Gilead
Marilyn Robinson, 2004
247 pp.
October 2008
A treasure of a book. While based upon Biblical scripture, it's illuminating for any faith. It is about the requirement of living up to the best parts of ourselves—and about the blessing and awe and mystery of all existence. It's a lot packed into a fairly small book.
The Reverend John Ames, 76 when the book opens, takes it upon himself to write a series of letters in the hope that when death over takes him—sooner, he believes, rather than later—his very young son will have a personal record of his father and the faith that has informed his life and work.
Skinny Dip
Carl Hiaasen, 2004
355 pp.
September 2008
Joke: guy dumps his wife overboard. She hits the water and wonders, "We've been married only two years...what did I do to deserve this?" Struggling for life, she runs down a list of possible offenses, including overcooked chicken, dozing during hockey games and—this is good—joining a weekly book club!
Shouldn't be, but this is funny stuff, and that's Carl Hiaasen for you.
Mythology
Edith Hamilton, 1942
496 pp.
August 2008
Even when I was a kid (couple of years ago), Hamilton and her book were so beloved that everyone referred to it as "Edith Hamilton's Mythology."
So. What's not to love about mythology? Deities and mortals loving and torment-ing one another; heroes and heroines, gods and goddesses surpassing the limits of human strentgh and beauty but caught in the trap of human passion.
Blink
Malcolm Gladwell, 2005
265 pp.
July 2008
We're smarter than we know, according to this engaging book. In his second non-fiction book, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) writes about the part of our brains that lets us know things without knowing how we know.
It turns out our intuitive hunches—or rapid cognition—can be more dependable than the high-powered reasoning part of our brains.
The Book Thief
Marcus Zusak, 2005
552 pp.
June 2008
Hard to believe, but Random House classified this as a juvenile work—and librarians dutifully shelved it in Young Adult sections. But now they're now moving it over into Adult Fiction—as so many of the 30-and-counting-crowd have come love it!
The Book Thief is the story of a young girl living with a foster family, from 1941-44, in Molching, Germany, a village outside Munich and home to the Dachau concentration camp.