FAR NORTH by Marcel Theroux

The narrator of Theroux’s post-apocalyptic novel, FAR NORTH, Makepeace Hatfield (who lives up to the name), is the last survivor of an immigrant Siberian community – a place Makepeace’s British parents had come to to escape the material world. But the rescue of a starving waif awakens Makepeace’s longing for companionship, love and civilization, spurring the road trip that drives the novel.

October 22, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Literary, National Book Award Finalist, Russia, Scifi, World Lit

GENEROSITY: AN ENHANCEMENT by Richard Powers

There are many reasons why Thassadit Amzwar should not be the way she is—always happy. For one thing, she has lost most of her family in the ongoing Algerian civil war. Her father is killed and her mother dies soon after from pancreatic cancer. She has left her home behind and is now a refugee studying in a mediocre college, Mesquakie, in Chicago. It is here that she runs into Russell Stone—who is teaching the creative writing course she is enrolled in…

October 18, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2009 Favorites, Contemporary, Literary, US Midwest, y Award Winning Author

BOX 21 by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

The grisly lives of innocent, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old Lithuanian girls, tricked into leaving their homeland on the promise of good jobs, unfold in tawdry detail as Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström focus on the sex trade in Sweden, its clientele, the financial syndicates which profit from it, the enforcers which protect it, and the police and others who allow it to flourish. Lydia Grajauskas, a “pro” with three years of experience by the age of twenty, like her friend Alena Sljusareva, serves twelve customers a day, earning almost no income except what she can negotiate with her customers for “extras.” Living in an apartment which a Russian with a diplomatic passport claims as “Lithuanian territory,” exempt from Swedish laws, Lydia can expect little help from the local police. Until she is beaten within an inch of her life.

October 16, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, Sweden, Translated

BLAME by Michelle Huneven

Michelle Huneven’s new novel, BLAME, has one of the best prologues to come along in a long time. Here, we are introduced to Joey Hawthorne, a preteen struggling with the impending death of her mother to breast cancer. One day tall, handsome uncle Brice shows up to pick her up from summer typing lessons and she immediately suspects something is wrong—her mother will die shortly thereafter. Through Brice, Joey is introduced to his temperamental girlfriend, Patsy MacLemoore.

September 27, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Literary, y Award Winning Author

LOWBOY by John Wray

The action in John Wray’s absolutely breathtaking novel, LOWBOY, all unfolds over the course of one single November day. Seventeen-year-old William Heller, a schizophrenic, escapes from his institution, goes off his meds and embarks on a mission to prevent global warming from totally annihilating the world.

July 26, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2009 Favorites, Contemporary, Literary, Unique Narrative, y Award Winning Author

2666 by Roberto Bolano

I was coming to Maine for the summer and wanted to get lost in a big thick weighty book, a book that would be wasted in the city where it would be not so much attacked as toyed with. How can you read a 900 page book but to attack it? You can’t nibble at it. You have to take blocks of time and sit down in a quiet place and rest the tome on your lap and go after it, like a loon after a harbor sardine. I had wanted to read 2666 since it came out in English last year (from the Spanish), published posthumously a year after Bolaño’s death. Now was the time.

July 3, 2009 · Judi Clark · 2 Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2009 Favorites, Latin American/Caribbean, Literary, Mexico, Mystery/Suspense, Translated, World Lit