Several well-known writers tell The New York Times what they’re reading.
How about you? Anything you can recommend?
Update: At Duke City Fix, Coco has superb introduction to some Albuquerque books, fiction and non.
3 thoughts on “Read Any Good Books Lately?”
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I highly recommend “Through the Children’s Gate” by Adam Gopnik. Gopnik writes for the New Yorker, and he is just a really fine writer. This new book is a very well written account of his experience living in Manhattan post-9/11 and also chronicles what it is like to be a parent raising kids in the big city. (A chapter in the book, which appeared in the New Yorker a year or so ago, is about his 4 year-old daughter’s imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli, who is too busy to play with her and for whom she leaves messages using her imaginary cell phone).
If you want to be depressed, then read Don DeLillo’s new book about 9/11 “Falling Man”. It’s gonna win some serious awards, but wow, it’s emotionally challenging to get through it.
I tend to read a lot of contempory fiction, but I always cruise the new book shelves of the library for non-fiction, too. I have read two such books recently that were especially moving.
Most notable was, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” by Ismael Beah. It is a heart-wrenching, first-hand account of the author’s experiences growing up in Sierra Leone. At the age of 12, he spent months fleeing rebels who were massacring everyone in sight, then, at 13, he was forced into the government’s army. At 16, he was finally rescued by UNICEF, and eventually rehabilitated. This resilient and articulate young man has since spoken at the UN on several occasions.
As the jacket cover says, “This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than 50 violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.”
Another book I read recently also dealt with current warfare. Amazon.com writes: “In ‘From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava’, Jay Kopelman tells a story that is both tender and thought-provoking –candidly portraying the ugly conditions in wartime Iraq, while also describing his (and his fellow Marines’) growing attachment to a scruffy stray puppy.” I was amazed by what these people had to go through to try and resue this puppy and get her out of Iraq.