A Writer’s Pen

Release Date: July 24, 2008

The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin is one of the most engaging books I’ve read in a long time. From the first twenty pages I knew this was going to be a book I was going to want to read slowly, soaking in all of the details.

Lilly Nelly Aphrodite was born in the final moments of the nineteenth century in Germany. The book follows her life from a Catholic orphanage in Berlin and brings to life in fine detail her life over the course of the next thirty four years.

Poor Lilly constantly struggles with love, employment, poverty, and friendships while Germany struggles with it’s own problems. Lilly’s sweet innocence is eclipsed by the harsh world she lives in. Not having any family to help her out of difficult situations, she always finds a way to solve her problems, and maintains a long term, but sporadic friendship with another orphaned girl throughout the book.

I felt the first three hundred pages of this book were very well written, but the last quarter of the book becomes almost of summary of success mirrored by tragedy, written more as an accounting of events rather than a story. Regardless, the entire book is very well written.
Overall, this should be a very enjoyable book for readers who enjoy historical fiction, especially early twentieth century Germany, or for fans of the cinema, as much of this book revolves around the cinema.

Testimony will be released on October 21, 2008. Pre-order here.

Testimony by Anita Shreve was an easy, short read. Despite the fact that it was just over 300 pages, most chapters are only 2-3 pages thus leaving plenty of white space. If you have a short attention span, or only a minute here and there to read, this book will be an easy read for you.

Anita Shreve did an excellent job of transporting the reader inside a prestigious boarding school in Vermont where parents pay thousands upon thousands of dollars per year in order to keep their children safe from the general population of the public schools. However, things are not as clean cut and straight laced as one might think.

The book opens to a scene of the headmaster receiving a video involving three of his students having sex with an obviously drunk fourteen year old girl. That sets the stage for a series of regrets for parents, students, and administrators alike. In the end, only one character remains likeable, the little mentioned police officer. The headmaster makes a series of blunders that hurt the students and the school. The girl doesn’t quite tell the truth in order to avoid punishment by her parents that just end up shipping her off to a school in Texas. The boys regret their behavior, and a tragic discovery is made. The book is a series of journal entries, mental thoughts, and interview responses given by the various parties and woven into the landscape of a novel.

I left this book with an empty sick feeling while at the same time rejoicing in the fact that I decided not to send my son to an elite private boarding school in the Northeast.

In The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman, graduate student Elizabeth Staveley is researching captivity stories from the late 16th century when she comes across a four hundred year old manuscript tucked inside of a book in the Oriental Library Reading Room at Oxford University. Knowing the treasured, never before told story she is about to uncover, she transcribes the manuscript before turning it over to the library staff.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Available August 5, 2008. Pre-order here.

I really enjoyed reading The 19th Wife. In fact, it was one of the best books I’ve read this year. The author, David Ebershoff, skillfully weaves a tale back and forth between the roots of ninteenth century polygamy and a modern day polygamist murder mystery.

Much of the book focuses on the nineteenth century beginnings of polygamy and the Mormom faith, and at first I was put off by this, being more interested in today’s headlines than historical fiction, but as I moved through the book I found myself more and more captivated by the very compelling story of Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young’s nineteeth (disputed) wife.

This book is woven with so much historical fact that it becomes hard to seperate fact from fiction, but I do believe the author tried to accurately portray the events as much as possible.
Just a few of the highlights and themes in this book include a couple of “lost boys” who were kicked out of their community for small indiscretions, left abandoned on the streets at a young age. Their stories are wrought with pain but end nicely. There are also a few instances of modern day escapes from the polygamist community; some forced and coerced marriages; and a consistent theme of hurt feelings as the husbands take on additional wives. This book covers these stories and so many more it would be difficult to touch on all of them in a short review.

I have never read a nearly 600 page book in just four days, but that is just what I did with this book. I felt a very emotional connection to this book and it’s characters and I hope to read more from this author.

The Lace Reader
Release Date: July 29, 2008

The Lace Reader is a story largely narrated by Towner Whitney, who hails from a quirky, old money family in Salem, Massachusetts. We quickly find out that Towner is struggling to deal with mental health issues brought on by childhood trauma. She is a very likeable character who tries to do the right thing but never knowing if she is really getting the big picture.

The first hundred pages of this four hundred page novel moved so slowly that I wondered when the novel would pick up. But, based upon the reviews I had previously read, I knew it would be worth it if I could get past them and into the thick of the story.

Towner is summoned back to Salem, Massachusetts in 1996 when she learns her dear eighty five year old grandmother has gone missing. She was the one rock Towner had that provided a stable, loving environment and truly looked out for her best interests. When she goes missing and Towner shows up in town after a thirteen year absence, a series of events unravel including the disappearance of a young, pregnant runaway, the death of her grandmother, her uncle being put into jail, her old boyfriend showing up and taking advantage of her. Towner’s new found friend, a police officer named Rafferty is her new rock, helping her through rough times she encounters in Salem.

All the while the book is spiced up with a rogue religious group, a circle of fascinating witches, tourists, friends, islands, boats, and family. Since the book is set in Salem, Massachusetts, the author wove true historical information and places throughout the book, and accurately separates fact from fiction in her disclaimer.

What makes this novel so captivating is the way the author takes the readers senses and emotions on a road of self discovery through the voice of Towner Whitney. I highly recommend this well-written book for book clubs, but be forewarned, you must get through the first hundred or so pages before anything starts to make sense or become interesting.

Do you belong to any (besides Early Reviewers)? Approximately how many? Are there any in particular that you participate in more avidly? How often do you check?

I belong to quite a few but I find most are not as active as ER. I especially like the Historical Fiction, Science Fiction Fans, and Kindley groups, and I find the Bookcases group to “interesting”. There is never a shortage of obscure, creative bookcase pictures to look at. The funniest group by far is the Librarians who LibraryThing. They have three threads in particular that I find to be so funny. Here are the links for your enjoyment:

Strange Bookmarks
Creepy Requests from Patrons
Funny Request from Patrons

The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson is set in 1938 Edinburgh, Scotland. The main character is Sophie, a fifteen year old student at boarding school. Unlike a traditional historical fiction novel, this book is what has been deemed “alternative history” and presents the reader with a parallel universe in which 1938 Scotland has fuel cell automobile technology, an Institute that re-programs the brains of young women so they can serve high ranking officials without any emotions, and other advanced inventions.

Spiritual mediums are commonly used by government, police, and private citizens to speak to the dead and receive messages. Sophie even discovers that she is a medium and uses her insights to uncover a slew of mysteries surrounding recent bombings, a murder, even what goes on behind closed doors to reprogram women as young as sixteen.

Several prominent historical figures are mentioned such as Freud, Pastor, Houdini, Nobel, Kelvin, Bell, and even one mention of the 12 dancing princesses. In this book historical scientists are especially respected and powerful.

Overall, I found the book to be well-written and interesting. Young readers 14-19 fascinated by science, mysteries, and history may particularly enjoy this novel. This is the first novel author Jenny Davidson has written for teens.

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

Never On These Shores by Stephen R. Pastore
Released: June 30, 2007

Imagine the horror, the humiliation, and the disgrace of being an American in 1942 if our shores were invaded and occupied by the German Nazis, the Italians and the Japanese…No need to imagine, just read this book and be thankful it is just alternative historical fiction. This novel is just the beginning in what I imagine will be a series of books chronicling the hardships of American citizens under the pressure and in some cases the rule of foreign occupiers. The characters are very real but do not fall in love with any of them for much like war their lives and ultimate deaths are brutal and horrific.

The author writes about homosexuality, rape, mass extermination, mutilation, and any other form of death one can imagine. The reality of this novel is that if the German Nazis were to occupy Texas they would gas the African Americans, homosexuals, and the Jews, with the help of the KKK. The author does take several literary liberties in that he presumes that there would be little resistance by Americans and that the greatest generation of our time would surrender and even make back room deals with the the Nazis or the Japanese.

One must suspend historical pride if there is any hope of buying into this novel, I for one found the first 200 pages hard to read because I was just so mad at the premise and the liberties taken by the author.

Never on These Shores takes awhile to ramp up but once you get over the pure disgust at what the author is trying to sell the book actually opens up and reads very nicely, I look forward to the next installment.

Double or Nothing by Tom Breitling and Cal Fussman

Imagine building an Internet business during the dotcom boom/bust and selling it to Microsoft for millions. Now imagine buying the famous Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas and selling it in less than a year and half for hundreds of millions. Now imagine you are barely in your 30s and you are doing all this with your very best friend. This is the story of one of Las Vegas’ most dynamic duos, two young guys from different backgrounds coming together to own the world.

The Book tells the story in autobiographical form of Tom, a simple hard working boy from Minnesota, and his friendship with Tim, a local Vegas boy who has gambling in his blood. The two formed a bond that has lasted throughout the last 20 years and will be around till one of them passes on to the big casino in the sky. The pages of the book offer the reader an insight to a world that most of us will never be in: a world of fast cars, movie stars, corporate jets and millions of dollars wrapped in cellophane being bet on one roll of the dice.

I enjoyed this book and I would have loved to have been a part of the world written in this book. The authors tell this story at about an 8th grade reading level which allows the book to be finished in a few hours. The book is not just about Vegas, it is about a time in financial history that was exciting and may never be duplicated, I hope you enjoy this book.