Amitov Ghosh. First two books of a trilogy are Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. Audiobook and kindle formats. Little Princes by Conor Grennan. Recommended by Molly. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, won the Man Booker Prize. Asylum reviewed it and explained the murky ending (in the comments section). Touch by Alexi Zentner. Reviewed by Reading Matters and Kevin from Canada...
Audiobook. This story of an elderly British major who cultivates his reputation as a curmudgeon is of course about the exposure of the Major as the most modern and kindly of men. He, almost alone in the village, appreciates the Pakistanis, born and grown up in Britain, as neighbors and friends. While not inclined to tell near strangers or even good friends the intimacies of...
Peter Hessler's first book River Town (reviewed here) was a wonderfully written, widely ranging account of his two years teaching English in Fuling, a small town in China. During that time he learned Chinese and since then has written about China for The New Yorker and other publications. Oracle Bones repeats some of the stories from The New Yorker, recounts his continued...
Audiobook. First, I must say it’s unusual that a book set in the 1850s in Oregon City and California was chosen for the shortlist of the Man Booker Prize. But who could resist a story about two brothers named Sisters, especially two brothers who are hired killers and speak formal, if awkward, English. The narrator is Eli, the “warm-hearted” brother. One commenter on the blog...
This was recommended in a blog I just began reading called The Mookse and the Gripes. So your first question, as mine was, might be to ask where that blog name came from. I can tell you that it is a fable retold by Joyce in Finnegans Wake. Despite being overwhelmed by the implications of all that, I did hunt up this book in the UVa library. And a little beauty...
Audiobook. I was vaguely familiar with the name Clyde Edgerton before I listened to this book, and on the basis of that and the enthusiasm of the Amazon commenters, I downloaded it. The fact that I listened to the whole thing tells me I am easily amused. It's set in the South in the early 1960s and told in the voice of a young woman named Raney who marries a college...
I remember hearing years ago that this 2001 book was a good read. I certainly agree, but oh, what grim lives he describes. Vishnu, whose mother told him countless stories about the god Vishnu he was named for, lives on one of the landings in an apartment house. He gets a few rupees from inhabitants of the apartments, and now that he is nearly dead, they leave him tea and sometimes...
Audiobook. The chef of Prune, a 30-seat restaurant in the East Village, has written a compelling biography. She remembers her childhood as idyllic, if unconventional and chaotic; the divorce of her parents when she was 13 was traumatic. As the youngest of 5 children, she was most vulnerable and naturally least able to fend for herself. In the small town where the family had...
I loved Kostova’s second book The Swan Thieves so decided to pick this one up. Sad to say, I don’t think it measures up. It’s a long rambling book, making its way through Europe, especially Eastern Europe, with a little foray into an unnamed city in the U.S. It wanders through time as well, from the present to the youth of the narrator’s father and reaching back briefly...
This short Tim Winton book is set in the early 80s in the far outskirts of Perth. A hippie couple lived the simple life, having decamped there to live among the trees. By the time the novel opens, the couple have an angry teenage girl and a boy around 12, and the trees have almost all been taken for lumber. Then things really start to go wrong. The story is told through the...