Jess' Picks

The Invisible B

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invisiblebridgeby Julie Orringer

This book had me from the beginning.  It's a grand scale story starting in Budapest in 1937 with two brothers going to the opera to celebrate one's parting to study architecture in Paris. I loved them both immediately.  The lush experience at the beginning stands as a wistful memory as we travel from that year through 1945.  Written sequentially and clearly, we experience the beginnings of anti-Semiticism and the rise of the German assaults, and then full blown war.  It's a horrible irony as we observe these characters we so love deal with the impending racism, war and destruction.  Once in Paris, Andras gets involved working in the theatre, and falls in love with the wonderful Klara, who runs a ballet school.  She's a bit older than he, and they struggle with their attraction as Andras makes his way through the architecture school and Klara raises her daughter and teaches.  Something about these characters just grabs you.  Orringer is very good with characters.  My heart went out to all of them as she captures all of our vulnerabilities.  Either in a beautiful city over a drink, or starving and striving for survival crammed into a train car, this is a heartbreaking and life affirming novel.  I'm hoping for a sequel - I don't want to let them go!  It is extremely detailed and historical.  Think Wolf Hall, but a little more accessible and with much more heart.

 

The Imperfectionists

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imperfectionistsby Tom Rachman

Oh, I can guarantee that you've never read a novel like this!  The reviews were so good I just had to check it out.  It's funny, perceptive, depressing and totally enjoyable!  It covers 50 years of an international English-language newspaper based in Rome.  The story is told in short vignettes of various employees with titles such as, "World's Oldest Liar Dies At 126 - Obituary Writer - Arthur Gopal" and "Global Warming Good For Ice Creams - Editor-in-Chief - Kathleen Solson."  They stand alone, and are mostly not inter-related, and yet, somehow they tell the whole story of the paper, AND the silently desperate lives of the employees.

   

The Center Cannot Hold, My Journey Through Madness

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centercannotholdby Elyn R. Saks

A customer told me about this book as we were discussing Schizophrenia. The subtitle of this is "My Journey Through Madness."  Saks came from a supportive, happy home and was always a good student.  She experienced some OCD type symptoms at around age 8, but went on adjusting and hiding her behaviors, and some growing fears into and beyond Vanderbilt College.  At Oxford, on a philosophy scholarship, she went into full blown schizophrenia - visions, gesticulations, black-outs, hygiene issues, and isolation.  Through seeking out help, she has to break from grad school to be institutionalized and deal not only with her illness, but some of the treatments as well!  With the help of many wonderful professionals, she remarkably makes it through into even teaching ultimately at USC.  It's a fascinating insight into madness.

   

I'm Down: A Memoir

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imdown.smby Mishna Wolff

Oh the perils of childhood!  We all had them.  But Mishna Wolff had a very particular experience.  There was the radical liberal politics around the home, the poverty, the divorce, and the usual brutal peers - but in this child's case;  there's also a father who firmly plants his family into a totally different culture.  Though white, John Wolff, her Dad, "truly believed he was a black man.  He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains, and a Kangol - telling jokes like Redd Foxx, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson.".  Right at the first chapter, pre divorce, Mishna has to break into the neighborhood kids' world.  They tell her she'll have to produce a Barbie in order to win favor.  Running home to get one - not knowing what they are - she returns with her favorite stuffed Turtle.  Big flop.  She complains to her mom only to hear, "Honey, oppressed people of the world make Barbie so a big corporation can get rich.  Now, is it really worth that kind of karma for a doll?"  Somehow, through perseverance and humor, she makes it through her incredibly confusing world.  The author is very funny as she reveals her struggles to find herself while having to deal with such a unique challenge.

   

The Lonely Polygamist

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lonelypolygamistby Barry Udall

I decided to read this fine novel after having experienced so many glowing reviews.  It's always nice to find a sprawling family fiction during the summer.  Golden Richards is said polygamist with four wives and many many children, spread throughout four houses.  There's Beverly who is the matriarch and lives with most of the children, Nola who is wife number two,  Rose of Sharon who has sensitivities and is mother to a troubled Rusty, and Trish who is lowest on the totem pole and has suffered many disappointments.  The story centers around Golden as he takes a job far away, drawing him even further from the needs of the family, and is still very much grieving the loss of two of his children - a stillborn son, and a disabled, well-loved daughter, Grace.  One of the boys, Rusty, is struggling with the downsides of 'Plyg' life. It's the perfect storm of his missing father, coupled with his depressed Mom, and tripled by his being moved into Beverly's household in order to "straighten up."  It's very entertaining as the characters are well delineated and interesting - don't worry, Udall doesn't plague you with details about every child! - and it's written with good, subtle humor.  I liked it more and more the longer I read.

   

Elegy for April

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by Benjamin Black

This is the third mystery from Black and by now I'm programmed to jump on that audio book the minute it's released!  It's always Timothy Dalton who is so excellent at reading this that he could be saying "Pass the salt" and I'd listen!  He only does these books and it's a great alchemy.  Once again we are with Garret Quirke, who's just out from rehab for his drinking.  So tortured, and so compelling.  His life is fraught with complicated relationships - his daughter Phoebe included. This time he gets involved with finding her missing friend April.  I highly recommend all three recordings, starting with Christine Falls, and including The Silver Swan. (Benjamin Black is the nom de plume of Booker Prize winner John Banville.)

   

Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives

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sumby David Eagleman

 

This is so much fun, original and brainy!  It literally is forty afterlife possibilities.  The very first one proposes that "you relive all your experiences, but this time with the event reshuffled into a new order:  all the  moments that share a quality are grouped together."  "You spend six days clipping your nails.  Fifteen months looking for lost items.  Eighteen months waiting in line."  Some of them are light and funny like that, and some are extremely poignant.  Not to denigrate this terrific book, the vignettes are all pretty short, so it's a perfect book to have, ahem, in that spot there where we all do some reading....
This is so much fun, original and brainy!  It literally is forty afterlife possibilities.  The very first one proposes that "you relive all your experiences, but this time with the event reshuffled into a new order:  all the  moments that share a quality are grouped together."  "You spend six days clipping your nails.  Fifteen months looking for lost items.  Eighteen months waiting in line."  Some of them are light and funny like that, and some are extremely poignant.  Not to denigrate this terrific book, the vignettes are all pretty short, so it's a perfect book to have, ahem, in that spot there where we all do some reading....

 

   

Imperfect Birds

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imperfectbirdsby Anne Lamott

I'm biased.
I love this woman.  She's funny, heartfelt, perceptive, and has a great
way of putting things. This is a work of fiction.  A family of three
dealing with their 17 year old daughter in her senior year.  Anyone
who's experience that kind of teenage angst and parental anguish will
appreciate this book!  It's wonderful the way Lamott reveals everything
slowly so we learn just as the mom learns, quite how severe the
situation is.
I'm biased -  I love this woman.  She's funny, heartfelt, perceptive, and has a great way of putting things. This is a work of fiction.  A family of three dealing with their 17-year-old daughter in her senior year of high school.  Anyone who has experience that kind of teenage angst and parental anguish will appreciate this book!  It's wonderful the way Lamott reveals everything slowly so we learn just as the mom learns, quite how severe the situation is.

 

   

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

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windupbirdchroniclesby Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami, (Vintage, 2002, &16).  We
went to Japan to visit my step son and he'd mentioned this was his
favorite book.  It was heaven to read while there.  One Japanese couple
stopped to talk after seeinig me with it!  Toru Okada grapples with the
loss of his wife, in this case it's abandonment.  His cat is missing
too, but after much sleuthing, it returns, though different - like
everything else in his life now.  As he struggles to find meaning in it
all, he encounters his neighbor - a precocious, perceptive teenage girl,
sisters who both  are imbued with psychic abilities, a mother-son team
who have a intriguing present and even more interesting past, and a
retired soldier finally reaching out with quite a story to tell.  There
is some VERY gruesome stuff here, and yet plenty of subtle humor.  I
stood in live at the DMV content and giggling a bit reading this fine
fine novelHaruki Murakami

We went to Japan to visit my stepson and he'd mentioned this was his favorite book.  It was heaven to read while there. One Japanese couple stopped to talk after seeing me with it!  Toru Okada grapples with the loss of his wife, in this case it's abandonment.  His cat is missing too, but after much sleuthing, it returns, though different - like everything else in his life now.  As he struggles to find meaning in it all, he encounters his neighbor - a precocious, perceptive teenage girl, sisters who both  are imbued with psychic abilities, a mother-son team who have a intriguing present and even more interesting past, and a retired soldier finally reaching out with quite a story to tell.  There is some VERY gruesome stuff here, and yet plenty of subtle humor.  I stood in line at the DMV, content and giggling a bit reading this fine, fine novel.

   

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