books you think are awesome

[winterborne]

My mom's birthday is coming up fast, and I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with good ideas this year, for whatever reason. I like to give her books, so I thought I'd see whether any of you have read anything recently that you found particularly impressive. She likes almost everything, but particular areas of interest include novels with a

Comments

[magdalene1]

Has she read Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin?

[winterborne]

I'm not sure. Probably not, but she's such a voracious reader that anything well-known is taking a bit of a chance.

[minyan]

Novels...
*The Jump Off Creek, Molly Gloss - Kass and Yao introduced me to this one. It's about a middle aged woman homesteading in Idaho. It's gripping, and th landscape is amazing, and the way an awkward conversation between distant neighbors becomes infinitely more significant than avalances, bar fights or grizzly bears.

*God's Mountain, Erri de Luca (an Italian international bestseller I ran into years ago and finally read this summer, told as the journal of a thirteen year old boy from Naples, and it's beautiful).

*Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Umberto Eco

*Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Z. Z. Packer (short stories, Gripping and funny and sad.)

Mysteries... anything by Dorothy Sayers or Ellis Peters; Deborah Crombie; Dana Stabenow; Alexander McCall Smith?

For mysteries, fantasy and Victorian comedy all at once, Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog is a romp too...

[winterborne]

Great, thank you! The Jump-Off Creek seems perfect, and I hadn't realized Eco had published anything in the past few years. She'll just have to promise to loan me the Eco afterwards ;)

[lockoutlass]

There's always McSweeny's -- have you considered getting her a subscription? They send about 4-5 a year, and they are always fascinating. The one two back came in a cigar box! Plus, how can you go wrong with a journal that publishes Jim Shepard?

[winterborne]

Mmmm, that's a good idea. I'll have to bear that in mind come X-mas time...