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 Max Morden has just lost his wife to cancer. Instead of moving in with his daughter, he chooses to stay at a boarding home where he vacationed as a child. This novel uses Max to explore themes of memory, first love, and loss, since the plot is scarce and almost all of the story is told through short, half-remembered vignettes of the past.
I didn’t like this book very much, in all honesty. I picked it up because I did enjoy Eclipse when I read it in my literature class last fall and I thought that, since this novel won the Booker prize, it was probably worth reading. And so it is, in a very literary sense. Not much happens until the very end, when the fragments of story come together and the reader finally understands why Max has gone back to the sea. The ending did actually redeem it, in that sense, and made the novel much more powerful. In addition, Banville’s prose is truly beautiful and it’s a pleasure to revel in his turns of phrase.
There were plenty of things I didn’t like about it, however, mainly the self-indulgent, whiny narrator. I have little patience for people who are so concerned with themselves when someone they are supposed to love is dying of cancer, so obviously part of this is my own bias. Max doesn’t seem to care about anyone at all. Secondly, I would have preferred a little more motion in the plot before the end. It is a wonderful ending, but I would have liked at least something to pull me along and make the journey there of more substance than beautiful words on a page. Normally, I’m okay when nothing much happens because I love atmosphere, but somehow this book didn’t create enough of that for me.
Now, you don’t have to listen to me, as plenty of people have loved this book. And it is a worthy read, if you have a few hours just to focus on reading and nothing else. It just wasn’t what I wanted when I read it and I found myself disappointed overall. Buy this book on Amazon. In all honesty, though, I’d recommend Eclipse more (although other reviewers seem to disagree here), if you’re interested in John Banville.
 When the narrator of The Gargoyle suffers through a horrific car accident thanks to a drug hallucination, he loses his entire life in one shot. His career as a porn star is gone and he can no longer indulge himself by seducing beautiful women because nearly his entire body is covered in burns – and he has been emasculated thanks to the extensive damage. He goes so far as to plan out his suicide in the most elaborate way possible, just to ensure he’ll be gone, as he is suffering. That all changes when Marianne Engel enters his life, a girl with a mental disorder who is convinced she’s been alive for the past 700 years and that she loved the narrator in another life. As she spins tales for him of love, he finds possibility of redemption.
I loved this book. I’m not surprised by that because it seems nearly everyone else has too. The first fifty pages are bit much, in all honesty, and reading about how he was burned and the different ways they set about curing him made me wonder just what everyone was raving about. Then, of course, Marianne Engel appears and sets all sorts of changes in motion. I loved her chapter-long stories of past loves and even more so her descriptions of the past between her and the narrator. Well, it’s only natural that I would, given that it is set in medieval Germany. The whole story might sound unlikely and strange, but it works.
I love the sardonic narrator in particular. I think if this book tried to be entirely serious, it would fall on its face, but it has a wonderful edge of humor despite the frequently dire situations. Taken in summary, it sounds ridiculous, but somehow it all combines to create a beautiful tribute to the unending power of love. I couldn’t put this book down. It has been released today and I highly recommend you go pick it up if you haven’t already. Buy this book on Amazon.
For more information and associated media for The Gargoyle, visit the book’s website at Doubleday.
 Towner Whitney, born Sophya, left her home in Salem, MA, fifteen years ago, after her twin sister committed suicide upon discovery of something in the lace. When her Aunt Eva turns up missing, the somewhat unhinged and unreliable Towner realizes she must go back to find out what happened and ends up confronting many of her demons from the past.
That is only a brief synopsis which encapsulates very little of the book. It’s hard to summarize without giving anything away. I had very little idea of what would happen going into the book and I think it’s better experienced that way. Then again, I think most books are best experienced without much plot knowledge, only enough of a hint to get whether or not I’ll like it. So this one isn’t an exception to my rule.
For the most part, I really enjoyed The Lace Reader. The plot had me very interested and I sped through the book. I liked piecing together Towner’s past and the different viewpoints the author offered – a bit from her journals and Rafferty’s point of view. I also really liked Rafferty and found him an engaging secondary character; he’s very different from Towner and it’s refreshing. The atmosphere of Salem was enchanting and rings true with my visit there, backed up by assertions from others who have been to or lived in Salem. It adds another level of enchantment to the book.
But then, the ending happened. I hate to discuss spoilers in my review, so I won’t, but I will say that despite knowing that Towner was an unreliable narrator from the beginning, I just have too much trouble reconciling the rest of the book with its conclusions. I’ve looked through the book several times since finishing and I stand by my assertion that there wasn’t enough groundwork. Then again, I hate abrupt plot twists like this one, so perhaps this is just my personal taste, as most other people seem to love the book whole-heartedly.
So I can’t recommend this book entirely. I found it engrossing throughout and a great read, but I was left disappointed. I have promised a few people this book as a loan already and I will be interested to see whether they agree with me or with the masses of people who adore this book. If you think you’d be one of the latter, you can buy this book on Amazon.
 Joanna has decided before that she is tired of being a corporate wife, but after her husband receives yet another promotion requiring yet another move, she has had enough and sets off to find a life of her own. She arrives in Pawleys Island confused and in need of guidance. What she finds is an old woman named Grace with some difficulties of her own and a small community that is destined to change the way Joanna thinks. Meanwhile, her husband, Paul, only realizes after his life collapses that some serious changes need to be made. In this way, two lives are rebuilt.
I really, really enjoyed this book. I loved the atmosphere of it, particularly the feel of the island. I was walking along the sand with Joanna, looking out Grace’s window, and smelling the salty sea air. McFadden creates a great sense of atmosphere here that I really appreciated. I was consistently immersed in the story and found myself thinking about it even when I hadn’t been reading for a while.
I found it particularly amusing that the NJ town mentioned in the book is my hometown, where my parents live. Typically, the author had the attitude of this place down, but I couldn’t reconcile any of the physical details with what she said, so I think she made up the developments and the things like the annual outdoor market, unless I have just been missing out on them for the past 15 years. Not only that, but one of the local bookstore owners where I used to buy my books for school is quoted on the back of my ARC copy. I’m astounded that this little town in the middle of nowhere has now appeared in a book that I have read!
As for the plot, I was never bored and I was moved very, very often. This one is certainly an emotional read. I loved watching Paul and Joanna find themselves, and Grace’s story affected me deeply. I think we can see a little of ourselves in each character – we are all sometimes lost and confused, we all have to figure out who we are (sooner or later) in order to love ourselves and those around us, and almost everyone has known and probably loved someone whose situation is very similar to Grace’s. Some readers are there themselves, which is heartbreaking. I felt connected and sympathetic to all three of the main characters and I wanted desperately for their wishes to come true.
This is an extremely touching story. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who was ready to embrace such a heart-rending and simultaneously heart-warming book. Buy this book on Amazon.
 “Middle England, mid-1980’s. The kind of place where nothing ever happens. Except something has happened. A fifteen-year-old boy called Robert has died, down by the pools. And half a dozen lives will come unravelled.” – back cover, The Pools.
I couldn’t summarize it any better than that (I tried!). This book has two narrators; Howard, Robert’s father, and Joanna, his friend. Robert dies at the very beginning of the book and the remainder is spent discovering just how he got there, an examination of the lives surrounding the boy and just how they’ll be affected by this tragedy. Howard narrates Robert’s family life, while Joanna covers his social life. Both narrators are distinct, with their own voices and personalities, and it’s very clear that they both belong and make up two halves of this stunning book.
Perhaps the most affecting character is Howard, who is genuinely kind and well-meaning but never quite manages to get a grasp on Kathryn, the wife that he loves so much, or his son, whose life always seems hidden and secretive. He tries so hard, and somehow it’s never enough. On the other hand, we witness his rigidity and unwillingness to compromise or accept his family for what they are, despite how much he loves them and desires to understand them. He reminds me of a conservative who has a good heart, but is completely close-minded. He seemed very real to me as I was reading, and I wished I could open his mind to the reality of life before it was too late.
Joanna, the other main character, is only coming to discover herself as she struggles with her identity and her sexuality. As someone who has emerged only a few years ago out of the misery of adolescence, her experiences, although very different from mine, struck a chord with me and I could feel for her confusion.
The best part of this book is certainly how it creates a tapestry of lives and demonstrates how pulling out just one thread – Robert’s – will have an astronomical impact on all of them. Very little is written about the aftermath of Robert’s death, but his place in the hearts of so many is established and the author doesn’t need to describe what happens in much detail. She builds a community and proceeds to tear it apart in the reader’s mind.
I’d definitely recommend this book. It came on me as a shock and I found it to be profound, moving, and compelling. You can pre-order this book on Amazon.com , or if you’re in the UK, you can buy it now from Amazon.co.uk.
 Jon always thought that he was an honorable man, until Freddi walks into his life and he finds himself having an affair. So Long at the Fair combines his struggle to decide between his wife, whom he loves very much, and his mistress, who he just can’t stay away from, with the tale of the previous generation and how they have led him to this moment.
This book started out well. Jon’s struggle was well-written and while I don’t approve of or condone his choice to have an affair, I could see the dilemma he’d landed himself in. He loves his wife, but he also loves his girlfriend in a different and more exciting way. I really liked Ginny, both old and young incarnations, and I was hoping for happiness for her throughout the book. The plot was very engaging and I was looking forward to see just how these plotlines could combine to create a great tale.
The bulk of the story takes place over one day, and I tend to like when authors do that because I like the minutae of daily lives. No exception here. The rest of story skips around two other time periods – the 1960s, when their parents were finding their own way in life and creating the problems that would undercut the main characters’ lives, and another storyline centered on the youth of Jon and Ginny, how they fell in love. I liked all these examinations of the different types of love and how they develop. The book is sort of a study in marital relationships, which made it interesting. It was sometimes hard to keep track of who was whose parents, but I had it straight by the end of the novel, and the skipping around never bothered me much.
This may be a spoiler, but I was, however, disappointed in the ending, and I won’t give away more than that about it. I think it could have been done better.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this one. It was a fairly pleasant way to spend an afternoon, but there are so many better books out there. Buy this book on Amazon.
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Don’t forget, you could still win a free copy of The Streets of Babylon by Carina Burman! Head here to enter!
 American Wife is the story of Alice Blackwell, maiden name Lindgren, from her days as just a young girl to becoming the wife of a President of the United States. It’s actually a fictional version of the life of Laura Bush as Sittenfeld attempts to imagine the First Lady’s thoughts and feelings at this difficult juncture in American life.
The main concern I had with this book was whether it would transcend the “buzz” and actually hold its own as a story, rather than as a book destined only to gain readership based on shock value. It has plenty of shock value, although not really if you think about it – both Alice and Charlie are presented as real people who have had premarital sex, who swear (in Charlie’s case), and who suffer differences of opinion. In a sense, it brings some humanity to people who seem like cold machines at times.
Does it hold its own as a novel, though? Would anyone read it if it wasn’t about Laura Bush under a different name?
I think so, yes. I liked it. I never struggled to read it and it didn’t drop off in the middle for me like it did for many of my fellow bloggers. The beginning was definitely the best, as Alice’s youth and early adulthood are the times when she is most compelling and relatable. She goes through very human struggles – dating various unsuitable men, struggling to buy her own house and deal with her aging parents and grandmother, and dedicating herself to her job. When she marries Charlie, she transcends her middle class lifestyle as a librarian and ascends into the elite, which separated her reality from my reality by quite a lot. In the middle of the book, it starts to skip around, so their daughter Ella’s growth is haphazard (she goes from child to teenager to adult VERY quickly), and all of a sudden she and Charlie are in their sixties and in the White House. That’s really my only problem with the book.
Also, this is marketed as an alternate of Laura Bush’s life, but in all honesty I doubt she’s actually thinking these things. I’m not into examining the life of public figures, but this book made me do some research and I think Sittenfeld is liberal with her ideas and her changes of their lives. It’s fiction, so that’s acceptable, but some of the articles out there make it sound like a shocking biography with a different name put on. It’s not. It’s just an idea of what a woman married to President Bush might be thinking now, not necessarily what Mrs. Bush is thinking.
It does hold its own away from the media attention. It’s an interesting, thoughtful book and I enjoyed it. I liked Alice and sometimes even Charlie (this shocked me as much as it shocks you), although mostly he annoyed me. I think I would have enjoyed it even more if it wasn’t attached to the current White House, in all honesty, although Alice’s fictional life makes for a good story. I’d recommend this book, and I’m looking forward to reading more reviews as they appear. Preorder this book on Amazon.
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Interested in a free book? Don’t miss my giveaway here of The Streets of Babylon by Carina Burman!
 The Hours focuses on three women: Virginia Woolf, the author of Mrs. Dalloway, which this book plays with; Laura Brown, a young housewife who is reading Mrs Dalloway and struggling with her too-perfect and not-perfect-enough home life; and Clarissa Vaughan, who is living a sort of 20th century version of Clarissa Dalloway’s life. Cunningham switches between chapters and at the end, manages to make them all come together in this dream of a literary novel.
Okay, I’ll also be honest that I’m a little prejudiced here. I love Mrs. Dalloway. I’ve read it twice and I plan on reading it many more times. I love the way Virginia Woolf reflects the human consciousness, how everyone gets distracted by certain things, and how she can flit from person to person, all while maintaining a beautiful prose style and never getting the reader confused. I love that the entire novel fits in one day, but reflects on the enormity that can happen in just that one day, in so many people’s lives.
So, how could I not love The Hours? The answer is, there is no way, because I did love this novel. Cunningham plays with the storylines in a way that makes them richer, impossible as that is to imagine. He takes Woolf’s style and spreads it over several lives, paying homage to her work and making something entirely new of his own out of it. We can experience Woolf’s struggle between depression and genius, then flip a page and read his 20th century interpretation of the story, and then flip another page and experience how a book can change lives forever (albeit an extreme example). And then I adored the way the storylines came together at the end. I thought this book was pure brilliance. Moreover, not only does he do all this, but he manages to get across essential, beautiful messages about the transitory nature of life and what we’re all about that really touched me.
This book has won at least two awards, one of which is the Pulitzer prize. It also won the PEN/Faulkner award. I’m not surprised, because it is excellent. The literature student in me adores this book. I don’t know why I waited so long to read it! I’m going to recommend it to everyone I know – but only if they’ve read and liked Mrs. Dalloway. They would miss too much otherwise. Buy this book on Amazon.
 This short novel tells essentially the life story of Colleen, through her childhood and school years to her adult life in Africa. The arc of the story seems to follow her family, and we are given snapshots of her life as the years go by in the chapters. Most notably, the novel seems to show the struggle between classes, the challenge of living, and gives us an intimate look into the different and contradictory cultures of southern Africa.
I can’t say that I liked Colleen. For some reason, it’s very difficult to feel attached to her, and perhaps this is Nangle’s prose style. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic and there just never came a moment when I cared what happened to her. The book was interesting and extremely literary. There is so much that I could derive from this book if I tried – it would be an excellent subject for a paper and it presents plenty of subjects, not the least of which is the leprosy in the title, but also includes the mental illness of Colleen’s sister and the violence of the rebels.
In truth, The Leper Compound is a very thoughtful and well-written book. It went slowly, but I don’t regret the time spent reading it, especially given that it is under 200 pages. This is a worthy look into Africa’s culture, an important reminder when so many Americans are insulated against it. Colleen experiences many emotions that are very common, like finding her first love, and this is essentially a tale of her coming of age, but the backdrop is so different, and even the prose style makes her experiences different and special.
Would I recommend this book? I would say yes, but I wouldn’t read it for enjoyment or escapism – it is a book that is meant to be pondered over and carefully considered, and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to do so. Buy this book on Amazon.
 Christopher Banks was orphaned as a child when he lived in Shanghai. He insists that his family situation has had no effect on his life, but in reality, the novel reveals piece by piece how unreliable he is and how much his childhood has severely affected the rest of his life. Ishiguro contrasts his childhood in Shanghai with his immediate life as a British detective.
I adore Ishiguro’s writing. Something about his prose draws me in and I can’t look up until I’ve finished the entire book. It is restrained, elegant, but it always conveys a hidden depth of emotion and meaning. He says so much without actually saying anything at all, and I love it. This is probably why he’s a master of the unreliable narrator.
This book isn’t much liked compared to Ishiguro’s others, based on the LibraryThing rating and reviews. This seems to be largely because towards the end, Christopher makes some silly decisions. This didn’t bother me; it seems that when it comes to his parents he has a child’s mentality despite his brilliance in other areas (which is never actually demostrated to us, unfortunately).
When We Were Orphans has the most plot of any Ishiguro novel I’ve read – most of them seem to meander through time to come to a fixed realization at the end. This one doesn’t quite do that and actually the plot comes together to reveal something that the reader has known for a while. I definitely still enjoyed it, though, as it almost creates a feeling of suspense that isn’t present in his other novels, because it’s hard to say in the beginning why things are happening as they are.
What did I like the most? I think the ties between orphans, their shared childhood memories, and how it changed them, all of them, but also how they are connected because of their shared loss. It was poignant, bitterly sweet, something that Ishiguro excels at. This book is almost too full of his skills, and it has cemented his place as one of my favorite authors. I doubt he is ever again going to match the brilliance of The Remains of the Day, but this novel is still very, very good. Buy this book on Amazon.
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