nomadreader

The basics: The Year We Left Home  is the story of the Erickson family in Iowa. It stretches from oldest sibling Anita's wedding in the 1970's to present day. My thoughts: I was eager to read The Year We Left Home for two reasons: I've been intending to read Jean Thompson for years and it takes place in Iowa (where I live.) My perceptions of this novel changed mightily as I read it. Over the course of the first one hundred pages, I was convinced it wasn't a novel at all but rather a set of very loosely connected stories. There were gems of gorgeous writing like this sentence: "Ryan had meant something else, though now his meaning escaped him, what was it like, to travel across an ocean, to be in a war, to be afraid for your life, to kill someone or think about killing them, to buy a woman." Still, I yearned for character development. Although the action shifted to different characters, I felt Thompson kept all of them an arm's length away from the reader...

The end of the year is bringing a slew of 'Best of 2011' lists (mine will go up Sunday), but it also means time is running out to nominate your favorite books for the 2011 Indie Lit Awards . The Indie Lit Awards, created by Wallace from Unputdownables last year, allow literary bloggers to be the judges. I'll thrilled to be a  voting member of the fiction category this year . As a voting member, I can't nominate books, so we're relying on readers to nominate the books that will make up the shortlists. Here are the categories: Biography & Memoir, GLBTQ, Fiction, Mystery, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Speculative Fiction. Here are the guidelines for nominations: 1. The books must have been published in 2011. 2. You may nominate up to five books per genre. 3. Anyone may nominate (except those who made a profit on the book, such as the author, publicist or publisher). 4. Nominations are open until December 31, 2011 at 11:59 Pacific time. Have your list of favo...

The backstory:  After so enjoying The Taste of Salt  by Martha Southgate ( my review ), I wanted to read her earlier novels too. The basics: The Fall of Rome  takes place at a private, all boys boarding school in Connecticut. There are three alternating narrators: Jerome Washington, a Negro (his preference) Classics teacher who has been at the school for thirty years; Jana Hansen, a middle-aged divorcee English teacher who is new to the school; and Rashid Bryson, an African-American first-year student with dreadlocks who comes from a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn. My thoughts:  In The Fall of Rome , the three main characters were delightfully diverse, yet I found equally myself compelled by all of them. Despite the differences of these three characters, none were a caricature. Jerome, who could be a bit of a curmudgeon after thirty years at one institution, still had balance: "One thing that became clear to me after I had taught at Chelsea for awhile is that fo...

The backstory: The New York Times  named The Art of Fielding  one of the five best fiction books of 2011 . The basics: The Art of Fielding  is the story of Westish College, a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. The main characters include three members of its Division III baseball team, the college's president, and his daughter. My thoughts: Going into The Art of Fielding , I was curious how much baseball would be its focus. I grew up a huge sports fan, as all of my family still is, but I've distanced myself from following current sports. I still have a love and appreciation for them, and continue to find myself drawn to books and films that feature sports. I have a special soft spot for baseball after spending one of the best summers of my life interning at the Baseball Hall of Fame's Research Library . I appreciated the baseball scenes in The Art of Fielding, but I appreciated the college aspect more. While this novel will certainly appeal to baseball fans...

The basics: Every morning Christine wakes up and doesn't know where she is, how old she is or who the man next to her his. Her husband Ben explains who she is, who he is, and leaves her lists of things to do while he's at work. Meanwhile, Christine has started keeping a journal to remind herself what she learned and remembered the day before. At the beginning of it, she writes: "DON'T TRUST BEN." My thoughts:  Before I Go to Sleep  is a top notch thriller. My mind raced as I read it, and I was eager to unlock the puzzle of if Ben was a model husband trying to protect Christine or if he was keeping things from her, all while I realized this thriller was so rooted in reality, the answer couldn't be an either/or. From Christine's point of view, she wants to know everything about herself. From Ben's point of view, every day is the same; do you want to spend each day reliving the sadness of life and making the one you love sad? What I loved most about t...

I was so excited to participate in the Book Blogger Holiday Swap again this year. I have participated for the past two years (see my loot from 2009 and 2010 ) and discovered new bloggers and had the joy of receiving a package from a blogger who already knows me pretty well. This year once again I was buying for a blogger I did not know, plus she reads in a completely different genre than I do. It's a wonderful reminder of how big and diverse this community of book bloggers in, and it reminds me to step out of my little corner of literary fiction bloggers more often. On to the presents.... Also, I have to give bonus props to my Santa because this gift arrived before Thanksgiving. I had the joy of unwrapping my first Christmas presents on the night before Thanksgiving, and it's taken me this long to actually write a post about it! As you can see, the present if off to an amazing start with this wine pourer and stopper. I eagerly dug into the wrapping paper to see what e...

The backstory: Robert Ellis is my favorite mystery writer. Murder Season  is his third novel to feature Los Angeles detective Lena Gamble (he also has two stand-alone mysteries.) I adored the first two novels in this series, City of Fire ( my review ) and The Lost Witness ( my review ), immensely, and I eagerly awaited the publication of Murder Season  this month. In anticipation, I re-read both City of Fire  and  The Lost Witness  this year, and both earned 5 stars from on the re-read, even though I remembered 'who did it.' Note: because I believe this novel could work as a standalone, this review will not include any spoilers from the first two novels. The basics: Lena gets called to investigate a brutal double murder at a hot Hollywood nightspot. Both the identity of the victims, one famous and one infamous, and the fact the two were even associated with one another, surprises everyone. My thoughts: Admittedly, I went into this novel with high ...