Readers Blog
Dear Ascent Readers,
This space is all yours. Feel free to comment about the work you find at Ascent or whatever else you want to share here. The only rule is be polite. This is an open forum for all talk about new writing and new reading. Have fun!
W. Scott Olsen, editor.
(For now, each post is a stand-alone instead of hiding as a reply to a subject thread. We’ll see how that works out. Newest posts are on top.)
The last book I recommended was Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen. Great recommendations, all! Thanks!
Lawrence
Zoli by Colum McCann to my wife.
Ann Pancake, _Strange As This Weather Has Been_. I’m a great fan of this novel, since I grew up in Appalachia and find mountaintop removal mining Orwellian in its concept and its proportions, but I am also soooo engaged by all the characters. Each point of view is captivating, even if it is disturbing.
Check out: THE POSTHUMAN DADA GUIDE by Andre Codrescu. It is just fun to type DADA.
I usually rave about one book every few months, and right now, it’s The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. I’m also very high on A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr.
Maybe it’s something about authors with the first name Jonathan. Hmmm…
Usually, I’m immediately recommending Paul Gruchow and Tim Robinson (they’re nonfiction) with a vehemence not usually associated with books. But I recently read Mark Tredinnick’s book “The Blue Plateau,” about Australia, and right now he’s keeping company with Gruchow and Robinson for me.
Sometimes I hand a poetry writing friend a book and say, you should probably read this: most recently, Susan Goyette’s The True Names of Birds and Ruth Roach Pierson’s Aide-Memoire. When I go on at length in recommending a book, it is usually non-fiction: this month, The Prehistory of the Mind by Stephen Mithen – an attempt to infer something about evolutionary psychology through the archeological evidence – and The Long Summer by Brian Fagan – looking at the climate data of the past 15,000 years and speculating on the effect of climate change on history.
Right now, to anyone who will listen, I recommend MURDER CITY, by Charles Bowden. Of any nonfiction I have read on the US-Mexico border, this gives frightening perspective to the ongoing drug war in the northern Mexico borderlands, a conflict that has taken 25,000 lives in the last five years.
I recently recommended “The Elegence of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery (translated by Alison Anderson). It was the most moving book, emotionally and philosophically, that I had read in many years.
The last book(s) I recommended were older: A Fine and Private Place and The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle. This was a student who is into fantasy but who hasn’t read anything older than 2000 (except, of course, for Tolkien.
For pure pleasure, I keep urging Empire Falls on people, especially those who saw the movie — the book is, as always with Richard Russo.
I’ve been recommending Anne Carson’s NOX. I bought it with enthusiasm and then let it sit for a couple of months, as a quick examination found the first page was in Latin and the last, illegible. Picking it up last week in a fit of boredom, I got into it and found it a startlingly original, moving elegy, made up of bits and pieces of things, motifs, images. The first page was still in Latin but you can read the last one if you really try.
For nonfiction, I keep recommending Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma to my husband in hopes it will make him more aware of food sources (and keep him out of Mickey D’s).
For poetry, I recently reviewed and highly recommend Rachel Loden’s Dick of the Dead.
For fiction, I haven’t read anything current–I tend to buy my fiction at used bookstores–but the book that most recently impressed me is David Wroblewskis’ Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It has one of the best dog characters ever.
Dear Everyone,
Snapshot time–
What is the last book you recommended to someone else?
Why?
Scott
P.S. My answer: The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. If any part of you is from the Prairie, this is one of the most moving and frightening books you will read.