For Fans of A Thousand Splendid Suns

I loved A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam. I loved it. I have been recommending it to everyone at my library, especially fans of Khaled Hosseini. A Golden Age is set during the Bangladesh Independence movement. Chalk it up to my shocking ignorance of the history of that part of the world but I had no idea that Bangladesh was once East Pakistan. I enjoyed the book just for the new understanding of history that it provided me.

I also enjoyed the story. The main character was the mother of two young members of the independence movement. Her son and daughter were taking terrible chances and, because of that, she chose to take chances too. She never really considered the movement her own but, really, she was just as much or more a part of it than her children were. Yes, the story was about a country's fight for independence but it was also the story of a mother's love. I highly recommend it.

A Good finish

I think I've been a fan of Sue Miller in the past...I just can't remember what she's written. I read her newest novel, The Senator's Wife a couple of weeks ago. It was a good story about marriage, female friendships, new motherhood and life. I enjoyed it but found the story a bit slow going at times. The female friends in the story are at opposite ends of life. One is newly married and expecting her first child. The other is in her eighties and caring for a husband who recently suffered a stroke. In some ways the things they are dealing with are similar. In other ways the women are so different and from such different times that they don't really understand each other.

I liked the bo k. I liked the resolution. There were middle parts that I didn't like as well.

She's back!

Last week a new Jodi Picoult novel was released. Change of Heart was reminiscent of some of her previous books. It was about a heart transplant, like Harvesting the Heart. It was about religion and featured Ian Fletcher, like Keeping Faith. Unlike most of her previous novels I think this one clearly showed her opinion about something, in this case the death penalty. I know that Picoult fans will enjoy this one but I don't really consider it her best.

Guilty Pleasures

I read John Grisham. I usually like John Grisham. I consider them candy books...quick reads that aren't terribly filling but that satisfy a craving. So, I read his latest book, The Appeal, last week. It was a good story. It was a somewhat frightening story. I liked it.

Good but not as good as others

I have really liked the Geraldine Brooks books I have read in the past. March deserved the Pulitzer Prize. The Year of Wonders was great too. So, I was excited when I saw that she had a new book coming out. My excitment increased when I read that her main characters were librarians, archivists and book conservators. People of the Book was a good book and I always enjoy novels that feature my profession in a positive way. Still, there were things about it that seemed really unrealistic.

People of the Book tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the earliest example of an illuminated Jewish text. A muslim librarian saved this book from almost certain destruction during a time of war in Sarajevo. This part of the story is true. The other parts of the story, that have to do with telling the history of the book, aren't as true but they make a good story. This book was definitely interesting. It wasn't quite as good as her previous books but it was a good read.

Do the ends really justify the means?

I picked up The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff after it was recommended by some people who enjoyed another book I really liked, The Polish Woman. The Kommandant's Girl tells the story of a young jewish woman living in Krakow at the time of the liquidation of the ghetto there. She managed to hide the fact that she was jewish and get a job as personal assistant to a powerful man in the German army. The girl was relatively newly married to a man who was a leader in the jewish resistance movement.

Other members of the resistance movement encouraged her to use her connections and her good looks to get information that might help their cause. They encouraged her to have an affair with the man she worked for, in hopes that he might whisper crucial secrets. They convinced her that whatever vows she broke were less important than the lives she might save with the information she could learn.

The book was a fairly typical look at the question of whether the ends justify the means. The girl in the book really believed that she was saving her husband by having an affair with this powerful man. She really believed that the usual moral guidelines were not in effect during a time of war. The arguement of the book was very powerful, as moral relativism usually is. Still, I wasn't convinced. I would rather die faithful to my vows than break them and be forced to live a lie. This was a good and thought provoking book, I just didn't agree with its conclusions.

True Crime

The more I read Timothy Egan, the more I like him. The first book of his that I read was The Good Rain. I read it for a geography course in college. It was wonderful. I think sometime last year I read his National Book Award winning book The Worst Hard Time, about the Depression. A week ago, or so, I read Breaking Blue. I loved Breaking Blue and I definitely recommend it.

Breaking Blue is a story of dirty cops in Spokane during the Depression. One detective led a ring of dirty cops. They got in to all kinds of trouble to supplement their income during those hard times. Of course, there was the obvious bribery and free meals kind of thing that almost seems cliched now. They were also involved in real crime, including a black market butter business. Yeah, I know, the idea of butter on the black market sounds silly but, remember, it was the Depression. Hard times make for strange crimes. Anyway, in the process of stealing some butter from a Pend Oreille County creamery, the detective and his cronies killed the county sheriff.

This murder wasn't really a secret. The Spokane Police Department helped the detective keep his actions under wraps for more than 50 years. Finally, in 1989, a Pend Oreille County sheriff solved the case while working on his master's thesis. Justice wasn't ever really served because the perpetrators of the crime were either dead or almost dead. Still, the sheriff's family was glad to finally know the truth. History fans and true crime fans will really enjoy this fantastic story.