Archive for May, 2011

THE FREE WORLD by David Bezmozgis

Bezmozgis, born in Riga, Latvia, in 1973, centers this darkly humorous novel on the close-knit, irascible Krasnansky family as they emigrate from Soviet Latvia in 1978, joining the flood of Russian Jews seeking a better life elsewhere. Their way-station on this way to peace and plenty in Canada, America, Australia, Israel – somewhere – is Rome.

There are six adult Krasnanskys and two children. Battle-scarred Samuil, revolutionary and staunch communist, is the literal founder of the Krasnansky dynasty, having shed the family name – Eisner – and taken Krasnansky for “its evocation of the Communist color.”

May 13, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Family Matters, Literary, World Lit

THE SNOWMAN by Jo Nesbo

Harry Hole is a Norwegian detective especially trained in catching serial killers. He spent some time in Quantico learning these skills but serial killers are very rare in Norway. It just so happens that right now there is a serial killer loose in Norway. He’s been active for over fifteen years and his emblem is a snowman. Whenever he kills someone, he leaves a snowman in their yard. He has been nicknamed “The Snowman” by the Nowegian police force and this has been picked up by the civilian population. Jo Nesbø has created an unremitting page-tuner in THE SNOWMAN.

May 12, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Psychological Suspense, Sleuths Series, y Award Winning Author

THE PALE KING by David Foster Wallace

If a book has received more ink or been more anticipated in recent times I can’t recall it. So much has already been written about THE PALE KING that it seems arbitrary and irrelevant to add to the chatter. A quick Google search–”the pale king”–reports over 29 million hits. Twenty-nine million! A similar search of WAR AND PEACE, less than six million. It is, sadly, a fact that the David Foster Wallace industry is cranking along to a tune the author never realized. Indeed, his untimely demise has fed the engine of that industry in a way no living author can expect to enjoy. If for no other reason but my cynicism regarding exploitative posthumous money making I wanted to dislike this book. That was not the case. I did not dislike it. To the contrary, I liked it very much. But not without reservation.

May 11, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Contemporary, Literary, Reading Guide

FAITH by Jennifer Haigh

Jennifer Haigh exerts a sublime spin on the unreliable narrator in this probing, poignant saga of an Irish-American family hailing from Boston’s South End. Sheila McGann, the central narrator, left Boston and her Catholic faith years ago while her family stayed in “Southie.” The cardinal premise is the question of whether her half-brother, Art, a once esteemed and trusted but now disgraced and defrocked parish priest, is really guilty of the alleged sexual abuse of a child. This is 2002, when the Archdiocese of Boston is in the whir of sexual scandal—the exposure of crimes of pedophilia.

May 10, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, NE & New York, y Award Winning Author

SWIM BACK TO ME by Ann Packer

Ann Packer’s newest book, SWIM BACK TO ME, is comprised of a novella and five short stories. They are all “emotionally searing stories” dealing with issues of intimacy, misunderstandings that cause distancing, betrayals, and the problems that people have with understanding and knowing one another. Each story is strong and brilliant.

May 9, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: California, Coming-of-Age, Literary, Reading Guide, Short Stories

COLD WIND by C.J. Box

C. J. Box’s COLD WIND is set in a part of Wyoming that is beautifully scenic and, in some ways, untamed. When an enemy threatens one of Box’s characters, the prospective victim does not automatically dial 911. He is more likely to take matters into his own hands. The hero, Joe Pickett, is a game warden and devoted family man who values harmony over conflict. Much to Joe’s displeasure, he is caught up in a web of deceit and violence when his wife’s latest stepfather, “multi-millionaire developer and media mogul, Earl Alden,” is shot dead and found hanging from one of his own windmill turbines. Joe’s mother-in-law, Missy Alden is charged with the crime, and although he has no jurisdiction, Joe undertakes his own unofficial investigation out of obligation to his wife and daughters.

May 8, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, Theme driven, US Northwest, Wild West, y Award Winning Author