Books for June
1st book of June
June 1st-15th
2nd book of June
June 16th-30th
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Many consider The Great Gatsby the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written. First published in 1925, it is the timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby lives in the New York suburb of West Egg, where those with "new money" reside. Gatsby's mansion is right across the bay from the home of his wartime love, Daisy Buchanan, pictured always in white.
Gatsby seeks to keep his illusion of Daisy as perfect alive. He uses his money, gained through illegal means, to do so, and uses his neighbor, Nick Carroway, to try to reach Daisy. The love of money as the root of evil is a pervading theme.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.
In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.
Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland
From the author of Generation X comes a visionary first novel about today's 20-something generation and their baby boom parents. A 20-year-old, tree-hugging Reagan youth with a "shampoo museum" in his bathroom deals with love and loss and forges a much-needed style of common sense for life.
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
This is a terrific, memorable, gritty semi-autobiographical novel, which covers Bukowski's childhood and teen years. He uses the name Chinaski as he has in other novels, like POST OFFICE. As always, Bukowski is a pleasure to read, if you don't mind his dirty realist style, which is blunt and honest and often profane, yet funny. In this work, he shows why he always felt like a misfit and loser -- it covers his terrible bout with acne vulgaris, a disfiguring skin condition and his isolation as growing teen as well as his difficult relationship with his parents -- and society as whole.
Black Like Me by John Griffin
Griffin's (The Devil Rides Outside) mid-century classic on race brilliantly withstands both the test of time and translation to audio format. Concerned by the lack of communication between the races and wondering what "adjustments and discriminations" he would face as a Negro in the Deep South, the late author, a journalist and self-described "specialist in race issues," left behind his privileged life as a Southern white man to step into the body of a stranger. In 1959, Griffin headed to New Orleans, darkened his skin and immersed himself in black society, then traveled to several states until he could no longer stand the racism, segregation and degrading living conditions. Griffin imparts the hopelessness and despair he felt while executing his social experiment, and professional narrator Childs renders this recounting even more immediate and emotional with his heartfelt delivery and skillful use of accents. The CD package includes an epilogue on social progress, written in 1976 by the author, making it suitable for both the classroom and for personal enlightenment.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Shockingly original and completely unforgettable, The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure.
The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished.
Sebold creates a heaven that's calm and comforting, a place whose residents can have whatever they enjoyed when they were alive -- and then some. But Susie isn't ready to release her hold on life just yet, and she intensely watches her family and friends as they struggle to cope with a reality in which she is no longer a part. To her great credit, Sebold has shaped one of the most loving and sympathetic fathers in contemporary literature.
June 1st-15th
2nd book of June
June 16th-30th
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Many consider The Great Gatsby the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written. First published in 1925, it is the timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby lives in the New York suburb of West Egg, where those with "new money" reside. Gatsby's mansion is right across the bay from the home of his wartime love, Daisy Buchanan, pictured always in white.
Gatsby seeks to keep his illusion of Daisy as perfect alive. He uses his money, gained through illegal means, to do so, and uses his neighbor, Nick Carroway, to try to reach Daisy. The love of money as the root of evil is a pervading theme.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.
In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece.
Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland
From the author of Generation X comes a visionary first novel about today's 20-something generation and their baby boom parents. A 20-year-old, tree-hugging Reagan youth with a "shampoo museum" in his bathroom deals with love and loss and forges a much-needed style of common sense for life.
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
This is a terrific, memorable, gritty semi-autobiographical novel, which covers Bukowski's childhood and teen years. He uses the name Chinaski as he has in other novels, like POST OFFICE. As always, Bukowski is a pleasure to read, if you don't mind his dirty realist style, which is blunt and honest and often profane, yet funny. In this work, he shows why he always felt like a misfit and loser -- it covers his terrible bout with acne vulgaris, a disfiguring skin condition and his isolation as growing teen as well as his difficult relationship with his parents -- and society as whole.
Black Like Me by John Griffin
Griffin's (The Devil Rides Outside) mid-century classic on race brilliantly withstands both the test of time and translation to audio format. Concerned by the lack of communication between the races and wondering what "adjustments and discriminations" he would face as a Negro in the Deep South, the late author, a journalist and self-described "specialist in race issues," left behind his privileged life as a Southern white man to step into the body of a stranger. In 1959, Griffin headed to New Orleans, darkened his skin and immersed himself in black society, then traveled to several states until he could no longer stand the racism, segregation and degrading living conditions. Griffin imparts the hopelessness and despair he felt while executing his social experiment, and professional narrator Childs renders this recounting even more immediate and emotional with his heartfelt delivery and skillful use of accents. The CD package includes an epilogue on social progress, written in 1976 by the author, making it suitable for both the classroom and for personal enlightenment.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Shockingly original and completely unforgettable, The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure.
The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished.
Sebold creates a heaven that's calm and comforting, a place whose residents can have whatever they enjoyed when they were alive -- and then some. But Susie isn't ready to release her hold on life just yet, and she intensely watches her family and friends as they struggle to cope with a reality in which she is no longer a part. To her great credit, Sebold has shaped one of the most loving and sympathetic fathers in contemporary literature.