tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29967514841913610282024-02-19T15:18:24.780-08:00Notes for Novel ReadersGeorge Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.comBlogger171125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-69513766239240438492013-09-26T17:28:00.003-07:002013-09-26T17:28:17.194-07:00Final WordsThat will be my last post for now. I appreciate everyone who has read along and encouraged me along the way. If you ever get stuck for something to read, just ask: I am always excited about something I am reading! I may return sometime, but in the meantime, VERY BEST WISHES!George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-82029551032977481902013-09-25T00:02:00.001-07:002013-09-25T00:02:28.099-07:00Marina Adair continues her Napa Trilogy with another amusing romance<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Summer in Napa<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Marina Adair’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Summer in Napa </i>(340 pages, $12.95,
Montlake Romance) follows her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kissing
under the Mistletoe</i> with her story about the Napa Valley and the DeLuca
family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">This time, a younger member
of the family, Marco, takes an interest in Alexis Moreau, who has come limping
home to Napa after a breakup with her husband and co-restaurant owner in New
York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has taken a room over
her grandmother’s bakery, and while there seems quite willing to help with the
baking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Meanwhile, her romance gets
off to a rocky start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marco likes
her, but they had a history dating from their high school days, and this does
nothing but make Lexi nervous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Just when it seems that she
and Marco might be on solid ground, and as she tries to open her own restaurant
in Napa, the rug is pulled out from under her, when her ex sues her for all her
recipes and even those of her grandmother’s bakery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is complicated how and why this happens, but it does, and
it creates a crisis for Lexi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
only does she feel unable to compete or make it in any way on her own, but also
she wonders whether Marco can have time for a loser like her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Needless to say, they work
things out. And as they do, Adair extends her range of likable eccentrics who
populate her version of the Napa Valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This novel is a quick read, and a fun read, and with Adair’s other
novels about the Napa Valley promises to hold its own among the work of other
romance writers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEmI60Y6TON9CwyG5x6UYtk8ZC3jKegGJuVNd-x8sCfTOernGi8eLySckr4XSkecdvbgVjjMjPL4LX-9U0R1_G_Lf7ThsU9HSws-u2zw-JKJPu4gQ0poKi6pEKScVzSS97igZcGILVora/s1600/marina-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaEmI60Y6TON9CwyG5x6UYtk8ZC3jKegGJuVNd-x8sCfTOernGi8eLySckr4XSkecdvbgVjjMjPL4LX-9U0R1_G_Lf7ThsU9HSws-u2zw-JKJPu4gQ0poKi6pEKScVzSS97igZcGILVora/s1600/marina-a.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Marina Adair</b><br />
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<i>Summer in Napa</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=marina+adair+summer+in+napa&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781611099737" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Napa-Helena-Vineyard-Novel/dp/1611099730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380092417&sr=1-1&keywords=marina+adair+summer+in+napa" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-81329564302363418692013-09-24T23:55:00.001-07:002013-09-24T23:55:36.157-07:00Marina Adair sets her romance in the Napa Valley at Christmastime<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6XPk6ccMV2nw7-5N7n0gWuhkFW-aTtOzlz9l47xyAWMhOAiwM0J48WAnvPHVGOFpkVehdM2bS-hfaXD5WbYqh3InCtMSwavWfxVwcY_bKaWUkQbp2o9TV8wGgBYRINKqjZTNpRVFuJry/s1600/Kissing+Under+the+Mistletoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu6XPk6ccMV2nw7-5N7n0gWuhkFW-aTtOzlz9l47xyAWMhOAiwM0J48WAnvPHVGOFpkVehdM2bS-hfaXD5WbYqh3InCtMSwavWfxVwcY_bKaWUkQbp2o9TV8wGgBYRINKqjZTNpRVFuJry/s320/Kissing+Under+the+Mistletoe.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Kissing Under the Mistletoe<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Marina Adair’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kissing Under the Mistletoe</i> (310 pages,
$12.95, Montlake Romance) is the first in her series of Napa Valley
romances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While certain staples of
romance description, especially moments of sexual intensity that only manage to
tease the principle characters, leave me unimpressed, Adair has a way of
creating winning characters and putting them in very amusing, if not always
believable, situations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">In this novel, Regan
Martin, a talented wine expert, has come to Napa to fill an important job
vacancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she arrives,
however, she finds she has stepped on the toes of the most powerful local wine
families, and her job disappears before her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">The family, the DeLucas,
have a longstanding tradition of power-broking in Napa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now they are a younger generation—four
brothers and a single sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
seems that Regan was having an affair with the sister’s husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regan didn’t know about her, Abigail,
and when she did discover that the boyfriend was married, she was in the
process of being fleeced by him, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regan has come out of this affair with a daughter and a whole family of
enemies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">The oldest brother, Gabe,
is the one who is commissioned to deal with Regan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while he has blackballed her from getting a decent job in
any winery in the country, he nevertheless finds her breathtakingly attractive
when confronted with her face to face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regan feels exactly the same about him, and the two characters spend
hundreds of pages trying not to get into each other’s pants—or getting into
them and then figuring out how to get beyond that lapse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">While this is going on, Adair
creates a whole assortment of other characters in her Napa setting, and she
does a wonderful job with characters' descriptions, sometimes at the level of
caricature but often with a deft hand at the revealing detail or telling
secret.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Kissing Under the Mistletoe </span></i><span style="font-family: Optima;">is not for everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you like a fast moving romance with good characters,
then this one might be for you.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixcX4c0prPU2wxil6EJsWlAyNfQzGzLlx5UZQIbcpYxVnTEb6SqHw772YEByTkrreS5pTh5Ey2aUmgP7GjuCGeqAcNB6yhvUOPi5EiapGD4qTJ3adzqkn1w1flU9RSvJmaILqSPlSrHwjB/s1600/marina-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixcX4c0prPU2wxil6EJsWlAyNfQzGzLlx5UZQIbcpYxVnTEb6SqHw772YEByTkrreS5pTh5Ey2aUmgP7GjuCGeqAcNB6yhvUOPi5EiapGD4qTJ3adzqkn1w1flU9RSvJmaILqSPlSrHwjB/s1600/marina-a.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Optima;">Marina Adair</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Optima;"><i>Kissing Under the Mistletoe</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Marina+Adair+Kissing+Under+the+Mistletoe&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781612185859" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Marina%20Adair%20Kissing%20Under%20the%20Mistletoe" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Optima;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-24205074481438279922013-09-15T13:43:00.002-07:002013-09-15T13:43:54.163-07:00Ben Fountain writes about the Iraq War without leaving Texas<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Ben Fountain’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk</i> (307
pages, Ecco, $14.99) is the most stunning Iraq War novel to have appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bravo Squad, so-called because of a
misnomer that sticks, has had a visible and very highly publicized success in
Iraq and has returned home for honors and celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We meet them on the last day of their
leave, as they are feted at a Dallas Cowboys football game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are guests of the owners and they
have a role to play during the halftime show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">The novel takes place only
during, as well as immediately before and after, the football game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a few flashbacks to a day or
two before, but they only help to amplify our understanding of the main
character, Billy Lynn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy is a
nineteen-year-old from Texas who was one of the key players in a battle that
resulted in one of his good friends being killed in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Billy is a slow thinking young
man, but he is good looking enough to find himself often in the spot
light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he has to speak, he
does; and sometimes what he says is profound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy started thinking more because of Shroom, the friend who was
killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shroom told Billy what to
read, how to carry himself, how to be self-aware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His death has affected Billy deeply, and the sorrow of that
loss infuses the entire narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Billy and his squad are busy
knocking back whatever form of alcohol they can get their hands on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their sergeant, Dime, checks up on them
from time to time, but it seems that mostly they do what they want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, they are being wined and
dined as victors from Iraq, and everyone around them in Texas and elsewhere
wants the reassurance that what they did in Iraq has larger significance for
the war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">One person who buys this
line is Albert, their now-resident Hollywood producer who is promising to bring
in a deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he throws around
huge numbers that a film deal would bring to the soldiers, they get off on all
sorts of fantasizing about who might play what roles and how their story will
look when turned into a Hollywood project.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">They are all asked, but
Billy is especially asked, how they did what they did; what it felt like; and
whether they were scared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Billy
has a rote answer, but each time he is asked, it becomes clear that he has no
language to describe the intensity of that moment of holding his dying friend
in his arms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">As the game gets started
and the soldiers settle into their comfortable seats in the owner's box, sipping Jack and Coke, Billy locks eyes with one of the cheerleaders that will be
performing during the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
cheerleader seems to be interested in Billy, and when they meet later on, she
clearly seems to be ready to spend time with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She gives Billy something to fantasize about while he and
his buddies are getting hammered during the game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">She plays in his mind
against the memories of his time with his family, especially his sister
Kathryn, who is trying to persuade him to resist the army’s demand that he
return to Iraq.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Fountain's novel is a
wonderful satire of the world of the Dallas football club and the ranks of
Americans who are trying to support this war without knowing anything about
what it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, it
is a deeply touching story about a young soldier growing up through his
experience of war, especially as he has this distance on his own actions and
tries to put everything together as he prepares to step onto the halftime stage
in the football stadium.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNenxTONe5BI_kdtcrekDizY8zGwxB6KZxk-y81Fhhb6lPtRx1GJOJag7Keuf8x-L-gPo09VPl4hQhU0yHgrEGdN7Cbw6LtuuIW_u705PGkGeEdgsQZRnYO7ir4Uk3xmBu_rGPoZR7uxSG/s1600/benfountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNenxTONe5BI_kdtcrekDizY8zGwxB6KZxk-y81Fhhb6lPtRx1GJOJag7Keuf8x-L-gPo09VPl4hQhU0yHgrEGdN7Cbw6LtuuIW_u705PGkGeEdgsQZRnYO7ir4Uk3xmBu_rGPoZR7uxSG/s1600/benfountain.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Optima;">Ben Fountain</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Optima;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;"> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Ben+Fountain+Billy+Lynn%27s+Long+Halftime+Walk&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780060885618" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Ben%20Fountain%20Billy%20Lynn%27s%20Long%20Halftime%20Walk" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</span></span> </span><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-90930676399991848192013-09-09T23:31:00.001-07:002013-09-09T23:31:13.503-07:00Jacqueline Winspear takes Maisie Dobbs into harrowing memories of WWI<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Birds of a Feather<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">Birds of a Feather </span></i><span style="font-family: Optima;">(336 pages, Penguin, $16) is another of Jacqueline
Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Set in 1930, this novel begins when Maisie is called to the offices of a
difficult wealthy financier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maisie is meant to find his daughter who has gone missing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Maisie is happy to take on
this case, but as she makes inquiries about the girl and her friends, it turns
out that some other girls that were associated with the missing girl have been
murdered in suspicious circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Winspear does a wonderful
job of creating a feeling of that era between the wars, and she creates the war
as a memory for her characters very beautifully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case, it seems to have something to do with the war,
that these women were together before the war and that they have hardly
socialized since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What holds them
together, or why the young heiress has fled, are all baffling to Maisie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">She seems to unravel the
mystery and find the girl almost at the same time, but that does not really
tell her what she is to do about the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has a young heiress who does not want to go home,
several other girls who have been murdered, and a man who hardly deserves to be
called the girl's father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">This is a case for Maisie
Dobbs, and all I can say is she pulls it off beautifully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is another way of saying that
Winspear is at her most deft in bringing all the details of this plot into an
effective resolution.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbY2L1ngpF-8uPO15kh9eYHE8AP7scYL7zw-HDkKZgyTMhAEGhaOQ-H9BndZ27zIhOtW5TpJvcCFPETcqwtO2jaDVimQlPa60qoecW8FBhhLuSKYMhPmJLUD3_3FY_O6__voZsObLTWIzn/s1600/jacqueline-winspear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbY2L1ngpF-8uPO15kh9eYHE8AP7scYL7zw-HDkKZgyTMhAEGhaOQ-H9BndZ27zIhOtW5TpJvcCFPETcqwtO2jaDVimQlPa60qoecW8FBhhLuSKYMhPmJLUD3_3FY_O6__voZsObLTWIzn/s1600/jacqueline-winspear.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Optima;">Jacqueline Winspear</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Optima;"><i>Birds of a Feather</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Birds+of+a+Feather+Jacqueline+Winspear&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780143035305" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Birds%20of%20a%20Feather%20Jacqueline%20Winspear" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-78886704830173254992013-08-18T19:09:00.001-07:002013-08-18T19:09:54.596-07:00Jacqueline Winspear creates in Maisie Dobbs an inspired detective.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPro9aUkulldKc-5GGq9ksnWaZ7ji5ssUEgDWmQXjp1qmUoYjteJG4lOXuXybkLmvkvuKPW3yFiElo5gnZ03mZtEpTSXmEYvmfgN_tRoymJsh_jvYFoAIE19cThf7jLykF83-FYMYpQjI/s1600/MaisieD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPro9aUkulldKc-5GGq9ksnWaZ7ji5ssUEgDWmQXjp1qmUoYjteJG4lOXuXybkLmvkvuKPW3yFiElo5gnZ03mZtEpTSXmEYvmfgN_tRoymJsh_jvYFoAIE19cThf7jLykF83-FYMYpQjI/s320/MaisieD.jpg" width="208" /></a><b><i> </i></b><br />
<br />
<br />
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<b><i>Maisie Dobbs<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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As the first volume of a now several-volume series,
Jacqueline Winspear’s <i>Maisie Dobbs</i>
(294 pages, Penguin, $15) sets up an important back-story of the eponymously
named heroine. Maise was born just before
the start of the twentieth century, and she spent her formative years in
service. From the first, however, she
showed intelligence and verve; and before long she emerged from the downstairs
world to take lessons and eventually inspiration from the local professor,
Maurice Blache, who dabbles in detection himself. He gives Maisie and impressive reading list,
which she attacks on top of all her housework. Eventually this earns her
admission to Girton College at Cambridge, just before the outbreak of World War
I.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This novel actually flashes back to these wartime experiences, but tells us Maisie's story in the present of 1929 as she is setting herself up as
a private investigator. With the help of
her sometime assistant, Billy Beale, Maisie attempts to discover the truth
behind a wife’s seeming infidelity. This
search, enhanced by Maisie’s astonishing gift for almost visionary inspiration,
helped by her facility at mediation and projection, leads her to some hideous
mistreatment of veteran soldiers who have emerged from the war maimed and
depressed. As Maisie looks into a
supposed retreat for these men, she flashes back to her own wartime experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the war, Maisie volunteered as a nurse, and not long into
her service she meets the dashing and delightful Simon, whose own experiences
of the war turn out to have shaped her understanding of love and loss. Without spoiling these rich chapters, I can
say that they have a direct bearing on what is happening in the present, and as
Maisie struggles to understand one series of events, she finds herself working
through some of the implications of the earlier experiences.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Maisie Dobbs is an accomplished and evocative novel. My guess is that later volumes in this
series, all of which I hope to read,
will deal similarly with this period between the wars, often looking back but
sometimes looking forward as well.
Maisie Dobbs is a detective to put with the best of them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXbBN2dUioRf5kpm33o9h595w0IxL4MXRrCb_8D6EQG4MacLT0Y6cdBfoSDQ4A3TyVj-xi7qadOBZ3bX741RAHliBgOCdB0NyGjRsBZFNB4rRh3tKqU6oPyHDbYaSqiGyt9LhDyA6vNln/s1600/Jaq+W.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXbBN2dUioRf5kpm33o9h595w0IxL4MXRrCb_8D6EQG4MacLT0Y6cdBfoSDQ4A3TyVj-xi7qadOBZ3bX741RAHliBgOCdB0NyGjRsBZFNB4rRh3tKqU6oPyHDbYaSqiGyt9LhDyA6vNln/s1600/Jaq+W.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
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<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Jacqueline Winspear </b><br />
<br />
<i>Maisie Dobbs</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780142004333-29" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780142004333" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Maisie-Dobbs-Book-Jacqueline-Winspear/dp/0142004332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376877810&sr=1-1&keywords=Jacqueline+Winspear+Maisie+Dobbs" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-78038204072539183742013-08-11T14:26:00.000-07:002013-08-11T14:26:45.105-07:00Anne Korkeakivi writes an intimate thriller.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTUQxkfF9WwBSLKP7nzXJaWamoVsCXEB18-Vhhknr9_FDHrvUka4QPzxyDWr8XyTeVwEO4dVSnoF2Ibg4sATxmGMf7W0S4Gmgk9x_fuH_jc4fuMmOwUiHa2vhN5DK8elsSrLzvXVrMYVgE/s1600/annek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1lhU_d0QaGeKJyBK7nsPwZTQs766iQiMewZ40s1pm_b7Ohp0D7gQCLRAOzzaxlQ7BRa2BZvyTSGJ-UOJJA9V4jq9BjgaUUFNc7uasHOMmZH9JR1QlZ6n7Ax4U1GmUnMlVDHWacnUcD1xh/s1600/Unexp+Guest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1lhU_d0QaGeKJyBK7nsPwZTQs766iQiMewZ40s1pm_b7Ohp0D7gQCLRAOzzaxlQ7BRa2BZvyTSGJ-UOJJA9V4jq9BjgaUUFNc7uasHOMmZH9JR1QlZ6n7Ax4U1GmUnMlVDHWacnUcD1xh/s320/Unexp+Guest.jpg" width="206" /></a><br />
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<i>An Unexpected Guest </i>(277
pages, Back Bay Books, $15), a debut novel from Anne Korkeakivi, tells one day
in the life of the wife of a British foreign minister stationed in Paris. Asked to host a dinner party at the last minute,
Clare Montrose finds herself having to prepare an occasion that will determine
whether or not her husband gets his next posting, a promotion to ambassador in
a new location. She goes into automatic
pilot—organizing the staff, deciding on a menu, and working out details with
the staff of the embassy, where the dinner was originally to have been held.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As she wakes in the morning and organizes her day, another
two complications begin to envelop her.
First, she discovers that her husband’s likely posting, if the dinner is
a success, will be to Dublin. The dread she feels at this suggestion at first
remains merely atmospheric, but it is real enough. She dreads the name of the city and to go
there, she imagines, will drive her mad.
Second, she has a call from the younger of her two teenage sons, the
fifteen year-old James, or Jamie, who is in private school in London. He seems to be in some kind of trouble and is
heading home. She doesn’t know whether he has been expelled or has simply
absconded, but in either case, she is terribly worried.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As the day advances, she proceeds in her dinner
preparations, always recognizing how very important this dinner is to her
husband. Edward has been her partner for
twenty years, and she loves him deeply.
But she harbors secrets from the past that she worries might destroy
their relationship. She plans the dinner
with care—deciding to choose the vegetables and the flowers herself—and in a
wonderful scene she works out details with the very talented chef Matilde, a Swiss
and Scottish woman who steals every scene of which she is a part.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As she attends to the various details of the dinner, she
also deals with the fact of her son’s misbehavior, the details of which she
seems unable to discover, and, shortly later, his very presence at the
minister’s residence. She doesn’t want
him to upset the dinner plans—it means far too much to her husband to let her
son disrupt the evening—so she pleads with him to hide out in his room. But this doesn’t stop her worrying about what
he might have done or what might be necessary to get him back in school.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the same time, she allows herself to call up the distant
past and remember her own youthful transgression, a rather grand political
gesture, it turns out, that led her to Dublin and to activities that she
worries may have meant the deaths of innocent people. This is a rather damning interpretation of
what in reality seems to have been a young girl’s infatuation with a firebrand
from the IRA who persuaded her to do something down right foolish. That she did it, and did it successfully, is
all a measure of her feelings for the young man in question, a young Irish man,
who could persuade her to do almost anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That these memories are nagging at her more aggressively
because of her husband’s Irish posting does nothing to reassure her or
weaken their intensity, in fact they build to a climax, almost precisely when
the dinner party is meant to be coming perfectly together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The book is described as a thriller, and this is the
thrill: will the dinner party come off
as flawlessly as it needs to in order for Edward to get the Dublin
ambassadorship? can Jamie be put back on the right track? and will the memories
of Clare's political past emerge to destroy the realities of her present. Anne Korkeakivi does a fantastic job of
balancing these possibilities and making it very thrilling indeed to see what
she succeeds in accomplishing in a world as harrowing as the one she
inhabits. This is a great first novel
that bodes only better things to come.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Anne Korkeakivi</b><br />
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<i>An Unexpected Guest</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=An+Unexpected+Guest+Anne+Korkeakivi&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780316196734" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=An%20Unexpected%20Guest%20Anne%20Korkeakivi" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-43573449715033879452013-08-04T21:51:00.000-07:002013-08-04T21:51:02.531-07:00Thomas Perry writes another fascinating thriller.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">The Boyfriend<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">In Thomas Perry’s new novel,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Boyfriend </i>(228 pages, Mysterious
Press, $25), a handsome young-looking guy in his later twenties is murdering
young female escorts in various cities around the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the parents of one victim approach
the private detective Jack Till, a former police detective, they seem willing
to pay whatever it will take to find their daughter’s killer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Jack takes on the case
unwillingly: he’s not sure he can discover anything beyond what the police have
already found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when he finds
that the police have been slipshod in various ways, he gets more and more
intrigued with the details of this case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When he discovers that several girls look almost the same—thin
strawberry blonds with blue eyes and distinguishing jewelry—he thinks he is on
the trail of the killer, but still he cannot make any sense of the meaning of
the victims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">After some close calls in
various cities, Jack starts to notice that other murders, often political or
business-oriented, and usually very major murders that are like gang hits, are
happening in the same cities as the escorts' murders and he starts to connect
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">He figures out that
the murderer somehow hooks up with girls, probably online, and then stays with
them as long as it takes to carry out his real job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, before leaving, he kills the girls who have hosted
him so that there is no real record of his even having been in the city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">As the novel progresses, we
get the back story and some of the emotional involvement of the boyfriend
himself and some of his victims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perry is great at following out the implications of his tale, and at a
certain point Jack knows he has the murderer cornered, perhaps with a victim
about to be executed, and he is without police back up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s when things get really exciting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Perry is an imaginative
novelist with a hard-bitten style that is hard to resist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was pleased to happen upon this
novel, and I look forward to reading some of his other nineteen novels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Thomas Perry</b><br />
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<i>The Boyfriend</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Thomas+Perry+The+Boyfriend&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780802126061" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Thomas%20Perry%20The%20Boyfriend" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-82352194189028756262013-07-17T15:03:00.002-07:002013-07-17T15:03:36.520-07:00Ann Leary looks deeply into a New England past<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8XepIY-W5peGlK1C6F3_jf8k3AetyE713EPWr2GkJiT2Dz4pQfNjbFNN6ifPJjJ3azhI8ISO14K7ehuMScFMuvPfPNx_dwpWFHiKBcEskt3Mj07hy8d02_D_x0ukpcOXszdpAXFUEoy7S/s1600/Good+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8XepIY-W5peGlK1C6F3_jf8k3AetyE713EPWr2GkJiT2Dz4pQfNjbFNN6ifPJjJ3azhI8ISO14K7ehuMScFMuvPfPNx_dwpWFHiKBcEskt3Mj07hy8d02_D_x0ukpcOXszdpAXFUEoy7S/s320/Good+House.jpg" width="210" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;"> </span></i></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Optima;">The Good House<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">In her latest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Good House </i>(304 pages, Picador,
$15), Ann Leary tells the story of Hildy Good, a middle-aged realtor in a
coastal town north of Boston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hildy takes pride that her family can trace its origins back to the
early witch trials in Massachusetts Colony, and as she tells her story, she
seems more and more like some kind of witch herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Maybe that’s not entirely
fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the story from her
perspective, and we learn a lot of her secrets along the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One secret is that she keeps a case of
wine in the trunk of an MG in the garage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She stashed it out there because she’s been in rehab—after a family
intervention—and she doesn’t want anyone, but especially her daughters or her
now-gay ex-husband, to find out that she’s drinking again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, she feels that there is no
harm to having a glass or two of wine, but that’s utterly self-deceptive as we
quickly realize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more Hildy
drinks, the less likely she is to remember anything she has done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Her position as realtor in
the small town is threatened by the expansion of one of the national chains,
and she is struggling to stay afloat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She can’t let anyone know that either, and in her buttoned up New England
way, she tries to do what she can to get whatever clients seem likely to come
her way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">And otherwise she watches
her friends and acquaintances in the town careen into wild misbehaviors that
she both chuckles over and condemns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At times, in fact, in her inebriated states, she sometimes could be said
to cause the crises herself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">All along she is being
courted by the local garbage man, whom she has known all her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She finds the man attractive in his
way, but she can approach him only when she is drunk and able to silence the
voices in her head that tell her he’s beneath her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">All this makes wonderful
reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leary is great at making
the town so vivid that it is almost another character itself, with its
embarrassing past and brooding secrets in the present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">Many of the events of the
plot are merely of soap opera quality, but the way Hildy takes them in and the
manner in which they unfold here make them far more than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a great novel about a small
town, and about the people that manage to be larger than the town seems to be
shaping them to be.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2wf3s5EvpjFaZ1lrBVQrT7qRF0tGUU5cfqi-MroqKo0HZV9NetU0nkd-DbES94Dl7VWGqA2o2Qcm01H2tX5I0knILFTM4iWso9TyEAse2el6doRq7x6q5Lnn6-Zt2UzcaroQ7jS4mO4t/s1600/AnnLeary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2wf3s5EvpjFaZ1lrBVQrT7qRF0tGUU5cfqi-MroqKo0HZV9NetU0nkd-DbES94Dl7VWGqA2o2Qcm01H2tX5I0knILFTM4iWso9TyEAse2el6doRq7x6q5Lnn6-Zt2UzcaroQ7jS4mO4t/s1600/AnnLeary.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Optima;">Ann Leary</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Optima;"><i>The Good House</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=The+Good+House+Ann+Leary&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781250015549" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Good-House-Novel-Ann-Leary/dp/1250015545/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374098342&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Good+House+Ann+Leary" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-46087850620306138042013-07-08T00:17:00.000-07:002013-07-08T00:17:02.830-07:00Mohsin Hamid tells a parable about richness and poverty in Asia<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgSv-SCapXLvh9uKM-JtE4GQ_-00EYrO43QXdKipcehl_SSkrR4b8EasAwoCXSGrqPi8YEXW4Jzh4FarXbHD0yirEO-cEs-p0QlXwjInkmmLknaTrdsY2n_Ke9zf1X00r5kFmVwG0rdMsp/s1600/Filthy+Rich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgSv-SCapXLvh9uKM-JtE4GQ_-00EYrO43QXdKipcehl_SSkrR4b8EasAwoCXSGrqPi8YEXW4Jzh4FarXbHD0yirEO-cEs-p0QlXwjInkmmLknaTrdsY2n_Ke9zf1X00r5kFmVwG0rdMsp/s320/Filthy+Rich.jpg" width="211" /></a><b><i><span style="font-family: Optima;"> </span></i></b><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Optima;">How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">Mohsin Hamid’s recent
novel, <i>How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia </i>(240
pages, Riverhead, $25.95), is something of a tour de force. At a time when life stories from Asia are
overwhelming in their length and breadth, Hamid tells a very simple tale about
how a poor Asian, in an unnamed country, with a little bit of talent and
know-how, can profit in a system that is corrupt and make the most out of the ignorance
of his countrymen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">The narrator talks to the
hero, who is never named, in the second person, which adds an intimacy, and he often uses the language of
self-help books to suggest the path form obscure poverty to corporate
power. The chapters move quickly and
each takes us through an important stage of development of our hero.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">What goes up must also come
down, and it is not ruining the story to say that the greed and self-satisfaction
that brings about ascendency can also undermine it in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">What marks the growth and
development of the hero, as much as the schemes he develops or the money he
saves, is the love he feels for a girl, who is known throughout as “the pretty
girl.” At first it seems that she is out
of his league, but he is handsome and powerful in his way, and it seems that she
is attracted to him as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">They are both on the make,
however, and she can’t stop with a young nobody: she has too much to achieve. And with her good looks and her moxie, she
more than succeeds to fulfill her dreams. As the hero grows in power, every so often he
runs into her again, and their brief encounters serve to punctuate the degree
to which they have fulfilled their dreams and how much that can mean to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Optima;">As short as the novel is,
it is very powerful. I called it a parable above, and I think it does work that
way. The hero is an Asian everyman, and
this is the progress he is meant to pursue. The implications
of the story are deeply moving, and even as we see the hero making bad choices,
there is little we can imagine as an alternative to the choices he makes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Optima;">I have not read Hamid’s
novels before this—this one is his third—but I will certainly watch for any new
ones. His talent is considerable.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEinAJ2GlKTV6b2LNe6YbHTle4CADTp8ofQGo3wELS-CKRHii-dW5kIGpUtreEut41vhFBndovwEroNi5ciCXKtuj9dLVEsDMXDNa1Bs8C-ibxQeADR9tSB6DEvBuJ2c4F7CaWrWFuUJb/s1600/Muhsin+Hamid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEinAJ2GlKTV6b2LNe6YbHTle4CADTp8ofQGo3wELS-CKRHii-dW5kIGpUtreEut41vhFBndovwEroNi5ciCXKtuj9dLVEsDMXDNa1Bs8C-ibxQeADR9tSB6DEvBuJ2c4F7CaWrWFuUJb/s320/Muhsin+Hamid.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Optima;">Muhsin Hamid</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"><i>How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9781594487293-0" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781594487293" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Filthy-Rich-Rising-Asia/dp/1594487294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373176449&sr=1-1&keywords=How+to+Get+Filthy+Rich+in+Rising+Asia" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Optima;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-37028913098244324812013-04-13T23:02:00.001-07:002013-04-13T23:02:33.689-07:00B. A. Shapiro leads us into art theft and forgery in this thriller.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqwjYB0WSq_Jq_l49QrCH7N-zmxI5zYF3TkDZ_-ICcXCwWb_ZzEfA8xYIhCT82zteKAfJNR0UBWRji_Wzbst2NJz-K3NGS9oKp1PqGyHNyB5Sd80K2ACzem_m3vs__Qa-b6MhVc-DdbFuz/s1600/ArtForger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqwjYB0WSq_Jq_l49QrCH7N-zmxI5zYF3TkDZ_-ICcXCwWb_ZzEfA8xYIhCT82zteKAfJNR0UBWRji_Wzbst2NJz-K3NGS9oKp1PqGyHNyB5Sd80K2ACzem_m3vs__Qa-b6MhVc-DdbFuz/s320/ArtForger.jpg" width="212" /></a><br />
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<br />
Art thrillers are in a class of their own, and this is a
good one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Art Forger</i> (368 pages, Algonquin Books, $23.95), we meet Claire
Roth, a frustrated Boston artist who supports herself by doing truly wonderful
copies of great paintings, for which folks pay enough to her employer
Reproductions.com that she can keep a roof over her head and a meal or two on the table
every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Most of the time she nurses a loss and a grievance, which
are so intertwined that it is almost maddening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her former lover, also a painter, took credit for a work
that she created, and when it became the toast of the art world, he refused to
even speak to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she tried
to claim her rightful place, she was rebuffed and before she could even challenge
this guy, he took his own life and left her with guilt and blame galore.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So she is surprised when she is approached by a handsome and
suave gallery owner, Aiden Markel, who has a proposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her reproduction specialty is Edgar Degas, and Aiden asks her to make a copy of one of the great Degas paintings
that was stolen some years before from the Isabelle Stuart Gardner Museum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says that he has gained access to
the painting, and he wants to swap her copy for the real one with his buyer,
and then return the original to the Museum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He offers her a tidy sum and a show in his gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She can not talk herself into refusing.</div>
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As the novel proceeds, we watch her carefully as she sets
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carefully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
fascinating process, but in the middle of it, Claire begins to think that the
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<br /></div>
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Be that as it may, she proceeds with her project, even as
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to get her own painting back on track.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everything explodes before she gets to have the show she was
anticipating, but her hard work pays off in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t ruin the thrill of the ending, but I can say that it
is very satisfying.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If you like thinking about French art of the late-nineteenth
century or have a thing for the Gardner Museum, this novel is for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t know about those things,
you will learn a lot about them here.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHRq0CtFAVDRBqPvsmI1yRmdM9Deze8KhG_G7xhgQJXB2JxSOuvaL6PHhtF_Lex04BCzefu43Phby-CgaoNnzwGnaswGHVhnD75I8PTEe58Esp-pOydTeltuQco_nkrZAmfkQKwnsZreX/s1600/BAShapiro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHRq0CtFAVDRBqPvsmI1yRmdM9Deze8KhG_G7xhgQJXB2JxSOuvaL6PHhtF_Lex04BCzefu43Phby-CgaoNnzwGnaswGHVhnD75I8PTEe58Esp-pOydTeltuQco_nkrZAmfkQKwnsZreX/s1600/BAShapiro.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>B. A. Shapiro</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Art Forger</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=B.+A.+Shapiro+The+Art+Forger&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/B.%20A.%20Shapiro%20The%20Art%20Forger" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=B.%20A.%20Shapiro%20The%20Art%20Forger" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-14355326226287024032013-03-23T20:40:00.002-07:002013-03-23T20:40:42.994-07:00Matthew Quick takes on bi-polar disorder in this fine novel.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLXjv1ageSukVqPUJnsh0O5lljKkOdb0kq7FY4sGaABxYzDxTDY_R0rkMyvEPZ1Od02S3iAuUX1G8-JhpUWmXc0AFwnB8vURE7eQEUSqSoCs5ZF-SwxQN6Y93kGYC2_X00tYjCfeFWlje/s1600/silver+linings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLXjv1ageSukVqPUJnsh0O5lljKkOdb0kq7FY4sGaABxYzDxTDY_R0rkMyvEPZ1Od02S3iAuUX1G8-JhpUWmXc0AFwnB8vURE7eQEUSqSoCs5ZF-SwxQN6Y93kGYC2_X00tYjCfeFWlje/s320/silver+linings.jpg" width="212" /></a><br />
<br />
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<i>The Silver Linings
Playbook</i> (304 pages, Sarah Crichton Books, $15), a film version of which
was recently celebrated at the Academy Awards, is Matthew Quick’s attempt to
tell, in a humorous way, the horror of dealing with bi-polar disorder in a
tightly-knit family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Pat Peoples comes out of the psychiatric hospital with a hazy
memory of the last several years. He
does not remember why he was in the hospital or what happened between himself and
his wife Nikki. He just knows that he
and she are spending some time apart—“apart time”—and that he has to make himself
the best person he can be in order to be worthy of getting back together with
her.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It becomes clear to the reader right away that this will
never be. His mother has hidden pictures
of Nikki and any wedding pictures she had, and she refuses to talk about Nikki
when Pat brings her up. His therapist
Cliff, too, at least until he builds trust, seems to want to shift his attention
away from Nikki.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But the novel shows us that Pat can think of barely anything
else. When he meets the sister of his
best friend’s wife, herself recently bereaved, he does not know how to deal with
her, and when she starts to come on to him, he thinks she must not understand about
his marriage. In these first attempts at
seduction, the two characters dissolve in tears together, and that should be a
sign of how much they could share.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Tiffany does not give up: she jogs alongside Pat and she
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but friends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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He builds intimacy with his family, especially with his
brother, by getting back into the Philadelphia football team, the Eagles, and
by trying to help his mother deal with his impossible father. Pat’s father’s moods are run by the
developments in football, and nobody can deal with him when the Eagles lose.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Another great football fan turns out to be Cliff, the therapist,
and the bond they establish because of the game enables Pat to make some progress
toward recovery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Tiffany also helps. In the first place, she promises to bring Pat
letters from Nikki. In exchange she asks
him to dance with her in a local dance competition. Pat resists, but he finally agrees, and every
step he thinks is bringing him close to Niiki, is really bringing him closer to Tiffany.<br />
<br />
<i>The Silver Linings
Playbook</i> is a wonderful portrayal of the struggle for mental health. It is also a vivid account of family love and
family responsibility. It has been made
into a powerful film, but that’s because the novel is so wonderful to being
with. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVUDlEt-5zo6Y1C8IyKb13knefnpfr3_v4m6GWjwgHnz66cI98N47EAZ0RFfIivh9ohQH7Kam-BYuiwkgAVCBOav11YCCn_ldME1V4Af120L9Fu5qY1gcLDchc2TYr_bJSXkdQ_0mgjhL/s1600/MATTHEW-QUICK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNVUDlEt-5zo6Y1C8IyKb13knefnpfr3_v4m6GWjwgHnz66cI98N47EAZ0RFfIivh9ohQH7Kam-BYuiwkgAVCBOav11YCCn_ldME1V4Af120L9Fu5qY1gcLDchc2TYr_bJSXkdQ_0mgjhL/s320/MATTHEW-QUICK.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
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<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<i></i><br /><o:p></o:p>
<b>Matthew Quick</b><br />
<br /><o:p></o:p>
<i>The Silver Linings Playbook</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/66-9780330456845-0" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780374532284" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Silver+Linings+Playbook+Matthew+Quick" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.<br /><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-17239505671432030322013-03-10T17:46:00.002-07:002013-03-10T17:46:32.944-07:00Barbara Vine unfolds another lurid mystery<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Barbara Vine is a pseudonym for Ruth Rendell, the renowned
mystery writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She uses Barbara
Vine for her racier tales, and this is certainly one.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBrMZablE37qA5SPbDKhdSIPmjIaTcnxC32HJuvRJK2mdNNIqjVn9WJ5UUH30br82zotcQFWnIlZllN0sHH-gyOT4JWmkjbqcGCKH0EZaxyRKzS60wHnOU-Phhjh3SI4DxINisb3SJSN3A/s1600/Childs+Child.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBrMZablE37qA5SPbDKhdSIPmjIaTcnxC32HJuvRJK2mdNNIqjVn9WJ5UUH30br82zotcQFWnIlZllN0sHH-gyOT4JWmkjbqcGCKH0EZaxyRKzS60wHnOU-Phhjh3SI4DxINisb3SJSN3A/s320/Childs+Child.jpg" width="211" /></a> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Child’s Child</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under the pen-name Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell writes a
compelling mystery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Child’s Child </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(320 pages, Scribner, $26) has a simple
thesis: a gay man and his sister—Andrew and Grace Easton—argue about whether
gay men had it worse when they were persecuted for sodomy, as was Oscar Wilde,
than did unwed mothers, of countless number, who lost much else beyond
respectability when they transgressed or were led astray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vicitmization in both cases is severe,
and the disagreement cannot be won.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But since we are reading Ruth Rendell, the situation will replicate
itself in fiction, and it does in spades.</div>
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<br /></div>
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For one thing, Andrew, who is gay, brings a lover into the
house which he shares with his sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grace does not like a thing about Andrew’s lover James, but she does
acknowledge that he is handsome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When Andrew and James witness a brutal gay bashing near a London pub,
they are shattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea that
they may have to testify in court sends James nearly bonkers, and he worries
himself into a state of hysteria.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, Grace has started reading a manuscript of a
recently deceased gay novelist that the publisher is unsure about whether to
publish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Set in the later 1920s,
it concerns a case of a closeted homosexual and his tormented unwed but
pregnant sister. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because John, the
brother, knows he will never marry, he agrees to pose as Maud, his sister’s
husband, and protect her when the family has turned its back on her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She takes John’s help, but she cannot
brook his tentative attempts to express his sexuality with a friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story ends tragically, as indeed
it must, but then it also reflects back onto Grace and Andrew and their
confusing lives together.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is almost as if the earlier tale—the story within a
story—haunts the later tale with its fatalism and brutality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contemporary figures have to decide
whether they have any more clarity about experience than those earlier ones
did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is frightening when they
have to confront similar limitations, but it is even more harrowing when they
actually manage to confront them.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rendell has written a fine and deeply complex novel that
will keep you thinking for long time after reading it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVK9eDbdmXwn7SiddXGpVH_IX1oTKZbWVH8hZXWeXfCVKrEHE4GGFEgBYTC1JW0e2N0KLgNTR0_1BuRYcp4XkA6k_xEb4jfZ4_QvaapbXmzl-lYRi8tnGY_kRjZ_HQRb-ps4Ie9FndLIt/s1600/ruth-rendell-barbara-vine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVK9eDbdmXwn7SiddXGpVH_IX1oTKZbWVH8hZXWeXfCVKrEHE4GGFEgBYTC1JW0e2N0KLgNTR0_1BuRYcp4XkA6k_xEb4jfZ4_QvaapbXmzl-lYRi8tnGY_kRjZ_HQRb-ps4Ie9FndLIt/s1600/ruth-rendell-barbara-vine.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
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<br />
<b>Barbara Vine</b> (Ruth Rendell)<br />
<br />
<i>The Child's Child</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s3?kw=The+Child%27s+Child+Barbara+Vine&title=&author=&publisher=&section=&class=0&binding=0&sort=by_relevance&location=all&received_date=0&perpage=25&isbn=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781451694895" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Childs-Child-Novel-Barbara-Vine/dp/145169489X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362962450&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Child%27s+Child+Barbara+Vine" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-53100326963603305872013-03-03T18:22:00.002-08:002013-03-03T18:22:52.140-08:00Sadie Jones captures life in 1912<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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This new novel builds on Sadie Jones’s reputation as a deft
historical novelist.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyrYEaN0yMk2EFCrF6IhBWdJoJel-nS92zDFBHB0mAa2GYI7V8NOITPfaiRgbDWNdSRO7MaNWeQKA-gOfj_ZK6svN-PwJuSGsuoORs4_ky84JdEL4s7an3FIDZbZA1F5HOTqQaNqBDkwrU/s1600/Uninvited+Guests.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyrYEaN0yMk2EFCrF6IhBWdJoJel-nS92zDFBHB0mAa2GYI7V8NOITPfaiRgbDWNdSRO7MaNWeQKA-gOfj_ZK6svN-PwJuSGsuoORs4_ky84JdEL4s7an3FIDZbZA1F5HOTqQaNqBDkwrU/s320/Uninvited+Guests.jpg" width="207" /></a> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Uninvited Guests<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sadie Jones’s engaging tale of life before the First World
War is intriguing on a number of levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Uninvited Guests </i>(288
pages, Harper, $14.99) tells the story of an almost well-heeled family
struggling to keep Sterne, the country house they love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Edward Swift, step-father and
husband, goes to the city to attempt to secure a loan, the remaining family
members try to put a fine face on the situation and celebrate the birthday of
Emerald, the oldest daughter.</div>
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There are three children in the family, Horace Torrington’s
children, it seems: Emerald is a girl just poised on becoming a beautiful young
woman; her older brother Clovis is twenty and utterly bored with his life, and
especially with his new step-father who seems unable to connect with the boy;
finally, there is Isabel, or Smudge, who is the creative child who spends her
time drawing her animals and walking on the roof.</div>
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Emerald and Clovis understand each other, and when they go
off together riding their favorite horses, they break through the tensions of
family life and seem to connect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Often, though, they are at cross-purposes because Clovis simply does not
care.</div>
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Charlotte Torrington Swift is a nervous woman who loves the
house and dreads its loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has
little faith in her husband’s ability to save the place. She spends a lot of
the novel locked away in her room, letting the servants Florence and Myrtle
keep the family fed and protected.</div>
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The shaky equilibrium of the family is shaken further when old
friends—Patience and Ernest Sutton—visit to help celebrate Emerald’s birthday. These
visitors both challenge the Torringtons with memories of the people they used
to be and awake in them a kind of sexual desire they have not experienced
before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emerald finds herself
gazing into the bespectacled eyes of Ernest in hopes of finding the boy she
knew, and in doing so, she falls deeply in love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clovis finds he wants to spend every minute with Patience,
but he is not quite sure why.</div>
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As party preparations get under way, an odd assortment of
people arrive at the house, with the story that there has been a train crash
and a number of people will have to be accommodated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The family shunts the group into a back room and tries to
figure out what to do; but one of the group singles himself out as a special
friend of the family.</div>
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Things go from bad to worse when the number of uninvited guests
increases and the family begins to feel embattled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even worse, the guest who had seemed to single himself out
as a friend becomes a terror, introducing the kind of drinking game that leaves
everyone devastated, but not before he has attacked Charlotte and accused her
of being unfaithful to her husband.</div>
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After they come out of this drunken haze, they manage to
find beds for all the guests and even to cope with Smudge’s brilliant idea of
getting her pony into the upper floors of the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting the horse down becomes a family
enterprise that brings all the young people together.</div>
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In the morning the guests are gone and they begin to put the
house back together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edward Swift
comes home with a shocking tale of a train crash, and everyone has to wonder
where those quests actually came from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The real question, though, is whether Edward has found the money to save
the house.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZKcFUSIRI8_p9kuclqtY5GClLryD9KZrUVWKyhscP6LCwbP9ObEfkd7Wh_6Izk40GPzl9yKhX_LeE9Cl8SqABAxVS-bFyFjwtgARe8ozEjpQ8de7aF9B92OljsLfgNvP0wmWvJypI0Cz/s1600/Jones+Sadie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZKcFUSIRI8_p9kuclqtY5GClLryD9KZrUVWKyhscP6LCwbP9ObEfkd7Wh_6Izk40GPzl9yKhX_LeE9Cl8SqABAxVS-bFyFjwtgARe8ozEjpQ8de7aF9B92OljsLfgNvP0wmWvJypI0Cz/s320/Jones+Sadie.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
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<b>Sadie Jones</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Uninvited Guests</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=The+Uninvited+Guests+Sadie+Jones&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/The%20Uninvited%20Guests%20Sadie%20Jones" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Uninvited-Guests-Novel-P-S/dp/0062116517/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362363438&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Uninvited+Guests+Sadie+Jones" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-42375026515856407892013-02-24T16:06:00.001-08:002013-02-24T16:06:55.218-08:00 Trebor Healey’s new novel tells a bittersweet story of young love. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I think Trebor Healey is a wonderful novelist, and this new
work is really compelling.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gk5obim-4Qw2YUsXLbML7YnJ9Ns5-PCtCYE7gouve1YQzn9MgqfLYH8pzNgUjYjqbjcOeAwQpyaV0vRCUAn-ZwSN7tUThVt1RYngy3xrsMcSR3dhCU6kVsqO98s_rmtAdJg0LQm3AzPg/s1600/Horse+Named+Sorrow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gk5obim-4Qw2YUsXLbML7YnJ9Ns5-PCtCYE7gouve1YQzn9MgqfLYH8pzNgUjYjqbjcOeAwQpyaV0vRCUAn-ZwSN7tUThVt1RYngy3xrsMcSR3dhCU6kVsqO98s_rmtAdJg0LQm3AzPg/s320/Horse+Named+Sorrow.JPG" width="212" /></a> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Horse Named Sorrow<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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Trebor Healey’s new novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Horse Named Sorrow </i>(248 pages, Univesrity of Wisconsin, $26.95),
tells the bittersweet story of young love in San Francisco in the 1980s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seamus falls in love with Jimmy the
first time he seems him wheeling his bike along the streets of San
Francisco.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jimmy says he has
ridden his bike from New York State, and Seamus finds the young vagabond sexy
and appealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He invites the boy
home and they have a good time, but Jimmy is off again before morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seamus realizes he has fallen in love,
and it takes him a long time to find Jimmy again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jimmy is happy to see Seamus too, but he is ill and he
wanted to protect the other boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Seamus is committed and he cares for Jimmy till the end, promising
him that he will return his ashes to Buffalo, New York, his home.</div>
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Seamus decides, however, to travel back across the country
in the same manner that Jimmy arrived, by bicycle. So off he goes, on Jimmy’s
bike, with Jimmy’s ashes on the handlebars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As crazy as this scheme might seem, it emerges out of
Seamus’s love for Jimmy, and Healey is wonderful at creating this deeply felt
compulsion that for Seamus is the only possible response to loss and longing.</div>
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The trip itself is one of the wonderful road trips in
American fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seamus
encounters all the misfits and marginal characters of the great American
homeland, and his attempt to carry Jimmy to safety engages him with souls as
lost as he is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this trip
teaches Seamus about loss, it also begins to give his life the meaning he
thought it lacked. Healey gets inside Seamus in a way that teaches us what it means to be caught up in the misery of love and loss.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It would be a cliché to say that Seamus discovers himself as
he travels east with Jimmy’s ashes, but it is not a cliché as you watch this
happen to a young man coming to terms with grief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Healey creates the power of young love and the devastating
effect it has on the two young men who experience it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bicycle trip puts the power of that love into terms that
everyone can understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seamus
cannot put words to his grief, but then he does not really have to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead he gives it the shape of this
journey, which transforms him and starts to make him whole again.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicvefb9ldJQer49hVeitCg5lxZX2J2eZ5OnLWFEkurwjhtg0QxUg0kUJRO6b4KpkD0ntzlw42BESCXGbFD9gmXGbWM-L4Sq1ubc8HYZbC0sK6VIOIXA9Tt9FMxl4W2TOpSUJo9acnkRL4/s1600/Healey.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicvefb9ldJQer49hVeitCg5lxZX2J2eZ5OnLWFEkurwjhtg0QxUg0kUJRO6b4KpkD0ntzlw42BESCXGbFD9gmXGbWM-L4Sq1ubc8HYZbC0sK6VIOIXA9Tt9FMxl4W2TOpSUJo9acnkRL4/s1600/Healey.jpeg" /></a></div>
</div>
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<br />
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<br />
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<br />
<b>Trebor Healey</b><br />
<br />
<i>A Horse Named Sorrow</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780299289706-1" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780299289706" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Trebor+Healey+A+Horse+Named+Sorrow" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-29929948567096007792013-02-16T23:13:00.000-08:002013-02-16T23:13:00.900-08:00Elizabeth Bowen emerges as a twentieth-century novelist to celebrate.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I was thinking about the novelist Elizabeth Bowen when I saw
that the University of Chicago was reprinting her titles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a delight to read her once again.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD39QplQlwNvXmhf3-aOBtr27kair31xQ65_tgmjRNYfANncQRFlUU4g9QMTbiilt0sn5rmMAHwITNT27kFdBrl_YZCEYeHEg4Gp_D1hNYOTDiiUsWHHlypQ4rDIPsAWLxWyTWOdItGmAU/s1600/hotel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD39QplQlwNvXmhf3-aOBtr27kair31xQ65_tgmjRNYfANncQRFlUU4g9QMTbiilt0sn5rmMAHwITNT27kFdBrl_YZCEYeHEg4Gp_D1hNYOTDiiUsWHHlypQ4rDIPsAWLxWyTWOdItGmAU/s320/hotel.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hotel<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Elizabeth Bowen’s first novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hotel</i> (199 pages, University of Chicago Press, $16) was first
published in 1927.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first
it reminds one of E. M. Forster’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Room with a View.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A group of
English tourists are gathered in a hotel, in this case on the Italian Riviera,
and their interactions form the basis of the novelist’s material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bowen departs from Forster in that she
keeps the characters at the hotel throughout the novel, and she pushes them
even more brutally against one another than Forster ever quite manages.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are many characters who feel very familiar to the
novelist, as if she knows them personally, but they only appear in a few scenes
and only comment on the activity of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The central characters include a young woman who is not sure
what she really wants; a group of three sisters who are very clear about what
they want; and a couple of men of various ages who are panting after the young
girls.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bowen writes beautifully and her irony is positively
rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her irony creates a distance
between the narrator and these young characters, and it places them almost as
if they were participating in an experiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, Bowen gives them enough complexity to make them
intriguing, and that is the biggest challenge to a novelist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More interesting than any of these romances or potential
romances are the relationships between and among the women themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heroine of the tale, Sydney, is most
devoted to an older woman, Mrs. Kerr.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mrs. Kerr is thoughtful and devoted until her son arrives to spend time
with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she becomes unavailable
to Sydney, the young girl loses her head a bit and finds herself committing
to a marriage that she does not even want.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bowen does not say anything directly about the relation
between the women, although certain characters gossip about it, but she makes
it clear that the women depend on an intimacy that no one else fully
understands.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hotel </i>is a
deeply satisfying novel, and I hope to read (or reread) more of Bowen’s
novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has been a bit lost
among mid-century novelists, but these new editions may find her a whole new
set of readers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am happy to
count myself among them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRrbKdzMor6TxGgZeKCmfniSv_0MdN3LHlLXOwqzlLMc-VE21oFcCAG1aaV7_r-sl12RrOKm5GdZxjSNGPGKG-acBuaFJ86VgXwUX5AVx6LRPaujOnFcbwAHE3E5CRycpzR48C87BeBFhS/s1600/e_bowen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRrbKdzMor6TxGgZeKCmfniSv_0MdN3LHlLXOwqzlLMc-VE21oFcCAG1aaV7_r-sl12RrOKm5GdZxjSNGPGKG-acBuaFJ86VgXwUX5AVx6LRPaujOnFcbwAHE3E5CRycpzR48C87BeBFhS/s320/e_bowen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Elizabeth Bowen</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Hotel</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780226925240-0" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780226925240" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hotel-Novel-Elizabeth-Bowen/dp/0226925242/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361084883&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Hotel+Elizabeth+Bowen" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-32288250198888837762013-02-03T21:14:00.002-08:002013-02-03T21:14:23.981-08:00Tana French composes a chilling mystery for a summer’s reading.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I have read a couple of Tana French’s thrillers, always enjoying
them, but I resisted this one for some reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then when Amazon.com sent a teaser about it, I decided
to give in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a powerful tale.<br />
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssnCGlxhXXj8rJbCAJyfUl0KnYEmrClwK3BvA_hmpY1xVQiOE43B_DO6vYMXqD3BOP3qkB0SdSxRn_tfl06qakkRcdbBuZNSc8VmzU4r7lNnt2iC3tjLW38cYBoPpLC1njXESi7wfM-IA/s1600/Broken+Har.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssnCGlxhXXj8rJbCAJyfUl0KnYEmrClwK3BvA_hmpY1xVQiOE43B_DO6vYMXqD3BOP3qkB0SdSxRn_tfl06qakkRcdbBuZNSc8VmzU4r7lNnt2iC3tjLW38cYBoPpLC1njXESi7wfM-IA/s320/Broken+Har.jpg" width="210" /></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Broken Harbor<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Broken Harbor</i>
(464 pages, Viking Adult, $27.95), the title of this novel, names a seaside location on the
Irish coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the boom of
the early twentieth century, developers renamed it Brianstown, and it is in this
faceless and only partially completed development that Detective “Scorcher”
Kennedy is called to a hideous case.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Someone has murdered, or attempted to murder an entire
family living in this already decrepit development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pat Spain and his wife Jenny are found lying in pools of
blood in the sun-filled kitchen, and upstairs in separate bedrooms, young Jack
and Emma are also found dead.</div>
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As the police arrive and the scene is examined, it is first
discovered that Jenny is hanging onto life in spite of several knife
wounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first thought is that
these wounds might be self-inflicted, but their disposition makes that
unlikely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pat’s wounds, a couple
of which would easily have been mortal, might well be self-inflicted, but
Kennedy, with his young and urban-smart partner, Curran, who’s really on his
first big case, have trouble coming up with motive or intent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing seems to have been stolen, and
although there are several gaping holes in the walls, there is no certain way
to connect them to the crime.</div>
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Everyone talks about Pat and Jenny and the kids as a model
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They moved to Brianstown
for the space and the location near the sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many other amenties were promised by the developers, but
they were never more than promises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the economy tanked—the recession in Ireland was as bad as
anywhere—even building stopped and many houses remained half-completed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still Pat and jenny made the best of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kids went to the best
schools and pre-schools, the parents socialized widely, and friends and realtives
alike admired the couple.</div>
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Some months before the tragedy, however, Pat lost his job,
and rather than finding a new one quickly, he sank into the ranks of the
unemployed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having been a champion
bread-winner, he was hard hit by this; but jenny rallied round and it seemed
that everything was still okay for the family.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Kennedy and Curran investigate, they find a different story;
or, in fact, many different stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For one thing, a young web-designer, who turns out to have had a crush
on Pat and Jenny as a couple and on Jenny especially, from their days as
teenagers, turns out to have been camped out in a nearby house, where he could
watch all the doings of the Spain household through binoculars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would be a prime suspect, but he is
so quick to confess to the crimes that it is almost impossible to believe him.</div>
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Young Curran seems to want to pin the crime on Pat, but
Kennedy feels that he is heroic in many ways, and can hardly imagine him
murdering his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This drives
the partners apart, and creates a whole of lot of tension around the case.</div>
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Even worse, though, is Kennedy’s own history with Broken
Harbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems his mother killed
herself when the family was on holiday there many years before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His own relation to the place would in
any case therefore be fraught, but it is even more tormenting because his young
seemingly schizophrenic sister keeps reminding him of those horrors.</div>
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Out of this psychological maelstrom, French creates an even
more harrowing and powerful tale that is as Irish as it is twenty-first century,
and as filled with contemporary concerns as it is with the age-old tenets of
detective fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a true
triumph of the genre.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQjj5qJP0CUN6Q27Ni13N7i6QAZc3soS2UjDl3skXuIwWIKAJcu6ouAst57CoXSZu7U5bnyf7Zb-jeIkrg_OfjdEVRz4pMP-rlMub3kU5t2xg_q5vnEmRGEHmWtYneF3cNiVt8_vEyUPwF/s1600/TanaFrench.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQjj5qJP0CUN6Q27Ni13N7i6QAZc3soS2UjDl3skXuIwWIKAJcu6ouAst57CoXSZu7U5bnyf7Zb-jeIkrg_OfjdEVRz4pMP-rlMub3kU5t2xg_q5vnEmRGEHmWtYneF3cNiVt8_vEyUPwF/s320/TanaFrench.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Tana French</b><br />
<br />
<i>Broken Harbor</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780670023653-5" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780670023653" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Tana+French+Broken+Harbor" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-26838082249854165332013-01-27T00:27:00.000-08:002013-01-27T19:52:46.144-08:00Michael Chabon creates a rich Oakland history.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I love Michael Chabon’s novels, and I got this latest as
soon as it was out.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFlBssTnxwdXTnsj_Wti-HMPlFWtGlb70yfrdrGeSAOQMuOAZDozKDqa0D5k4nCGEjfALbCShAOTByzPnELI1aSV3yLd48i4RBxlpI5IMibPdD3voTB1rQAv95h5pQ2pMVmDMu2rjYO7C/s1600/Tel+Ave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFlBssTnxwdXTnsj_Wti-HMPlFWtGlb70yfrdrGeSAOQMuOAZDozKDqa0D5k4nCGEjfALbCShAOTByzPnELI1aSV3yLd48i4RBxlpI5IMibPdD3voTB1rQAv95h5pQ2pMVmDMu2rjYO7C/s320/Tel+Ave.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Telegraph Avenue</i></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael Chabon’s latest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Telegraph Avenue</i> (468 pages, Harper, $27.99), tells the story of
the painful and inevitable demise of a used record emporium on Telegraph Avenue
in Oakland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The feckless owners
and managers of the store, Nat Jaffe and Archy Stallings, Jewish and Black
respectively, have a long standing friendship and a very deep love of recherché
vinyl recordings of musical greats of jazz and rock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The store is located just over the border from Berkeley, and
the ethos of the novel is richly imbued with an East Bay understanding of what
matters in the world.</div>
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Like the barbershop of black neighborhoods, Brokeland
Records, is a gathering place of a group of eccentrics that Chabon creates with
love and respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition to
the two owners, who are eccentric enough, there are various familiar-seeming
types.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The local politico, the
aging dandy who sports a parrot, other broken but fascinating men: all come
alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But perhaps they seem so
familiar because Chabon has invoked them so effortlessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every conversation dances on the page. </div>
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Archy and Nat have wives Gwen and Aviva, and these women,
both legendary midwives, are central characters as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact their scenes around birth and
birth crises and in the local hospitals are some of the best in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gwen is pregnant with what she thinks
will be Archy’s first child, but when a long lost son Titus arrives from
somewhere back east, she is thrown for a loop, and so is Archy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Nat and Aviva’s son Julius who is
just discovering that he is gay, finds Titus the very hero that he has needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The friendship between Titus and Julius
is one of the most beautiful features of the novel.</div>
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All the wonderful friendships presented here—that between
Nat and Archy, that between Gwen and Aviva, and that between the boys—are
challenged in various ways, as indeed are all the marriages and the business
relationships too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ways in
which these characters cope with the difficulties of their lives is what makes
this novel so fascinating.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When the novel opens, a local hero, a wealthy black
ex-NFL-quarterback, returns to the area and plans to build a huge arts-music
center that will of course swallow up Brokeland Records.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A great deal of energy goes into
resisting this takeover, but as the resistance starts to fail, these characters
become distracted in other ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Time passes and change is inevitable, but not all change is for the
worse.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is novel about faith in people and faith in their
ability to do the right thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is also<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> a </span>novel about how hard it is
sometimes to see what the right thing is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I hardly need to add that the novel is gorgeously written and breathtakingly
plotted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are so used to great
novels from Michael Chabon that we might even start to take them for
granted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But whatever our
expectations might be, this is a really great novel by any measure.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-J35y85QZ5cTHjMPT-KcF3RBO5twnmVcBnC8qAK3ERnqU12f9AttzPb3_jvWSk9OpKt32kPQcdiqaShcuyi51i2DSwXSddlvqAskvJ-dhP3f5_3ZRVdkMdv7Vb_0MG8NfXjT3XZ_0UCLl/s1600/michael-chabon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-J35y85QZ5cTHjMPT-KcF3RBO5twnmVcBnC8qAK3ERnqU12f9AttzPb3_jvWSk9OpKt32kPQcdiqaShcuyi51i2DSwXSddlvqAskvJ-dhP3f5_3ZRVdkMdv7Vb_0MG8NfXjT3XZ_0UCLl/s320/michael-chabon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><b>Michael Chabon</b><br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<i>Telegraph Avenue</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Michael+Chabon+Telegraph+Avenue&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/Michael%20Chabon%20Telegraph%20Avenue" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Telegraph-Avenue-Novel-Michael-Chabon/dp/0061493341/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359274908&sr=1-1&keywords=Michael+Chabon+Telegraph+Avenue" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.<br />
<!--[endif]--></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-26835721659858670762013-01-19T19:29:00.000-08:002013-01-19T19:29:04.107-08:00Peter Robinson writes about loss and guilt in a time of war.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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An award winning novelist, Peter Robinson has this time hit
on another winning combination.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiVuqIU-nFQmw2Duz3Tp4dT3dFSUXpggeil5558vRnqWMiWRSPHIJQtbf-wwtrT1y-OJEcjwBStL2PXZqpfHBtv8KlCiijEFjc0g8ErhXYyuz75_-wXOjgZDECtZqA3HeKCwQj7zWm3_kY/s1600/Before+Poison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiVuqIU-nFQmw2Duz3Tp4dT3dFSUXpggeil5558vRnqWMiWRSPHIJQtbf-wwtrT1y-OJEcjwBStL2PXZqpfHBtv8KlCiijEFjc0g8ErhXYyuz75_-wXOjgZDECtZqA3HeKCwQj7zWm3_kY/s320/Before+Poison.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Before the Poison</i></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter Robinson’s latest novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Before the Poison </i>(368 pages, Willliam Morrow, $25), tells the story of
Chris Lowndes, a Hollywood musician and composer, whose many successes with
film music has led him to leave Hollywood after thirty years and return to
Yorkshire in England, where he was from originally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now a rich man, he negotiates from afar to buy a splendid
country house in an isolated corner of Yorkshire, near a village called
Richmond, and there he hopes to come to terms with the death of his wife,
perhaps write the piano sonata that has hounded him for several years, and of
course do the odd film job that was sure to come his way.</div>
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Heather Barlow, his forty-something redhead estate agent
(realtor) has sold him a house with quite a history, it turns out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She tells him the first time they
are flirting over drinks (she is unhappily married to a businessman), that in the
early fifties a doctor died in the house during a snow storm, and after several days what
had seemed to be a heart attack became a murder case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grace Fox, the doctor’s wife, was accused of his
murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, she was
carrying on an affair with a young artist some twenty years her junior—she was
herself just forty and her husband was some years older, and he had a bad
heart.</div>
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The trial, which comes to us in bits and pieces throughout
the narrative, was something of a travesty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost all the evidence was circumstantial, and more was
said about her morals (in seducing a younger man) than about her capacity to
kill her husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A nurse during
World War II, she explains her own attempts to save her husband’s life, but
those attempts are all turned against her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who better prepared to kill her husband, the prosecutor
argues, but a nurse who knew her way around her husband’s medical bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grace Fox was hanged for the murder in
April 1953.</div>
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Chris finds himself haunted by this history, and he becomes
obsessed with finding out about Grace, whose sewing room he uses as his study,
and perhaps proving her innocence.</div>
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What becomes his obsession with Grace has its source in the recent loss of his own wife of many years, who succumbed to cancer but a few month
before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chris’s grief was intense,
and he still finds himself slipping to serious, incapacitating depression over
the loss of his wife.</div>
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As he follows up leads and does a great deal of detective
work about Grace Fox, he finds himself falling in love with his friend Heather
Barlow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this small town atmosphere,
their budding relationship is commented on in various ways, and no one
approves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chris is not sure he
wants to conduct an affair with a married woman, but before long her husband
leaves her and she is free to date if she chooses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it seems that she does.</div>
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Chris’s searches take us back into the fifties courtroom,
and then further back to the life of a nurse during World War Two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this different writing—the trial
record and Grace’s own journal—are written in a completely different style form
the novel itself, and they are entirely engaging.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Even more compelling, though, is Chris’s own confrontation
with himself and his own memories of his wife and their last moments together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the connections between this story
and Graces history are made explicit, that goes a long way to explaining why
Chris has become as caught up in this story as he is.</div>
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This is another masterful tale from a prize-winning story-teller.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkYR1NubbyS3mjszulOyRD3jv9mI7lhR0AfakW37Zsrgzrj-Z4KuaDYxnsRZRTbmdYdxlAZtunjYb63C_FucVF83r2wv6-kigTj_H1A_Nbo0TFA0aKT8RwweoyvLcdsc6XRLl3_Y1YImq/s1600/P+Robinson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkYR1NubbyS3mjszulOyRD3jv9mI7lhR0AfakW37Zsrgzrj-Z4KuaDYxnsRZRTbmdYdxlAZtunjYb63C_FucVF83r2wv6-kigTj_H1A_Nbo0TFA0aKT8RwweoyvLcdsc6XRLl3_Y1YImq/s320/P+Robinson.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
<b>Peter Robinson</b><br />
<br />
<i>Before the Poison</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Peter+Robinson+Before+the+Poison&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/Peter%20Robinson%20Before%20the%20Poison" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Peter+Robinson+Before+the+Poison" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-73545415017848339212013-01-06T19:10:00.000-08:002013-01-06T19:10:39.524-08:00Steve Earle uses his musical heritage to craft a powerful novel.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I can’t say I was a great fan of Steve Earle’s music, but
when I read that he had based a novel on the life/death of Hank Williams, I
thought I would download it to read while traveling.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapBsjXUdDEdcBRSxXHUibIK90sxd71aE1YKH5GCvN5Mtx77fJl0gpMGsTX8yG1YclJWXuAVIa7XBfueO7R7KWsKzHml4wPKwsgmKjSNtUAzRnA8kL4oKR-rKN9xuPcyHxawu5_S6jdTOi/s1600/NeverGetOut.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhapBsjXUdDEdcBRSxXHUibIK90sxd71aE1YKH5GCvN5Mtx77fJl0gpMGsTX8yG1YclJWXuAVIa7XBfueO7R7KWsKzHml4wPKwsgmKjSNtUAzRnA8kL4oKR-rKN9xuPcyHxawu5_S6jdTOi/s320/NeverGetOut.jpeg" width="215" /></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Steve Earle’s first novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive</i> (256 pages, Houghton Mifflin, $26) deals
with a fictional friend and enabler of the great country singer Hank Williams,
who died of an overdose in 1953 at the age of 29.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This friend is known as “Doc,” nothing more or less, and in
1963 he is a doctor without a license who lives in the red light district of
San Antonio and nurses his own heroine addiction by treating the odd gun-shot
wound and knifing that happens in his neighborhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is also the go-to guy for abortions, and some folks come
from even far away to avail themselves of his secret services.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As he lies in bed imagining his next fix, he is regularly
visited by the ghost of his late friend Hank Williams, who chides and chortles
at Doc’s shortcomings and almost seems to take pleasure in his addiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the story unfolds, it turns out that
Doc was the person who treated Hank with increasingly powerful pain-killers,
even as his alcoholism was already destroying him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The novel has it that it was Doc’s large dose of
painkillers, which he administered on the way to a concert, that killed the
singer, and Hank haunts him as a result.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Into this world of druggies and prostitutes comes a young
Mexican girl, Graciela, who is dropped off and left by her boyfriend, after he
has arranged for Doc’s services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once he has operated on the girl, she seems to hang around, and before
long she is his medical assistant and his almost daughter-like roommate.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Not only that, however: she also seems to have some kind of
miraculous powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her effect on
the sick is immediate—they always improve markedly when she has touched
them—and her influence on Doc and his friends is profound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doc begins cutting down and then
abstains completely from heroine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Prostitutes find God, and drug-dealers give up their trade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Graciela also bears a mark—a wound on
her wrist that will never heal—that some claim has magical powers and others
see as a stigmata.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Graciela understands that all these powers come from her
Mexican grandfather, to whom she has always been devoted and whose words come
back to her now that she has moved away.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For a while, in this version of magical realism, Graciela
and the ghost of Hank Williams seem to be struggling for the possession of
Doc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of Doc’s friends see the
regular ghostly visitor, but Graciela sees him and fights against his
influence.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Later there are more powerful outside forces that they both
unite in fighting against, and Doc has all he can do to keep up with them.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a wonderful first novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is deeply moving and it uses its magical narrative to
tell a story that will remain with you for a long time.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdj4M9WKVDfFVvhpsjFd3Y9weZbsPT7R8EhqQHa0p3SmFSleTV1v73ZVqIJMhj-OA9E17fBaozNE3e_emxnSqSLlY3CGSCUyndsjAEJAjY4h14VqxNLtU2ldhVJDocmrSMlTYpvC4vbZJc/s1600/steve_earle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdj4M9WKVDfFVvhpsjFd3Y9weZbsPT7R8EhqQHa0p3SmFSleTV1v73ZVqIJMhj-OA9E17fBaozNE3e_emxnSqSLlY3CGSCUyndsjAEJAjY4h14VqxNLtU2ldhVJDocmrSMlTYpvC4vbZJc/s1600/steve_earle.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Steve Earl</b><br />
<br />
<i>I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780547754437-4" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/I%27ll%20Never%20Get%20out%20of%20This%20World%20Alive%20Steve%20Earl" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=I%27ll+Never+Get+out+of+This+World+Alive+Steve+Earl" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-36180039710869340512013-01-01T23:42:00.001-08:002013-01-01T23:42:38.423-08:00E. Duke Vincent tells what he did last summer—about 60 years ago.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Who can resist a good mafia novel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
one is written as a fictional memoir, and in every sense it’s hard to put down.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGeKniiDFNOH68k-UijCZQ0uwg1Fmu6saKUsNQJEOV8eA8DyplU1QTkFaT9l8b9Jlzb1m4rLYkJ4OxdJwPuN_4EdRvVMs4wC9uemGFEW6WjOY1CkPW0VsAMpnfU4a0Nw5lqzdjTJnrf6Fp/s1600/Mafia-Summer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGeKniiDFNOH68k-UijCZQ0uwg1Fmu6saKUsNQJEOV8eA8DyplU1QTkFaT9l8b9Jlzb1m4rLYkJ4OxdJwPuN_4EdRvVMs4wC9uemGFEW6WjOY1CkPW0VsAMpnfU4a0Nw5lqzdjTJnrf6Fp/s320/Mafia-Summer.jpg" width="211" /></a><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mafia Summer</i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
E. Duke Vincent has written his first novel—after a career
in the military and in writing for TV and film—in what must be his early 80’s,
and it concerns the one summer in 1953, when he was in between high school and
college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mafia Summer</i> (400 pages, Bloomsbury, $4.50) is what he calls it, and a
vivid and seemingly first hand—certainly first person, view of the mafia is what
he offers.</div>
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Vinny Vesta, the narrator of the tale, is a handsome and
articulate nearly-eighteen year old who lives in a tenement in the Hell’s
Kitchen section of New York City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Vinny’s father, Gino, who is a ranking member of one powerful mafia
family, has a handsome spread in Connecticut, but he keeps it real, and keeps
his enemies guessing, by living in a middle- (or lower-middle) class
section of New York.</div>
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The narrator creates the world of stick ball and other
street games with ethnic intensity, and he creates a vivid and characterful
gang of “Icemen” to be part of Vinny’s junior mafia gang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vinny, with Boychick, Red, Benny,
Louie, Stuff, and Bouncer, all of whom become wonderful characters in this
novel, carries out minor capers, like the theft of stolen merchandize or the
planning of various jobs for other gangs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are watched and more or less protected by Vinny’s Dad and his
cronies, but they are just exercising their muscle as the novel opens.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Another important thing happens as the novel opens too: Vinny
often takes escape from the summer heat on the fire escape of his building, and
one night he sees his young Jewish neighbor reading by flashlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they get into conversation, it
turns out that Sidney, the neighbor, is reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Odyssey</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vinny has
heard of the book, but he can’t imagine anyone reading it, much less reading it
by flashlight in the middle of the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From this encounter the two strike up a friendship, and before long,
Vinny is tagging along with Sidney to the New York Public Library, where
together they discover the worlds to be uncovered in all the books there.
Sidney takes on Vinny’s education, and in thanks, Vinny tries to protect him
and teach him some street smarts.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It isn’t long, however, before these two worlds collide. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick Colucci is the head of a rival young
mafia gang called The Rattlers. He and his crew mug Sidney one day and steal his yarmulke, just
because they object to seeing Jewish kids in their neighborhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Vinny challenges this thug, a
simmering conflict comes out into the open.</div>
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For the rest of the novel Nick and his handlers are trying
to get the best of Vinny, Sidney and their other friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because we are talking about the mafia,
the stakes are about as high as they could be before we get very far into the
summer.</div>
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Even worse, various opposing mafia leaders are trying to bring
Vinny’s dad Gino down, and as a result Vinny finds himself in harm’s way more
than once. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when Vinny and his
friends, especially Sidney, are threatened and even harmed, Gino has to
react.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once he does, all the mafia
seem deeply involved.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vincent tells the story well, and I can say that it
makes a powerful account of a summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The novelist bases enough of the story on factual events and a lot else
by memory, and the result, as I say, is riveting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t imagine a better novel to put on your next summer
reading list.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8aff61bcLSQO4YiWM3Y9407jfYVB9kL2tCryLyeHL0sHlEhhLDL5DVDJM_NVF3q1ReDO_QefQlnWzhKwOZoYxzxzaoiFXxUSJODgM2rHg_d5qEy167wOrivrTCPZ2CReEkMSk2-ZHD8t/s1600/E+Duke+V.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX8aff61bcLSQO4YiWM3Y9407jfYVB9kL2tCryLyeHL0sHlEhhLDL5DVDJM_NVF3q1ReDO_QefQlnWzhKwOZoYxzxzaoiFXxUSJODgM2rHg_d5qEy167wOrivrTCPZ2CReEkMSk2-ZHD8t/s1600/E+Duke+V.JPG" /></a></div>
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<b>E. Duke Vincent</b><br />
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<i>Mafia Summer</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Mafia+Summer++E.+Duke+Vincent&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/search/apachesolr_search/Mafia%20Summer%20%20E.%20Duke%20Vincent" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Mafia+Summer++E.+Duke+Vincent" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-237374009990360372012-12-24T00:28:00.000-08:002012-12-24T00:28:24.217-08:00Charlotte Elkins and Aaron Elkins write an amusing art-historical mystery.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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This novel sounded like it would be amusing, especially
since it was set in Santa Fe and concerned Georgia O’Keefe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had not encountered this writing
couple before, but I will keep a look out from now on.</div>
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<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVI7nOMq7AMPqW814TLuHFXm4s9DxWLOy9FqCKMJpV9m7QoGvGMCOlvaFvzSYRkuBJdcfSwtMxyDty68rUMpeS2Zfq7ACFxcdtoZ0kJUV_PR6XC5FFu_KeMWc1rwAs6vrLLyAi52XfHii/s1600/dangerous-talent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVI7nOMq7AMPqW814TLuHFXm4s9DxWLOy9FqCKMJpV9m7QoGvGMCOlvaFvzSYRkuBJdcfSwtMxyDty68rUMpeS2Zfq7ACFxcdtoZ0kJUV_PR6XC5FFu_KeMWc1rwAs6vrLLyAi52XfHii/s320/dangerous-talent.jpg" width="214" /></a><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Dangerous Talent<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Alix London, the heroine of Charlotte Elkins’ and Aaron
Elkins’ novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Dangerous Talent </i>(270
pages, Thomas & Mercer, $14.95) is trying to make her way as an art
restorer and advisor to collectors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She is struggling in her career, largely because she is not well
known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what people do know about her, they know because of her father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is really no help at all.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Geoff, her well-meaning but utterly frustrating father, has
himself just come out of prison for his major role in a huge art forgery
ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The well-heeled and
extraordinarily easy life to which he had introduced his daughter has simply
disappeared, and she feels that if she were never to hear from him, it would be
too soon.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He has helped her behind the scenes, though, with his long-standing and not so terribly
tarnished connections, and in addition he has helped her find a great
restoration gig—she is cleaning and restoring the works of a wonderful
collector, who has also left the country for a while and allowed Alix to stay
in her apartment while she works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the middle of this work, she is approached by a different collector who would
like to take her on as an advisor to search for art and to help develop her taste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alix responds warily; but when this
woman, Chris Lemay, proposes a quick trip to Santa Fe in her private jet to
look at a Georgia O’Keefe landscape she is hoping to buy, Alix jumps at the
chance to leave rainy Seattle for the desert sun.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Things start to go wrong, however, as soon as the pair
arrive in Santa Fe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alix is
scheduled to stay in a casita at the inn where they have reserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no sooner does she enter with her
bags, then she smells gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in
minutes the whole place has exploded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyone apologizes for the accident, but she senses that there is more to
it.</div>
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These feelings intensify when the art dealer they have
arrived to meet is murdered before they have had much time to do more than say
hello to the woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This cannot be
coincidental, and they are terribly confused about what it all means.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shuffling around and trying to make sense of it himself, is
the handsome and deceptive FBI agent, Ted Ellesworth, who first presents
himself as a wealthy Boston collector in town to see some of the same
paintings Alix and Chris have come to see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is suspicious of the young and attractive Alix, however,
because he knows about her father and he cannot imagine that she is not involved
in the art scams that he has come to Santa Fe to investigate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are many more complications, a few more murders and attempted
murders before things start to become clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big issue for Alix, aside from staying alive, is whether
or not she can ever forgive her father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s just say that the novelists make it so that she really has very
little choice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is an engaging novel, well-paced and carefully plotted,
with likable characters and a very satisfying ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will definitely watch for more mysteries by this
interesting couple.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0qFH9Slo0bEXPPXoyh60lJmAIF5Eet6M-3RxnY6MWGg6h5zjyfcUoKIPKvef30RrHqn7fleEWXxfu7adQyWgQLEaKst9eZ-9IVoQjGfCeA_vcXyeaUc4XTuNDmYpiygdavVda3fEFH2E/s1600/Elkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0qFH9Slo0bEXPPXoyh60lJmAIF5Eet6M-3RxnY6MWGg6h5zjyfcUoKIPKvef30RrHqn7fleEWXxfu7adQyWgQLEaKst9eZ-9IVoQjGfCeA_vcXyeaUc4XTuNDmYpiygdavVda3fEFH2E/s320/Elkins.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Charlotte and Aaron
Elkins</b><br />
<br />
<i>A Dangerous Talent</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9781612182735-0" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781469200033" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Elkins+A+Dangerous+Talent" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.<b> </b></div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-72194645192914023432012-12-08T22:12:00.000-08:002012-12-08T22:12:56.209-08:00Matt Cairone tells a chilling tale of gambling and murder.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
This novel sounded intriguing, not least because it was
called “an existential work of literary fiction” in the publishers blurb.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBd-J-aIPEm2uXOGsztoHzHbw8N_UESN2if1fjFlK-IoJVUX2Q4HdW7AjOqFBttrMm6kweED-vKXHxtQu9cOe-Lsr6IXu-F3rQnkRJPAElaCvcnNz9n3NiDTgQNdRMmPn8O9v3M2nlprD/s1600/brit-drawing-dead-matt-cairone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBd-J-aIPEm2uXOGsztoHzHbw8N_UESN2if1fjFlK-IoJVUX2Q4HdW7AjOqFBttrMm6kweED-vKXHxtQu9cOe-Lsr6IXu-F3rQnkRJPAElaCvcnNz9n3NiDTgQNdRMmPn8O9v3M2nlprD/s320/brit-drawing-dead-matt-cairone.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Brit<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Brit </i>(346 pages, CreateSpace Publishing, $10.50) tells the story of the professional gambler, T.S. Fowler, and
various people who encounter him during his short time in Las Vegas, Nevada.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
T.S., who is mostly called The Brit in the novel, has come
to Las Vegas to improve his earnings at poker, which he plays for high stakes,
as does his wife, and they both support themselves in this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Brit is not cheating or working any
system besides luck and his knowledge of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he gets so into playing that he hardly eats, pops
amphetamines to stay awake, and drinks, with coffee or gin, depending on
whether he wants to keep playing or to crash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On this particular visit to Las Vegas, he seems to be doing
well in reconstructing his fortunes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is strung out, but he still manages to keep up decent conversational
patter, and when he does chat late one night with an attractive corporate
lawyer, she is on her guard, but she likes him enough to give him her card.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, in London, his wife Edith is trying to cope with
a sense that her life has become meaningless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She visits a counselor and feels for the first time in a long
time happy about her prospects and the chance of working things out with the
husband, whom she realizes she hardly knows.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During his second day, the Brit’s luck turns sour, and he
almost instantly loses not only all his gains but everything he bought with him
to Las Vegas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sends him into a
crazed spell in which he does some horrendous things, and the next thing Edith
hears is that he is being held in a Las Vegas jail on an indictment for murder.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edith responds to his call and heads to Las Vegas with the
little cash she has and no idea where to turn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, the Brit has phoned the lawyer, Mary,
explaining his plight and asking for her help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She says she will try to help him find an attorney, but she
does nothing and he is appointed a public defender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That turns out to be an overworked but very competent and
concerned young man, who helps the Brit to shape a defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He calls Mary again, however, and asks
her to help with his wife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feeling guilty, Mary agrees to contact Edith and offer her a
place to stay when she arrives in Las Vegas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two women hit it off immediately, and the intensity of
their feelings help them both deal with the crises surrounding them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say “crises” because everything seems
to go wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The judge rejects a
plea—because he is upset that a Lockerbie defendant has been set free in
Britain; there is an explosion at the jail; and Edith ends up returning to
London alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a simple tale, almost a long short story or a novella,
but it is powerful and thought provoking in lots of ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not sure I would call it
existential, but I would recommend it nonetheless.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfhPMNvnOwpoJx0Driki-Moatqqk5526ror5Fzr4GgXbM9FEH9SPfgm5HuTydXpuoJPZlXtyod1BwGlgmu7dhXEwnZzvX3RQumxeODpgeVUuQjIb7_F3vhi-3oh8nGY_cJk1tgKyNYpWoZ/s1600/Cairone.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfhPMNvnOwpoJx0Driki-Moatqqk5526ror5Fzr4GgXbM9FEH9SPfgm5HuTydXpuoJPZlXtyod1BwGlgmu7dhXEwnZzvX3RQumxeODpgeVUuQjIb7_F3vhi-3oh8nGY_cJk1tgKyNYpWoZ/s1600/Cairone.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Matt Cairone</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Brit: Drawing Dead</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781461199632-1" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9781461199632" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Brit-ebook/dp/B0053TZDO6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355033167&sr=1-1&keywords=Matt+Cairone+The+Brit" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. <br />
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-16957665556217777512012-12-02T00:23:00.000-08:002012-12-02T00:23:34.059-08:00John Boyne writes a powerful novel about friendship and war.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzO7L6NMeXNXzxe7tBBBPXobkwCCcLjdyRPJfl4tss_6qGEnHC7t-8aC5hOqHa0AhvVs2zWHJWovxvgUoaIGMSb9NULYARKjTP7GhlwpO9FAZo0_wIEXatKUK_4KNwCYNvD3eaSyY66h9/s1600/Absolutist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXzO7L6NMeXNXzxe7tBBBPXobkwCCcLjdyRPJfl4tss_6qGEnHC7t-8aC5hOqHa0AhvVs2zWHJWovxvgUoaIGMSb9NULYARKjTP7GhlwpO9FAZo0_wIEXatKUK_4KNwCYNvD3eaSyY66h9/s320/Absolutist.jpg" width="212" /></a><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Absolutist<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Boyne’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Absolutist</i> (320 pages, Other Press, $16.95) tells a riveting story about
the friendship between two teenage soldiers during the First World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tristan Sadler and Will Bancroft meet
during training in Aldershot in England before being sent to France to engage
in fighting.</div>
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The novel is told in retrospect by Tristan, and it quickly
becomes clear that of the two, he is the one who survived the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly he is shaken by the experience,
and as the details emerge, through both his recounting of the experiences
themselves and his story as he tells it to Will’s older sister after the war,
we come to realize a wrenching and devastating experience whose enormity we
only gradually understand.</div>
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In training, Tristan and Will become friends, even though
they come from different backgrounds—Will’s father is a vicar in a prosperous
town, and Tristan’s father is a butcher in grimy North London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be that as it may, these two good
looking and intelligent young men become soul mates and they find a way of
facing the horror of training and what will come after with a certain degree of
equanimity.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Their intimacy intensifies, in a way, as they, but
especially Will, befriend a conscientious objector among the twenty young men
in their regiment. Wolf, this friend, is outspoken and insistent on his objections to
the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first Tristan is
simply jealous of Wolf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is
spending considerable time with Will, and Tristan resents any time that he
spends away from the man he has come to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When, still in Aldeshot, Wolf is murdered, after it is made
to look like he is trying to escape, Will is knocked for a loop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tristan is not so quick to imagine a
conspiracy, but Will is sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
is devastated by Wolf’s loss and what it implies, but he does not discover
until later how much it means to him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile Tristan is mooning over Will, and before they
leave England, Will initiates a sexual encounter that thrills and confuses Tristan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is thrilled for obvious reasons, but
he is confused because Will ignores him and refuses to talk about their
experience afterward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is becoming more
and more concerned about the political situation and has no interest in talking
about their personal affairs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once in France, the experience of the trenches is told in
vivid and grueling detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
midst of the mud and the lice and the constant death all around them, Tristan
is still obsessed with Will, and almost to increase the torment, Will drags him
off for another encounter, even as he treats him more sternly and almost
hostilely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Tristan is trying to tell Will's sister what happened to
her brother, she knows he is hiding something, and he is hiding it from us as
well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What finally emerges is that when Will
sees a brutal atrocity that seems to him to be against any conventions of war
or humanity, he turns against the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tristan tries to calm
him down, but Will, motivated by an abiding principle, challenges the powers that
be and finds himself in opposition to his commanding officers.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Needless to say, this is an uncomfortable position, but what
makes it even more difficult in these extreme conditions is the drama that is
played out between these two men as the life and death intensity of the war is played out all around them.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Boyne tells this story beautifully, and I don’t want to
reduce any of the impact of what happens in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will say, though, that this is a beautifully crafted novel
that will cause you to keep thinking about it for a long time to come.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5l2MPBzt_qzK2kWw7sjWLDRe-ZIQ2mjKwTyz46JwbnHbqX3PFhchrmOwXNKT6hyphenhyphen2R-EvF9V23HjM7tozXVWQxLOvh54sOC3ZRK9V4bxylIcw8ULQJcka2XxWvhvrhSKp8hwN0vXXw1at/s1600/Boyne.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht5l2MPBzt_qzK2kWw7sjWLDRe-ZIQ2mjKwTyz46JwbnHbqX3PFhchrmOwXNKT6hyphenhyphen2R-EvF9V23HjM7tozXVWQxLOvh54sOC3ZRK9V4bxylIcw8ULQJcka2XxWvhvrhSKp8hwN0vXXw1at/s320/Boyne.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br />
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<br />
<b>John Boyne</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Absolutist</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=John+Boyne+The+Absolutist&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, Vroman's and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=John+Boyne+The+Absolutist" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. </div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2996751484191361028.post-4274791203912286152012-11-25T17:08:00.001-08:002012-11-25T17:08:34.247-08:00Nicholas Sparks has another hit on his hands.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I always feel a little funny reading Nicholas Sparks
novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are deeply
sentimental and almost a little cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they are told well, and they seem to make fine films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This one is no exception.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYR5TOsiPY8m3gclO82S5fbu3V6UgsEJYDUWH8GuAREIFTG4dzR6qg9q2NmTpqcWLarGohwIiO2XKfsjBgGZT34HR8bew-pB3cUIAToAwuB8E24pSYz9UWdwg85Yc2Hm9k_w4liD__7zp/s1600/LuckyOne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmYR5TOsiPY8m3gclO82S5fbu3V6UgsEJYDUWH8GuAREIFTG4dzR6qg9q2NmTpqcWLarGohwIiO2XKfsjBgGZT34HR8bew-pB3cUIAToAwuB8E24pSYz9UWdwg85Yc2Hm9k_w4liD__7zp/s320/LuckyOne.jpg" width="208" /></a> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lucky One</i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Most Nicholas Sparks novels feature a handsome but
misunderstood young drifter and a gorgeous, but lost or grieving, young
heroine, and this one is no exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lucky One </i>(416 pages,
Grand Central Publishing, $7.99) tells the story of Logan Thibault, a Marine
veteran who had extensive experience in Iraq, and Beth, or Elizabeth, a young
divorcee with a ten-year-old son, Ben.</div>
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While on tour in Iraq, Logan found a photo in the sand, and
while he tried to find its owner, he also carried it with him and began to
think of it as his lucky charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After returning to the States, his best friend from the Marines
persuaded him that this photo had saved his life in a number of situations and that
he owed the woman in the picture at least his thanks.</div>
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With this advice and because of a gnawing emptiness he was
feeling, Logan walked however many thousands of miles it is from Colorado to
North Carolina, for in a small North Carolina town was where he believed he
would find the young woman in the picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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When he gets to the town, though, he first encounters a
sleazy deputy sheriff, whom he catches ogling and photoing naked coeds at a
local river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After an encounter
with this deputy persuades him that he should keep his distance, we readers are
discovering that he is actually the adolescent-seeming ex-husband of the
heroine, Beth.</div>
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Keith Clayton, this deputy, is from the first family of this
small town, and he is obviously as foolishly conceited as they come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first sign of his badness comes
from his interactions with his son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ben is a bookish and musically-inclined young kid, and Clayton really
wanted an athlete for a son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is
brutal with the kid, and poor Ben reacts as one might expect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is miserable when he has to spend
time with his father, and he dreads the grueling games of catch his father
inflicts on him.</div>
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Clayton is even worse than this, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We discover that he has been trailing
and then chasing off—with the force of the “law”—anyone Beth has dated since
their divorce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This makes it
particularly galling to him that Logan has turned up as a worker at the kennel
that Beth and her grandmother run and that the two seem to be hitting it
off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ben has come to idolize Logan
too, not only because he seems willing to spend time with him, but because he
takes so much pleasure in doing so.</div>
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These three adults—Logan, Beth, and Clayton—are on a
collision course, and for a while it seems as if Clayton may have the upper
hand, but Beth and Logan are ready to fight back, and finally they do so with
all they are worth.</div>
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Nicholas Sparks can tell a good story, and as always his
Southern settings have a particular charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His plotting is strong, and although he is not above a cheap
trick or two at the end, he writes a story that is compelling and in many ways
true.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4zQFODCnN6xuOT8g35vxvL188ZwXrSVygKJbjhWzhoc-mZDgh1yTB9lQLFcjtan2Hn6XsW7mRb7r5wKh3fdEfewC8wi6sj4OQsS5B3tCNX70r1roXSIgQEWW9CqXGzNlvHKIpfuQAj7FI/s1600/nicholassparkspic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4zQFODCnN6xuOT8g35vxvL188ZwXrSVygKJbjhWzhoc-mZDgh1yTB9lQLFcjtan2Hn6XsW7mRb7r5wKh3fdEfewC8wi6sj4OQsS5B3tCNX70r1roXSIgQEWW9CqXGzNlvHKIpfuQAj7FI/s320/nicholassparkspic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Nicholas Sparks</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Lucky One</i> is available at <a href="http://www.powells.com/s?kw=The+Lucky+One+Nicholas+Sparks&class=" target="_blank">Powell's</a>, <a href="http://www.vromansbookstore.com/book/9780446618328" target="_blank">Vroman's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Lucky+One+Nicholas+Sparks" target="_blank">Amazon</a>.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->George Haggertyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01928322816391497229noreply@blogger.com0