Postcards by E. Annie Proulx

First sentence:

"Even before he got up he knew he was on his way."

Description:

"Postcards is the story of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime on the run from a crime so terrible it renders him forever incapable of touching a woman. The odyssey begins on a freezing Vermont hillside in 1944 and propels Blood across the American West for forty years. Denied love and unable to settle, he lives a hundred different lives: mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, trapping, prospecting for uranium and ranching. His only contact with his past is through a series of postcards he sends home -- not realising that in his absence disaster had befallen his family, and their deep-rooted connection with the land has been severed with devastating consequences." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

When I first read the description, I wasn't sure I would like this book. By the end, as I found myself wanting to know what happens next, I came to love it. Loyal Blood, and his family, don't have an easy life. While they often make both right and wrong decisions, they live their lives authentically. Proulx's descriptions brought me into the scenes, both beautiful and plain. It's a slow read, but well worth it.

Date read: 1/19/2025
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5*/5

ISBN-10: 0006546684
ISBN-13: 9780006546689
Imprint: Flamingo Books
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 1994
# of pages: 340
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

 First sentence:

"'The simplest thing would be to tear it down,' the man said. 'The house is a shambles.'"

Description:

The acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, and the recipient of numerous literary awards -- including the National Humanities Medal, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the Orange Prise -- returns with a story about two families, in two centuries, navigating what seems to be the end of the world as they know it. With history as their tantalizing canvas, these characters paint a startlingly relevant portrait of life in precarious times when the foundations of the past have failed to prepare us for the future.

How could two hardworking people do everything right in life, a woman asks, and end of destitute? Willa Knox and her husband followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have nothing to show for it but debts and an inherited brick house that is falling apart. The magazine where Willa worked has folded; the college where her husband had tenure has closed. Their dubious shelter is also the only option for a disabled father-in-law and an exasperating, free-spirited daughter. When the family's one success story, an Ivy-educated son, is uprooted by tragedy he seems likely to join them, with dark complications of his own.

In another time, a troubled husband and public servant asks, How can a man tell the truth, and be reviled for it? A science teacher with a passion for honest investigation, Thatcher Greenwood finds himself under siege: his employer forbids him to speak of the exciting work just published by Charles Darwin. His young bride and social-climbing mother-in-law bristle at the risk of scandal, and dismiss his worries that their elegant house is unsound. In a village ostensibly founded on a benevolent Utopia, Thatcher wants only to honor his duties, but his friendships with a woman scientist and a renegade newspaper editor threaten to draw him into a vendetta with the town's powerful men.

A timely and "utterly captivating" novel (San Francisco Chronicle), Unsheltered interweaves past and present to explore the human capacity for resiliency and compassion in times of great upheaval." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book featuring characters dealing with life and family at different time periods while living in the same run-down house. I only wished that each story was a separate book so there would have been more to read.

Date read: 12/8/2024
Genres: Fiction; Historical Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0062684736
ISBN-13: 9780062684738
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2019
# of pages: 480
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Foop! by Chris Genoa

First sentence:

"I've always thought that the existence of Abraham Lincoln provided conclusive visual evidence that humans are descended from apes."

Description:

"There are strange happenings going on at Dactyl, Inc., the world's first and only time travel tourism company. So strange that Joe, a tour guide, is promoted to the new position of Chief of Probes. His first probe: find out who's been traveling back in time and torturing his boss in rather disturbing ways.

Joe finds himself catapulted from his dull life into a surreal journey where a blind hog-tying monkey is one of the sanest creatures he meets. Traveling through a past where the only thing that changes the present is death, while dealing with the fabric of space-time slowly unraveling. Joe stumbles into the middle of events that threaten both the Earth's future and past." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this weird and sometime confusing book about time travel, talking monkeys and tourism. I liked Joe's attempts to make sense of what's happening and his trying to figure out why two men, whom he calls Boogedy and Nibbles, keep appearing everywhere he goes.

Date read: 5/15/2020
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5

ISBN-10: 0972959890
ISBN-13: 9780972959896
Publisher: Eraserhead Press
Year: 2005
# of pages: 293
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The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

First sentence:

"The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought."

Description:

Paulo Coehlo's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets  Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book, especially Santiago's outlook on life as he adapts to new circumstances.

Date read: 6/1/2016 [approx.]
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 006112416
ISBN-13: 9780061122415
Publisher: HarperOne
Year: 1988
# of pages: 167
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Plainsong by Kent Haruf

First sentence:

Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.

Description:

"Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

A quiet and beautiful book! Haruf's description of place and characters drew me in to discover a family of friends.

Date read: 10/16/2015

Series: Plainsong, #1
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0375705856
ISBN-13: 9780375705854
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1999
# of pages: 301
Binding: Paperback
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I was Amelia Earhardt by Jane Mendelsohn

First sentence:

"The sky is flesh."

Description:

"In this brilliantly imagined novel, Amelia Earhart tells us what happened after she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared off the coast of New Guinea one glorious, windy day in 1937. And she tells us about herself.

There is her love affair with flying ("The sky is flesh") . . . .

There are her memories of the past: her childhood desire to become a heroine ("Heroines did what they wanted") . . . her marriage to G.P. Putnam, who promoted her to fame, but was willing to gamble her life so that the book she was writing about her round-the-world flight would sell out before Christmas.

There is the flight itself -- day after magnificent or perilous or exhilarating or terrifying day ("Noonan once said any fool could have seen I was risking my life but not living it").

And there is, miraculously, an island ("We named it Heaven, as a kind of joke").

And, most important, there is Noonan . . ." -- from the publisher

My thoughts:

This was an interesting book of the possible life of Amelia Earhart after she disappeared flying over the Pacific Ocean.

Date read: 8/21/2015
Book #: 21
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0679776362
ISBN-13: 9780679776369
Publisher: Vintage 
Year: 1997
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

First sentence:

"He awoke, opened his eyes."

Description:

The Sheltering Sky is a trade mark of twentieth century literature. In this intensely fascinating story, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans' incomprehension of alien cultures leads to the ultimate destruction of these cultures.

A story about three Americans travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky explores the limits of humanity when it touches the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I found this a compelling book about relationships in a harsh environment. I liked the characters' interaction with each other and the world they're in.

Date read:  6/23/2015
Book #: 12
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 006083482X
ISBN-13: 9780060834821
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 1949 (original); 2000 (this edition)
# of pages: 313
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

First sentence:

"The village headman, a man about fifty.."

Description:

"In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about young Chinese men who learn about life and love during China's Cultural Revolution.

Date read: 6/10/2015
Book #: 11
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3*/5 = good

ISBN-10: 0385722206
ISBN-13: 9780385722209
Publisher: Anchor
Year: 2002
# of pages: 184
Binding: Trade Paperback
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May 2015: Sea of Glory; The Last Hot Time; Gray Mountain

8. Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 by Nathaniel Philbrick

My thoughts:

I liked this book about the U.S. Exploring Expedition. Philbrick's prose nicely details both the discoveries and the people involved.

Date read: 5/15/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: History
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9.  The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford

My thoughts:

I liked this fantasy of a man who crosses worlds to become a doctor for otherworldly characters.

Date read:  5/21/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fantasy
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10. Gray Mountain by John Grisham

My thoughts:

I liked this book about a lawyer who enters a new world and discovers she can make a difference in people's lives.

Date read: 5/27/2015
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction
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The Art of Cartography: Stories by J.S. Marcus

First sentence:

"I read, in several newspapers, about a man from Los Angeles who wanted to go to Oakland."

Description:

"The young men and women who inhabit these mordantly alive stories move around -- as do the stories themselves -- from city to city, country to country.The characters are in and out of graduate schools, apartments, love affairs, marriages. They go from New York to London to Los Angeles, compulsively studying the facts of their own lives and the facts they can guess at in the lives of those around them, as a way, perhaps, out of their solitude, as if they could map themselves into the world. They long for perspective, permanence -- truth -- although what they find is often something quite different.

A young American working in a London bank is propelled by a random happening -- he gets off his train one day because an unexploded bomb from World War II has been discovered on the tracks -- into a series of chance meetings and invitations that illumine the nature of his loneliness.

A New Yorker, the author of 'unpublished travel books and eight-millimeter documentaries,' while visiting a South Pacific island famous for its archaeological dig, accidentally brings together, and then less accidentally puts at odds, the people at his hotel.

A woman named Sheila, who appears -- at various periods of her life, and in and out of a relationship with a music critic -- in several of the stories, is last seen in southern California, holed up in a mansion, smoking  grass with the maid, and expecting to end up where she began: back with the critic, as if the best she can do is 'shift weight.'

In all twelve stories, we see people in motion, in flux -- again and again deflected by the succession of chance encounters that has become their way of life.

A remarkable collection of stories, a memorable debut." -- from the inside flap.

My thoughts:

This is an interesting collection of short stories. I liked the narrator meeting different people and reflecting on who they are.

Date read: 10/20/2014
Book #: 38
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre; Fiction

ISBN-10: 0394559460
ISBN-13: 9780394559469
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Year: 1991
# of pages: 129
Binding: Hardcover
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Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

First sentence:

"I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness."

Description:

"From a "literary original" (The Wall Street Journal) comes a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence. Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident at his daughter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget: his wife's recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brill's story grows increasingly intense, and what he is desperately trying to avoid insists on being told." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about families and secrets. I especially liked Brill's imaginary story of a parallel world and how it eventually meets up with reality.

Date read: 8/24/2014
Book #: 31
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre; Fiction

ISBN-10: 0805088393
ISBN-13: 9780805088397
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Year: 2008
# of pages: 192
Binding: Hardcover
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And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

First sentences:

"So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one."

Description:

"AN EMOTIONAL, PROVOCATIVE, AND UNFORGETTABLE NOVEL ABOUT HOW WE LOVE, HOW WE TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER, AND HOW THE CHOICES WE MAKE RESONATE THROUGH GENERATIONS.

Broad in scope and setting, wise and compassionate in its storytelling, And the Mountains Echoed is a profoundly moving, captivating novel that demonstrates Khaled Hosseini’s deeply felt understanding of the bonds that define us and shape our lives—and of what it means to be human.

It begins with the heartbreaking, unparalleled bond between two motherless siblings in an Afghan village. To three-year-old Pari, big brother Abdullah is more mother than brother. To ten-year-old Abdullah, little Pari is his everything. What happens to them-and the large and small manners in which it echoes through the lives of so many other people—is proof of the moral complexity of life. In a multigenerational novel revolving around not just parents and children but also brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which family members love, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.

Propelled by the same remarkable instincts and philosophical insight that made The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns so remarkable, And the Mountains Echoed shows once again that Khaled Hosseini is a born storyteller." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book about family told from different points of view. I especially liked how the events in the past rippled into the future in unexpected ways.

Date read: 8/10/2014
Book #: 27
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 159463176X
ISBN-13: 9781594631764
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Year: 2013
# of pages: 402
Binding: Hardcover
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The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig

First sentence:

"My father was the best bartender that ever lived."

Description:

"Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge of the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, an “accident between the sheets” whose mother deserted them both years ago.The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine.

Until the summer of 1960, that is, when Rusty  turns twelve. Change arrives with gale force, in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own. As Rusty struggles to decipher the oddities of adult behavior and the mysteries build toward a reckoning, Ivan Doig wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a beautifully written book about family and life in a small Montana town. I loved the descriptions of daily life and the interactions between the characters, especially between Rusty and his dad, Tom.

Date read: 8/7/2014
Book #: 27
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 1594487359
ISBN-13: 9781594487354
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Year: 2012
# of pages: 387
Binding: Hardcover
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Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

First sentence:

"Unrepaired and swollen with rain, the gate in the orchard wall refused to move until Cameron put his full weight against it and pushed, hard."

Description:

"A Cambridge historian is found drowned, leaving her study of Isaac Newton’s alchemy incomplete and a spate of mysterious deaths surrounding Newton's rise in fame unsolved. Her fellow writer, Lydia Brooke, agrees to finish the book as a favor to the historian’s son, a neuroscientist with whom she had a long affair. But her attempt to complete the book’s final chapter, and her return to her former lover’s orbit, put her in mortal danger as she uncovers troubling evidence surrounding Newton. As Lydia becomes ensnared in a conspiracy that reawakens ghosts of the past, the seventeenth century slowly seeps into the twenty-first, with the city of Cambridge the bridge between them." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this mix of history and fiction. I especially liked how Lydia figures out how the past is influencing the present.

Date read: 7/29/2014
Book #: 26
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0385521073
ISBN-13: 9780385521079
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Year: 2008
# of pages: 322
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

First sentence:

"On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff's edge, tending the small, newly made driftwood cross."

Description:

"After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a beautifully poignant book about hope and loss, good and bad decisions, and how people's choices affect people they don't know.

Date read: 7/9/2014
Book #: 23
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre; Fiction

ISBN-10: 1451681739
ISBN-13: 9781451681734
Publisher: Scribner
Year: 2012
# of pages: 345
Binding: Hardcover
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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

First sentence:

"Lost in the shadows of the shelves, I almost fall off the ladder."

Description:

"The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco web design drone--and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey have landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customer, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything. Instead, they 'check out' impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, longs-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger. Soon Clay has embarked on a complex analysis of the customers' behavior and roped his friends into helping him figure out just what is going on. And when they bring their findings to Mr. penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside he walls of the bookstore.

With irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century, evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or the young Umberto Eco, but with a unique and feisty sensibility that is rare to the world of literary fiction. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to give a jolt of energy to every curious reader, no matter the time of day." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book of books both new and old. I especially liked how Clay and his friends use their skills and interests to solve problems big and small.

Date read: 7/5/2014
Book #: 22
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0374214913
ISBN-13: 9780374214913
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Year: 2012
# of pages: 288
Binding: Hardcover
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The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

First sentence:

"Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust against the ironwork."

Description:

Graham Greene's masterpiece The Heart of the Matter tells the story of a good man enmeshed in love, intrigue, and evil in a West African coastal town. Scobie is bound by strict integrity to his role as assistant police commissioner and by severe responsibility to his wife, Louise, for whom he cares with a fatal pity.

When Scobie falls in love with the young widow Helen, he finds vital passion again yielding to pity, integrity giving way to deceit and dishonor—a vortex leading directly to murder. As Scobie's world crumbles, his personal crisis makes for a novel that is suspenseful, fascinating, and, finally, tragic.

Originally published in 1948, The Heart of the Matter is the unforgettable portrait of one man, flawed yet heroic, destroyed and redeemed by a terrible conflict of passion and faith." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this book about an assistant police commissioner facing a moral dilemma. I especially liked the interactions between Scobie and Helen and between Scobie and Wilson.

Date read: 6/15/2014
Book #: 19
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0142437999
ISBN-13: 9780142437995
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year: 1948 ; 2004 (this edition)
# of pages: 255
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Book of Dave by Will Self

First sentence:

"Carl Devush, spindle-shanked, bleach blond, lampburnt, twelve years old, kicked up bluff puffs of sand with his bare feet as he scampered along the path from the manor."

Description:

"When East End cabdriver Dave Rudman's wife takes from him his ownly son, Dave pens a gripping text--a compilation about everything from the environment, Arabs, and American tourists to sex, Prozac and cabby lore--that captures all his frustrations and anxieties about his contemporary world. Dave buries the book in his ex-wife's Hampstead backyard, intending it for his son, Carl when he comes of age.

Five hundred years later, Dave's book is found by the inhabitants of Ham, a primitive archipelago in post-apocalyptic London, where it becomes a sacred text of biblical proportions and the template for a new civilization. Only one islander, Symum, remains incredulous. But, after he is imprisoned for heresy, his son Carl must journey through the Forbidden Zone and into the terrifying heart of New London to find the only thing that will reveal the truth once and for all: a second Book of Dave that repudiates the first.

Equal parts dystopian fantasy, religious allegory, detective story, and tribute to the sometimes fraught relations between fathers and sons, The Book of Dave is a profound meditation upon the nature of religion and a caustic satire of contemporary life." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This was a complex and gripping book about family, madness, love and religion, with a new vocabulary to get used to from the beginning. At first, I wasn't sure I liked the book, but the story soon caught my interest and I wanted to learn more about Dave and the future inhabitants of Ham.

Date read: 4/25/2014
Book #: 14
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 1596911239
ISBN-13: 9781596911239
Publisher: Bloomsbury, USA
Year: 2006
# of pages: 416
Binding: Hardcover
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The Stranger by Albert Camus

First sentence:

"Maman died today."

Description:

"Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camus's first novel, The Stranger (L'Etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed 'the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.'

Now, in an illuminating new American translation, extraordinary for its exactitude and clarity, the original intent of The Stranger is made more immediate. This haunting novel has been given a new life for generations to come." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book set in 1940s Algeria. Mersault's isolation and indifference to others and his own fate was creepy and thought-provoking.

Book #: 13
Date read: 4/15/2014
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0679720200
ISBN-13: 9780679720201
Publisher: Vintage Books
Year: 1942; 1988 (this edition)
# of pages: 123
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

First sentence:

"I keep the Beast running."

Description:

"Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life–something like his old life–exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return–not enough fuel to get him home–following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face–in the people he meets, and in himself–is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for." -- from peterheller.net

My thoughts:

I loved this story about starting again in a new world. There's joy and heartbreak, excitement and serenity. I liked Hig's interactions with Bangley and especially with his dog Jasper.

Date read: 4/13/2014
Book #: 12
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Fiction

ISBN-10: 0307950476
ISBN-13: 9780307950475
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2013
# of pages: 336
Binding: Trade Paperback
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