The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail -- the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase -- that opens whole worlds of emotion. The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged marriage, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along a first-generation path strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:

The Namesake is a beautiful book about what it means to find your own place in the world. Gogul is born in America from parents who immigrated from India. This book is about the struggles of Gogul's parents in trying to be part of America while hanging on to their cultural roots. It's about Gogul's struggles growing up a little different than other kids. The Namesake starts in 1968 and follows the lives of Gogul and his family up until the year 2000. The book is sometimes sad and sometime humorous as we watch Gogul grow up and we see the different relationships that come and go in his life. It's interesting to read about the cultural differences between India and America and the Ganguli family's attempts to adjust. At first we see Gogul try to shake off his Bengali heritage but by the end of the book I think he learns to accept who he is. The Namesake is an impressive story full of emotion by a great author not to be missed!

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Once upon a time, in the haunted city of Derry, four boys did a brave thing -- a good thing -- perhaps even a great thing. Twenty-five years later, the boys are now men. Each hunting season the four reunite in Maine. This year, these men will be plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
It took major effort on my part to actually put this book down once I picked it up. I just lost myself in this story! Dreamcatcher contains a lot of thrills to say the least. There are UFO's, aliens, a strange virus and an even stranger parasite that flourishes in the human intestines. There's a wonderful boy with Down's Syndrome and four boys (who grow to be men) who are connected to him telepathically. The plot of Dreamcatcher is marvelously strange and it works! The character of Duddits (boy with Down's Syndrome) is one I will never forget. He is so beautifully innocent and sweet and yet he holds the weight of the world on his shoulders. Stephen King, without a doubt, shows off his knack for storytelling in Dreamcatcher. A word of warning: beware those of the sensitive stomaches.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

An extraordinarily haunting love story told in the voice of a man who appears to age backwards

We are each the love of someone's life.

So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. At his birth, Max's father declares him a "nisse," a creature of Danish myth, as his baby son has the external physical appearance of an old, dying creature. Max grows older like any child, but his physical age appears to go backward--on the outside a very old man, but inside still a fearful child.

The story is told in three acts. First, young Max falls in love with a neighborhood girl, Alice, who ages as normally as any of us. Max, of course, does not; as a young man, he has an older man's body. But his curse is also his blessing: as he gets older, his body grows younger, so each successive time he finds his Alice, she does not recognize him. She takes him for a stranger, and Max is given another chance at love.

Set against the historical backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, Max's life and confessions question the very nature of time, of appearance and reality, and of love itself. A beautiful and daring feat of the imagination, The Confessions of Max Tivoli reveals the world through the eyes of a "monster," a being who confounds the very certainties by which we live and in doing so embodies in extremis what it means to be human.

My thoughts:

Imagine: when you are born you come into the world looking like a 70 year old man all wrinkles, loose skin and liver-spotted arms. As you age though, your physical appearance grows more youthful. You get your geriatric body and arthritis over with while you are a child and when you are an old man with all your lifetime of experience, you have a youthful body to enjoy. This is the story of Max Tivoli.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli is narrated by the title character Max. It is Max writing his life story down for his son, the love of his life and future doctors to study. Max was born different, old looking, and stumped the doctors of the time (turn of the century) as to what his disease was. The age that Max looked and the age he actually was always seemed to add up to 70. So when he had lived for 50 years, he had the body and looks of a 20 year old man. This is both a blessing and a curse for Max and through reading his life story we find out why.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a love story....but a distinctly unique one. The opening line says "We are each the love of someone's life" and this is true for Max in several heart breaking ways. Alice is the love of Max's life and he meets her at three different stages of his life. The first time is when he is 17 (but looks to be in his 50's) and Alice is 14. He instantly is taken with her but she wants nothing to do with the 'old' man who lives upstairs. Their paths collide later on though when Alice is in her 30's and they fall in love and marry. Before Alice leaves him shortly after, he leaves her a gift that is born 9 months later in the form of Sammy. Max finds out about his son Sammy when he's an old man (but looks like a child) and goes on a search to find Sammy and Alice. Alice takes her ex-husband in as an orphan child and adopts him. So Max, once the husband and father, becomes the son and brother. At the three different times that Max knows Alice, she doesn't recognize him. He is three different people to her and it's heartbreaking to know he can't tell her the truth.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli takes place at the turn of the century San Francisco and incorporates real historical events into the story, for instance the infamous San Francisco Earthquake. The characters are unforgettable and so human. This is an exceptional, strange and beautiful yet heartrending story that I can't wait to read again.

Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected achievements of secularists who, allied with tolerant believers, have led the battle for reform in the past and today.
Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and the once-famous Robert Green Ingersoll, Freethinkers restores to history the passionate humanists who struggled against those who would undermine the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system. -taken from back of book

My thoughts:
Freethinkers is a history lesson we never learned in school. Susan Jacoby brings to light a number of significant people from the past who wanted to change the future. She begins in the days of the American Revolution and covers more than 200 years of freethinking people and the principles they fought for. The writing can be a little cloying and dull at times but the information Jacoby relates is important and much of it probably unknown to much of the American populace. This book illuminates many (sadly) uncelebrated freethinkers in our history and is certainly worth a read.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:

When Quoyle's two-timing wife meets her just desserts, he retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters and family members all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As Quoyle confronts his private demons -- and the unpredictable forces of nature and society -- he begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.

A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family, The Shipping News shows why Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.

My thoughts:
The Shipping News takes place on the unyielding yet beautiful Newfoundland coast. It is a story of the land, the sea and ultimately the heart. It is the story of Quoyle. Him and his two young daughters flee from the states to their ancestral home in Newfoundland. Quoyle lands a job at the local paper writing about car accidents and the shipping news. It doesn't matter that Quoyle's wife recently died in a car accident or that Quoyle knows nothing about boats or shipping. This book follows Quoyle and his struggle to find his place in the world and maybe a little bit of happiness. The Shipping News is full of quirky characters. The writing is delightfully original. Proulx is clearly an author worth checking out.

*The Shipping News won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994

Beyond the Shroud by Rick Hautala

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
David Robinson's life has taken several bad turns. First, his daughter dies. Then his marriage crumbles and his career as a mystery writer falls apart. But after he is killed in a hit-and-run accident, David quickly learns that he will face his most harrowing challenges as a wraith in the Shadowlands. And David soon learns that power is a blade that cuts two ways.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Beyond the Shroud takes place in two planes of existence: the Skinworld, occupied by the living; and the shadowlands, occupied by the dead. Five years after his little girl dies in his arms, his divorce and his failure as a novelist, David wakes up in the Shadowlands. He was hit by a car and killed. Rick Hautala, the author, does a really good job at making the landscape of the Shadowlands clear for the reader. It's a very creepy setting where all the buildings are in ruin and everything has a yellowish sepia tone. There are other dead people, or wraiths, that occupy the Shadowlands and some of them are less than benign. While David is in the Shadowlands, he happens across his dead daughter Karen. Or is it really Karen? Meanwhile, back in the Skinworld, David's ex-wife Sarah has problems of her own in the form of Tony. Tony has found a bizarre knife that is just pulsing to kill kill kill.....and he (possessed by the knife) has his sights set on Sarah. So David tries to get through to Sarah by using any means possible to warn her of the danger she is in. Beyond the Shroud is an eerie book with a setting that alternates between the bright sunshine of the Skinworld and the bleak crumbling Shadowlands. If you are a fan of the macabre, Beyond the Shroud is not to be missed!

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years without trial by the aristocratic authorities. Finally released, he is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, who despite her French ancestry has been brought up in London. Lucie falls in love with Charles Darnay, another expatriate, who has abandoned wealth and a title in France because of his political convictions. When revolution breaks out in Paris, Darnay returns to the city to help an old family servant, but there he is arrested because of the crimes committed by his relations. His wife, Lucie, their young daughter, and her aged father follow him across the Channel, thus putting all their lives in danger. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
A Tale of Two Cities is an historical novel set during the French Revolution. It follows Charles Darnay, one-time French aristocrat who gives up everything and moves to England. Darnay returns to France to help an imprisoned family servant and is imprisoned himself for the crimes of his now dead family. The reader sees the effects of Darnay's imprisonment on his wife and young daughter as well as his father-in-law who himself was a prisoner of the Bastille for 18 years. A Tale of Two Cities contains one of the most infamous evil female antagonists in classic literature in the character of Madame DeFarge. It also contains a character who is so heroic and good it's humbling to read about. I found A Tale of Two Cities to be a good story with a fantastic ending but it was a little bit of a tough read. It's very dry and boring in parts but the conclusion of the story makes reading the book very much worth it.

*From Wikipedia:
The opening – "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." – and closing – "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." – of the book are among the most famous lines in English literature.

Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
When life seemed pointless to Norton, he accepted the position as the Incarnation of Time, even though it meant living backward from present to past. The other seemingly all-powerful incantations of Immortality—Death, Fate, War, and Nature—made him welcome. Even Satan greeted him with gifts. But he soon discovered that the gifts were cunning traps and he had become enmeshed in a complex scheme of the Evil One to destroy all that was good....
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Bearing an Hourglass is the second book in the Piers Anthony Incarnations of Immortality series. Norton, the main character, takes on the office of Time. Once he bears the hourglass and assumes office, his life moves backward from everyone else. The concept is a little hard to grasp at first but before too long I was able to follow and understand how it all worked. Norton's task as Time in this book is to make sure Luna (from the first book) is elected into the Senate because she will sometime in the future need to foil Satan's plot to take over world power. The Father of Lies tries to distract Norton with trips to other planetary systems, dragons, fair maidens, BEM's (bug eyed monsters), an evil sorceress and even an eviler sorceress. Will Norton succeed in hindering Satan's evil plans? Will he ever get over the loss of his true love Orlene? And what is reality anyway? Bearing an Hourglass is more of a fun book and the subject matter not as deep as in the first book, On a Pale Horse. This is a light mix of science fiction and fantasy with a very enjoyable result.

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel." They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers. Magda is determined to save them, even as a German officer arrives in the village with his own plans for the children.

A novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, The True Story of Hansel and Gretel depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children.

My thoughts:

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel is an unforgettable novel centering around two Jewish children in Nazi occupied Poland. The story follows the survival of the two children after they have to be left by their father and stepmother in the forest. The story also follows the father and stepmother and their involvement with the partisans and their efforts to reunite with the children later on. Louise Murphy does a wonderful job braiding the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel with her war time novel. The result is creative and believable. This is not a feel good story though. It's heartbreaking and the subject matter is sometimes difficult to read. The characters in this novel are very memorable and the story is the kind that will stay with the reader long after the book is finished.

Body Count by William Turner Huggett

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
Written with total immediacy and gut-honesty by a former combat officer, Body Count is about the Marine Corps as no recruiting poster will ever picture it. Whether the scene is a bloody battle against a brilliantly resourceful enemy, or a brothel where desperate men seek violent pleasures, every page bears the vivid stamp of one who was there and has the overwhelming talent to bring it to life the way it really was. You have never experienced anything quite like it. You will never forget it. - taken from back of book

My thoughts:
Body Count is a honest look at war in Vietnam from the perspective of a small group of men in Delta Company. William Turner Huggett writes about these men in fast paced battle scenes, in sweaty brothels in Nam, while they are relaxing in the rear, and while they are in Tokyo for R'n'R. There are some hilarious moments while some of the men pull pranks and goof around. But there are sad times too as some of these characters we come to really like die. An underlying theme of this novel is race issues. There are two characters, Wilson and Carlyle, both black men who are on opposite ends of the black power movement. Huggett writes about racism in Vietnam throughout the novel and the reader can see how it affects both Wilson and Carlyle in vastly different ways. The only complaint I have with this book, and it prevents me from giving it 5 stars, is the ending. There is little or no resolutions at the end. Huggett never says what happens to these men. After a final battle scene he pretty much ends the book and I was left with a lot of questions. Overall, Body Count is an impressive novel about a group of men in Vietnam and the living and fighting they do while they are there.