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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
cariola119 has commented on (41) products
Bring Up the Bodies
by
Hilary Mantel
cariola119
, January 01, 2013
Like many other readers, I was eagerly awaiting the sequel to Wolf Hall, and, overall, Mantel does not disappoint. Here, she again covers familiar ground, Henry VIII's dislluisionment with his second wife, Anne Boleyn, due in part to her strident and flirtatious personality, but more to the fact that she hasn't rapidly produced a male heir. The story is told again from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, who is charged for the second time with the task of discovering a way to cast off an unwanted queen. Cromwell appears to be an ambitious man who (like so many Nazi officers claimed) is just following orders; but there is an undercurrent of revenge towards the men he brings down along with Anne. Mantel gives him an imagined inner life that balances the cold, calculating politican against a man who has survived both hardship and tragedy. Not without heart, her Cromwell nevertheless has the ability, when necessary, to turn that heart into stone. Mantel brings in a number of details that I either was not aware of or had forgotten, such as the irony that Henry's marriage to Anne was annulled for the same reason as his marriage to Katherine, prior sexual relations with a sibling (in this case, Henry's affair with Mary Boleyn). And she successfully ties in to the events of Wolf Hall through memories, as in the recurrent appearance of the peacock wings worn by his deceased daughter Grace in a Christmas pageant. Again, the writing is at times almost lyrical--another way of humanizing the man whose own son says that he looks like a murderer. I'll be eagerly awaiting the third installment in this awesome series.
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There But For The
by
Ali Smith
cariola119
, January 01, 2012
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There but for the isn't an easy book for me to write about, because it is one of those rare books that one doesn't just read but actually experiences, participates in. It's not a book to be breezed through for the plot. You have to work at it, often backing up and rereading to make connections between events, characters, and words. But often that work surprises you by becoming infinite play, even as it leaves you with some startling observations about human nature, language, memory, and the world we live in. Taken separately, each of the words in the title seem nondescript; together, they seem empty without the expected conclusion--without, in other words, God or grace. And maybe that's exactly what Smith intended: to make us ponder the place ("there") of God and the location of grace in a society that is technologically advanced "but" individually isolating. (Think about the person with 5000 'friends' on Facebook.) It may be hard to find, but, ultimately, Smith concludes, grace is still there, within and between us. The novel consists of four chapters, one for each word in the title, each focused on a different narrator. As many of the reviews below note, the basic premise is that a man attends a dinner party, walks upstairs between the main course and dessert, and locks himself into the spare bedroom, refusing to come out. But the real stories are inside the heads of the narrators. Anna ("There"), a fortyish single woman bored with her job, is surprised to learn that her email address has been found in the interloper's (Miles's) cell phone, pushing forth long-forgotten memories of the continental tour she won as a teenager. Mark ("but"), a gay man in his 60s still grieving the loss of his partner more than 20 years earlier, is haunted by the lyric-singing, rhyme-spouting, often-obscene ghost of his mother, a brilliant artist who committed suicide. May ("for") is a terminally ill 80-year old falling into dementia and memories of the daughter she lost, yet still sharp enough to observe and regret the changing world around her. Finally, the delightful Brooke Bayoude ("the"), who is either the CLEVEREST or the CLEVERIST, a girl who delights in the sounds and multiple meanings of words and wants to pin down the 'facts' of history, even as she comes to realize that facts, too, are mutable. Along the way, Smith deftly and subtly weaves in unexpected connections among these characters and even the novel's secondary characters. I'm not one who generally likes fiction that philosophizes (see my recent review of Embers, for example.) Here, it takes you unawares, most often playfully, but sometimes melancholically. It's a rare book that can make you think, think about your own life, while you're being so well entertained. And as a wordsmith/word lover, I found Smith's puns, rhymes, jokes, allusions, double entendres, etc. thoroughly delightful. (Having vivid memories of riding in the backseat of the family car at about age nine, pondering the sounds of the word "jello," drawing it out in the voice in my head, I could really relate to Brooke.) I haven't always been a fan of Smith's type of literary experimentation; in fact, the last of her works that I read, a short story collection, was off-putting simpy because it seemed to exist only for the purpose of experimentation, and while I liked The Accidental--another novel using multiple narrators--, I was somewhat disappointed in the ending. But for me, There but for the is about as close to perfection as it gets. Put aside your usual expections, open your mind, and jump in. You won't regret it
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Wait for Me!
by
Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire
cariola119
, February 08, 2011
I don't read many memoirs, but this one was a real charmer--as is Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire. "Debo," the youngest of the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Mitford sisters, is now 90 years old--and what a life she has lived! Her reflections are surprisingly personal, sometimes a bit sad but often endearing. Debo opens a window onto aristocratic life, which sometimes wasn't as easy as we might expect. Despite the Mitfords' status, for example, they struggled to make ends meet through the 1930s and the war years, as did other Britons. Of course, their reduced circumstances were outshone by the whirl of their social set. Tea with Hitler, dancing with the young JFK, trying to pacify grumpy houseguest Evelyn Waugh, chats with Churchill and "Uncle Harold" Macmillan, attending Queen Elizabeth's coronation and Charles and Diana's wedding--the shining names that drop in and out of Wait for Me! are as numerous as drops of rain, and Debo has fascinating stories about each one of them. And, of course, we get the inside scoop on growing up and growing older with Nancy, Jessica, Unity, Diana, and Pamela, each of whom was extraordinary in her own way. Unlike her sisters, Debo came to writing late in life, most of her books focused on life at Chatsworth and written to help fund the preservation of the great house. The sections detailing the initial restoration of the house show Debo's ingenuity at its best. She scours the lesser homes of the Cavendish family for furniture, china, and accessories, conducts meticulous research into colors and fabrics, and has a great time in the midst of it all. Many attribute Chatsworth's survival not only to her personal restoration work but to her savviness in agreeing to open the house to the public but to launch ventures such as a gift shop, plant shop, tea room, and even, for a time, a meat market featuring beef and lamb raised on the grounds. The Duchess is astonishingly candid about her 64 years of marriage to Andrew Cavendish, who became duke after his brother, the husband of Kathleen Kennedy, died in the war. While they fell in love at first sight, the marriage was not without its trials: several miscarriages, a child who died shortly after birth, and Andrew's struggle with alcoholism. As a literary scholar of sixteenth and seventeenth century England, one of the things I most enjoyed was hearing the names of families, places, houses that were so familiar to me. It's hard for me not to hear the name Cavendish without thinking about Ben Jonson's patron, William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle and his eccentric authoress wife Margaret; or to hear mention of Hardwick Hall without thinking of the famously connected and oft-married Bess; or to hear about the house at Rutland gate without thinking of Sidney's daughter, the Countess of Rutland . . . and on and on and on it goes. I even recognized the familiar pair of legs behind Debo in the cover photo as those of Henry VIII. All of these people and places are obviously just parts of ordinary life for Her Grace--yet so intriguing and significant to me. I was absolutely delighted with Wait for Me! I don't want to give more specific details and spoil the adventure for other readers. Suffice it to say that the duchess has had a remarkable life and, thankfully, she has either a remarkable memory or a remarkable set of diaries (or perhaps both) from which to draw. Don't miss this one!
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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
by
Helen Simonson
cariola119
, September 14, 2010
This book is a bit lighter than my usual fare, but I was absolutely charmed by it. If I lived in Edgcombe-St.-Mary, I think I'd be in love with the major, too. It's the gentle tale of a widowed retired major who is grieving for his recently-deceased brother when friendship blooms with Mrs. Ali, the widow of a Pakistani shopkeeper. Friendship inevitably turns into stronger affection--but what will the members of the club say (let alone the major's son, a broker schmoozing his way up the corporate ladder)? And will the major ever succeed in reuniting a pair of Churchill shooters given to his father by a maharaja and divided between his sons at his death? Much of the novel centers on conflicts between the "older generation" values of the major and the new values of "progress." Mrs. Ali, too, has conflicts with her own beliefs and the traditional Islamic values of her husband's family. But all is not so serious--particulary due to Major Pettigrew's wonderful wit (which often goes over the heads of others) and some delightfully comic scenes.
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Wives Of Henry Oades
by
Johanna Moran
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
This novel had a lot of promise but left me feeling not entirely satisfied--perhaps, in part, because I had just finished Kate Grenville's The Secret River, a much better written and more detailed account of white settlers' conflicts with "the blacks" in the same part of the world (Australia, as opposed to New Zealand). I found the chapters focusing on Margaret and Henry's life in NZ much more interesting than the "American" part of the story (although the depiction of the Maoris was oversmiplified and one-sided). For one thing, Henry didn't really seem to fall in love with Nancy, he just took pity on her because they had both lost a spouse and decided out of the blue to propose to her. Oddly, his love for her seemed to blaze into a passion after his first wife showed up. For another thing, the moral outrage of the Oadeses' neighbors was just too pat. I know that people may have been more religious, self-righteous, and judgmental in 1899, but surely some folks would have recognized that the family was facing a real dilemma and hadn't consciously decided to wallow in sin (which they weren't, in any case, doing). Most disturbing was that we never got a sense of what the community or the law expected the Oadses to do, as they first screamed for the banishment of Margaret and her children and then for the "salvation" of Nancy--and, in both cases, the imprisonment of Henry, the supposed bigamist. Nor was it ever made quite clear what message we were supposed to take away from the book. That this was a unique case of "accidental bigamy" and a private matter? That polygamous families can work for the benefit of all? While the Oadses may have worked it out for themselves, I was left feeling unsatisfied with yet another novel in which the women are called upon to make all the sacrifices and make them willingly.
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Way I Found Her
by
Rose Tremain
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
If you think of Rose Tremain as mainly a writer of historical novels, this one will surprise you as much as it did me. In fact, I kept forgetting that I wasn't reading a novel by Ian McEwan. It's a mystery of sorts, involving a 13-year old English boy and a 40-ish Russian medieval romance writer. Lewis Little is spending the summer in France while his mother, a Scottish beauty, translates Valentina's latest work. He becomes obsessed with Valentina--an obsession whose depiction seemed very McEwanesque to me. Then, suddenly, Valentina disappears, and Lewis, not willing to leave matters to the police, determines to find her . . . I certainly didn't enjoy this as much as Tremain's historical novels like Music and Silence, and I'm not much of a one for mysteries/crime novels. But overall, it kept my interest and was a pretty good read.
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Alice I Have Been
by
Melanie Benjamin
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
How convenient that I finished this novel just as Tim Burton's new version of Alice in Wonderland is sweeping the country! The narrator is Alice Liddell Hargreaves, once the little girl for whom Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodson wrote the famous tale. It begins and ends with Alice, age 80, wrapping up a tour of America and relates the details of her relationship with Dodson. Was it an innocent friendship, an impossible love affair, or something more sinister? Alice keeps us guessing up until the end, dropping tantalizing tidbits along the way that, I confess, sometimes made me cringe a bit. The repeated motif is "that day on the train"--a day that Alice claims to have little recollection of but which resulted in the Liddells cutting off all contact with Mr. Dodson. Even more fascinating than her relationship with Mr. Dodson are those with her mother and her older sister Ina--but I won't give anything away here for those who might want to read about it for themselves. The remainder of Alice's life is a fairly typical Victorian portrait of a woman who marries a nice man who is not the first or even second love of her life but rather her ticket out of an unpleasant home life and a spinster's future. Years later, like so many women of her era, she has to face the trauma of watching her sons going off to the battlefields of World War I. My overall reaction to the book is mixed. At times, I was captivated, but at other times, the novel seemed rather a dull and conventional, like something I must have read many times before. Worth reading, in other words, but not exceptional.
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Romancing Miss Bronte
by
Juliet Gael
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
About 250 fifty pages into this 400-page book, I asked myself, "Who is actually romancing Miss Bronte?" At this point, Arthur Bell Nicholls had JUST admitted to himself his attraction to Charlotte but had not yet spoken of his feelings, so I could only conclude that it was the author, Juliet Gael, who was "romancing" her in a different way, by trying to turn her into a romanticized heroine admirable not for her beauty but for other, more endearing qualities. The real romance is Charlotte's life: her endurance in spite of personal and professional rejections, her devotion to a demanding family, the sacrificing of her own needs and desires to fulfill those of others, and her dedication to her own work. The book, then, is not quite what the title suggests--which is probably a good thing in my case, since I am not a reader of conventional romance novels. Although the writing does get bogged down in unnecessary details at times, overall, Gael creates a lively portrait of one of the great women writers of the 19th century. The inclusion of a number of the literati of the day (Lewes, Thackeray, etc.) and their reception of both Bronte and her successful novel Jane Eyre make for interesting reading. The complex relationships among the Bronte sisters is also carefully and believably drawn.
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Major Pettigrews Last Stand
by
Helen Simonson
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
This book is a bit lighter than my usual fare, but I was absolutely charmed by it. If I lived in Edgcumbe-St.-Mary, I think I'd be in love with the major, too. It's the gentle tale of a widowed retired major who is grieving for his recently-deceased brother when friendship blooms with Mrs. Ali, the widow of a Pakistani shopkeeper. Friendship inevitably turns into stronger affection--but what will the members of the club say (let alone the major's son, a broker schmoozing his way up the corporate ladder)? And will the major ever succeed in reuniting a pair of Churchill shooters given to his father by a maharaja and divided between his sons at his death? Much of the novel centers on conflicts between the "older generation" values of the major and the new values of "progress." Mrs. Ali, too, has conflicts with her own beliefs and the traditional Islamic values of her husband's family. But all is not so serious--particulary due to Major Pettigrew's wonderful wit (which often goes over the heads of others) and some delightfully comic scenes.
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Solar
by
Ian McEwan
cariola119
, April 16, 2010
Ian McEwan does it again! Solar is a hilarious, intellectual romp for our times. It's a satire that aims its shots in many directions: at the narrow worlds of academia and scientific research; at the New Age, hug-a-tree, love-can-save-the-world philosophy; at the idealism of the young and the cynicism of their elders; at the wheeling and dealing behind corporate American enterprise; at the inexplicable nature of love and its counterpart, lust. Michael Beard, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, has been sitting on his laurels for years, working half-heartedly for a British energy center that sees wind energy as the future, spending more time mocking the "ponytails" (the young post-grad physicists who work under him) than developing new theories or resources. In his spare time, Beard has lumbered his way through five marriages and numerous affairs, and his penchant for alcohol, beef, pancakes, and crisps have added more weight to his physical profile than his professional one. But then things start to happen--call them accidents or fate or coincidences, or just plain old opportunities. And Michael Beard is there to pick up the pieces and use them to his best advantage. I had no idea that McEwan could be quite so funny. Several of the scenes, including the one on the Paddington train alluded to by others, had me actually laughing out loud. I listened to an interview in which McEwan discussed his research process (which included not only reading about global warming and renewable energy but an extended stay in New Mexico and an arctic trip with a group of artists and scientists) and the fact that he has already been approached by a number of physicists who claim they know upon whom he based the character of Beard (he claims it was his own creation, but that it's probably a "good thing" there are so many likely Beards out there rather than just one). Overall, Solar is a smart, funny, and perceptive novel about our times, and I highly recommend it. Don't expect it to be another Atonement or On Chesil Beach; McEwan is attempting something entirely different here, and you will have to be willing to take it on its own terms.
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Proof A Play
by
David Auburn
cariola119
, January 01, 2010
Proof is a short, stunning play (it won a Pulitzer) about math, madness, and family dynamics. Catherine, a brilliant mathmetician, gave up her hopes of a college education and a career to care for her mathmetician father, who had "gone bonkers." Now she wonders if she is going down the same path, and her sister Claire's oversolicitousness isn't helping. After her father's funeral, his former student finds an impossibly brilliant mathmatical proof in the professor's notebooks. The question is: who wrote it? The play is sad, witty, and, yes, hopeful, all in one.
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Secret River
by
Kate Grenville
cariola119
, January 01, 2010
An unforgettable and disturbing novel. Many reviewers here and elsewhere rightly note that The Secret River is about the white settlement of Australia--but it is so much more. There's a terrible irony in the fact that men like William Thornhill, a struggling London Waterman convicted of theft but transported instead of hanged, saw the "new" continent as a place where they could escape the dehumanization of class and poverty, yet they became the very monsters from which they had gladly fled. Initially, Thornhill is an empathetic character, a man just trying to do a little better for his wife and children. It's his craving for property, a tract of land to work and to call his own, that leads to his personal success--and to his personal tragedy. By putting his insatiable desire for the land ahead of his marriage, his children, his common sense, and even his conscience, Thornhill becomes the empty shell of a man, and we are left to ask whether the individual or the rigid class/wealth structure that is to blame. Is it personal greed or the effects of an environment in which possessing property is viewed as the only mark of a successful man? Just when Thornhill seems finally to have it all, we're left to ask if he really has anything at all. Grenville does a splendid job of recreating the atmosphere of, first, Victorian London, and, later, the colonial towns and bush settlements of Australia. Her characters (at least the main ones) are complex and believable; and even the lesser characters are well drawn. There are scenes in the book that will haunt and disturb you and others that will just leave you shaking your head. Overall, an engaging novel, well worth reading.
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Frozen Thames
by
Helen Humphreys
cariola119
, January 01, 2010
What a lovely little book! It's a "meditation on ice," focused on the 40 times recorded that the Thames river has frozen over. For each year, Humphreys creates a short (2-4 pages) vignette, some featuring historical figures like Queen Matilda and Bess of Hardwicke, others featuring anonymous Londoners (watermen, pubkeepers, etc.). In addition, the book is filled with fascinating illustrations, most of them from the historical periods addressed. The Frozen Thames is a small, square book that fits comfortably into the palm of your hand--perfect for reading on a winter's evening. This one is definitely a keeper, and one to cherish.
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Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
by
Peter Ackroyd
cariola119
, January 01, 2010
After finishing this book, I'm still not sure what to make of it: it's either ingenious or a total mess. Ackroyd blends fact and fiction to come up with something new, something not quite historical fiction but not quite a fictional biography either. The premise is that, long before animating a creature, Victor Frankenstein attends Oxford University, where he meets the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Except for a short visit home to Geneva to see his sister (real sister, not, as in the novel, cousin-sister) Elizabeth, who is dying of consumption, and to attend her funeral and that of his father, and a brief sojourn in Byron's villa, the story is set in England. Frankenstein's experimentation and the final creation of life all take place in a deserted potter's barn near a Thames estuary. Shelley pops in and out, and the biographical facts surrounding his life blur into fictional events from Mary Shelley's novel. For example, the discovery of Harriet Shelley's body in the Serpentine mingles with young William's murder in Frankenstein. Here, her death is ruled not a suicide but murder: she has been strangled (like William) with a necklace (the supposed motive for William's murder) that is subsequently found in her brother's pocket (as the locket with Caroline's portrait is found in Justine's pocket, both she and Harriet's brother being framed). What to make of this? Revising and recording in his journal the "facts" of the fictional Victor's life is a clever strategy, but I found myself a bit irritated by the distortion of Percy Shelley's biography; a good historical fiction writer would not have gone this far. As a result, I found myself puzzling over digressions from Mary Shelley's novel as if it, too, was biography. Readers who are as familiar with Frankenstein as I am may find themselves lost in a strange book, somewhere between fact and fiction (but always, predominantly fiction). But perhaps this is what Ackroyd intended: to shake up our notions of reality and of genre.
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Outlander
by
Gil Adamson
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Overall, I enjoyed this novel about a young woman on the run in the Canadian wilderness, ca. 1903. Never quite fitting into the accepted role for women of her day, the heroine, Mary Boulton, comes into her own, finding strengths and desires that she never knew she had as she flees from the avenging brothers of the husband she murdered. Along the way, she meets a series of fascinating characters. The Outlander is not quite a western and certainly not a murder mystery; it's more of a wilderness adventure and the story of a woman discovering herself. Adamson, also a poet, has the ability to put us inside her heroine's mind, and her descriptions are vivid and highly sensory. My only quibble is that I wish she hadn't continued to call Mary "the widow" throughout the entire novel. We get the irony; if you give your character a name, use it! (Especially when "the widow" is not how Mary would identify herself, nor does anyone else label her "the widow" once she changes from her mourning weeds, which happens early in the novel.)
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Cellist of Sarajevo
by
Galloway, Steven
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
What a sad, hopeful, horrific, and beautiful book. Yes, I know there seem to be a lot of contradictions in that sentence, but that is exactly how Galloway presents the experience of living (or maybe just surviving) in a once-great city under siege. The frame of the novel is based on a real story of a cellist who plays Albinoni's Adagio on the site where twenty-two people waiting in line for bread were killed by a mortar attack. He has vowed to play every day for twenty-two days in their honor. He never explains his reason for putting himself in the line of sniper fire, nor do the people who stand listening to him. (In fact, he is more of a peripheral character.) But it's clear that they are trying to hold on to some last scraps of decency and civilization in a city where they have to walk for miles just to get water, risking being shot by snipers at every intersection, and where dead bodies lying in the street are such a common sight that everyone just steps over them. The book made me think about the little things that we take for granted every day, and of the fragility of life and the pointlessness of war. An absolutely stunning novel. Highly recommended.
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Reliable Wife
by
Robert Goolrick
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
I was up until 3 a.m. last night finishing this novel; I just couldn't sleep without knowing how it ended. It is definitely one of my best reads so far this year. Goolrick creates two intriguing and believable characters in Ralph and Catherine, the northern Wisconsin mogul and his mail-order wife, and he is especially adept at giving them interior lives. Although they initially seem like opposites, we soon learn that they share pasts flawed by misplaced love, tragedy, and self-loathing. Goolrick so successsfully sets forth these characters and their stories that the novel's twists and turns, while often unexpected, never seem unbelievable. The spareness of his style is a perfect complement to the empty white landscape of the Wisconsin winter and to the empty lives of Ralph, Catherine, and Antonio. But don't let this fool you: A Reliable Wife is hauntingly, lyrically beautiful as well. And beneath both the landscape and the seemingly empty lives lies the promise and dread of something more. I was so affected by this novel that I probably won't be picking up anything new to read for a day or two. I'm just not ready to leave it yet.
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Blue Notebook
by
James Levine
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
This book does exactly what the author must have intended: it alerts its audience to a shocking world that we generally know little of, the world of child prostitution. The novel is purportedly "written" by 15-year old Batuk, who was sold into prostitution by her father at the age of nine. The one delight in her life is her ability to read and write, which she learned as a TB patient at a missionary hospital. Batuk records the memories of her life back home in an Indian farming village as well as the horrific details of her life over the past six years. Levine's story is the story of many children with whom he has come in contact in the course of his work, and it is particularly affecting because we see what promise this child, in a different environment, might have fulfilled. The voice he creates for Batuk is believable, never self-pitying, always pragmatic. And that makes the novel all the more hauntingly sad. I found myself unable to put this one down and unable to forget it once I had finished it.
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Little Bee
by
Cleave, Chris
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
It was hard to know just what to expect of this book. It's one of those that tells you on the jacket that you are in for a lot of surprises, we don't want to spoil it by telling you much, and please don't give anything away. For the life of me, I'm not sure I understand why there needed to be all this mystery. It's the story of a young Nigerian woman who, at the beginning of the novel, has been "unofficially" released from a detention center in England. Among her few belongings are the driver's license and business card of Andrew Rourke, a reporter that she tells us she had met on a beach in Nigeria several years earlier. She makes her way to his home, and the story becomes one told alternately by Little Bee and Rourke's wife, Sarah. So I won't really give away any more. We learn what has happened to Little Bee in Nigeria, how Sarah and her husband first came to be involved with her, and how Little Bee becomes a part of the llife of Sarah and her four-year old son, Charlie (otherwise known as Batman for the costume he literally lives in). And it becomes, in the end, a story of redemption, sacrifice, and understanding. Cleave has a charmingly lyrical style that particularly suits his central character.
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Music & Silence
by
Rose Tremain
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Is it possible for Rose Tremain to write a BAD book? From my experience so far, the answer would have to be "No." Music and Silence is absolutely exquisite. Tremain gets just right the mix of opulence and stringency, melancholy and joy, hope and despair that war with one another in the 17th century court of King Chistian of Denmark. All of her characters may not be likeable (the selfish Kristin, for one, and Tillson's second wife Mordalena, for another); but each one is unique and fascinating in his or her own right. What is Music and Silence about? The disappointment of love--and the perseverance of love. The power of art and the power of words. Family dynamics that can almost destroy its members yet somehow manages to pull them together. The influence of the past and the persistence of memory. And so much more. To give you any more details, if you haven't read this beautiful novel, would spoil the experience. Highly recommended!
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Number
by
Caryl Churchill
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
An awesome little play, ostensibly about a man who learns that he has been cloned and that there are at least 19 others out there just like him. In conversations with his father, the truth gradually unravels: he himself IS a clone, the "second chance" for his father, who botched things the first time around. In the father's conversations with Bernard 2, Bernard 1, and another clone, Michael Black, Churchill raises serious questions about the ethics of genetic tampering, nature v. nurture, psychic connections, father-son relationships, personal identity, and family secrets. I taught this one in my "Imitations of Immortality" class. The students were put off by the style at first, but when we started reading it aloud in class, they caught on and really got into it.
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After Youd Gone
by
Maggie Ofarrell
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Beautifully written heartbreaker of a story. At the beginning of the novel, Alice Raikes gets off a train in Edinburgh to visit her sisters. She makes a stop in the loo, sees something that disturbs her, and hops the next train back to London with no explanation. When she arrives, she steps off the curb into the path of an approaching vehicle. From this moment, the novel meanders through time, from Alice's parents' engagment to the near present, and the focal point continually shifts--sometimes it's Alice, sometimes her mother Ann or her grandmother Elspeth, sometimes one of her sisters, Kirsty or Beth. As the family keeps a vigil by Alice's bedside, secrets, regrets, and lost opportunities are slowly revealed, and we come to understand just what brought Alice to this point. I enjoyed O'Farrell's The Vanishing of Esme Lennox, but this one tops it by far.
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A Case of Exploding Mangoes
by
Mohammed Hanif
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Not what I expected at all--and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not much of a one for political thrillers, assassination stories, novels focused on the military, etc. I don't even remember what provoked me to pick up this one--maybe the Booker list--but I'm glad that I did. What takes it far beyond being a "special interest" novel is the imagatively drawn characters and the wonderful, distinctive narrative voice. At various times, the novel is funny, horrific, poignant, and thrilling. Highly recommended. I'm looking forward to Hanif's next novel.
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Cutting for Stone
by
Abraham Verghese
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
What a wonderful novel, and what fine writing. (NO SPOILERS--all of what follows is on the book jacket). It's narrated by Marion, one of a set of conjoined twins born to a nun (who goes into labor without anyone knowing it) in an Ethiopian mission hospital in the 1960s; their father, everyone suspects, is the chief surgeon, who promptly runs off when he fails to operate to save the distressed mother. The twins, Marion and Shiva, joined only by a fleshy bridge at the head, are separated at birth and raised by two Indian doctors who work at the hospital. The novel gives fascinating insights into the cultural and political situation in Ethiopia, as well as developing unforgettable characters and unforgettable but believable relationships that move across time and space. If I had to make one criticism, it would be that Verghese, a doctor himself, sometimes get a bit too caught up in the details of diagnosis and surgery; these sections can drag for the non-medical expert reader. But this is a very small flaw in an otherwise fine novel.
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Blind Assassin
by
Margaret Atwood
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
I could have done without the sci fi story embedded in the novel (yes, I know it relates to the main story, but I just found it really annoying). Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading about the troubled, intertwined lives of sisters Laura and Iris. Atwood did a fine job of recreating the world of a small Canadian town in the Depression and World War II eras, especially that of the narrator, Iris Chase Griffin, who marries a wealthy older man in order to provide for her sister and finds herself controlled by her ambitious, high society husband and his snooty sister. Secrets and lies--family dysfunction at its finest!
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Spell Of Winter
by
Helen Dunmore
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Set in pre-World War I England, this dark novel of a dysfunctional family centers on young Catherine. She and her brother Rob were raised by their rather cold maternal grandfather after their mother deserted the family and their father died while in an asylum. The situation leaves Cathy and Rob extraordinarily close--eventually too close. Secrets, loneliness, the ghosts of the past, the the extremes to which we go to preserve our self-image and our own sanity--Dunmore deals with them all in her exquisitely atmospheric prose.
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Birdsong
by
Sebastian Faulks
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Faulks's vivid prose captures better than any other novel I've read the experience of being a soldier in the trenches in World War I. Stephen Wraysford, recovering from a passionate romance that didn't work out as planned, finds himself, like so many other young men, struggling to survive in the tunnels, trenches, and fields of France. The descriptions of battles, bodies, and wounds are horrific; I couldn't help but think what a sanitized view of warfare we are given today. In the midst of it all, Stephen is torn between wanting to withdraw into himself--why make friends with a man who might be blown to bits beside you the next day?--and to retain a measure of humanity. There's a second story line, set in the late 1970s, as Stephen's granddaughter uncovers a series of family secrets; but it's the reality of war that makes this novel memorable.
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Regeneration
by
Pat Barker
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
A beautifully written novel, the first in Barker's "Regeneration Trilogy" (the third volume won the Booker Prize). Set in a war hospital in England during World War I, the story revolves around several patients and physicians, including the poet Siegfried Sassoon. After serving honorably, Sassoon wrote an anti-war statement, which he asked an MP to read in session. His friend and fellow officer Robert Graves, knowing that Sassoon would be facing a court martial, claims the statement was due to battle fatigue and has him sent to Craiglockhaven for treatment. Dr. Rivers's task is to get Sassoon to agree to return to the front. A fascinating look at the social pressure put on young men during the war, as well as the effects of the war and of the treatment of the psychological scars it caused.
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The Outcast
by
Sadie Jones
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
I got so caught up in The Outcast that I stayed up until 3:30 last night finishing it. That says something for the power of the book--even though, in terms of content, it is probably the most depressing book I've ever read. The novel starts in 1957, as Lewis has just been released from prison and returns home. We flash back to 1945, with seven-year old Lewis and his mother taking the train to London to meet his father, who has long been away in the war. Dad turns out to be . . . well, not exactly an affectionate father; and things go from bad to worse a few years later when Lewis's mother dies. (No spoilers or details, I promise!) Different sections of the novel cover pivotal events in the years in between and in the weeks following Lewis's return. There's only a sliver of happiness in the ending, so if you're looking for a light summer read, don't pick up this one. My main criticism is that it is a bit hard to believe that so many characters could be so cruel and downright abusive with no one seeming to notice or care and everyone blaming a ten-year old boy for his own misery. I know that the setting was 1945-57, but even then people might question some of the things that happen to Lewis. No one seems to figure out that his quietness has something to do with the fact that he witnessed his mother's death or that he's angry that his father remarries only five months later? Still, the author's ability to evoke a visceral respone in her reader is the novel's strength. She made me physically experience the sadness and anxiety and hopelessness that Lewis must have experienced.
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Life Class
by
Pat Barker
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Barker takes yet another approach to World War I. She begins with a group of young people attending art school. Paul is constantly told by the teacher that he has no talent, while Eleanor wins scholarship after scholarship. Yet the war disrupts everyone's lives. Too ill with asthma to enlist, Paul volunteers for ambulance duty. Barker questions the pressure for everyone to "do their bit" while pondering whether art is really a frivolous pursuit or has a place in time of war. In the end, everyone is changed--some for the better, some, well, maybe not so much.
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Heros Walk
by
Anita Rau Badami
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
I don't know why I left this one on the TBR shelf for so long, but I'm very glad that I finally got around to reading it. Badami effectively recreates the world of a middle-class Indian family and their struggles. Sripathi, the 50-something father, disillusioned by his job as a jingle-writer for an advertising company, spends his free time writing letter to the editor under pseudonym. Cowed by his traditional, domineering mother, he nevertheless resents his children's moves towards modernism. He considers Arun's dedication to activism a waste of time, and nine years ago he cut off his daughter Maya, a university student in Toronto, for breaking off plans for an arranged marriage and marrying a Westerner. Sripathi's 40-ish sister, Putti, would love to marry and stop being a burden, but their mother selfishly has rejected every suitor as "not good enough"--although her motive is obviously to keep her daughter as her virtual slave. Nirmala, Sripathi's wife, is resourceful and kind--but also passive. The family is thrown into turmoil by a phone call from Canada that Sripathi can't ingore: the granddaughter he has never met, 7-year old Nandana, has been tragically orphaned. This is a family that is familiar and at the same time foreign to Western readers--a refreshing difference from many novels about Asian family life that rely on the exotic alone to engage the reader. Srithpathi's dilemma--yearning for the old while recognizing the opportunities in the new--is one with which we can all empathize. Badami's fine style, interesting story, and believable characters result in an enjoyable, highly recommended novel.
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Dark Room
by
Rachel Seiffert
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Seiffert's Afterwards was one of my top books last year, so I was eager to read more of her work. This is her debut novel, and while it's not as polished as Afterwards, it is still a moving and finely written book. The novel is divided into three sections and three stories: 1) In 1944 Berlin, Helmut, a young photographer's assistant, persistently supports the Fuhrer until hesees--and secretly snaps--scenes he had never expected imagined. 2) As the Russian, American, and British troops begin to occupy Germany, Lore--her age is never given, but she seems to be about 15--is left in charge of her four younger siblings with instructions to take them on a long and desperate journey from Bavaria to their grandmother's house in Hamburg. 3) In 1998, Micha is obsessed with the concern that his Nazi grandfather might have executed Jews in Belarus during the war. A teacher, he is disturbed by the fact that German children are taught to empathize with the victims and survivors but never to consider that their loved ones were the perpetrators. The links between the stories, aside from the war in Germany, are a bit hard to make. Are the photographs Lore sees posted those taken by Helmut? Is Michael somehow related to Lore's family? In the end, it doesn't really matter. Seiffert has taken a different route from most who write about the Holocaust and the Nazi regime: instead of focusing on victims, she recreates this world through the eyes of average people who have been caught up in the historical moment. As in Afterwards, she questions the concept of war and what it does to human beings--not only those who live through it but those who, like Micha, must live with an ongoing national guilt.
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No Fond Return Of Love
by
Barbara Pym
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
I am absolutely charmed by Barbara Pym! No Fond Return of Love was the perfect end-of-summer book for me. I love Pym's focus on "little" characters and "small" events and the way she relates both with humor and affection. These are the sorts of people we pass by every day, often without notice, yet their lives, too, hold a drama of their own, and Pym tells and interweaves their stories deliciously. Here, she begins at a small summer conference for editors and researchers. Dulcie Mainwaring, an indexer whose engagement was recently broken off, kindly but persistently all but forces her friendship upon Viola Dace, also an indexer, but one who prefers to call herself a researcher. Dulcie is immediately attracted to Alwyn Forbes, a scholarly editor whose marriage is on the rocks, and with whom Viola (his indexer) claims to have had a fling. The lives of these three characters are thrown together in unexpected ways when Viola moves into Dulcie's home, Alwyn forms a passion for Dulcie's young niece, and Dulcie quietly "stalks" the man of her dreams. This description really doesn't do the novel justice. It's in the little things that Pym excels--the tongue in cheek or offhand comment; the expression of feelings; a character's internal debate. All I can say is that this novel had me smiling all the way through, and I hated to leave the characters. I've become a big fan of Pym's and have seven more of her novels now waiting at the top of my TBR stacks.
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Crampton Hodnet
by
Barbara Pym
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
One of Pym's earliest novels, Crampton Hodnet doesn't quite equal No Fond Return of Love; still, it is delightful and shows the promise of what's to come. Set in Oxford, it's not quite what I would call an academic novel; the university is more of a background for the novel's tighly knit social world. One of the main characters, Francis Cleveland, is a professor of sixteenth-century English poetry, and although a number of his students (notably a young woman named Barbara Bird) and colleagues figure into the story, the novel focuses not on academic rivalry but--like most of Pym's work--on the relationships and distances between family members, friends, and neighbors. Pym is a master of the light touch, particularly when she makes her readers privy to the thoughts and observations of her characters. For example, when Margaret Cleveland notices that her husband (who has taken Miss Bird to tea and sent he a bouquet of lilies--without telling his wife) looks unwell, her immediate question is: "Have you got indigestion?" "I don't think so," he answered shortly. "Then it must be the effect of the British Museum," she said. That was exactly it, thought Francis, suddenly blaming it all on the British Museum. Everyone knew that libraries had an unnatural atmosphere that made people behave oddly. He felt that he had somehow made a mess of things this afternoon. But of course he was not used to dealing with situations like this; he had no practice. He had wasted his time in libraries, doing research about things that were no good to anybody. He thought of his companions in the Bodleian: Arnold Penge, Edward Killigrew, Professor Lopping . . . They wouldn't have done any better either. Probably not as well. This thought was some consolation to him, and he began to feel quite pleased with himself. Or this little gem of an observed conversation. The aged Miss Doggett and her companion, Miss Morrow, discuss her grandneice Anthea's having made "a good impression" on her boyfriend's mother, Lady Beddoes: "I believe she is very easy to get on with," said Miss Morrow. "Well, she has that graciousness of manner that one would expect," said Miss Doggett, who did not somehow like the idea of her companion's finding someone of Lady Beddoes's position 'very easy to get on with.' "You see, Anthea is really nobody on her mother's side," she went on, "and even the Clevelands can hardly compare with the Beddoeses." "But Anthea is such a sweet girl," protested Miss Morrow. "Anyone would like her. And Lady Beddoes's father was only an English professor teaching in Warsaw. She told Anthea." "Miss Morrow, I don't think you understand these things," said Miss Doggett. "No, I don't think I do,"said Miss Morrow humbly. "It would be a splendid thing for Anthea, really splendid," purred Miss Doggett. "I wouldn't have thought she had so much sense." But sense is just what a girl in love doesn't have, thought Miss Morrow, who didn't understand such things. The Crampton Hodnet of the title is a nonexistent village created by the new young vicar, Mr. Latimer, to explain a suspicious absence; he claims to have been called to give a sermon in place of an ailing friend. It's the first of many lies, untold truths, and misunderstandings at the heart of the novel. Pym excels here, as in her other novels, at the little dramas in the lives of seemingly little people. Overall, Crampton Hodnet is a charming novel that I read with a continual smile on my face.
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Jane & Prudence
by
Barbara Pym
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Another charming novel set mostly in rural England, ca. 1930's. Jane and Prudence became friends at Oxford, despite a difference of about 10 years in their ages, and have kept up their firendship through the years. Now Jane has just settled into a new parish with her husband Nicholas while Prudence, still attractive but pushing thirty, wonders if she will ever find true love. The novel centers around Jane--her difficulty fitting in to the new town, her efforts at matchmaking for Prudence, her reminiscences of working on the seventeenth-century poets at Oxford, etc. She is quite the character--bright and independent-minded, a modern woman but concerned that she isn't fitting properly into the role of a vicar's wife. Several characters from Crampton Hodnet reappear, including the domineering Miss Doggett and her delighfully understated but sly companion, Miss Jessie Morrow.
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Autobiography of Henry VIII With Notes by His Fool Will Somers
by
Margaret George
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
What a wonderful book! At the beginning, Henry has died, and Will has found the diary he supposedly kept since his youth. He sends it to the daughter of Anne Boleyn's sister Mary, who he believes is in truth Henry's daughter. Will, whose father died when he was very young, does this because he believes that a child should know his or her father. George has really done her research, but instead of plodding through history, she gives Henry a realistic voice that is at time maddening, at other times sympathetic; in other words, she turns this huge historical figure into a man, like others, with both strengths and weaknesses. The interjections by Will, who, despite his cynical tone, obviously loved Henry, give us further insights into his character. Along the way, she gives us a delightful picture of life, love, and politics at the Tudor court.
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The True Deceiver
by
Tove Jansson
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
Katri Kling is an outsider in the small Swedish town of Västerby. While everyone agrees that the yellow-eyed young woman with the huge nameless dog is capable and conscientious, her cold, direct manner is offputting. But Katri has a plan for herself and, even moreso, for her younger brother Mats. Through small acts of apparent kindness--delivering the mail, dropping off groceries--she weasels her way into the life of Anna Aemelin, a wealthy spinster who paints illustrations for children's books, until it seems that she is indispensible. In no time at all, the novel has shifted into an understated thriller as Anna not only becomes dependent upon Katri but begins to lose the things, connections and beliefs that comprise her own identity. But Jansson saves some surprises for the final chapters. I loved the author's clear, clean style that so well matches the icy winter landscape and that not only sets the tone but complements Katri's personality. Yet the novel has its lyrical moments as well; in that, it reminded me of Linda Olsson's Astrid and Veronica. (Perhaps this is typical of Scandinavian writers; perhaps it is the effect of those long dark winters and the late spring sun.) Jansson also plays with fairy tale, myth, and folklore. For example, in an early moment, Anna suddenly recognizes Katri's rare smile as an illustration from one of her childhood books: the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. This powerful little book was just what I needed to get away from the stress of the end-of-semester crunch. It grabbed me from the beginning, and I wolfed it down quickly. I will be looking for more of Jansson's adult work.
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Childrens Book
by
A S Byatt
cariola119
, November 29, 2009
What can I possibly say about this book that hasn't been said by other reviewers, on LT and elsewhere? It's a collection of fantasies--not just Olive Wellwood's evolving children's stories and Stern's marionette shows, but the fantasies lived out by the adults in the decades leading up to the first World War. The exposé of these fantasies is at the heart of the novel. Olive and Humphrey believe in the fantasy of free love: that it causes no jealousy between spouses, nor that it damages any of the seven children in their household, born from various liaisons yet raised to believe they are true siblings. Love, sad to say, does not conquer all, and some in the novel who give it too freely pay a heavy price. Another fantasy: that freedom allows children to grow up happy and full of potential; but freedom taken too far borders upon neglect, and not all children are by nature independent. Another set of fantasies: that art can change the course of world events, and that genius is always to be indulged for its own sake. The list goes on and on. Like the characters' fantasy lives, Olive Wellwood's stories are delightfully magical on the surface yet dark and dangerous underneath. The novel's style and structure are inseparable, both building on the possibilities and threats in the space between fantasy and reality, between the Victorian age and the new post-world war period. Some readers have complained about excessive details in the first part of the novel; others complain about the brevity of the last. I feel this is intentional on Byatt's part, a verbal realization of the changing cultural and political milieu. The late Victorian period was still addicted to rigid social morés and manners, embellishment of one's person and one's home, etc.--and, as such, it gave birth to a myriad of reactionary movements, most of them equally pompous in their moral (or amoral) certitude. On the other hand, the rapid and extensive devastation of the war, a political killing machine gone amuck, left people back home stunned and empty--as reflected in Byatt's quickfire, almost callous list of the young men, fantasy-world Fludds and Cains and Wellwoods, cut down by a reality beyond their once-imagined control. Like Stern's marionettes, they dance in a world of fantasy, unaware that they are manipulated by strings that control their every move. Yes, the book is massive and complex, and it takes some concentration to keep track of the various characters and their relations to one another. It's the kind of book that, when you finish it, you need to think about it for awhile, and then you know that you will need to read it again to fully appreciate its genius.
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On Chesil Beach
by
Ian McEwan
cariola119
, August 02, 2007
From the reviews I had read, I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this book, although I am a big fan of McEwan's work. How much can one really say about a failed wedding night? But On Chesil Beach is so much more than that. It's a study of a moment in time--not just Edward and Florence's wedding night, but the more innocent (or more restrictive, depending on your point of view) world of the 1960s. It's about love, expectations, dreams, what we feel and what we cannot say, and our penchant for lingering over what might have been. I can't say that this is my favorite McEwan novel, but I was surprised by how it kept me engaged--and by how long it stayed with me once I had finished reading.
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Astonishing Splashes of Colour
by
Clare Morrall
cariola119
, July 31, 2007
Morrall creates a stunnningly realistic portrait of a woman torn apart by depression and identity crisis. Having lost her baby and the ability to have another, Kitty Maitland seems alienated from the world around her. Her husband lives in the flat next door, and her father and four brothers treat her as if she were seven years old. Kitty's non-motherhood sends her into a swirl of colors that define her changing state of mind. As she struggles to deal with the lost identity on which her hopes had depended, Kitty begins to question her own past, particularly her relationship with the mother she barely remembers. I raced through this book in two days and can't wait to read more novels by Clare Morrall. Her writing is spare but beautiful, the story is original and engaging, and she creates a character that will linger in your memory.
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Passion
by
Jude Morgan
cariola119
, August 29, 2006
Without a doubt, the best book I read all summer--I've been recommending it to everyone. Despite the subtitle, Morgan's novel focuses not so much on the Romantic poets as on the women in the their lives: Mary Shelley (Frankenstein author and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley); Lady Caroline Lamb (Byron's one-time lover and mad stalker); Augusta Leigh (Byron's half-sister and lover); and Fanny Brawne (Keats's fiancee). The novel moves smoothly from one woman's point of view to another's, with several intriguing intersections. Featured in secondary roles are Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley's mother) and Claire Clairemont, who was Mary Shelley's stepsister, Byron's lover and the mother of his child, and, Morgan hints, possibly Percy Shelley's lover as well. Unlike many novels set amongst the Romantics, this one avoids the gothic and the overly dramatic. Morgan creates realistic, intelligent women, and his style is graceful and comepelling. A fascinating read!
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