lit*chick

The Literary Life Podcast: Vol 2. by Penguin Books

Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

  Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue, 336 pages. Available in hardcover from Little,Brown and Company.

At this point I'm not sure I can add anything useful to the buzz surrounding this one.  Here's my brief take on Room:

• If you already know what it's about and think it won't be compelling - you're wrong.
• If you think it is a gimmick and a hot mess of one - wrong again.
• If you think the subject matter is too intense - for some perhaps, but it is handled with subtlety.

There are a million ways this story could have gone all wrong, but the talented Emma Donoghue got it just right. Tightly focused and wonderfully creative, this is a story of survival, fortitude, and mother love. I think it deserves all the hype. And when you are done I'd love to know your reaction to it.

While I'm tempted to link to a bunch of reviews, trailers, etc. - I think the less you know the better. Sorry for the secrecy, you'll just have to trust me.

(But if you want to work a little for it...I highly recommend Ron Charles' Washington Post and Aimee Bender's NY Times reviews neither of which are spoiler-free. Also see Emma Donoghue's website.)

Thank you to Crazy Book Tours for the review copy.

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10 on Tuesday: Fall Funk

1. I'm in a bit of a funk. Former house related - I miss it.

2. I think one way to overcome it would be a little scrapbooking. Definitely more constructive and healthier than say, baking something with lots of chocolate.

3. Went to Hershey Park last weekend. And ran into several people we know - isn't it weird to see familiar faces far from home?  One of the families we stumbled upon were our favorite neighbors. Actually ran into them while making a  pre road trip bagels & coffee run and realized we were both headed to the same place. It was good to hang out with them again. Sigh.

4. Loving the blog Small Notebook. Manageable and usable advice kindly given for living with less. I'm particularly fond of this post:   How To Make Things Harder and Do Nothing. Scary when it seems a stranger is privy to your inner workings.

5. I fawned over the latest John Derian goodies at Target yesterday. Specifically school/office supplies (like I need those).Oh my.

6. Finished this:  Room by Emma Donoghue - currently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, definitely getting a lot of hype. After a few days of sitting with my thoughts on this one...it's a stunner. But not in a cheap thrill kind of way. Powerful and brilliant and masterfully done. Skip reading too many descriptions and try to read it straight through (it's hard to put down).

7. Almost finished with  What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen - historical fiction/mystery. Good stuff.

8. Here's our girlie... waiting and watching for her brothers.

9. Visited Lower School Chapel today - the 3rd grade (our Caleb)- performing Noah's Ark. Kids singing in bathrobes with stuffed animals can brighten any morning.

10. What do you do when you are feeling blue?

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Review: Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes

Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes, 334 pages. Available in hardcover from Scribner.

On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession, three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out from the nearby housing projects on a mysterious job. A series of tragic events bring these two worlds ever closer, exposing the dangerously thin line between suburban privilege and urban poverty, and culminating in a crime that will change everyone's life.

Family drama ala Zoe Heller with an element of wry darkness ala Ian McEwan. Ah, the characters, not quite sympathetic but recognizable... their constant striving, efforts, achievements, manueverings, and disappointments are not new but Vanderbes manages to present The Olsons freshly scrubbed and ready for the spotlight.

While Kijo and Spider don't get equal attention, their story is equally powerful. And the way these two stories collide may seem predictable but the twist left me stunned.

The buildup is neatly crafted - with well placed insights and a few revelations where you start to think you can figure out what is going to happen. But you can't. Not really.  When the boom is  finally lowered, my stomach dropped - breath held. It is a thing of beauty. What I find most provacative are the vapid, yet well meaning Olsons and the sense that the outcome is less of a tragedy and more of a comeuppance. Which may be the point of this of-the-moment fable.

Strangers at the Feast is easily readable, setting a trap that ensnares the reader through the final page. Kudos to author Jennifer Vanderbes for this smart tale that I'm still thinking about a month later.

Thank you to Scribner for the review copy.

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10 on Tuesday: Running Late as Usual...

Thought I'd show you what is catching my eye this week in books and life, with a distinctly homekeeping/cooking slant. My nesting is not a result of pregnancy, I promise. I blame September.

1. My new favorite bookish website, a total lifesaver/timesaver for me - Any New Books. Subscribe and get weekly emails with all the new titles you wish. Ahh..Enabling at it's finest.

2. Found thanks to Any New Books... The Farm Chicks Christmas.

3. Making today:  dinner for a friend with a new baby.  Tortellini soup with turkey meatballs. And an apple crisp. Trying out some newfangled paper baking dish...is it bad that I smell burnt paper instead of warm apples? 

4. Things we are loving from Trader Joes's...the salt and pepper rice chips dipped in TJ's white bean tuscan hummus.  Nectarines.  Mahi Mahi burgers. I put blackened seasoning in some mayo, add mixed greens and the kids are downing some serious fish burgers. Hooray!

5. Finished Atlas of Love last week - loved the narrator's perspective on life as a story. Also reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (my prediction for Oprah's next book club pick-tba Sept 17) and Emily Hudson by Melissa Jones. Started The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart, and I must say so far, I'm not impressed.  Total bummer. I'm only sticking with it because Books on the Nightstand loved it and they are usually right.

6. Tangled Web: Through My Friend Amy, stumbled on the Rabbit Room, and then to artist Evie Coates' blog where I have been lost for the last day or so. And it's nice to find another lovely Evie in the world.

7. Our Evie has taken to wearing a green bucket on her head.

8. Currently: giving up our garage in order to get all the unpacked remnants out of daily living spaces. It was weighing me down spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Now I get to clean the garage, but it is much better than tripping over boxes and feeling like our house is not a home.

9. My back to school present to myself was this:

the other side says i heart nerds. And yes, the canvas is lined like kindergarten writing paper.

10. This week: Out the house - back to school night, family night at church, opening day for soccer season, and a back to school picnic. In the house - the start of soup making season and trying not to be late for all out the house activities.

What's new in your world this week?

Review: The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace

The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace, 224 pages. Available in hardcover from Pamela Dorman Books.

In the early 1800s, a young Italian contessa, Carolina Fantoni, realizes she is going blind shortly before she marries the town's most sought-after bachelor. Her parents don't believe her, nor does her fiancé. The only one who understands is the eccentric local inventor and her longtime companion, Turri. When her eyesight dims forever, Carolina can no longer see her beloved lake or the rich hues of her own dresses. But as darkness erases her world, she discovers one place she can still see-in her dreams. Carolina creates a vivid dreaming life, in which she can not only see, but also fly, exploring lands she had never known.

Desperate to communicate with Carolina, Turri invents a peculiar machine for her: the world's first typewriter. His gift ignites a passionate love affair that will change both of their lives forever.

Based on the true story of a nineteenth-century inventor and his innovative contraption, The Blind Contessa's New Machine is an enchanting confection of love and the triumph of the imagination.

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This slight volume contained all the beauty and elegance inside that you would expect from the gorgeous cover.  I was completely and immediately lulled by the dreamy, lyrical prose from the first line (and the second).

"On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom.

This was not becuase she had failed to warn them." (p.1)

The lush setting almost becomes a character as Carolina's vision is replaced by the vision of her mind's eye. Somehow new author Carey Wallace has captured for the reader what it feels like to be Carolina. It is a difficult thing to write so grandly yet with restraint, and there is a perfect balance here. Rarely have I been curious to listen to an audiobook, but it seems to me the words would be so full and glorious spoken aloud.

After reading another historical fiction recently that was not nearly as well done, I can't help but be reminded once again that less is more. The Blind Contessa's New Machine is not unwieldy as the title suggests. Rather, a simple love story that is both rich and spare - a sweet little treasure of a book. Savor and enjoy it.

Many thanks to Penguin for the review copy.

The End.

 

Cover Me: A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse

A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse, Translated by Alison Anderson (who also did The Elegance of the Hedgehog.) 

Description:

Ivan, a one-time world traveler, and Francesca, a ravishing Italian heiress, are the owners of a bookstore that is anything but ordinary. Rebelling against the business of bestsellers and in search of an ideal place where their literary dreams can come true, Ivan and Francesca open a store where the passion for literature is given free reign. Tucked away in a corner of Paris, the store offers its clientele a selection of literary masterpieces chosen by a top-secret committee of likeminded literary connoisseurs. To their amazement, after only a few months, the little dream store proves a success. And that is precisely when their troubles begin. At first, both owners shrug off the anonymous threats that come their way and the venomous comments concerning their store circulating on the Internet, but when three members of the supposedly secret committee are attacked, they decide to call the police. One by one, the pieces of this puzzle fall ominously into place, as it becomes increasingly evident that Ivan and Francesca’s dreams will be answered with pettiness, envy and violence.

Cover Me is an occasional series where I admit that I've succumbed to attractive jacket design to determine my next reading choice. Let's see if it works. Feel free to weigh in or share your own "I bought it for the cover" indulgences

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The Literary Life Podcast and Giveaway

Penguin Group is rolling out a new monthly radio series  - The Literary Life - hosted by Jake Morrissey, Executive Editor at Riverhead Books. To celebrate the launch, Penguin is providing a giveaway copy of Maile Meloy's latest short story collection, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It.This is one of four books featured in this month's show along with Doug Dorst's The Surf Guru, Roseanne Cash's Composed, and Sloane Crosley's How Did You Get This Number. 

To win, please leave me a comment by noon on Thursday (tomorrow!).  I'm curious to know your favorite short story collection.And don't forget to tune in to the show.

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