I Read Out Loud: Books I like this week.

Books: 

These are all great Christmas presents given to me by friends who know me too well.

Secret Lives of Great Authors, Robert Schnakenberg: with a name like Schnakenberg, I guess it's easier to write nonfiction about great fiction writers.  Either way, this book is ceaselessly entertaining! I found out H.G. Wells was an anti-semite and Mark Twain once delivered an entire speech about farting to a royal audience. 

The Book Thief, Marcus Zuzak:  This is one of the most surprisingly poignant contemporary pieces of literature I have read to date...and it's a young adult novel! When I first read this book a year ago (this will be my third time reading it), I was hesitant to read something written from the omniscient perspective of "Death."  I figured that the idea of writing from Death's perspective had probably been toyed around with by many, many talented authors, and they all decided it was contrived.  Zuzak's narrator, however, speaks in boldfaced lists, short outbursts of poetry, and a benevolent, sympathetic tone for the protagonists of his plot.  And rarely is a novel started with such a lovely preface.  The first three pages of this book are so poetic and organic, it was exciting to open it up again.

Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, Tom Robbins: Dear Mr. Robbins, thank you for helping me to decide to take my honeymoon to the Selous.  You alone could make the danger of the tsetse fly seem so incredibly romantic!  This is a collection of short articles, observations, et. all by one of the masters of the quirky word.  It's a travelogue that offers revelry and escape--great faculties for the mind and soul during the god-forsaken gray of January.