and I've read most of her books. I've no idea what this one is about. And we have along a copy of Walter Isaacson's Leonardo Da Vinci. That makes me remember our junior high school art teacher, Mrs. Post, who, we all joked, was in love with Leonardo, as she talked about him with such rapture. I've started reading this and find it very well written.
What interesting books have you read lately?
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