No? Why not?
We’d like to know the last book you loved and why. Send us a writeup of the last book you truly loved — a little bit book review and a lot about why you loved it — along with a short bio. We’ll publish our favorites in The Rumpus blog. No length requirements, but please refrain from reviewing books written by people you know.
Email to: Marie AT therumpus.net
5 responses
Well, I usually don’t respond to things like this but this is such an easy question for me I find myself compelled to give an easy answer. “The Glass Castle†by Jeannette Walls is definitely the last book I truly loved. A remarkable and almost unbelievable memoir of a family deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully interesting at the same time. I suppose the reason this book struck me with such swift resonance is that up until I read this I thought that perhaps I had a good story to tell of a totally dysfunctional and outrageous family. Now, I’m not so sure it’s worth the telling unless of course I could tell it with a totally different spin. Before “Glass Castle†I had read and re-read “White Oleander†highlighting the dialogue between the daughter and mother, the most volatile relationship I endured, but “Glass Castle†brought in the brother, the alcoholism, both huge parts of my story. While we were not as destitute as the Glass Castle family we did see hard times during the depression, my father working in a factory his entire life, my mother slugging down Manhattans and never working, except to work that vile mouth of hers calling her children incorrigible leaches. Bottom line, this book really made me sit up and say hey, it could have been a whole lot worse. In a sense it was life changing even at my age which is pretty damn old. I chose not to read the follow up about Jeannette’s own plunge into alcoholism. Best for me at least to leave the impression this book had on me right where it is. I loved the book…I laughed out loud, I cried, it was just great!
I am right now reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and loving it loving it loving it. Let me start by saying I don’t usually read novels. This is because I’m a snob and I like the Russians, the big heavyweight, fully-textured writers. Most contemporary writers seem a little…skinny to me. No heft, no fullness, no dimpled thighs and smelly armpits. Things are glossed over too quickly, the relationships don’t matter enough to me, and I often stop reading in the middle because I just don’t care enough to continue.
But this book. I care about the characters, the landscape is fecund and carefully described, there is a mystery at the heart of the story that keeps me going, and most of all, I am enthralled by all the reverent medical excursions into the human body (Verghese is a physician, as are the main characters in his book; a community of doctors, with a couple of nurses thrown in.) He makes me wish I had been more gifted in science and had followed a path to become a doctor. He makes me see, smell, and touch the pain and compassion and thrill and sensuality and heartbreak of healing people. In humility, in delight, in depth and detail, he writes about childbirth and intestinal surgery, about vasectomies and heart disease, about everything. This is not a novel for the squeamish. But if you want a deep deep dive into another world, this is your book.
Last book I read that I loved…Amy Waldman’s ‘The Submission.’ Post 9/11, a blind contest is held, to choose from hundreds of submissions the plans for the memorial at Ground Zero to honor those lost on that fateful day. The chosen submission is a peaceful garden. Claire, the wife of a wealthy (and fairly liberal minded man who worked in the towers) is the representative for victim’s families on the committee, and the main champion for “The Garden.” And she gets her way. Immediately, the creator is revealed: Mohammad Khan, a talented American architect who also happens to be a Muslim. Waldman has an amazing array of characters, and while they could easily be archetypes of post 9/11 New York City, they are brilliantly fleshed out into real people. The book was truly stunning, with an unexpected and magnificent ending that felt honest. It made me weep.
I was born om Long Island, not far from New York City, but was living here in Birmingham, Alabama when 9/11 occurred. I was nursing my 9 month old son that day, watching my usual morning fare, the Today Show (those were the heady days of Katie Couric reign!). Later that day, I picked up my other children from school, and life went on, although things have never been quite the same for any of us. Personally, I was glued to the tv for days. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, much less process the horrors of the day. My daughters drew pictures of it (did I damage them in some way? I think not…). It seemed fitting that it is 10 years later, and this book is now here. My son is 10, and is homeschooled, and as our lives have changed so much since 10 years ago, so has the world. he has never known a time when this country was not “at war.” I’ve read quite a few 9/11 novels in the last 10 years, but I would say, this is the quintessential 9/11 story, because it really dramatically shows us the changes in attitude our country has undergone–especially this country’s xenophobia and clearly racist fear of anyone and anything Muslim. Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ was also excellent, but so close physically and emotionally to the open wound that was 9/11. With the ten years of separation and distance, this was the perfect time to release a book of this nature: more of a self examination of our nation’s attitudes, than of the examination of our personal suffering and loss. A very important novel in my humble opinion.
I love Saul Bellow’s books but the shorter they are (his novellas as an example) have a tendency to end badly. Seize the day was written in the 1950s and it takes place in New York in one day. The plot is simple, like in most Bellowian tales, a broken man, a hard worker has bad luck, terrible luck. He has at least one child from a former marriage, owes alimony checks to his ex-wife, his present flame is completely unsuitable for him yet he somehow carries on. He goes to the big city and meets his rich doctor father in a restaurant and begs for his help but his father won’t have it. A friend of his father suggests playing the market, lard is a sure winner. The main character does this as he reflects on his life, on his choices, on his luck. Bellow’s books aren’t about plot twists or long stories, they’re about amazing sentences and character development, get a pen, you’ll be underlining great quotes or doggy-earring the pages.
J.Farrell, 32, Montreal Qc. Works in the video game industry as a 3d artis yet strangely enough, enjoys reading more than online gaming. French speaker started to read in English as a teenager because the books were cheaper. I’m a fan of the human condition, the way we interact, the way we engage in relationships, what we learn, what we don’t.
I am a non-fiction junkie. While I prefer to write fiction, I prefer to read true life inspiring stories compared to novels. The last book I read also happened to be the last book I loved.
When tragedy strikes, whether it is war or a natural disaster, the lives of people are everyone’s first priority. However, humans are not the only ones affected during tough times, and it seems that animals, who suffer as much if not more, are often forgotten about or left behind. In Lawrence Anthony’s Babylon’s Ark, the true-life rescue of the animals in war-torn Baghdad reminds us how truly devastating war can be on every being.
Beginning with the frantic rush to try to save Baghdad’s zoo, Lawrence Anthony captivates you from the first page. His reasons for going to Iraq are honorable, and his struggles throughout his journey bring both tears of sorrow and sighs of relief as the lives of neglected animals are fought for in a city that is already fighting. However, the book not only highlights the animal’s lives, but also the people of Baghdad and the city itself. Brave soldiers, Iraqis, and foreigners are thrown together in an unlikely situation, as they not only help the zoo’s animals, but also the mistreated and abandoned animals of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein and his sons.
Lawrence Anthony writes with such passion that the 245 page book took me only days to read as I hesitated to put it down, and the pictures comprised in the middle bring all the scenes to life. The ending was my favorite as Anthony dedicated a chapter to how everyone could make a difference not only for animals and people, but for Planet Earth in general. Babylon’s Ark definitely sheds a different light on the Iraq war, and finally a light that is positive.
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