November 14th, 2005 - The Gift Moves
I read a wonderful book this weekend, The Gift Moves (amazon link). It’s set it a future America (takes a while to realize that, however), which is a gift-based society. Money does not change hands and trading is only vaguely allowed. But giving gifts is of primary import. It’s a fairly simple life, necessitated in part by the annual end-of-the-year bonfire in which most if not all consumable items are burned. Including the clothes on your back (well, they are off at that point). The bakery, for exmaple, uses up every single ingredient they have for food for the Midsummer. Whatever isn’t eaten that day is tossed in the fire. Then, people are hungry for a little bit until new ingredients are gifted to the bakery. I find it hard to describe this book, but had to write about it here as the culture seems perfectly suited to those wishing to live a more simple life.
It’s a book for teens, but I happen to love books for that age group. I’m hoping for a sequel. The world and the characters are richly developed and thoroughly enveloping.
There appear to be two other books by this author, both with F. Paul Wilson (who, if I recall correctly, used to be my husband’s family doctor until he quit to write full time). Both, unfortunately, appear to be in German and no info was available at Amazon. On the other hand, the book’s reviews indicate this is his first novel. I’d bet Amazon has the author linked to another author with the same name. aargh.
By the way, this is a book that I judged by its cover. There was no overleaf info to help me know what the book was about. The cover included one paragraph on the back that gave little insight into the book but was intriguing. The front cover—-a picture of a girls legs with small green footprints running down it–and title alone were enough to intrigue me. (The green footprints are a tatoo, but I shall let their secret await your reading of the book. It’s a quite delightful plot device!)
November 21st, 2005 at 1:29 am EST
Hi
Glad you liked the book. You might want to track down The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde, which gave me a lot to think about while writing TGM. I see you have reviewed a book by Michael Fogler, who I think is the same Michael Fogler I know here in Lexington, KY.
Also glad you liked the cover!
Steve Lyon