Book Choices for July 2010

I hope I got the month right- anyhow here are my choices- all available on Kindle (yes it was a prerequisite). The first one I read and absolutely loved. The second two are from books we considered but did not pick. I have read both samples from Kindle and will be purchasing them at some point. JB

1: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (September 11, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375842209
• ISBN-13: 978-0375842207

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, this groundbreaking novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist—books. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

2:The Book of Lost Things

by John Connolly
Stolen 110% from Linda's blog- it was perfect, so why change?!

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (October 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074329890X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743298902

The story is about a 12-year-old English boy, David, who, after the death of his mother, moves with his father and new step mother to the new wife’s family’s country estate. David is given an attic room lined with old books from a previous occupant and the books begin to literally whisper to him. One day after seeing an intruder in his room, David hears his dead mother’s voice in the sunken garden calling to him for help. He follows the voice and finds himself in a very different place. This new place is not the realm of Disney fairy tales but harkens back to the brutality of the original Grimms fairy tales that do not necessarily have happy endings. This book is definitely not written for kids, or adults who are the faint of heart. Although many of the adventures David encounters echo fairy tales that we all know they all definitely have unique twists and it is David’s understanding of these stories from his reading that enables him to prevail.

3: Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; Updated edition (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060899220
• ISBN-13: 978-0060899226

• When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded that appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectable shocking banquet that lays out his 25 years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.

  From his first oyster in the Gironde to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.

The Reading List

Girl with Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier (Asha)
House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III (Carl)
God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (Linda)
Fox in the Attic, Richard Hughes (Dick)
Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash (Jasmine)
Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (Maria)
Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace (Scott)
White Teeth, Zadie Smith (Christine)
Promise of Rest, Reynolds Price (Vince)
The Keepers of Truth, Michael Collins (Asha)
Patty Jane's House of Curl, Lorna Landvik (Vicki)
Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian (Rachel)
The Muse Asylum, David Czuchlewski (Linda)
Wisdom, Heather Neff (Jasmine)
Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory McGuire (Scott)
Perfume, Patrick Suskind (Christine)
The Hours, Michael Cunningham and Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (Asha)
Pickup, Nadine Gordimer (Rachel)
Maus, Art Spiegelman (Heather)
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Linda)
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (Liz)
Life of Pi, Yann Martel (Scott)
Autobiography of My Mother, Jamaica Kincaid (Jasmine)
Empire Falls, Richard Russo (Asha)
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller (Christine)
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (Lori)
Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart (Rachel)
The Archivist, Martha Cooley and the Wasteland, T.S. Elliot (Linda)
Book of Salt, Monique Truong (Scott)
Troll: A Love Story, Johanna Sinisalo (Heather)
Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (Jasmine)
Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon (Asha)
Roaches Have No King, Daniel Evan Weiss (Christine)
Atonement, Ian McEwen (Liz)
Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon (Chris)
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Tom Robbins (Linda)
Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (Scott)
Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (Scott, Guilty Pleasure selection)
The Voyage, Philip Caputo (Rachel)
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (Sunni)
Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (Christine)
Seven Types of Ambiguity, Elliot Perlman (Liz)
Girl Who Played Go, Shan Sa (Hera)
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee (Danica)
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami (Linda)
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo Ishiguro (Scott)
All the Names, Jose Saramago (Wayne)
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (Sunni)
I Lucifer, Glen Duncan (Jasmine)
Inheritence of Loss, Kiran Desai (Rachelle)
Double Bind: A Novel, Chris Bohjalian (Melissa)
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon (John)
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates (Christine)
Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (Hera)
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy (Liz)
Lamb: A Gospel According to Biff, Christopher Moore (Matt)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig (Scott)
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino (Linda)
Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk (Wayne)
A Gracious Plenty, Sherri Reynolds (Missy)
The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle (Sunni)
Human Stain, Phillip Roth (Stacey)
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (Jamila)
Polished Hoe, Austin Clarke (Jonathan)
Choke, Chuck Palahniuk (Rachelle)
A Supposedly Fun Thing, David Foster Wallace (Scott)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein (Melissa (I) Moroney)
Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury (Christine)
Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery (Linda)
Egalia’s Daughters, Gerd Brantenberg (Nesha)
Lucky One, Nicholas Sparks (Sunni)
Cane River, Lalita Tademy (Angela)
Say You Are One of Them, Uwem Akpan (Phyllis)
Unburnable, Marie-Elena John (Mia)
Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson(Calli)

Updated March 5, 2010

Also-Ran Reading List

Those books that were proffered for our consideration and were passed over in favor of other books.

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison (Jasmine)- winner Namesake
Autograph Man, Zadie Smith (Asha)-winner Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Ordinary Wolves, Seth Kantner (Christine) - winner Roaches
Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (Christine) - winner Roaches
My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk (Liz) - winner Atonement
Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides (Liz)- winner Atonement
Memoirs of a Survivor, Doris Lessing (Chris) - winner Lot 49
World of Vikram Lall, M.G. Vassaaji (Chris) - winner Lot 49
Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (Linda) - winner Fierce Invalids
Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson (Linda) - winner Fierce Invalids
Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (Scott) - winner Fountainhead
Deception, Denise Mina (Scott) - winner Fountainhead
Disgrace, J.M. Coetze (Scott) - winner Fountainhead
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (Scott) - winner Fountainhead
Feddy and Fredericka, Mark Helprin (Sunni) - winner Name of the Rose
Witching Hour, Anne Rice (Christine) - winner Name of the Rose
Sandstorm, James Rollins (Rachel)- winner Name of the Rose
Club Duma, Arturo Perez-Reverte (Linda) - winner Name of the Rose
Straight Man, Richard Russo (Chris)- winner Name of the Rose
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (Rachel) - winner Voyage
Unless, Carol Shields (Rachel) - winner Voyage
On Secret Service, John Jakes (Sunni) - winner Running with Scissors
First Deadly Sin, Lawrence Sanders (Sunni) - winner Running with Scissors
In the time of Butterflies, Julia Alvarez (Christine) - winner Kite Runner
Master Butcher’s Singing Club, Louise Erdrich (Liz) - winner Seven Types of Ambiguity
Veronica, Mary Gaitskill (Liz) - winner Seven Types of Ambiguity
Saving Fish from Drowning, Amy Tan (Hera) - winner Girl Who Played Go
All the Names, Jose Saramago (Linda) - winner Girl Who Played Go
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee (Scott) - winner Girl Who Played Go
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (Danica) - winner Disgrace
Jazz, Toni Morison (Danica) - winner Disgrace
Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Christopher Moore (Danica) - winner Disgrace
All the Names, Jose Saramago (Linda) - winner Kafka on the Shore
The Trial, Franz Kafka (Linda) - winner Kafka on the Shore
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo (Linda) - winner When We Were Orphans
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Hera) - winner When We Were Orphans
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Rachelle) - winner When We Were Orphans
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Christine) - winner When We Were Orphans
The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom (Sunni) - winner Orphans
Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley (Liz) - winner When We Were Orphans
Until I Find You, John Irving (Wayne) - winner All the Names
The March, E.L. Doctorow (Wayne) - winner All the Names
The Known World, Edward P. Jones (Wayne) - winner All the Names
Night, Elie Wiesel (Sunni) - winner Cloud Atlas
Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton (Sunni) - winner Cloud Atlas
Hand I Fan With, Tina Mcelroy Ansa (Jasmine) - winner I Lucifer
On Beauty, Zadie Smith (Rachelle)- winner Inheritance of Loss
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (Rachelle) - winner Inheritance of Loss
The Story of Lucy Gault, William Trevor (Rachelle) - winner Inheritance of Loss
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Ehys (Melissa) - winner Double Bind
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris (Melissa) - winner Double Bind
Saving Fish From Drowning, Amy Tan (Melissa) - winner Double Bind
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See (Melissa) - winner Double Bind
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides (John) - winner Curious Incident
Baby Proof, Emily Griffin (John) - winner Curious Incident
Grendel, John Gardner (Christine) - winner Revolutionary Road
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (Christine) - winner Revolutionary Road
Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris (Hera) - winner Kavalier & Clay
Boomsday - Christopher Buckley (Hera) - winner Kavalier & Clay
Reservation Road - John Burnham Schwartz (Liz) - winner No Country
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje (Liz) - winner No Country
Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart (Matt) - winner Lamb
Brothers, Da Chen (Matt) - winner Lamb
Saturday, Ian McEwan(Scott) - winner Zen and the Art
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell (Scott) - winner Zen and the Art
The Emperor's Children, Claire Messud (Scott) - winner Zen and the Art
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov (Linda) - winner If on a Winters Night
Only Revolutions, Mark Danieleqski (Linda) - winner If on a Winters Night
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (Wayne) - winner Lullaby
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (Wayne) - winner Lullaby
The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar (Missy) - winner Gracious Plenty
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Missy) - winner Gracious Plenty
1.19 Minutes, Jodi Picoult (Sunni) - winner God of Animals
Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen (Sunni) - winner God of Animals
What is the What, Dave Eggers (Stacey) - winner Human Stain
Brother, I am Dying, Edwidge Danticat (Stacey) - winner Human Stain
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Jamila) - winner Oscar Wao
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Jamila) - winner Oscar Wao
Unburnable, Marie Elena John (Jonathan) - winner Polished Hoe
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain (Jonathan) - winner Polished Hoe
The Road, Cormac McCarthy (Rachelle) - winner Choke
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini (Rachelle) - winner Choke
Saturday, Ian McEwan (Scott) - winner A Supposedly Fun Thing
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell (Scott) - winner A Supposedly Fun Thing
1984, George Orwell (Scott) - winner A Supposedly Fun Thing
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis (Melissa I) - winner Moon is a Harsh Mistress
My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk (Melissa I) - winner Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Hyperion, Dan Simmons (Christine) - winner Martian Chronicles
Venus on the Half Shell, Phillip Jose Farmer (Christine) - winner Martian Chronicles
Stolen Child, Keith Donohue (Linda) - winner Elegance of the Hedgehog
Book of Lost Things, John Connolly (Linda) - winner Elegance of the Hedgehog
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel (Nesha) - winner Egalia’s Daughters
Pawn of Prophecy, David Eddings (Nesha) - winner Egalia’s Daughters
My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult (Sunni) - winner Lucky One
Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Connie Godwin (Sunni) - winner Lucky One
War at Home, Kris Nelscott(Angela) - winner Cane River
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison(Angela) - winner Cane River
Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones (Phyllis) -winner Say You Are One of Them
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (Phyllis - winner Say You Are One of Them
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson (Mia) - winner Unburnable
Autobiography of My Mother (Mia) - winner Unburnable
Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (Calli) - winner Snow Falling
Learning Joy from Dogs with Collars, Lauralee Summer(Calli) - winner Snow Falling

Last Updated March 5, 2010

Linda's Book Selections

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery

Blurb:

“We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.”

This is my first choice. This book had gotten such rave reviews and was apparently a huge best seller in France, that when I decided to order some books from which to select the next book club book this was at the top of my list. Scott picked it up before I got a chance to and loved it. Hopefully I can entice him to give you his thoughts on the book. I know that his comments as he has been reading it have made me want to read it immediately.

The Stolen Child
by Keith Donohue

This is one of my favorite reads from last year. I don’t normally read books where the main characters are children but this got such great reviews and is not in anyway a book written for children. I loved this debut novel about two changeling boys. A changeling is a creature from folklore which secretly takes the place of a human child. The title is taken from the Yeats poem which I had never read before but which adds an interesting dimension to the book. The chapters alternate between the story of the “changeling” that kidnaps the boy Henry Day and takes his place in the human world and Henry Day who becomes one of the “changelings” (now called Aniday) that live in the woods. I especially liked how the chapters alternated between the two boys’ stories. For example you get Henry Day’s perspective on being kidnaped and then the changeling’s perspective of changing into Henry Day and fitting into his human family. It would have been easy to dislike the changeling who took Henry away from his family but the author did a marvelous job of developing his story as well and indeed by the end, I found him an equally sympathetic character. While I enjoyed learning about the life of the changelings in the woods I thought the author did a wonderful job in showing how similar the two boys were. Both boys were struggling with their past, who they had been and who they were now.

I also enjoyed the author’s writing style. Aniday speaking of his assimilation into the changeling family:

“They showed me the hidden things silence revealed: a pheasant craning its neck to spy on us from a thicket, a crow hopping from branch to branch, a raccoon snoring in its den. Before the daylight completely faded, we tramped through the wet grounds to the mucky bank of the river. Along the water’s edge ice crystals grew, and listening closely, we heard the crack of freezing. A single duck paddled further down the river, and each snowflake hissed as it hit the water’s surface. The sunlight faded like a whisper and vanished.” p 32 Trade Paper edition.

This is my second choice and I highly recommend it. I note that there is a movie now out on DVD called the Changeling directed by Clint Eastwood which I at first thought might be a version of this or similar to it but it isn’t. In the movie the police simply “return” the wrong boy to the mother and there are no actual “changelings” involved at all.

The Book of Lost Things
by John Connolly

This is another book that I bought as a possible book club selection and it is my third choice. I have not yet finished reading it. The story is about a 12-year-old English boy, David, who, after the death of his mother, moves with his father and new step mother to the new wife’s family’s country estate. David is given an attic room lined with old books from a previous occupant and the books begin to literally whisper to him. One day after seeing an intruder in his room, David hears his dead mother’s voice in the sunken garden calling to him for help. He follows the voice and finds himself in a very different place. This new place is not the realm of Disney fairy tales but harkens back to the brutality of the original Grimms fairy tales that do not necessarily have happy endings. This book is definitely not written for kids, or adults who are the faint of heart. Although many of the adventures David encounters echo fairy tales that we all know they all definitely have unique twists and it is David’s understanding of these stories from his reading that enables him to prevail. (Or at least I assume that he prevails - perhaps he doesn’t. I haven’t finished the book yet.) This book has gotten rave reviews and I have found it fun so far but I don’t think that it has the literary merit of my first two choices.

Melissa's Book Selections

1) The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

Copyright 1966 by Robert A. Heinlein (still modern......)

In 2074, Lunar City on the moon is a thriving community, but an unusual one. It's a penal colony run by the United Nations Lunar Authority. Convicts are transported to the Moon to work for the Authority. It's a one way trip of course, for after a few months or years the transportees can no longer handle the higher gravity of Earth itself. What the colonists don't know is that if the Authority continues to exploit the limited lunar resources as it has been doing, the colony will survive only a few more years.
There's a warden and a few guards, but there are no real rules. After all the convicts can't escape to anywhere and they must cooperate with the Warden to the ensure the exchange of their labours for the essentials of life.
So it's clearly time for a change, a revolution. However, our hero, Manuel Garcia O'Kelly, computer engineer par excellence, is uninterested. He'd like the society to change, but he believes that there is no chance of a successful rebellion against the Earth authorities. He's more interested in chatting with the intelligent computer he's discovered and living a comfortable life with his wives and co-husbands.
But the beautiful, intelligent and passionate Wyoming Knott and the brilliant Professor Bernardo De La Paz involve him in their activism and finally, when he realises that there is indeed a chance of success, in their conspiracy.
Now he's committed and he'll drag his family, his friends and the whole of Luna into a desperate, no-holds battle against the forces of Earth.
This is a definitive work of classic SF. It's got space travel, atomic drives, artificial intelligence, revolution, lunar colonies, rough and tough heroes and strong, sensitive heroines. And, oh yes, variations of polygamy featured as providing a stronger family structure than a traditional nuclear marriage.
He gives you action and adventure but as you read the novel, you're forced to consider, in this new world, new ways of thinking about old problems (and that is what SF is all about).
One particularly enjoyable aspect of this novel is that Manual O'Kelly isn't the supremely competent, well-read and irredeemably arrogant archetypical Heinlein hero. Indeed our hero spends much of his time somewhat in the dark and being led by those who want the best out of him.
Heinlein dwells a little, as was his wont, on cosmetics, but happily his hero specifically avoids them, except where justified for the purposes of disguise.
And of course, there's the Holmes Mark IV Mod I computer that has become self-aware and without whom the revolution would be impossible.

2) American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis

Set in Manhattan and beginning on April Fools' Day 1989, American Psycho spans roughly three years in the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, 26 years old when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his daily life among the upper-class elite of New York to his forays into murder by nightfall.
Bateman comes from a privileged background, having graduated from Philips Exeter Academy, Harvard (class of 1984), and then Harvard Business School (class of 1986). He works as a vice president at a Wall Street investment company and lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side. He embodies the 1980s yuppie culture. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative he describes his conversations with colleagues in bars and cafes, his office, and nightclubs, satirizing the shallow vanity of Manhattan yuppies.
The first third of the book contains no violence (except for subtle references apparent only in retrospect), and is simply an account of what seems to be a series of Friday nights, as Bateman documents traveling with his colleagues to a variety of nightclubs, where they snort cocaine, drink a variety of alcoholic beverages, critique fellow clubgoers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette.
Beginning with the second third of the book, Bateman begins to describe his day-to-day activities, which range from committing brutal violence to such mundanities as renting videotapes and making dinner reservations. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which Bateman directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s musicians, specifically Genesis, Huey Lewis and the News and Whitney Houston. His passion for blandness sits alongside his attention to sartorial detail, his desire to appear normal and the lurid detailing of sex and violence. The effect is to create a world of surfaces, where Bateman seems to exist with no internal life whatsoever, even though he is the narrator.
As the book progresses, Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from stabbings to drawn out sequences of torture. His mask of normality appears to slip as he introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations, and confesses his murderous activities to his co-workers. In every case the context for his "confessions" seems to override the information he is imparting. People react as if Bateman is joking with them, appear not to hear him, or otherwise completely misunderstand him ("murders and executions" is mistaken for "mergers and acquisitions"). As the book nears its conclusion, These incidents illustrate Bateman's heavily medicated mental state and draw into question whether he has actually committed any of the murders he has described. The reader is left with a sense of uncertainty about what is real and who is a reliable witness, creating an acute sense of Bateman's isolation.

3. My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk

The main characters in the novel are miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire. The events revolve around the murder of one of the painters, as related in the first chapter. From then on, Pamuk — in a postmodern style reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges — plays with the reader and with literary conventions in general.
The novel's narrator changes in every chapter. In addition to character-narrators, the reader will find unexpected voices such as the corpse of the murdered, a coin, several painting motifs, and the color red. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, opening a window on the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III during nine snowy winter days in the Istanbul of 1591.
Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a famous Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. The most important of these is the fact that part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, a murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine in general, that the souls of the dead linger on earth and can hear the living.
Pamuk compares illustrations with the afterlife in the sense that people aspire to achieve a sense of eternity through both. The murdered Elegant Effendi accused his murderer of sacrilegious illustrations offending Allah or God. Is true art an expression of the individual artist or is true art a close to perfect representation of the divine in which the individual artist has succeeded to overcome his personal vanity? This question becomes a question of existential meaning in Pamuk's tale.tale.

Scott's Book Selections

As Scott is in Dallas he asked me to post his book selections. I have linked to the blurbs and reviews for Amazon and Barnes & Noble for each, just click the link.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace. Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Scott's comment: Yes it's non fiction and essays but it is the best example of David Foster Wallace's prose and wit!

Saturday by Ian McEwan. Amazon. Barnes & Noble.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Amazon. Barnes & Noble.

1984 by George Orwell. Amazon. Barnes & Noble.

Rachelle's Book Selections

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

NATIONAL BESTSELLERPULITZER PRIZE WINNERNational Book Critic's Circle Award FinalistA New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the YearThe Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington PostThe searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-—and each other.The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.


2. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved” by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him. When he’s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park. His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.

Chuck Palahniuk, author of the dangerously brilliant Fight Club, pulls no punches in his latest novel, Choke. Once again, Palahniuk invites us to experience the underground, church-basement-dwelling world of the 12-step program. Only this time we're not in for testicular, bone, or skin cancer; this time we're dealing with sexual addiction. Not that former med student Victor Mancini has a problem, 'cause he doesn't. But when it comes to getting a little action, where better to go?

In Choke, as in all of Palahniuk's work, we hear the echoes of writers as diverse as Jonathan Swift, Don DeLillo, George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut, and Bret Easton Ellis. But Palahniuk's voice is so unique, and his perspective so specific and fresh, one can hardly call his fiction derivative. Brazenly addressing our sexual excesses, our obsession with death, and our yearning for love, Palahniuk paints a horrific but ultimately fascinating portrait of the 21st-century psyche whose effect is much like bearing witness to an accident: Gruesome as it is, it is impossible not to look. (Cary Goldstein)

3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini's follow-up to The Kite Runner does not disappoint. Set like its predecessor in war-torn Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns uses that tumultuous backdrop to render the heroic plight of two women of different generations married to the same savagely abusive male. Born out of wedlock, Mariam was forced to marry 40-year-old Rasheed when she was only 15. Then, 18 years later, her still childless husband angrily takes an even younger wife. Hosseini renders the story of Mariam and her "sister/daughter," Laila, with persuasive detail and consummate humanity. Their abject situation leaves them no emotional space for idle philosophizing; their resistance is from the very core of their being. Truly must-read fiction.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years -- from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding -- that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives -- the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness -- are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love -- a stunning accomplishment.

October 9, 2008

Next meeting is Thursday October 9, 2008 at Jamila's house to discuss Jamila's book, the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Rachelle will present her book selections and I will deliver copies of the Polished Hoe.