Maybe the best book ever written?

From the publisher:

Twitterature

The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

by ALEXANDER ACIMAN and EMMETT RENSIN

Perhaps while reading Shakespeare you've asked yourself, What exactly is Hamlet trying to tell me? Why must he mince words and muse in lyricism and, in short, whack about the shrub? But if the Prince of Denmark had a Twitter account and an iPhone, he could tell his story in real time—and concisely! Hence the genius of Twitterature.

Hatched in a dorm room at the brain trust that is the University of Chicago, Twitterature is a hilarious and irreverent re-imagining of the classics as a series of 140-character tweets from the protagonist. Providing a crash course in more than eighty of the world's best-known books, from Homer to Harry Potter, Virgil to Voltaire, Tolstoy to Twilight and Dante to The Da Vinci Code. it's the ultimate Cliff Notes. Because as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore?

Sample tweets:

From Hamlet: WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???

From the Harry Potter series: Oh man big tournament at my school this year!! PSYCHED! I hope nobody dies this year, and every year as if by clockwork.

From The Great Gatsby: Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast . . . IN THE POOL?

Can you guess which books the following tweets come from?

@AprilFools Oh and the Wyfe of Bathe. Talk about a woman who likes to be perced to the roote.

@MajorLeagueAesthole Sadly my beauty will one day cease. Perhaps I could preserve it by having the doc pull and staple the skin of my face? No. A silly thought.

@Eazy-B Uh oh. Grendel's mom showed up. She is really pissed. Wait. Monsters have feelings?

@HolyHaha I have to climb a mountain now? You got to be kidding me. Is this a joke? Who the hell came up with this story? VIIIRRRGGGILLLLLLLLLLL!

@OedipusGothplex WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???

@WhathappensinThebes PARTY IN THEBES!!!!! Nobody cares I killed that old dude, plus this woman is ALL OVER ME! Total MILF.

@bugged-out I seem to have transformed into a large bug. Has this ever happened to any of you? No solution on Web MD.

Temple Grandin TV?

I'm fascinated by Temple Grandin. I read Thinking in Pictures awhile ago and was impressed by this lady who grew up at a time when Autism was treated with lifetime institutionalization, seen as a product of poor parentage and/or parenting. Despite never really knowing what was "wrong" with her, why she moved through the world the way she did, Temple adjusted along the way. I remember passages about her sensitivities with being hugged or even touched by people, even her mother, which seemed to send loved ones even farther away from her. Her life seemed so lonely and confused, and yet she never shortchanged herself.

On February 6th HBO is airing a TV biopic of Temple's life, starring Claire Danes, who looks uncannily like Temple in the role. I'm looking forward to seeing it and I'm also thinking of re-reading Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation, books that still have my attention years later.

Here's the trailer for the movie:



Mandy

Linwood Barclay's New Video Has Local Appeal!

Here's a trailer for Linwood Barclay's Fear the Worst. His son directed the video and Nick Storring composed the music. Nick is the son of Grand Magazine editor, Kathy Storring. Nick and Bronwyn, from WWB, took cello lessons together when they were younger.

We hosted a great event with Linwood a few months back.

Paul Quarrington 1954-2010

My memories of Paul go back to 1993, but they're fuzzy. When I read Nino Ricci's tribute to him in last Saturday's Globe & Mail, I was further muddled: in my mind Nino reminds me of Paul - they're both tall man with swarthy good looks. But, thanks to Wendy Tutt at the Princess Cinema, I was able to piece together my encounter with Paul in 1993. He appeared with the Rheostatics including Dave Bidini for the movie, Whale Music, based on Paul's book.
Wendy wrote:

I think he had done a reading at the bookstore earlier in the day, hadn't he? John picked him up at the store (he was alone in the kid's book section, reading and quietly waiting for John.) Embarrassingly, in the excitement of a completely sold out show, we had forgotten to reserve seats for them, so we had to gather chairs and stools for them at the back, which is where they all sat and watched the movie together. After the movie, Paul and the Rheos did a Q & A with the audience. I think this was in December of 1993. It was a lot of fun. Paul was such an approachable guy. A lot of people hung around after the show, getting autographs and chatting. The Rheos were whisked off to Guelph to do a concert there, and you and Paul probably walked back to the store together! On a side note, John is thinking of screening Whale Music again in March, as a tribute to Paul.
to which I responded: He was a sweet guy. I think we talked about the movie and being a musician on the way back to the bookstore, including reference to his brother Joel, a classical bass player. What a loss.

Here's the Rheostatics playing for Paul last October, and Hockey Night in Canada's tribute. You can read Paul's cancer diary for the National Post here.

Chuck

Some Backlist Faves from Dave

Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta's tales of the underside of the suburban veneer never miss. His earlier work (Election, Little Children) are fine movies, but the books are much better.

Religious differences between a divorced mother and a reformed bad boy Evangelical play out in a girls' soccer league. Temptation, human frailty and redemption are in full flower here. Tom Perrotta is subtle, respectful, mischievous and just an all around peerless storyteller.




Deaf Sentence by David Lodge

David Lodge is as close to blue chip as modern novels get. His comedies of manners simply never miss. He has a veteran's eye for character and detail and a flair for dialogue.

Deaf Sentence involves a professor facing permanent hearing loss, a flagging libido and an elderly father newly back in his life.





You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

For someone who just wants to read something like the early John Irving all over again, Dan Chaon fits the bill very well.

The novel centers around two young men who cross paths in the American mid-West and discover a history from birth.

Chaon writes beautiful sentences and has absolute empathy for his characters. I'll read everything he writes.



Dave

Review of *The Planets* by Dava Sobel

Sobel offers intimate essays inspired by the planets in our solar system, which she describes as "an assortment of magic beans or precious gems in a little private cabinet of wonder--portable, evocative, and swirled in beauty." She frames each essay in a different light, using a particular planet as a stepping stone toward a discussion of larger issues. Her "Jupiter" essay becomes a meditation on astrology, while her essay on the Sun, which relates the actual birth of the universe seemingly ex nihilo, evokes the Genesis account of creation in both its themes and the cadence of its language.

Put simply, Sobel's conceits work (even, remarkably, the essay on Mars written from the persepctive of a Martian rock) because each beautifully frames its planet. An essay that begins with the story of Sobel's grandmother coming to the United States as an immigrant, for example, sets up the author's musings on the odd nature of Pluto as somewhere in between "planet" and "other."

This resonant and eclectic collection--informative, entertaining and poetic--is a joy to read.

Chris

Dave on Mo Hayder's *Pig Island*

Mo Hayder has always been a cult favourite and with Pig Island, she's finally making it big as a top notch scary-good thriller author.

She's confident, writes perfect dialogue, outgrosses the early Patricia Cornwell, and gets locales right no matter where her books are set. Pig Island concerns a professional sceptic who investigates a cult-like group on a desolate island off the Scottish coast, after a bit of amateur video shows a hideous creature trolling the beaches.

Everything she writes is brilliant, and she keeps getting better.

Read it already? Try Ritual by Mo Hayder. And here's why:




Dave

Review of *Ragged Islands* by Don Hannah

Ragged Islands is narrated by octogenarian Susan Ann as she lies dying in a Toronto hospital room in September 2001. Her son and daughter gather at her bedside but her mind is wandering back over her life, retracing her childhood on the Bay of Fundy to her home on an island off Nova Scotia's South Shore. She is accompanied at various times on this long mental trek by her childhood dog and her birth mother as a pregnant teenager. Susan Ann was given away at birth to live with her aunt and uncle, even though her siblings were not. She vowed that her own children would always feel wanted, but as they go through their divorces as adults, she wonders if she succeeded.

She also encounters her brother, who died in WWII, as a young man whose anger she cannot make sense of. Later she revisits raising her own family and remembers scenes of conflict and remorse between her late husband and her son. Meanwhile her son is going through her papers, finding dark pieces of her story.

Don Hannah has spun a deeply touching tale full of insight into family politics. It reminds me of the benefit of all great literature; as a mirror in which we face ourselves, evaluate our own lives and relationships, wonder about our own dying, and reconnect with the lives of loved ones. I was moved to tears several times by Susan Ann's story.

Chuck

Review of *Make Room Make Room* by Harry Harrison

While considered an SF classic, Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison could easily be considered a hard boiled crime novel and a work of ecological warning. First published in 1966 it is set in the year 1999 and New York City is home to 35 million hungry and thirsty, mostly homeless or squatting citizens. The Hudson River is packed with moored and teeming barges, cars rest permanently in parking lots and are considered prime real estate if you can fend off the competition. Everyone is on welfare; water and food shortages are frequent and increasing and only the connected and the wealthy have any comfort. Until one of the regular folk accidentally kills one of the connected folk in a botched robbery attempt.

This is the story of an overworked New York Police detective assigned to solve a murder case for political reasons that would normally be left in the ever increasing file of impossible-to-solve crimes. At its heart it is an environmental novel and a pro-choice novel. In Harrison's imagined future there is almost no technology to help save humanity, all our resources have gone trying to feed a populace that is still encumbered by the notion that abortion is wrong and the result is most of us living like animals with little or no hope.

For any fan of Noir fiction or dystopian literature, I definitely recommend this book.

Chris

Review of *Elizabeth and Mary* by Jane Dunn

Elizabeth and Mary is one of the best books I've read about either Elizabeth I or Mary Queen of Scots.

Not just a dual biography, Jane Dunn focuses on the relationship and long history between these ladies in order to explain their complex rivalry. Bookslut.com sums up the dramatic ending of their relationship by saying that only one of these powerful women could rule; there wasn't room for two women with such strong wills.

From Bookslut.com:

Dunn shows some of her strongest insight in these final chapters. She depicts Elizabeth as tortured by the prospect of committing regicide against a fellow female monarch, but recognizing the need to eliminate Mary as the embodiment of foreign Catholic threats. Mary is compassionately presented as a fallen woman, who in her desperation to cling to her destiny as uniter of Scotland and England resorted to wild intrigues when she could not obtain her desired audience with Elizabeth. Dunn prevents the tale from descending into maudlin stereotypes, showing with deft precision the unbearable situation in which these two queens found themselves - rivals even as they stood together as female monarchs, cousins who sought solidarity when the truth was that only one could survive.

It really is a great read, and accessible for those unfamiliar with Tudor history.

Jane Dunn has also written a biography of Mary Shelley and a joint history of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.

Already Read It?

You will also like The Children of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir. Or actually ANYTHING by Alison Weir!

Mandy

Review of *Goldengrove* by Francine Prose

For my money, Francine Prose is one of a handful of truly essential American novelists. She returns to YA territory here, although this is no garden variety coming-of-age tale.

After the sudden drowning of her older sister, Nico (hippie parents) drifts into a relationship with margaret's enigmatic and equally grief-stricken boyfriend. Set against the aftermath of 9/11, and the unease around the sudden ill health of the lake in the upstate New York setting, Goldengrove tells the poignant and increasingly creepy relationship that cements around shared grief. The age difference and pre-existing anxieties meld to make for a suspenseful and unsettling work from one of my favourite writers.

From an interview with Book Page:

Goldengrove, which takes its title from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, is, as Prose says, "different from any of my other books." Its humor is rarer and warmer and arises from how well Prose inhabits the body and psyche of her immensely appealing narrator, Nico, who is 13 years old during the tragic events of the summer she describes.

"Nico has a very lively mind," Prose says. "Getting her voice right was the hardest part of the novel. I wanted the language to be very elegant and very lyrical. But with a kind of raw emotion all the way through. That's a hard balancing act. It was also challenging to remember what it was like to be that age."

Prose, who is the mother of two adult sons and has recently become a grandmother, says, "I never had a daughter, but teenagers are teenagers, and I have spent a lot of my life around teenagers. My younger son has read the novel and he says 'God, you've ripped off everything about our family and put it in the book.' But no one except my kids and maybe my husband would think there's anything of our family life in this novel. This family is nothing like ours. Nothing. But being my kids, they assume the only way I could have found out there was such a thing as Grand Theft Auto was to have learned it from them, because I am so ignorant otherwise."

Dave

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

This was our top selling fiction book of 2009 due to being both the One Book One Community choice and the CBC's Canada Reads pick. Personally it's one of my top 10 favorite books of all time. And Lawrence Hill is one of the kindest gentleman that I have been lucky to meet. Harper Collins released an illustrated version of the book just before Christmas. It's gorgeus with an amazing collection of historical documents, paintings and more from that time period. Check out this video for more on the new release:

*Bread and Jam for Frances* by Russell Hoban

I adore the Frances books. Created by Russell Hoban and his wife Lillian in the 1960s, Frances has timeless appeal. In Bread and Jam for Frances, Frances the badger is a picky eater who eats bread with jam for breakfast, lunch, dinner (and anything in between) to the exclusion of all other things. Her clever parents oblige her until she becomes very sick of the same old, same old bread and jam and decides to branch out to spaghetti and meatballs. But the best darn thing about this book are the little tunes that Frances sings at meal-time, just out of adult earshot. Here is my favourite:

Poached eggs on toast, why do you shiver
With such a funny little quiver?

Or this one:

What do cutlets wear before they’re breaded?
Flannel nightgowns? Cowboy boots?
Furry jackets? Sailor suits?

Bread and Jam for Frances is a great book for 5-9 year olds, especially those with a discerning palate. Love it.

Erica

Game Change

MobyLives has the goods on the must have for the month.
I'm going to absolutely inhale this when it shows up.

Edwidge Danticat on Haiti

The Haitian novelist talks to NPR about her worry for her family.
"We fearfully are waiting for the sun to rise to see what emerges, and I'm terrified that it promised to be very grim indeed...It's the apocalypse for this small and often tried country."

The Canadian Red Cross link is here.

What Do I Take With Me?

Now that airlines are cracking down on what you can take in carry-on (or even if you can take carry-on) I'm a little unsure of how many books to pack for my upcoming trip to BC and California in a few weeks. So I've decided to bring two advance reading copies with me - this way if the book is taken away by security, I can still look forward to the books release to continue reading it. Thanks to our wonderful Random House sales rep, Tim, I am ready for my flight with two books that I am trying hard not to crack open before I leave.

The first is Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro. It is a dark comedy about disaster capitalism, cutthroat office politics, vicious sibling rivalry, hapless do-gooderism and the corporatization of water. Some time in the near future, Kainji Dam, the engineering marvel that is the pride of Nigeria, collapses, killing thousands of villagers. The Minister of Natural Resources can hardly believe his luck - now he can make a bid for the presidency. On the other side of the world, the grimly ambitious executive of a water company also sniffs an opportunity - to make her bosses happy by privatizing a major African river. Her sister, Barbara, who has never encountered a cause she wouldn't carry a placard for, joins forces with Femi Jegede, a charismatic Nigerian activist whose family was swept away in the disaster. Doing Dangerously Well hits the shelves sometime in May 2010.

The second book is Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor. Otter Lake is a sleepy little community, an Anishnaawbe Reserve buried somewhere deep in central Ontario. There are a few problems: Maggie Second, the chief of the community, is trying to settle a dispute over a plot of land that is to be added to the reserve and its uses. And her son, Virgil, is desperately trying to survive the boredom of his time at school - that is, when he bothers to show up for his classes. But most of all, neither Maggie nor Virgil can come to terms with the fact that Lillian Benojee, Maggie's mother, is on her deathbed. But then a mysterious and handsome white stranger named John - who for reasons unknown has many last names - arrives, riding a vintage 1954 Indian Chief motorcycle. Who he is, nobody knows, except for Lillian. When she summons him during her final farewells, she also charges him with a mission to help the people she loves the most, whom she is leaving behind. Maggie finds herself increasingly enamoured with the handsome young White man. Virgil, however, is less than enchanted, and finds the stranger far too mysterious and scary to allow him to hook up with his mother. With the help of his uncle, Wayne (who has sequestered himself on an isolated island for four years while developing an aboriginal martial art), they will try and drive the stranger from the reserve. You can read this in March 2010.

I'll let you know what I thought of the books AND if I was allowed to keep them when I return

- Bronwyn

Committed...

Before Oprah discovered Eat, Pray, Love, I read it and sold a few hundred copies of it in the store. My hardcover copy is covered in highlighter and underlines on almost every page. I think that Elizabeth Gilbert is a wise and witty writer.

SO I was very delighted to receive an advanced copy of her new book, Committed, in December. I have now passed that onto my brother and his fiancee so they can read it while they ready themselves for their commitment. I could relate to Gilbert's continued story in her new book because I went through similar immigration hassles when I met my husband in Ghana, Africa. Overall I found the book to have some extremely good advice for being in a marriage. My favorites are 1) when tensions are just beginning to rise in any given situation say to your spouse: "Let's just be careful right now" so that you can rein in your emotions and hopefully bring lightness back to the situation 2) page109, start of second paragraph is the most sensible advice for how to avoid an affair.

I think this is a valuable book whether you've been married for 20 years or will be next week. My only criticism is that it felt a little too long and bogged down in the history of marriage BUT this history was important to show how many expectations we place on our spouses and how this could really be the thing biting us in the end. - Bronwyn

Book Trailers... for Kids

Scholastic just sent me a great trailer for one of their new graphic novels

Missile Mouse by Jake Parker
Missile Mouse, secret agent for the Galactic Security Agency, is a risk taker and a rule breaker, which is why he’s in hot water at GSA headquarters. Then RIP, the Rogue Imperium of Planets, kidnaps a scientist who knows about the Star Crusher, a doomsday machine capable of destroying the entire universe.
Time to let loose the mouse!
Missile Mouse battles giant space slugs, corrupt agents, killer bugs, and a pair of shark-headed thugs to save the day (and the scientist!).

What is besides Chuck's bed?

Something about not working regular hours, perhaps you amass more books than the rest of the staff at Words Worth...

Here's just a taste of the books Chuck's got on the go:
1) When Nietszche Wept by Irvin Yalom - a might-have-happened novel about Freud's mentor trying out "talk therapy" with Friedrich Nietszche - who is therapist, who is patient?

2) Skin Boat - acts of faith & other navigations, by John Terpstra - why church matters

3) The Breakwater House, by Pascale Quiviger (GG winner for The Perfect Circle) - due out in Feb., a spooky story set in a beach house near Paris

4) Sum - forty tales from the afterlife, David Eagleman who is a neuroscientist - wildly varied scenarios about what might happen after death

PSA

A favourite of Words Worth Books is a new Dad, according to our Facebook feed.

You can help him afford diapers and have a hell of a good time by reading any of his books.

Half the Sky

I'm only half way through this book and I feel like my eyes are opened at every chapter on issues affecting women in "developing" countries. I think most of us are aware of the trafficking of people (mostly women and children) but with so many other issues stalking our media landscape, this slips into a forgotten corner. The authors are trying to bring these important issues back to the forefront. One idea that I am already impressed with is a solution to fighting terrorism: educate girls - most countries that breed terrorism are extremely patriarchal.

Here's what the jacket has to say:
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

I agree! Bronwyn

Someone had to say it

What happens when the reporters covering the e-device maelstrom get tired of covering the same story every day?
They try honesty for awhile.

"Publishing Perspectives editor Edward Nawotka has written an unusual editorial on all the CES chatter, and it's making the rounds on twitter. While the Web is buzzing with all the new devices debuting at CES, Nawotka says the devices we've got are good enough for the time being.
"I would argue that, at least for the time being, the devices that we already have are good enough for books in their present form. No, the e-ink screens on the Sony, Kindle and others are not great--the one on my iPod Touch is far better for reading--and the designs are merely 'adequate.' Yet to most people they suffice," writes Nawotka.
Yeah, but...that's no fun. Gimme gadgets.
He goes on to point out that much of what we'll see at CES will never come to market, and that even tablet PCs have actually been available for years, and "Despite its presence on the market for so long, the tablet PC has had little or no impact on the book business."

That ought to stop the train for about three seconds.
Sigh.

I'll see your misery and raise you a...

well I don't actually have anything. But apparently it's tough out there for agents, too.

One agent in the UK " blamed the downturn on the medium-term trend of publishers eschewing literary authors for celebrities: "Publishers' focus has been on celebrities, and most agents play very little,­ if any, role in that," she said. "I think we are at a turning point now. The search for good writing is still on in most of the world, and in some of England too."

These people have no idea how lucky they are.

The Value of Nothing

We welcomed Raj Patel to Waterloo a few years ago for this book, Stuffed and Staved. His next books looks just as important:

As retirement funds shrink, savings disappear and houses are foreclosed on, now is a good time to ask a question for which every human civilization has had an answer: why do things cost what they do? The Value of Nothing tracks down the reasons through history, philosophy, neuroscience and sociology, showing why prices are always at odds with the true value of the things that matter most to us. Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull sold for a record $100 million at auction. But if we account for the possibility that blood diamonds were used (as many suspect), the human cost is even greater. A Big Mac might seem like the best deal in these economic times, but after analyzing the energy to produce each burger, from field to Happy Meal, Patel argues the real price tag is a whopping $200. But it is easiest to see the gap between price and value by looking at things that are so-called free. Examining everything from Google to TV, from love to thoughts, The Value of Nothing reveals the hidden social consequences of our global culture of “freedom.”

Check it out

Want more? Check out Raj's blog here: http://rajpatel.org/

After the Falls

After the Falls should really be called After the Laughter!

Catherine Gildiner was at our first author event this Fall and she had the whole audience in stitches! Her books are no different. I read both reccently and my kids couldnt believe how much I was laughing! Or perhaps they couldnt believe that I wasn't laughing at them...

However if you need something light and funny to help through the winter doldrums, please pick up either of Gildiner's books:

Too Close to the Falls

Heartbreaking and wicked: a memoir of stunning beauty and remarkable grace. Improbable friendships and brushes with death. A schoolgirl affecting the course of aboriginal politics. Elvis and cocktails and Catholicism and the secrets buried deep beneath a place that may be another, undiscovered Love Canal – Lewiston, New York. Too Close to the Falls is an exquisite, haunting return, through time and memory, to the heart of Catherine Gildiner’s childhood.
And what a childhood it was…

After The Falls

Catherine Gildiner recounts her remarkable coming-of-age in the 1960s with the same wit, candour and exhilarating storytelling that has made Too Close to the Falls a modern classic.When Cathy McClure is thirteen years old, her parents make the bold decision to move to suburban Buffalo in hopes that it will help Cathy focus on her studies and stay out of trouble. But “normal” has never been Cathy’s forte, and leaving Niagara Falls and Catholic school behind does nothing to quell her spirited nature. As the 1960s dramatically unfold, Cathy takes on many personas — cheerleader, vandal, HoJo hostess, civil rights demonstrator — with the same gusto she exhibited as a child working split shifts in her father’s pharmacy. But when tragedy strikes, it is her role as daughter that proves to be most challenging.

(Bronwyn)

Missing Cutting for Stone...

Cutting for Stone was my book last Christmas. One of my favorite memories of that busy holiday was curling up in my bedroom and immersing myself in Abraham Verghese's words about twin brothers born into a family of doctors at a missionary hospital in Ethiopia. By the end of the day my husband hid the book on me so that I would do the dishes!

As holiday shopping became more frenzied in the bookstore this year I relished opportunities to search for the book that I would immerse myself into this Christmas... to no avail. Even though I read 4 books over the holidays, none of them were as good as Cutting For Stone!

Here's the jacket cover:
A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel — an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics — their passion for the same woman — that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an under funded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him — nearly destroying him — Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him. An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.

And my favorite review quote:
“Absolutely fantastic! Holy cow, this book should be a huge success. It has everything: nuns, conjoined twins, civil war, and medicine — I was thinking that if Vikram Seth and Oliver Sacks were to collaborate on a four-hour episode of Grey’s Anatomy set in Africa, they could only hope to come up with something this moving and entertaining…. A marvelous novel!”— Mark Salzman

(Bronwyn...)

this is a joke, right?

We're so freaked out by the dangers of air travel that we have to buy books at an airport bookstore now?
I'd rather be beaten to death by a copy of the Lost Symbol than read it, but still...

well when you're right, your're right

Do I really have to read James Patterson?
God, no.

Considering *The Unit* by Ninni Holmqvist

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist looks very interesting, in a Handmaid's Tale type of way:

One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised a nicely furnished apartment inside the Unit, where she will make new friends, enjoy the state of the art recreation facilities, and live the few remaining days of her life in comfort with people who are just like her. Here, women over the age of fifty and men over sixty–single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries–are sequestered for their final few years; they are considered outsiders. In the Unit they are expected to contribute themselves for drug and psychological testing, and ultimately donate their organs, little by little, until the final donation. Despite the ruthless nature of this practice, the ethos of this near-future society and the Unit is to take care of others, and Dorrit finds herself living under very pleasant conditions: well-housed, well-fed, and well-attended. She is resigned to her fate and discovers her days there to be rather consoling and peaceful. But when she meets a man inside the Unit and falls in love, the extraordinary becomes a reality and life suddenly turns unbearable. Dorrit is faced with compliance or escape, and…well, then what?

THE UNIT is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the “dispensable” ones are convinced under gentle coercion of the importance of sacrificing for the “necessary” ones. Ninni Holmqvist has created a debut novel of humor, sorrow, and rage about love, the close bonds of friendship, and about a cynical, utilitarian way of thinking disguised as care.

Ninni is from Sweden and this is her first novel.