March Reads

The Hunger Games, part 1, by Suzanne Collins
(on loan from a friend)

Critics have been making a big deal about the fact that Hunger Games is a "young adult" novel read by "actual" adults (see NY Times discussion here).  I like to read books, period.  Yes, I'm one of those people that's never been able to make it through Wuthering Heights (I hate all the characters.  I can't do it.  Sorry).  But I'm an equal opportunity reader, young adult fiction, non-fiction, biographies, what people recommend to me.  And that includes things like Hunger Games.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
for Skype bookclub with some of my girlfriends from undergrad

I read this book in seventh grade, I think, but I'm rereading it at the moment.  I'm struck by how easily movies and books inform me about periods in history that I haven't really thought about in much detail.  As in, I knew that India was a British colony for a time, but I didn't have a clue what that actually meant for the people that lived there.  Reading a book set during the time period is a  fascinating peak into history.

Chalice, by Robin McKinley
(kindle version from library back home)

I first read Robin McKinley's book Beauty, a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast---and I've enjoyed every book of hers I've read since.  Interesting characters, creative stories, they're lovely.