Editorial: Need a good book to read?
Published 10:24 am Friday, August 3, 2012
It gives us great pleasure to read about the opening of a used bookstore in Clarks Grove. We wish it well.
The reason we are happy to read stories like that is because we are, of course, avid readers, too. Reading is a good habit to get into:
• “Hunger Games” by Suzanne J. Collins: You’ve seen the movie, but if you liked it you will like the dystopian tale in print even better. Sure, the book is intended for teens, but adults generally will like it, too. It is filled with suspense that kept us turning the pages. Though a few parts were cliché, for the most part we found ourselves immersed the universe Collins creates.
• “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green: This book is about teens, but we didn’t really feel like it was a teen novel when we were reading it. The novel is a soulful tale about life, death and love. It is written in a first-person perspective of a girl with terminal lung cancer.
• “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath: This was written in the early 1960s and is set in 1950s America — perfect stuff for a used bookstore, right? Some see this book as merely an emotional rollercoaster experienced by a young girl, but others see it more for what it is: shedding light on the confining expectations placed on young women of the era.
• “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom: Have you finished your education? You really haven’t unless you checked out this piece of nonfiction about a student and a mentor. It’s a book that teaches the readers how to live life. Isn’t that what we are all searching for anyway?
• “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand: This author doesn’t crank out nonfiction books. She painstakingly researches them. Her last book was “Seabiscuit,” published in 2001. “Unbroken,” published in 2010, is biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. This man was an Olympic runner who entered the U.S. Army Air Force in 1941 and survived incredible circumstances during World War II. If you find members of the U.S. armed forces to be heroes, you ought to read his tale.