3/23/2007

Reading The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai. (Though I talked to another Kiran Desai reader yesterday, I hadn't even see the cover of her book before I asked what she was reading!) It's for her book club. Last month they read The Sea, by John Banville. Both books have won the esteemed Man Booker Prize. Next she's going to read Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl.

Her favorite author of all time is Richard Powers, winner of the 2006 National Book Award. She describes him as an author of big, heady books on difficult topics. The first book she read by him was his semi-autobiographical Galatea 2.2, which the Wikipedia entry describes as "densely cerebral" and about "the nature of language and intelligence, the interaction between science and the humanities, the nature of academia, and the capacity and failings of human imagination."

She recommends, for a first read, something more accessible: his first novel, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, which was inspired by a painting by a photograph taken by August Sander in 1913.

See the 3/3/2007 posting and comment for another Richard Powers fan--if there was a competition for enthusiasm about the author, I think it would be a tie. Just another reason to quit my job and spend all my time reading....