This is one of those books with two parallel stories and chapters alternating between the stories. Max is an ethnobotanist with Asperger's who goes to Rwanda looking for a vine that gorillas eat to cure them of heart disease. While the beta-blocker part is fiction, I gather the Asperger's and gorilla descriptions are accurate. The other story takes place a hundred...
This book of 35 stories by an Israeli writer brings to mind Kafka, in that you must be prepared for the main character to turn into a cockroach. The tone and underlying message are generally much lighter than Kafka’s and in some cases the stories are sweet and straight forward. Some of my favorites, though, are those in the absurdist vein. One, called Unzipping, starts this way: “It...
Linda Miller gave me this book as she and Bill were leaving town and trying to reduce their library. It’s my fourth Ward Just book and I love it as I did the others. He writes about the changes in a town not far from Chicago that occurred in towns in many places in post World War II America. It certainly happened in Fairfax, Virginia which went from a courthouse and a collection of...
I began this book knowing little about Cleopatra — I didn't even see the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton extravaganza — so I had lots to learn. Stacy Schiff's book tells what little is reliably known about her, while evaluating some of the less likely stories about her. It's good to remember that the history of a woman who was a lover of Julius Caesar and...
I read this based on Reading Matters' recommendation. I turned up without something to read for the trip back from Iowa and found this at the Minneapolis Airport bookstore. Given my reservations about reading fiction that does not have developed characters and paints a largely grim picture, I had low expectations, but The Buddha in the Attic exceeded them handsomely. Julie...
What a wonderful book. I read it based on the recommendation of Tony's Book World, who lists it among his favorite Australian novels. Unlike several novels I've read recently, it has narrative arc, an intense and eventful one at that. It is the story of a young woman who grows up on a farm in southwestern Australia. Her family is visited by her English cousin...
Eric Weiner, a former NPR reporter, writes about his "Flirtations with the Divine," as his subtitle has it. I heard him speak at the Charlottesville Festival of the Book and thought, rightly as it turns out, he would make a great reader of his book, given his experience as a reporter. And he was funny as well as instructive. He undertakes to "find his god" and...
This is another book I've read recently that does not have much of a narrative arc; each character tells us his story and in this case we get to know an extended, but small family from the viewpoint of each character. I'm thinking of Five Bells and Seven Types of Ambiguity; humm…why doesn't the title of this book begin with a number? I heard the author speak on a panel at...
Gilgamesh by Joan London. 2001 book by Australian writer. Tony's Book World says, "An incredible journey from the wilderness of western Australia to the wilderness of Armenia told in a blunt and powerful style." Available at Jefferson-Madision. Etgar Keret, short story writer from Israel. Suddenly, a Knock at the Door, short stories...
By far the most beloved character in this book is Sydney, with a focus on Circular Quay. The descriptions by the four other characters, three of them newcomers to Sydney, of the wonders of that location were each beautiful in themselves. Circular Quay is the spot in Sydney where the train comes to the harbor between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, where ferries take off for...