Diane Setterfield: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
A fat, Gothic novel full of ghosts and mysteries and lots and lots of plot. Yowza. Get yourself to the library now!
Kathleen Kent: The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel
It's such a cliché to say a book is heartbreaking. This is a story of a 9-year-old girl and her mother, imprisoned during the Salem witch trials. Finding a place in your family, in your community, in your own heart, seems like it ought to be simple, automatic even, but this girl's struggle cut right to the middle of me.
Simonetta Agnello Hornby: The Almond Picker: A Novel
What if the main character died on--or even before--the very first page? And everything you learned about her came second-hand, through the voices and memories of the people who knew her? And few of them knew her well enough to say or remember anything true? Well, you'd have a lovely mystery on your hands. And a compelling look at the human tendency to create reality instead of witnessing it.
Amy Bloom: Away: A Novel
I love a fat, 500-page novel with an eloquent, omniscient narrator who can see so far into all the character's futures that I'm left with no worries, only peace, at the end. This novel is pretty much everything I ever wanted, and it's not even 250 pages long. You'll be riveted. It'll take you three days, max.
Tracy Kidder: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
It's so hard not to look away from pain and suffering and poverty. Paul Farmer does not look away. He's right there, fighting on the losing side, because it's the right thing to do. I'm glad I read this at the start of the holiday season. I need the perspective.
Luis Alberto Urrea: The Hummingbird's Daughter
The first book for the new book-club year. I started early because it's a nice thick book, and I often have a hard time getting a whole book read in a month (so sad), but then I read it all in about four days. It's fabulous. Makes Mexico seem like it has a magic, majestic soul.
Dodie Smith: I Capture the Castle
How did I manage to check this out of the library at the same time as Cold Comfort Farm? I must have seen them recommended together somewhere. Turns out, this is exactly the sort of novel CCF is spoofing. Happily, I'm enjoying it anyway. If you get a wild hair to read both of these, do read CCF first.
Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm (Oxford Bookworms Library)
I'd never read any of the genre of novels that this book is meant to spoof, but I enjoyed it immensely anyway. It was especially fun to read semi-aloud in my horrific British accent. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that my edition had awful cover art. I like this cow so much better.
Charles de Lint: Widdershins (Newford)
If you liked Neil Gaiman's American Gods, give this one a try. I liked them both, and think I need to check out The Onion Girl which is evidently the beginning of these characters' stories.
Lauren Groff: The Monsters of Templeton
If this book had sprouted an extra head or a bunch of tentacles while I was reading, thereby assuring that there would have been even more to read, I would have been ecstatic. This is a really good one!
Philippa Gregory: The Other Boleyn Girl
Fiction is definitely my preferred means of learning about history--that's awful, I know, but it seems marginally better than movies, yes? This book is great: very informative with plenty of um, well, OK, sex.... Sex makes history more interesting, don't you think?
Neil Gaiman: American Gods
I'm just a little way into this book and it's so mesmerizing--like watching a big spider weaving an impossible web. I can't wait to get back to it.
Jim Fergus: One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
A crazy, beautiful, utterly doomed solution to a problem that likely couldn't have been fixed any way at all. There are so many characters with so many conflicting opinions--all right, all wrong, all so human. I loved this book.
Lisa See: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel
I was mesmerized by this novel. The setting is so rich and the story so sharp. I'm not sure I can forgive the narrator, but I can definitely identify with her. Everyone has something to be ashamed of, don't they? Also, compared to foot-binding, high heels seem pretty inconsequential....
Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
I've said before that I'm not the gardener in this family, and I'm afraid I have that lifelong fear of dirt that Kingsolver disdains, but I've never read anything before that made me want to grow all my own food. And raise chickens. And maybe cows. Goats, too...
Michael Malone: Dingley Falls
I woke up one morning last week to hear Nancy Pearl on NPR say that she's been rereading this book every two years since it was first published in 1980. That's a recommendation I'm willing to take, and I'm loving this town and (almost) all of its inhabitants. Malone's narrator is removed but very tender, and all of these folks seem very, very real.
Joss Whedon: Fray
Shocked, I am shocked to find myself recommending a comic book, but here's the thing: I loved it. It even made me cry a little. If you loved Buffy and Angel, read this.
Erin Hart: Haunted Ground: A Novel
A moody, modern-day archaeological mystery set in Ireland and populated with creative people--singers, musicians, painters, even a weaver who dyes her own wools. There are several storylines going all at once which keeps it interesting, and while some of the details are gruesome, it's never a scary book.
Ingrid Hill: Ursula, Under
This is so good, I almost can't stand to read it, because I know the more I read, the sooner it's going to be over. I'm going slow on purpose. And if you see me crying or laughing or grinning like a crazy person on the bus, this book is totally why.
Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex: A Novel
Wow. This is a great book. You'd think that the narrator would resent his incredibly inbred family (grandparents are siblings; parents are cousins) for the compounded genetic mutations that result in his hermaphroditism. Instead, he's unfailingly warm, affectionate and empathetic. I couldn't help but love every character. But damned if I could figure out why his older brother is named Chapter Eleven...
Have you ever read Hogfather by Terry Pratchett? That book has an interesting take on the Tooth Fairy.. and Christmas, and Death for that matter. Oh, and I also like its take on childcare, nannies, and the monsters that frighten children.
Anyway, yes. I think the Toothfairy would have to have a bit of feral-ness to her. Maybe she has a fairy crown of molars.
Posted by: h. | September 22, 2008 at 10:44 PM
I think I have almost all of my older son's teeth, but so many of sweet Beatrice's were lost. Either by her or in bed. Those baby teeth are just so tiny.
Posted by: Sonya | September 23, 2008 at 12:22 PM
This is a milestone. The loss of my boys' baby teeth coincided with their transition from sweet little boys into independent big boys. Their permanent teeth were big, so they had to be too. It was bittersweet, as all growth markers are.
Posted by: dana | September 23, 2008 at 09:27 PM
How awesome! We just lost our first tooth last weekend. I finally had to pull it out because she was so worried it would come out and she would lose it at school. We had a discussion on how much the tooth fairy usually leaves, and I had to talk her down from $1,000. Where did she get that from? And to think I thought I was rich with a quarter.
Posted by: Niki | September 27, 2008 at 07:37 PM