Luria Library

I've got on my iRead app on Facebook for summer 2008:
HOUSE IN PARIS, Elizabeth Bowen; PALINURO OF MEXICO, Elisabeth Plaister; KINKY GAZPACHO, Lori Tharps; WAR and PEACE, Tolstoy; KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER, Sigrid Undset; A Primate's Memoir,
Robert Sapolsky (author of WHY ZEBRAS DON'T GET ULCERS); THE MIDNIGHT CHOIR, Gene Kerrigan... and all the great books which will be suggested, no doubt, by my children and friends.

I recommend THERE IS NO ME WITHOUT YOU by Melissa Fay Greene. It's a powerful story of one woman's journey to save some of the millions of orphaned chidren in Africa. Visit the author's website for more information: http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/

I'm reading Nicole Krauss, The History of Love--heartbreakingly beautiful in the first 30 pages; Jay Neugeboren, 1940; Sebastian Smee's short monograph on Lucian Freud; James Elkins (ed.) Visual Literacy--I read our library copy and then bought the paperback so I could mark it up; Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker; and Henry Roth, Call It Sleep. Right now I'm finishing John Harvey, Photography and Spirit--a 19th c. photographic history of "spirit" manipulations in photographic emulsions...lots of good stuff about seeing the invisible and so on.

I would like to highly recommend any book by Gene Wolfe. A good place to start is his BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. Wolfe is one of the best American writers alive that you have never heard of. This is literary science fiction at its very best--even if you are not a fan of genre fiction you will likely find much to like in Wolfe's fiction.

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I am reading FRENCH WOMEN DON'T GET FAT by Mireille Guiliano. Love the approach to eating and celebration of food quality. She has a lovely way of telling us a story while remolding an attitude towards food. There are even recipes! Follow it up with a trip to the new cheese store in Paseo!! She had a very wise mother. I am also reading, with the high recommendation of my niece, A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by Toole. I am struggling a bit with it but I am not ready to give it up. Very strange beginning but there is a fascinating story behind the tragic life of the author and the miracle of its publication that makes me want to stick with it. I have stacks in my room...I always swear I will stop buying books until I read them all but...

I've just discovered one more title I'll have to read this summer.

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, edited by Bill McKibbon.

Hello readers,
Well, I am still getting through Confederacy of Dunces...I will persevere Chuck! I just finished The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes. It is a memoir of being adopted, having your biological mother come searching for you and the journey to define what it means to be family. It was very different than I imagined but interesting. The last 1/4 was extremely thought provoking. I haven't decided the next book but what a delight to finish one and get to start another! Hope you are all well.

Hey there,
I do not know if anyone is still posting or reading but...I am now reading two books. The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay is a literary adventure and coming of age story of Rosemary who leaves Tasmania and goes to work in a New York bookstore, The Arcade. I will let you know how it is. I am also reading The How Of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky. This is an intriguing read about happiness from a scientific perspective. Hope you are finding wonderful moments of joy this summer.