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Reviews by Marion W. (Issaquah, WA)

Island of a Thousand Mirrors
by Nayomi Munaweera

A Country Torn Apart (4/17/2014)

Set largely on the island nation of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), this is the story of two families: one belonging to the majority Sinhalese people, and the other to the minority Tamil group. After years of exploitation by colonial powers, Sri Lanka gained independence, and …more

The Last Enchantments
by Charles Finch

Disenchanted... (11/8/2013)

This novel was, for me, a huge disappointment. Student life at Oxford was depicted as a welter of booze, drugs, and promiscuity; the unlikeable characters were vacillating, pretentious, and insincere. The plot meandered along, with frequent insertions about past events to …more

How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel, #9
by Louise Penny

Gamache encore! (7/10/2013)

Fans of Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache will welcome her latest book, "How the Light Gets In", (much better, IMHO, than the preceding "The Beautiful Mystery").
In this novel, we have both the seemingly motiveless murder of an older woman, once world-famous because of …more

One Minus One: Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries
by Ruth Doan MacDougall

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? (4/12/2013)

David leaves his wife, Emily, after ten years of marriage. Their long relationship had begun in high school; she'd thought it would last forever. She moves to another New Hampshire town, and takes a job teaching in the high school, but she remains raw, in shock, and …more

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A Novel
by Suzanne Joinson

Bicycles, and Cycles of Life (5/16/2012)

What could link Eva, spinster missionary in the remote Kashgar area of China in the early 1920s, to Frieda, a PhD researcher specializing in Islamic studies, who lives (sometimes) in modern-day London? And why on earth should the former have willed an odd assortment of …more

Paris in Love: A Memoir
by Eloisa James

Paris, je t'aime! (3/7/2012)

Imagine that you are visiting an old friend, who's spending a year in Paris with her husband and two kids. She's a professor of English on sabbatical, and also an author of (among other books) Regency romance novels. You accompany her as she walks around: visiting small …more

The Summer Without Men: A Novel
by Siri Hustvedt

Without Men, and Managing Well! (4/21/2011)

Psychically shocked by her husband's betrayal, Mia becomes involved in teaching a poetry class for adolescent girls, getting acquainted with her aging mother's friends, and helping the young woman next door who struggles with a hot-tempered spouse and two young kids. In so …more

Under This Unbroken Sky
by Shandi Mitchell

I cannot reconcile Mitchell's account with the people I knew (9/10/2009)

I really didn't like Shandi Mitchell's "Under the Unbroken Sky"! To me it was just another tale of poverty-stricken misery, like Helen Forrester's memoirs of her Liverpool childhood and Frank McCourt's of his in Ireland.

It's terribly depressing to read of hunger, filth, …more mental illness, treachery, brutality, hostile people, degradation...on and on and on.

The Canadian prairies are a tough place to live; I know, I was born and lived there for a long time. But the Ukrainian-Canadians whom I knew in Manitoba--of the same generation as those described in Mitchell's book--were resilient, resourceful, humorous, and spirited people, and their children (now in their 60s and 70s) grew up to become doctors, lawyers, artists and musicians, business people. My best friend's mother (raised on a Manitoba farm) bought her own store; she and her husband (who'd fled Ukraine rather than starve under Stalin's repression) raised their five kids in rooms behind this mom-and-pop grocery store. She was also a poet. All five kids attended Ukrainian language classes (as well as good old Lord Roberts School, of course), and all five took music lessons. Four have made music their livelihood at one time or another.

Another woman whom I know, who came to Winnipeg not knowing a word of English, worked in the needle trade, and ultimately bought the apartment building next door to my childhood home.

I cannot reconcile Mitchell's account with the lives of the people whom I knew and admired.

She betrays herself as a Maritimer when she states that the kids didn't attend school because the temperatures hit twenty below. I taught in an elementary school in Winnipeg for three years. We could have indoor recess if, and only if, the temperature went (below) twenty below. (And wind chill wasn't a factor considered at that time!) When the kids (and I, if I were on recess duty that day) came indoors, and they had divested themselves of all their outdoor clothing, and their mittens were steaming atop the radiators, I would have them sit with their palms over their frostbitten cheeks for ten minutes or so while I read them a story. But school (200 days a year) was never cancelled (except one day during a blizzard; I walked three miles downtown and hitched a ride before reaching the school and learning this), and no one ever stayed away because of the cold. This applied to kids living in the country, too, not just city kids; my brother-in-law attended a rural one-room school and also taught in one for four years. He rode an old horse to school in the winters when he was a student and the snow was particularly deep. (less)

Gifts of War: A Novel
by Mackenzie Ford

"Backstage" during World War 1 (4/18/2009)

Readers who like books set in the time of The War to End All Wars will find this novel replete with social, as well as political, history. To me, the characters sometimes seem too modern in their conversation, broad knowledge, and general candor, than what one might expect …more

The Spare Room: A Novel
by Helen Garner

Could You Do This? (1/9/2009)

"The Spare Room" is told by Helen, whose friend, Nicola, suffering from late-stage cancer, asks to stay in her home for three weeks. Nicola has come to Helen's city to seek help through alternative medicine: deplorable and absurd practices which horrify Helen.
What a …more

Red Rover
by Deirdre McNamer

Montage... (9/25/2007)

In a style as brisk and astringent as the wind blowing across the Montana plains, McNamer tells the story of brothers Neil and Aidan Tierney. The author is deft at
both delineating characters, and evoking times and places. Book clubs could find grist for the mill here.

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The Devil Finds Work
by James Baldwin

A book-length essay on racism in American films, by "the best essayist in this country" (The New York Times Book Review).

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A Map to Paradise
by Susan Meissner

From the USA Today bestselling author of Only the Beautiful. 1956, Malibu, California: Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

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Becoming Madam Secretary
by Stephanie Dray

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating novel about an American heroine France Perkins—now in paperback!

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The Husbands
by Holly Gramazio

The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

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The River Knows Your Name
by Kelly Mustian

A haunting Southern novel about memory and love, from the author of The Girls in the Stilt House.

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Girl Falling
by Hayley Scrivenor

The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

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Jane and Dan at the End of the World
by Colleen Oakley

Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

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The Antidote
by Karen Russell

A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

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Reviews by Marion W. (Issaquah, WA)

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