[Finished 7/28/14] This weighty novel took a long time to finish (especially because it was way too big to lug with me on RAGBRAI) but overall, I found it fascinating and gripping, even as I noted some of the moments that felt like a “glorious mess,” particularly the ending. Donna Tartt tells the story of Theo Decker and his life reads like a Dickens’s story translated to the 21st century. A twist of fate finds Theo and his mom at a New York museum just […]
Charlie Brown Grows Up and Moves to Canada
This 1993 novel won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize and was turned into a movie. The Shipping News is the story of a man named Quoyle over the course of a few eventful, transformative years of his life. Proulx’s unique writing style combines poetry and humor to create characters who might be from a folk tale or might be your next door neighbor. Hive spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramps, he survived childhood….” Quoyle is a lot like Charlie Brown […]
The More Things Change …
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1994, this history of the Roosevelts and the home front from 1939 until FDR’s death in 1945 is a meticulously researched and engaging look at both the inner workings of the White House and the changing landscape of the US economy and society during World War II. Both the Roosevelts and the American public showed themselves to be extraordinarily brilliant and sometimes terribly flawed at a critical moment in world history. Goodwin did extensive research on her […]