nomadreader

narrated by Julia Whelan The backstory: Girl at War is on the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize longlist. Update: Girl at War  has been longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize . The basics: In 1991, Ana is living a typical ten-year-old's life in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, when the Yugoslavian war breaks out. My thoughts: I'm about the same age as Ana, so I was immediately drawn into her story. As a ten-year-old, she doesn't understand what's happening, and as a reader, neither did I. I've heard of the war, but my knowledge of it was slim at best. While coming of age stories set against a war backdrop are hardly new, Novic takes Ana's story in unexpected directions. We enter the story in 1991, but the story is told in several nonlinear parts. The action next jumps to New York City in 2001, where Ana is in college. Novic skillfully moves locations and times in a way that enhance the story, both emotionally and in structurally. Again, I could ...

The backstory: Redeployment , the debut short story collection by Phil Klay, has been honored twice by the National Book Award . It's on the 2014 shortlist, and it's also a 5 Under 35 pick. The basics: This thematic collection of short stories focuses on soldiers fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Klay served in the U.S. Marine Corps and in the Iraq War. My thoughts: There's been a surge of fiction about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars in the past few years. I've read and reviewed several titles here: Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter, Unremarried Widow  by Artis Henderson, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk  by Ben Fountain, The Yellow Birds  by Kevin Powers, and You Know When The Men Are Gone  by Siobhan Fallon. Just as I've come to compare books about World War II to one another, I've also apparently reached the threshhold where stories about the Iraq and Afghanistan cause me to reflect and compare them against one another. In this sense, Phil Klay...

The backstory: Dirty Wars  is one of the five films nominated for the Best Documentary Academy Award this year. The basics: Jeremy Scahill, a foreign correspondent for The Nation,  investigates the unseen wars the U.S. is fighting. My thoughts: Jeremy Scahill, best known for exposing Blackwater, sets his sights on uncovering the stories behind the NATO reports. He's first drawn to Gardez, Afghanistan, where civilians and an Afghan police chief trained by the U.S. are killed. Throughout the film, Scahill manages to get impressive access to both government officials and locals in the war zones. The film isn't necessarily a marvel of visual filmmaking, but it is a marvel of documentary film as an information resource. The emphasis here isn't style; it's relaying critical information. By taking the viewer along on Scahill's journey, this film watches like an unfolding mystery. Although Scahill didn't know how this story (or stories) was end, I'm thankful...

The basics:  "Jim Kennoway was once an esteemed member of the ornithology department at the Museum of Natural History in New York, collecting and skinning birds as specimens. Slowing down from a hard-lived life and a recent leg amputation, Jim retreats to an island in Maine: to drink, smoke, and to be left alone. As a young man he worked for Naval Intelligence during World War II in the Solomon Islands. While spying on Japanese shipping from behind enemy lines, Jim befriended Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout. Now, thirty years later, Tosca has sent his daughter Cadillac to stay with Jim in the weeks before she begins premedical studies at Yale. She arrives to Jim’s consternation, yet she will capture his heart and the hearts of everyone she meets, irrevocably changing their lives." (from publisher) My thoughts: I knew very little about this novel when I began reading. I picked up a copy at ALA in June because of the praise for Greenway's first no...

Welcome to Short Story Saturday, a semi-regular feature. The project stems from a desire to read more short stories. It's not a secret I prefer novels to short stories, but I'm working to stretch myself as a reader, and part of that will be reading more short stories. When I have read short story collections, I've often found them hard to review as a whole. This feature will allow me to review collections as a whole or separately, but I'll also be reviewing individual stories from a variety of sources. The basics: You Know When the Men Are Gone is a loosely interconnected set of stories about soldiers and their families at Ft. Hood in Texas. My thoughts: Although I'm not always a fan of short story collections, I'm beginning to think I do enjoy collections with a strong theme. After reading so many glowing reviews of this collection, I grabbed it off the shelf at the library one day and started reading. The first (and titular) story was engrossing...

The backstory: I loved Scottsboro , Ellen Feldman's last novel ( my review ), which was on the 2009 Orange Prize shortlist, and I've been eagerly awaiting Next to Love since I first heard about it. The basics: Next to Love  is the story of Babe, Millie and Grace, three long-time friends who together face their husbands (or boyfriend in the case of Babe) going off to war, the tragedies of war and re-building a life after war. My thoughts: Sometimes when I start reading a book, I never want to put it down. It isn't necessarily an indication I will think of the book in the coming months and years. I enjoy thrillers and mysteries, and it's often the experience of reading them I enjoy. Then there are books I may not especially enjoy while reading them (ahem, Freedom ), but I can't stop thinking about them. Sometimes the book is both. Next to Love  was both an exhilarating read, albeit a tragic one, and one that ventured beyond its initial scope to enchant me furthe...

The backstory: Invisible Bridge  was one of Entertainment Weekly 's 10 Best Novels of 2010, a New York Times  Notable Book in 2010, and Julie Orringer is coming to Albany Thursday night as part of the New York State Writer's Institute Visiting Writers Series . (Update: The Invisible Bridge has been longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize !) The basics: The novel opens with Andreas Levi, a young Jewish student in Hungary, as he is preparing to move to Paris, where he has an architecture scholarship but knows no one and very little French. He's asked to deliver a package and a mysterious letter by a wealthy family after a chance meeting. My thoughts: I hesitate to describe  Invisible Bridge  as a love story because that oversimplifies what is an accomplished massive, sweeping novel. Yes, romance is a major element of this novel, but no more so than it is in life. I was instantly fascinated with Andras and his fascinating journey from Hungary to Paris. The reader can ...

The basics: Matt Damon plays Roy Miller,a warrant officer leading teams on tactical missions to discover the weapons of mass destruction we all now know were never there. My thoughts: If you're been paying attention for long here, you know I'm not a big fan of war films (the notable exception, of course, being The Messenger , which is both the best war film I've seen and the best film of 2009.) I almost always enjoy Matt Damon, and his films with Paul Greengrass have been smart, action thrillers, so I was still eager to see this film. Green Zone take place, not surprisingly, in the Green Zone of Iraq. It's a contemporary war film, a genre that often has trouble gaining traction. If you're a person who goes to movies to escape reality, then you probably don't read my blog; if you're a person who goes to movies to gain a deeper understanding of the world, contemporary or not, and also to be entertained, then you might just find yourself in love with this ...

The backstory: Birds of a Feather  is the second Maisie Dobbs mystery novel, and I'm reading the entire series as part of Book Club Girl's Read-Along . My review of Maisie Dobbs , the first novel in the series, is here . The basics: Maisie Dobbs is back to solve another case. This case is a bit more serious than the last one: Maisie is hired to find Charlote Waite, the only daughter of a wealthy businessman, who has gone missing. My thoughts: Birds of a Feather  was more of a pure mystery than Maisie Dobbs . The reader is already familiar with Maisie and her history, and Maisie gets to solve a much more difficult (and increasingly frightening) crime. The missing person case is shrouded in mystery and Maisie is cognizant of the fact Charlotte's father came to her rather than the police. Despite the mystery being the focus of this novel, Winspear still manages to enhance Maisie's character as well as let the other minor characters shine. Part of what makes this ...

The backstory:   Small Wars  was on the 2010 Orange Prize longlist. The basics: Set in British-occupied Cyprus in the 1950's, Small Wars  is the story of a young married couple, Hal and Clara. Hal is an officer in the British army. It's a politically tumultuous time, as Cypriots are increasingly resistant to the British. My thoughts: Small Wars  is a beautiful, subtle and powerful novel. It's not a novel that sets out to make its case from page one, and its power snuck up on me. Perhaps because of the cover, I expected this novel to be mostly Clara's story, but Jones shifts seamlessly back and forth between Clara and Hal's perspectives, often on the very same page. Initially, I identified with Clara more, but surprisingly, Hal ended up stealing this book for me. With my modern perspective, even knowing very little about this time in history, it was clear to see loyalties shifting. While this novel was about Cyprus in the 1950's, many of the names could be...

The backstory: The Lotus Eaters  was a 2010 New York Times Notable Book . It is Tatjana Soli's first novel. The basics: Helen Adams is a photographer covering the Vietnam War. The novel opens in 1975, as Saigon is falling. Then the action returns to Helen's first days in Vietnam. My thoughts: The reader is instantly immersed in the chaos of the war's last days in Saigon, and it was initially a (and intentionally, I presume) jarring experience. I was intrigued and relieved when the action shifted back to the story's beginning shortly thereafter. Glimpsing the after provided a richness to the earlier events and instantly allowed the reader to see how much the characters and their relationships with one another changed during the war. Seeing the end at the beginning enriched the story immensely (it's a technique I appreciated in White Woman on the Green Bicycle -- one of my favorite reads of 2010 --too) and the novel still maintained suspense and intrigue. For ...

The backstory: The Sentimentalists, the first novel from Johanna Skibsrud, won the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which recognizes excellence in Canadian fiction. The basics: In some ways, The Sentimentalists is a war novel. In other ways, it's a daughter's ode to her father. Ultimately, my inability to share basic plot details of a short novel is a testament to how much power Skibsrud packs into those 224 pages. My thoughts:  I read The Sentimentalists in one sitting, which is remarkable enough alone for me, but this single sitting is made more remarkable because I started it on a Sunday night at 11 p.m. when I got home from an exhausting night waiting tables and had to be at work at 9 a.m. Monday morning. I lost sleep for this one, and it was so worth it.  Skibsrud's writing grabbed me from the earliest pages:  "My father was a great reader and a great rememberer of things, though he never remembered anything in the right order, or entirely, and always ...