What Are You Reading Right Now?

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Comment by cindi a morgan on January 26, 2013 at 10:50pm

Just finished Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. Gripping, violent, heart-wrenching, damnably hard to put down-- It's mind-blowing to think that the same woman can write such disturbing fiction and turn around and create A Short Guide to a Happy Life.

I'm new to this group, but loving it. After reading about halfway through, my Amazon wishlist has doubled in length! Of course, I'm compelled to offer my own favorite non-fiction. Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd details her exploration of a God beyond the traditional paternalistic figure of her upbringing. Kidd was once a contributing editor in for Norman Vincent Peale's magazine Guideposts, but in her 40s she found herself needing to look further. She has become vastly popular for her novels such as Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid's Tale, but Daughter remains my personal favorite.

Comment by Maryanne Mesple on January 16, 2013 at 2:08am

Shara, I will add those two books to my wish list. Having lived in the south in the early 60's I have memories of outright racism including an encounter my mother had with the KKK and still find it hard to imagine the suffering so many people endured simply because of the outward appearance.

I had to look up Mumbai! See, just reading your review I learned something! Thanks!

Comment by Maryanne Mesple on January 16, 2013 at 2:00am

Pamela, Three Cups of Tea is a great book, I agree. Greg's accounts of how he came to be so active in Afghanistan are incredible. There is a lot of controversy now about him and whether he really did do all he says and whether he was truly held hostage etc.

Comment by wiffledust on January 5, 2013 at 1:50pm

thanks so much for your book posts, gang!! keep 'em coming! 

Comment by Shara Faskowitz on January 5, 2013 at 1:13pm

I recently finished two books, both of which I'd recommend highly. First is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. In it, she tells the story of The Great Migration, the movement of African Americans from the south to the north and west. The migration took place over many decades (from about 1913 to 1960). Most of the folks who left the south were fleeing Jim Crow--in many cases, literally for their lives--and in doing so created the great centers of African American culture in cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit and LA. To me this is an essential piece of American history that most White folks know nothing about, which is a shame. Wilkerson is a gifted writer who presents history as narrative. Through the stories of three people, we learn not only what it meant to be Black in the south under Jim Crow and how brave and perilous these journeys were, but also how folks reestablished the communities they had left behind and changed the places where they resettled. Really just an amazing book. 

The second book is called Behind the Beautiful Forevers, which won its author, Katherine Boo, the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2012. It reads like fiction but it is the true story of an Indian American women rediscovering her family in Mumbai as she tells the story of a Mumbai slum that still exists. It's beautifully written and, for someone like me who loves learning about other cultures, just a fascinating story. 

I have a few other books going right now, but I'll review them another time. 

Comment by Pamela Drake on January 5, 2013 at 12:41am

I read something recently that was fascinating and touching.  It's called THREE CUPS OF TEA and it's the account of Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber turned humanitarian who brought schools, irrigation and potable water to remote mountain villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan, from the 1990s until after the start of the American war with Afghanistan.

Comment by C. Annie Doucette on January 3, 2013 at 6:22pm

New fro 2013!  I'm reading two.. When she woke and Black Mirror!

Comment by wiffledust on November 26, 2012 at 8:41pm

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-The-Art-Power/dp/1400067669/...
a lot of folks on here might like this new book on jefferson by jon meacham

Comment by wiffledust on November 26, 2012 at 8:05pm

bettina, i almost missed your post! i have been wondering about that book on heaven....would you say it leaned scientific or corny? 

Comment by wiffledust on November 26, 2012 at 8:04pm

thanks for posting, tom! nice to have you on board. i don't know alice munro's work, so this will be good to check out. what's her style?

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