Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

My first book by this author, I was surprised by its scope and breadth. I am not generally a fan of male authors, as I find their focus is more on things that happen in life, rather than the human emotional aspect of life. This book proved me wrong. I was amazed first of all, by this author's story telling ability, and secondly by his character development. All the characters were so well described, not physically so much as by their voices, I feel like I know them and will always remember them.
The central character, Louis Lynch, who narrates about 1/3 of the book from 1st person, is an only child of a rather passive but endlessly optimistic and kind milkman, Lou-Lou, and his wife, who is more realistic and cynical about life's ups and downs. Louis, is nicknamed Lucy in school as his middle initial is C (Lou C.Lynch) and this in itself makes him the subject of teasing and bullying, all through school. He befriends a neighbor boy Bobbi Marconi, whose father is emotionally abusive to his wife and children, especially Bobbi. Lou Lou's wishes to befriend this man but is rejected at every turn. The story then takes us through the next fifty years weaving back and forth between these two boys, and the other people in their lives: Sara, Lucy's first and only girlfriend who becomes his wife, Tessa, Lucy's mom, Dec, the uncle who works at the store the Lynch's came to buy, Sarah's dad, who is a slightly mad genoius High school Honors English teacher, as well as sundry other interesting characters.
Part of the book's retention power (it was a long long read) was the interesting way in which many of the occurrences were narrated in different characters' viewpoints. Bobbi later changes his name to Robert Noonan, lives and works as an artist in Venice, and his take on things as an embittered cynic, is so different that the rosy optimistic view(although self admittedly dishonest) as narrated by Lucy. It was interesting that Noonan's story was told third person, as were everyone else's stories.
Anyhow, it was a great read, and had a satisfying ending. I will definitely look for more of this author's books.

Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

After enjoying Olive Kitteridge and Abide With Me by the same author, I requested this book from the library, and as expected, this lady continues to impress me with her writing style and story telling ability.
This book's main theme is a relationship between a single mother and her teen daughter, in a small town in New England, which was also the venue of the other two books. I won't divulge the story line as that would ruin it, but what really amazed me was the author's ability to give high definition insight into the minds of her main characters and also the satelite characters. Often I felt uncomfortable when it seemed she got just a little close to home, as far as knowing about my frailties and weakness as a human being. Several of her characters had the selfsame insecurities as often beset me, and Isabel especially was such a believable, strong, but often pathetic character, with whom I often identified. I felt her pain and embarrassment, and have experienced similar obsessive self-deprecating thought patterns, and it was a bit disconcerting to read of them in a novel.
A couple of issues were left unresolved in the book, I found that a bit unsatisfactory, and the blow by blow(so to speak) of Amy performing oral sex on her boy friend was gratuitous and a bit over the top (read: nauseating) That could have been edited a bit without any loss of literary quality in my prudish opinion.
After I finished the book( which i read over a 24 hr day, finding it difficult to do anything else) I closed it and said,"wow, that was some story" and since finishing it, have often found myself thinking about the character, to the point of wondering what they might be up to. I think a sequel would be another fascinating read, and I just might write to the author and tell her so!!!
Great read: I would recommend it!

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Wow that was some story book! once i started reading it, I had trouble focusing on anything else without having an intense desire to get right back to my book. Olive Kitteridge is in fact a character who appears in each of the 13 short stories that are set in a town in Maine. Some of the stories have Olive and/or her husband Henry as the central characters; in the others, she is a satillite character appearing as another characters teacher from high school, neighbor , friend or customer. The stories are painfully real, and although this town, as presented through these stories, seems to have more than its share of dysfunctional families. However, I suspect that if we knew what went on behind the apparently peaceful walls of homes all around, we would be surprised by the hurt and discord that transpires.
Immediately upon encountering Olive, I pictured Marilla Cuthbert(as played by Colleen Dewhurst), from Anne of Green Gables, with her gruffness and chronic misery (until she was mellowed by Anne's presence) and that picture stay with me until the end of the book.
I liked this book a lot. Elizabeth Strout is a marvelous story teller, and writes wonderful picturesque descriptions, although sometimes painfully so.

Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen

Expecting another great read in the league of Water For Elephants by the same author, I was SORELY disappointed. Yikes, hard to believe it is the SAME Sara Gruen that wrote these two books. Of course, the this horsey one was written several years ago and was merely re-released following the success of Water For Elephants. It should, in my opinion have been reclassified as a harlequin romance type of a book. It was a weak story, the writing was mediocre, and the main character was a whiny, immature sort who just didn't have the quality of character to be the secondary character in a book, let alone the lead. I just didn't like her, nor did I like the book. I finished it, hoping that it had a redeeming feature towards the end, but alas, a total waste of time. Zippo stars out of 5, IMHO...

Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill

Okay I'm on a roll. I started this blog last year, and have only reviewed three books, and having read about a hundred in that time, I have a lot of catching up to do.
This book was written about 10 years ago, and was rereleased after the success of Book of Negroes. I liked this book as much as the previous, although it was very different.
It is about a thirtiesh man who is of mixed race parentage, and about his search for his ancestry, going back 5 generations. His current life is nicely interspersed with stories describing the lives of his forefathers; these interlock seamlessly to let the novel flow and making it very readable. Again, I found myself reading continually so to find out what would happen next. The only thing I didn't find credible, was the detail in which his characters talked about their sexual encounters in their journals. I just have a hard time believing that men do that in writing, espectially back in the times that this was alleged to have happened.
When I finished the book, I was sorry it had come to an end and found myself missing the characters, and wondering what happened to them after the book ended. All in all, a great book, I recommend it highly.

Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

Lawrence Hill is a Canadian author, previously unheard of by me, and my initial somewhat ignorant thought was, what can a Canadian know about the Negro experience.(Okay okay, I admitted to ignorance, okay? Black people are few and far between out here in small town, bc)And so I had a very enlightening and totally enjoyable experience reading this book. It was told from the point of view of an elderly black woman who was preparing to testify in england at a hearing who's intent it was to abolish the slave trade(not slavery, just the trade) The story is then the narrative of her experience. It flowed well, and I found the book hard to put down. I liked that it had no prolonged detailed voyeuristic scenes of violence, which I found so off-putting in Pillars of the Earth. I know nasty and brutal violence played a huge part in the black slave experience, having read and seen it in other books and in movies(Mandingo comes to mind, yuck) but this author wove it into the tale so adroitly so that my dreams were not laced with it ( as often is the case with graphic violence, written or visual, me being such a sensitive sort!)I learned a lot from this novel, having been unaware(I wasn't such a good listener during social studies) that there were Black Loyalist, just United empire Loyalists, which I had presumed were all white and british. Yikes, I am so old and there is so much I don't know yet!!
All in all a great read, made me want to read more by this author.

The Reader

This book has been out for at least 10 years,. I picked it up once in a book store and thumbed through it, came across a graphic sex scene and lost interest in the book, as affairs with 15 yr old boys leave me cold. However, recently an acquaintance recommended it, and also the fact that it had a movie made of it, made me reconsider and so i gave it a read.
It was a quick read for sure, I started it this morning and finished tonight and I did get other things done today.
The theme of the book was interesting , woman seduces a (willing) boy, they have prolonged affair, during which boy reads books to woman at her request, woman leaves, boy is heartbroken and convinced he was at fault. He however, with his manly experience under his belt continues through life confidently and successfully, and has nearly forgotten Hanna. Later while going through law school he attends a seminar, part of which involves going to court to witness the trial of 5 women accused of atrocities during the holocaust. You guessed it, one of the women is Hanna. He feels a mixture of guilt(I never quite know why) anger, betrayal, and a variety of other emotions, but continues to go to court each day it is in session. Hanna sees him there and looked directly at him one day, but otherwise ignores him. I won't divulge a key plot twist, only to say she is sentenced to life in prison.
Did i like the book? Hmmm, it was okay. I don't really like books that are translated, as this one was, as they stumble a bit, and don't flow smoothly ,in my opinion. It was enlightening for me, as I often wondered what happened in post war Germany and how the next generation dealt with the legacy of the holocaust, and their parents involvement/non involvement in it. The philosophical discussions between various characters were interesting and thought provoking, I guess, but did I LIKE it? would I recommend it? no, and no. It wouldn't have been a huge loss for me not to have read it. I liked Ursula Hegi's Stones From the River a great deal more, (It too was translated, I think) perhaps its the gratuitous pediatric sex that turned me off. Maybe I am a prude after all.