Great Reads
I have read 104 books since I moved to the Villages in the summer of 2017. Maybe the favorite is Bel Canto by Anne Patchett. BUT . . . don't find out anything about it before you read it and plan to read it quickly, within a couple days. It's billed as a "love story," but it's much, much more. It will leave you breathless.
Others I really liked:
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley – Woman wakes up in a London park surrounded by dead bodies and no memory of who she is. But she (her former self?) apparently has left herself clues to her past, exactly as if she knew this was going to happen. Suspense, espionage and the supernatural. A real winner!
Between the World and Me by Ta’Nehisi Coates – “A bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States” (The New York Observer)” A father’s message to his son about living as African American in a White world. It tells the story from such an incredible perspective that I bought a dozen copies to share.
Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science and Religion by James Lander (Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day)
And especially for the Villagers:
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know by Alexandra Horowitz - The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What’s it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans, or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What’s it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees? Personal comment – You’ll never look at a dog the same way . . . ever again!
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