Swamplandia by Karen Russell

The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline and Swamplandia!, their island home in the Florida Everglades and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as The World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve year old, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamplandia!'s legendary and beautiful star attraction, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her Grandpa Sawtooth has been sent to the mainland to an old folk's home; her brother has secretly defected to The World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep the family afloat; and her father, the Chief, is AWOL.

To save them, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine. Swamplandia! is a dark and mythic story, bursting with energy and an unstoppable inventiveness, by a writer with an astonishingly original and exuberant imagination.

THE IMPAC SHORTLIST 2011

• Galore by Michael Crummey
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
• Ransom by David Malouf
• Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
• Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
• Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
• Brooklyn by Colm Toibín
• Love and Summer by William Trevor
• After the Fire, a Still, Small Voice by Evie Wyld

ORANGE PRIZE SHORT LIST

The Orange Prize short list was announced this morning and we are delighted to see that Emma Donohue is one of the selected writers for Room, a brilliant book, and one of our favorites. This is the list:


•Emma Donoghue (Irish) - Room; Picador; 7th Novel



•Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) - The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel


•Emma Henderson (British) - Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel


•Nicole Krauss (American) - Great House; Viking; 3rd Novel


•Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) - The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st Novel


•Kathleen Winter (Canadian) - Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Nov

We have copies of these books available now!!!

NEW STOCK!

VILLAGE BOOKS is now full to the brim of all kinds of summer time activity gifts for kids! From butterfly nets and gardening tools, to volcano building kits and mold and paint glitter eggs, you'll find the perfect gift to suit any child.

VILLAGE BOOKS BOOK CLUB

At the last meeting of the VILLAGE BOOKS Book Club great discussuion ensued from the book of the month, 'When a Crocodile Eats The Sun' by Peter Godwin.

Godwin is an award winning journalist who grew up in Zimbabwe and this is an autobiography covering ten years from 1996. Now living in America, he travels back to Zimbabwe at regular intervials to visit his parents. Through his eyes, you see the increaing chaos in Zimbabwe with rapid inflation, land seizures and the possibility of famine. His parents, as they age, undergo the privation caused by the instability of the regime of Robert Mugabe.

The group found it to be a most interesting story filling in the background of the present crisis in Zimbabwe. It showed the author's love of his homeland in Africa and his sense of sadness and loss at what was happening to his people.

The next meeting of the Book Club will take place on Tuesday the 5th April at 6.30pm. The book we are reading for this month is 'Caribou Island' by David Vann.

Village Books wins Best Shop Front 2011

Village Books won the Malahide Chamber of Commerce prize for Best Shop Front in Malahide 2011. We are delighted thanks to the Chamber of Commerce.

BOOK REVIEW: ASHER LEV

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok explores a Hasidic Jewish community in post war New York and the conflicts the central character, a burgeoning young artist, creates and feels. The protagonist describes his young life in a very enclosed community and how his artistic talent and its pursuit cause strife and anguish for those around him. It begins with:

My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines,

about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifix. I am an observant Jew. Yes, of course, observant Jews do not paint crucifixions. As a matter of fact, observant Jews do not paint at all--in the way that I am painting.

This is a compelling and profoundly interesting semi-autobiographical book which gives deep insights into the lives of the Hasidic Jews, as well as the world of art. Its characters all seem to be either martyrs to their own compulsions and strict beliefs, or to the people around. While these characters can sometimes be hard to identify with, they are portrayed by the author with a certain amount of pained love, which delivered through the first person narrative makes the relationships intimate, believable and human.

A thoroughly well written and good read.