Last Minute Stocking Stuffers: #bestreads2012

Christmas is coming, and it's coming fast. My top 5 book recommendations to fill your favorite reader's--or writer's--stocking.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving (Jonathan Evison): One of my favorite books of the year, when a stay-at-home dad loses his reason to stay at home, he finds work taking care of a disabled young man. A road story, a love story, a coming-of-age story, Revised Fundamentals hits every emotional peak, and then some. I covered Evison's recent visit to Baltimore's Book Festival HERE.

City of Thieves (David Benioff): A love story of sorts between two unlikely young men who become best of friends. Leningrad is under seige by the Germans, and a Russian soldier AWOL and a literary kid caught stealing from a dead German are tasked with procuring a dozen eggs for a high-ranking officer's daughter's wedding--or face execution.

Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann): I read this book every year and always find more to marvel at McCann's mastery. The thread of a tightrope walker balancing between the World Trade Towers in the 1970s makes the present that much palpable and poignant.

The Meadow (James Galvin): A poetic transport to the meadows and mountains of the American West. Non-fiction that reads like the finest fiction.

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Ben Loory): A fabulous short story collection with Carver-esque prose and unpredictable plots. For writers wanting to study the opening line 'hook', read no farther.


And a couple of other short but not necessarily sweet offerings:

Conversations with S.Teri O'Type (Christopher Allen): Goofy, high-camp, and amazingly good fun from one of the most promising emerging writers.

Shortly Thereafter (Colin D. Halloran): Heart-stopping poems about war written by a soldier-poet stationed in Afghanistan.

HAPPY SHOPPING and HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Peace...

5 Reads / 5 Days

1. THE MEADOW by James Galvin. A gorgeous piece, an extended essay/poem on generationa growing up on a meadow perched on the Colorado-Wyoming border. Sounds dull. All the excerpts sound dull. But this small gem made me weep and laugh and smile and wish.

2. 40,000 WORDS. In my capacity as editor/classmate. I have visited Nigeria, a dreaming room, a small California coastal town, Sicily, among many other places, and met terrorists, mothers, a woman mourning her lost love, boys coming of age, among others. Wonderful. Of these 8 works, 3 began with a dream or waking up. Not so wonderful.

3. MAPS. Lots of maps. Maps of Delaware, South Dakota, Washington DC, and Boston, MA. Some for practical reasons (how the hell do we detour around Rehoboth Beach?) and others for their capacity to build place, to create setting.

4. HOW TO SAY GOODBYE by  James Valvis. Finally some hammock time to absorb these potent poems that twist and turn in unexpected, glorious ways, leaving my always with a gasp.

5. WITH MY BODY by Nikki Gemmell. Total summer read, a modernized version of The Story of 'O' and Lolita all mashed up. Written in second person POV, this one grows on you, makes you remember the heat of desire.

So... it's summer. Whatchya reading?

Peace...