books I’ve read lately – January & February, 2012

some good stuff lately

• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. An incredibly compelling narrator. Super thin female characters. Enjoyable and fun overall – would be a great vacation read.
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. Epic is right – this is hugely long (and, admission: I did not finish it. although probably will at some point?.) A book club pick – fascinating look at a formerly under-reported part of America’s history.
• An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin. This was a bookclub pick (other book club!). Overall fairly fun, a female lead that could only have been written by a man, and art references that could have been made by a foundation art student. Another good vacation read.
• Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman. Waldman’s best book yet. Lovely look at human nature in the aftermath of tragedy.
• The Uses of Enchantment by Heidi Julavits. Engaging, although rather disconcerting. I loved Julavits’ The Effect of Living Backwards, and while I didn’t love this one as much, I definitely enjoyed it.
• It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong. The best blog-to-book… book that I’ve read. Armstrong has one of the strongest voices on the internet, and it carries through superbly.
• Dream Work by Mary Oliver. I love Oliver, and this book contains some of my favorite of her work.
• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. I adored this book. A-dored. Seriously, go read it right now. Harbach is nothing short of brilliant – almost perfect example of everything the American Novel should be, and in my opinion well worth the 10 years he apparently spent writing & trying to publish it. (note: I love baseball, but I suspect that you would love this book even if you’d never seen a game/had no interest in the sport.)