What interesting posts here! I have two students at Osher at Furman who have written books as well, and they are both very interesting topics (anthropology and being a drill sergeant in the Vietnam era), also.
One thing the drill sergeant told me was that Amazon does a print on demand sort of thing, you order it online to read and they print it, and I think that sounds like an idea whose time has long come.
Bellamarie, it's your turn: your friend has written books, write that book you have wanted to write all these years. And we'll discuss it!
I'm glad to be back among the readers, as that's what I'm sinking into now in our (short) Thanksgiving Break and it's so much fun. I did look in from time to time at the wonderful Barchester Book Club discussion, and the quotes that some of you put in there, Bellamarie in particular, from the book, stole my heart. That's the kind of writing I love, and crave, but only this time of year: Dickensian, and I hope to get to read at least one of the books over the holidays. I have had a volume supposedly of all of them for a long time.
And I loved the care that Barbara took with that discussion, the illustrations, particularly. And the conversation of all the participants.
I do have A Gentleman in Moscow at Karen's recommendation, and have heard nothing but good about it, it sounds like it would be a great book to read in the Winter, thank you for reminding us of it, Ann and Pat.
I started Pachinko, which was a National Book Award finalist and was immediately swept up in it, it's a saga, very very Good Earth like about an immigrant from Korea struggling under Japanese rule. Lots of history there... it's beyond my ability to describe it coherently but it has literally page after page after page of glowing reviews, and it deserves
every one of them.
A powerful book to lose the world and yourself in, and not come back out. 500 pages in paperback. The opening page is an endorsement by Caroline Kennedy introducing the author at some literary festival, saying that the character in the book was so unforgettable she came hoping somehow to meet him there. A triumph, it really is, so far. Totally unforgettable. It's actually hard to wrench yourself out of its spell. Paperback just out in November 2017. But I've just started it and don't know what's ahead.
The NY Times Sunday had an article in its Book Review on the huge numbers of senior citizens driving across this country in all sorts of cars and vehicles and why. It's called Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st century, by Jessica Bruder. I was really struck by the premise, the seniors who have lost their savings through one circumstance or another, driving to this or that 9 dollar an hour job opportunity, and staying in little colonies of like people all over the country. I had no idea. None. I've got to read more, it's sort of a Nickel and Dimed book but about people over 60.
That book review is full of great books this time, the one called An Odyssey, where a father and son meet in an unlikely class and take a journey together, in real life, is a wonderful book for a father or son to read.
And then there's an article there on the production of the Branaugh movie Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.
Have any of you seen the movie? It's a photographic wonder, it really is. I'm going to have to read the book again, apparently I had forgotten everything I ever knew about it.
So Nomadland and the new Tina Brown Vanity Fair's diaries are definitely on my Wish List for the holidays.
What's on yours? I have a feeling I have missed a lot of good ones, and this is a great place to come and find out what everybody is reading.
