Monthly Archives: February 2015

February 18, 2015 · 12:00 am

Review: Turtleface and Beyond by Arthur Bradford

I received an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley

My Review:
TurtlefaceThis collection of stories can be categorized as dark comedy and I have to admit that I laughed out loud at the stories many times.  The author’s subtle and ironic wit permeates all of the tales.  In the title story, “Turtleface,” Otto dives off of a cliff into a river and sustains a disfiguring facial injury.  It turns out that he hit a turtle when he entered the water.  Georgie, the narrator of the stories, finds the injured turtle, spends $800 to nurse the turtle back to health, and keeps it in a pool in his apartment.

Although all of the stories stand alone as individual narratives, they are all focused around episodes in the life of Georgie.  He has many adventures and makes irresponsible decisions that lead to comical, and sometimes tragic, outcomes.  He loses part of his leg in a wood chipper, lives in a communal farmhouse full of hippies one winter in Vermont and buys a house with a mysterious metal box that sits in the backyard.

Georgie also encounters strange and sometimes sad people in his adventures.  He lives in interesting and varied places, from Thailand to New York City.  Georgie also has a string of interesting jobs which include working in a legal library, writing short stories for magazines and cleaning up in a nursing home.  All of these elements are adroitly combined to make TURTLEFACE AND BEYOND an entertaining and clever collection of short stories.

 

About The Author:
Arthur BradfordArthur Bradford is an O Henry Award winning writer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. His writing has appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, Vice, Men’s Journal, and many other publications. His first book, Dogwalker, was published by Knopf and Vintage paperback in 2002, and has been translated into ten languages. In 2012 McSweeney’s published Benny’s Brigade, a children’s book. Bradford’s newest book, “Turtleface”, has been published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

Bradford is also the creator and director of the acclaimed “How’s Your News?” documentary series, versions of which have been broadcast on HBO/Cinemax, PBS, and Channel Four England. He developed the concept into a series for MTV which ran throughout 2009. A new film in the series, “Election 2012” was released Oct. 2012 and can be seen in full at howsyournews.com. In 2011 Bradford directed the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Six Days to Air”, about the making of South Park, for Comedy Central. He is currently shooting a feature documentary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Bradford lives in Portland, Oregon and works at a juvenile detention center.

 

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February 17, 2015 · 11:32 am

Review: The Room by Jonas Karlsson

I received an advanced review copy of tis book from the publisher through NetGalley.

My Review:
The RoomBjorn works in a non-descript, government office in Sweden simply known as “The Authority.”  He is a self-important, regimented, quiet man who one day discovers a room in his office.  He likes to visit “the room” during his breaks and it seems to give him a sense of peace and calm and it heightens his sense of self-importance.

Due to his lack of social skills, Bjorn makes his co-workers very uncomfortable.  But when he insists that there is “the room” that no one else can see, they become even more agitated with him.  THE ROOM is a comic illustration of the hierarchies, petty differences and bizarre social interactions that exist in the microcosm of an office.

The book is very short, it is really more of a novella at 125 pages.  I do not want to say too much for fear of giving the plot away.  But in the end, the symbolism of “The Room” and Bjorn’s occupation of its space turns melancholy; when Bjorn sees things that others cannot, names like “freak” and “daft” and “crazy” are thrown at him.

THE ROOM is a great choice for a book club to discuss because there are many layers of symbolism to unpack and dissect.  If you read THE ROOM, please come back and share your thoughts in the comments.  I am especially interested to see what other readers have to say about the ending of this thought-provoking novella.

About The Author:
Sven Bert Jonas Karlsson is a Swedish actor and author. He won a Guldbagge Award for Best Actor in 2004 for the movie Details. He published his first book, a collection of short stories, in 2007.

 

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February 12, 2015 · 9:07 pm

Review and Giveaway: A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison

My Review:
A Small IndiscretionAnnie Black has been married to the same man for 20 years, they have 3 happy and healthy children together and she owns her own business.  So why in the world would she do anything to jeopardize the happy life she has worked so hard to build?

A SMALL INDESCRETION is written as a letter from Annie to her oldest son Robbie who has just spent the last year recovering from a horrible car accident.  In order to fully explain to her son and the rest of her family why she has so disrupted their lives, she must start by telling them about the 6 months she spent in London when she was 20 years old.

In 1989 Annie is feeling restless and wants to travel and have new adventures in Europe.  When she reaches England she begins working as an office manager for a man named Malcolm who is a wealthy builder.  I was riveted for the first half of the book while Annie tells us about her time in London and the impulsive mistakes she makes that involve alcohol and sex.  She is young, naïve, and compulsive and her inexperience goes a long way towards understanding her indiscretions.

Fast forward 20 years and what Annie calls a “small indiscretion” cannot be explained away by the stupidity of youth.  I felt that her mistake, which becomes fairly obvious about half way through the book, was more stupid than small.  Annie spends a lot of time feeling sorry for herself when her husband moves out and she has to share custody of her children with him.  She is lonely and lost.  But she is an experienced adult who should have known better and it is hard to feel any sympathy for her and the awful circumstances which she has created.

A SMALL INDISCRETION is an interesting read about which I have mixed feelings.  I had more interest in Annie’s story as a young woman, but the second part of the story which describes grown-up, adult Annie felt anticlimactic.  Scroll down to the end of my post to enter to win your own copy of the book.  I would love to know what others think about the plot of this novel.

About The Author:
Jan EllisonJan Ellison lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband of twenty years and their four children. Jan’s first published short story won a 2007 O. Henry Prize. Her work has also been short-listed for the Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize. After her children were born, she spent seven years taking classes at San Francisco State and finally earned her MFA.

Jan had a brief career in her twenties at a Silicon Valley startup, marketing risk management software to derivatives traders. The company went public, Jan became a mother, and instead of leaning in she leaned out, became a stay-at-home mom, and began to write.

Before that, Jan abandoned a job in investment banking before she even started it to spend two years waitressing in Hawaii, temping in Australia, and backpacking through Southeast Asia. Her college days were spent at Stanford, where she earned a degree in History, but wishes it was in English. She left Stanford for a year at nineteen to live on a shoe-string in Paris and work in an office in London. She scribbled notes on yellow legal pads, and years later those notes provided the inspiration for her debut novel, A Small Indiscretion, published this January by Random House.

Giveaway:
I am giving away one paperback copy of A Small Indiscretion to one reader in the U.S.  Just leave me a comment below and let me know that you want to win!  The winner will be notified via e-mail and will have 48 hours to respond.  Giveaway ends 2/26.

The Winner is: Suanne L.  Thanks to everyone that entered!

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February 11, 2015 · 12:00 am

Review and Giveaway: A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor

My Review:
A Memory of VioletsThis book alternates between two narratives, the first of which describes a pair of poor Irish immigrant orphans living on the streets of London in 1876 and who try to sell flowers in order to survive.  Flora, who is 8, is crippled, and Rosie, who is 5, is blind and although they have wretched lives the one thing that they do have is each other.  This part of the narrative is so pathetic and heart-wrenching that I almost gave up on the book because I could not take the sadness any longer.

The other part of the narrative takes place in 1912, when a young woman named Tilly moves to London to become a house mother at a Training Home for Watercress and Flower Girls.  All of the girls who work at the home are handicapped in some way and if it were not for this training home they would be living on the streets in abject poverty.  At the home the girls learn to make flowers out of fabric and the flowers are sold to vendors around London.

Tilly’s story is rather sad as well and we learn that she has had her own family troubles.  But coming to London and taking care of the girls at the home is a happy endeavor for which she is most grateful.  While Tilly is at the training home, she discovers a diary in the back of her closet written by the orphan girl Flora.  One day while they are selling their flowers, Flora and Rosie get separated on the streets of London and Flora ends up living at the home.  Tilly reads Flora’s diary and tries to discover what became of the two sisters and if they ever had the chance to reunite.

A MEMORY OF VIOLETS is a glimpse at the harsh reality of orphaned children living in the streets of London in the 19th century.  The characters will definitely leave an impression on the reader.  Although the narrative is sad and tragic at the beginning, my advise is to keep on turning the pages because the story does have a good ending.

About The Author:
Hazel-GaynorHazel Gaynor is an author and freelance writer in Ireland and the U.K. and was the recipient of the Cecil Day Lewis Award for Emerging Writers in 2012. Originally from North Yorkshire, England, she now lives in Ireland with her husband, two young children, and an accident-prone cat.

Giveaway:
I have a paperback copy of the book to giveaway, open to US residents only.  Just leave a comment below and let me know you want to win!  The winner will be notified via e-mail and will have 48 hours to respond.  Giveaway ends 2/18.

Click on the TLC tour button below to see all of the blogs participating in A Memory of Violets book tour.

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February 9, 2015 · 2:29 pm

Review: The Scapegoat by Sophia Nikolaidou

I received an advanced review copy of this book from Melville House through Edelweiss.  This book was originally published in Greek in 2012 and it has been translated into English by Karen Emmerich.

My Review:

The ScapegoatI thought that from the description of this book the major focus of the plot would be a murder mystery.  And while the murder of an American journalist is the main event that affects many of the characters in this book, the novel is about so much more than this case.

In 1948, the lifeless and bullet riddled body of an American radio journalist is found floating in the bay of Thessolaniki.  At the time, Greece is entangled in political and economic turmoil and depends a great deal on American aid and money.  When the Americans demand that journalist’s murderer be found and punished immediately, the leaders in Greece look for an easy scapegoat; they beat a confession out of a poor, innocent, and hardworking immigrant named Gris.

The most tragic parts of the book deal with Gris and the affects that his arrest and torture have on his family, especially his mother and sisters. Gris has no one to protect him and even the lawyer that is assigned to defend him realizes that there is a political game to be played and Gris is just a sacrificial lamb.  It is a given from the beginning that Gris is innocent, but the amount of people involved in his arrest, torture, and imprisonment is astonishing and tragic.

The narrative shifts to the current time period in Greece which is also suffering from economic upheaval. My favorite character in the book is 18 year old Minas Georgiou who has been a good student throughout school until his senior year.  All students are expected to take a difficult test called the Panhellenic exams which determine their ability to enter university.  Minas is tired of memorizing facts, studying for tests, and conforming to what the adults in his life want from him.  I admired Minas for not following the crowd, not caring what other people think about him and digging his heels in and deciding that he will not be stressed out anymore by a standardized test.

Minas’ eccentric yet tough history teacher decides to motivate him with an unusual assignment: research and present his findings about the Gris trial.  Minas takes on the challenge and not only does he learn a lesson about the gray area of justice, but he also learns that the political and economic issues facing Greece are cyclical.

THE SCAPEGOAT is a well-narrated and tragic story that teaches us that history is never as straightforward or black an white as the history books oftentimes make it seem.  I hope that more of Nikolaidou’s works will be translated into English.

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