Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian
If you liked Bridget Jones's Diary then you'd probably also enjoy Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, also by Helen Fielding. If you loved Bridget Jones's Diary, you might be slightly disappointed by Fielding's most recent effort. That said, I enjoyed this novel, and although it is the literary equivalent of a "chick flick," it also contained a surprising amount of dramatic rescues, crime-fighting, and James Bond-esque spy gadgets. The story opens as Olivia Joules, a British reporter (recently demoted from international to style coverage) for the Sunday Times arrives in Miami for a face cream reception. While surrounded by several "actresses slash models," she meets a mysterious, wealthy, exotic movie producer she is simultaneously attracted to and suspicious of, as she thinks he bears a striking resemblance to a known terrorist. When a Google name search yields no results and she witnesses a shocking disaster linked to al-Qaeda, she is convinced he is hiding something. Olivia then follows him to Los Angeles and beyond in a quest to discover whether he is in fact a terrorist or merely a man falling in love with her. One aspect of the book that is particularly appealing is Fielding's depiction of Olivia Joules as an independent, intelligent woman well-versed in international politics while at the same time retaining the fun-loving, hyper-analytical, slightly silly personality so wonderfully depicted in the character of Bridget Jones. (Which reminds me, I also recommend both Bridget Jones's Diary and its sequel, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason).
August 2005 Archives
Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian
Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls is simply one of the most amazing novels I have ever read. I discovered it at a book sale and picked it up because of the attractive cover. Although I hadn't heard of Richard Russo before, and thought I'd made a unique discovery, I was surprised to find that he is widely considered to be among the best contemporary novelists. While many authors sacrifice plot and focus on character development, or vice versa, Empire Falls is a masterful blend of both. Richard Russo delves into the lives of several blue collar characters in Empire Falls, a fictional Maine town. While it was once home to a thriving textile and manufacturing empire owned by the Whiting family, Empire Falls is now a town in the shadow of better days. The central character is Miles Roby, manager of the Empire Grill. The Empire Grill is owned by Mrs. Whiting, the sole remaining Whiting estate heir who has implied that she will one day bequeath the restaurant to Miles. In the meantime, he waits and struggles with various family dynamics--his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her future husband, his daughter's struggles at school, working with his brother to improve the Grill, memories of his mother's relationship with the Whiting family, and the constant confusion surrounding Mrs. Whiting and her true motives. Russo develops all of these subplots and secondary characters and weaves them together into a story that is at once humorous and heartrending.
Reviewed by Patricia Selinger, Preservation Librarian
So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places is one of several fascinating non-fiction books by Elinor Burkett. Written in an engaging journalistic style, Burkett provides a closer look at the post-9/11 culture and politics of Eastern Europe and Asia. If you want to know the story behind the newspaper stories, if you enjoy adventures in foreign lands, or if you want to challenge your thinking, you will enjoy this book.
Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian
The Shipping News, winner of the 1993 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is truly a literary masterpiece. At its center is Quoyle, an awkward, lonely newspaperman who takes his two daughters to his ancestral home in a small town on the Newfoundland coast to start a job at the Gammy Bird, the local newspaper. While writing about car wrecks, the shipping news (records of what ships come and go), and shipwrecks, Quoyle learns about his family's history and develops friendships with the other newspapermen and townspeople. Significantly, it is in this cold, remote fishing village where Quoyle finally experiences a new life which forces him to face his past, his fears, and his insecurities and look to a more promising future.
Reviewed by Curtis Lyons, Head, Special Collections and Archives
VCU alumna Sheri Reynolds writes a poignant novel from the point of view of Ninah Huff, a girl coming of age in an isolated southern religious community led by her grandfather, the founder of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind. The Rapture of Canaan was a 1997 Oprah Book Club pick, and describes the past and future of this community and its founder. Squarely in the Southern Gothic literary tradition, this novel culminates with a series of events, perhaps even a miracle, which force Ninah to face the realities of the community and make difficult choices for herself and those who depend on her. The community has its own personality within which its members, all well-developed characters, must reconcile their own.
Reviewed by Curtis Lyons, Head, Special Collections and Archives
Richmond author James Branch Cabell was catapulted to national prominence when the State of New York unsuccessfully attempted to ban his book Jurgen in 1920. Jurgen is Cabell's simultaneous indictment and defense of the conventions of love, marriage, and sex, complete with very thinly veiled sexual symbolism (very tame by today's standards).
Jurgen, a monstrous clever fellow, is a middle-aged pawn-broker who believes he could have been so much more as he sets off in search of his ensorcelled wife, taken from him in response to an ill-fated remark he made to a stranger. Along the way he is helped and hindered by the likes of Merlin, Helen of Troy, Grandfather Satan, Queen Guinevere, and many other figures from the canon of western literature and is allowed to relive his youth and the lives and loves that he missed out on the first time around.
Cabell is in the satiric tradition of Cervantes, Erasmus, Rabelais, and Swift and was a major influence on Robert Heinlein and Neil Gaiman. You can read more about Cabell and his works at theVCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives online exhibit.
Cabell Library PS3505 .A153 J8 (Multiple Copies in Stacks and Special Collections and Archives. Check VCU Libraries Catalog for holdings information)
Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian
Charming Billy (1998) is this year's GO READ selection. It won the National Book Award and was a 1999 ALA Notable Book. The story opens as a group of Irish Americans are gathered in a Bronx bar following the funeral of main character Billy Lynch. What follows is an exploration of lost love, nostalgia, and betrayal as Billy's life story is pieced together in the following hours. Throughout his adult life, Billy struggled with alcoholism, traced to his cousin Dennis's revelation that his fiance in Ireland had died. Despite his lifelong sorrow and alcoholism, Billy married and was known to his friends and family as a romantic, a charmer. As a friend explained, "If you knew Billy at all," he said, "then you loved him. He was just that type of guy."
Consider reading Charming Billy in the coming weeks, and join others at VCU for book discussions and special events throughout the fall semester. See the GO READ VCU website for more information.
Reviewed by Monique Prince, Undergraduate Services Librarian
If you like nonfiction that reads like fiction, or if you think you don't like nonfiction at all, try Confederates in the Attic by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horwitz. He wrote this book shortly after settling in Virginia following several years as a journalist overseas. Living in the South rekindled a childhood fascination with the Civil War and he set out on a quest to discover what it is about that war in particular that continues to endure in the present-day, particularly among Southerners. He decided to spend a year traveling throughout the South, where virtually all Civil War action took place. Horwitz visits cities such as Charleston, South Carolina and Vicksburg, Mississippi, as well as Civil War battlefields, including Shiloh and Antietam. Of particular interest to Richmonders is the time Horwitz spent in the capital of the Confederacy and the surrounding battlefields and historic sites. Of Richmond, Horwitz writes: "The city seemed somehow more Southern than I'd expected. There was a geniality and leisure in the way people spoke and smiled at each other that resonated much more of Memphis or Charleston, a day's drive away, than of Virginia cities just a short distance north." He visited Hollywood Cemetery and Monument Avenue, and attended the debate about placing the Arthur Ashe statue at one end. While this book is written with wit and humor, it also addresses serious issues of racism, regional differences, perception, and ways people give meaning to historical events; while in Richmond, Horwitz poses a question he'd been considering throughout his trip: whether or not there is "such a thing as politically correct remembrance of the Confederacy? Or was any attempt to honor the Cause inevitably tainted by what Southerners once delicately referred to as their 'peculiar institution'?"
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The VCU Libraries is pleased to introduce BOOK reMARKS, a site for book recommendations from library staff. This blog highlights fiction and nonfiction from the VCU Libraries collection, including classics, award winners, new releases, and Virginia literature. To learn how to post comments, or for additional information, Please see the BOOK reMARKS Blog FAQs.
