Author: Mary Doria Russell
ISBN: 9781400064717 DDC: 813
See also: LibraryThing ; Excerpt ; Interview with author
I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: my little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your time until you understand mine.
Author: Sebastian Barry
ISBN: 0571218016 DDC: 823.914
See also: Library Thing ; Three Monkey’s Interview ; Dublin’s One Book One City ;
He was born in the dying days.
It was the withering end of 1896. He was called William after the long-dead Orange King, because his father took an interest in such distant matters.
Author: Sherri S Tepper
ISBN: 0006482694 DDC: 813.54
See also: LibraryThing ; Mia’s Booklist ; Infinity Plus review ; The Speculative Life
Grass!
Millions of square miles of it; numberless wind-whipped tsunamis of grass, a thousand sun-lulled caribbeans of grass, a hundred rippling oceans, every ripple a gleam of scarlet of amber, emerald or turquoise, multicolored as rainbows, the colors shivering over the prairies in stripes and blotches, the grass - some high, some low, some feathered, some straight - making their own geography as they grow.
Author: Irene Nemirovsky trans. Sandra Smith
ISBN: 0099488787
DDC: 843.912
See also: LibraryThing ; wikipedia ; Caribousmom ; Paris Parfait ; Erin’s Library ; Historical/Present
Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near and the war far away.
Two novellas and some appendices make up this book. The two fiction pieces were intended to be part of a series of books about France during World War II, but the author, Irene Nemirovsky died in a concentration camp in August 1942, and that is what makes up the non-fiction element of this book. Of course the real like story of Nemirovsky, and how this book came to be published makes up a large element of the media coverage surrounding the novel, but the fiction element alone deserves attention. The background, and fact that it was written as these events were taking place, adds to the work as a whole.
Or the evening redness
Author: Cormac McCarthy
ISBN: 0679728759
DDC: 813.5420
See also: CormacMcCarthy.com ; Library Thing
See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.
This may sound contradictory; I would heartily recommend this book, I have no idea what it is all about. I can tell you a basic outline of the plot, our main protagonist, who is known only as the kid, leaves home at fourteen and travels the American West, encountering violent deed after violent deed, ending up riding with the Glanton gang as they set out to “protect” people from the savage Indians.
That is the storyline, but that isn’t what this book is about, as I said, I have no idea what it is about. Violence is obviously a central theme, but whether McCarthy means that such violence is a part of all humanity and impossible to ignore, or whether he means it as a warning, or indeed something completely different I couldn’t say. So why would I recommend it?
Quite simply the prose is just beautiful. It may be describing horrible acts of death and destruction, but it reads wonderfully.
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only be taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. [...] The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.
I think I’ll probably have to read it again at some point, maybe with some thought thrown in, but for now I’m happy to have read it.
Tags: 10 Stars, 813.5420, beautiful prose, Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, death, humanity, murder, USA - western, violence, War, well-writtenAuthor: Lionel Shriver
ISBN: 1852424672
DDC: 813.54
See also: Library Thing; Orange Prize winner 2005; The Guradian
Dear Franklin,
I’m unsure why one trifling incident this afternoon has moved me to write to you. But since we’ve been separated, I may most miss coming home to deliver the narrative curiosities of my day, the way a cat might lay mice at your feet: the small, humble offerings that couples proffer after foraging in separate backyards.
Just before his 16th birthday Kevin Khatchadourian murders 9 people; 7 students at his high school, a teacher and a worker in the cafeteria. This is Eva’s, his mother’s version of his life. Of her life prior to Kevin’s birth and how her son changed her life. Told through letter to her husband, Franklin, the novel reveals all her thoughts and suspicions. And how the aftermath of the killings have utterly transformed her life, and who she is.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a huge fan of first person narratives. Too often they can be a lazy way of writing. And it is all too easy for the author to include to much detail, or too little. Here, however, it works well. We meet Kevin at his birth and get to see him grow and develop as a person, until that fateful Thursday. And because we are aware of what will happen, as is Eva, she pays special attention to clues that might have alerted her. Anything that might have tipped her off.
Tags: 813.54, 9 Stars, biased pov, death, diary, first person narrator, Lionel Shriver, mass shootings, murderer, school shootings, unreliable narrator, We Need To Talk About Kevin, well-written
