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Monthly Archives: May 2014

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography

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bereavement, disaster victims, Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), Sri Lanka, widows

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This is the most compelling book I have ever listened to.  I was so moved by it days later that I wrote a letter to the author with the message that I will always remember her boys. I remember them each and every day.

“It was a festive time. Economist Deraniyagala, her economist husband (they met at Cambridge), and their two young sons flew from London to Sri Lanka to spend the winter holidays with her parents. They were all staying in a hotel near their favorite national park on December 26, 2004, the day of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. Deraniyagala describes their bewilderment as they flee the hotel and her terror as they are swept up by the 30-foot-high, racing wave that brutally changed everything. Only Deraniyagal survived. In rinsed-clear language, she describes her ordeal, surreal rescue, and deep shock, attaining a Didionesque clarity and power. We hold tight to every exquisite sentence as, with astounding candor and precision, she tracks subsequent waves of grief, from suicidal despair to persistent fear, attempts to drown her pain in drink, “helpless rage,” guilt and shame, and paralyzing depression. But here, too, are sustaining tides of memories that enable her to vividly, even joyfully, portray her loved ones. An indelible and unique story of loss and resolution written with breathtaking refinement and courage.” –Donna Seaman from Booklist

“Out of unimaginable loss comes an unimaginably powerful book. . . . I urge you to read Wave. You will not be the same person after you’ve finished.” —Will Schwalbe

“The most powerful and haunting book I have read in years.” —Michael Ondaatje

“Unforgettable. . . . The most exceptional book about grief I’ve ever read. . . . [Deraniyagala] has fearlessly delivered on memoir’s greatest promise: to tell it like it is, no matter the cost. . . . As unsparing as they come, but also defiantly flooded with light. . . . Extraordinary.” —Cheryl Strayed, The New York Times Book Review

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The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, Non-fiction, Travel

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Amazon River Valley, father and sons, Rain forests, Roosevelt River (Brazil)

 

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If you are looking for adventure, history and biography this is the book for you.  Millard captures Teddy Roosevelt’s larger than life personality as he fails at being reelected to the presidency of the United States in 1912 and then decides to explore an uncharted river in South America.  This is a story of guts and determination that has been well researched but reads like a novel and not as non-fiction.  You will feel every mosquito bite and see every crocodile that Roosevelt encounters in the Amazonian jungle.

“A rich, dramatic tale that ranges from the personal to the literally earth-shaking.” —Janet Maslin,

“A rich, dramatic tale that ranges from the personal to the literally earth-shaking.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“[A] fine account . . . There are far too many books in which a travel writer follows in the footsteps of his or her hero—and there are far too few books like this, in which an author who has spent time and energy ferreting out material from archival sources weaves it into a gripping tale.” —The Washington Post

Anacondas, huge snakes found in the Amazon River and its tributaries, can weigh up to 500 pounds. That fact and many others embedded in this marvelously atmospheric travel narrative are here for the reader’s asking and edification in Millard’s important contribution to the complete biographical record of the great, dynamic Teddy Roosevelt. TR, it will be remembered, attempted a third term as president in 1912, only to make certain of a Democratic victory. Licking his wounds, and reverting to his typical method of “seeking solace from heartbreaks and frustration” by testing his physical endurance, he embarked on an Amazon exploration adventure. A set of odd circumstances led to the River of Doubt as the choice of venue, a large tributary of the giant river that up to that point had been little explored. What with suffering from fever and infection, Roosevelt nearly died on the trip; but live through it he did, and readers of both American history and travel narratives will take delight in living through these exciting pages. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association.

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The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Historical Fiction, mystery

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19th century, East Indians, England, murder, mystery, theft

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I unfairly assumed before starting this classic mystery that as a 19th century novel, it would be on the slower side. Instead, I found myself engrossed by this page-turner, a mystery that’s funny, suspenseful, and romantic. Every section of the book has a different narrator, each with a unique voice, and a complicated, intriguing plot that kept my interest until the last page.

“”The first and greatest of English detective novels.”” —T. S. Eliot

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The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Historical Fiction

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brothers, family secrets, India, Naxalite movement, Rhode Island

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Jhumpa Lahiri’s lastest book, The Lowland, tells the story of two brothers from Calcutta and how the decisions that they make and the secrets that they keep will affect the next three generations of their families in India and America.  I continue to be fascinated with her interpretation of two divergent societies, Indian and American, and how the cultural differences and similarities play out in the lives of her characters.

“Graceful and steady . . . devastatingly precise . . . Lahiri [writes with] ruthless clarity . . . The Lowland continues Lahiri’s career-long study of the tendrils that grow up in canyons [between characters], that intertwine and bind people to one another through responsibility and dependency, love and guilt. [Lahiri is] anchored firmly as a great American writer.” —Jennifer Day, Chicago Tribune

“Lahiri’s finest work so far, at once unsettling and generous, bow-string taut . . . shattering and satisfying in equal measure. I expect The Lowland will prove her most controversial book to date, for its plot grows out of [a] Maoist-inspired uprising in the late 1960s. Though Lahiri has put [the] politics in, she also wants us to concentrate on the spectators instead of the struggle around the gun. This book is a determinedly apolitical writer’s attempt to deal with an explosive subject. And though she deals more fully here than ever before with a specifically Indian subject, though the book both begins and ends in Calcutta and what happens there will forever mark its characters’ lives, The Lowland is written in an American vein; she seamlessly inserts new people—new manners, mores, material—into a traditional American form. What counts in The Lowland isn’t the fate of society but the individual life and the chance or pursuit of individual happiness; Turgenev among others would recognize the problem she defines. The prose . . . provides something like a continuous present, pointillist and monumental at once, as though carved . . . Uncompromising and yet clear—carries a note of accessible distinction.” —Michael Gorra, The New York Review of Books

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The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin

02 Friday May 2014

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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bequests, family secrets, fishing guides, fishing lodge, inheritance, Maine

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Each time I opened this book I was transported to the quaint fishing camp in northwestern Maine and completely engaged in the lives of the first owner, Joe, the WWII war hero and his wife, son Joe, the Vietnam draft dodger and his girlfriend, Lucy, and finally, as their tale unravels,  what lay in store for young Kate and Jordan.  Through these characters’ lives I finally came to understand the impact and unexpected consequences of one particular guest who had spent a week or more at the camp every summer for thirty years.  Don’t wait for the summer, read it now!

 “Luminous.”—Booklist


“The Summer Guest is a jewel, the best book I’ve read in a long, long time…. By all means take it to the beach, but be warned that it’s more than entertainment – it’s a work of art. Justin Cronin has written a great American novel…. reading this novel, I couldn’t help but think of Hemingway, Andre Dubus and Wallace Stegner.”—Susan Balee, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Here is a gifted and assured writer whose work reveals a fine sense of place and thoughtful characters who have something worth saying…. The Summer Guest is a haunting story about the way time changes us and about what endures.”—Houston Chronicle

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