A Word About Awards

THE FORGOTTEN WALTZ by Anne Enright   Award: Carnegie Winner 2012   Nomination: Women’s Award Finalist 2012   Date Read: October 22, 2023   This beautiful novel and my favorite so far by Enright, follows a love affair between Gina and Sean. When I say love affair, I mean affair. Both are married to other people – Gina to Conor and Sean to Aileen. They make a spectacular mess of their lives when the fallout of their affair comes due. But Gina believes she is truly in love with Sean.   All of this drama ensues during a financial recession of Ireland and Gina needs to get out from under two properties that just won’t sell – her mother’s house who has recently passed away and the house she purchased with Conor which she can no longer afford. Until the uncertainty becomes certain, Gina is living, somewhat occasionally with Sean, in her mother’s home she co-owns with her sister.   Sean, Gina discovers, has never left his wife. While Conor and Gina have split, Sea...

THE SWIMMERS by Julie Otsuka   Award: Carnegie Winner 2023   Date Read: February 6, 2023   Once again, as I was reading the first couple of pages, I found myself thinking how much the voice here sounds so much like The Buddha In The Attic. And, you know, derp. Of course, they are the same author. I need to pay more attention to that when I pick up a book. As with The Buddha, I loved this novel almost as much.    Similarly to her previous novel, The Swimmers focuses on the collective “we” and what drives each of them to seek out time at an underground pool. The observations about society, taking time for oneself and the ultimate demise of their favorite exercise and pastime seem so intimate without ever focusing on one single individual. As the obsession with swimming laps seems to finally sink in, the swimmers observe a crack in the bottom of the pool that occupies their minds while they swim. Everyone seems to understand this is the beginning of the end.  ...

THE LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE by Valeria Luiselli   Awards: Carnegie Winner 2020, Dublin Winner 2021, Rathbones Folio Winner 2020   Nominations: Aspen Words Finalist 2020, Booker Longlist 2019, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2020, Kirkus Finalist 2019, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2019, NY Times Finalist 2019, Women's Prize Longlist 2019   Date Read: July 11, 2022   The Lost Children Archive is truly one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. Luiselli has confronted a tragic and ongoing tragedy with beauty, humanity and awareness, while also liking in the struggles of blended families and the obligations of documentarians to archive current and past experiences and voices. I am truly in awe.   The husband brought to the relationship a son and the mother, a daughter, blending the two households with the best of intentions. Everything does mesh together well until differing career paths and interests bring the couple apart and, consequently, thei...

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead  Awards: National Book Winner 2016, Carnegie Winner 2017, Pulitzer Winner 2017 Nomination: Booker Longlist 2017, Kirkus Finalist 2016 Date Read: June 8, 2017 Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood, where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned: Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.  In Whitehead’s conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, a city that initially seems like a hav...

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr Awards: Carnegie Winner 2015, Goodreads Winner 2014, Pulitzer Winner 2015 Nominations: Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2015, Dublin Longlist 2016, National Book Finalist 2014, New York Times Finalist 2014 Date Read: February 16, 2015 This is only the second novel I have ever picked up by my own steam that happened to receive any awards, The Goldfinch being the first. This gem of a novel occurs during WWII in occupied France. The protagonist, a blind French girl named Marie-Laure, lives with her widowed father, who dotes on her and takes every opportunity to enrich her world through Braille books, puzzle boxes and a precise miniature model of their neighborhood.  Parallel to this narrative is an orphaned German boy, Werner, who repairs a broken radio, creating a lifeline to the outside world, with a science program broadcast from France being his favorite. As the war progresses, Marie-Laure and her father flee to the coastal t...

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 la...