Novels Now

You are browsing the archives of 2008 June.

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
My son just said to me, “Didn’t you just start that book yesterday?” Always the sign of a good book, one that I just race through. I’ve been reading some good reviews of this one in the Southern Reading Challenge. It’s a classic southern novel, tackling racist life in Mississippi just after [...]

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
In 1988, a plane carrying the President of Pakistan crashed, killing the President - military dictator General Zia, some generals, and the American Ambassador, Arnold Raphel. This book looks at what may have caused the crash and the death of the General Zia.
I had to look up at [...]

And despite my best attempts to be rational, I was afraid. I could feel the house’s atmosphere, that eerie swirling in the corners of the room and the folds of the curtains and behind the furniture. It wasn’t explicit; there was no sudden breathless rush, sucking the air out and dragging the walls in [...]

“For years, people imagined they saw canals dug into the planet’s surface. They called these canals proof of life. They worried what intelligent life on Mars might mean to us earthlings, to our safety. But, it was nothing. An optical illusion a cosmic misprint. There’s no life. There’s nothing.” -From Springtime on Mars, page [...]

Resistance
By Owen Sheers
Completed June 27, 2008

I think poets make great novelists. Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, even Shel Silverstein all embrace a stunningly descriptive way of writing that makes their stories and characters just flow through your mind. Like his poetic counterparts, Owen Sheers used this lyrical style in his debut novel Resistance.
Resistance is an [...]

There was only one birthday that Gus was getting tired of organizing. Tired, really, of celebrating at all. Her own. Because in short order - March 25 - August Adelaide Simpson was turning fifty. -From Comfort Food, page 4-
Gus Simpson is a huge TV personality on the CookingChannel. After the unexpected death of her [...]

The White Mary by Kira Salak
Pages: 351
First Published: Aug. 2008
Genre: literature
Rating: 5/5
First sentence:
The black waters of Elobi Creek show no sign of a current.
Comments: Marika Vecera is a journalist who travels around the world reporting on wars and atrocities. Just after arriving back from the Congo she hears that Robert Lewis, a journalist she has [...]

For me, this is the essence of life: Accepting the situation for the reality of what it truly is ad accomplishing what needs to be done to advance oneself for the greater good of all, no matter cost or sacrifice. [excerpt from the book]
Moving Forward: Taking The Lead in Your Life by Dave Pelzer
Center [...]

“The world is full of miracles, Mama. All we have to do is find the ones that belong to us.” [pg 27]
Tarnished Beauty by Cecelia Samartin
Atria Books, 2008 (ARE)
Fiction; 339 pgs
Jamilet is a naïve and imaginative young woman who carries a burden, an ugly birthmark that stretches from her shoulders, down her back, reaching [...]

Like many of my generation I did not go to war gravely and soberly, as Lao-tzu tells us a wise man ought. But I returned from it that way. [pg 285]
Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield
Doubleday, 2008
Fiction; 295 pgs
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was one of the most respected generals of his time, not only by [...]

The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill
Fourth Simon Serrailler Crime Novel
Pages: 328
First Published: June 17, 2008 (Canada)
Genre: Crime/Mystery
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
They had climbed for two hours.
Comments: Simon Serrailler is a Detective Chief Superintendent in a small town in England and a gunman is on the loose. He appears to be randomly shooting young women all over [...]

Janeology
By Karen Harrington
Completed June 15, 2008
Nature versus nurture – it’s an old question and still a widely debatable one. Do genes rule our own impulses? Does one’s environment shape who we become?
It’s this theme that formed Karen Harrington’s debut novel, Janeology. In this book, Jane Nelson decided that she was “done being a mother” and [...]

The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Memory and Murder
by Sharon Butala
Pages: 260
First Published: March, 2008
Genre: memoir, True Crime
Rating: DNF
First sentence:
One soft spring evening in 1962 a young nurse named Alexandra Wiwcharuk wasmurdered and an entire city came to a stop: Alexandra’s murder was all anyonecould talk about.
Comments: With that promising first sentence, I was [...]

It had to do with knowing we were opening ourselves up, cutting ourselves open at our guts and letting the others see inside us in ways we couldn’t even see ourselves. It had to do with beginning to imagine opening ourselves up not only to each other, but also to the whole world. Because [...]

This was a fun, lighter read. Emily is in therapy and is trying to deal with the fact that she runs every time she faces the tough questions but honestly, she doesn’t seem crazy to me[...]

Lisa Black’s first novel - Takeover - takes place in Cleveland and opens with the grisly murder of a man found outside of his home. Forensic scientist Theresa MacLean doesn’t have any reason to believe this will be different from any other murder she has investigated until she gets word that a hostile takeover of [...]

America America
By Ethan Canin
Completed June 8, 2008
Corey Sifter was an average boy, living with his working-class parents in New York, when the wealthy, well-connected Metarey family employed him to work on their estate. Liam Metarey, the family’s patriarch, took a shining to Corey and gave him important jobs at the mansion as well as paid [...]