No one tagged me in the Ten Books That Have Stuck With Me trend thats going around, but Bilal told everyone to go for it, so I am. Ill be posting them in 2s, as they come to me throughout the day. Here are the first two: 1. CITY OF THIEVES by David Benioff The best piece of historical fiction that Ive ever read, this book has one foot in World War II Russia and the other in a Coen Brothers movie. A young Leningrad boy and a handsome soldier accused of desertion are promised their freedom if they can accomplish a simple task: find a dozen eggs for the Generals daughters wedding cake. Sounds easy right? Did you miss the part where I said this was set in World War II Russia? Yeah. That kinda bumps the Difficulty Level up to Near Impossible. This ridiculous and yet totally plausible concept is the driving force for the funniest black comedy-history-adventure-suspense-buddy-cop-ripe-for-adaptation novel Ive ever read. Benioffs experience writing screenplays (none of them stellar) shows in his ability to pace the story perfectly. Not a dull moment. Most people know him as a co-showrunner of Game of Thrones. But THIS novel is his greatest work thus far. 2. LULLABY by Chuck Palahniuk The phrase the power of poetry takes on completely new meaning in what I personally think is Palahniuks strongest and most consistent work of fiction. A journalist discovers a startling pattern in the number of sudden infant death cases: all of the children were read a particular lullaby the night before they fell asleep and never woke up. As he digs deeper, his quest for the truth sends him down the deep, dark tunnel of personal tragedy and crippling guilt, as he partners with a haunted house real estate agent, her witchcraft-obsessed secretary, the secretarys cocky and maybe homicidal boyfriend, and a whole seances worth of ... whatever-they-ares. Complete with a fractured timeline and a mythology that becomes believable thanks to Palahniuks willingness to feed it to us in bite-size chunks, Lullaby is his novel that demands to receive a wider audience.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:28:28 +0000