The elements of recent history of the Czech Republic, and Prague in particular, are in evidence in this book. The main character, Kristyna, is a divorced woman with a teenaged daughter whose grandmother and other family on her mother’s side died in Nazi death camps, having been divorced by her non-Jewish husband. And her father was a staunch Stalinist to the end of his life. The mother...
This is the story of a low to middle class family which begins with the marriage of the parents just after World War II and ends as the four children come of age. It is recounted by incidents that illuminate them. The druggy 60s figure in the story, as does the Vietnam War. The picture is of a family that spends lots of time together, but the inevitable separations between them are clear. The...
Audiobook. Although the story of a person who wakes up one morning turned into a large horrid beetle is not going to be a light hearted tale, this Kafta work is less oppressive than The Trial. A certain humor creeps in occasionally in the absurd situation Gregor and his family (father, mother, and younger sister) find themselves in. The fear that is evident in all the main characters is similar...
Echo House was a real pleasure to read; it dips into the lives of three generations of a power family in Washington. Because it covers a long time span (between the wars to the 90s), it visits the characters from a distance, always with references to the key moments in their lives. This is not as tight a story as An Unfinished Season, but like that book, place is very important...
I began listening to this audiobook late in December and finished January 22, listening most days for a short time while I walked. Toni Morrison is both a beautiful writer and reader. I think I could happily listen to her read the phone book. I keep hearing her say the name Setha. The horrifying story of a group of enslaved people from a farm called Sweet Home, beginning before the Civil War and...
This loan from Mary Susan was a trip through Umbria and Tuscany. The author recounts the story of Francis of Assisi by retracing his considerable travels, not just in the hill towns of Italy, but his trip to Egypt during the fifth crusade. So you hear the story of his conversion, creation of a new Rule, administering and losing control of a new order, his vigils and fasts, and countless miracles...
I began reading this on the plane on the way to Phoenix on Christmas day and hardly noticed the time. I read few restaurant reviews and probably never read one from the New York Times where she was the critic for some years. I certainly did not expect a laugh-out-loud book. Because she was well-known and restaurants are keen to treat the Times critic to a great meal, she adopted disguises so she...
I have mixed views of this 2006 book by a British writer. It was always engaging and I was never tempted to give it up. The narrator was purportedly a man, but at the risk of sounding sexist, the sensibilities of this narrator were not masculine. An appealing character in many ways, but not a guy as I know them. And as evidence that I am not a sexist, I offer this: I was made uneasy by the...
One of the most pleasing and entertaining books I’ve read in ages. It is a story (there are potentially four of them) of the Guarneri String Quartet. A lovingly written telling of the violinist’s education, the events that lead to the formation of this long-lived quartet, and Steinhardt’s view of their life as a quartet. So many familiar names of musicians, jokes, music...
The Trial was very difficult to read — I was always looking for an escape. The chief clerk of a bank, a successful functionary in the bureaucracy, is arrested by a court that operates in secret. One of its rules is that the accused can never learn what the charges are. The horror of this book is that the fantastic is recounted as if it were perfectly normal. We are all aware of the counter...