1) Composed by Rosanne Cash. This is a beautifully written book about music and art and fame and loss and love. You don’t need to be a fan of Johnny Cash to enjoy this book. She includes three eulogies she wrote for different family members that will make you pause and reflect on your own life and the ones you love. Two memorable lines: “For me, art is a more trustworthy expression of God than religion.” “I have always wanted to live life as a beginner.”
2) Reading My Father by Alexandra Styron, daughter of William Styron, one of our greatest American writers. This also is a beautifully written and often heartbreaking and inspiring book. Memorable line: “Without faith, talent is a fugitive thing.”
After reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63, which is a sprawling yet taut masterpiece, I turned to his book, Under the Dome. What a huge disappontment. Over a thousand pages with flashes of good writing, but the book was about 700 pages too long and not nearly as clever as it could have been in the hands of, say, Ray Bradbury. I picked up a short story by Alice Munro in the New Yorker while reading this book, and those seven pages packed more wallop than the entire book.