This short novel about the life of an Irish woman who moves to New York in 1962 will be in my top ten for the year. It begins with the death of Tess’s mother when Tess was an 8-year-old; joy goes out of the house and her dour father withdraws his meager love. She finds comfort in her sisters, the dog, and Mike Connolly who works on their farm but even so she has lost the ability to speak...
According to Amazon, Bill Gifford has written for magazines such as Outside and Bicycling, as well as a stint writing for the Washington City Paper, a weekly alternative newspaper. This personal and thorough look at the science of and non-scientific practice of prolonging life written by a competent writer is a pleasure. Though the information is as overwhelming as water through a firehose...
I have enjoyed this Australian writer in the past (Five Bells); both books were recommended by Reading Matters. Her review of this one mentioned specifically the joy of beautiful sentences and I found I was bowled over time and again by the language. Sometimes that can overshadow or barely make up for an absent plot, but in this case it was an integral part of a wonderful whole. We know...
This book is Claire Fuller's first; she is British and I learned of her through her twitter feed (can't remember how I began following it). It will be available as a print book in the US on March 17, but I bought the kindle book last week so I could read it while traveling to Iowa. And what a great way to endure travel by air it was. It is the gripping story of an 8-year-old girl...
Reading Matters was very enthusiastic about this book and I found that I wholeheartedly agree. The narrator is an elderly woman writing in 1933 about events that occurred in 1888-90, beginning with the International Exhibition in Glasgow. In the preface of this novel Harriet Baxter tells us that she wants to write a book about Ned Gilllespie, described as her dear friend and soul mate. He...
It was Tony's mention of listening to Travels with My Aunt (made into a movie with Maggie Smith) that encouraged me to listen to Our Man in Havana. I had seen the movie with Alec Guinness years ago, but remember only his white suit and being confused. Of course I know and love some of his other works through movies, The End of the Affair and the wonderful The Third Man...
It was Michael Dirda's review in The Washington Post that drew me to this book; he said the book quickly has you in thrall. That at the end "you find yourself emotionally sucked dry, as much stunned as exhilarated by the power of art." It's true, I was in thrall, read faster and faster as it went along, and was stunned and overwhelmed by the end. Sarah Waters is, according to...
This is another one I chose because it's on the NYT list of 10 best books of 2014 (the other was All the Light We Cannot See). It is inspired by events in the life of Margaret Mead and takes place in 1933 in New Guinea where she and her husband worked briefly with Gregory Bateson who became her third husband. In the novel Nell and her husband Fen have just fled a malevolent tribe...
Having read Tony's blogpost about this book, I figured I would enjoy it, but it turns out that It was mesmerizing from the outset and I could hardly put it down. It drew me along in a way that few books have. So, what is it about this book? We learn the story of an artistic couple, Owen, the writer and Gus, the painter told by Gus. Owen has published five books that are well regarded but only...
I listened to this book because it made onto the NYT top 10 books of the year, as well as other "best of 2014" lists. It is the story of two young people caught in the horror of World War II whose lives intersect near the end of the war. Marie-Laure, daughter of the locksmith of the natural history museum in Paris, becomes blind as a girl. Her father makes a wooden model of the...