A STUDENT OF WEATHER by Elizabeth Hay

Elizabeth Hay centres her superb, enchanting and deeply moving novel around Norma Joyce and sister Lucinda, her senior by nine years. Set against the beautifully evoked natural environments of Saskatchewan and Ontario, and spanning over more than thirty years, the author explores in sometimes subtle, sometimes defter, ways the sisters’ dissimilar characters. One is an “ugly duckling,” the other a beauty; one is rebellious and lazy, the other kind, efficient and unassuming… I

December 15, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, Canada, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Giller Prize, Nature, Reading Guide

THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Jeffrey Eugenides

“Reader, I married him.”

What sensitive reader hasn’t thrilled to the last lines of the novel JANE EYRE, when the mousy and unprepossessing girl triumphantly returns to windswept Thornfield as a mature woman, marrying her one-time employer and great love, Mr. Rochester?

That era of these great wrenching love stories is now dead and gone. Or is it?

November 16, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Literary, NE & New York, Reading Guide, Story Retold, Uncategorized

ED KING by David Guterson

ED KING had me mesmerized from the first page and did not let up throughout the book. It is a contemporary retelling of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex set in the American northwest. The protagonist’s name, Ed King, means Oedipus Rex. Ed is short for Oedipus and Rex means “king” in Greek. Ed’s middle name is Aaron and one could read into this, “Ed, A King.” There is no real subtlety to the retelling. The characters change but the story remains the same. Ed kills his father and marries his mother. It is a Greek tragedy of great proportions and strength, hubris and loss.

November 13, 2011 · Judi Clark · One Comment
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Literary, Story Retold, US Northwest

THE GREAT LEADER by Jim Harrison

Once, many years ago when I was living in Northern Michigan, Jim Harrison walked into the restaurant where I was dining. He didn’t so much walk in, in retrospect, as lumber in. It was the Blue Bird Cafe and I confess that I’d been hanging out there in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him.

October 30, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Literary, Mystery/Suspense, US Midwest

LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR by Mary McGarry Morris

Nellie Peck is thirteen years old going on forty. She is wise, intelligent and impulsive. Despite her precociousness, however, she is still a child. She lives with her parents and two siblings, Ruth and Henry; Ruth is a half-sister from a relationship that her mother had in high school. The Pecks are struggling financially. Nellie’s mother works as a hair dresser and Nellie’s father owns a hardware store that is slowly going under. Her father’s passion is his writing – he is writing a tome about the history of their town, Springvale. His goal is to get it self-published so that it can be read by a wide audience.

October 26, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, Morality, Small Town

THE SUBMISSION by Amy Waldman

The brilliance of Amy Waldman’s book is that she does not try to apply logic to why 9/11 occurred, nor does she attempt to recreate the complex and traumatic emotions that most Americans felt that day. Instead, she explores something broader: the fallout of a country confused, divided, and sick with fear, clamoring to make sense of the insensible.

October 25, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Debut Novel, New York City, Reading Guide