Book Buzz

DAVID LESTER

Quite an amazing graphic novel, The Listener intertwines the story of a Canadian artist, Louise, haunted by the death of a man called to action and protest by her sculpture and the story of Hitler’s rise to power which led to the second world war. Louise does a tour of Europe trying to comprehend what has happened in her life and to her art. Among the most important people that Louise meets is an elderly couple named Marie and Rudolph. They tell her a little-known tale of an election in the small German state of Lippe (only about 100,000 inhabitants) in January of 1933. At the time, while the Nazis were the largest political party in Germany, being the largest party in a plurality does not necessarily mean much if you can’t do anything with your power. While they remained the largest party, the Nazis had begun to lose seats and their momentum was beginning to wane (and as you all know, a large part of Hitler’s power was harnessing forward momentum). So when Lippe held a parliamentary election in 1933, the Nazis through everything they had into winning the election to keep up their momentum. Marie and Rudolph tell the story of the underhanded spin-doctoring that was used to secure that election for Hitler and therefore solidifying their power in Germany.

Great and quick read.

DAVID AXE and MATT BORS

Axe is almost a war junkie. ” The first 72 hour [home] after a big trip are pure animal bliss. Them I crash. Hard. I should have been happy After all I’d seen and done, I should have treasured every friendship, relished every beer and revelled in every moment I wasn’t getting shot at, blown up or mortared. ”  ”I didn’t feel much any more. What pleasure I used to take in everyday things was replaced with a constant low-grade anger. Anger at the assholes who started it all. But mostly anger at myself for thinking that going off to war would make me smarter sexier and happier.”

An excellent read about the consistency of the horrors of war and one man’s struggle to stay sane while trying to document the conflicts around the world.

TATJANA SOLI

“My whole experience was clouded over there, we were in a dream. It was so vivid, I thought it wasn’t real. But it was. Truer than anything here.”

The life and loves of a photojournalist during the Vietnam War. Helen learns her craft from Pulitzer prize winning Sam Darrow. He gives her his assistant, Linh, to protect her and take care of her. Soli explores the issues of the war through her characters’ experiences. “The war doesn’t ever have to end for us.”

A good read especially if you are interest in that period of history.

CAMILLA GIBB

Maggie Ly was born in Vietnam but raised in the United States. Maggie and her mother were able to get out of the country at the end of the American war. Her father planned to follow but that never happened. Maggie came to Vietnam to find someone who knew her father, an artist. He went through re-education because of his political beliefs, including the fictional Beauty of Humanity Movement. Maggie. Her search takes her to a pho seller may have known her father, and so she ends up visiting Hung’s pho cart, hoping to discover something about her father. Hung prepares his pho with loving conscientiousness. He sells the soup to customers but feeds the poor people who live around him.

The oppression of the Communist rule comes through clearly which is shown by the difference between how Hung has lived and how his adoptive family, especially 22-year-old Tu, lives after capitalism takes over the country. Tu is a math whiz who “has made the depressing discovery that loving math was a very different thing from loving teaching it.” So he quits his job and becomes a guide in the new world of Vietnam, hoping to profit from the tourism industry along with his friend Phuong, a former music teacher who has dreams of winning Vietnam Idol. The Vietnamese may have fought the Americans, but the young Vietnamese appear to revere all things American, in particular popular culture.

This book shows us what humanity should be with love, acceptance, respect, no matter if you are related by blood or by your heart. An excellent read.

AMY McKAY

Dora Rare is an exceptional young woman, descendant of a Scottish woman shipwrecked on the Bay of Fundy and a Mi’kMaq man named Silent Rare. At 17 Dora is chosen to be an apprentice and successor to the local midwife, Miss Babineau, an old Acadian woman widely viewed as a witch. It is a time when the doctors are trying to take control of the birthing process. The Birth House is set during the historical backdrop of WWI when most of the young men were going off to fight a war in trenches,  the Spanish Influenza of 1918, the Halifax Explosion during the war , and the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. My mom was born in 1917 in rural Saskatchewan. Durning the flu she was sent home to die; the doctor said there was nothing more that he could do for her. Her older brother kept her alive, all the rest of the family was deathly sick. I’m not sure if any children died but eight survived. My father born two years later, 1919, in a different part of rural Saskatchewan was born in a hospital.

This isn’t the best book on midwifery that I’ve ever read but it is well worth the read. I like the old fashion way it is written with correspondence part of the story. Well worth a read.

The Birth House is a Canada Reads Book for 2010.

DAVID LEAVITT

Europe between world wars was watching the surge of fascism grow in both Germany and Spain where a fascist rebellion, led by Franco, was fighting to over throw the democratic government. The title refers to England’s hands off policy for Spain. Meanwhile thousands of young people from Europe and North America were volunteering to fight Franco’s fascists.

Brian is a upper class young man who believes that he is not really gay but having fun until it is time to settle down and marry. His lover, Edward, a working class young man, quietly accepts his homosexuality. When Edward discovers that Brian has been having an affair with Philippa, and is planning to marry her he flees Brian’s room and volunteers to fight in Spain.

I enjoyed the historical parts of the story as well as the love story. Well worth the read.

ISABEL ALLENDE

Island is a rich historical novel of racism and slavery. The first part takes place in what will become Haiti on Sainte-Domingue. Tete is bought by a French sugar plantation owner who rapes her when she is 11. She has two children fathered by her owner. The second one she is allowed to keep. Allende’s strong descriptions of the brutality that slaves lived with all their lives are chilling. The sugar trade in the Antilles was often called “blood sugar.” When the slaves rebel Tete saves her owners life and is promised her freedom and her daughter’s freedom. They flee to New Orleans where the story drags somewhat.

Allende is one of my favorite authors. But this is not one of best works. Still it is a good read.

MICHIO TAKEYAMA

At the end of World War II and Japan has surrendered. As they return home they are in rough shape. But one company is in much better shape than the others. Their secret was music. The Captain was a music student and taught the troops to sing. They sang both in victory and defeat. One of the men, Mizushima, would scout dressed as a Burmese peasant and could blend in with the natives. He was out scouting when the call for surrender came. His peers thought that he was dead. But then at the POW camp a Burmese monk in yellow robes would  stand impassively watching them and listening to them sing. Could it be Mizushima? Why wasn’t he returning to his company?

“The people of Burma, though gentle and weak and poor, quietly went on enjoying their peaceful, happy lives. They were concerned only with the salvation of their souls.”

A good read.

J M WINDLE

Freedom started with such promise. Amy Mallory is a relief worker in Afghanistan, working with the NGO, New Hope. Through her negotiation imprisoned Afghani women and their children are released into her care. Life in the prison had been extremely difficult.  Of course the women’s crimes are crimes only in Muslim law. The children are given and education and the women some job training. This is all great until Amy starts bemoaning the fact that none of these women and children will get into paradise because they don’t know Jesus. She tells the children stories of Jesus and gives a male staff member a New Testament. Totally inappropriate for a relief worker. A friend with a different organization even tells her that New Hope would have signed an agreement to not proselytize to be allowed into Afghanistan.

JOHN LATHROP

Set in the Arabian Gulf, Contract is a romantic, espionage, thriller novel. After more than a decade Steven Kemp and Helen resume a liaison while their building is being attacked by Saudi terrorists. But are they terrorists or are they freedom fighters? And what is the difference. They survive the siege and continue their affair under the nose of her diplomat husband. Harry is a a commercial attaché at the American Embassy.  It is an interesting look a expat culture. But the novel is too wide sweeping to maintain coherency. The book needed serious editing.

ELLY BERKOVITS GROSS

Elly is a slim, clear memoir of an extremely dark time. Elly pin points small miracles that aloud her to survive in Nazi death camps. There are areas of the book that more detail would have been nice to have. I loved the photographs in the book. It helps to make the story more alive.

I believe it important to read books about the holocaust so that it is remembered. It also gives readers a chance to remember that genicide is happening in many places in the world.

GILES BLUNT

This book could have been called The Reluctant Torturer. Victor loved reading but his superior officer, who is also his uncle, won’t allow him to read. The uncle believes he has to make a man out of Victor. The choice: torture or be tortured. Victor is never comfortable with what he does to Lorca. But he does it. There are some graphic descriptions of torture. The poor people of South and Central America who lived through this in the 80′s. Most of it or possibly all of it set up by the CIA. And then Americans are surprised that people of other nationalities don’t like them.

Well written, Breaking Lorca is a must read.

ANNABEL LYON

Aristotle is the tutor to the sons of his childhood friend, King Philip of Macedon. One is a “violent, snotty boy” who is also a genuine leader and will eventually be known as Alexander the Great. Aristotle comes across as  an unpleasant man. Alexander’s brother is physically and mentally challenged. Aristotle makes some interesting changes in his education that help him grow. Before his education was keeping him out of trouble.

Golden Mean has garnered high praise but I found it too slow to recommend it.

MICHAEL DAVID KWAN

Kwan has written a wonderful memoir of his childhood in China. War time China, I thought that there might be graphic descriptions of Japanese cruelty but that wasn’t the case. I found myself laughing out loud several times through out the book. Of course Kwan was born into a wealthy home. His father was an administrator for the railway. When war started Father worked for the Japanese backed government while at the same time was a key leader of the resistance. But when the war ended he was arrested. How do you prove that you were a double agent. A great description of a country in flux. An excellent read.

CHRIS CLEAVER

Completely sorrowful yet at times full of joy. Little Bee is a refugee in Britain from Nigeria.  In Nigeria people are killed because they witnessed the things that Little Bee saw done to her sister, her parents, her friends and her village. “All the bad stories start with, “And then the men with guns came.” The soldiers were eliminating the people in the way of an oil company.

Only when she manages to get to Britain,  she is kept in a “immigration removal centre.” For two years she is detained in this virtual prison  until she is released by accident. She has the address of a couple who she had met on a beach so she sets out to find them.

It is not an easy book. The horrors modern war are not pretty. One of the themes is the power of stories – telling the stories of people who died terrible and senseless deaths. There is power in the many. One alone is weak.