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My questions for this week’s prompt are how far back are people going to go when selecting older books and how many of us will have already read what other folks recommend?
I wish I could peek at everyone’s answers ahead of time to see what you’re all picking and when they were published.
Here are two books I’d add to this list. Their publication years are in parentheses.
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (1976)
Why: You don’t often seen both dystopian and utopian futures described in the same novel. I like the ambiguity of the main character’s connection to these futures as well as the idea that nothing is set in stone.
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1993)
Why: Other Canadians may have already heard of this book, but it doesn’t seem to be as well known elsewhere. This is a literary fiction novel about Daisy, a bitter woman who was born in 1905 and lived a long, hard life. You are not always going to like her (or at least I sure didn’t), but her journey was well written and explained why she was so angry with the world when she grew old. There’s something to be said for books that explore the lives of unlikeable characters and show why they behave the way they do.
Both of these books sound interesting. I’ll have to check ’em out.
Thanks. Hope you like them!
Stone Diaries sounds like showing the human condition realistically. Need to read it.
Yes, it sure does. I think you’d like that one.
Those both look pretty interesting. I went ahead and picked up Woman on the Edge of Time; I’m not sure I have the spoons to tackle The Stone Diaries at the moment, as it sounds like it’s kind of a lot.
No worries there. Hope you like Woman on the Edge of Time.
I’d never heard of these, but will check them out.
I hope you like them. 🙂
I keep rereading “Woman on the Edge of Time” every few years…can’t resist the joy of synergistic work that Piercy captured in Mattapoisett. I had two summers like that, different times and places, but everybody could use one more!