Sunday Caught My Interest

I hope everyone had a nice week. Here we have been enjoying being a family of four again. Himself starts a new quarter on Monday with all his class notes in order. He has also spent a lot of time working on our new office furniture. Eldest is drinking lots of protean shakes trying to add onto his weight so he can get into the air force. Youngest has been haunting the mailbox to see if he was accepted to Study Abroad – fortunately he got into his first choice and will spend the next year in Europe. Needless to say – we have a happy child.

Here is what caught my interest this week:

One of my favorite reads is Mary Lawson’s The Other Side of the Bridge in part because of its depiction of a quiet, simple man. Matt from A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook reviews a book that sounds similar in tone – John William’s 1965 Novel Stoner. As one reviewer notes, this is a novel about a man that goes to college and instead of returning to the family farm, he becomes a professor of English Literature. William Stoner doesn’t have necessarily have a happy life but he continues to strive. Matt writes:

But the beauty, as Williams shows, is in the details, the filler and backstory that make up our lives. Stoner doesn’t defeat his adversaries, nor does he live happily ever after with his true love, but he is admired for striving constantly to become someone other than who he had been. In a way, he has triumphed over the inimical world by being indifferent to disappointments and joy, and by focusing on the work for which he has a passion. He is defined by his formidable determination.

Caribousmom reviews a book that sounds wonderful. Australian Elliot Perlman (author of The Seven Types of Ambiguity) has written an new novel, The Street Sweeper. Although long (640 pages) and a slow starter, this book sounds worth the effort. Perlman uses two very different characters, an African-American ex-con on parole and a Jewish History Professor desperately searching for some research to save his academic career, to explore the role of history on a global as well as individual level, memory, and the connections that bring us together. If Caribousmom’s review didn’t sell me on the book, the quote she has in her review does:

History can provide comfort in difficult or even turbulent and traumatic times. It shows us what our species has been through before and that we survived. It can help to know we’ve made it through more than one dark age. And history is vitally important because perhaps as much as, if not more than biology, the past owns us and however much we think we can, we cannot escape it. If you only knew how close you are to people who seem so far from you…it would astonish you. – from The Street Sweeper –

Alternative History, a mystery, and WWII is a potent combination for a book. Jenny from Shelf Love reviews the third book of a trilogy by Jo Walton, Half a Crown which seems to be just that book and it peaked my interest enough to look at the other two novels, Farthing and Ha’penny. Set in a 1949 England where the British have sued for peace with Germany, the trilogy follows Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Carmichael as he attempts to solve a murder of Sir James Thirkie, the architect of the peace agreement. I love the idea of a cozy British house mystery in such a different historical setting. These are going on my list for sure.

Swapna Krishna has shown me a new author, Kelly Jones who went to Gonzaga (one of our local universities). Swapna reviews the author’s latest novel The Woman who Heard Color. The author has an art minor and infuses her novels with her love of art. In this novel, Hana, an art dealer does what she needs to do to keep her family safe and alive in Hitler’s Berlin. In the present, an art detective tracing lost works of art meets with Hana’s daughter and learns the story behind Hanna, the art, and the love between mother and daughter.

Happy Reading.

Advertisement