Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Twenty great contemporary love stories

At the Waterstones blog, Mark Skinner tagged twenty great contemporary love stories, including:
Bel Canto
Ann Patchett

Utilising a hostage siege in a Latin American embassy to interrogate ideas of loyalty, belonging and love, Patchett’s Orange Prize-winning masterpiece is a triumph of nuanced characterisation and storytelling craft. With a keen eye for the vagaries of human relationships and the complexities of communication, Bel Canto is a beautifully realised modern classic.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Bel Canto is among Nicole Holofcener’s ten favorite books, Jenny Shank's top five fabulous works of fiction for musicians, Jeff Somers's top five novels set in a single pressure cooker location, Tatjana Soli's six favorite books that conjure exotic locales, Kathryn Williams's six top novels set in just one place, Dell Villa's top eight books to read when you’re in the mood to cry for days, John Mullen's ten best birthday parties in literature, and Joyce Hackett's top ten musical novels.

--Marshal Zeringue