New Fiction

Finished April 30
The Girl Next Door by Elizabeth Noble
I thought at first this was going to be a typical chicklit, but it surprised me by having more depth. What makes it more than your average chicklit is the lack of tidy endings, and the inclusion of more than just happy endings to everyone's stories. I found the characters interesting and diverse.
Eve Gallagher relocates from England to New York City with her husband Ed, buts finds herself at a loose end with no friends or family. The novel covers not only Eve and Ed, but others in their coop building. The significant players are: Violet, an older woman living alone who organizes the others in the building into creating a garden area on the roof; Jason and Kim Kramer and their daughter Avery, a family going through adjustments; Rachael and David Schulman and their three children, high achievers with busy lives; Jackson Grayling III, a trust fund rich young man with ambition issues; Charlotte Murphy, a shy young woman who dreams of romance; Emily Mikanowski, an athletic, but beautiful loner; and Madison Cavanagh, a party girl. We see a variety of points of view, including the men as well as the women, and characters go through significant changes as the book progresses.

Fiction Audiobook

Finished April 30
The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood, Read by Hillary Huber
Mary Baxter is reeling from the recent death of her only child, Stella, of meningitis, at the age of five. She hasn't been going to work, or seeing friends or doing much of anything. Her mother, now living in Mexico, urges her to begin to knit to help with recovery. Mary joins a knitting circle in nearby Providence, Rhode Island, and as she learns knitting skills, she begins to connect with the people around her.
The book flows well, but I found that having everyone in the knitting circle recovering or dealing with some sort of trauma to be a bit much. Doesn't anyone who hasn't had to deal with this join the knitting circle? It was one sad story after another and after a while I became inured to them. Another thing that bothered me was Mary's work circumstances. She didn't go to work for a considerable time, but no one there seems to have been doing her job while she was gone, and there don't seem to be any economic repercussions for her.
The book does offer hope and recovery and the stories show a variety of circumstances.

Quirky novel

Finished April 27
Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
This lovely first novel by Canadian author Jessica Grant has two narrators: Audrey Flowers, native of St. Johns, Newfoundland and lately of Portland, Oregon; and Winnifred (aka Iris) her tortoise.
Audrey gets a call from her uncle back in Newfoundland telling her that her father has been hit by a Christmas tree protruding from a passing vehicle and is now in a coma. Audrey leaves Winnifred with friends (although she worries about her a lot) and has adventures on the way home.
Once getting home to discover that her father has died, she struggles with adjusting to this new reality and then has to deal with the sudden disappearance of her uncle Thoby, as well as her pet mouse, Wedge.
Audrey (known affectionately to some as Oddly) has a wonderfully quirky sense of humour and a equally quirky set of friends. She must work through memories and current concerns to find a way to deal with her father's death.
Winnifred also has memories of her various owners and previous journeys and pines for Audrey and her care.
I loved this book and the characters created.

Memoir

Finished April 23
In Spite of Myself by Christopher Plummer
This is a highly entertaining piece of writing by a great entertainer. He has certainly done a lot of things that aren't looked kindly on by society: drinking a lot, playing tricks on people, having a lot of relationships; but he notes those and moves on.
His life is really his acting career, and yet he is not all about himself. He notes those he admired, those he worked with and gives praise to those he thinks deserve it (and that is a lot of them).
Even when he talks about those he had difficulty working with, he tries to find the reasons behind that.
I enjoyed this book a lot and learned a lot about his career and life and interesting insights to many others in the entertainment industry.
This book is on the shortlist for the 2009 Evergreen award.

First in Series

Finished April 22
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas
The first in the series featuring Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg has now been translated into English. I've read several other books in the series and loved them, so had to go back to see the beginning.
It offered insights into the more recent books featuring him, showing him when he first took on the job in Paris, commissaire of the police headquarters of the 5th arrondissement, and introduces some of his staff. The only staff member shown in detail here is Danglard, but his portrayl is done very nicely. We see the thought processes of Adamsberg and learn of his history with Camille.
The mystery here is the appearance of blue chalk circles overnight on the pavement in Paris. The circles are large, about two metres in diameter and have words written around the edge: "Victor, woe's in store, what are you out here for?" Within the circle is some discarded item, and the circle appears to be drawing attention to it. Adamsberg feels there is something darker going on and begins to gather photos of the circles. Sure enough, one morning there is a dead body in the circle and the pictures Adamsberg gather prove useful in determining pattern. Adamsberg also has a woman who has come to see him because she wants help finding a man she met in a cafe. She also mentions the chalk circles and Adamsberg finds himself drawn into a series of meetings with her.
I quite enjoyed this one, and wish that they had translated them from the beginning so I could have read them in order.

Spy Novel

Finished April 20
The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer
Great story, good barely put it down.
Milo Weaver was a "tourist" for the CIA, a blackops agent last travelling under the identity Charles Alexander. The job became unbearable for him and six years back he quit, and took a desk job analyzing information for the agency.
He is now married with a daughter, and a librarian wife. He has spent a good deal of his time lately tracking an assassin known as The Tiger, and when he finally tracks him down, is very surprised at what he finds. He is asked to do some fieldwork again, and while resistant, gives in to help a good friend out of a jam. But this new work leads to discoveries about old cases and he ends up looking for help from those he never thought he'd ask.
Things move along quickly here with never a dull moment, and I got very caught up in the plot.
I think this would make a great action movie, and I understand that George Clooney has already taken an option out on it.

Gem of a Novel

Finished April 19
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
This lovely little novel tells the story of a young woman who works for a housekeeping agency and gets assigned to the home of a mathematics professor. The professor was injured in a car accident and his short term memory only lasts eighty minutes. Every morning the housekeeper must introduce herself again to him. He attaches notes to his clothing with binder clips, with the notes reminding him of things that are important, from medication to his memory loss, to the identity of his housekeeper. When he discovers that she has a young son, he insists that her son come to his house after work rather than go home to an empty apartment. The relationship that develops between the three is a fascinating one. His life is driven by mathematics and he spends his days working on problems for contests and sending them in to win prizes. His first question to the housekeeper is about her shoe size, and he uses numbers to tell stories about life. The housekeeper and her son, whom the professor nicknames Root, get drawn into the world of math and into his life.
While I admit that I have always had a love for math, I also found the relationship aspect of this book wonderfully written.