The Known World by Edward P. Jones
My long dormant local book club is back in swing and this was our first read of the new year, and my submission. I happened upon this book at a used book sale and after seeing that it had won the Pulitzer and cost $1.50, adding it to my “to read” pile was sort of a no brainer. My book club has some tough cookies so I was a little anxious since it was basically a blind suggestion from me, but it turned out to […]
…The group is broken into teams of two unrelated “players,” and at the start each team is provided with an envelope containing several apparently random words and a check for $10,000. And that’s all. As the teams work together to solve the mystery (whatever it is), they must face disasters both natural and unnatural; personal crises — most of them turn out to have some connection with Westing, which they may or may not be willing to disclose, or in fact even realize; the vagaries […]
This book came highly recommended by a psychologist friend of mine. While it is fiction, it gives a very realistic look into the lives of a family affected by autism. Told in the first person, you get an intimate view of how autism feels. Livvie Owen is 14, and she has two sisters, one older, one younger, and a mom & dad. They’ve moved multiple times, a result of both life circumstances–they live in a dying small town–and Livvie’s disruptive behavior, which landlords find hard […]
HOLY SHIT, Y’ALL. Sending out the Bat Signal. This is a book you should read probably as soon as possible. I can’t believe it took me almost nine months to hear about this book, and I only heard about it then because a particularly prolific book blogger I follow on Goodreads received a free review copy of the audiobook, and also gave it five stars. She also had not heard of it before, even though it had been published last May. This is a travesty. […]
Well. I was dreading reading this book. While Ozeki may have made history by being the first ever Buddhist monk to make the Booker shortlist, the synopsis of this novel didn’t exactly make me fall over myself to read it. In Tokyo, a sixteen year old girl, Nao, is so horribly bullied and feels so low and alone that she decides to end her life. Before doing so, she wants to write a diary chronicling the life of her great grandmother, a 104 year old […]
In Chang-rae Lee’s dystopian vision of the future, America is divided into three classes living in three extremely different types of settlements. At the top are the Charters, protected cities in which the rich and successful dwell, spending their money on whatever fancy suits their whims. These people also are referred to as “Charters,” so the name can mean either a place or a person who lives there. Next are the facilities, former cities that have been turned into processing plants that provide the […]
