{"id":1336,"date":"2004-07-21T11:48:12","date_gmt":"2004-07-21T15:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2015-05-14T10:41:50","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T14:41:50","slug":"i-would-add","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1336","title":{"rendered":"Sheila&#8217;s List of Contemporary Must-Read Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>1.  <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=067973709X&#038;asins=067973709X&#038;linkId=S4ROQ7G67B5JPL7F&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nThis is # 1 on the list, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=230\">forever<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>2.  <\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=1564782425&#038;asins=1564782425&#038;linkId=U4BC3MLO3XB3ZE7R&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If anyone ever really wants to understand, on a cellular level, how I see the world, and humanity&#8217;s place in it &#8230; I wouldn&#8217;t be able to describe it myself probably.  This book is the closest expression of it yet.<\/p>\n<p>3.  <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0060975008&#038;asins=0060975008&#038;linkId=TJVDLJ644QYEMZJP&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nI do not know how to describe this book without making it sound boring.  It&#8217;s NOT!  Its theme is life itself &#8211; the search for DNA, mixed in with the Goldberg Variations &#8230; the connections found between these two &#8230; and the meeting-up of 3 very different people:  a librarian, a crazy-boy nighttime computer programmer, and an ex-scientist &#8211; one of the guys who had been on the forefront of the search for the &#8220;code&#8221; of DNA in the 50s &#8230; their paths meet in the 1980s.  And how the Goldberg Variations fit into all of this is anybody&#8217;s guess &#8230; this book is HUGE. All about math, and music, and humanity. A great achievement.<\/p>\n<p>4.  <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0307474968&#038;asins=0307474968&#038;linkId=6XUFW2ZRRGREBELN&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>this woman is tremendous.  One of my writing idols.<\/p>\n<p>5.  <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0312367546&#038;asins=0312367546&#038;linkId=D5DY37RS7QYHGJF7&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nOne of the greatest books ever.<\/p>\n<p>6.  <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0385491026&#038;asins=0385491026&#038;linkId=D7EK7VYMHD2GTPLY&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nThis book haunts me.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=821\">Here&#8217;s a wee story <\/a>I told about it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll probably think of more &#8211; but these are the ones that came immediately to mind.<\/p>\n<p><b>Here are a couple more:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0140089225&#038;asins=0140089225&#038;linkId=LEAAWCDVO5UGXXQ5&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thanks, Fee.  I don&#8217;t know how I could have forgotten that one.  The only novel this woman wrote.  The story of a Maori woman who is a hermit and lives in a stone tower.  Isolated.  And then into her life comes the battering-ram of a man Joe and his little beaten-down son.  The book is a 3-way dance.  It&#8217;s tragic &#8211; and Fee&#8217;s right: it was a painful read, although completely unforgettable.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0375713344&#038;asins=0375713344&#038;linkId=JBHKIHEXC4KOI6SY&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I finished this book, sitting on my porch when I lived in Philadelphia (Germantown, to be exact) &#8211; My boyfriend was going for a run, and when he returned home I was curled up on the wicker couch bawling my eyes out for poor &#8220;Olympia&#8221;.  Great book, people &#8211; about a family of circus freaks.  Indescribable.  Unforgettable.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=038572179X&#038;asins=038572179X&#038;linkId=WC3RZJPVIYXMSJXJ&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0767904427&#038;asins=0767904427&#038;linkId=6BS5B5VCJ7DFMO3T&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0618706410&#038;asins=0618706410&#038;linkId=DF7IOUYDCEDTKBB2&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1. This is # 1 on the list, forever. 2. If anyone ever really wants to understand, on a cellular level, how I see the world, and humanity&#8217;s place in it &#8230; I wouldn&#8217;t be able to describe it myself &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1336\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1077,926,1057,712,642,898],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101699,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/101699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}