About the Book:

It has been said that one can see farther only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ahab’s Wife, Sena Naslund’s epic work of historical fiction, honors that aphorism, using Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick as looking glass into early-19th-century America. Through the eye of an outsider, a woman, she suggests that New England life was broader and richer than Melville’s manly world of men, ships, and whales. This ambitious novel pays tribute to Melville, creating heroines from his lesser characters, and to America’s literary heritage in general.

Una, named for the heroine of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, flees to the New England coast from Kentucky to escape her father’s puritanism and to pursue a more exalted life. She gets whaling out of her system early: going to sea at 16 disguised as a boy, Una has her ship sunk by her own monstrous whale, and survives a harrowing shipwreck:

I was so horrified by the whale’s deliberate charge that I could not move. Then my own name flew up from below like a spear: “Una!” Giles’ voice broke my trance, and I scrambled down the rigging. No sooner did my foot touch the deck than there was such a lurch that I fell to my face. I heard and felt the boards break below the waterline, the copper sheathing nothing but decorative foil. The whole ship shuddered. A death throe. The ship dies, but Una returns to land to pursue the life of the mind. The novel’s opening line–”Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last”–also diminishes Melville’s hero in the broader scheme of things. Naslund exposes the reader to the unsung, real-life heroes of Melville’s world, including Margaret Fuller and her Boston salon, and Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell. There is a chance meeting with a veiled Nathaniel Hawthorne in the woods, and throughout the novel the story brims with references to the giants of literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth. Although her novel runs long at nearly 700 pages, Naslund has created an imaginative, entertaining, and very impressive work. –Ted Leventhal

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a strange book — and at least for me, I mean that in more ways than one.  I have never been a big fan of Moby Dick — it is one of the very few instances where I considered the movies better than the book.  The story is so dry, and hard to read that it is almost painful to pick up.

So when I came across this book, I was in Barnes and Noble — perusing the shelves.  (This of course is at bare minimum of a 2 hour process.)  I picked this book up, and debated it for almost half an hour, before putting it back down.  I then proceeded to debate it for the next year — every time I visited the book store.  Finally, I just threw up my hands in disgust and bought it.

The reviews I have read about this book would seem to bare out the same response was not being unique to me alone.  This is one of those books that people either loved, or hated.  (Much like the original story that it is a take off from.)

The story is fairly interesting if taken at face value — and without the extensive English interpretations that can be read into the story.  However, If you are looking for a simple read, without all the symbolism, allusion, plot structure, and character analysis — this probably isn’t the book for you.  I felt as if the author started with a great idea — which to me appeared to be to make the original story of Moby Dick not only easier to follow — but also more expansive and appealing to a larger readership; but I felt like somewhere along the way, the author got side tracked and forgot what it was she was actually trying to accomplish.

The main character does offer an interesting look into early American life — when fishing for a living was a mandatory form of self sustenance.  She has a great deal of depth.  But I felt like that depth only came through the reflection of the image of her husband — Ahab — that she is constantly waiting for, to return home.  That is not to say that this may, or may not be an accurate description of this kind of life — but I found Una’s character much more interesting when she was actually out, working on a ship of her own, living life as a young boy — than I did after her return to land — and the endless waiting for the fated Ahab.

I did find that I was getting frustrated with the constant presentation of this woman as a half of a pair of star crossed lovers.  This theme may have worked for Romeo and Juliette, but it is completely out of place in this novel.  For starters, I would expect any woman that would marry into this kind of life, would know what she was in for.  It isn’t like fate thrust this on her — and her only response could possibly be a fatalistic pinning away for the missing.  And in this case — this is the presentation in a character that had been to sea, herself.  She should have known what to expect.  After all — she suffered a great foreshadowing event that was a very contrived scene, which thrust the reader forward into the ultimate end of Moby Dick.

One thing that I did find interesting was the presentation of Captain Ahab.  Ms. Naslund was successful in presenting the same shift in Captain Ahab from the run of the mill whaling ship captain — to the obsessed individual that was consumed with the one driving goal that became his all encompassing self destruction — the mighty, and illusive whale — Moby Dick.  But even as Captain Ahab became more and more consumed with his obsession — Una became more withdrawn, and her character ultimately deteriorated from there.

Overall — I felt that this book could have been excellent if the author had stayed with the beginning of the book — but the last quarter of the book provided very little enjoyment — and I felt was even burdensome.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Publisher’s Website

Interview with the Author

CNN Book Review

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-02-10 07:00:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family’s summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu’s secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu’s generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu’s soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This book is hauntingly beautiful to read.  Simple in its presentation, the story is one that stays with you.  This is a book that I found very interesting from beginning to end, particularly for the different perspective that it offers in regards to the devastation visited upon China, just prior to the Second World War.  After having read The Rape of Nanking I found this book gives a very different look at that event, in historical fiction format.

The story is of a young Chinese man that is sent to the Japanese coast, as he tries to recover from tuberculosis.  While he is there he encounters some very conflicting emotions in dealing with his own culture, which he has always been a part of, and the Japanese culture that he is rapidly coming to appreciate.  But there is more to this story than just what goes on, on the surface.  It is multifaceted — with multiple story lines that are ultimately brought together in the year that Stephen spends away from his family — and among the “enemy.”

This book offers a great deal of not only moral conflict, but it also looks into the concept of beauty, honor, loyalty, and friendship.  Ms Tsukiyama, with her unique mixed heritage, brings to this story a powerful look into both sides of the equation, between these two waring cultures, and presents it all with not only eloquence, but honesty and great insight.  I loved the characters, particularly how well Ms. Tsukiyama has been able to so completely develop them from both cultures. This book offers an impressive, and deeply moving look into this troubled era — and the difficulties that war visits on both of these countries.

I was also very impressed with the presentation of the two different gardens presented in this book.  As diverse from each other as gardens can possibly be — they provide the beautiful, and symbolic representation of how different these two cultures are from each other, but how there is still beauty to be found in both.  This juxtaposition of the differences that exist between the gardens is continuously played out through not only the gardens, but the characters, the different lives, the different religious beliefs, and even the difference in the perception of friendships.  There is much for consideration and reflection in this book, and if I had one recommendation, it would be to read this at a time and place that you have time to reflect, and absorb the full depth of the story that is told.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Author Profile and Interview

Reading Group Guide

Reader’s Guide with Discussion Questions

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

AbeBooks.com

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2010-12-24 07:00:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud tells the haunting story of a young man who narrowly survives a terrible car wreck that kills his little brother. Years later, the brothers’ bond remains so strong that it transcends the normal boundaries separating life and death. Charlie St. Cloud lives in a snug New England fishing village. By day he tends the lawns and monuments of the ancient cemetery where his younger brother, Sam, is buried. Graced with an extraordinary gift after surviving the accident, he can still see, talk, and even play catch with Sam’s spirit. But townsfolk whisper that Charlie has never recovered from his loss.

Into his carefully ordered life comes Tess Carroll, a captivating, adventuresome woman training for a solo sailing trip around the globe. Fate steers her boat into a treacherous storm that blows her back to harbor, to a charged encounter with Charlie, and to a surprise more overwhelming than the violent sea itself. Charlie and Tess discover a beautiful and uncommon connection that leads to a race against time and a desperate choice between death and life, between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go.

Luminous, soulful, and filled with unforgettable characters, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is one of those rare, wise books that reveal the mysteries of the unseen world around us, gently transforming the worst pain of loss into hope, healing, and even laughter. Suspenseful and deeply moving, its startling climax reminds us that sometimes tragedies can bring about miracles if we simply open our hearts.

About the Book:  ★★★★★★

I have no idea what made me pick up this book and start reading.  At the time I was reading it, several people asked me what it was about, and I had a hard time answering that question without making it sound ridiculously sappy, or morbidly strange.  That is a question I still find myself trying to answer.

At first exposure, I thought the book would be about a boy that survived a car crash, but never recovered from the psychological effects of having lost his brother, in that same accident.  And on the surface, this would be an appropriate description of the story.  However, as I reflected on the story further, I found that there was  some interesting recurring themes found in this book.

Most of the topic deals with loss, grief, and the process of healing through letting go, following the loss of a loved one.  But it is told through story format.  I found it an interesting approach to this topic.  The story of Charlie St. Cloud, and his complete devotion to his brother — that forces him into a position to have to make a choice between letting Sam go, and going on living — or holding on, and losing his own life in the process, is touching — but frustrating at the same time.  At times I found myself wanting to scream “move on already!”

The relationship between Charlie, and his younger brother, Sam is interesting — if somewhat unusual.  Since the majority of this story takes place in a cemetery — it is a very abrupt shift when the real world intrudes into this realm of the dead, it almost feels like a violation, from the perspective of the reader.  I am still trying to decide if this was a tactic used by the author to get the readers attention — and to get the reader to identify with how difficult it is in dealing with things in loss, life and death; or if this was simply that the author just became so focused on the story in the cemetery, that he forgot about descriptions and the existence of the real town where Charlie “lives,” and therefore was a little gauche in introducing these elements in the story.  I am inclined to think it is the first, since it was an effective tool for forcing the reader into identify with Charlie, and the choice that he was facing.  But there are parts of the book that I still wonder about.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I think that there is a lot more to it — if the reader is willing to invest a little time and reflection on what the meaning behind the story is.  Since, like with all books, what you get out of this one is all determined by what you, as the reader, are willing to put into it.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Ben Sherwood Website

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guides Discussion Questions

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-03-02 07:00:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad (“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share” –Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia’s most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I received from the publisher as an advance copy read.  I think the original offer was initiated due to my love of the previous novel of Dean’s I had reviewed – The Madonnas of Leningrad.  Consequently, I was looking forward to this work to see where Dean goes from here.  Now, having read the book, I find myself with mixed responses — and for some of those responses I’m not even really sure why.  The story is a fascinating topic — set in Russia; a setting I always love to read about.  Dean’s love of the Russian people and place resonates in this book as much as it did in her previous work.  And there is certainly no doubt that Dean’s passion for the Russian world resonates strongly throughout the piece.  

But from the beginning there is something disconnected about the entire story.  And I found this disconnected feeling quite frequently distracting.  What I can’t tell is if it is due to the approach in Dean’s writing — or the fact that the primary character of the book is an individual about which there appears to be very little known from the beginning.  

The narrator is the first thing I struggled with.  The story is about St. Xenia, of Russia; but the whole thing is narrated in the voice of her cousin.  This is one reason that the book has a disconnected feeling.  Everything is told in the third person removed perspective — making it hard for the reader to connect with the primary character.  Adding to that is the fact that I found the narrator’s character and story more compelling than that of Xenia, herself.  I wanted to hear more about the narrator’s life, marriage, and the impossible world that Dean created around her. But since that wasn’t Dean’s primary focus, I found myself frustrated in that respect.  And yet — if these stories has been broken in two — and not told in tandem — they would have each made a fantastic story.  As it was I felt like they kept competing for dominance with each other.   

Another thing that I struggled with was the light weight feel of the story over all.  I felt like this was more of a fairy tale — with little background detail, and almost no insight into the character’s inner thoughts and motivations.  It just never developed much beyond the very basic.  But I am not sure if this is Dean’s fault — so much as that there is very little known about Xenia from the start — as I stated earlier.  I was expecting a significant confrontation between the Tsar and Xenia herself, as a representation between the deep religious culture, and the political climate of the age in Russia.  But I felt like that was only alluded to, and never fully developed.  Once again leaving me frustrated.  

Over all, this book provided a great summer read.  It moves quickly, and gives some of the feel of the Russian culture.  It can be read quickly — but it doesn’t demand a lot of effort on the part of the reader.

 For more information about this book and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Publisher’s Website

Books Without Any Pictures Book Review

Debra Dean Biography

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2012-07-31 06:46:11. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

This long-awaited novel by the author of The House at Riverton begins with a long lost letter. Its contents compel young Edie Burchill to journey to the eerie realm of Millderhurst Castle, where her mother, then just 13 years old, waited out the London Blitz. What Edie learns about those distant hours in that faraway place will forever change her view of her mother and herself. A subtle, artfully constructed story about place, the past, and time’s reverberations.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I have to admit that after reading The Forgotten Garden I had a lot of expectations for this book.  After all, I fell in love with that one — so I was expecting another opportunity to get lost in a book — and want the world to go away.  And to a certain extent this book fulfilled expectations.  But somehow I came away from this one feeling like some of the magic was missing that made the other book so fun to read.  Consequently I felt like this book was more of an effort to get through.

For some reason it was the characters that just didn’t quite work for me in this book.  I just felt like there wasn’t as much depth as I have come to expect from Ms. Morton’s characters — which left me feeling like something was missing from the whole story.  Edie just didn’t seem to be all that engaged with the world around her.  She didn’t have much in the way of curiosity, in the face of the building mystery throughout the story.  So for that reason, the main person looking for the answers never really seemed to get all that involved in the story, from the beginning.  Combine that with the sisters, who are obviously not what they appear to be, even from the very beginning of the book — and I just came away feeling like there was quite a bit of a let down where this story was concerned.

On the positive side, however.  The story is very well conceived — and it really was intriguing.  Revolving around the mysterious book written by an illusive author, The Mud Man is rumored to be surrounded with myriad questions, and intense debate on how much, if any of the book is grounded in reality.  Add to that the compelling historical setting of the back story — in World War II, during the bombing of London, not to mention the creepy castle setting that is just this side of collapse, and is perfectly adapted to the stuff of nightmares — and you really have the makings for a great story.  And I think this one would have delivered much more if the characters had been a little stronger in the development.  But I can’t fault the story line, and I love the creativity demonstrated by Ms. Morton in pulling together various story lines, and building them into one cohesive whole.

The over all thing that I think drove me crazy about this book was simply the unasked questions that continue to skulk in between the lines of each page.  The mysterious letter, that Edie fails to ask her mother about, the questions about the past, and failure to engage the sisters on a more personal, and even intimate level — it all made for a frustrating read.  There just seemed to be something about the whole thing that was off.  And I know this was a mystery.  But for some reason, it just didn’t flow smoothly for me, and I felt like every page was more of an effort that an adventure.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Kate Morton Website

An Interview with the Author

Publisher’s Website

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-01-20 07:00:28. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Twenty-eight-year-old Andrea returns home from a business trip to find Alex, her boyfriend of fourteen years, nervously waiting for her. Assuming he’s finally going to propose, Andrea’s instead horrified to learn he’s been cheating on her and is leaving to be with the other woman, who he calls Andrea’s opposite.

At first Andrea’s paralyzed by shock and sadness, but the business analyst soon forms a plan: change every last detail of her life and become her opposite so Alex will come back to her.

It’s a challenge at first, but soon Andrea’s loving the changes she’s making, the new activities she’s doing, and the new people in her life. But will she change enough to get Alex back? And if she does, will he fit into the wonderful new life she’s creating for herself?”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

It is really funny to admit it — but I have found another favorite author.  I gave up reading romance books years ago.  And I gave them up because they all started to sound the same — different names for the characters — but the same story line over, and over, and over.  So when I picked up Wardell’s first novel — Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo I chose to read it because of the title — I just couldn’t resist a book that had a polar bear in the title.  But I found a book with great characters from the beginning — so when I was contacted to read another of her books — Stir Until Thoroughly Confused — I found that her talent for great characters just keeps getting better.  Now I find myself waiting for her next book, and I am so happy to have been given the opportunity to read this latest book.

What I love about the characters of these books is that I so completely identify with the women of these stories.  These are women that are struggling to live in the real world — with professions, dreams, ambitions, and they are still trying to figure out how to make the rest of their lives fit into this crazy kind of life.  Simply put — these are characters that resound with me, because I know what kind of life they have.  Add to the the fact that they are real — with struggles of doubt, the need to fit in and belong, and even a certain amount of self confidence issues — even when everyone around them sees the amazing people they really are, and I just found myself falling in love with these women — because I know what it feels like to be them.

This story actually resonated with me more than the other two.  I loved the liberating feel of this story.  The challenges faced by Andrea in this one is something that has taken me a lifetime to figure out.  The concept that unless you are happy with yourself, no one else will ever make you happy.  When Andrea finds herself dumped by her boyfriend of 14 years she challenges herself to remake who she is.  At first it is just to become the opposite of who she was, so she can win her boyfriend back.  But as this little project develops she finds that the most important person for her to be comfortable, and happy with is herself.  This lesson is the most important lesson that anyone can learn.  And once they figure out how to be happy with themselves, they can then find joy and fulfillment in their life.  This theme is the reason this story felt so real for me — which of course made it a book that is more than worth reading.

Add to that the fact that Wardell has a real gift for presenting the city of Toronto that I just really fell in love with, and this whole book becomes a real break from the everyday world.  Overall this is a book, as well as an author that I have come to really appreciate for the talent of writing, and the gift for developing realistic characters and stories.  Even though these fall in the category of romances — they don’t fall into the trap of the standard romance storyline.  Nor does she resort to the good guy always wins, and in the end everything is perfect.  Rather the story develops in a much more realistic method, and that lends an element of truth to the storyline as a whole.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Heather Wardell Website

Author’s Blog

Author’s Biography

Book In The Burbs Book Review

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-06-17 06:00:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

Sagesse LaBasse, the teenage protagonist of Claire Messud’s The Last Life, lives in a fragile world held together by the secrets of its past. Her family owns the Hotel Bellevue, a summer retreat for the well-to-do, set on the cliffs of southern France; the view is back toward Algeria, which her paternal grandparents fled during its struggle for independence from France. As her grandmother laments, “Every morning, I wake up and look out my window at the Mediterranean sea, vast and creeping, and I smell the pines and the heat on the breeze, rising up the clifftop, and I’m in Algiers again. I live, still, in my heart, in Algeria.”

The loss of their homeland is always present to the LaBasses, and the consequent search for identity both reflects and compounds other difficulties. Sagesse’s father (“fleshy, ingratiating, explosive”) languishes under his own father’s control, and is often unfaithful to Sagesse’s mother, an American who tries to pass as French. Meanwhile, their young son, Etienne, is so severely mentally and physically impaired that his birth is likened to “the clanging of their prison door.” Sagesse’s grandmother looks on with cool resignation, and her grandfather, the family’s hot-headed patriarch, will let no one rest. When, late one night, the old man fires his rifle into a group of children swimming at the hotel’s pool, no one is seriously injured, but the family’s livelihood is put at risk, and long-simmering resentments find an outlet.

Sagesse is the perfect narrator for this fractured situation. She is neither French, nor American; not a girl, yet not quite a woman. Her grandfather’s rash act causes her to lose her friends at school, and she is forced to “seek out the very pot-smokers I had…readily disparaged little over a month before.” These new friends, upon realizing her family’s past (having been French colonists, they are suspected of being racists, and members of the National Front) and relative wealth, also abandon her. With guests trickling away from the hotel, and tensions rising within the LaBasse family, Sagesse tries to understand what remains, and what place there might be for her.

Fortunately, while her life may be painful, she never finds it dull. Sagesse’s language is rich and evocative, full of descriptive power. Here, for example, she witnesses the market: “There were vegetable men and fruit women and stalls selling both, blushing mounds of peaches alongside plump and purple eggplants…pale, splayed organs of fennel pressing their ridged tubes and feathered ends up against the sugar-speckled, wrinkled carcasses of North African dates…the fishmongers sold their bullet-eyed, silver-skinned, slippery catch, blood-streaked fillets and orbed, scored steaks, milky scallops and encrusted oysters….” And here, a painting of the Bay of Algiers: “its apron of azure sea, erratically white-capped, broken by the sandstone finger of the port…the white rise of the city, a thousand precise terraces and roofs climbing into the sunlit sky, the European curlicues and the higgledy-piggledy casbah, all their outlines drawn as if with a single hair, interspersed with delicate little palms and cypresses and other trees of variegated greens, and with broad, brown avenues like branches.”

A brilliant, complex world is formed by the accretion of these images, and they are juxtaposed and spur each other seamlessly, multiplying atmosphere and complicating plot lines. While most of the novel’s events take place around 1990, Sagesse tells of them from a time almost a decade later (when she is a graduate student of the “history of ideas” at Columbia). This frame, constructed of occasional asides and short passages, allows a fluidity where revelations from the past and future cause momentum to shift and whirl — the dead rise, their movements sharper and words more portentous with the reader’s knowledge of coming tragedy. This later perspective also enables Sagesse to add deft hints and wise commentary. Looking back on herself, for instance, she says, “Children do not have words to ask and so do not imagine asking; not asking and not imagining, they eradicate distance: they take for granted that everything, someday, will be understood.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I am still on the fence about.  I can’t really claim to have loved it or hated it.  For some reason, I just felt like this book was never really going any where — and I kept wondering when it was going to get to the point.  It is a strange mix of an interesting story, and an impassive protagonist.  It left me frustrated and wanting more, while at the same time appreciating the story telling skills of Ms. Messud.

I think there were two major problems that really rolled into one major issue for me in this book.  The protagonist, Sagesse, (Literally translated — wisdom), is a young teenage girl standing in the middle of two vastly different cultures, and a family tree that contains even more national influences than that.  With her family origins coming from the United States, France, Algeria, and growing up on the Mediterranean, Sagesse just doesn’t seem to fit in any where.  But what made it hard for me to make a connection with this character was the fact that she didn’t seem to have any emotions about anything.  She just seemed to be very aloof, and impersonal.  The choice of language that Sagesse uses at times through out the book seemed to magnify that draw back.  At times in this book I found myself wondering if this was a young woman that felt anything at all — which made it hard for me, as a reader, to get involved in the story.  I just couldn’t get invested with the characters as a whole.  This is especially apparent in what Sagesse has to go through, with all the trauma, loss, and personal struggle to find a place to belong, and yet no emotional reaction to anything.

I did enjoy the basic story.  It had a lot of elements that really made for an interesting background.  And the vast differences of the various nationalities, and the struggles of Sagesse, as a teenager, proved to be very interesting for a story line.  Unfortunately this strength couldn’t overcome the things about the book that kept frustrating me.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Salon Book Review

The New York Times Book Review

New York State Writers Institute Biography

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2012-03-29 14:53:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

Hours before his untimely—and highly suspicious—death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of—or accept—proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.

Devastated by Thom’s death, Lucy keeps the secret, but Thom’s friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the foundation of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions . . . and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it.

Midway through the daring journey, Lucy’s small plane goes down on a slip of verdant land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. Blessed with youth, beauty, and an unsettling innocence, Adam gently tends to Lucy’s wounds, and in this quiet, solitary paradise, a bond between the unlikely pair grows. Ultimately, Lucy and Adam forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization, where members of an ultraconservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I really had mixed responses to.  I am not exactly sure how I feel about it, and there are parts of it that the only description that applies is odd.  My first exposure to Naslund’s writing was through Ahab’s Wife. Naslund has a real gift for presenting old stories in a new light; she challenges her readers to find out how classic stories can be pertinent to the modern world.  Her treatment of Melville’s classic, Moby Dick is one that I found particularly insightful, and much more readable that the original.  And in this new work she turns her attention to another significant story of the human species — the story of creation, and the theme of the Garden of Eden.

This story explores the contradictory beliefs that inundate our world, most of them surrounding our religious beliefs, scientific investigations, and contradictory points of view.  All of these vying perspectives are presented through Naslund’s use of not only the different creation beliefs, but also the underlying suggestion of the history of the discovery of “Lucy,” once the oldest humanoid remains ever found.  Add to all this a story that is, for the most part set in a new — or “modern” presentation of Eden, with a new Adam and Eve — and you begin to see that our modern understanding of our mortal origins are anything but certain.  In addition to the clash between the creation stories and the scientific discoveries, Naslund also gives us an insight into the varying religious creeds, and their understanding of our created origins.  Many of these divisive points of view frequently lead to confusion, confrontation, and in some cases even violence.  Which is why I found this book interesting to read.  The issues that Naslund portrays are more than just valid, but they are also important for humanity.  They are the base of who we are, and how we perceive ourselves as a species.

As far as these issues go, the story is not only insightful, but also courageous in its willingness to delve into controversial questions without flinching from the hard questions we frequently face today.  But it also does so in a non-judgmental, and even open minded fashion.  This isn’t a story about religious belief, or even about the stand off between science and religion.  Rather, it is a question of is there a possibility of both of these perspectives existing in unison, in this world.

There is one glaring weakness in this particular book, however.  That is the number of unanswered questions that the story itself, opens and then fails to bring to closure.  In addition to two bizarre deaths that are suggested to be murders — but never fully explore, this book also has a mysterious secret society that wants to destroy modern advances with very little explanation of why, and even one primary character that has a very mysterious background with almost no insight as to why.  There appears to be a raging war in the year 2020, but we aren’t sure where it is, or why Adam has become a victim of this war. There there is also the fact that most of the book has the primary characters naked for most of the novel.  But it isn’t so much about sexuality, as the presentation of corruption, and the downfall of man. Overall, the book does present some of the main themes that I felt Naslund was trying to explore — but I came away feeling like there were also some gaping holes in the plot that left the reader wondering what — exactly — just happened.  So if you are looking for closure on this one, it may not be as satisfactory as some of the other books I have read.

For more information on this book, or about this author be sure to visit the following websites:

Huffington Post Article

TampaBay.com Book Review

New York Times Book Review

Ophrah Reading Guide

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Barnes and Noble

Originally posted 2011-05-03 06:00:29. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.”

About the Book:  ★★★★★★

Some books — as crazy as it sounds — a reader will fall in love with even before opening the book.  This book is one of them.  (Ok — I will admit it.  I love tigers.  I have always been fascinated with them.)  And once I started reading the book, I was not disappointed. 

The setting was the only part of the book that I found a little frustrating.  And it wasn’t in a bad way really.  It was just that sometimes I felt like it wasn’t really grounded in a tangible place.  I felt like I should have known where it was — but then something would happen and I would find myself confused again about the location.  That is not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing in this story.  This sense of slight confusion about time and place actually added an extra depth to the story for some reason.  It helped the reader to feel some of the confusion of this war torn country, and the discomfort of feeling that the world the characters inhabited was constantly shifting, and nothing was what it really appeared to be.  This helped add credibility to the slightly mystical quality of the story line — and in the end it actually worked.

The characters, however, were absolutely captivating.  I found myself constantly wanting to know more about each of the characters, and their history.  The story is developed in such a way that only pieces of the story are developed at a time, and they alternate between characters throughout the book.  So the only thing you become aware of right from the beginning is the present state of the Tiger, the Tiger’s Wife, and the three main characters — the Deathless Man, and a Natalia, and her grandfather.  The reader then follows the characters through the back stories that brought the characters to the present point in time throughout the remainder of the book. 

The writing and story development are both very effective in this book, and combined with the strong characters and the intriguing setting this book is a wonderful read.  Added to these is the mystery of the subtle ways in how these characters lives come together and as a reader I found that this book was one that was hard to put down.

For more information about this book, and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Tea Obreht Website

LA Times Book Review

Author Interview

The Cornell Daily Sun Interview

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Originally posted 2011-11-02 10:11:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

About the Book:

“Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them.”—New York Times Book Review

The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales.

From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives. At the center of everyone’s life is a garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look. The Red Garden is as unforgettable as it is moving.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

When I first started this book I wasn’t very impressed.  In fact, I kept wondering what was the point of the story, and what was Hoffman trying to express.  Granted, epic works are hard to follow quite often due to the constantly changing character line up, as the only thing that stays constant is the setting that the whole story develops in.  And this one is particularly unusual because it covers over a hundred years in just under 200 pages.  This story is also a little different from other epic works in that it reads more like short stories about one person for each chapter of the book, and how that one individual interacts with the other people that live in this small little, isolated town. 

What finally caught my attention in this book is that it reminded me of my grandmother.  (No this isn’t a Freudian thing.)  My grandmother was always telling family stories.  They all had varying shades of fact mixed in with family lore.  These were stories that have been handed down to me through her own telling, in exactly the same way she received them.  Each generation has stories about the family, and the amusing things that each member of the family participates in.  As the family gets larger, and continues to grow more people are pulled in through marriages, the birth of children, and diminishes through death, and people leaving.  It is this constant changing through growth and attrition. But all of these stories take place in a small little universe of origin — the city where the family predominantly inhabits.  That is the feeling that comes through in this book.  The characters move on and off stage, and gives us just a small glimpse of how this small little town came to be, grew into what it was, and continues to develop as time moves on. This is a book about the folklore of a small town, and how the people come together to help create that folklore.

As I continued reading I came to appreciate how much a place is more than just somewhere we live.  Where we come from defines us as individuals.  It gives us a sense of belonging, and a grounding for us as people; we belong to the group that inhabites the place — family, friends, enemies, loves, and associations, all of them can be found within our own little universe.  This is the reason that a place takes on a character of its own.  It is as if a place will have characteristics that thrive through folklore, and the communal memory that survives from generation to generation.  This book is an excellent example of this concept.  There are no primary characters — as they keep changing generations with each passing chapter.  But rather than putting the reader off, since there is no one character to attach to — it allows the reader to attach to the setting, and the mystique that makes it up.  This is a unique approach to presenting a fascinating story because it gives the reader the opportunity to reflect on what makes one place different from another — and how much a place will define us, more than anything else around us.

For more information about this book and its author be sure to visit the following websites:

Alice Hoffman Website

Author Profile and Interview

Washington Times Book Review

The Los Angeles Times Book Review

When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, The Book Worm’s Library earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog by contributing to giveaways, postage, travel, and attending book industry related events. We appreciate all those that help to support our blog, and have provided links below for the direct links to this book.

Abe Books

Originally posted 2011-07-29 06:00:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter