"Everything Happens As It Does" by Albena Stambolova *****

• Open Letter Series
• Bulgarian author
• Originally published in 2013
• p.11...."Movement and silence hand in hand.,  Intimations of other silences, of other movements, of someone walking next to someone, hovered around them.,  Each bend in the path made him anticipate the next.  It was anticipation too brief to invite fear, under the dome of the indefinite woods, dimensionless like a house never visited." ...I have felt this but could never articulate it!
• p.17..."Between the act of pressing the washing machine button and the mood of the person pressing it there was an entire universe of folly that people called their lives."...incredibly poignant!
• p.30...He disappeared from their life together, from the life of his baby, and from his own life, which had only just begun to acquire a life-like shape.  Or to be more precise, he tried to disappear, going back to the house he had always inhabited--the house of his mother."  crawling back to the womb
• p.42...."Until then she had only felt herself from within, she had learned a thing or two, but somehow one-sidedly, as if under an umbrella hiding half the world from sight,.".......lovely
• p.50..."There was no contact between her and the overall system that made the cafe function, as if they were meeting on a cloud, beyond time and space."
• p.55..."My bed is my ship, she often said to herself, my territory , my planet.  The planet of the Little Prince.  With his sheep."...interesting reference
• p.81...."Philip turned these questions over and over in his mind like coffee beans in a grinder.  At first they would spill with a deafening sound, then they would patter around, lullingly, until ground to a fine powder that covered everything inside.  Then the machine would stop turning.  Until the next time."
• p.83..."She was sitting, pensively sipping her glass of champagne, knowing that this thing here, this evening, this night...was all well, the way it was.  There was no fear, there was no reason to be doing anything different from what was being done.  What exactly was being done, Margarita did not know, and she did not care to find out."
• p.88...."As a matter of principle Maria did not permit herself such thoughts.  No analyses of any kind.  A snapshot was sufficient for her.  Analysis made one weak.  It interfered with one's goals.  People who believed they achieved anything by analyzing the situation deluded themselves.  They never achieved what they wanted, instead achieving something else.".....fatalism...theme of the book
• p.91..."The world accepts you if you don't try to think about it."
• p.99..."There was no anxiety, no worry about anything; there was only this, her, where everything happened as it did.".....TITLE
• p.101..."He decided to place his trust in a part of himself that was not his head and that--unlike his head--had never betrayed him."...spirit, soul, instinct?
• Review:   Lovely, lovely writing.  This author is Bulgarian, and the novel was translated into English.  So I hope the Bulgarian is as beautiful as the translation!  I was engaged by the protagonist from the first page, and completely intrigued by his psyche and his way of moving through the world, along with all the other characters.  The theme of this novel is fatalism, trusting in something other than the analytical mind that everything will happen as it does.  Fabulous!

"The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel" by Magdalena Zyzak *****

• A LibraryThing Early Reviewer selection
• Polish author
• Scheduled for publication in 2014
• Setting:  Fictitious country, Scalvusia, in 1939 
• Vocabulary:
• borborygmus:  intestinal rumbling
• ensorcell:  to bewitch
• bescumber:  to discharge ordure or dung upon
• gnathic: of or pertaining to the jaw
• p.2..."...I expreienced a sadness not unlike when one remembers one once had a childhood."
• Barnabas...the "unwitting lynchpin" in the story
• p.120..."Men don't betray each other after they have searched bushes together.  It's a matter of honor."
• p.209..."His life had become romantic at last.  His imagination had collapsed onto his boredom like a one-ton unicorn onto a pygmy pig."
• Review:  This is an Eary Reviewer edition I got from LibraryThing.com. It is the author's debut novel and I am stunned that this is a first.  This satire/allegory/theater of the absurd story is reminiscent of "Waiting For Godot".  I laughed, chuckled and almost wept over the plight of this cast of characters and their slapstick absurdity.  At the same time, it is a tragic tale of ignorance and blind acceptance of fear based rhetoric.  The kind of twisted logic that cost six million people their lives during WWII and continues to cost lives in the present day around the world.  The readers can choose to appreciate this brilliant novel as a funny tale of fools, or can leave themselves vulnerable to a profound tale of the absudity and tragedy of the creatures we call humans!

"The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling ***

• Audiobook
• English author
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:   I enjoyed this book.  I liked the two main characters and thought the plot was interesting.  The only problem was that, in my opinion, some of the sleuthing process dragged on.  Fortunately I was engaged enough to want to find out "whodunnit".

"The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett. **

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 1934
• Review:  So-so....liked the movie better!

"The Shadow of the Crescent Moon" by Fatima Bhutto. ****

• Audiobook
• Afghani author
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:  A moving story of life in Pakistan, and the toll endless conflict takes on families, friends, and lovers.  When will it end?

2014 Blog.......

http://my2014readingjournal.blogspot.com/

"The Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum *****

• Audiobook, narrated by Anne Hathaway
• US author
• Originally published 1900
• Review:  Nothing new to report

"Child of God" by Cormac McCarthy *****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published 1973
• Setting:  hills of East Tennessee 
• Character:  Lester Ballard......ignorant, impulsive, impoverished, isolated, and....innocent....primitive prdator.....child of god?
• Review:   Clearly one of the great writers of our generation!  Meet Lester Ballard of east Tennessee....ignorant, impulsive, impoverished, isolated, emotionally needy, and....innocent....primitive predator.....and child of god? I think Lester is McCarthy's everyman.  It is painful to follow his tracks in this story, primarily because he acts out all that is uncivilized, unsocialized, and dark about being human.  Not easy to read because Lester is not easy to love, yet I loved the character and the story. 

"Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish" by David Rakoff. **

• Audiobook
• US author, from NPR's "This American Life"
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:  not my cup of tea

"The Cricket on The Hearth", by Charles Dickens. ****

• Audiobook
• English author
• Originally published in 1845
• Review:  A sweet tale with the ubiquitous wonderful characters for which we love Dickens!

"A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens (Narrated by Tim Curry). *****

• Audiobook, narrated by Tim Curry
• English author
• Originally published 1843
• Review:  Is it any surprise that listening to Tim Curry read this incredible story aloud was a memorable treat?  I had never read the story before and thoroughly appreciated it to a much greater degree than any film or stage version.  Dickens is unsurpassed in his use of language, his memorable characters, and great storytelling!

"How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" by Mohsin Hamid. *****

• Audiobook
• Pakistani author
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:  Hamid's writing is brilliant!  The unique approach of a novel constructed as a self-help book is really clever without feeling at all gimmicky.  The dark humor is delivered perfectly in this audio edition of the book, read to us by the author.  Hamid's use of language is nothing short of masterful!  This novel mocks the dream of wealth and the path one might be forced to travel in order to achieve it.  The overall effect is a smart, tongue-in-cheek denouncement of a life spent seeking riches, a somewhat frightening perception of corporate dark machinations, and a resounding socio-political statement!

"Poems" by Lord Byron

• Poetry
• Audiobook
• Narrated by Tyrone Power
• Review:  lovely

"Black Water Rising" by Attica Locke ****

• Audiobook
• Debut
• Mystery/suspense
• US author
• Originally published 2009
• Review:   I was initially drawn to this novel as a debut suspense novel, yet it truly is so much more than that.  Set in the Texas bayou outside Houston, a fluke of circumstance leads to a tale of corruption, murder, attempted murder and all of the machinations one would expect.  However, this is also a well told story of a man on the verge of fatherhood who must find a way to resolve the crime, his past, and his future.  it is a tale of integrity...doing the right thing when no one is looking.  Well done!

"Sir Ralph Richardson Reads John Keats", by John Keats ****

Review:  Lovely audio edition, read by Sir Ralph Richardson.  Poetry is so much better when it is read aloud!!

"The Bones of Paris" by Laurie R. King ****

• Audiobook
• US author
• #2 in Harry Stuyvesant series
• Early Review edition from LibraryThing
• Originally to be published in 2014
• Review:  Any fan of Laurie R. King's will be happy to see her in top form with this novel, " The Bones of Paris".  Set during 1929 in Paris, the time of Hemingway, Picasso, and other artists' haunting the city of lights, this story is fast-paced, historically interesting, and sufficiently complex to keep the reader's attention.  I would have to say that the only flaw was that in my opinion the start was slow. It wasn't until about page 100 that everything clicked into place, and from then on I was hooked.  Excellent!

"Andrew's Brain" by E.L. Doctorow *****

• Early Reviewer selection on LibraryThing
• US author
• Originally scheduled to be published in 2014
• Vocabulary:
• langur:long tailed monkeys
• breughel:  ?
• Reference to major transition occurring regarding mental illness and neurological research
• p.8..."Well, it's a short step from anthropomorphism to hearing voices."..........love it
• p.19...."My soul resides in a still, deep, beautiful, emotionless, calm cold pond of silence.".....sociopath?
• mountains giving a "sense of the nonhuman world we live in.......Americans like to catch rides in that world."
• p.29...."Where most people live, most of us, imagining it to be the real sunlit world when it is only a cave lkit by the flickering fires of illusion."...wow
• p.31...""If consciousness exists without the world, it is nothing, and if it needs the world to exist, it is still nothing."
• Concept of the brain coming to a decision seconds before the person is conscious of it.....implications?
• p.38..."It is what is left of the dead that is still them, that fragment of the voice that renders a moral nature though the rest of the person is gone."....like my late mother's voice
• p.45....."As evolved beings we have in our genes memories of the far past, of long-ago generations, memories of experiences not our own."............instinct?
• p.51...."To walk the fields is to feel yourself breasting the air, leaving behind you the sound of tinkling ice and a tubular indication of your form."...lovely
• p.104..."True happiness comes of not knowing you're happy, it's an animal serenity, something between contentment and joy, a steadiness of the belonged self in the world."...like this
• p.107..."Given the inspiration, anyone can step into an identity because the brain is deft, it can file itself away in an instant.  It may be stamped with selfhood, but let the neurons start firing and Bob's-your-uncle."....LOL
• Concept of the collective brain.....i.e.  people being in a park define the park, the "brain of an ant colony is the colony."
• p.140..."But it is dangerous to stare into yourself.  You pass through endless mirrors of self-estrangement.  This too is the brain's cunning, that you are not to know yourself." 
• p.186..."I thought how contention makes us human."...not sure I agree with this one
• Significant events:  death of child, death of wife, time at White house
• Review:  Brilliant!  Spend a few hours inside the mind/brain of cognitive neuroscientist?........multiple personalities?......inadvertent disaster catalyst?......Andrew!  Doctorow's use of language is masterful as he leads us on a quest for meaning, which after survival, is paramount to us humans.  Just read it!

"Billy Watson's Croker Sack" by Franklin Burroughs *****

• Book club selection, December 2013
• US author
• Essay/Short Stories
• Settings:  Move back and forth between author's hometown in Conway. South Carolina and his current home in Maine.
• Reference to Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River", a coming of age tale about fishing
• "Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of In Our Time, the first American volume of Hemingway's short stories. It features a single protagonist, Hemingway's recurrent autobiographical character Nick Adams, whose speaking voice is heard just twice. The story explores the destructive qualities of war which is countered by the healing and regenerative powers of nature. When it was published, critics praised Hemingway's sparse writing style and it became an important work in his canon. (Wikipedia)

 

• "A Snapping Turtle in June":  daughter's turtle and memory of turtle from childhood
• "I tended to associate femininity with paved streets.......so that they would not get stuck in the rainy weather, or have their children tracking mud into the house or getting their feet full of ringworm."
• Upon smelling a turtle as an adult..."Instead, it brought back directly a sensation of alarm, confusion, and disorientation, in about the same way that the smell of anesthetic does not bring back the operating room so much as it brings back the vertiginous feeling of the self whirling away from the self."
• p. 18...first reference to a croker sack
• "New England seemed, as it often does, more perfect in the intensity of its seasonal moment, and in the whole seasonal cycle that can be felt within the moment, than any place has a right to be."
• "But what any child will think or remember is beyond anybody's knowing, including its own."............theme of entire collection, in my opinion

• "Of Moose and a Moose Hunter":  neighbor who is a remnant of the individualist in Maine
• "Sometimes you could follow one for half a mile like that, the moose never losing its capacity for undiluted primal horror and amazement each time the car came into sight."......like peek-a-boo at the right age with children
• "The moose would seem to come from some place altoghther different, and that place most resembled the elegiac world of the pastoral painting, an Arcadian dadream of man and nature harmoniously oblivious to the facts of man and nature."
• Vocabulary:
• "Arcadian":   rural, rustic, or pastoral, especially suggesting simple, innocent contentment
• agora:   a popular political assembly 

• Funny? scene when children dress up moose and put chair under its hanging carcass

• "In a Small Pond":big events in a small pond while fishing with his father

• "You must live in a hot, swampy, tidewater sort of a place to know the allure of mountains, to understand the psalmist:  'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my salvation.'"
• "The important thing was not to have a good time."...about learning fishing
• "But upon our entry into them, sanctuaries become microcosms.  We carry the excluded world in our memories and even in our daydreams, and it can suddenly surface in the form of a big mudfish or of the dark cedar swamp into which the Big Two-Hearted River disappears."........symbolic of one memory leading to another
• Big fish.....in a small pond...literal and figurative 

• "Dawn's Early Light":  Opening Day memories and WWII
• "I have an idea that many of the things we do may be like that--more important in their incidental details and accidental associations than at the center, and most important at the remotest boundaries , where your conscious, finite purpose draws its nourishment from unrealized or half-realized impulses and memories."
• "Once in Sunday school we were asked what we would have presented to the infant Jesus in the stable, if we had gone there.  The right answer turned out to be a pure heart, or something along those lines, but I knew inside myself that it would be a pair of wood duck, bright and friendly as the ones Audobon had painted."

•  "Postscript":
• "It pleases me how both the bird and the word have managed to outlast the circumstances that formed them.  We think of nature and history both as belonging to the opportunists, the ones who teach us how to adapt, evolve, seize the day, or fill the niche.  On the whole, we are right to think this way, but the world is also full of quirky and implausible survivors, things that still live, as neurotic people do, by a logic that eludes or defies us, because it is rooted somewhere out of sight."
• "I assumed that it was all common place, universal, and without distinction or interest of any sort.  Now, as I begin to write about it, I more and more conclude that what is undistinguished can nevertheless turn out to be genuinely and stubbornly distinctive." 

• Review:  Do you have places or events which you hold dear?  Which contributed to who you are right now?  Well, find a cozy corner and curl up with this marvelous collection of short story/essays for a few hours.  Franklin Burroughs will take you into his childhood and his adulthood, into South Carolina and Maine, hunting and fishing with men who shaped him and men whom he is impressed by.  Allow the author to beautifully remind you that we never know what lies beneath the surface of our psyche unless we allow it to unfold, just as we never know what we will find when we start to tell a story or to open up Billy Watson's croker sack.  Sometimes the power of a word or tale lies in the periphery of our souls......Mmmmmm.

"Tinkers" by Paul Harding ****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 2009
• Review:  A fascinating fictional journey to death in the mind of a dying man.  The boundaries are fading between past and present, between the dying man and people from his past, and between life and death.  I enjoyed the author's use of language.  I found myself thinking that it wouldn't be a bad way to go.  Having spent time volunteering in a hospice, the connection between the utterances of a dying person and what may be occuring in their inner world seemed so plausible.  Very good book!

"The Shining" by Stephen King

• Audiobook
• US author
• Mystery/Suspense
• Originally published 1977
• Review:  It just does not make any difference!  Regardless of how many times i tell myself I will not get sucked into Stephen King's terror inducing storytelling......I always get sucked in.  He is consistently able to tap into the part of my psyche susceptible to sheer terror.  How does he do it?  The hedge animals were the creepiest part of this one!

"Waging Heavy Peace" by Neil Young. **

• Audiobook
• Autobiography
• Originally published. 2012
• Review:  A rambling journal entry whose focus didn't resonate with me at all.

"Her Royal Spyness" by Rhys Bowen. ***

• Audiobook
• #1in Royal Spyness series
• Originally published in 2007
• English author
• Review:  A light and entertaining murder mystery set amongst the impoverished British aristocracy.  Fun.

"Change of Heart", by Jodi Picoult. ****

• Audiobook
• Stewart Place Book Club selection
• US author
• Originally published 2008
• Characters:  claire(needs heart), shay (murderer, miracle worker), curt(cop, stepdad), elizabeth (murdered daughter), lucius(AIDS inmate), michael(priest, juror feeling guilty), maggie(aclu attorney)
• Review:  Jodi Picoult has a real knack for tackling controversial issues and illuminating multiple perspectives to consider.  This time around she tackles the death penalty and organized religion, with a touch of medical ethics.  No small feat!  The story was thought provoking and the characters were memorable.  Well done!

"The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson ***

• Audiobook
• Swedish author
• Originally published 2009
• Review:  A sweet story which, for me, was like stepping inside the mind of a 100 year old whose internal world is significantly more vivid than his physical world.  The reader  is privy to a set of adventures through history, with the protagonist playing quietly dynamic roles in major political events.  Meet characters like Albert Einstein's adopted half brother, an elephant who save's the protagonist's life by sitting on a villain, and a mob boss.  I imagine an elderly person's hazy blending of history, both personal and political, with the yearning to escape the restrictions which accrue with age.

"The Hangman's Daughter" by Oliver Potzsch ****

• Audiobook
• German author
• Originally published 2011
• Review:  A medieval murder mystery?  A clever mix of medieval values, beliefs, and characters make for an intriguing story.  I think this is an example of " the more things change, the more they stay the same".  Is there witchcraft afoot?  Or is it corporate espionage?  Or did a simple desire to be safe create a situation where innocents lose lives?  You will have to find out for yourselves.

"Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music" by Judy Collins. *****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Autobiography, narrated by Judy Collins
• Originally published in 2012
• Review:  Narrated by the author, this autobiography is absolutely marvelous.  Collins' prose and voice are lyrical.  She is a musical icon and her stories, lovers, and friendhips are as well.  Immerse yourself in the sixties, the folk music, and let the story wash over you as the best music always does.  I had trouble taking breaks from this one.  

"The Lake of Dreams" by Kim Edwards. **

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published 2011
• Review:  Yuck.

"Deception" by Jonathan Kellerman. ***

• Audiobook
• Originally published in 2010
• An Alex Delaware novel
• Review:  This was pretty good. However, the plot was predictable and the pace was slow except for the last hour.  There was not as nuch tension in the story as I prefer.

"The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon " by David Grann. *****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 2010
• Non-fiction
• Fawcett, last of Victorian explorers, 1925.....vanished with son and his friend, Fawcett seekers
• Royal Geographic Society......maps of the world...would be cool to visit 
• Discovery of longitude chronometer was important
• Exploration is now more about inward discovery....no new outward discovery
• High tech gadgets galore
• Explorers as spies to map new lands....wore disguises, gathered political info
• Insects were maddening and deadly
• Natives, enraged by rubber barons forcing them into slavery were ferocious about intruders
• Author planned to retrace Fawcett's steps
• Met Fawcett's granddaughter who gave hin Fawcett's journals and letters
• Biographer as burglar
• Fawcett's theories impacted by Darwinism, or a racialized misinterpretation of it
• Professional jealousies amngst explorers
• Impact of WWI and mustard gas on Fawcett
• "those whom the gods intend to destroy first make them mad.".....fawcett
• Was Z a spiritual goal?  
• 100+ died seeking Fawcett
• Review:  A fascinating story of obsession!  The combination of exploration, historical context, and familial loyalty make for an engrossing read.  I lost track of time listening to this story, feeling a faint flicker of the fiery obsession which drove Percy Fawcett.  I wonder who the impassioned seekers are that are living today and who will become the legends of tomorrow's tales?

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" by Agatha Christie. *****

• Audiobook
• English author
• Originally published in 1939
• Review:  Excellent!  As always, I was completely surprised by the final revelation by the indomitable Hercule Poirot!  

"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler ****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published 2013
• Review:  I checked up on this novel twice while reading it to be sure it was fiction rather than a memoir.  That tells you how well it reads!  This is a poignant tale of a very unusual upbringing, its intended and unintended consequences, and what it means to be responsible in our treatment of non-human animals.  An excellent story of kinship!

"Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett. **

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published 1929
• Review:  Just not my style

"Nothing Gold Can Stay: Stories" by Ron Rash ****

• Audiobook
• Short Stories
• Originally published in 2013
• US  author
• Review:  I was impressed with this collection of short stories.  Rash writes gritty, dark, hopeful and despairing stories.  Each tale is distinct from the others.  The overall feeling I am left with is intensity.  I was drawn to the characters and the deep emotion evoked by each story.  A great collection!

"Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson **

• Book Club Selection September 2013
• Originally published 2013
• Review:  So-so...I was bored through most of it.

"How The Light Gets In" by Louise Penny. *****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2013
• #9 in the Inspector Gamache series
• Interview between author and narrator at end of the audiobook
• Review:  Absolutely riveting!  If you have not already done so, just go back to the first Inspector Gamache installment!   Hurry!  Fantastic series full of wisdom, compassion, and mystery!

"Clarissa" by Samuel Richardson *****

• Summer Sub Club read with Beth
• Originally published in 1743, 1499 pages
• English author
•  Vocabulary:
• asseveration:   an emphatic assertion
• contumacious:   stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient
• fleer:  to grin or laugh coarsely or mockingly
• rhodomontade:  vain and empty boasting
• causist:   a person who supports or defends a cause, especially a social cause
• pelf:  money or wealth, especially when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible means
• gorget:   a crescent-shaped ornament worn on a chain around the neck as a badge of rank by officers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• gantlope:   gauntlet
• caitiff:   a base, despicable person
• Quotes:
• p.49...."...whom we fear more than love we are not far from hating."
• p.55....."...those who want the fewest earthly blessings most regret that they want any."
• p.55...."Say what they will of generosity being a manly virtue, but; upon my word, my dear, I have ever yet observed that it is not to be met with in that sex one time in ten that it is to be found in ours."
• p.68...."So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner!"
• p.69..."The person who will bear much shall have much to bear all the world through....".
• p.77...."///a man who has sons brings up chickens for his own table.....whereas daughters are chickens brought up for the tables of other men."
• p.333...."Strange that we seem all to be impelled, as it were, by a perverse fate which none of us are able to resist?"...not sure I buy this
• p.345..."How one step brings on another with this encroaching sex!  How soon may a young creature who gives a man the last encouragement be carried beyond her intentions, and out of her own power".....too true, but for young men also I think
• p.419..."Nevertheless, to recur; I cannot but observe that these tame spirits stand a poor chance in a fairly offensive war with such as of us mad fellows as are above all law, and scorn to skulk behind the hypocritical screen of reputation.".....ouch but for the pain my displeasure gives him."....where I come from we call this rationalization!
• p.487..."He has a joy when I am pleased with him that he would not know
• p.487...Pecking order...."All the animals in the creation are more or less n a state of hostility with each other.  The wolf, that runs away from a lion, will devour a lamb the next moment."
• p.519..."As gold is tried by fire and virtue by temptation; so is sterling wit by opposition."...like this
• p.557...."We begin with birds as boys, and as men go on to ladies; and both perhaps, in turns, experience our sportive cruelty."....Lovelace regarding expectation that Clarissa will eventually not struggle against him but eventually aim to please her captor, like a captured bird....YUCK!  Now I begin to detest him
• p.To you, great gods! I make my last appeal; Or clear my virtues, or my crimes reveal.  If wand'ring in the maze of life I run, And backward tread the steps I sought to shun, Impute my errors to your own decree; My feet are guilty; but my HEART is free."....Clarissa, miserable in her circumstances
• p.573....."Women indeed, make better sovereigns than men: but why is that?--Because women sovereigns are governed by men; the men sovereigns by women."...Good Grief!
• Notes:
•  Truly began detesting Lovelace after his reprobate friends urged him to give up his farce, and he remonstrates them and continues
• Lovelace proposes annually renewable marriage.....comparing marriages to flowers of which some are annuals and others perennials....very entertaining....p.872
• p.891...Clarissa's notion that what Lovelace did was in his nature and what Clarissa had done was not of her nature so perhaps she was truly to blame ...how many people chose to be with another person for their occasional glimmers of goodness while ignoring their pattern of primary badness?
• p.894...Clarissa considers a madhouse preferable to being with Lovelace
• Review:   It says a lot that out of the 1499 pages of this novel, I only though the last 100 superfluous.  If you like melodrama you will adore this novel.  Completely comprised of letters between the characters, the minutiae of their psychological/spiritual motivations are enumerated beautifully. The characters are everything here.  Clarissa, the virtuous maiden, Lovelace, the villain, and a host of both true-hearted and villainous minor players inhabit these pages.  I absolutely loved this, with the exception that I think the ending was unnecessarily drawn out.

"We Need New Names" by NoViolet Bulawayo. *****

• Audiobook
• Zimbabwean author
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:  NoViolet Bulawayo's debut novel is remarkable.  How?  It is timely and timeless.  Her writing is eloquent, yet straightforward.  Her prose is both lyrical and stark.  And to top it off, there are some very witty passages.  Told through the eyes of Darling, the reader experiences a child's view of life in Zimbabwe and then in the United States.  The illusion of America and its reality makes the reader cringe.  The losses which accompany emigration are myriad and profoundly moving.  This is a marvelous novel!

"A Walk Across The Sun" by Corbin Addison ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published in 2011
• US author
• Review:   Basically this is the story of redemption and salvation, although not in the traditional sense of those words.  This story moves from Washington, D.C. to Mumbai to Paris to Atlanta and back to Mumbai.  That is the physical journey.  However the spiritual and personal journeys of the characters is even more dramatic and transformational.  Two sisters caught up in the tsunami of a few years ago get thrown into the world of human trafficking.  Their faith keeps them going once they are separated.  A couple who has lost a child end up separated.  How do the two pairs reunite and what does it take for that to happen?  It takes faith, perseverance, and honesty.  Not always easy to  consistently conjure up under extreme stress.  So, I will not divulge the details, but will just say that the plot and characters had me interested right from the beginning.  If the view of trafficking is at all realistic, I am even more disgusted by it now than prior to reading the book.  An engaging, informative and thought-provoking book.

"Sleepless" by Charlie Huston ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2010
• US author
• Review:  Dark, disturbing, yet gripping!  Imagine never sleeping again, then slowly deteriorating cognitively until death.  Well, the planet is plagued by this disorder of the sleepless in Huston's tale of the demise of the human race.  Accidental contagion?  Deliverate sabotage gone awry?  Turns out it really doesn't matter, because we are doomed anyway.  What remains?  Love and compassion.  This is a novel for the stout-hearted only!

"Giraffe" by J.M. Ledgard *****

• Audiobook
• Scottish author
• Based on a true story
• Originally published 2006
• Review:  A powerful story....or allegory.....or work of historical fiction....how about all three?  Parallels are drawn between life under Communist rule in Eastern Europe and the lives of giraffes stolen from their natural habitat, trucked to zoo captivity, and then gunned down.  Which is historical and which is fiction?  Tough to say......read this but be prepared to agonize, empathize and hold your breath.  Moving, horrifying, and very well written.

"The Butler: A Witness to History" by Wil Haygood. ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2013
• US author
• Non-Fiction
• Review:  Quite good.  Parallel stories of father and son over time as they try to find their place in a world both full of and fighting racism. Based on the life of Cecil Gaines, a boy from a cotton farm who becomes a White House butler to several Presidents.

"Phineas Redux" by Anthony Trollope. ****

• Audiobook
• English author
• Originally published 1874
• Review:   The Palliser series continues in "Phineas Redux", and Phineas Finn continues to try and find his way through the maze of governmental politics.  This installment sees him come within an inch of his life, loved by two women, and revered solely for his legal status.  Trollope makes his ongoing statement regarding the absurdity of politics when Phineas is offerred a significant government position primarily because of his notoriety.  Oh Phineas, Phineas! Such an iconic, yet laughable and lovable character!

"Kangaroo" by D.H. Lawrence ***

• Summer Sub Club Read with Beth
• Originally published 1923
• English author
• Autobiographical
• p.19....It was biding its time with a terrible ageless watchfulness, waiting for a far-off end, watching the myriad intruding white men."....the West Australian Moon
•  p.31..."Why don't you see lovely things?     I do, by contrast.".....
• p.33....."When all is said and done, even money is not much good where there is no genuine culture.  Money is a means to rising to a higher, subtler, fuller state of consciousness or nothing.........It has no real magic in Australia."
• p.40..."There their two personalities met and joined, they were one, and pledged to permanent fidelity.  But that part n each of them which did not belong to the other was free from all inquiry or even from knowledge." - interesting marriage idea
• p.87....."It is so aboriginal, out of our ken, and it hangs back so aloof.......Somers always felt he looked at it through a cleft in the atmosphere; as one looks at one of the ugly-faced, distorted aborigines with his wonderful dark eyes that have such an incomprehensible ancient shine in them, across gulfs of unbridged centuries.......you get a sense of subtle, remote, formless beauty more poignant than anything ever experienced before."...about Australia
• p.107...."I'd rather die in a forlorn hope than drag my days out in a forlorn mope."....Love it!
• p.113...."But then he would come to himself and acknowledge that his marriage was the centre of his life the core, the root, however he like to put it: and this other business was the inevitable excursion into his future, into the unknown, onwards, which man by his nature was condemned to make, even if he lost his life a dozen times in it
• p.140....."Somers said it would reach a point of whiteness where the colours would break up, and she'd go out and find pieces of rainbow on the grass and bushes, instead of towels and shirts."....Harriet loved washing linens.......
• p.146..."The Colonies make for outwardness.  Everything is outward--like hollow stalks of corn.  The life makes this inevitable: all that struggle with bush and water and what-not, all th
  e mad struggle with the material necessities and conveniences--the inside soul just withers and goes into the outside and they're all just lusty robust stalks of people."
• Notes:
• For Somers, a dream was basically a fear's last jab, and it meant that the "danger had passed".
• Kangaroo sees himself as a Savior
• Kangaroo sets up an ant analogy for mankind.....I had trouble clearly understanding it....
• Review:   I would have to say that this is my least favorite D.H. Lawrence to date.  It is really more of a philosophical treatise on man's relationship to man and country than a novel.  Apparently it is strongly autobiographical.  The part I found most interesting was the period when the protagonist/Lawrence was found unfit to serve during WWI, yet was watched and suspected of being a spy making he and his wife feel unwelcome.  Those experiences flavored his time in Australia.  His descriptions of the coast and the outback of the country are lovely.  Clearly Lawrence struggled profoundly regarding the nature of his connection to other individuals and to society.  I am not sure he resolved the issues in the writing of this novel, rather he seemed to clarify the dilemma.

"The Last Judgement" by Iain Pears ****

• Audiobook
• #4 in Jonathan Argyle series
• Originally published 1999
• Englsh author
• Review:   A very enjoyable art history murder mystery!  Jonathan Argyll and his lady love, Flavia, of the Art Police in Rome move between London, Paris, and Rome to solve the case.  Fast-paced, betrayal and double crosses that have reached past the WWII era and French Resistance movement to present day lead them a chase.  Good read!

"And The Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini. ***

• Audiobook
• Originally Published in 2013
• Afghani author
• Review:  Frankly, I was disappointed in this novel.  Set in Afghanistan, this is a saga across generations.  Initially powerful and engaging, I did not think the cross generational method worked well, seeming to lose momentum.

"The Snow Child" by Eowyn Ivey ****

• US author
• Originally published in 2012
• Set in 1920s Alaska
• Summer Sub Club with Beth
• Review: Imagine the cold and isolation of an Alaskan winter.  Add to that a strong dose of loss.  Depressed yet?  don't be, because out of the morass of darkness comes a lovely story about choosing to survive, choosing to suspend logic, about choosing to believe that there are mysteries in life which defy explanation.  Fairy tale or reality?  It doesn't matter to Mabel, Jack, Garrett, Esther and George.  It certainly doesn't matter to Faina, the beloved and lovely snow child.  This is a delightful and poignant story.

"Day After Night" by Anita Diamant ****

• Book Club selection...July 2013
• USA author
• Originally published in 2009
• Epigraph:  "Know that every human being must cross a very narrow bridge.  What is most important is not to be overcome by fear." - Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav, 1772-1810
• Characters: Shayndel (former fighter, Polish Zionist), Tedi (hidden Dutch Jew, magical scents), Leonie (French, former prostitute), Zorah 9concentration camp survivor)
• Ease with which they kill the former SS member
• Memory as an inescapable enemy
• Review:  Anita Diamant has a notable ability to bring a story alive out of the history books, or Bible in the case of "The Red Tent".  I had never heard about the internment of Jews by the British, and was immediately intrigued with the story.  Diamant's deceptively simple writing style manages to convey deep affect, character development and the emotional energies which work on the psyche of the characters.  The four protagonists have all escaped to Palestine, only one from a concentration camp.  Their experiences and memories, losses, and survivor guilt work on them in differing ways, all of which are powerful.  I think this is a post Holocaust story which is more bearable to read than some others, although clearly shadowed with the horror of Nazi Germany.  Survival, the drive to be free, the desire to love and be loved are such powerful, vital forces!

"Love, Anthony" by Lisa Genova ***

• Audiobook
• USA author
• Originally published 2012
• Review:  A nice book about love, loss, healing and autism.  Nice narration by Debra Messing.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald *****

• Audiobook, narrated by Jake Gyllenhall
• Originally published in 1925
• USA author
• Review:  Nothing to say that hasn't already been said.  An amazing piece of writing!

"Speaking From Among The Bones" by Alan Bradley. ****

• Audiobook
• #5 in the Flavia de Luce series
• Originally published 2013
• Review:  Wow!  This is definitely my favorite in the series so far!  Flavia is witty, precocious, and vulnerable.  And.......a huge cliffhanger ending!

"Miss MacIntosh, My Darling" by Marguerite Young...Volume I.....****

• Summer Sub Club 2013 with Beth
• US author
• Originally published 1965, although early excerpts were published in magazines prior to the novel being published
• Setting:  Starts in New England, bus through Middle West
• Characters:  Vera Cartwheel (narrator, seeking Miss MacIntosh), Catherine Helena Cartwheel (her mother, opium addict), Miss MacIntosh (Vera's nanny and savior, opposite of mother), Mr. Spitzer (mother's late fiance's brother, visits mother daily), Australian bushman (visitor of her mother's, Cousin Hannah, bus driver, old couple on bus, pregnant girl on bus
• Epigraph:
• Volume I:  "For all dead loves and all remembered things, I have traveled through many seas"
• Vocabulary:
• mooncomb:
• Quotes:
• p.4..."Among beings strange to each other, those divided by the long roarings of time, of space, those who have never met or, when they meet, have not recognized as their own the other heart and that heart's weaknesses, have turned stonily away, would there not be, in the vision of some omniscient eye, a web of spidery logic establishing the most secret relationships, deep calling to deep, illuminations of the eternal darkness, recognitions in the night world of voyager dreams, all barriers dissolving, all souls as one and united?  Every heart is the other heart.  Every soul is the other soul.  Every face is the other face.  The individual is the one illusion."
• p.9...Description of Miss MacIntosh....."And my search for this life was because of one already dead, she who had passed beyond, she who had been the moral guide, the unswerving, the true, her heart as stout as hickory or oak, her mind so sensible that she  could not be deceived by any illusion or enchantment, she who was forever alone, outside, not taken in by all the sycophant luxuries of that opium paradise, a poor servant with patches on her best black cotton gloves, a fishnet reticule and rimless eye-glasses and no make-up, not even a touch of lip rouge, her face its natural color, her old black canvas umbrella lifted against the rain or sunlight as she had used to walk along the seashore, preferring that marginal estate to my mother's house where, though the roarings of the surf like the roarings of lions should fill it, the sea itself was but another dream and faraway as if it were intangible."
• p.14....the mother...."She had gone to bed for no reason at all, only that she had found the so-called real world unsatisfactory, that life had failed her, that her sensations had been numbed, that she had missed the contiguous impressions which might have been here, that she had always been confined."
• p.40..."We should fold our clothes each evening as carefully as if we never expected to put them on again."...Miss M
• p.64..."....her old black umbrella still uplifted and bugling on the wind, for the wind was quite contentious--never to flee from the heart of life, always to live in the services of others, to know no soul but the soul of man, no heart but the other heart, no self-protection, all souls as equals, all men as brother and alike."...Miss M..civil rights era
• p.86...you died every minute you lived."
• p.108..."Perhaps when life is gone, life continues in the mind and all we should ever know of death would be what we imagined, this vivacity of roaring stars, whirlpools, whirlwinds, this illusion that we lived or died."..... notions of life and death revisited repeatedly in this novel
• p.110......"Marriage was always marriage to something you had not foreseen, something surprising...., these terrible shiftings of hearts, of faces, naturally, seeing the other face.
• p.190..."Was it from me or from the world around me that sorrow came, just when I was happiest?"
• p.245..."That night I was confronted suddenly by the forlorn something which had been hidden like that in everyone's heart which no one dares to face, he knowledge at each mus wear a mask which screens him from himself and pushes him farther and farther away into the reaches of the imperial darkness, he knowledge that the external world we take for granted is but insubstantial as a mad man's dr4eam, all we know or shall ever know, and we are always bald when we are robbed of our illusions, and we know no who we are or where for we were only these and always fading."
• p.266..."Was God as a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, a brother born from adversity a root out of dry ground, a nail fastened o a sure place.........".....many questions of God...
• p.293...What was so rare a thing as common sense, that which she fiercely believed in, the middle brow, the middle way, the average life?"
• p.373..."Death is that which is caused by our partial knowledge."......hmmmm
• p.623..."Perhaps he was the sea shell who could be the musician only when he was untenanted."....Mr. Spitzer....sad
• p.623..."Was life a legal fiction, a realm which could never be proved, disproved, an imaginary house with its intricate ivory porches no waves should ever reach, its lights already lost?"
• p.624..."He surely had gone on many errands of which he had forgotten the meaning and intent and had made of vacancy his amplitude."
• p.628....Life was but a small circle of light, an incandescence different from any star, for its light did not mate with the light of this world and shone sometimes when all other stars went out, and perhaps Mr. Spitzer's fitful light would shine if there were........".
• p.628....."Who knew what was real?  Who knew what was unreal or where one ended and the other began or whether, indeed, there was only the illusion."
• p.631....."He had found the impossibility of committing suicide, for he had died merely by living, by continuing from moment to moment."
• p.640..."A blind portrait painter was surely no more strange than a deaf music critic.....".
• p.859...."And as for Miss MacIntosh, how different she seemed from all the other here--as  the Rock of Ages in a land where all things crumbled, as a guide who knew her way, as the acme of common sense, as the sure footed Pilgrim, the one person never dreaming where all might dream, ye never dream of her, as the one person whose hands and feet were far more important than the dreamless head which gave to itself no false glories, no vain imaginings, as the one person who was simple and bold and clear, never to be deceived by the deceiver, not even by the fog surrounding us!  The fog might invade her and unknit her bones, ravel out her soul from her body, little doubt, but never would she yield to the fog."
• p.889...".....she was afraid of everything.  She was afraid of the moon in the cloud, afraid of leaves over her, afraid of moths, afraid of the hoot owl, afraid of the eagle, afraid of the sparrow, afraid of migratory birds, movie stars, and ordinary people.  And that was why she had developed so much courage.
• p.930..."Once she ate in a noiseless cafeteria and thought she had found simple humanity, for no one spoke a word, and then she saw that it was a cafeteria for mutes only, and that was why she fled to another."
• Notes:
• Dreamscape...stream of consciousness
• lyrical, lush prose
• Very 60s.....yet exquisite
• Mother's ability to recount the minutiae of Mr. Spitzer's activities was a very interesting notion.....ask Beth what purpose she thinks this bit served?........
• p.23...."The horizontal person, she lay still, her .......and she dreamed, as she would say, this perpendicular world of motion.....".
• p.30...."The conditions of mortal life were such that, for others as for herself, the dream must suffice, for reality bears with it always an aspect of fateful disappointment..."
• The MacIntosh.....she wore one at all times.....it was a place to tend to the wounded (p.50...i.e. an injured bird).....such as Vera
• Visit by Australian bushman.....
• p.65...the things she left behind......umbrella, glasses, macintosh and more....
• The notion that Mid-Western small town America was more solid......p.71....."...the other America, the interior, the small town, the routine of Monday following Sunday, Tuesday following Monday, the washings on the lines, the voices of little children, baking day, recipes, knitting for the mission at some far Arctic post.".....
• twelfth birthday dividing line between irresponsibility and responsibility."
• 14th birthday, pivotal event with Vera and Miss MacIntosh....truth, disillusionment
• the notion of Moses in the bulrushes being like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly
• Love the blind war veteran who visited art galleries with his seeing eye dog
• three minutes of happiness in a lifetime is about all life offers
• p.642...."Ah, what infinite paradoxes there were in the lidded or the lidless box!"......?
• the umbrella shielded Miss MacIntosh from the harshness of electric light....."Who wants to see what God has hidden?"
• Themes:
• reality/illusion
• idea vs action
• transition from 50s to 60s, influence of drugs, questioning authority
•  Reviews
• Volume I Review:   At first I was absolutely mesmerized by the elegant, lyrical verbosity of this writer.  Every sentence is so full of metaphor, simile, and incredible language.  I know that this novel took the author 18 years to write and that portions were published in magazines along the way.  I think it may be a novel best read in doses, allowing the reader to savor the writing and ponder the myriad of ideas touched upon throughout the tale.  The stream of consciousness style takes the form way beyond Salman Rushdie and I thought he was amazing at it.  The characters of Miss Mackintosh, Vera Cartwheel and her opium-addicted mother, and Cousin Hannah are primary, joined by a wide variety of interesting folk along the way.  Plot?  This novel requires patience and the ability to let go of preconceived notions of structure and plot.  I have finished the first volume and am not certain of the plot...even after 600+ pages!  Nonetheless, I am eager to return for volume II and to see where this all goes. 
  
  I am giving the novel 4 of five stars at this point, reserving the right to change my opinion after reading volume two.  The diluted plot is the reason I give it four instead of five stars........let's see how this turns out.
•  
• Final Review:  Okay.....1197 pages later.....Do you think that it is possible that your entire life has actually been someone else's opium induced hallucination?  If you are Miss MacIntosh, armed with your mackintosh, sturdy shoes, and 1950s Midwestern practical approach to life you would likely say, no way!  Come back down to earth.  Who really knows for sure? This mammoth literary opus tackles the issue.  Not surprisingly, it was published in the 1960's when it became cool to question absolutely everything, such as, where is the line between truth and fiction, between reality and illusion?  Other issues include 200-300 page analyses of characters' psyches.  Uh huh.....oi! The writing is magnificent.  The characters are simultaneously  psychologically  absurd, profound, terrifying, and impossible to fathom.  Yep, an intellectual and literary feat of mastery.....and very difficult to read and digest.....and worth the enormous effort.  Can you say contradiction!  If you rely on plot, do not turn to page one.  Just step away from the novel.  Otherwise, I recommend reading it in stages.  Savor it.....do not let it make you suffer!

"The Forgotten" by David Baldacci ***

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2013
• Will Robie series, #2
•  Review:  So-so

"Nemesis" by Jo Nesbo ****

• Audiobook
• #2 in the Harry Hole series
• Originally published in 2002
• Review:  Another excellent Harry Hole (pronounced Holla) murder mystery.  The complex plot involves bank robbery, gypsy vendettas, strange alliances, trust and betrayal.  What more do you need for a great read to curl up with?

"Joyland" by Stephen King. ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2013
• Review:  A 10 year old with Muscular Dystrophy and second sight, a 21 year old working at an amusement park while getting over a break-up, losing his virginity, and solving a cold murder case, and of course......Howie the Hound Dog....Intrigued yet?  This is a relatively short Stephen King novel which was engaging and intriguing.  How does one find joy amidst sorrow?   Try reading this for some hints.....

"Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver. *****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2012
• Narrated by author......lovely!
• Review:  Themes of evolution & global warming, coming of age regardless of age, and intellectual & emotional awakening.  Not enough to draw you in?  How about lovely prose which brings nature's insistent dominance to life?  No?  Memorable characters such as Delarobia and her budding scientific son, Preston?  How can you resist?  Kingsolver is at her best in this novel.  She tells such an engaging, thought-provoking, and just plain good story!  Did I say hopeful?  How refreshing!

"Case Histories" by Kate Atkinson. ***

• Audiobook
• Mystery/Suspense
• Jackson Brodie #1
• Originally published 2004
• Review:  I enjoyed this first Jackson Brodie novel.  It is well written, humorous and engaging.  I look forward to the next installment.

"The Lone Wolf". By Jodi Picoult

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published  2012
• Review:  Not my favorite Picoult.....

"Transatlantic" by Colum McCann

• Early Review edition
• Irish author
• Originally published 2013
• Setting:  Ireland, United States
• Key historical figures:  Frederick Douglass, George Mitchell, Alcock & Brown
• Epigraph Part 1: "No history is mute.  No matter how much they own it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth.  Despite deafness and ignorance, the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is."  - Eduardo Galeano
• Epigraph Part 2:  "But this is not the story of a life.  It is the story of lives, knit together, overlapping in succession, rising again from grave after grave." - Wendell Berry, From "Rising"
• Vocabulary:
• funambulist:  a tightrope walker.
• Quotes:
• p.1..."It was that time of the century when the idea of a gentleman had almost become myth."
• p.37..."The poor were so thin and white, they were almost lunar."
• p.79..."My sister has a mind of her own.  Unfortunately she lost it a few years ago."
• p.87..."What she worries most of all is that he will become the flesh at the end of an assassin's bullet."....nice phrasing
• p.95..."The vague hope of helping to turn the long blue iceberg, the deep underwater of Irish history."
• p.95..."It is one of their beauties, the Irish, the way they crush and expand the language all at once."
• p.101..."He was told once that any good Irishman would drive fifty miles out of his way just to hear an insult--and a hundred miles if the insult was good enough."
• p.120...."It is as if, in a myth, he has visited an empty grain silo........Three ways down from the silo,.  They can fall into the grain and drown, they can jump off the edge and abandon it, or they can learn to sow it very slowly at their feet."---metaphor for Irish peace talks
• p.124..."We prefigure our future by imagining our pasts.  To go back and forth.  Across the water.  The past, the present, the elusive future.  A nation.  Everything constantly shifted by the present.  The taut elastic of time.."
• p.153..."The glorious vanity of dying." - enlisting
• p.165..."The infinity of her inkwell....Hours of loss and escape.  Insanity and failure.  Scratching one word out, blotting the middle of a page so it was unreadable anymore, tearing the sheet into long thin strips.  The elaborate search for a word, like the turning of a chain handle on a well.  Dropping the bucket down the mineshaft of the mind.  Taking up empty bucket after empty bucket until, finally, at an unexpected moment, it caught hard and had a sudden weight and she raised the word, then delved down into the emptiness once more."
• p.191..."What was a life anyway?  An accumulation of small shelves of incident.  Stacked at odd angles to each other."
• p. 191..."Emily could sense the skip in her life, almost like the jumping of a pen.  The flick of ink across a pag.  The great surprise of the next stroke.  The boundlessness of it all.  There was something in it akin to a journey across the sky......
• p.218..."We return to the lives of those who have gone before us, a perplexing mobius strip until we come home, eventually to ourselves."
• p.259..."We have to admire the world for not ending on us"
• Interesting points:
• Alcock & Brown:  1919, flew the Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland, taking the war out of flight, "first aerial mail to cross from the New World to the Old......what a surprise it is when distance finally breaks
• Frederick Douglass:  comes to Ireland to raise funds for fight against slavery and to await final negotiations with his "owner" so he can return to the US a free man
• George Mitchell:  brokers peace between Northern and Southern Ireland
• Image of a footprint disappearing as water washes over it at the seashore....metaphor for ephemeral nature of of life
• Review:  I read an Early Reviewer edition of this new novel from Colum McCann.  Lots of authors are using the multi-narrative structure in the last few years, but Colum McCann is without a doubt the most adept in this model. His use of language is beautiful, his characters are memorable, and his narrative is engaging and thought-provoking on multiple levels.  In this novel, tranatlantic voyages frame the way in which lives can touch one another in what seems like a brief moment in time, yet have impact that can cross generations.  Taking three actual historical events, McCann is able to touch on themes of greatness, the ability to face challenge with courage, the intertwining of lives, loves, and honor.  Timelessness is central to this marvelous book, and timeless describes my feelings about the merit of this novel.

"The Glass Key" by Dashiell Hammett. **

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published 1931
• Review:  Just could not get into this.

"Noon at Tiffany's" by Echo Heron ****

• Book Club selection June 2013
• Historical Fiction
• Originally published 2012
• US author
• Review:  A good story, an interesting and somewhat scandalous revelation, and the Tiffany name combine to make this a very enjoyable read.  I am uncomfortable with half of the story being fabricated.  It makes it difficult to know what to take away from reading it.  The themes are all of interest: women's rights, intellectual/artistic property, socioeconomic discrimination, lousy romantic choices, the value of natural family and family of choice....yep....all interesting.

"My Beloved World" by Sonia Sotomayor ****

• Book Club selection May 2013
• Memoir
• Originally published 2012
• "The vocabulary of hindsight"....really like that
• "Duel in the Canefield" by Manuel Mur Oti
• Sonia joined Forensic Team to strengthen her ability to speak publicly...like my Zibby!
• She draws parallel with "Lord of the Flies", the need for law and order.  Power only comes from what we agree to honor
• p.101.."They were like two trees with buried roots so tangled that they inevitably leaned on each other, and also strangled each other a bit."....Mama Celina and here sister Aunt Titi
• p.97..."I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down:  people can't imagine someone else's point of view
• "Seeing my mother get back to her studies was all the proof I needed that a chin of emotion can persuade when one forged of logic won't hold.  But more important was her example that a surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence."
• first word processed senior thesis at Pronceton
• limits of class and cultural background rather than aptitude or application
• p.147.."Quiet pragmatism, of course lacks the romance of vocal militancy. But I saw myself more a mediator than a crusader."....
• p.149..."I needed a history in which I could anchor my own sense of self. "
• Analysis of what was different between herself and cousin and dear friend, Nelson.....he was an addict, died of Aids.
• p.157..."Of all the links, language remains strong, a code of the soul that unlocks for us the music and poetry, the history and literature of Spain and all of Latin America.  But is is also a prison
• p.178..."When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become--whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm--her goal remains abstract....a role model in the flesh provides more than an inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt....."
• p.255...."...suffice it so say, somehow a synergy of love and gratitude, protection and purpose, was implanted in me at a very young age.  And it flowered in the determination to serve."
• Review:  Very readable, very interesting, and very human.  I enjoyed reading this book from start to finish.  Sonia Sotomayor writes about her life from early childhood to her first appointment as a judge.  She clearly details the influences which brought her to adulthood and the Supreme Court, namely, family, juvenile diabetes, hardship,loss, and many mentors along the way.  I think I was most impressed with her clear description of the vast cultural gap between life n the Bronx and life amongst the powerful and wealthy.  A very good read.

"The Burgess Boys" by Elizabeth Strout ****

• Early Review edition
• US author
• Originally published 2013
• Folks wanting to be open-minded about immigrants:  "....Just as long as there aren't too many of them....".
• "...The unfurling of an ache so poignant it was almost erotic, this longing, the inner silent gasp as though in the face of something unutterably beautiful, the desire to put his head down on the big loose lap of this town, Shirley Falls.".....loveliest line in the book
• Is Maine really the whitest state in the USA?
• Review:   A very good story about two brothers who must shake off the assumptions of their pasts in order to emotionally survive the present.  The catalyst, the arrest of their unhappy nephew, forces change and the author tells the story well.  The story looks at relationships from multiple perspectives; marital, sibling, parent/child, past and present.  Well done!

"Leaving Everything Most Loved" by Jacqueline Winspear *****

• Audiobook
• #10 in the Maisie Dobbs series
• English author
• I love the narrator, Orlagh Cassidy
• Interesting attention to racial bias in 1930s London
• Search for self knowledge
• Review:  Absolutely fabulous installment of the Maisie Dobbs series.  Change is in the air for many of the beloved returning characters.  Change of era, change of work, change in family, and cultural change all figure significantly in the story, along with the timeless issue of immigration as seen from inside and outside.  Great read!

"Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko *****

• Audiobook
• Native American author
• Originally published 2006
• Review:   Audiobook....A powerful story about the power of personal and cultural story in preserving and healing the spirit. The structure reflects the dream/nightmare experience of the protagonist, a Native American returning from war. I let myself submerge in the narrative and was pulled along, experiencing a wide range of emotion on the journey.  Marvelous read!

"Behind The Scenes at the Museum" by Kate Atkinson. **

• British author
• Audiobook
• Originally published in 1995
• Review:  So-so......

"The Devil's Highway" by Luis Alberto Urrea. ****

• Audiobook
• Non-Fiction
• Mexican author
• Orignally published in 2004
• Review:  This is an intense, disturbing, horrifying, and yes, thought provoking true story of migration to the United States from Mexico.  A must read if you ask yourself why this whole immigration issue is so complicated.  

"Leviathan" by Paul Auster. ***

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 1993
• Setting:  Wisconsin
• Review:  I was somewhat disappointed in this novel.  Not my favorite by Auster.  A man retrospectively analyzes the decline of his friend, whose demise is explosive, literally.

"The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman ****

• Book Club selection, April 2013
• Australian author
• Debut novel
• Setting:  Australia, Point Partaguese & Janus Rock
• Characters:  Tom Sherbourne (WWI vet, lighthouse keeper), Isabel (his wife), Lucy-Grace (infant washed ashore with her dead father), Ralph & Bluey (men who make deliveries to Janus Rock)
• Review:  A tragic, poignant tale of deep pain, deep love and the consequences of both.  Stedman creates characters who are oh so human, who make horrid choices and must live with the consequences, yet are good souls at heart.  It is an engaging tale with the isolation of the lighthouse keeper's life mimicking the solitude with which one endures guilt, feels sorrow and also experiences love.  Very nice debut!

"Zoli" by Colum McCann. *****

• Irish author
• Originally published 2006
• Setting:  Much of Eastern Europe from WWII era forward
• Characters:  Zoli(poetess, singer), Stanislaus (her Grandfather),Swann (Irish/Slav, activist, writer, lover to Zoli), Stransky (wants to publish Zoli and make his fortune off of her), (Enrico, her husband), Francesca (her daughter)
• Epigraphs:
• "If you keep quiet, you die.  If you speak, you die.  So speak and die."---Thar Djaout
• :But in our century, when only evil and indifference are limitless, we cannot afford unnecessary questions; rather, we need to defend ourselves with whatever there is to hand of certainty.  I know that you remember...". John Berger, "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos"
• To get back before dark is the art of going."---Wendell Berry, "The Collected poems of Wendell Berry 1957-1982"
• Quotes:
• "There are times in a fountain's life, Grandfather said, when even it must learn to swallow piss."
• "My voice was not as sweet as Conka's, but Grandfather said that it hardly mattered, the important thing was the right word, to pull it out, or squeeze it short, and then dress it up with air from my lungs."
• "...the owls were in the sycamores and things would never change."
• "...so many candles had been hollowed out from potatoes that there were not enough insects to gather round them."
• "There are those of us who haven't yet told our stories, or refuse to tell them, and so we become them: we hide away inside the memory until we can no longer stand the shell or the shock--perhaps that's me, or perhaps I must tell it before it's forgotten or becomes, like everything else, something else.".........Swann
• "Memory has a heavy backspin, yet it's still impossible to land exactly where we took off."
• "We're drinking off their coffin lids......". - Stransky making living from those who are doomed
• "Stransky once wrote that only when a man dies can his life acquire a beginning, middle, and an end: up until then we are constantly unfinished, even the midpoint cannot be located.  So only the final word finds the middle word and this, in a way, becomes a verse--one's death explains oneself."
• "There are always moments we return to.  We are in them.  We rest there and there is nothing else."
• "What truly bothered her was the idea that her songs were being taken and put back together again by a machine."...first use of tape recorder
• "How strange it was to be so liked amongst those she could never quite comprehend."
• There is an old Romani song that says we share little pieces of our hearts with people and the further we go along, the less we have for ourselves until there is not enough left to go around and that's called traveling, and it's also called death, and since it happens to us all there's nothing more ordinary than that."
• "You can make them swallow any lie with enough sugar and tears.  They will lick the tears and sugar and make of them a paste called sympathy."
• "The worst burden in life is what others know about us."
• "That was one of my first lessons about the West--they do not ask twice.  You should always say yes.  Say yes before they even suggest that you might say no, say yes even before they ask you to say yes."
• "Stanislaus used to say that wars were fought especially for the carvers of stone....".
• "You do not cross the mountains in Austria, you follow the valleys and the rivers.  It is like you are held in the clasp of a breast, not always a kind breast, but one that will guide you along anyway."
• "It seemed to me that there were two different worlds, that of trees and that of engines:  one seemed clear, the other dark."
• Just Notes:
• Romanis identified with Communism for a long period
• Based on the life of Polish Gypsy poet, Papusza, good link.......http://thegypsychronicles.net/literacy-orality-and-the-poetry-of-papusza-2/
• the struggle was caught between the Gypsys wanting to be left alone, the people wanting them to assimilate
• The "Big Halt"....removed wheels from gypsy carts...no reference to it really happening
• Classic water/revirth imagery between her life in the East and life in the West...p.222
• Review:   Once again, Colum McCann demonstrates a gifted ability to tun a phrase and tell a story.  Journey into the very soul of Zoli, fashioned after a famous Romany poetess.  Travel Eastern Europe as she must survive by first being co-opted as a Gypsy spectacle then as a wounded, hunted, shunned victim of her times and her ancestry.  Feel her pain, her joy, and her spiritual journey as revealed by McCann's elegant, soulful prose.  Fabulous book!

"Theft: A Love Story" by Peter Carey. **

• Audiobook
• Originally published in 2006
• Australian author
• Review:  I tried three hours of this eight hour audiobook and just could not engage with the story.

"A Nail Through The Heart" by Timothy Hallinan. ***

• Audiobook
• Mystery/suspense
• US author
• Originally published 2007
• Review:  This is a dark and hopeful story of people stuck in and finding ways out of terrible situations, about sex trafficking in Bangkok, and about the power of love.  Poke Raffert is an intriguing protagonist, and I will likely read the next in the series.

"Daniel Defoe: The Short Stories" by Daniel Defoe. **

• Audiobook
• English author, late 1600s, early 1700s
• Short Stories
• "Dickery Cronk": mute philosopher who ends his life when regaining his voice after a fit, life is but lent at first, a wise man lives every day as his last, religious beliefs, dying is an unavoidable appendix to life, list of guidelines to live by.......perhaps Defoe's desire to be heard after his own death, reminded me of Fernando Pessoa's long list of philosophies
• "The Apparition of Mrs. Beal":  spinster, had fits, Mrs. Bargrave (sp?)was her friend, Mrs. Beal visits her before longer journey full of prophetic information, turns out she was dead during the visit
• "The History of the Pirate":  all religion a curb on the wicked, priests as immoral as anyone else, pirate befriended the priest, platform for religious beliefs, all persons equal, pride increases with power, views on monarchy, politics in general
• Review:  Most of the stories in this collection served as platforms for the author's political, religious, and life philosophies.  Not my cup of tea.  I prfer Defoe's more swashbuckling storytelling.  However, if the reader is interested in Defoe, the man, then it may be a good selection.

"Ordinary Thunderstorms" by William Boyd. ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published in 2009
• Scottish author
• Review:  This is a story about falling from grace.  What happens when all money, safety, power are stripped away overnight, by mistake.  How do people survive?  To what lengths will they go?  How does one build a new identity and a new life.  All of these questions are addressed in the midst of a murder/suspense novel.  Well done, William Boyd, well done!

"Robert Louis Stevenson--Appointment on Moloka'i" by Aldyth Morris ***

• Drama
• US author
• Originally published 1969
• First performed in Hawaii in 1977
• I read this in conjunction with the novel, "Moloka'i" by Alan Brennert
• Quotes:
• "I can say this: when I saw how he had lived, what he had done, I never admired my poor race so much, nor strange as it may seem, I never loved life more, and I shall never cease to wonder at the --prodigality-- with which he gave others what I've longed and hoped and fought for all my life--a strong and robust body."
• "When we have failed and another has succeeded; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansion while a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the breach and, under the eyes of God, succors the afflicted and in his turn dies upon the field of honor--the battle cannot be retrieved."
• Review:   I read this drama in conjunction with reading "Moloka'i" by Alan Brennert.  I was interested in Stevenson's visit to the famous leper colony and his desire to know more about Father Damien.  I would recommend this drama to a reader interested in a brief, easily red summary of Stevenson's life.  I am not sure I would be interested in a performance, but it was interesting.

"From Africa: New Francophone Stories" edited by Adele King ***

• Short Stories
• Authors from:  Togo, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Guinea, Congo, Rwanda, Djibouti, and Madagascar
• Originally published in 2004
• Vocabulary:
• marcescent:   withering but not falling off, as a part of a plant.
• deliquescent:   to melt away
• Authors praises of the short story form:
• ".....the short story is the literary genre which manages to bind together poetry and prose."
• "...it is autonomous and self-contained."
• "...the story is the form par excellence for the poetic apnea:  holding your breath as long as possible then letting it go, just at the moment you are about to digress, thus suffocating."

• "A Woman and a Half" by Abdourhaman A. Waberi:
• Epigraph:  "Our women are beautiful; we must show them.  Do we veil roses?"....Kateb Yacine
• "For a long time now, men have sealed women's openings: mouth and sex sewn shut.  However, without their mothers, daughters or wives men are dwarf palm trees in a dying oasis; men are clouds of dust while women are the hummus of the earth."....the uncle of the protagonist fleeing the shantytown

• "The Legend of Abla Pokou, Queen of the Baoule People" by Veronique Tadjo
• Queen gives up her child to save her people
• "The belly of the sea is a vast womb."

• "A Fistful of Groundnuts" by Tierno Monenembo:
• Epigraph:  "The child without memory will never have solid crap. - Peuhl proverb
• "Who can really say what can be strong:  Take for example the wrestler and the fart.  One can bring down a man, but the other can put an assembly to flight."
• Survival
• "My Father's Lamp" by Nimrod: 
• "In a certain way, we are mutes condemned to contemplate the twilight, because the one who is moved by lamps and books readily lets his gaze--and sometimes his tears--speak, but he makes no words because, born from books, they come back to him and God, in the thick of this little game, is very jealous."
• "The Spider's Fart" by Kangni Alem:
• Epigraph:  "Pick u a circle, caress it, and it'll become vicious." - Ionexco, "The Bald Sopranos"
• Intense
• "Babyface" by Koffi Kwahule:
• Epigraph:  "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." --I Corinthians 13:2
• "Everybody says he disappeared, didn't leave a trace; but with each new moon Babyface appears to me on the rump of the dusk's red clouds, smiles at me.  But nobody sees that."
• "The Labors of Ariana" by Caya Makhele:
• Revenge
• "The Ballad of a Shipwreck" by Michele Rakotoson:
• "What is the point of yielding to despair?"
• "Fahvalo" by Jean-Luc Raharimanana:
• "Waiting for being to explode."
• "Our Neighborhood Fool" by Patrice Mganang:
• Faith in what can and cannot happen
• "A Hunting Scene as Observed by a Sentimental Photographer" by Kossi Efoui:
• Heartrending, witness to atrocity
• "Dead Girl Walking" by Benjamin Sehene:
• Nickname for survivors of genocide
• Inability to connect
• "Bessombe:  Between Homeland and Exile" by Nathalie Etoke:
• Exile
• "Offering one's charms to pot-bellied, senile white jerks who are decrepit but loaded with francs, that's just part of daily life in a society with its back to the wall.  What can I say?  One has to survive."
• "At age twenty-five I look to the future with lassitude and wory.  Relegated to the secret dungeons of an evanescent memory, my youthful dreams have become the gaping wounds of a soul bruised by the vicissitudes of life."
• "I had had enough of conjugating the verb 'to suffer':  I have suffered, I am suffering, I will suffer."
• "The Milka Cow" by Bessora:
• allegory

• Review:  While this collection of short stories by contemporary authors is wide ranging in terms of style and also wide ranging  in terms of content, I was generally lukewarm in my response.  The authors hail from multiple Sub Saharan nations in Africa, and the style ranges from lyrical to allegorical to directly sociopolitical.  Certainly key issues are raised such as the immigration experience, the experience of exile, of sexism, of brutality, of cultural clashes within and between nations.  I would say that my favorite story was entitled, "A Woman and a Half", for its plot and it's moral of strength, trust, and wisdom.  It was not an exhilarating read, but not bad at all.