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Bogota Columbian Library

Eight panelists separately select six hundred novels apiece. Francesca and Ivan collate the lists, adding further choices of their own. Then they open their new enterprise, called ‘A Good Novel,’ and wait for customers who appear in droves. Apparently there are more good book addicts in Paris than anyone had imagined. Soon, however, the euphoria vanishes. The booksellers are accused of elitism. “Who are these kapos who have the nerve to place their seal of approval on this book and not that one.… What gives them the right?” A feeding frenzy against ‘A Good Novel’ occurs on-line and in the media. Worse yet, one by one, the anonymous panelists—all gifted novelists in their own rights—are falling prey to mysterious accidents. Coincidence? Or a carefully concerted plan to put ‘A Good Novel’ permanently out of business?

The authorities take a polite interest in the case, but one policeman in particular, an avid reader, listens carefully and steadfastly investigates. Gonzague Heffner understands what’s at stake, expounding to Ivan and Francesca, “for vaguely idealistic reasons, we have not yet come to realize, and are loath to suspect, that artistic creation, and all the infrastructure surrounding its production and promotion, can also be an extremely hateful forcefield, impelled most often by envy and, in France anyway, the usual weapons of ideological discredit.” Sifting through an array of jealous novelists whose inferior books cannot be found in ‘A Good Novel,’ plus a number of publishing houses wedded to the status quo of touting only their best-selling authors, and the occasional disenfranchised literary critic, Heffner searches for the person or persons responsible for the onslaught against good literary taste.

At the same time, there’s another mystery taking place in the pages of A Novel Bookstore. Who is the narrator? Only after four hundred and sixteen pages is the answer revealed. There are minor mysteries, too, mostly centered on the relationships between the characters and their personal interactions. This lends depth to the story, but the real heart of the matter is the conundrum of what constitutes a “good novel.” What is the criteria, and who decides? Not so easy to answer, as it turns out.

I wish I knew more about French fiction, for I suspect there’s a lot to be learned from the names and titles that occur throughout. Even so, while I read I did a lot of thinking about what English and American and other international writers I’d include on my own list of six hundred, and who I would omit. For starters, I’d recommend Laurence Cosse’s A Novel Bookstore. And many other “Bookin With Sunny” novels as well. Then again, ‘what gives them the right’?       — A.R.

Buy A Novel Bookstore locally or look online at Amazon.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound bookstore.

Alan Lightman is a genius at creation himself. The god of creation in Lightman’s novel is young and rather inexperienced, but with the encouragement and loving support from an Aunt and Uncle who, without explanation, also reside in the Void, he is undaunted and sets out with youthful enthusiasm to see what he might accomplish. Lightman imagines not only what Mr. g creates, but all the endless problems that appear to coexist within all that has been created. He does this with such a down-to-earth approach to the step by step process, that the reader has more than a few, “ah, yes” moments as if understanding things that, up to now, had been beyond her ken: “There were ellipsoids and spheroids and topological hyperboloids,” and always the ticks of the atomic clocks.

If you are new to Lightman, first and foremost, is the fact that he is personally an admitted atheist and professionally a theoretical physicist; think mathematics rather than testing and observation as the path to truth. If your atheism is so doctrinaire you cannot abide even the idea of Creator – give it up, this probably isn’t your book. I’m not going near the range of Christians who might like to tar and feather Lightman for his take on a Creation only loosely related to Scripture. For everyone else – all you thinking atheists, agnostics, Christians, Muslims and Jews, come on in, the water’s fine!

Mr g has been reviewed by many as a modern fable and if you believe as Mary McCarthy did, that when animals speak, the story is indeed a fable, then they may be correct. Certainly there is a speaking animal in the character of the Devil’s ugly and grotesque primordial canine, Baphomet. But that brings us to the other side of a fable which is its moral. If there is a moral in Lightman’s endeavor, it is not easily discerned. The best I could come up with is that to question the existence of a Creator by a careful, if not rudimentary primer on the physics of all that is combustible, can be a creative effort all its own, resulting in a litany of pondering. Even Lightman’s Mr g is almost beside himself with self-doubt, questioning free will, the possible value of evil, and the eventual and, by its nature, natural end of everything created, a cessation of life without any reasonable expectation of a creator-associated second life. Such a second life is not a suggestion of redemption, which by definition would rely on something lacking in the created, but rather a desire by human life to exist eternally with their Creator. Something that ain’t going to happen according to Mr. g.

Mr. g is a gentle but sweeping effort to help the reader understand, without the minutiae of religious dogma, the inevitable, and possibly regrettable, inherent physical limitations of all life, human and otherwise. Even Mr. g regrets this. Lightman seems to suggest that a lack of eternity might be offset by an appreciation for the complexity and grandeur of life itself, and that Mr. g has never abandoned his love and his heartfelt concern for the eventual demise of all that he’s created. Each step of creation’s evolutionary process, upon its completion, has been recognized by Mr. g (and most likely a large number of readers) as good.

Fable? Probably, and all the more wise and satisfying for the questions it raises and for the generosity of Mr. g’s willingness to share his own take on what he hath wrought.                       — s.s.

Buy MR G: A Novel about the Creation. by Alan Lightman locally or look online at Amazon.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound bookstore.

“Oh, please don’t go!
We’ll eat you up, we love you so!”

- Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak
6/10/1928 – 5/8/2012

» More from the New York Times

Ji-su is a young Korean girl whose father has been lost at sea and whose mother is a most talented seamstress. Good Fortune is the story of what happens to Ji-su when her mother’s fine stitchery is brought to the attention of the king. This is not modern Korea, but Korea of the 1700s, when a king’s word could separate a mother from her daughter. After seeing wrapping cloth sewn by Ji-su’s mother in a market place, the King called for her to become part of the royal household where she would sew only for him. Such a command was considered an honor for Ji-su’s family, but for Ji-su it meant only the heartbreaking loss of her beloved Eomma (UHM-ma): mother.

The wrapping cloth is called bojagi (BOH-jah-ghee). It is a square, hemmed piece of material made of carefully chosen pieces of various fabrics, then decorated with great care. Such a cloth has many uses in Korean culture, from wrapping fruit, to covering a table and always with the knowledge that good fortune is to be found beneath the cloth. Before Eomma leaves, she gives Ji-su a gift, a small box wrapped in a bojagi. Inside the box are all the tools and material Ji-su will need to learn how to sew her own bojagi.

Left in the care of her great-aunt, Ji-su slowly learns her mother’s craft. Ji-su’s hope is to become as fine a seamstress as her mother, so that the king’s Sanguiwon (SAHNG-boh), overseer of palace sewing needs, will see her bojagi, recognize its quality and tell the king that she, too, should be called to live in the royal palace. Though such a hope for a young girl to be reunited with her mother is most understandable, it is also most unlikely.

Schoettler’s story is intensified by the fine illustrations of Jessica Lanan. Lanan, who has traveled extensively in Asia, is as flawless in her ability to depict the changing seasons of the year in which the story takes place as Ji-su’s mother is at sewing wrapping cloth. Lanan’s subtle use of colors and sometimes delicate lines speak strongly of the Korean countryside without ever overpowering Schoettler’s narrative. The emotional impact of her illustrations of Ji-su with her mother, with her great-aunt and with the kings emissaries is remarkable.

Can Ji-su, in only one year, learn to sew as well as her mother? This reviewer is not telling, but it is my belief that pictures books are, or can be, a child’s doorway into the world in which they live, especially today. At the back of the book is a wonderful glossary (with phonic spellings) of many Korean words used in the book. It is great fun to see how good you are at pronouncing these words and makes a rereading much more lively. Good Fortune in a Wrapping Cloth is as fine a way as any to introduce a child to geography, to different cultures, and most importantly to feelings. I’ve read the book many times now and almost every time I find something new and that is bok (bohk) good fortune.     –s.s.

Buy Good Fortune in a Wrapping Cloth locally or look online at Amazon.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound bookstore. Joan Schoettler Jessica Lanan Shen’s Books

Younis lives in a village located in an unidentified Muslim country. Christopher is a young U.S. Marine whose platoon has gathered near this village. Intentionally or mistakenly, the village is attacked and obliterated by the Marines. Younis is wounded and his family is killed, as are most of the villagers. Dau’s subject is not only war itself, but all it’s accompanied losses. We feel Younis’ loss of family and place, Christopher’s loss of honor and integrity for his part in the attack, and Rose, the mother who struggles to make sense of her son’s death with only photographs to grieve over.

Fleeing his destroyed village, Younis hides in a cave in the nearby mountains. He is not alone. In the same mountain cave is a young disillusioned Marine, fleeing the same scene. Younis, barely alive, is cared for by Christopher until the boy can leave the cave and reach a Quaker relief organization. From there he is flown to the U.S. where he is treated for his injuries and placed with an American family to begin a new life. Christopher cannot be saved and when news of his death reaches his mother  in Philadelphia, the military has no explanation as to how or exactly where he died. Rose, too, must find her way out of a different sort of cave.

The Book of Jonas draws upon Biblical tradition and the comfort of religious ritual. It is divided not into the three stories of its three central characters, but into Processional, Invocation, Remembrance, Communion, Confession, Atonement, Benediction and finally Recessional. In an echo of “In the beginning was the Word,” Stephen Dau begins with the Processional and the many words of the villagers as they ponder the meaning of planes flying overhead. Within The Book of Jonas is a second book, a diary of sorts; a gift given to Christopher by his mother before he enlists and in which he writes his thoughts as he tries to make sense of the actions taken by himself and his fellow Marines. It also holds the key to the circumstances of his death.

The moving power of The Book of Jonas (a mere 256 pages) is the author’s ability to never lose the thread woven between Jonas (Younis’ American name), Christopher, and Rose. Their stories move backward and forward, but never distant from one another. One character’s loss never dominates the other’s, instead these losses serve to illuminate and enlighten. Each section of the book is divided into brief chapters, often no longer than a paragraph, all with a brevity of style and language that moves the narrative to its fateful, solemn and ultimately hopeful end.

The Book of Jonas is a gem and startling in its brilliance. This unflinchingly honest and even-handed telling of the devastation of war will not easily be forgotten. I look forward to whatever Dau writes next.        –s.s.

Buy The Book of Jonas locally or look online at Amazon.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound bookstore.

The narrator, an assistant district attorney in Newton, Massachusetts, finds his world turned upside down when his fourteen-year-old son is accused of murdering a classmate. Another assistant district attorney, hoping to further his own career at the expense of his colleague, pursues the case zealously. When a grand jury brings an indictment against the boy, his father is suspended from the D.A.’s office and the once-tightly-knit family begins dramatically to unravel. The novel closely follows this disintegration, then moves to the intricacies of a trial by jury. Like any effective legal thriller, the courtroom scenes of Defending Jacob display, step-by-step, the long drawn out interplay between the prosecution, the defense, the judge, the witnesses, the jury, the families involved.

William Landay, himself a former district attorney, knows the territory well. He builds the growing tension by using a staccato prose that captures the rapid-fire strategies of both sides, the D.A.’s and defendant’s. Increasingly, that staccato effect gets inside the reader’s blood. I found myself totally captured by the exchanges, yanked in multiple directions by one witness and another, by a sudden tactic, by a blunt objection, by a judge’s response. In the best legal thriller fashion, the author tantalizes the reader. Is the boy innocent? Is he guilty? Will we ever know for sure? And what, and why, will the jury decide?

If that’s not enough tension, there’s Part IV of the novel, which hammers all the pieces of the book apart again. Questions resurface, answers seem insufficient. Interspersed throughout the book has been the testimony from a later grand jury. In those snippets, printed out as if part of a legal transcript, the narrator himself is being questioned intently by his nemesis ex-colleague. Only in the climactic Part IV does the reader finally learn the reasons for this subsequent indictment.

No! It’s not what you think! You can’t begin to guess the ending! Landay totally surprises everyone, characters and readers alike. And that’s what makes Defending Jacob such a stunning example of a legal thriller, a wickedly successful example of niche writing that keeps you turning pages well into the dark of the night.            –A.R.

Buy Defending Jacob: A Novel locally or look online at Amazon.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound bookstore.

Reading in bed can be a bit dicey, especially in the early morning hours when it’s often more of an invitation to fall back to sleep than to reach the next chapter. This morning, as Harold Fry was taking note of the English countryside as though seen for the first time, and becoming a more complex character than first proffered, I began to wonder about the person who had recommended this particular title. A few months earlier, in a list of titles he thought worthy of note, he had strongly suggested The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. If nothing else, Harold Fry would appear to be a poster child for introverts, and to my mind no pilgrimage, regardless of its purpose, could remain solitary for very long (i.e. Geoffrey Chaucer) and so of course Fry’s pilgrimage was unlikely.

I kept thinking about the person who recommended the book. What part of this book appealed most to him? And when did he know Fry’s story, his unlikely pilgrimage, was something that I would particularly like? And how telling that the author, Rachel Joyce, knew it was important for her protagonist to recognize early on that he was seeing things, much more than just the countryside, as if for the first time.

When I rose for my morning cup of tea, Harold Fry was more than a week into his journey. I took my cup and book out to the deck where I hunkered down for another hour. The birds were up, the Truckee was flowing and, so far, the blue sky was cloud-free. It was a strange feeling because I was not alone on Mr. Fry’s unlikely pilgrimage. My friend who had read the book before me had made the same pilgrimage and I suppose that every person who reads this novel will become a fellow pilgrim. I’m certain many will recommend this book when it comes out in July and I suspect that those who follow the recommendations will, at some point in the story, stop to think about the person who recommended it. It is Harold Fry’s journey, but without giving it away, it is also my journey, and my friend’s, and will be yours by the time you finish reading it. We will all know each other just a little more than we had before reading Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

There’s not a chance I’ll pass up reviewing this book.           –ss