Review: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferrris

It's hard to imagine having an "unnamed" disease that makes you feel compelled to get up and walk without a destination or plans...just walk. This is what happens to Tim Farnsworth, a man who has a wife and daughter and a successful career as a partner in a law firm. Tim's mind appears to shut down and he doesn't even prepare for these spur of the moments impulses of extreme walking. He has travelled the globe to find answers but no medical professional can identify the cause of this malady. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris takes you as a reader on a roller coaster of a ride as Tim tries to fight the force of this unnatural state that grips his life and the unpredictability it brings. We see the effects of this illness and how Tim manages this journey as well as how it affects his wife and daughter.

I listened to The Unnamed as an audio book which the author narrated. This story is definitely unique and a bit unpredictable but it's sad and depressing. I was hoping for some redeeming or uplifting moments in the story but they never surfaced. I have to say that evoking emotion is a skill and one that Joshua Ferris does well as an author. Although, for me, I found this book very depressing. Listening to the book may have made it more real and visceral as the author reads it with his own emphasis on certain parts of the story. I did enjoy listening to the author interview as he explained his thoughts about the characters and writing the book.

You can listen to an excerpt of The Unnamed, here.

You can read an excerpt of The Unnamed, here.


Disclosure: Thanks to Hachette for sending me a copy of this audio book for review. I am an Amazon and Indiebound associate.

Mailbox Monday~ June 7,2010

Mailbox Monday is a fun meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that came into our house by mail.  My system of limiting review copies so that I can catch up on my stacks of books is working! Yeah, I only got one book in the mail this week. I'm still reading slowly as a lot is going on to keep me busy these days. This is what arrived in my mailbox this week:

Major Pettigrews Last Stand by Helen Simonson from Paperbackswap

Guest Post with Karen White author of On Folly Beach & Giveaway

Yesterday, I reviewed On Folly Beach, a wonderful story that intertwines the stories of two women during different time periods. It ties in family issues, love, loss, mystery and more.  I'm thrilled to welcome Karen White author of On Folly Beach to share a wonderful guest post with everyone today. Karen will be talking about where she gets her ideas and characters from as a writer.

I’m Not Making This Up. Really.

Tomorrow I’m heading out of town for the second family funeral in as many months. The first funeral was for my ninety-five year old grandmother, who’d had a long and wonderful life despite her last years with Alzheimer’s. The second, my mother-in-law, was seventy-seven and like my grandmother, had a long life and left behind many friends and family members who remember them with smiles and love.

As sad as losing two family members is, there’s something about the gathering of family and loved ones that lends a certain gaiety to the proceedings; the impromptu family gathering becomes a celebration of the deceased’s life. It also becomes the breeding ground for story ideas in the head of a writer. I know, I know—but I can’t seem to help it.

My beloved grandmother, Grace Bianca, was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, in the small town of Indianola (where BB King also hails from). There are no hills, or even bumps in the road in the Delta—just flat land as far as you can see filled with cotton fields and catfish farms. My grandmother (MoMo as she was affectionately known by her nineteen grandchildren) knew everyone in the county, and they all knew her. She owned a successful shoe store in downtown Indianola and always gave us shoes as gifts.

MoMo was well-known for her penchant for what we call bling, but which she referred to as her “jewry.” (I didn’t know the word had an ‘l’ in it until I was in middle school). I never saw her sleep, and I never saw her without her hair brushed, her makeup on, fully dressed, or without a cup of coffee in her hand. And I never, ever saw her without her “jewry.”

At the viewing, MoMo looked beautiful (in a lovely red suit she would have loved). Long lengths of costume pearls hung around her neck, and a matching bracelet adorned her wrist. But she wore no earrings. Not even little studs (impossible since she’d never had her ears pierced). I was dismayed, as were my other cousins standing with me at the coffin. We knew MoMo would not want to meet Jesus without her earrings.

A small tussle ensued around the coffin between my aunt (who’d removed the earrings because she thought they were too big) and her daughter, my cousin, who insisted that MoMo would want those earrings on her ears. Luckily, my cousin prevailed and was soon leaning over MoMo and placing the earrings back on.

I’m not telling you this to be morbid. I’m telling you this so you can get a visual of nineteen grown adults arguing with an elderly aunt about a pair of earrings over the coffin of the deceased. It reads like a scene from a book, doesn’t it? And I sincerely don’t think I could make up anything half as good!

Tomorrow is the service for my mother-in-law. Her Irish brothers (her maiden name was Houlihan) will be there and I’m sure drinking will be involved. At least it was at my wedding. My husband’s uncles do seem to like to toast a lot and I can’t imagine this family gathering will be much different. Except this time my dad won’t be paying for it.

I married a Yankee so my children won’t need translators to understand their cousins or great-aunts and uncles (like they did during their Mississippi visit). My husband is the executor of his mother’s will and was the first to see how my mother-in-law distributed her estate. Right off the bat, my sister-in-law gets a lump sum, the rest to be divided between all three children. No explanation as to why one child would be favored over the other. Interesting, huh?

No, my husband doesn’t begrudge his sister a cent. She helped care for their mother during her illness and was truly a rock for all of us who lived far away and couldn’t help with her day-to-day care. Still, we wonder. Tim wonders if he did something to offend his mother in some way he wasn’t aware of. But he’s a guy, and a banker and therefore his imagination is limited. Because I’m sitting here and my mind is wandering far and wide as I contemplate her reasons for the uneven distribution: a stolen child, or an illegitimate birth, maybe a castle inheritance in Ireland, or a royal claim! Did I mention I’m a writer?

I’m about to head out on a book tour for my May release, ON FOLLY BEACH, and I know I will be asked more than once about where I get my ideas. That’s easy. I live my life just like everybody else, and take notes.

The hard part comes later when it’s time to use those notes to create a believable page-turner, filled with characters my readers care about and want to root for. Characters I swear come from my head and have no basis on anybody real like cousins, or aunts or grandmothers. Which is why I call what I write fiction. Because it is. Well, most of it anyway.

Thanks to Karen White for sharing this interesting story about where she gets ideas for her writing. You just never know who is watching you and taking notes! Check out Karen White's website, here.

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

I am excited to tell you that you have the opportunity to win your own copy of On Folly Beach! The publisher, Penguin, has offered to send a copy of the book to TWO lucky winners!

All you have to do is leave a comment, make sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you are a winner. Otherwise, I won't be able to include your name in the drawing. Open to US & Canada only. Books will ship directly to the winners from the publisher. Enter by June 12, 2010.

Book Review: On Folly Beach by Karen White

Synopsis from TLC Book Tours:

To most people, Folly Beach, South Carolina, is simply the last barrier island before the Atlantic. To some, it’s a sanctuary, which is why Emmy Hamilton’s mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly’s Finds, hoping it will distract Emmy from the loss of her husband in Afghanistan. Emmy is at first resistant, but intrigued after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly’s Finds, and decides to take the plunge. The store’s seller insists on one condition: Emmy must allow Lulu, the late owner’s elderly sister, to continue selling her bottle trees from its back yard.

Emmy generally ignores Lulu as she sifts through the love letters, wanting to learn more. But the more she discovers of the letters’ authors, the closer she feels to Lulu. As details of a possible murder and a mysterious disappearance during World War II are revealed, the two women discover that circumstances beyond their control, sixty years apart, have brought them together, here on Folly Beach. And it is here that their war-ravaged hearts can find hope for a second chance…

My Review:

On Folly Beach is a beautiful novel that successfully ties together two parallel stories, one set in the 1940's during WWII and the other set in the present time. The two stories are connected by a love of books and literature, loss, and mystery.  Emmy is the newcomer to Folly Beach as she has just moved there and is a recent widow, losing her husband Ben who fought in Afghanistan. Emmy has a library science background and has bought the local bookstore, Folly's Finds. She is intrigued by the box of books that her mother had purchased from the store months before. In this box, she finds love letters and a beautiful picture of a bottle tree drawn on the inside of an old book. She is drawn to these mysteries and tries to piece things together from the past.  Folly's Finds was originally owned by Maggie, who is the sister of Lulu and is still alive and living on Folly Beach. Lulu is an artist of sorts who creates the beautiful bottle trees that are sold from the backyard of Folly's Finds. Lulu isn't the easiest person for Emmy to get to know. She's not thrilled that Emmy is stirring up memories from the past and ones that she isn't fond of revisiting. Lulu has been protecting a family secret for a long time and she isn't sure that she wants to reveal it.

On Folly Beach was the first book that I've read by Karen White and I was captivated by the story and her writing. I liked so many things about this book...the wonderful and diverse characters, the beautiful southern setting, the bookstore and literary references, the mystery and the history. I felt that all of these pieces were drawn together beautifully to form a wonderfully strong and rich novel.

I was drawn in by the historical aspects Ms. White weaved into the storyline and felt compelled to do some research after I finished the book. I was fascinated by the tie in to the presence of German U-boats off the coast of the US and Nazi spies infiltrating our society during WWII. I enjoyed learning about the history and folklore related to Bottle Trees as I had not heard of them before. The Bottle Trees are considered a colorful folk tradition with the purpose of protecting you by warding off evil spirits who are drawn to the insides of the bottles as they shimmer with color and trap the spirits inside the bottles forever.

I look forward to reading more books by Karen White in the future. Make sure to visit Karen White's website, here to learn more about her and her books.

You can read an excerpt of On Folly Beach, here.

Make sure to check back tomorrow ,June 2nd, for a special guest post written by Karen White and a giveaway for two copies of  On Folly Beach!

I read on Folly Beach by Karen White as part of her blog tour with TLC Book Tour. To check out other blog tour stops go here.

Disclosure: A copy of the book provided by the publisher for review. I am an Amazon and Indiebound affiliate.

Mailbox Monday: May 31, 2010

Mailbox Monday is a fun meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that came into our house by mail. I've been limiting the books that I am accepting to review as I shared in a recent post, I have been in a reading slump. I feel overwhelmed with all the books that I have acquired and need to focus on those. I've even gone through my piles of books and TBR books on my bookshelf and am sorting through them. I shared a bunch with my book club friends and will donate a bunch to the library as well. This is what arrived in my mailbox this week:

Life Without Summer by Lynne Griffin (A surprise from St. Martins Press)

Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani from Paperbackswap

A gorgeous set of notecards and bookmarks made by Paper Love By Brooke won from Trish at Love, Laughter, And A  Touch Of Insanity. 

Review: The Language God Talks by Herman Wouk

This is a review for the  audiobook edition of The Language God Talks by Herman Wouk written by my husband Greg.







Wouk's thesis centers itself on a quote from the physicist Richard Feynman who said,

"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."

The balance of the book attempts to show that it is possible to believe otherwise. The book is also about how the author himself, who can best be described as one who has comfortably reconciled his secularism with his faith. He finds no contradiction in that, nor with the divide between tradition and western thinking. The account is a personal one and takes on greater significance considering that he was raised in an observant Jewish family, studied the Talmud, entered the Navy in WWII, later become a playwright, and finally a novelist. He also endured great personal tragedy. Wouk brings in material from many sources including the Bible, astrophysics, politics, tradition, Confucius, the Talmud, and from his own works. Much of his anecdotal accounts are based on his book War and Remembrance. In particular, his incorporation of the Holocaust into that work. The first half of The Language God Talks focuses on “the stage” based mostly on cosmology, the latter half “the drama” based on the human experience. It concludes with the sermon "Heroes of the Illiad" given by the fictional character "Aaron Jastrow". This, as the author admits, is the closest he comes to setting down his beliefs into words.

Another curious Feynmanism that is given weight is when he asks Wouk:

"Do you know calculus?" and he replies that he doesn't. "You had better learn it; it's the language God talks."

Wouk who admits he doesn't have a mathematical mind, spends unsuccessful years trying to learn calculus. Personally, I don’t believe you have to understand the nitty-gritty details of calculus to appreciate the essential purity and truth of it, or the fact that it was independently discovered by two different people (thus suggesting it was discovered, not "invented"). I wouldn’t limit the discussion to calculus either. Rather, I would broaden it to include all of mathematics. Case in point, I’m currently reading a book titled “God Created the Integers by Stephen Hawking. In addition to the absoluteness and purity of mathematics, I would also mention the great success that mathematics has had in describing the universe. Likely, this is the gist of what Feynman was getting at.

As you would expect from a book of this nature, there are no answers given. You are left to draw your own conclusions from the supply of brain fodder presented here. It's incredible that Wouk has been able to produce this work so late in his life. His stature shines through. After completing it, I've immediately begun listening to it a second time in order to form my own personal synthesis of the material. It is not yet done with me.


*Listen to an excerpt of The Language God Talks, here.

Disclosure: Thanks to Hachette for sending a copy of this audiobook for review. I am an Amazon associate and Indiebound associate.
 

Catching up!

It's been a bit quiet here on the blog for the past week for many reasons. I was without internet connection for awhile, the stess & busyness of life caught up with me and last but not least....I got into a reading slump.

I've actually been reading, but at a slower pace and I have several reviews to write up. I've read Little Bee by Chris Cleave and had a great discussion with my book club last week. I've also read and can't wait to tell you about Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. On audiobook, I've listened to The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith and The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris.

I just needed a break and I will be back to writing book reviews and blog posts before you know it.

Mailbox Monday~May 17, 2010

Mailbox Monday is a fun meme hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that came into our house by mail. This is what arrived in my mailbox this week:

Huck by Janet Elder from Broadway Books/Random House

Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch from Bookmooch

So Happy Together by Maryann McFadden won from

LibraryThing Early Reviewers

God Never Blinks by Regina Brett (Audiobook) from Hachette

The War Lovers by Evan Thomas (audiobook) from Hachette

The Language God Talks by Herman Wouk (audiobook) from Hachette