Archive for the ‘Award Winner / Nominee’ Category
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Mass market, 482 pages, 1992
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: After having read Connelly’s Harry Bosch series for years I finally decided to start at the beginning of the series.
Synopsis: When Detective Harry Bosch is called to the scene of an apparent overdose, things just aren’t adding up for him. Sure, the deceased, a fellow ‘tunnel rat’ who fought alongside Bosch in Vietnam, had his share of problems after returning from the war, but things had been looking up. Someone wanted this man dead and they were prepared to kill him and do much more to hide their secret, and the renegade cop Bosch might be the only thing standing in their way…
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Suspense, Thriller | No Comments »
Friday, October 6th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade), 470 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: I loved Fingersmith; The Night Watch is currently on the shortlist for the 2006 Booker Prize.
Synopsis: Four restless Londoners, three women and a young man, deal with war-torn life in the 1940s, struggling to find happiness and love in a time when their normal problems are compounded by bombings and deaths.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical, War/Military | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
Trade, 334 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: It’s a Booker Prize long-lister - and I hope it’s soon to be a short-lister, as well.
Synopsis: John Egan is an eleven-year-old living in rural Ireland, where life isn’t perfect, but he has his beloved Guinness Book of World Records set to see him through the days. When he starts developing an amazing skill of his own - he can detect lies - he becomes fixated on receiving an entry of his own in the record books, and his determination to always expose the truth leaves his family and everyone in his life vulnerable to destruction from truths best left untold.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Contemporary | No Comments »
Saturday, October 29th, 2005
Hardcover (available in trade), 317 pages, 2005
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: It was on the Booker Prize Shortlist for 2005.
Synopsis: 18-year-old Willie Dunne has settled nicely into his young life - he’s got family he’s close to, he has a wonderful sweetheart, Gretta, who he’s hoping to start a life with together shortly, and while things in 1914 Ireland may not be that great, they’re certainly tolerable. In fact, Willie decides to enlist in the army for several months of training and fighting in order to prove himself a man, especially to his father, a policeman - a career path Willie is frustratingly too short to pursue. But the war doesn’t end, and Willie is destined to fight a long, cruel battle as he struggles to return home again.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical, War/Military | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 15th, 2004
Hardcover (available), 438 pages, 2004
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: The 2004 winner of my favourite award, the Booker Prize.
Synopsis: In the year 1983, 20-year-old Nick leads what is, to him, a very complicated life. He’s a wannabe trying desperately to fit into a wealthy, politically active family, convinced that he’s got the smarts and culture to pull it off. He’s desperate to impress his friend Toby’s father, Gerald, an ambitious man of politics with a determination to make it into Prime Minister Thatcher’s inner circles, but it’s going to take a lot to win the approval of a group that speaks casually of dukes and the expensive artwork hanging in their homes. Nick’s dilemma? He believes that the thing he wants the most - to find a man he can love and that will love him in return - is his biggest obstacle to acceptance by the elite crowd.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Contemporary, Politics, Gay & Lesbian | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Hardcover (available in mass market), 225 pages, 1988
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: Mercy Among the Children was in my Top 10 of 2002, and I finally got around to trying another book by Richards.
Synopsis: In small-town New Brunswick, there’s no escaping your neighbours, your reputation, or yourself, much to the dismay of the inhabitants. The narration hops between characters, including Joe Walsh, a man struggling to overcome a drinking problem; his wife Rita, who ends up as a doormat because of her refusal to admit people might not have her best intentions in mind; and their daughter Adele, who’s so stuck on the idea of independence, she’s completely unable to reach out for help for fear of looking weak or uncertain.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Contemporary | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Trade, 340 pages, 2004
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: My second Booker Prize shortlister read of 2004.
Synopsis: In The Electric Michelangelo, Hall guides us through the life of Cy Parks, whose odd upbringing in a hotel filled with the fatally ill seems to have him destined for an unusual life. Cy meets a tattoo artist, Eliot Riley, and subsequently finds his life expanding and changing for both the better and the worse as he walks among a secret world of people with the craving to brand their outsides with symbols of their souls.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical | Comments Off
Saturday, November 6th, 2004
Hardcover (available in trade), 338 pages, 2004
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize this year. I figured I’d see how many I could read before the prize was announced so I could see if I agreed on the decision, because I’m silly like that.
Synopsis: The Master is a fictionalized account of the life of author Henry James during the last five years of the nineteenth century, when the acclaimed author was in his mid-to-late fifties. Tóibín introduces us to James’s family, friends, and colleagues, as well love interests, and offers a view on how his writing may have affected his relationships and vice versa.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical | Comments Off
Saturday, June 5th, 2004
Trade (available in mass market), 286 pages, 1920
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I’m a big fan of Wharton’s book House of Mirth.
Synopsis: Newland Archer seems to have everything - good social standing among his New York peers, the luxury of leading the life of a gentleman, and a sweet bride-to-be, May Welland. But the arrival of May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, throws his rigid, conformist 19th-century world into disarray with her free-spirited lack of concern with how society should be run.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Classic | No Comments »
Thursday, March 18th, 2004
Trade, 449 pages, 1997
Rating: 7/10
Reason for Reading: I initially noticed this one at a used bookstore, but wasn’t really intrigued by the war setting. After I saw the movie, though, which I really liked, I changed my mind.
Synopsis: America’s civil war has divided a nation in thought and on a personal level. The story is told in the alternating viewpoints of Ada, a delicate belle left to fend for herself on a farm, and Inman, a wounded soldier that doesn’t care about the cause anymore and just wants to return home. In the book, we see the struggle for survival, both in finding a way to live and finding a reason to want to live.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Historical, War/Military | 4 Comments »