Here it is, New Year's Eve, and I'm only just deciding on my favorite reads of 2018. In fact, yesterday I finished a gorgeous novel that I'm reviewing for Library Journal but, since it doesn't even come out until 2019, I'll save it at the top of my list for next year. It's called "The Dragonfly Sea" by Yvonne Owuor. Be sure to keep an eye out for it in March. The language will have you swooning.
So, the operative word here is "favorite," not necessarily "best." That moniker I left to the journals and newspapers. These are the books that touched me deeply, that made me sigh with satisfaction or delight when I closed the last page. In no particular order they are:
"Asymmetry," by Lisa Halliday is one of the most original books that I read this year. Two books in one, a May/December romance that may or may not be based on Ms. Halliday's long relationship with Philip Roth, and the story of an Iraqi-American detained by authorities at Heathrow airport. Halliday brilliantly ties the two stories together in this amazing debut that examines the imbalance, the asymmetry if you will, in unequal relationships. https://bit.ly/2LFkgVd
"Anatomy of a Miracle," by Jonathan Miles. This incredible novel should be on every reading group's list if they want a powerful book discussion. A wheelchair bound Afghan war veteran suddenly stands up and walks. A miracle? Oh how
believers wish it were so, no matter what the medical evidence says. The church sends an envoy from Rome, the little Mississippi town is turned upside down, a doctor's reputation is on the line, and a TV crew can't wait to make fools of Cameron and his devoted sister and caregiver Tanya. If you read for characterization, you'll love Miles.
https://bit.ly/2QcrVuF
I rarely read short stories so I surprised myself with my reaction to this rare, luminous collection, "Florida, Stories," by Lauren Groff. She captures the Sunshine State at its very darkest, dankest, and most evil, yet each story rings completely true for those of us who've lived here for any length of time. Take your time and savor each story slowly. https://bit.ly/2s03wPv
"The Great Believers," by Rebecca Makkai has topped out many lists this year and there's a reason for that. We toggle back and forth between late '80's Chicago as Yale pursues his career in art acquisition - a fascinating story in itself - and 2015 Paris. Fiona is the bridge. Fiona is a woman suffering from the trauma of losing 
everyone she's known and cared for. Is it possible that she's used up all the love she had to give? Unable to sustain her marriage, now estranged from her adult daughter, Fiona is on a mission to bridge the divide with her child and maybe even find a reservoir of compassion left for herself. Makkai sheds a harsh light on the pain of the AIDS epidemic, a time some readers may not even remember. https://bit.ly/2LIhfU2
"Gun Love," by Jennifer Clement left me feeling broken but amazed at the way an author's words could do this to me. Oh! the talent!
A 1994 Mercury Topaz is home to Pearl, the precocious and
wryly observant fourteen-year-old narrator of this devastating, lyrical novel
set in a dilapidated Florida trailer park where the denizens live on the edge
of quiet desperation while dreaming of a different life, devoid of drugs and
guns and men who can’t be trusted. Clement has written an unforgettable paean
to the resilience of the human spirit.
I'm certain that few of you have ever heard of Joseph Cassera or his first novel "The House of Impossible Beauties." I don't understand why Library Journal 
was one of the few reputable resources to add this gloriously written book to it's top ten list. If you know as little as I did about the transgender culture and dance houses in New York City during the '80's, made famous by the documentary film "Paris is Burning," this amazing debut will open your eyes and implore your empathy for the young Latino men and women searching for identity, family, and acceptance.
And of course, what librarian would not add Susan Orlean's delightful, well researched, "The Library Book," a fascinating, uplifting, and dazzling history of Los Angeles and the great fire that shuttered its flagship library.
Orlean throws herself into the research with the verve she has previously applied to such disparate characters as ghost orchids and Rin Tin Tin. She unearths some delicious details about previous librarians who helmed LA Public. Did you know that women weren't "allowed" to hold library cards in LA until 1880? https://bit.ly/2EWXKWt
Richard Powers' "The Overstory" is still my number one of the year. In
this stunning work of imaginative prowess, Powers illustrates the symbiotic
relationship between trees, insects, animals, and human beings through
Norwegian immigrant Jorgen Hoel who moves to Iowa, pockets filled with chestnut
seeds which he plants on the family
farm, setting in motion this luminous tale of nine seemingly unrelated
characters whose lives intersect over decades in profoundly unsettling ways.
https://bit.ly/2EZ4JxZ
And finally, hey, my champagne is waiting for me in the other room, Leif Enger's "Virgil Wander." This is a novel that will restore your sanity in these troubled times. I promise. The daily
life of a small, declining, Minnesota town is movingly exalted by Enger’s beautifully
written meditation on memory, loneliness, loss, and rebirth as seen through the
eyes of Rune, a flyer of kites, in search of a son he never knew he had, and
Nadine, who’s given up hopes of reunion with her long-missing husband, and
Virgil himself, a man whose spirit opens to a new world of possibilities after
surviving a nearly fatal automobile accident.
Happy New Year everyone. Isn't it wonderful to realize that there are more wonderful books than ever, already written and just waiting for our enjoyment, out there right now? Too many books, too little time. Enjoy!
….how a reluctant Michelle Obama became the most popular first lady to ever grace the halls of the White House. The dilemma for me as a reader is to try to separate my love for the Obamas, my feelings which are personal and political, from an objective look at this best-selling memoir in terms of style and substance.
If you're a reader who hasn't been an Obama aficionado since, let's say, 2005, then you will absolutely love and appreciate this book from beginning to end. If, like me, you've read everything you could put your hands on since 2005, especially David Axelrod's "Believer," http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/2016/08/axelrods-believer-confirms-why-i-am-one.html and seen the films like "Barry" and "Southside with You," then you may find that there are parts of this book that you may decide to skim.
I found the strongest section of Michelle's memoir to be the first third, "Becoming Me." Oddly enough this is where the details and memories seem most acute. Every instance of that childhood in a tiny, sweltering upstairs apartment in the home of her great-aunt Robbie, an exacting piano teacher, comes to vivid life. I could see my own family, all three of us kids in one small bedroom, giggling, spatting, and talking through the night, in Michelle and older brother Craig, as they, too, talked and giggled through the partition their dad had built down the middle of the living room to give them each some semblance of privacy. Her love for her parents, her appreciation for her mother Marian, for the work ethic they instilled in her, runs deep and strong.
This section is where Michelle overcomes the prejudice she encounters on the playgrounds and in the schools, where she is reminded again and again that she may not be "Princeton material." This is where the laborious perfectionist learned to perform in public on a grand piano, where she easily followed Craig to Princeton and then on to Harvard Law School. This is where Michelle Obama honed the skills that would make her a person to be reckoned with in her own right, earning a six figure salary at a swanky Chicago law firm, long before a cocky intern, Barack Hussein Obama, swaggered in to her 46th floor office ten minutes late. (a tendency she hated and one he would never get over)
"Becoming Us," the second section of the book, is the love story many of us memorized as the Obamas traveled the campaign trail. Michelle says this is when she made the "big swerve." Timing is everything. Just as she was feeling less fulfilled with corporate law, this young idealist and visionary, Barack Obama, was asking her what she wanted out of life. Where did she see herself down the road? How could she use her talents to help others more and herself less. He had an idea, she didn't like it. Politics!
I found that this part dragged somewhat, perhaps just too much ground to be covered with too few of the titillating, telling details that most of us love to uncover. Michelle Obama is no gossip and rarely throws shade at anyone, though she'd have been forgiven had she done so. Or would she? That is what's at the heart of this book after all. Will the first black anyone always be held to a higher, almost unattainable standard? Yes! And the first black president and first lady? Of course! The joy of it is that they did attain the unattainable, living exemplary, grace-filled lives in this white house that may have been built by Michelle's own enslaved relatives only a few generations back.
The third section, "Becoming More," soars once again as Michelle hits her stride. No longer out of her comfort zone, she excels at campaigning, yearning this time with all her heart to win so that she and her family can continue to expand on their work for the environment, gun control, educational opportunities for all, and opening their white house to all the people, not just the elite Washington insiders. Michelle Obama's very existence has become a beacon of hope, not just for young girls and women of color, but for all of us who have been marginalized or unseen, whose opinions are overlooked or disregarded whether in board meetings, or on county commissions, or at school, or even at home.
The results of Michelle's eight years in Washington are seen in the incomparable cadre of women who have run for, or plan to run for office, as evidenced by this article from today's New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/29/us/politics/michelle-obama-stacey-abrams-politics.html
So, you may wonder, is this the best book I've read this year? No. That list will begin tomorrow. But, is "Becoming" a must-read? The answer is a resounding yes. Michelle writes as if she's just chatting over tea or a glass of wine. She is very open, personal, and human about her fears, for her girls, her relationship with her husband, about being "good enough" to represent her race and gender in the second most important job in the United States. Anyone who reads her story will have to agree with me. She nailed it!
I've just finished the most delightful book, one that I discovered by accident, and one that has convinced me to add a new town to my "places to visit before I die" list. Wigtown, Scotland, (http://www.wigtown-booktown.co.uk/) is the unlikely village, apparently known throughout the world for having the largest number of bookshops anywhere! Who knew?
I downloaded Shaun Bythell's book, "The Diary of a Bookseller," to my kindle ages ago courtesy of Net Galley. I was several pages in before I even realized that it wasn't a novel but Bythell's actual hilarious, wryly subversive diary of a year in the life of the used book store unassumingly called The Bookshop. https://www.the-bookshop.com/
Shaun and his wife Anna live above the shop where an assortment of lost souls, part time staffers, and visiting dignitaries to the annual book festival simply doff their shoes at the store and settle in for supper, the night, or weeks.
Shaun is extremely well-versed in his profession and reading his diary will open up vistas for those of you who may think what a nice, easy life it would be to run a bookshop. However, he's probably the last person who should be dealing with the public as he suffers no fools gladly and had me laughing out loud in the doctor's office yesterday, appalled at some of the comments he makes to his own customers. What's so wonderful about them is that they are pithy rejoinders to idiotic statement that you know we all wish we had the courage to speak aloud but don't.
Bythell abhors Amazon and rants at length about their policies which bite into any potential profit for independent booksellers, and, sad to say, he has no love lost for librarians either. He hates the way we treat our discards, stamping them all over, removing the verso page, and basically depriving them of any value they might have had before we got our grubby little hands on them.
He introduces us to Nicky, his right hand gal with the indecipherable method of subject heading shelving, who hews to Foodie Friday by bringing in leftover goodies she's found in a "skip," a dumpster behind a local grocery store. Yuk! We go with Shaun and the volunteers and employees as the "skip" out to the local pub or spend the morning fly fishing for salmon. In fact, Shaun is all over the countryside on book buying expeditions, sometimes even unearthing a gem of a book that makes it all worth while.
For any "bookie" this diary is a must read. You'll yearn to head to Wigtown for a stay in a local bed and breakfast and a mosey down the main streets. But when you pop into The Bookshop, just don't tell Shaun that you're a librarian!
When I set down Meg Wolitzer's new novel, "The Female Persuasion," I wasn't sure that the author had accomplished what I thought she had set out to do. Ah hubris! I had brought my own bias to the book, a long held position that women will often undermine other women as evidenced by the 2018 election. I'm still flummoxed that so many women would vote against their own self interests to the extent that they would put an amoral, blustering buffoon in the White House when the most qualified woman in the country was the other option.
So, pen in hand, I was ready to take copious notes when the book talk began yesterday in Naples between distinguished retired professor Dr. Elaine Newton and none other than Meg Wolitzer herself. The first words out of Newton's mouth were "this is not a political novel." What?
The central character, Faith Frank is a renowned feminist scholar, public speaker, author, and editor of "Bloomer," a magazine whose circulation is waning in the post-feminist age. Yes, this novel was written prior to the "me too" movement.
Greer Kadetsy is an acolyte. Shy and bookish, Greer has been raised by her self absorbed parents to be an unseen entity in her own home. Her boyfriend, Cory Pinto, and her best girlfriend, Zee, are the only people who intuit her untapped potential. Until, that is, she stands up and finds her voice during a Q and A at college with visiting lecturer Faith Frank.
This novel, Wolitzer tells her audience, is about intergenerational relationships and power. Power dynamics between lovers, friends, business partners, and in marriages and families. It's also about the ways in which all of us must give and take, sometimes lowering our standards or failing to live up to our ideals, to achieve a greater good.
Readers may follow Greer's rise in Faith's organization with trepidation or with glee depending upon their own life experiences. Greer blossoms under Faith's mentorship, using her talent for writing, for listening, to passionately advocate for the less fortunate. But will success change Greer? She is living the life she and Cory had always planned for but she's still alone in that brownstone in Brooklyn. Will she make amends to Zee for a betrayal early on in her career? Will she remain steadfast to Cory while he struggles with a devastating loss? And what will happen if Faith falls off that pedestal?
Like most of Wolitzer's work this novel is driven by strong characters. There's no doubt that she loves them. Each is complex, at times disagreeable and at others forgivable, even admirable. In other words, they are the fully human beings that Wolitzer is know for creating with insight and kindness. As the discussion wound down, Newton asked Wolitzer to share her thoughts about working with Glenn Close on her Oscar worthy performance in The Wife. How could I have missed that connection? Of course she wrote the book from which the film was made! It all made sense. Close couldn't lose if she had a Meg Wolitzer character to bring forth on the big screen. One look at her face and you just know she's nailed it.
I can't believe that it's been more than twenty years since Frances Mayes http://www.francesmayesbooks.com/ first enticed readers to Italy with her lusty, luscious story of Bramasole, the run down Tuscan farmhouse that stole her heart and ours. As Peter Mayle brought Provence to life in his hilarious "A Year in Provence," so Mayes' name has become synonymous with Cortona since the 1997 publication of "Under the Tuscan Sun." I wonder how many of us readers have strolled the streets and alleyways of this delightful village, savoring the local foods and sunning in the piazza with a gelato in hand?
Mayes' love affair with Italy has never diminished and she still spends half of each year in Tuscany where her latest novel, "Women in Sunlight," is set. You might think that the plot, women of a "certain age" beginning again in a new country, might be overworked. I kind of did. But...they are such lovely women, so bright, brave, and talented that you just can't help but fall for them and the whole romp.
Their story begins in North Carolina where each of them, on their own at the end of lifelong relationships, meet at a tour of Cornwallis Meadows, a life care facility that, as described by Mayes, was eerily reminiscent of one I visited myself a couple of months ago. I had to laugh out loud at the unctuous tour guide gamely trying to sell a lifestyle that includes, pottery, visiting lecturers, yoga, and even your own gardening space, all for the price of your first born child and then some.
Camille, Susan, and Julia go for drinks after the presentation and discover that they are kindred souls. After months of dinners and weekends away to test their compatibility, they take a leap of faith, renting a villa in Italy for a year. And who do you suppose is their neighbor in the fictional village of San Rocco? Seeming to be a younger version of Frances Mayes, Kit is a poet and biographer who, with her partner Colin, become mentors to the three Americans in whom they see women open to all the pleasures and joys inherent in a new language and culture.
Mayes is a gloriously visual writer. One can easily picture a film evolving from this novel. Her knowledge of food, growing and preparing it, as well as her familiarity with local flora and fauna, art and architecture is extensive, enhancing our reading experience without ever feeling pedantic.
Over the course of the year each woman faces personal problems yet keeps these in perspective, not allowing their pasts to interfere with their growth and optimism about their futures. Their willingness to learn and adapt results in their being adopted into the community full stop. It's such a pleasure to spend time with all the denizens of San Rocco. If you don't find it on a map you can bet it looks a lot like Cortona. This is the perfect antidote for readers who may believe that their best years are behind them. Not if Frances Mayes can help it!
What happens when you put three book reviewers in a room and ask them to agree on their favorite novels of the year? Well, in a first for "Library Journal" that's just what happened and the results are now available for me to share. We each read thirty titles, wrote down our talking points, and met on the phone for a marathon book talk. Tastes are so different. What appeals to one may not be palatable to another. Still, we can agree that what we're looking for in a wonderful read is originality, glorious language, and a story that touches the soul. I hope you'll find that our ten finalists meet this criteria. Just click on the Literary Fiction tab. Oh, and while you're at it, take a look at the thrillers, crimes, sci-fi, and non-fiction titles as well.
https://www.libraryjournal.com/?page=best-books-2018&fbclid=IwAR0G3pwbe6HD8ZP1IFGL67LTMfbn_sisLgpqjWMf--wsXvuhn-nyX_g7c6I
I finished listening to Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" with a deep sigh of satisfaction. A wonderful writer will do that for you, making it all the more obvious when you've read a book by an author whose talents just don't rise to the occasion. That's what happened to me this week as I also finished writing a review about a novel due out in the spring, a novel also about the immigrant experience in America, but one so dark and lacking in substance that I scarcely knew how to talk about it.
Lahiri, who won a Pulitzer for "Interpreter of Maladies," is able to take a domestic novel about one Bengali family adjusting to life in America and raise it to the level of poetry. Especially lovely was the lilting reading by actress Sarita Choudhury.
Ashoke Gangoli, a professor at MIT in Cambridge, returns home to Calcutta to meet the woman who has been chosen as his bride. There is a delightful scene in which Ashima listens outside the room as her parents discuss her with this young man whom she's never met. She sees his polished, cared for shoes where he's left them, according to custom, inside the door. Without thinking, she steps into them and senses that the man who owns these shoes will be a good and caring husband. She is right.
But the novel really centers around their first born child, Gogol Gangoli, and his relationship to his family, his world, and his name. Tradition says that Bengali children will have two names, the "real" one that the grandparents choose, and the nickname chosen by the parents. For the Gangolis there's no hurry. But Ashoke, stymied by the American practice of leaving the hospital with a birth certificate, makes a very personal decision to name his boy after the Russian writer Nicolai Gogol. And young Gogol will spend the next thirty years both running from, and embracing the identity he's been given.
We follow Gogol through college, his decision not to follow in his father's footsteps as an engineer, his love affair with Maxine and her very white bread family, a decision that he knows will distance him from his own parents but pursues anyway in an attempt to declare his independence from his Indian culture.
Lahiri's vivid descriptions of Bengali food and clothing, and the Calcutta that the family returns to every few years, made this book ripe for the film that came out in 2007 directed by Mira Nair. In fact, it was the movie that brought me to the book rather than the other way around.
"The Namesake" is a poignant, languid coming of age story that explores what it means to be an immigrant, what it means to be an American, and the annoyances and joys of being a member of a family. It also works as an oft- needed reminder of the importance of that welcoming message at the base of the statue of liberty.
My sister and I often talk about books we like to read when we need a break from today's reality. Our go-to man is normally Alexander McCall Smith and the city of Gabarone in Botswana. But, looking for something a little different I recalled our neighbors in Maryland, a couple with an enviable home library, who had just returned from France, specifically the Dordogne area, because they had discovered Bruno Courreges, the delightful chief of police in St. Denis, brought to wonderful life by author and former UPI correspondent Martin Walker.
There are already fifteen books in this series, which I accidentally began smack dab in the middle with "Children of War." I had expected a cozy mystery set in the French countryside and was actually pleasantly surprised to discover that Walker manages to deftly juggle the light with the dark. So, while we meet many of the villagers, and learn about the local wines and foods, we are also treated to a suspenseful mystery that includes a Jewish brother and sister who were secreted from the Nazis in St. Denis during World War II, a local doctor who was sexually abused by a professor in medical school and forced to keep quiet about it, and a young Muslim boy with severe autism who was taken from a mosque in Toulouse and forced to build bombs for the Taliban.
If that isn't enough to interest you then I don't know what you're looking for in a good book! Bruno seems to be a sensitive officer, wise beyond his years yet hardened by his time in the service. He's sought after by several women in the community and yearns to be a parent. He has known Sami, the young man who disappeared from the mosque several years ago, since he was a child. Now Sami, escaped from the Taliban and seeking refuge back in St. Denis, is wanted by three countries, not to mention the FBI, because he is accused of actually being "the engineer," a man whose expertise with weaponry has been responsible for horrific deaths. Bruno and the local physician Fabiola hope to protect Sami and his family while unraveling the mystery of Sami's conversion to terrorism.
The story of David and Maya Halevy offers a short history lesson on the famed roundup of Jews in Paris who were then held in the Velodome while awaiting transfer by train to prison camps in Germany and Poland. Unsung heroes, families throughout the French countryside, took in children, converting them to Christianity for their safety, hiding them in apartments and on farms until the end of the war. Now wealthy and near death, the Halevy family wants to set up a memorial in St. Denis but they need the help of Bruno, the mayor, and even the local history teacher to find the husband and wife who sheltered them so many years ago.
Martin is a terrific writer, creating characters you'd really like to know living and working in an atmosphere that you can smell and taste. If you enjoy long series of novels where you can really feel at home and in the company of old friends then this is one you may want to try. I can't wait to begin at the beginning with "Death in the Dorgogne." Then I'll probably be perusing the Air France website!
A bare foot three-year-old stands over her mother's body quietly calling, "Mommy? Mommy?" Her father gently picks her up and, rather than call for help, takes little Suzie into her bedroom and reads her a story. By the time the police arrive, the woman with the knife in her chest is long dead, and Suzie has no doubt been traumatized for life.
When I met Mr. Dubus in New York in June I asked him if his new novel, "Gone So Long," would be a little more hopeful than the devastating "House of Sand and Fog," or his excruciatingly beautiful memoir "Townie." He reassured me that he, at least, thought it would. He was wrong.
I struggled mightily with Danny, Daniel Ahearn, husband and killer of Suzie's mother Linda. I firmly believe that a felon does his time, pays his dues to society, and should re-enter the world without prejudice. Daniel, now in his sixties, is dying of prostate cancer and hopes to see his little girl once more before he slips the bonds. To facilitate a meeting, he obsesses for months over a letter of explanation, self-examination, introduction? We aren't quite sure, nor is he.
Suzie is now forty-three, an adjunct writing professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is a blocked novelist and a woman whose life has been permanently upended by her past. Raised by her grandmother, Lois, she was hell on wheels as a kid, refusing to believe that anyone could truly love her (after all, didn't she carry half of her father's genes), and therefore, unable to open herself to love even when it's staring her in the face.
Back and forth through time and place, Dubus takes readers on a journey to a scruffy New England seaside carny, where Linda and Daniel first spotted each other and, to the surprise of many, became inseparable. Linda was a loner, happiest with her head in a book. Daniel was a loner too but for darker reasons. Insecure, nursing a ferocious anger that often surfaced with little provocation, he couldn't believe his good luck when he and Linda married and had Suzie. Jealousy and a lack of faith would be his downfall.
Any act of violence will have repercussions for years. Dubus addresses this truth in all of his work, usually on a broader, more political scale. Domestic violence can be especially difficult to read. Secrets are kept, truths repressed, grudges are nursed, and forgiveness withheld. At times we want to shake these characters, to yell, "Get over it!" But is that humanly possible?
Lois and Susan are two of the prickliest women I've ever met in fiction. At first I was annoyed but then I took a step back and realized that I'd have to walk a mile in their shoes before I could judge them. Of course, this is where Dubus works his literary magic. He forces readers to do just that. And Daniel? He is practically Shakespearean in his fatal flaws, unable to give Susan the only thing she's ever needed from him. Three words. I am sorry. He'd just been gone too long.
One more book that didn't quite make it to Library Journal's top ten this year is still well worthy of the accolades it's been receiving and it's a debut novel that only came out last month! "The Golden State" by Lydia Kiesling, http://www.lydiakiesling.com/
touted as the next great read for young mothers, will be just as appealing to any age group that loves putting one word in front of another. I would venture to say that the title may less likely refer to California than it does to that "golden state" of time when a mom spends so much time in her toddler's company that she has an "ah ha" moment. There's actually a little person in there behind the whining, crying, and perpetually fussing visage.
Daphne is nearing a nervous breakdown the day she walks away from her office, packs up the accoutrement of babyhood, and puts the big Buick in overdrive. Leaving the stress of San Francisco behind, she and Honey are on their way to cowboy country where she has a haven awaiting in the form of an old mobile home left to her after the deaths of her mother and grandparents. In Altavista, she fools herself into thinking that she can get her priorities straight and bond with the toddler who has spent her life in daycare.
Daphne is no fool. She works at the university. She's multi-lingual. She's the sole support of her family right now as her Turkish husband was refused re-entry to the states on a technicality under the new administration. For eight months they have been holding the relationship together on the strength of daily Skype encounters, leaving each desperately lonely, unfulfilled, and questioning the future.
Kiesling has a fabulous way with words, often giving Daphne pages of extremely funny stream of consciousness conversations with herself. Sentences may go on and on without punctuation, a trope I normally find annoying, but which totally works in Daphne's case as she utters the inanities common to women who have no one to speak with but an eighteen-month-old. Daphne suffers the overwhelming guilt trips of most young moms who pray for their kid to nap so she can slip out back for a cigarette, or to go to sleep at night so she can sneak a vodka and OJ.
Far from one-dimensional, this novel is also cleverly political. Aside from the green card status of her Muslim husband, there is the secessionist group she meets in Altavista fronted by a childhood acquaintance ugly with resentments, and an opinionated octogenarian on a quest to capture memories of happier times.
Kiesling is a bold, honest writer with talent to spare. I must send this novel to my niece Rebecca who balances home, career, hubby and three wonderful kids. I just know she'll find it cathartic. In the meantime, head to your library or local bookstore and snatch up a copy of this delightful novel. It's a treat to understand what's going on in the heads of our under thirty generation. In fact, it's a necessity!
British writer (born in Scotland, lives in England), Ali Smith, is known for her mastery of language and craft. Her novels are repeatedly on the short list for all the prestigious prizes, the Booker, the Orange, and the Bailey's Women's Prize. She can be hilarious and deadly serious at the same time. Smith is writing what's been referred to as a "seasonal quartet." It began with "Autumn." I have just finished "Winter," one of Library Journal's contenders for best of 2018.
This book was a complete delight to me. It's so different from my usual fare, so sarcastic and witty though ultimately kind. Smith's books can often be difficult to describe but try this on for size. Christmas at a crumbling mansion in Cornwall;the owner, Sophia, a woman losing her grip on reality, the estranged younger sister, an old hippie who will go anywhere for a cause, and a son, Arthur, with a stranger in tow, all arrive during a blizzard to find the larder bare and Sophia in the throes of a Dickensian guilt trip as she revisits the ghosts of Christmases past.
As the four make the most of the next few days together mother, son, and sister try to reconcile their disparate memories. The stranger, a skinny, pierced and tattooed street girl who is being paid to play the role of Art's fiancé Charlotte, waxes on eloquently about Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's more obscure plays, and the conversations run the gamut from Brexit to Trump. Smith takes great joy in poking fun at Google, bloggers, politicians, and pretensions of all stripes, while ruminating on the terrifying state of our globe's environmental health.
If your taste in literature veers toward quirky characters, a touch of magical realism, and sharp, imaginative writing, then I have a book for you. My copy is up for grabs. Reply to my blog or drop me a line at s_bissell@yahoo.com. I'll mail it out before the weekend when I plan to head south and warm up. Oh, and keep in mind Shelley's words of hope, "if winter comes, can spring be far behind?"
You will have to wait until December to uncover LJ's list of best literary fiction for the year 2018 but I can tell you, as I was honored to be chosen as one of the judges, that fabulous fiction is being published just about every day. It is remarkable how many imaginative, lusciously written new novels we had to choose from.
My editor, Barbara Hoffert, asked me and one other reviewer, Josh Finnell from Colgate University, to send her our top ten favorites of the year. She added her own to the list and then the three of us had to read them all!! If you wonder why I've been missing in action here on the blog lately you can add this fact to the multitude of commitments I've made this summer. Last week we held a two-hour conference call and a lively book talk, eliminating some titles, defending others, until we were able to agree on the ten exquisite books that made the cut.
As you can imagine this exercise was high pressure but ultimately extremely rewarding as we were each introduced to writers who may not have previously been on our radar. Over the next month I will introduce you to some of them, beginning with the Irish novelist John Boyne, probably best known here in the states for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." (https://johnboyne.com/)
In November Hogarth Press will release "A Ladder to the Sky." You may want to put your name on the wait list now! Boyne's latest is just that good; it's a psychological thriller that will stir up bile in your stomach, and it's a book lover's dream, a novel about novelists, their insecurities, their outsized egos, their petty jealousies, and the lengths some will go to for fame and recognition. It isn't pretty.
Maurice Swift, a young waiter in a Berlin bierhaus, aspires to be a writer. All too aware of his physical beauty and gender-fluid attributes, Maurice flatters and seduces both men and women as he taps into their imaginations seeking stories he's incapable of conjuring up on his own.
The opening section of the book is told from the perspective of Maurice's first victim, Erich Ackermann, an older writer whose career is experiencing a rebirth since the publication of his first novel in years. Maurice is adept at pinpointing the older man's weakness, a desire for love that was subsumed years earlier after an unrequited affair ended in a tragic betrayal. Making himself both desirable and indispensable, Maurice becomes Ackermann's paid assistant, traveling from one literary festival to another, gaining access to elite writers, publishers, and agents.
Boyne has a gift for ratcheting up the tension. As readers, we begin to suspect Maurice of evil intent even as we think, no, he wouldn't, he couldn't, could he?Boyne reveals Maurice's character through the observations of others, even taking us to Gore Vidal's idyllic home on the Amalfi coast where Swift displays his true nature to the wiser, older writer.
Early reviews compare this novel of Boyne's to Patricia Highsmith's depiction of amorality in "The Talented Mr. Ripley." I wouldn't disagree. Literary and suspenseful, brimming with insider knowledge of the publishing industry, John Boyne deftly examines the effects of unbridled ambition and misplaced trust. I could not put this book down!
I've just returned from my hometown in Massachusetts where I've been helping to take care of my aunt for a couple of weeks. At ninety-three she is in amazing health but a bout with infection and a hospital stay can wreak havoc on an elderly immune system and she was temporarily unable to enjoy her usual feisty independence.
Even as I coordinated home health aid visits, physical therapists, nurses, and meals on wheels, we had long hours to talk. Memory is a slippery thing. Some are picture-perfect in their specificity, others are dubiously shadowy. And thus, I am reminded of literature at its best, where writers play with point of view, when a narrator's truth is questionable, where families interact under stressful circumstances and shine - or not. And that brings me to Barbara Kingsolver's "Unsheltered," a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed even as I harbored the nagging feeling that she was trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink into it.
Science vs. faith, the sandwich generation, the financial crisis and its aftermath, the lost dream of home ownership, racial prejudice, the demise of journalism, all find a place on Kingsolver's soapbox.
The setting is Vineland, New Jersey, and an historical old home that's barely standing. Two families, a century apart, struggle to find physical and emotional shelter in this house that's just too costly to tame. In the 1870's it's the local science teacher, Thatcher Greenwood, whose fascination for the exciting new teachings of a man called Darwin may cost him his job.
Today, it's Willa and Iano. She is an unemployed journalist, he is a professor chasing a tenure-track job that no longer exists. They are caretaking his father, still paying off their kids' college loans, and suddenly they also have a motherless grandchild to raise. It's not the life they imagined for themselves!
Early on in the book, Willa despairingly asks herself, "How could two hardworking people do everything right in life and arrive in their fifties essentially destitute?"
That is the question that boggled my mind throughout. The plot feels like a setup to me, a plot that allows Kingsolver to rail against the injustices in the world - and don't get me wrong, I agree with her - but in a way that's just a bit too pat. After all, her husband does have a PhD in global politics, and her son, though he's an economist, has to come home to live. Really?
It's the story from the 1800's that captured my imagination. Kingsolver's research unearthed the existence of the real woman, Mary Treat, an amateur scientist who enjoyed a life-long correspondence with Charles Darwin. In Vineland she was considered a crank by most, with the exception of her next door neighbor, the fictional teacher, Mr. Greenwood. Their developing friendship, based on a shared love of the natural world and their political leanings, is a joy to read about.
What you have here is basically two novels told in alternating chapters. They could theoretically be read independent of each other. The question is whether or not the author has convincingly tied the two together. "Unsheltered" hits the shelves today. I'll be anxious to hear your opinions. My copy is going out to Pat Abosch in tomorrow's mail but I have several more give-a-ways to dispense of in the next couple of weeks.
Buon giorno my reading friends. I realize that it's been a full month since I've shared my literary life with you. Sometimes real life intervenes and then, unfortunately, there are times when I no longer feel that I have anything worthy to say! I suspect that the incivility of our national discourse has, rather than sparked a fire in my gut, dampened my enthusiasm for social media and oversharing.
Some of you may know that I have been eating and drinking my way through southern Italy for a few weeks and I can't tell you how joyful it felt to think and speak in another language and to submerge myself in a different culture. What a respite from the sturm und drang! What a pleasure to walk the cobblestones of ancient cities, to greet folks in their native tongue, and to see my smile reflected back at me. And oh, how safe we felt.
Sicily was a delight. And what culinary surprises! We have become expert at recreating the traditional pasta alla Norma, first recommended by Anthony Bourdain during his episode on Catania, and then reaffirmed by Don's grandson who joined us on a portion of our trip.
As for the literature of Sicily, I began with what many Sicilians consider their masterwork. "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa was rejected in the author's lifetime but has gone down in history as a realistic picture of an aristocracy in decline, an approaching revolution with Garibaldi marching into Palermo and reclaiming Sicily for a reunified Italy, and the influence of the Catholic church on the everyday lives of both the wealthy and those barely hanging on.
Most people think of Sicily and the Mafia as one and the same thanks to The Godfather trilogy so I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't take along a mystery or two. "The Day of the Owl" by Leonardo Sciascia dates from 1961 and was the first of several crime novels which examined the power of the Cosa Nostra as it infiltrated all areas of government and the judiciary.
A new officer, Captain Bellodi, exiled from his family in Parma, is ensconced in an unnamed town in Sicily and is charged with changing the way business is done, a thankless and impossible job against which he rages mightily. But when a man is gunned down in the main piazza in front of a busload of townspeople on their way to work, and no one sees anything, Bellodi throws caution to the wind and hunkers down to expose the history of corruption, complacency, and mob rule that once defined this beautiful country.
Since my return I have been reading almost 24/7 and I'll explain why in another post. I'm sorry to say that I may not be able to share my thoughts on all the fabulous new books piled up on my desk until the end of the year when Library Journal will print its "best of 2018" lists. I'm proud to say that I will have some input. More on Barbara Kingsolver and Andre DuBus III coming soon.
Susan Orlean and her family moved to the Los Angeles area from Manhattan when her son was in first grade. His first assignment was to interview a city employee. Recalling the halcyon days back in Cleveland when she and her mother walked to the public library every week, bonding over their reading choices, she suggested that her boy interview a librarian at their local branch.
Orlean sheepishly admitted that it had been many years since she had been in the library, but in her new work, "The Library Book," she makes amends and then some. Upon entering the Studio City branch Orleans says,
"I was transfixed. It wasn't that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured here, collected here, and in all libraries - and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well."
"It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever."
Sigh!
This absolutely fascinating, uplifting, dazzling book is a history of Los Angeles broadly, and of the LA Public Library specifically, along with a political look at funding and hiring back to the 1800's. It's a mystery as well, prompted by her discovery of the horrific fire at the central branch library in 1986 and the massive attempt by the authorities to find someone to blame. The library burned for seven hours at temperatures up to 2000 degrees, destroying over one million books and resulting in five years of wrangling over the fate of the building.
Orlean threw herself into this project with passion and verve as she did for "Rin Tin Tin" and "The Orchid Thief." Her meticulous research unearthed wonderful biographies of many of the quirky characters who once directed the Los Angeles public library including eighteen-year-old Mary Foy who was shockingly hired in 1880 even before women were allowed - you heard me - allowed to hold library cards!
Then there was Charles Lummis who, in 1905, invented "roving librarians," a philosophy that is now back in style, because he couldn't bear the thought of patrons roaming the stacks and not finding what they wanted. In 1935 a voracious reader named Althea Warren took over and opined at a public library conference that librarians should "read as a drunkard drinks....because they'd rather do it than anything else in the world." What a concept!
This is definitely one of my favorite books of the year and yes, I was a librarian for twenty years. Still one doesn't have to be a librarian to delve into this love song to the necessity of free access to information as a prerequisite for a democratic society, a tenet of the 1949 UNESCO Public Library Manifesto. For my librarian cohort, though, it is a must read. I'm only sorry that it won't be out until mid-October. Look for it soon at a beloved library near you.
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