Book Recommendations

I couldn't find a post from a few days ago that asked for recommendations for books. I think it must have been taken down as it didn't show up when I searched for it just now, which is a pity, as book recommendations are a great way of finding new reads.

I have become interested in reading books that tell me something about the larger world than I live in day to day and that teach me about other countries ways of thinking and approaching life.

I just finished and enjoyed:

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri,

She won a Pulitzer for a previous book. It's a well written, easy to read story about a newlywed, educated Indian couple from Calcutta that moved to Boston and how they manage to find ways to fit in and adapt to an unfamiliar country, and how their children grow up as Americans influenced by their parents ways. I learned a lot about a culture very different from mine and gained greater empathy for the difficulties faced by those who move to another country to begin new lives. I am not sure I would have had their strength.


An extraordinary book is:

Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah

The author is a Dartmouth educated young African from Sierra Leone who has already had a NY Times best seller, A Long Way Gone, before this book. I do not have the guts to read it as it is about the child soldiers there, and I understand is very graphic.

This book, while not always comfortable, is a fascinating read, especially if you begin by reading the author's introduction as he explains how his country's language uses words in very descriptive and poetical ways that are not at all like our own. It takes a while to get into his writing's rhythm as it is different from any I have read before, but it is lyrical in its way even as it describes people trying to put their lives back together from scratch after a scorched earth war.

I hope other LIFers will post some of their most intriguing reads.

Book Recommendations

Its on the storyboard page.