Ellyne

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Appointment

Comments:
Muller, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009, sets this stream of consciousness novel in her native country, Romania, while it was under Ceausescu's rule.

The internal monologue jumps from the protagonist's "here and now" - a bus trip to an appointment with a secret police interrogator that is filled with musings about fellow riders - to an assortment of disjointed memories, the happenings that make a life: how she met her boyfriend, her relationship with her boss at the factory where she works, the life of her ex-inlaws; so many stories, so much bleakness masterfully rendered by this writer.

One thing is clear: nothing is as it seems; there is no such thing as solid ground, everything shifts; betrayal is the only truth. And fruit; watch out for the fruit; it's everywhere: from apricots whose pits seem to pulsate to peaches, cherries, watermelon, and ,of course, plums, the fruit that figures in the title of another of Muller's books.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Keep

Comments:
I'm not a huge fan of gothic/neo gothic novels, but this was such an entertaining, sustaining read that I barely thought of it as gothic. Though there is a castle replete with twisting tunnels, a mysterious baroness, and a splash of surrealism, it is the characters that make this work resonate. So well limned are they that I know I must have been on line next to one of them somewhere, sometime. Certainly, I cared about them and was grateful to Jennifer Egan for holding them and her story so tightly, right up to the end.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Kings of New York

Comments:
"There are 85 billion ways to play the first four moves of a chess game," writes Michael Weinreb in this totally entertaining, informative and thought provoking book. It seemed that every few pages presented some new revelation, be it about chess in Russia or in the N.Y. City school system.
And, oh the people you'll meet. You'll be thoroughly charmed by the disparate group of teenagers who make up The Edward R. Morrow H.S. Chessteam. Black, White, Hispanic, Jewish, Eastern European; lower class, middle class; down-to-earth strivers, heads-in-the-clouds dreamers: they all are given the opportunity to play chess and shine. We are reminded that these may be the most, or only, shining moments they achieve. (Lo and behold, having finished the book, I was drawn to read the "Chess Box" in the Sunday Times, where I learned that Salvijus Bercys, AKA Sal, was awarded The International Grand Masters Title. Yea Sal!).
In the friendliest possible voice, this author, whose compassion for those he writes about is palpable, whose presence is felt both as storyteller and participant, offers complexity and depth. I was so excited for Sal!

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Septembers of Shiraz

Comments:
In her NY Times review, Claire Messud writes The Septembers of Shiraz is miraculously light in its touch, as beautiful and delicate as a book about suffering can be." That's it!

Sofer's story encompasses so much: our choices, expectations and responsibilities; the weight of absolute power; emigration and the loss of self-definition; and more. This is a beautifully written, wonderfully balanced, finely nuanced book and I don't know why I waited so long to read it!

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: Love and Obstacles

Comments:
I am now officially an Aleksandar Hemon fan.  He captured me with these stories that continue the author's exploration of the immigrant experience, of his own experience - or maybe not.  The narrator is so winning and present that I was almost lulled into believing that I was reading a memoir.  However, these poignant and, yes, charming stories, sometimes set in the U.S., sometimes in Sarajevo and its environs (or in Africa!) are the work of an excellent writer of fiction.  Enjoy.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: Tenderness of Wolves

Comments:
A well-written thriller that holds one's interest right up to the chilling end. Well, chilling because this story takes place in the cold, snowy northern territory of Canada in 1867 when the Hudson Bay Company was fighting to retain its control of the fur trade. The characters tracking through the snow-covered landscape are believable, with some more likable than others, but none totally villainous, which is one reason that this is such a good read. There are moving moments, sensuous moments: just what a mystery/thriller should have.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: Netherland

Comments:
The more I think about this book, the more I realize how very excellent it is, this incredible novel and ode to New York City.  With its protagonist, Hans, a Dutch-born banker, I am still walking "the streets of New York City, which abet desire even in its strangest patterns."  One could quote and quote, the prose is so good. 

Full disclosure requires that I mention that cricket plays a prominent role in this book.  I decided to embrace it and that took me to a richly-peopled world and to traveling through N.Y.C - not just Manhattan but to Floyd Bennett Field where one character's dreams of creating a cricket field live and where cricket represents a way of living, not simply a game.  And to Fort Tilden, too. 

The story is the human one about living one's life:  how families fall apart and are pieced back together, how we find community and define community; and so much more.  Chosen as one of the NY Times five best works of fiction for 2008 with good reason. 

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: American Rust

Comments:
Four men are drinking together in a bar in a fading Pennsylvania steeltown.  One who had worked in steel mills for much of his life before being laid off now earns his living taking them apart, deconstructing them.  This is a really well-written book with grand themes about an America struggling with its identity, what it was and what it is.

Its characters live together in isolation, needing each other, struggling to be there for each other.  Those struggles in streams of consciousness that are honest, on target and full of pathos lay them bare for us.  A book to linger over and be amazed by - a first novel!

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The History of Love

Comments:
The History of Love, the mystery of love, it's all here in this puzzle of a book. An elderly man, Leo Gursky, has lost the love of his life, Alma, as well as the manuscript for the book he wrote immortalizing that love. At the same time, an adolescent girl, Alma, too, struggles with her own loves: of her late father, her family, of the friend for whom she may have stronger feelings.
Nicole Krauss gives us a wistful, poignant read that brings both tears and smiles and leaves us with some astonishing moments to reflect on. One among them is when Leo, feeling truly alone, models in the nude, thereby assuring that on that day he will be seen; truly, really seen. And he really is wonderful to see.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Comments:
Junot Diaz writes with such energy I feared Oscar Wao's wonderful life would dance right out of my hands. The writing, the language, is all over the place from street to poetic to academic; it's in English, it's in Spanish; and it's terrific, just terrifc.

This novel has been very favorably reviewed, but it was hearing Diaz for a minute on "The Bookshow" that prompted me to pick it up. Now I wish I could better convey both its pathos and its buoyancy. It is a family history and a country's history (and if you have forgotten how Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic, well, here it is never again to be forgotten); it is the immigrant experience; and if you are lucky, and read this it will be your experience too.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: Brother, I'm Dying

Comments:
Read yet another memoir? Well, I couldn't dismiss a book written by a favorite author; by such a fine author as Edwidge Danticat, whose lyrical, poetic novels reflect both her early childhood in Haiti and her continuing, deep connection to that country. In this memoir she lets us know her as a child separated from parents, who, like so many parents before them, left their children behind in a turbulent country in the hope of finding a safer and more productive life in the United States. She gives us an understanding of what it is like to live always straddling two countries, two ways of life, two visions of one self.

Living in Haiti with her father's brother and his wife until she is 12, Danticat is well cared for and well loved. This is not the story of an abused child, but one of the children of an abused country.It is about her father who, as Danticat learns she is pregnant, learns that he is dying. Even more so, her story is focused on her iconic uncle, Joseph, a creator living amidst destroyers, a loving man amidst haters. Ultimately, it is about those abrupt, little deaths of hope and faith we each experience when faces with every-day evil.

If you follow this read with Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, oh what a trilogy you'll have read.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: The Outside Boy

Comments:
With this first novel Jeanine Cummins proves herself to be an adept writer, gracefully mixing the language of the Pavees, or Irish Travellers, with standard English to give us a coming-of-age story that is also a nomadic-slice-of-life story. It is always difficult to capture the voice of a 12-year-old and on some occasions she does lose it; but still, she manages to make everything believeable.The prose just flows along and we more and more like Christy Hurley who lives in a wagon and sleeps in a tent, and is indeed, the outside boy. A good book to read outside while sitting under a tree.

Bookseller: Ellyne
Title: Brother, I'm Dying

Comments:
Read yet another memoir? Well, I couldn't dismiss a book written by a favorite author; by such a fine author as Edwidge Danticat, whose lyrical, poetic novels reflect both her early childhood in Haiti and her continuing, deep connection to that country. In this memoir she lets us know her as a child separated from parents, who, like so many parents before them, left their children behind in a turbulent country in the hope of finding a safer and more productive life in the U.S. She gives us an understanding of what it is like to live always straddling two countries, two ways of life, two visions of oneself.

Living in Haiti with her father's brother and his wife until she is 12, Danticat is well cared for and well loved. This is not the story of an abused child, but of one of the children of an abused country. It is about her father who, as Danticat learns she is pregnant, learns that he is dying. Even more so, her story is focused on her iconic uncle, Joseph, a creator living amidst destroyers, a loving man amidst haters. Ultimately, it is about his death; and about those abrupt, little deaths of hope and faith we each experience when faced with every-day evil.

If you follow this read with Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, oh what a trilogy you will have read.