50 Books - Books 37 and 38
Aug. 10th, 2003 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
siercia37. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Bessie Smith This was referenced heavily in Children of the City. Since it was an easily accessible piece of source material, I figured I'd check it out. I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not sure how I missed it growing up, it definitely felt more like a YA novel than an adult one. An interesting picture of growing up poor in New York, and tenemen life.
38. The Coastliners Joanne Harris After enjoying Chocolat, I figured I'd pick up a couple more by Harris at the library. This was a lovely story of the inhabitants of a small island off the coast of France, and their struggle in the face of losing their way of life. Understated and beautiful, I found the characters a little confusing (There's family feuds, and at least three generations, and I had trouble keeping track of who belonged to which family), and I alo frequently wished I had the knowledge of the future that I had when I read Chocolat. Either way, I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading Five Quarters of the Orange this week or next.
38. The Coastliners Joanne Harris After enjoying Chocolat, I figured I'd pick up a couple more by Harris at the library. This was a lovely story of the inhabitants of a small island off the coast of France, and their struggle in the face of losing their way of life. Understated and beautiful, I found the characters a little confusing (There's family feuds, and at least three generations, and I had trouble keeping track of who belonged to which family), and I alo frequently wished I had the knowledge of the future that I had when I read Chocolat. Either way, I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading Five Quarters of the Orange this week or next.
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Date: 2003-08-10 07:40 pm (UTC)i found you through friends of friends, i believe. i just had to comment that 'a tree grows in brooklyn' is one of my favorite books. my mom grew up in brooklyn, so the story has special meaning to her. i first read it when i was about ten... it's definitely more of a young adult book, but valuable at any age, i think.
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Date: 2003-08-11 05:31 am (UTC)Betty Smith has two other books that I'm aware of. One is Maggie Now, which I haven't read. The other is Joy in the Morning which I couldn't get into as a child but enjoyed when I read it last year. It might have resonated because its about a newly married woman adjusting to life with her academic husband in Michigan, and I had just planned to marry my fiance, who was teaching at UMich.