Saturday, October 3, 2009

October Book List

Post here any good reads for this lovely fall month.
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4 comments:

  1. MariannaOctober 3, 2009 at 7:12 PM

    Great idea, Leen! I'm afraid my reading for pleasure these (busy) days consists of a quick glance at the newspaper or a magazine before my eyelids droop closed and I gratefully tumble into bed. So, as I am unable to help with book titles, I thought my contribution could be to post the following bestseller list from the New York Times for this week:

    1 THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday, $29.95.) Robert Langdon among the Masons.

    2 AN ECHO IN THE BONE, by Diana Gabaldon. (Delacorte, $30.) Jamie Fraser and his time-traveling wife, Claire, encounter pirates on the high seas; the seventh Outlander novel.

    3 THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love.

    4 THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s ­Mississippi.

    5 HOTHOUSE ORCHID, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam, $25.95.) A C.I.A. special agent finds that much has changed, and not for the better, when she returns to her Florida hometown. 1
    6 SOUTH OF BROAD, by Pat Conroy. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $29.95.) An unlikely group’s friendship from the ’60s to the ’80s, by the author of "The Prince of Tides."

    7 ALEX CROSS’S ‘TRIAL’, by James Patterson and Richard DiLallo. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) The detective Alex Cross writes a novel about his great-uncle, who fought the Klan.

    8 THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD, by Margaret Atwood. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.95.) In a violent future society, survivors of a catastrophic pandemic make their way.

    9 HARDBALL, by Sara Paretsky. (Putnam, $26.95.) Searching for an old woman’s missing son, V. I. Warshawski, the Chicago private investigator, is plunged into the politics of the 1960s.

    10* SPARTAN GOLD, by Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood. (Putnam, $26.96.) Husband-and-wife treasure hunters search for bottles of wine from Napoleon’s “lost cellar.”

    11 A CHANGE IN ALTITUDE, by Anita Shreve. (Little, Brown, $26.99.) A young woman’s life is transformed by a mountain-climbing accident in Kenya.

    12 DEAD AND GONE, by Charlaine Harris. (Ace, $25.95.) Sookie Stackhouse searches for the killer of a werepanther.

    13 THE LOST ART OF GRATITUDE, by Alexander McCall Smith. (Pantheon, $23.95.) Edinburgh’s Isabel Dalhousie in the sixth Sunday Philosophy Club novel.

    14* THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $25.95.) A Swedish hacker becomes a murder suspect.

    15 MAMA DEAREST, by E. Lynn Harris. (Pocket Books/Karen Hunter, $25.99.) A woman tries to derail her daughter’s entertainment career.

    16 BLOOD'S A ROVER, by James Ellroy (Knopf)

    17 THE WHITE QUEEN, by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster)

    18 HOMER & LANGLEY, by E. L. Doctorow (Random House)

    19 THE BRUTAL TELLING, by Louise Penny (Minotaur)

    20 A GATE AT THE STAIRS, by Lorrie Moore (Knopf)

    21 THE HOST, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown)

    22 DARK SLAYER, by Christine Feehan (Berkley)

    23 THE ELEVENTH VICTIM, by Nancy Grace (Hyperion)

    24 DEXTER BY DESIGN, by Jeff Lindsay (Doubleday)

    25 206 BONES, by Kathy Reichs (Scribner)

    26 THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC, by Richard Russo (Knopf)

    27 THE WAR AFTER ARMAGEDDON, by Ralph Peters (Forge)

    28 NO TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE, by Jacquelyn Mitchard (Random House)

    29 PILGRIMS, by Garrison Keillor (Viking)

    30 THE LAW OF NINES, by Terry Goodkind (Putnam)

    31 LOVE AND SUMMER, by William Trevor (Viking)

    32 NOCTURNES, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf)

    33 THE DAY THE FALLS STOOD STILL, by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Voice)

    34 SHANGHAI GIRLS, by Lisa See (Random House)

    35 A SEPARATE COUNTRY, by Robert Hicks (Grand Central)

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  2. MariannaOctober 3, 2009 at 8:15 PM

    Celebrating 'Banned Books Week'
    by Keith Staskiewicz
    Entertainment Weekly magazine

    Today marks the end of Banned Books Week, as designated by the American Library Association, a week of reflection on and resistance to all forms of censorship, expurgation, and bowdlerization. The ALA’s list of “Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008” saw some titles mercifully drop from its ranks, including classics like The Color Purple and the perennially misread The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

    Moving up two spots to No. 2 is Philip Pullman’s atheistically inclined His Dark Materials trilogy, undoubtedly given a bump since the release of the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass, the first entry in the series. The list cites “political viewpoint” and “religious viewpoint” as two of the primary reasons given by those challenging the trilogy, although personally I never understood all the hubbub. In my mind, His Dark Materials and the Narnia series kind of cancel each other out in a school library. Just give a kid both and let her figure out which ham-handed talking allegory she prefers: lions or polar bears.

    Politicized animals really do appear to have gotten people’s dander up, as can be seen by the fact that no less than two titles on the list (No. 1 and 8, respectively) are picture books about cute critters in gay families. The most challenged book, And Tango Makes Three, features two male penguins finding love and raising a chick together, a tale that’s not too far from reality. This is Tango’s third year topping the list, and also for the third time, authors Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell participated this week in a reading organized by the ALA’s Chicago office.

    It’s nothing new to have highly visible political and social issues play out in our children’s plastic bookcases. I remember that my middle school had a copy of the 1967 educational edition of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 edited for profanity and, I guess, irony. And I definitely remember the school board’s resigned sighs in the face of a panel of bored housewives unwilling to bestow this book or that with their suburban imprimatur. To honor the end of this year’s Banned Books Week, tell us some of your most memorable banned book experiences.

    Do you have any favorite controversial titles?

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  3. april in parisOctober 6, 2009 at 5:08 PM

    Books, books...my favorite topic :-)

    From that bestseller list, I have:
    #1 Lost Symbol on my coffee table, waiting for me to finish the other 10 I'm working on, to get read. If anyone here finishes it first, please don't give anything away till I get to it.I have been waiting for this one a long time....
    #2 I don't have this and won't. I read Outlander and enjoyed it...but later books became very repetitive, and I find her language ponderous. I realize that some people like that heavy, arcane, Victorian style...but let's face it, the Victorians did it because they were paid by the word, NOT because it's good quality writing.
    #3 A new Nicholas Sparks...I will probably read it, as I do most of his books, when it's on the $1 table next year. I find his books beautiful, when you're in the mood for a combination of super saccharine sweetness and heart-wrenching sobs. (Think: An Affair to Remember.)He is the absolute master of this and we all love it; at the right time. But his book, The Notebook, is in my view his best work (the book, not the movie).
    #4 The Help...Ahhh! One I began on my Kindle (you can download the first few chapters for free) and absolutely fell in love with! Awesome isn't good enough...I highly recommend this book about the tensions between middle-class white women and their African-American servants in the time just before civil rights South (50's, 60's?). Sort of an American Upstairs/Downstairs with a lot of racial tension thrown in as well as prejudice between classes.
    #8 The Year of the Flood, by her sublimeness, Canada's premiere woman of letters, Margaret Atwood. This one I am getting added to my Kindle post-haste. It sounds awesome. If you haven't read her book, The Handmaid's Tale, you should; harrowing, scary, and all too close to the direction I felt the US was heading towards the last 8 years, and who knows? we may still end up there. If we do, I'm moving to join all of you sisters in Canada :-)
    #14 This book just came out. The previous book, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo has had people raving all year. I love a good mystery and the author is Swedish (I'm half) and placed it in Sweden, so I figured I'd buy it someday. That day came last week at an awesome price (teacher fall discount week at Border's) and looking at a few pages, I can tell you I can't wait to read it. This second one will have to stand in line for another year or so, I'm afraid. A sad thing about this author; after a pretty regular life (while writing these jewels in his spare time for years--three books in total) he turned in all his manuscripts and...died! He was our age. And the books have made him a millionaire after the fact; at least his family is taken care of...but how sad!

    Okay...there's my 2 cents...just for now, of course :-)

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  4. MariannaOctober 11, 2009 at 9:33 PM

    Thanks for that, Nadya! I now must read The Help. I absolutely LOVED the BBC TV show "Upstairs, Downstairs". It ended too soon for me.

    I have the feeling that it'll take the Christmas holidays for me to be able to catch up on my reading (late at night, in bed, when I should be sleeping and by the fire on the couch with a quilt when I should be cleaning the house or wrapping presents!)

    Only a couple of months away...

    M.

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