Feb 23
The High Mountains of Portugal was released this month. It also happens to be one of the books on our march madness brackets. If you haven’t had a chance to vote in our march book madness survey, help us out and vote here. Here’s what I thought of the book. Read more
Feb 17
Last November I attended the Book Riot Live convention (read my review here) and while I was there I signed up for the book match by Brooklyn library librarians. I listed my favorite authors as David Mitchell, Haruki Murakami, Chimamanda Adichie, and Margaret Atwood. and I listed my favorite genres: literary fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and international literature. Finally I mentioned that I particularly like books that focus on cultures and traditions that are different from my own. One of books they recommended was Akata Witch
Feb 5
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
First published in: 1984
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it here: Nights at the Circus
Picaresque, whimsical, sassy, irreverent, and magical are a few words that come to mind as I try and describe this novel. Nights at the Circus was a magical ride that centers on the life and escapades of circus performer Sophie Fevvers. Sophie is an famous aerialist who claims she was hatched from an egg and abandoned by her parents, raised in a brothel, and sprouted fully fledged wings.
The novel is broken into three parts. Part one is set in London in 1899. Walser, a young journalist who is skeptical about the powers and reality of Sophie, decides to interview her for a newspaper entitled “Great Humbugs of the World” in an attempt to prove her to be a fraud. Yet, after meeting her he becomes enchanted with her and the circus. In part two, we find Walser working as a clown in the circus in order to become closer to Sophie. This section takes us deep into the heart of the circus and centers on an array of colorful characters and scenarios. The final section takes place in Siberia. The circus troupe is headed across Siberia to Tokyo but the train derails and a number of events ensue (I will leave it at that rather than provide spoilers). The novel is filled with magical moments, irreverence, and humor. Carter leaves it up to the reader to decide whether Sophie is really magical or just an excellent con-woman.
Nights at the Circus has a strong feminist message and is a blend of genres with magical realism being central. The heroine is strong and not the sort to require male rescuing. In fact, she is often the one who does the rescuing. She’s crude but in an amusing way and she is constantly defying stereotypes.
Why oh why did I discover Angela Carter so late in the game? I knew very little about Angela Carter before reading this book and when researching her found out that she had taught at Brown University (I have personal ties to the school) for several years. She died from cancer at the age of 52 and was named one of the “50 Greatest British writers since 1945” by The Times. Carter was known for her whimsical and feminist writings.
I really enjoyed this book yet I am struggling to adequately describe or review the book. It’s smart and funny and wonderfully quirky. I will be adding Carter as an author whose works I want to explore in depth. You’ll enjoy this book if you like magical realism with a feminist twist.
Favorite quotes:
As we say in our country: ‘tomorrow never comes’, which is why you’re promised jam tomorrow. We live, always in the here and now, the present. To pin your hopes upon the future is to consign those hopes to a hypothesis, which is to say, a nothingness.
“Perhaps…I could not be content with mere contentment!”
“We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.”
He would have called himself a ‘man of action’ He subjected his life to a series of cataclysmic shocks because he loved to hear his bones rattle. That’s how he knew he was alive.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Nights at the Circus
Have you read this book? What did you think? Have you read others by Angela Carter? What do you think of her works?
Jan 21
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Published: January 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: 4 Stars
Find it here: My Name Is Lucy Barton
This ARC was provided by Penguin Books UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads; A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter.
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.
Book Worm’s Review: This is a book about family relationships and how even when estranged for many years, family will be there when needed.
While in the hospital, Lucy is visited by her estranged mother, while Lucy wants definitive answers about her childhood, her mother is only prepared to reveal details about their life through stories about other people.
Lucy is a complicated character. She is trying to get her head around the idea that despite her childhood poverty she is lovable. While she questions if she can be loved, she has no problem with loving others. In fact, she loves most people she meets, including her doctor. She loves in all the different ways that love can be shown, and yes sometimes her declarations of “I love him” can get annoying.
Although Lucy is only in hospital for 9 weeks, those weeks have a profound impact on how she sees her past and ultimately how her future turns out. While these weeks bring her closer to her mother, her own relationship with her children suffers through her absence.
This is a first person narrative so its really important that you like the narrator and I had no problem liking Lucy. She is human. She bettered herself at the cost of her family relationships, but she still did it and succeeded. She is self-conscious. She has questions about her life, about what she thinks she remembers, and about her present and why things turn out the way they do.
Lucy is the reason I enjoyed this book. In some ways she reminded me of a Steinbeck character. Even when describing her impoverished childhood, Lucy doesn’t ask the reader to sympathize. She just tells you how it was.
I would recommend this to those who enjoy slow moving, subtle, character driven books.
Some of my favourite quotes;
“She was as beautiful as her face, I thought, and I loved New York for this gift of endless encounters.”
“But once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation, and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make. I feel almost, then, that I can hear within me the sound of my own heart breaking, the way you could hear outside in the open air- when the conditions were exactly right- the corn growing in the fields of my youth”
“I fell silently, absolutely, immediately in love with this man. I have no idea where he is, if he is still alive, but I still love this man”
“I stopped listening. It was the sound of my mother’s voice I most wanted; what she said didn’t matter”
“Both my parents loathed the act of crying, and it’s difficult for a child who is crying to stop, knowing if she doesn’t stop everything will be made worse. This is not an easy position for any child. And my mother-that night in the hospital room-was the mother I had all my life, no matter how different she seemed with her urgent quiet voice, her softer face. What I mean is I tried not to cry. In the dark I felt she was awake”
“Sarah Payne, the day she told us to go to the page without judgement, reminded us that we never knew, and never would know, what it would be like to understand another person fully”
“This is not the story of my marriage. I cannot tell that story: I cannot take hold of, or lay out for anyone, the many swamps and grasses and pockets of fresh air and dank air that have gone over us”
“But this is my story. This one. And my name is Lucy Barton”
As an added bonus this counts towards my scavenger hunt. It fits clue #31: read a book published during our challenge months.
Want to try it for yourself? You can purchase your copy here: My Name Is Lucy Barton
We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? Do you plan on reading it? What do you think of Elizabeth Strout’s books?
Jan 8
We are going to depart from the UK and head onto Finland for the next stop in our world tour or reading! Join us as we explore some of what Finland has to offer in terms of literature and find out which book we selected. We hope you help us to add to the list of recommended reading for Finland!
Dec 23
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
First published in: 1850
Reviewed by: Book Worm & Jen
Find it/buy it here (free on kindle): The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions)
Synopsis from Goodreads: Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne’s concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale, trapped by the rules of society, stands as a classic study of a self divided.
Book Worm’s Review:
★★★★
Set in a Puritan New England town in the 1640’s, this is the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who has committed adultery and bears a child. As punishment she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her clothing. While she lives with her punishment and her sin, she refuses to name the child’s father — something that she will eventually come to regret for his sake.
What I enjoyed about this book was the portrayal of how a religious community treats a sinner. By accepting her sin and punishment, Hester becomes separate but accepted by the people she lives with. I liked the way Hawthorne portrayed the different ways of living with guilt and these ways can affect the health of a person. The father is easy to guess, but his discovery is not the book’s primary concern. Instead, it is to show how father and mother dealt with their sin seperately and what it cost them both individually and as part of a close knit community.
A good read!
Jen’s Review:
★★★
I first read the Scarlet Letter in middle school and remember liking it quite a bit. When I looked at my Goodreads rating I had given it 4 stars. This year I listened to it rather than read it. Perhaps this was a mistake because I found it very dry and my mind was constantly wandering. The archaic language further reduced my engagement.
There’s no question that it was an influential book that highlighted the problems inherent in Puritan morality. Hawthorne wrote about the nature of evil, sin, morality, and personal growth and identity. His books were psychologically complex and his portrayal of women was ahead of his times. Hester Prynne is perhaps one of the best-known female protagonists and is considered by many to be the first heroine of American fiction. You can find an interesting article about some of the history behind the Scarlett Letter and Hawthorne’s America here.
It’s probably unfair of me to rate it 3 stars based on the audio version and maybe I should just let my 4-star rating from my first read be one that counts. It is on several lists of best books including the 1001 list and The Guardian‘s 100 best novels. I am guessing that almost everyone has read this novel since it’s on many school curriculums in the U.S. It’s a very short story so if by some miracle you haven’t read it, you should try it out of your self. You can find it for free on Amazon (or a number of other places including project Gutenberg): The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions)
Dec 18
I may well be the last person on earth to read this book but I’m going to write up this review in case any of you are contemplating a reread. Find out what we thought of it and let us know what your opinion of the book. Read more
Nov 24
I’m just going to go ahead and acknowledge that David Mitchell can do no wrong in my eyes. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I love his writing and, by extension, I love him. Many of you know that after reading Cloud Atlas I had avoided reading his other books because I didn’t want to be disappointed. My co-blogger Book Worm convinced me to keep going, however, and I’m glad she did. Here’s what I thought of Ghostwritten: Read more
Nov 20
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
First Published in: 1978
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it/Buy it here: Broken April
In the last three weeks I’ve been reading a lot of books set in the Balkans, but none have stood out as much as Broken April. Ismail Kadare is Albania’s most well-known author and in 2005 he became the first winner of the International Man Booker prize. Broken April is a powerful novel about Albania’s tradition of blood feuds. Read more
Nov 10
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon
Published in: 2014
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it/buy it here: The Word Exchange
I received a copy of The Word Exchange in my Book Riot subscription box for the technology theme. It’s not a book I would have chosen on my own and only ended up reading it because it was assigned for a reading challenge. Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by the book and probably should retract my earlier comments about how awful I found that particular Book Riot box (although the book extras were still pretty lousy). Check out why I think it’s worth a read. Read more
The Reader's Room 