LOVED it. My third favorite book so far this year (preceded by #1 and #2).
I thought his previous novel was good: intense and unexpected. But this book just went to an entirely higher level. Completely swept me away.
A British woman crosses paths with a young African girl. And then we hear how their story started. And nothing was ever the same again. Really lovely.
Bought after reading about it at the Tournament of Books (where it made it to the final round but lost to Toni Morrison’s latest).
There are really three storylines here: Craig and his middle-class white family; SJ and his lower-class black family; and the historical facts of Hurricane Katrina. They pretty much trade off chapters throughout and in the beginning of the book, I definitely found the “fact” chapters a bit distracting; taking me away from the action to just recite numbers. But toward the end of the book, I found them a welcome emotional relief; a way to ground yourself in the reality of how many people this actually happened to.
I thought it was a great book, perhaps made more weighty by being woven in to such a recent past. The characters and their struggles with moving on vs turning back felt very real to me.
Clearly Piazza loves New Orleans, and continues to struggle with the thought of his city in destruction. Huffencoopers, have you read this yet? I think you’d love it.
Soooooo good.
I bought this after reading about it on John Scalzi’s blog.
Tactile and intense. Made me cry on the El train. I felt like I was in Mary’s head. I could barely put it down.
Wow, what a book. Spring 2010 is tooooo long to wait for the next one! Too long!
Sure, you won’t be able to read it without thinking of M. Night Shymalan’s The Village (a movie most people hated but I loved mostly for Joaquin’s quietly brooding performance. That scene where they’re on the porch? Sigh.), but just put it out of your mind as the similarities are only circumstantial.
Book #4 in the Mercy Thompson series.
This series continues to get better and better. The Mercy/Adam relationship continues to evolve. The mysteries/dangers in these books are intriguing, well plotted and satisfying. There just isn’t anything NOT to love.
You should be reading this series.
A Dublin purchase (Irish author) from my favorite Dublin bookstore: Hodges Figgis.
These stories were really good. But they’re not happy go lucky. Intense moments. Sad lives. With unexpectedly large catalysts.
“Sisters” was my favorite. And “Passport Soup”.
Very enjoyable. Certainly the most worth seeing of the movies I’ve seen recently. And I think it would stand up to higher standards as well.
While it’s being marketed as another psuedo comedy, as with indie peers such as Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, it’s really a much deeper movie than that. Much more concerned with the little miseries of our day-to-day lives and how much greater an effect the bad things have than the good.
In other words, you take one small step towards improving your life, it helps a tiny bit and then just one little bad thing happens and KABAM you are five steps backwards. A very realistic look at that place of struggle between “doing OK” and “not really doing OK at all” or “barely hanging on” where so many people are stuck. It was so topical and seemed very true to that moment (moreso really than Little Miss Sunshine in fact).
Amy Adams and Emily Blunt were believable as sisters not just in appearance but in attitude and we both really enjoyed it. Although T did ask on the way out: How many movies with “Sunshine” in the title are these people going to make? And are they all going to have Alan Arkin as the dad? 🙂
Bought in Dublin, baby. An Irish poet my Dad introduced me to a few years ago when we were trading packages of “here’s some of my books you should read” recommendations, and I read (and told you about) one of his translations when I was home for Christmas a year ago. I was so excited to go into Hodges & Figgis (a GREAT bookstore in Dublin), stroll over to the irish authors section, and find a HUGE selection of his stuff. It was hard to choose what to buy!!!
I chose this one and I think I did well. A collection in two parts, a man and a woman, a story told, and then retold, mirrored from one part to the next, intertwined with other events. I read it several times over several days, and still want to go back for more. Certain images and themes repeat over and over again, with different details ringing in your head. Little moments, expanded, then contracted, then expanded. These were lovely poems and my regret is I didn’t buy another book of his when I had the chance. I’ll be searching out more, you can count on it.
(For those of you poetry scares off, these were very accessible. Readable even without pondering of the deeper layers, and the repeat images, and then connections tethered and severed…)
I enjoyed her debut novel last year. Then I got one of the stories from this book in my One Story subscription (which I highly recommend you treat yourself to. It’s cheap, it’s good, and it’s just one story. EVERYONE can make time for one story!!). I was so excited to see this collection come out and not one bit disappointed. Very, very good. Better even than her novel! My second favorite book of the year so far. Such an impressively wide range of characters and timeframes and situations and… And really, I cannot recommend these stories highly enough. They were all completely individual (sometimes a problem in short story collections), and completely engaging, and original, and UNEXPECTED. I’m in awe.
The follow-up to HeartSick, already out in paperback in Dublin, YAY! Just as totally fucking CREEPY and TWISTED and DARK as that one was. And just as damn good. Eeeeck!
So incredibly creepy and gross and horrible and UNPUTDOWNABLE. Do not read this at home, alone, at night, in the dark, in a creeky house. I warned you.
Really horrible and icky and TOTALLY ENTRANCING.
If you like Hannibal Lector-type stuff, well, this kept me entertained even moreso than those. Freaky!!!