A Momentary Taste of Being

50 for 2011 part 2 Okay, so here are some books of interest.  I see that Petina Gappah has a new one due out.  After An Elegy for Easterly , I can think of only two authors I would more eagerly anticipate.  Yes, you've already guessed the first--Yiyun Li.  And the second would be Maaza Mengiste, author of the magnificent Beneath the Lion's Gaze . But, oh my goodness, the announcement that sends chills racing up and down (and I mean that literally, as I type they are just subsiding) Rohinton Mistry has a new novel coming out.  That has to be on my very highest anticipation list!  Again, the only one I can think of in the same league would be Uwem Akpan.

Baker or Bolano?  How to choose. I sympathize with this dilemma.  Often, if I finish a book without a sense of what I'm taking up next  (or really its when an entire plexus of books has come to a terminus and I haven't anything ongoing in the background) I spend hours, sometimes days casting about for whatever fits the mood of the moment. The nice thing about belong to one or more book groups is that that particular problem is often solved.  Problem is, if I'm not in the mood for the book, my opinion of it tends to be more strongly negative than the book itself might warrant.

Seriously, a nice appreciation of the history of the iPod.