I’m reading We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Kim Myers at South Berwick Library recommended it to me when I was making the tough decision about which books to borrow from the library. It is not an easy book. It’s the story of a boy who commits a school massacre as told by his mother in letters. Shriver’s writing moves this beyond what I expected into a sensitive thought provoking exploration of maternal love, marriage, anger, blame, guilt, grief, and acceptance.
What are you reading?
I am reading “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan. It is the gripping fictionalized story of the extra-marital love affair of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Told from Mamah’s perspective, the story goes well beyond the details of a passionate love affair. Both Wright and Cheney are absorbed in their chosen fields. I have about 100 pages left and am pushing so hard to finish it, yet I know I’ll be sad when the last page is turned. Horan has put so much into the telling of this story. It makes me wonder whether it’s harder to write a story completely from scratch or to take a real-life scenario and infuse with imagined events and dialog while trying to stay true to the facts. I certainly hope that Nancy Horan won’t take too long between books. Back to my book………
I’m Reading “Boom” by Tom Brokal. It’s interesting to review some of my childhood memories as national history. There is also the underlying theme of: Was the 60′s revolution a good or a bad thing for our nation AND why did it fail? It’s all very compelling, but it’s also a bit depressing to have reached middle age without accomplishing nearly as much as the people presented in this book.
Of course that isn’t as depressing as being older then the Democratic Nominee for President! How many other diners out there are experiencing that phenomanon for the first time? Presidents are supposed to be wise old men (or women) not young whippersnappers!
I’m currently reading An Inconvenient Book, by Glenn Beck. Very funny, and another way of looking at the same old tired political issues.