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Books Previously Recommended by Erica

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Breathtakingly illustrated and hauntingly written, Tales from Outer Suburbia is by turns hilarious and poignant, perceptive and goofy. Through a series of captivating and sophisticated illustrated stories, Tan explores the precious strangeness of our existence. He gives us a portrait of modern suburban existence filtered through a wickedly Monty Python-esque lens. Whether it’s discovering that the world really does stop at the end of the city’s map book, or a family’s lesson in tolerance through an alien cultural exchange student, Tan’s deft, sweet social satire brings us face-to-face with the humor and absurdity of modern life.

Half World by Hiromi Goto
Melanie Tamaki is an outsider. The lonely, overweight yet malnourished only child of a loving but neglectful mother is just barely coping with school and with life. But everything changes on the day she returns home to find her mother is missing, lured back to Half World by the vindictive Mr. Glueskin. Soon Melanie begins an epic and darkly fantastical journey to save her parents. What she does not yet realize is that the future of the universe depends upon her success.

Swim by Marianne Apostolides.

Swim entwines the present with those past actions and consequences that have brought Kat to the Greek mountain village where her father was born. She swims laps while her fourteen-year-old daughter reclines on a chaise lounge, poolside, reading a book. Without ever leaving the pool we enter discrete scenes with Kat's parents, daughter, husband and lover. On entering each point in this history, Kat reveals an undertow of sound, rhythm and words in their rippling meanings. Each new lap moves Kat closer to her impending decision: whether she will leave her husband. But the deeper tension within this innovative novel derives from the writing itself its vital urgency that extends the possibilities of narrative beyond the fixed and into the fluid.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

This is the author's second reworking of a classic Grimm fairy tale. This isn't a Disney-esque story of happiness and delight, but rather a dark study of two women imprisoned first by circumstance, and then by class. The story is told from the first person viewpoint of Dashti, a low class servant who is trapped in a tower with her problematic mistress Lady Saren. Lady Saren had rejected one suitor despite her father's command, and the two girls must survive alternating bouts of isolation and torment. Somehow Dashti must help defeat the evil Khan Tegus and unite Saren with her true love. Or are matters as simple as that? Find out for yourself: Book of a Thousand Days is new in paperback this month!

A Homemade Life by Molly Wisenberg

When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. But when she tried going back to her apartment in Seattle and returning to graduate school, she knew it wasn't possible to resume life as though nothing had happened. So she went to Paris, a city that held vivid memories of a childhood trip with her father, of early morning walks on the cobbled streets of the Latin Quarter and the taste of her first pain au chocolat. She was supposed to be doing research for her dissertation, but more often, she found herself peering through the windows of chocolate shops, trekking across town to try a new pâtisserie, or tasting cheeses at outdoor markets, until one evening when she sat in the Luxembourg Gardens reading cookbooks until it was too dark to see, she realized that her heart was not in her studies but in the kitchen.