Good Summer Read

For another can’t-put-it-down book, try Gone Girl by GillianFlynn. It’s the story of a wife gone missing and is told in alternating chapters. We get the husband’s perspective as each day of the disappearance ticks by and he, of course, is the prime suspect. We also get to read entries from the wife’s diary starting from five years prior to her disappearance. There are a number of twists and turns – enough to make you want to stay up late reading. In the end (perhaps the last 10%), however, it felt a little like a horror film where the character you thought was dead just keeps lunging out of closets. But, that last little bit doesn’t preclude me from recommending it as a fast, fun, summer read.

Read the NY Times review of this book

Reese Witherspoon will produce the movie

Guernica by Dave Boling

If you've ever wondered about the story behind Picasso's famous painting -- Guernica -- and also like historical fiction, I recommend this book. I never knew too much about the Spanish Civil War, (although I vaguely remember reading one other novel set in that time period and place), but the story of several Basque families in this book brought that war to life in a way both moving and horribly memorable. If you study the painting after reading this book, you will understand all the images you see in a new way.

American Boy II

I was just looking through the list of authors who will be participating in the Chippewa Valley Book Festival. Larry Watson will be presenting at the LEPMPL on Saturday, October 20 at 1:00 pm. His book Montana 1948 was a book club selection way back in 1995 (!). And I just finished and blogged about his book, American Boy (see May 14 posting).

Find out more about the Chippewa Valley Book Festival or Larry Watson online.

A Summer Hummer hmmm

Another successful Summer Hummer on Monday night, but you have to wonder about our two annual get togethers. In response to the survey question “Any other comments/suggestions,” Mary said “we should wear name tags.” I thought that was funny, but Jeanne said it wasn’t a bad idea. The other Mary said “I was having trouble with names too, but someone told me ‘don’t worry, after you go to the first party, the names will stick.’”

Your Suggestions for this Fall

Here are the four suggestions I have from you so far (all descriptions are from Amazon.com). Looks like we have some good reading ahead of us!

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar (A Book Festival Author) (368 pgs, Kindle, paperback, audio)Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes.

American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life. Ayad Akhtar was raised in the Midwest himself, and through Hayat Shah he shows readers vividly the powerful forces at work on young men and women growing up Muslim in America. This is an intimate, personal first novel that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (176 pgs, Kindle, paperback, audio, 2011 Man Booker Prize)A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.

This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

The Summer Son by Craig Lancaster (322 pgs, Kindle, paperback, audio)When Mitch Quillen’s life begins to unravel, he fears there is no escape. His marriage and his career are both failing, and his relationship with his father has been a disaster for decades. Approaching forty, Mitch doesn’t want to become a middle-aged statistic. When his estranged father, Jim, suddenly calls, Mitch’s wife urges him to respond. Ready for a change, Mitch heads to Montana and a showdown that will alter the course of his life. Amid a backdrop of rugged peaks and valleys, the story unfolds: a violent episode that triggered the rift, thirty years of miscommunication, and the possibility of misplaced blame. In Craig Lancaster’s powerful novel, The Summer Son, readers are invited into a family where conflict and secrets prevail, and where hope for healing and redemption is possible.

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol, Agnete Friis (313 pgs,Kindle, paperback, audio, translated from Danish)Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.

Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.