Looking to February...

The past couple months we have been deeply entrenched in the stories of black women living depressing and wretchedly unfortunate lives, marred by sexual assault, violence, and unwise decisions. I think its time for a change of pace. Here are two suggestions for selections for the month of February:

New York Times #1 Bestseller Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Summary from the New Yorker: At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing." (352 pgs)

Pulitzer Prize winning Short Story Collection Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Excerpt from Amazon.com review: All of the stories in this book occur in the town of Crosby, Maine. At the center of many of the book's stories is the person, Olive Kitteridge, a retired teacher. In the stories that don't feature Olive, her name may appear only once in an effort to tie it to the larger work. That the stories center on one town, and a limited number of that town's inhabitants, who also reappear from time to time, I did not encounter my usual problems with short stories. This book gently reminded me of what is best about short-stories: a brief slice of a life, a snapshot that tells a complete-enough story. In having all these stories bound together, one feels a bit like the proverbial "fly on the wall"; a fly who may spend most of, but certainly not all, it's time in one particularly interesting home (Olive's). (304 pgs)

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