Man Booker Longlist 2015: A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler
Next up in on our long list reads is Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread. Find out what I thought about it and where it ranks. Read more
Posts from the ‘3 star reviews’ Category
Aug 28
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Aug 21
2015 Man Booker Longlist: The Green Road by Anne Enright
Next up in our attempt to complete the 2015 Man Booker Longlist is a book we both read: The Green Road by Anne Enright. Keep reading to find out what we thought and how it ranks in our list of 2015 longlist books read to date.
Aug 18
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Published in: 1994
Literary Awards: Finalist for the 1994 National Book Award
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: The Bird Artist: A Novel
Set in Witless Bay in Newfoundland, a remote community, this is the story of how love and passion can end in murder.
Fabian Vas is a bird artist: He draws and paints the birds of Witless Bay, his remote Newfoundland coastal village home. In the first sentence of the novel Fabian confesses to having killed the lighthouse keeper, Botho August. The rest of the narrative works backwards showing what events lead to the murder and how Fabian escaped hanging to tell his story.
The book is studded with detailed descriptions of the bird life in Witless bay and indeed the bay itself is a character, with its isolation allowing certain events to take place and for community justice to take the place of the law.
I gave this book 3 stars because I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. They were all unlikeable in some way and I really find it hard to like a book where you can’t connect with a single character. What I did enjoy were the descriptions of nature, of the bird species, and of the harsh landscape of the island — landscape that made the inhabitants the kind of remote, cold people they were.
After finishing this book I discovered it was the first in a trilogy which seems rather strange to me since this book seemed to provide the complete story of Fabian, albeit it possibly a slightly surface view. This was not a book that ended on a cliffhanger or that left me with any burning unanswered questions. Instead, everything was all tied up nicely and in such a way that I don’t feel compelled to read the next 2 books — which probably says it all.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: The Bird Artist: A Novel
We want to hear from you. Have you read this book? What did you think? Do you want to read it?
Jul 28
Book – Wine Pairing: Independent People by Laxness
Welcome to our second Book-Wine Pairing: a recurring category that combines two of my favorite things! This month I’m featuring a rather tenuous pairing for the book Independent People by Halldór Laxness — a pairing that is probably based more on my interest for trying a certain wine than anything else. Keep reading to find out more about the book and the wine. Read more
Jul 3
Non-1001 Book Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry
First published: 1993
Awards: Newbery Medal in 1995
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it/Buy it here: The Giver
I realize that this will be an unpopular post because everyone I know loves this book with a passion. I’m fully prepared for all your comments to prove me wrong about this book!
The Giver is a young adult/children’s dystopian novel that was published in the early 1990s. It follows the story of a young boy, Jonas, who is living in what initially appears to be a utopian society. When Jonas is selected to become the new “Receiver of Memory” he has to reconcile his new knowledge of how things used to be with the current state of his surroundings. The Receiver of Memory is the one person in the community who must contain all the past memories (painful and joyous) of what life was like prior to their current community. Jonas learns that his utopian society exists exclusively because all emotion, color, memories, and individuality have been eradicated.
I find it hard to rate books that are so clearly intended toward children because the elements I dislike (simplicity of plot) are elements that are needed to appeal to, or be understandable for children. The book is probably perfect for children ages 9-12. The problem is that as an adult, I felt bored. The story was just too simplistic for my adult tastes although I think as a child I would have loved the story. There’s little in the way of emotional or character development and the whole thing is just a little too cutesy for my tastes. Although young Jonas faces some difficult and heart-wrenching decisions, those decisions never really felt genuinely difficult or heart-wrenching the way it did in other young adult books I’ve read. For example, authors can write about characters feeling pain (emotional or physical) but to truly experience the pain with the characters, the author needs to do more than just say “it was painful.”
Another thing that bothers me is that nothing is ever explained. There are no details about why things are the way they are in this “utopia” or about how the people in charge (whoever they are) are able to control everything. As readers we simply have to take the author’s word for granted many times. Half the time I was shouting “why? why? it doesn’t make sense!”
Like I said earlier, I’m sure I’ll get some push-back for this review since everyone raves about this book. Lots of adults have read it and have encouraged me to read it. Unfortunately, I can’t rave about this book. I think it is a great book for young children because it raises interesting moral issues in a way that may be easy for them to understand. But, I don’t see the appeal of this book for adults. It was entertaining enough, but the lack of complexity drove me crazy. For adults at least, there are many superior books that cover the issues raised in this book in a more interesting and complex manner.
I do highly recommend this book for children. You can find it here: The Giver
Okay, so now it’s your turn to tell me why I’m wrong! What did you think about the book? Did you love it, like it, or dislike it? Why am I wrong?
Jun 26
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Published in: 2010
Literary Awards: Man Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2010)
Reviewed by Jen
Rating: 3.5 stars
Find it here: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
After reading Cloud Atlas, I avoided all other Mitchell books for many years for fear of being disappointed. Cloud Atlas is one of the books that made it into my list of favorite books which is no small feat. I have over 600 books on my Shelfari bookshelf and only 10 of those books have made it onto my list of favorites. Typically when I love an author, I seek out all their books but I felt differently about my first experience with Mitchell. Cloud Atlas was one of those books that was notable for me because it was unlike anything I had ever read. It was intelligent but in an unpretentious and highly accessible manner. While Cloud Atlas was a great and engaging story, it was the unique way that Mitchell played around with narrative structure, timeline, and genre that made the reading experience so wonderful for me. So when I turned to read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, it was under the shadow of unrealistically high expectations. Read more
1001 Book Review: Transit Anna Seghers
Transit by Anna Seghers
Published in: 1944
Reviewed by Jen & Book Worm
Find it here:Transit (New York Review Books Classics)
Synopsis (from Amazon): Anna Seghers’s Transit is an existential, political, literary thriller that explores the agonies of boredom, the vitality of storytelling, and the plight of the exile with extraordinary compassion and insight.
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1001 Book Review: Shroud John Banville
Shroud by John Banville
Published in: 2002
Awards: Man Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2002)
Reviewed by: Book Worm and Jen
Find it here:Shroud
Synopsis (from Amazon): One part Nietzsche, one part Humbert Humbert, and a soupcon of Milton’s Lucifer, Axel Vander, the dizzyingly unreliable narrator of John Banville’s masterful new novel, is very old, recently widowed, and the bearer of a fearsome reputation as a literary dandy and bully. A product of the Old World, he is also an escapee from its conflagrations, with the wounds to prove it. And everything about him is a lie.
Now those lies have been unraveled by a mysterious young woman whom Vander calls “Miss Nemesis.” They are to meet in Turin, a city best known for its enigmatic shroud. Is her purpose to destroy Vander or to save him—or simply to show him what lies beneath the shroud in which he has wrapped his life? A splendidly moving exploration of identity, duplicity, and desire, Shroud is Banville’s most rapturous performance to date.
Jun 3
The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman
I finally did it! I finished Lev Grossman’s Magician’s Trilogy. Unfortunately, I feel sort of ambivalent about the series. I disliked the first book, loved the second book, and felt lukewarm about the final book. I should preface this review by making clear that I read the first book and listened to the final two books as audibles. I truly hated the audio and this may have colored my view of the entire series.
The Magicians Trilogy is one of those series that people seem to either love or hate. The critics generally love these books but if you look at goodreads or amazons, the ratings seem split. The trilogy is comprised of The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician’s Land (2014). The books follow the story of Quentin Coldwater, a young man who is accepted into an exclusive school for magicians. Over the course of the books, Quentin discovers that a magical land from a fictional series is real. He and his friends become rulers of this land, go on quests, and face the potential destruction of the land. With nods to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the Chronicles of Narnia, Grossman reworks the stories of these books into a fantasy series for adults that blends gritty reality and fantasy. Here are my reviews for each of the books in the series:
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1001 Book Review: The Kindly Ones Jonathan Littell
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Little
Published in: 2006
Original Language: French
Awards: Prix Goncourt 2006
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating:★★★
Find it here: The Kindly Ones
Amazon Synopsis: Dr Max Aue is a family man and owner of a lace factory in post-war France. He is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a former SS intelligence officer and cold-blooded assassin. He was an observer and then a participant in Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front, he was present at the siege of Stalingrad, at the death camps, and finally caught up in the overthrow of the Nazis and the nightmarish fall of Berlin.
His world was peopled by Eichmann, Himmler, Göring, Speer and, of course, Hitler himself.
Max is looking back at his life with cool-eyed precision; he is speaking out now to set the record straight. Read more
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Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 