Hillary Jordan has written a very good debut novel that speaks on war, racism, marriage, and living off the land. The story is told by various narrators throughout the book. Henry and Laura are a white married couple who move to the Mississippi delta to raise cotton. Henry loves the land, but Laura misses city life and is deeply unhappy. She also has to live and deal with her racist father-in-law for the first time.
Hap and Florence are a black couple living on Henry’s farm as renters. Hap is a preacher, while Florence is a midwife who also helps Laura with some of her housework. Their oldest child Ronsel is in the military and serving in Germany, and when he comes back, he has to adjust back to a way of life that he is no longer accustomed to. He does find a friend, however, in Jamie, Henry’s younger brother. But, this doesn’t sit well with Henry and Jamie’s father, and trouble ensues.
This book all too painfully illustrates how much African-Americans have had to go through in this country. It does seem like the tide has changed with the historic election of our first black President, Barack Obama. I sincerely hope that this event will be the turning point in race relations in the United States.
(All along while reading this book, I was thinking it was going to receive a 4.5 rating, but then at the end something is stated by Jamie that I was deeply offended by, and I changed my rating to a 4. It didn’t ruin the book for me, but I think a better choice of words should have been uilized to avoid offending some readers.)
I just love Neil Gaiman (not to mention that his looks remind me of a close friend I had in college). Well, I love his books, too, and this one was no exception. It’s my third Gaiman, and although I still think I liked Coraline a tiny bit better, I loved The Graveyard Book.
Just like Coraline, I listened to this on audio with my two teenage sons. If you haven’t heard Gaiman narrate his own books, you’re definitely missing out. Most authors should not narrate their own books; Gaiman is one who should never allow someone else to do so. His voice is perfect for it, and of course, no one would ever know his books better than he does.
The Graveyard Book contains a colorful (though some are long dead) cast of characters, some very creepy scenes, and some genuinely heartwarming ones. It’s one of those perfect children’s/YA books in which it was definitely written to also appeal to adults. It was great for the R.I.P. Challenge, and it was great to experience another one of Gaiman’s treasures as a family.
I finished Draculaon audio this week and loved it. Now my sons and husband are listening to it as well. The unabridged edition, of course. It is creepy and scary, and I normally don’t like creepy and scary, but Bram Stoker’s novel is so well done and, obviously, the beginning of it all. I’m thinking of getting this annotated edition at left that comes out on October 13. It even has an introduction by Neil Gaiman. I’ll probably use this edition for a future re-read.
We started to watch the movie starring Gary Oldman, but it wasn’t appropriate for kids (my kids at least) so we quit. I still may watch it at a later date. I would love to see a modern version that was faithful to the book.
Something that surprised and pleased me while reading the book was the strong Christian faith of some of the characters. I didn’t expect that at all, and I do wonder about Stoker’s own beliefs. He was rumored to have been part of a secret, magical order that included the occultist Aleister Crowley.
Also, I read on Publisher’s Weekly that Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and Dracula documentarian and historian Ian Holt are going to be writing Dracula: the Undead. The publisher will be Dutton, and it is scheduled to be released in October, 2009.
What can I tell you further? I once lived among humankind, and found them in their generality to be cruel and cold, and yet could mention the names of three or four that were like angels.
I’d be happy if this book won the Booker Prize. Yeah, I would, and I haven’t read any of the other contenders yet! Sebastian Barry is a magnificent writer, and I will definitely be reading more of his work.
Roseanne McNulty is almost 100 years old, and Dr. Grene is the psychiatrist attending her at Roscommon Mental Hospital. The story slowly unfolds by giving alternating accounts of Roseanne and Dr. Grene. As he seeks to understand her and her tragic past, he must also deal with some tragedy of his own. As everyone knows, ‘grief lasts two years.’
With Ireland as a backdrop and themes of religion, mental illness, and family loyalty and betrayal, The Secret Scripture is superbly crafted and is definitely worthy of the Booker Prize.
There’s no denying that Nabokov is a great writer. In fact, I’d love to read more by him — just on a different subject. I had a hard time rating this book as the subject matter is so despicable, but settled on 3 stars because of Nabokov’s writing ability. A large part of the rating also goes to the excellence in Jeremy Irons’ narration. I absolutely love his voice, but then again, he was almost too good as the narrator for Humbert Humbert. I have not seen the movie with Irons in the starring role.
I won’t repeat the storyline here, as everyone should know the basic outline of it. My question is, why did Nabokov even feel the need to write this story? I’ve heard one reviewer say that Nabokov makes us root for Humbert Humbert over Lolita. Not so. Not with me, anyway. A great writer Nabokov is. A great character Humbert Humbert is not.
I love Margaret Atwood, but Oryx and Crake was just too gritty for my taste. This was compounded by the fact that I listened to it on audio. Hearing the graphic descriptions was even worse than reading it. This was my fifth Atwood, and by far my least favorite.
The narrator is Jimmy, code-named Snowman. Crake is a sort of Dr. Moreau figure, while Oryx is a woman caught between the two. I don’t want to give away too many details for those who still want to read it, but if you’re squeamish about graphic s*xu*l situations (including child p*r*o*raphy), I would advise against it. I didn’t get why it had to have that element to the story. I also wondered why the title of the book was named that way, but in the end, I guess it was because Oryx and Crake were the two most influential figures in Jimmy’s life.
I would recommend reading other Atwoods before this one. The Handmaid’s Tale,Cat’s Eye, and The Penelopiad are my favorites so far.
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
Alice Winston lives on a horse ranch in the desert with her father and reclusive mother, while her older sister Nona has run off with a cowboy riding the rodeo circuit. With her sister gone, Alice’s father struggles to make the ranch profitable by boarding the horses of the wealthier women in town. It’s a lot of work for just the two of them, and somehow they make do for awhile. But all of them miss Nona and can’t understand why she’d leave the family and the ranch.
Meanwhile, Alice is dealing with being accepted at school and recovering from the death of a classmate. She experiences her first kiss and her first crush. She tries to make sense of the adults around her. I sympathized with Alice and winced at the all too familiar pains of growing up. I rooted for things to go her way. Sadly, however, life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. Sometimes we just have to accept the way things are.
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, – HAMLET
Lin Enger’s debut novel is a modern take on Hamlet, but with a few differences from the original. Even though I’m very familiar with the play, I found that Undiscovered Country surprisingly kept me in suspense throughout. There were just enough differences to keep me more than interested in the novel.
Set in wintry Minnesota, Jesse finds his father in the woods — dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. While the local law enforcement thinks it’s a closed case, Jesse refuses to believe that his father committed suicide and sets out to prove it. Of course there’s a suspicious uncle in the story as well as an ‘Ophelia’, but it doesn’t always follow the ’script,’ so there is that element of suspense to the tale.
Enger’s descriptions of the starkly cold winters in Minnesota really add to the atmosphere of the book, and his writing of the characters, though familiar, seem very real. We feel Jesse’s angst, just as we did Hamlet’s. We want justice, just as we do in Shakespeare’s play. I would love to read and compare this book to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Dead Father’s Club, both also modern retellings of the famous play.
Lin Enger is the brother of Leif Enger, who wrote Peace Like a River, which I loved, and also So Brave, Young, and Handsome, which I hope to read sometime this year. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Lin Enger’s next novel as well.
Although I haven’t yet read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies, after reading Unaccustomed Earth, I can understand why the committee was so impressed with her writing. Her stories of the Bengali immigrant experience were very well developed, and they had closure to them, something I’ve noticed is often times lacking in modern short stories. All the characters in the book have similar backgrounds — high intelligence and high potential — yet each story was unique. Each character was struggling with his or her own set of issues, most of them due to the individuals’ adjustment, or lack thereof, of living in a culture so different from their own or that of their parents.
Themes explored include family, loyalty, duty, and honor. Relationships encountered were father and daughter, husband and wife, brother and sister, roommate to roommate, and childhood friend to childhood friend. Birth, life, marriage, children, divorce, and death. These few stories covered a wide range of experiences of the Bengali immigrant living in America and illustrated well how being Bengali shaped the characters’ choices.
Highly recommended. I will definitely be reading Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake at a later date.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
I really didn’t get all that much into the story until the ship sunk — it really gets going at that point. And then, just when I was getting tired of all the desperate tactics for survival in the lifeboat, another interesting development occurs. I was surprised by the twist ending as well, but it was a good one. I was impressed by the symbolism in the book. Recommended.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Hillary Jordan has written a very good debut novel that speaks on war, racism, marriage, and living off the land. The story is told by various narrators throughout the book. Henry and Laura are a white married couple who move to the Mississippi delta to raise cotton. Henry loves the land, but Laura misses city life and is deeply unhappy. She also has to live and deal with her racist father-in-law for the first time.
I just love Neil Gaiman (not to mention that his looks remind me of a close friend I had in college). Well, I love his books, too, and this one was no exception. It’s my third Gaiman, and although I still think I liked 
Neil Gaiman’s 
I finished Dracula on audio this week and loved it. Now my sons and husband are listening to it as well. The unabridged edition, of course. It is creepy and scary, and I normally don’t like creepy and scary, but Bram Stoker’s novel is so well done and, obviously, the beginning of it all. I’m thinking of getting this annotated edition at left that comes out on October 13. It even has an introduction by Neil Gaiman. I’ll probably use this edition for a future re-read.
There’s no denying that Nabokov is a great writer. In fact, I’d love to read more by him — just on a different subject. I had a hard time rating this book as the subject matter is so despicable, but settled on 3 stars because of Nabokov’s writing ability. A large part of the rating also goes to the excellence in Jeremy Irons’ narration. I absolutely love his voice, but then again, he was almost too good as the narrator for Humbert Humbert. I have not seen the movie with Irons in the starring role.
I love Margaret Atwood, but Oryx and Crake was just too gritty for my taste. This was compounded by the fact that I listened to it on audio. Hearing the graphic descriptions was even worse than reading it. This was my fifth Atwood, and by far my least favorite.
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
Although I haven’t yet read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies, after reading Unaccustomed Earth, I can understand why the committee was so impressed with her writing. Her stories of the Bengali immigrant experience were very well developed, and they had closure to them, something I’ve noticed is often times lacking in modern short stories. All the characters in the book have similar backgrounds — high intelligence and high potential — yet each story was unique. Each character was struggling with his or her own set of issues, most of them due to the individuals’ adjustment, or lack thereof, of living in a culture so different from their own or that of their parents.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
