Best of 2013: The Lost Girls of Rome, by Donato Carrisi

Merry Christmas from lifebythebooks: I want to wish you the happiest of holidays from lifebythebooks. It can be a stressful time of year, but I wish you peace for today and hope for tomorrow.

The Lost Girls of Rome, by Donato Carrisi. Mulholland, 432 pp. November 2013

Sometimes a book is a really great book, and sometimes a really great book knocks you completely upside the head. The Lost Girls of Rome is the latter of the two. I was expecting a decent thriller, but I wasn’t expecting what Donato Carrisi had to offer.

Sandra Vega, a forensic analyst with the Roman police, recently lost her husband and is working through the grief that comes with such a tragedy. He husband was said to have died by jumping from the top of a construction site a few months before, and the death was ruled an accident. But Sandra has a gut feeling that something else is at work, and she begins to follow the path she believes he laid out for her in the last days of his life.

At the same time, a series of disappearances has swept across the city, each involving a woman that is found dead a short time later. Along with the police, a pair of men are investigating these disappearances, but must do so without being seen or identified by anyone else.

In a small way, The Lost Girls of Rome is a well-written comrade to anything Dan Brown would write, and Sandra Vega is, in a sense, a stronger Robert Langdon. I’m not even someone who reads thrillers on a regular basis, but I could not put this one down.

The whole idea of “secret societies” fascinates me, and thrillers that occur in such historical places as Rome have so much to offer simply in the details the author can include from the city itself. The secrets of this novel drive it forward. Even after I had written the original review–with still about a third of the book to go come deadline–I couldn’t put it down. Despite my deadline, I continued to read until it was finished.

The ending is the part that fully blew my mind. I finished the final page, sat up and just stared at the cover for a few minutes, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened. I wish I could say more, but to do so would spoil the book, and I would hate to do that. I will leave the experience unopened, as they say, and let you see for yourself.

Happy Holidays!

Best of 2013: Little Wolves, by Thomas Maltman

Little Wolves, by Thomas Maltman. Soho Press, 352 pp. January 2013

I was born and raised in west Michigan, which is somewhat on the border of East Coast and Midwest, in terms of culture. But I went to college and now live in Iowa, which is smack dab in the center of America’s Heartland. And while I love to travel, and I love elements of the different cultures each region of the country offers, I’m beginning to view stories that are set in the Midwest as more “comfort reads.” I like them, I believe, in part because I can relate to the setting of the story, not just the characters or the plot drive. There’s a sense of “home” in the book; I can belong in the story because I understand the world where the characters live.

This is the case in Thomas Maltman’s Little Wolves. In fact, this is the book that made me realize how good Midwest literature can be. Several things are going on here: In one corner, we’ve got a community responding to a tragic murder of, and by, one of its own. In another corner, the father of the murderer struggles to understand how his son could behave in such a way. In yet a third, a young pastor and his pregnant wife move to town for a job he receives at a local church. But in still a fourth corner we follow the wife and we try to figure out why she returned to this town, aside from her husband’s work.

All of this takes place in a small town on the Minnesota prairie, not too far from where I am. And while the story takes place in the late 1980s, much of its elements are timeless–they could just as easily have occurred yesterday.

Little Wolves is, when everything else is stripped away, a murder mystery. We know who the killer is, but what we don’t know is who the killer is–what drove him to commit the crime. But on top of this mystery is an intricate pattern of folklore and mythology, a testament to Maltman’s writing. When I was thinking of the books that I would include in this list, this book was one of the first I thought of.

If I had to describe Little Wolves in one word, I would choose the word grit. The grit of this novel is what lingered with me almost a year after I first read it, and what I love most about it. Despite its bits of magic realism, this book is a real novel; it seeps into the cracks of your memory and does not leave.

For those who live in Iowa, Little Wolves was chosen as the All Iowa Reads title of 2014. Local libraries across the state will be holding discussions and programming around this book.

Best of 2013: Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

from npr.org

LIFE AFTER LIFE, by Kate Atkinson. Reagan Arthur, 529 pp. April 2013

There was no question that Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life would make it onto my Top 10 list this year. This was one of those books that had quite a bit of buzz before its release. Granted it was first released in the United Kingdom, but it was getting such a good response over there that after reading about it on Twitter I definitely wanted to get my hands on a copy.

Ursula Todd is born and dies several times throughout this book. Some lives only last a few minutes, some last many years. And as her lives progress, we see how her experiences change as a result of other moments or decision she made previously. In one life she may have feelings for a certain boy and she may allow him to kiss her, but in another life she may not. In each of these situations, other parts of her life differ based on her decision to kiss him. We see how this small instance affects not only her future but the woman she becomes.

Life After Life contains many elements of an epic, though it is written in a way that is accessible to any reader. I loved the way that we are able to view this world Atkinson has created from the outside in. We are able to see Ursula’s similarities and differences as she continues to die and be reborn. But she does not necessarily have any memory of past lives. She only understands the life she is currently living.

I have to say, however, that I loved the darkness of this book the most. It’s not a “dark” book, but I really appreciated that Atkinson did not shy away from the shadows. She balances the joys and sorrows of life well, and she does so in a way that strengthens the novel and deepens Ursula as a character.

For example, the outside scene of her first birth may look idyllic: A snowy night in 1910, an English banker and his wife welcoming a daughter into the world. But the tables turn: this life only lasts a few moments, as Ursula dies before she can take a breath.

The beauty of this novel is in the shading Atkinson gives to the story and to the memorable Ursula. Atkinson takes the reader through a unique and certainly wondrous journey, one that causes us to wonder how our own experiences and decisions–both good and bad, big and small–affect who we will become and what our futures contain.

Best of 2013: Fin & Lady, by Cathleen Schine

FIN & LADY, by Cathleen Schine. Sarah Crichton Books: 273 pp.

When I look back on 2013, I remember a period in the summer of really good reading. Seriously, I think I flew through four books in one week. One of those books, incidentally, was Fin & Lady, by Cathleen Schine.

It’s 1964 in New York, and Fin has become an orphan at the tender age of 11. At his father’s funeral, amidst the sympathy of well-meaning family and friends, in swoops Lady, Fin’s older half-sister who he hasn’t seen in six years. She is now his legal guardian and he her charge, a position neither of them expected to be in.

Lady is a woman of the world. She lives each day as if it’s her last, and she’s more than willing to take Fin on her whirlwind of a journey through life.

Schine’s writing style is fabulous; I just have to say it. This could have been a tragic story: a young boy, newly orphaned and uprooted from the life he’s always known to live under the care of the flighty half-sister he hasn’t seen in six years. But it was such a fun and tender read. The further I got in the story, the more I rooted for the two to make it together. I fell in love with these characters, and I wanted them to succeed.

I loved the way that Fin steps up as the “man of the house.” He’s much younger than his sister, and yet he assumes this protective role when it comes to the men she brings around the house. As their relationship develops, and as they start to acclimate to their new way of living, they start to take care of each other. There is space for both to be vulnerable, because they learn to trust that the other will be there to support them.

In Fin & Lady, we see an unconventional family build and come into itself after terrible tragedy. They say you can choose you’re friends, but you’re stuck with your family. Fin & Lady is an example that you choose both. In obvious ways, you choose your friends. But you choose the dynamic you have with your family. What you put into the relationship is what you get out of it, regardless of any age difference or true blood-connection.

Best of 2013: Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

ELEANOR & PARK, by Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin’s Griffin, 320 pp.

I wish, so badly, that I could have included both Eleanor & Park and Fangirl in this year’s Top 10. Unfortunately, there were just so many good books this year that I had to pick one. Rainbow Rowell had a fabulous year, releasing two of the best young adult books I’ve read. She’s so easy to get lost in–good luck reading either of these books in more than one sitting.

Because I had to choose, I included Eleanor & Park in this year’s Top 10 list over Fangirl because I simply feel it’s a more classic story. Both of the main characters are outcasts. On the outside, Eleanor is a little chubby, she’s got bright red hair the sticks out everywhere, and her clothes never match. On the inside she’s not quite sure where she fits, either at school or at home.

And even though Eleanor sees Park as too cool to care about her, Park also feels a little outside the box. He’s mixed race, not really feeling like he truly belongs anywhere. To combat this, he’s found that coasting through his life is the best option. If he doesn’t draw attention to himself, he can’t be the butt of anyone’s joke.

I love the development of this relationship. Too often, I feel, love stories focus on the endgame: What happens once the pair is already in love. They rush through the falling in love part to get to the obstacles that threaten to tear the two apart. We often forget the falling in love part has enough drama on its own without any outside forces stepping in. And no experience encapsulates this better than a first love story. We’ve all been there; we all get it.

Eleanor & Park takes place in 1986, a time before every teenager automatically came with his or her own personal cell phone and saturated social (network) life. There’s something to be said about the simplicity of a conversation on a school bus. Color me nostalgic, but when you’re 16 years old, the best gift you could receive was a mixtape from your crush of his favorite songs.

This is a book everyone can read and love, regardless of age. It’s a book to remind us that even in our most awkward and lonely moments, someone loves us. To that person, at the very least, we matter.

Best of 2013: The Death of Bees, by Lisa O’Donnell

from authorlisaodonnell.com

THE DEATH OF BEES, by Lisa O’Donnell. Harper: 320 pp.

This was one of the first books I read this year, and it made such an impact on me that when I started thinking about my favorite books of the year, I automatically included it in the list.

The Death of Bees, Lisa O’Donnell’s debut novel, tells the story of sisters Marnie and Nelly, who must take care of themselves and each other after their parents die. If anyone, namely the authorities, find out they are living on their own, they could be split up. In addition, Marnie is already fifteen years old. In a year she’ll be able to be her sister’s legal guardian anyway. And then there’s the matter of the circumstances surrounding the girls’ parents. Only the sisters know, and only they know that their bodies are buried in the back garden.

I love the beginning of this book, spoken in Marnie’s voice:

Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved.

O’Donnell’s writing style is captivating. In a way, it reminded me of Emma Donoghue’s Room. Both stories deal with troubling topics, but both are written in a way that is impossible not to follow. The Death of Bees is a book you get lost in without even trying.

I also love the relationship between the girls and their neighbor, Lonnie. He was the sort of neighbor the girls were warned against when their parents were still around. They didn’t know why, and the more they get to know him the more they realize he’s exactly what they need in their lives. Perhaps they’re exactly what he needs as well.

The Death of Bees explores an understanding of family in a way that isn’t done very often. I don’t know if it’s been done in exactly this way before, actually. It’s a compelling reminder that in moments where we’ve lost ourselves, perhaps the best thing we can do is find each other.

Author Q&A: Robin Sloan

I’ve had so much fun with my featured author week! It’s been so great to give you a little view into Robin Sloan and his book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Be sure to check out Sloan’s book, as well as his story. In addition, he’s got a companion e-book, titled Ajax Penumbra 1969. I haven’t read that yet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that one too. 

To wrap up the Mr. Penumbra package, I’m excited to offer a Q&A with Robin himself. Many thanks to him for his willingness to answer these questions (and to his publicist for setting this all up).

Q: You write that you studied economics and that many of your jobs dealt with “figuring out the future of media.” How did you move from economics to working with media and then to writing fiction?

A: For me, the internet was the bridge. All throughout college, I was tinkering with web pages; by the time graduation rolled around, I wanted to do internet journalism. The internet led to blogging, and then writing longer things, and that led me back to fiction, which was an interest I’d long neglected. There were a lot of other things along the way, too. I worked at a TV network, and at Twitter here in San Francisco. My path definitely wasn’t a straight line.

Q: “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” began as a short story. What made you want to turn it into a novel? How was the process for writing the novel different than writing the short story?

A: Of all the short stories I’ve yet published on the internet, Penumbra generated the strongest response by far. It was just on a whole different level. I think of it now almost as a prototype; I put it out there, and it succeeded in a way that the others didn’t, so it was clear that there was more to explore some way to develop the prototype into a complete product.

Q: I get the feeling you have a passion for things that stand the test of time, not only from the story (which I won’t give away), but also from your bio. What do you think influenced this?

A: There’s an old Buddhist line that goes: “Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?” I think it’s a pretty compelling question, and I think the answer–I mean, there are plenty of good answers, but the answer for me–is “Try to make things that last.” Durability is about honoring the past all the things, mostly art and culture, created centuries ago or more, that we still enjoy today and also about trying (hoping) to send something forward into the future of our own.

Q: Your short story is so whimsical, and I loved the description of the bookstore. Was there anything that inspired you to create the bookstore in this way?

A: The original inspiration actually came from a tweet and not even my own! Years ago, my friend Rachel tweeted:

Just misread ’24hr bookdrop’ as ’24hr bookshop’. The disappointment is beyond words.

It made me laugh, and I wrote it down. Later, when I was starting a new short story, it was waiting there in my notes, and it seemed obvious to me that something interesting must happen in a 24-hour bookstore …

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Is there a resource you found helpful in writing this book?

A: My advice is pretty simple: start small and finish things. Before I wrote a novel, I wrote a novella; before that, I wrote short stories; before that, I wrote blog posts. I think it’s hugely helpful to take that step-by-step approach, winning small victories along the way.

Q: What is your favorite book (or favorite few books). What are you reading right now?

A: I can’t pick a single favorite, but I will say that I love science fiction, and right now I’m reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312. It’s fantastic; a really stunning feat of imagination. It relates to your question about durability, too: I think if you spent any time imagining the future, the year 2312 and beyond, you can’t help but get interested in making something that might have a chance–a slim one, but still, a chance–to last that long.

That’s it for featured author week this month! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m working hard at getting an author lined up for November, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to do this once again.

Again, be sure to check out Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, as well as the companion e-book, Ajax Penumbra 1969.

Review: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan. Picador, 288 pp. $15

Growing up, I remember hearing phrases about books bringing readers to a magical place. And I completely believe it, I have since I was a child. But I have not yet read a book that so vividly brings these phrases to life than Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

Clay Jannon walks into the bookstore a little timidly at first. When he read the “Help Wanted” poster in the front window, he approached the opportunity cautiously. On the one hand, he needed a job. His previous employer, a San Francisco-based bagel company called NewBagel, was his “first job out of art-school,” and could have lead to great things had it not slowly gone under with the economic downturn.

On the other hand, “I was pretty sure ’24-hour bookstore’ was a euphemism for something, It was on Broadway, in a euphemistic part of town.” The location itself was a bit questionable: directly next door to an establishment featuring neon legs named Booty’s.

But the need for an income wins out, and he begins working as the night-clerk at the bookstore. For the most part, the job is what you would expect for the graveyard shift at a bookstore–relatively slow. But every so often someone would come in looking for a strange book, and his job shifted from ordinary to confusing.

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay?

These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they’re all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There’s no mention of current events or pop culture or anything really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination.

With nothing else to do at night, Clay begins to investigate these unusual people that come to his bookstore. He looks into their actions and the books they check out–books he’s never heard of before. And the more he digs, the more he realizes he’s just scratched the surface of something much larger than he ever expected.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is an adventure. Even though I had read the short story first, I was still turning pages and wondering what came next. The books the unusual patrons ask for are what trigger Clay to investigate the bookstore, and its owner, and they’re what keep him moving forward through the story. Books are what drive him forward.

But books aren’t the end-all. Sloan does a good job of bridging the often push-pull discussion of books and technology. Instead of a “one is better than the other” tone many take, he proposes that the best result can be achieved when both are used. Some situations require paper and ink, some are best handled with technology. But, above all, the content is what matters. How the content is delivered is, while important, often a separate conversation.

And it makes sense that he would take this stance: Sloan has spent a lot of time in both technology and writing. He’s worked at Twitter and Current TV, yet he also started a literary journal, Oats, while at Michigan State. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, now available in paperback, spent time on the New York Times bestseller list, was chosen as a “Top Book of 2012” by the San Francisco Chronicle and was New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Sneak Peak: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

I have the privilege this week to feature Robin Sloan and his book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. This is something I’d like to do more regularly on lifebythebooks, and I’m really grateful that Robin agreed to answering a few questions for me to bring to you. 

Today’s sneak peak and tomorrow’s review will both involve Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and on Wednesday I will have the Author Q&A posted.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore originated from a short story written in 2009. I read both, and while there are a few spoilers from reading the story first, the novel definitely provides a unique experience from the story.

For my sneak peak, I wanted to offer the description of the bookstore. It’s the central location to the novel, and I’m sure that if it existed, it would be featured in all of the websites dedicated to bookshelf and/or library porn:

I pushed the bookstore’s glass door. It made a bell tinkle brightly up above, and I stepped slowly through. I did not realize at the time what an important threshold I had just crossed.

Inside: imagine the shape and volume of a normal bookstore turned up on its side. This place was absurdly narrow and dizzyingly tall, and the shelves went all the way up–three stories of books, maybe more. I craned my neck back (why do bookstores always make you do uncomfortable things with your neck?) and the shelves faded smoothly into the shadows in a way that suggested they might just go on forever.

The shelves were packed close together, and it felt like I was standing at the border of a forest–not a friendly California forest, either, but an old Transylvanian forest, a forest full of wolves and witches and dagger-wielding bandits all waiting just beyond moonlight’s reach. There were ladders that clung to the shelves and rolled side to side. Usually those seem charming, but here, stretching up into the gloom, they were ominous. They whispered rumors of accidents in the dark.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s review and Wednesday’s Q&A! In the meantime, be sure to check out Robin’s website and the book.

Award Recap: Man Booker Prize 2013

Yesterday, the Man Booker Prize announced its 2013 winner: The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton.

This is one of most prestigious literary prizes out there, and to win it is an incredible honor and push for an author. Past winners include V.S. Naipaul’s In a Free State (1971), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), J.M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K (1983), A.S. Byatt’s Possession (1990), Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2002), and of course last year’s winner, Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies.

The award was initially sponsored by Booker-McConnell, and called the Booker-McConnell Prize, or simply “The Booker Prize,” until the Man Group invested in the early 2000s. When the Man Group invested, the named changed to the Man Booker Prize and it became one of the richest literary prizes in the world.

Up until now, the Prize has only been eligible to authors living in the United Kingdom, a commonwealth such as Australia or Canada, Ireland or Zimbabwe. Starting next year, however, the Prize will be available to anywhere in the world. This decision has generated quite a bit of discussion in the literary world. Some people preferred the selective nature of the Prize; it’s developed as a brand for this award. Some are excited, however, that authors from the United States, another previously excluded countries, can now enter.

Eleanor Catton, the New Zealand author of The Luminaries and the winner of this year’s award, is the youngest winner of the Prize, at only 28 years old. In addition, The Luminaries is the longest novel to win, at 832 pages.

In addition to receiving the Prize, Catton also celebrated the U.S. release of her book yesterday.

The Luminaries beat out quite a list of contenders. I’ve got them listed below, and I hope to get the chance to read them all soon:

 

The Shortlist

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

Harvest, by Jim Crace

The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin

We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo

 

The Longlist

A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki

Almost English, by Charlotte Mendelson

Five Star Billionaire, by Tash Aw

Harvest, by Jim Crace

The Kills, by Richard House

The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, by Eve Harris

The Spinning Heart, by Donal Ryan

The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin

TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann

Unexploded, by Alison MacLeod

We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo