Needful Things by Stephen King

Posted on October 31, 2014 by bseat

Stephen King, known as the master of horror, is truly masterful at scaring people!  His secret is that he takes ordinary, everyday things and turns them into things of nightmares-like a car in Christine, or a dog in Cujo, changing them into evil personified. Even in his books where he has stepped out of the horror genre, like The Green Mile or The Shawshank Redemption, he is able to describe evil and its consequences with an accuracy that is chilling in its simplicity.

Needful thingsIn Castle Rock, Maine, Leland Gaunt opens a store called Needful Things. Here he sells things that people truly need at unbelievable prices. Things like an amulet that will prevent arthritis pain, or a Sandy Koufax baseball card in mint condition, all things that reflect the inmost desires of the people of Castle Rock.  Eleven year old Brian Rusk, whose absentee mother allows him enormous freedom, is one of Gaunt’s first customers and soon becomes the proud owner of the rare baseball card.  Polly Chalmers, owner of the You Sew ‘n Sew shop and who suffers from chronic arthritis pain among other things, soon becomes the owner of the amulet. Little by little Gaunt’s reputation spreads throughout the town and people begin coming in to get their own needful things.  Everyone, that is except, Sheriff Pangborn. Its’s not that he is not attracted to the store or what Gaunt has to offer, but Pangborn who is still grieving for his wife and son who died in a driving accident cannot shake the feeling that something is seriously wrong with Gaunt and the things that he offers. Slowly the dehumanizing price of these needful things becomes apparent as the town begins to fray and then crumble and everyone’s’ nightmares become reality.

Each of the characters, and there are many in this book, are carefully and fully developed.  King takes time to tell us their stories helping us see their motivations and what drives them to make the choices that they make.  In Leland Gaunt, King, creates a character that you love to hate.  His callousness, the way he gloats over the pain of others and his love for creating chaos are apparent early on and are a key part of the way that King builds his suspense, since as a reader you are resisting Gaunt even as one after another of the towns people succumb to his needful things.  Although at some level this book speaks to a culture of rampant consumerism, I think it also speaks to the deep longings of the soul that we often try to either stifle or feed with things that do not satisfy. King cautions us to be aware of the consequences of not dealing with these longings honestly before they either consume us or we become dehumanized by our attempts to feed them.  King is able to speak to the human condition with metaphors that allow us to see the truth and catch glimpses of our own capacity for evil which is what is truly scary about his books.

Brenda’s Rating: ****1/2 (4 1/2 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken, Marian, Lauren and Sharon

Book Study worthy? Yes

Read in paperback.

 

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Psychological Mystery | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

After I’m Gone by Laura Lippman

Posted on October 24, 2014 by bseat

After I'm Gone_What happens when someone disappears; here one day and gone the next without an explanation or a “good bye?” What happens to the people who are left behind?  Exploring these questions, Lippman deftly brings to light the lives of five women who were left behind when Felix Brewer, husband, father and lover and convicted felon, vanishes without a trace.

Felix Brewer was a businessman just on the shady side of legal. He had provided for his family with his various lucrative business dealings for many years and he and his wife, Bambi, along with their three girls had lived luxuriously. But first came the investigations into his business dealings and then his conviction and suddenly on July 4th 1976, just before he was to be incarcerated, he disappeared without a trace.

Bambi, shocked at his departure, and with the fact that he evidently left nothing behind for them to live on, struggles to maintain a lifestyle she can no longer afford and slowly begins to shed the trappings of their former life as she economizes.  Bambi is convinced that Felix intended to leave them something but suspects that Felix’s mistress, Julie kept the money, thereby depriving his children of what they deserved. Julie’s disappearance 10 years later, just seems to confirm Bambi’s suspicions that Julie had used those funds while patiently waiting until she could join Felix without arousing suspicions.

Then 26 years after Felix’s disappearance, Julie Saxony’s decomposed body is found in Baltimore, and it becomes apparent that she never left, but instead was murdered.  Roberto “Sandy” Sanchez, a retired detective who does freelance work on cold cases, picks up the case, intrigued by Julie’s murder and it’s entanglement with Felix’s disappearance and begins to uncover secrets and  lies that still impact the lives he left behind.

Although loosely based on the life of Julius Salisbury, a gambling king pin who was investigated, convicted and who then disappeared leaving his wife and three daughters rather than face a 15 year prison term,  Lippman says in an interview that she was  “...pretty uninterested in the man who disappeared even after creating my own version of him, Felix Brewer. I was fascinated by the women left behind. Harlan Coben said once that the stories about the missing are more haunting than the stories about the dead. It was a good observation. So I stole it.”

Lippman weaves back and forth through time, sometimes giving us the the story of how Felix and Bambi met and their life as a growing family, and at other times the daughters’ perspectives growing up without their father, all against the present day backdrop of “Sandy” Sanchez’s methodical detective work, as he untangles the web of lies and secrets in order to solve Julie Saxony’s murder.  She is a superb writer with a gift for creating realistic characters, and the ability to bring to life each time period, whether it is the early 60’s, the 70’s or the present day with a wholeness and realism that is quite extraordinary. I am never disappointed with her books!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Stars out of 5) 

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon, and Marian

Book Study Worthy: yes

Read in ebook format.

 

 

 

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Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarity

Posted on October 17, 2014 by bseat

Big Little Lies_From the author of The Husband’s Secret, comes another compelling story about everyday domestic life in a suburb outside of Sydney, Australia. Without wasting any time, Moriarity plunges us into the complicated lives of this small town by letting us know that someone died on Trivia Night, the annual fund raiser for the local preschool. The “who” and the “why” are revealed from a variety of perspectives, but focus mainly on three women who all have children at the preschool.  One is a beautiful Celeste who is married to a wealthy businessman who is often away for extended periods of time while she takes care of her “perfect” twin boys and her “perfect” house. The other is Jane, a single mom struggling to raise her son Ziggy and trying to find a way to escape from a painful incident in her past.  And finally Madeline, a local girl whose ex husband lives in the town with his new hippy dippy wife. Although happily remarried with younger children in the local preschool, it is painful for Madeline to see that her 14 year old daughter from her first marriage seems to prefer living with her father rather than with her.

The secrets that each of these women holds and the lies that they tell themselves are skillfully and sympathetically revealed and the suspense builds as we come closer and closer to knowing who died and why. Moriarty is a proven author whose characters are skillfully drawn and realized from everyday life.  They are believable because we have each known a Madeline, a Jane, or a Celeste. They have been in our PTA’s or in our churches and synagogues and some of us have even carried those same secrets ourselves. Well paced and suspenseful, this book keeps you guessing until the very end!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 stars out of 5) 

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian and Lauren.

Book Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Posted on October 10, 2014 by bseat

You should have known_Grace Reinhardt Sachs and her husband Jonathan are living the New York life.  Grace is a well known therapist and author of several books and Jonathan is an oncologist at Sloan Kettering Hospital. Their son, Henry is a fourth grader at Reardon, a private prep school in the city and is learning the violin from a prestigious New York violinist.  They attend galas and other society events and although not enormously wealthy themselves, know others through the school or the hospital, who are wealthy and influential.  Grace knows that they are lucky to have the lives they lead and in that vaguely liberal way feels a certain amount of ambivalence for it.

From her practice, Grace has realized that wealth, education or high powered careers do not prevent women from making bad choices in their relationships. Often, she has found, they suppress their own inner voices that are warning them to be careful and in the end suffer heart break and sometimes worse when the relationship ends. Which is why she decided to write a book entitled, You Should Have Known, about this phenomenon in order to empower women to listen to their inner voices and make better choices.

Although the book is poised to be a bestseller, Grace has been a bit chagrined to learn that the publisher is positioning her book in the dating manuals category, next to books like The Rules or Dating for Dummies. But having just completed an important print interview on the book which went well, Grace is more sanguine about her publisher’s choices and is looking forward to her next interview which will be on TV.  In the midst of contemplating the vagaries of the book business,  she receives a text from Henry’s school announcing that one of the other fourth graders “has suffered a family tragedy” and grief counselors will be on hand to to talk with the students.   While still trying to digest this information, she receives a call from her friend Sylvia, telling her the text concerns the death of one of the women they had recently met while working on the school fundraiser and auction.  For Grace this would be “the last moment of life she would afterwards think of as “before.””

As Grace’s world and life suddenly begin to fall apart, she begins to question the choices she made, the relationships she has built, and what really matters.  Korelitz, deftly and with graceful prose shows us the strength it takes to come to terms with bad choices, the power of real friendship, the importance of true family, and the value in having things stripped away to what truly matters.

Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon. Marian and Lauren

Bood Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K Rowling)

Posted on October 3, 2014 by bseat

Silkworm_Cormoran Strike is a bit startled by the insistent and distracted  woman who asks him to find her novelist husband, Owen Quine, who has been missing for 10 days. Leonora Quine is quite sure that he is at some literary retreat but there have been strange things happening, like someone slipping dog excrement through the mail slot or following her home from the store and she is more that ready for him to come home.  Strike is sure this is just a case of a runaway husband but when Owen turns up dead under the most bizarre circumstances and his soon to be published novel turns out to be a thinly disguised expose’ of the closely guarded secrets of some very important people, Strike suddenly has an over abundance of suspects to investigate and too many leads to track down.  And then at the most inopportune time Strike has an accident which causes a re-injury to his leg with the prosthetic, forcing him to slow down to recuperate.

Seeing her chance to get the experience she needs to become a detective in her own right, Robin, Strike’s assistant, begins to help Strike by doing surveillance, interviews and other mundane tasks. However her new dedication causes havoc in her relationship with her fiance,’ who can’t seem to understand why she wants to be anything other than a secretary.  Strike on the other hand is conflicted about the help that she offers. Although he realizes that she is being very useful and has great instincts, he can also see that this path could damage her personal relationships and his ambivalence creates an unpleasant misunderstanding between them, causing Robin to re-evaluate her commitment to Strike.

Despite all their personal issues, however, the case leads them through the the cut throat publishing industry from best selling authors to disillusioned writers filled with resentment, top dollar agents willing to do anything to land the next big blockbuster and editors who are constantly trying to get their writers to meet their deadlines.

Galbraith’s creates characters, all of them, not only Robin and Strike, who are so vivid and real you feel like you could have tea (or a pint!) with them.  Suspenseful and creepy, this book was hard to put down and kept me guessing until the very end.

Brenda’s Rating: **** (4 Stars out of 5) 

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Ken and Marian

Book Study Worthy? Not really

Read in ebook format.

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Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman

Posted on September 26, 2014 by bseat

Love and TreasureOne of the last things her grandfather did was give Natalie a necklace and ask her to find the owner and return it.  He had acquired the rather remarkable necklace with the peacock design during the war in 1945 and Natalie, currently in the throes of leaving a disastrous relationship, needs a distraction and a purpose and so she decides to honor her grandfather’s last wishes.  Natalie contacts an Amitai, an art dealer specializing in returning valuable pieces to their rightful owners and after uncovering a photograph showing a young woman wearing the necklace, they are soon caught up in the shadowy world of lost art and treasure owned by European Jews, looted by the Nazis and then lost in the chaos of war.

In fact, Jack Wiseman, Natalie’s grandfather had been assigned to guard and then catalogue a train load of just that kind of  loot which was retaken from the Nazi’s by the Allies. Jack, a sergeant and highly regarded interpreter, is tasked with cataloguing the silver candlesticks, watches, dishes, paintings and jewelry that are found on the train. As he goes about his task he wonders how these treasures will ever be returned to their owners when so many of them have been exterminated in the camps that the Allies have been slowly liberating across Europe.

Waldman shifts the story from WWII to the present and then to a time preceding the war to tell this story, which although a bit jarring at times, allows us the benefit of hearing from each character their part of the story. Based on the historical Hungarian Gold Train found by the Allies during WWII, Waldman raises important questions about the inherent value of things, the difficulty of reparations after the war and the incalculable loss suffered by so many at the hand of the Nazis.

Brenda’s Rating ***1/2 (3 1/2 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Marian, Sharon and Keith

Books Study Worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

 

 

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Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch and translated by Sam Garrett

Posted on September 19, 2014 by bseat

Summer House with Swimming Pool_Dutch novelist, Herman Koch, who memorably explored the dark recesses of a parent’s love for their child in The Dinner returns with another variation on this theme in Summer House with Swimming Pool.

Dr. Marc Schlosser, the protagonist of our story is married and a father of two young daughters.  Known for his quiet listening demeanor, Marc has gained a solid reputation as an excellent general practitioner among the numerous celebrities who have become his patients.  One of them is the famous actor Ralph Meier who is dying of a particularly virulent form of cancer and who asks Marc to assist him in committing suicide. But underlying this request and Marc’s kind act is what happened earlier that summer at the summer house that Marc and his family shared with the Meir family and their friends the film director, Stanley Forbes and his much younger girl friend.

Initially, Marc and his wife were not sure they wanted to stay with the Meir’s but when their girls and the Meir’s boys hit it off, it seemed like a safe haven after the strange and rather disgusting camp ground they were staying at just up the road from the house. Soon they are caught up in the freewheeling energy of their host, taking trips to the beach, buying fish to grill for poolside picnics and endless glasses of wine as they talk into the night.  But then a horrific, violent incident disturbs their urbane and civilized vacation and Marc, suspicious of everyone, tries to determine who is at fault and needs to  decide whether to exact revenge or to forgive and let time heal the wounds that were inflicted.

Koch is especially gifted at exploring the depths of  a parent’s primal instinct to protect their children and although you might feel squeamish about the choices that Marc makes they are completely understandable to anyone who has children.  Adept at creating the brutally honest self-reflective inner dialogue in which Marc shares his thoughts and rationale for the decisions he makes, Koch both repulses and attracts us, even as we recognize ourselves in Marc’s inner dialogue. Although Marc is the main narrator, Koch carefully rounds out each supporting character, thus balancing Marc’s more dominant voice and creating a cohesive whole. Garrett’s translation is seamless and without language or cultural barriers.

Intriguing and thought provoking, this book kept me up way past my bedtime just so I could get to the end and get some closure!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this books to: Ken, Sharon and Keith

Book Study worthy? Yes

Read in ebook format

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Posted on September 12, 2014 by bseat

The Storied life of A. J. Fikry_A. J. Fikry, owner of Island Books on Alice Island, Massachusetts, has been having “a no good, very bad” couple of years.  First the love of his life, his wife, died in a tragic traffic accident.  Then came the economic downturn and the rise of ebook sales which cut into the books store’s already narrow profits.  In addition, one of his most reliable publisher reps has  been replaced by Amy Loman, a 31 year old woman, who in A. J.’s opinion, is completely not up to the task of supplying him with the correct types of books for his unique bookstore. Struggling to hold onto the bookstore, his last remaining connection to his wife,  A.J. comforts himself with the fact that if all else fails he still has the rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems that he can sell to keep afloat. Then even that is taken from him in an apparent robbery and instead something totally life changing is left in his book store instead and A. J. is forced out of his small narrow ways  into making connections and relationships that he would never have experienced but for the gift left behind in his store.

Following A. J. as he negotiates his way into a new life, we encounter many wonderful characters like Amy Loman the new publisher’s rep who challenges A. J.’s most tightly held ideas about books and what will sell in his store, or Officer Lambiase who investigates the robbery at the bookstore and who begins to appreciate books in a new way, and Ismay and Daniel Parish who are A,J.’s in-law’s, all who in one way or another force A.J. from merely existing into fully embracing life.

Zevin has created a quiet little masterpiece; a mediation on the value of books and a life of reading:  “Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”  But it is also a parable about how love changes us, forcing us to connect and not be alone. “It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us, but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. ..And someday, you do not know when, …[y]ou will be loved because for the first time in your life you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Sharon, Marian and Lauren

Book Study Worthy: Yes

Read in ebook format.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Romance | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Posted on September 5, 2014 by bseat

41gX8cjWpFL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-v3-big,TopRight,0,-55_SX278_SY278_PIkin4,BottomRight,1,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_Ursula Beresford Todd was born on a snowy February day in 1910, and then she died. On the same snowy day in February, 1910, Ursula was born again, into the same loving family as before.  She does not realize that she has been given the gift of life over and over again, but at certain key moments she has a sense that a certain choice, which turned out badly in a previous life, should not be made again.  Apart from this sense of  de ja vu,  she seems unaware of her previous lives or that she is actually living life after life.

In spite of her gift, life is very precarious for Ursula, and she dies in many ways: drowning, falling of a roof, influenza, or being beaten to death by an abusive husband, to name just a few. However after negotiating these early deaths a more ominous threat emerges; the threat of war and the rise of Nazi power and Ursula is faced with new choices and new lives. Atkinson’s descriptions of  what happened to ordinary people during the London Blitz are unforgettable.

Atkinson has taken a very provocative idea and created a memorable character in Ursula, who we get to know deeply as we see her struggle to get it right through numerous lives. However, in spite of our intimate knowledge of Ursula and having gone through her deaths on numerous occasions, there is a strange distance between Ursula and the reader, almost as if she is keeping you at arms length and asking for just a small remnant of privacy. Atkinson is a good writer and creates interesting supporting characters like her mother Sylvie and Bridget or Mrs. Glover, the cook and is able to sustain your interest until the very end.

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Keith, Marian and Lauren

Book Study Worthy? Yes!

Read in ebook format.

 

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

NIght Film by Marisha Pessl

Posted on August 29, 2014 by bseat

Night Film_There is a fine line between obsession and the need to find the truth, but for journalist, Scott McGrath, the line is even more blurred, especially when it comes to the reclusive cult film director Stanislas Cordova.  A few years ago McGrath had been on the verge of publishing an expose’ based on a source’s strange and troubling revelations, which gave credence to the rumors that the darkness and horror portrayed in Cordova’s movies was more reality than fiction, but suddenly his source disappeared, Cordova sued for defamation and McGrath became a pariah in the journalism world. After that encounter with the Cordova’s, McGrath should have been more cautious, but when Ashley Cordova’s body is found in a derelict warehouse in lower Manhattan, McGrath is drawn back into trying to find out the the truth about Cordova all over again.

Ashley was always an enigma-appearing in one of her father’s film’s at age 8, debuting as a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall at age 12 and now dying of an apparent suicide at age 24.  Helped by Nora, the hat check girl who was the last one to see Ashley before her death and Hopper who seems to have some prior connection to Ashley, McGrath tries to retrace Ashley’s steps in order to solve the mystery of her death.

Interspersing multi media materials like websites, news articles, and even Rolling Stone magazine articles, Pessl fully immerses us into the life of this film director, blurring the lines between reality and fiction just as this fictional director evidently did in his movies. She is a sophisticated writer who can weave a suspenseful, thriller of a story, but never neglects the development of  her characters.  Both convoluted and creepy, Pessl carefully crafts this story and with a deft touch allows us glimpses of the truth before veering off to follow myriad new leads. As one reviewer on Amazon said,  “…if you can accept novels as fairground rides, you will love this!” And I did!

Brenda’s Ranking: **** 1/2 (4 1/2 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Marian, Lauren and Sharon

Book Study worthy: Yes!

Read in ebook format. (Use an eReader where you can enlarge to read the multi media materials!)

640 Pages

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Mystery, Thriller | Tagged , , | Leave a comment