N-W [suggested by Wendy Gibson]
Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragi-comic NW follows four Londoners – Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan – after they’ve left their childhood council estate, grown up and moved on to different lives. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their city is brutal, beautiful and complicated. Yet after a chance encounter they each find that the choices they’ve made, the people they once were and are now, can suddenly, rapidly unravel. A portrait of modern urban life, NW is funny, sad and urgent – as brimming with vitality as the city itself. [Product description from Amazon]
Wikipedia entry.
About the Author
Unusually, Zadie Smith doesn’t have a website (at the time of writing). Her Wikipedia page is here.
Shortlisted for this month
‘Alternative’ selection method was in force again this month and resulted in an unprecedented NINE books which no-one in the group had read. The two receiving the next highest votes are detailed below, with others given a creditable mention (and a link) at the bottom:
The Witches of Eastwick
Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful powers have descended upon Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, bewitching divorcées with sudden access to all that is female, fecund, and mysterious. Alexandra, a sculptor, summons thunderstorms; Jane, a cellist, floats on the air; and Sukie, the local gossip columnist, turns milk into cream. Their happy little coven takes on new, malignant life when a dark and moneyed stranger, Darryl Van Horne, refurbishes the long-derelict Lenox mansion and invites them in to play. Thenceforth scandal flits through the darkening, crooked streets of Eastwick – and through the even darker fantasies of the town’s collective psyche. [Product description from Amazon]
Wikipedia page
IMDb entry for the film.
About the Author
John Updike died in 2009 and doesn’t have a website, although he is discussed at length on various academic and literary sites. He does, of course, have a Wikipedia entry.
The Rosie Project
Don Tillman is a socially challenged genetics professor who’s decided the time has come to find a wife. His questionnaire is intended to weed out anyone who’s unsuitable. The trouble is, Don has rather high standards and doesn’t really do flexible so, despite lots of takers – he looks like Gregory Peck – he’s not having much success in identifying The One.
When Rosie Jarman comes to his office, Don assumes it’s to apply for the Wife Project – and duly discounts her on the grounds she smokes, drinks, doesn’t eat meat, and is incapable of punctuality. However, Rosie has no interestin becoming Mrs Tillman and is actually there to enlist Don’s assistance in a professional capacity: to help her find her biological father.
Sometimes, though, you don’t find love: love finds you… [Product description from Amazon]
About the Author
Wikipedia page
Author’s website
The Other Six Books
Roger’s Profanisaurus
The Etymologicon (originally suggested in July)
The Hippopotamus
Come To The Edge
We’re All Made Of Glue
At Swim-Two-Birds