bookshelf

Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Narrated Gwendoline Yeo , 9 hours, (c) 2005 Phoenix Audio, purchased via Audible. Read 05/03/09

A true Mother's Day extravaganza: four immigrant Chinese mothers and their American daughters disappoint, annoy and try to love each other.

Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

Written 1939,Read 04/30/09, Blog 05/09/09

A sorry collection of misfits tries to make it in Hollywood in the 1930s. Sidetracked by booze, fighting, jealousy and lack of talent they are no better off than the dazed Californians who have come to die in the sunshine. A mob riots at a movie premier.

Grasshopper by Barbara Vine

15 tapes / 21 hours, Narrated by  Jenny Sterlin
Recorded Books, (c) 2000, Read: 04/09/09, Blog: 04/20/09

This tale of suspense concerns an international assortment of young people crashing in a top floor apartment and their adventures-some criminal, some not-on the roofs of London.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A Study of Provincial Life
Written: 1871. Audible download,31 hrs. Narrated by Nadia May
Text: Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8227
Read: 02/02/08

This novel covers a wealth of subjects: the nature of politics, medical advancement, families, education, modernization, inequality, etc. Extremely entertaining, the book illuminates the realities of the past and present and reaffirms that there’s nothing new under the sun. On my list to read again.

Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age by Kenzaburo Oe

259 pgs (c) 1986, Translated by John Nathan
Purchased (where?) Read: 01/29/08

This was the longest 259-page book I've ever read. It took me ages. It's so Japanese; it's like reading an Anthony Chambers translation of Tanizaki. But maybe I'm just a philistine.

Dark Genius of Wall Street by Edward J. Renehan, Jr

The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons
Narrated by George Wilson
13 CDs, 14.75 hours (c) 2005 by Edward J. Renehan, Jr., 2006 by Recorded Books. LLC.
Read 03/16/09

Jay Gould was one of the original "Robber Barons" of the last half of the nineteenth century. According to Renehan, Gould was not the monster that that the press of the time and many biographers have made him out to be.

Afternoon Men by Anthony Powel

221 pgs, written 1931, Little, 1963
Broward Library Read: 03/15/09

Underemployed museum clerk, Atwater, and his restless Bohemian friends drink and carry on unsatisfactory love affairs in substandard clubs, at the parties of strangers, in the country, and abroad. This satire was written and takes place in England between the wars.

Natives and Exotics by Jane Alison

236 pgs © 2005, Orlando: Harcourt; 2006 Mariner Books
Broward Library Read: 01/02/06

A lovely little book illustrated with 18th century illustrations of exotic flora. Episodic, loosely following an Australian family lineage through their voluntary and involuntary peregrinations of the globe across two centuries. Like the plants, they move or are moved without clear recognition of their predecessors or progeny.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

15 hrs, 37 min. Narrated by Ron Silver
Purchased via Audible. Read 03/04/09.

Philip Roth puts the dynamite into family dynamics as a hard-earned suburban life is exploded from within. This story examines the decline of manufacturing and the resulting  decay of the city. The author leaves no part of the glove industry unexplored or unexplained.  American Pastoral is to glove making what Moby Dick is to whaling.

Ancient Highway by Bret Lott

241 Pages (c) 2008, Random House
Borrowed from Petoskey Library. Read 01/04/09

Vaguely mysterious family melodrama concerning three generations uncommonly affected by show business. Again judging a book by its cover, this book looked appealing in the new arrivals area. You can't win 'em all.