I am new to Ward Just — somehow I had not heard of him until the last year or so — and now I have lots to look forward to. An Unfinished Season is the story of the pivotal summer for a privileged young man before he enters college, set in Chicago in the 1950s. His life that summer involves a pleasing mix of worlds — the deb balls of North Shore fine families, his visits to hear...
A very dreamy book; events and descriptions are misty and their reality is quite uncertain. A young Russian man is telling the story of his time in a tiny desolate village called Mirnoe where he meets a woman in her 40s who has been waiting for her beloved to return from the war for 30 years. The wonder of her faithfulness and goodness is the central theme of the novel. By the writer of Dreams of...
The Seattle setting is very much a part of Waxwings, as is the time — the beginning of the end of the dot com boom. Two separate stories eventually intersect. One is the story of the arrival of a Chinese illegal — the term snakehead (human smugglers) is used in this book. The other is the disintegration of a marriage and the effect on the 4 year old child of the couple. The British...
This book, a Man Booker prize winner, is told in a most interesting voice. The narrator was able to make me very intensely sad for reasons that were not entirely clear and at the same time he speaks in a very rationale unemotional voice. His great love for his wife was a contrast to his distance from others — his daughter, in particular. It is a lavishly descriptive book and evokes a...
A very rich treasure this non-fiction book is. Eberstadt, clearly a well-educated and successful writer, who was always drawn to gypsies, moves unhappily with husband and two children to Perpignan, a town at the end of the line in southern France. She, with a great effort, meets gypsies, and despite formidable barriers between them, makes lasting friends. She is especially drawn to the music and...
This book is a fictionalized account of the lives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji and the interesting intersection of their lives. It appears the creator of Sherlock Holmes did a bit of investigation himself. The life of Arthur is not surprisingly an interesting tale, but making George a fully fleshed out character was an impressive feat. And the story that brought them together is...
Audiobook read by Ruby Dee. I read this book perhaps 10 years ago and remember liking it very much. But hearing it was a different experience altogether. You always hear that certain writing is meant to be heard rather than read, but this is the first time I’ve experienced that. The language was just, well, poetic, I guess. Although you’ve never seen the words used in just that way...
I’ve been reading this book for nearly two years; it’s been wonderful to dip into it from time to time. A writer, his wife and young daughter spend a year in Les Arques, a small village in the Lot in southwest France. The town has no commerce except for an excellent restaurant and a museum for the Russian artist Zadkine who lived here part of the time. The writer focuses on the...
A thoroughly unpleasant cast of characters wallowing around in the very
appealing setting of Athens. Two of them are only pleasing when they
speak of visits just outside the city; only for the beauty around them
do they suspend their venal natures. But oddly enough, I was never
tempted to put the book aside. Without appearing to work too hard at
it, the author puts you in the city.
Very silly and often quite funny book. I bought it thinking of the upcoming plane ride home from Sweden and it served me quite well. Post-WWII Ukrainian immigrants who had been in a German work camp were fortunate to have been sent to England rather than back to Russia. The book mixes the horror of their lives under Stalin and during the war to the ludicrous story of the 84-year old widower...