Friday Favorite

My Friday Favorite this week is William Styron's "Sophie's Choice," which was made into an equally wonderful movie starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. 

This is really three stories wrapped into one. It's the story of a young Southern man, Stingo, who moves to New York with aspirations of becoming an auther. He moves into a boarding house where he meets the charismatic Nathan and a Polish immigrant, Sophie. The relationship between Nathan and Sophie is the basis for the second story and Sophie's past is the basis for the third story. I just found the characters in this book to be incredibly well-written and Styron writes about the anguish of the characters in a way that really kept me glued to the book. In chronicling Sophie's past and how it affects her in the present, Stryon has written one of the great Holocaust novels. When you find out what Sophie's choice was, I defy you not to gasp; it's truly heartbreaking.

Out this week is a meta-list of the Top 100 books of all time compiled by Newsweek after they looked at lists put together from ten other sources including Modern Library and Oprah. Check it out here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478/.

Literally just delivered to my door, a box of books I ordered from Barnes and Noble's clearance sale. I got: Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh (The Condition), P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern, The Art Thief by Noah Charney, Things I Want My Daughters To Know by Elizabeth Noble and Heyday by Kurt Anderson (of NPR fame). So excited to dig into them but must read through my library books first. Discipline is the order of the day!