Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum – Book Review

Feb 082011

Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum
Published by Gallery, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

The first thing everyone seems to ask about Amaryllis in Blueberry is if it is like The Poisonwood Bible. The comparison seems obvious: an American family from the not-so-distant past, consisting of a mother, father, and four girls, move to Africa for a missionary endeavor. I will admit that, for the first portion of the book, I was unsure whether or not Amaryllis in Blueberry would end up being derivative of Kingsolver’s work, especially as the novel is narrated through multiple voices, as is The Poisonwood Bible. In the end, though, I truly do not think it was. The differences were not merely surface level either, the entire plot and feel of the book was different, all that was really shared was the plot point of a missionary voyage to Africa and the family size and structure, along with a couple of other shallow similarities (youngest daughter beloved of the mother, eldest daughter seemingly obsessed with her looks).

In Amaryllis in Blueberry, we begin with the family at home in the Midwest – although we see forward into their time in Africa immediately – and see them develop as people before they leave for Africa. Instead of coming directly from a strongly held religious belief, Dick Slepy’s decision to move his family to Africa so he can be a medical missionary arises from outside stimulus and he feelings and concerns about his family. The time in Africa is actually a surprisingly small portion of the novel, and even then Africa primarily presents a new setting that challenges the family to face their individual and group problems.

Each of the characters is severely flawed, but not so flawed that they seem absurd and unrealistic as a group, simply flawed enough to be recognizable as messily human. Their flaws as individuals and as a family forms the basis of Amaryllis in Blueberry and makes for a fascinating, realistic novel. Meldrum’s absolutely lovely writing serves to draw the reader immediately into the Slepy’s lives.

A well-written and well-plotted novel about a family’s darkest secrets. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

“The Weird Sisters” and “You Know When the Men Are Gone” Audio Giveaway

Feb 072011

If you read my January wrap-up, you would know that I chose not one, but two books this month as my ‘pick(s) of the month,’ a remarkable thing indeed.

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You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

Both of these books were published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, one of my very favorite imprints, and they were the sort of book that I need to read again – enough so that I am planning to buy them both in hardcover, as well as listen to them in audio. Actually, I’ve already listened to You Know When the Men Are Gone, and it was fabulous. The narrator, Cassandra Campbell, made everything even more poignant. I haven’t listened to The Weird Sisters yet, but it is going to be one of my next few audiobooks, and the author, Eleanor Brown, had nothing but good things to say about the audio adaptation.

I am happy to announce that, thanks to the generosity of Eleanor Brown (website | facebook | twitter) and Tantor Audio (website | facebook | twitter), I have a copy of each of these books to give away in audio. The copies were provided to me for giveaway, but I will actually be sending them, so let’s go ahead and open this up worldwide!

You can enter for both The Weird Sisters (nine audio cds) and You Know When the Men Are Gone (one mp3 cd), or just one or the other. The same person could conceivably win both, but I will be choosing winners separately. Enter by filling out the Google form below by 11:59 PM Central time on Sunday, February 13th. Winner(s) will be notified by email.

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The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – Book Review

Feb 072011

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Published by Penguin
First book in the Thursday Next series

It is 1985 and in this alternate Britain, literature is king. People go door to door to proselytize about the writer they thing truly wrote Shakespeare’s plays, for example. Other things are different too, the Crimean War has been on for over 100 years, and the Special Operations Network investigates everything from literary crime to temporal mishaps. Thursday Next is a highly regarded LitraTec agent, but even her expertise is challenged when evil genius mastermind Hades gains the ability to go into famous works of literature and change them, going so far as to kidnap Jane Eyre out of her eponymous book.

Imagine, if you will, that 1984 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy got married and had a lit nerd baby. That baby would be The Eyre Affair. Honestly, I’m not really sure what you need to know more than that. Although Fforde’s Britain isn’t quite so dystopian as 1984, it definitely appears to owe elements to Orwell’s masterpiece. The The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comparisons come in to with the strands of whimsy and, well, oddness, running through Thursday’s world. Fforde takes particular joy in naming places and characters, using both literary in-jokes and pretty much anything that he finds funny. I was less than enthused about some of the non-literary joke-names, but overall it is very clever and fun.

Jasper Fforde sold me almost immediately on his alternate, literature-loving, slightly dytopian Britain. This was a very fun, smart book, and I can’t wait to continue the series.

I read “The Eyre Affair” in preparation for the most recent episode of our podcast, What’s Old is New, this one on “Jane Eyre.”

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: Personal copy.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

January 2011 Wrap-Up

Feb 062011

Because of my blogging break over Christmas that did not include a reading break, and the way I am trying to read farther ahead these days, I’m changing up the format of my monthly wrap-ups a bit for 2011. Instead of listing everything I read and linking to what has been reviewed, I will first be listing the books reviewed over the last month, and will include unreviewed books below, so you can see what will be coming up!

In January, I reviewed 19 books, including 4 Saturday Story Spotlight posts. I read a total of 22 books (not including what I read with Daniel). Of those 22 books, 6 were audio and 16 were print, for a total of 2.6 days of listening and about 4900 pages read. 14 books I read in January had not yet been reviewed as of January 31.

What I Reviewed:

Audiobooks
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, narrated by Stephen Hoye
Atlantic by Simon Winchester, narrated by the author

Fiction
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton
The Frozen Rabbi by Steven Stern
The Love Goddess’ Cooking School by Melissa Senate
State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy

Historical Fiction
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi
The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham
Original Sins by Peg Kingman

Nonfiction
Inventing George Washington by Edward G. Lengel
American Uprising by Daniel Rasmussen
Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love by Andrew Shaffer

Saturday Story Spotlight
Little Rabbit Lost by Harry Horse
Just Like Daddy by Cecilia Johnson
Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill
Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw, illustrated by Margaret Apple

Other Posts:
On Nonfiction
Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge: Google Forms
Books I Gushed About in 2010

Picks of the Month:

I just can’t decide, I read a lot of good stuff this month, but there were two books that stood out above the rest, and I cannot choose between them.

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You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I know, big surprise, I loved books from the Amy Einhorn Books imprint at Penguin. This is why I read everything that comes out of this imprint, because it is pretty much all made of win for me.

Daniel’s First Blizzard

Feb 052011

We had a pretty good blizzard here Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week. It included either the 2nd or 3rd highest snowfall for a storm in recorded Chicago history. Once everything was done on Wednesday (and before the bitterly cold temperatures Wednesday night and Thursday), we took Daniel outside to play in snow that was almost as tall as he was (and drifts taller than his daddy).

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And one shot of the library:

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That’s Not My Snowman – Saturday Story Spotlight

Feb 052011

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

That’s Not My Snowman by Fiona Watts, illustrated by Rachel Wells
Published by Usborne Books

Hey, that’s not my snowman! His hat is too fuzzy!

And that one’s arms are way too wiggly, definitely not my snowman.

That’s Not My Snowman is one in a series of books from Usborne where the reader is looking for his or her something (snowman, dragon, puppy, etc.). All of the first few pages are somethings that can’t be the reader’s because some attribute or another is wrong, but finally, on the last page, the reader finds his or her something. These books are great for young kids, because they provide a tactile experience (that fuzzy hat really is fuzzy, buttons are corrugated), as well as providing rich vocabulary for those tactile experiences.

Daniel actually slightly preferred That’s Not My Dragon to That’s Not My Snowman, but this whole series is great for young children.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: Personal copy
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys – Book Review

Feb 042011

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Published by W.W. Norton & Co

Life is not easy for the white families left in Jamaica after the emancipation of slaves. Many of the former slaves, quite understandably, harbor a great deal of resentment towards their former masters, and riots and attacks are not unknown. It is into this world that Antoinette Cosway is born. By the time we meet, her father is dead and her mother’s nerves somewhat frayed from her impoverished life in this unstable country. A new stepfather gives Antoinette’s family the name Mason and more financial security, but also locks her mother away in her despair after Antoinette’s younger brother is killed by the angry mob that burns down their house.

It is with this background that Antoinette Cosway Mason is married to a man chosen by her stepfather and stepbrother, a Mr. Rochester from England. Antoinette’s difficult childhood has certainly taken a toll on her, but she is still perfectly sane. Until her marriage, that is. I was hoping that “Wide Sargasso Sea” would give me more insight into Rochester’s life and give me more sympathy for the way he acts towards Jane in “Jane Eyre.” It actually had the exact opposite effect. Rochester’s treatment of both Antoinette and the life she loved disgusted me. He clearly hated life in the Caribbean and made no attempt to try to acclimate. And once he decided that he liked neither the Caribbean nor Antoinette, he began taking his feelings out on her, including calling her Bertha because he believed that her mother, also named Antoinette, was insane, even though she begged him to use her real name.

“Wide Sargasso Sea” is fascinating both as a post-colonial novel and as a prequel to “Jane Eyre,” even if it made me furious, it is definitely worth a read. Recommended.

I read “Wide Sargasso Sea” in preparation for the most recent episode of our podcast, What’s Old is New, this one on “Jane Eyre.”

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: library.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah – Book Review

Feb 032011

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah, translated by Geoffrey Strachan
Published by Graywolf Press

In 1944, the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is somewhat removed from the rest of the world, enough that a nine year-old boy would not know that the rest of the world had been embroiled in a bitter war. Of course, even without knowledge of the war, Raj has a very painful life of his own, growing up in a small, poor village with a violently alcoholic father, and losing his two brothers to a storm. His life is difficult enough that things actually seem to be looking up with Raj is hospitalized at the prison his father works for – the only hospital facility around – and meets David. Raj doesn’t understand why David and so many other light skinned men and women are imprisoned, on Mauritius the white men are the ones who are in charge, not the ones found in prison. Regardless, though, he and David are immediate friends, more like brothers, really.

The Last Brother is framed from the modern-day adult perspective of Raj, and we know almost immediately that something tragic happened during his time with David, although it is only through his recollection of the past that we discover exactly what it was. This is a rather short book – less than 200 pages – but it is so richly evocative of place and emotion that it feels just as meaty as something twice as long. Having Raj frame the story as an adult lends the more reflective and retrospective feel that is really crucial to this story, while still allowing the narration of Raj as a nine year-old to be authentic.

Besides being very well written and translated, The Last Brother gives the reader a peek at a story of World War II that most of us have never read, that of the 1500 European Jews who were turned away from Palestine and detained as illegal immigrants on Mauritius for years. More information about this historical reality can be found in Nathacha Appanah’s interview with Tablet Magazine.

Don’t let the slim volume fool you, The Last Brother is a powerful novel that packs a huge emotional punch. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound | Amazon*

Source: Publisher, for BOOK CLUB.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

13 rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro – Book Review

Feb 022011

13 rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro
Published by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Hachette

Josianne has a box, the contents of which can induce fevers. Since she received the box, she has gifted it to a variety of men, scholars, but the box always makes its way home to Josianne. Her latest find is Trevor Stratton, an American translator of French who has come to work for her university. She hides the box in a file cabinet in his office, letting him believe he has discovered a hidden gem. And, indeed, the box has a fabulous cache of historical material, surrounding Louise Bruent, a French woman living at 13, rue Therese between World War I and World War II. As Trevor dives deeper into the artifacts in the box, he finds himself increasingly pulled into Lousie’s world.

I cannot decide whether the writing or the illustrations of 13, rue Therese are more striking. The author, Elena Mauli Shapiro, actually lived in an apartment below the real Louise Brunet in Paris and was left with a box of her possessions when the older woman died, many of the contents of which are reproduced in color right in the pages of the book, in line with the text. For example, from page 77:

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Despite his horrid spelling and his atrocious punctuation, you can see Camille is clever: he has punned. If you look very closely at the front side of the card, you can just make out that he has rubbed off the manufactured greeting that was previously there and written in his own hand, “Thoughts of the absent.” The French word for “thought” (pensée) is also the French word for “pansy,” which is the flower pictured therein. So, he is giving her flower/thoughts, on paper.

All of the illustrations from the book can actually be found on the book’s website, along with their accompanying text, and even a clip of the audio book.

Shapiro has written an incredibly creative book. Not only has she reimagined and recreated in vivid detail the life of a real woman, illustrating it with real artifacts, but she has also given us a novel that plays with the constraints of time in amazing ways. Trevor becomes obsessed with the Louise and the contents of the box to the extent where he – and the reader – is unsure of where or when he is at time. History and the present collide in a puzzling, but ultimately fascinating way.

You must be ready to think and be immersed when you pick up 13 rue Therese, but for the reader who is prepared for this, it is well worth the read. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells |Indiebound | Amazon*

Check out the 13, rue Therese website, very interactive and cool.

Source: publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Fairy Tales – What’s Old is New

Feb 012011

Well, our show on Jane Eyre is officially live, and we’re ready for the hate mail to come rolling in (please leave it at oldisnewpodcast(at)gmail.com or attached to the show notes for the podcast, not here).