A Word About Awards

THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS by Claire Messud   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2014, LA Times Finalist 2013   Date Read: May 12, 2014   “From the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor’s Children, a masterly new novel: the riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed and betrayed by a desire for a world beyond her own.   Nora Eldridge, an elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, long ago compromised her dream to be a successful artist, mother and lover. She has instead become the “woman upstairs,” a reliable friend and neighbor always on the fringe of others’ achievements. Then into her life arrives the glamorous and cosmopolitan Shahids—her new student Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale, and his parents: Skandar, a dashing Lebanese professor who has come to Boston for a fellowship at Harvard, and Sirena, an effortlessly alluring Italian artist.   When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies, Nora is drawn deep into the complex world of the

BEAUTIFUL RUINS by Jess Walter   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014   Date Read: March 23, 2014   “The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.   And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.   What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of  Cleopatra  to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the star-struck Italian innkeeper

SACRED GAMES by Vikram Chandra   Nomination: National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2007   Date Read: March 16, 2009   From Kirkus Reviews:   “In Vikram Chandra’s stunning new novel, a character from his earlier work of short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay – which Kirkus called a “brilliant work, equally effective in its radiant separate parts and as a pleasingly complex and highly original construction” – makes a star turn:  Sartaj Singh, a world-weary policeman stuck wading through the political swamp of the police force.   “He forced himself into the book, right from the start,” says Chandra.  “He’s an interesting guy – tough, a bit wistful, something of a cynical romantic, if you can imagine such a thing.”  In Sacred Games, set against the whirling backdrop of modern-day Mumbai (once Bombay), Sartaj faces off against the semi-tragic Mafia Don Ganesh Gaitonde, ruler of Mumbai’s criminal classes. Comparisons to The Godfather have already been made, and while Sacred Games evokes s

THE LOWLAND by Jhumpa Lahiri Nominations: Booker Finalist 2013, Carnegie Longlist 2014, Dublin Longlist 2015, National Book Finalist 2013, Women's Prize Finalist 2014 Date Read: January 27, 2014 The Lowland follows two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, born in India and who live very different lives - Udayan stays in India and becomes a political activist and Subhash studies in the U.S.  Subhash briefly returns to India because he learns his brother has been killed. Udayan ultimately gives his life for a political movement that wreaked havoc on those around him. His absence ultimately paves the way for Subhash to step into the responsibilities that had been left vacant by his brother, including marrying his widow and raising Udayan's unborn child. Gauri, Udayan's widow, is ultimately allowed to achieve her previously untapped potential and live a dramatically different life than what had originally been laid out before her. While many of these relationships are set

THE NIX by Nathan Hill   Award: LA Times Winner 2016 Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2018   Date Read: January 30, 2017   From Kirkus Reviews:   “Sparkling, sweeping debut novel that takes in a large swath of recent American history and pop culture and turns them on their sides.   The reader will be forgiven for a certain sinking feeling on knowing that the protagonist of Hill’s long yarn is—yes—a writer, and worse, a writer teaching at a college, though far happier playing online role-playing games involving elves and orcs and such than doling out wisdom on the classics of Western literature. Samuel Andresen-Anderson—there’s a reason for that doubled-up last name—owes his publisher a manuscript, and now the publisher is backing out with the excuse, “Primarily, you’re not famous anymore,” and suing to get back the advance in the bargain. What’s a fellow to do? Well, it just happens that Samuel’s mother, who has been absent for decades, having apparently run off in the hippie days to follow

MY DREAM OF YOU by Nuala O’Faolain   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2003, LA Times Finalist 2001   Date Read: May 22, 2005   From Kirkus Reviews:   “With her first fiction, memoirist O’Faolain (Are You Somebody?, 1998) offers an expansive work touching on the nature of passion, loss, and hope.   Approaching 50, Kathleen de Burca finds her life a tidy ruin: a travel writer for decades, she’s led a life that may seem glamorous and exciting, yet she has little to show for her wandering years, which seem now less like exploring than simply running away. “The older I got,” she says “the heavier my burden of not having been happy yet.” At the death of her dearest friend, Kathleen decides to quit her job and return to her native Ireland, where she hasn’t set foot since she was 20, to research a little-known divorce case from near the end of the Great Potato Famine (1845–49). She hopes to discover grand passion between the English Marianne Talbot and her Irish stable groom William Mullen, but al

MOTHER'S MILK by Edward St. Aubyn Nomination: Booker Finalist 2006 Date Read: January 26, 2014 I read all of the Patrick Melrose novels and I did not enjoy them that much. It became more of an endurance contest towards the end. I found Patrick Melrose himself to be a thoroughly unlikeable character who I struggled to identify with. Reading it at the time, I had no idea that Patrick was modeled on St. Aubyn's own life, which now just makes me feel miserable. I cannot believe he endured all the events as outlined in Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope and Mother's Milk - rape by his father, negligent mother, heroin addiction and all other manner of self-sabotage. As a study in how childhood adversity affects one's adulthood, therein lies in the value in this work.  I am pleased that he survived his own attempts at undoing and was able to write these as a self-reflective (perhaps) healing for the wounds he endured early on. I hope beyond hope he pulled his shit to

KAFKA ON THE SHORE by Haruki Murakami   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2007, LA Times Finalist 2005, NY Times Finalist 2005, PEN/Translation Finalist 2006   Date Read: February 11, 2009   From Kirkus Review:   “Two mysterious quests form the core of Murakami’s absorbing seventh novel, whose encyclopedic breadth recalls his earlier successes, A Wild Sheep Chase (1989) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1997).   In the first of two parallel narratives, 15-year-old Kafka Tamura drops out of school and leaves the Tokyo home he shares with his artist-sculptor father, to seek the mother and sister who left them when Kafka was four years old. Traveling to the small town of Takamatsu, he spends his days at a free library, reconnects with a resourceful older girl who becomes his de facto mentor, and begins to reenact the details of a mysterious “incident” from more than 60 years ago. In 1944, a group of 16 schoolchildren inexplicably “lost consciousness” during an outing in a rural mountain area. On

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt Awards: Carnegie Winner 2014,  Pulitzer Winner 2014 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2015, Goodreads Finalist 2013, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2013, NY Times Finalist 2013, Women's Prize Finalist 2014 Date Read: January 18, 2014 The Goldfinch is one of those odd books that I picked up and read before it became an award winner. I was both shocked that it won the Pulitzer and fascinated by the drama that ensued once it won. The Goldfinch was a fun read and I enjoyed getting to know these characters page after page. After surviving a terrorist bombing in a museum, the protagonist, Theodore Decker, steals a painting called The Goldfinch which he carries with him throughout the novel - from the streets of New York, to Las Vegas and back again. A friend Theo makes in Vegas, Boris, actually steals the painting and since Theo is too scared to ever open the packaging, he never knows until Boris confesses almost a decade later. The two spend t

WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE by Maria Semple   Nomination: Orange Prize Finalist 2013   Date Read: October 16, 2013   Bernadette Fox has vanished. When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.

A FABLE by William Faulkner Awards: National Book Winner 1955, Nobel Prize Winner 1955, Pulitzer Winner 1955 Date Read: September 19, 2013 Ah, yes. Faulkner. Again. This novel has several strikes against it in my book heaven world, the first being it's by Faulkner. The second is it's a war tale. The argument waged in this novel is that war is a fundamental part of human nature. While I would like very much to disagree, history, and even the present, would work against me in this argument. During WWI, Corporal Stephan, who symbolizes Jesus here, orders his troops to stop fighting and the Germans, in response, cease fire. The war comes to a temporary standstill and eventually, the Corporal is executed. Some critics have argued this is Faulkner's failed attempt at a political novel, while others have celebrated this work as the pinnacle of his achievement, which was what Faulkner was hoping for. I personally find A Fable impenetrable and intentionally vague. Am I

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED by Khaled Hosseini   Award: Goodreads Winner 2014 Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2014, Dublin Longlist 2015   Date Read: August 18, 2013   I absolutely loved this novel and I find Hosseini’s work insightful and his use of language is poetry. I could read his novels again and again and still find something new.     “Aghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister, Pari, live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari – as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named – is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their heads touching, their limbs tangled.   One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father.

THE ORPHAN MASTER'S SON by Adam Johnson Award: Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winner 2013, Pulitzer Winner 2013 Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2012 Date Read: July 19, 2013 The Orphan Master's Son hit me like a ton of bricks. Set in North Korea, this novel follows the unlikely life of Jun Do (a play on John Doe?) from his upbringing in a state orphanage, to his participation in a delegation to the U.S., to his detention in a prison camp for failure in that mission, to adopting another man's identity. The Orphan Master's Son is a brutal glimpse into the lives of North Koreans, a country notoriously isolated from the rest of the world. The reader is exposed to the atrocities inflicted on North Korean citizens in everyday life and, worse yet, in prison camps that offer no hope of escape.  This novel has haunted me from the first moment I began reading it and throughout my entire reading, I had to

THE BURGESS BOYS by Elizabeth Strout   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2015, Women's Prize Longlist 2014   Date Read: June 23, 2013   Two brothers' lives are irrevocably altered when their 19-year-old nephew is embroiled in a scandal of his own making.    Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a legal aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in his stride.    Their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan - the sibling who stayed behind - urgently calls them home. Her lonely teenage son, Zach, has landed himself into a world of trouble, and Susan desperately needs their help. And so the Burgess brothers return to the landscape of their childhood, where the long-buried tensions that have sh

FLIGHT BEHAVIOR by Barbara Kingsolver   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014, Women's Prize Finalist 2013   Date Read: March 10, 2013   “Flight Behavior transfixes from its opening scene, when a young woman's narrow experience of life is thrown wide with the force of a raging fire. In the lyrical language of her native Appalachia, Barbara Kingsolver bares the rich, tarnished humanity of her novel's inhabitants and unearths the modern complexities of rural existence. Characters and reader alike are quickly carried beyond familiar territory here, into the unsettled ground of science, faith, and everyday truces between reason and conviction.   Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hike

THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY by Rachel Joyce   Nominations: Booker Longlist 2012, Carnegie Longlist 2013   Date Read: August 24, 2012   “Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live.    A novel of charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of H

THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Stedman   Award: Goodreads Winner 2012 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2014, Women's Prize Longlist 2013   Date Read: August 17, 2012   After four harrowing years on the Western front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel.   Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that ther

THE ART OF FIELDING by Chad Harbach   Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2012, Dublin Longlist 2013, LA Times Finalist 2011, NY Times Finalist 2011, PEN/Hemingway Longlist 2012   Date Read: February 18, 2 012   I picked up The Art Of Fielding after reading an article in Vanity Fair about Harbach and his efforts to get this novel published. Interestingly, he had no formal training as a writer and took on this endeavor in his spare time. As a first novel, I think it’s fantastic, even though baseball isn’t my jam. I loved it so much, in fact, that I recommended it for my book club and read it again.   “At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.   Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly i

GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn   Award: Goodreads Winner 2012 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2014, Goodreads Finalist 2012, Women's Prize Longlist 2013   Date Read: July 3, 2012   Flynn creates on one of her darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.   On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami   Award: Goodreads Winner 2011 Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2012, Dublin Finalist 2013   Date Read: February 5, 2012   When 1Q84 first came out, I grabbed it right away and began feasting, loving Murakami with a beating passion. That passion was somewhat diminished by the end of this tome, never seeming to drive home any point. Regardless of the misfire here, my love remains undiminished.   “A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 – “Q” is for question mark. A world that bears a question. Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.   As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of

THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Jeffrey Eugenides Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2012, Dublin Longlist 2013, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2011 Date Read: October 28, 2011 Having loved Middlesex so much, and looking forward to reading it again, I wasn't nearly as blown away by this effort. The Marriage Plot follows three friends from Brown University during their first post-collegiate year. As with many other autobiographical details from this novel, Eugenides graduated from Brown. The Marriage Plot is a double-entendre referencing the type of story the novel tells, but also about the device in early 19th century literature as Madeline, one of the main character's, undergraduate thesis is about. Central themes explored here are the inevitable passing of time and the struggles with finding identity in a postmodern world.  Critics argued that Madeline's character was less believable because although she was intelligent and self-assured, her relationships with other

LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry Award: Pulitzer Winner 1986 Nomination: National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1985, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 1986 Date Read: October 10, 2011 Lonesome Dove is one of those novels I never would have picked up on my own, yet I'm glad I did. Funny, brutal, adventurous and heartwarming, this novel has it all. I don't typically go for the western genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed this saga.  Lonesome Dove is the story of several retired Texas Rangers and their misadventures during a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. They have a group of people around them, all deeply flawed and motivated by their own agendas, helping them complete their mission. This exhaustive tale encompasses the themes of loyalty, friendship, honor, aging and unrequited love, all set against the backdrop of the  closing years of the Old West. While I enjoyed traveling with these characters, I doubt I would go back for a second helping of this cattle drive. I am still gl

STATE OF WONDER by Anne Patchett   Nomination: Orange Prize Finalist 2012   Date Read: July 23, 2011   Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett returns with a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotional urgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels Bel Canto, Taft, Run, The Magician's Assistant, and The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett delivers an enthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in State of Wonder - a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.   Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the devel

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan Awards: LA Times Winner 2010, National Book Critics Circle Winner 2010, Pulitzer Winner 2011 Nominations: Dublin Finalist 2012, Orange Prize Longlist 2011, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2011 Date Read: April 16, 2011 I absolutely loved A Visit from the Goon Squad, although it almost reads like a collection of short stories. Set in the past, present and future, these stories cover a wide range of characters, all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive and his assistant Sasha. In this novel, "goon squad" serves as a metaphor for time and how time robs each of the main characters of their youth, innocence and success. Each story relates in some way to the music industry, an industry that notoriously celebrates youth culture, which only serves to illustrate how the present becomes the past so very quickly. In Egan's own words, "There's no way to avoid becoming part of the past." Egan fluidly ado

SWAMPLANDIA by Karen Russell Nominations: Carnegie Finalist 2012, Orange Prize Longlist 2011, Pulitzer Finalist 2012 Date Read: April 8, 2011 I initially read Swamplandia as part of a book group I used to belong to. Set in an island chain off the southwest coast of Florida, this novel follows a family of alligator wrestlers that run an alligator theme park. As the park struggles to attract tourists, the family struggles over the fate of this park, some suggest selling it and others suggesting investing in upgrades. The father finally opts to shut the park down and leaves for the mainland. The two central children of this novel, Osceola and Ava, are largely left to their own devices since their passed away from cancer and their father off for an undetermined time to the mainland. Osceola disappears after finding an abandoned boat, convinced she is in love with the ghost that once piloted it. Ava then recruits the "Bird Man" to help her find her sister. After a long