The Monthly Reader

A look at the books of June.

More on:

• Book Excerpts
• Authors

Memoir...
"I'll be in Washington next week," I say. "I have an interview."

"You promised me," he says. "You said you would stay away from Washington State. You sat right here and said that you would not go to the Cascades."

He yells as loudly as I have ever heard him.

"Washington, D.C.," I shout back. I have the trait as well.

He glares. I glare. In that glare is the jolt of our connection, the fierceness of our attachment. We stare at each other hard.

"I don't know what you are so angry about," he says.
Apples & Oranges: My brother and Me, Lost and Found by Marie Brenner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $25)

Novel...
[She] had been hearing the murmur of artillery fire for two days now. Everyone had. A rare and peculiar winter thunderstorm in the far distance. Little more...It was one of those frigid weeks when the days would alternate between whiteout-like snowstorms and periods so still that the smoke from the chimneys would rise up into a slate gray sky in lines that were perfectly straight.
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian (Shaye Areheart Books/Crown, $25)

Biography...
Dan Patch preferred the roar. Which was odd, because why would a horse choose hysteria over a quiet walk back to the barn? What did he care about world records and the endless hype? The preference wasn't horselike. Dan Patch was an odd horse.
Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America, by Charles Leerhsen (Simon & Schuster, $26)

History...
It is best to use discretion when confronting an emotionally shattered man, especially if he's holding a semiautomatic rifle.
Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight From the Greatest Manhunt of World War II by Brendan I. Koerner (The Penguin Press, $25.95)

Philosophy...
Successful people in every field are almost universally members of a certain set—the set of people who didn't give up. Much of what happens to us—success in our careers, in our investments, and in our life decisions, both major and minor—is to a considerable extent as much the result of random factors as the result of skill, preparedness, and hard work.
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow (Pantheon, $24.95)

From Reader's Digest - June 2008

 

• 16 Books That Define America
• Classic literature to revisit the nation's past.
• 
• 15 Books That Will Transport You
• 
• The Best Thrillers of All Time
• Ready for your hair to stand on end -- while reading a book? Check out our list of these 10 great thriller genres.
• 

Trying to explain to our five-year-old daughter how much computers had changed, my husband pointed to our brand-new personal computer and told her that when he was in college, a computer with the same amount of power would have been the size of a house.

Wide-eyed, our daughter asked, “How big was the mouse?”

-- Cyndy Hinds

Sponsored Links