Don't Miss Lists and Other Reading Resources

April - June 2009

Aswany, Alaa. CHICAGO: A NOVEL.

This novel by an Egyptian writer portrays the intersecting lives of a group of Egyptian medical students and professors at a university in Chicago after 9/11.

Baker, Tiffany. THE LITTLE GIANT OF ABERDEEN COUNTY.

An unusually large woman with a tender heart grows up as an outcast and searches for love and acceptance in upstate New York, in the 1950’s.

Buruma, Ian. THE CHINA LOVER.

In this novel based on a true story, three different narrators with their own viewpoints examine the life of a Japanese woman who, passing herself off as Chinese, becomes a popular actress after World War II.

Cox, Michael. THE GLASS OF TIME: THE SECRET LIFE OF MISS ESPERANZA GORST.

In this Victorian-era gothic thriller, a sequel to “The Meaning of Night”, a 19-year-old orphan, disguised as a lady’s maid, is sent to spy on a baroness, as part of a complex plan by her guardian.

Curiol, Celine. VOICE OVER.

In this short French novel, a lonely young woman who works as an announcer at a train station is in love with a man who lives with another woman.

Drayson, Nicholas. A GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF EAST AFRICA.

In this light-hearted love story set in Nairobi, Kenya, two men interested in the same woman agree to a contest - whichever man sights the most bird species in one week will win the right to invite her to the upcoming Hunt Club Ball.

Enright, Anne. YESTERDAY’S WEATHER: STORIES.

This is a collection of 31 short stories by an Irish writer, set mostly in contemporary Ireland, focusing on love and relationships, and narrated primarily by women.

Ghosh, Amitav. SEA OF POPPIES.

This historical novel centers on the passengers and crew of a ship sailing from Calcutta to China in 1838, amid the politics that was soon to lead to the Opium Wars between China and Great Britain.

Hinnefeld, Joyce. IN HOVERING FLIGHT.

An art student and her ornithology professor, brought together by their love of nature, marry each other and have a child. But her increasingly radical environmentalism drives them apart and leads to a complicated relationship with her daughter.

Huston, Nancy. FAULT LINES.

This novel, which begins in contemporary California and ends in World War II-era Germany, moves backwards in time to trace four generations of a family with a dark secret. The book is in four sections, each narrated by a different six-year-old child.

Kamensky, Jane. BLINDSPOT: BY A GENTLEMAN IN EXILE AND A LADY IN DISGUISE.

An 18th century Scottish artist comes to colonial Boston to escape his creditors, finds work as a portrait painter, and takes an apprentice, who turns out to be a woman in disguise.

Kelman, James. KIERON SMITH, BOY.

This novel portrays the childhood of a boy who grows up as the less favored of two sons in a working class Glasgow family in the 1950's.

Klosterman, Chuck. DOWNTOWN OWL.

This first novel by a popular rock music critic explores life and culture in the tiny town of Owl, North Dakota in 1983.

Lee, Janice Y.K. THE PIANO TEACHER.

This novel begins in 1952, when a British woman comes to Hong Kong with her husband, takes a position as a piano teacher for a wealthy family, and starts an affair with the family’s chauffeur. The story also flashes back to a period ten years earlier, during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, when the chauffeur had an affair with a beautiful Chinese-Portuguese woman.

Marai, Sandor. ESTHER’S INHERITANCE.

A middle-aged woman, who has been in love for 25 years with the man who married her sister, gives him the deed to her only possession, her family home, even though she knows he is a con artist.

Mun, Nami. MILES FROM NOWHERE.

A troubled teenager, the daughter of Korean immigrants, runs away from her home in the Bronx to live on the streets of New York City, and soon descends into addiction, prostitution, and theft.

O’Nan, Stewart. SONGS FOR THE MISSING.

In this story set in a small town in Ohio, a popular 18-year-old woman, on the verge of leaving for college, suddenly disappears; her parents search frantically for her, while her friends have to decide which secrets to reveal.

Rose, M.J. THE MEMORIST.

In this supernatural thriller, an antiquarian in Vienna finds an 18th century box with supposedly magical powers, connected to the composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven, setting off a deadly international competition for its possession.

Saramago, Jose. DEATH WITH INTERRUPTIONS.

In an unnamed country, beginning one year on New Year’s Day, death (who is a woman) takes a break, and people stop dying, setting off panic in the funeral industry and general disruption to society.

Sebag Montefiore, Simon. SASHENKA.

An affluent Jewish teenager becomes a Bolshevist revolutionary in Russia, and eventually acquires a successful position in the Soviet bureaucracy, until an affair with a disgraced writer leads to her destruction by Stalin’s police. The story behind her disappearance is uncovered in the 1990's by a historian hired by her grandson.

Thayer, Steve. THE LEPER.

An American high school teacher, who had served as a soldier in World War I, finds he has contracted leprosy, and is sent into forced quarantine at a Louisiana leper colony.

Unsworth, Barry. LAND OF MARVELS.

In this historical thriller, set in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) on the eve of World War I, a British archaeologist races against time to unearth a buried Assyrian palace before the Germans succeed in building a railroad through the site.

Yehoshua, A.B. FRIENDLY FIRE: A DUET.

An Israeli woman travels to Africa to visit her brother-in-law, and finds him embittered by his son’s death, seven years before, from “friendly fire” while serving in the Israeli army in a Palestinian border town.

MORE FROM MADREADS: Book News and Reviews from Madison Public Library

Madison Public Library librarians review a new book every day on our blog, MADreads. Get ideas on new books to read, and share your thoughts with us.

Slumdog entrepreneur

The subject headings in the library catalog for The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga include chauffeurs, poor, ambition, businesspeople, Bangalore, India, epistolary fiction and detective and mystery stories. The main character is indeed a poor chauffeur who is ambitious and becomes a successful businessman, but what this novel is really about is the improbability of rising from the slums of India in order to obtain the life you were meant to lead and what it takes to get there.

The White Tiger is not written in letters in the traditional sense, so to describe it as epistolary fiction is a bit of a stretch. The narrator, Balram, sends a series of emails to the Premier of China upon the occasion of Wen Jiabao’s visit to India. Balram recounts his life as a poor, low-caste boy with little education forced to work at a very young age. He learns to drive and is able to move up a step by becoming a chauffeur and second servant to the son of a wealthy landowner. Balram writes to the Premier under the guise of educating the Chinese about entrepreneurship in India: technology start-ups, call centers and his own success story. He openly shares with the Premier how he achieves comfort and wealth by lying, stealing, and committing murder.

This novel is not a mystery in the traditional sense, either. The reader knows from the very beginning that Balram murders his master and gets away with it. The real strength of the story lies in the details of poverty, filth, corruption, cruelty, heartlessness, danger and expense necessary to move between castes in modern day India. Ambition, cunning and luck are on Balram’s side but it is obvious that in order to make a new life for himself, he must make terrible choices. The winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize for international literature, this debut novel is darkly humorous, cynical and disgusting. I loved every word of it.

Molly - Central