25 Books You Can't Put Down
Go on, take what you need. A perfect mystery, a mouthful of poetry...;O serves up a smorgasbord of the summer's best reads.
By Cathleen Medwick
Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle
256 pages; Farrar, Straus and Giroux
No tropical heat for the lonely, sheltered heroine of Camilla, Madeleine L'Engle's 1951 novel of midcentury Manhattan, republished by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Camilla's elegant mother, Rose, has an unctuous boyfriend who makes the teenager cringe and her father, Rafferty, seethe with rage. Struggling to make sense of all that conflict, walking the snowy city streets with a boy named Frank, Camilla tries to fathom the sweet, slow progress of desire.
First chapter: Read an excerpt from Camilla
No tropical heat for the lonely, sheltered heroine of Camilla, Madeleine L'Engle's 1951 novel of midcentury Manhattan, republished by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Camilla's elegant mother, Rose, has an unctuous boyfriend who makes the teenager cringe and her father, Rafferty, seethe with rage. Struggling to make sense of all that conflict, walking the snowy city streets with a boy named Frank, Camilla tries to fathom the sweet, slow progress of desire.
First chapter: Read an excerpt from Camilla
From the July 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine