August Readers Recommend

The Night Circus
Bright Before Us
The Instructions
The Lonely Polygamist
Shadow Tag
The Cry of the Sloth
A Reliable Wife
The Things Between Us
The Flying Troutmans
The Family Fang
Role Models
The Magicians

Sophie's Choice

My friend Kerry recommended this one.  I almost never read a book after I've seen the movie, but Kerry reads like a fiend and has excellent taste, so when she told me to run, not walk, and buy Sophie's Choice, I did just that.  And I'm so happy I did.  

I'm sure most people have seen the film, which is also outstanding, but there's so much more depth to the book.  And humor!  How could you successfully incorporate fantastic humor into a story that devastating?  This was my first experience with William Styron, and it set me off on a Styron spree.  I followed Sophie's Choice with Lie Down in Darkness, a brilliant novel written at the age of twenty-six.  Astonishing talent.  I  also just finished his memoir about living with depression called Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness.  

Although his writing is extraordinary, I have to move away from him for a bit because his material is so upsetting.  I need to read it in intervals.  It's all hauntingly beautiful, but absolutely soul-crushing.  Next up is The Confessions of Nat Turner, which apparently caused quite a racial stir when published.  Start with Sophie's Choice.  It's brilliant.