Our booklist 2010

Myself and Mary are compiling this years Village Books favourites for 2010. We will post it on the blog this week. Do you have any suggestions for our list?

Invisible

Paul Auster’s newest offering, ‘Invisible,’ certainly got our book club talking this week. From heated debates over the moral decorum of the lead character, Adam, to whether Auster had actually conjured the Devil in the antagonist, Born. One thing was agreed we were all spell bound by the book and read it in almost one sitting

Adam’s tale opens in New York City in the spring of 1967 when the 20-year-old aspiring poet and student at Columbia University meets the enigmatic Frenchman, Rudolf Born, and his silent and seductive girlfriend, Margot. Before long Adam finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life.

Three different narrators tell the story, as it travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from New York to Paris and to a remote Caribbean island in a story of unbridled sexual hunger and a relentless quest for justice. This change in narrator and the change in person certainly gave a different perspective to each part of this tale but some of our book club found it a little off putting. As for the sex scenes, though we all agreed they were done with taste for the most part, some of them came as quite a shock.

With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us to the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, authorship and identity to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers. I think I could safely say that our book club would highly recommend this book to anyone. Well anyone who is not put off by dark characters and twisted tales.

The Silver Lining Play Book

Pat Peoples has a theory that his life is actually a movie produced by God, and that his God-given mission in life is to become emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure a happy ending - which, for Pat, means the return of his estranged wife Nikki, from whom he's currently having some 'apart time.' It might not come as any surprise to learn that Pat has spent several years in a mental health facility. When Pat leaves hospital and goes to live with his parents, however, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends now have families; his beloved football team keep losing; his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy. And he's being haunted by Kenny G....
There is a silver lining, however, in the form of tragically widowed, physically fit and clinically depressed Tiffany, who offers to act as a go-between for Pat and his wife, if Pat will just agree to perform in this year's Dance Away Depression competition ...'Utterly original and a real word-of mouth classic' - "Daily Mail". 'Delightful ...A smart, touching, quirky read' - "Scotland
I loved this book, the characters are warm and believable and funny , difficult to put down. It has the same atmosphere as " Lottery" or " Q & A". A good bookclub read!

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Born in the US, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is mostly a liability to his social climbing flapper mother Salome. The action moves from a coastal island jungle to Mexico city in during the revolutionary 30s. Harrison works for the famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, his wife Frida Kahlo and the exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky. The latter part of the book takes place in 1950s America, during the McCarthy anti-communist era.

The Lacuna, is a gap in a story. In this novel, the reader constantly wonders about the lacuna, which omits a key episode in the middle of the story. I enjoyed the book especially the historical setting of mexico during the revolutionary period. Mary found the style of writing a bit longwinded and dry at times. We also disagree about the meaning of "lacuna" Mary thinks it refers to the hole in the coral reef, I think its the missing piece of text. Let us know what you think?

Book previews 2010

This Irish Times article gives us a taste of the upcoming books of 2010.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0102/1224261510823.html