The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (novel) (2008) by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows     The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is, simply, a delightful (!) story of the Nazi occupation of the Isle of Guernsey (actually called the “Bailiwick of Guernsey“), in the English Channel, not far from the coast of France.    A short, lively novel, it is Mary Ann Shaffer‘s only publication, written shortly before her death (and hence the help of Annie Barrows).  I can only say, take the short time required to read it, you will certainly enjoy it. ( It was number one for 11 weeks in 2009, on The New York Times best seller list.) (PR)

We recommend that you buy your books.  Have a wonderful personal library..

top image: Wikipedia

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Child 44

Child 44, a thriller by Tom Rob Smith

Child 44 (novel) (2008) by Tom Rob Smith     Child 44, Tom Rob Smith’s first novel and the first book of a trilogy (the second, The Secret Speech (2009), the third to be published in 2011) is an acclaimed thriller set in the late Stalinist era in the Soviet Union, based on the true story of Ukrainian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, and also exploring the era’s secret police, mental institutions, orphanages and homosexuality, among other subjects.  Janet Maslin, in The New York Times, called Child 44 a “tightly woven”, “ingeniously plotted”, “high-voltage story”.  Child 44 was named on the long list for the 2008 Man Booker Prize.  (PR)

image: The Sunday Telegraph

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

After Dark (Afutā Dāku)

After Dark by Haruki Murakami, 1st edition (Japanese) cover

After Dark (2004 Japanese/2007 English) (Novel) by Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985/1991), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995/1997), 1Q84 (2009/2011))    Haruki Murakami‘s novel After Dark, a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year” in 2007, whose primary theme is alienation, with significant touches of the surreal, is notable in that it follows a chapter structure which is a ‘real-time’ timeline, beginning at the early hours of the night, and ending at dawn, and passing through a Tokyo “Love Hotel”, a retired female wrestler, a prostitute-beating “Company” and family man, a lovely young woman in an apparent coma, and an interesting dose of American jazz. (PR)

See our review of Murakami’s 2002/2005 novel Kafka on the Shore, here.

image: Wikipedia

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Generation A – Bee Extinction & Chronosuppressant Medication

Generation A by Douglas Coupland

Generation A (2009) (novel) by Douglas Coupland (Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991), Girlfriend in a Coma (1998), jPod (2006), The Gum Thief (2007), Player One (2010))   Generation A, getting its title from a Kurt Vonnegut comment* regarding Generation X (also the title of Coupland’s first novel), told through sequential chapters narrated by each of the five principal characters (a shifting frame narrative perspective, as the saying goes), is set in a future, distinctly dystopic, world, drugged on Solon (a chronosuppressant medication, eliminating fear of the future by forcing the user to live only “in the moment”) and suffering dramatically from the seeming extinction of bees.  An interesting premise which does little, in the end, to spare the reader the agonies of what seems to be Coupland’s desperate grasping at “hip” dialogue.  Perhaps this reader lacks the humour for the appreciation of satire.  In any case, let’s just say that the novel is simply not particularly well written. (PR)

top image: Wikipedia

* “Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.”  —Kurt Vonnegut; Syracuse University commencement address, May 8, 1994

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Lunar Park

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

Lunar Park (novel) (2005) by Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero (1985),  American Psycho (1991),  Imperial Bedrooms (2010))   Bret Easton Ellis’  novel Lunar Park stumbles, drunk and high, through inflated parody, false autobiography, pastiche, celebrity, suburbia, hauntings and possession, exorcism, love and family, real (Jay McInerney, Keanu Reeves, ..) and fictional characters (Patrick Bateman, the serial killer from American Psycho, ..), not to mention past tense narrative, in an amusing, and sometimes sad, sometimes shocking, and often quite funny, look at a writer lost in post-9/11 America. (PR)

top image: Wikipedia

nothingisinvisible@live.fr