Thursday, May 30, 2013

Armchair BEA 2013: Day Three


Design Credit: Nina @ Nina Reads

Giveaway

Since I've been mentioning quite a few books that not everyone has read in my Armchair BEA posts, I'm going to give away your choice of book that I bring up anytime during the event - Day One through Five? *looks at agenda* Six! Day One through Six! *wipes sweat*

My giveaways are almost always international, as is this one, and following won't be required. I will give you some opportunities for extra entries, though. :-)

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Literary Fiction

I'm pantsing these posts, and I'm a little hardpressed for time today (always). In honor of this post, I'm going to recommend two of my favorite books that I consider to be literary fiction:

The Stolen Child
by Keith Donohue

Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.

On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings—an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.

In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry’s life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can’t hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he ages the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.

The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights.


The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz

This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú — the ancient curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim - until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.

With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere - and to risk it all - in the of love.

A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Díaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time.


What are some of your favorite pieces of literary fiction?

10 comments:

  1. Great Giveaway! I love the cover for The Stolen Child.

    Here's My Giveaway & Literary Fiction Post

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  2. So excited to have found your blog. You mention a lot of books that I'm unfamiliar with but I think I would like. The Stolen Child looks really good.

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  3. I'm still confused as to what qualifies as literary fiction but I'm hoping that Harry Potter counts! Thanks for the giveaway :)

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  4. I keep stumbling across the second one, I think I need to get that one ;)

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  5. heh, love your comment on your comment form about stalking my blog.. come and get it.. http://www.burtonbookreview.com and there is a giveaway there, too =)

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  6. I still need to read Diaz's newer book but I loved Oscar Wao!

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  7. I loved The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and have been meaning to read The Stolen Child!

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  8. The Stolen Child looks really great! I've seen lots of good things about Oscar Wao, too! Great post!

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  9. I haven't read a lot of Literary fiction but these look good

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  10. Love the cover of Stolen Child. I mentioned Oscar Wao in my literary fiction ABEA post as well. That book both drove me nuts and haunted me. http://momssmallvictories.com/armchair-bea-books-that-changed-my-life/

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You are going to put words in my box?! *squeezes you* Now I shall stalk YOUR blog!