A Gentleman in Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, 462 pages.
A really delightful book about the fictional Count Alexander Rostov who is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. It's 1922 when the Bolshevik court hands down the sentence and the book follows Rostov over the coming decades. Rostov rescues young Nina, after her mother disappears. Rostov adapts to his circumstances, eventually becoming head waiter at the hotel's celebrated restaurant. Looking forward to discussing this book in next year's book group.

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, 331 pages.
The first volume of Ferrante's acclaimed Neapolitan series covers the very early years through the early adulthood of Lila and Elena. From rock throwing battles with their elementary school classmates to the first of their weddings, this volume traces the friendship of these two women in post-War Italy.

After Disasters

After Disasters by Viet Nihn, 265 pages.

Kara recommended this book for our book group. Four rescue workers seeking to help after a massive quake in India have to wrestle with their own problems and secrets. They have to work to save themselves as they frantically try to save those around them.

Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent, 468 pages.
I read this for a book group discussion and while it was a little dry (ha!) I learned a lot, especially about the people who brought about prohibition, the extraordinary power the wielded and about the enormous popularity of the prohibition movement. Incredible that something could be popular enough to have the amendment adopted, and then have it all come crashing down such a short time later.

A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, 337 pages.

Ove's beloved wife has died and he doesn't see any reason to hang around anymore. As he readies himself and his house for his suicide, his neighbors keep interrupting him. I listened to the audio version of this months and months ago and then re-read it for book group. I was really surprised that Ove, his wife who had died after years of ill-health, and his neighbors who are facing involuntary removal to a nursing home, are all seemingly in their fifties. Seems a little odd, but other than Ove, none of their ages are given. I was left with the impression that they were all about the same age. Maybe I missed something. I will look for it on my third reading. Anyway, a nice gentle book, despite all the death.

Kristin Lavransdattir: The Bridal Wreath

Kristin Lavransdattar: The Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Unset, 305 pages.
Kristin, who has always been the light of her father's life, decides after a year at a medieval Norwegian finishing school that she cannot marry the man to whom she is to be engaged. She and another student have had some adventures in the nearby town and along the way she has fallen in love with an older man whose life has been almost ruined by scandal. This was not a time and a place where women got to choose and Kristin must tread carefully to avoid ruin, a forced marriage, or a complete rupture with her family.

Homegoing

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, 304 pages.

Gyasi's first novel follows two half-sisters and their descendants over 250 years. The novel begins and spends half its time in the Asante and Fante lands that eventually become Ghana. The two half sisters, Effia and Esi, who don't know much about each other, find vastly different lives. Effia is married to one of the British slavers at the Cape Coast Castle on Africa's Gold Coast. Esi is captured and sold into slavery, passing through that same castle. Esi's descendants live in America, as slaves, runaways and then free people. Effia's descendants must deal with the guilt and burden of working in the slave trade and then with the increasing colonial pressure from the British. An interesting story told in brief glimpses of a variety of people over the years.

David Copperfield

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, 974 pages.
Our seventh big-book summer is over and we finally got to a Dickens novel.
I can't remember if this is the novel that my sister got when she was very young, or if it was Oliver Twist, either way there was always a fair amount of Dickens around the house when I was growing up, and I always meant to read it, but never quite got around to it. I read (along with about half of everybody, it seems) Great Expectations in High School, but then didn't read any of Dickens's larger novels until the 1990s when I read, and quite enjoyed, Bleak House. The characters in Copperfield, especially Traddles, Aunt Betsey, and the Micawbers are quite charming. Uriah Heep is as bad as you'd ever heard. David's obliviousness to Agnes and his own heart are a bit hard to take after a while, but all-in-all a good read.

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, 531 pages.
Doerr, author of the excellent short-story collection, The Shell Collector, wowed readers and critics with his novel that tells the story of Marie-Laure and Werner, two young people caught in the war, both ending up in the island town of St. Malo. Marie-Laure, who lost her sight at a young age, flees to the island with her father as Paris falls to the German army. Father and daughter eventually become separated, and Marie-Laure must learn to navigate the world without him. Werner, an orphan separated from his sister by the war, tries to cope with his role of invading soldier.
We read this for our monthly book discussion in February.

Citizen: An American Lyric

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, 169 pages.

In this collection of poems and essays Rankine, former National Book award judge and 2014 NBA nominee, probes the absurd and the ordinary things that people do and say about race. She examines slights, insults, accusations, and innuendos (some very real, some inadvertant, misunderstood, or ambiguous), from her point of view and the point of view of several other narrators or voices. Racist comments overheard, ambiguous looks and responses from white colleagues and disrespect from clerks, strangers, and passersby are parsed and pondered.
Brief but compelling.

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy  938 pp.

No spoilers since people are still reading it for the last discussion. Anna Karenina is, at first glance, the story of Russian noblewoman who has an affair and ultimately leaves her husband for her lover. A second storyline involves Konstantin Levin, a landowner who marries a princess who was jilted by Count Vronsky, Anna's lover. Because of the title it appears that the main focus of the story is Anna and her illicit affair but a large portion of the book concerns Levin, his farming, marriage, his dying brother, and the political situation in late Nineteenth Century Russia. The crux of the entire book is Russian society and it's inconsistencies, prejudices, arrogance, and failure to acknowledge the rapid changes taking place in the world outside of their own closed culture.  

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, 349 pages.

This was our April book discussion title, so this post is a little late. But, then there are still some titles from January that need to be blogged about. Our Wednesday night U-City book group had a really good discussion about this title because (as my feeble memory will have me believe) everyone agreed that the writing was beautiful, the characters crisp and lively, and the situations unique utterly believable.
Most of the book, which the author calls an allegory of 9/11, takes place during the course of one day in Manhattan, in August,  1974, as Phillipe Petit walked a tightrope  wire between the Twin Towers.
As the book opens Ciaran and his brother Corrigan have taken different paths out of Ireland, but both have ended up in Manhattan in 1974. Corrigan is now a monk of an indeterminate order, he has followed Christ and gone to live and work among the poor. When Ciaran visits him there, he finds him in the projects, where he has befriended Tillie, Jazzlyn, and the other local prostitutes. Tillie and Jazzlyn and their family story become central to the story as the tale ripples outward, in this beautifully written tale.
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Bitter Brew : The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer by William Knoedelseder.

 Bitter Brew : The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer by William Knoedelseder. 396 pages.

We discussed this at our January book group meeting. Many of the participants were native St Louisians, who were familiar with the story. One complaint about the book was that there was little contained here that could not be found in Post-Dispatch articles, that there was no evidence that the book brought anything new to the story of Anheuser-Busch, or the sale to Inbev. I found it to be a nice, if gossipy, overview of the whole story. All of the Busch heirs to the throne, Gussie, August Busch III, and August Busch IV are portrayed as womanizing heavy-drinkers. IV is cast as a pathetic alcoholic, and not really capable of running, or saving the company. It seemed to me, after reading this, that if IV's plans to keep the sale from happening, if he had saved the company (and other Busch family members and shareholders bear a lot of the responsibility for tanking IV's plans and selling the company), he would be seen in a different light (and maybe Adrienne Martin wouldn't have died in his bedroom). More firearms, accidental deaths, and suicides than I had expected. A quick and lively read.

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The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald, 170 pages.

We read this American classic for our book discussion in December, but since I didn't quite finish it until after the January 1 I get to count all 170 pages this year.
I felt as though I knew the story well, having culturally absorbed it over the decades. It turns out that I knew nothing of Gatsby's story, or his motives, or what happened to him after the accident. It was a good book, definitely of its time; not necessarily dated, but showing the attitudes of America after the Great War. It left me wanting to read more of Fitzgerald's work.

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Downloadable Audio.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, fiction, 581 pages.

I had trouble getting into this book. During the first thirty to fifty pages, while the unnamed protagonist is attending school, I was afraid that this was going to be a bit of a slog. Once it got going though, it was a wild ride. The scenes at the paint factory and the industrial clinic are surreal. The communist / activist part is never boring. We had a great discussion about this book in late September. A true classic.

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The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat, short stories, 244 pages.
I read this for our Wednesday night book club back in March. This is not a novel, but a series of related short stories, in which the characters are Haitians, or Haitian immigrants living in the United States. The Dew Breaker himself, prison guard, torturer, the one who comes to your door in the early morning, breaking the dew with his footsteps, is a recurring character, seen by his family in some stories, his former victims in others. Danticat does a great job evoking loss, bewilderment, and survival as the tales unfold broken lives and hidden secrets.
A wonderful collection of stories.

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The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett, fiction, 451 pages.
I re-read this for our January book discussion. I was more comfortable with the book, knowing how it ended, knowing that everything turned out as it did, but still . . .

The book, set in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962 follows Skeeter, a 22 year-old white woman, as she develops a heightened social conscience and starts writing about the plight of black domestic help in Jackson. She can only do this with the help of Aibileen, who works as a maid for one of Skeeter's friends, and Minnie, who has been fired by another of Skeeter's friends, Hilly. Hilly is at the root of all the town's problems with her inhumanity and her obsession with toilets.

It has become a much beloved book, striking a chord with many readers, and we had a very good discussion about it, but I found it a bit off somehow, like it would have been a great book back in the 1960s, or more righteous if the author's brother's housekeeper wasn't suing over her alleged portrayal as one of the book's characters. Not one of my favorites, but a huge seller nonetheless.
I did enjoy the narration of the downloadable audio when I listened to it last year.

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Downloadable Audio.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist/Mohsin Hamid 194 pgs.

There is a lot of symbolism in this book about a Pakistani student who come to the U.S. for college and stays for a few years pursuing his "American Dream" at least until 9/11 and its aftermath make him rethink his goals. This is the freshman read at Wash U. this semester and I attended our discussion last week before reading the book. I'm not sure if that was good or bad but I guess it doesn't matter. It does seem like a good choice for a larger discussion of a lot of issues. - Christa

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks-372 pages, Fiction
The story of an illustrated Haggadah, or passover prayer book, from the 15th century and the people who created, preserved and attempted to destroy it. The book journeys from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain to Venice to Yugoslavia among other places. Hanna Heath, book conservator, evaluates the book after it is borught out of hiding after the Bosnian-Serbian conflict of the nineties. She discovers hints and clues about its past while the reader is allowed to see the true events behind the clues.