books I want to read      Books I want to read      The Corrections: A Novel Jonathan Franzen Picador, 2002 Well worth the investment in time + Good read Don't believe the hype about the hype. Brilliantly imagined, extremely well written, and just a pleasure to read.             The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino Harvest Books, 1977 Calvino at his best + No man is an island + one of calvino's best + Up in the trees + Fully Wonderful             Coming Through Slaughter Michael Ondaatje Vintage, 1996 Coming Through Slaughter: Ondaatje's musical novel + What is a Creole? + Question I originally read this book as part of a fiction workshop. Unlike some other class-assigned readings, this book became a treasured part of my personal collection. Its form is rather unconventional -- it's rather like reading a novel of poetry. Admittedly, it can be hard to "get into," but I ...             The Glass Castle: A Memoir Jeannette Walls Scribner, 2006 BRILLIANT! + food for thoughts on food + Such shocking behavior, it's almost unbelievable + Glass Castle + A COMPELLING LOOK AT POVERTY, ADDICTION, & CHILD NEGLECT             This Boy's Life: A Memoir Tobias Wolff Grove Press, 2000 Intriguing... + Must read if you saw the movie + Stark portrait of life + absorbing and painful with moments of comic relief             The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler Vintage, 1988 A Must Read + A masterpiece not merely of hardboiled fiction but of the English language + Where it all began + "Tough Like Some Guys Think They Are Tough"             Running in the Family Michael Ondaatje Vintage, 1993 A Favorite Memoir + Remembering Family + Pictures of yesterday I thoroughly enjoyed this book for its exotic locale and irreverent description of the author's own family. In fact, it made me laugh out loud in places.             The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion Vintage, 2007 "Let it go." + "I needed to be alone so that he could come back." In "The Year of Magical Thinking," Joan Didion chronicles the death of her husband, author and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne. One evening, Dunne died of a severe heart attack while the couple ate dinner. The day had seemed like any other, aside from the fact that they had just returned from a ...             White Teeth: A Novel Zadie Smith Vintage, 2001 A difficult read, but at times engaging I almost dropped this book half way through, but forced myself to go on and found that the second half was much better. It is at times engaging and witty, but at other times difficult to follow and even depressing in the description of some of the shabby lives of these people. I did not like the ...             V. (Perennial Classics) Thomas Pynchon Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1999 Thank God for the last chapter + An excellent first novel I like this book. After I read the last chapter I loved the thing. It's not the most compelling read as you're going through, and half of the time I was asking myself "why keep reading?"... Then I finished the book (more importantly the last chapter) and it was as if a switch had been flipped in ...             Play It As It Lays: A Novel Joan Didion Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 In the Thick of Nothingness [T] + New Hollywood Gomorrah + Memorable Book I have now read two books by Didion - this and the Pulitzer Prize winning "The World of Magical Thinking." Each is devilishly depressing. The similarities do not end there. The main character of this book, Maria Wyeth, physically resembles the author. Her roots are similar. And, she is an ...             The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai Grove Press, 2006 Life Is That Which Drifts Away + A perfectly written blend of fact and fiction One of the most beautifully authentic books I've ever read, Desai's THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS is also one of the grimmest. It reminds me very much of a luscious nightmare, one which you awake from remembering not stories or events, but a strange, unshakable tone or hue. You couldn't say, upon ...             Underworld: A Novel Don DeLillo Scribner, 1998 An Utterly Non-Porus Book. + Detritus of the modern age + In Search of a Latin Lover + "Under the surface of ordinary things" + Non-traditional narrative, in an accessible, rewarding package             Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink Random House, 2007 Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink + I Loved This Book! + Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink + New Yorker book of food and wine             Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting ... Bill Buford Vintage, 2007 Apprentice of apprentices + You Need to Love the Kitchen + Outsider Looking In + banjo          products you might be interested in        toavi.com    web we recommend BRILLIANT! randomly chosen book: Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling ...