READ THIS: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

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I read this book a few months back and it was organic!  It may be a year old now but it’s still worth reading, it even won the National Book Award in 2009.

The book is set in New York City durring the 1970’s. The story is centered around August, 7^th 1974, the day Philippe Petit walked a tightrope across the World Trade Center (this actually happened). Petit is not a main character  but his walk glues a lot of the story together. The book follows various characters who live in New York City; they all come from different walks of life and have very different personalities. Each character narrates the story at some point in the novel and all their stories intersect. The story is about how coincidence connects people and how small things that strangers do can have large impacts on our lives. McCann is a great story teller and he really brings each character to life. There is the Irish “urban monk”, who has a strange lifestyle (to say the least) and he remains conflicted between religion and love. There is the Woman who lives in a Park Avenue penthouse, spending her days in mourning. There are the drug addict artists. The most colorful character of all is the Prostitute from the Bronx, who has one of the most tragic storylines, and some of the funniest quotes in the entire book! With each character narrating at different points of the novel, It’s almost like reading 10 different books in one. This book has a few dry parts, but pull through; it turns into a real page-turner!

Click Here to buy it from Amazon here: Let the Great World Spin: A Novel

-HG