Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Habitual (insert negative activity here)

I've gotten out of the habit. But listening to this writer talk about his new book convinced me posting a little something might be worth trying again (instead of just trying).

It may have all started with this. Which turned into watching things like this. Which left me little spare time for anything else. In the past two weeks, turned off by TV, I've picked up two novels worth sharing.

The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

After crashing his commercial jet, a pilot moves his family to a small town to start a new life. While fixing up his new home, he finds a strange door in the basement. Behind it lie dark secrets and even darker spirits. Although many authors use shifting points of view to tell their story, Bohjalian incorporates a rare (excepting this series) second person point of view. This familiarity makes the ensuing events even more chilling.

The Submission by Amy Waldman

A jury selecting a 9/11 memorial design discovers the architect is Muslim. The intersection between the jury's deliberation, the public's reaction, and the architect's vision is thought-provoking, tense, and shamefully realistic.

Maybe this writing-about-reading thing could be habit-forming after all.


No comments: