Grendal by John Gardner

Dark and funny. And even more pertinent today than when published in 1971.   (Julie Taymor and Elliot Goldenthal created a stunning opera from the novel that was recently produced by the L.A. Opera Company.)

Digging to America  by Anne Tyler.

If you haven’t read an Anne Tyler novel go immediately to your library or bookshop and get one – or all seventeen.  I’m half way through Digging to America and loving it (and that’s what happens with Tyler’s novels – you fall in love with her characters.) The setting as usual is her hometown of Baltimore, but for the first time she’s using her knowledge of Iranian families (her late husband was Iranian) in her writing. She was quoted in The Daily Telegraph of London saying, “For 44 years his very large and complicated family has been giving me a close look at what it means to be foreign – to view America from the outside, to attempt to ‘dig’ one’s way inside.” Digging to America is No. 6 on the NYT best seller list, but in independent bookstores it’s No. 1.