THIRD CULTURE HOLIDAY READING 2007 This is the season for year-end lists of books in which the mainstream review media steer literate culture away from deep questions about how our world works and who we are and toward celebrations of narcissism, celebrity gossip, and literary cliques. John Brockman, editor and publisher at Edge, laments “that […]
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Milford, Nancy. Zelda: A BiographyNew York: Harper & Row, 1970Paperback, 426 pagesISBN 0-060-91069-0 They were among the most beautiful people of the Jazz Age: the dashing young writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his striking young bride Zelda. Fitzgerald christened the era the Jazz Age, and he made his wife its first Flapper. Zelda Sayre was
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Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, LoveNew York: Viking, 2006ISBN 978-07394-7418-1 Penguin Audiobooks, narrated by Elizabeth Gilbert Recommended After a very messy divorce, writer Elizabeth Gilbert found herself in a deep depression. With her publisher’s advance for the book she would write in her bank account, she set off on a year’s trip around the world in search
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Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical ThinkingNew York: Knopf, 2005ISBN 1-4000-4314-X HighBridge Audio, narrated by Barbara Caruso Highly Recommended On the evening of December 30, 2003, Joan Didion’s husband of 40 years, John Gregory Dunne, sat down to dinner in their apartment in New York City. Didion and Dunne had just come home from visiting their
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Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty: A FriendshipNew York: HarperCollins, 2004ISBN 0-06-057214-0 Harper Audio, narrated by Ann Patchett Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy both attended college at Sarah Lawrence at the same time, although they were not friends there. Ann tells us that at Sarah Lawrence everyone–students and faculty–knew Lucy as a tremendously talented poet. Everyone also knew
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Luskin, Fred. Forgive for GoodSan Francisco: HarperCollins, 2002Trade paperback, 240 pagesISBN 0-06-251721-X Highly Recommended This book changed my life. Extensive research has shown that forgiveness is good for us, both physically and emotionally. We can understand this intellectually. But, as most of us also know, it’s much harder to find forgiveness in our hearts. I
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Flynn, Sean. 3000 Degrees Warner, 2002Hardcover, 245 pagesISBN 0-446-52831-5 Recommended On December 3, 1999, six firemen died fighting a fire in an abandoned storage warehouse in Worcester, Massachusetts. 3000 Degrees tells the story of that fire, of the six who died and their families, and of several Worcester firefighters who survived that night. Like Sebastian Junger
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Flaherty, Alice W. The Midnight Disease Houghton Mifflin, 2004Hardcover, 307 pagesISBN 0-618-23065-3 Trained as a scientist, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty always enjoyed writing. But after the birth and death of premature twin boys, she had a mental breakdown that made her write nearly constantly, a condition known as hypergraphia. She took medication and was hospitalized for
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Review: Lucky: A Memoir Sebold, Alice. Lucky: A Memoir Scribner, 1999Hardcover, 251 pagesISBN 0-684-85782-0 Simon & Schuster Audio, narrated by Alice Sebold In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been
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Kidd, Sue Monk. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (1996) HarperCollins, 238 pages, $12.95 trade paperback ISBN 0-06-064589-X Highly Recommended Long before Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees hit the bestseller lists, Kidd was an established Christian inspirational writer and speaker. Then suddenly one day an incident involving her teenage daughter
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