A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson, 1999
274 pp.
July 2007
Think of your favorite buddy movie, combine it with City Slickers, and you’ve got the idea behind Bryson’s book.
Two urban hetero’s, both out of shape and on the pudgy side (one woefully so), tackle the hardships of the Appalachian Trail. That’s the set-up for what follows, and much of it is very, very funny.
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert, 2006
338 pp.
June 2007
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a broken heart must be in want of a meal. —June Austin
Elizabeth Gilbert takes that famous maxim to extraordinary lengths in her smart, delightful book and heads to Italy, where she eats four-months worth of pasta, gelato, calamari, stewed rabbit, pickled hyacinth bulbs, and the best pizza in the world. In the process she puts on 15 pounds, which should endear to pretty much everyone in the over-30 crowd.
A River Runs Through It
Norman Maclean, 1976
217 pp.
May 2007
On its surface, this beautiful memoir is about the intricacies of fly fishing and the two Montana brothers who fish the big western rivers.
Fishing devotees will revel in descriptions of the rhythm, angles, whip and whistle of the perfect cast. We even get a bit of fish psychology: a trout knows it's being tricked if the fly isn't set perfectly on the water.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon, 2003
240 pp.
April 2007
What's the world like in the mind of an autistic child? That's the question Mark Haddon explores in this funny, immensely readable book about an autistic English boy.
On page 1 Christopher Boone (15) finds his neighbor’s dog stabbed with a garden fork Over the next 119 pages, he attempts to solve the mystery of its murder. On page 120, he finds the answer; 101 pages later, the book ends. There are 45 drawings, 17 charts and graphs, 12 equations, 16 lists, and 1 photo. And that’s not counting the 3-3/4 page appendix. It took me 2:57:45 hours to finish the book.
Read more: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Review)
The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
336 pp.
March 2007
A wonderfully appealing coming-of-age story, The Secret Life of Bees is narrated by 14-year-old Lily Owens. Lily is the daughter of a South Carolina peach farmer, a spiteful, angry man, who blames her for her mother's death 10 years prior.
And so Lily runs away. Accompanied by her beloved African-American nanny, Rosaleen, she makes her way across the state, ending up in Turbon, South Carolina.