THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH

THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH. Cont'd.

1- Spin Sisters by Myrna Blyth

2- Tumbling After: Pedaling Like Crazy after Life Goes Downhill by Susan Parker. [Crown]

3- A Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia, [Steerforth Italia]

4- How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World by Francis Wheen

5- 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz, Workman Publishing

6- Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson, Perennial

7- Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Nafisi Azar, Random House Trade

8- One Hundred Year's of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Perennial

9- The Master Butchers Singing Club by louise Erdrich, Perennial

10- The Know by Martina Cole

Note on "Touching the World" by the University of Oregon Book Reviews.

Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but crippled, starving, and severely frostbitten was trapped in a deep crevasse. Summoning vast reserves of physical and spiritual strength, Simpson crawled over the cliffs and canyons of the Andes, reaching base camp hours before Yates had planned to leave. How both men overcame the torments of those harrowing days is an epic tale of fear, suffering, and survival, and a poignant testament to unshakable courage and friendship.

Note on "Reading Lolita in Tehran".

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. "Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the