LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson is probably my favorite living author (though, as a rule, I'm not prone to absolute statements - hence, "probably"), and while I've loved her last few books about Jackson Brodie (CASE HISTORIES was a revelation), they did not make me set down the book reverently after finishing the final page and wish I could read them again for the first time. They did not give me the feeling, page after page, that I was reading something extraordinary, something brilliant, possibly the author's best work. LIFE AFTER LIFE did. I would give almost anything to be able to read it again for the first time.

LIFE AFTER LIFE follows Ursula from the moment she is born (or not) on February 11, 1910. "'Ursula,' Sylvie said. 'I shall call her Ursula. It means little she-bear.'" The first time, the umbilical cord is wrapped around her neck, and she is stillborn. But this is not the only possibility. When the doctor arrives in time, he is able to save her. Will she survive the influenza epidemic? A child murderer? An abusive husband? The Blitz? Will she change the course of World War II (and the world)? Atkinson deftly weaves a story of infinite layers, going over and over the same pivotal events with a delicate brush, exploring how the tiniest of changes can have far-ranging effects on the future.

Ursula is born feeling the weight of these layers of possibilities. "The past was a jumble in her mind, not the straight line that it was for Pamela." She has memories or impressions of things that will happen, but she learns not to talk about them. She does, however, follow her instincts, acting with no apparent purpose, but for the whispers of her mind, the echoes of other possible worlds. Atkinson brutally repeats a story with nuance after nuance ending in tragedy. It's an extraordinary reading experience, to mourn at once in so many different ways, to hope in so many different ways.

This sounds confusing and hard to keep straight, but it isn't. Atkinson has managed to create a world in which many different realities are simultaneously true (what is true, really?) and layered so skillfully that they can coexist in the reader's mind.

I read LIFE AFTER LIFE on my Kindle, and I highlighted about a quarter of it. I really expected to write a tome of a review, but I'm too envious of first-time readers to say too much and spoil the experience.

Available April 2.

Source disclosure: I received an e-galley of this title from the publisher. I will also be purchasing a hard copy.

THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN by Carlos Ruiz Zafon: While the note from Julian Carax suggests that the three books in the series (THE SHADOW OF THE WIND and THE ANGEL'S GAME having preceded THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN), I have no idea what a newcomer to the series would make of THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN as a standalone novel. My recommendation is to read the first two novels first, as THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN refers back to the events portrayed therein. If you've read the first two books about the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, I see no reason why you wouldn't enjoy the third (and the fourth, which I can barely wait for). When I say that THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN is more of the same, I mean it in a positive way: THE SHADOW OF THE WIND and THE ANGEL'S GAME were sensuous feasts of words and atmosphere that I found immensely enjoyable, and THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN was equally diverting.

In this installment, Ruiz Zafon explores the history of Fermin, with Carax telling us in the prologue: "I have always known that one day I would return to these streets to tell the story of the man who lost his soul and his names among the shadows of a Barcelona trapped in a time of ashes and silence." If you find that sentence seductive, the novels of Ruiz Zafon will appeal to you; if you find it overwritten and melodramatic, you probably ought to skip this series entirely. I was immediately drawn back into post-WWII Barcelona, which Ruiz Zafon evokes so beautifully. The story begins in 1957, just before Christmas, with Sempere & Sons bookshop financially strapped. Fermin has an idea for drumming up business: "Perhaps if by chance I was seen arranging the shop window in my underpants, some lady in need of strong literary emotions would be drawn in and inspired to party with a bit of hard cash. According to expert opinion, the future of literature depends on women and as God is my witness the female is yet to be born who can resist the primal allure of this stupendous physique." Sempere decides to go the more traditional route of a nativity scene, and customers begin to trickle in. Among them is a mysterious stranger who buys the most expensive book in the store and leaves it as a gift for Fermin. This is the trigger for Fermin to tell Daniel Sempere his own story: beginning with his time in prison during WWII and revealing connections between Fermin and Daniel.

My only complaint about this novel is that it was too short. Having read it on the Kindle, I had to look it up to find out that it is apparently 416 pages long, but it breezed by in little more than a night of reading. Fermin's story is gripping and the dribbles of information relating to Daniel's mother, David Martin, and the mysterious stranger are well-paced. Fermin's usual cynicism and humor lighten up the narrative, and the ending is satisfying, although clearly setting the reader up for the fourth book.

I found THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN engrossing and delightful, and I recommend this book to fans of THE SHADOW OF THE WIND and THE ANGEL'S GAME.

Source disclosure: I received an e-galley of this book courtesy of the publisher.

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF ALFRED BUBER by David Schmahmann

What to say about Alfred Buber, charming miscreant, buttoned-up attorney, purveyor of ethically questionable sexual services, a man reminiscent of both Henry Higgins and Humbert Humbert? The unreliable narrator is a tricky thing to pull off, but Schmahmann does it brilliantly, right from the opening words: "These are the chronicles of the starship Buber, noted bibliophile, late night television addict, keeper of sordid little secrets so appalling he dares not breathe a word of them to a soul." Buber gives the reader fair warning that he's a complex character, likable despite his proclivities, much like the charming Humbert. He either has or has not brought a young prostitute home from the east and he alludes to the his inevitable downfall early in the story, though the reader does not yet know its exact nature. After becoming strangely attached to young Nok, whom he "met" in the Star of Love Bar, after visiting her village, and sending her monthly wire transfers, does he send for her? Bring her to his ostentatious yet barren home as his wife? Teach her the joys of channel-surfing, shopping, air conditioning? Or does he not?

Alfred Buber is an odd duck. Brought up in Rhodesia by communist parents who send him to England to live with a relative, it is perhaps not surprising that he holds convoluted opinions on social class. He first approaches Nok as a "client," but relates to her as a tutor as well. He becomes a lawyer and spends all of his money buying a plot of land on which to build his dream house, a cold, imposing mansion that signals that Buber has arrived. Image is very important to him, which makes it unsurprising that he would fabricate trips to Europe for the benefit of his law partners, who must never know that his vacations are sex tourism jaunts to Asia, not rambles through Paris museums. There are so many ways to tell this complex story, and Buber attempts several openings before hitting his stride. After all, how he presents himself will dictate how the reader views his actions. This dipping into first one part of the story, then another, sets up perfectly the multifaceted character of Buber, a portrait that makes unfolding events seem plausible, even rational. But then, we see events and characters only through Buber's eyes. We have no idea what Nok thinks about all this. Is Buber a likable, flawed man through her eyes? Or is that only the cast Buber's own point of view has overlaid on the plot?

Schmahmann has created an unforgettable lens through which to examine questions of love, obsession, exploitation and obligation. Buber, like Henry Higgins, like Humbert Humbert, is a character for the ages.

Source disclosure: I received a galley courtesy of The Permanent Press.

More Thursday!

ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING by Jasper Fforde: This is the sixth book in Jasper Fforde's brilliant metafictional, science-fictional, litmystery, and otherwise uncategorizable series about Thursday Next. I hesitate to post a real review of this one, actually, as Fforde's world builds upon itself and the plot doesn't make much sense without prior knowledge of the series: Real Thursday has gone missing and Fictional Thursday must pursue her by unraveling the most sinister plot yet in the BookWorld. Wait, I'll just post the blurb, swiped from Jasper Fforde's website:

"It is a time of unrest in the Bookworld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the Peace Talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the Realworld or is this something more sinister?

But all is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of Speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, who is attempting to keep her own small four-book series both respectful to her illustrious namesake and far from the grim spectre of being remaindered.

Despite her desire to stay away from the spotlight, written Thursday is asked by Jurisfiction to investigate a novel that has suffered an in-read breakup and deposited a narrative debris-field halfway across the Bookworld. It's not quite so straightforward: Someone has ground the ISBN numbers from the wreckage, and all of a sudden the mysterious Men in Plaid want her dead.

As the hunt for answers takes her from the Council of Genres to Fan-Fiction and from Comedy to Vanity publishing, written Thursday realises that Real Thursday had been investigating a plot fiendish enough to be killed for. But who is responsible? Only a trip up the Mighty Metaphoric river and a visit to the hideously frightening Realworld can provide the answers.

With her clockwork butler Sprockett and her Designated Love Interest Whitby Jett, Thursday has to get to grips with her inability to match up to her Namesake's talent, and prove herself to the one person she respects more than anyone else: The real her..."

Got all that? Good. If that sounds intriguing, go read THE EYRE AFFAIR, the first in the series. Don't even think of starting with this one. Your head might well explode. It's best to ease into the worlds of Thursday. THE EYRE AFFAIR will introduce you to the alternate-1985 Swindon, in which the Crimean War is well into its second century, zeppelins are the preferred method of air travel, cheese is subject to ridiculous duties and is traded in a brisk black market, Will-Speak machines offer a Shakespeare quote for a coin, the ChronoGuard regulate time travel, and LitCrime is on the rise. Spec Ops Literary Detective Thursday Next is on the case of the fiendish Acheron Hades, who is stealing original manuscripts with evil in mind. Next must read herself into JANE EYRE in order to save the novel, and possibly the world. From here, the adventures only get more chaotic, improbable, and surreal. The next five books in the series spend variable amounts of time in the Real World and the Book World, and we learn much more about the surprisingly banal yet bizarre bureaucracy rampant in the Book World in subsequent books. If all this sounds weird in an off-putting way, you should probably skip it. It's not for everyone, but it's one of my absolute favorite series.

Source disclosure: I have happily purchased this series in multiple formats.

Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett

You've got to admire a book whose cover is decorated with gold seals and entitled Winner of the National Book Award. I realize that authors don't create their own cover art, but whoever designed this cover encapsulated Jincy Willett's debut novel in two dimensions. In Rhode Island, chaste librarian Dorcas (known all her life as "Dork") plans to ride out a storm in her library, tackling the "New Books" shipment. This shipment is particularly troublesome, as it includes the true crime/biography written about her promiscuous, larger-than-life twin sister, Abigail. We learn that Abigail is awaiting trial, and as Dorcas pours herself one bourbon after another, she reads the book, unfolding the events that led to Abigail's current state. The overwrought prose of the fictional author combined with Abigail's obfuscations and lies is sharply contrasted with Dorcas's thoughts and reflections as she reads. Throughout, references to potentially dangerous New England weather and the "pure unadulterated Yankee bullshit" that runs rampant in Rhode Island give a strong sense of place.

Dorcas lives in her head; Abigail lives out loud. Dorcas reflects, "A well-wrought piece of fiction...helps us make sense out of the chaos of our lives. Why be deliberately obscure when real life is so fractured and opaque?" The plot of this story would be unbelievable, the protagonist (and pretty much all the characters) would be unsympathetic, in another format. But Willett's choice to tell the story through Dorcas's reaction to Abigail's story opens the door to Willett's wicked wit and sharp satire of writing itself (with a healthy swipe at metaphors, and at "true crime").

I won't spoil the slow dribbles of information that culminate in the revelation of the nature of the crime. If you pick this one up, you're in for great satire, biting wit, and almost unbearably complex characters. And you'll both anticipate and dread the revelations that lead up to the train wreck approaching in slow motion.

My review of The Writing Class

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt

What an extraordinary first novel. Rebecca Hunt has taken an audacious, ambitious premise, and executed it in an insightful, rich way. Winston Churchill is a well-known depressive who referred to his sometime companion as The Black Dog. Hunt has personified The Black Dog with Mr. Chartwell, the new (canine) boarder at the home of librarian Esther, who is a widower. His presence is entirely unwelcome, yet strangely irresistible. Esther allows him to move in, but resents his presence. He has moved to be conveniently situated near Winston Churchill, who is reflective on the eve of his retirement from Parliament, but he has other jobs as well. This novel really should have been a disaster with this premise. A dog who walks on two legs and affects human manners (though not so well that he can resist chomping on a bone in the hallway) sounds laughable, and not in a good way. But Hunt approaches the subject of depression with sensitivity and deep understanding, and "Mr. Chartwell" embodies it nobly, with messy rudeness and plaintive pleas for understanding.

Hunt's language reveals a sensitivity to the nuances of depression, as well as an elegant precision. Churchill says that "the prospects of retirement could not yet be fully contemplated, being too full of awful passion. It churned the heart with thistles."*** Esther feels that "...the weeks of her life had drifted past as ghosts. There was the rare bump of pleasure, perhaps from a meal out or a visit to the cinema, but it was brittle and shattered under the lonely monotony of the ghost days." But she doesn't immediately recognize that her relationship with "Black Pat" is much more complicated than that of a landlord and boarder. He explains his "job" to her, nicely summing up the symptoms of depression: "With Churchill we know each other's movements, so we have a routine, I guess. I like to be there when he wakes up in the morning. Sometimes I drape across his chest. That slows him down for a bit..." Churchill speaks to Black Pat with familiarity, even affection, but also with bitter resentment. He always knew that Black Pat would return for Churchill's retirement, and he reluctantly accepts the presence.

Hunt's Churchill is fully believable and complex, a great man plagued by doubt, dreading retirement. Esther represents a different stage of visitation by depression, still adjusting to Black Pat's charms. She is also a well-developed character in her own right; a young widow still mourning her husband and coming to terms with loss while attending to new and old friendships and her job, which eventually leads her to Churchill's study to take dictation. Their encounter is the crux of the novel, beautifully exquisite and surprising.

I fully expect this to be my favorite novel released in 2011. Hunt's writing is utterly inventive and surprising, her story told with wisdom and sensitivity.

***All quotations are taken from an uncorrected proof and should be checked against a final copy, tentative publication date 2/22/11.

FTC Source Disclosure: I received an Advance Reader's Edition from the publisher.


An interesting discussion of Churchill's history with depression can be found here.

The Clouds Beneath the Sun by Mackenzie Ford

Books don't often shock me. I read so much that I seem to be in tune with the narrative flow, I see plot twists coming from miles away, and I'm good at spotting foreshadowing. However, in his second novel, Mackenzie Ford has created a story of such surprising richness that I closed it on the last page, then promptly began thinking if the surprises were fair, if they had been foreshadowed. I had to conclude that I had fair warning of the plot developments all the way through, which makes The Clouds Beneath the Sun all the more extraordinary. In fact, some events were foreshadowed, but I discounted them as impossible to pull off in a realistic fashion. How delighted I was to have been mistaken.

The book opens with Natalie Nelson taking her newly minted Cambridge Ph.D and broken heart to her first dig, in Kenya. Ford (a nom de plume for historian Peter Watson) eases us into the setting with Natalie passing elephants involved in a mourning ritual on the way to the remote camp. I actually had trouble getting into the book at first. An archaeological dig in 1961 Kenya is not an easy setting to evoke, and the "Attention: You Are Now In the 1960s!" details did not feel as effortlessly part of the story as the history and political climate of Kenya. (Examples: that newfangled birth control pill, friends of Natalie's who (gasp) live with men instead of marrying, Natalie's parents utter shock at her disastrous affair with a married man, the publication of Lolita, talk of men going to the moon.) And Natalie's mooning about Dom, her lover, is a bit overdone. However, once I'd made it through the set-up, I could not put this book down. Ford's Kenya is beautiful, vibrant, and complex, so well-drawn that I had no difficulty visualizing it. He lays out the political climate neatly. The moral complexity of the story means that I'm still thinking about the implications.

As Natalie and the others on the dig begin to make extraordinary discoveries in the gorge, she develops relationships with her colleagues. Eleanor, the widow of a celebrated paleontologist, wants to take Natalie under her wing, forcing a confidence that Natalie isn't sure she wants. Eleanor's two sons, Jack and Christopher, vie for her attention, as does Russell, an Australian on the dig. When Richard Sutton, Jr. is found murdered after he and Russell commit an unforgivable act against the Maasai, Natalie is thrust into the center of a political minefield, as the only witness who can implicate one of the Maasai. The tensions between the Maasai and the colonial paleontologists, between blacks and whites (some want a system of apartheid for Kenya, while other groups seek an integrated society, and still others want all the whites ejected), between English law and tribal custom, are absolutely riveting. Jack, having grown up in Africa, is an honorary Maasai, so his insights are invaluable. These are not easy questions posed by Ford, and he doesn't offer easy answers. The pressure on Natalie to refuse to testify in order to diffuse the political situation is not unwarranted, and she herself wavers between doing what is morally right to her, and doing what may be politically and culturally appropriate.

This is a morally complex novel that evokes a realistic picture of 1961 Kenya, of a country divided by race on the brink of independence, and of an impossible choice. I highly recommend it.

FTC Source Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

The Lawyer's Secret by M. E. Braddon

The Lawyer's Secret by M. E. Braddon was originally published in 1862, and was recently reprinted by Hesperus Press with a foreword by Matthew Sweet and the addition of the shorter work "The Mystery at Fernwood." Braddon was a master of "sensation fiction," "a species of writing...'aimed at electrifying the nerves of the reader.'" The genre flourished in the 1860s as part of a larger cultural trend. Braddon's focus was on domestic strife with a mysterious edge; rather than in exotic mansions or haunted houses, her heroines find terror in seemingly ordinary lives. In The Lawyer's Secret, Ellinor inherits her uncle's estate on the condition that she marry his protege. It's fairly obvious that the lawyer is hiding something (not least from the title) and to a modern reader, the secret is easy to guess. Because the genre is driven by plot rather than character development, the lack of surprise squelches the "electrified nerves" experienced by Victorian readers. As mysteries, these stories really do not stand the test of time to be engaging to the modern reader, in the way that, say, Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte continue to inspire readers. However, the Hesperus Press reissue puts these works into their historical context with a foreword, biographical note, and footnotes, making it a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in Victorian fiction.

Source disclosure: I received this book from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Seducing the Spirits by Louise Young

And, even in the midst of the Book Blogger Appreciation Week fun, we still have actual book blogging to do...

Seducing the Spirits by Louise Young: Jenny Dunfree is a graduate student exiled to the jungles of Panama to study harpy eagles after a disastrous affair with her advisor. She is told not to piss anyone off and to continue the research, but she is told very little about the Kuna, the native tribe whose favor she must curry to carry on the research. Jenny's disorientation is mirrored in the reader: we are all dropped into the world of the Kuna and witness the bizarre town meeting at which Jenny is interrogated in almost Kafkaesque fashion. Though Jenny is fluent in Spanish, she has no knowledge of the Kuna language, so an interpreter adds an additional layer of confusion. The Kuna refuse to address Jenny by her name (in fact, at one point in the middle of the book, I had to check the flap, as I had forgotten it). Jenny's lifeline is Pedro, a man educated in a mission school and fluent in English, who acts as her guide in the ways of the Kuna. Young's treatment of the Kuna is expertly balanced; the tension between traditional culture and creeping modernity is well-played. Jenny's loneliness leads her into friendships with several of the Kuna, while she rejects the only American, a belligerent missionary. She learns (and in some cases, embraces) Kuna customs and treats the natives with respect while resenting their denial of her name. Perhaps it is not surprising that Jenny seems a strangely detached character; she reflects the confusion of being caught between two cultures. At any rate, the supporting cast of Kuna bring more than enough passion and fervor to fuel the story.

Young's portrayal of a native culture through the eyes of an American would be impressive even if the Kuna were fictional. What makes this novel astounding is that the Kuna do exist; Young herself has acted as a cultural guide for the Kuna and uses her firsthand knowledge of a seldom-portrayed culture. Her prose is lush and sensuous as she captures the tedium of academic fieldwork, the challenges of being an outsider in a foreign culture, and the basic human need for friendship. Available November 1.

A Year of Cats and Dogs by Margaret Hawkins

"Original" and "ambitious" can mean almost anything in a review, depending on context. Original ideas may be ill-advised, and an ambitious premise can be ineptly executed. But when I call Margaret Hawkins's debut novel, A YEAR OF CATS AND DOGS, original and ambitious, it is the highest praise I can give, because not only has Hawkins produced one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking novels I've read, she's done so using a premise that is utterly fresh and interesting. The first-person narration chronicles Maryanne's spiritual journey concurrently with her midlife crisis (which provides ample comic relief via Maryanne's dry, incisive sense of humor). Maryanne explains how she comes to abdicate from her life once long-term boyfriend Phillip moves out, ending a relationship mainly continued out of habit. Maryanne throws the I Ching, which advises waiting and deepening the stillness within, which she fulfills at first through taking long naps. She then begins breaking long-held rules, challenging her former assumptions, and culling things from her life, including her unfulfilling job at a company that makes collectibles, a neat metaphor for everything cluttering Maryanne's spiritual life, obscuring her passions and purpose. At the same time, her pets, and animals in general, become more and more important to her, and she invests time in caring for her ailing father. Her actions through inaction open up possibilities that her mind and soul are now ready to embrace, and Maryanne finds that she can hear the thoughts of animals, leading to a friendship with a veterinarian who values her skills as a dog whisperer and asks her to plan his mother's funeral.

Each of the sixty-four chapter titles is named for one of the sixty-four possible coin throws by which the I Ching (the Chinese book of changes) is consulted. In less capable hands, this would have been an annoying gimmick, but Hawkins uses the I Ching lessons as steps in Maryanne's spiritual journey, giving her wry observations the weight of age-old wisdom. Maryanne is a likable narrator, an average person seeking meaning in her life and a bit lost in the universe. Her method for finding herself is unorthodox but believable, her reflections on her spiritual development both profound and matter-of-fact, included alongside her recipes for the comfort food she prepares to console everyone around her. Hawkins's clear, lovely prose is a perfect backdrop for the straightforward thoughts of her protagonist, who is never preachy in her spiritual musings. Maryanne is so delightful, and her voice so earnest and witty, that I found myself hoping that she would find what she was looking for.

A YEAR OF CATS AND DOGS is an engaging yet reflective story of a likable woman searching for meaning in her cluttered life, and I highly recommend it.

Available October 1 in hardcover from The Permanent Press. Pre-order from Amazon here.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

The Double Bind was our January book club pick. I actually suggested this one to the group after reading reviews about it. To me it sounded like a multi-layered interesting book and it is tied to the classic The Great Gatsby.

The novel opens with nineteen year old Laurel going on a bike ride in rural Vermont. Two men come upon her and assault her. She does everything possible to fend off the men and is saved from death by three other men biking along who scare the assailants away. From this opening we meet up with Laurel several years later working in a homeless shelter as a social worker. She becomes enamored with the photographs of a schizophrenic client, Bobbie Crocker who passes away. The photographs span decades and include famous faces such as Dick Van Dyke, past presidents, jazz musicians and Jay Gatsby. There are also a few photos of the client as a boy. Laurel is given the job of organizing an exhibit of these photographs as a way to bring the homeless shelter into the public eye. Laurel becomes obsessed with Crocker's photos and finding out who he was. She's convinced that Crocker was indeed Robert Buchannon, son of Tom and Daisy Buchannon, characters in The Great Gatsby. All of this begins a frenetic spiral into a world filled only with linking Crocker to the world of Gatsby. Laurel's boss, boyfriend and friends all become worried about her as she becomes more obsessed with the photographs.

As you read, you can tell the book is building up to quite an ending, you're just not quite sure what it is. Then all of sudden it twists and hits you. I won't reveal anymore because I don't want to ruin it for anymore. I liked this book quite a bit and enjoyed how it related to The Great Gatsby. In fact, I believe I will reread Gatsby in the near future. I haven't read it since I was a junior in high school. I really like the modern take on an old classic. And although I somewhat saw the twist at the end coming it wasn't entirely predictable to me and I was satisfied with it. The end also made me go back and reread short sections of the book to see if I saw it in a new light. I would recommend this one to anyone looking for a book with a little more depth.

Unfortunately, I cannot report how the rest of the book club felt about the book because our meeting was canceled. But we plan to discuss it next month when we meet to discuss Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. Yes, I have resisted the Twilight bandwagon for this long. I knew the only way I would read it was through book club. It is not because I think its going to be bad. I just am not that excited about vampires in general as a subject. And I'm a little worried I will be annoyed by Bella's whininess from other reviews I have read. But I plan to delve into the book on a very long plane ride. We'll see what I think of it. I may have to rush out and read the rest of them. I'll be sure to report back on that one!

Other reviews of The Double Bind:
A Life in Books
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
Girls Just Reading (This is the review that made me add this to my TBR list)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Holly's excellent review right here!

Jamie Ford's debut novel, a story of first love against the backdrop of Japanese evacuation in post-Pearl Harbor Seattle, is sweet, sentimental, and redemptive. I found myself unable to put the book down, and I admit to sniffling a few times. I absolutely recommend this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I couldn't shake the feeling of regret that it wasn't...more. Like having a fantastic big tub of movie popcorn, the kind with extra butter, when you were hoping for a five-course meal by candlelight. Okay, that's a stupid metaphor, but I can't help wishing this were Ford's say, third or fourth novel, instead of his first. Because it's an excellent read that doesn't quite reach its story's (or storyteller's) potential.

The story goes back and forth between 1942, the year sixth-grade Henry Lee befriends Keiko Okabe, the only other Asian at the all-white prep school, and 1986, the year an old hotel in Japantown is re-opened, revealing the treasures hidden there by Japanese families who were "evacuated." In the 1942 timeline, Henry and Keiko are scholarship students who work in the cafeteria, serving lunch to the white kids who torment them. It's only a matter of time before Keiko's family is sent to a work camp, and Henry's controlling, traditional father sends him to school wearing an "I Am Chinese" button to distinguish himself to the whites who think all Asians look the same. In the 1986 timeline, Henry's wife has died after a long illness and Henry struggles to relate to his son, Marty, without his wife as a buffer. Meanwhile, Henry sees a press conference in which the new owner of the Panama Hotel twirls a parasol she found in the basement--a parasol Henry is sure belonged to Keiko. Everything you think will happen from this summary is how the story turns out--there are no surprises in store. And that's where my disappointment lies. I loved the sweet story of Henry and Keiko, Henry's conflict between his heart and his loyalty to his parents, the delightful interjection of the Seattle jazz scene into the mix, fantastic secondary characters in Sheldon and Mrs. Beatty, and Henry's future daughter-in-law. But I expected something unexpected that never appeared, something in addition to the mechanically unfolding plot as the two timelines converged. Some passages of the 1986 story felt perfunctory to me, and middle-aged Henry wasn't as compelling as the page-turning 1942 storyline.

Again, I recommend this book. My disappointment makes the difference between a four-star book and a five-star book. And this is a solid four-star book.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

My book club (really more of a wine and gossip club, but we do read...well, some of us do) chose Finding Nouf for our December book, and I found it riveting. Zoe Ferraris, an American formerly married to a Saudi, gives us a unique look at Saudi culture. The action begins with a search for a missing girl, but this is a mystery the way Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels are mysteries, which is to say it is a literary novel with a mystery at its core. Ferraris does a brilliant job of slowly unraveling the mystery amidst a portrayal of the extreme gender segregation in Saudi culture and its impact on both women and men. At first, I was put off by the point-of-view character being male--how can you look at the restrictions on women through a man's eyes? But Ferraris chose Nayir as her vehicle for showing how gender segregation impacts men, and it's fascinating. Nayir is naive in the way of women, uncomfortable when a woman speaks "brazenly"--that is, without a man first having spoken to her--and can barely think when confronted with the sight of a woman's ankle, much less her face. He is unmarried and frustrated by the ridiculous process of finding a wife. The story begins with Nouf's rich, influential family asking Nayir to look into Nouf's death after they've used their influence to shut down the official investigation. Katya, an assistant in the morgue and fiancee to Nayir's best friend Othman (adopted brother to Nouf), ends up helping Nayir. They struggle to peel back the layers of the family's secrets while avoiding the wrath of the religious police as they meet to share information.

There's an extensive amazon review detailing the "errors" Ferraris has made in matters of Saudi culture and geography. The geography doesn't bother me in the least--it's a novel, for heaven's sake! Does Ferraris really have to stick to the distances between cities in reality? Does it matter for the purposes of the novel that one can't actually take an overnight bus from Jeddah to Muscat? However, some of his points, such as the use of paid escorts (women are not permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia), are more to the point. Googling, though, did turn up discussion of paid drivers for women in Saudi Arabia, so I'm not sure if things have changed since the reviewer lived in Saudi Arabia or if there are regional differences. Ferraris did stay in Saudi Arabia for almost a year following the first Gulf War, so she's not completely inventing the culture she describes. Times may have changed, or she may have made some changes for literary purposes. It's an interesting question, I think--since Ferraris is giving a rare glimpse into Saudi culture (possibly the only glimpse many of us will get), how accurate does she have to be? Does she have as much literary license as a novelist whose work is set in a more well-described culture? I don't think there's an easy answer, and several scenes ring so true (Katya moving her head from side to side to be able to see the contents of her purse, Katya sitting in the drawing room with her future in-laws) that they may outweigh nitpicky details.

Finding Nouf was a riveting mystery (though I wasn't quite satisfied with the resolution) set in a fascinating discussion of a strange culture. The discussion of the limitations on men and women was really interesting, and the development of Nayir's attitudes toward Katya was complex and well-developed. I highly recommend this book.

More Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I borrowed this charming novel by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows from Allison. Her review can be found here. I feel like this book has been all over the place and Allison wrote such a wonderful review that I won't rephrase the story.

It took me a bit to get into the book and get used to the style of writing. In Part 2 of the book, we follow Juliet to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. I enjoyed this half of the book more than the first half, which took place in London. I loved the quaintness of Guernsey and the various characters, especially Isola and Dawsey. I found the overall story of the German occupation very interesting. Juliet's male companion, Mark really annoyed me with his arrogant attitude. I was pleased when she finally made a decision regarding her future with him.

Many people suggest this book would be a good book club choice. I agree, the historical content is interesting and the characters are intriguing. More Guernsey Literary... reviews: Charlotte's Web of Books, Lesa's Book Critiques, and Thoughts of Joy.

Sidenote: Stay tuned next Tuesday for another giveaway!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I wanted to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows as soon as I read the description in LibraryThing's Early Reviewer list for June. I was selected for a different book, so I pre-ordered this one. It was everything I had hoped for, a perfect read--or near enough perfect to suit me. The novel is written in letters, most of either to or from Juliet, a writer who gained a following as a columnist using humor to cover World War II. In 1946, when the novel begins, Juliet is casting about for her an idea for a new novel when she receives a letter by chance--a man named Dawsey, who lives on Guernsey, happened to buy a book formerly owned by Juliet, and he is writing to find out if there are other books by the same author (Charles Lamb). He mentions that Guernsey had been cut off from the rest of the world during the German occupation and alludes to the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, of which he was a part. Intrigued, Juliet writes back, asking for an explanation of the Society and more information on the Occupation. He replies that the group was formed as a spontaneous defense for breaking curfew, and they decided they'd better keep meeting or risk being found out. Throughout the five years of occupation, an unlikely group, many of whom had never before read anything but farming publications, read a book to present to the group. The Society's members begin to correspond with Juliet, widening her circle and drawing her into their lives. The letters not only detail the history of the Guernsey occupation; they reveal what reading means to the human spirit and how chance encounters can change a life. This slender volume (only 274 pages) is brilliantly and sensitively written, with anecdotes that expose what happens to people under extreme conditions; the Guernsey citizens and German forces are illustrated with acts of inhuman cruelty and desperation, but also with instances of courage, empathy, and humanity. When I read a book like this, I wonder how I would respond to the conditions endured. Would I be the person ratting out my neighbors to secure extra rations? I hope not. How would I choose whether to keep my child with me in unknown conditions or to send her to live with strangers for an indeterminate time? Would I risk my own freedom (and even life) to save another?

This novel was absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking and uplifting, not to mention with a wicked sense of humor. Juliet is a likable protagonist and I adored the Guernsey folk. If Juliet's relationship with Mark was sometimes a bit clunky (why couldn't she tell he was a wanker?), I quickly forgave the intrusion because the novel as a whole was such a wonderful reading experience. I recommend this book to absolutely everyone.

Mary Ann Shaffer asked her niece, Annie Barrows, to help her finish writing the book (her first) when Ms. Schaffer's failing health prevented her from doing so herself. Unfortunately, Ms. Shaffer has since passed away. I hope that Ms. Barrows considers penning a sequel.

The Master Bedroom by Tessa Hadley

The Master Bedroom by Tessa Hadley is the first book I've received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. Oddly, I received the book on June 11, about six weeks after the book was available in paperback, and the copy I received was an actual trade paperback, not an ARC. At any rate, I selected several books and received this one, possibly the one book I was unsure I even wanted to read. The synopsis was intriguing, but in a Jerry Springer/train wreck sort of way: Bored Kate Flynn leaves her London academic job and returns to her childhood home to care for her mother. While she is there, a married childhood friend and his seventeen-year-old son "set about their parallel courtships" and "Kate cannot quite resist either man." This all sounds rather seamy, in (I am happy to say) a completely inaccurate way, and I was delighted at the whim that led me to request this book. Tessa Hadley is a gifted writer of lyrical, evocative prose who has crafted a novel (her third) that is touching, funny, and complex.

Kate is both sympathetic and infuriating in her midlife crisis. Hadley has drawn her as a woman who has come untethered; though she has taken a one-year leave of absence instead of quitting her job and let her flat instead of giving it up completely, there is a sense that these steps are just delaying the inevitable. Speaking to David, a public health doctor, she calls her academic life "a kind of dream, a mistake. A life lost in books. What an abyss of difference, between your usefulness and mine. How did I choose it: this play life? I should have been a nurse. We carelessly make one choice after another and our lives pile up." She is not always nice, to put it bluntly, and there were times I didn't like her. Though her purported reason for moving home to Wales is her aging mother, it's clear that her mother is a means of escape from a life she had thought she wanted. When she first comes home, she finds her mother asleep and nearly decides to drive back to London without waking her, and she can be sharp with her mother. She takes her childhood friend Carol (who should be nominated for sainthood) for granted. She throws a lavish party purely to spite the practical David and his wife, Suzie. She tells seventeen-year-old Jamie, who has fallen in love with her, that he's too young to be her friend. But despite all these flaws, or perhaps because they make her real, I hoped that she would find what she was looking for by the end. I was expecting, rather dejectedly, for the story to end without any meaning found, without the hollows of life being filled, and I was both surprised and satisfied by the ending. Kate remakes her life, but not in any trite way, nor in the way I had expected.

This is a quiet book, with many small movements rather than a single dramatic action. Hadley's prose is well-suited to the story (or rather, stories, as the subplots share a dance floor with Kate's midlife crisis, even if they don't cut in), with simple, accurate language, like this description of her reunion with David: "They were falling into a pattern of friendship that had been, before Kate came back to live in Cardiff, exactly her idea of the sort of thing that would evolve in a place like this between grown-up cultured people" and elegant description, as when she first arrives at home: "The falling rain was blotted up overhead by the tall monkey puzzle tree or pattered onto the evergreen bushes. Below, on the lake, an invisible duck blundered splashily. A cold perfume of pines and bitter garden mulch seemed to her like the smell of the past itself." I marked dozens of pages where I found beautiful, lyrical prose or turns of phrase so elegant and perfect they made me smile. Hadley is funny, too. David's wife has fallen in with new hippie friends, and this is his parenthetical description of Menna and Neil's old van when they come to take Suzie camping: "its puttering filthy exhaust more polluting, surely, than anything they could make up for with their puritanical veganism." After Jamie cuts the grass, she tells him, "I think it looked better with the grass long. That grass was beautiful, it blew in the wind, it was blond like hair, the sound it made was like the sea. Now what does it look like? Stubbled and ugly, a poor cropped head." When Jamie looks crestfallen, she laughs.

The word "hollow" and variations on it appear too many times to count, and this is no coincidence. At forty-three, Kate feels hollow, that her life is empty. She doesn't take care of herself; she smokes and drinks, but rarely eats. The return to Wales doesn't immediately help; she reflects that "She had screwed up her own professional life as if it didn't matter and stepped outside it into where she was no one." She talks of being unmoored, of longing to be broken down and remade. Even literature is hollow: "Nothing written now has enough in it. I have to swap about, as soon as I get the hang of what they're up to; they're only ever up to one thing at a time." This is certainly not the case with this novel. In addition to Kate's search for meaning, we have glimpses into David and Suzie's failing marriage, Billie's failing health, Jamie's youthful search for meaning in his life (which makes for an interesting contrast to Kate's). This is the sort of book that I would have loved writing papers on in college. The story is unbelievably rich, and I could easily make this review pages and pages long, but I'll stop here. I'd recommend this book to anyone who looking for a rich, complex novel about the human experience, written in gorgeous, decadent prose.

America America by Ethan Canin

This was another Advanced Reader Copy from the Early Reviewers Group on LibraryThing. In America America, a young man, Corey Sifter is swept up into the lives of a small town’s most wealthy and powerful family. Corey comes from a working class home and accepts a job on the Metarey Family’s estate in the late 1960’s. Before he knows it, the family patriarch takes him under his wing offering him advice about succeeding in life and the chance to further himself by attending a prestigious private boarding school. The story is told through alternating chapters in at least three different time periods (all at once!); Corey in high school, Corey in college, and Corey as a middle-age adult. The tale is told mostly through Corey’s eyes, but every now and then strays to one of the lesser characters’ point of view.

The book centers on a political campaign (of Senator Bonwiller) run during Nixon’s second presidential campaign and focuses on the Metarey family’s and therefore Corey’s involvement with the campaign.

There are many facets to this book. It is modern historical fiction and contains a portrait of the proverbial American Dream. A Scottish man (Eoghan Metarey) coming to America and rising from nothing to become wealthy and powerful through hard work (and perhaps some questionable decisions). And then the legacy he leaves behind for his family. The book centers a great deal on what one generation can learn from the next and how each generation affects another. It also portrays the political world of the late 1960’s, early 70’s before the world of the computer age when newspapers and reporters were an integral part of the campaign. Also, the lengths politicians will go during a campaign (not that any of this has changed much, just the medium through which the information is disseminated has). The American Dream is also shown through Corey’s family where he has the opportunity to learn more and have more of an education than his father did. There is an interesting storyline about the relationship with Corey and his father toward the end of the book.

It’s hard for me to decide if I liked this book or not. I think it is very well written and I think many of the characters are developed well. I like the way Canin creates the relationships in the book between Corey and his father, Corey and Liam Metarey, and Corey and the Metarey daughters. A good section of the book deals with the political campaign and I found some of these parts to be very boring and I wondered if I would actually be able to get to the end of the book. Through much of the book, Corey refers to his spouse as “my wife” and not by name, so we’re not entirely sure which character he has chosen to marry until quite close to the end of the book. There is also an “incident” that is talked about in much of the book that really has too much of a build up. I wasn’t that into the Senator’s character or his affair with a young woman and the ensuing incident.

The timing of the book is good (it comes out June 24th) with this being an election year and with as close as the primaries are, its sort of fun to read a bit about politics. I think overall this book is probably 4 out of 5 if I’m impartial about it. But for my personal tastes, I think it was a bit long and not quite as gripping as I might like (I’m also usually not very engrossed by politics) so it could be a 3.5. If you like the author, Richard Russo, I would recommend this one. It reminded me a great deal of Bridge of Sighs and Empire Falls.

Man Walks Into A Room by Nicole Krauss

I really wanted this to be a five-star review, and if I had stopped around page 75, it would have been. Krauss is a fantastic writer, and there are passages of achingly beautiful prose that highlight the potential that is never realized in this, her first novel. But Man Walks Into A Room is too scattered and wanders off on too many tangents. The book begins with a memory seemingly unrelated to any of the characters we meet for those first 75 pages, and this was annoying, but I was sucked into the gentle exploration of Samson, who is found wandering in the desert, all memories since the age of 12 obliterated by a tumor. He does not recognize his wife, Anna, and Krauss explores her reaction to Samson's condition in a peripheral kind of way. The story up to this point is fascinating and beautifully written. Then Krauss veers off onto a science-fictiony tangent that the framework just can't support. I tolerated this for a while, but by 125 or so pages, I was irritated and cranky and wanting the story to be over, but the opening had been so promising that I felt compelled to keep reading to see if she redeemed herself. Nope. After the science fictiony bit is finally blissfully over, we go into this other part in which Samson connects with a teenager and then his senile uncle in sort of obvious, yet obscure, ways. And the ending just fizzled out. This could have been a really amazing book, but Krauss was too ambitious in her scope and the story suffered for it. Ultimately, I don't recommend this book, but I do want to read her second novel, The History of Love, in the hopes that she reaches her potential there.

Edited to add: I have current books from ToB to read, but I started this while waiting for them to arrive. I think I felt spurred to clear some of my literary backlog by the imminent arrival of new books :) I'm reading these interspersed with my Jane Jeffry mysteries.

Second half of Bridge of Sighs

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. Character development is really good overall. The story sort of ebbs and flows. I tended to be very interested throughout sections and very bored through others. My husband asked me if I was reading a boring book. When I asked him why, he said, "Because you have fallen asleep to this book every night for a week." And that's the truth. :-)

The book is about small town American and a commentary on the American Dream and social classes. I can't say the book is totally without merit, but there are much better books out there. I definitely recommend Empire Falls over this one any day. Maybe Richard Russo will do better next time around.

I also finished The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. This is a very fun and quick holiday read. I first read it in elementary school and liked it then. I remember my mom taking me to a children's theater production of the book and enjoying that. So I thought it would be fun to reread it. And I will be sharing it with my daughters when they get a little older as well.

First Half of Bridge of Sighs

I've been reading Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. I LOVED Empire Falls. I really liked his style of writing and the depth of the characters. He had a great story as well. But here, I'm a little disappointed so far. I'm about half way through the over 500 pages (Allison, probably why I'm not excited to consider another 500 page book yet! :-). I was interested in the beginning and through the first 200 pages, but now it's sort of slowing down and I'm starting to lose interest. Again, he's pretty heavy in the character development but where Empire Falls had a great story, Bridge of Sighs lacks that (at least so far).

Again, Russo takes us to a small town in northeastern America. And again, the town is full of characters struggling to deal with everyday life. The timeline jumps around between the main character's childhood and present day. Russo does a good job of keeping what time we're in clearly defined, so its not hard to keep up. This book also reminds me a bit of I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. Not in the story elements at all, but in my reaction to the book. I read Charlotte Simmons fairly quickly for the length of it and found it only mediocre. It was great in character development again, but I felt the story was a tad boring. Bridge of Sighs is shaping up to be a similar reading experience for me. But I guess you can't always have great characters, great story, and keep it exciting too, huh?

I do want to finish it and I hope it picks up a little in the second half, but I think I will take a break for a bit. I have two holiday books on hold at the library that I might try in the meantime. The first, Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris, sounds like an amusing collection of short memoirs about Christmas. For example, some of the stories are about Sedaris' experience working as an elf at Santaland at Macy's. I'm chuckling just thinking about the things he must have witnessed. The second book was a high recommendation from my mom and others, The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry. Maybe I'll read those and come back to Bridge of Sighs. :-)

Oh, and I finished Murder is a Girl's Best Friend, the 2nd book in the Paige Turner Mystery series. I enjoyed this one even more than the first. Paige's best friend didn't annoy me quite so much and the ending didn't fizzle out as much as the first did. I'll continue to read the others in this series.

We're getting 8-10 inches of snow today so it seems it will be a nice cozy reading day in Minnesota! Enjoy your weekend!