The Orange Prize Project

Laura's Review - Oryx and Crake

2012-01-28T05:37:00.000-08:00

Human society, they claimed, was a sort of monster, its main by-products being corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain. It was like a giant slug eating its way relentlessly through all the other bioforms on the planet, grinding up life on earth and shitting it out the backside in the form of pieces of manufactured and soon-to-be-obsolete plastic junk. (p. 243)

Snowman, formerly known as Jimmy, lives in relative solitude, sleeping in a lean-to and scavenging for food and water in a city destroyed by a disaster. He wears a watch, although it no longer functions, and covers himself with a bed sheet as protection from the sun's harsh rays. Snowman also watches over the "Children of Crake," a group of ... what are they? People? Aliens? And how did all this come to pass?

Snowman's entire life is set sometime in a near future, that bears some resemblance to the world we know today. The story takes us back to Snowman's childhood, when his father worked for one of many corporations using science to "improve" the world. Through genetic engineering, they seek to evolve human and animal life to advanced forms, free from perceived weaknesses. But of course that comes with a price to people and society. Snowman and his best friend Crake spend their days in typical boy/teen pursuits, like videogames, but even these have a somewhat sinister aspect. As they grow up, their paths diverge -- Crake is more scientifically minded, and is recruited by a renowned university -- but they meet up again in their 20s, along with Oryx, a beautiful woman they have both admired for years.

Along the way, Margaret Atwood leaves tiny clues, so the reader begins to envision what will happen, and how Snowman ends up as possibly the last remaining human on earth. It's both gripping and highly disturbing. Atwood considers her work "speculative fiction," not science fiction. And Oryx and Crake has the requisite dystopian and apocalyptic elements. It's not my usual fare, but she is so good at it, I could easily imagine Snowman's world, and see the path to it from the world I know today. In writing Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood said she intended to give one answer to the question, "What if we continue down the road we're already on? How slippery is the slope? What are our saving graces? Who's got the will to stop us?" And frankly, her answer is bleak. It could be a wake-up call. Or we could all just continue down the road we're already on ...

Cross-posted from my blog

The Dancers Dancing by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne (Jill)

2012-01-27T04:50:00.000-08:00

The Dancers Dancing
By Eilis Ni Dhuibhne

It's the summer of 1972, and a group of teenagers from Dublin are traveling to east Ireland for "Irish College" - a time when they are immersed in Irish language, food and culture. The Dancers Dancing is a coming of age tale for most of the characters, but it's young Orla who grows the most during this summertime adventure.

Orla and her friend, Aisling, are staying together with two older girls in a country cottage where they walk to the school house for lessons. The idea is to wholly submerge the students into Irish culture. They are not allowed to speak English, and by staying with families along the countryside, they are immersed in the pastoral lives of their fellow Irishmen and women. However, Orla is already on familiar ground. Her family is from the same village, which she tries to hide from her classmates, and Orla spends most of the summer trying to avoid her crickety aunt.

The Dancers Dancing is not a fast-paced, complex novel. It moves steadily with little dips and curves, like a river twisting through the countryside. My frustration with reading The Dancers Dancing has nothing to do with the writing or story; it's my lack of knowledge about the plights of Ireland. I didn't follow the significance of why the teens were being immersed in Irish culture, or fully understand the struggles between the Catholics and Protestants. Dhuibhne assumes her readers have an understanding of these intricacies, but sadly, I do not. Additionally, there was a lot of Irish language in the novel, with not enough context to interpret what was going on. A glossary would have been helpful for this reader.

None of this is the book's fault. I just wish I had more historical and cultural information to more fully appreciate this novel. Despite my frustration, The Dancers Dancing was an enjoyable read. Dhuibhne writes beautifully, especially about the landscape surrounding the students. Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2000, The Dancers Dancing is a light treat for fans of literary fiction. ( )

Another Challenge--I must be crazy! Beth's first post

2012-01-24T18:36:00.000-08:00

I have just signed on for this challenge in response to a fellow "Around the World in 52 Books" challenge member's blog post today. I'm already doing challenges related to the 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die, the Pulitzers, the Nobel Literature Picks, and my own personal challenge to read my way through the Mann and Mann Booker various winner lists. But then I learned about the Orange Prize. I'd already been checking into what it is, and then I saw Pragya's post. I read a lot (roughly 100 books a year, mostly fiction, mostly literary fiction), and my goals this year are to do 100 books, from at least 52 countries, with at least 50 from the 1001 books lists, and at least 12 from the Pulitzers and Nobel authors. Now my goal will be to do at least one of the Orange Prize books each month (although I'm going to give my self a pass for January and count the very embarrassingly small number of books I've read so far from the list. I've read NONE of the new authors winners or short list books, so I have my work cut out for me.

In the real world I'm a psychologist in private practice (though I spent 10 years in academia and may go back), married at 41 to my college sweetheart and with a very enjoyable and exhausting 4 year old daughter now to show for it.

I'll be back soon to post reviews of the books I have already read. I will also be co-posting these entries on my own blog, which is where I review all those other books I'm gobbling away at, and sometimes make other random posts related to the countries my books or their authors are from.

Swamplandia! - Wendy's Review

2012-01-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it. When I was a kid I couldn’t see any of these ridges. It was only after Swamplandia!’s fall that time folded into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. If you’re short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell. – from Swamplandia!, page 7 -

It has been a year since Hilola Bigtree died from ovarian cancer leaving behind her three children – Ava, Osceola (“Ossie”), and Kiwi – and “The Chief,” her husband. Swamplandia!, with their mother at its center, is the family business and the only life the Bigtree children have ever known. Wrestling alligators, selling “museum” trinkets, and entertaining the tourists who arrive on the ferry is what they have always done. But, now things have changed. Their mother’s loss has not only left them achingly alone, but has also left Swamplandia! without a star act. And there is a new game in town by the name of World of Darkness, a garish theme park of twisted rides inside a whale’s digestive tract and pools filled with ruby colored water. Kiwi, nearly seventeen and longing for a college education, runs away from Swamplandia! to become an employee at World of Darkness. Chief Bigtree mysteriously disappears on one of his vague “business trips,” and Ossie, just turned sixteen, seems lost in a world of ghosts and an old dredge boat. Ava, age thirteen, is left to her own devices and resolves to save Swamplandia! and her family before time runs out.

Karen Russell’s Orange Prize nominated debut novel is filled with quirky characters, rambling plot lines, and gorgeous descriptions of the Florida swamps. It is also a darkly constructed story about the individual nature of grief and loss. Each character in Swamplandia! is devastated by the loss of Hilola – a woman whose death-defying act of swimming with the alligators (called “Seths”) opens the novel. It seems that death is all around this family – from the monstrous Seths, to the World of Darkness where tourists are called “Lost Souls,” to Ossie’s flirtation with a dead teenage dredgeman, to Ava’s fantasy of visiting the Underworld and finding her mother. Each character is traveling their own path through grief.

Chief Bigtree, the dad, is oddly disconnected from the reality of his failing business. He seems unaware that his children are falling apart. His reaction to the loss of his wife can only be called denial. Perhaps Ava understands this best of all when she observes:

You could become a fossil in your lifetime, I’d discovered. I’d seen the eerie correspondence between the living Seths in our Pit and their taxidermied brothers in our museum. The Chief could achieve an ossified quality, too, with his headdress skeletally flattened against the sofa back, drunk and asleep. – from Swamplandia!, page 238 -

Kiwi flees the family, and runs from the memory of his mother whose image he keeps taped to the inside of his closet door. He leaves behind the safety of Swamplandia! and enters society where his differences stand out and he struggles to fit in with his peers. Now seventeen years old, he is no longer a child whose eyes are closed to the stark reality of his parents’ world and as he navigates through his grief, he uncovers family secrets and a rage he hardly knew existed.

Ossie escapes reality by slipping into a world of ghosts and fantasy. On the cusp of womanhood, she begins a relationship with the ghost of a dredge boat, slipping out of the house at all hours and spending her time calling up spirits with the help of a mysterious book.

She set off across the muck as briskly as a mainland woman who is late for her ferry. Her footprints filled with groundwater and as I watched a dozen tiny lakes opened between us. Rain blew in from the east while out west the sun burned through a V in the trees, bright and gluey-gold as marmalade. – from Swamplandia!, page 127 -

But is is Ava, narrator of much of the novel, who is the saddest in her grief. She believes her mother has trained her to become the next amazing alligator wrestler. Ava tries to hold her family together, and when that fails, she dreams up a way to save Swamplandia! which includes applying to compete in an alligator wrestling competition, and hand raising a rare red alligator. Ava’s memories of her mother are clear and poignant, and cloaked in a child’s reflections.

Our mother, in several beautiful ways, may have been a little crazy. For example: who dries their clothing with a hurricane coming? Like Ossie, Mom got distracted easily. It was seventy-thirty odds whether she would remember a conversation with you. Her moods could do sudden plummets, and she’d have to “take a rest” in the house, but she’d always emerge from these spells with a smile for us. Until she got sick, I can’t remember our mother ever missing a show. – from Swamplandia!, page 43 -

Swamplandia! is, at its heart, about the love that binds a family together in the face of devastating loss. The strength of the novel is in its characters who are memorable and feel very real. Russell also excels at description of the flora and fauna of the Florida swamps. Where the novel struggles is in the plot which tends to drag until the latter third of book. Russell alternates between Ava’s first person narration and Kiwi’s third person point of view – a technique which tended to break up momentum in the plot. It felt, at times, like Russell could not decide whose story she really wanted to tell. Ava’s voice is, overwhelmingly, the strongest and could have carried the novel alone.

Despite its occasional humor, Swamplandia! is a dark novel which resonates with danger. Reality is often fragile and just out of reach. Not everything is as it seems. It is this haunting quality which carries the reader through the final pages of the book to an ending that stretches believability. In fact, the end of the novel did not endear me to it. Russell quickly wraps up the book and pins a little bow on it, something I found frustrating after some plot twists which took my breath away.

I did not love this book, but I found it interesting. Russell is a talented author whose child characters pulled on my heartstrings, but whose meandering plot kept me from fulling engaging in their story.

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A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (Jayme)

2012-01-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

Title: A Spell of Winter

Author: Helen Dunmore
Published: 1995, Penguin
Genre: Gothic
Accolades: 1996 Orange Prize Winner

Isolated on their grandfather's estate after their mother abandoned them and their father is sent to a sanatorium Catherie and Rob rely on each other to navigate the secrets and loneliness of their world until their need for each other crosses boundaries and destroys all they know.

With Dunmore's haunting proses she draws the reader in this dark eerie story as we are introduced to Catherine, a grown woman, living in one room of a decrepit estate trying to stay warm wrapped in her brother's army coat. I was hooked immediately and could not let go. Dunmore masterfully weaves suspense and horror as her tale twists and builds until you wonder how this story will resolve and then two thirds into it you realize that it doesn't - there lies the problem with this book.

Let me explain. I really did like this book. The sensory details of an English winter had me reading this book wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate - that's how atmospheric the book is - I was cold. Dunmore expertly drew me in and with each heightening twist I kept wondering how is she going to end this and I think she may have been asking herself the same question. After the final crushing event I felt like I was reading a completely different book. I kept thinking "Huh, what happened, this isn't how I would end it." This book was to good for pat endings.

Is it worth reading? Absolutely, the writing is exquisite, but maybe you should stop reading in the middle of chapter 23rd that would have been a perfect, creepy ending.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson (Jenny)

2012-01-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson
Relation to Orange Prize: longlisted in 1997
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

While I love her writing as always, this is not my favorite Jeanette Winterson. That honor still belongs to Written on the Body or The Powerbook. It is funny because both of those books have less plot than Gut Symmetries, but I think it is some of the plot in this book that made me enjoy it less.

The story focuses on three people - Alice, a theoretical physicist, who has an affair with Jove, and then also his wife Stella. Each chapter is told from a different perspective, with the title of a tarot card, and some chapters even focus on telling the stories of the parents of the three. I think that and the unfatal cannibalism created an environment where there was too much going on to really capture the intensity of the relationship.

Still, the language is gorgeous. The quotations I've typed up are just more to demonstrate that side of it.

"I know I am a fool, trying to make connections out of scraps but how else is there to proceed? The fragmentariness of life makes coherence suspect but to babble is a different kind of treachery. Perhaps it is a vanity. Am I vain enough to assume you will understand me? No. So I go on puzzling over new joints for words...."

"I know I am a fool, hoping dirt and glory are both a kind of luminous paint; the humiliations and exaltations that light us up... I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love."

Ah, her language! This one made me laugh, because it passes by before you realize what has been said:
"Inevitably it is not only the gastric juices that are stimulated by luxury and fresh air. What could be nicer than preprandial fellatio in a foreign tongue?"

"When we killed what we were to become what we are, what did we do with the bodies? We did what most people do; buried them under the floorboards and got used to the smell. I've lived my life as a serial killer; finish with one part, strangle it and move on to the next. Life in neat little boxes is life in neat little coffins, the dead bodies of the past laid out side by side. I am discovering, now, in the late afternoon of the day, that the dead still speak."

"I do not want to declare love on you... I would love you as a bird loves flight, as meat loves salt, as a dog loves chase, as water finds its own level. Or I would not love you at all."

"The surprise of wings was this love. We did escape gravity. If I flew too close to the sun, forgive me."

"Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough."

I have another unread Winterson at home that I hope to read this year, and I am eagerly anticipating her autobiography, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? that is supposed to come out in March. She is one of my top three favorite authors of all time, and I'd recommend her to anyone!

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (Jill)

2012-01-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

The Little Friend
By Donna Tartt

I am a sucker for books set in the American South. Stories with sweet tea and back porches feel like home. That's why I was eager to read The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. Set in Mississippi, The Little Friend seemed to be the perfect book with all the right ingredients; however, by the midway point of this novel, I knew I was knee deep in a clunker.

The edition of The Little Friend that I read was more than 600 pages, and in my opinion, it could have been half that length. The beginning of the book starts out promising. Tartt introduces us to Harriet, a precocious girl who has a strong spirit. We meet her mother, sister and a gaggle of great aunts - all of whom were interesting characters. We also meet Hely (pronounced Healy), who is Harriet's best friend and partner in crime. Quickly, we see that Harriet wants to learn more about the strange and sudden death of her older brother, and she sets her sights on a local man as a possible murder suspect.

Three hundred pages later, we're no further along in the plot then we were in the first chapter. Tartt's tangents were pleasant at first, but by the middle of the book, I wanted to get on with the story.

Finally, Tartt delivers us the inevitable "stand-off," and perhaps I was exhausted or bored or impatient - but the whole ending seemed too far-fetched. After a 600-page investment, I wanted something in return. Sadly, I was disappointed.

On the plus side, though, I commend Tartt for her vivid writing style. Her sentences were beautiful, and she eloquently depicted her characters and setting. It's a shame that the beauty of her writing got lost in a tangled yarn.

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2003, The Little Friend has received many accolades, so please be sure to consult other reviews. This just wasn't the book for me. ( )

Frangipani by Celestine Vaite (Jenny)

2012-01-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

Frangipani: A Novel by Célestine Hitiura Vaite
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Orange Prize: Longlisted in 2006

An enjoyable story of Tahitian culture and the conflict between mothers and daughters. I have the sense it won't stick with me for long, which is why I only gave it three stars, but I didn't have to struggle to get through it.

I really do appreciate when a novel can also describe the setting or the culture in a succinct and memorable way. All the bits and pieces about the connection to the flora, the feminine wisdom passed down, and the use of some of the less universal customs made me feel like I was learning something. The best example was the idea of marriage. In the Tahiti of Frangipani, very few couples are marrying, as traditional wisdom says you should have a child with a man to see what kind of person he really is before you'd ever consider marrying him.

Here is a great example of a description of Tahiti, which just happens to fall during a moment Materena talks to her unborn daughter:

"Materena talks about Tahiti to give her unborn baby girl a general idea of her soon-to-be home. That place is the scorching sun at midday, the heavy and still humidity before the rain...Materena describes to her the sweet smell of flowers as they are opening up early in the morning, the aroma of coffee brewing in the kitchens, and fresh bread being baked at the baker nearby. She talks about the bright colors everywhere you look; the red and orange hibiscus edges....."

The book traces the theme of mothers and daughters throughout. Older women often give Materena advice (sometimes requested) on how to raise Leilani. Some examples just from the pages where she is giving birth:

"Girls hurt their mother from the day they come into the world..."

"It's more painful to push girls into the world because they don't want to be born. They resist. They know what they're in for in this world of miseries."

This was a book I enjoyed but probably wouldn't read again.

Laura's Review - Fault Lines

2012-01-15T07:12:00.000-08:00

This multi-generational family saga explores the impact of World War II and Nazi Germany, from some very unusual angles. It's told through the eyes of four 6-year-olds, each from a different generation. The reader meets each generation through Sol, a precocious boy living in California in 2004. His father Randall works as a computer programmer, and circumstances have recently forced him to take a job with higher pay but a much longer commute. Randall has a distant relationship with his mother, Sadie, and is closer to his grandmother, Erra, a professional singer known as Kristina in her youth. Sol's section of the novel ends as the entire family arrives in Germany to visit Erra's dying sister.

From there, author Nancy Huston takes us back to 1945 one generation at a time, from Randall to Sadie to Kristina (all age 6). She peels the onion of family relationships and secrets to show how they came to North America, and the physical and emotional toll wrought by the Nazi regime. I can't say much without spoilers, but their story was not at all what I expected. Judaism and Nazi atrocities played a part, but in unusual ways. And both the family tree and the inter-generational relationships were much more intricate than they first appeared.

I found Erra/Kristina the most interesting character, perhaps because she appeared in each generation's story. She arrived on the scene first as a staunchly independent elderly woman who dearly loves her great-grandson, and is appalled at some of his parents' philosophies. She despairs over their plans to surgically remove a birthmark. Her fears seem irrational, but by the time Kristina appeared as a child, I understood the birthmark's significance and her modern-day reaction was completely understandable. Fault Lines was filled with revelations like this, that really drove home the importance of understanding the societal and familial forces that shape each generation. This was a well-written, enjoyable, and thought-provoking novel.

Cross-posted from my blog

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (Jill)

2012-01-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
By Xiaolu Guo

Zhuang Xiao Qiao is a young Chinese woman whose parents send her to London for a year to perfect her English. Born to peasants who rise to wealth, Zhuang is sheltered but curious, and she journals her new words throughout her year in England. Early during her stay, she meets a man 20 years older than her, who becomes her lover, and her 'dictionary" transforms into an ode to their relationship.

The romance between Zhuang and her lover is hot and romantic at first, and she quickly learns more about English words and customs. She learns more about her lover too, and she realizes that he's a torn individual - a homosexual man who is lost in the city. Zhuang struggles to learn how she fits into his life. It would have been interesting to read chapters told from the lover's standpoint, but as it is, we get an eye- and earful from Zhuang. Zhuang's never been in love before, and it becomes apparent that her Chinese ideals are on a crash course with her Western lover.

I like how A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was structured. Each chapter begins with an English word, and Zhuang chronicles how she learns about the word's meaning in the context of her new life. Zhuang is very observant and sometimes funny. I grew tiresome, though, of Zuang's relationship and her suffocating ways with her lover. It wasn't a healthy relationship, and as the book ended, I hoped that both characters would move along in their lives.

All in all, I liked A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. It offered a interesting glimpse at the Western world through a Chinese person's eyes and shed light on Chinese culture that I wasn't aware of. If you have patience for the love affair and sexual explorations, then this book would be an enlightening read for most fans of literary fiction. ( )

Scottsboro - Wendy's Review

2012-01-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

Even after all these years, the injustice still stuns. Innocent boys sentenced to die, not for a crime they did not commit, but for a crime that never occurred. Lives splintered as casually as wood being hacked for kindling. Young manhood ground to ashes. – from Scottsboro, page 1 -

Ellen Feldman’s novel Scottsboro is based on the trial of the Scottsboro boys where nine black youths were accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in March of 1931. Eight of the nine were initially found guilty and sentenced to death. The case was later heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1937, and although the lives of the nine were saved, it was almost twenty years before the last defendant was freed from prison. The case has historical significance because for the first time, a mass movement of blacks and whites (led by Communists and radicals) was successfully able to beat the Jim Crow legal system.

Feldman’s fictional retelling of the story introduces the reader to a female journalist named Alice Whittier who gets assigned the story and travels from New York City to Alabama to interview the two women who made the accusation of rape: Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Both women come from poverty and have been forced to prostitute themselves to survive. Alice feels some empathy towards Ruby, a woman who appears to feel conflicted about the lies she has told. During the actual case, Ruby testified against the boys in the first trial, then later reversed her testimony in the subsequent trials.

The novel unfolds primarily through the voice of Alice, although Feldman also gives Ruby a chance to narrate the story in some chapters. I found Ruby’s voice the more compelling of the two. She is uneducated and highly prejudiced, and yet she seems to have a social conscience. Her extreme poverty and ignorance drive her motivations early in the book. She later becomes a sympathetic character when she tries to do the right thing.

“Ruby Bates would have broken your heart,” I said. “When you see what her life has been like, you can understand why she did what she did. All she’s known is poverty and misery and deprivation.” – From Scottsboro, page 137 -

I expected to really love this novel and instead I found it oddly lacking. Perhaps it was my inability to connect with the primary narrator. Alice reveals little of herself and feels a bit cardboard as a character. At times I felt Feldman was using Alice more as a literary device to tell history, rather than a fully developed character with conflicts of her own. There were times I wished Feldman had chosen to eliminate Alice altogether and instead tell the story from the opposing points of view of Ruby and one or more of the boys.

Because this is an historical case and the outcome is known, I believe Feldman needed to give the reader something surprising or compelling to enliven the plot. Instead, I found the novel lacked adequate tension in order to keep me satisfied and involved in the lives of the characters.

Scottsboro explores the themes of racism, antisemitism, feminism and social justice. Readers who are familiar with the Scottsboro case will not find much new information within Feldman’s novel. The research is thorough and Feldman does an admirable job of laying out the case – but often the novel feels like a piece of non fiction rather than a work of fiction.

Scottsboro was short listed for the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction.

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FTC Disclosure: I received this book through Library Thing’s Early Review Program.

Larry's Party by Carol Shields (Jill)

2012-01-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

Larry's Party
By Carol Shields

Larry's Party is my first Carol Shields book - but it certainly won't be my last. Admittedly, I was dreading this story. I envisioned a testosterone fest - thinking the book was about a self-involved male character who was a womanizer, cheater and full of himself. I couldn't have been further from the truth. Larry Weller was likeable, fallible and beautifully rendered in the hands of the talented Carol Shields.

The book chronicles the life of Larry Weller - an ordinary man with an unusual job. Larry creates mazes, and as he gets older, his work becomes highly sought after. Along the way, Larry gets married (twice), divorced (twice), has a son, moves and has a near-fatal health event. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of Larry's life. Sometimes we learn about his first marriage; other times we learn about the relationship with his son. The final chapter culminates into Larry's Party - a dinner party where he is circled by loved ones and friends - and gets a chance to see his many blessings.

Overall, I enjoyed Larry's Party. If I had to make a complaint, it was the constant repeating of information. I wasn't sure if Shields was trying to make each chapter standalone, but the constant reintroduction of known facts about Larry's life got on my nerves. It's a small complaint, really, and certainly wouldn't prevent me from recommending Larry's Party to other readers.

I look forward to reading more by Carol Shields and am glad to have read this Orange Prize winner. It's the type of character-driven fiction I always enjoy. ( )

Laura's Review - Lullabies for Little Criminals

2012-01-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

Baby lives with her father, Jules, a heroin addict. She doesn't remember her mother:

He and my mother had both been fifteen when I was born. She had died a year later, so he'd been left to raise me all by himself. It didn't make him any more mature than any other twenty-six-year-old, though. He practically fell on the floor and died when a song he liked came on the radio. He was always telling people that he was color-blind because he thought it made him sound original. He also didn't look too much like a parent ... I thought of him as my best friend, as if we were almost the same age. (p. 4)

Jules tries to make a living and support his habit by peddling merchandise at flea markets. To stay one step ahead of their landlord they seem to always be on the move. Baby knows how to fit her entire life into a small suitcase. Despite all these disadvantages, Baby is smart and does well in school. She seems determined to overcome the odds, but her world is turned upside down when Jules goes into rehab, and Baby into the foster care system. Over the next year, Baby moves in and out of care, is placed into a remedial program at school, and gets sucked into the unhealthy lifestyle on the streets of Montreal.

Baby narrates her story with an authentic twelve-year-old's voice, and really got on my nerves for the first half of the book. But as her personal hardships intensified, so did my sympathy, and I found myself pulling for her. She was often left on her own for days at a time, and had to grow up far too quickly. I understood why she did what she did, but wished I could influence her choices (I'm avoiding spoilers here).

Such a realistic and gritty story should have been "unputdownable." It thought it was an interesting and unique book, but had no problem setting it aside. It may have just been my mood this past week; I still recommend reading this Orange Prize nominee.

Cross-posted from my blog.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (Jayme)

2012-01-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

Title: The History of Love

Author: Nicole Krauss
Published: 2005, W.W. Norton & Company
Genre: Literary Fiction
Accolades: 2006 short list for The Orange Prize

Leo Gursky an elderly man has spent his life hiding. First as a teenage boy hiding in the forest from the Nazis and later hiding from the memories that haunt him. As a young man Leo fell in love with a girl named Alma and wrote a manuscript called The History of Love which he gave to her. But the war tore Alma and Leo apart. The only thing that kept him going is the love he had for Alma who escaped to America during the war. While recovering from an illness in Poland after the war he gave his copy of The History of Love to a friend when he thought he was going to die. The friend moved to Chile and published the book under his own name while Leo went to New York to search for his lost love Alma. But Alma had married someone else when she found out that she was pregnant with Leo's child and thought Leo was dead. That is only the beginning of the story. What beautifully unfolds in this heart-wrenching novel is the impact that the published novel The History of Love will have on the past and present and finally on Leo himself.

The History of Love is told by two different narrators Leo and Alma a fourteen-year-old girl who was named after the real Alma in Leo's published book The History of Love 50 years later. Alma is on a quest to find out about the real Alma and to understand the love between her recently deceased father and mother. OK, are you confused yet? There is a lot to keep track of in The History of Love, but it is well worth the effort. My advice when reading this book is not to set it down for more than a day. I began reading the book before the New Year holiday and than company came and I didn't get to it for almost a week. I ended up starting the book over because I had forgotten key events and people and was lost.

The History of Love is a very good book. There are extraordinary passages that will catch in your throat - the truth tends to do that:

"We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it." (page 103, the History of Love)

Couldn't you just weep? The History of Love is not an easy read, but it is an enriching one. It will leave you wondering about how lives are interwoven and the characters will capture your heart.

Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert (Jill)

2012-01-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

Afterwards
By Rachel Seiffert

I first became acquainted with Rachel Seiffert when I read her first book, The Dark Room. I was moved by her gentle narrative style, and I was eager to read her second book, Afterwards. Thankfully, Orange January gave me the opportunity to be immersed - once again - in Seiffert's writing.

Afterwards is the story of Alice, her grandfather and her boyfriend, Joseph. At the heart of the story, though, is the effect of post-traumatic stress on veterans. Alice's grandfather flew a bomber in Kenya, dropping bombs on dense forests where faceless people and animals were killed. Joseph was a British soldier who served in North Ireland and carried a deep guilt about his service. While Alice's grandfather had his wife (now deceased) to talk to, Joseph couldn't utter a word - not to Alice or anyone in his family. His silence was deafening, and Alice had to decide on living with the silence or living without Joseph.

I admire Seiffert for keeping the story real, including the ending, and touching on this important subject. The trauma of war on soldiers can't be ignored, and Seiffert does an admirable job showing that, especially with Joseph. The guilt was eating him alive, turning him into a different man. It was sad to watch his transformation as the book progressed.

Afterwards won't be for everyone. You have to become comfortable with Seiffert's writing style and presentation. Similar to Helen Humphreys, Seiffert packs a zillion punches into each word. Sparse but powerful, Afterwards is a story I won't soon forget. ( )

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (Jenny)

2012-01-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

The Tiger's Wife
By Téa Obreht
Finished: January 2, 2012
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel is set in no place. In other words, the locations are intentionally unnamed or made up throughout the novel, except that there are definite similarities to cities and landscapes of the former Yugoslavia. Obreht does this on purpose to disassociate story from place, since so much of the turmoil in that area of the world is caused by family name endings and minor differences.

The story is about two generations of doctors in a family - the grandfather and the granddaughter, and as the story starts, the grandfather has just passed away. Combined throughout is the story of his childhood, as well as hers, both living through strained peace and chaotic conflict.

Every once in a while, Obreht will step back and set the scenery for the reader. I saw one review that thought this was a misstep, but to me it was a reminder that while this is written in the present day, these places are not the same as what I as the reader know. Each place has so much history - some of the buildings and land ownership date back to medieval times, for instance. In that same spirit, there are two legends that wind throughout the story, that of the tiger's wife, and the deathless man. I loved moving back and forth between the past and present, the story and the reality.

One quotation that stood out:

"In the country's last hour, it was clear to him, as it was to me, that the cease-fire had provided the delusion of normalcy, but never peace. When your fight has purpose - to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent - it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about unraveling - when it is about your name, the places to which your blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to some landmark or event - there is nothing but hate, and teh long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who come before them. Then the fight is endless, and comes in waves and waves, but always retains its capacity to surprise those who hope against it."

Crossposted from Reading Envy, which also discusses music and baked goods associated with this book!

Laura's Review - Beyond Black

2012-01-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

I have to admit this is not my usual fare: "A modern-day medium and a jaded divorceé navigate the world of psychic fairs, until a crazed spirit guide threatens to pull them over to the beyond -- a place from which they can never return." But it was written by Hilary Mantel, author of the Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall. And it was nominated for the Orange Prize, just like Wolf Hall. So I had high expectations, but I was ultimately disappointed and unable to finish this, my first book of 2012.

Alison is a spiritual medium, working fairs and stage shows where she brings her audience messages from those who have passed into "Spirit World." Colette, recently divorced, attends one of her shows and later becomes Alison's business partner, helping to organize her diary and the accounts. Alison is haunted by a troubled past, and by many spirits who speak to her routinely. Among these is Morris, her "spiritual guide," a presence from her childhood who is always hanging around and is, frankly, disgusting. Colette brings a sense of order to Alison's life, and working for Alison helps Colette land on her own two feet.

Weird? Yes. Intriguing? Maybe. But dreadfully slow-moving. And then Princess Diana dies, and Alison & Colette meet up with other mediums and fortune-tellers. I thought this might be interesting, but it was more of the same: lots of talk, spirits intruding and making Alison sick, Colette fretting about, and Morris being disgusting. Then Alison & Colette decide to try to get away from all this by buying a house in a new community, and that seems to take them forever. Things weren't looking good for them personally, and I figured anything that happened was going to take a long time. Like another 165 pages. I just didn't have it in me.

(DNF)

Cross-posted from my blog

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (Jill)

2012-01-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Beyond Black
By Hilary Mantel

I have to admit: I had a hard time writing this review. How can a book be intriguing and boring at the same time? That's the state I find myself in as I put together my thoughts on Beyond Black.

In summary, Beyond Black is the tale of Alison, a psychic, and her business partner/personal assistant, Colette. Their relationship reminded me of "The Odd Couple" - you couldn't get two more different people together. Alison was a big presence - vibrant, full-figured, sweet-smelling and congenial. Colette was a drab sidekick - beige, skinny and condescending. How they ended up together is still a mystery to me, even as I finished the book.

Alison is forever tormented by spirits. Her spirit guide, Morris, is a dirty pig, often found fondling himself (thank goodness only Alison could see him). As the story progresses, Mantel reveals that Alison knew Morris before his death, which opens up the intriguing parts of the book: Alison's tortuous childhood. Bit by bit, Mantel feeds the reader information about Alison's past - what was done to her and what she did. These bite-size nuggets help propel the story; however, it was not enough. Beyond Black is mixed with so much "non-action" that it overshadowed the compelling stuff.

Parts of Beyond Black were darn funny (my favorite scene was Princess Diana talking to Alison), but the most of it was too dark for my taste. The pace of Beyond Black was uneven, and I think it could have been tightened by a good 100 pages. But we all know that Mantel can write - and I look forward to reading my next Mantel selection, The Giant, O'Brien, very soon. ( )

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Jenny)

2012-01-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

Case Histories
By Kate Atkinson

Completed January 1, 2012

Case Histories details three cases (from the GoodReads summary):

Case One: Olivia Land, youngest and most beloved of the Land girls, goes missing in the night and is never seen again. Thirty years later, two of her surviving sisters unearth a shocking clue to Olivia's disappearance among the clutter of their childhood home. . .

Case Two: Theo delights in his daughter Laura's wit, effortless beauty, and selfless love. But her first day as an associate in his law firm is also the day when Theo's world turns upside down. . .

Case Three: Michelle looks around one day and finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making. A very needy baby and a very demanding husband make her every waking moment a reminder that somewhere, somehow, she'd made a grave mistake and would spend the rest of her life paying for it--until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.

All three cases are linked to Detective Jackson Brodie throughout the book, but his presence isn't dominant within the text like a detective's story would usually be. In fact, he doesn't do his job in front of us all of the time. Clues are sometimes presented and the reader is left to make the necessary assumptions. "Oh, that means that X, and he must have X." He usually has done these things, but he never is described as doing them. Since the author did not necessarily consider this book to be in the mystery genre (according to an interview with her in the back of the book), the reader should not be surprised that the form of the book does not follow mystery novel conventions such as case details being articulated, or conclusions drawn.

The action is often happening "off stage," to an extent where I'm wondering what was in the novel I actually read! It actually manages to focus on two of the Land sisters and the conflict between the two of their personalities, and on the huffing puffing overweight retired lawyer, Theo. These are two of the three families who lost family members to murder, so while the cold cases are being investigated by Brodie, that isn't the story as much as the people making up the majority of this novel. It is an interesting angle. Atkinson has gone on to write more Jackson Brodie novels, so this successful volume becomes the first in a series.

Introduction and Plans for Orange January (Jenny)

2011-12-31T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! My name is Jenny and I have a blog called Reading Envy. I enjoy nothing more than trying to read every book on a list - I annually read the nominees for the Booker, the National Book Award, the Hugo, and the Nebula, and have tried a few others here and there. I thought it was only fitting that I started out my activity here by saying hello and posting a list! This is a list of the books I plan to read in January 2012 for the challenge.

The first four are serving cross-purposes, as I'm also involved in a year-long Around the World reading challenge. When I compared the lists, many were on the Orange Prize lists, so it was easy to put those first in line. The other books I will list are books that qualify that are sitting around at home, just begging to be read. Maybe this will help me knock off a few books from my to-read shelf!

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
Frangipani by Celestine Hitiura Vaite
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
American Life by Curtis Sittenfeld
Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

This might be too ambitious, but that's how I'm going to start out!

As I went through the lists, I discovered that I have actually read quite a few of the Orange Prize nominees in the past few years. Without hesitation I can say the favorite that I've read is The Powerbook by Jeanette Winterson, and you can see the others here.

Homestead by Rosina Lippi (Jill)

2011-12-10T14:46:00.001-08:00

Homestead
By Rosina Lippi
Completed December 9, 2011

Have you ever selected a book with a good feeling you're going to love it? The story premise sounds interesting, other readers write glowing reviews - even the book cover grabs your interest. Then when you finish the book, you're so excited that you actually loved the book, just like you thought you would? That's exactly how it went for me with my latest book, Homestead by Rosina Lippi.

Homestead is a collection of tales told from the perspective of different women who live in a remote Austrian village from 1909-1977. To help tie their stories together, Lippi provides clan family trees at the beginning of the book. As you're introduced to each woman's chapter, you see her name and clan affiliation, which helps you understand her connection with the other characters in the story. While a woman may be featured in her chapter, she'll appear in other chapters as well. It was a great way to build up different perspectives on the same people.

The women's stories individually are moving, but when taken as a whole, create a fabulous book. Themes of love, loss, deception, greed, farming and raising family all permeate the narratives. The themes are universal, but it's the way Lippi fuses in the Austrian dialect and customs that make Homestead a unique historical read.

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2001, Homestead is exactly why I advocate this award. Without its Orange Prize distinction, I may not have found Homestead, which would have been my loss. I hope other readers who enjoy provocative fiction will consider reading this exquisite book. I can't recommend it enough. ( )

Lottery by Patricia Wood (Jill)

2011-12-08T03:39:00.000-08:00

Lottery
By Patricia Wood
Completed December 7, 2011

Perry L. Crandall is not retarded. He'll tell you this several times as he narrates Lottery. But he is several things: wise beyond his years, kind, compassionate and darn right likeable. And he makes Patricia Wood's debut novel a joy to read.

Perry lives with his Gram, works at the local marina and studies words every day. Sadly, when his grandmother dies, he's left to deal with his family - a pack of vultures that pick apart Perry's meager inheritance and send him on his way. Thankfully, Perry also has good friends at work, who take him under their wings and give him a place to stay. Perry is good with money and likes to play the lottery. And then the unthinkable happens - he wins millions from the state lottery. And here come the vultures (aka brothers and sisters-in-law) again.

As you learn about Perry's plight with his family, you just want to call a lawyer for him. But as you read the story, you realize that Perry can handle this. And he does - beautifully. While he deals with his crazy family, he forms a truer bond with his friends. He's generous when he needs to be and lucrative in other places. Perry calls himself an "auditor" - a person who listens to the world around him. And because he listens a lot, he understands what people want and need.

Lottery is a true blue, heart-warming novel. It's not a complex read, and the messages of friendship and love make this book a wonderful story. I highly recommend Lottery to anyone who needs to find hope in humanity. ( )

The Orange January 2012 Giveaways

2011-12-02T03:04:00.000-08:00

Check out the books I'll be giving away during Orange January 2012:

Winners:

When I Lived In Modern Times by Linda Grant (2000)
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (2010)

Shortlisted Books:

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett (1998)
Homestead by Rosina Lippi (2001)
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2004)
The Observations by Jane Harris (2007)
Lottery by Patricia Wood (2008)
Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman (2009)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2010)
Great House by Nicole Krauss (2011)

Longlisted books:

Gilgamesh by Joan London (2004)
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (2005)
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (2006)
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (2009)
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weingarber (2009)
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (2011)
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (2011)

Finally, other books (maybe a future Orange Prize nominee?):

Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
The Last Nude by Ellis Avery
Untold Story by Monica Ali

Sound like fun? I hope so! I'll host my first giveaway on January 1, 2012. For more information, check out the Orange January 2012 blog post, or join us on our Facebook page and LibraryThing group.

Who's ready for Orange January 2012?

2011-12-01T05:38:00.000-08:00

Orange January is when you pledge to read at least one Orange Prize winner or nominee during the month of January. It's a great time to explore fantastic books, win prizes and meet new friends. Check out my blog post for all the details!

A mercy by Toni Morrison (Jill)

2011-11-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

A Mercy
By Toni Morrison
Completed November 27, 2011

"It was not a miracle. Bestowed by God. It was a mercy. Offered by a human." - page 195

A Mercy has a quietness about it - as if each character is whispering a secret in my ear. But the message was strong, powerful and riveting. I haven't read a book quite like it before.

The story centers on the trade of Florens, a literate slave girl who comes to the home of Jacob Vaark. Florens' mother insisted the girl be traded away from her, and as Florens settles into her new home, she ponders why her mother would be so willing to give her up. While at Jacob's home, Florens falls under the care of Lina, a Native American woman who tends to the farm and household. Also at the home are Sorrow, a supposedly dim-witted slave, and Rebekka, Jacob's wife.

When Jacob dies unexpectedly, the entire structure of the home unravels, thread by thread. Rebekka is stricken with illness, Florens is dispatched to find help from her lover, Sorrow gives birth to a baby, and Lina can't function out of worry about Florens. Chapters are divided among the characters, adding new perspectives to the tragedy. The most telling chapter was the last, when Florens' mother told her side of the story.

The plot doesn't move really, but as the story weaves in and out among the characters, you get a hard look at the effects of slavery in 1680's America. The moral of the story, though whispered, was still loud and clear: Slavery, in all forms, destroys lives. ( )

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

2011-11-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was asked the question 'Why do you read historical fiction?' I think my answer was something along the lines of being able to eavesdrop on history. Really, the answer could have been to read books like this to find out about little known facts from history. My knowledge of homesteaders in America is very limited and I certainly hadn't given any thought to the fact that there were African-American homesteaders,or to the life that they and their families would have lived.

Rachel and Isaac DuPree are living in the Badlands of South Dakota, a land that is beautiful but also harsh at the best of times but is especially harsh during a long drought. The novel opens with a disturbing episode as one of the smaller children, Liz, is sent down the well to scoop out what little water remains at the bottom because the bucket can't be used in such a small amount of water as the well is practically dry.

Rachel tells us of her life in the Badlands but also flashes back to episodes from her past, especially back to when she was working in the Chicago boarding house owned by Mrs DuPree. When Mrs DuPree's son Isaac returns on leave from his duties as a buffalo soldier, she has grand ideas of marrying him off to a nice young lady from an acceptable section of society. She certainly doesn't want him marrying the help, but that is exactly what happens when Rachel agrees to join the parcel of land that she is entitled to under the Homestead Act to that which Isaac has already claimed, thus doubling his land size. They initially agreed to a limited time marriage, but they are still together, working hard to maintain their constantly expanding land holdings and their expanding family.

Rachel is in the latter stages of pregnancy when we meet her, and already has several young children, but this life that she has chosen with Isaac was not an easy one and she has also lost two children. She is however proud of the life that she has built with Isaac, having started with nothing, then living in a sod dugout until finally she is living in a wood house that they built themselves. That begins to change however when she begins to questions Isaac's priorities.

I loved reading about Rachel. She was strong enough to make the decisions that need to be made, both for herself and her children. It took her a while, but she got there in the end.

The character that has me thinking the most though is Isaac. I can't quite decide if he is such a driven man that he can think of nothing but acquiring and holding on to land, or if he is just a guy who doesn't easily show or communicate his emotions. He is hard on all of his family but I don't think he is blind to them and just making them do things that they won't like just for his own selfish ends. For example, with sending a terrified Liz down the well, the fact of the matter was that without doing this there would be absolutely no water for his family and they would all die of thirst.

In his mind, he thinks he is doing the right thing by contemplating going off to work in the mines to bring in a steady income and leaving Rachel to cope despite the fact she is telling him quite plainly that she won't be able too. It is obvious though that he is capable of physical affection with Rachel which he shows just by the touch of his hand on her back when she needs it. He does have feelings about his children, evidenced by the tears he sheds at one of the key moments in the book.

Isaac is particularly rigid when it comes to the rules in his own house. He seems to me to be very much of a generation where the father in the house must be obeyed by everyone, including his wife. Some of his rules make sense, but we did get to see more emphasis on the idea of persecution of a minority group with his own refusal to allow agency Indians into his home, or even to meet his own responsibilities in relation to certain Indians who make their way to him. He is discriminated against by certain towns people but he in turn is intolerant of others who he sees as beneath him for whatever reason.

I didn't actually realise for a few chapters that the characters in the book were African-American, and for me, that can be seen as quite a good thing. Whilst a big part of the subject matter of the book is both the isolation that Rachel felt not only living in the middle nowhere with few neighbours, but even more isolating is the fact that there are no other African-American people living anywhere near her. At it's heart though The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is a human story - a woman who is struggling to get by in a difficult situation and making the difficult but necessary choices to get the best outcome for both herself and her children. A story of endurance, of courage and of knowing when it is time to make changes.

A couple of years ago I was visiting Perth and I spent some time listening to the stories that my grandfather told about some of the jobs he has done over the years. One of his earliest jobs was clearing areas of land in some of the hilly areas nearby. He had a horse and cart, and himself, and that was it. In another example is having to walk from one town to the next in the country areas of Western Australia in order to get to the next job, and these towns were not close together. All of his work as a farmer and a shearer was hard and it was physical, and is really pretty foreign to the kind of work that his grandchildren get to do. I found myself thinking of his stories as I read this book, mainly because of the sheer physicality of their day to day lives! I suspect that I would be a bit too soft from modern city living to live this kind of life.

When I think of pioneers and homesteaders in Australian terms I think that we are talking more than 150 years ago, and yet this book is very much talking about life in the wilderness, about making a life for yourself in the isolated rural region of the Badlands of South Dakota in America. 100 years ago was a long time ago, but by that time in the cities there was electricity, there was running water, there were cars on the street. It was therefore something of a shock to me to realise that timewise, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was in my grandfather's lifetime! In 1917, he would have been 8 or 9 years old. Giving it some kind of context makes it feel as though it happened very recently indeed.

This is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves to read about times gone by. I am sure that you will cheer for Rachel, just as I did.

Rating 4.5

Laura's Review - Scottsboro

2011-11-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

Inside the courtroom, rows of long windows ran along two walls. They were closed against the noise of the square, and the yellow shades were drawn, but midday light filtered through, cooking the air. An American flag and another for the state of Alabama hung limp on either side of the judge's bench. ... Instead of a jury box, two rows of chairs that swiveled and tipped to allow the jurors to make themselves comfortable were bolted to the floor. In front of each row, a brass pipe, also attached to the floor, served as a footrest. Spittoons stood at regular intervals, each surrounded by the familiar corona of hardened tobacco juice and saliva. (p. 208)

As the title implies, this novel is about the Scottsboro boys, a famous US civil rights case from the 1930s. A group of black men -- boys, really -- were accused of raping two white women on a train. The case was fraught with racism and questionable legal processes that denied the boys a fair trial. Appeals continued for several years. Author Ellen Feldman describes these events through Alice Whittier, a fictional news reporter, and Ruby Bates, one of the two white women. She paints a vivid picture of Alabama in the 1930s: the climate, the people, and the extreme racism.

Readers unfamiliar with the case will enjoy Feldman's ability to bring history to life. As historical fiction, however, it doesn't quite pass muster. The best of this genre (or, at least, the ones I've most enjoyed) go beyond the basic facts and delve deep into the historic characters, embellishing where facts are scarce. Scottsboro provides factual information comparable to Wikipedia's article on the Scottsboro boys. But Alice Whittier is one-dimensional; a vehicle to advance the plot and fill the time between trials. Her storyline was like a superfluous wrapper around the heart of the book. I wasn't interested in her romantic relationships, or the skeletons in her family's closet, because I knew them to be complete fiction. This would have been a better book had Feldman used an actual journalist in the story. Instead the result is something not quite history, and not quite historical fiction.

Cross-posted from my blog

Laura's Review - When we Were Bad

2011-11-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

I love it when I have an unexpectedly delightful reading experience like When we Were Bad. This unobtrusive little novel about a family of English Jews took me completely by surprise. Things start with a bang when the Rubins' eldest son Leo runs away with another woman just one minute before his wedding. Our first impression of Leo's family, then, is seen through their reactions to this scandalous event.

Leo's mother Claudia is a well-known rabbi, one of the first women in her field and highly respected by everyone. She's worked hard all her life, but she's good at what she does, and knows it. Claudia is also intensely committed to maintaining the Rubins' image as the family that has it all. This is all the more important since her book is about to be published. When Leo runs off, her greatest concern is not for him or his relationship, but on keeping up appearances as a family.

Claudia's husband Norman has supported her career all these years, keeping his own ambitions largely to himself. Daughter Frances is married with an infant and two older stepchildren. Two younger adult children, Simeon and Emily, are still trying to establish their independence. All are intensely loyal to one another, and especially to Claudia. She's formidable, and such a strong force in their lives that not one of them will make a move without considering the impact on her. But this also causes a lot of sneaking around. Norman, for example, is working on a book of his own but can't find the right time to tell Claudia. Frances feels trapped by marriage and parenthood, but feels completely alone and unable to ask her family for support. And even Claudia, so cool and collected on the outside, has her own secret problems to deal with.

So much family drama makes When we Were Bad sound like an intense read, but it's served with a generous helping of humor. Just as I was getting all teary over developments in one character's life, something else would happen to make me laugh. Each of the characters are tremendously flawed, and yet completely likeable. On the one hand, I felt I should despise Claudia for controlling everything around her and stifling others. But I loved her for what she had achieved, and for her fierce devotion to her family. As each character's story line moved towards its conclusion, I felt both happy and sad about this family that I'd come to know so well. We went through a lot together over 321 pages, and I won't soon forget it.

Cross-posted from my blog

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (Jill)

2011-10-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Case Histories
By Kate Atkinson
Completed October 19, 2011

I have heard so much about Jackson Brodie from my fellow readers that I felt like I knew him. Thankfully, after reading Case Histories, I was still pleasantly surprised by Jackson and the mysteries he planned on solving.

The story wove around three "cold cases" - the disappearance of a little girl from her backyard, the murder of an 18-year-old girl and the whereabouts of a young girl who ran away from home. Ten years later, these cases land in Jackson's lap, and as he uncovers clues about each one, the reader learns clues about what makes Jackson tick.

While the story line was good, I think the allure of this book rests with its characters. Jackson is very likeable. His awesome sense of humor adds brevity to the sadness of each case, including his own tragedies. I also liked the many women who were part of Case Histories: Deborah the crusty secretary, Marlee who was Jackson's precocious daughter and the Land sisters, who huffed and flirted their way into Jackson's heart.

Will I be reading the rest of the books in this series? You bet! I can't wait to see what Jackson is up to next. If you love mysteries and character-driven novels, make sure to add Case Histories to the top of your reading list.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Marg's Review)

2011-10-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Egan's spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to aver the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city's demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own whilst starting at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nationale. We meed Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life - divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house - and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang - who thrived and faltered - and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertone of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption, and the universal tendency to reach for both - and escape the merciless progress of time - in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

With inside cover copy like that, and the fact that this is the book that won the Pulitzer prize and others, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize as well, who needs a review!

When I look back on this book in a couple of years time I think the thing that will still be strong in my memory is the structure of the book - if you could call it structure as such. It isn't a novel as much as it is an interlocking collection of short stories. This isn't a book that goes from point A to point B. It probably starts at point G and eventually gets to point Z with side trips past point A and B.

In my own mind I was trying to think of a comparison to show how this book works and the closest I could come up with was one of those puzzles we used to have as kids where there was a mixed up picture in a square and there was one piece missing so you had to move all the pieces around until the picture was formed. At first you would get occasional glimpses of what the jumbled image was going to look like, but then you would have to break the picture up to make another piece of the puzzle fit. Eventually though, the last piece slides into place and you see the whole image.

Another analogy might be a really long conversation with a very good friend, where you jump topics with ease, reminiscing about the past, talking about the future, and sharing a joke. Never a linear conversation but rather one that starts at one point, and then ends up somewhere completely different and you find yourself wondering how you got there!

Another aspect of structure that was very different in this book is that Egan experiments with all different forms of storytelling. There are chapters written in the form of a magazine column, another in Powerpoint as well as different tenses and points of view. I think the Powerpoint chapter was amazing! The language was sparse, the story barely there on the page, but the concepts and the narrative were still strong enough to be clear for the reader, and I loved that we got to see Sasha's future life.

After looking at the structure, how about the characters. I can't say that I particularly related to the characters that we met in the pages of the book, but such is Egan's skill that you actually didn't need to. Our two main characters are Sasha and Bennie. Sasha is on a date with Alex when her habit of stealing things, anything, causes her to steal a wallet whilst in the bathroom. As she analyses why she steals with her shrink, Alex crosses one of her boundaries without even knowing it. We meet Sasha again as a young woman struggling to make ends meet living as a runaway in Naples, and then through the eyes of her best friend Rob who has plenty of demons of his own.

In the next chapter we meet Bennie, who is Alex's boss. He is a divorced man who is struggling to relate to his 9 year old son. One way that he can occasionally connect is through music, but even that is problematical. Through the book we see Benny with his ex wife in happier times, then we meet him as a youth revelling in the punk rock scene with his friends. We meet his mentor Lou and his very young girlfriend and her friend.

The links as we move from chapter to chapter are at times tenuous, but they are all there for a reason. Along the way, Egan makes comment about some important issues. Not only the power of music to transcend time, but also for example the power of media when a washed up PR person is employed to try and rehabilitate the image of an African dictator.

Another chapter that I really liked, not because it was enjoyable but because of the food for thought it provided, was the final chapter. It is set in New York in the not too distant future and Egan has taken our current obsession with social media and expanded it to the nth degree to come up with a quite scary world where even the youngest child has exposure to the media in a way that is similar to our own world but amplified many times over. A washed up musician is being bought back for a live concert and one of our characters is being asked to find some parrots - people who can spread the word, hype up the event to make it a success, to make it the kind of event that everyone who is anyone will claim to have been at even if they really aren't. In a way it kind of reminded me of a discussion of the difference between buzz and hype and how one, or the other, is generated, whether it is organic or whether there is someone in the background pulling the strings to manipulate the public.

This is the second Egan book I have read and liked. A few years ago now I read The Keep which was a kind of modern, gothicky ghost story. I am not sure why I haven't bothered to go and track down her other books. I will definitely be watching to see what the author comes up with next as she doesn't seem to be afraid to take risks in her writing and to take her readers on the journey with her!

Rating 4/5

Laura's Review - Annabel

2011-09-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

In 1968, a baby was born to Jacinta and Treadway Blake, in a small Labrador trapping village. The birth was attended by a few village women, all close friends. One woman, Thomasina, noticed something unusual right away: the baby had both male and female genitalia. She was the only one outside the family who knew, and supported Jacinta as she struggled to accept what this would mean to them, and to the baby. Treadway decided the baby would be raised as a boy, and while Jacinta felt otherwise, she would not go against her husband. From that moment on the baby was known as Wayne, although Thomasina often called him "Annabel" in private.

Jacinta wished she could raise Wayne as both son and daughter, and only vaguely understood the challenges this could pose for Wayne as he grew up. Treadway desperately wanted a traditional, masculine son, and despaired at Wayne's more feminine interests. As a boy, Wayne was ignorant of the medical details, and knew only that he has to take special vitamins. He felt vaguely different from the other boys he knew, and his closest friend was a girl. While Wayne's medical treatment was costly, the more devastating impact was emotional. Jacinta and Treadway are unable to share their feelings with each other, and gradually this takes a toll. Wayne found it increasingly difficult to relate to either of them, and life only became more difficult as he matured and struggled to find his true self.

Kathleen Winter drew me into this story gradually, and skillfully. It wasn't a page-turner, but I was surprised to find myself emotionally caught up in this book. I despaired at Jacinta and Treadway's broken relationship, and each response to the family tension. My heart wrenched over the conflict between Treadway and Wayne, especially when Treadway's fears led him to destroy something very dear to Wayne. I also felt very sad for Wayne, who had a secret no one could understand, and coped with so much emotional trauma. As he approached adulthood, Wayne began to understand and accept himself, and I closed the book knowing his life would never be easy, but there were glimmers of hope for his future.

Cross-posted from my blog

Laura's Review - The Little Stranger

2011-09-18T14:41:00.001-07:00

The Little Stranger is a good old-fashioned gothic mystery set in the 1940s, in an old and stately English house which is just as much a character as the Ayers family who inhabits it. We first "meet" Hundreds Hall through Robert Faraday, a local doctor whose mother worked in service at Hundreds when he was young. Some thirty years later, he is called out to care for one of the maids, who has fallen ill. There he also meets Mrs. Ayers and her adult children, Roderick and Caroline. The family has come on hard times since Mrs. Ayers became a widow. Roderick is struggling to cope with the estate he inherited. Money is scarce, and the family has been faced with difficult decisions to make ends meet.

Dr. Faraday offers to treat Roderick's war injury with an experimental procedure, free of charge. And thus he inserts himself into the life of Hundreds Hall, and gets all up in their business. He worries endlessly about Mrs. Ayers, and begins to fancy Caroline. At least that's what he tells us, because Robert is the story's narrator. He spends more and more time at Hundreds Hall. When Mrs. Ayers decides to give a party, the first in years, he finds himself on the guest list -- unusual due to their different social classes. Things begin to unravel at the party, when the family dog Gyp bites a young guest and leaves her severely disfigured. Progressively weirder things happen, with progressively greater impact on the emotional well-being of the Ayers family members. And Hundreds Hall falls into an even greater state of disrepair. It appears some sort of ghost is terrorizing the household, and it's very creepy indeed.

I was constantly torn while reading this book. My literary mind wanted to believe there was a ghost because after all, this is a gothic mystery/ghost story. My rational, analytical side dismissed that as nonsense and looked for a rational, analytical cause for all these mishaps. When I finished the book, I still wasn't sure. The ending is such that Waters might have given me the rational answer, which gave the story a chilling psychological thriller angle. Or she didn't, and there was just a lot of inexplicable weird and creepy stuff going on.If I could rewrite the ending, I know what I'd do. But I can't tell you; you'll have to read this book and form your own conclusions. I ended up docking my rating 1/2 star because it all left me rather frustrated.

Cross-posted from my blog

The Observations by Jane Harris (Jill)

2011-09-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

The Observations
By Jane Harris
Completed September 11, 2011

The Observations is the story of young Bessy Buckley- a 15-year-old Irish prostitute-turned-maid who stumbles in to a Scottish manor called Castle Haivers. Escaping her past, she convinces the mistress of the house, Arabella Reid, to take her on as a maid, despite shady skills or references. Bessy's tenure begins very strangely as Arabella has unusual requests: Requiring Bessy to stand and sit with her eyes closed for long periods of time; requesting a cup of cocoa in the middle of the night, only to make Bessy drink it; and ordering Bessy to collect her thoughts in a journal that she must read to Arabella every evening.

Strange things are afoot at Castle Haivers, and with each turn of the page, the events get more unusual. Soon, Bessy realizes she's one of a long string of maids in Arabella's past - and that one maid in particular, Nora, who was killed in a train accident, has left an indelible mark on the household. Bessy, out of curiousity and loyalty to Arabella, begins to piece together the mystery of Nora, and as she does, unravels tragedies that can't be undone.

Bessy is a lively narrator with a sharp tongue and street smarts. She could be crass but harmlessly so. Despite her unsophisticated rhetoric, Bessy is a fabulous storyteller and observer of events at Castle Haivers. As she reveals the atrocities of her past, my heart went out to the poor girl, and Bessy became a character I kept rooting for, despite her many blunders.

The Observations could be downright creepy then light-hearted and humorous. Jane Harris is a magnificent writer, and she grabs the Gothic tradition with fierceness. I couldn't get enough of Bessy's narrative, and I often was rapt by the story. I highly recommend The Observations to fans of Gothic fiction - if you liked Fingersmith or The House at Riverton, you will love this book too. ( )

Gilgamesh by Joan London (Jill)

2011-08-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Gilgamesh
By Joan London
Completed August 28, 2011

Joan London's debut novel is the story of Edith, a young Australian girl who lives in the bush with her mom and sister. Edith knows the realities of hard country living - her parents' farm never taking off after years of effort. When her cousin, Leopold, and his friend, Aram, arrive for a visit, it's a breath of fresh air. Edith and her family are charmed by the young men's stories and antics, and slowly, Edith falls in love with Aram.

After the men leave, Edith begins to plot her own departure, a worldwide journey to Aram's homeland of Armenia. However, Edith didn't realize that Europe was about to burst with World War II, and as she draws closer to her destination, Edith becomes an unwilling pawn in a political chess match.

The fable Gilgamesh is central to this story, and it fits well with the travels of many characters. London does a wonderful job weaving in texts from the poem to help the reader connect the dots between the fable and the story. In fact, my favorite parts of the book are when Edith is traveling - first on a ship around Africa, then to London, Armenia and finally northern Africa. Each stop on Edith's journey gave the reader a snapshot of life during that time.

Gilgamesh is a quick read - very enthralling with fully developed characters and great plot twists. London's writing is subtle but powerful. Fans of the Orange Prize or literary fiction are sure to enjoy this fast-paced novel. ( )

Laura's Review - Great House

2011-08-03T10:01:00.001-07:00

Great House is an unusual novel that makes considerable demands of the reader. The book is made up of four loosely connected stories, but I didn't pick up on that at first. Part I has four chapters -- the first part of each story -- and felt disjointed, like four unfinished, disconnected works with weak character development. At the close of Part I, I was enormously frustrated. I broke one of my cardinal rules and read some reviews of this book. They inspired me to continue reading, and I'm glad I did. I finished the first story in Part II and was flooded with emotion. The same thing happened with the second, third, and fourth stories. And suddenly the book made sense, and I was reminded of a quote I'd flagged early on:

There are moments when a kind of clarity comes over you, and suddenly you can see through walls to another dimension that you'd forgotten or chosen to ignore in order to continue living with the various illusions that make life, particularly life with other people, possible. (p. 14)

I found myself warming to the characters which include a writer telling her life story, an older man reflecting on his relationship with his adult son, a man who discovers a secret his wife kept from him for years, and the adult children of an antiques dealer. Woven through Great House are themes of exile, loss, and betrayal, all in a Jewish context. It was fascinating, and I kept flagging quotes like this:

What is the point of a religion that turns its back on the subject of what happens when life ends? Having been denied an answer -- having been denied an answer while at the same time being cursed as a people who for thousands of years have aroused in others a murderous hate -- the Jew has no choice but to live with death every day. To live with it, to set up his house in its shadow, and never to discuss its terms. (p. 175)

Towards the end I could see how Nicole Krauss was building a kind of metaphor for the Jewish experience:

if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself. Perhaps that is what they mean when they speak of the Messiah: a perfect assemblage of the infinite parts of the Jewish memory. (p. 279)

Well as I said, this book does make demands of the reader. I'm not even sure I understood it all, but I felt rewarded in the end.

Cross-posted from my blog

The Long Song - Wendy's Review

2011-08-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Kitty turned to face her master.

‘Come along, Caroline. Hurry. We need to get out of the sun.’

‘Can I take her?’ she asked.

Kitty tried to seize air enough to breathe.

‘Yes, if she’ll amuse you. She would be taken soon enough anyway. It will encourage her to have another. They are dreadful mothers, these negroes.’

‘She’ll be my companion here,’ Caroline said. ‘I could train her for the house, or to be my lady’s maid.’ – from The Long Song, page 41 -

July is born in the early part of the nineteenth century on a Jamaican sugar plantation. Her mother is a black slave, her father the white overseer who is her mother’s rapist. One hot day when July is still just a young child, she is noticed by Caroline Mortimer, the sister of the plantation’s owner who has arrived from England. On a whim, Caroline decides to take July to be her companion, stealing her from July’s mother without a second thought and renaming her Marguerite. The Long Song is July’s story, narrated retrospectively by an adult July many years later. It is not an easy story, spanning decades and taking the reader through the tumultuous years of the Baptist War and the controversial end to slavery in Jamaica. But, it is July’s voice which drives the narrative. Funny, cynical, highly observant and intelligent, July weighs in on racism, violence, and the struggle for freedom at a time when blacks were viewed as property to rich, white landowners.

Only with a white man, can there be guarantee that the colour of your pickney will be raised. For a mulatto who breeds with a white man will bring forth a quadroon; and the quadroon that enjoys white relations will give to this world a mustee; the mustee will beget a mustiphino; and the mustiphino…oh, the mustiphino’s child with a white man for a papa will find each day greets them no longer with a frown, but welcomes them with a smile, as they at last stride within this world as a cherished white person. – from The Long Song, page 203 -

The Long Song is a brilliant novel narrated by an unforgettable character. July is, perhaps, one of the most memorable female voices I have read in a long, long time. Bittersweet, funny, often devastating…this is a novel which drew me in immediately and held me in its grip to the final page. Andrea Levy writes with an honesty and insight into the human condition that takes one’s breath away.

The Long Song was shortlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize, longlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and named as a 2010 New York Times Most Notable book. It is, in my opinion, worthy of all these accolades. Beautiful prose, enduring characters, and the evocation of place that vibrates off the page, all combine to create a remarkable novel of historical significance.

Readers who love literary fiction and historical fiction will want to put The Long Song on their must read list.

Highly recommended.

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Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Jill)

2011-08-02T10:30:00.001-07:00

Prep
By Curtis Sittenfeld
Completed August 1, 2011

Lee Fiora decided at the tender age of 13 that she wanted to escape her hometown of South Bend, Indiana, and take part in an idyllic rite of passage - boarding school. Despite her parents' lack of financial support, she applied to Ault School in Massachusetts and received a scholarship for her tuition. Prep is the story of Lee's life as a boarding school student - an intriguing look at the socialization of high school students at a prestigious boarding school.

As a graduate of a small, all-women's college, I found many of Lee's experiences very similar: the traditions, hazing rituals, cafeteria food and dorm experiences all seemed like pages from my life history. Attending small, private institutions can be very alluring. Unfortunately, though, for many students, it can turn into a private hell.

High school is tough - the feelings of being left out, socially awkward and trying to second guess everyone's motives weigh down most teenagers. Lee did all this and more. Lee was blessed with a wicked sense of humor but rarely showed it. She had a few good friends but remained aloof with most of her classmates. And when she finally gets the attention of her crush, Lee surrenders herself without a second glance. As I read Lee's story, I commiserated with her plight as a scholarship student in a sea of wealthy kids but frowned at some of her mistakes. Sometimes, Lee was her own worst enemy.

And then I smiled, because that's what being a teenage girl is all about: learning, growing and making mistakes. As Prep concluded, I knew Lee was a better person as a result of her Ault experiences. This story was a great reminder of the journey teenage girls take to become self-sufficient women. If you're a mom to a young girl or a young woman yourself, put Prep high on your reading list. I don't think you'll be disappointed in this enchanting coming of age tale. ( )

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Jayme)

2011-07-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

Title: Gilead

Author: Marilynne Robinson
Published: 2004, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Genre: Literary Fiction
Accolades: 2005 - Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2004 - National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, 2006 - long list Orange Prize for Fiction

76-year-old Congregationalist Minister John Ames is dying of a heart condition. Still capable of preaching and mentally sharp he has decided to write a letter - a journal of his thoughts - to his young son to explain the family's history, who he is, and what he believes. Set in Gilead, Iowa in 1956 this quiet, profound book is the story of a life and a faith that can move mountains if only it can forgive.

There are certain books that as soon as you read the first two or three pages you know that it is special - that it will change you somehow - maybe not lightning bolt jolts, but small, subtle movements near your heart. Gilead was that book for me. Gilead begins with John Ames counting the blessings of his life and expressing the joy of having found love and having a child in the twilight of his years.

" I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle." page 52

What simple words written or spoken that could be life-changing - some one's salvation - maybe we need to say them to those we love. As we read on though we discover when the "prodigal son" of a life-long friend comes back to town that John Ames has yet to give the greatest miracle of all - forgiveness. Though Ames is a minister he still struggles with a human soul and Robinson deftly and beautifully describes his torment and his epiphany.

In the bible Gilead means hill of testimony and that is what the book Gilead is for John Ames his testimony of a well-lived life.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

The Secret Lives of Baba Sagi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Jill)

2011-07-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Secret Lives of Baba Sagi's Wives
By Lola Shoneyin
Completed July 29, 2011

Bolanle is the youngest and newest wife to enter Baba Sagi's household. The only one of the wives that is educated, Bonanle presents a threat to the other wives - in more ways than one. They are intimidated by her education and concerned that a secret shared by all three wives will be revealed. So begins the plight of the women who are the cornerstone to The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives.

Told from alternating viewpoints, Lola Shoneyin gives her readers just enough to keep the story moving, uncovering small angles of the story with each chapter. We learn about each wife: Iya Segi, Iya Tope and Iya Femi as well as Bolanle and Babi Segi. Individually, their stories are a fascinating look at polygamous marriage and how they came to marry Babi Segi.

While the entire story was engaging, I found the first three wives to be horrible, conniving and distrustful. I didn't like them, even as I learned their "backstories." Baba Segi was even less likeable. Bonanle was the saving grace, and I was usually relieved when I learned the next chapter would be told from her point of view. The ending was sad - unnecessarily tragic - and I let out a big sigh when I finished this book. All in all, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives was just an average read for me. Be sure to check out others' reviews, though, before deciding to read this book. ( )

FTC Disclosure: This book was sent to me by the publisher for review on my blog.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Jayme)

2011-07-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

Title: A Visit From the Goon Squad

Author: Jennifer Egan
Published: 2010, Borzoi Book - Alfred A. Knopf
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Accolades: 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award, long list for 2011 Orange Prize

A Visit From the Goon Squad is a novel that is written as a collection of stories that center around Bennie Salazar a music executive, his kleptomaniac assistant Sasha and the people that weave in and out of their flawed lives. Each chapter is a story that moves through the timeline of Bennie and Sasha's lives and as readers we witness the moments that changed them.

A Visit From the Goon Squad has received critical acclaim, but somewhat mixed reviews from the "everyday" reader. I understand the division. This book is difficult to pinpoint and to categorize - just writing the first paragraph of this review was hard because it is a difficult book to explain. But I will tell you that I loved it. The writing is crisp, honest, and inventive. There are proses in this book that are so vivid and accurate that I had to stop and read them again and again.

"It's turning out to be a bad day, a day when the sun feels like teeth." page 60

Time is a key element to the story (The Goon Squad is a reference to time) - it is always there hovering over the characters and they each feel its impact as it changes their relationships, values, and themselves. The book weaves back and forth through a time span of about 50 years starting in the 1970's and ending in a somewhat dystopian 2020. My favorite chapter is the chapter that is written as a power point by a teenager of today. It is so in the moment - our current time - it is brilliant.

A Visit From the Goon Squad is a remarkable, strangely moving story about the one thing we can't escape - the impact of time.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett (Jill)

2011-07-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Magician's Assistant
By Ann Patchett
Completed July 25, 2011

For most of Sabine's adult life, she was in love with her employer and best friend, Parsifal. They travelled together as a magic act and later as antiques experts. They shared an uncommon bond of friendship. Sabine knew her love would always be unrequited. Why? Because Parsifal was gay - and his true love was a man named Phan.

Sadly, both Phan and Parsifal had AIDS, and as Sabine prepared to say good-bye to them both, Parsifal does something remarkable: he married Sabine, ensuring her financial freedom for the rest of her life. Parsifal, however, had secrets too, namely a mom and two sisters in Nebraska who had not seen him in more than 20 years. When they learned about his death, Parsifal's mom and sister came to Los Angeles to meet Sabine. Once united, Sabine and Parsifal's family pieced together his mysterious life.

The Magician's Assistant was a tale like none other. Indeed, a woman married to a gay man near the end of his life was an unusual story development. However, Ann Patchett had more tricks up her sleeve. Incredibly loving and flawed, Parsifal's family showed Sabine what life was like for young Parsifal (then called Guy), uncovering more secrets. Together, they mourn his death and help heal old wounds.

Wonderfully told, The Magician's Assistant was a moving story of love, friendship, family ties and estranged relationships. Each of the story's twists and turns were unpredictable, and while Patchett left the ending open-ended, I was pleased with the strength of friendship among this group of women. Their mutual love for Parsifal brought them together, but their love for each other made them even closer. The Magician's Assistant was a beautiful book, and once again, Patchett swept me away with her magical storytelling. ( )

Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman (Jill)

2011-07-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Scottsboro
By Ellen Feldman
Completed July 21, 2011

The Scottsboro case was one of many ugly marks in American history. During the 1930's, nine young black males were arrested for raping two white women in Alabama. Despite weak evidence and a wavering testimony by one of the women, each man was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. The case was an international outrage and was the most tried case in American legal history. And it provided the background for Ellen Feldman's Orange Prize-nominated book, Scottsboro.

In the book, a young journalist, Alice Whittier, became fascinated with the Scottsboro case, and she convinced her editor to assign her to the trial. Alice was a feature writer at heart and didn't waste time trying to get a human angle. She met each of the nine accused and talked to the two alleged rape victims. Alice could tell that one of the women, Ruby Bates, was lying about what happened. She took personal interest in Ruby, trying to convince her to do the right thing. For Ruby, though, doing the right thing was not an easy thing to do.

The book followed the case and its first appeal, when hot shot attorney, Samuel Liebowitz, agreed to defend the men. Feldman painted a picture of racism, anti-Semitism and sexism that permeated the entire trial. It was downright nasty. As I read the testimonies and court exhibits, I hung on to every word and move by the attorneys, judges and spectators. It was court drama at its best.

I can't rave about Scottsboro enough. The Southern setting, social lessons and moving drama kept me at the edge of my seat. This is my first book by Feldman - but not my last. I highly recommend Scottsboro to anyone who likes to be riveted and moved by a great story. ( )

Laura's Review - Molly Fox's Birthday

2011-07-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

In this quiet, contemplative book, an unnamed narrator spends a day reminiscing about her long-time friend, Molly Fox.

Molly Fox is an actor, and is generally regarded as one of the finest of her generation. (She insists upon 'actor': If I wrote poems would you call me a poetess?) One of the finest but not, perhaps, one of the best known. ... She likes the fear, the danger even, of the stage, and it is for the theatre that she has done her best work. Although she often appears in contemporary drama her main interest is in the classical repertoire, and her greatest love is Shakespeare. (p. 2)

The narrator is a playwright, using Molly's house as a retreat to work on her latest play while Molly is away in New York and London. During the course of a day -- which happens to be Molly's birthday -- she relives significant moments in their lives, and reflects on their relationships with friends and siblings.

The two met many years before, when Molly was cast in the narrator's play, and supported each other through the highs and lows in their careers and relationships. The narrator's older brother, Tom, is a priest who befriended Molly and may have counseled her through some difficult situations. Molly's brother, Fergus, suffers from undefined psychological difficulties precipitated by traumatic events in his childhood.

As the narrator putters around Molly's house, she recounts several events in her relationship with Molly, painting a clear picture but one that seems just a bit too cut and dry. I suspected there was more to the story than she was letting on, perhaps more than she was willing to admit to herself. I began to pick up on tiny clues to a deeper perspective. When Fergus drops in to visit Molly but finds only the narrator at home, he stays to chat and ultimately provides critical insight to Molly's character and history, casting entirely new light on everything that was revealed before.

This was a very interesting study of memory and point of view, and how personal experience shapes relationships.

Cross-posted from my blog

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives - Wendy's Review

2011-07-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

“Wipe your eyes,” she said, passing me a rag. “It has been a month since your parents died. This is not your home and it will never be. A girl cannot inherit her father’s house because it is everyone’s prayer that she will marry and make her husband’s home her own. This house and everything in it now belongs to your uncle. That is the way things are.” – from The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, page 135 -

Bolanle is Baba Segi’s fourth wife in a polygamous marriage. She is educated and young, and is a threat to the other wives in more ways than one. When she fails to conceive a child, Baba Segi is bereft and begins to seek answers which may uncover the biggest secret his wives have kept from him yet. Told in multiple and alternating viewpoints, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives explores the polygamist society of Nigeria by gradually revealing the secrets of the women who people the novel.

Iya Segi is the first wife – large and outspoken, she is the unofficial power beneath Baba Segi’s roof. Her plan to humiliate Bolanle and drive her from their home gets lukewarm support from Iya Femi, the third wife who has vengeance on her mind and who would rather see a quicker solution to the problem.

When a plan does not go right, you plot again. One day you will get it right. One day you will be able to damage the person who hurts you so completely that they will never be able to recover. I have told Iya Segi this on several occasions. I keep telling her that we need to find a permanent solution but she does not have wisdom. – from The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, page 74 -

Iya Tope is the second wife, a woman whose compassion is silenced by fear. Forced into an arranged marriage to Baba Segi, Iya Tope has learned to be humble and silent in the face of wrong doing.

As the story unfolds, the lives of each of these women intersect and come together to reveal the larger family of Baba Segi. Other characters are introduced, including Taju, the driver who also harbors a secret, and the many children who live in the house. Although Lola Shoneyin breaks up each person’s narrative by chapter, I found many of the characters’ voices to be interchangeable, and so sometimes I found myself struggling to keep all their stories straight in my mind.

Thematically, the novel probes the rights of women in a polygamist society and in Africa in general. Baba Segi is a self-important, chauvinistic man who sees Bolanle’s inability to conceive solely her fault. His view of sex is all about his own pleasure and he refers to it in crass terms. In general, sex is not portrayed as all that desirable – for the most part, it is represented as a wifely duty for the women with the point being to produce children. Sex for pleasure is largely punished and a source of guilt in the novel.

Shoneyin shows the inequality of women in her book, and all but Bolanle are portrayed as conniving, manipulative and vengeful. It made me wonder how accurate the novel is with regard to women in African society. Ultimately, Shoneyin provides for some redemption and forgiveness in her book about family secrets, betrayal, and disloyalty.

I found this to be an easy book to read. The individual stories are laced with myth, parables and folk lore. I enjoyed the gradual revealing of each character’s secret – a bit like peeling the layers off of an onion. Shoneyin managed to surprise me a bit with Baba Segi’s character who is so stereotypical at the outset, but managed to grow into a person who had depth and empathy by the end of the book.

The plot of this book is original, although the characters felt a little bit undeveloped to me. Shoneyin captures the flavor of a paternalistic society well.

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was nominated for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction and will appeal to readers who enjoy African literature.

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Laura's Review - The White Family

2011-07-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

Alfred White has had a long career as a London park keeper. His days are spent patrolling the park, monitoring its condition and making sure visitors adhere to park rules. Alfred is close to retirement, and has seen a lot of change over the years. He longs for the Britain of his youth, during and after World War II. He is especially upset by the influx of foreigners, changing the ethnic mix of his London neighborhood and, consequently, the park visitors.

One day Alfred collapses on the job and is hospitalized. His sudden weakness shocks his wife and adult children, who have grown accustomed to Alfred's firm, controlling hand. His adult children have all gone their separate ways, but are brought back into contact at Alfred's bedside. Darren is an established journalist living in the US, and is on his third marriage. Shirley is in a relationship with a black man, which caused a rift with her father. Dirk has been unable to establish an independent adult life, and lives at home while working in a corner shop. He has developed disturbing extremist political and racial views.

May, the wife and mother, held this crew together over the years. Like many women of her generation, her husband made all the decisions. When Alfred went into hospital, May found she couldn't even withdraw money from the bank on her own. But May is also strong inside, in her own way, and she has a suppressed intellect that remains an important part of her life:

She always liked to have a book in her bag. In case she got stuck. In case she got lost. Or did she feel lost without her books? There wasn't any point, but she liked to have one with her, a gentle weight nudging her shoulder, keeping her company through the wind, making her more solid, more substantial, less likely to be blown away, less alone. More -- a person. (p. 19)

Through short chapters narrated by different family members, Maggie Gee develops the White family's history and the nature of the parent-child and sibling relationships. Each of the children bear scars from their father's discipline and temper. Darren appears successful on the outside, but is deeply wounded inside. Shirley has been unable to have children, and struggles with issues of faith. Dirk is a ticking time bomb, prone to alcohol-infused bouts of temper as he acts out his resentment towards anyone better off than himself. Alfred and May, for all their flaws, have shared a long and loving marriage, and are likeable in their own ways.

This book is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of sadness, as the entire family copes with Alfred's medical condition. May considers, for the first time, that Alfred may not always be there for her. Alfred struggles with weakness & infirmity. Each of the children relive their childhood and their relationship with Alfred, and rather than bond together each of them struggles individually. There are also many disturbing moments, particularly Gee's portrayal of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. This would have been a 4.5-star book were it not for a too-tidy denouement about Shirley which struck me as both unrealistic and unnecessary. Still, this is a well-crafted story, with a strong emotional pull and an intense and startling climax.

Cross-posted from my blog

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber (Jill)

2011-07-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
By Ann Weisgarber
Completed July 18, 2011

Rachel Reeves was a strong-willed, hard-working woman from Chicago who wanted a better life for herself, including marrying a man with "ambition." When her boss's son, Isaac DuPree, came home on leave from the Army, Rachel knew she met the man she wanted to marry. Isaac was determined to improve his lot in life by planning to move to South Dakota to become a rancher. Rachel, seeing her ticket out, approached Isaac about marrying her to help him claim more land - an offer he couldn't refuse. It was then that she became Rachel DuPree - and her personal history as a black wife of a South Dakota rancher came alive on the page.

Rachel's story about living in the harsh conditions of South Dakota was mesmorizing. At the time of the story, her ranch was experiencing a severe drought, and she worried about food and water for her family (which included four children and one on the way). As conditions worsened, Rachel began to yearn for life back in Chicago. For Isaac, though, returning home meant failure - he wouldn't even consider it. Rachel began to ponder her choices, deeply torn between her children and her marriage.

A deep undertone to The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was racism. As a black family, the DuPrees experienced racism in South Dakota, but what was more pronounced was the racism toward Native Americans. Additionally, there was racism among the African Americans, where Northern blacks discriminated against blacks from the South. This book was an eye-opening look at the various forms of racism that plagued the U.S. in the early 20th century.

With its strong characters and themes, A Personal History of Rachel DuPree is a worthwhile read for anyone who likes stories that examine social issues. It was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2010 and shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers. It's definitely worthy of its accolades, and I look forward to more fiction by Ann Weisgarber. ( )

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison

2011-07-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

England, 31st August 1939: The world is on the brink of war. As Hitler prepares to invade Poland, thousands of children are evacuated from London to escape the impending Blitz. Torn from her mother, eight-year-old Anna Sands is relocated with other children to a large Yorkshire estate which has been opened up to evacuees by Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton, an enigmatic, childless couple. Soon Anna gets drawn into their unraveling relationship, seeing things that are not meant for her eyes and finding herself part-witness and part-accomplice to a love affair with unforeseen consequences. A story of longing, loss, and complicated loyalties, combining a sweeping narrative with subtle psychological observation, The Very Thought of You is not just a love story but a story about love.

Sometimes you hear about a book and you think to yourself "I know that I am going to love this book" and then when you come to write the review it gives you great satisfaction to be able to say that you were right. And then there are the other books - those ones that sound like exactly the kind of book you are going to love...and you just don't.

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison is unfortunately one of the latter types for me. In theory this is a perfect book for me. I love reading stories set against the background of war, particularly World War II, and whilst I have read about a young person going to stay with a family as an evacuee earlier this year, this is the first time I have read that experience through the eyes of an evacuee who goes to a stately home turned school. The historical setting and the location sound fascinating.

The story starts with 8 year old Anna Sands. She is about to be evacuated to the countryside like thousands of other children were just after the outbreak of World War II but before the bombs actually started to fall on the major cities. After sharing a magical day out with her mother in preparation for their separation, Anna is looking forward to going to the seaside but instead ends up at a stately home in Yorkshire with lots of other children, where the house has been hastily converted into a school. Anna is somewhat remote from the other children emotionally, but feels a connection to Thomas Ashton almost immediately. Thomas worked for the diplomatic corps until he was left wheelchair bound after a bout of polio and is now running the school and doubling up as a teacher for some of the time.

Thomas and Elizabeth are desperate for children, and when I say desperate, I mean desperate, particularly in Elizabeth's case. There is some hope that by opening their home up to become a school they will in some way compensate for their barrenness but it is at best a band aid solution. As a character, Elizabeth suffers from being very two dimensional - the bitter woman who descends to a very dark place. She is not the only two dimensional character who fills the pages by any stretch of the imagination, but she certainly is the most obvious example of this.

Even the secondary characters seem to be caricatures of real people. For example, whilst Anna is pining away in the school in Yorkshire, her mother Roberta is living the high life in London barely giving her young child a thought.

Of the things that bothered me about this book, one of the bigger issues include the fact that the author didn't seem to know what the focus of the novel was. Was it meant to be a story about the evacuee experience of a young girl? Was it meant to be a dissection of a marriage from the point where Elizabeth decided that Thomas was the man for her and made it happen, through his illness and subsequent disability, and then their inability to have children? Was it meant to be the story of the descent of the physical house from family home to empty National Trust property? All of the above? Having finished the book, I can't say that I am sure.

That's not to say that Alison can't turn a phrase, because she most certainly can, and there were sections where I stopped and reread passages because the observations were so strong. For example, from page 82:

It was no comfort to her that William had been heroic, because the soaring death toll had already devalued the worth of any one sacrifice

and then again from page 105

Sometimes, across the dining room she would glimpse Thomas talking to someone, and her heart would turn over at the sight of his smile. And a memory would come back to her of the longing she had known for him before their marriage. But she knew that now it was only a memory of a feeling, not the feeling itself.

The couple of lines of the publisher's blurb say that "The Very Thought of You is not just a love story but is a story about love", but I would argue that it is neither of those things, or at least it is not the kind of love that I want to read about or live. Why would anyone want to love if it left everyone unfulfilled for the rest of their days? I guess this kind of ties in with the idea that all the characters in "literature" need to be miserable in order to be worth reading about. I don't get why that needs to be the case, but it is certainly not something that has gone unnoticed when it comes to discussion about the various literature prizes over the years.

Thanks to Galleygrab for giving me the opportunity to read this book!

Rating: 3/5

Cross posted at my blog

Jamrach's Menagerie - Wendy's Review

2011-07-17T18:46:00.001-07:00

A mile from the shoal we hove to. A ghostly feather appeared, far, far out to sea, just for a second, and my heart was beating very very fast. Tim, down from his eyrie, ran over to me, out of breath. “This is it.” He could hardly get it out. “This is it, this it, Jaf,” he said and gripped my hand hard. My mouth had gone dry. – from Jamrach’s Menagerie -

Jaffy Brown is growing up on the streets of London in the late nineteenth century. He is a fearless eight year old when he encounters a Bengal tiger on the street, reaches up to pet it on the nose, and ends up dangling from the tiger’s mouth. That experience introduces Jaffy to a man named Jamrach and his menagerie of animals found around the world. Jaffy is invited to work for Jamrach where he befriends Tim, a boy a bit older than him whose competitive nature causes some strain in the friendship. When both boys are given the opportunity to find and capture a sea dragon as part of a three year whaling expedition, they do no hesitate to sign on to the adventure. What unfolds is an experience which will indelibly change their lives as they brave the unforgiving power of the sea together.

Carol Birch’s Orange Prize nominated novel of a young street urchin’s coming of age on a whaling boat is filled with quirky characters who are not always likable. The book is narrated by an adult Jaffy who is looking back on his boyhood years, and so there is an adult feel to this tale of youth. Early on, Birch establishes the uneasy friendship between Tim and Jaffy. The early chapters are devoted to the boys’ time in London and is filled with descriptions of the rough city streets. I found the early going slow paced, but when Birch begins the saga of the whaling expedition, the novel picks up considerably.

Birch’s writing is highly descriptive and allows for a solid sense of place.

The sea lapped over the transom, poured up the deck and swirled about the submerged companionways, and a colossal shift took place in the heart of the ship as three or four hundred barrels of oil moved as one with a sound like the end of all days. Sound: the sea, the wild wind, the voices of our crew as the brittle, wooden speck we lived on rolled over like the slippery pole at the fair, and the sky flew up as the swingboat soared. – from Jamrach’s Menagerie -

The latter half of Jamrach’s Menagerie is not for the faint of heart. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I will say that the themes of survival and sacrifice are strong. Many of the images in this part of the novel are disturbing and graphic. There were times I set the book aside and was not eager to pick it back up again.

I have mixed feelings about Jamrach’s Menagerie. I found the middle part of the novel compelling and fast paced, a nice change from the first part of the book which dragged for me. Some of the latter parts were a bit too graphic for my liking. On the other hand, Birch is skilled at developing her characters and setting the scene. She brings to life the glory, pain, and terror which were found on the whaling ships in the late nineteenth century. Jamrach’s Menegarie is, at its heart, a sea adventure.

Readers who enjoy a good yarn and want to experience life on the high seas through the eyes of a young boy, might want to give this one a try. Birch peels back the skin of her characters and exposes their emotions in a raw and dark way that is hard to read at times. Perhaps it is this which makes this book the most memorable for me.

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When I Lived In Modern Times by Linda Grant (Jill)

2011-07-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

When I Lived In Modern Times
By Linda Grant
Completed July 15, 2011

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000, When I Lived In Modern Times is the story of Evelyn, a young Jewish woman from London who emigrated to modern-day Israel in 1946. While the story was a coming of age tale (of sorts) for Evelyn, at the heart of the novel was the beginning of a new nation, struggling to survive in a hostile land.

Evelyn, like so many European Jews after World War II, was displaced, though her circumstances were different from other D.P.s (displaced persons). She was raised in London by her single mom, and after her mom's death, Evelyn was looking for a fresh start. She eventually settled in Tel Aviv - a modern city with new buildings - and quickly made friends with the Jewish residents and British colonists who lived there. Evelyn was unique because she encompassed both worlds - a Jew who wanted a free country who was just as comfortable talking to the Brits. She eventually had to pick a side, and thanks to a relationship with a Jewish freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending on what side you're on), she began to help the Zionist movement in small ways.

The beginning and end of When I Lived in Modern Times were engaging, but overall, the book was an average read for me. The highlight of the story was learning about the creation of Israel. While I am familiar with this nation's early history, it came alive in Grant's writing. What didn't come alive for me, though, were the characters. They seemed flat and one-dimensional, and for a reader like me who enjoys character-driven fiction, I was disappointed by this aspect of the book.

Obviously, something about this story appealed to the Orange Prize judges at the time, so if you like award-winning books, then give When I Lived in Modern Times a go. Perhaps it will engage you more than it did me. ( )

Laura's Review - The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht

2011-07-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

In The Tiger's Wife, Téa Obreht weaves together fantastic tales filled with folklore and a bit of magical realism. Natalia and Zora are two young doctors, traveling to a remote village to administer vaccinations to local children. It's shortly after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and political/religious tensions are still high. Just before leaving home, Natalia learns her beloved grandfather passed away while on a journey far from home. Her grandmother is justifiably distraught. She was unable to be with her husband at his death, and she doesn't understand what he was doing in the place where he was found.

Natalia mourns silently; she doesn't even confide in Zora. Her grandfather, also a doctor, was clearly a mentor and role model. As Natalia remembers visits she and her grandfather made to the zoo, she begins retelling stories he passed down to her, mostly about his life and the people of his village. The stories read like folk tales. The end of one story often led to another, to flesh out a particular character even further. This put me off at first, because I kept wanting to get back to Natalia, Zora, and the village. I struggled a bit with the magical realism in stories featuring "the deathless man," but I persevered and enjoyed them more than I thought I would.

I really wanted to love this book, but in the end I simply liked it. I spent the first half of the book frustrated, unsure where it was going. Then I got swept up in one of the stories and thought, "now we're cooking, I'm really going to like this!" I found the connections between stories interesting, and became emotionally invested in some of the characters. Unfortunately, I was unable to hold onto those feelings. Téa Obreht is clearly a talented writer, and despite my feelings about this book I'm looking forward to watching her career and reading more of her work.

Cross-posted from my blog

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Jill)

2011-07-12T05:12:00.000-07:00

Purple Hibiscus
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Completed July 11, 2011

In her debut novel, Chimananda Ngozi Adichie engrosses her reader with the story of 15-year-old Kambili, a young girl living in Nigeria under the abusive rule of her father, Eugene. Kambili and her older brother, Jaja, are forced to live in the strictest of circumstances - punished physically and emotionally for the smallest of infractions - all while their country goes to hell in a handbasket.

The siblings get a reprieve when their Aunty Ifeoma invites them to her house for a holiday. There, Kambili and Jaja see a more loving home where children can make mistakes and express their opinions. It's an eye-opening stay for them both. It added more rebellion to Jaja's ways, and it showed Kambili a different kind of Catholicism, led by her friendship with a young priest. When the two returned home, they struggled to live under their father's oppressive rule.

Let's talk a moment about Eugene, who I call "Asshole." A jerk to his wife and kids, he was the pinnacle of charity to his community, often paying for other children's education and donating large sums of money to the Church. He also funded the only Nigerian newspaper that spoke out against dictatorship, and his views on democracy were quite enlightened. While his public persona was admirable, his private life was disgusting. The way he treated his wife and children were unforgiveable. Charity begins at home, Asshole.

Don't let this ugly character dissuade you. Purple Hibiscus is a stunning story. Adichie is magical in her writing, transporting her readers to Nigeria with just a few sentences. I could smell the flowers, taste the food and see the landscape. She adeptly mixes her native tongue into the dialogue - all without losing the reader. She's astonishingly talented for such a young woman.

I can't recommend Purple Hibiscus enough. You will learn a lot about Nigerian culture, and be moved by the story and characters. If you haven't read stories by Adichie, this is a good place to start. I don't think you'll be disappointed. ( )

The Tiger's Wife - Wendy's Review

2011-07-10T09:42:00.001-07:00

My grandfather never refers to the tiger’s wife by name. His arm is around me and my feet are on the handrail, and my grandfather might say, “I once knew a girl who loved tigers so much she almost became one herself.” Because I am little, and my love of tigers comes directly from him, I believe he is talking about me, offering me a fairy tale in which I can imagine myself – and will for years and years. – from The Tiger’s Wife, page 4 -

Natalia and her friend, Zora, are both doctors and traveling to an orphanage by the sea in the former Yugoslavia to deliver medications, when Natalia learns her grandfather (also a physician) has died. Although his death is not a surprise (she knew he was ill), what shakes her is that he did not die in his home but far away in an isolated village and apparently he was on his way to see Natalia. Confused and grieving, Natalia continues on to her destination determined to understand her grandfather’s death through the stories of her childhood. She remembers her days at the Citadel with her grandfather, outside the tiger’s cage, listening as her grandfather reads from his worn copy of The Jungle Book. But there are other stories, some her grandfather has told her, and one that he has not.

The Tiger’s Wife is a sprawling, beautiful novel that unfolds gracefully as the narrative moves back and forth in time, revealing the life of a man through the stories he has shared with his granddaughter. Place is very important in this novel set in the Balkans. Although Tea Obreht uses fictional towns, the history of the region bleeds into the narrative. The presence of war looms throughout – including the Nazi invasion, and the Yugoslav Wars.

People must have seen him, but in the wake of bombardment he was anything but a tiger to them: a joke, an insanity, a religious hallucination. He drifted, enormous and silent, down the alleys of Old Town, past the smashed-in doors of coffeehouses and bakeries, past motorcars flung through shopwindows. He went down the tramway, up and over fallen trolleys in his path, beneath lines of electric cable that ran through the city and now hung broken and black as jungle creeper. – from The Tiger’s Wife, page 94 -

This novel is full of symbolism, the most obvious being the tiger himself – a graceful, powerful predator who brings beauty and fear to a small mountain village in the wake of the Nazi invasion. The tiger of the novel is the physical embodiment of Shere Khan from The Jungle Book – a fictional character who comes to life for Natalia’s grandfather one cold and magical winter. Tigers are gorgeous, they are stealthy, and most certainly they remind us that we are mortal and death may only be a paw swipe away. Obreht explores the idea of death and spirituality in The Tiger’s Wife. There is the story of the deathless man, a man who is able to cheat Death, who passes through her grandfather’s life like a shadow. And when Natalia arrives in the seaside village with Zora, she discovers a group of people digging in the vineyard, searching for a body whose spirit, they believe, is sickening their children.

But it would be wrong to assume that The Tiger’s Wife is only about our understanding and coming to terms with death. It is so much more. This is a novel about prejudice and fear, how stories shape who we later become, and our connection to family through the stories of our childhoods. This is a book about superstition and magic fused with reality. For me, the most satisfying part of the novel was the power of story. Obreht introduces the reader to the rich history of folklore and storytelling in the Balkan region – a region filled with diverse culture and religion, and one whose history is as complex as its people.

Obreht brings to life dozens of characters who weave through the stories within the story, adding depth to the narrative. Perhaps the most troubling and curious character is the village apothecary who looms larger than life for Natalia’s grandfather.

Standing under the counter, one sock lower than the other, my grandfather would look up at the shelves and shelves of jars, the swollen-bottomed bottles of remedies, and revel in their calm, controlled promise of wellness. The little golden scales, the powders, the herbs and spices, the welcoming smell of the apothecary’s shop, were all things that signified another plane of reality. And the apothecary – tooth puller, dream interpreter, measurer of medicine, keeper of the magnificent scarlet ibis – was the reliable magician, the only kind of magician my grandfather could ever admire. Which is why, in a way, this story starts and ends with him. – from The Tiger’s Wife, page 104 -

I loved this book – its sprawling, nearly dreamlike, narrative; its incredible description of place; and its fantastic characters. Tea Obreht excels as a storyteller. The best tellers of tales are those who are able to immerse their audience in the texture, taste, smell and feel of the story. Tea Obreht does this effortlessly. I was riveted to The Tiger’s Wife and carried along through its pages by the spellbinding voice of a very talented writer.

The Tiger’s Wife won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction – and I believe it earns its place there. This is a memorable novel, a magical novel, one that had me dreaming of tigers and snow capped mountains and a man who cannot die. Readers will be thrilled and swept away by this book…one of the best of the year.

Highly recommended.

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Laura's Review - The Memory of Love

2011-07-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

The Memory of Love takes place shortly after Sierra Leone's Civil War (1991-99). Adrian, a British psychologist, has returned to the country following an initial short volunteer experience. He's left his wife and daughter at home in the hopes of making a difference, helping the people of Sierra Leone recover from trauma. His methods are viewed skeptically at first, but eventually he begins to have a positive impact on his patients. Kai is a brilliant young surgeon working in the same hospital, and haunted by war trauma and lost love:

And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. (p. 185)

Kai is still in love with Nenebah, a woman who left him some time ago. He also misses his best friend Tejani, who left the country to practice medicine in the US. Kai toys with the idea of joining him, and takes steps necessary for immigration, but is clearly ambivalent about leaving other loved ones behind in Sierra Leone.

In Sierra Leone, silence rules the day: the war is simply not discussed; personal stress is suppressed, as if it's all a big secret. Most of Adrian's cases suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, having witnessed horrific violence during the war that they have been unable to deal with on an emotional and psychological level. And then there is Elias, the patient who on the surface appears the most "normal." Elias checks himself into the hospital, knowing he is near the end of his life. He has a compelling need to unload his personal story on someone, and Adrian begins meeting with him. Elias worked at the university, first as a lecturer and ultimately as dean. While his personal circumstances kept him away from most of the violence, he and other academics were arrested under suspicion of some vaguely described wrongdoing. Elias describes his response to this event, and its impact on important people in his life, in a matter-of-fact way but gradually Adrian realizes there's much more to Elias' story.

Aminatta Forna uses patient stories, gradually revealed through Adrian's therapy, to help the reader imagine the war's events. She also builds a web of people which I found fascinating. Kai and Adrian's lives intersect first on a professional level and later in deeply personal ways. The connections between people and events unfold slowly, and for me each revelation was very emotional. This is especially true of Elias; when his "sins of omission" are revealed, his real character becomes known, as does a connection that binds him with both Adrian and Kai. The ending was especially wrenching and yet somehow, just right.

This is a superb book; I was transfixed and couldn't put it down.

Cross-posted from my blog

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Beachreader)

2011-07-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

Title: Bel Canto

Author: Ann Patchett
Published: 2001, Harper Collins
Genre: Literary Fiction
Accolades: 2002 Orange Prize, 2002 Pen/Faulkner Award, 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction shortlist

In this lyrical and beautifully written novel Ann Patchett has created a story based loosely on an actual hostage situation in Peru in 1996. In an unnamed South American country diplomats and the wealthy are gathering in the home of the vice president to hear an international opera singer perform at the birthday party of a powerful Japaneses businessman. During the party terrorists storm the home and take everyone hostage. What begins as a horrendously difficult and frightening situation slowly turns bearable as days turn into weeks turn into months and terrorists and hostages find the humanity in each other in order to survive the ordeal.

I am going to come right out and say it - I have a few quibbles with this book. I can not deny that Patchet is an amazing weaver of words and the book is rich with descriptive passages;

"She stared hard into the darkness of her eyes, the place where she knew the sins stacked up like kindling, dry and ready for a fire." page 247, Bel Canto

Amazing.

What I had a hard time with was suspending belief. I don't know if its post 9-11, but I couldn't feel sympathy towards the terrorists which made it difficult to believe or even understand some of the events that occur in the book. The plot of the book is interesting, the idea that when people are trapped together even under vicious circumstances they create their own universe to help make sense of the chaos and stress that fear can induce, but there had to be someone out of all those hostages who would have at least plotted an escape - the idea wasn't even suggested (unless I missed it).

The other problem I had with the book was the epilogue. I felt it was just tacked on as an after thought. The ending would have been more powerful if the book had stopped before the epilogue (I can't really go into detail why with out spoiling the story).

Patchett's characterization is brilliant. She captured how our culture plays an integral role in shaping who we are and it was interesting watching how the characters overcame their differences in order to survive. I kept reading the book because there were several characters that I really liked and I wanted to know if they "made it out alive." If you are a fan of Patchett's you will enjoy this is well-written story.

My Rating Guide: 3 out of 5

Great House by Nicole Krauss (Jill)

2011-07-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Great House
By Nicole Krauss
Completed July 7, 2011

"...Every Jewish soul is built around a house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again..." (page 279)

Great House isn't about a house per se. Rather, it's the story of people with a deep and tormented history - who individually represent a sliver of their collective past, but together, form a congruous whole. In this story, a desk is the connecting theme - an assuming piece of furniture that began in the office of a Jewish man in Budapest and made its way around the world, touching and affecting the lives of many people.

In this story, we meet a writer who lives in New York, an antiques dealer and his family from Jerusalem, a retired prosecutor and his son from Israel and a British couple. With one exception, the desk spends time with each person - often carrying good luck but painful memories too. As the story progressed, you follow the journey of the desk and the people who sat at it. In time, you see the other connections between each one.

Nicole Krauss is a gifted storyteller who is not afraid to take her readers on a journey that can be complicated and arduous. Indeed, Great House is not the easiest book to read with its swirling storylines and flowery language. It requires concentration as you learn about these characters whose lives are separate but connected. Each story could stand alone, but when placed together, they evoke a deeper meaning.

Great House will probably be revered by fans of literary fiction. It would make a compelling book for discussion, especially if led by the right moderator. In the end, I am glad I took the time to read this book - and sure that I will be thinking about this story for a long time. ( )

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (Beachreader)

2011-07-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

Title: Beyond Black
Author: Hilary Mantel
Published: 2005, Henry Holt and Company
Genre: Gothic
Accolades: 2006 shortlist Orange Prize

Alison Hart is a kind, lonely woman who is well-respected in her field. Those that are down on their luck or have dark secrets are drawn to her and she gently tries to help them see the light. But Alison also has dark secrets. She is haunted by a horrendous childhood and by the spirits of those that hurt her - literally and figuratively. Alison is a psychic medium. She sees dead people.

I like a good ghost story even if it's really dark and eerie, I don't frighten easily. Beyond Black is just that - it's beyond dark - way beyond. This is a creepy book on so many levels. The most frightening aspects of the book are not the ghosts themselves, but it's the horrible people that the ghosts were before they were ghosts and the sickening things that they did to Alison when she was a child. There aren't many likeable characters, dead or alive, which made it very difficult to enjoy this book.

There are many layers to Beyond Black. On the surface it's about a psychic and the ghosties that haunt her relentlessly, but it's also about the ghosts of our pasts that haunt us and keep us from moving forward. So the question that I was left wondering was, " Did Alison really see ghosts, or was it the pain of her past that haunts her?" You'll have to read the book and decide for yourself.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Jill)

2011-07-03T07:07:00.001-07:00

Journey to Swamplandia and meet the Bigtree family - a clan of alligator wrestlers and theme park owners whose existence depends on gullible tourists desiring to see the unbelievable. The Bigtrees' lives turn upside down, however, when Hilola Bigtree dies from ovarian cancer. Hilola was the main attraction - a petite woman who could tape shut an alligator's mouth in 30 seconds and swan dive into a pit of alligators unscathed. While Hilola's death takes a toll on the park, it most profoundly affects her surviving family - her husband Chief and children Kiwi, Osceola and Ava.

With the park losing tourists and their home missing Hilola, the remaining Bigtree family begins a fast deterioration. Kiwi runs off the mainland to find work at a competing theme park to help pay off Swamplandia's debts, while Chief takes one of his long business trips. Osceola, enjoying newfound freedom, becomes fascinated with spiritualism and believes she can date ghosts - to the point where she runs off one night to elope with a ghost named Louis Thanksgiving.

That leaves 13-year-old Ava alone - until The Bird Man arrives. Allegedly hired to help locals clear off birds from their islands, Ava befriends The Bird Man, and together they begin a several-day journey to a place called The Underworld to find Osceola and bring her home.

The majority of the book is told from Ava's perpsective, and true to her age, she sees things in a naive way. As the story progresses, her naivete turns to scorching reality. The reader sees what's coming, but young Ava does not. The last 100 pages of Swamplandia! will have you turning the pages in dread, hoping your worst fears for this young heroine do not come true.

It would be easy to dismiss this book as too fantastic with ghost lovers and swamp living, but Karen Russell does a tremendous job making it all seem very real. Her ability to describe the people and places of Swamplandia suck you into a vortex that you don't want to leave until the last page is read. At the heart of it all, Swamplandia! is a coming of age tale that focuses on the love of family. With its gothic feel and Florida setting, I enjoyed this story and can't wait to read more by this talented young writer. ( )

Side note:

Swamplandia! is set in Florida's Ten Thousand Islands - an area in southwest Florida that is largely uninhabited and teeming with Florida nature. While you may not want to visit Ten Thousand Islands in person (bugs and alligators abound!), you can take a virtual visit online. Enjoy!

Room by Emma Donoghue (Jill)

2011-06-22T09:40:00.000-07:00

Room
By Emma Donoghue
Completed June 21, 2011

This book has been well reviewed and analyzed by literary critics and book bloggers alike. It's a hard book to summarize because I don't want to give away too much of the plot. So, for this review, I will just share some thoughts on this story:

1) Room is narrated by a five-year-old boy who only knows an 11x11-foot room as his home. He doesn't understand that rain falls from the sky, that cars stay in their lane and that bees can sting you. All the things we understand to be true in our lives would be new experiences to a boy who never spent a day outside. Donoghue did a good job writing about these new experiences - and coming up with all the "little things" that seem to be common knowledge, but not for a boy who lived in seclusion.

2) The American media's treatment of Jack and his mother's story was spot on. Their insistence to not grant this family any privacy reminded me of true media coverage in other heart-wrenching stories. Equally compelling (and so aligned with what happens) is how the media digs at the story from all angles in an attempt to "outscoop" each other. There is little regard for what's best for Jack or his mother.

3) This book was a real page turner. During one section of the book, I did not move from my seat. I was worried that something bad was going to happen, and the suspense was jarring. Few books have that effect on me.

This isn't my typical review, but I hope reading it helps persuade you to give Room a try. It's a compelling, provocative book that makes you think about your life and what you would do in a similar situation. It's worthy of its literary accolades, and I predict that it would make a good movie with the right director and actors. What do you think? ( )

Want to win a copy of Room? This book and others will be part of the Orange July book giveaways. Click here to learn more.

UPDATE: Orange July Book Giveaways

2011-06-18T13:17:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, I posted the details for this year’s Orange July event and mentioned that I would be be back to list the books up for grabs. Well, here I am! Without further adieu, here are the books that will be given away during Orange July:

Click here to read more....

Getting Ready for Orange July 2011

2011-06-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hello Orange Prize Project participants! Today, I posted details about Orange July 2011 on my blog. Please come by and learn all the details, including how you can win great books during the event.

If you have any questions, please shoot me an e-mail at jillceleste AT hotmail.

Thanks for participating!

2011 Winner Announced

2011-06-09T19:35:00.001-07:00

Tea Obreht's debut novel The Tiger's Wife is this year's winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction!

The London Train - Wendy's Review

2011-05-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

[...] it was remarkable, he thought, how little mark the tumult of inward experience leaves on the external shells we inhabit. - from The London Train, page 315 -

Paul is grieving the death of his elderly mother and feels oddly detached from his wife, Elise, and their two small daughters. When he gets a frantic call from his ex-wife that their daughter, Pia, has disappeared, Paul boards a train from his home in Cardiff, Wales in order to travel to London in search of her. He finds Pia pregnant and living with her Polish boyfriend and her boyfriend’s sister, Anna, in a rundown flat. Inexplicably drawn to Anna, Paul eventually abandons his family in Wales and moves into Pia’s flat in London.

In a parallel story, Cora finds herself disenfranchised with her marriage to the much older Robert. She leaves him in London and moves back to her childhood home in Wales which she inherited after the death of her parents. When she learns that Robert has gone missing, she rushes back to London in search of him.

The London Train is about these two characters. What appears to be divergent stories, eventually weave together through a series of flashbacks, memories, and the unexpected crossing of paths during a train ride. The first half of the book follows Paul’s journey through grief and loss, betrayal and abandonment. The second half of the book, which I found much more compelling, examines Cora’s life shortly after her mother’s death and the disintegration of her marriage. It is through Cora’s story that the reader discovers the connection between Paul and Cora.

Tessa Hadley’s prose is subtle. Her narrative ebbs and flows, giving glimpses into the lives of her characters, revealing their flaws and fears, showing us their daily lives and how a chance meeting reverberates beyond them to touch the lives of those closest to them.

They were all of them sleepwalking to the edge of a great pit, like spoiled trusting children, believing they would always be safe, be comfortable. - from The London Train, page 90 -

Thematically, the novel centers around grief and loss, and how we cover our emotional wounds. The journey through grief is symbolically captured in the relentless, monotonous movement of the London train – it moves forward and back, from London to Wales, and back to London – just as our emotions click back and forth from loss to recovery. Interestingly, the effect this had on me as a reader was almost hypnotic. The characters’ feelings are strangely muted at times – a disconcerting thing in the face of their great losses and dislocation.

With the loss of her parents behind her, and the loss of the babies she might have had ahead, she was withdrawn out of the past and future into this moment of herself, like a barren island, or a sealed box. - from The London Train, page 234 -

The London Train is a very slow moving novel. I must admit, the first half of the book dragged for me. I did not particularly like Paul, a man whose narcissism causes him to cheat on his wife, then abandon her and his children. Even when he returns to Elise, he seems to lack any understanding as to how his behavior has injured her. Luckily, the second half the book, which focuses on Cora, was better paced. Cora, although also seriously flawed and only marginally more likeable, was a character whose struggles were more relate-able to me. Cora’s grief over the loss of her mother, her inability to have children, and her loneliness were believable, and Cora becomes a more empathetic character as her story unfolds.

Overall, I found The London Train to be a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I enjoyed some of the subtlety of the novel, and Hadley’s writing drew me in. On the other hand, the pace was so slow at times, and the characters so unlikeable (especially Paul), that I found my mind drifting – I wanted these characters to just get on with their lives, figure it out, and stop being so selfish.

The London Train was long listed for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Readers who enjoy literary fiction and subtle writing styles might want to give The London Train a try. Read other reviews of this book by following the links on the TLC Book Tour page.

Quality of Writing:
Characters:
Plot/Pace:

Overall Rating:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tessa Hadley is the author of The Master Bedroom, Sunstroke and Other Stories, Everything Will Be All Right, and Accidents in the Home. Sunstroke and Other Stories was a New York Times Notable Book of 2007, and Accidents in the Home was long-listed for The Guardian’s First Book Award. She lives in Cardiff, Wales, and teaches literature and creative writing at Bath Spa University.

new member intro

2011-04-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

Hello I am really new to this so please bear with me!! I am a bookworm and have been all my life. My idea of a good afternoon shopping is going in a bookshop and not leaving till closing! I read anything if I think it looks good - not too much sci-fi but if someone reccomends I'll give it a go. I have followed the Orange prize for some time and although I know it is controversial in some arenas to have a prize only for women, it has been the means of discovering fantastic new writers and increasing their profiles. I am English and a home educating mother of 4 children, plus I have a big softie of a dog and a Garfield look-alike cat. I enjoy hearing other people's views on books I read but am a little apprehensive about techie stuff. Tess The books I have read are: 1999 SL The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 2000 SL Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Rebecca Wells 2001 SL The Blind Assassin Margaret Attwood 2002 W Bel Canto Ann Patchett SL Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2003 SL Unless Carol Shields SL The Little Friend Donna Tartt 2004 W Small Island Andrea Levy SL Purple Hibiscus Chimimanda Ngozi Adichio SL The Colour Rose Tremain 2005 W We Need To Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver 2006 W On Beauty Zadie Smith SL The Night Watch Sarah Waters 2007 W Half a Yellow Sun Chimimanda Ngozi Adichio SL The Observations Jane Harris 2008 W The Road Home Rose Tremain SL The Outcast Sadie Jones 2011 SL Room Emma Donaghue

The Seas by Samantha Hunt

2011-04-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Seas
By Samantha Hunt
Completed April 12, 2011

In Samantha Hunt's debut novel, The Seas, we meet a lovely, yet delusional, 19-year-old girl who believes she is a mermaid. Her father told her so, shortly before he walked into the sea and never returned. Clinging to this belief, our narrator takes us on a lyrical ride that shows how tough our world is on mermaids.

A major theme in The Seas is unrequited love. For example, our narrator is in love with Jude, a Gulf War veteran who was 13 years older than her. Jude would hang out with her, protect her at times, but never date her. Jude was emotionally scarred, and he drank heavily and screwed around to hide his issues. The narrator's mom also was caught up in unrequited love. She finally met the man of her dreams, married and bore his child, before he took a walk into the water, Virginia Woolfe-style. The tiny glimpses of their marriage showed us their uneven romance, which lived on long after the dad's disappearance.

The Seas is not your ordinary little book. It's humorous, enchanting, troubling and depressing. While the narrator's delusions of being a mermaid were quaint, at the same time, you wish someone would help her. While you knew Jude was bad news, you hoped he would pay attention to the narrator. This tumbling combination of feelings makes The Seas as quirky and wonderful as its characters.

The best way to make a recommendation would be this: if you liked Little Miss Sunshine, then you will probably like The Seas. Just like the movie, this book won't be for everyone. ( )

2011 Short List Announced

2011-04-12T07:33:00.001-07:00

The Orange Prize for Fiction short list was announced this morning *drum roll please*....

Room, by Emma Donoghue
The Memory of Love, by Aminatta Forna
Grace Williams Says It Loud, by Emma Henderson
Great House, by Nicole Krauss
The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht
Annabel, by Kathleen Winter

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

2011-04-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

It takes a talented writer to infuse stories of folklore and reality into a book that’s both captivating and realistic. It’s not an easy recipe for storytelling, but sometimes the best stories are the hardest ones to tell. I think that’s the case in Tea Obreht’s debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife.

Set in unnamed Balkan nations, The Tiger’s Wife tells the story of Natalia, a young physician who is traveling to an orphanage to inoculate wartime orphans. En route, she learns of her grandfather’s death. Natalia knew her grandfather was ill with cancer, so his death came as no surprise, but she was stunned to learn where her grandfather died – in a little village near the orphanage where she was headed. Why was he there instead of at home with Natalia’s grandmother and mother?

As Natalia contemplates her grandfather’s death, she reminisces about his life – specifically stories from his childhood and youth. There’s the Tiger’s Wife – a young deaf-mute woman from his village – and the Deathless Man – who captures souls before people die. Even further, you learn about the village butcher, apothecary and local bear killer. Here’s where Obreht shines: the retelling of folkloric stories, the conjuring of superstition and the devastations of war. In these tales, which are woven through Natalia’s narrative, the reader must employ patience and suspend some level of disbelief. In doing so, you will be rewarded with stories that will enrich and delight you.

The rhythm of The Tiger’s Wife takes some getting used to. Stylistically, it’s a complicated novel with interweaving story lines and time frames. Even writers with more experience could lose themselves in this storytelling. The fact that Obreht didn’t is a testament to her writing talent. I would recommend The Tiger’s Wife to readers who enjoy folklore with contemporary fiction. I look forward to future stories by this talented young writer. ( )

2011 Long List Announced!

2011-03-15T19:13:00.001-07:00

The Orange Prize committee has announced the 2011 Long List:

Lyrics Alley, by Leila Aboulela
Jamrach's Menagerie, by Carol Birch
Room, by Emma Donoghue
The Pleasure Seekers, by Tishani Doshi
Whatever You Love, by Louise Doughty
A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
The Memory of Love, by Aminatta Forna
The London Train, by Tessa Hadley
Grace Williams Says it Loud, by Emma Henderson
The Seas, by Samantha Hunt
The Birth of Love, by Joanna Kavenna
Great House, by Nicole Krauss
The Road to Wanting, by Wendy Law-Yone
The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht
The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
Repeat it Today with Tears, by Anne Peile
Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, by Lola Shoneyin
The Swimmer, by Roma Tearne
Annabel, by Kathleen Winter

Which ones do you think will make the short list? Announcement for that on 12 April 2011

Nickelini's Review -- The Underpainter

2011-03-15T13:29:00.001-07:00

From my Orange July 2010 comments:

Rating: 4/5 stars

Comments:The narrator, Austin Fraser, is a successful painter from New York who is in his old age, reflecting back on his life. He is emotionally stunted and has suppressed commitment and genuine friendship his whole life. I've known selfish artist types like him, and so I had no sympathy for the character. However, the people who's lives he messed with--namely Augusta, George & Sara--were very interesting and likable, and their stories made up most of the book. Their stories traverse from New York to the north shores of Lake Superior and Lake Ontario, and over to the WWI battlefields of France.

A LibraryThing friend with similar tastes as mine gave up on this book in the first 100 pages, and I can see her point. It got off to a slow start. But Urquhart is a beautiful writer, and I saw glimmers of promise so I persevered, and was rewarded for my patience. Urquhart is one of those poetic, atmospheric writers that are a treat for the senses.

Recommended for: readers of literary fiction who are in the mood for a somewhat chilly, distracted, meandering journey.

Why I Read This Now: Although I loved two other Urquhart novels that I've read, and this book has been in my TBR pile for years, I was just never interested in this one. But it's Orange prize July, and I needed to go on a couple of flights, and this was one of the lighter Orange prize books I own, and the first page grabbed me . . . and there you have it.

Nickelini's Review -- Fault Lines

2011-03-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

My comments from Orange July 2010:

Comments: This compelling read is the story of four generations of a family, told in reverse order by the characters as six year olds. The book starts out with the off-the-scales obnoxious Californian, Sol, then jumps back to his father living in 1980s Israel, his grandmother in Toronto and New York City in the early '60s, and finally, his great-grandmother in WWII Germany. I found this book un-put-downable from the first page.

Other reviewers have pointed out its flaws, and there are many. None of the characters actually sounds like a six-year old. Twelve, at the youngest. There is a lot of political agenda crammed into their young minds. And they aren't even every likable, either. The historical detail is pretty sloppy--something that usually drives me crazy. Somehow none of these problems especially bothered me, and I just enjoyed the ride.

Recommended for: readers who are looking for a good read and can forgive its flaws (and handle some politics that rub against US conservatism).

Rating: 4/5 stars

Why I Read This Now: it was the Orange prize book calling loudest from Mnt. TBR.

Nickelini's Review -- The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

2011-03-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

My comments from Orange July 2010:

Comments: I bought this book after hearing so many positive, interesting comments about it. But then I started hearing negative comments--and from people who I usually agreed with. Yikes! But I gave the book a try anyway, and was pleasantly surprised.

Yes, the main character Z gets herself into a relationship with a man that no sane woman would touch with a proverbial 10-foot pole. Yes, she is waaaaay too fixated on men and sex, and acts toward this part of her life in what seems to me a very unrealistic manner. But . . .

I really liked how the novel was structured by months, and then by dictionary words and definitions within each month. I liked how you could follow her progress as her English skills developed. I really liked the cultural comparisons between China and the west, and how she showed strengths and weaknesses of both. The other really strong point of this novel was the Z's voice. Not her cutesy mistakes, but her actual Chinese English. Living in Vancouver I've always gone to school and worked with many Chinese people. Most books that attempt to capture the Chinese voice utterly fail, in my opinion. It usually comes off sounding like something out of a bad Hollywood sitcom. In this novel, Z sounded authentically Chinese, and not just like someone playing Chinese.

Rating: Right now, I'm giving it 4 stars for capturing the language right and for the cultural observations. I might decide to knock back half a star if I think about it and the silly storyline irritates me.

Recommended for: readers who are looking for something different and enjoy cultural observations in their fiction reading.

Why I Read This Now: it was the Orange prize book that fell into my lap.

Nickelini's Review - The Girls

2011-03-15T13:21:00.001-07:00

My comments from Orange July 2010

Comments: When this book was published I put it right on to my wish list--the premise of the story of conjoined twins sounded so interesting. I finally got around to reading it and I have to say it really wasn't for me after all. I don't know why I didn't like it--I think maybe it was the two narrator's voices. And there were some annoying elements--like the whole thing to do with the grandmother's ashes. And it was really sad in parts. Still, I managed to get through the whole 455 pages, so it wasn't awful.

Why I Read This Now: It was my last Orange July book.

Recommended for: well, I don't recommend it, but I know a lot of other readers liked it, so don't let me stop you from reading it.

Rating: 3/5

Nickelini's Review - Ghost Road

2011-03-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

I read Pat Barker's Ghost Road last November as part of a WWI theme-read. It is the third book in a trilogy, and although the book stands alone, I think it is best when read along with the other books. This novel also won the Booker Prize. Here are the comments I wrote when I finished it.

Rating: 4/5

Comments: I think this one is probably the best-written of the Regeneration trilogy--I think the symbolism was particularly sharp. Interesting story, and I think it would stand on its own, but I'm glad that I read the other two books first. I suspect the Booker Prize was really for the whole series and not just this one book. I know some readers didn't like the sections where Rivers remembers Melanesia, but I didn't mind them--possibly because I've been there and think Barker captured it quite well.

Recommended for: Obviously anyone who has read the earlier two books, but also anyone who likes war stories that are different from the usual.

Nickelini's Review -- The Blind Assassin

2011-03-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

My second Orange January 2011 was another example of outstanding CanLit: The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood. This is a book that I look forward to rereading sometime in the future. After I read it, this is what I had to say:

Rating: 4/5 stars

Comments:

After an unavoidable distraction, I was able to return to The Blind Assassin. I finished it this morning. I love the nested stories (as someone wrote somewhere, the stories within the story are like a set of Russian dolls). I also liked how Atwood slowly revealed little details that twisted the story.

I just realized that this is my 11th Atwood book, and the final one from the original 1001 list. There are a couple I liked better, but this one was very, very good indeed.

Recommended for: I can see how this book isn't to everyone's tastes, but if you're looking for an interesting and meandering book to get lost in for a while, give this one a try.

Why I Read This Now: There were 6 Atwood books in the 2006 edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and I've been reading one a year. This was the last. I read it this month for Orange January because it was also an Orange finalist. Of course!

Nickelini's Review -- Lullabies for Little Criminals

2011-03-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

Here it is, already March 2011, and our Orange January is far behind us. I read two Orange books this year: The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood and Lullabies for Little Criminals, by Heather O'Neill. I'm finally here to post my reviews of these wonderful books. Better late than never?

Last year I stumbled upon a copy of the audiobook of Lullabies for Little Criminals for twenty-five cents. I knew nothing about it--didn't even know it was an Orange book--but at that price, there wasn't any risk. Well! Was I ever in for a treat when I got to it. Here's what I had to say back in January:

Rating: 5 stars!

Comments: I picked this audiobook without knowing anything at all about it, so it was all a surprise to me. Now, a few days later, I have no doubt that this tragicomic book will make my top 5 list for 2011. I listened to this audiobook, and then right out and bought a paper copy. I have ordered copies for a couple of people in my family who I think will also really like it. It’s that good.

The narrator of Lullabies for Little Criminals seems to be an adult retelling the events following her twelfth birthday. Her fifteen year old parents labeled her with the unfortunate name of Baby, which was meant to be ironic and she was told that it meant she was “cool and gorgeous.” Her mom died while she was a baby, and she had been raised by her childlike, dysfunctional heroin addicted father, Jules in a series of seedy hotels in Montreal. For the first part of the book, I found Baby’s voice utterly charming and rather funny. However, as the story progressed and Baby’s life spiraled out of control, I realized that this book was significantly more serious than I had originally expected. Baby’s voice, however, remained constant throughout—poetic, keenly observant, beautifully sad and vivid, both wry and winsome at the same time. Baby is smitten with low-lifes and bohemians, and this book is full of them—guidance from healthy adults is sorely missing.

O’Neill is shrewdly accurate in capturing the dialogue of this culture. The reader of this audiobook, Miriam McDonald, captured the tone perfectly. The author gives us a view of the gritty side of Montreal seen through the eyes of a twelve-year old, full of her innocence and imagination. Beyond that, the writing was a delight to both hear and read. I just didn’t want this book to end, which is unusual for me. Unfortunately for us, thus far Lullabies is O’Neill’s only novel.

Recommended for: While I widely recommend this book, it isn’t for every reader, despite winning the CBC Canada Reads competition in 2007. Readers who are highly sensitive to swearing will quickly be turned off. The bad language, however, is not gratuitous, but an accurate portrayal of the language of her world. Further, the book dives deep into the nasty side of life, including drug addictions and child prostitution. But unless you’re extremely squeamish about these topics, I urge you to give this book a try.

Lullabies for Little Criminals was nominated for the Orange Prize, Governor General's Award, IMPAC Dublin Literary award, and a whole slew of other prizes.

Beachreader's Review - Wolf Hall

2011-01-29T05:58:00.000-08:00

Title: Wolf Hall

Author: Hilary Mantel

Published: 2009, Henry Holt and Company

Genre: Historical Fiction

Accolades: 2009 Man Booker Prize winner, 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award winner, 2010 short list for The Orange Prize

Wolf Hall is a very detailed book that chronicles the life of Thomas Cromwell focusing on his impact on the house of Tudors and Henry VIII. The book is divided into two sections with the first emphasizing the fall of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Cromwell's patron and the second half the rise of Cromwell and his role in the separation of England from the Catholic church, so that Henry VIII can marry Anne Boleyn.

I have been sitting here trying to figure out how to write about an award-winning book that is masterfully crafted and amazingly detailed in its historical accuracy, but that I just didn't enjoy. I have been trying to pinpoint what it was that didn't captivate. I think one thing that put me off on this book is that I did not really care about Thomas Cromwell - I didn't form a bond, so to speak, with the character. I was more interested in the people around Cromwell than Cromwell himself. The other characters seemed more intriguing and life-like with Cromwell almost like a shadow figure. But maybe that's what Mantle was doing in her book, focusing on the historical story through Cromwell's eyes.

Is this book worth reading? I would say yes, because of the historical element, but it goes slowly - at least for me. I read three other books while reading Wolf Hall because I needed a book that was more gripping, more alive.

Laura's Review - The Colour

2011-01-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

In 1864, Joseph Blackstone, his new wife Harriet, and his mother Lilian emigrated from England to New Zealand in search of a better life. Lilian, recently widowed, pines for her former lifestyle and resents having to live on their remote farm. But at the same time, she also hopes to rise above her station, and is disappointed to encounter familiar class barriers in New Zealand:

The familiar feeling of being snubbed -- a feeling she'd thought belonged only to England, where the disdain of the upper classes infected every encounter -- made Lilian want to weep, or, worse, give Dorothy Orchard a vicious swipe across her badly coiffed head. Lilian was particularly vexed by the knowledge that she never understood exactly how people like Dorothy Orchard achieved their instantaneous mastery over others outside their class. It happened before you noticed it, like a perfectly executed card trick. (p. 78)

Joseph is arrogant and stubborn, refusing to listen to advice from the locals on where to build his house, and what materials to use. Joseph and Harriet have an odd relationship. Joseph has a secret in his past, and married for all the wrong reasons. It's not clear what they see in one another, and it doesn't take long for Harriet to realize she will never truly love Joseph:

For day by day, she kept secret from him her own lovelessness. It piled up in her. At times, it was not merely lack of love that she felt; it was hatred of the blackest kind. And though she struggled to conceal it from him, perhaps she succeeded no better than he did with his blatant heaps of earth? In the nights, she often awoke at first light to see him staring at her, his eye close to hers, his fists clenched around the sheets. Did he know that she did not love him? Did he understand all too clearly that she loved the wilderness he had brought her to, but not him? (p. 95)

Yet both Harriet and Lilian are committed to making their farm a success, even after Joseph finds gold in a nearby creek and decides to join the hundreds of other men seeking their fortunes in New Zealand's gold rush. Circumstances eventually force Harriet to go off on her own, in search of Joseph.

The story is told from alternating points of view with chapters narrated by Harriet, Joseph, and a couple of other characters who weave nicely into the storyline. Joseph turns out to be an arrogant and hapless loner, unable to relate to women and desperate to please his mother by accumulating wealth. Harriet is strong and independent, undaunted by Joseph's failings and refusing to bow to societal expectations of women. It is only through Harriet's intelligence that the couple have any chance of finding gold and making something of their lives together.

But that's only part of this story; Rose Tremain has more to say than "just" historical drama laced with love. She also shows how the quest for gold took its toll on the land and destroyed both individuals and communities. Those who are untouched by greed and continued leading simple lives were by far the happiest and, one could argue, the most successful.

Cross-posted from my blog

The Hundred Secret Senses - Wendy's Review

2011-01-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

“… Yin people, after while, just speak heart-talk. Easier, faster that way. No misconfusion like with words.”

“What does heart-talk sound like?”

“I already tell you.”

“You did?”

“Many time. Don’t just use tongue, lip, teeth for speaking. Use hundred secret sense.” - from The Hundred Secret Senses, page 211 -

When she is five years old, Olivia meets a half sister she never knew she had. Kwan is twelve years older and arrives from China to live with Olivia and her family in San Francisco. It is 1962 and Kwan has lived a life light years away from Olivia in terms of culture and language, religion and belief – she is a puzzle to Olivia as she offers up stories of an ancient previous life lived in mid-nineteenth century China. Kwan seems to have the power to communicate with the dead through her “yin eyes,” something that fascinates, frightens and bewilders Olivia.

Narrated mostly from the point of view of Olivia, but interspersed with Kwan’s fantastic stories, The Hundred Secret Senses is a novel about two sisters and their complicated relationship. As Olivia struggles with her failing marriage, Kwan is her constant companion, whether Olivia likes it or not. Olivia is removed from her Chinese heritage and embarrassed by Kwan’s stilted English and superstitious beliefs. But despite her best efforts to dismiss Kwan’s stories, Olivia finds herself drawn into a world where dead people speak, the past becomes entwined with the present, and fate seems unavoidable.

Fate has no logic, you can’t argue with it any more than you can argue with a tornado, an earthquake, a terrorist. Fate is another name for Kwan. – from The Hundred Secret Senses, page 168 -

Amy Tan’s characters jump to life on the page. Original, funny, and deeply complex, the characters drive this story about human connection, love, secrets, and the mystery of life itself. I loved Kwan, a character who is quirky, lovable, and immensely wise.

Kwan, in contrast, is a tiny dynamo, barely five feet tall, a miniature bull in a china shop. Everything about her is loud and clashing. She’ll wear a purple checked jacket over turquoise pants. She whispers loudly in a husky voice, sounding as if she had chronic laryngitis, when in fact she’s never sick. She dispense health warnings, herbal recommendations, and opinions on how to fix just about anything, from broken cups to broken marriages. She bounces from topic to topic, interspersing tips on where to find bargains. Tommy once said that Kwan believes in free speech, free association, free car-wash with fill-’er-up. The only change in Kwan’s English over the last thirty years is in the speed with which she talks. Meanwhile, she thinks her English is great. She often corrects her husband. “Not stealed,” she’ll tell George. “Stolened.” – from The Hundred Secret Senses, page 21 -

Tan takes her readers back to China, into an old world of tiny towns and breathtaking vistas, and immerses us in a world of Chinese ghosts and deeply entrenched superstition. She slowly reveals the relationship between Olivia and Kwan, moving toward a conclusion which is surprising, heartbreaking, and filled with hope.

I loved this book with its mix of humor and sentiment. Tan alternates between reality and spiritual knowledge, turning what we think we know on its head. She reveals a deeper understanding about what it means to be human and connected in a world which seems vast and mysterious. Readers who appreciate lyrical writing and complex characterization will want to add this Tan novel to their must read pile. The Hundred Secret Senses earned Tan a spot on the 1996 short list for The Orange Prize for Fiction.

Highly Recommended.

Laura's Review - Alias Grace

2011-01-12T17:25:00.001-08:00

In 1843, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery were brutally murdered at their home in Kingston, Ontario. Two servants, James McDermott and Grace Marks, were tried and convicted. McDermott was sentenced to death, but Grace's sentence was commuted to life in prison. In Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood uses scant historical evidence, and the character of young Dr. Simon Jordan, to tell Grace's story.

Dr. Jordan is somewhat of a specialist in mental illness, and in 1859 is granted permission to conduct a series of interviews with Grace at the penitentiary. He hopes to learn her side of the story, not just what her attorney told her to say at trial. But Grace has blocked all memories associated with the murders, and uncovering the truth is a long process requiring much patience. Jordan visits Grace nearly every day, and she recounts her life story from early childhood in Ireland all the way up to the murders.

Very early on, I fell into reading Alias Grace as I would any murder mystery. I forgot it was historical fiction, and began reading between the lines, searching for red herrings and expecting surprise plot twists. But the fascinating aspects of this tale are actually due to its basis in historical fact. In the 1840s, the field of mental illness was going through tremendous change, with many new theories and treatment methods. Many psychological conditions were simply not well understood. And Grace herself was a victim of society's prevailing attitudes toward women. Because she was attractive, some thought she must be the mastermind behind the murders. Others claimed her youth made her an unwilling victim. Margaret Atwood brings out another side of Grace, that of a strong independent woman whose psychological reaction to trauma fundamentally changed the course of her life.

Cross-posted from my blog

Laura's Review - Lottery

2011-01-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

Perry Crandall is a 31-year-old man with an IQ of 76, which is just above the level that defines mental retardation. Perry was raised by his grandmother and grandfather, his own parents having bailed on him for reasons that are never fully explained. Thanks to Gram's affirming parenting style and deep love for Perry, he grew into an adult capable of living independently, although complex decisions are difficult for him to make on his own. Perry's life changes permanently when Gram passes away, and shortly afterwards he wins $12M in the lottery.

Perry is innocent and trusting ("suggestible," Gram would say), so his family easily convinces him to let them sell Gram's house and keep most of the proceeds. After Perry wins the lottery, he is besieged by his money-grubbing "cousin-brothers" (his mother's children by another man), and a host of organizations all hoping to benefit from his windfall. Fortunately, Perry has two people who care about him: his boss Gary, and co-worker Keith. Gary provides Perry with an apartment above his store and includes Perry in family gatherings. Keith grows from friend to protector, bringing common sense to situations where Perry lacks experience. Keith uses colorful language, drinks too much, and generally abuses his body; his earthiness is a marked but amusing contrast to Perry's naiveté.

Perry's story is told in the first person, and much like the character of Jack in Emma Donoghue's Room, the narrative voice rang true for me. Seeing the world through Perry's eyes, but armed with a better knowledge of the real world, I could anticipate his brothers' shenanigans, and I knew when Perry was misinterpreting people's actions. And I also felt his ups and downs, his elation and his grief. There were some aspects of the story I wish were better explained, especially some details surrounding Perry's family. But the real story revolved and Perry and his relationships with Keith, Gary, and a young woman named Cherry, who become more like a family than his brothers could ever be. This book moved beyond a "person with a disability overcomes adversity" story, to a story of love and devotion with a surprising emotional impact.

Cross-posted from my blog

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo

2011-01-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

This book sat and waited for me for a very long time. It looked good, and yet I didn’t pick it up. I thought that I knew just what it would hold, just what it would be about before I even read it.

The combined forces of my own Clearing The Decks Project and Orange January made me pick up A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers on New Years Day. And I’m very glad.

Yes, the story, the themes were very much as I had expected, but reading brought them into my heart and into my mind.

“Now.
“Beijing time 12 clock midnight.
London time 5 clock afternoon.
But I at neither time zone. I on airplane”

Zhuang Xiaoqiao (called “Z” because people find it difficult to pronounce her name) is a 23-year-old Chinese girl sent to the UK to study English. I wondered if I could cope with Z’s fractured English, but that didn’t worry me for very long at all.

The picture painted of Z is perfect: she is naive, and eager to learn, she is always watching and thinking. I was charmed, and I wanted to follow her, to walk beside her into her new life.

Her impressions and experiences as she found her feet in London were wonderfully observed, and her use of language illuminated the gulf between Chinese and English in a way that was both beautiful and clever.

I was also struck by the bravery of anyone who travels alone to a country with a very different language that they hardly know. A country so different, so far from home. I’m not sure that I could ever be that brave.

A chance meeting and a linguistic misunderstanding result in Z much older man, a failed artist, a drifter. In time she falls in love with him.

That relationship illustrates wider cultural differences. Attitudes to food, travel, sex, openness, privacy … so many things that go to the very heart of relationships. So many differences, so many things that Z’s dictionary just can’t explain.

And it’s one thing to identify differences, but quite another thing to understand everything that those differences mean and to learn to live with them.

“But why people need privacy? Why privacy is important? In China, every family live together, grandparents, parents, daughter, son and their relatives too. Eat together and share everything, talk about everything. Privacy make people lonely. Privacy make family fallen apart.”

All of the other characters, even her lover, were faintly drawn, emphasising how different and how alone Z was. She clung to her lover and there was no room for others. How I wished she would mix with her fellow students, experience a different life, but no.

I still loved her, but at times she infuriated me.

How much was character and how much was culture? I really couldn’t say.

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers has is flaws: the use of language is sometimes inconsistent, and the story does drag in places.

But it illuminates some wonderful truths as Z navigates through her relationship.

“People always say it’s harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It’s exactly the opposite—a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you’ve lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there’s still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there.”

I am so pleased that I have read this book at last: I have met a heroine to cherish, and her has touched my heart and my mind far more that I thought it would.

Laura's Review - Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living

2011-01-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

In the 1920s and 30s, the Better Farming Train traveled across the Australian state of Victoria, educating isolated rural communities on farming and household management practices. Jean Finnegan and Robert Pettergree met on the train; she was a specialist in sewing and household management, and he was a soil scientist. The train's close quarters stoked their passion, and soon Jean and Robert decided to marry, leave the train and start their own farmstead.

Robert adopted a highly scientific approach to wheat farming, and enlisted Jean's help to conduct experiments in bread production following each year's harvest. He is idealistic and convinced his way is the correct one; she trusts him and provides moral support. She also keeps detailed records for each year's crop, as if writing a laboratory report for a high school science experiment:

The sample has a low bushel weight (61 lbs). In accordance with standard sampling procedure a portion of FAQ (fair-average quality) wheat was critically examined and subjected to analysis and a milling test in the experimental flour mill.

The sample is very bright and plump, and has a generally pleasing appearance. The moisture content and the protein content are normal. (p. 78)

Jean's report continues with a description of the "experiment's" purpose, quality test results, and the measurable characteristics of 10 loaves of bread baked with flour from the year's harvest. This is repeated each year, allowing the careful reader to see for themselves the effectiveness of Robert's scientific farming methods.

When the government launches a wheat-growing scheme to stimulate the economy, Robert uses facts and figures to convince other farmers to increase wheat production by adopting his techniques. What follows is a classic example of the effects of messing with an ecosystem. As farming becomes increasingly difficult, Jean and Robert also suffer -- individually, as a couple, and as members of their community.

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living is written in spare prose, laced with both understatement and irony. The character development is subtle; both Jean and Robert are fully formed, and yet there's so much more I wanted to know. But the style perfectly conveyed the stark landscape and the harsh life of a farm family.

Cross-posted from my blog

Orange January Starts Tomorrow - Prizes, Fun and Great Books!

2010-12-31T07:56:00.000-08:00

(Cross posted from my blog)

While I know many of you (including me) have already started your Orange January reading, the fun officially starts tomorrow. Here's a quick recap to get you ready for a month of "Orangey goodness."*

LibraryThing Group
We have assembled a wonderful group of readers on LibraryThing for Orange January. Please consider stopping by, introducing yourself and setting up a thread of your Orange January 2011 books.

Facebook Page
The Orange January/July Facebook page is already 80 strong! If you are on Facebook and haven't liked this page, please do so! Remember, I will be posting this month's prizes and activities only on the Facebook page, so please don't miss out.

Orange Prize Project
If you write reviews about your Orange January books, please consider posting them on the Orange Prize Project blog. It's also a great place to figure out what Orange books you want to read.

A word about the prizes
The prizes start tomorrow! I will post the day's activity or question on the Facebook page between 6-8am EST. You will have until 9pm EST to complete the task and leave a comment on the post. Check out my earlier post for complete prize details, including the list of books up for grabs.

Special note: You may like the day's activity or question but don't want to win the book. Feel free to participate anyway! In your post comment, denote that you don't want to be included in the drawing.

Any questions? Just let me know in the comments or e-mail me at mrstreme@gmail.com. Let the Orangey Goodness begin!

*I stole the term "Orangey Goodness" from my friend, Laura. I plan on using it every day in January!

The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert (Jill)

2010-12-01T17:49:00.000-08:00

The Dark Room
By Rachel Seiffert
Completed November 30, 2010

Over the past year or two, I have been drawn to books about World War II. Most are told from the perspective of the Allied nations or Jewish people affected by the Holocaust. I am glad to have stumbled upon Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, which offers the perspective of the average German citizen affected by World War II.

The Dark Room is divided into three separate stories:

1) Helmet is a young photographer’s apprentice, whose family supported Hitler and prospered during The Third Reich’s heyday. Even at war’s end, Helmet still clung to Nazi Germany’s ideals. Then, one day, he stumbles into a round-up of gypsies by German soldiers and sees the gross mistreatment of these people. He took pictures of the atrocity and ran away from the scene. As he reflects over his photos, you feel his heartbreak for a nation lost in so many ways.

2) Lore is a teenage girl – one of six children – who must embark on a treacherous journey from Bavaria to Hamburg at the end of the war. Through Lore’s journey, you see how war affected the home front and the people who once were bound by the same cause. No longer united, they stole and cheated from each other. Like Helmet, Lore didn’t realize Germans was killing innocent people, until she saw pictures posted in a village. Confused by what she saw, she befriended a young man, Tomas, who confirmed the genocide. Lore was devastated, especially as she considered her father and brother might have been involved in these mass murders.

3) Michael is a school teacher living in 1990’s Germany who began wondering why his grandfather had been imprisoned for so long after World War II. He began to research and learned that his grandfather was part of the Waffen SS, the elite police force of the German Army. He traces his grandfather’s service to Belarus and traveles there to learn more. The important theme in Michael’s section is national guilt – how after 50+ years, some Germans truly mourned what their country did, while others didn’t grasp it, or were too far removed from the war to be impacted. Michael, though, couldn’t forget and carried the weight of guilt for his whole family.

Admittedly, The Dark Room is a bit bleak, but Seiffert pulls you right in so you can experience the characters’ emotions. Seiffert writes simply but effectively, and her sparse prose adds to the brevity of her stories. Despite the grim subject matter, I found this book to be enlightening and engaging – and would highly recommend it, especially to those who believe, like me, that war has no true winner. ( )

Review: Molly Fox's Birthday

2010-11-28T08:34:00.001-08:00

Title: Molly Fox's Birthday
Author: Deidre Madden
Published: 2008, Faber and Faber
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Accolades: 2009 Orange Prize Finalist

It is June 21st and Molly Fox the acclaimed stage actress has lent her home to a close friend while she is in New York City. Her friend, a play write who is struggling with writing her next play, is distracted and starts thinking about her friendship with Molly as she wanders around Molly's house noting items that are dear to Molly and begins to wonder if she really knows who Molly is and if anyone really understands the heart and motives of another.

I am going to state up front that this is one of the best books that I read this year. At first appearances this book seems to be a slight and effortless read. It takes place in one day and moves seamlessly from morning to night as Madden reveals the layers and depths of her characters through their relationship with the play write. Her writing is creative and thoughtful as we discover who the characters are:

"Fergus was a dangerous man, with his tenderness and his charm and the deep and unending darkness of his mind that was an abyss into which Molly might vanish one day if she wasn't strong enough." (page 149, Molly Fox's Birthday)

and just when the reader and the play write have formed their opinion about a character - in this instance Fergus- we are given another layer and discover that we really didn't know who he was at all.

"Fergus was a man of wisdom and acute moral knowledge. He had had the courage and insight to inspect his own life more closely than most dare to do, and he had compassion and forgiveness for those who had hurt him." (page 155, Molly Fox's Birthday)

The questions that this book challenges are interesting ones: how well do you really know those who you think are the closest to you? and what happens when they do something so out-of-the-ordinary that they seem like strangers? and will that change you? This book leaves the reader thinking about the characters and pondering their own realtionships - fabulous.

My Rating: 5 out of 5
Note: I read the U.S. 2010 Picador edition

Exciting Orange January News!

2010-11-27T17:03:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Pardon the repost, but I wanted you all to check out some changes to Orange January 2011.

You can read my blog post here.

Thanks for participating!
Jill (mrstreme)

The Weight of Water - (Beachreader)

2010-09-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Title: The Weight of Water
Author: Anita Shreve
Published: 1997, Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Mystery
Accolades: 1998 Short list for The Orange Prize

Around midnight on the evening of March 5th, 1873 two women were strangled and hacked with an axe on Smuttynose Island in the Isles of Shoals, a group of islands off the coast of New Hampshire. Another woman survived being murdered by hiding in a cave until help arrived. Though a man was found guilty of the crimes and later hung, there has been continual debate in this seaside community that the real murderer escaped justice and that an innocent man was killed. In 1995 a woman photographer arrives to investigate the murders and finds her self caught-up in the treachery of the past which will end up shaping her future.

Based on the true story of a century-old murder case Anita Shreve has blended fact and fiction in an engrossing tale of pain, loss, and obsession. The book is really two stories in one. The first story takes place in modern time and is the story of Jean, the photographer, and her concern that her marriage is ending and her husband is having an affair. The second (and much more interesting) story is the written account of Maren Hontvedt, the women who has survived the murders, who on her deathbed has decided to tell what really happened on the evening of March 5th.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The mystery surrounding the murders of the women was fascinating and Shreve has masterfully woven a tale of increasing tension and suspicion that when the murderer is finally revealed I was surprised. My problem with the book was the characters - especially the characters of Jean and her husband. They were rather - blah. They seemed to be floating around their lives and there wasn't enough emotion or motivation to make me really care what happened to them. I found myself skimming their section of the book to read about Maren's account of what led to the murders. What happens to Jean and her husband felt almost contrived and the last chapter had me wondering - huh?

My Rating: 3 out of 5

Laura's Review - The Siege

2010-09-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

The siege of Leningrad began in 1941, when the German army cut all land connections into the city, disrupting energy, water, fuel, and food supplies. The result was a famine of epic proportions. Anna, a 23-year-old nursery school assistant, lives with her father Mikhail and much younger brother Kolya in an idyllic pastoral setting. They grow their own food, preserve jams, and tend flowers. As the army approaches, countryside living becomes more dangerous. Anna and her family join others in migrating to the city, where food supplies are believed to be more plentiful. Once there, they find shops have been looted and most goods are available only on the black market.

At first Anna works as part of a defense crew, and her father also volunteers his services for the war effort. But then Mikhail is injured, and Anna assumes a "head of household" role. She also meets Andrei, a young doctor who treated her father, and who is working round-the-clock shifts caring for the sick and injured. Anna and Andrei feel a strong attraction to one another; soon the family offers him shelter, and they are also joined by Marina, a family friend.

With each passing week, the German army tightens its grip on the city. The basics of daily living go from being scarce, to completely unavailable. Food is rationed, and people resort to violence to get hold of additional ration cards. The rations are gradually reduced as officials calculate and recalculate how long supplies will last. Hunger claims one life after another. Winter approaches, and there is no energy for heat, no water for bathing or drinking. And yet Anna works tirelessly to provide for the group, sacrificing portions of her own ration for Kolya and bundling him up in clothes and blankets each day. She scrapes together funds to buy a wood stove, and scavenges for wood while also burning books and furniture. She never gives up, even as her own body weakens. The bond between Anna and Andrei shifts from one of passion, to one of intense commitment to survival.

This book was simply amazing. Helen Dunmore conveyed the physical and mental effects of extreme hunger and cold in such a powerful way:

You wake yourself, snuffling around in the bedclothes. A load of blankets and coats weighs you down, but you're still cold. Your feet are numb and your breath comes short. The cold settles in your back and makes your spine hurt. You must breathe gently. You must not be restless. Every movement destroys energy which you no longer possess. (p. 191)

And she also brought strong emotion to the story, such as the moment when Anna reflects on how she used to take things for granted:

It's her father's breathing, back in the apartment, that keeps her pinned here. All her life he's been breathing. Why didn't she count those breaths when she had the chance? Why didn't she stop still and listen, on just one of those bad-tempered mornings when she was late for work and Kolya was whingeing that he didn't want his porridge because he always had porridge every single day? She'd never once stopped to bless the fact that her father still breathed. She certainly never stopped to bless the everyday porridge. (p.231)

Reading The Siege, one can't help getting caught up in the lives of these characters as they face one obstacle after another. It's hard to imagine how anyone could have survived under such extreme conditions, and yet people did. In this powerful story, it was their hope and love for one another that sustained them through some of the most horrific situations imaginable.

My original review can be found here.

Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy

2010-08-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy
Harper Collins, 2010

And it's a story that I think hasn't been told before": that’s how Nadifa Mohamed describes her first novel, Black Mamba Boy in this video.

Maybe that’s a tall order for a novel in 2010. And, then again, maybe not.

Consider this. In 1990, the Columbian Ministry of Culture set up an itinerant library, whereby donkeys carted practical tomes on agricultural techniques, water filtration, veterinary medicine, and sewing patterns to serve distant rural populations. The books were made available centrally to villagers and, after a time, they were swapped out for new selections.

Each of these loaned books was returned properly when it was time for the exchange, until one village refused to return one book: The Iliad, which, eventually, was given to them to keep. “They explained that Homer’s story exactly reflected their own: it told of a wartorn country in which mad gods wilfully decide the fate of humans who never know exactly what the fighting is about, or when they will be killed.”*

Maybe the characters in Black Mamba Boy would believe Homer’s story exactly reflected their own. In fact, you can easily imagine Nadifa Mohamed’s characters in Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan making the same claim that the Columbia villagers made. And certainly this debut novel tackles epic themes (although I haven’t read The Iliad straight through, so I can’t offer more direct parallels than the villagers’ comments).

Nadifa Mohamed tells her father’s story through Jama: “I am my father’s griot, this is a hymn to him.” A griot is a wandering poet and storyteller, who is considered a repository of oral tradition in African countries, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Mohamed’s tale begs to be read aloud from the first page.

The attention she pays to descriptions that encapsulate a scene, the scarce bits of direct dialogue, the long phrases that follow one another like bread crumbs through the woods: I read more than half of this novel aloud, which also slowed me down, and I think that’s a good thing because despite the swath of time this novel covers, this prose doesn’t want to be rushed.

You would want to take your time anyway if the setting was unfamiliar, and there’s a map at the novel’s opening to help you place the characters and the events of the story. (Actually, I would have found a glossary helpful too, but I realize it would have put off some readers, and I managed okay without it.) Here’s a sample of the way that Nadifa Mohamed brings the land to life:

Djibouti was low-down and hot, it looked even more barren and fearsome than Somaliland and the few trees that dared exist held up their arms in defeat. Rocks cracked open in fifty degree heat. The earth was bleached white and the few comforts that the Somali desert shyly held out, blossoming cacti, large matronly bushes, lush candelabra euphorbia, were here maliciously denied. The air had a corruption to it, a mingled scent of sleaze, sweat and goat droppings. (79)

In some ways, however, the novel’s themes traverse geographic and cultural boundaries. For instance, above all, Jama longs for his mother and father, for a place to belong.

“Jama looked up at the sky, beside the moon was a bright star he had never noticed before, it flickered and winked at him. As Jama squinted he saw a woman sitting on the star, her small feet swinging under her robe and her arm waving down at him. Jama waved to his mother and she smiled back, blowing shooting star kisses down on him.”

“All those promises his mother had made about him being the sweetheart of the stars looked to him as if they would finally come to pass. He was going to be a normal boy with a real father, he wanted his father above anything else in the world, he was becoming a man and needed a father to light the way. Jama had so many questions for Guure. Where did you go? What have you being doing in Sudan? Why did you not come back for me? Jama felt ready to explode; his sentence was finally over.” (99)

But Jama’s sentence is not over; one hundred pages — one third of the way — into the narrative and, really, his search is just beginning. And, although it is epic in nature, although the tale strikes universal chords, what Nadifa Mohamed says is true: Jama’s story has not been told before. She explains that experiences like her father’s are “often written about but very rarely have their perspective represented” and she has brought that to Black Mamba Boy.

* This anecdote is relayed in Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night (230), based on a personal interview conducted in Bogotá May 25, 2001. If you have one (a library), and don’t have a copy of this one (Manguel’s book), you should get one (978-0-676-97588-8). Right now.

PS I originally posted this to Buried In Print.

Andrea Levy’s The Long Song

2010-08-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

Andrea Levy’s The Long Song
Hamish Hamilton, 2010

When I picked up my copy of The Long Song from the library, I hadn’t read any of Andrea Levy’s novels (this being her fifth), so I didn’t have any expectations.

That changed when I read the first paragraph, and almost immediately, because its first sentence is just the sort that I love: “The book you are now holding within your hand was born of a craving.”

See, this reminds me of some of my longtime-favourite quotes. Like this from Dionne Brand: “Writing is an act of desire, as is reading.” And this, from Nicole Brossard: “Reading is food.” (There are more bookish quotes if you browse the tabs above.)

So that first sentence of The Long Song made me smile. Yes, it definitely did. But not in a comfortable way, because this could be the magic of a good first line. No, I was smiling, but in a nervous way, like I’ve just been introduced to someone that someone else thinks I’ll really like, but I’m not entirely sure yet and the pressure is on.

And then I read: “My mama had a story — a story that lay so fat within her breast that she felt impelled, by some force which was mightier than her own will, to relay this tale to me, her son.”

Now, I realize that this conceit is not to everybody’s taste, but I love the Dear Reader convention. I love to be addressed, to have the space that is traditionally reserved for me be openly acknowledged. (Still quote-hungry? Here are some on that very subject.)

So my smile eased into something more comfortable. And, then, a few pages later, I find: “Reader, my son tells me that this is too indelicate a commencement of any tale. Please pardon me, but your storyteller is a woman possessed of a forthright tongue and little ink.”

Yes, please.

“Go to any shelf that groans under a weight of books and there, wrapped in leather and stamped in gold, will be volumes whose contents will find you meandering through the puff and twaddle of some white lady’s mind.”

No twaddle, thanks. This here is just fine. And more, please.

But then, halfway through the novel.

“And this is why I can go no further. This is why my story is at an end. For I know that my reader does not wish to be told tales as ugly as these. And please believe your storyteller when she declares that she has no wish to pen them. It is only my son that desires it. For he believes his mama should suffer every little thing again.”

:: insert remembered moment of reader’s panic ::

Don’t worry: I told you, it’s halfway through the novel. She keeps on with her story and I’ll be keeping on with Andrea Levy. Terrific storytelling!

What do you think of the Dear Reader approach? Do you find it welcoming or irritating? Have you read any of the author’s other novels or do you mean to? Do you have a particular favourite?

PS I know I’ve hardly said anything about the story but I don’t believe that anybody could tell it better than she did. Andrea Levy’s website offers details and an extract if you need more.
SPS I originally posted this to BuriedInPrint.

Eleanor Catton`s The Rehearsal

2010-08-16T14:41:00.001-07:00

Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal (2008)
McClelland & Stewart, 2010

I felt like a teenager when I started reading this novel. I’d switched purses seasonally and forgot to transfer my housekeys, so I ended up sitting on the front porch for a few hours waiting for Mr. BIP to come home.

I forgot my keys a lot when I was a kid, so if I hadn’t already been a reader, I probably would have become one from the need to fill time whilst waiting for someone to come home and let me in.

I often stopped at the school library or the local library on my way home from high school, and I always had reading material at hand, and I had luckily stopped at the public library that afternoon for The Rehearsal, so my porch-sit was actually quite enjoyable.

(Actually, it was all the more so because I couldn’t possibly feel guilty for reading because I really had no other choice, not being able to get in to do the myriad of chores that I’d actually planned to do when I got home). It was a beautiful near-summer day and I pulled a bag of pistachios from my purse and nestled into the cushioned chair to read more than 250 pages — before heading down the block for an iced americano and the use of a pay phone.

It was a comfortable set-up, but not a comfortable read: Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal captures adolescence and coming-of-age-ness with an unflinching honesty. The complexity of her characterization is almost overwhelming at times and, appropriate to her characters’ world-revolves-around-me lifestage, everyday events and exchanges are observed and analyzed with a peculiar intensity.

“It is a mark of the depth of their wounding that they are pretending they suspected it all along. Everything that they have seen and been told about love so far has been an inside perspective, and they are not prepared for the crashing weight of this exclusion. It dawns on them now how much they never saw and how little they were wanted, and with this dawning comes a painful reimagining of the self as peripheral, uninvited and utterly minor.” (59)

It’s spot-on, isn’t it. Belonging and alienation, identity and searching, importance and insignificance: these are contrary times. The varying perspectives, the constant shifts in focus that underscore the larger question of what is real and what is portrayed, what exists and what is performed: it’s disorienting.

But “…you must start with a thing itself, not with an idea of a thing. I can see what I am holding in my hand. I can see its weight, its shape and its texture. It doesn’t matter if you can see it yet or not: the important thing is that I can.”

The Head of Movement at the drama school explains this, but I’m pulling it out to demonstrate that the same is true of Eleanor Catton: it doesn’t matter if you can see it or not, she is up to something, right from the start.

The novel begins with alternating segments told from the perspective of schoolgirls (including Isolde, whose sister Victoria has been implicated in a scandal/crime/pantomime involving the jazz band teacher Mr. Saladin) and their saxophone teacher; the second chapter adds drama classes to the first’s music classes, fleshing out ::cough:: another layer to the performance theme. And this? This is the straightforward part.

If you enjoy literary fiction not just for a good story, but because you like to marvel at the way in which a good story can be constructed?

If you read literary fiction not just because it raises questions and gets your readerly-ness spinning, but because the degree of spin is sometimes so disturbing that you lose your reader’s centre and are forced to reset your own understanding of narrative truth?

If you like the idea of spending more time talking about a book than you’ve actually spent reading it, even though you might end up less sure about some aspects of it when you’re done talking than you did before you started?

Then I think you would enjoy The Rehearsal. (I do enjoy a good puzzle myself, and the layers in Catton’s novel are fascinating, but it was my interest in coming-of-age novels — and the number of years I spent in music classes as a kid — that sealed the bookish deal.)

Why else might you want to read Eleanor Catton’s debut novel? Well, as Stanley says “Because if somebody’s watching, you know you’re worth something.” And there are a lot of people watching Eleanor Catton. The reasons for that are twofold, I’d say. [Note: Rehearsal inside-joke.]

PS This was originally posted at BuriedInPrint and I just realized that I should have been cross-posting those reviews here too.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey (Jill)

2010-07-27T15:36:00.001-07:00

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
By Monique Roffey
Did Not Finish

Sometimes, I can get hung up on a part of a story – to the point where it plagues my entire reading experience. This is what happened while reading The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey.

The book is divided into chronological sections, starting with 2006 and then going back to 1956, 1963 and 1970. So, when Roffey introduces us to the main characters, George and Sabine, we are meeting their 75-year-old versions (with most of their lives’ experiences behind them). For the first 189 pages, it was difficult to like George and Sabine. George was a lifelong philanderer – selfish and egotistical. Sabine drank and smoked excessively, and liked to pick fights with George and their daughter. As I muddled through these pages, reminding myself that the book will reveal more about these characters, something happens. Sabine beats her family dog. The scene was only a few paragraphs long but affected me tremendously. So tremendously that as I moved to the earlier years of the characters’ lives, I could not forget what Sabine did.

120 pages from the end, I couldn’t bear reading about Sabine anymore. I was done with her. I placed my bookmark in front of the next chapter, put the book aside and thought about what to do next. Ultimately, I decided to walk away from The White Woman on the Green Bicycle.

Despite my abandonment of this book, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Roffey’s writing talent and her fascinating exploration into Trinidad’s history. Indeed, many aspects of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle were appealing. Perhaps I can come back to it once I let go of my distaste for Sabine. Until then, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle will sit on my shelf; my bookmark marking the spot where I said no more.

Laura's Review - Burnt Shadows

2010-07-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

There was something she had learnt to recognise after Nagasaki, after Partition: those who could step out from loss, and those who would remain mired in it. (p. 149)

Burnt Shadows is a moving story of war and prejudice spanning more than 50 years and 5 countries. It begins in 1945 Nagasaki, just before the bomb drops. Hiroko Tanaka is 21 years old and engaged to Konrad Weiss, a German living in Japan. The reader has just enough time to appreciate her idyllic world and the promise of love, when suddenly everything changes. Hiroko survived; Konrad did not. The title comes from a description of the bomb's aftermath:

Days -- no, weeks -- after the bomb and everything still smelt of burning. I walked through it -- those strangely angled trees above the melted stone, somehow that's what struck me the most -- and I looked for Konrad's shadow. I found it. Or I found something that I believed was it. On a rock. (p. 78)

Hiroko leaves Japan for India, where Konrad's sister Ilse lives with her British husband James. Hiroko and Ilse become close friends. Hiroko marries Shajjad Ashraf, and in 1947 the Partition forces them to start a new life in Pakistan. They have a son, Raza, and remain friendly with Ilse and her son Harry. Hiroko is a constant presence, struggling throughout her life to come to terms with the impact of the bomb. The focus of the story gradually shifts to Raza, whose mixed ethnicity creates both opportunities and challenges. The final chapters are set in post-9/11 New York City, where a country built through immigration is suddenly seized by fear, and driven to conformity:

But then, things shifted. The island seemed tiny, people's views drunken. How could a place so filled with immigrants take the idea of "patriotism" so seriously? (p. 295)

There were several points where I was afraid the book might develop into one big cliché, but fortunately that never happened. In every era and every setting, Kamila Shamsie maintained a steady drumbeat of messages about war, race, and bigotry. And the ending was far from neat and tidy, clearly showing these issues will remain with us for a long time.

Addendum (27 July 2010): I lowered the rating by half a star. The first half of this book is very strong, but the second half is not as tightly written, and some of the situations are less believable. The overall theme and message had a strong impact on me, leading to an initial 4-star rating, but on further reflection, it didn't quite stand up to other 4-star reads.

My original review can be found here.

Laura's Review - The Invention of Everything Else

2010-07-21T04:32:00.000-07:00

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian inventor who came to the United States in the late 1800s. The Invention of Everything Else is a fictional account of his friendship with Louisa, a chambermaid at the Hotel New Yorker, where he lived. Louisa lives with her father Walter, who works as a night watchman at the New York Public Library. One day Louisa's curiosity leads her into Tesla's room (which is to be cleaned only upon request). Tesla discovers her reading through some of his papers. Despite this, they become friends and Louisa learns a great deal about Tesla's life and work.

Meanwhile, Louisa's father spends most of his time with an old friend, Azor, who is working on a time machine. He lives in hope that Azor will be able to reunite him with his dead wife, Freddie. And a young man named Arthur has turned up out of nowhere, claiming to know Louisa from elementary school. They are attracted to one another, although it's not clear why. Arthur also pals around with Azor and Walter, assisting them with the time machine.

The story was rather disjointed. The sections describing Tesla's life and career were most interesting, and Tesla was a likable character. But the fictional characters and their relationships were not believable. Why didn't Tesla kick Louisa out of his hotel room when he discovered her rifling through his stuff? How did Arthur become so strongly connected to Louisa and Walter? Why did Louisa care for him, and why did Walter and Azor include him in their work?

I followed the story with interest, and had no problem suspending disbelief as Walter and Azor worked on the time machine. But overall, it seemed Samantha Hunt was trying to do too much with this book, and in the final analysis it just didn't all come together. This is a somewhat engaging read, but not what I've come to expect from Orange Prize nominees.

My original review can be found here.

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer (Jill)

2010-07-19T15:17:00.001-07:00

The Septembers of Shiraz
By Dalia Sofer
Completed July 18, 2010

Dalia Sofer’s debut novel, The Septembers of Shiraz, shows how detrimental the Iranian Revolution was for many of Iran’s citizens. Isaac Amin was a rare gem dealer who was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in September 1981. Isaac was Jewish and had prospered well under the Shah, which made him suspicious in the eyes of the new regime. He was transported to prison where he was questioned, tortured and accused of being a Zionist spy.

The story shifts from Isaac’s point of view to that of his wife, Farnaz; his young daughter, Shirin; and his son, Parviz, a college student living in New York. The alternating viewpoints showed how each family member dealt with the sudden disappearance of Isaac. With emotions ranging from fear to courage, the Amin family tried to manage their day-to-day lives without the presence of their patriarch.

I found The Septembers of Shiraz to be a captivating read. The Iranian Revolution is an unfamiliar topic for me, and the rigid conditions of this time make me wonder how anyone escaped arrest and execution. I rooted for each member of the Amin family as they struggled with Isaac’s imprisonment. Sofer’s writing style was lyrical yet approachable, drawing her readers into the story. If you are a fan of historical fiction, I would recommend this amazing story. I look forward to more books by this talented young author. ( )

Small Wars by Sadie Jones (Jill)

2010-07-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

Small Wars
By Sadie Jones
Completed July 14, 2010

In Small Wars, the second novel by Sadie Jones, explores the impact of “small wars” on countries, citizens, servicemen and their loved ones. When you read a novel by Jones, you expect an intensive read. Small Wars is exactly that – a novel that keeps you thinking about its characters long after finishing the book.

Hal Treherne is a young major in the British Army. He comes from a family whose men held distinguished careers in the army, fighting in great English wars throughout history. Hal has no war to fight, until he is stationed in Cyprus, a nation whose interest to England becomes exceedingly higher as the conflict in the Suez Canal erupts in nearby Egypt. Cyprus had a small war of its own, trying to break free of British rule. The country’s desire for independence resulted in terrorist activity, and Hal finally gets the war he’s been trained for. However, it’s not the war of his father or grandfather. There are no trenches, fronts or battlefields. Instead, it’s house-to-house searches, land mines and torture. Hal learns that he’s not emotionally equipped for this type of warfare and begins to question his service in the army.

Meanwhile, Hal’s wife Clara arrives in Cyprus with their twin daughters, and tries to create a life in this tumultuous country. At the beginning of the book, you sense a deep love between the couple. However, as conditions sour in Cyprus and Hal becomes traumatized by its events, you watch as this marriage crumbles. They fail to talk to each other, and Hal takes out the atrocities of the war on his wife. He eventually arranges for Clara’s departure to a “safer” part of Cyprus, but in a country involved in a small war, there are no safe havens. Eventually, Clara and Hal face an enormous tragedy that will make or break their marriage.

I was unaware of this portion of British history, and I found that Jones’ research about Cyprus during the 1950’s to be enlightening. I couldn’t help but draw parallels from the small war in Cyprus to those being fought in countries throughout the world today. The places have changed, but the lessons have not. I applaud Jones for tackling this sensitive subject and for doing so in such a provocative way. I would recommend Small Wars to those readers who enjoy reading intense fiction or books focused on military history. It’s a book that will leave its fingerprint on me for a long time. ( )

The Accidental by Ali Smith (Jill)

2010-07-10T16:34:00.001-07:00

The Accidental
By Ali Smith
Completed July 10, 2010

Truth be told, I don’t know how to fairly review The Accidental by Ali Smith. It’s a story that follows the dysfunctional lives of the Smart family and the emergence of Amber, a young woman who crashes the Smart’s summer home one evening. Amber’s presence helps members of the family deal with their individual grief, though the reader never quite learned why Amber was there.

The four Smart family members take turns narrating a chapter. My favorite chapters were told by Astrid, a young girl who likes to videotape everything. With a director’s eye and a stream of consciousness that James Joyce would appreciate, Astrid’s perspective matched her age: big ideas, rambling thoughts and a curiosity about life. Also interesting was her brother’s narrative: Magnus was depressed about the suicide of a fellow classmate and felt at blame for the girl’s death. Smith’s strength is not character development – you never get a full picture of each character – but the snippets she showed of the kids were insightful and captivating.

Smith’s writing style takes a while to get used to. You’re dropped into the middle of each character’s thoughts, and you might need several chapters (as I did) to get into the writing style. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite way of storytelling, and I felt it put up barriers around the characters and their stories. Additionally, the ending was disappointing, and after trudging through this book, I was hoping for something a little more gratifying.

It’s hard to recommend The Accidental because it was a “meh” book for me. I encourage future readers to look at other reviews before deciding on this book. I think it’s a book you either like or don’t; I hate to say that I am in the latter group. ( )

Laura's Review - The Outcast

2010-07-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

When he was only 10 years old, Lewis Aldridge witnessed a terrible tragedy. Unable to express his feelings and shunned by his father, Lewis grew up a troubled young man. The Outcast opens with a prologue set in 1957, when 19-year-old Lewis is returning home after two years in prison. Sadie Jones then takes her readers back in time to recount Lewis' childhood and the events that led him to commit a crime.

Lewis' father Gilbert served in World War II, and when he returned home in 1945 Lewis was only 7. He didn't really know his father at all, and struggled with his intrusion into the family and his close relationship with his mother. After the tragedy, Lewis withdrew into himself. The other children in his village didn't know how to respond to him, and the adults were disturbed by his silence. In his teens, Lewis expressed his intense grief and self-loathing in increasingly harmful ways, eventually leading to imprisonment.

As Lewis' life fell apart, he couldn't help but compare himself with the Carmichaels, a model family in his village. Dicky Carmichael was Gilbert's boss; he and his wife Claire host an annual New Year's party and weekly Sunday lunches, all with plenty of cocktails to go around. Dicky and Claire's older daughter Tamsin is a beautiful young woman who knows how to use her sexuality; their younger daughter Kit is precocious and cares deeply for Lewis. But the Carmichaels have dark secrets of their own, which remain carefully concealed even as the Aldridge family's troubles are exposed to public viewing.

When Lewis is released from prison, he is thrust back into village society and gossip, and struggles to find his way. He gravitates toward the Carmichael girls, even as their parents reject him because of his criminal record. Tensions escalate, particularly after Lewis discovers the Carmichael secret, and all hell breaks loose.

I read this book in two days, because I just couldn't put it down. Lewis is a sympathetic character, and I was pulling for him throughout. He had been through so much, and had so little support. It was easy to see how he became so troubled, and I nearly cried whenever he began to go off the rails, or struggled with his place in society. The Outcast is intense, dramatic, and highly recommended.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Jill)

2010-07-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

Bel Canto
By Ann Patchett
Completed July 4, 2010

Imagine being held hostage for more than four months in a luxurious mansion in a South American country. Negotiations are at a stalemate, and the terrorists holding you are nothing more than a gang of armed teenagers led by three generals. You outnumber your captors, and they are pretty lax with their rules. Despite the odds, you never try to escape. Why? Because your life as a hostage allows you to become a new person – a person that you couldn’t be in your real life. It’s this theme that is the cornerstone to Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.

The group was assembled to celebrate the birthday of a Japanese industrialist, Mr. Hosokawa. They were foreign dignitaries, priests and government officials – and the character that tied them all together was Roxane Coss, the American soprano who was the evening’s entertainment. Once the terrorists invaded the mansion, it was Roxane who called the shots. She used her lovely voice as collateral and was able to negotiate shampoo, food and other amenities for her fellow captives. In turn, she sang for the terrorists and hostages – and they all fell under the spell of Roxane’s music.

Spending months together blurred the lines between the terrorists and hostages. Together, they played chess, took reading lessons, cooked and made love. The hostages, mostly older men, showed fatherly affection to some of the terrorists. With this attention, the teens began to blossom. A boy could sing, a girl could read, another could play chess. They transformed from being jungle children to individuals with hearts and souls – all wanting love and approval.

Bel Canto runs at a slow pace, which probably won’t suit many readers. However, if you love character-driven stories, this is the perfect book for you. My only complaint was the epilogue, which tied together some unnecessary loose strings. Sometimes, stories just need to end on its tragic note – because that’s what happens in real life. Other than this small flaw, I enjoyed Bel Canto and look forward to reading more fiction by the talented Ann Patchett. ( )

Laura's Review - The Lacuna

2010-07-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Lacuna is a brilliantly crafted novel, part historical fiction and part political statement. Its protagonist is Harrison Shepherd, an American-born author who spent his childhood in Mexico, and most of his adult life in the United States. As a young boy in Mexico, Harrison spent hours in the sea, exploring underwater wildlife and la lacuna: "Not a cave exactly but an opening, like a mouth, that swallows things. ... It goes into the belly of the world. (p. 35)" He later found work as a secretary and cook for the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and became acquainted with Leon Trotsky who lived with them during part of his exile.

The book is presented as a compilation of Shepherd's diaries, kept religiously almost since he could write. Shepherd's stenographer Violet Brown transcribed the diaries after his death. And in this labor of love the English definition of lacuna applies:

The notebook that burned, then. People who make a study of old documents have a name for this very kind of thing, a missing piece. A lacuna, it's called. The hole in the story, and this one is truly missing still ... (p. 112)

Shepherd became a famous author, writing adventure and romance novels set in Mexico. He was unmarried, and somewhat of a recluse, emotionally scarred by certain events in his life. In the late 1940s he found himself under FBI scrutiny, after they discovered his previous association with Trotsky. Kingsolver writes convincingly about the growing hysteria in the country during the time of the House Un-American Activities Committee:

"Whenever I hear this kind of thing," he said, "a person speaking about constitutional rights, free speech, and so forth, I think, 'How can he be such a sap? Now I can be sure that man is a Red.' A word to the wise, Mr. Shepherd. We just do not hear a real American speaking in that manner." (p. 443)

While the story dealt directly with McCarthyism, I don't think Kingsolver was only writing about that era, over half a century ago. The second half of The Lacuna reminded me of the years immediately following September 11, 2001: the prevailing American public opinion, and resulting public policy. This was a clever way for Kingsolver to express her own political views. And at the same time, she wrote a complex story with likable characters and a conclusion that tied a number of elements together in a most satisfying way.

My original review can be found here.

Kingsolver WINS 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction

2010-06-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

...Just announced today.

"We chose The Lacuna because it is a book of breathtaking scale and shattering moments of poignancy," Daisy Goodwin, chair of judges said.

Have any of your read The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver yet?