Shortlisted for the Canadian Giller Prize, The Betrayers has a wonderfully simple plotline that the author uses to great advantage. Baruch Kotler, a well-known government official in Israel has run away with his young mistress Leora Rosenberg as their affair was made public when he refused to be blackmailed into silence about his disagreement with a government policy. Baruch and Leora, both...
This is my third Armand Gamache police procedural by Louise Penny and the second one in the series. There are more events in this one about the overarching plot which culminated in How the Light Gets In. I'm glad I read that one first, so I recognize these plot developments; otherwise I would just be mystified. Once again we hear Ruth insult everyone within earshot, food is lovingly...
This is my fourth Colm Toibin and I found it to be yet another wonderful book. It is story of an Irish woman whose husband died while she had two young sons at home and two daughters old enough to be away at school. The most mundane aspects of her life are revealed with the same deliberate calm voice as the more dramatic moments as she comes to terms with the loss of her beloved husband. The...
This is the first of the Louise Penny series of Chief Inspector Gamache stories; I listened to How the Light Gets In recently and loved it. This one confirms that I am a fan and will listen to the whole series eventually. Though Armand Gamache is based in Montreal, the events occur in the village of Three Pines (these little towns can be so murderous!). We get to know those wonderful...
What an odd book this is. I can't write about it without making the big revelation, so be forewarned. The story is told by the retired Frances, looking back on her life. SPOILER ALERT! The book is set in Galesburg, Illinois, where Frances went to Knox College and fell in love with her Shakespeare professor whom she eventually married. She taught Latin at the high school while he continued to...
When we meet Fiona, a 59-year-old woman, she is in her nearly perfect flat preparing for the coming day on the bench, where she will deliver her decision about custody of a child. It's a complicated case as the father is in an ultra orthodox Jewish sect from which the mother has distanced herself. Fiona must decide whether the child will be with the mother and attend school and prepare for...
This engaging book is a series of short letters Nina Stibbe sent to her sister when Nina was a nanny in London for Mary-Kay Wilmers, a founder and the current editor of the London Review of Books. Wilmers is divorced from Steve Frears (filmmaker: My Beautiful Laundrette and Philomena) and Nina was hired to help care for their two sons, Sam and Will. In the early 1980s Nina moved to London from...
This is another great Tony recommendation. It has been a perfect audiobook in that the pace is slow and is repetitive enough so you won't miss any key points and interesting enough to keep you happy to take a walk so you can listen to it. It is a nicely complex police procedural set in the province of Québec. References are made to events that precede it in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache...
Having enjoyed the over-the-top humor of his Absurdistan and especially Super Sad True Love Story, I was drawn to Gary Shteyngart’s memoir. I remember hearing in an interview for the book that after many years of self-destructive behavior, his work with an analyst changed his life. Well, you have to love a redemption story. And it is that, but redemption is a long slog away from page 1...
Everyone in this book is bereft. Despite the fact that the central event is the murder of a child and that her brother Quinn was suspected of the heinous crime and that he fled home the day of the murder and eventually served at Gallipoli and in France and that his mother is dying of influenza when he returns to tell her that he did not commit the crime, despite all this, I did appreciate and...