Masha Hamilton’s 31 Hours
Summer has officially ended — on September 23, in fact — and now, a few days into October, we feel fall truly approach at Sweet Briar. When we worked outside at Sanctuary Cottage yesterday afternoon doing some fall planting, putting in a few redbuds and dogwoods and azaleas before cold weather sets in and the […]
Small island, small world… lonely place
I loved Small Island when I read it the first time in 2004, the year it was published. I loved it again rereading it this summer, when even its happy ending — orchestrated beautifully by Levy to be both a gain and a loss — does not dim the power of the tremendously painful record of the […]
“Only connect”… and onward and upward
Thank you to all for your comments about Bel Canto, and recently to Zehra for her thoughtful observations about Gen. Her words made me think of the epigraph for E. M. Forster’s beautiful novel Howard’s End, the famous directive, “Only connect…” Perhaps many of you (all of you?) know this novel already… the sentiment is […]
Interview with Ann Patchett
The famous Powells Books in Portland, OR runs a regular interview series. A recent interview with Ann Patchett about her newest novel, State of Wonder, is attached here. You might also be interested in an earlier Powells interview with her about Bel Canto; it’s an awfully smart conversation, and includes the following wonderful description of […]
Welcome new authors!
Lots of folks are signing on as “authors” on the blog, which is wonderful. I love that incoming students will be able to be in conversation with alums who have since left campus but whose hearts remain here! Here are a couple of procedural matters: please offer a brief bio of yourself at the end […]
Buy local…
A reminder for those who are in the area: the Sweet Briar College Book Shop has copies of this summer’s selections for sale at a 20% discount. Please stop in and purchase a book there, if you like… and you can have a coffee and a muffin while you’re at it!
Distinguished contributors!
Several members — past and present — of the Sweet Briar community have signed on to contribute posts to the blog. They include: Lea Harvey (class of 1990), now Vice President for Development at Resources for the Future, an independent nonpartisan environmental policy research firm in Washington. Zehra Asghar (‘10), who works as an Urdu […]
Happy Summer Reading!
I’m delighted to welcome you to Sweet Briar College’s Summer Book Club, where students, alums, and friends of the College gather to talk about books. We’ll begin the summer in June with Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. In July we’ll move on to Small Island by Andrea Levy. We’ll conclude in August with 31 Hours by […]
Welcome Home
Sweet Briar students return to campus this week — classes begin on Thursday — and the summer, at least for those in the academic world, comes officially to a close. Meanwhile, here is a wonderful (and long and eloquent) 2008 interview with Marilynne Robinson from The Paris Review, in which she talks about Housekeeping, her […]
Brave beginning
Tinkers has received an amazing critical and popular reception in the literary world, all of it richly deserved, I think. The novel ascended easily into my top ten list. (How wonderful that these lists of ours keep expanding over the years. Just when I think there couldn’t be a novel I love as much as […]
Glorious prose
I’ve been re-reading Let The Great World Spin, waiting for the end of the month when I can write something about Tinkers — please tell me you’re loving Tinkers — and I read a passage today that seemed to me both emblematic of McCann’s style and also wonderfully instructive for young writers. There is much […]
Man On Wire
The anonymous “walker” in Let The Great World Spin obviously is inspired by Philippe Petit, the French high-wire artist who walked between the Twin Towers in New York in 1974. Anyone interested in that extraordinary act of artistic daredevilry might want to see the 2008 documentary about the event directed by James Marsh, which won […]
Writing About New York
Every great city has writers who seek to capture something about the place they consider the center of the universe. There are many, many great New York novels, and if Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin makes you curious about others, here’s a link to a wonderful 1995 list of the best books — fiction and non-fiction […]
Book Discounts
All, just another note to let you know that Dianne Williams has informed me that if you buy this summer’s books at the SBC bookshop, you’ll receive a 25% discount. They’re approaching inventory over there, and so trying not to order lots of books that won’t be purchased. Let them know if you’d like them […]
Scheduling Etc.
Hi all, My technology consultant on the blog is my daughter Molly, who saved me — a technological Neanderthal — from a meltdown by designing the blog and meanwhile offering administrative assistance. You might be hearing from her about various, er, technical matters. At some point, she’ll have to cut me loose here (at which […]
Welcome
Welcome to the Sweet Briar College Summer Book Club Blog Students at Sweet Briar – current and former – know that they joined a unique community when they enrolled at the College, a sisterhood of friends and intellectual peers who will entertain, enlarge, enrich and support each other not just during their four years […]