The Sense of an Ending: A Genuinely Suspenseful Novel

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Written by Julian Barnes, an acclaimed writer at the height of his
powers, this book, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of
extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and
continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse. A
novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning
psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, this book is a
brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes’s oeuvre.

This is an intense new novel that follows a middle-aged man as he
contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest
childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave,
another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this
behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and
career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then
presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety
of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation
of his own nature and place in the world.

This tale is told in two parts, by everyman narrator Tony Webster. The first
part, comprising approximately a third of the book, reads like a coming-of-
age story. It recounts the formative relationships of Tony’s early life, both
male and female, from his school days through early adulthood. You will
meet his closest friends, witness his earliest romances, and experience his
first losses. This first section was good, but not great on its own.

The novella flowered in its second, longer part, set 40 years later. Now
Tony is in his early 60′s, amicably divorced, and a generally content
man. One day, he receives notification of an unexpected and frankly
bewildering bequest–which is then even more bewilderingly withheld.
These contemporary happenings open windows to events of the past and
Mr. Barnes will hold you rapt with the tale.

This book is deliciously intriguing with complex and subtle undertones
laced with Barnes’ trademark wit and graceful writing.

The Paris Wife: A Story of Ambition and Betrayal

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This is a deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal that captures
a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable
people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley. A heartbreaking portrayal
of love and torn loyalty, this book is all the more poignant because we know
that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than
fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

This is a novel that moves beyond the dry bones of biography or skewed
personal vision of memoir, and takes a leap into the emotional lives of
these characters. Paula McLain has taken on the task of writing a story
most of us probably think we already know–that of a doomed starter
wife. To make life more difficult, McLain proposes to tell us about Ernest
Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson, who is a twenty-eight-year-
old Midwestern spinster when she marries the twenty-one-year-old
unpublished, (but already cocksure) writer and runs off to Paris with him.
The talent and joy of this novel is that McLain does a startling job of making
us understand this as a great love story and seducing us into caring deeply,
about both Ernest and Hadley, as their marriage eventually comes apart.

Though the Hemingways are deeply in love, they are ill prepared for the
hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values
traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful
women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will
earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life
with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The
Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self
as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend,
and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they
eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a
deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so
hard for.

You would love this novel for its depiction of two passionate, yet humanly-
flawed people struggling against impossible odds–poverty, artistic fervor,
destructive friendships–to cling on to each other.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

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Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Catherine was born into a minor noble family and transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of
Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

All of Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies are all vividly described here. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

This is a story that is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

There are only few stories that history offers richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

The Snow Child: A Russian Fairy Tale Novel

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Eowyn Ivey stakes her claim in her hunting, evocative debut on a Russian fairy tale, daring the reader–and the characters–to be lulled into thinking they know the ending. But, as with the Alaskan wilderness, there’s far more here than meets the eye. On the surface it’s the story of a childless pioneer couple running from their East Coast lives and struggling to survive in the harshest of climates while also attempting to reconnect with each other; but it’s also the story of the spring of hope that bubbles out of new friendships, of the slow realization of love for a surrogate child, of the ties between man and nature. Ivey spares no words in describing the beauty and the danger of her native Alaska, bringing the sheer magnitude of the wilderness alive on every page. With the transparent prose of a fairy tale and descriptions to put nature writing to shame, The Snow Child immerses readers in a 1920s Alaska that will draw them back again and again.

It is the story of Mabel and Jack, the homesteaders who come to Alaska rather late in their lives. They are both close to fifty years old when they begin their Alaskan venture near the Wolverine river way in the backcountry. One night, however, in a lightness of spirit, they decide to build a snow child. It turns out to be a girl with a lovely face, blond hair, blue eyes and chiseled lovely features. Shortly after building the snow child, they begin to see a child darting in and out of the trees. The snow child they built has disappeared and the child they see running around is wearing the same clothes as their snow child had been given. The story loosely follows the metaphorical fairy tale of The Snow Child, Mabel’s favorite story from childhood. However, Mabel is fearful of the story’s outcome and does not want to look at the coincidences too closely.

This is a life-affirming book, one that is close to the heart. It is never silly or maudlin. The writing is rich and lyrical, the characterizations full and complete with each person known and mysterious at the same time. In many ways this is a book of perfection, one that is consummate and incomparable to any other you have ever read.

Defending Jacob: A Novel

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The author, William Landay is a former district attorney who gets the taut nuances just right, capturing the subtleties of a trial in a packed courtroom, where a small rustle
or murmur can signify a lot. He is skilled at informing the reader about the law and procedure without telegraphing it. This novel is a fast, compelling, and compulsively readable courtroom drama, Defending Jacob tells the story of a district attorney’s son who is accused of killing a classmate. As the father attempts to prove his son’s innocence, Landay explores uncomfortable territory: can a tendency toward violence be inherited? Is the capacity for murder a genetic disposition? In the end Landay pulls off a clever plot device that doesn’t reveal itself until the final pages.

The story is about Jacob, the fourteen-year-old son of First District Attorney Andy Barber who is accused of murdering his classmate, Ben Rifkin. In Massachusetts, fourteen-year-olds charged with first-degree murder are tried as adults. Barber narrates the story with depth and dread, exposing some family secrets along the way, which could impact the case, and creates increasing internal trauma for his wife, Laurie. Their marriage has always been an ongoing love story; they met as freshmen in college and have loved each other unfailingly through the years. This event mires them in vulnerability and heavy exposure to the media, placing them under a public microscope. Do they really know their son? How much can parents really get inside the soul of their children? And, no matter how strong a marriage seems, a blow like this can undermine what is truly a fragile trust.

Landay has a talent for metaphor and imagery, rendered beautifully in the elegiac narrative. Woven through the story, in the old-school typed transcript of a court reporter, is yet another narrative, of Barber as a witness before the grand jury. How this fits into the rest of the story is gradually disclosed, and its presence is both suspenseful and revealing. Landay’s dialogue is crisply cinematic but organic to the characters. His flair for teen-speak is spot-on.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: A Painful Reality

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The author of this book, Katherine Boo is an American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who is married to an Indian man. She has spent the last few years doing scrupulous research for this book which is a realistic portrayal of life in a Mumbai slum. All the peopleare real. All the incidents really happened. And the writing itself is so good that it can hook you from the very beginning and can keep your eyes glued to the pages.

What is described here is the world where whole families live in cardboard shacks where sewage runs raw after storms, education is mostly nonexistent and the worst forms of corruption is everywhere. Here we meet the real people in the area – the young boy who scavenges scrap metal, a woman who tries to be political and the one college student who hopes for a brighter future. We also learn about the diseases that disable people and the compromises made just in order to put some food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. And then there is the endemic corruption. The police are paid little and depend on graft to make a living, expect to collect it whenever they can. Hospitals are filthy stink holes. And members of the community are so afraid of getting involved that they will let a man with a broken leg lie in the street for several days until he eventually dies.

This book is very well written that it will bring you into the hearts and minds of these people who live in the shadow of a luxury hotel and an expanding airport. In spite of their poverty they have learned to be resourceful and struggle along the best they can.

This book reads like a novel. And, in a way I sure wish it was. It is just too painful to realize that this is all real. Hopefully, its publication will help to make a difference.

The Snow Child: A Russian Fairy Tale Novel

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Eowyn Ivey stakes her claim in her hunting, evocative debut on a Russian fairy tale, daring the reader–and the characters–to be lulled into thinking they know the ending. But, as with the Alaskan wilderness, there’s far more here than meets the eye. On the surface it’s the story of a childless pioneer couple running from their East Coast lives and struggling to survive in the harshest of climates while also attempting to reconnect with each other; but it’s also the story of the spring of hope that bubbles out of new friendships, of the slow realization of love for a surrogate child, of the ties between man and nature. Ivey spares no words in describing the beauty and the danger of her native Alaska, bringing the sheer magnitude of the wilderness alive on every page. With the transparent prose of a fairy tale and descriptions to put nature writing to shame, The Snow Child immerses readers in a 1920s Alaska that will draw them back again and again.

It is the story of Mabel and Jack, the homesteaders who come to Alaska rather late in their lives. They are both close to fifty years old when they begin their Alaskan venture near the Wolverine river way in the backcountry. One night, however, in a lightness of spirit, they decide to build a snow child. It turns out to be a girl with a lovely face, blond hair, blue eyes and chiseled lovely features. Shortly after building the snow child, they begin to see a child darting in and out of the trees. The snow child they built has disappeared and the child they see running around is wearing the same clothes as their snow child had been given. The story loosely follows the metaphorical fairy tale of The Snow Child, Mabel’s favorite story from childhood. However, Mabel is fearful of the story’s outcome and does not want to look at the coincidences too closely.

This is a life-affirming book, one that is close to the heart. It is never silly or maudlin. The writing is rich and lyrical, the characterizations full and complete with each person known and mysterious at the same time. In many ways this is a book of perfection, one that is consummate and incomparable to any other you have ever read.

The End of Money: Getting Ready For Cashlessness

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It is for ages that money has meant little metal disks and rectangular slips of paper. Intrigued by the distinct possibility that cash will soon disappear, author and Wired contributing editor David Wolman sets out to investigate the future of money and how it will affect your wallet.

By deciding to shun cash for an entire year, Wolman begins his journey— a surprisingly successful experiment. He then ventures forth to find people and technologies that illuminate the road ahead. In Honolulu, he drinks Mai Tais with Bernard von NotHaus, a convicted counterfeiter and alternative-currency evangelist whom government prosecutors have labeled a domestic terrorist. In Tokyo, he sneaks a peek at the latest anti- counterfeiting wizardry, while puzzling over the fact that banknote forgers depend on society’s addiction to cash. In a downtrodden Oregon town, he mingles with obsessive coin collectors—the people who are supposed to love cash the most, yet don’t. And in rural Georgia, he examines why some people feel the end of cash is Armageddon’s warm-up act. After stops at the Digital Money Forum in London and Iceland’s central bank, Wolman flies to Delhi, where he sees first-hand how cash penalizes the poor more than anyone—and how mobile technologies promise to change that.

A specific aspect of the coming cashlessness is what each chapter of this timely and fascinating book focuses. Its cast of compelling characters includes an end-times fundamentalist who views the growing obsolescence of cash as a sign of the coming rapture; an Icelandic artist whose claim to fame illustrates the complicated relationship between cash and nationalism; an American libertarian and coin-maker convicted on federal charges for the distribution of “Liberty” coins and Ron Paul dollars; and an Indian
software engineer (self-billed as “the assassin of cash”) whose firm is enabling digital payment methods that are lifting the living standards of thousands of poor New Dehli residents via their cell phones. Raising the stakes with a personal experiment, Wolman goes (almost) a full year without using cash at all. All told, The End of Money offers everything there is to love about popular nonfiction, rendering a complex subject entertaining and easily approachable for a wide audience while proving the ultimate adventurousness inherent in a curiosity about the workings of the world.

Defending Jacob: A Novel

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The author, William Landay is a former district attorney who gets the taut nuances just right, capturing the subtleties of a trial in a packed courtroom, where a small rustle or murmur can signify a lot. He is skilled at informing the reader about the law and procedure without telegraphing it. This novel is a fast, compelling, and compulsively readable courtroom drama, Defending Jacob tells the story of a district attorney’s son who is accused of killing a classmate. As the father attempts to prove his son’s innocence, Landay explores uncomfortable territory: can a tendency toward violence be inherited? Is the capacity for murder a genetic disposition? In the end Landay pulls off a clever plot device that doesn’t reveal itself until the final pages.

The story is about Jacob, the fourteen-year-old son of First District Attorney Andy Barber who is accused of murdering his classmate, Ben Rifkin. In Massachusetts, fourteen-year-olds charged with first-degree murder are tried as adults. Barber narrates the story with depth and dread, exposing some family secrets along the way, which could impact the case, and creates increasing internal trauma for his wife, Laurie. Their marriage has always been an ongoing love story; they met as freshmen in college and have loved each other unfailingly through the years. This event mires them in vulnerability and heavy exposure to the media, placing them under a public microscope. Do they really know their son? How much can parents really get inside the soul of their children? And, no matter how strong a marriage seems, a blow like this can undermine what is truly a fragile trust.

Landay has a talent for metaphor and imagery, rendered beautifully in the elegiac narrative. Woven through the story, in the old-school typed transcript of a court reporter, is yet another narrative, of Barber as a witness before the grand jury. How this fits into the rest of the story is gradually disclosed, and its presence is both suspenseful and revealing. Landay’s dialogue is crisply cinematic but organic to the characters. His flair for teen-speak is spot-on.

DELICACY: A NOVEL

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The internationally acclaimed novelist, David Foenkinos has been showered with accolades, including nominations for France’s top five literary awards. And here is another, his new novel is one of the finest of the year. David Foenkinos delivers a heartfelt and deftly comedic tale of new love that brightens the dark aftermath of loss and of wounded hearts finding refuge in the strangest of places.

Sly and funny, with a dark patina that belies its nationality, This Novel traces the relationship between Natalie and Markus. Natalie is an ambitious young beauty and Markus is a kind and bumbling introvert. After her husband’s unexpected death, Natalie has erected a fortress around her emotions. She seems untouchable. Markus is a clumsy and unassuming man who will never be Natalie’s knight in shining armor. He has, as the French say, no game, but he manages to touch her anyway. What happened is a slowly but surely, an offbeat romance begins between these two mismatched, complex souls. And on contrary to everything Natalie knows of affection, her perfect suitor may turn out to be love’s most unlikely candidate. He is the fool, not the hero, who is finally able to reach her heart.

You will surely get the pleasure of watching as the characters are falling inlove. And the author’s precise and insightful style will make you forget that these two people are falling in love on the page and not right in front of us. This novel is not a bonbon, it is a main course. It is rich and nuanced and completely satisfying.

Delicacy is a delicate, funny, offbeat, and subtle novel. David Foenkinos paces the novel well, breaking it up with songs, lists, footnotes, and other formal elements reminiscent of Nick Hornby or Rick Moody yet making them his own.