Carnegie Award Winners Announced

Since 2012, the American Library Association has chosen a best book for adult readers in both fiction and nonfiction that were published in the U.S. in the previous year. Drumroll!! This year's winners are The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin and The Goldfinch by Donna Tart.

Both books have received excellent reviews. The Bully Pulpit focuses on the great friendship between Roosevelt and Taft that was severely tried when they ran against each other for president in 1912. It also vividly describes the muckraking era in American journalism, so far removed from our journalism today, but having left a great influence on it.

The Goldfinch, reviewed here previously, tells the story of a young boy's sense of loss after being bombed in a museum and losing his mother. In the craziness after the bombing, he grabs the small painting of the title--a 13 and 1/4 by 9 inch work by the Dutch artist, Carol Fabritius, that was painted in 1654. Theodore's life spins out of control and he keeps this painting for years. It's a novel about art, relationships, and how circumstances can change the course of a life in a single moment.

The Flight of a Painting of a Little Yellow Bird

“Bad artists copy, good artists steal.” Toward the end of this novel, Hobie, the elder painter of masterpiece copies, says this to Theo, his sorta-kinda adopted son. Is it ironic that Theo has stolen a famous painting, The Goldfinch? This long, convoluted, powerful novel tells the story of a young boy whose life was transformed at age 13 by this random act.

And a random bombing in the art galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum that killed his mother.  Theo’s mom had left him to buy a present in the museum store when the bombing happened. After the blast, Theo crawls amid bodies on the floor to find one older man alive. With some of his last breaths, the man points to the painting and says, “I beg of you.”  Theo interprets this as a plea to rescue it. The dying man Welty also gives the boy an elaborate ring and the name of a business in Manhattan: Hobart and Blackwell.  “Ring the green bell.”

Thus begins the travels/travails of Theo.  His dad, an alcoholic is alive, but in no shape to care for him. Ditto for his one surviving grandparent.