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Current Reviews

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
The Balkans is a region of much conflict and confusion. Home to several ethnicities, national identities have shifted through several wars. In this novel, we watch a young woman sifting through her memories, the stories told to her by her grandfather and her current experiences as a doctor crossing borders to care for orphans. All of it has a dream-like quality. The stories are mythic - a tiger's wife...a deathless man...an elephant walking through a war-ravaged city...love songs played on the gusla by a man deceived in marriage...a little girl with patent leather shoes standing on a railing outside a tiger's cage, held securely by her loving grandfather. The tales are beautifully told.

We read about Natalia's grandfather, also a doctor, and the copy of The Jungle Book he was given as a boy and carried until his death. Like Kipling's book, this novel's stories are interrelated and capture the imagination. In The Tiger's Wife - set in a confusing time, in an uncertain state of mind, in a place with shifting borders - we are left to wonder about what is real and what is not. But in the end, we are left knowing there is meaning and truth to be found in all stories. This is a book to get lost in. It's a great addition to modern literature and an impressive debut from Obreht, born in Belgrade in 1985. Reading this was a rare pleasure and I look forward to her next book!

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games, the first book in Suzanne Collins' young adult trilogy, took the reading world by storm. Readers young and old eagerly waited for the next two installments of the series and the first book is now being made into a film. The reason is not so much the excellence of the prose, but the compelling and descriptive story Collins tells.

Katniss Everdeen lives in a post-apocalyptic world where actions are circumscribed, work is difficult and dangerous, and hunger is rampant. It's a world with little hope for the future and indeed, a fear of the future. Enter "The Hunger Games," a gruesome reality television program sponsored by the rulers in which all the districts have a stake. Two young contestants from each district are chosen by lottery to compete for food for their district and lifelong comfort for their families. The catch is that the competition is a battle to the death.

In The Hunger Games, the first whispers of rebellion begin, continuing through Catching Fire and Mockingjay with Katniss at the center. How she deals with her sometimes unwitting and certainly unenviable role forms most of the rest of the story. Collins treats with themes of torn loyalties and betrayal, choices made without choice, the greater and lesser of evils, and the many struggles that embody change.

Suzanne Collins has created a powerful trilogy that holds appeal for any age, especially reluctant readers. As she writes an action-packed story, she doesn't hesitate to tackle larger concepts that echo many of the realities and fears of today's society. There isn't a "happy" ending as in a fairy tale, but it's one to live with, as we all do.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite work by Shakespeare. I just adore the combination of magic, comedy, and of course, love. Now I know that many people are immediately intimidated by Shakespeare, and believe me, I am definitely among the people that the No Fear Shakespeare series was created for. If you are like me, and the play format and the dated language of Shakespeare sometimes seem to be too much to overcome, give this one a try. The mix of the star-crossed-lovers with the comedy genre is just perfect. Even better is the magic and mischief added by the woodland fairies and sprites. The quick action, the outrageous situations and mix-ups, and the upbeat tone of this play will quickly make you forget that you are reading at all, as Shakespeare weaves this magical tale. If your only memories of Shakespeare are of torturous sessions reading the tragedies in high school English, I highly recommend this book. It will forever change your opinion of Shakespeare for the better!

Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago
Nobel laureate Saramago's story appears to be a fanciful - yet stinging - account of life and death in an unnamed country. At midnight of some new year, Death decides to stop taking lives. What would happen, if people were no longer allowed to die? Some live in a state of suspended life ("arrested death"?). Various industries are affected. Even religious entities realize that they have lost their persuasive power, when congregations no longer fear death and cannot even pray for resurrection/eternal afterlife. I have not read Saramago's other works (Blindness, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis), so I'll admit, I did not expect such acidic commentary in the first half of the novel. There is humor here, if one has a mind to read it that way. The romance of the second half, starring death (with a small 'd') and a bachelor cellist whose breath she has been unable to steal, is somewhat more light-hearted. Does death ever work again - and is her hiatus a blessing? Saramago's style is entertaining. Dialogue is separated by commas and capital letters, but written in paragraph form. If you're used to reading other "stream of consciousness" style writings, you will enjoy following this story. Death with Interruptions is the epitome of dark humor, presented with compassion (or so I like to think). I've heard that this work is quite different from Saramago's early work (other reviews hint at the deconstruction of themes presented in his 80s and 90s lit) but I prefer (as a new reader) to see this work as a grandiose contemporary contemplation of death's place in life. If you're looking for a quick read to make you think, this may be the perfect fit!

The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert
Some of my friends have teased me about being biased for liking the work of one of my favorite professors so much, but the fact still stands that I am always enchanted by Schaffert's style. To begin, The Coffins of Little Hope is the story of a missing girl and how a small town used that story to keep itself alive. The narrator is an elderly woman, the obituary writer for the local paper. It seems, perhaps, an odd choice, but really, who better to relate the problems of fighting against the tides of modernity? As is the trend for Schaffert's work, the characters are what I feel drawn to the most. Each one is incredibly real, complete with flaws and quirks. Schaffert has a great flair for the quirky and the odd - and the people he writes are like gems, beautiful and multifaceted. Aside from heaping praise on the writing style of the novel, I would also like to say that this novel has a particularly interesting psychological question, which is left unanswered at the book's end. I won't reveal it, of course, but I will warn readers not to feel upset about this ending. Ultimately, a purse-string ending leaves little room for discussion. With Coffins ending as it does, I'm sure you'll want to recommend it to a friend so you can talk about it together!

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