“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie0
“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which I just finished and which impressed me; “Genghis Khan,” by Jack Weatherford, which is next up; “The White Album,” by Joan Didion, which is great to rediscover, and as good as I remembered it being; “The Heart of a Goof,” by P. G. Wodehouse, which can actually make me care about the game of golf, at least while reading it; and “Humboldt’s Gift,” by Saul Bellow, which seems to be on the night stand more or less permanently.
"The Tin Flute" by Gabrielle Roy
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood0
Right now on my night stand — in addition to the painkilling rub, the clock, the notebook, the pencil and the detective story, currently an Inspector Maigret, courtesy of Georges Simenon? Let’s see. A book on the aging brain. A limited-edition chapbook of poems called “Silence,” by my cousin, Janet Barkhouse. A historical novel about the misdeeds of 14th-century French kings, by Maurice Druon. (I’ve read it, but it’s still on the night stand. Such things linger.)
And a stack of books by Gabrielle Roy, the Franco-Manitoban writer who was a huge best seller in both France and North America in the late 1940s with her novel, “Bonheur d’Occasion,” translated as “The Tin Flute.” This is a gritty story about a working-class girl in Montreal in the wartime ’40s who makes the best she can of her meager romantic chances and her meager wardrobe, as she navigates a romance with an attractive Lothario but settles for the steady guy who loves her despite her calculating eyes.
Why is that stack of Gabrielle Roy books there? Because I’m writing an essay about her for inclusion in a forthcoming book about the Francophone contribution to North America. By coincidence, a book by Gabrielle Roy was the set text in my final year in high school, in the 1950s. That book was “La Petite Poule d’Eau” (“The Little Water Hen,” the name of a river), translated rather infelicitously as “Where Nests the Water Hen,” which makes it sound Victorian and poetic. Which it isn’t.
We studied French then in the old-fashioned way — sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase — so selected portions of this book are etched on my brain.
Gabrielle Roy is among several Canadian woman writers of the 20th century who emerged from unlikely backgrounds to become internationally known in their day — L. M. Montgomery, Mazo de la Roche, Gwethalyn Graham, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro among them. I’m very much enjoying learning more about Gabrielle Roy’s life story, which in some ways was very much like mine.
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Lexi Gudaitis
Lexi Gudaitis1
Tim O'Brien has been one of my favorite authors for several years. I read The Things They Carried for the first time nearly four years ago and was immediately struck by the beauty of O'Brien's writing. I never realized that I could be so moved by a single sentence. The book has truly stuck with me and remains one of my favorites. A friend recently recommended In the Lake of the Woods to me without knowing how much I already love O'Brien's work. I immediately checked it out of my school's library and immersed myself in the story of the Wades. I haven't finished it yet, but so far it is absolutely incredible.