Yup, back to back book reviews.
If you're looking for something great to read, I highly recommend "A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain" by Robert Olen Butler. This collection of short stories -- which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for fiction -- revolves around the theme of Vietnamese Americans living in Louisiana*. To put it simply, the writing is beautiful and the stories are all memorable.
My buddy Jim had given me this book after I asked him if he had anything that was jumping off his shelf. Once I opened the book I couldn't put it down. In fact, after reading the first three short stories I sent Jim a text message that said, "These stories are beautiful. I'm gonna try to read this book slowly so I can really enjoy it." Well, I tried to read it slowly but I finished it in four days.
Put this one on your summer reading list! If you don't believe me, here's a link to the NY Times Book Review about the boook.
* All the stories revolve around Vietnamese Americans except the last two, which I felt were great stories but seemed out of place and didn't go with the work as a whole. Jim later told me that the last two stories ("Salem" and "Missing") were added in later publications.
2 comments:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/vi
llage-called-versailles/film.html
It's a documentary called A Village Called Versailles and it's about the Vietnamese community in New Orleans struggling after hurricane Katrina.
Your post made me think of it.
"Catfish and Mandala" and
"Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora" are also good reads.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=1028ccc5541a941c5579d9a521171a93
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