Keep Reading September 2018
Once again all the books I will talk about are from the Talking Book Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. I just mention this for my blind followers.
Well, I may have gone over the edge. I created a spread sheet of all the Pulitzer Prize winning books in the fiction category. I checked off the ones I can actually remember reading and now I will work my way through those that remain. You will certainly see some on this blog for the next year or so.
My first favorite book from September is The Town by Conrad Richter. This is a mid-20th century Pulitzer Prize winner. It is the last book in the Awakening Land Trilogy. This book stands well on its own but after you read it you will want to go back and read the Trees and the Fields, the first two books. The writing in this book is amazing. Although it is a bit like reading Faulkner with long descriptive sentences it carries you away to another time. A family settling in Ohio at the end of the 18th century sees the woods where they settle grow into a thriving town. In this book the family log cabin gives way to a mansion and some of the older family members struggle with the changes they have seen. I can only say I wish there was a fourth book.
Love and ruin, by Paula McLain is a new book about familiar people. Martha Gellhorn, who you may know as Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, was an accomplished journalist on her own. She was the only wife to leave him. She wrote about the Spanish Civil war and World War II. She got as close to battles as a woman could get. She also wrote several novels, one of which I have on my list to read in October.
March, by Geraldine Brooks, is the 2005 Pulitzer winner. Reverend March, the father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women Joins the army to become a Chaplin. He ends up teaching slave children to read. The character is based on the actual father in the book and Louisa May Alcott’s actual father. I am a sucker for Civil War books and this is a good one. The characters from Little Women pop in and out of this story.
Fear by Bob Woodward appeared on the NLS list shortly after it was released. I have been reading most of the White House related books that have been coming out in the last year or so. This is a good one. Mr. Woodward has written many books and he is a widely respected journalist. This is an easy read and I highly suggest it.