A new year, a new resolution
This blog went on hiatus in 2017. I didn't plan it that way. It just happened, Week after week, month after month, I just didn't seem to have anything to say. Or worth saying. I ignored my feelings of guilt, figured a break was healthy. So, that happened...
But I've missed posting my thoughts on books, reading, and writing. And I've missed hearing from readers of the blog. So, on this first day of 2019, exlibrisnc is back!
The past year has been good in many ways, but not great in terms of books I’ve relished. So, for 2018, no “baker’s dozen” to recommend—just a trio of books that gave me pleasure.
Happiness: A Novel by Aminatta Forna—I don’t know why this novel has flown to far under the radar, but I suspect that the title might be the problem, making potential readers think it’s relegated to the self-help shelf. Not so. It is a glorious, optimistic novel about the unlikely power of immigrants to enhance life. The “immigrants” include urban foxes, African hotel workers, a Ghanaian psychiatrist, and an American wildlife biologist, all of whom inhabit a London lovingly described. Well, yes, there ishappiness here.
Warlightby Michael Ondatje—Like so many of his other novels (and Running in the Familyhis extraordinary memoir about growing up in Sri Lanka), Warlightshows Ondatje playing with shadows and secrets, memory, characters both mysterious and charming. The first line hooks you: “In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” Hang onto your hats; the story goes places you wouldn’t imagine.
Improvementby Joan Silber gathers eight linked stories set in New York, Turkey, and Germany. Characters in one story reappear in another story, shifting the reader’s view of them. Each story feels fresh, and the connecting threads bind the pieces to a greater whole. Partly through choice, partly through luck, the characters’ lives do improve in unexpected ways.
2 comments:
So glad to have Ex Libris back again! I suffer from a lack of literary discussion out here.
Of your 3 for 2018, I read just one: Warlight. I liked it a lot, though it took me a long time to get through it. (reading off and on) Loved the atmosphere of floating down the Thames with men "who may have been criminals." And dogs! Floating in secret as in warlight. I read it having just returned from England and was impressed by the sense of place it brought to me, not just of London, but in the rural village where the narrator lives as an adult. Great book.
Several notable lists for 2018 put "Asymmetry" by Lisa Halliday at or near the top. Did you or any of your bloggers read it? I did. It's in 3 parts. I liked the writing in the first part, enjoyed the technique and the story in the second part, totally did not get the third part. Can somebody explain what I missed?
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