Archive for the ‘2010 National Book Award Shortlist’ Category
JUST KIDS by Patti Smith
There are a handful of writers who haunt me. That is, as I’m reading their books they come to me in my dreams, usually with sharp elbows and voices clamoring for attention. Cormac McCarthy effects me this way. So does, not surprisingly perhaps, Friedrich Nietzsche. No writers whisper to me in my dreams. It was the second night of reading Just Kids that I discovered here too a voice so strong and compelling so as to ring in my ears after the book is closed, the eyes shut and the brain turned off. Like caffeine, if consumed after a certain late hour, you know you’re in for a ride. Patti Smith is an original. She is a poet with the heart of a rock star and the drive of an Olympic athlete. She comes at you hard and fast and won’t let go, even in a dream state. She is that mesmerizingly good.
January 3, 2011
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Judi Clark · 
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Tags: 1970s, Art, Music, Nonfiction · Posted in: 2010 National Book Award Shortlist, Award Winning Author, Coming-of-Age, National Book Award, New York City, Non-fiction
LORD OF MISRULE by Jaimy Gordon
Most of us, when we think of horse racing, conjure up a mint-juleps-and-roses vision of the Kentucky Derby or perhaps, Churchill Downs, attended by jewel-studded rich folk dressed up in their finery with cash to burn.
But at the rock-bottom end of the sport, horse racing is a whole other world – a world inhabited by down-on-their-luck trainers and jockeys, loan sharks and crooks, gyps and hotwalkers. This is the world Jaimy Gordon takes on – Indian Mound Downs, where the horses are mostly aging, drugged, or lame and the trainers are as crooked and cynical as they come.
December 2, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 1970s, 2011 Favorites, 2011 PB Release, Contemporary, Horses, Literary, West Virginia · Posted in: 2010 National Book Award Shortlist, 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Literary, National Book Award, US South
PARROT AND OLIVIER IN AMERICA by Peter Carey
The quote above makes Americans seem certifiably insane. And perhaps this is how many Americans appeared to French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville during his now famous visit to America’s shores in the early nineteenth century. Though not wildly popular for many years, Tocqueville’s masterpiece DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA has become standard university reading and has been heralded as the greatest, most prophetic assessment of America ever produced. Scholars have poured over its pages, and multiple biographers have attempted to capture the man who penned its eloquent insightful lines. Most recently, award-winning author Peter Carey has created an imaginative historical fiction based on the life of Tocqueville and his fruitful time in the new nation.
April 23, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 19th-Century, 2010 Favorites, 2011 PB Release, Historical, Knopf, Literary · Posted in: 2010 Man Booker Shortlist, 2010 National Book Award Shortlist, 2010 Top Picks, Award Winning Author, Literary, Reading Guide, Real Event Fiction, Real People Fiction, Time Period Fiction, United States
NOTHING TO ENVY by Barbara Demick
There is much earthy wisdom in the saying: “One death is a tragedy; a thousand is a statistic.” By narrating the life stories of six North Korean defectors and their daily struggles, author Barbara Demick underscores this point beautifully. Her moving book NOTHING TO ENVY: ORDINARY LIVES IN NORTH KOREA, lets us look at the human angle behind the news headlines.
March 27, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: 2010 Favorites, Human Rights, Nonfiction, Spiegel & Grau · Posted in: 2010 National Book Award Shortlist, 2010 Top Picks, Award Winning Author, Korea, Non-fiction
SO MUCH FOR THAT by Lionel Shriver
SO MUCH FOR THAT by Lionel Shriver is a timely novel about the dire straits of our country’s healthcare system. It is also a diatribe about our country’s policies of taxation, what the average Joe gets in return for his taxes, and the government’s rip-off of average tax payers. The novel does not spare the evils of the banking industry, corporate America, or the wealthy as they are vilified for creating an environment that harms poor workers and the middle class.
March 16, 2010
· Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: Contemporary, Health Care · Posted in: 2010 National Book Award Shortlist, Award Winning Author, Contemporary
