DON'T MISS THESE!

Ewan McEwan has done it again. THE CHILDREN ACT, his latest release, held my interest immediately...and that's saying a lot. My negative vibes usually kick in after a few pages.  Although Fiona, the main character needs a good kick in the pants! Hopefully she'll get her personal life together and stop acting like a doormat....

Here's a summary...

In the late summer of 2012, a British judge faces a complex case while dealing with her husband’s infidelity in this thoughtful, well-wrought novel.

Fiona Maye, at 59, has just learned of an awful crack in her marriage when she must rule on the opposing medical and religious interests surrounding a 17-year-old boy who will likely die without blood transfusions. The cancer patient, weeks shy of the age when he could speak for himself, has embraced his parents’ deep faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses and their abhorrence of letting what the Bible deems a pollutant enter his body. The scenes before the bench and at the boy's hospital bedside are taut and intelligent, like the best courtroom dramas. 

The ruling produces two intriguing twists that, among other things, suggest a telling allusion to James Joyce’s 17-year-old Michael Furey in “The Dead.” Meanwhile, McEwan (Sweet Tooth, 2012, etc.), in a rich character study that begs for a James Ivory film, shows Fiona reckoning with the doubt, depression and temporary triumphs of the betrayed—like an almost Elizabethan digression on changing the locks of their flat—not to mention guilt at stressing over her career and forgoing children. As Fiona thinks of a case: “All this sorrow had common themes, there was a human sameness to it, but it continued to fascinate her.” Also running through the book is a musical theme, literal and verbal, in which Fiona escapes the legal world and “the subdued drama of her half-life with Jack” to play solo and in duets. (Scroll down for another review and a graphic)

The following book recommendation was sent to me by a member of my summer book group. I trust her judgement.....

B said .....

I have just completed reading THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr for my West Hartford  book club.  It is a book not to miss! It is a poetic, lyrical, story taking place during WWII, spanning time from 1944-2014 in Germany and France, featuring a blind French girl and a German boy in alternate chapters.  The story reads like poetry, it flows like music and its emotional/intellectual range is satisfying and impressive. If you read it,  I can't wait to hear your reactions.......B