Not Oprah's Book Club: May 2008

Saturday, May 3, 2008

May 10th! Good People of New York

Greetings all!

Heck.

Anybody ever read Are you there God, It's me Margaret By Judy Blume? I've read it about three thousand times and after reading Good People I am tempted to be a big nerd and think out a comparative analysis of the two texts.

Obviously The Tempest is significant to this book. I saw the play when I was 8 with my grandma and Aunt Norma at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I remember nothing. I have it on my netflix cue- and hope to either watch it or at least read the cliff notes before or next meeting. Is there something with the parent/child relationships that parallels?

Finally - can one read a coming of age novel set in New York without thinking about Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye?

Read on and keep clever!

m

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

In his speech addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama said:
“In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!"

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her...Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible, and makes the reader only too glad to join the posse of friends and devotees who have the pleasure of listening in.” by Jennifer Egan
TIME MAGAZINE
“An engaging, intelligent and entertaining memoir…her account of her time in India is beautiful and honest and free of patchouli-scented obscurities.” by Lev Grossman
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Gilbert’s journey is full of mystical dreams, visions and uncanny coincidences…Yet for every ounce of self-absorption her classical New-Age journey demands, Gilbert is ready with an equal measure of intelligence, humor and self-deprecation…Gilbert’s wry, unfettered account of her extraordinary journey makes even the most cynical reader dare to dream of someday finding God deep within a meditation cave in India, or perhaps over a transcendent slice of pizza.” by Erika Schickel

“Every comic-book cliché in this witty, stunning debut is lovingly embraced, then turned inside out.” —Wired Magazine

“Imaginative and, at times, achingly real. . . . I mean it as the highest possible compliment when I say that it would make a damn good comic book.” —Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times Book Review

“A page-turning confrontation that's pure super-team suspense.” —The Onion

“It's safe to say, there's nothing in popular fiction quite like it.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“This witty debut novel is sure to please fans of Lethem and Chabon and remind you that smart prose can be as vivid as any graphic concoction.” —Playboy

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortenson, and acclaimed journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in central Asia. THREE CUPS OF TEA is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

"Gawande... manages to capture medicine in all of it's complex and chaotic glory, and to put it, still squirming with life, down on the page...with this book Gawande inspires all of us, doctor or not, to be better." Pauline Chen, The New York Times Book Review.

"This is a book about failure: How it happens, how we learn from it, and how we can do better. Although it's focus is medicine, its message is for everybody...it has already been described as a modern masterpiece- and so it it." Jeremy Lawrence, The Independent (UK).

Not Oprah's Book Club

Saturday, May 3, 2008

May 10th! Good People of New York

Burque Goodness

Reading List

March Selection

January Selection

November Selection

August Selection

Three Cups of Tea

July Selection

June Selection

May Book Selection

April selection

March Book Selection

Blog Archive