Sacré Bleu

Sacré Bleu Christopher Moore 3.5 / 5	Published 2012 First Sentence "On the day he was to be murdered, Vincent Van Gogh encountered a Gypsy on the cobbles outside the inn where he'd just eaten lunch."
Publisher's Description: In his latest novel, Moore takes on the Great French Masters. A magnificent “Comedy d’Art”, Sacre Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter who joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed suicide of Vincent van Gogh.
Dear Reader, Meh. This was an okay book, but it was mediocre Moore at best. It certainly was no Fool, much less Lamb!! I found myself only laughing out loud a handful of times while reading Sacré Bleu, compared to others in his oeuvre. I didn’t feel the same level of wit, the clever banter, the “inside jokes” that pepper Moore’s other works. Perhaps it is partly because I am not an artist, but I just didn’t connect to the story all that much. I didn’t care a whit about the characters, and I certainly wasn’t all that curious about the origins of the Color Man and his sidekick. (To be honest, I didn’t even think they HAD a backstory until about 2/3 of the way through!) I will keep this review short, but I just couldn’t enjoy this one as much as others by Moore, and was disappointed by let-down expectations from such a usually great author. If you have a desire to read something hilarious (and irreverent!), I say pick up Lamb over Sacré Bleu, always! Yours, Arianna

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Winter Journal (Review by Marsha)

Winter Journal By Paul Auster 5/5	Published 2012 First Sentence "You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will happen, and then one by one, they begin to happen to you in the way they happen to everyone else."
Publisher's Description: From the bestselling novelist and author of The Invention of Solitude, a moving and highly personal meditation on the body, time, and language itself "That is where the story begins, in your body, and everything will end in the body as well. Facing his sixty-third winter, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster sits down to write a history of his body and its sensations—both pleasurable and painful. Thirty years after the publication of The Invention of Solitude, in which he wrote so movingly about fatherhood, Auster gives us a second unconventional memoir in which he writes about his mother's life and death. Winter Journal is a highly personal meditation on the body, time, and memory, by one of our most intellectually elegant writers.
Dear Reader, Now this is my new favorite Paul Auster book. I feel this is the beginning of my new adoration of him. This is an autobiography in the coolest sense of the word. It's written in a free verse, run on and totally true way that is so Paul Auster. It makes me feel like I've been there through most of his life, his youth in the 60s and 70s and his very cool reality of living abroad in France for several years in his early 20s. He gives the context that most American readers will be accustomed to. He is the same age as my parents and growing up in that household has made me familiar with the cultural realm in which they grew up in. I love how he story tells. One good example is the department store incident. His mother and one of her friend when she was in her 20s and Auster was a toddler.  He describes his frolic with another child in a construction area in this large New Jersy department store. The story ends in a permanent facial scar after having escaped the watchful care of his mother. In this story snippet, he sets up the joy of being free and sliding with his young comrade on his belly along the smooth floor. Becoming more and more daring until he is suddenly rushing face first into a nail that is jutting from a pile of wood boards. We, as readers, can remember that moment in our lives which we received our first serious injury and how it became imprinted both upon our selves both physically and mentally. The feeling of the floor falling away and the realization that death and danger are not far away from everyday situations. It is universal to the human condition and Auster does a flawless job resurfacing that core experience. He sorts the autobiography narrative into things that scarred his body and how those stories lead to pinnacles of time in his personal development. He sorts his life by the women he loved and the depth or brevity of those affairs. He sorts his life by the physical pleasure and ailments that have arisen and then were handled in the course of his life. He doesn't tell his life story in a chronological pattern but much like the thought patterns of a dream. He jumps forward and back in time to the synchronicity of being in Paris, feeling like he was about to die, or the deaths of people close to him. I am touched deeply by the vulnerability of the premise of the book, which is defined metaphorically in the title: Winter Journal. This is the winter of his life. He tells the reader about the spring, summer, fall and ends with what he is calling the winter. Not quite old; but no longer young. I have often spent many a moment considering the chronology of my own life. I think about how it'll be to age, and be "old," to have my once young and elastic body become stiff and weakened (even in the amount of time that I have been alive.) "You never expect it to happen to you." So true. I thought I'd never age, never be given the chance to be an adult with her life together: a car, an office-job, a life-partner, and children. But now I feel I'm the same child I have always been but people are continually born and I seem to be advancing forward and away from the years I was in high school, and in college. Life is much different after those two eras. Not awful, but no longer full of; unpredictable hi-jinx, wide open possibilities and partying. Now I want to go to bed earlier, I just want to stay at home and cook meals with my life partner and our dog. I want to own a house and have children. The longer lasting pieces of happiness ring true and foretell my actual age. I like hearing about the life of a writer. A real writer who has done it; made a living from his artistic craft. I can relate to that passion; to write and create something that you've poured your soul into. Something that you can be proud of. It has always been my dream to be able to make a living from one of my artistic crafts. Paul Auster has done it. Yours, Marsha

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Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald Therese Anne Fowler 3 / 5	Published 2013 First Sentences "Dear Scott, The Love of the Last Tycoon is a great title for your novel. What does Max say?"
Publisher's Description: I wish I could tell everyone who thinks we’re ruined, Look closer…and you’ll see something extraordinary, mystifying, something real and true. We have never been what we seemed. When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes. What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein. Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who isZelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.
Dear Reader, You know I have a soft spot for historical fiction, particularly that which revolves around a famous figure. This book studied the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was probably quite timely, considering the smashing success of the most recent film version of The Great Gatsby. And the novel was pretty good: it was an intimate portrait of a struggling young couple. I think I was a bit put off by many reviewers' assertions that the book wasn't historically accurate in the least, and the Zelda would never have acted this way or that, as she is depicted in the book. I also always felt like The Beautiful and Damned was such a great peek into the Fitzgeralds' life, even though I've since been informed that it's not terribly autobiographical. Ah, well. Anyway - the novel was good in that it kept up a consistent story, one which followed the couple through their ups and downs, over the many decades of their marriage. However, I believe the author intended to vilify F. Scott, as he was consistently portrayed as a selfish, chauvinistic, and self-centered husband. Which, perhaps he was; and this side of his life, viewed through the fictional Zelda's eyes, was fascinating. I often wanted to shake some sense into her husband. Their story was, also interestingly, not nearly as glamorous as I had always imagined. Zelda was always portrayed as "the original flapper girl", but this novel at least shows her as a more quiet and reserved sort of woman, often in the background of Scott's madness. However, she was also a very strong character, one who fought against the restrictions holding back women at the time - particularly when she was unable to be taken as seriously in her arts (writing and painting) as her husband, or when he was able to put her in a sanitarium simply because she was acting against Scott's wishes. All in all, this was a very good historical take on Zelda's life, even if it wasn't very accurate (I'm not sure on that point, though - it's only what I've heard!). I have enjoyed a few other historical figure novels more than this one recently, but it was definitely worth a read. Especially for those who have audiobooked The Help - the same narrator, Jenna Lamia, is used in (at least parts of) both, and I do enjoy her work. Best, Arianna

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The Two Hotel Francforts

The Two Hotel Francforts David Leavitt 3.5 / 5	Published 2013 First Sentence "We met the Frelengs in Lisbon, at the Café‚‚ Suiça."
Publisher's Description: It is the summer of 1940, and Lisbon, Portugal, is the only neutral port left in Europe—a city filled with spies, crowned heads, and refugees of every nationality, tipping back absinthe to while away the time until their escape. Awaiting safe passage to New York on the SS Manhattan, two couples meet: Pete and Julia Winters, expatriate Americans fleeing their sedate life in Paris; and Edward and Iris Freleng, sophisticated, independently wealthy, bohemian, and beset by the social and sexual anxieties of their class. As Portugal’s neutrality, and the world’s future, hang in the balance, the hidden threads in the lives of these four characters—Julia’s status as a Jew, Pete and Edward’s improbable affair, Iris’s increasingly desperate efforts to save her tenuous marriage—begin to come loose. This journey will change their lives irrevocably, as Europe sinks into war. Gorgeously written, sexually and politically charged, David Leavitt’s long-awaited new novel is an extraordinary work.
Dear Reader, I got this book as a Netgalley offering a while back, and had entirely forgotten how the little blurb described it.  So I again went in cold, and I find I really enjoy those books about which I have very little expectation!  The story centers around a couple of weeks relatively early in World War II, when residents from all over Europe were attempting to flee the continent and the Nazi persecution.  Many ended up in Lisbon, as Portugal was neutral at the time, and there was a port where boats could bring people to America or several other far-flung parts of the globe.  (Surprisingly, there was also a World's Fair happening there at the time, which I would have thought would have been postponed due to the growing conflict in nearby countries.)    Two couples meet accidentally while at a cafe, waiting on the boat to America to arrive.  One of them is a couple of American expatriates who had vowed never to go back to the States after they had moved to Paris many years earlier.  The other couple was a mystery-writing team, famous for their British novels written under a pseudonym.  They meet due to an accident involving broken glasses, and begin their adventures together largely due to their both being bored  out of their minds during this "holding pattern" they are forced into.  The couples are particularly tired of their own partners, having traveled through very trying times (and many years before) with each other, so they pair off by gender and have themselves quite a bit of fun.  For a while, anyway.  The closer the date of the ship's arrival, the tenser things get, and things come to a head right around the time the ship is pulling into port.  I don't want to give too much away, but this did recall to me a bit of The Great Gatsby, with its sparkling environs and the posh characters that all swirled around each other, privileged and bored and unhappy all in their own way (to brazenly misquote Tolstoy).  There also definitely lurked something more sinister behind everyone's facade, and those secrets spilled out over the course of the book, culminating in a partly-surprising ending (it was, after all, hinted at right from the start!).  What I found pleasantly surprising was that the part the reader thought would be the denouement of the novel ended up being passed over in a cursory manner, while the author then went on in the epilogue to explain pretty much all of the meat of all the characters' back-stories.  Oddly done, but well done, I do think.  Yours, Arianna

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Half-Blood Blues

Half-Blood Blues Esi Edugyan 4.5/5	Published 2011 First Sentences "Chip told us not to go out.  Said, don't you boys tempt the devil."
Publisher's Description: Berlin, 1939. A young, brilliant trumpet-player, Hieronymus, is arrested in a Paris cafe. The star musician was never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sidney Griffiths, the only witness that day, still refuses to speak of what he saw. When Chip Jones, his friend and fellow band member, comes to visit, recounting the discovery of a strange letter, Sid begins a slow journey towards redemption. From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world, and into the heart of his own guilty conscience. Half-Blood Blues is an electric, heart-breaking story about music, race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.
Dear Reader, This came so close to being a favorite book.  I so wanted it to become a favorite book.  And it was perfect in so many ways - just an excellent story - but, the problem was that in the end, it didn't profoundly affect me as much as my favorites do.  I don't think I'll soon forget it, and I think I will recommend this book to everyone whose ear I can bend in the next few weeks.  So, please don't get me wrong: it's definitely worth reading.  I would even read it again, and that is high praise coming from someone who thinks there are too many books & too little time to read them all, so I don't often reread! The novel revolves around a WWII-era jazz band, and is narrated by Sid, the group's bassist.  It follows their movements through Europe, from Nazi-occupied Berlin to Nazi-occupied Paris and ultimately to Poland, and also recounts bits of Sid and Chip's childhood in Baltimore.  The band connects with Louis Armstrong, which is for them like meeting a god, and the author's portrayal of Armstrong is wonderful and feels very real.  The book doesn't always move quickly, but it feels as if its pace could be matched by one of their own songs: slow bits mixed up with faster bits, impassioned parts intertwined amongst the everyday middle-of-the-road bridges. One issue I had with the story was how frustrated I felt that one big issue was never addressed - an interaction which happened between Heiro (a.k.a. the Kid) and Sid.  I felt that it propelled along quite a bit of the action, but was frustrated that the two of them never discussed it.  They sparred over the same woman, and Sid was often jealous of the Kid, and therefore they found ways to hurt each other, but ultimately, I felt they could have just talked things out.  If they'd figured out how each of them felt, and why they were at odds, they probably could have sorted out their differences and avoided all sorts of difficulties.  Ah, I think this is a guy thing... ;) The characters were all memorable and truly lifelike.  They were flawed men and women - often petty, often misguided - who ultimately looked out for themselves, even when they had the best of intentions.  What they learned was how to also look out for one another.  Throughout the book, their music and their connection of the band was the one constant, and it really held the story together. I had a difficult time hearing the low register of the audiobook reader, but otherwise he was very good at giving the book its rhythm and feel.  I really enjoyed listening to this book, and like I said, would definitely consider reading it again.  Very well-written. Yours, Arianna

The Club Dumas

The Club Dumas Arturo Pérez-Reverte 1993 3/5	First Sentence "The flash projected the outline of the hanged man onto the wall."
Publisher's Description: Lucas Corso, middle-aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers, " Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment. The task seems straightforward, but the unsuspecting Corso is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas's masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle heroine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris in pursuit of a sinister and seemingly omniscient killer. Part mystery, part puzzle, part witty intertextual game, "The Club Dumas" is a wholly original intellectual thriller by the internationally bestselling author of "The Flanders Panel" and "The Seville Communion."
Dear Reader, This is definitely one of those books that only true bibliophiles will love. I couldn’t get into it myself much for the first section, even though it talked all about rare books and those who love them. I felt like, honestly, the story didn’t really pick up until like the last third of the novel, but you really did have to go through all of the earlier stuff in order to get anything out of the later happenings. You just wish you had known that at the time you had to slog through some of the early material…. However, I did, all-in-all, like the book and how it circled around a lost-to-history book which examined the nature of the devil and centered around nine engravings. I also really loved the Dumas connection, although I’d highly recommend to anyone who was planning to read this book that they ought to read or re-read at least The Three Musketeers (if not others of Dumas’ work, as well) before diving into this adventure, because SO much of the action and content revolves around at least the 3Ms. I am certain I missed many of the references and allusions to Dumas works, as I read the Musketeers when I was something like 14, and even The Count of Monte Cristo (a true favorite of mine) was several years ago, and while easier for me to remember, still only a more distant memory. The main character was not terribly likable either, although I’m certain that’s what the author meant to do there. And his relationship that developed mid-book did not seem all that believable, but hey - generally the people who fall in love with each other are just as surprised as the outsiders are. So it wasn’t that the story wasn’t believable that bothered me, but something felt slightly off the whole time...although, I suppose that was largely because the entire book was very “meta”, with the protagonist recognizing how things would go were he the main character in a novel. That was probably my favorite part: his omniscient understanding of his role and his place in the story as a character, written in by another. The author did great with that little bit. Overall, an enjoyable book for a book-lover, that is for sure. I definitely enjoyed the ride, especially when things actually started moving. But, looking back on the book as a whole, I do understand how it all fell together now, and needed to be presented how it was. Best, Arianna

Swann's Way

Swann's Way Marcel Proust Translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff 5/5	First Sentences "For a long time I used to go to bed early.  Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say 'I'm going to sleep.'  And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V."
Publisher's Description: In this first part, Proust paints an unforgettable, scathing and, at times, comic portrait of French society at the close of the 19th century, and reveals a profound vision of obsessive love.  (First published 1913)
Dear Reader, I always feel very daunted by the task of reviewing a classic; often, I will entirely skip writing anything about it, because I want to let the book sink in over days and months.  Then, I will simply let myself not ever write anything, because my life has been changed so profoundly by the book and I don't know how to put that into words.  This review might, then, not be exactly what I want to say - and, perhaps, I'll come back and add more later - but I wanted to get some words down, for now. Proust is an amazing writer.  That should come as no surprise; he is certainly a member of the elite authors circle, and has been for centuries.  However, I didn't realize how accessible he would be, either.  Swann's Way is long and dense and took me quite a while to get through, yes, but I was thrilled by what he put down on the page once I had finally opened the book.  Proust writes so very true to life.  He seems to just get human nature.  His study of Swann's obsessive love, swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, was so apt. I loved the layering of the book: how it went from the idyllic life in Combray to the story of Swann's pursuit of Odette, and then back to the narrator's (in academic discourse, he is often referred to as "Marcel", since most assume this is Proust's portrayal of himself) own yearning for the young Gilberte.  The book has this wonderful, cozy sandwiching feel, where the two stories ultimately intertwine to create a complex layering of people and time and places.  This seems quite appropriate, as Proust was writing a book which, at its core, examines the nature of time itself.  He questions whether time is truly linear or whether we simply feel that it is, when in fact it often folds back upon itself in our lives, in our memories, in our experiences. Certain gorgeous writing still stands out in my mind after having closed the book: of course, the famous madeleine scene where a small taste of cookies dipped in tea recalls the Narrator to a previous time, and also a quite amusing bit where Swann attempts to catch Odette in infidelity, only to discover he has been lurking underneath the wrong window.  Proust's descriptions recall paintings, appropriate because art is again something for which the author felt passion. Combray was vividly illustrated in my mind, and I know I will recall certain pieces of this story - descriptions of places and events - for years to come.  Exactly as Proust intended, I believe. I can still almost smell the cattleyas, taste the madeleines, and hear the Vinteuil. I'd like to think more on this book, of course - it still needs a lot of time to settle into whatever place it will inhabit in my mind from now on.  For now, though, I am glad I was able to get some words down to express my emotions after reading this wonderful book. Yours, Arianna

Invisible

Invisible Paul Auster 3.5/5	First Sentence (and a bit more) "I shook his hand for the first time in the spring of 1967. I was a second-year student at Columbia then, a know-nothing boy with an appetite for books and a belief (or delusion) that one day I would become good enough to call myself a poet, and because I read poetry, I had already met his namesake in Dante's hell, a dead man shuffling through the final verses of the twenty-eighth canto of the Inferno."
Publisher's Description: “One of America’s greatest novelists” dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date." Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life. Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights, to the Left Bank of Paris, to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.”
Dear Reader, I selected to read this in Audio book format. Paul Auster reads his books beautifully (in my opinion) and I can never resist the chance to listen to his hypnotizing voice. I was under the impression that everyone would enjoy his narration just as much, however, I found out that not everyone feels the same as me. I listen to my audio books in my car and every now and then, my boyfriend gets to listen too (when we decide to take my car.) He was blessed one day to ride with me while I was just starting Invisible, I was actually quite excited thinking that he'd find Auster as wonderful as me. No, he did not. I didn't even have to ask him what he thought of Auster's glorious voice, he told me right away, "How can you STAND it? His voice is so monotone!" That's when I realized what he said was true! I still didn't care, monotone or not, I loved every syllable. I wanted to tell this story because I think it taught me a lesson and really needs to be said for readers asking if they should Audio this book or just read it. I would jump up and down and say you'd be crazy not to want to hear Auster sex up his own writing... but on the other hand, maybe you would be like my boyfriend and wonder why he doesn't use any inflection or change his voice for each character. To each their own! With that said, on to the book itself. This book is chock full of crazy stuff. If you know Auster, you'll know to expect this. If this is a first time Auster read? I would suggest picking up one of his earlier books first (or audio booking Winter Journal - my favorite). The story is told in seasons, each one a chapter of the book the main character has written of his life. I always love books about books, this one lacked a little of that charm though. The charm the story held was within the development of Adam and the whimsical characters he interacted with. Whimsical may be the wrong word for that if you start thinking of Disney characters but that was the first word that came to mind. You see Adam throughout his life; traveling, getting into trouble, struggling writer, wanting to know the meaning of everything. Auster always does this so well (again, in my opinion). The shocking moments of the book really took me for surprise, they come at times you don't expect them. I would recommend this book to anyone who has already experienced Auster and enjoyed his work. Happy Reading, AmberBug