Book Reviews / Blog
- “I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them.” – Emma Thompson
Our Souls At Night - Kent Haruf
‘And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters.’ With that ordinary declaration Kent Haruf begins an endearing relationship between two lonely souls in need of more than company in the empty hours of the night. Addie, ‘a medium sized 70 year-old woman with white hair’ knows that it takes something more than a hand to hold, or a warm body in bed beside you during the long hours of the night. She will at last in her life, that had been lived well but joylessly, discover with a stranger what real conversation and heart felt talk in the long hours of the dark can do to lift the soul and fill the heart. Louis and Addie invite us to share this newly discovered bond with them and in doing so, Kent Haruf has much to show his readers about life and love. It’s a great read.
Ordinary Grace - Kent William Krueger
‘The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.’ – Blaise Pascal. (from the opening of Ordinary Grace) William Kent Krueger’s coming of age novel consumes only the course of a single Minnesota summer, but in its pages we are treated to an amazingly rich and diverse cast of characters. Each growing and blossoming before our eyes. I found myself highlighting truths and scraps of wisdom that I did not want to vanish. From the first line of the prologue ‘All the dying of that summer began with the death of a child’, I was hooked. This is indeed a story of No ‘ordinary grace’, but rather an affirming of the human spirit to forgive and to deal with tragedy unspeakable.
Unbroken - Lauren Hilldenbrand
There were 2 reasons why I was hesitant to read this book when it was chosen as a read for our bookclub last summer. To my shame, I labor with non-fiction however well crafted and have always preferred a good mystery or fantasy novel to anything historical or biographical. Second, I admit to a phobia for anything dealing with imprisonment or confined captivity. I rarely watch movies that feature prison stories … The ‘Green Mile’ and ‘Papillon’, and even ‘The Great Escape’ were tough watches. I squirm and fret as if I was the one confined. But I could not be more glad that I turned every page. The story of Louis Zamperini is lovingly and respectfully recounted in an engaging and page-turning way by Laura Hillenbrand. It is a story of determined and resolute courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty and hardship. But more it is the story of a remarkable and inspiring forgiveness and mercy toward those who might least deserve it. If you imagine there is little that is redeemable in society, or that our world is more broken than whole, ‘Unbroken’ is certain to restore your faith in what is good and noble in men.
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
‘When Breath Becomes Air’ is without question one of the more difficult and beautiful reads I’ve ever experienced. The story of a gifted surgeon in whose hands many might be saved, facing and succumbing to cancer is at once so wonderfully crafted and so painfully descriptive that it proved very hard to finish. Not because it was uninteresting or unworthy of a read, but because Dr. Kalanithi in my estimation has such a clear finger on the pulse of what it means to be human, what it means to fear death, and what it means to triumph in life. He is a true literary scholar and weaves the most beautiful observations about the struggle of those who face crippling disease with his rich and classical knowledge of literature and philosophy. This is no ordinary and technical examination of disease and its biological impact upon human tissue, but more a treatise of the human spirit. My congratulations to Dr. Kalanithi for his courage and for his family’s permission to share in his thoughts about death and dying. I found myself in tears often, not for Dr Kalanithi’s loss, but for his grace and beauty in facing it.
A Gentlemen In Moscow - Amor Towles
Amor Towles has invited me to a delightful dinner at Metropol’s Boyarsky ‘the finest restaurant in Moscow, if not in all of Russia’ and over an unhurried dinner of saltimboca has spun the tale of ‘Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt,’ who has been sentenced to a life of house arrest in a 100 square foot room hidden away at the heights of the Metropol. And what a tale it is! At its heart Count Rostov holds court with a charming cast of characters and has seduced me into wanting even more. Towles’ unhurried pace circuits all of life and love and honor and devotion while restricting himself to the horizon of a single building in a city and a country suffering to preserve its identity before a skeptical world. I’ve already purchased ‘Rules of Civility’, but see myself rereading ‘A Gentlemen in Moscow’ again first. To the top of my all time favorites, ‘A Gentlemen in Moscow, will settle into slot number 2, behind only ‘East of Eden’. It is that grand, it is that intriguing, it is that good!
The Guernsey, Literary and Potato Peel Society
An absolute delight. I found myself turning pages, but regretting that it would be so soon finished. There’s something particularly delicious about reading someone else’s letters. No overt descriptions of the characters, no real clues about how they looked, but inside those letters! A rich and beautiful exposure of the soul and motives of their authors. The isolation of the island, rumors of war and cruelty and yet within the ‘literary society’ we find hope and joy and laughter and the ability to bear up to whatever hardships rationing and censorship would bring. Worth the read, your spirit will be lifted and your faith in the goodness of humans under stress will be reinforced.