Saturday, July 31, 2010

Read a Long: The Space Between Us - Final Installment

Lisa from Lit and Life has hosted "Thrity Thursdays" aka a readalong of The Space Between Us by Thrity Urmigar.  This is week the final week of the read a long - I missed posting the last 2 weeks due to some craziness at work and I have to admit that read straight through the book after week 2 because I was enjoying it so much!  My first two posts are here and here.

In the first part of the book, Urmigar sets up each character giving the reader a picture of who they are today while providing brief glimpses into the pasts that created them.  We meet Bhima, see hardships she endures daily and feel her disappointment and frustration with her granddaughter Maya who has dropped out of university due to an unexpected pregnancy.  We also meet Sera, for whom Bhima serves as a housekeeper and cook; she is a proud, self-contained woman but it is clear there is much beneath the surface.   In addition to presenting these two characters, Urmigar begins to demonstrate the "space" between them - both literal (floor versus chair; slum versus highrise) and metaphorical (high versus low class, educated vs. uneducated).

In the last half of the book,  the pasts of each of these characters unfold and we learn how they have been shaped by their experiences as young women.  Their stories unfold rather quickly in the last half of the book and we learn that although these women are at very different stations in society they have both suffered in their own ways and been deeply hurt by those they most love.  Loss and betrayal is the great equalizer for these women.  I did feel, however, that Bhima's losses were more tragic.  With limited resources, she seemed less equipped to recover from what befalls her.  In addition, she was betrayed by her husband but also by society when she was taken advantage of due to her lack of education.  The deck seemed so stacked against her and I found the inevitability of her fate due to the class into which she was born very grim.

Urmigar is a talented writer - this book was beautifully written with excellent character development - while still being easy to read.   I will certainly be reading more by this author!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Mailbox Monday/In My Mailbox: July 26, 2010


Story Siren hosts In My Mailbox where book bloggers offer a peek into the books that arrived in their homes over the past week. Mailbox Monday hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page has the same objective. These memes are great in that they offer us a chance to see what others are reading- it's like candy for book addicts!

Here is what has arrived since my last IMM/MM post (almost 3 weeks ago!)

With Friends Like These: A NovelThe Castaways: A NovelWaxed: A Novel
Netherland (Vintage Contemporaries)The Inn at Lake DevineJan's Story: Love lost to the long goodbye of Alzheimer'sNights Beneath the Nation

What arrived in your home this week?

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Readalong of "The Space Between Us" by Thrity Urmigar

Lisa from Lit and Life is hosting "Thrity Thursdays" aka a readalong of The Space Between Us by Thrity Urmigar.  This is week two of the readalong (check out my post for week 1 here) and we are covering Chapters 7-12

The stories of Bhima and Sera's lives unfold in these chapters.  We are taken back to each woman's younger self when each were first married.  As we learn more about each woman's life, we are also given insight into each woman's mostly private suffering.  Sera's husband, Feroz, was physically and emotionally abusive - there is one scene that was hard to read because Feroz's rage was so intense and I could almost feel Sera's fear of him and anguish that she had married a man that would treat her that way.  We are also given glimpses into Bhima's younger life - interestingly she and her husband seem to be enjoying their young married life, despite their meager means, but betrayal is foreshadowed - I am anxious to read on and see what happens with Bhima's husband. 

In addition to the stories of these two women, the novel also provides glimspes of life in contemporary Mumbai.  Scenes of the slums and the markets are vivid.  I visited India in January - my friends and I took a 2 week tour through North India and finished our trip in Mumbai.  On the way into the city, we stopped at a slum in which most of the residents provide laundry service to households and businesses throughout the city.  I included two photos below because when I read descriptions of the slum in which Bhima and Maya live I  think of this scene. 



If you are interested in reading the book stop by Lit and Life and sign-up for the readalong.  For more thoughts on the book, stop by the blogs of the other participants:

Ti at Book Chatter
Dar at Peeking Between The Pages
Staci at Life In The Thumb
Kathy at Mommy's Reading
Bailey at The Window Seat Reader
Mari at Bookworm With A View

In addition, Swapna at S. Krishna's Books is hosting a giveaway for 4 of Thrity Urmigar's books and The Space Between Us is one of them! 

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Waiting on Wednesday: Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson


 From Amazon.com: At thirty-three, talented chef Georgia Gray has everything a woman could want—the top job at one of Manhattan’s best restaurants; a posse of smart and savvy gal pals who never let her down; and a platinum-set, cushion-cut diamond engagement ring courtesy of Glenn, the handsome entertainment lawyer who Georgia’s overbearing mother can’t wait for her to marry. The table is set for the ambitious bride-to-be until a scathing restaurant review destroys her reputation. To add salt to her wounds, Glenn suddenly calls off the wedding.
Brokenhearted, Georgia escapes to the Italian countryside, where she sharpens her skills at a trattoria run by a world-class chef who seems to have it all—a devoted lover, a magnificent villa, and most important, a kitchen of her own. Georgia quells her longings with Italy’s delectable offerings: fine wine, luscious cheeses, cerulean blue skies, and irresistible Gianni—an expert in the vineyard and the bedroom. So when Gianni tempts Georgia to stay in Italy with an offer no sane top chef could refuse, why can’t she say yes?
An appetite for something more looms large in Georgia’s heart – the desire to run her own restaurant in the city she loves. But having left New York with her career in flames, she’ll need to stir up more than just courage if she’s to realize her dreams and find her way home. 

Georgia's Kitchen
 


Italy, food and dreams for bigger things - how can the book go wrong?  This one releases on August 3, 2010.

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine 

Monday, July 5, 2010

Review: This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

This Is Where I Leave You: A NovelThis Is Where I Leave You: A Novel by Jonathan Tropper centers on the Foxman family as they sit shiva for the family patriarch. The  Foxman children come back  to their childhood home toting their baggage and the seven days stretch endlessly ahead of them.  Their baggage is both tangible- children and spouses and the inevitable tension they can bring to any family gathering - and psychological in the form of unresolved resentments from childhood.  Hmmm . .  . death with a side of dysfunctional family, anyone?

Judd Foxman narrates the story; in addition to just losing his Dad to metastatic stomach cancer he has lost his job and his wife.  If that doesn't sound bad enough, he walked in on his wife and his boss in his bed.  For obvious reasons, he is feeling vulnerable and is hesitant to walk into a family event rife with forced conversations and emotional landmines.  He has good reason to worry - the Foxman's are irreverent and seem to have no respect for each other's boundaries.  As the week progresses, Judd and his siblings relive the embarrassments of their youth and try to settle old scores.  The result is a collection of laugh out loud scenes that seem oddly placed amid the week-long ritual of shiva but all the more funny for it.

However, there is nothing slapstick or reductive about this humor - it is smart and funny and at the core of the story there is still a family coming to terms with the loss of their father and husband.  It takes real talent to deal with both subjects simultaneously and successfully.  Tropper makes keen observations amid a loss we will all face (or have faced)- the death of a parent and how it changes us and our relationships within our family. Interestingly, the Judd's father and in fact his death almost becomes a background to the family drama that plays out over the course of the week.  In the end, it is really dysfunctional family with a side of death.

I am not sure my review can do this book justice - please just read it!  If you need additional encouragement, please check out these reviews:

The New Dork Review of Books
Rhapsody in Books Weblog
Bookfan 
The Book Chick

I read this book last year in hardcover but the paperback releases today July 6, 2010

Mailbox Monday/In My Mailbox


Story Siren hosts In My Mailbox where book bloggers offer a peek into the books that arrived in their homes over the past week. Mailbox Monday hosted by Marcia at the Printed Page has the same objective. These memes are great in that they offer us a chance to see what others are reading- it's like candy for book addicts!


I stopped by a thrift store the other day and came home with more books, surprise, surprise!

Here is what I picked up:

Second Honeymoon: A Novel by Joanna Trollope
A Friend of the Family by Lisa Jewell
The Perfectly True Tales of a Perfect Size 12 by Robin Gold
The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead
Things Fall Apart: A Novel by Chinua Achebe
The Ladies' Man by Elinor Lipman
Commencement (Vintage Contemporaries)                                                                                  by J. Courtney Sullivan

What came into your home this week?

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Review: The Starlet by Mary McNamara

The Starlet: A NovelFrom Amazon: The Starlet: A Novel It’s a not-so-well-respected rule in Hollywood that what happens on location stays on location. But when a hot young leading man winds up dead in his Rome hotel room, his costar’s life is about to go off the rails in a very public way—even by celeb standards.
At the tender age of twenty-three, Mercy Talbot has won an Oscar, battled addiction, wrecked more than her share of cars, and burned down her house. Her look-alike mother keeps her on a tight leash (and fueled with an endless supply of OxyContin and cocaine) and her producers demand a grueling schedule. By the time she stumbles across Juliette Greyson, a Hollywood insider on a much-needed vacation, Mercy is surrounded by photographers and about to emerge drunk, high, and naked from a public fountain. Whisking her away to an idyllic Tuscan ‘retreat,’ Juliette is about to discover another rule of Hollywood: wherever the starlet may go, the drama will follow.

My Thoughts
I felt as I read this book that I was reading about the latest exploits of the "it" Hollywood star who found fame too young without any parental grounding.  The story certainly had a ripped from the headlines nature to it.  Mercy Talbot is tremendously talented but troubled by drugs and a mother who sees Mercy as her meal ticket and controls her and her career.  Everyone is trying to save her from herself and from her mother's questionable decisions. 

The commentary offered in the book on Hollywood life and the making of movie was interesting:

 . . . Juliette wondered if any movie ever got made without one form of insanity or another occurring off camera.  Location work was particularly fraught.  Away from family, familiarity and what little media-enforced moral order there was in Hollywood, the cast and crew lived in their own little bioshpere for weeks, sometimes months, simmering in a creative rue of lust and jealousy, artistry and boredom. 
 There were parts of the book that were insightful (like the quote above) but that was inconsistent and on the whole I found I didn't care that much about most of the characters and their exploits.  The one character whose storyline I liked the most was Juliette Greyson.  The author's previous novel Oscar Season focuses on Juliette so that may be a better fit for me.  The Starlet does have a bit of mystery thrown in and there are some twists in the latter 1/3rd of the book so if you are a chick lit fan who also likes mystery this may be the book for you!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Readalong of "The Space Between Us" by Thrity Urmigar

Lisa from Lit and Life is hosting "Thrity Thursdays" aka a readalong of The Space Between Us by Thrity Urmigar.  I had this book on my shelf and was excited by the opportunity to read and discuss it with the group. 

We are reading the book in installments and will post about it each Thursday during July.  Having started the book, however, I doubt I will be able to read it in installments - I am completely engrossed and may have to just read right through it!

Chapters 1-6
In the first 6 chapters, we meet Bhima - a woman living in a Bombay slum who works as a servant for an affluent family.  Bhima's granddaughter, Maya, is a young adult who is pregnant and unmarried much to her grandmother's shame.  So far, we have been given glimpses into their lives in the slum and the strain in the relationship brought on by Maya's pregnancy which Bhima feels both shames her and means Maya will squander her opportunity at an education and ultimately better life outside of the slum.

We also meet Sera, the matriarch of the family for whom Bhima works.  Thus far, her character and those of her daughter and son-in-law are not well developed but the ground is being laid for a more in depth examination of that family.  Right now, we see the relationship between high class Sera and her servant Bhima.  There is an inherent tension between the two as they struggle to reconcile what seems to be a genuine likeness for each other with their stations in life.  I can see how "The Space Between Us" represents the "space" between each woman's class in society - Bhima even takes her tea on the floor while Sera sits at the table creating a physical space between.  I wonder if the title will symbolize more as I read on further.

If you are interested in reading the book (and thus far I heartily recommend this one) stop by Lit and Life and sign-up.  For more thoughts on the book, stop by the blogs of the other participants:

Ti at Book Chatter
Dar at Peeking Between The Pages
Staci at Life In The Thumb
Kathy at Mommy's Reading
Bailey at The Window Seat Reader
Mari at Bookworm With A View