For starters, the first page and the opening lines were so startling that it
would have been impossible not to turn the page. And it begins with a focus on
a pre-adolescent girl; I always think when I encounter such protagonists: these
are my people.
I was such a girl myself once. I raised daughters. I write
for adolescents. When I encounter such a voice, I settle in and enter that
world.
And the world of this book is
one that was foreign to me. I’ve never been to India, never much wondered about
life there. But Verghese creates the
world with such sound and color and mystery and magic that I entered it
completely. Added to that is the
pervasive plot element of the practice of medicine and how it affects culture and generations.
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY
From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret
“One of the best books I’ve read in my entire life. It’s epic. It’s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!”—Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com
The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of…
I’ve loved most of MacEwan’s books over the years, so I was delighted when
a new one appeared and undaunted by its size (close to 500 pages). And it has a
fabulous jacket; I’m always influenced by the jacket (book designers take
note!).
It starts with the
adolescence of the protagonist, Roland (my people,I thought once
again), and the incident (okay, spoiler: sexual abuse) that propels him through
his life… and the book’s plot.
The plot! Why do people make these decisions? I
found myself thinking as first, Roland, and then later, his wife, make choices
that had me wanting to call warnings to them. And yet…. it unfolds. Explains.
Forgives. And all of it is set against the unexplainable recent history of our
world.
Discover the Sunday Times bestselling new novel from Ian McEwan.
Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers.
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son. Her disappearance sparks of journey of…
I loved Emma Donahue’s book Room some years back, but when I
picked up this one, Haven, and read a description about three Irish monks in
the 7th century, I almost put it back down. Yet it captured me on page one.
Three guys of different ages and very different personalities, driven by different motives, and
there they are together throughout the book in an isolated, perilous place,
figuring out how to survive.
I was absolutely awed by the research she must
have done. It is not a long book (compared to my other two choices), but when I
closed it at the end, I pondered the ending for a very, very long time.
In this beautiful story of adventure and survival from the New York Times bestselling author of Room, three men vow to leave the world behind them as they set out in a small boat for an island their leader has seen in a dream, with only faith to guide them.
In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the…
A
unique mixture of non-fiction, fiction, and—what should I call it? A personal essay, I guess—The Windeby Puzzle is an account of the finding and
anthropological examination of the body of an adolescent whose
two-thousand-year-old remains were discovered in a European peat bog.
Based on
the available information, it then tells the story (and actually tells it twice, with
different info each time) of how this unfortunate teenager may have lived and
died.
Interspersed throughout the book are my diary-like musings explaining how
I did the research, turned history into a story, and why the reader
should care.
