Madam Mayo's Top 10 Books Read in 2007

1. Patricia Klindienst, The Earth Knows My Name
Strange, moving, beautiful.

2. Sam Quinones, Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream
If you want to understand modern Mexico, you must read Quinones. (I reviewed his first book, True Tales from Another Mexico, here.)

3. Halldor Laxness, Atom Station
(Reykjavik, ho!)

4. Janet Lewis, The Wife of Martin Guerre
This may well be the best novela written in English, ever. Every page, every scene, every image, is stunningly vivid. And the author lived in Los Altos, California! Too incongruous.

5. Hermoine Lee, Edith Wharton
At last, Wharton has the bio she deserves. A grand, plummy pleasure to read, all 850+ pages.

6. Mary Morris, The River Queen
A heart-felt personal memoir of a journey to rival Huck Finn's own.

7. Dale C. Carson and Wes Denham, Arrest-Proof Yourself
Witty, wise, and very disturbing. The authors's dedication says it all: "To the thousands of young men in jail for petty offenses. It's not right. It's not just. America can do better." Read my post on this book here.

8. Janice Eidus, The War of the Rosens
A masterfully told story of a family in the Bronx in the 1960s.

9. Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence
I selected this one for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Non-Fiction.

10. Edward Tufte, Beautiful Evidence
And read my rave about his one day course.

---> Read Madam Mayo's Top 10 Books Read in 2006 here.

Back blogging December 5th.

Now She Cans: Leslie Pietrzyk in the Washington Post

My amiga and fellow blogista, novelist Leslie Pietrzyk, is featured in the Food section of today's Washington Post in an article by David Hagedorn about her adventures in canning! (A sure way to know where your food comes from--- a subject Madam Mayo is very interested in, thanks to Nina Planck's Real Food, Patricia Klindienst's The Earth Knows My Name, the DVD The Future of Food, and the recent pet food recall scandal, not to mention the absolutely luscious farmers markets all around DC.)