The mobile library stops outside our gate every other week and it's pot luck as to what books will be on offer. We can order books, which I now do for our reading group choices as they are rarely books that I want to keep and re-read.
Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' has received a great deal of praise. Well, I liked it well enough, but actually it made me feel very much of a different generation, critical of the behaviour of the central characters. Here is the blurb on the back cover and the opening page.
A book that I've just finished reading and absolutely loved is 'Olive Kitteridge'. The structure is interesting, each chapter being a stand alone story. Sometimes the central characters have all the action, other times they have just a fleeting walk-on role so that you see them from different points of view. This book I could really identify with (although I was surprised to read the age of thirty-nine described as middle aged and the seventies as OLD!) What a piece of work Olive is! I'm delighted to learn that a continuation of this book is just about to be published.
What makes you choose a particular book? I am very susceptible to an attractive cover. My friend has recently completed a book cover commission and has written about the process on her blog janethaighherwork.com Live a little. Do take a look. It was quite a business. I illustrated book covers when I was working, but never as complicated as this!
Here she is in my daughter's kitchen working on a heart.
How did you like the Tom Hanks book?
ReplyDeleteI've not yet finished his book, it is my bedside reader. Short story books are best for this because if I get too involved in a novel and can't put it down then I'm in trouble from the other side of the bed!
ReplyDeleteI'm finding his story-telling quite gentle - he is no Cheever or Slater! They certainly seem very American to me and the one that I like most, so far, is 'these are the meditations of my heart'.