The books listed below did not make it on to the best sellers list. Instead, they made it to the second stage in the publishing world – the paperback. They will take you down a quirky path or two. That's what they are meant to do.
F H219s Hamilton, Masha. Staircase of a Thousand Steps .
Exotic, mystical, trasporting…if you're captivated by such adjectives, you'll want to read Masha Hamilton's Staircase of a Thousand Steps . Set in Transjordan , just before the 1967 war with Israel , the novel focuses on small village and the ancient ways that dominate it. The future is steamrolling toward Ein Fadr and its inhabitants and yet, somehow the present is almost lost in the shuffle. The author makes it all so vivid that you can almost smell the jasmine in the air or see the parched ochers and tans in the landscape. The characters are equally engaging, especially the three at the heart of the story; the young girl who has the extrasensory gift of seeing snippets of other people's memories; the midwife who dares to thumb her nose at tradition; and the grandfather whose decades-old little white lie comes back to haunt him.
F B872b Brookner, Anita. The Bay of Angels .
Anita Brookner usually writes about bookish British women who live lives of self-imposed duty or restraint or who've lost love in a particularly unexciting sort of way. But she understands these women down to the last detail. They become somehow heroic – and this is the especially nice part – often ultimately happy in her novels. So it is with Zoe Cunningham of the Bay of Angels ; she believes in storybook endings, and she eventually gets one!
F W335s Watkins, Paul. The Story of My Disappearance .
Paul Wedekind is an East German engineering student during the Cold War. He is drafted into the army and is shipped off to Afghanistan to fight with the Soviets. He barely survives a terrifying capture by Afghan guerillas and their CIA allies, only to be reported killed in action and blackmailed into working for the KGB. While on assignment in the US , he falls in love with his beautiful KGB partner, Suleika. A few months later, the Berlin Wall falls, and they're abandoned by the Soviets. Unable to return to Europe , Paul and Suleika “disappear” into a simple, quiet new life together in America —until a man from Paul's past reappears and threatens to destroy their fragile peace. Fascinating tale about what happens when ordinary people are forced into extraordinary circumstances.
780.92 M383 Martin, Russell. Beethoven's Hair .
Author Russell Martin movingly presents Beethoven's life, while tracing the incredible odyssey of a lock of the composer's hair across two continents and over the passage of 175 years. The path goes from Beethoven's deathbed in 1827, where a young admirer snipped a remembrance from the head of the maestro, to Nazi-occupied Denmark more than a century later, and eventually to America at the end of the twentieth century. And there, thanks to modern forensic techniques, the probable cause of the composer's perennially ill health was finally determined. Whether you think of Beethoven's Hair as an inspiring biography, an intriguing detective story, or a medical mystery belatedly solved, it's a tale worth reading.
956.94 H699 Hoffman, Adina. House of Windows: Portraits of a Jerusalem Neighborhood.
In the last decade of the twentieth century, Adina Hoffman, vaguely dissatisfied with life in San Francisco , decided to move to Jerusalem . House of Windows is her elegant account of daily life in the deeply divided city. Compassionate character sketches of her neighbors – both Jews and Palestinians (her neighborhood Musara, enters into both the Arab eastern and Jewish western sides of the city) – and thoughtful musings on Jerusalem 's history offer a deeper understanding of a complex city that's so often presented as a series of twenty-second sound bites on the evening news.
F B877l Brown, Carrie. Lamb in Love.
Norris Lamb is the middle-aged postman in a small English village. In his spare time he collects stamps and plays the organ in church. Vida Stephen lives in the big house on the hill where she cares for the mute and retarded son of an American widower. They have barely noticed one another until, on a quiet evening stroll through town, Norris glances up the hill and sees Vida on the terrace, dancing with reckless abandon in the moonlight. His love, unfamiliar and unbidden, is instantaneous and consuming, and with childlike determination, he sets upon an odyssey to win her affection.
F N912t Nothomb, Amelie. Fear and Trembling .
The jacket doesn't suggest that this novel is autobiographical, but the main character of Fear and Trembling is named Amelie, as is the author, and she's Belgian by nationality, as is the author, but born in Japan, as was the author. One can't help but wonder if Amelie Nothomb experienced the same humiliation in a job with a Japanese corporation as did her eponymous protagonist. Fear and Trembling immerses the reader in Nothomb's take on Japanese corporate culture, and a shocking glimpse it is, although she chooses to be somewhat amused by it all. Her character Amelie does at least become a writer and get a novel out of her experiences, and I assume so did the author. What you will get out of it is an elegantly written, entertaining bit of cynicism, short enough to be read in a sitting or two.
F H332g Hartley, L.P. The Go-Between.
Set in 1900, this novel tells of Leo, a twelve-year-old English schoolboy who is invited to the home – a grand estate, really – of a classmate for a summer holiday. Leo's time there is magical; the surroundings are luxurious beyond his wildest dreams; his friend's older sister takes him under her wing; he even becomes a cricket hero and saves the day for his host's team. But when the magic dissipates in tragedy, he learns that he's been used. All that was gilded loses its luster, and he finds that the past is not only a “foreign country”, but a place that requires a brave journey. This is a rich, full, absorbing novel that will hold your attention from the first word to the very last.
914.5 H391 Hawes, Annie. Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera Where Every Month Is Enchanted.
In 1983, when Annie Hawes and her sister Lucy fled wintry London for ten weeks of grafting roses on the Italian Riviera, they expected glitz, glamour, and handsome Italian men. They landed, however, in Diano San Pietro, a tiny village in Liguria where strangers are rare, the olive is king, and no one actually speaks proper Italian. Gradually though, the adventurous sisters become familiar to the locals and fond of the eccentric town. And when they impulsively purchased a run-down cottage in the hills, they bound themselves to the land for good. Hawes touches on every facet of the culture, from the passion for food and politics to the idiosyncrasies of the local dialect, wardrobe, and olive farming.
641.5 L863 Loomis, Susan Herrmann. On Rue Tatin and Cooking in a French Town.
You can let your guard down as you read On Rue Tatin because this is one book in which nothing bad happens. Ms. Loomis shares delightful anecdotes about her adventures in French life and cookery – and ends each chapter with recipes for delicious concoctions she's described. Loomis and her do-it-yourself husband bought and renovated an old house in Louviers, one of Normandy's most picturesque towns. While they encountered a minor obstacle or two in the process of acclimating themselves to living the French way, their overall experience was magnifique. Loomis tells her stories well – you can see the sights, smell her brioche, and taste her tarts. Unremittingly pleasant to read.
Compiled by K. Craver 10/2002
From Catalog “Bas Bleu”