Hi all,
Multiple links to full-length professional reviews of the following
books released in the US have been added to http://www.reviewsofbooks.com
in the last week:
"His Illegal Self" by Peter Carey - At the center of "His Illegal
Self" is a 7-year-old boy named Che. In 1972, he's living with his
grandmother in New York City because his parents are radicals on the
run from the FBI. One day, a woman claiming to be his mother takes
him and they move from hiding place to hiding place until they arrive
in Australia. When Che wants to call her Mom, she tells him instead
to call her Dial. They live on a remote commune with other hippies,
hiding out from the rest of the world. It's not exactly a happy life
for Che there, and he wonders if Dial is really his mother, and if
she's not, why did she bring him there? Peter Carey's novel has
received mostly positive reviews with The Telegraph saying, "The
result is a richly absorbing novel which can be relished for the
beauties of its prose and the pertinence of its themes, as well as for
the progressively taut pull that it exerts on the emotions."
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/his_illegal_self
Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/030726372X/?tag=reviewsofbooks1-20
"Beautiful Children" by Charles Bock - "Beautiful Children" is set in
Las Vegas and it begins with rebellious 12-year-old Newell Ewing
running away from an unhappy home and becoming one of the homeless
children in the city. His mother scours the city for him while his
father is kept busy with his work and ****ography addiction. Newell
hangs out with his older friend, Kenny, and they meet up with Bing
Beiderbixxe, a cartoonist with a love for sociopathic video games.
Ponyboy is 20 years old and delivers ****ographic tapes by bicycle and
tries to convince his stripper girlfriend, Cheri, to have *** on
camera. Charles Bock's debut novel showcases the Las Vegas tourists
never see and its citizens who live on the undersides of its
glittering facade. "Beautiful Children" has received mixed reviews
with the New York Times says, "In 'Beautiful Children,' Bock's vision
and voice create a fictional landscape as corruptly compelling as
Vegas, and as beautiful as the illusions its characters cling to for
survival - illustrating what he calls 'the nobility inherent in
struggles that cannot be won.'"
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/beautiful_children
Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400066506/?tag=reviewsofbooks1-20
"The Expeditions" by Karl Iagnemma - "The Expeditions" is set in 1844
and 16-year-old Elisha Stone has run away from his Massachusetts home
and arrived in the frontier town of Detroit. He's a budding
naturalist and he jumps at the chance to accompany an expedition to
Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The other expedition members are Silas
Brush, who wants to see what resources can be extracted from the land,
and George Tiffin who wants to prove his own crackpot theory about the
origin of American Indians. They are guided by a half-Chippewa woman
who fills in for her missing husband. Before they leave Detroit,
Elisha pens a letter to his mother to finally let her know what has
happened to him. His estranged father receives the letter and sets
out for Michigan to let Elisha know that his mother has died. Karl
Iagnemma's debut novel has received positive reviews with the Seattle
Times saying, "'The Expeditions' is astute in tracing the murky
boundary between observation and interpretation - especially when a
researcher comes at his subject with an agenda. This is a father-and-
son story, too, handled to great effect, without slipping into
sentimentality. With its rich characterizations, its lively action,
its supple thought and its fine, rhythmic prose, this book is a
pleasure from cover to cover."
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/expeditions
Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385335954/?tag=reviewsofbooks1-20
"Kyra" by Carol Gilligan - "Kyra" is an architect who moves between
her work at Harvard and her design of a utopian city on a private
island. Originally from Cyprus, she fled after her husband's murder
and finds her time on the island to be a private refuge. She meets
and falls for a Hungarian theater director named Andreas who is
putting on a non-traditional staging of Tosca. When his betrayal ends
the relation****p, Kyra seeks help from a therapist named Greta. In re-
enacting her relation****p with Andreas, Kyra must deal with the sense
of betrayal all over again. This debut novel from Carol Gilligan (who
wrote the 1982 nonfiction bestseller "In a Different Voice") has
received mostly positive reviews with the San Francisco Chronicle
saying, "With her first novel, she achieves both a closely observed
voice and a captivating perspective. 'Kyra' is a rare thing: an
engrossing, deeply emotional, thinking person's love story."
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/kyra
Amazon.com link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/140006175X/?tag=reviewsofbooks1-20
Multiple links to full-length professional reviews of the following
books released in the UK have been added to http://www.reviewsofbooks.com
in the last week:
"His Illegal Self" by Peter Carey - see above
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/his_illegal_self
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571231519/?tag=bookreviews-21
"We Are Now Beginning Our Descent" by James Meek - "We Are Now
Beginning Our Descent" finds British war correspondent Adam Kellas
covering the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Freshly
divorced, Kellas' life seems as random as the conflicts he covers. He
meets an American journalist named Astrid and has a one-night stand
with her. They part ways and Kellas decides his next adventure is
writing a novel based on his war experiences, and he's convinced an
American publisher to advance him a large amount of money for the
project. Before signing the contract, though, he gets a desperate
call from Astrid and flies off to be with her. Could she become the
anchor to his rootless life? James Meek's novel has received mostly
positive reviews with the London Times calling it a "beautifully told
story."
All reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/we_are_now_beginning_our_descent
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/184195988X/?tag=bookreviews-21
"Friday Nights" by Joanna Trollope - "Friday Nights" begins with
elderly and childless Eleanor noticing two single mothers outside her
home and she invites them to visit. Soon other women join their group
and they all get together on Friday nights. They are a diverse group
of women - young and old, single and married, with and without
children. Joined in friend****p, they find their lives made more
bearable by the time they spend together. It all starts to unravel
when one of the women, a single mother named Paula, falls for a man.
This interloper into their lives threatens to undo their Friday
nights. Joanna Trollope's novel has received mostly positive reviews
with the London Times saying, "There is something extremely reassuring
here - and this, no doubt, is what ****fts gazillions of Trollope's
novels. The final, neat message, that you have to engage with what is
around you and go with the flow if you want to live life to the full,
may not be earth-shattering, but it is somehow, deep down, what we all
want to hear before we step into the messy, scary, real world."
All reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/friday_nights
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0747591768/?tag=bookreviews-21
"A Quiet Adjustment" by Benjamin Markovits - "A Quiet Adjustment" is
Benjamin Markovits' second novel in his Lord Byron trilogy (following
"Imposture"). The story is told from the perspective of Annabella
Milbanke, the young woman courted by the da****ng and famous poet and
she became his devoted wife. Once married, though, she discovered
that Byron was a different man than she thought, and his relation****p
with his half-sister, Augusta, unnerved Annabella at first, and then
disgusted her and drove her away after their first year together.
Byron's ***ual exploits would eventually disgust the nation as a
whole, sending him to a self-imposed exile. "A Quiet Adjustment" has
received mostly positive reviews with New Statesman saying, "'A Quiet
Adjustment' is a worthy addition to the literature of the Byron
legend, and an excellent novel in its own right. Markovits has
produced an absorbing ****trait of the celebrity couple and an
unworkable marriage to an exhilarating but unmanageable man."
All reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/quiet_adjustment
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571233341/?tag=bookreviews-21
"Crusaders" by Richard T Kelly - "Crusaders" is set in the Newcastle
area in 1996 in the days before Tony Blair's ascension to the top of
the political ladder. John Gore is a clergyman who comes to a
blighted Newcastle suburb to start a new church and bring some hope
and salvation to its citizens. He has some initial success, but his
interactions with some of the locals threaten to undo his work. He
meets Stevie Coulson, who takes a liking to him. Stevie is a
"security consultant" who is also a gangster. Gore becomes involved
with Lindy Clark, an attractive single mother who works for Stevie.
Gore also meets Martin Pallister, an MP who had been a left-wing
firebrand and who has now sacrificed his principles for financial
reward. Richard T Kelly tells the back story of all these characters
and how their lives came to be intertwined in an era of change.
"Crusaders" has received mostly positive reviews with the London Times
saying, "For all the geographical focus, this is a novel ultimately
about faith and morals - morals upheld, morals compromised, morals
abandoned - and Kelly's complex and sophisticated handling of this
theme ensures that the reader remains involved until the last page of
this long but rewarding book."
All reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/crusaders
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571228062/?tag=bookreviews-21
"The Spanish Bow" by Andromeda Romano-Lax - "The Spanish Bow" tells
the story of a Spanish cellist named Feliu Delargo (loosely based on
Pablo Casals). As a boy in Catalonia at the beginning of the 20th
century, Feliu falls in love with music and playing the cello. His
education continues in Barcelona and he eventually ends up playing for
the royal court in Madrid. He partners with pianist Justo Al-Cerraz
and violinist named Aviva, whom they both love, and they make their
fame touring Europe. As the Spanish Civil War unfolds and World War
II beckons, politics may trump music in im****tance in Feliu's life.
Andromeda Romano-Lax's debut novel has received mostly positive
reviews with the London Times saying, "'The Spanish Bow' is lively and
well written. But its best parts are those that perhaps the author
views as less ambitious - its exploration of the essentials of human
behaviour and relation****ps, regardless of the political climate."
Excerpt and all reviews are at:
http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/spanish_bow
Amazon.co.uk link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0434016276/?tag=bookreviews-21
Happy reading!
Bill - administrator of http://www.reviewsofbooks.com
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