Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Good books read (or re-read) lately

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. The talk about kites in pre-Communist, pre-Taliban Afghanistan makes me think of the descriptions of pigeon-racing in Belgium before World War I, in After the War by Richard Marius, one of my favorite books.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!: A Novel by Fannie Flagg. My wife picked this up for me from the library, I certainly would not have predicted the mother's secret.

1776 by David McCullough. This book made me think of the Jamestown book I read not too long ago - the survival of the American experiment was a close-run thing, even before it got started.

It Doesn't Take a Hero : The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf by Norman Schwartzkopf. This book on re-reading makes me wonder all over again, who was surprised by anything that Dick Cheney has done since 2001? He was doing it back then.

Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham. This book is absolutely delightful, and the very best part is the description of Rick's first meal in Parma. This book makes me think that Grisham has a few quarterback flights of fancy, going back to his high school days - supposedly he was a quarterback back then, like the local lawyer in A Time to Kill. Having been a tourist in Italy with just about as much sophistication or lack thereof as the hero of the book, I found it entertaining as a travel and food book - the football part is the least of it.

1 comment:

Cominius said...

The Kite Runner is a great book for anyone desiring to understand Afghanistan and its people from a first person narrative. May be very intense for some readers.