Novels Now

For as long as I can remember, I have loved reading the Ziggy cartoons. He’s such an inspirational little guy that always seems to see the bright side of every bad thing that happens to him.

Zig-Zagging: A Memoir, Loving Madly, Losing Badly….How Ziggy Saved my Life is written by Tom Wilson Jr. He is the current genius behind the Ziggy cartoons, but he is not the first. His father, Tom, is the original creator of Ziggy. Originally drawn for use in his father’s greeting card business, Ziggy has grown into the phenomenon he is today. And Tom has always felt like Ziggy was more than just a character his father drew. No, Ziggy was more like a brother to Tom.

The book begins in the early years giving us the details of how Ziggy was born. Through Tom’s childhood, Ziggy was a connection to his father. They used to go to Big Boy’s and eat dinner together, Tom and his father. And they would draw on the paper placemats and play their own game called “Save Ziggy”. Tom’s dad would draw Ziggy in a precarious position and then Tom would draw ways to “save” him.

But this book is about more than just Ziggy. It’s about Tom himself. In college, he meets his soulmate: Susan, the love of his life. They marry right after school, and start a modest but wonderfully happy life together. When Tom’s father gets sick, he is called into service to help with the cartoon. An artist of his own right, Tom stays in the background to do the cartoons while his dad is the one in the public eye. But when Tom’s dad is no longer able to continue, Ziggy is handed down.

But Tom’s world is turned upside down when Susan is diagnosed with breast cancer. Through a long and difficult 7 year battle, the Wilson’s continue to live hard and make memories for their children. But Susan’s death knocks the wind out of Tom. He sinks into a horrible depression. And only a little guy named Ziggy can save him.

What I liked most about this beautiful little book is that Tom writes in the “Zen” way that Ziggy thinks. “Every now and then, maybe we become lost in order to find ourselves again.” “Life is a love affair and love is an affair of life. Love affairs must be embraced and savored for all their complexities, just as life must be, as well. Being a student of life also means being a student of love. Love is a living thing with an agenda and a commission to work within our fate.”

Losing the love of his life was a horrible tragedy. But dropping out of his own life was a far worse one. Seemingly, it was Ziggy that pulled him through it all.

This small little biography is such an inspiration to anyone that has lost a loved one. A quick read, it’s filled with not only gut-wrenching personal accounts of his loss, but also gives comfort that yes, it will get better. Best of all, there are many Ziggy cartoons interspersed throughout. I really loved this little book, and I think many people can draw strength from not only Tom Wilson’s perspective on loss, but also his renewed faith is God. As someone who has suffered a devastating loss of a dear loved one, I could too well relate to his words. A must read for all Ziggy lovers, and a must read for a person that just wants to be inspired! 4.5/5

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Ballantine Books, 2009
Fiction; 290 pgs

Historical records tell us very little about Leonardo Da Vinci’s mother, Caterina. All that is really know is that she had Leonardo out of wedlock and that he was taken from her by his father’s family and raise by them.

Robin Maxwell tries to fill in the blanks and the remarkable work of historical fiction. Catereniagrew up in a small village with her father, Ernesto, an apothecary.Her mother died when Caterina was very young. Ernesto was a true believer in education and educated Caterina even though it was almost unheard of for a woman to have an education. He also taught her how to be an apothecary.

One day Caterenia was gathering plants for the apothecary when she happened to meet Piero, the son of the richest family in the village. After that they met regularly until he finally propose marriage. With the promise of marriage, they consummated their love for each other.

Piero went home to tell his family about his future wife and he was forbidden to see her again, let alone marry her. A couple months after that, Caterina realized she was pregnant. After she gives birth, is when the story really spices up!

Caterina was an intelligent, kind, caring mother who would do anything for her son, even at great personal risk to herself and her identity.

Robin Maxwell writes a very colourful story of Caterina and her relationship with her son. She captures the essence of the Italian Renascence with vivid prose and includes details of real people such as Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo de’Medici.

Maxwell did make one mistake, when Leonardo was almost 16 years old, Caterina was 21. She was 15 when she had him. The math does not add up at all. LOL!

Despite that, Maxwell wrote a stirring portrait of Renaissance Italy and Leonardo da Vinci’s mother.

Highly recommended!

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Fiction - Culinary
2009 J. P. Putnam’s Sons
Finished on 3/14/09
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Product Description:

Once a month on Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian’s restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect.

The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian’s soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. One by one they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love, and a garlic and red sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Over time, the paths of the students mingle and intertwine, and the essence of Lillian’s cooking expands beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of their lives, with results that are often unexpected, and always delicious.

Anyone who knows me well or has been following my blog knows how much I love to cook and try new recipes. Well, this was certainly my kind of book! I loved the mouthwatering descriptions of the various dishes the students learned to create in their eight months at The School of Essential Ingredients. The author does a marvelous job weaving each character’s background history into the monthly classes, revealing their hopes and dreams, as well as the pain and sorrow in their private lives. I fell in love with each and every character and as I turned the final page, it was with great sadness, as I knew I would soon find myself missing the characters and Lillian’s restaurant. 

The cooking class was held in a restaurant named Lillian’s, on the main street of town, almost hidden by a front garden dense with ancient cherry trees, roses, and the waving spikes and soft mounds of green herbs. Set between the straight lines of a bank and the local movie theater, the restaurant was oddly incongruous, a moment of lush colors and gently moving curves, like an affair in the midst of an otherwise orderly life. Passersby often reached out to run their hands along the tops of the lavender bushes that stretched luxuriantly above the cast-iron fence, the soft, dusty scent remaining on their fingers for hours after.

Those who entered the gate and followed the winding brick path through the garden discovered an Arts and Crafts house whose front rooms had been converted into a dining area. There were no more than ten tables in all, each table’s personality defined by nearby architectural elements, one nestled into a bay window, another engaged in companionable conversation with a built-in bookshelf. Some tables had views of the garden, while others, hidden like secrets in the darker, protected corners of the room, held their patrons’ attention within the edges of their tabletops.

Doesn’t this sound lovely? Oh, how I’d love to take a cooking class in a restaurant such as this, especially one taught by such a down-to-earth person as Lillian.

I first discovered The School of Essential Ingredients when it arrived in the bookstore. The beautiful cover art, graced with a lovely blurb by another favorite author, caught my attention:

A delicate, meltingly lovely hymn to food and friendship. Lillian’s kitchen is a place where the world works the way it should. You’ll want to tuck yourself into one warm corner of it and stay all day.(Marisa de los Santos, author of Love Walked In)

Reading those words, I knew this was a book I had to buy. But as luck would have it, I won an autographed copy after entering a contest over on Lisa’s blog. The inscription in my copy reads, “For Lesley, who loves books and food… Erica Bauermeister”

I found myself wishing Erica had included recipes for all the wonderful dishes described within this gem of a book. I was practically drooling on the pages as the students learned how to bake crab in a lemony-wine sauce (with garlic and butter, of course). The Thanksgiving meal is one I’d love to try my hand at! Imagine how delicious a meal such as this would taste:

Doesn’t that sound like a refreshing alternative to the traditional meal, heavy with mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls and gravy? And who doesn’t love cheese? After reading the description of a cheese fondue dinner, I was ready to run down to the corner market to buy a block of Gruyere and Emmenthaler and a huge loaf of crusty artisan bread. Mmmmmmmmm. As you can imagine, this is not a book to read when you’re hungry and dinner is several hours away. 

On owning a restaurant:

Lillian loved best the moment before she turned on the lights. She would stand in the restaurant kitchen doorway, rain-soaked air behind her, and let the smells come to her–ripe sourdough yeast, sweet-dirt coffee, and garlic, mellowing as it lingered. Under them, more elusive, stirred the faint essence of fresh meat, raw tomatoes, cantaloupe, water on lettuce. Lillian breathed in, feeling the smells move about and through her, even as she searched out those that might suggest a rotting orange at the bottom of a pile, or whether the new assistant chef was still double-dosing the curry dishes. She was. The girl was a daughter of a friend and good enough with knives, but some days, Lillian thought with a sigh, it was like trying to teach subtlety to a thunderstorm.

On chocolate:

The hard, round cake of chocolate was wrapped in yellow plastic with red stripes, shiny and dark when she opened it. The chocolate made a rough sound as it brushed across the fine section of the grater, falling in soft clouds onto the counter, releasing a scent of dusty back rooms filled with bittersweet chocolate and old love letters, the bottom drawers of antique desks and the last leaves of autumn, almonds and cinnamon and sugar.

On weather in the Northwest:

Helen and Carl walked up the main street of town to the cooking class. It was a clear, cold evening in early February, the end of a miraculously blue day blown in from the north like a celebration. People in the Northwest tended to greet such weather with a child’s sense of joy, strangers exchanged grins, houses were suddenly cleaner, and neighbors could be found in their yards in shirtsleeves, regardless of the temperature, indulging a sudden desire to dig in rich, dark dirt.

On love:

More than anyone he knew, Antonia carried these things with her, in the million sweet and careful rituals that still made up her life, no matter what country she was in. He saw it in the way she cut bread, or drank wine[...] Antonia made celebrations of things he had always dismissed as moments to be rushed through on the way to something more important. Being around her, he found even everyday experiences were deeper, nuanced, satisfaction and awareness slipped in between the layers of life like love notes hidden in the pages of a textbook.

The School of Essential Ingredients is one of those books that could have easily been consumed over the course of a weekend. Well aware that this is a debut novel (with no backlist to satisfy me until Bauermeister’s next release), I chose to savor it as slowly as possible. And, it’s definitely going on my keeper shelf for future re-reads. Fans of Marisa de los Santos, Joanne Harris, Elin Hilderbrand, and Elizabeth Berg will not be disappointed. I know I wasn’t!

Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd
Brief Lives series

Pages: 160
First Published: Jan, 2009 (UK, 2008/Can, Mar.2009)
Genre: biography, non-fiction
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

On the evening of 26 September 1849, Edgar Allan Poe stopped in the office of a physician in Richmond, Virginia — John Carter — and obtained a palliative for the fever that had beset him.

Comments: This is a short, or rather, brief biography of Edgar Allan Poe, part of a series the author has done called Brief Lives in which also includes biographies of Chaucer, Newton and Turner. This is not the first biography of Poe I have read, nor will it be the last. It has been quite some years since I last read of Poe, though, so the information was all coming fresh to my hazy mind.

For such a short book, there is a wealth of information and detail included that leaves nothing out of Poe’s tragically brief life. His melancholy and morbid life is so fascinating as one compares it to the macabre literature and poetry that he wrote. Poe was an orphan early in life, taken in by people of no relation, who, after the mother’s death, refused to have anything to do with him. He became notorious and well-known during his life but never enjoyed appreciation for his work while he was alive and thus fortune alluded him, leaving him always on the verge of penury. He also had a habit of attaching himself to women who died at young ages of consumption from his birth mother through several ladies down to his own wife. Of course, his frequent bouts of extreme drinking lasting for days which left him to be found laying in ditches by acquaintances did not help his health or his reputation.

The book is well written, including many direct quotes from contemporary sources, taken from people who knew him and newspapers of the time and his own words. The author has done a good job of giving a background as to whether the modern reader should take those quotes as truth or with a grain of salt. While focusing on his life a good deal of time is also spent on the writing of certain of his works and the literary criticism of the time; in fact a whole chapter is devoted to The Raven. I enjoyed the book and found it very interesting, even to one who had read the story before; I found this a rather studious approach to the subject. This does make the reader take the work serious but on the other hand, I did find the writing a bit dry at times. I prefer my biographies to be written in a narrative which almost reads like fiction and the quotes and literary criticism got in the way of that for me. But nevertheless a well-written book and certainly a good place to start for the person who has never read anything on Poe himself before; with only 160 pages it will give you the answer as to whether you want to read more about the man himself.

The more she cooked, the more she began to view spices as carriers of the emotions and memories of the places they were originally from and all those they had traveled through over the years. She discovered that people seemed to react to spices much as they did to other people, relaxing instinctively into some, shivering into a kind of emotional rigor mortis when encountering others. By the time she was twelve, Lillian had begun to believe that a true cook, one who could read people and spices, could anticipate reactions before the first taste, and thus affect the way a meal or an evening would go. - from The School of Essential Ingredients -

Lillian is drawn to food and its magic from the time she is a small child - intuitive and open, she sees food as a way to reach out to others emotionally. When Lillian grows up, she opens a restaurant and starts a cooking school. But the school is less about cooking and more about the people who arrive at the restaurant to learn about food.

The School of Essential Ingredients is about the lives of eight different people who gather each Monday at Lillian’s restaurant. They arrive isolated from each other, but soon their lives interconnect in ways they could not have guessed. They each gain insight into themselves and others, and are transformed by the lessons they learn about food. There is an older married couple whose lives have been touched by betrayal; an Italian woman who is finding her way in America; a man whose sadness permeates the room; a young girl who needs to learn to believe in herself; a mother who has lost herself in giving to her family; a man whose belief in perfection has left him lonely; and an elderly woman whose memory has forsaken her. And then there is Lillian - the woman who brings them all together and seems to know what each person needs before they do.

Erica Bauermeister has written each character’s story as a series of interconnected narrations - almost like short stories with a central theme. Her language is rich and evocative. Her descriptions of food are lush and sensual - bringing in the colors, aromas, textures and flavors of food in a way which brings the meals to life. As Bauermeister uncovers the mystery of each character’s background, she offers the reader a glimpse into forgiveness, sadness, joy and self-discovery. And she shows us that food is much more than what we put into our mouths - instead it can be healing while it feeds our souls and stimulates our memories.

I thoroughly enjoyed this charming book. Bauermeister’s effortless prose and deep understanding of the human condition provide insight into her characters and give new meaning to the idea of cooking.

Recommended.

Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand by Carrie Vaughn

Grand Central Publishing, 2009

Fantasy; 301 pgs

Book 5 in the Series

Kitty heads out of town again, this time for Las Vegas. She somehow was talked into hosting a live television special in the City of Sin and in delivering a message from Denver’s Master Vampire to the one in Las Vegas. Add to that a wedding, a poker tournament and mobsters; what could be more fitting for the setting of this novel?

Kitty is booked into the same hotel that is hosting a gun show and some of the conference goers are not too keen on her kind. It does not take much to make an enemy of someone who already has it in for you. Where Kitty goes, you can be sure magic and danger will be close behind, and sure enough, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand has some of both. Las Vegas is the home of many secrets and Kitty quickly finds herself tangled up in the middle of several.

Although I liked Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, it got off to a slow start. Considering the characters that needed to be introduced for the set up of the various plot threads, including the main one, it probably could not have been done any other way. In addition, I wish the author had gone a little farther with certain threads in the novel, but perhaps that was in part due to the limitations of a first person narrative.

Something I really liked about Kitty in this book is how she used her cell phone to warn her friends when she was about to jump into trouble. Sure, she didn’t stay put like she promised and ran head first into trouble all by herself. But at least she reached out for help, even if a little later than she should have.

One of the strongest things Kitty has going for her are her friends and how they will stand by her during the worst of moments. Kitty may not be able to tackle the biggest evil in the world on her own, but she is a team player—most of the time—and she is not afraid to stand up for herself no matter how afraid she might be.

Carrie Vaughn has created an interesting storyline which holds a lot of promise in developing further in future books. Although this was not my favorite book in the series, Kitty and her friends continue to keep me entertained and interested in their adventures.

Unpolished Gem: My Mother, My Grandmother, and Me by Alice Pung

Pages: 282
First Published: Jan. 27, 2009
Genre: memoir
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

In 1980, my father, mother, grandmother, and Auntie Kieu arrived in Australia by plane.

Comments: A Chinese family escapes communism by moving to Cambodia, only to find some years later that the next generation must escape from the dictator Pol Pot. This Chinese-Cambodian family of grandmother, brother, sister, and brother’s eight-month pregnant wife are given a choice of Canada or Australia. Knowing nothing of either country they chose Australia because the father does know it doesn’t snow in Australia.

This is a story of three women from three different generations with very different life experiences and especially the life of a second-generation immigrant. Alice, the daughter born shortly after arrival in Australia, tells the story of her life living between two cultures. Her beloved Grandmother, from China, was the second wife of a Chinese man and very traditional in her Chinese religious beliefs. Her mother, a product of Chinese rearing, even though born in Cambodia, remains within the Asian community in the new land and never learns English beyond a few words and phrases. Alice, an Australian by birth, goes to a ghost (white man’s) school and finds her culture clash of being an Australian girl within the confines of her old Chinese way upbringing.

While concentrating on Alice’s life, we learn a bit of the Cambodian and Chinese way of life through off-hand comments and brief explanations of the mother and grandmother’s past. However, the book is mostly concerned with the here and now of Alice’s life in Australia as she lives with her mother and grandmother (and father, of course) being raised with Chinese religion and morals, while being pushed to become a part of the white man’s world and yet keep her Chinese heritage and dignity.

This is a very entertaining memoir and full of interesting details of the Chinese way of life. Alice’s grandmother and mother are very strong characters both, though in very different ways, smothering her with the strict rules of Chinese behaviour and the Chinese beliefs. The mother makes Alice’s life very difficult as she does not learn English and Alice, though taught to speak Chinese as a child, slowly looses much of her ability to speak the language as she goes to school and interacts with her own new culture.

A truly wonderful read, the book is very humorous and yet at times touching and tragic. In a way, I found this memoir to be like an Amy Tan fiction in the way it deals with the mother/daughter relationship and having read all Tan’s books I can wholeheartedly say that Amy Tan fans will surely enjoy Alice Pung’s writing and the story this book has to tell. I’m very impressed with Ms. Pung’s first book and wonder if she’ll turn to fiction for her next book. I can certainly see her following in the footsteps of Amy Tan and Lisa See. Recommended!

Daniel Suarez
448 pages

Daemon as it applies to Computer Science is defined by dictionary.com as:

A program or process that sits idly in the background until it is invoked to perform its task.

And that’s exactly what this Daemon does. It sits idly in the background until computer genius Matthew Sobol dies of brain cancer. Upon his death and subsequent obituary notice, his Daemon is unleashed on the world in a bloody, twisting, turning path of suspense and intrigue.

This story took off from the first page and it kept me guessing. I’d say it kept me guessing up until the end, except there really was no end. The sequel, Freedom, is due out in 2010.

There is a lot of technology talk and gamer-speak involved in the book but I didn’t find that it hindered my enjoyment of the book. In most cases, the context of the story gave me a general idea of the meaning. The rest my gamer-nerd son filled in for me.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because it would be easy to accidentally give a spoiler. If you like technology, suspense, and intrigue then I can recommend Daemon. (4/5)

Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth, Jan. 6, 2009

I couldn’t finish this book. I made it to page 69 but found the book just wasn’t to my tastes. The word thriller is used in the description and I guess I just expected some thrills. I really couldn’t concentrate on the book at all. I love the time-frame, early 20th century, and that is what made me think I would enjoy this book but there was too much ancient history, (Sumerians this, Assyrians that) and too much politics. Not my cup of tea at all. Perhaps it will be more to your liking. Here is the publisher’s description:

Barry Unsworth, a writer with an “almost magical capacity for literary time travel” (New York Times Book Review) has the extraordinary ability to re-create the past and make it relevant to contemporary readers. In Land of Marvels, a thriller set in 1914, he brings to life the schemes and double-dealings of Western nations grappling for a foothold in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

Somerville, a British archaeologist, is excavating a long-buried Assyrian palace. The site lies directly in the path of a new railroad to Baghdad, and he watches nervously as the construction progresses, threatening to destroy his discovery. The expedition party includes Somerville’s beautiful, bored wife, Edith; Patricia, a smart young graduate student; and Jehar, an Arab man-of-all-duties whose subservient manner belies his intelligence and ambitions. Posing as an archaeologist, an American geologist from an oil company arrives one day and insinuates himself into the group. But he’s not the only one working undercover to stake a claim on Iraq’s rich oil fields.

Historical fiction at its finest, Land of Marvels opens a window on the past and reveals its lasting impact.

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Pages: 247
First Published: Jan. 27, 2009
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

I had a sister once.

Comments: Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Liza’s town is very secluded and doesn’t welcome strangers. References are made about Before when there were such things as TV and airplanes but there has been a war; a war which involved our world and the world of the Faerie. These two worlds are somehow connected to each other and the war caused great destruction on both sides. Liza’s town is opposed to magic and they are taught how bad magic is. They know no different as the trees reach out to kill them and they fight to stay alive. They also make sure no magic is brought into their village even when it is born there. New born babes who show tell tale signs of magic are left on a far away hill to perish.

Liza’s sister is born with faerie hair and after her father takes the baby, her mother disappears and Liza soon discovers she is having visions and must go find her mother. A friend, Matthew, joins her and she soon discovers his secret as well. They have a lot to learn about themselves, the world around them and the War with the Faerie.

This was a beautifully written, page-turning and thought provoking story. I really, really enjoyed it. The post apocalypse/magic angle is unique and makes for an intriguing story. Liza is a spirited, strong female lead and the characters are well-developed given the short length of the novel. A refreshing read that fantasy fans are sure to enjoy!

A Dangerous Affair by Caro Peacock
Liberty Lane, Book 2

Pages: 303
First Published: Jan. 19, 2009
Genre: historical fiction, cosy mystery
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Neither of us knew the rate for bribing a gaoler at the Old Bailey.

Comments: The book starts with Liberty and a friend visiting someone in prison who is to be hanged shortly. Then the plot moves back in time to before the murder and approximately directly after the events of the first book. Liberty’s friend is in love with one of the dancers in a ballet and the evening Liberty goes to the ballet the Prima donna attacks the loved one on stage and a fight ensues. Later that evening the Prima donna is found dead in her room and the loved one is eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to hang. Liberty, along with her friends from the first book, set off to track down the real killer.

In the first of this series I had reservations about the main character, Liberty Lane, being to modern for her Victorian setting. This time around Peacock has fleshed the character out more and kept her within the confines of her time. She is a much more believable character now and I quite enjoyed this book for the cosy mystery it is. Historical events take place around the characters giving the sense of a real time setting. The mystery has lots of twists and turns and the ending is surprising. The ending also sets the stage for more books in the series. This is a fun romp in Victorian England with unique characters and a very enjoyable cosy mystery.

My father stepped back and examined me. Whereas Serena Jane possessed the limbs and features of a vain little pixie, my physiognomy brought to mind the heaviest and roundest of objects - a cannonball, perhaps. Something impervious to smashes and collisions. Since I began walking at the unprecedented age of seven months, I had fallen down the stairs twice, plunged unharmed into the flower beds from the front porch, and survived being pushed into oncoming traffic by Serena Jane in our rusted red wagon. - from The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, page 32 -

Truly Plaice’s birth brings out the betting folks of Aberdeen County who wonder how large a baby must be to stretch a mother to such huge proportions. But Truly’s birth is also marked by the death of her mother and the beginning of her father’s descent into alcoholism. Her size seems all the more incredulous when she stands next to her beautiful and petite sister Serena Jane. When the girls’ father dies, Serena Jane is taken in by a wealthy couple and Truly is dropped off at the deteriorating farm of a local family. From this point on, Truly can not help but view herself as less worthy than her sister whose beauty seems to enchant the people of Aberdeen County and attracts Bob Bob Morgan’s attentions. All is not what it seems on the surface, however. As Truly grows more enormous and matures from a young girl into a woman, she must rethink the idea of beauty and come to terms with the pain and anger of her size. Redemption for Truly lies in a series of moral decisions and her ability to forgive those who have wounded her the most.

Tiffany Baker’s debut novel is set in the fictional, rural town of Aberdeen - a place where time seems to stand still.

Its sidewalks had weedy cracks that gaped bigger every winter. The bells at the firehouse sometimes locked when the weather was damp, and the newspaper had quit printing its Saturday edition. There was a recreational softball team, a ladies’ gardening committee, and a brick library, but the team ever won, the collective age of the gardening committee was four hundred and seven, and the print in half the books in the library was so faded and smeared, it was no longer legible. - from The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, page 49 -

The characters who people Aberdeen are quirky, flawed and carry secrets passed from one generation to the next. The novel’s protagonist (Truly) is not wholly likable and yet the reader feels compelled to hear her story and understand her. Baker asks the most basic of questions in her novel: What defines who we become? How important is appearance when we determine a person’s beauty? Can forgiveness redeem us?

Baker captures the essence of small town life - the gossip, the secrets, the relationships and expectations which define each person’s role within the constraints of a community.

The novel is not without its weaknesses - at times situations seem contrived or unbelievable (such as the complete lack of investigation into the disappearance of Serena Jane, and the extent of the cruelty toward a very young Truly). Despite these faults, Baker’s writing is infused with a dark humor and deep insight into what motivates her characters. And it is these qualities which keeps the reader turning the pages.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is not a light read - it is disturbing at times - and some readers may be dismayed at the moral decisions of the protagonist. But for those readers who enjoy character driven books which take them to a new level of understanding, this one is worth the read.

Julie Klassen

304 pages

Lillian Haswell works with her father in his apothecary shop. She has a wonderful memory and things seem to come much easier for her than they do for Francis Baylor, her father’s apprentice. Lilly doesn’t particularly like working there though and when she is offered the chance to go to London by her wealthy aunt and uncle, she is thrilled. She  has hopes of finding a husband, being educated and perhaps tracking down the mother who abandoned the family some years before.

Just as she begins to fit in with London society, Lilly is forced to return home when she receives a note that her father is “not quite himself.” She must once again take up her position at Haswell’s Apothecary. However, her father’s illness puts Lilly in a precarious position. Women are not allowed to be apothecaries and there is a doctor in town who would like nothing more than to see Haswell’s close its doors.

The Apothecary’s Daughter is a moving story which covers a large amount of territory. Through Lilly’s character we experience life as a person of trade, life in a small English village,  life in London society and some history of the apothecary profession.

We experience the ridiculousness of all of the social jockeying to attain a “good match.” As with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, I understood why this was so important for women of that time. Without a good match they were powerless.  And Lilly does enjoy the hustle and bustle of the London social scene. She enjoys the people she meets and as she begins to turn heads and rub elbows with the upper crust, she begins to envision herself as the wife of a gentleman.

But then reality comes crashing in and she must return to Bedsley Prior to help her father and like all of us, Lilly learns the best lessons in the trials of life. She learns about faith, family, friends,  health and home. This Christian novel is beautifully written. Lilly’s faith is natural and is a part of her life which never makes that aspect of the story feel forced.

I did not want to put The Apothecary’s Daughter down. I loved the characters, the settings and the history. There are even some elements of suspense. At one point in the story there are several different men interested in gaining Lilly’s favor and the author does a really good job at not tipping her hand as to who wins her heart.

I loved this book and look forward to reading Lady of Milkweed Manor, also by Julie Klassen, very soon. (5/5)

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell, 304 pages

What a hoot! From the opening mugging to the final, extremely unbelievable but exciting - I can’t believe he did that! scene, I grinned and turned page after page, very quickly. I read somewhere it was described as House meets The Sopranos and that is a pretty good description.

Short, snappy, violent and crude, Peter Brown, doctor at a Manhattan hospital and member of the Witness Protection Program may have been identified and spends the rest of the book trying to decide what he should do. I preferred the present day story to his remembrance of what got him into the WPP, but the back story was necessary to set up the ending.

Bazell is a medical doctor who had written his first book, so the experience of interns in a hospital rings true, but I wouldn’t want to be in that hospital! Footnotes appear now and then to elaborate on the medical information and was a neat addition and some might even be clues to future events in the story. I read through this quickly in one day and quite enjoyed it. If a book gets a good rating based on entertainment value, this gets full marks. Credulity and realism? Not so much, but loads of fun for people who don’t mind crude language and lots of violence and have faith that their doctor would never be like that.

I just read at IMDB that Leonardo diCaprio has optioned the book and may star in the movie version. Very interesting. Also, there is a website, http://www.beattehreaper.com/ that has a fun game of ‘play the intern and survive the day’. I didn’t do so well on my first try.

The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas
Translated from the French by Sian Reynolds
The First Adamsberg Novel

Pages: 247
First Published: 1996 (English Translation 2009) Jan 6. UK/Canada,
Genre: crime, mystery
Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

Mathilde took out her diary and wrote: ” The man sitting next to me has got one hell of a nerve.”

Comments: Wow! I think I’ve really been missing something by not reading European crime novels earlier. This is the first in the series of Commissionaire Adamsberg and the latest to be translated into English. While working on and wrapping up another case Adamsberg becomes interested in the latest talk around Paris of mysterious blue chalk circles appearing all over the city several times a week and inside each circle is a common ordinary item, or sometimes just a little strange. They’ve found a watch, a doll’s head, a pen, a dead cat, a pigeon’s foot, an ‘I Love Elvis’ button and many more items. No one except the press is really concerned about this but Adamsberg feels right away that there is something dead wrong about this. And he is proven correct when the first circle to contain a dead body turns up.

Beautifully written, the characters are exquisitely written. In such a short book all the characters, including the secondary ones, are fully developed and real. They are an eccentric bunch of people right from Adamsberg down to the blind man who loves to ask people if they’d like help crossing the street. The crime itself is wonderfully twisty and was impossible for me to figure out. Really an absolutely amazing crime novel crossed with psychological suspense. The characters remind me of Christie and the psychological aspects remind me of Simenon. Brilliance!

Only one thing that bothers me is that the books are not being translated in order. There are already 4 books translated before this, the first one. Strange…

**Sorry about the gushing, but I just really loved this book.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Pages: 290
First Published: Jan. 27, 2009
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Old Henry Lee stood transfixed by all the commotion at the Panama Hotel.

Comments: Henry Lee’s wife has been dead for six months when he comes upon a crowd outside an old hotel that has been boarded up since the war years. The belongings of about 40 families that were sent to Japanese internment camps have been found in the basement. Henry remembers his past.

The book switches narrative from the present (well, 1985) to Henry’s past when he was a boy of twelve. He met a Japanese girl the same age and they became friends but Henry’s father was a staunch Chinese Nationalist and considered all Japanese the enemy since Japan had been attacking China for the last ten years.

This is a beautiful book. Beautifully written with a beautiful story to tell. It is a tale of friendship and enemies, love and hate, two very different families and the children who fall in love. Almost like World War II version of Romeo and Juliet. The story is bittersweet, hence the title, and the characters of Henry, his father, and Keiko, the American-born Japanese girl are fully realized.

I found the historical aspect fascinating. I often read World War II stories from a Chinese point of view and this was quite unique. The story was riveting and a page-turner that I couldn’t put down. I don’t usually read love stories, especially unrequited love, but the tale told here is simply beautiful and much more than just a love story.

The only quibble I have is that the author tried to present an unbiased point of view in regards to the Japanese internment camps and while he succeeded I would have liked a little more background on the “why?” of the situation for readers who know nothing of the Japanese atrocities of WWII. It was very briefly referred to but a little more information would have presented a truly balanced point of view.

In all, this is a wonderful tale and will be truly enjoyed by anyone who enjoys a good WWII story or Asian fiction.