fontawsome fontawsome fontawsome fontawsome
Subscribe
Main Menu
  • Bio
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • News & Awards
  • Resources
  • Media Kit
  • Contact

Some Sentences, July 2017 – Like daughter, like mother

July 27, 2017 Leave a Comment

July 27, 2017 – Every time I feel like a failure as a mom (100 percent of the time, right?), I remind myself that I have kids who read.

My daughter and I have especially similar tastes in books, and our conversations always include a check of what the other is reading, and a hard nudge for ideas for more. She’s far more organized than I, keeping a list of everything she reads. Every so often, I ask her to just send me her list, as a lazy way of creating a list of my own.

We’ve been on a roll this summer, discovering a new book we both love, and rediscovering an older one.

beartownI take credit for stumbling across Beartown, Fredrik Backman’s (A Man Called Ove) April release by Atria. I clicked on a whim, without knowing anything about it. Within hours of starting, I was on the phone to Kate

“Drop everything else and read this book right now.”

It’s about ice hockey, was all I’d tell her, this daughter who played ice hockey on a boys’ team in high school. Which, as anyone who’s read the book knows, is a wholly inadequate description. But to say more would have been to give too much away.

By the next day, she was calling me so that we could compare notes on what we’d read so far. Each of us loved it. Each of us hated to see it end – the ultimate measure of a great book.

fowlerAnd each of us felt bereft, the only cure for that being to read another good book. By happenstance, I went to my shelves and pulled one she’d recommended a long time ago, but that I’d never gotten around to reading: Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. (2013, Putnam’s)

A few pages in, another phone call. “This is fabulous. I love her writing, her protagonist.”

Kate just might have said, “I told you so.” But she also picked up the book again and is re-reading it, enjoying it just as much as she did the first time – another mark of a terrific book.

I’m nearly to the end, though, and badly spoiled by two great books in a row. Recommendations?

Tags: Reading, Some Sentences July 2017

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archives

Categories

Newsletter

Perché Italiano?

It's like asking, 'Why Write?' With shout-outs to Sicilian pastries and books by Kate Quinn, Elena Varvello and Gerald Brooks. Read article

Frozen feet - and fingers - challenge

Making habits; one-word resolution; cider muffins, and great reads from William Kent Krueger, Marco Missiroli, S.A. Cosby and Elizabeth Strout. Read article

Looking inward

Because it's too dark out there: On fighting the darkness with humor, some Italian treats, and great reads from Viola Ardone, Giuseppe Catozzella and Amy Lin Read article

News & Announcements

Book Launch for 'A Senior Citizen's Guide to Life on the Run

Library guest wrote the book on seniors Read article

Kirkus Reviews'A Senior Citizen's Guide to Life on the Run

Dark doings at a 'planned community' for 'active adults' Read article

Five Takeaways from 5E's Office Hours Session on Small Press Publishing

"Small Presses are not on the sidelines of the book business.
Read article

fontawsome fontawsome fontawsome fontawsome
© Copyright by Gwen Florio. Designed by My House of Design.