So it's like a pass-it-on thing, then. Wait a minute. You and this lowlife are in this chain of do-gooders, some kind of Mother Theresa conga line? That's a little New-Agey for you, isn't it? Sort of Tibetan? What, are you in a cult?
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Catherine is far left and standing next to Marcus Zusak author of The Book Thief
It was only while I was compiling a list of my favourite films that I remembered about Catherine Ryan Hyde.
I thought I had first happened upon her through the film Pay It Forward. Although it bummed at the box office it's an immensley moving story about a boy whose school project is a philosophy about 'paying it forward' as opposed to 'paying it back'. Kind of good turns in advance. It's a great concept and the story is about both reconiciliation and estrangement and has the most unexpected ending ever.
Love in the Present Tense is another of her novels which examines love ... the pathos kind, between a man and a young boy whom he is forced to adopt.
CRH has a way of examining the deeper themes of life, in a kind of upside down sort of way. She doesn't go for the easy endings either. Electric God is a riches to rags story about loss, both material and relational and the first of her books I read, although it's only today that I realised who wrote it.
Like with Barbara Kingsolver there's still alot of her writing for me to discover, which feels like I have a lot of treats ahead of me.
Books by Catherine
The Day I Killed James
Chasing Windmills
The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance
Love In the Present Tense
Becoming Chloe
Funerals for Horses
Earthquake Weather
Pay It Forward
Walter's Purple Heart
Electric GodYou can find her official website here
permalink="http://www.batspice.co.uk/permanent/link/to/CRH.html">
Mitch Albom
Terry Brooks
Michael Crichton
Roddy Doyle
Ben Elton
Thomas Hardy
Joanne Harris
Tom Holt
Nick Hornby
Stephen King
Barbara Kingsolver
C.S.Lewis
Billy Roche
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Tom Sine
Tolstoy
Danny Wallace
Mary Wesley
