Book Recommendations
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
A New York Times and Amazon "best book" of 2007, Out Stealing Horses is the story of a man who moves away from society only to find himself caught
up in memories of the summer when his life turned round. Going out stealing
horses was only the beginning. This is a luminous tale, beautifully wrought by
an award-winning Norwegian writer. The setting is so powerfully depicted that
is almost becomes a character in the novel. The
New Yorker review said, "Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing force, and the narrative gains
further power from the artful interplay of Trond
’s childhood and adult perspectives. Loss is conveyed with all the intensity of a
boy
’s perception, but acquires new resonance in the brooding consciousness of the
older man.".
So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
This is an amazing short novel that I’ve just discovered and that I think would be a marvelous addition to any 10th or
12th grade curriculum looking to add a novel by an African author. The
“letter” referred to in the title is a series of reminiscences by a Senegalese
schoolteacher
– and mother of 12 – whose husband has taken a second wife, a teenage friend of her daughter's.
While sanctioned by Islam, his action is a betrayal of her trust and a denial
of their life together. The novella provides a window into another culture and
at the same time a picture of inner lives not so different from our own.
Someone to Run With by David Grossman
The teenage characters in David Grossman's novel are running through
contemporary Jerusalem ostensibly after a dog and away from bad guys but in the
tradition of fine literature, in search of great expectations. What they find
in the course of their odyssey is their own humanity. As the New Yorker review
describes, "Grossman evokes teen-age nobility and self-hatred in all its pimply
particularity, while slyly suggesting that the arduous quest for connections
should never be outgrown."
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Based upon a true story, People of the Book retraces the history of one of the
earliest Jewish illuminated manuscripts. In the hands of a 30-year-old
rare-book expert in Sarajevo in 1996, the volume offers up to her astute care
clues to its turbulent past and miraculous survival. Part mystery, part love
story, part history, Brook's narrative is skillfully woven together to provide
a thoroughly captivating read. I particularly love the way the ancient
manuscript continued to bring people of many cultures and religions together.
