Katie Hafner, Kate Christensen, Nathaniel Popkin: what I'm reading now

This past week I read Howard Norman's beautiful (and Michael Ondaatje endorsed!) I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place as well as Rebecca Solnit's fierce and bracing The Faraway Nearby.

Now on my desk sit Katie Hafner's Mother Daughter Me and Kate Christensen's Blue Plate Special, along with my friend Nathaniel Popkin's first novel, Lion and Leopard, due out in October from the new Philadelphia publishing house, The Head and the Hand Press.

So much wrong can happen each day. But a good book close by is transformative.

I'll be sharing word about these books as soon as I can.

In the meantime, those looking for a good memoir to read (beyond the nearly 100 referenced in Handling the Truth) can find a few recommendations here.

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Dana Spiotta. Stone Arabia. (Read it.)

Back on May 21st I made the audacious announcement that I had just read the book of the year, which is to say that I'd just finished Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta.  Audacious because I'd already been singing some pretty sweet blog tunes about many a fine read this year.  Audacious because I've not yet read the forthcoming Ondaatje or Otsuka, or, indeed, the entire fall line-up.  Audacious because, well, who am I, anyway?

But if one must stand on a cliff, why not stand on Stone Arabia?  This brother-sister story is original, foundational, heartbreakingly sad and heartbreakingly funny, and I don't need to repeat myself, because I called it back in May.

But, hey.  It's nice to have some company in that assessment, and so I give you here Kate Christensen's words, published today, on behalf of the New York Times Book Review.  Christensen calls Stone Arabia "a work of visceral honesty and real beauty."  See what else she has to say.

And if you want to know what big question lies at the heart of this novel, listen to Dana herself, live from YouTube.

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