Book Club Choices for April 2014

stack of books

Because nothing boosts happiness more than a great book, each month, I suggest:

– one outstanding book about happiness or habits
– one outstanding work of children’s or young-adult literature–I have a crazy passion for kidlit
– one eccentric pick–a widely admired and excellent book that I love, yes, but one that may not appeal to everyone

Shop at Amazon (I’m an affiliate), or your favorite local bookstore. Or visit the library! Drumroll…

An outstanding book about happiness or, more specifically, habits:

Laurie Colwin, Family Happiness. This excellent novel is is a brilliant portrait of an Obliger in full Obliger-rebellion, if that interests you.

Buy from Amazon.

An outstanding young-adult book:

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. This is an outstanding book, which I planned to recommend next month; for this month, I intended to recommend Carol Ryrie Brink’s Andy Buckram’s Tin Men. And it’s out of print! Horrible. Try to get it from the library, so good.

Buy from Amazon.

An eccentric pick:

Journal of Eugene Delacroix.

Buy from Amazon.

I’ve noticed that many times, when someone describes a book to me, I want to read it less. And often, weirdly, the better a book is, the worse it sounds. So I won’t describe these books, but I love all the books I recommend; I’ve read them at least twice if not many times; and they’re widely loved.

If you read last month’s recommendations…what did you think? Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit;William Pene du Bois’s The Twenty-One Balloons; and Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions.

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