Before the year ends, let's write down some recommendations - even if I haven't read as many books as I should have this year -

The post-birthday world by Lionel Shriver is a brilliant take on a Hollywood topic: a woman, Irina, has to choose between her companion of 10 years and the sexy new acquaintaince. And the reader gets to see what happens ( Read more... )

I saw Ben Affleck's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel yesterday evening. A pretty good movie with a tight, suspensful plot, serious acting, fabulous Boston neighborhoods ( Read more... )

I cannot recommend enough the wonderful sci-fi series by Kim Stanley Robinson about global warming and its consequences:
40 signs of rain
50 degrees below
60 days and countingThe 3 books take place in my Washington DC (one of the heroes eats at the Indian restaurant down Connecticut Avenue where Nat and I had lunch once) and they span over dozens ( Read more... )

I read The golden notebook during my (still ongoing) vacation. I wanted to read something by the recent Nobel prize ( Read more... )

Eva, the mother of a Columbine-style school killer, writes to her estranged husband, Franklin. She means to share with him everything she remembers from their son's - Kevin - childhood and teenage years. Kevin is currently in jail for killing a teacher, some classmates and a cafeteria worker.

This book is one of the most brilliant pieces of ( Read more... )

I read the last tome of the Bartimaeus trilogy. It was good to read the end of the story, to know part of the djinn's past history, to follow once more the footsteps of Nathaniel and Kitty through their magician-dominated London ( Read more... )

Alcott's Little women is probably one of the childhood books I remember most fondly and I was happily surprised to find in my bookstore Geraldine Brooks' version of the story, told from Mr March's point of view: while Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are living their lives in Connecticut, their father is surviving in the Civil War. The descriptions of the war ( Read more... )

I've read Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep this week. It felt like eating caramel or ice cream. It felt like being a teenager all over again.

I had read the reviews a couple years ago when the book went out. They were filled with praise and I was curious to know what it was. That's why I picked it up at a bookstore, not really sure of what to expect. I ( Read more... )

Mr Starlight Laurie Graham
Helen of Troy Margaret George
Alias Grace Margaret Atwood
Good bones Margaret Atwood
L'Odyssée Homère
The business Iain Banks
Prep Curtis Sittenfeld *
Rembrandt, entre ombre et lumière
A drink before the war Dennis Lehane
Drop shot Harlan Coben
March Geraldine Brooks *
Fifty degrees below Kim Stanley Robinson
Affluenza ( Read more... )

The last book I read in 2006 was also one of the funniest: Dead air by Scottish writer Iain Banks.

The book starts on a wedding day, with the guests throwing fruit and then dishes, furniture and even a tv, out of the window of a trendy London loft. The pleasure of seeing the 10 stairs fall is quickly erased by the news of a plane attack on New York ( Read more... )