I haven't read that one yet. I'll add it to my list. Also, I love that TANG TEA. Got to go make some now.

I am also fond of that Tang tea. Road Song gave me nightmares the first time I read it some years ago, which suggests to me that it is an effective piece of writing. We read it in the book discussion group here two years ago (albeit not as part of Reading Wyoming discussion series) and it was quite popular. A lot of people said the language was "poetical," although no one could explain why they thought that or what made its language stand out from other books we had read.

I would have to go back over the many books in the many series to pick the all time best. Off hand, I can say that Silent Spring by Rachel Carson probably made the most impact on me. The whole Living with Violence series was an incredible emotional and intellectual/humanitarian journey. For now, Silent Spring.

The Naipaul book in the series about violence was the best book I read last year. I'm going to read the Alvarez next, for the October meeting of the group in Upton.

I have only done 4 of the Reading Wyoming Groups but these are the ones that I think are the best books from these groups:

For "Ordinary Lives" I though that "Coming of Age in Mississippi" by Anne Moody was a fascinating read.

For "Writing Wyomng" I thought "Where Rivers Change Direction" was the best written and best liked by the group.

For "Other Worlds" I loved "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin (I keep trying to get my non sci fi reading friends to read it). Also for that group "Parable of the Sower" was also excellent (although the group didn't get to read it because it wasn't one of the four chosen to be sent to us).

For "Women of Mystery" I thought the best book was "Tunnel Vision" by Sara Paretsky although the video was very good also. It's really hard to have a serious book group about mystery novels but we've done okay so far.

Does anyone find that his/her favorite book changes from year to year? If so, I'd love to know what you used to like but like even more now.

There's a new bio of Naipaul out, authorized and apparently very honest about what an unpleasant man he is. Has anyone read it?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400044057/?tag=southasianamericA

There are no copies of the Naipaul biography in the Wyoming library system. . . yet. Go ask your library to order a copy if you want to read it! </library promo>

I love A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain, by Robert Olen Butler. It deserved the Pulitzer it won for his humanizing of post Vietnam War Vietnamese Americans. These stories are often funny, subtle, and deftly told. But the most important thing is that you don't feel that he's pandering or getting pedantic on a soapbox. He's just giving us the real lives of regular people in a strange land, and that land is our America. I don't particularly care for his other works--or him as a person for some stories I've heard about him--but this book is amazing.

Okay, I might have a new favorite Reading Wyoming title. Last spring, I read "Death Comes for the Archbishop," and last week I drove to Santa Fe via the mountain route. Passing through all those villages with their old churches in S. Colorado and N. New Mexico, it was easy to imagine the archbishop on his journeys.