tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218961632024-03-12T21:02:20.238-07:00marginaliabook reviews and bookish ramblings by svwsvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-22787621875526670182007-03-16T21:53:00.000-07:002007-03-16T21:54:43.882-07:00James Tiptree Jr: the Secret Life of Alice B. Sheldon* Julie PhillipsAs a little girl I was addicted to historical fiction. I loved to imagine myself as the honorable knight, the fearless pirate, the courageous explorer. It wasn’t until I was quite a bit older that I understood I could never have been any of those things. As a woman I would have been miserable in nearly any time before our own. Even in my dreams, is there any historical era I can imagine living insvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-5194521853240952732007-03-16T21:52:00.000-07:002007-03-16T21:53:32.397-07:00Stealing Buddha’s Dinner* Bich Minh NguyenI thought my name singled me out. But try growing up with a name like ‘Bich’ in Grand Rapids Michigan in the ‘80’s. The new memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, chronicles this and other difficulties faced by Vietnamese American author Bich Minh Nguyen. Nguyen has a light, charming voice- at once funny and sad. She obviously has a great appreciation for the inherent absurdity of growing up in the svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-5792904758218299812007-02-04T16:01:00.000-08:002007-02-04T16:02:21.916-08:00Thirteen Moons * Charles FrazierCharles Frazier’s new book, Thirteen Moons, revisits the bracing wilds of North Carolina to recount the fate of small people churned up by big history - in this case the enforced removal in the 1830s of Native American communities from their traditional hunting grounds. The geography is big too: long vistas of peak and valley, river and gorge - Davy Crockett country reimagined for a tale of epic svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1187610976096938052007-02-04T15:59:00.000-08:002007-02-04T16:01:35.137-08:00Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name * Vendela VidaVendela Vida’s newest novel, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, does not shy away from dark issues. While addressing such meaty topics as rape, betrayal, and what makes us who we are, Vida somehow manages to write a book that is at the same time both achingly bleak and very funny. Her lean, spare writing disguises a world of heartache in brief, matter-of-fact sketches. “If someone gave me svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-35069340719065976962007-02-04T15:56:00.002-08:002007-02-04T15:59:20.226-08:00The Echo Maker * Richard PowersAdvice to all you would be novelists out there: if you’re thinking the only way to convey the deeply subtle meaning of your book is by revealing it in a character’s dream, or, worse yet, a coming-out-of-a-coma-drug-induced dream…think again. Other people’s dreams are always boring and nonsensical.Fortunately, Richard Powers gives up on this ridiculous notion a quarter of the way through his svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-73912707430014616712007-02-04T15:56:00.001-08:002007-02-04T15:56:41.916-08:00The Emperor's Children * Claire MessudThe Emperor’s Children, by Claire Messud, is perhaps the first successful 9/11 book. Having said that, it really has nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. That, perhaps, is the measure of its success. Marina, Julius, and Danielle, close friends at an elite Ivy League university, now suffer from a sort of Post-Graduate Distress Syndrome. Danielle, a struggling public television producer, finds svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com287tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1163039886307690452006-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:002006-11-08T18:38:06.320-08:00Rumors of Peace* Ella LefflandRUMORS OF PEACE- Ella LefflandChronicling four years in the adolescence of a young girl in rural California, Rumors of Peace also spans the four years of US involvement in World War II.With Rumors of Peace, Ella Leffland manages not only to tell a unique and compelling coming of age story, but also to put into perspective the utter ridiculousness of war. Her narrator, Suse Hanson, begins the booksvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1159502982428330272006-09-28T21:09:00.001-07:002006-09-28T21:09:42.430-07:00Last of Her Kind* Sigrid NunezThe Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez purports to be the story of a friendship between two women who come of age in the 60’s. In fact, the two women in question are friends for barely more than their first year of college, and though the events of Ann Drayton’s life haunt the narrator’s thoughts and dreams, her actual daily existence is little present in the novel. Instead, this book serves as svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1159501882238692252006-09-28T20:50:00.000-07:002006-09-28T20:51:22.250-07:00The Keep* Jennifer EganOne never knows exactly who the main character is in Jennifer Egan’s latest novel, The Keep. In this onion of a novel, the reader keeps peeling back layer after layer to reveal and even more intriguing and engrossing plot without ever being sure which of the thee main characters is speaking, or which, even is real. The book begins with Danny, an aimless thirty-something New Yorker, arriving latesvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1142722615877936832006-03-18T14:55:00.000-08:002006-03-18T14:56:55.880-08:00Heir to the Glimmering World*Cynthia OzickCynthia Ozick’s “Heir to the Glimmering World is a coming of age novel cleverly disguised as a novel of ideas. This book will satisfy both readers who love a good plot and those finicky word and style geeks who seem to be annoyed at any novel which follows a straight line. The story follows the inclusion of Rose Meadows into the Mitwisser household- a family of scholars (and Jews) escaping from svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1142722496315795032006-03-18T14:52:00.000-08:002006-03-18T14:54:56.333-08:00The Riders* Tim WintonFred Scully’s life is turned upside-down by secrets. In the opening chapters of Tim Winton’s, The Riders, Scully doggedly repairs a derelict old farmhouse in the Irish hinterlands while he waits for his wife and seven year old daughter to settle up the family’s accounts in Australia. The three of them had spent the prior two years traveling around Greece, Paris, and London- Scully picking up anysvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138952130765438992006-02-02T23:34:00.000-08:002006-02-02T23:35:30.766-08:00The Mysteries of Pittsburgh * Michael ChabonThis, Chabon's first book, is a lovely tale about the first summer after college, an improbable time dizzying and dazzling in promised freedom, a time of bright hope for the future, when many of us decide who we will or will not be. It's also a cliche, a topic written about many times, and the kind of story that in lesser hands would make for a pretty dull book. But Chabon pulls all the tragic svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138939236893141092006-02-02T19:59:00.001-08:002006-02-02T20:00:36.893-08:00My Life as a Fake * Peter CareyUsing a notorious Australian literary hoax of the 1940's and Mary Shelley's gothic novel "Frankenstein" as a springboard, Peter Carey turns on the power of his creative imagination to produce an extraordinary modern literary horror story. Stylishly written, with a wildly inventive, fantastical plot and wide-ranging settings across continents from London to Australia to Malaysia, My Life As A Fakesvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138939188389875022006-02-02T19:59:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:59:48.390-08:00Brick Lane * Monica AliMonica Ali's gorgeous first novel is the deeply moving story of one woman, Nazneen, born in a Bangladeshi village and transported to London at age eighteen to enter into an arranged marriage. Already hailed by the London Observer as "one of the most significant British novelists of her generation," Ali has written a stunningly accomplished debut about one outsider's quest to find her voice.The svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138939134914345462006-02-02T19:58:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:58:54.916-08:00Housekeeping * Marilynne RobinsonAs someone who usually consumes books at the rate of 2 a week, this book turned the tables: it consumed me and I've been haunted by it ever since.The language - exquisite and clear as crystal - is perfectly married to chronicling the interior worlds of loss and longing, rendered with such precision and depth that you recognize them as your own. I'm not a sentimental person in the least, but I wassvw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138939084710562842006-02-02T19:57:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:58:04.710-08:00Slowness * Milan KunderaIn honor of the annual Slow Food conference in Turin this month, I have chosen this lovely small novel from the Czech wunderkind. This is the first novel written in French by Kundera, an expatriate since the Velvet Revolution, and both the length, and some of his witticisms suffer as a result. Nonetheless, this short novel is a gem: tender, witty, intelligent and laugh-out-loud funny in svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138938933331323202006-02-02T19:54:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:55:33.333-08:00Cloud Atlas * David MitchellAt once audacious, dazzling, pretentious and infuriating, Mitchell's third novel weaves history, science, suspense, humor and pathos through six separate but loosely related narratives. Like Mitchell's previous works, Ghostwritten and number9dream (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize), this latest foray relies on a kaleidoscopic plot structure that showcases the author's stylistic svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138938881812916082006-02-02T19:53:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:54:41.813-08:00The Emperor of Scent * Chandler BurrIt's unusual to find a book on science that is so highly, compellingly readable. The Emperor of Scent weaves together stories of science in theory and in practice (amazing discoveries, long years of research, stubborn hidebound resistance) and both the allure and industry of perfume, through the figure of Luca Turin, a PhD in biology and a self described "Bio-physicist" who has been practically svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138938822866454092006-02-02T19:52:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:53:42.866-08:00The Time of Our Singing * Richard PowersYou know that lovely, tantalizing sensation which trickles down the back of your tongue as you fall in love with a book by an author you’ve just discovered, and you suddenly realize that you may have an entire new oeuvre to work your way? That blissful sensation of knowing you rest in the hands of a master, and there’s a heck of a lot more where that came from? That was exactly my feeling upon svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21896163.post-1138938734935960452006-02-02T19:50:00.000-08:002006-02-02T19:52:14.946-08:00A Heart So White * Javier Marias"My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"—Lady MacbethA Heart So White is a breathtaking novel about family secrets which chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. svw.http://www.blogger.com/profile/11995641181808381409noreply@blogger.com7