What are you reading? WLRN wants to know — and we'll share what we, and other people in the South Florida community, are reading every week in this space.
Tell us what you're reading by replying in the comments, or tweet us @WLRN with the hashtag #FridayReads .
Pablo Cartaya, author of The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora
I'm currently reading The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. Current events aside, this harrowing, epic story set in North Korea is exceptional in so many ways. Thrilling and brutal and beautiful and full of love (almost in the same breath).
I'm also reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood because there was a free e-book download on Amazon Prime and I realize I'd never read it before! The world building in this dystopian novel is unmatched.
I also just finished a terrific novel called Ready Player One by Ernest Cline which a friend recommended. This dystopian novel takes place in a virtual reality world because people no longer care to live in the real world. I couldn't put it down.
Just realizing that all the novels I'm reading take place in a tough, brutal worlds. Maybe it's time for some humor? I know! I'm going to pick up Dave Barry's Best. State. Ever: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland. That'll lighten me up.
Patricia Engel, author of The Veins of the Ocean
I’m reading two books right now – I’m reading a book called Marlena by Julie Bunton and I’m reading Exit West by Moshin Haided. Exit West is a love story and it also deals with refugees who find themselves on this journey to another life together, unexpectedly. And Marlena is a story of a very complicated friendship between two girls.
John Patrick Hemingway, author of Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir
I’m reading right now 1493 by Charles Mann, which is about the Columbian exchange, how it changed the world. I just finished New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, which hypothesizes that New York, the lower half, has become a kind of a Venice. And before that I read No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, which is great. It’s different from the movie, the ending. I love his writing. Great stuff.
