Monday, May 16, 2011

Books! Books! Books!

I've discovered some of my favorite authors on complete accident.

Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry. The husband and I cruised to Alaska, and on the ship they had a "take one/leave one" book bin in the ship library. I'd read everything I'd packed by day five of our trip, so I thought I'd dig through there. People who travel to Alaska ought to have interesting reading material just by default (yielding to the adventurer's spirit and all of that jazz). I pulled this book out of the pile and chose it because it featured a big old truck on the cover. Reading this book reminded me how ignorant I am. If you ever need a good kick in the intellectual pants, pick up a Perry book. He's so clever and well written (although it feels more like "well spoken") and down to earth that it's humbling. It was a slow read written in a series of essays about his every day life and the people in it.

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. I show this book to people for the first time and their eyes roll back in their heads. It's like an old fashioned hard backed Encyclopedia Britannica. I hand it to anyone, everyone and say, "Just promise me that you'll go fifty pages before bailing out." That's because I know that it takes fifty pages to get deep enough in the quicksand of Kvothe's story that you're a goner. And the sequel Wise Man's Fears that's longer by almost a hundred pages? Well, the waiting list to borrow it out of my high school classroom is five deep and counting. And I think it exceeded the first. Rothfuss has done the unthinkable: he has made fantasy writing accessible to everyone, even people who pooh-pooh fantasy as the red-headed step child of the book store.

So, if anyone has good summer reads to recommend, I'm game.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

Summer Light by Dale Cramer...FANTASTIC and totally relatable!

Amanda said...

If you haven't read The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), they are very entertaining and thought provoking. Also, Shoot the Moon, by Billie Letts, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Annie Barrows.

Christie said...

Thanks Charlotte! I love book recommendations; I'm going to the library reservations page now.