The Victorian practice of a bride wearing something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue is still carried out today to bring newlyweds luck and a happy future. Book Group Magazine thinks this tried and true tradition translates into auspicious and audacious reading lists.
So, this week we’ll be suggesting good reads under the umbrella of something old (fiction classics), something new (newly released fiction), something borrowed (fiction from foreign authors), something true blue (non-fiction). Our wine and food pairings will undertake the same theme, looking at the old-stand-by’s, new cuisine and vintages, foreign dishes and wines and simple no-fuss finger-foods that work with a variety of labels.
Our first good-luck-book-group list looks like this:
S O M E T H I N G Old
MY ANTONIA, by Willa Cather
“The best thing I’ve done is My Antonia,” recalled Willa Cather. “I feel I’ve made a contribution to American letters with that book.” An unconventional novel of prairie life, My Antonia tells the story of a remarkable woman whose strength and passion epitomize the pioneer spirit. Antonia Shimerda returns to Black Hawk, Nebraska, to made a fresh start after eloping with a railway conductor following the tragic death of her father. Accustomed to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush sensuality provokes when she moves to the city. Despite betrayal and crushing opposition, Antonia steadfastly pursues her quest for happiness–a moving struggle that mirrors the quiet drama of the American landscape.
S O M E T H I N G New
HOMER & LANGLEY by E.L. Doctorow
Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers–the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers as research for Langley’s proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers–wars, political movements, technological advances–and even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians . . . and their housebound lives are fraught with odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.
S O M E T H I N G Borrowed
THE ANGEL’S GAME by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Once again, Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.
S O M E T H I N G True Blue
NINE LIVES by Dan Baum
An outsider in a city that many outsiders have tried to understand, Dan Baum arrived in New Orleans to report on Katrina for The New Yorker and came to realize that the way to tell the story of the storm was to step back and tell the story of the city. From the ’60s through the aftermath of the hurricane, Baum follows, with empathy and joy, nine lives that could only happen in the Crescent City.
Book Group Magazine 