Tag Archives: literature

Looking Forward

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It’s a tricky deal, living in anticipation of what’s to come. Looking forward, gasping in excitement, at an abstract future.

I spend a lot of time this way: entranced with what is yet to be and somewhat ignorant of what is now.

A lot of effort goes into trying to stay in the present; to take each day in as it is rather than where it’s going…but as Mumford & Sons says in “Sigh No More”,

Man is a giddy thing, Oh man is a giddy thing…

I’m not made to stand still, it is my blessing as much as my burden. So I thought, much more lighthearted than this post has begun, that we could all indulge this predisposition of mine and shift our gaze to the days ahead and talk about what we’re chomping at the bit for.

First,

I’ve now completely blown my cover as a Mumford-crazed fan…but “I Will Wait” is the first song after their album, Babel, coming out September 24th.

It’s a dangerously well-named song, since hearing it I’ve been waiting, not even remotely patiently, for my pre-ordered copy (get yours here!) to arrive.

And second (in order, not attachment),

From the director (Joe Wright) of Atonement and Pride & Prejudice comes Anna Karenina. If no teacher ever poked and prodded you into reading Leo Tolstoy‘s brilliant work…you’ve got just about three months to do so now.

Between Keira Knightly, Jude Law, and Matthew Macfadyen it promises to be the British manifestation of my tragic, literary soul. So… please don’t ask me to do anything on November 16th. Simply put, I’m booked.

And then lastly,

(source)

Can you even believe it? I once was a firm member of the camp touting how JK Rowling should never publish again (I gave my heart to Harry long, long ago) but now that it’s on its way I have to admit…I cannot wait.

It’s a big novel about a very small and perfectly English town wrought with cobbled stone walkways and dark mysteries. Even better? Rowling seems to have aged right along with me; it’s her first novel for adults, due out September 27th.

I’ve marked my calendars, does anyone have anything else I might add?

 

In the Shadow of the Banyan

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It’s over.

I finished Vaddey Ratner‘s In the Shadow of the Banyan sometime last week and my imagination has been pining for something even half as magical ever since.

The prose was, well, simply remarkable. Certainly, it is among the best writing of any debut author. The care taken choosing each word, the twist of each phrase…it’s beautiful, really. It positively envelopes you into a tale and space wrought with emotion.

Despair and hurt are, of course, prominent given that the plot centers on the Cambodian genocide.But there’s also the overwhelming admiration a seven year old holds for their mother, the unhurried love of an elderly married couple, and the profound connection between the living and the dead.

It’s all there.

The pain and bloodshed.

The struggle.

And most poignantly, the uncertain, desperate hope to bear witness to just one more sunrise on the might Mekong River.

I refuse to give anything away (and this time I mean it!), but quoting the old adage, “the best things in fiction are always true” is appropriate. This is Ms. Ratner’s personal book of memories; that fact never leaves the page.

I believe she does justice to them, her family, her country and inadvertently, the astonishing strength her seven-year old self possessed.

If you’ve got even the slightest gap on your reading list…make room for this one! Surely, you won’t regret it (pinky promise!).

All photos from my trip through Cambodia.

Summer Reading List

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As July is quickly getting underway, most of us are dusting off our suitcases and filling them with as much clothing as they’ll handle for various vacations.

And while I personally am not jetting off anywhere particularly fun, the city sure is starting to clear out. So what better time for a Summer Reading List? You’ve got just enough time to dart to your favorite bookstore and pick up a couple to finish before summer does!

Here are some of my favorites from over the years…

1. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

(buy here!)

I love this book. It was Setterfield’s first novel and certainly set her bar high. Suspenseful, gripping and beyond all else, intriguing, The Thirteenth Tale envelopes you in its mysterious folds.

It’s set around Margaret Lee, whose profound preoccupation with reading stories of the long-since-dead has inspired a career writing them. Arriving home one day, she finds a letter on her doorstep from one of the most famous authors of her time, Vida Winter, inviting Margaret to writer her biography.

Vida is a charming enigma. Deciphering between her truths and lies is a tireless endeavor…for the reader and Margaret, alike. She does discover the truth, eventually…about Vida, herself, and both their families.

I’ve recommended this book to many, many people (nearly everyone who asks for one) and have yet to hear anything but the highest remarks!

2. An Inconvenient Wife, Megan Chance

(buy here!)

I read this book ages ago but it’s stuck with me all this time. It’s a wholly absorbing historical novel (if you’re the sort of person who finds historical novels absorbing, I suppose) about Ms. Lucy Carelton, who’s born of one of New York’s most prominent families in the 1880s.

Lucy is positively undone by her nerves and her ambitious husband, desirous of a socially acceptable wife, drags her from one doctor to another in hopes of a “cure”. They both think Victor Seth, a neurologist, might be their solution.

He’s a pioneer hypnotist and wants to free Lucy from the social constraints causing her unhappiness. He spends their sessions encouraging her to explore various creative outlets and release her passions (you should be picking up on a slight sexual undertone here ;-) ). Seth is sure he’s acting in the name of science, but even he’s caught completely off guard by the Lucy that emerges–a fiercely passionate, amoral creature.

The frank, simplistic prose and over-the-top plotting effectively combine in this diabolically clever and outrageously entertaining take on female liberation.

3. Little Bee, Chris Cleave

(buy here!)

I really don’t want to give too much anything away about this book, it’s that magical. Undoubtedly however, seeing as how I’m recommending it, you’ll want to know something.

So I’ll say this: It’s the story of two women. Two very, very different women from two very, very different worlds. They collide in a dramatic and violent fashion and one has to make a painful choice, one you’ll hope you never have to make.

Two years later they meet again, in equally surprising circumstances. That’s where the story starts…

They’re three of my all-time favorites and I hope at least one will become one of yours!

Any other recommendations out there? I’m almost finished with my current read (and cannot wait to tell you all about) and am on the hunt for something addicting.

Cutting for Stone

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I finally did it.

I finished Cutting for Stone, all 658 incredible pages.

But let’s back up. Back to when and why I plucked it from the shelves of Barnes & Nobles and carried it to the check-out.

Like here, I was wandering aimlessly between the “Noteworthy Fiction” and “Summer Reading List” tables, utterly lost and overwhelmed by the choices. So I did as any girl would and called my mom to ask (begging and whining were also involved) for help.

Her answer came quick and immediately sent me on a treasure hunt through the fiction section.

I’ve lost count of how many book clubs my mother participates in, how many paperbacks floating around our house are traded property between the neighborhood or how many time she has sent my grandmother home from dinner with something “she just has to read”.

She’s a reader, and an enthusiastic one at that, so when she told me this was now on her “Top 10 Ever” list…I went running for a sales assistant.

The back cover declares, “Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles–and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.”, and I have to agree.

It is unforgettable. I found myself crying over the betrayals between brothers, lovers, friends and colleagues as often as the characters. And the miracles? Well they’re the stuff of dreams, really.

I love that this book is written by an Ethiopian-born doctor (Abraham Verghese) about a community of Ethiopian doctors. An intimacy with the setting that probably couldn’t have existed otherwise pervades the story.

Now…I could give you a plot summary, really, I could; how it’s about two twins born of a tragic romance between an Indian nun and a British surgeon at Mission Hospital in Addis Ababa, how the nun dies in childbirth and the surgeon abandons them in a fit of hysteria and how this shapes the course of the twins’ lives indellibly. But the website for the book probably does it better.

And what I thought about more, throughout the entire book, was why do my mother and I both love it so? What draws us to the subject, the people, the story?

I wondered if my mother somehow related to Hema, the fierce Indian woman who adopts and loves the twins as if they were her own? But that couldn’t be…Hema is an unlikely mother and my mother, well she’s not. She’s a natural, meant to be a mother probably long before she ever was.

Could it be the incredible connection between the brothers Shiva and Marion? My mother and her brothers are certainly close, as are myself and my sisters… but there’s no wedge between any of us.

What I settled on what the name that came up each time we discussed the story: Ghosh, our favorite character. He loves his wife, Hema, in unparalleled ways. He’s a father to all who come near and he flourishes every conversation with tidbits of wisdom sure to burrow in the recipient’s mind for future use.

Truly, he’s the literary manifestation of my grandfather, a man I miss very, very much. Four years ago, he left us in similar fashion to Ghosh: “without fanfare, with characteristic simplicity, fearless, opening his eyes that last time to make sure we were fine before he went on.” 

It’s a book for anyone who has ever loved, lost, cried or laughed… or perhaps more succinctly, everyone. Humanity is contained between the bindings of this book, anyone can (and should!) relate.

(Want in on the action? Buy here!)

Fifty Shades of What the Hell?!

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A little over a week ago I teased you with this…in all fairness I was teasing myself as well, what with buying a new book in the middle of finals week and all.

(Buy here!)

So nearly the second I was free from studying’s deathly grip I hopped under the covers, flicked on my reading light and began.

The back cover describes it as, “Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.”

Seeing as how the next time I looked up 135 pages had flown by…the advertisers aren’t far off. Gripping is perhaps an understatement. In the same way that the two characters, Christian and Ana, are drawn to each other, your eyes are glued to the page.

It’s partly out of shock, because the other bit…you know, the one about it being erotic, is a ridiculously dramatic understatement. If that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable, turn and quite literally run from the table at Barnes & Nobles piled high with the series. This book is not the book for you (not really mine either).

I’d be lying if I said the idea of someone reading over my shoulder didn’t make me nervous because it did. It’s  incredibly explicit, but as the story deepens, the nature of their physical relationship becomes so obviously integral to understanding the complexity (another understatement) of their emotional one. It becomes more about the politics of sex rather than sheer carnality.

Note: that does not mean I liked this book.

Christian Grey fascinated me. I’m notorious for brain-picking and he would usually be a perfect enigma to draw me in (if the writing was good…but…it isn’t). He’s irrationally complex. He’s intelligent, controlling, beautifully damaged, intimidating, and largely incomprehensible. Side bonus…he’s incredibly good-looking (don’t pretend like this doesn’t matter). His ornate complexity somehow manifests into very singular erotic tastes, figuring out why and how becomes an honest mission of Ana and the reader.

I really don’t want to give too much away, given how popular the book is I have to assume other people have/are/plan to read it.

In some ways you really have to pick your poison…if you admit you like it people scream, you don’t know good writing! But claim you hate it and suddenly you’re an elitist snob. Fact is, both are kind of true. It’s not “good” writing and I want to rip the thesaurus out of E L Jame’s hands. But its intense, entertaining?, and a decent way to pass time if you’ve got it.

Any other readers? What do you think? Worth reading the next two?

It’s That Time Again…

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Finals are here. Which means that, aside from a few, fleeting moments of sleep, my bed has looked a lot like this the past few days…

But a girl can really only take so much forced reading, especially when it’s about the different pathways Asian economies have taken to enter the global trading market.

So when my eyes glaze completely over and all those tiny letters are one big fuzzy mess, I find myself here.

Because truly, there is no place to relax quite like Barnes&Nobles. I buy a Starbucks drink… I wander the aisles… I eventually load my arms up with as many magazines as they can handle and melt into one of the comfy chairs in the corner.

For some reason it feels like reading the books for free is against the rules, but magazines…I’ll go through those just as I please :-)

Truth be told, I’ve never left a bookstore empty-handed and saw no reason why today should be any different.

E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey is a book I was wanting to read for a little while now. So when reader Kelsneeze requested that I read and review it, it was that last little push I needed. I am now officially one book the richer.

All I’ve read is the back cover and I’m already hooked! I have a sneaking suspicion that my nose will find itself between those pages more than I planned this weekend.

And because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t…I came home with these beauties as well.

Anyone read this book? What did you think? No spoilers please!