7.24.2008
Book Suggestions
Since all of you are literary nerds, do you have any good book suggestions? I'm looking for fiction, something relatively light (no post-colonial eco criticism). And if anybody links to Oprah's Book Club I will hunt you down...
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I finally got through I am Charlotte Simmons, which is a very realistic look at contemporary collegiate life. Plenty of comedy (which comes through seeing yourself in the same sort of college scenes), and a very heavy dose of tragedy as well. I think the conclusion could have played out differently (I won't spoil it for you), but I'm not sure that I like where Charlotte ends up.
Also, I've started Special Topics in Calamity Physics--very good so far; creative, and much more "literary" than Wolfe's novel.
Also, anything Jonathan Safran Foer--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (his second) deals with 9/11 and a young boy's reaction to family tragedy. I really liked this one, but I don't think the critics did so much. (Pay attention to the role of silence in this one.) His first, Everything is Illuminated, is great--the critcs thought so too.
Then, again, there's always late nineteenth century American fiction, which is ALWAYS good stuff!
Josh,
I was going to be a smart ass and give you this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah's_Book_Club#Oprah.27s_Book_Club_selections
and then I read the list of her picks - and some are pretty solid:
Breath, Eyes, and Memory by Danticat is good - it would help you get in touch with your feminine side.
I think I have read House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. If not he has a different collection of short stories that are real solid. I think there is one called "If they knew Yvonne" that is depressingly charming.
Steinbeck is of course money. Salinger is too. And I have always loved the Nick Adams short stories from Hemmingway (you can find these in a complete short stories or a collection by themselves).
Cry, The beloved Country by Paton is also good.
I second pat's suggestion of Everything is Illuminated - real funny but thoughtful as well.
I'll tell you what I've told everyone I know for the last six months: if you haven't yet read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, do it now. It's about a fat Dominican kid. It also just won the Pulitzer.
Other than that, I'll third Everything is Illuminated as an interesting reading experience. I gotta disagree with Paddy on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; I tended to agree with the critics on that one's pretensions. A better 9/11 book is Mohsin Hamid's novella The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I'm teaching that one this fall.
Others: The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Birth of a Nation (graphic novel) by Aaron McGruder, any Flannery O'Connor short story collection, anything by Graham Greene, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
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