Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I saw the film based on Sarah's Key and was impressed enough to read the book. The film was well done with mostly minor changes to the plot, but the book was better. I enjoyed the extra detail in the print version.

The novel takes place in France. It bounces back and forth between a reporters story in 2002 (about the Vel' d'Hiv roundup) and the story of a twelve year old girl in 1942, who was arrested during the roundup, when French police forced Jewish families out of their homes, held them in horrible conditions in a sports arena, then shipped them east, to the death camps in Poland. Julia Jarmond, the reporter in 2002, is connected to Sarah Starzynski, the young girl in 1942, because the family of Julia's husband has lived in the apartment that was home for the young girl's family prior to the roundup and is about to leave it to Julia, her husband, and their daughter.

I love the way Tatiana de Rosnay mixed everyday problems such as family and work issues with the horrors of life as a Jew in France during the rule of the Vichy (the French government that collaborated with the German Nazis). I mention this specifically because I've seen other reviews that objected to mixing any story with something as serious as this issue. This book tells us about the French collaboration while keeping us involved with an interesting, character based story. Both Julia and Sarah's stories kept me turning the pages.

The picture de Rosnay paints of the French people is probably an accurate one. Some of the non-Jews were cruel while others were willing to risk their lives to help, but most were indifferent. If they found a good deal on a recently abandoned apartment, then tried not to think about the former residents. If they saw families being herded onto buses, they shook their heads and kept on walking.

Events in our history such as the Vel' d'Hiv roundup need to be remembered. We need to understand the capacity people have to act in selfish and hate filled ways, so that we can try to avoid repeating such horrible actions. In a little over a week there is going to be an election here in North Carolina. We're going to vote on an amendment to our state's constitution that, if passed, will prevent people living in non-traditional families from having the same rights as people in traditional families. It will affect real world issues such as inheritance and visiting rights when a love one is sick. Books like Sarah's Key can remind us how we're all human and we need to treat each other with respect.

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Revelation by C.J. Sansom

Revelation by C. J. Sansom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Revelation by C.J. Sansom is one of a series of novels centered around the character Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer during the reign of Henry VIII. It is a time of religious fanaticism with England divided into two camps: the reformers and the advocates of the old traditions “...a sort of Catholicism without the Pope...” A number of gruesome murders occur, one of which affects Shardlake's circle of friends causing him to be personally involved in the need to find the killer.

I haven't read any of the other books in this series, but this one stood on its own quite well. The sixteenth century setting is what makes this novel a great read. Much of the story takes place in Westminster Abbey. It was fascinating to step back into that scene. But the other areas were interesting as well. Learning about the inn in which the lawyers lived and worked was intriguing as was getting a picture of the home and office of Guy Malton, a doctor and good friend of Shardlake's. In addition to the setting, learning about the politics of the time was fascinating. The king was all powerful, so getting him to lean one way or the other in the battle between the religious sects was important to all the characters.

The other aspect of this novel that I appreciated was the way Sansom wove biblical thought and prophecy into his story. Rather than touching the issue of the truth or falsity of prophecy, he looked on extreme religious belief as motivation and rationalization behind the actions of most everyone in the story. Religion affects everyone's lives from the government officials, to the ex monks, to a young boy who is confined to Bedlam because he will not stop praying.

This book is a good choice for readers interested in mysteries and period pieces.

Steve Lindahl, author of Motherless Soul

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Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I wasn't sure if I should comment on Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck because I read less than half of it. I opted to write about it anyway, but with full disclosure.



I'm not a fan of travelogues. I started reading this book because my book club chose it, but when I learned I wasn't going to be able to attend that month's meeting I switched to another book. My impression of the book is that it is well written, but not very profound. One of the reviews I read said that Steinbeck stayed in hotels while traveling and not in his camper/van as he claimed. I don't know if this is true, but speaking as a fan of fiction I don't suppose it matters. He wrote of his impressions of America in 1962. The book is dated, of course, but that makes it interesting. There are differences between people who lived fifty years ago and people who live today, but those seem to be specific differences rather than core differences. We still generalize and jump to conclusions. Today we're more accepting of African-Americans, but less of Mexicans. The type of bureaucracy that kept Steinbeck from crossing the Canadian border without the proper paperwork for his dog was similar to the story of a friend of mine who was recently forced to toss a tube of sunblock before entering a federal building in Washington DC.



The discussions Steinbeck had with people along the way were the part of this book that I liked the most. The people he encountered were jealous of his decision to travel. They were caught up in their day to day lives and wanted something different. I went to high school in New Jersey, in a school that was next to the Garden State Parkway. I used to look out the classroom windows and be jealous of the people driving by. I imagine some of those people in the cars looked up at our school and were jealous of us students. People always want to break out of routine. It doesn't matter if the routine is staying in one place or if it is traveling.



I was surprised by how much Steinbeck drank. I suppose the prevalence of alcohol may be a difference in the current culture from the culture of the sixties. People still drink today, of course, but back then everyone seemed to have a wet bar in their house and a cocktail hour before dinner. Steinbeck would offer the people he met a drink in his trailer, so I suppose the alcohol was a way to experience more rather than a blurring of what he saw. Also, it seemed that “hard-drinking” was a description he would have used with pride when describing about himself.



This is a good read for anyone interested in twentieth century America or in travelogues in general.



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Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jennifer Lee Carrell has mixed history, conjecture, and mysticism together in Haunt Me Still, a novel about the curse behind Shakespeare's Macbeth. This is a subject that has interested me since 1972 when I was in the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival with a director who would only refer to the work as The Scottish Play. There's a long tradition in the theater that says Shakespeare included real spells in his work and that is why there have been so many problems with countless productions.



The main character in Haunt Me Still is Kate Stanley, a Shakespearean scholar who has left the academic world for the theater. She is called to Scotland by Lady Nairn, a former actress who is now the widow of Sir Angus, a wealthy Scottish lord who spent much of his life collecting rare artifacts associated with Shakespeare. Lady Nairn wants Kate to help her find a lost Macbeth manuscript that is supposed to include sections that were cut before the play was ever produced. After that manuscript is found, Lady Nairn wants Kate to direct a production of the original version.



The novel includes pagans who practice witchcraft, some in good ways, but others in a much darker fashion. There are underlying themes of revenge, love, and insatiable quests for knowledge throughout the book, but it is the history, both real and imagined, that fascinates me the most. Carrell has interspersed a number of scenes from sixteenth and seventeenth century England in the book, so the reader can have a full picture of the background. Those back stories are at least as interesting as the modern tale.



Some of the modern action scenes seemed a little overdone and some of the ways Kate determined where to look for the manuscript seemed contrived. But overall the book is a good read and the history is fascinating.











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Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


S. J Watson took on an extremely difficult concept when he wrote Before I Go To Sleep. The novel is a thriller written entirely from the point of view of Christine Lucas, a woman who suffers from a type of amnesia that causes her to forget most of her life each time she falls into a deep sleep. It begins when she wakes up in bed with an older man she doesn't know. A glance in the bathroom mirror and a quick study of some photographs that have been taped on the glass, show Christine that she is no longer the twenty something young woman she thought she was. She is middle aged. The man she was sleeping with tells her they are married and explains her memory issues. This appears to be her life, to wake up and have to start over again each day.



Watson's writing grabs the reader immediately. The intensity drops off somewhat as the book continues, but given the structure Watson chose it is amazing how well he kept my attention.



Christine receives a call from a young psychiatrist, Dr. Nash, who has been seeing her despite the resistance of her husband, Ben, to her having any professional help. Nash tells her she's been keeping a journal and explains where she's hidden it. The journal is the means Watson uses to provide some continuity to the story.



There were a few times when Christine remembered things that seemed unlikely for anyone to remember, especially someone with her condition. For example she recognizing a woman doctor from a picture that had been flashed to her days earlier when she was undergoing a scan. It couldn't have been a memory from her journal. There were also a number of times when she would say she felt tired and wanted to rest. She didn't seem to be afraid to fall asleep, which struck me as odd. But for the most part there were very few contradictions in the book.



I loved the way the author created characters that all had their flaws, including Christine. Throughout the book I was sure there were people around her who could not be trusted, but I didn't know which ones she should have been concerned about. I created a number of theories while I read the book and only one of those turned out to be right.



This is a book club choice and a good example of an enjoyable read that I wouldn't have picked on my own.



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The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Louise Erdrich’s novel The Plague of Doves is the story of the residents of the town of Pluto, North Dakota and the Native American reservation nearby, over a span of more than a hundred years. Some of the people are Ojibwe, others are of European descent or mixed blood.



The book has a continuous plot revolving around the slaughter of a family in the late nineteenth century and a lynching that was a response to that murder. The white farmers in that area assumed a group of Indians were guilty when someone from that group reported the crime.



Although the book has a unifying thread, it reads like a series of short stories. At the back of the book there is a list of magazines where portions of this book have appeared. These include The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Best American Mystery Stories 2007, and The O. Henry Awards, among others. I can understand how sections of this book can stand alone, but due to this format the novel doesn't pull the reader forward. Each section seems to have its own conclusion.



One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the way Erdrich combined stories that are uniquely Native American with stories that are indicative of anyone’s life in rural America in the 1800s. My favorite ones centered around the life of Seraph Milk, who tells his stories to his grandchildren: Evalina and Joseph. I was also interested in the story of Marn Wolde, who married Billy Peace and stuck with him as he started a religious cult. Marn was a snake handler who “milked” her snakes and used the venom. Erdrich's writing style became more frantic in this section.



The readers who would be most interested in The Plague of Doves are people interested in different lifestyles throughout history. The characters are unique and intriguing.





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The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is a superbly written book about an extremely dysfunctional family. Franzen manages to use language and metaphors that are consistently unique and always perfect choices. He focuses on his characters flaws and picks out details that explain exactly who they are. Here is an example, when Chip (Alfred and Enid's middle child) is waiting for them at an airport.



Chip had crossed his arms defensively and raised one hand to pull on the wrought-iron rivet in his ear. He worried that he might tear the rivet right out of his earlobe—that the maximum pain his ear's nerves could generate was less pain than he needed not to steady himself. From his station by the metal detectors he watched an azure-haired girl overtake his parents, an azure-haired girl of college age, a very wantable stranger with pierced lips and eyebrows. It struck him that if he could have sex with this girl for one second he could face his parents confidently, and that if he could keep on having sex with this girl once every minute for as long as his parents were in town he could survive their entire visit.



After that section the reader knows exactly what Chip is like and what he thinks of his parents.



The Lambert family consists of Alfred, Enid, and their three adult children: Gary, Chip, and Denise. Alfred has dementia. Enid is jealous of her neighbors and consistently comparing members of her family to others. Gary compensates for his insecurity by constantly issuing edicts. Chip is a frustrated writer who goes from one failed relationship to the next. And Denise is attracted to married men (and women).



In other reviews of The Corrections I noticed that some readers didn't enjoy spending time with characters that have so many problems. I had issues with that also, in the beginning of the book. But ultimately every member of this sorry family allowed some affection for each other to come through. I loved seeing those emotions come through.



If you enjoy quirky characters, that's a bonus with this book. But in the end it is the great writing that makes Jonathan Franzen's work wonderful.



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