VPL Staff Fiction Picks - November 2009
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Wainwright, Brian For fans of Walter Sellar’s 1066 And All That, comes the slyest piece of docufiction to be published since Howard Hughes’ last will and testament. In this take on the War of the Roses, we meet Alianore and her husband Roger, intelligence agents for the House of York. Perceptive, witty and endearing, Alianore proves a match for sundry villains and, as a bonus, helps establish the fabled lineage of a certain bestselling British novelist. Enjoy!
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Atwood, Margaret Based on a notorious 1843 murder case in Upper Canada, Atwood examines the case of Grace Jordan through the eyes of a fictional doctor – Simon Marks. Grace is accused of viciously murdering her employer and his housekeeper / mistress. Some believe she is innocent, others think she is evil or insane, while Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders.
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Stein, Gertrude First published in 1933, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas remains Stein’s most accessible work. The book is warm, humourous, gossipy and fascinating all at the same time. You can almost hear Stein chuckling in the background as you read her account of what she called the “Lost Generation” – disillusioned artists living in Europe after World War I. Highly recommended.
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Rosoff, Meg In Meg Rostoff’s books, it would seem that it’s the small moments, and circumstantial incidents that often prove the defining moments in our lives. In The Bride’s Farewell, Pell Ridley runs away from home on her wedding day in an attempt to avoid the fate of her mother – rural poverty, too many children and deep depression. Ironically, the further Pell rides away from her family troubles, the stronger she finds their emotional pull. This is a lovely story that will appeal to both adult and teen audiences.
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Fossum, Karin This is one of Fossum’s best Konrad Sejer mystery novels. When a lonely Norwegian man decides to change his life and travel to India, he meets a woman, Poona, who agrees to become his wife. Sadly, when she arrives in Norway a short time later, Poona disappears. An excellent mystery. The book has also been published as: Beloved Poona, and The Indian Bride.
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Hall, Tarquin First Alexander McCall-Smith gave us Precious Ramotswe and, now, Tarquin Hall has presented us with Vish Puri, India’s self-styled “Most Private Detective.” As well as the cozy mysteries and the homespun philosophy, the book also offers an intriguing glimpse at the results of India’s recent economic boom in contrast with both the caste system and surviving traces of the Raj.
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Fallada, Hans Otto and Anna Quangel are a middle class couple living in Berlin during WW II. When their only son is killed, they begin to question the system they blame for his death. They begin a clandestine resistance movement against the Nazi rulers and soon find themselves under the watchful eye of the Gestapo and their terrified neighbours. Although the novel has many elements found in political thrillers, its strong suit is the moral stance taken by the Quangel’s who stand up, against all odds, for what they believe to be just. This famously neglected novel, is now newly translated with an afterword detailing the true story of the family that inspired it.
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Follett, Ken An extraordinary World War II German agent with secret information about the Allied D-Day landing waits at an English lighthouse to be picked-up by a submarine and becomes sidetracked by an affair with a paraplegic’s wife. This was the book that launched Follett’s career as a bestselling author.
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Vladimov, Georgii Vladimov offers a moving allegory of conditioned devotion to the state in post-Stalinist Russia. The hero here isn’t Ivan Denisovich, although he too survives years in the Gulag, but Ruslan, one of the prison camp’s guard dogs. Ruslan, like the released prisoners who have no place to go, is forced to endure a life that has lost all sense of purpose.
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Clark, Mary Higgins When his wife is found murdered in her home, the husband becomes the prime suspect and it is Emily Wallace’s job to make sure the jury finds him guilty too. At the same time this is going on, Clark brings us a side story of Emily’s neighbour, who unbeknownst to her is a serial killer! This was a great, fast paced story that kept me wanting more… and kept the real murderer hidden to the end.
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Littell, Jonathan On the surface, Dr. Maximilian Aue is a French, middle-class family man, a factory owner, and a man of letters. But “Max” has a secret. In the recent past, he was a Nazi officer and he participated in atrocities committed on the Eastern Front. Max now wants to set the record straight and he lays out his life story for the reader from his childhood to the surreal nightmare at war’s end of death camps and ruined cities. The Kindly Ones isn’t always an easy book to read, but the sweep of Littell’s prose and the wealth of historical detail provided make it a moving and powerful experience.
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Phan, Zoya Zoya Phan, of Karen descent, was born in a remote region of Burma. When she was fourteen, her village was attacked by the army junta. Like many other Burmese citizens, Phan spent years hiding in the jungle before fleeing to refugee camps in Thailand. Today Zoya Phan lives in England where she continues to champion the cause of a free Burma. An inspiring story.
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Muth, Jon J. This is a brilliant recreation of the Fritz Lang film M. In this retelling the visual traditions of German Expressionism seem to project the style found in the graphic and photographic work of another German master, Gerhard Richter.
The graphic novel is compelling and retains the original film’s sense of moral ambiguity. |
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Larcenet, Manu This book contains the concluding two volumes in Larcenet’s Ordinary Voices Series : What Is Precious and Hammering Nails. In these volumes Marco must cope with significant life changes such as becoming a father and the death of his own father. Marco reflects on family relationships and the small moments of insight life offers everyman.
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Schlink, Bernhard This is the mesmerizing story of 15-year-old Michael Berg, who has an affair with Hanna, a woman more than twice his age. Years later, he finds out a terrible secret about her.
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The fourth book in the popular Elm Creek Quilts Series explores a question that has long captured the imagination of quilters and historians alike: did stationmasters of the Underground Railroad use quilts to signal to fugitive slaves?
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Hoeg, Peter Living in Copenhagen, childless, Greenlander Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen has only one real friend – her six-year-old neighbour Isaiah. When he’s killed in a fall, Smilla doesn’t believe it’s an accident and decided to investigate – even though the police warn against it.
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Hegi, Ursula An epic story told from the perspective of Trudi Montag, a dwarf living in WW II Germany. Through Trudi’s eyes we witness the impact of Nazism on the ordinary townsfolk of Burgdorf, how the politics affect and divide them and force them to make choices that will forever mark their lives.
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Nunn, Kem This book could be described as the ultimate surfer novel. It certainly has all the required elements: surfer dudes, big waves, and outlaws. Yet the book rises above its basic plot of alienated loner, Ike Tucker, becoming part of the Huntington Beach surfing community in hopes of solving the disappearance of his sister. The writing is exceptional and Nunn is deserving of his National Book Award nomination and his lasting cult status. If you enjoy Tapping the Source, be sure to try Nunn’s other surfing novel, The Dogs of Winter.
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In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters – beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighbourhood boys – commit suicide one-by-one over the course of a single year.
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