A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 201 Original date of publication: 1959 My edition: 2010 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of NYRBs How I acquired my copy: Borders, March 2011 Tun-Huang is a modern re-telling of an old myth. In the early 20th century, a hoard of early Buddhist sutras was discovered in the Tun-Huang caves of western China. This story attempts to recreate the story of how they got there, and it’s the story of Chao Tsing-te, a young man in the 11th century who mistakenly, and serendipitously, sleeps through an important qualifying exam for a government position and ends up in the wilds of northern China and the Silk Road. It’s a short novel, and in some ways I wish it had been longer. The author literally takes his reader over a lot of ground and a large period of time, and Tsing-te experiences a lot (from distinguishing himself in battle to falling in love). The story itself was interesting, but the author spent a lot of time describing battles, over and over again. There’s...

Pages: 317 Original date of publication: 2004 (as Lady of the Mercians ) My edition: 2010 (Cava Books) Why I decided to read: it was recommended to be through Amazon UK How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, May 2010 The King’s Daughter is the story of Elflaede, daughter of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex during the late 9 th century. Elflaede herself became a Queen in her own right, and became known as Lady of the Mercians through her marriage to Ethelred, King of Mercia. As she continued her father’s quest to keep the Viking invaders at bay, in this novel, she falls in love with the very person she’s not supposed to—Guthrun, a Viking himself. I had to look up Alfred the Great and Elflaede up in order to get the full story of both, since I felt that the history got a little lost in the love story of Guthrun and Elflaede. I also wish that Alfred had been a greater presence in this book; although he was at the height of his powers at the time the book is set, I really...

Spanning the course of over fifty years, Last Night in Twisted River is the story of Danny Baciagalpo/Angel, the son of a logging camp cook. One evening, he and his father are forced to flee Twisted River, and they spend pretty much the rest of their lives on the run from a crazy and (as it turns out) a not-so-dumb sheriff. The novel takes us from New England in the ‘50s, to Iowa in the ‘60s, then to New England again, and Toronto in 2005. The quirky plot and characters are pure John Irving. There’s a lot here that he’s visited before (there are the ghosts of boarding schools, bears, and wrestlers in Last Night in Twisted River), but Irving delves into new territory with his latest novel. I’ve always thought of John Irving’s books are being somewhat autobiographical—with embellishments. Danny Angel is a famous author; the plot of one of his novels even sounds suspiciously like parts of The Cider House Rules . As Irving says: “In the media, real life was more important than fiction; th...

Its 1889, and people from all over the world have come to Paris for the Exposition commemorating the centenary of the fall of the Bastille. One day, on top of the newly constructed Eiffel Tower, a woman dies, apparently of a bee sting. Later, an American naturalist dies, apparently of the same cause. There’s no evidence to prove that these deaths are murder, but Victor Legris, a bookseller, sets out to solve the crime. “Claude Izner” is the pen name of two sisters who are booksellers in Paris, so the atmosphere they evoke in this mystery is pretty authentic and detailed. I have a weakness for historical mysteries, so this book was right up my alley in that respect. However, I couldn’t get past the characters themselves. They all seem so stereotypical: the loser-ish detective, the mysterious coworker, the red-haired femme fatale. There’s not much here that’s original. Victor was also really dense at times when it came to obvious clues. In order for me to want to continue reading a serie...

The Remains of the Day is a hard book to describes. Ostensibly about an aging butler who’s given a few days off to tour the English countryside, there are many, many layers to this complicated novel. Stevens is the prototype of the repressed butler who has a preoccupation with maintaining one’s “dignity.” Being a butler is not simply a job; it’s a way of life. Stevens’s relationship with the lively housekeeper Miss Kenton is shaky, and Stevens prides himself on the way he deals with her. His obsession with being the “perfect” servant is a little unsettling at times, and there was nothing in his behavior that I could sympathize with, but in all this is a wonderful psychological study of a man who essentially doesn’t have a life of his own. I've never seen the movie, but as soon as I read this book, I added it to my Netflix queue. Also reviewed by: Semicolon , Books 'N Border Collies , A Guy's Moleskin Notebook , Books I Done Read

Jack Burns is four years old when this story opens, and remarkably, he's quite mature for his age. Predisposed to take after his (supposedly) wayward Scottish, organ-playing, tattooed father, Jack's mother Alice feels an obligation to drag Jack halfway across the globe for a year so that William Burns might "perform his duty" to his son. She's always a step behind the elusive William, who seems to be rampaging across Europe in his quest for much younger women to seduce. Alice Stronach, daughter of a tattoo artist, makes a living giving other people tattoos throughout Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Canada- some of them extremely suggestive. Jack finds that he has many memories from this time period, although not many of them are accurate. It's in Canada that Jack and his mother settle, and where Jack attends St. Hilda's, an all-girls school that is co-ed up until the 4th grade. Jack is continually haunted by the image of his father, both on the stage, an...