Finally signing up b/c I am finally retiring from my job and will have more reading time, hopefully. Just started Colum McCann's LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN. Such a delight. An early pearl: "Another day, another DOLOR." It isn't a typo!

One of the best books I read this year. Maybe the best. The writing and the characterization were exquisite, and I loved how all the disparate threads came together. Just loved it.

I was finishing up the last few pages on the train in to work this morning and there was one tiny vignette -- I'm not going to spoil it, but it's one of my favorite old Bronx anecdotes -- and for whatever reason, I found myself with tears running down my cheeks. Not because it was sad, but because the emotion in this book ran so close to the surface for me. I think the setting must have a lot to do with it -- various storylines in mid-70s NYC, all circling around Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the two WTC towers -- but McCann also obviously loves his characters so much, it's contagious.

Just fabulous. Not without its faults -- it's very talky, more tell than show -- but it's got a huge heart and the writing's terrific. I kept thinking it was one of the best 9/11 novels I've read, although that's only glancingly alluded to at the very end, which is what makes it work as such. I am not an easy sell on the 9/11 thing.

Reading this on the subway into work today and I missed my stop... that's about as good an endorsement as you can get.

I've been savoring this, Lisa. I don't want it to end. That second story, about the Irish brothers who eventually emigrate to NYC, is one of the best short stories I've read in years. It affected me deeply and strangely.

This showed up in my mailbox today (thank you, lynn c.!) and I had to dip in. The first story was a sock-knocker -- stylistically solid, if not daring, but it struck a note because it was about Philippe Petit and his walk between the World Trade Towers in 1974. As a New Yorker it strikes a note of pride, nostalgia, and sadness, plus (as everyone is surely tired of hearing me tell) I met him once, when he walked a wire strung 2' off the floor for a life drawing class I took, and that was an amazing thing I'm always stunned to be reminded of. Back to Forster now, but this is so next.

I sought this ARC when I read Eggers' rave, and moved it up in the pile after lynn's rave. One story in and I'm hooked by the gorgeous prose.