Tinkers: A Prize-Winning DNF

Prize-winning books get my attention, especially if the prize is the Pulitzer. When Tinkers by Paul Harding won last month, you could almost hear the collective "Huh?" ripple through the book blogging community. For the record, my money was on Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann.

Shortly after the announcement, I clicked over to my library website and was not surprised to find they didn't own a copy. Inter-library loan came to the rescue (there was just one in the entire system) and, less than a week later, Tinkers was in my hands.

Tinkers is a small, slim book (only 191 pages) about a dying man's last days. While lying on a hospital bed in his living room, tended by various family members, George Washington Crosby's mind journeys back to his childhood in New England.

George Crosby remembered many things as he died, but in an order he could not control. To look at his life, to take the stock he always imagined a man would at his end, was to witness a shifting mass, the tiles of a mosaic spinning, swirling, reportraying, always in recognizable swaths of colors, familiar elements, molecular units, intimate currents, but also independent now of his will, showing him a different self every time he tried to make an assessment. (page 18)

After 70 pages, I was enjoying the writing, but not fully engaged with the characters or the story. Others have praised the book, but I was not in the mood to appreciate the quiet style. Perhaps my new stack of books was distracting me. In any event, this seems to be a classic case of "right book, wrong time".

Other opinions:

Gavin at Page 247

(may I add yours?)

TSS: A New Favorite Bookstore

Last week's Sunday Salon found us at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Our excuse for the trip was to transport Daughter #1 to a New York Times seminar for college newspaper editors, but we also wanted to be in the city just in case Twin A's Poland trip took off (it didn't). We had a wonderful time... saw Mary Poppins on Broadway, ate at some fabulous restaurants, did some shopping, spied Kelsey Grammer getting out a limo, and explored the city.

While the girls spent time in Urban Outfitters, my husband and I wandered a few blocks up Broadway and stumbled upon Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers. I could have happily browsed there for hours, but the girls finished their shopping and needed us to return with the credit card, so we exited with just a couple of books.

Our next stop would be The Strand Bookstore - famous for its 18 miles of books. Another brisk walk up Broadway, and I was finally there!

Is this a book lover's paradise or what? Daughter #1 was nearly as overcome as I was, but my husband groaned... he knew this would take a while! The other girls were (sort of) happy to browse, but it was nearly 9PM and hunger pains were becoming a problem. Turns out we only had half an hour, but I did purchase nine books.
From the bottom:

• Sons by Pearl S. Buck - volume 2 of the Good Earth trilogy; I may need to reread The Good Earth first
• The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton - love Wharton, love short stories
• Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann - German classic I've been wanting to read
• Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster - love the author, Rose City Reader's review
• The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty - loved her short story "Why I Live at the P.O.", Jill (Fizzy Thought's) review
• The Easter Parade by Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road was amazing, Rachel's review convinced me to read this next
• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson - Nymeth gets the blame for this one
• Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto - Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge will be here before long
• Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto - loved Kitchen, and will read this for the challenge, too

I suppose it would have been dangerous to spend much more time there anyway. The family was impressed when I came away with nine books "without even trying", but the best part is that these are books I couldn't find at my local B&N or Borders.

A piece of good news to share:

Daughter #1 landed a summer internship at ESPN. She'll be living in the NYU dorms, so we have an excuse to visit again!

Today's reading:

I'm struggling with Tinkers by Paul Harding, the slim (191 pages) book that recently won the Pulitzer Prize. The writing is beautiful but, after 70 pages, I'm not really engaged. My new stack of books may be partly to blame... this could be a DNF.

Greyhound update:

We passed our 'home visit' and hope to have a dog in 4-6 weeks.

Finally, apologies for the rambling post... there's been a lot going on around here. Hope you have a wonderful Sunday. Will you be spending part of it with a good book?

Interpreter of Maladies: an audio review

Interpreter of Maladies

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Narrated by Matilda Novak

HighBridge Audio

6 hours 19 minutes

I primarily listen to audiobooks when I'm alone in the car, but with sixteen year old twins learning to drive this summer, there has been very little of that! I listened to Interpreter of Maladies back in May, and hadn't even attempted to start another until a few days ago (Little Bee by Chris Cleave). However, I didn't want fall to begin without at least mentioning this book.

Interpreter of Maladies, published in 1999, is a collection of nine short stories that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. I chose to listen because it was offered in a 3-for-2 promotion at audible.com, and I was so taken with Lahiri's more recent collection, Unaccustomed Earth.

The stories are set in India or the US and, again, involve characters of Indian descent. Lahiri packs so much emotion and feeling into each story. In "A Temporary Matter", an especially poignant story, we observe a young couple whose marriage is disintegrating after the birth of a still born child.

"When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" is told through they eyes of a young girl. It spotlights a Pakistani man in the US, a frequent dinner guest in her household, who watches a civil war unfold, night after night, on her living room television while his wife and seven daughters remain at home in Pakistan.

The title story, "Interpreter of Maladies", is set in India. Mr Kapasi works as a translator for a doctor who is unable speak the language of some of his patients. He supplements his income by acting as a driver for tourists. One day, he develops an 'interest' in a young American woman of Indian descent traveling with her husband and three children. As he imagines their relationship, she misunderstands his primary job and begins to confide her unhappiness to him. A very touching story...

The reader did a very good job in this production, however I did find some of the musical interludes annoying. Overall, I was impressed with Lahiri's writing and enjoyed listening to this collection. However, I liked Unaccustomed Earth even better.

Yeah, Olive!!

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction! Hurray! I loved Olive Kitteridge and rated it 5/5 when I reviewed it in January. It was my book club's February selection; I wrote about the meeting here.

Winners were announced this afternoon. A complete list can be found here.