"Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe" by Doreen Baingana ****

• Short stories
• Ugandan author
• Originally published in 2005
• Epigraph:  "Abagyenda bareeba, Those who travel, see." --Kinyankore proverb
• Connected stories of three sisters (Christine, Patti, and Rosa) in Uganda
• "Green Stones":  childhood mystery of parents' love  as opposed to looking back at that relationship as an adult.
• "Hunger":  "I tell you, hunger is like a child crying and crying:  you can't think about anything else."
• "First Kiss":  Vulnerability of youth
• "Passion":  testing out the increasingly frowned upon 'juju'
• "A Thank-You Note":  Thanks for giving me Aids.....
• "Tropical Fish": affair with a white man
• "Lost in Los Angeles":  speaks for itself, "I have been torn from natural living chaos that wrapped itself strongly around our lives.  I am alone and trapped in metal.  I am lost."
• "Questions of Home":  "She would have to learn all over again how to live in this new oled place called home."
• Cultural notes:
• children commonly at boarding school, subject to tribal caste system as well as economic caste system
• children punished for speaking their tribal language
• "But here in town, the lesson these women gave was so clear no one even said it:  Study hard, speak English well, get into one of the few good high schools, go to college.  Onward and upward.  You are not these women.  Do not become them."
• Post-Idi Amin...less fear in the air
• Mutual distaste between white colonials and native Ugandans
• Review:   This is an interesting collection of connected short stories which manage to convey the lives of three Ugandan sisters from youth to adulthood.  The stories are written in a direct style, in the distinctive voices of the three sisters.  The plots range widely, from the joy and mystery of being alone in her parent's bedroom playing with her mother's jewelry, to the hunger and hardship at boarding school, to the firestorm spread of HIV/AIDS across the country, to studying in the USA, to coming home to Uganda after eight years in the States.  The emotional tenor ranges from childlike wonder to fury to disillusionment to self-discovery.  All in all, a series of vignettes which give the reader some glimpses into daily life in post-Amin Uganda, and to the challenges faced by anyone growing up in one culture and trying to blend into a new one.  Baingana does a wonderful job of balancing aspects of general humanity with facets of live specific to Uganda.  Very nice collection!

"The End of Your Life Book Club" by Will Schwalbe. ****

• Audiobook
• Non-Fiction
• Originally published in 2012
• While mother has cancer.....they read......a means to conversation
• Review:  A loving, poignant tribute to a much loved and admired mother!  Structured around their book club of two, this retrospective of the experience of his mother's death touches on so many of the moments experienced by all who know they are losing a loced one, and yet retains the unique nature of their specific mother-son relationship!  Wonderful read!

"Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter **

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 2012
• Review:  Ugh!

"Murder in the Marais" by Cara Black *

• Audiobook
• US author
• First in Aimee Leduc series
• Originally published in 2003
• Review:  didn't get more than ten minutes into the story.  The narration was absolutely horrible!

"Silent House" by Orhan Pamuk ***

• Turkish author
• Originally published 1983, first translation to English published 2012
• Nobel Laureate
• Review:   This novel, although translated and released in English in 2012, was actually one of Pamuk's early works, originally published in 1983.  It was interesting to read this early novel now, after having read almost all of his later works.  There are glimmers of the masterful writer in this story, but it is nowhere near the eloquent, finely crafted quality of his current writing.  Clearly, even from his earliest writing, Pamuk attempts to blend literary and political elements to convey through fiction, the political, social climate in Turkey at the time of significant events.  I am just happy to have read his later, magnificent works.  He is one of my all-time favorite authors!

"Last Man in Tower". By Aravind Adiga. *****

• Audiobook
• Indian author,
• Originally published in 2011
• "Man is like a goat tied to a tree.....some freedom, but not too much."
• "Our eyes met like foreign languages."
• "Have you no idea how many people are alone?"
• The more time spent in luxury, the more likely violence will seem commonplace
• Wealthy, powerful businessman tries to buy out an old apartment building to tear it down and build a glamorous new one
• Loneliness, human frailty and vulnerability
• end of life reflections
• benefits of standing for one's convictions despite pressure to do otherwise
• the nature of courage
• selfishness, 
• the power of money
• Review:  While reading this book I harrumphed, cringed, guffawed, held my breath, and sighed in relief.  This is a tale of poverty vs. power, of both the courage and frailty of the human spirit, and about aging alone.  As graphic and powerful as the imagery of Mumbai life is in this novel, I think the values which are tested in these characters are universal, and the effort to survive and maintain integrity is also universal.  Excellent read!

"Queen of America" by Luis Alberto Urrea. ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2011
• Mexican author
• Narrated by author....lyrical, mystical voice....wonderful
• Epigraph:  "Living with a saint is more grueling than being one"
• The Saint of Caborra" traveling across America...continuation of "The Hummingbird's Daughter
• Quotes:
• "She smelled of flowers which could not be found outside".......lovely
• Review:  This sequel to Urrea's "The Hummingbird's Daughter" is the continuation of events in the life of Santa Teresita, the healer.  What are the roles for a saint in the modern world?  How does a saint cope with the oppotunism all around her?  Can a saint fall in love?  Just a few of the intriguing issues addressed in this tale.  Urrea is a genuinely tale spinner.  His use of language is lyrical and his characters are memorable.  I listened to Urrea's narration via audiobook, and his voice is almost hypnotic.  Enjoy!

"Toilers of the Sea" by Victor Hugo *****

• LibraryThing Group Read
• Originally published 1866
• French author
• Translation by James Hogarth, Introduction by Graham Robb, and Illustrations by Victor Hugo (not done for this novel, but placed by the author on specific pages of his manuscript, and they are in the same locations in this edition)
• Written while Hugo was in exile on the island of Guernsey after opposing the coup d'etat of 1851 by Napoleon
• Setting:  Guernsey Island of the Channel Islands, 1820s
• Characters:  Gilliat (reclusive Guernsey fisherman, Deruchette (young charming local girl)
• Vocabulary:
• ananke:  Greek term for necessity
• lozenge pattern:  camouflage
• autochthonous:  indigenous
• eclogue:  a pastoral poem, often in dialogue form
• lazaretto:   a hospital for those affected with contagious diseases, especially leprosy
• pullulate:  to send forth sprouts, buds, etc.; germinate; sprout.
  
  
• Introduction:
• p.xix...."By suspending his disbelief (in the spirit world), he was summoning up the wild-eyed holy sense of horror that kept the channels open between the writing hand and the deep unconscious.".......Hugo was a fan of table tapping and seances
• Dedication:  "I dedicate this book to the rock of hospitality and liberty, that corner of old Norman soil where dwells that noble little people of the sea; to the island of Guernsey, austere and yet gentls, my present asylum, my future tomb."

• Preface by Hugo, at Hauteville House, March 1866:  "Religion, society, nature:  such are the three struggles in which man is engaged.  These three struggles are, at the same  time, his three needs.  He must believe:  hence the temple.  He must create: hence the city.  He must live:  hence the plow and the ship.  But these three solutions contain within them three wars.  The mysterious difficulty of life springs from all three.  Man is confronted with obstacles in the form of superstition, in the form of prejudice, and in the form of the elements. A triple ananke weighs upon us:  the ananke of dogmas, the ananke of laws, the ananke of things.  In "Notre Dame de Paris" the author denouced the first of these; in "Les Miserables" he drew attention to the second; in this book he points to the third.  With these three fatalities that envelop man is mingled the fatality within him, the supreme ananke, the human heart."

•  Quotations I Like:
• p.6..."The industry of the sea, which created ruin, has been succeeded by the industry of man, which has made a people."......from "Ancient Cataclysm" section
• p.10..."You thought you were in a village:  you find that you are in a regiment.  Such is the nature of man."....reference to the austere nature of the Guernsey community
• p.12..."Nothing changes form so quickly as clouds, except perhaps rocks."....the wearing away of the coast
• p.13.."Beauty has its lines: deformity has, too.".....follwed by a beautiful passage about disintegration
• p.16..."Sunday is, by law, a day of stagnation."...interesting word choice, not day of rest
• p.19..."The Channel Islands are fragments of France that have fallen into the sea and been picked up by England."
• p.23..."When a man dominates an age and incarnates progress, he cannot expect criticism; only hatred."....reference to Voltaire
• p.45...."These islands have offered shelter to men afflicted by destiny."
• p.48...."Everything on earth is being perpetually moulded by death....".
• p.50..."Of all the teeth of time the one that works hardest is man's pickax.  Man is a rodent.  Everything is modified or changed at his hand, either for the better or for the worse.  Here he disfigures, there he transfigures."
• p.50..."Everything limits man, but nothing stops him.  He responds to limits by jumping over them.  The impossible is a frontier that is perpetually receding."
• p.51..."Globe, let this ant of yours have his way"...Hugo's reference to man's propensity for displacing, suppressing, knocking down, leveling, mining undermining, digging, excavating, breaking up, pulverizing, effacing, abolishing, rebuilding what he has destroyed.........
• p.60..."....adolescence, the mingling of two twilight periods, the first emergence of a woman in the final stage of childhood."
• p.77...."Solitude produces men of talent or idiots."......
• p.78..."The true pilot is the sailor who navigates the bed of the ocean more than its surface."
• p.81....The Unknown sometimes holds surprises for the spirit of man.  A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will momentarily reveal the invisible and then close up again.  Such visions sometimes have a transfiguring effect.....".
• p.82...."Analogy suggests that the air must have its fish just as the sea has."
• p.83...."The dream world is the aquarium of night." 
• p.103..."Every embryo conceived by science has a double aspect:  as a fetus it is a monster, as the germ of something more it is a marvel."
• p.99..."If men's destinies have a wardrobe, Raintaine's destiny would have worn the garb of a harlequin."
• p.299....
• Humorous bits:
• p.20..."There are families living today in Normandy that still have the lordship of these parishes.  Their divine right is now under water:  such is sometimes the fate of divine rights
• p.35...."always the two on the ten", a phrase referring to keeping two eyes on the ten fingers of a worker......"ancient mistrust denouncing ancient idleness."
• p.45..."And since, in the view of many people, and particularly of state religions, to hate our enemies is the best way of loving ourselves, Catholicism should be much loved in the Channel Islands." 
• p.62......"The confessor replied:  ;To be sure whether it is the Devil or your husband, feel his forehead, and if you find horms you will be sure..'.  'Sure of what?' asked the woman."

•  Interestiung Tidbits
• Guernsey Lily
• the three dangers of a calm sea....the current, the shoals, the whirlpool formed by underwater rocks
• vessels hauled ashore to the sound of a flute......"the flute player is a better worker than the workmen".....
• the price of being a pilot with duty to mariners in distress is higher when the pilot has a family because the pilot risks his life......"One party is selling life, the other is buying it."
• "Homo Edax" or man the devourer......
• "Bu De La Rue".......end of the road.....apt name for Gilliat's home
• Predictably (for the era) sexist commentaries on women
• Interesting commentary on notions about the steamship when first introduced
• 
  
• Review:   Imagine the perfect recipe, the perfect blend of elements.  In many respects "The Toilers of the Sea" is that perfect blend.  One part epic drama, one part satiric wit, one part ethnographic study of Guernsey Island in the mid 1800s, one part battle between man and nature, one part spiritual allegory, and the topping is two parts elegant prose.  Yes, yes, it is a lot to take on, but Victor Hugo did it oh so well.  How many authors can make long drawn out descriptive passages gripping? 
  
  Hugo's prose is marvelous and his insight into human nature seems the result of astute, keen observation.  This book, written during his exile on Guernsey Island, represents a veritable compendium of observation.  His writing makes me want to hop a flight to Guernsey yesterday! I have witnessed storms such as Hugo describes and it sent shivers up my spine as he recaptured the sense of foreboding in the air just before a massive storm breaks!
  
  Drawbacks, unfortunately, they exist.  Dialogue? Relationship between individuals?  I get the sense that Hugo was aching with solitude and projected that into this novel.  Character development is done really well, except that the characters rarely interact until the very end of the tale, and then quite superficially.  If, as existentialists say, we are ultimately alone and judged by our actions, then this allegory is perfection itself!
  
  I loved it......

"The Cold Spot" by Tom Piccirilli. ***

• Audiobook
• Mystery/Suspense
• English author
• Originally published 2008
• Review:  A mediocre story of love and revenge.  Interesting dynamics between the protagonist and his grandfather kept me engaged.

"into The Darkest Corner" by Elizabeth Haynes. ****

• Audiobook
• English author
• Originally published in 2011
• Mystery/Suspense
• Review:  A gripping thriller.  Take an obsessed stalker and the victim, suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive disorder, and then see what happens.

"I Am Half Sick of Shadows" by Alan Bradley. ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2011
• Canadian author
• #4 in the Flavia de Luce series
• Review:  I particularly enjoyed this Flavia de Luce installment.  Flavia demonstrates the magical thinking of all children alongside her intensely intellectual curiosity.  Well worth the read.

"The Stone Monkey" by Jefrey Deaver. ***

• #4 in the Lincoln Rhymes series
• Audiobook
• Mystery/Suspense
• US author
• Originally published 2003
• Review:  A fast paced, yet a bit predictable.

"The Ice House" by Minette Walters. ****

• Audiobook
• Debut
• Mystery/suspense
• English author
• Originally published 1992
• Review:  A very good murder mystery......and a smart commentary on small town life and making assumptions about people.

"The Sound of Waves" by Yukio Mishima *****

• Japanese author
• Book club selection
• Originally published 1956
• Setting:  Uta Jima ("Song Island"), off Japanese coast, inhabited primarily by fishermen 
• Characters:  Shinji (young man in love), Hatsue (his love), Yasuo (lazy competitor for Hatsue), Chinoko (loves Shinji from afar, Terukichi (Hatsue's father)
• References to the "sound of waves":
• p.21..."...the roar of the tide was constantly revealing the unrest and might of natures...".
• p.45..."He heard the sound of the waves striking the shore, and it was as though the surging of his young blood was keeping time with the movement of the sea's great tides.  It was doubtless because nature itself satisfied his need that Shinji felt no particular lack of music in his everyday life."
• p.65...Before, he had hated days when there was no fishing, days that robbed him both of the pleasure of working and of income, but now the prospect of such a day seemed the most wonderful of festival days to him .. It was a festival made glorious, not with blue skies and flags waving from poles topped with golden balls, but with a storm, raging seas, and a wind that shrieked as it came tearing through the prostrate treetops."...like his passion
• p.77...To Shinji it seemed as though this unceasing feeling of intoxication, and the confused booming of the sea outside, and the noise of the storm among the treetops were all beating with nature's violent rhythm."
• p.88..."In the dead of night the sound of the waves could be plainly heard...the village was silent."
• p.98....the sound of the waves in the caverns....."the reverberations overlapping each other until the entire cave was aroar and seemed to be pitching and swaying"
• p.112..."The gentle waves that rocked their boat also calmed his heart....". 
• p.177..."Nature too again smiled on them......the sound of the waves strong, but coming regularly and peacefully, as though the sea were breathing in healthy slumber."...Shinji and Hatsue resolved
• Interesting tidbits:
• Foreshadowing:  second to last paragraph at end of first chapter....the call of the world beyond Uta Jima...a white ship on the sea 
• p.131...So long as he had observed the 'unknown' from a distance, heis heart had been peaceful,...."....like the butterfly his mother watched get battered by the wind
• Community organizations:  Young Men's Association, Respect for Old Age Association
• Island life v. city life: 
•  "City youths learn the ways of love early from novels, movies, and the like, but on Uta-jima there were practically no models to follow."
• "In the city almost all nature had been put into uniform, and the little power of nature that remained was an enemy.  Here on the island, however, the islanders enthusiastically entered into an alliance with nature and gave it their full support."
• "Placed as he was, close to the workings of nature, it was not surprising that he should understand nature's precise system."
• Legend of Prince Deki....his remains buried leaving behind "not a single story"....perhaps never "separated from happiness"
• Mother's observation of the butterfly (p.124)....tantalized by the idea of the next island
• p.139...the "breast-beautiful contest"
• Quotes:
• p.6..."His dark eyes were exceedingly clear, but their clarity was not that of intellectuality--it was a gift that the sea bestows upon those who make their livelihood upon it....".
• p.19..."His fisherman's
• conception of the sea was close to that of the farmer for his land.  The seas was the place where he earned his living, a rippling field where, instead of waving heads of rice or wheat, the white and formless harvest of waves was forever swaying above the unrelieved blueness of a sensitive and yielding soil."
• p.22..."It was a blow to his pride to realize the existence of things within himself that he had never so much as suspected....".....first feelings of passion
• p.23...."I know not why, My mournful soul, Flies the sea, fitfully, fitfully, On restless, frantic pinion s..."...Verlaine
• p.32..."Thus their well-founded fear of the village's love of gossip changed what was but an innocent meeting into a thing of secrecy between the two of them."...small towns everywhere
• p.35..."In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails of boats anchored in a busy harbor.  They were sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were.  The boats' anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised."
• p.106..."But in any case he was an old man who, while still living, could act like a bronze statue erected to his own memory--without appearing ridiculous."...Terukichi
• Review:  Poetic drama, the lives lived on an island in close contact with nature, coming of age, and young love.  It was a pleasure to read this novel by Yukio Mishima.  Just as the waves range from violent ferocity to Zen-like peacefulness, so too do the characters in this story live their lives. Mishima writes with a clarity and deceptive simplicity about what it means to live in harmony with nature.