The Big Pictures: Best Gift Books 2008 : NPR:
NPR (National Public Radio) weighs in with some gift suggestions, with the following warning: “A few of the gorgeous tomes below tip into the 20-pound range, so to give you a sense of what you might be lugging and/or mailing, we’ve included the physical attributes of each title.”
Best nonfiction books of 2008 | csmonitor.com:
The Christian Science Monitor offers its gift-giving guide to nonfiction.
Just as holiday decorations appear earlier and earlier every year, The New York Times is getting an early start on making its gift-giving suggestions. So, with all proper fanfare, here are some of its lists:
This is the first page of a multi-page listing of books in the categories of fiction & poetry, and nonfiction.
Notable Children’s Books of 2008
This short list includes at least something for all ages.
Holiday Gift Guide: Books That Tower Above the Rest
Here Times book reviewers Janet Maslin and Michiko Kakutani offer their “10-Favorites lists of books that we enjoyed enough to buy for friends.”
‘State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America’ is an intriguing collection of essays and snapshots on the 50 states as seen through the eyes of 50 writers.
In a modern update of the series referred to in the previous post, Jeffrey Burke reviews the book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey.
Weiland’s preface helpfully defines the intent: “a road trip in book form,” written by “our finest novelists and reporters.” Wilsey then goes on for 13 pages about a road trip he made in 2002 and makes no attempt to connect explicitly to the book’s mission. It’s a perfect warmup for the motley assemblage that follows.
Burke passes out several awards in the process of highlighting the eccentricities in this book–all of which make the book look like one well worth reading.
Books | A list of 40 upcoming fiction and nonfiction books | Seattle Times Newspaper:
Just in time to distract you from all the election mud-slinging comes this list, from the Seattle Times, of books being published this fall.
Book Recommendations: The Books That Changed Your Lives
Here’s an interesting post for readers. Late last week the folks at Lifehacker asked readers to post about the books that have changed their lives. In this post they compile the top vote-getters. (Warning: One commenter said that the summaries give away too many plot points about the books, so read at your own peril.)
For the number of hits the site has, the highest total number of votes (25) seems quite small. Why do you suppose that is? Are most people reluctant to post an answer for some good reason that escapes me? Or have most people simply not had the experience of reading a book that changed their life?
Post answers to this question or your own vote for a life-changing work of literature in the comments below.
(I have a couple of favorite, life-changing books, which you can read about on Notes in the Margin’s FAQ page.)
50 States of Literature: Heading On Down to Colorado | Columbia Spectator
The Columbia Spectator cruises into Colorado with Kent Haruf’s novel Plainsong:
Here, patches of snow sit among blue mounds of sandhill and dead sunflowers drop their loaded heads onto the black-top roads. In this atmosphere we find a land at once modernized and rural, brisk and dusty, where ice clings to the edge of sand-colored mountains.
50 States of Literature: Georgia On Our Minds | Columbia Spectator
Tayari Jones’ debut, Leaving Atlanta, is set during the 1979 Atlanta Child Murders, at which time a total of 29 black children were killed. Three kids tell their stories: Tasha, struggling daily to stay in favor with her friends, Rodney, branded as too soft and different to be accepted, and Octavia, whose dark skin earns her the nickname “Watusi” and makes her a pariah. The three struggle to comprehend their classmates’ disappearances while dealing with the everyday, from divorce and first crushes to unraveling what grown-ups mean by “the truth.”
Four quite different memoirists help to prove the vitality of the literary form
John Marshall, book critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, briefly discusses four memoirs that “demonstrate the genre’s vitality and variety.” The four cover very different subjects:
50 States of Literature: Exploring in Maryland | Columbia Spectator
Columbia Spectator’s 50 States of Literature series continues with Anne Tyler’s novel A Patchwork Planet, where the main character, Barnaby Gaitlin, lives just outside of Baltimore:
The quiet neighborhood outside of Baltimore serves to nestle Barnaby with its “big, tall spruce trees” and “damp, chilly feel” that leaves a permanent mist on car windows. More so than the land itself, however, the northeast crispness of Baltimore attitude, which leaves characters like Barnaby’s clients more satisfyingly prickly than cuddly, serves as the perfect setting for the struggles of a promising loser.
Like all of Tyler’s novels, this one is character driven and delightful in a quirky way.