Most of us writing here read mysteries more often than other genres. However, Dale Stahl wrote with thoughts about one alternative. He's encouraging me to add
Elisabeth Strout to my to-read list.
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| Strout |
Changed up my summer reading from Hakan Nesser and Inspector Van Veeteren, whom I enjoy, to Elisabeth Strout.
Her novel Olive Kitteridge is about a seventh grade math teacher, now retired. It's really a collection of short stories about the people, the families, and the interactions in a small Maine town. They are the kind of things a long-time high school teacher in a small town would be in touch with. Olive is the subject of some of the stories and crosses paths with the main characters of the other stories.
I really enjoyed this book, Strout's insights on the human condition are entertaining and valuable. While people deal with life's challenges and disappointments and find their way through the difficulties fears and emotional challenges of life are fascinating and instructive.
I highly recommend this book when you are ready for a change from murder and mayhem!
Have you read
Olive Kitteridge?
Write. Tell this little bit of the world what you think.
3 comments:
Carol Stoops wrote, "I love Olive Kitteridge! Glad you discovered it!
"Might want to try another favorite author of mine, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Stay cool!
Jonathan Mahler's review of Let the Great World Spin in The New York Times
Dan Conrad wrote, "By rights I shouldn't have liked this book of loosely connected stories of quite ordinary people.
"Still, it is the the very ordinariness (familiarity?) of the characters that makes this a good novel. Makes you believe there is enough interest in any of our ordinary lives to make a compelling story--were Elizabeth Strout be the one to write it (since we can't bring back Jane Austin)."
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