Meanwhile I'm still reading...

For those of you committed to prose, while I will continue to shower you with all the blessings of poetry this month (and beyond), I will assure you I am still reading. In fact, since I tend to follow common threads in my reading, I moved from Unaccustomed Earth, which told the stories of young first generation Indian-Americans, to Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. This novel should enjoy a boost from Slum Dog Millionaire. In fact, the title could have worked--but in a much different way.

The narrator is a man in India writing a letter to the Chinese premier, who plans to visit India soon. He tells him what he won't learn during his official visit: how a citizen can escape "The Darkness," India's poorest villages and social caste, to become "an entrepreneur." The story is fascinating. I was particularly interested in his perspective on the United States, delivered as almost a side note.

I also listened to Toni Morrison reading her latest novel A Mercy. I was afraid at first it might be difficult to listen to the book, especially since she shifts narrators regularly and suddenly (without all the little funny voices actor-reader feel compelled to add.) This is a story of slavery set in the 1600s. The women--three slaves and their mistress, after the death of her husband, also a narrator--provide the puzzle pieces of the story that only becomes complete with the last voice.

Now, as quite a departure, I'm enjoying Nora Ephron's nonfiction collection of essays I'm Worried About My Neck on my ride to work each day. I laugh a lot, but I find her details amusingly, uncomfortably familiar to this fifty-something woman.

On the eBook, I've begun Still Alice, the story from the point of view of a femaleHarvard professor recognizing the early onset of Alzheimers. Simultaneously, I'm reading The Help, a first novel by Kathryn Stockett, a recent Lemuria Books First Edition Club selection. I can hardly wait for Spring Break to begin.

Meanwhile I'm still reading...