I had a hit a rut awhile back. I couldn't find anything good to read. I order and peruse books online from our local library and I came across the Oprah Book Club list. I have to honestly say that I haven't read a bad book from it yet. In fact some of the books are really excellent. A few years ago I read A Fine Balance 
, by Rohinton Mistry. What a great book. My mother has read it twice. This book is witty, sad and just a powerful story. You remember these colorful characters and find them popping up in your head years later. You also learn a lot about India and the caste system. My husband and I ended up reading all Rohinton's books after that one. They weren't as good and one is quite depressing but they were worth the read.
Gap Creek : The Story Of A Marriage
by Robert Morgan was very good. If you like the outdoors and intense character relationships, this book is for you. It takes place in the Appalachians and will show you a life that is hard and physical. Morgan paints amazing pictures of the beautiful landscapes and of marriage. It's easy to see that he is also a poet.
Tawni O'Dell's first book is called Back Roads
. This was a very good read. "Not since S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders) has a female novelist penned such a tough and titillating portrait of lower-class, crime-ridden manhood. Set in "beautiful, ruined" western Pennsylvania, amid Eat n' Parks and Lick n' Putts, Tawni O'Dell's Back Roads follows Harley Altmyer as he walks a raging, self-conscious line between crime and innocence." This was a hard book to put down and was so well written that I immediately read her next book Sister Mine
, which was also good.
This one is not an Oprah Book Club Book, but one I just picked off the shelf at the library one day, years ago. It's a really wonderful book and one of my favorites, It's Edith Pargetter's, The Heaven Tree Trilogy
This is a rather large book consisting of three smaller books that takes place in the feudal times. I read it in three days. I just couldn't put it down. That is an era of history I love. The book is basically about the construction of a church and the politics of medieval England and Wales. There is war, rivalries, adultery and all the ingredients that can make a book riveting.
|