The storied life of A. J. Fikry

There seems to be a new genre emerging of books centering on curmudgeonly widowers.  Like Ove in A man called Ove, A. J. Fikry has recently lost a beloved wife who was the socially extroverted half of the couple.  With her he ran a bookstore called Island Books on Alice Island, Massachusetts.  A year and a half after her death, descending into mild alcoholism, misanthropy, and self-pity, the forty-ish bookseller suddenly finds himself landed with a two-year-old girl who has been abandoned in his shop.  This improbable plot, which also concerns the theft of Fikry’s valuable edition of one of E. A. Poe’s lesser known works, spins a cast of memorable characters into a charming tale.  Lovers of books and bookstores will be particularly taken with A. J.’s story.  260 pp.

All the light we cannot see, by Anthony Doerr

Hailed as one of the best books of 2014, this novel, set primarily during World War II, doesn’t disappoint.  In Paris, Marie-Laure lives a quiet life with her father, a master locksmith at the Museum of Natural History, in the years leading up to the war.  She lost her sight at age six and her father fashions intricate models of the Paris streets and buildings in her neighborhood to teach her to navigate around them.  Meanwhile, Werner, who lives with his sister in an orphanage in a German mining town, is caught up unwillingly in the Hitler Youth where his amazing engineering skills, particular with radios, are discovered.  The book opens with the 1944 bombardment of Saint-Malo on the coast of France where sixteen-year-old Marie-Laure has ended up after the occupation of Paris and nineteen-year-old Werner has been sent to find the source of French Resistance radio transmissions from the area.  But before their lives intersect at the end of the novel, the author brings to life characters, major and minor, and the war on several fronts.  Having read his earlier short story collections, The shell collector, and Memory Wall, the episodic short chapters were reminiscent of his earlier works, as was his deep interest in science.  Enjoyable on all levels.  530 pp.

To dwell in darkness, by Deborah Crombie

I haven’t read many mysteries lately, and was glad to be clued into this author.  I didn’t realize, however, that it was the most recent volume in a series and rather wish I started at the beginning.  In any case, the novel stands alone pretty well even if you haven’t been following the characters’ development for years. I enjoyed it getting to know Duncan, Gemma and their circle.  “Ripped from the headlines,” the main plot involves a bombing in a London station, St. Pancras.  While the station filled with travelers and onlookers who are there for a concert given by an up-and-coming singer, a demonstration begins and a phosphorous hand-grenade is thrown.  The protesters insist that they only intended to use a smoke bomb and had no idea of the deadliness of the grenade they had obtained.  Who was the intended target and who made the substitution?  The plot is skillfully interwoven, leaving a loose end of a subplot at the end which will surely be the taking off point for the next book.  336 pp.

The Lost Matriarch: Finding Leah in the Bible and Midrash / Jerry Rabow, 242 p.

Rabow takes a minutely close look at the Genesis figure of Leah, daughter of Laban, older sister of Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of 7 of Jacob's children, including Judah, Levi, and Dinah.  This seemingly important woman receives scant textual treatment in Genesis itself; rather, it is in the midrash, the body of commentary on scripture which extends from early rabbinic writings to contemporary scholars, that brings Leah to life.

In the end, Rabow's book is as much about this midrashic process as about Leah herself.  This is not a criticism; I was grateful, after having read the word midrash many times, to see it in action, as it were.  Somewhat formulaic in presentation, but gracefully written and enlightening.

The Kiss / Scott E. Blumenthal 303 p.

A trio of Klezmer musicians forms in Rovno, Poland, in 1939.  Their music makes people weep or feel joy like they've never known.  As they travel to Moscow and back, playing for their living, stories begin to spread, that the harp played by Aron was once played by King David, and that the music can bring the dead back to life.  Well constructed, fast paced, and suspenseful.  But also facile, hokey, and very TV movie.  (a 1970s TV movie, that is).