Hi Jane and Joan … just a quick greeting … and a quick ‘wow’: I haven’t been on this site lately … just peeking in tonight and finding your lovely discussion:I am chuckling to find my little old home town in these pages … I grew up in Bielefeld (no kidding!) - and although I left to study in Berlin (for a diploma in Education, plus Film Studies as a second degree), I know not only about it but also know a lot of children, the kids of my old friends, who were/are attending the LaborSchule … it’s so great to have these virtual global connections popping up … Cheers.U.

Thanks for the link … and the great quote! … What a wonderful image to have this young, educated and warm family in the White House … but also: what a job ahead for them … they’ll need all the respect, support and good wishes we can send their way!

Thanks for the compliment, Rocky. and Rocky and Frank: re. Hesse, I always liked Narcisss and Goldmund best, but am just now re-reading Siddharta and it’s wonderful … beginning to see where the seeds were laid so many years ago for my current orientation to Buddhism …

Dear Joan … thank you so very much for this lovely tale … all my life I have been dreaming of Kyoto … never yet been to Japan, still dreaming … and as I am also daydreaming at least twice a year over those gorgeous catalogs from Geographic Expeditions (assuming that must be the Jim Sano…) … I’ll now imagine that I might one day see those exquisite woodblock prints you found …???!!!

Hi Chris and Frank . .. also just finished The Thirteenth Tale … wasn’t too wild about the writing, but loved the story and characters (and the 13th tale …) and Frank: thanks for the Gerard Manley Hopkins!!!

Hi Frank … will have to look up some of these as your book choices are always excellent! … re. Justine Hosnani and Clea Montis: just re-read the Alexandria Quartet a few weeks ago and was astonished at my notes of 30 years ago (still valid …)

P.S. … what I also meant to say was, that such a well written character as Jo March became a literary Heroine across time, culture and language …

Beautiful Rainbow Power … glad you jumped across the “contemporary” definition … my fingers were twitching to add in Josephine March, as I don’t think I have ever loved a fictional character quite as much as dear old Jo … which goes way back in my life when I first encountered the March sisters … the book in our post-war German library was titled “Betty and her Sisters” (which I read a gazillion times …) and it took me many years to realize that it was the beloved “Little Women” by famous Ms. Alcott … many readings later (German and English) I am always transported back immediately to my little bookworm-self as soon as I open that book … Thanks for reminding me!

Hi Rocky Rocky … good question, which lead me to look at my answer and finding: I chose recent fictional characters who all seem to be in love, on a quest for love or on a complex life journey, real traveling lives (hmm…) - and that was just a quick answer after looking at the books lying around … as to the authors, they are the ones whose range of works I have been reading and always seem to go back to because their characters engage me … JD Salinger, Joan Aiken, Philip Pullman, Hermann Hesse, Tchingis Aitmatow, Colette, Zora Neale Hurston, Arundhati Roy, Monica Ali, Colum McCann … and so many more … And: I think it’s a fun game trying to match up the characters mentioned in some of these posts with the authors/books …

Hi Phyllis … I like how you specify the question and your reasons for choosing these writers … I realized I went with fictional characters immediately (and figured ‘contemporary’ at least back into the early 20th…) … But I do like your non-fiction list of contemporary thinkers very much … especially Ian Buruma, Chris Hitchens, Henrik Hertzberg, and would add to it a.o. Susan Sontag, Siri Hustvedt, W.G. Sebald, Pico Iyer, Barbara Ehrenreich … always lots of food for thought!

Oh, yes Francine Prose is great ! … she also wrote one of the best books about writing/reading … and currently heads NY’s PEN org.

I second Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee … hi, Frannie Em ! … and more of my (relatively) contemporary literary Heroines and Heroes … Zooey Glass; Dido Twite; Lyra Belacqua; Goldmund; Dshamilja; Phil and Vinca; Janie Crawford; Ammu, Rahel and Estha; Nazneen and Hasina; Zoli; … … … (so many books , so little time …)

Sweet comment, Mugsy … yeah to Ms. Lily clones… And yikes, I had never heard of that connection of IQ ./. population increase … (“One estimate says the Global IQ will drop a full five points from 1950 to 2050.”) … but having lived half of that time-frame, I feel quite certain for a time now that ‘the world’ seems to get ‘dumber and dumber’ … a cliche, but often even reading contemporary literature as compared to ‘classics’ seems to prove the point … maybe

Please, stop calling yourselves ‘pro-life’ … people who are pro-guns, pro-war, pro-death penalty, etc. are most certainly not pro-life

Thank you, Suzanne … I really admire your energy and willingness to debate these ladies with such eloquence and solid information … I’m just too exhausted with disbelief about these narrow-minded individuals … even using 21st century technology, they seem to be so out of it, so behind the times and any real world … and when I get real angry I just want to wish them back into their antediluvian swamps …