Netherland

Bang, bang and another summer's nearly dead. So it is and always was and here we've found ourselves again, sunburned and sweaty, looking gloomily across the water as the fishes jump and the mountains purr in the last sunset swaths of pinks and purples. Well, that's all for summer folks. Or just about anyways; once Seafair's over it's down, down, down from there.

But, BUT, before it's all done and gone -- (yes, +1 sweltering month to go) -- (even if it was published in 2008) here's to my favorite book of the season : Josheph O'Neill's Netherland.

So much has been said about it by so many great critics -- Obama read it, Michiko Kakutani reveled in its 'stunning' brilliance, The New York Times Book Review called it one of the 10 Best Books of 2008, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and it won this year's PEN/Faulkner for fiction -- but, of course, there's always room for a little more praise. Sweetly written with echoes of not just Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby but also Richard Ford's Sportswriter-trinity, O'Neill's beating rumination upon America, the American dream, and the Post-9/11, post-colonial mindscape is as penetrating a novel as the english-speaking world as seen. READ IT!

xoxo