I’m in the middle of reading My Name is Mary Sutter, which is the selection for Schenectady County’s One County One Book Program. I’m enjoying it very much, thank you. Which is not a surprise, since I love-love-love historical fiction. And Mary’s from Albany, so I was thinking that I might spread the word and say it’s absolutely worth a read. Although I haven’t finished it, so things could go south (get it? south!?!).
And then I happened upon the preview video for Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. I liked The Wordy Shipmates, and I just think that she’s so smart and quirky and fun, and the video makes all sorts of silly art out of the Hawaiian plate dish.
So then I decided that I might as well just geek out and make a history-book post. Because I also just finished A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin, which was terrific. A bit of a marathon, but great and moving. If you’ve read it, or if you do in the future, my favorite part’s when the main character makes the telephone call after fixing the phone. Awesome.
And since it’s a family blog, might I recommend that you try the terribly literate and historically interesting picture books by one of my favorites, Emily Arnold McCully? I’ve already mentioned her in my Girl Power post, but I just keep discovering more good ones, and she doesn’t just have awesome feminist topics like female kung fu masters. She’s also got great topics with boy protagonists.
Melinda
I finished My Name Is Mary Sutter in record time (for me) and loved it. I did predict some of the plot line so in that respect was just a little bit put off by the predictability, but it is still a great read. The characters head south, literally, but not the book. But then you know I can’t resist a good book about a midwife. 😉
Katie
Of course you’d be a sucker for a good midwife story. Reminds me of Netflix, which does personalized recommendations, and they always make me laugh. Like, “cerebral period films with strong female characters” or “sentimental romances with strong female characters”–yep, they have me pegged.