As we found during our own travels to Malta, the country is at a fascinating geographic crossroads, with its unique culture and history, influenced by Italy and broader Europe to its north and Africa to the south. And all the while, surrounded by the sunny, blue Mediterranean. This memoir is the story of a Welsh expat who spent three years living among the Maltese and paints colorful depictions of the country as it was in the early to mid 1960s, a jump in history to an interesting time and place. In the early 60s, Malta was less than two decades past its role as a strategic stronghold for the Allies during World War II, a designation that led to significant deprivations and bombing of the small island nation.
Read MoreFor some reason, a few of my recent reads have featured midwives, and Animal Life fits the pattern. Dómhildur is a midwife in a Reykjavik hospital and comes from a long lines of midwives in her family. Closest to her, perhaps, was her childless great-aunt, now deceased but previously a midwife, whose mantle has settled on her shoulders.
Read MoreAs with the two prior novels of Hamid's that I have read in the last few years, The Last White Man tackles contemporary challenges that pertain, at least in part, to race or ethnic origin. I have known people who have both loved his writing and been turned off by it, and I think the two main routes that lead readers either towards or away from Hamid are the topics of his novels and his writing style, which is perhaps best described as perfunctory. I'd add another word to his style in this particular novel: exacting. Characters often use a particular word, think better of it, and then use a more appropriate word. It is an exercise in the importance of language itself and what we mean, what we say, and the vast abyss that often lies in between.
Read MoreWhere Coyotes Howl begins with Ellen's arrival in Wyoming, in search of a new life away from her family in Iowa. She has been hired to serve as the local teacher after the prior teacher lasted a year, in what turns out to be a trend in the community.
Within moments, it is clear that most of Ellen's clothing and her small allocation of personal belongings that made the trek are no match for the dusty, hardscrabble life on the prairie in the early twentieth century United States.
Read MoreA Woman in Time by Bobi Conn is set in rural Appalachian Kentucky between 1899 and 1939, amidst the backdrop of the Prohibition Era and reminiscent of Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, set in Virginia's Appalachian region.
Read MorePeople who know Joan - the doctors she works with at the hospital, her boss, her new neighbor, her brother - are pretty sure she is not okay. Joan isn’t sure why they can’t just leave her be - let her work constantly, keep her apartment minimally furnished, and skip out on holiday bashes.
Read MoreLanguage of loss and love suffuce the novel with poignant descriptions that cut to the bone of life. The unstated question which echoes throughout is: What is worth dying for? Is it love, is it loss, is it a belief in a political state? Krishan, the main character, may be on the verge of asking a new question: What is worth living for?
Read MoreWhat publisher would risk publishing a book under this title? You can sure it is one who has a hell of a lot of confidence that this will, in fact, be one hell of a book. My verdict: a resounding yes.
Read MoreDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is part crime novel, part animal rights activism, part a tale about aging, and part a tale about living as an outsider in your own community. Sprinkle in a dose of mysticism and astrology, and this is a book that is more than the sum of its parts.
Read MoreMuch has been made about the urban and rural divide in America, a topic that reached new urgency as pundits, pollsters, and social scientists sought to make sense of the 2016 presidential election. Overnight, books such as J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became best-sellers. A national narrative was told by reporters from Big City, USA, popping in to visit rural Kentucky and other rural spots, to identify their “otherness”.
Read MoreThis science fiction trilogy begins against the backdrop of the real-life Cultural Revolution in China, which occurred from approximately 1966 to 1976. The commentary, details, and perspectives offered about that time period are interesting and are told through the eyes of the author, who lived his formative years during this experience.
Read MoreLife has not been easy for Kit Biddle, which is evident from the opening pages of The Essence of Nathan Biddle. Six years prior, Kit's beloved and special cousin, Nathan Biddle, had been sacrificed by his father in a modern-day rendition of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.
Read MoreThe Speed of Mercy immediately introduces a number of strong female characters that range in age from youth to elderly and are spaced across the two time periods through which the novel moves. The book is about friendships among women and their protection for each other - in a physical sense as well as in an emotional, a psychological, and even a magical way.
Read MoreSalem, Massachusetts, is home to year-round witchery, a phenomena that shows up in most cities only around Halloween. The historic city is a mecca for those who are fascinated by the idea of witches, interested in the 330 year old history of the witch trials, and of course represents ongoing debate about the role of women throughout history and how the claim of witchcraft was used to subjugate and control the ‘weaker sex’, as it were.
Read MoreIn the 1800s, a Viking burial site was unearthed in Birka, Sweden. The burial included a Viking ship, weaponry, game pieces, horses and riding accessories, and other tools. The grave was documented as that of a Viking warrior, as evidenced by the contents of the burial. As Brown shares in her book, most “sexing” (that is, determination of whether a skeleton is male or female) throughout the history of archaeology has been sexing by metal. That is to say, where weapons are found, it is deemed to be a male, where jewelry is found, female. There are a number of reasons why the field of archaeology has used this approach even as DNA testing has emerged, and Brown provides an interesting overview of this process.
Read MoreMarguerite Duras is the nom de plume of Marguerite Donnadieu (and later Marguerite Antelme when she married), who lived from 1914 to 1996. The Impudent Ones was her first novel and, until now, is the only one that has not been translated into English.
Read MoreHow many among us add “Read more books” to our New Year’s Resolutions? Every year, I set a personal goal in my Goodreads app, not so much to ensure I read a certain number of books, though that is certainly the surface goal, but to keep focused on my goal of reading and exploring new authors and new ideas. Some years I hit my goal, some years I don’t. Some books are really heavy and long and others are quicker reads. Regardless, every year certain books stick with me for different reasons. Sometimes I am enraptured by beautiful, lyrical language, other times a new perspective or new window into history or a subject changes forever the way I think.
Read MoreLerner draws a generational line from those coming-of-age in the late 1990s, an era of creature comforts and when youth could be disaffected by meaninglessness, pre-smart phone distractions, to the present. What happened to ‘lost boys’ exemplified by the character of Darren Eberheart? Or, in reverse: What is the matter with (some) adult - predominantly white - men? Where in the recesses of their past did they take a wrong turn?
Read MoreThat On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was writen by an author who is primarily a poet will not surprise anyone who turns its pages. The love of language, the descriptions, the musings are all tell-tale signs of a poet at heart.
Beautiful and stunning are two words that come to mind after finishing this novel in less than 24-hours. The world it portrays is all-encompassing and fully absorbed me. But this novel is not about sunny beauty but the beauty that can be found in life's darkest recesses, in its losses, in its pain, and and it's determination to keep moving forward in spite of it all.
Read MoreThe auto-biography moves chronologically from Washington's earliest memories and experiences on the Burroughs farm as an enslaved child and his family's relocation to West Virginia upon receipt of their freedom. Washington's first-person account of life for an enslaved and, then, formerly enslaved child seeking to gain an education while working long, hard, scary hours in the coal mine is itself a fascinating window into the past.
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