4. Best Book ‘09

What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

Didn't buy a lot of books this year, don’t recall buying any really; and there’s no public library where I live.  We have a book sharing space with shelves and shelves of books in the game-room next to the pool.  Loads of generally popular books; lots of beach reading - - it is, after all, a beach.  French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and English to choose from.

Two books that I read this year and have recommended and talked about - in no particular order:

• The Garden of Eden, Ernest Hemingway – takes place largely in Spain; I enjoy books where I know the geography.  Every time I read Hemmingway I remember again how much I like his style of writing.  When reading him I tend to slow down and try to capture the feel of what he was saying.
• The Age of Reason, Jean Paul Sartre – takes place in Paris, which I also know well, and has some Spain in it too. Bonus is that the author was on the list of writers banned by the Catholic church (that banned-book list was made non-official in 1966).

I read again and loved Mansfield Park by Jane Austin; it was particular fun noticing the geography (England in this case but a part that I am a liitle familiar with) and how long people took to get from place to place; how they thought of time and distance.  All the locations are inside of a days drive for us today.