Comments on: Hold the handbasket

By: gmf

gmf — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:47:34 +0000

I was also behind the curve when I finally got around to reading Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. Exquisite. The most gorgeous fiction I’ve read in years. As I was reading, I kept thinking about how it was so different from what I think of as being marketable fiction. No vampires, no pricey shoes, and most importantly no pandering at all. It sucked me in, but then made me work to get the full reward of her writing. It did actually restore my faith a little in the publishing world.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been on my “to read” list for awhile, you just bumped it up a notch. (Though when you abbreviated it as ILOHL I puzzled for a long time trying to figure out if this was yet another txt sentence I never heard of.

By: Lisa Ahn

Lisa Ahn — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:43:37 +0000

I have The Immortal Life . . on my to-be-read list as well, and I’m glad to see another endorsement. The best book I’ve read recently is Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad. Brilliant writing, structure, characters, development. I can’t praise it enough. I love that it’s non-traditional and mind-stretching in so many ways, and, at the same time, has done so well. Loved it!

By: Wanda B. Ontheshelves

Wanda B. Ontheshelves — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 02:53:13 +0000

I’m reading George Washington Carver, Scientist and Symbol, by Linda O. McMurry, 1981, just came across this passage today, while taking a mini-mini break at work…

“Gandhi’s religious crusade of passive resistance to English rule in India physically weakened him, so one of his supporters came to Tuskegee in 1929 to get a vegetarian diet from Carver […] In 1935 he was again approached by another Gandhi supporter […] Carver was delighted to receive a personal card of appreciation from Gandhi and replied he prayed for Gandhi’s success “in this marvelous work you are doing.””

I liked this passage so much, even though I accidentally deleted my first comment, I retyped the whole thing again! Another oldie-but-goodie from 1996, Nobel Prize Women in Science, by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne.

By: Lance Parkin

Lance Parkin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:19:10 +0000

In the narrative science field: Nim Chimpsky, by Elizabeth Hess.

Noam Chomsky asserted that only humans were capable of language. So a team of scientists trained a chimp, who they called Nim Chimpsky, in sign language. What happened next was extraordinary, and to cut a long story short Chomsky could not have been more wrong. And Nim lived with people, learned to understood concepts like his own birthday, and … then the funding for the project was cut.

It’s one of those books that flips around some of your fundamental assumptions about how the world works.

By: Ryan Field

Ryan Field — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:00:16 +0000

“Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” by Jaime Ford. The way people were treated and put into camps during WWII is handled well. And it’s a nice love story, too.

By: Michael G-G

Michael G-G — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:03:27 +0000

I recently read, and loved, Trent Reedy’s Words in the Dust about a young girl in Afghanistan with a cleft lip. I applaud the publishing industry for still taking on these kinds of books amid the flood of vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, demon-angels (I first wrote “demon-agents.” I’m sure such creatures don’t exist.)

I have Rebecca Skloot on my TBR list, too.

By: Jennifer Pickrell

Jennifer Pickrell — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:44:25 +0000

Glad to hear a glowing review – the book has been on my to-read list for awhile now. The whole story is fascinating to me.