Because when I saw this picture of Kate Middleton* at Wimbledon, here’s what I thought to myself—before reading a word of the accompanying text: I know that dress. It’s Alexander McQueen and she wore it last summer on the royal tour of Canada, on the day they visited Prince Edward Island.
And that scared me.
*Who I like just fine, but can’t say I make a point of following or anything.
It may not be in your bailiwick, but “The Long Earth” by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is fascinating and completely bizarre, as well as being rather funny. And I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m pretty sure celebrity fashion doesn’t figure at all in the plot.
Kim, As one of your readers also of a certain age, I’ll suggest my own novel, MODERN WOMEN, originally published by St. Martin’s Press & now available on a Kindle or iPad.
I’ve been compared (favorably) to Joan Didion & MW was called “sharply & stylishly written” & “superb” by the West Coast Review of Bks. Opening scene takes place in Dallas at the JFK assassination, book ends in the late 80′s. You will remember/recognize these MW & the men in their lives. The wrong men. The right men. The maybe men.
You’ll need a Kindle or an iPad to download. Link: http://amzn.to/lvFPz9
Ooooo you MUST read Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It read it in one day and hated myself for not making it last. It’s brilliant and funny and wicked and evil and the book of the summer. Please, all of you read so we can discuss!
( her other two novels are great too!)
I agree! A delicious read. (I too hated myself for not making it last) But then ran out and devoured her other two novels.
I third the recommendation for Gone Girl. Sharp Objects is also intensely creepy. Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand falls into this category, as well.
If you haven’t read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it’s incredible. I’m rereading it today.
“Let’s pretend this never happened” by Jenny Lawson. “Yes Chef” by Marcus Samuelsson. I second Eve’s recommendation, “Gone Girl” is gripping until the very end.
Let’s pretend this never happened is aces! I’m starting Seating Arrangments next
http://www.amazon.com/Seating-Arrangements-Maggie-Shipstead/dp/0307599469
I third Gone Girl — though I didn’t read it in one day, I’ve actually been reading it for a week or so. It is creepy, edgy, startling!
Also, Tamar Adler’s amazing book on cooking and how to see your pantry in new ways: An Everlasting Meal. She’s been compared to a modern day MFK Fisher and I totally get it!
The Darlings by Cristina Alger is good, Manhattan/Hamptons, fictionalized Bernie Madoff novel.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles I read last year — a glittering, moving, glamorous novel set in 1930s Manhattan — it is the book I compare all others to since I read it. It is THAT good!
For a sweet and real memoir, The Buccolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell is wonderful. He is a wry and lovely writer and if you know the success of Beekman 1802 now, you will love reading about their hardscrabble journey to get there.
And lastly, I have sitting on my bedside table Pam Houston’s latest novel Contents May Have Shifted. I’ve loved her writing since she published Cowboys Are My Weakness and my girlfriends and I passed it around like the instruction book on how to be an amazing woman. I hear her writing has matured with us so am looking forward to this one immensely!
Happy reading!!!
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles I read last year — a glittering, moving, glamorous novel set in 1930s Manhattan — it is the book I compare all others to since I read it. It is THAT good!
I am so ordering this!
Lionel Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ is brilliant.
Agreed and the movie is great too.
On a related note, it’s completely refreshing that she wears a dress more than once! And in public too!
State of Wonder, Ann Patchett. Best book I’ve read in long while.
Teresa,
I just finished that yesterday and was going to recommend it. I also really enjoyed “We the Drowned”.
I loved The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
best book of last year, should have won the Pulitzer: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.
I love all these suggestions you guys. I love. Love books!
Me too, I love to read and I wrote down a bunch of these suggestions. I am excited to check them out.
Yes! Echo Eve, Gone Girl is amazing, a real ‘when can i get back to my book’ book!
funny post Kim, same thought here but didnt know it was Canada! my gran would not wear this outfit, so conventional, so cliche, miaow!
I thought the exact same thing but started thinking about how that dress looks like an old fashioned tennis dress and was that why she was wearing it to Wimbledon? Like a nod to Helen Wills?
Then I went back to reading Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (24 short stories).
One of the most satisfying reading experiences in recent memory has been to first read “Anatomy of a Face” by Lucy Greeley, followed immediately by “Truth and Beauty” by Ann Patchett. The first is a memoir by a notable (and infamous?) author who had a severely disfigured face since the age of 9 due to a rare cancer. She and Ann Pachett become devoted friends at the Iowa Writers Worshop. “Truth and Beauty” is an account of that decades-long friendship. Both books are honest, poignant and heartbreaking. Maybe not the best beach reach but compelling nonethless!
I agree Diane. Both Anatomy and Truth & Beauty are in my top ten favorites list. I read them in that order as well and was just slayed. So beautiful and yes, heartbreaking.
I’d suggest “Dark Places” by Gillian Flynn. I read “Gone Girl” and really liked it but “Dark Places” is even more gripping. If Patricia Highsmith, Truman Capote, and Joyce Carol Oates co-wrote a book, this would be it.
EXCELLENT description.
These suggestions all sound so great—and I love how many of you have read the same books. You’re such smarties
Kim,
You must read “Paris, I love you but you’re bring me down” by Rosecrans Baldwin–it is a wonderfully candid account of an expat working in an advertising agency in Paris. SO funny especially if one has any preconceived notions of living there!
p.s. LOVE your blog!
eight white nights, andre aciman, you deserve nothing a novel alexander maksik, the lady cyclists guide the kashgar suzanne joinson, gone girl gillian flynn, divorce islamic style amara lakhous, the inquisitor mark allen smith,cosmopolis don delillo, this are in no order of preference, enjoy and please post on what you do decide to read and what you love, diane
I am looking forward to checking out the suggestions so here are mine:Rebecca and Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier. (Really anything by her.) For a fun “pool/beach” read I really love the Rei Shimura books by Sujata Massey. The first 4 are my favorites. Feisty heroine and great Japanese setting.
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson – I’m listening to the audio version and it’s hilarious.
Rob Lowe’s memoirs are very funny too: Stories I Only Tell My Friends
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand was amazing.
Killing Lincoln by Martin Dugard is a history book that has the pace of a crime novel. Forget the O’Reilly association with this book. It was very good.
I second “The Family Fang” – I’m close to finishing it right now and it’s fantastic.
I am reading “Dark Places” by Gillian Flynn and love it. Also have read and recommend “Infidel.” Two other books I adore and raced through are “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender and “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Another book I can’t speak highly enough about is “Anthropology of An American Girl” by Hilary Thayer Hamann. It’s the type book you can read once and go back to time and again. Love it.
Tammy: you are the first person I know who’s recommended this book — it’s been sitting on my shelf unopened for years….but worth reading, yes? I forget how I came to own it and it is so big I look at it occasionally and sigh wondering if I should just pass it along.
It’s long, Kate, but such a thoughtful, fantastic read. Worth the time, IMO. I highly recommend.
“Doc”, by Mary Doria Russell – a retelling of the Doc Holiday story, replete with whiskey and a Latin-quoting ‘lady of the night’. A great, quick read!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/ron-charles-reviews-doc-by-mary-doria-russell/2011/04/25/AFvGSFjF_story.html
I’ve been following this blog since the beginning and was a Lucky reader from the first issue – so, huge fan, Kim! Here are my picks, all taking place at a time that girls of a certain age can appreciate:
The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
Story of My Life, by Jay McInerney (Like HBO’s Girls, but set in the late 80s so tons more drugs and wild and crazy times)
A Vist from the Goon Squad is wonderful!
Also, Ready Player One is amazing. Ernie Cline, a super nice guy too, wrote this epic tale of pop culture/ video games that reads like a Harry Potter for girls of a certain age. Loooooved it.
Eve, you write such witty and thoughtful comments – I’ll look up your rec for sure! I forgot to mention one of my all-time favorite books (not based in the 80s, but still excellent), I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb.
I always recommend “All Over But he Shoutin” by Ric Bragg and “Don’t Lets Go To The Dogs Tonight” by Alexandra Fuller. Essentially these are two people growing up in the same general era on two different sides of the world – Bragg in Alabama, and Fuller in Zimbabwe. How did I live at the same time and not know what was happening in these two places?
“The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern! Really different and gripping.
I know I’m getting in on this a couple of days late but I can’t let any book recommendation request go without mentioning The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. It’s like reading a Wes Anderson movie. Loved the wacky characters and hopeful ending. Also, I just finished Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson. I can’t believe I was a teenager in the late 80′s and had no clue about straight edge. Too busy listening to The Smiths and feeling mopey I guess. Anyway, it was engrossing.
City of Thieves by David Benioff and Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell are f-ing magnificent (and not in a lofty, academic way. When you finish, you’ll just put down the book and stare into space for a while thinking about wonderful life is). I second the Rob Lowe and Anne Patchett. And Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is so smart and funny, you will want to ration yourself.
I was in a creative writing class with Gillian Flynn in college. Believe the hype; she’s a huge talent. (oh, and someone compared her to Truman Capote. If you haven’t read In Cold Blood–get that NOW.)
i hear you–anything by harlan coben, with the exception of his myron bolitar character books, they’re not as good as his other mysteries.
I am finishing up a PhD in English; these are three books that I have devoured recently in my rare leisure-reading time:
Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle: charming coming-of-age story about a young woman who grows up with an impecunious writer father in a crumbling old castle in interbellum England.
Ian McEwan’s Atonement: begins before the outbreak of WWII. It’s so famous and very acclaimed, but if you haven’t read it, reading it for the first time will probably make you cry.
Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love: features two interwoven stories, at the crux of which lies an obscure book titled (you guessed it)The History of Love.
Finally, a collection of essays that I read years ago but am constantly giving to friends is the late David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Funny Thing I’ll Never Do Again. The title essay, written on assignment for Harper’s magazine, is about a trip on a cruise ship. The whole book is true and hilarious and tragic.
Some recents that I enjoyed:
Old Filth, Jane Gardam
Lit by Mary Karr (though I’m guessing you’ve read this)
Behind the Beautiful Forever, Katherine Boo
The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachmann
Just started The Patrick Melrose novels—want to read them with me?
Loved Old Filth.
Checked in for some weekend reading suggestions. And want to add, if you liked Old Filth I hope you read The Man in the Wooden Hat, which is the marriage from Betty’s POV.
I just read two older Gardam books and enjoyed them– God on the Rocks and Queen of the Tambourine. But Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat are still my faves.