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Who is Reading What?
A Celebrity Reading List: 2004
DEAR READERS,
This is the sixteenth annual Who Reads What? list, offering a wide selection of interesting reading: novels, classics, biographies, a play and a children's book. This year we have a duplicate selection. Sutton Foster and Jeri Ryan both like "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving.
Author Laura Lippman makes an interesting comparison between her two selections, Nabokov's "Lolita" and Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Newscaster Brian Williams finds Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time" to be "especially useful as a way of putting our current culture and lifestyle in perspective." Former British Prime Minister John Major's choice is the excellent Pallister series of six novels by Anthony Trollope.
Gardiner, Maine is a tiny community of 6,198 people. Our library also serves several nearby towns.
The Gardiner Public Library staff and volunteers are pleased to compile this list each year to help promote reading. We hope you will enjoy the selections.
Sincerely,
Glenna Nowell,
Editor"Who Reads What?"
Name |
Book(s) and Author(s) |
Comments |
|---|---|---|
| James Lee Burke Mystery Writer |
The Sound and Fury
by William Faulkner
Mildred Pierce by James Cain
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams |
I believe the best novel in American literature is "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. I believe the best crime novel may be "Mildred Pierce" by James M. Cain. My favorite play is "Streetcar Named Desire" and I think our most lyrical novelists are John Cheever and F. Scott Fitzgerald. |
Ship of Fools and by Katherine Anne Porter
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote
Goodbye to a River by John Graves
Mornings on Horseback and other biographies by David McCullough
Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
My Antonia and Death Comes to an Archbishop by Willa Cather
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy |
On behalf of Mrs. Bush, I would like to thank you for writing. We appreciate your request for Mrs. Bush's favorite book. Enclosed is her recommended reading list for all ages. Mrs. Bush sends her best wishes Sincerely, Sydney R. Johnson Directory of Correspondence for Mrs. Bush Click link for complete booklist including Recommended Family Reading |
|
Train by Pete Dexter |
With his new novel, Pete Dexter has figured out a new way to write fiction. No introductory set-ups, no scene-setting - just pure unblinking action and always the scent of danger. |
|
The Sot-weed Factor by John Barth |
I recommend "The Sot-Weed Factor" by John Barth. I've read it four or five times, and am always amazed by its insights and its humor. It's a great American novel. It tells the real story of the origins of our country better than any history book. |
|
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett |
My comfort read is Terry Pratchett. It's hard to choose just one, but pretty much anything with Vimes, Susan, or Death does it for me: "Feet of Clay", "The Thief of Time", "Night Watch", "The Truth", "Hogsfather", all of them. And then there's "Small Gods" and "Pyramids" and . . . I really love Terry Pratchett. I have to pick one? "Feet of Clay". It was the first one I read, and I was so amazed by it, I read it all over again the next day. | |
The Once and Future King by T.H. White. |
||
The Tale of the Fierce, Bad Rabbit by Beatrix Potter |
"The Tale of the Fierce Bad Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter. This is the shortest thriller ever written. In just 142 words it has suspense, crime, gunplay, and retributive justice. I read it to my children when they were small, and now I read it to my grandchildren. | |
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving |
Incredible author Incredible story |
|
Independent People by Halldór Laxness
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead |
Two under-appreciated twentieth-century masterpieces |
|
Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy |
||
|
Congressman from New York |
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng |
|
Letter from Home by Carolyn Hart |
My favorite recent book is "Letter from Home" by Carolyn Hart |
|
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith |
My favorite books are "Lolita" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". It's an odd pairing, I admit. In fact, it raises the rather creepy specter of Humbert Humbert spying on Francie Nolan. (Who was, as "Tree's" fans will remember, accosted by a pedophile that Francie's quick-witted mother shot.) I think "Tree" is a universal novel that doesn't quite get its due because the main character is a girl. And I think "Lolita", too is a universal novel, although we wish it weren't. One is a classic coming-of-age story. The other is a brilliant achievement in style, story and language. I'd go so far as to call it one of the greatest love stories ever written. The fact that the love at its core is solipsistic and wrong, by almost any society's standards, doesn't make it any less a love story, not in Humbert's mind. That's what makes it such a great book, in part. We are all capable of the obsessions that compel Humbert, and the rationalizations he makes in order to pursue them. We just may not act on them. And most of us certainly cannot write about them as Nabokov did. |
|
The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope |
I first read the Palliser novels many years ago and have returned to them again and again. They are a superb depiction of Victorian political life and a delightful read. The characterisation of Phineas Finn, an ambitious, young, Irish politician, and other characters - especially Lady Laura Standish and Madame Max Goesler - are quite outstanding. Trollope is one of the great storytellers of British literature and the human emotions that lie behind the actions of his Victorian characters are as relevant today as they were when first he wrote them. |
|
| Rod Paige U.S. Secretary of Education |
The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell Good to Great by Jim Collins |
|
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley |
An African-American noir thriller - It doesn't get any better! |
|
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving |
||
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury |
When I was ten, I discovered the works of Ray Bradbury, and they changed my life. They turned me into a reader. This book is a wonderful recreation of a time and place - small town life that is all but forgotten. |
|
The Wisdom of Crocodiles by Paul Hoffman |
The reputations of the masters need no boost from me - so my palm goes to Paul Hoffman's contemporary masterpiece. It's his only book but there's a lot in it. |
|
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin |
Especially useful as a way of putting our current culture and lifestyle in perspective. |
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