Book Talk

I have recently read three books worth recommending...

Beautiful Ruins takes place between 1960s Italy and current day Los Angeles.  It's a total love story (but real love, not just sex-love), and a story about what could have been for the characters involved.  Very well written, and difficult to put down.

 If you haven't read The Rosie Project yet, it's time ... it's about Don Tillman, a genetics professor who studies autism and aspergers, who hasn't identified the disorder in himself, and who turns everything in his life into a scientific project.  This tactic tends to work for him until he meets Rosie, someone who defies logic.  If you know or work with anyone on the spectrum, you have to read this book; you will - without a doubt - identify someone you know in Don.

A Long Way Down is about four strangers who meet on a London rooftop on NYE, where they all plan to commit suicide.  They don't, of course, so this is the story of how their lives intertwine and unfold in the aftermath.  At times I loved the story, and at other times I could have walked away; in the end, though, it was worth the read. 

"My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter."

Thomas Helm