Quantcast

The News from Spain by Joan Wickersham

July 30, 2013 by

Source: Public Library, though Beth Kephart’s review had me seek it out.
Hardcover, 208 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The News from Spain: 7 Variations on a Love Story by Joan Wickersham explores what it means to love in its many forms, and how that emotion can be caught up with and distorted by other emotions and desires.  From the woman whose husband is a serial cheater even as she lays partially paralyzed and dependent upon him to the woman who is drawn again and again to a co-worker who is just out of reach, Wickersham demonstrates the power love has over our bodies and the helplessness we feel as we try to fight off that power.  Each story is titled “The News from Spain,” harkening to the segues used in conversation to divert attention or change the subject from something more personal and deeply wounding, as if calling attention away will make relationships and connections easier to bear or ignore.

“What they had together was pleasant.

But still that word continued to bother her, whenever she thought of it.  The fact that it appeared to be lauding, but the thing that it praised was a limitation.”  (Page 40)

There are characters here who are emotionally detached for a number of reasons, but even they find themselves in the midst of relationships, waffling through the navigation of their emotions.  Each character is seemingly stuck in a pattern of love, and these patterns continue infinitely through time as some of them long separated from these emotional or physical affairs continue to mull them over and remember them either fondly or quizzically.  Wickersham explores what it means to love and be loved, but also what it means to hurt the ones we love, to struggle in the quest for giving and receiving forgiveness, and also what it means to move beyond the hurt and pain to find peace and fondness without the bitterness and regret.

In one story, the narrator talks of unrequited love and the emotions running throughout her body becoming an unruly mob when she tries to rein them in after confessing to the man.  And this frenetic movement within her is reminiscent of those first flushes of love — requited or not — and the passions they inflame, but as she professes to continue to love her husband, readers may begin to wonder if it is love she feels at all for this other man or a want for those feelings of passion to reignite her life.  The News from Spain: 7 Variations on a Love Story by Joan Wickersham is at times an emotional roller coaster and at others a dark comedy on the passions of love, but her characters struggles are brought to life in a way that will leave a lasting impression on readers.

About the Author:

Joan Wickersham was born in New York City and grew up there and in Connecticut. Her new book of fiction, The News from Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story, will be published by Knopf in October 2012. Her memoir The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order (Harcourt 2008) was a National Book Award Finalist. She is also the author of a novel, The Paper Anniversary.

Please visit her Website and her Facebook page.

This is my 49th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2013, reviews, short stories

Emily & Herman: A Literary Romance by John J. Healey

July 25, 2013 by

Source: Arcade Publishing
Hardcover, 238 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Emily & Herman: A Literary Romance by John J. Healey begins with the pretext that the author finds the manuscript among his deceased grandfather’s belongings and that the author’s name has been concealed.  The manuscript is set during the period in which Herman Melville is writing Moby Dick and is enticed by his sometime-mentor Nathaniel Hawthorne to take a trip to Boston and onto New York.  But on the way, which logistically makes no sense, they stop in Amherst to pay a visit to Hawthorne’s friend, the father of Emily and Austin Dickinson.  But the elder children are the only ones at home.  Barely age 20 and far from the hermetic woman she becomes, Emily Dickinson’s imagination is running wild as her esteemed guests propose a journey outside of her home town, an adventure she has a few reservations about, but ultimately decides to go for her brother’s sake, if not her own secretive yearnings to see more of the world.

The Dickinsons having been raised in a stern, Christian home are much more reserved than Melville, who has a reputation for his sea-faring adventures and his amorous encounters with natives.  Hawthorne is slightly less reserved, but still bristles at some of Melville’s more controversial statements about religion and humans’ animal instincts.  Meanwhile, Austin has a secret life outside the home in which he has been sowing his wild oats before committing fully to his soon-to-be betrothed — a more proper fit for the reserved Dickinson family.  Emily, on the other hand, enjoys reading as her escape and her solitude, until she glimpses what life could be outside of her cloistered existence in Amherst.

“‘If I were to answer with honesty, I would say there is wild within all of us, lurking underneath as you say.  It is perhaps our most irksome, mysterious and profound characteristic.'” (page 30)

Based upon the “Master” letters found among Dickinson’s belongings — letters which were never sent — an imagined relationship blooms between Melville and Dickinson.  They match wits on an intellectual level, and Melville finds in her a naive, but thoughtful young woman who is eager to learn and grow beyond what she has been taught.  Despite the changes around them, Dickinson is still confined by the role of a woman and her ruin can come from even just a whiff of scandal — something she is very much aware of even as she speaks most boldly about religion, animal instinct, and more.

The novel’s strength lies in the intellectual connections made over literature and the discussions they have about the world and its machinations.  When Whitman and an escaped slave William Johnson enter their path, even more of the changing world around them is revealed.  While there are some transitional moments that are bumpy, like when William Johnson is first introduced and when the narrative shifts from Hawthorne to Melville and the Dickinsons, the multiple perspectives help to round out the story.

Healey’s novel is graphic about certain sexual encounters, which could be troublesome for some readers — particularly those who do not wish to see Emily Dickinson or any author as objects of desire.  In some ways, perhaps the novel would have been better served had it been told from Dickinson’s point of view, looking backward on her affair with Melville.  The novel raises a number of questions not only about the differences between love freely given and the love codified by marriage vows, but also about how change can be a long, arduous process.  Emily & Herman: A Literary Romance by John J. Healey is more about the world as it changes from one in which strict puritan ideals are the only way to live to one in which slavery is slowly becoming less acceptable.

About the Author:

John J. Healey is the author of the recently published novel EMILY & HERMAN, (Arcade), a love story between Emily Dickinson and Herman Melville. He has been published in the Harvard Review and has directed two documentary films, ‘Federico García Lorca’ and the award-winning ‘The Practice of the Wild’. He lives in the United States and Spain and is currently working on a new work of fiction: ‘riverrun’.

This is my 48th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2013, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,

What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan

July 24, 2013 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 320 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan is a detailed look at 12 stylistic techniques and concerns in Jane Austen’s numerous works, including the unfinished The Watsons and Sanditon.  The twelve puzzles Mullan explores range from the importance of age in her books, what characters call one another, and what games characters play to why her plots rely on blunders, what her characters read, and how experimental a novelist she was.  There are moments in the book where Mullan’s examinations become bogged down and overly verbose, but he clearly enjoys picking apart the most innocuous moments in Austen’s novels to support his theories.  Most of the theories he offers and backs up with source material from Austen’s books and letters to family members also are discussed by other scholars, whom he cites.  For aspiring writers, Mullan’s book can be used as a guide for creating those unique moments and nuances in a novel, emulating Austen but adapting it for modern sensibilities.  Although it is not a how-to guide for writers, it does offer some insight into elements of the craft.

“Admission to a bedroom is a rare privilege, for the reader as well as for a character.” (page 29)

“Names are used by Austen, as well as by her characters, as though they are precious material, so we sometimes hear only once, glancingly, what someone’s name is.  Thus the label on the trunk seen by Harriet Smith, directed to Mr. Elton at his hotel in Bath, which names him as Philip (II. v).” (page 46)

“But Austen wants us to think not so much about how characters look, but how they look to each other.  Her sparing use of specification when it comes to looks is striking when looks can be so important.”  (Page 57)

“Meteorology clues us in to the passing of the year.  But it is more than this.  Austen likes to make her plots turn on the weather.  Having arranged her characters and defined their situations, having planned her love stories and hatched the misunderstandings that might impede them, she lets the weather shape events.  It is her way of admitting chance into her narratives.” (page 101)

“The rather few critics who have written on speech in Austen’s fiction have discovered how each of her speakers seems to have their own idiolect — a way of speaking that is individually distinctive.”  (page 132)

Austen is an often underestimated author, especially in light of the writers who dismissed her early on.  Mullan pinpoints the genius of Austen beyond the morays of the time period in which she wrote and the social commentary.  Readers who have read all of Austen’s major works but once are likely to want to read them anew after reading Mullan’s examination.  Even those have read certain Austen books multiple times could find new theories in this book.  It is interesting to see what it means when characters blush, why weather is important, and what seaside resorts mean in Austen’s work.  Mullan also asks whether there is sex in her books.

What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan is less about the puzzles of Austen than about her techniques as a writer and creator of fiction.  It was an interesting look at how she stacked up to her contemporaries and offered something more.

About the Author:

John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London. He specialises in 18th century fiction. He is currently working on the 18th-century section of the new Oxford English Literary History. He also writes a weekly column on contemporary fiction for The Guardian and reviews books for the London Review of Books and New Statesman. He occasionally appears as an 18th-century and contemporary literature expert for BBC Two’s Newsnight Review and BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. Mullan was a judge for The Best of the Booker in 2008 and for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. He was a Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and a Lecturer at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, before coming to UCL in 1994.

This is my 47th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: Bloomsbury, borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With:

Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano

July 18, 2013 by

Source: TLC Book Tours and Harper
Hardcover, 288 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano is an imaginative coming-of-age story for eleven-year-old Luz Castillo that uses the cards from a Mexican game that resembles American bingo.  Each card can be covered in the game once the riddle is called and the players know what card it is based on the riddle, and each card is placed in a tablas in any order or in a standard order.  Like the game, Luz unwinds her memories just before a tragic event lands her in a center and her father arrested.  As she turns the cards over, a memory is triggered, and she writes it down in her journal at the behest of her auntie Tencha.  Like any child traumatized by a startling event, Luz’s memories do not follow any kind of straightforward timeline, but they do reveal a great deal about her family’s immigration, ties to Mexico, and adjustment in America.

“And because quiero can mean either want or love, I asked if it meant “I want you” or “I love you.”  Come here, because I love you,or, come here, because I want you? If you were saying to someone, come to me, then the person you loved wasn’t there, and if you had to tell someone to come to you then maybe he didn’t love you.  And to want someone to come to you is like an order.  If you have to order someone to come to you, how much love is in that anyway?”  (page 13 ARC)

Like the journal entries, Luz’s family life is complex and multilayered with her older sister, Estrella, having been born in Mexico and knowing to smoothly speak Spanish, while Luz is a natural born American who is self-conscious about speaking Spanish aloud even though she knows what those around her say.  While there are moments in this novel when Luz has more adult thoughts, the experiences she has at home with her parents always fighting and her cousins taking advantage of her youth when she visits in Mexico, it is clear that she is mature beyond her years and has given a great deal of thought to her life experiences.

Peppering the story with Spanish words, the meaning of which can be mostly gleaned from the context of the story, Zambrano has crafted a puzzle that will spur readers to keep reading and take the journey with Luz as she uncovers the memories she’s tried to forget about her family.  While Luz has grown up in a typically male-oriented household, it is clear that America has had an influence on the family as her mother takes a job outside the home and never cowers behind her skirts when her husband is out of control with drink.  Despite the hardships, Luz has faced, she still remains optimistic and open to the possibilities of a better life, as she speaks to God in her journal entries about her past and her own confusion and feelings.

Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano is well-crafted, stunning, and highly recommended.  It brings to light the horrors of familial dysfunction, abuse, and general family discord through the eyes of a mature child, who strives to cope with it all in the best way possible.  Not only does it highlight the transition of a family from life in Mexico to one in America — with its opportunities and disappointments — but it also examines the dichotomy of family relationships that produce both love and hate.  Zambrano is an author to watch for.

About the Author:

Mario Alberto Zambrano was a Riggio Honors Fellow at the New School and recently completed his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as an Iowa Arts Fellow. He is a recipient of the John C. Schupes Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction. Lotería is his first novel.

Find out more about Mario at his Website and connect with him on Facebook.

This is my 46th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy

July 16, 2013 by

Source: Book Expo America 2010
Hardcover, 136 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy is an adaptation of her mother’s poesiealbum (poetry album) into a narrative poem, peppered with images and actual entries, and a WWII historical time line as well as a resource listing and a section catching up with Jutta Salzberg’s family and friends and their ultimate fates.  This powerful hybrid poem/memoir not only examines the horrifying snowball effect of Nazi Germany’s laws against Jews, but also how Jewish children still found ways to maintain their childhood and enjoy the joyous moments they still had.

Salzberg lived in Hamburg, Germany, and was the daughter of a Polish born Jew who emigrated to Germany before the Nazi’s came to power, and the poetry album, much like American autograph books, begins in 1938, which became a pivotal year for Jutta.  Her father was a successful, belt, suspender, etc. salesman, who is eventually dismissed from his job because he’s a Jew. As a young lady on the verge of womanhood, she is capable of not only enjoying gossip and games with classmates, but also understand the deep seriousness of the changes around her.

Parents (page 32)
...
He sags
and I think how Father could use something
to hold him up--
a belt,
a suspender,
a garter...

She also has the ability to question the changes around her within the context of the words from her friends, like respecting one’s elders. Jutta wonders how she can respect someone like Hitler, who is her elder, when he spread such fear and hatred.  There is great tension in this short, narrative poem/journal as a young girl tries to find the silver lining in her circumstances, remember her friends, and enjoy moments with her family, while at the same time worrying that her immediate family will be unable to leave Germany for America as the consulate will not issue them U.S. visas.  The section of the narrative poem that is the most heart-wrenching is when Jews are forced to seek out kindness from strangers in America who just happen to have their same last name.

The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy is powerful and a great testament to her mother’s memory, her own family’s past, and the hope generated by that remembering.  The book is not only a year of goodbyes between Jutta and her family and friends, it also contains information that may not be as well known, including the role of Jutta’s cousin Guy Gotthelf in the French Resistance and the impact of one Jewish man, Herschel Grynszpan, on those left behind in Germany when he avenged the murder of his own family back in Germany.  Lasting, eye-opening, and a must read for young and old.

About the Author:

Debbie Levy writes books — fiction, nonfiction, and poetry — for people of all different ages, and especially for young people. Before starting her writing career, she was a newspaper editor, and a lawyer with a Washington, D.C. law firm. She has a bachelor’s degree in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, and a law degree and master’s degree in world politics from the University of Michigan. She lives in Maryland and spends as much time as she can kayaking and otherwise messing around in the Chesapeake Bay region.  Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.  Also please check out the article on her family’s journey in The Washington Post, and her own article on finding the journal in the same publication.

Also, check out her new book, Imperfect Spiral, which is published today!

Danielle Snyder’s summer job as a babysitter takes a tragic turn when Humphrey, the five-year-old boy she’s watching, runs in front of oncoming traffic to chase down his football. Immediately Danielle is caught up in the machinery of tragedy: police investigations, neighborhood squabbling, and, when the driver of the car that struck Humphrey turns out to be an undocumented alien, outsiders use the accident to further a politically charged immigration debate. Wanting only to mourn Humphrey, the sweet kid she had a surprisingly strong friendship with, Danielle tries to avoid the world around her. Through a new relationship with Justin, a boy she meets at the park, she begins to work through her grief, but as details of the accident emerge, much is not as it seems. It’s time for Danielle to face reality, but when the truth brings so much pain, can she find a way to do right by Humphrey’s memory and forgive herself for his death?

On July 27, 2013, at 3:30 pm for those in the Alexandria, Va., area, Debbie will be with Beth Kephart in a joint event at Hooray for Books.

This is my 45th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2013, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole

July 12, 2013 by

Source: TLC Book Tours and Random House
Hardcover, 304 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole, an epistolary novel that straddles two World Wars, is about falling in love, finding your soul mate, and poetry.  Elspeth Dunn, a Scottish poet on the Isle of Skye, lives a rather cloistered life on her island but one of her books makes its way across the Atlantic to a young man in Illinois, David Graham, who writes her a fan letter.  Over the course of several years beginning when WWI breaks out in Europe, Elspeth and David begin a correspondence that takes on a life of its own.

“It’s the war talking.  I know; I’ve seen it.  They head off, invincible, feeling as if the future is a golden pool before them, ready to dive into.  And then something happens — a bomb, a sprained wrist, a bullet that whizzes by too close for comfort — and suddenly they are grabbing for whatever they can hold on to.  That golden pool, it swirls around them, and they worry they might drown if they’re not careful.  They hold tight and make whatever promise comes to mind.  You can’t believe anything said in wartime.  Emotions are as fleeting as a quiet night.”  (page 33 ARC)

While David is in America struggling through college and hoping to subvert his father’s plans for medical school, Elspeth is busy writing poetry and becoming even more entrenched in the lines her muse is offering.  Her relationship with her brother Finlay is the closest she has, but war does change things.  The more her muse speaks, the more she’s pulled away from the life she’s always known and the more she is challenged to face her fears — including her fear of water.

Through Elspeth and David’s correspondence the wider impact of war is experienced, complete with the tension of the home front as wives and families wait for their loved ones.  But at the same time, the lives of women are broadening as they are able to enter into jobs once thought of as men’s work.  The feminist leanings of Elspeth are clearly front and center in some of her correspondence with David, but it never deters him in his pursuit of her.  The moral high ground has no place in this romantic jaunt across Scotland, London, and France as a young woman and man succumb to their emotional connection on the page.

Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole weaves Elspeth and David’s story with that of Margaret, Elspeth’s daughter, and her search for the past.  Margaret has never met her father, and her mother remains close-lipped about her past and her daughter’s father.  But when WWII begins to break out, all of the old transgressions and emotional upheaval of Elspeth’s past resurfaces, threatening to leave her unmoored once again.  But Margaret’s life is far from pristine when it comes to the tentacles of war as her fiance flies for the RAF.  Brockmole’s letters are frank, honest, and engaging as these relationships unfold and enfold, creating a family history that will be hard to forget.  And yes, there is a poem included!

About the Author:

Jessica Brockmole spent several years living in Scotland, where she knew too well the challenges in maintaining relationships from a distance. She plotted her first novel on a long drive from the Isle of Skye to Edinburgh. She now lives in Indiana with her husband and two children.

To learn more about Jessica and her work, visit her Website.

To WIN a copy of this book, leave a comment by July 19, 2013, at 11:59 PM EST; You must be a U.S. resident 18 years and older.

This is my 44th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, giveaway, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2013, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton

July 10, 2013 by

Source: Unbridled Books, unsolicited
Hardcover, 288 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton is a look at the reverberating impact of war on not only the countries directly affected, but also those countries who send people to help refugees and the injured.  Todd Barbery coordinates aid for refugees and hospitals with the help of his Afghan contact, Amin.  Todd is far from his wife Clarissa of about three years and his only daughter Ruby, who is just beginning her own life, but while Clarissa fears for his safety and has wrestled a promise from him that this will be his last rotation in Afghanistan, Todd wishes not to be so closely guarded and insists on moments of freedom.

“Already wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, she tied the laces to her tennis shoes, tugged a sweatshirt over her head, and slipped downstairs.  Her stomach felt hollow.  Hunger had largely left her during these last days — she’d always been an indifferent eater, but now she found herself forgetting about food altogether until she’d notice her hands were shaking.”  (Page 135 ARC)

Each section is from a different perspective that alternates between Todd, the subject who is kidnapped and the major driver of the plot; Clarissa; Amin; Mandy; and Stela and Danil — a mother and her son, a young graffiti artist who lost his brother to Afghanistan and friendly fire.  While many of these characters’ experiences and lives intersect, Mandy and the letters written by Najibullah — a former ruler of the nation who is held by the UN and not allowed to leave for exile with his wife and daughters — are outside those interactions and direct connections to demonstrate a more compassionate and empathetic side of the story to juxtapose the heartbreak and devastation of war.

“The man turned toward Todd.  He was about twenty-five years old.  He wore a blue-gray turban and a brown vest over his salwar kameez, and his eyebrows were unusually thick, like angry storm clouds hovering over his eyes.”  (page 31 ARC)

There is great compassion and hidden understanding in these fictional lives, and much of that seems to stem from the torture and death of a historical figure, Najibullah, at least as a driving force for Amin.  However, the letters from the former president to his daughters in exile tend to pull the reader out of the rest of the story until the connection is made to Amin, and the novel may have been better served had those letters been truncated and included in Amin’s portion of the story as flashbacks or memories.  The tension with the kidnapping is well done as is the tension between Clarissa and her step-daughter as negotiations continue and the FBI is looking for the go-ahead for a military distraction even though they claim they do not know her husband’s exact location.

Danger is around every corner, or that’s how it should be perceived in this novel, and when it isn’t unfortunate things happen but at other times unexpectedly good things happen as well.  Hamilton’s prose is easy to read and is packed with emotion and perspectives that are rarely examined in war-based fiction.  The novel seeks to be well-rounded in perspective, which is tough given the complexities of the factions in Afghanistan.  What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton is engaging and hammers home the impact of war not just on the immediate participants and their families, but also those on the periphery and who are actively compassionate in their work and have a need to assist in any way they can.

About the Author:

Masha Hamilton is currently working in Afghanistan as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy. She is the author of four acclaimed novels, most recently 31 Hours, which the Washington Post called one of the best novels of 2009 and independent bookstores named an Indie choice. She also founded two world literacy projects, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. She is the winner of the 2010 Women’s National Book Association award.  Check out the inspiration behind the book, What Changes Everything.  She is also behind the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

This is my 43rd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews, unbridled books Tagged With: ,

A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson

July 9, 2013 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 440 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson is a mystery set in Lisbon, Portugal, in the 1990s, but also a novel that has routes in World War II when Germans were looking for an escape route when the war looked to be ending, and not in their favor.  The novel opens with the death of a young teen, Catarina Oliveira, who has a promiscuous past and a less-than-ideal family life.  Inspector Zé Coelho is on the case, which drags him into conspiratorial intrigues and the dark, convoluted past of his home nation.  Shifting back to 1941, Wilson unveils Klaus Felsen, a German businessman who is “recruited” by the German SS for a particular purpose that takes him into Spain, Portugal, and later Africa, as some Nazis, including his recruiter Lehrer, begin to see the campaign against Russia as folly.  Wilson’s novel is about political regimes and how even their single-minded focus can be derailed by the most personal of matters.

Felsen is an opportunist who attempts to make the most of his new position in the SS, doing the best he can to game the Wolfram markets and garner more of the mineral and other materials away from Britain and the allies from neutral countries, like Portugal.  His meeting with a British agent Edward Burton turns ugly, marring his character and leading him down an ever darkening path that sets him adrift.  Coelho, meanwhile, is slowly investigating the murder of young girl, finding that the ghosts in Salazar‘s closet are not so hidden.  The links between the Oliveira girl and the Nazis’ past in Portugal are convoluted and sinister even as publicly the nation remained neutral.

“‘So you’ve seen some of Lisbon,’ he said.  ‘Now when you see Salazar’s capital after dark perhaps you understand my point about the harlot.  Lisbon’s a whore, a peasant Arab whore, who wears a tiara at night.'”  (page 92)

Wilson successfully paints an atmosphere of paranoia among the Germans as the war winds down, and demonstrates through a series of minor characters the tensions between fascism and communism in Portugal following the war.  These political tensions weigh heavily throughout the mystery novel creating a multilayered, interlocking puzzle to be unraveled by Coelho.  Ripe with sex scenes and the underbelly of prostitution in Lisbon, the darker elements of Felsen and later Miguel Rodrigues’s desires come into the light, along with incest, adultery, perversity, and murder.

Unfortunately, these multiple story lines seem forced together toward the end with newer, less important plot lines that could have remained unresolved by Wilson.  Ultimately, the most well drawn character in the book is Felsen, though for the latter third he disappears until the very end when there seems to be no other way to tie up the mystery.  Coelho is a carbon cut out of any police detective and doesn’t seem particularly Portuguese with any respect, which could be due to the time he spent in England with his wife and child.  His time in England, however, may have made him less old-world Portuguese in some sense, but at his core, readers may expect him to still have those old world values, which could leave readers feeling that Wilson’s detective is not authentic enough.  A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson works as a mystery novel but not as well as one would expect given the high number of coincidences, but the historical parts of this book are deeply engaging and unique.  Overall, a satisfying read that will keep readers turning the pages.

About the Author:

Robert Wilson is the author of nine previous novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon and The Company of Strangers. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece and West Africa.

This is my 42nd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: ,

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris

June 26, 2013 by

Source:  Little, Brown & Company
Hardcover, 275 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris is a collection of essays and some short blurbs that he suggests could be used by students in their competitions for “forensics.”  Many people talk about Sedaris’ humor and outrageous tales, and while many will look for his signature humor here, they may find that it is a bit subdued and less abrasive than usual.  Many of these essays seem more reflective than probing (think poking with a needle), but they also resemble the tall tales that young children tell their parents when explaining what they did that day or why they got in trouble, etc.

“Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.” (page 60 ARC)

The first two essays in the collection showcase backhanded sarcasm aimed at American and especially modern ideas about parenting and socialized healthcare, especially the dark fear that socialized healthcare means dirty cots and “waiting for the invention of aspirin” and the coddling of kids who are clearly engaged in bad behaviors simply because a stranger points out the child’s misbehavior.  The end of the collection, “Dog Days,” is a bit more crass in its humor, written in a rhyming poem about various dogs and the parts of themselves that are licked, snipped, and dipped.  These little stanzas were by turns slightly funny to just mediocre as they are things that any person with “toilet” humor would come up with.  In this essay collection, they stood out from the rest, but in a grotesque way.

The essays that reach back into his early family life are the most interesting, and the essay “Author, Author” is ironically humorless in its telling, but it drives the point home not only about author tours — the good and the bad — but also the changing landscape of book stores and readers.  Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris is an interesting essay collection, but fans may find it a bit more subdued than his other work.

About the Author:

David Sedaris is a playwright and a regular commentator for National Public Radio. He is also the author of the bestselling Barrel Fever, Naked, Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy, Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Me Talk Pretty One Day. He travels extensively though Europe and the United States on lecture tours and lives in France.  Visit his Website.
This is my 41st book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.
Filed Under: ARC, challenges, essays, Hachette Books, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: ,

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

June 25, 2013 by

Source: Public Library
Paperback, 244 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968, was our June book club selection, and is the basis on which the classic movie Blade Runner is based.  (Previous to reading the novel, I’ve seen the movie, and recent memories of the watching the movie kept me alert for similarities in the book)  Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter, who works for little money in San Fransisco’s Police Department, and what money he does make is from bounties on the heads of escaped androids that escape Mars often by killing humans.  Society has evolved to the point at which androids are so human-like that they cannot be sniffed out except through a couple of tests administered by bounty hunters, which will puzzle the reader as to why the android would sit for such a test knowing that to fail means immediate retirement — a.k.a death.

Animals are no different, with many of the animals made extinct by the war and fallout, and residents of this desolate Earth are desperate to own an animal, even if it is an electric sheep.  As David Sedaris says in his essay “Loggerheads” in Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, “As with the sea turtle, part of the thrill was the feeling of being accepted … allowed you to think that you and this creature had a special relationship …”  These humans are looking for connections in any way that they can get them, either through animal ownership — such as ownership of electric animals — or through the empathy machine that connects them with other members of society through Mercerism.

“Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet.  Because, ultimately, the emphatic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.”  (page 51)

In Roger Zelazny’s introduction, he says, “His management of a story takes you from here to there in a God-knows-how, seemingly haphazard fashion, which, upon reflection, follows a logical line of development — but only on reflection.”  He’s correct in that the story shifts from Deckard’s story to that of J.R. Isidore, a so-called special or chickenhead who has been declared genetically unfit to emigrate to the Mars colony.  Isidore lives alone in a dilapidated apartment building filled with kipple, the detritus and radioactive dust, etc.  His condition requires readers to have a lot of patience for his ramblings, which in some cases seem like LSD trips or a schizophrenic break, but in some ways, Dick is attempting to demonstrate another aspect of loneliness and disconnect than what he’s showcased in the human-android relationship.  In addition, Dick seems to want readers to think long and hard about their faith in religion as the subject of Mercerism pervades the story as a way for humanity to connect on a deeper level through technological means.

“Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else’s degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves.”  (page 231)

Deckard is a man conflicted about his job, but only after he meets an android he finds attractive, and as with most men living on the edge and crossing over moral lines, he struggles to regain his footing and return to his real life and think little about what he’s done.  While he’s cocky about his abilities to take down androids, that bravado soon gives way to concern, doubt, and even fear.  Dick’s surreal narrative will leave readers guessing about the direction of the chase for the androids and whether Deckard will have the strength to complete his task or whether in completing that task he’ll have a complete breakdown or experience no repercussions what so ever.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick is an exploration not of the future, but of ourselves and our never-ending search for connection with others — whether that is with an android, a spouse, a co-worker, a lover, or an animal.  In his convoluted and disconcerting narrative, the author seeks to upend the beliefs of his readers and challenge their moral boundaries.  Unfortunately, there are big gaps in the narrative and the background about the war that caused the destruction of Earth, the origins of Mercerism, and what exactly is going on Mars — are androids in control of Mars, turning humans into androids, or something else.  These are just some of the issues that are not explored fully in this cerebral exercise.

What the Book Club Thought:

Most of the book club liked the book a great deal, with two members liking it more than they expected to when they began reading it.  Dick is one of the member’s favorite authors.  In the discussion, we touched upon the jabs at capitalism throughout the text in that animals are bought and sold at high prices and the addiction of characters to the mood organ (on which they can preset their mood for the day) and the empathy machine, which allows humans to commune with one another and Mercer.  These machines seemed to leave humans dependent and in a fog, but there is also the surreal portions of the story that left many of us guessing as to whether a spider found by Isidore was real or imaginary and Rick’s sudden transformation into Mercer without the empathy machine after completing his job.

The ownership of androids (which are advertised as an incentive to move to Mars) was compared to that of owning slaves, as well as why bounty hunters were necessary to retire the androids — are they dangerous or just different?  I theorized that perhaps the incentive of owning an android was a ploy to get humans to Mars so they could be replaced with androids.  None of the other members seemed to agree.  One member also questioned from the beginning whether Rick was human or an android, though most of the members assumed he was human.  Other topics touched upon were that the androids were child-like and not as evolved as humans and hence why they sometimes acted with malice, and that perhaps given more time to live, they could develop empathy, thus making them harder to distinguish from humans.

Our July book club selection is His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik.

About the Author:

Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago in 1928 and lived most of his life in California. He briefly attended the University of California, but dropped out before completing any classes. In 1952, he began writing professionally and proceeded to write numerous novels and short-story collections. He won the Hugo Award for the best novel in 1962 for The Man in the High Castle and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year in 1974 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Philip K. Dick died on March 2, 1982, in Santa Ana, California, of heart failure following a stroke.

This is my 40th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2013, reviews, science fiction Tagged With:

Three-Ring Rascals: The Show Must Go On! (Book 1) by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise

June 20, 2013 by

Source:  Anna of Diary of an Eccentric gave me this ARC as the book was aimed at readers younger than The Girl, but only slightly older than my girl. (probably the longest explanation EVER!)
Paperback, 141 pages
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Three-Ring Rascals: The Show Must Go On! (Book 1) by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise, is a cute book about circus life, complete with talking animals, feats that defy gravity and the laws of physics, and a scoundrel, which is due for publication in September 2013.  Sir Sidney’s Circus is a story about redemption and about being true to your friends, but it’s also about the surprising things that can happen when you’re not looking.

Sir Sidney is getting older and he’s looking for a manager when he settles on a self-proclaimed lion tamer named Barnabas Brambles, but while Sidney is away, Brambles has plans of his own — to make money for himself.  The path he takes to make more money backfires even as he strives to accomplish even more devious strategies.  Meanwhile, the animals sure miss their owner and suffer at the hands of Brambles, though they don’t exact any revenge.

Leaving the acrobats in charge of driving the train, Brambles finds that his plans are thrown out into the wind as the train gets stuck in places that will boggle his mind.  Klise is an imaginative storyteller, and readers will like the little definition explanations she includes for some of the larger words used, as well as the explanation behind the made-up words used by the mice, Bert and Gert.  The illustrations are fun and simple, and they include dialogue bubbles as the animals talk amongst themselves while Brambles makes his plans.  The text is mixed in beside and inside the illustrations, which will keep readers exploring the pages, rather than rushing over the pictures.

Three-Ring Rascals: The Show Must Go On! (Book 1) by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise, is a book that will entertain younger readers, though age 10 may be a little old for the book depending on the readers’ abilities.  The book indicates it is for kids ages 7-10, but it read more like a book for ages 5-8, but younger readers may need help reading.  As a book read at bedtime for younger ages, parents could break it up in installments over several evenings.  The book is fun and only the first in the series, with certainly more antics to come, especially from Bert and Gert who are a riot.

**The Three-Ring Rascals Website offers some great insights into how the author and illustrator are like Bert and Gert, the two mice, and there are resources for teachers and fun games for kids.

About the Author and Illustrator:

Kate Klise and M. Sarah Klise have collaborated on numerous middle-grade and picture book projects. Their most recent series, 43 Old Cemetery Road, has been nominated for reading awards in nearly twenty states to date and is a Junior Library Guild selection. The pair’s novels and picture books can be found on their Website.  And to find out more about the Three-Ring Rascals, visit the Website.

This is my 39th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: Algonquin, ARC, borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: , ,

A Strange Place to Call Home by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Ed Young

June 19, 2013 by

Source:  Purchased from Novel Books
Hardcover, 44 pages
I’m an Amazon Affiliate

A Strange Place to Call Home by Marilyn Singer, illustrated Ed Young, is a collection of poems and illustrations about animals that live in harsh environments and have adapted to their conditions.  The poetry forms include free verse, cinquain, haiku, villanelle, sonnet, and others that give young readers a brief look at the animals in their habitats from the Humboldt penguins that live in the warmer climates of Chile and Peru to the blind cave fish that live in the dark deep.  Included in the poetry book are at times abstract looking pictures of the animals or their habitats, though the images resemble collage techniques that incorporate various mediums.  The book also includes a break down of what poems exemplify which form and end notes that give a little more information about each animal.

Dry as Dust

They can deal solo
with dryness, but give them rain
and then: toads explode.

For my little girl, who is age 2, this book was a little too old for her.  She couldn’t pay attention long enough to get through the entire book, but she loved the pages with the snow monkeys in “Think Heat.”  There are a lot more questions than answers, and kids who are older are likely to want more information about each animal and habitat.  For younger kids, there’s just enough in each poem to mirror their own wonder, including them in the wider questioning of these animals’ lives.

A Strange Place to Call Home by Marilyn Singer, illustrated Ed Young, is a little too old for my little one, but if she retains her love of animals, she’ll likely enjoy this more as she gets older.  I found the poems a little too simple, and some did not have enough information about the animals or their habitats, but the end notes did offer a bit more information.  As a jumping off point, the book will spark questions from younger readers, and it could inspire a mother- or father-child exploration of these harsh habitats and adaptable animals.  Singer offers a special thanks at the beginning of the book to several people and museums, which seems to be where she obtained some of the information for her poems.

About the Poet:

Marilyn Singer was born in the Bronx (New York City) and lived most of her early life in N. Massapequa (Long Island), NY. She attended Queens College, City University of New York, and for her junior year, Reading University, England. She holds a B.A. in English from Queens and an M.A. in Communications from New York University.  Visit her Website.

About the Illustrator:

Caldecott Medalist Ed Young is the illustrator of over eighty books for children, seventeen of which he has also written. He finds inspiration for his work in the philosophy of Chinese painting.

Young began his career as a commercial artist in advertising and found himself looking for something more expansive, expressive, and timeless. He discovered all this, and more, in children’s books.  Visit his Website.

 

This is my 38th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

 

 

This is my 24th book for the Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013.

Filed Under: challenges, Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013, New Authors Challenge, poetry, purchased, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: , , ,