The Cat’s Table, Michael Ondaatje
(author of The English Patient) Amazon Best Books of the Month,
10/2011
In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in
Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the
“cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with a ragtag group of
“insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship
crosses the Indian Ocean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another,
bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions
as well: they are first exposed to the magical worlds of jazz, women, and
literature by their eccentric fellow travelers, and together they spy on a
shackled prisoner, his crime and fate a galvanizing mystery that will haunt
them forever. By turns poignant and electrifying, The Cat’s Table is a
spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of
childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular
sea voyage.
288 pages
The Dovekeepers is
Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of
research and imagination.
Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews
held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the
Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five
children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a
spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous
women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died
in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that
death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the murder of her daughter by
Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what
they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless
rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born
in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with
uncanny insight and power.
The lives of these four complex and fiercely
independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are
dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they
come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.
528 pages
The
Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes
Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in
a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and
emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a
stunning new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.
This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a
middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about—until
his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the
grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he
built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure
retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now
has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he
is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the
world.
“A page-turner, and when you finish you will
return immediately to the beginning.” —San Francisco Chronicle
At 176 pages, The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes Man
Booker-nominated latest is barely even a novella. Yet, there's something to be
said for an author willing to tell a story in the time that is needed to tell
it, and not feeling compelled to pad the narrative. Mr. Barnes has included
exactly what's needed within these pages and not a word more.
A Yellow Raft on Blue Water,
Michael Doris
The author has crafted a fierce saga of three
generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet
inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and
moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women:
fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine,
consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce
and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals,
and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared
past. 384 pages
