13 Underrated Books of 2010

13 Underrated Books

I haven't read many of these--but James Hynes is on my list, if only for his absurd success with The Lecturer's Tale.  However, I would put a little asterisk next to Ms. Orringer's opus and note that while I found the writing and language engaging, one member of my bookgroup (rightfully, I think) appiled Ayelet Waldman's epithet of bore-geous writing to it.  For me there was a sense of displacement in time--too much modern sensibility seemed to pervade the thoughts and actions of people in the 1930s.  It could be that the story derives from real life, there seem to be adapted elements--but even if so, it is real life that has been interpreted in the light of a completely changed culture and as a result, I never felt fully engaged because I was constantly pulled away by the tension between the story being told and the sensibility of the telling.

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