One of the most interesting things about having a blog is seeing who reads it, and how they find it. Lately my counter suggests that a lot of people are looking for love stories to read this summer: a Google search for “best love story” brings up my post from last spring about The Extraordinary Garden by François Gravel which I still think is one of the best love stories I’ve ever read. Certainly it’s tops in the category: love between adults who realize that the world doesn’t revolve around them.
But what else is there which might be recommended to people who like a good romantic tale for summer reading? Here are a few suggestions:
Forbidden love: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things A tale of love between two people who shouldn’t care for each other for many, many reasons of social class and personal history
Love which finally finds its place: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, an epoch story of India, which could have taken place many other places.
Unrequited love: Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright. Small town girl holds a torch for a city man for decades
Comic love: Moo by Jane Smiley A big, sprawling satiric look at a university town and the people who live and love in it. It ends, as all good comedies do, with weddings.
Young love that ends well: Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda Translated from French, this novel shows young people searching for their destiny and finally finding it. Funny and profound.
Love after high school. My own After Surfing Ocean Beach, which started out to be my “high school” book: I went to Point Loma High School in San Diego and spent far too much time hanging out at Ocean Beach. But the more I got involved in the story, the more I realized that what really mattered about the characters was what happened to them afterwards—how they played the hands they were dealt, and how they ended up loving or not loving.
Good reading. The books should all be available at good independent booksellers across North America, or through Amazon.ca .
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1 comment:
Does your book actually take place in and around OB/PL? What period?
Your name seems familiar; did you buy a PLHS donor brick?
FYI, how I found your blog: With a GoogleAlert for Point Loma High School.
Gretchen Pelletier
gpelletier@ucsd.edu
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