Worth reading

A trip to our local library a couple of weeks ago netted a haul of fine reading, which I have been working my way through. I can recommend:
Annie Proulx, Bad Dirt - These short stories continue Proulx's fascination with Wyoming - they read like something Garrison Keillor would write after listening to the entire works of the Bronte family on tape. A mix of humourous eccentricity and gothic chills, all rooted deeply in the plains and forests of Wyoming.
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go - reading Kazuo Ishiguro is like finding yourself being carefully wrapped in strands of sadness by a very cunning spider. This book ranges from bittersweet to melancholy to heartbreaking and back again, through the rather unlikely combination of English boarding-school tale and futuristic sci-fi. It's very good and it's very, very sad.
Kate James, Women of the Gobi - not from the library, but I bought a copy because it was written by a woman I went to school with in India. After giving up on her attempts to fit the evangelical mold of her family, Kate became fascinated by the exploits of a trio of missionary women who travelled across the Gobi Desert in the early twentieth-century. She went to China to follow in their footsteps and through her journey try to confront her own loss of faith. Travel-writing can be self-indulgent, but this is self-reflective in the best sense - funny and interesting and very moving.