Time to announce the March Reading Buddies book! It was neck and neck for a while there, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith won out in the end.
Here’s what Goodreads has to say about our March pick:
“The beloved American classic about a young girl’s coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness — in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.”
I know I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as a kid, but I hardly remember it and am looking forward to revisiting it! I hope some of you will be able to join me.
Just a reminder: February’s book is The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. I just picked up my copy and am looking forward to digging in!
Finally, the poll for April is up in the sidebar. The options are (links go to Goodreads): Black Swan Green by David Mitchell, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov. Please vote for your preference!
On a rainy night in 1968, in rural Pennsylvania, a man and a woman find their way to the home of a widow named Martha. They bring with them a newborn baby girl. One is deaf, the other is developmentally disabled, and they are clearly in love. It doesn’t take long for the staff from the institution to track down the two escapees. Lynnie, the woman, is returned to the “school,” while the man — known as Number 42 to the staff and Buddy to Lynnie — flees into the night. When they are gone, Martha discovers the baby in her attic and makes the decision to honor Lynnie’s two-word request: “Hide her.”
First, current and potential future Reading Buddies, if you haven’t voted for the March book yet, please do so! The poll is over on the right. It’s a close race this month, so be sure to voice your opinion!
I also found George intriguing. I wasn’t completely sold on him for most of the novel — he seemed a bit awkward and maybe a little immature. The final scene, though, with Lucy and George in Italy was, I thought, lovely. They both seemed somehow to have settled into their right selves, the people they were at heart. And, with my penchant for clever titles, I quite enjoyed how the novel began and ended with the same “room with a view.”
J. Maarten Troost and his wife are ready for a change of scenery. When Troost suggests moving with their two small boys to China, his skeptical wife suggests he make an exploratory trip and report back. Troost does so, with enthusiasm.
2060, Rome. Emilio Sandoz has returned from an interplanetary mission to Rakhat with mutilated hands and in a precarious mental state, the solitary survivor of his original team of eight. Back in the care of his mission sponsors, the Jesuits, he begins the long and arduous road to recovery. Around him, nasty rumors and outrageous accusations swirl while the world waits for the truth about what happened in Emilio’s own words.