To the Bright Edge of the World

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child, is historical fiction based on the 1885 exploration of Lt. Henry T. Allen into Alaska after the US purchased it from Russia. In the novel, Colonel Allen Forrester leads a small party up the Wolverine River into totally uncharted territory encountering Native American Indians along the way, facing starvation, and meeting shamans and other mythic creatures that blur the lines between the human and animal world.

Back home, his wife Sophie, a naturalist and photographer in her own right, waits for her husband's safe return. Pieced together through journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, photos and museum archives, Ivey has created a story that captures Alaska’s vast unknown wilderness and the vast unknown wilderness of our own human soul. A stunning achievement and worthy follow up to The Snow Child. A great read.

This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell is a novel set in the remote countryside of Ireland, in London and NYC. This is one of the few books I've read that skips around in time, is narrated by several different people, yet was very easy to follow. O'Farrell has crafted a wonderful story of a man in love with a reclusive ex-movie star, who has children in two different parts of the world and is thrown into chaos when a piece of his past comes back to haunt him.

Beautifully told, through all the characters voices. I loved this book. I didn't want to put it down. O'Farrell captures the depth of her characters, their strengths and flaws and all the things that make them human. A great read.

The Mortifications

The Mortifications by Derek Palacio is a novel about a mother and her son and daughter who leave their father behind and escape Cuba on the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. They head north to start a new life in Connecticut. The mother eventually meets a Dutch tobacco farmer and they all seem to be settled in their new life in America.

However, the call of one's homeland is hard to silence. Palacio does a good job of showing just how strong that pull can be, and how strong the bonds of family can be. Ultimately I found the book rather depressing and it reminded me that I generally prefer books written by women.

The Comet Seekers

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick is a beautiful book which traces two families back and forth through centuries as they follow comets around the world. Francios, a French chef living with his mother who sees and talks to ghosts, family members who have passed; Roisin, an Irish astronomer who has left her small village to travel and see the world, struggling with ghosts of her own.

When these two meet at a lonely outpost in Antarctica, they find an unlikely connection and the story unfolds from there. Beautifully written, Sedgwick shows the distances we each need to travel in order to come home to ourselves. A great read.

Grief is the Thing With Feathers

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter is a novella, a poem, a fable, an essay on grief; it is impossible to categorize, it is simply a brilliant piece of writing. After an accidental death leaves two young boys and their father alone without their mother, Crow comes to visit, and stay.

Crow, trickster, therapist, shaman, baby-sitter, mythological figure, call him what you will, he is here to stay until he is no longer needed, kind of like Nanny McPhee.

What follows is one of the most beautiful and original books I have ever read. It blew me away. A highly recommended read.

Hot Milk

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy is a novel about Sofia, a daughter who has traveled to the coast of Spain with her mother Rose seeking a specialist to find a cure for Rose's limb paralysis. It is a mysterious illness that has plagued her for most of her life, with no apparent cause.

Sofia's life is on hold while she tries to attend to her mother. This is her somewhat late coming of age story, a deep look into her interior life and her relationship with her mother. Levy is a talented writer and this book is interesting and original, yet disjointed. I was never drawn in enough to care about any of the characters deeply, even Sofia; and the title remains a mystery.

Sight Reading

Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay is a novel set in the world of classical music, from Boston  to Vienna and across Europe. Three lives intertwine as Hazel and then Remy fall in love with composer Nicholas Elko.

What makes this book special is Kalotay's writing and her ability to create characters full of flaws and emotions covering the full spectrum of what it means to be alive and human. Her love of music saturates the book. A good read.