PEACE LIKE A RIVER

Now I’m tackling Book 2 in the Read-Everything-I-Own Project: Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger.

Why I own this book: Editor-friend A gave it to me last Christmas.

Why I haven’t read it: No particular reason; other books just seemed to keep getting in the way.

Why I still own it: Well, it was a gift, of course, so it comes well recommended to begin with, and both my parents read and liked it too, and it’s critically acclaimed, and it’s written by a Minnesota writer. So I’m about midway through right now and really like it. I was puzzled why it took me a while to get into it; at first the setting, the characters, the writing seemed strange to me, almost too folksy. Then I realized that almost all the books I’ve read recently have taken place in either Victorian England (To Say Nothing of the Dog, Felix Holt, Arthur & George) or magical fantasy lands (the Secret Country trilogy, Howl’s Moving Castle). How long has it been since I’ve read a plain, straight-up, good old-fashioned rural American literary novel? No wonder it seemed foreign to me. Now that I’ve settled in, I’m relishing it; it feels a bit like To Kill a Mockingbird, or, um, maybe Huck Finn? OK, it feels like maybe I ought to read a few more Great American Novels. Can you believe they gave me an English degree when I spent all my time dallying with the Elizabethans and the Victorians/Edwardians?