Category Archives: Fiction

01.21.14
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THE BOOK THIEF-THE NOVEL-STEAL WHATEVER TIME NECESSARY!

With a prodigious use of allegory, Marcus Zusak has written an enthralling human story of ordinary people caught in the trauma of  Second World War Germany.  In each of the captivating pages of The Book Thief,  an ethos and optimism arises from the hearts of children, momentarily displacing the horrors of the war.

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Zusak chose Death, The Grim Reaper, as the narrator of his story. The protagonist is  a young girl, Liesel Meminger, handed off  by her mother to German  foster parents after Liesel’s brother dies in her arms on the floor of an unheated rail car.  At her brother’s  burial Liesel recovers the only memory available, an abandoned copy of The Grave Diggers Handbook. Thus The Book Thief  is born. This is a story of words, an accordionist, fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, thievery, friendships, love and family and above all a relationship between a daughter and step-father.

The Book Thief is a portrait of how war and the Holocaust causes ordinary people and families  to reshape their lives to survive.  Meet Liesel’s step-father and mother Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her best friend and partner in book thievery Rudy and the Jew Max, hidden from  the Nazis for two years in the basement of the Hubermann home.   Zusak is such a marvelous story-teller that the journey is never predictable, even as death himself narrates the tale. The story is told so beautifully that the reader may consider clearing the time for the final 200 pages in one sitting.

A word from the Narrator: “I wanted to tell the book thief many things about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

I have not seen the motion picture but as stated many times before, a good rule of thumb is to always read the book first!

I highly recommend The Book Thief for readers of any age. Other books by  Markus Zusak are Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting the Girl and I Am the Messenger.

Enjoy!

01.14.14
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COMMAND AUTHORITY-CLANCY’S LAST STAND

So much written in the Tom Clancy novels is prescient and his final book, Command Authority, written before his death in late 2013 , is no  exception.  The latest Jack Ryan novel written with fellow writer and researcher Mark Greaney is all about the future aims of Russia connected to the emergence of the Russian mob following the collapse of the USSR.  Who fills the vacuum and what are the aims of Clancy’s new villains?

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Clancy casts a wide net in Command Authority including  Swiss bankers and secret organizations formed from the remnants of the old KGB.  There is government corporate takeovers with millions of unaccounted funds to trail to money laundering though numbered  Swiss accounts.  Topping the  greed list is the lust for power by the new elite in the Kremlin eager to reclaim lost Russian territory and international prestige. Of course there is abundant hardware in hand and in the air.

In the middle of all of the intrigue is President Jack Ryan, Jack Ryan Jr. and of course  important roles for John Clark, Ding Chavez, Dominic Caruso and Sam Driscoll. Clancy cleverly creates a flash back sub-plot to Jack Ryan Sr’s  former career at CIA in England which directly connects to the present day un coverings there by his son Jack Ryan Jr.   The stories intersect perfectly in typical Clancy fashion.

For Clancy fans, place me at the top of the list, it is sad contemplate the end off this wonderful series.  It has always been difficult to choose favorites because each resonates with its place in time.  Tom Clancy was brilliant in introducing his characters squarely in the middle of the action , always on the edge of reality.  I will miss wondering if the Clancy story unfolding in his novels will be on the front page of the morning paper.  In many cases Tom Clancy has come very close!

Enjoy Command Authority and reflect on the previous seventeen wonderful Tom Clancy adventures.

01.06.14
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Nebraska-No, Not The Movie

When I finished reading Willa  Cather’s  novel One Of Ours it came as no surprise that in 1923 the novel was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Cather lived from 1873  to 1947.  She was born in West Virginia but grew up in Nebraska thus the wonderfully evocative setting for this novel.

At the turn of the 20th century the generation  that inherited the pioneering industry of Nebraska’s homesteaders found themselves prospering beyond the dreams of their forebears. Fortunes were made and the Wheeler family was among the most successful with hundreds of acres of wheat, corn and abundant range. Wheeler son Claude, by the time he was 21,images had attained everything imaginable, a wife, beautiful home and a future inheritance. However, within this young man there was an emptiness , a feeling of failure, a lack of romance and a predictability that would surely deny an unfulfilled destiny.

Cather’s beautiful writing flows through the seasons on the great plains in Technicolor but though it all evolves a restlessness within Claude that separates him from the ordinary. So the evolution of this young man unfolds , carrying him to France and then the trenches  of Verdun.

Of  course, there must be much of Cather herself in these pages remembering that she lived out her life in New York City, far from the fields of Nebraska where she grew up in this pre-war era. The gathering storm of the First World War was glorified by  Over There  and The Yanks Are  Coming and  Claude, the  boy from the plains, now a young man, heard in the call to war  a glimpse of his destiny and made his decision to enlist, to see what life in a larger world might offer. Your time will be well spent  joining Claude on his journey, one that many make in their lifetime.

Willa Cather wrote 12 novels, including One of  Ours.  Others of note are O Pioneers, My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Cather may be an author you have overlooked.  Find the time to enjoy her writing.

12.15.13
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PETE HAMILL- BROOKLYN STORIES-NOT ALL SWEETNESS

Pete Hamill’s The Christmas Kid is but one title in this collection of  36 short works of fiction.  Don’t look for sentimentality or the aroma from bread baking in a long forgotten local bakery. Hard times and hard lives abound.  This body of work was compiled from stories Hamill published, mostly in the New York Daily News. Many are set in post WWII Brooklyn neighborhoods near where Hamill has lived.

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With the exception of the title story, The Christmas Kid , these are sad tales about troubled lives in very tough neighborhoods. Street Gangs, lost loves, beleaguered drunks,  revenge , missed opportunities and no way to break the cycle.  Hamill often gives the reader a glint of optimism, then hope plummets off a cliff. Gripping, wonderful fiction for aficionados of New York lore . No one does it better than Hamill. Many of the stories could be the beginning of a novel unto themselves!

The Christmas Kid was first published in 2012 and released in paperback this year.

11.06.13
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THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE- WITH SHADES OF BRESLIN AND HIAASEN

I had not read any books by  George V. Higgins who wrote over 30 wonderful works of fiction including the Jerry Kennedy Series, A City On A Hill, The Sins of the Fathers and The Agent.  Higgins died on 1999 and left behind a treasure  of novels and THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE sets itself apart as a “game changer.”  THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is considered by some reviewers as one of the greatest crime novels ever written!

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Set in Boston in the 1960s, the book is 80 percent dialogue bringing together a cast of second and third-rate mobsters, informers and undercover cops with the  irony that Eddie Coyle in fact has  no friends and neither does anyone else the Boston underworld.

I draw a comparison  to Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You in that there is a certain similarity between the helplessness of Eddie and the bumbling lottery ticket thieves in Hiaasen’s novel. The book also connects with Jimmy Breslin’s The God Rat, the true story about the informer in the famous New York City  bad cop trial in the Gotti and Genovese era.  By the way, I recommend both of these references as additional great reads. Of course Breslin and Hiaasen each have long lists of additional wonderfully worthy books.

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is a photograph in brilliantly written evocative dialogue within the Boston  criminal underworld, reflecting the mentality of the players and engaging the reader in the inevitable outcome.

If you enjoy this genre dig more deeply into the writing of Georg V. Higgins. The book was also made into a highly acclaimed movie starring Robert Mitchum in 1973.

10.31.13
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SYCAMORE ROW FOLLOWS A TIME TO KILL-THRILLING!

If you have been anticipating the newest novel from John Grisham get Sycamore Row now. You will not be disappointed but rather overjoyed!

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No, I do not think it attains the level of suspense of  A Time To Kill  however, the story line is captivating and grabs the reader on every page.  Grisham is never laborious and writes in a captivating an energetic manner.   The Sycamore Row plot and story line is wonderfully developed and as always his characters are  alive and real, including  the manner in which he brings forward Jake and Lucian from a  Time To Kill.  You are rooting for another victory from the first page  and Judge Atlee becomes as fascinating as Judge Noose!

I rank Sycamore Row along side another of my all time Grisham favorites Pelican Brief and The Firm. A Time to Kill remains at the top of the list. Enjoy!

09.25.13
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RAGTIME, ACROSS THE SOUND FROM GATSBY- MORGAN-FORD AND PRISCA THEOLOGIA

The Great Gatsby, the book and the movie raised my awareness of another pre- Great Depression Era based novel, Ragtime,  by E.L.Doctorow. Written in 1974,  long  after F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, Doctorow  authored this wonderful novel that with great energy combines reality and fiction , historical figures and imaginary role players,  painting a potent landscape of  society and social change just before the great war.  Doctorow’s images of place and the developing social issues of the decade resonate to this day. The read is total narrative, no dialogue.

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Think of this.  J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman,  Booker T. Washington, Sanford White, Harry Thaw, Evelyn Nesbit  established in  their historical stations,  interact with Doctorow’s  fictional creations of ragtime pianist Coalhouse Walker, Jr., Tateh, an immigrant Jewish peddler, Sarah, a black single mother, and an affluent and typical suburban American Family living in the comfort of New Rochelle, New York.   Doctorow blends this cross-section of  humanity in a wildly thrilling story, set in  Westchester and Manhattan during the period just prior to World War I

E.L. Doctorow has written a long list of outstanding works including Welcome to Hard Times, The Book of Daniel and The March. All are most deserving of their many honors and outstanding reviews. It is always a good idea to check back in with authors whom you have enjoyed.  In Doctorow’s case the list is full of great choices.

08.02.13
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OVERLOOKED? THEN GET A COPY OF A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, NOW!!

How wonderful to discover a highly acclaimed book that perhaps even the avid reader may have overlooked.  That was certainly the case for me when I came across a copy of the 1943 American classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, first published in 1942 , written by Betty Smith.  This is an ” honest and True” novel  about a young and very poor Irish girl and her family living in Brooklyn, New York in the early 1900s.  The book is so autobiographical in nature that there was a 1943 lawsuit by an individual claiming to be the prototype for one of the characters! Young Francie Nolan faces all of the challenges that life could muster including poverty, an alcoholic and yet somewhat heroic father, birth and death and an economy that offered little opportunity for an immigrant family, let alone a young girl.

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The story is reminiscent of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes,  but Smith’s portrayal  of the fortitude of Francie sets a very high standard for storytelling. Francie’s mother, brother and the other ” Irish family” members are portrayed in wonderful detail and the book is a valuable insight into a period of American city dwelling immigrant history that is important to readers of any age and gender.

I am glad that this wonderful novel did not escape  me and I highly recommend it to you and any members of your reading family.  Further acclaim for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn came in 1945  when Twentieth Century Fox released the movie, the first film directed by  Elia Kazan.

07.18.13
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PHILIPPA GREGORY-HISTORICAL FICTION AT ITS BEST

The Other Boleyn Girl, written by Philippa Gregory and published in 2001, is among the very best novels written about Tudor England and King Henry VIII.  If you have not read this great novel place it on your must read list.  This true story about Mary Boleyn, the younger sister of Henry the VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn, is remarkable in many ways.   The book enlightens the reader not only of the history of the period but it portrays an accurate glimpse into how women, even in their teens, were used as pawns for both power and pleasure.

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This is the story of Mary, the first daughter in the Boleyn family to be offered to a King in return for the hope wealth and power. So driven was this family that when Mary’s star began to fade in Henry’s ardor , sister Anne pushed her aside to eventually become Queen Anne.  Although you may know how that romance ended, believe me, the writing of Philippa Gregory will  capture and fascinate you through the final page. This story of two sisters and a King is also a study of the structure of society in 16th Century England. It is not suprising that Philippa Gregory is a recognized authority on women’s history.

Tudor England was  fascinating and this blog has focused on many enjoyable reads set in that period, including the  great British novelist C.J. Sansom and the Shardlake series. Another wonderful work of historical fiction written of an earlier period, Medieval England, is Anya Seton’s Katherine.

After reading the Other Boleyn Girl I ordered the  2008 movie through Netflix.  The movie does not come close to the book’s more intricate story line and I would strongly suggest that reading the book is a must before watching the film.  Once you have read the book it is worth watching.

 

 

07.08.13
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New From Jeannette Walls -The Silver Star

I join the millions of  readers who are fans of author Jeannette Walls.  Amazingly, her memoir The Glass Castle , first published in 2005 remains on the New York Times Best Seller List  eight years after its initial publication!  Walls also authored best selling Half Broke Horses, a memoir of  her grandmother Lily Casey Smith.

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Her new book, The Silver Star, will likely not reach the status of either The Glass Castle or Half Broke Horses but it certainly qualifies as a good read, easily accomplished in two or three sittings.

In some ways, similar to The Glass Castle, Walls  weaves a story of a dysfunctional mother, acting more like a sibling as opposed to an adult role model. The main characters, two sisters  ages 12 and 15 are essentially left on their own as their mother pursues a constant parade of  greener pastures and  purported life changing opportunities.  When mom is present, the lifestyle is  at best nomadic and always chaotic.

The silver lining in this story comes at the hands of a distant uncle who despite his “old fashion” views creates a safety net for the girls and brings a sense of stability for the first time in their lives.  The book’s title Silver Star beckons the discovery of an unanswered question.

While The Silver Star is not a memoir, Jeannette Walls fills these pages with her life experience of making the best of an imperfect world.