Staff Review: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is approaching its one-year anniversary on the New York Times bestseller list. Having just finished it, I can attest that it deserves every week it has spent there.

For the crime of being an aristocrat after the 1917 Russian Revolution, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is placed under life-long house arrest. The "house" to which he is confined, however, is vast: Moscow's majestic Metropol Hotel, where he is sentenced to a 100-foot attic room though he's free to move about the hotel.

Rostov is in his early thirties as the novel opens and through the course of its 480 pages we inhabit thirty-plus years of house arrest with him. And what a time we have of it. Within the space of one building Towles has created a very full world, peopling it with an extensive cast that pivots around the appealing Count and includes international hotel guests, an unctuously evil hotel manager, a beautiful actress, a former Red Army colonel, a prodigious young child, a temperamental chef, a revolutionary friend, an orphan, and many others. The cast is delightful, with most characters assisting the Count in providing this enchanting book with its large heart.

The Count himself is the epitome of grace under pressure. Without ever surrendering his gentility or his humor, he accommodates himself to his newly restricted life, which he manages to lead to the fullest, even embracing a new career as headwaiter at the hotel's premiere restaurant (the Bolsheviks allow the hotel to function in its grand old style to impress foreign visitors who stay there).

The novel often reminded me of a fable or tale and as such it's very much in the Russian tradition. There are table legs filled with gold coins, a clock that tolls but two times a day, a key that opens all doors, a shadowy cat, fine wines by the hundreds, brandy snifters by the score, sumptuous meals and exquisite pastries galore. Yet amidst all these trappings of the old aristocratic life, we are also given a clear view of the new Soviet regime with its endless bureaucracies and Siberian gulags, its negation of the individual in favor of the collective, its privations and Orwellian turns of phrase.

The novel concludes very satisfactorily in 1954 and about that I will say nothing more. From start to finish this book is an impressive piece of architecture; many years of planning went into its construction.To my mind, the novel's two greatest pleasures are the sublime delight Rostov takes in literature, from Montaigne to Russia's great literary masters, and the consistent intelligence and civility of the prose (Towles's debut novel, by the way, published in 2011, was titled Rules of Civility). No small part of this new book's success may be due to its timing. With public discourse these days tending to the divisive and vulgar, A Gentleman in Moscow transports us to a far more charming world.

Ann, Adult Services

Staff Review: "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

What do librarians do all day? Well, it depends on the day, but one of my favorite tasks is picking out new books for the library's collection. A side benefit to buying books for the library is that publishers offer us advance access to review books that they hope will be popular. Which is how I recently had the chance to review Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed, a book that will be published on January 16.

This is Ahmed's first, or debut, novel, and like the publisher, I hope that it will be popular. The book is written for a teen audience, but I imagine many adult readers will enjoy it as much as I did. One element that Dubuque readers might find particularly appealing is the book's Illinois setting.

Maya Aziz is a high school senior who dreams of going to school in New York to become a documentary filmmaker. Her parents left India for America for a chance at a better life for themselves and their daughter, a life they've found in their rural suburb of Chicago where they have built a successful dental practice. However their dreams for Maya's success are more along the lines of attending college close to home, a career as a doctor or a lawyer, and a marriage with a nice Muslim boy.

Maya wants to be a good daughter and make her parents happy, but part of growing up is learning what is important to you. The tension between parents, especially immigrant parents, and their children as they become adults is a common story in literature, and it's handled very well here. Readers who read and loved When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon are likely to also enjoy Love, Hate & Other Filters.

What sets Ahmed's book apart, however, is a larger focus on the Aziz family's identity as Muslim Americans and how that shapes their experience. Ahmed doesn't shy away from the impacts of racism and Islamophobia, both subtle and overt, that exist in our country.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

Maya is the narrator for most of the  novel, but in between chapters there are short pieces, a page or two at most, from other people's perspectives. Readers will quickly come to suspect that the people in these short pieces are tied to some terrible event. An event that, even though Maya will never have met any of the people involved, will have a profound effect on her life.

Many readers are likely to quickly share my suspicion that the story being told in these short pieces is a tragedy, specifically a terrorist attack. The tension that Ahmed created by interjecting these hints of something awful in a story that is otherwise charming kept me reading late into the night. The joy of watching Maya learn to stand up for her dreams and the warmth of first love paired with the seasick dread and tension of a coming tragedy created a book more impactful and human than either story might have been on its own.

~Sarah, Adult Services

Staff Review: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

When I choose a book for the library book discussion I try to find something outside of my comfort zone. More often than not, I enjoy the book and it makes me more willing to venture outside of my normal reading habits. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, a biography, is one such example. Though I rarely read biographies, Born a Crime has become one my favorite books this year. 

Trevor Noah, the current host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, was born at the tail end of apartheid in South Africa. His mother is black and his father is white. At the time of Trevor's birth, the relationship between his parents was illegal so his birth was actually a crime. 

The stories told by Noah range from incredibly sad to very funny. As a comedian, Noah is able to infuse the sad stories with humor without taking away from the narrative. It is difficult to imagine that as a mixed-race child, Noah's mother wasn't allowed to do something as simple as walk with him to the park. Noah's father was largely absent from his life, leaving him to be raised by his mother and grandmother. To his black Xhosa relatives, Noah was white and white people are treated differently. By his own admission, Noah was a handful, because only his mother would discipline him.  It is clear throughout the book that his mother is quite a force to be reckoned with and though their relationship is, at times, complicated, Noah loves and respects her.

I didn't listen to the audio, but a co-worker told me it is wonderful. Noah is the narrator and I imagine hearing him tell the story of his upbringing, in his own voice, is quite powerful. If you are a fan of The Daily Show, you should read this book. If you've never watched The Daily Show (ahem...like me...ahem), this is still a powerful story of someone who never quite fit in, but didn't let that stop him from achieving his dreams. 

~Amy, Adult Services

Staff Review: We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In 2015 I chose Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates as my best book of the year. It was a difficult book to read given that it tackles -- in a very personal way -- the race problem in America, a problem older than the country itself, its roots going back to the earliest colonial days. What impressed me so was Coates's intellectual vigor and how well he put it to use trying to make sense of the world he and his son inhabit as black males. He's a clear thinker and a clear writer. As brain food alone, the book was a pleasure.

His new book, We Were Eight Years in Power, is even tougher to read. The foundation of the book is a series of essays Coates wrote for The Atlantic magazine, where he is a national correspondent. These well-known essays cover such topics as the making of the first black president, the mass incarceration of blacks, and the strong case for reparations. The essays are strung together with new material, a series of memoir-like pieces relating Coates's thoughts and feelings each year of Obama's presidency, an event that buoyed him considerably, bringing hope for the future.

The book's final piece tackles the election of Donald Trump, a near-fatal blow to Coates's hope for Coates believes that Obama's successor is intent on negating the legacy of the country's first black president. By the time Trump is elected, within the book's trajectory, the reader has been educated on the real stories -- the truths -- of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the exclusion of millions of blacks from the provisions of the New Deal, and the horrific and intentionally broad scope of institutional racism. It was a painful education for me and I wondered why I had never known so much of it before.

Coates concludes his new work in a grim mood, but a hopeful ending would probably ring false. Many Americans aren't feeling very hopeful these days, which brings me to my only quibble with the book, which is Coates's reluctance to consider the enormous impact globalization, deregulation, outsourcing, inflation, automation, monopolistic practices, and a host of other economic and political factors have had on everyone, white, black, and every shade in between. There's an underlying presumption on his part that if you're white, the gravy train's still more or less available to you. Many would beg to differ. But this is indeed a quibble; the plight of whites is not Coates's topic. He does all of us a great and needed service by increasing our awareness of the hard lives of others and reducing at least some of our historical ignorance. Who knows what any of us might do differently if only we knew the whole truth?

~Ann, Adult Services

Staff Review: Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown - Audio book version

What a trilogy! Wow. It is dark. It is brutal. There are shameful deeds, shocking betrayals, and blood feuds. Wars and reconciliations. Violence and tenderness. This trilogy really covers all areas of human emotion. A friend says it's a cross between Game of Thrones and Hunger Games. I think it also has a dash of Divergent and tiny drop of Harry Potter in there as well. Pierce Brown has created a fascinating world with his Red Rising trilogy.

Darrow grows up as part of a slave race, the Reds. The thing is, they don't realize they are slaves. They think they are doing the hard labor of mining underground on Mars so future generations can come and terraform Mars and create a better future. What the Reds don't know is that they have been lied to.

Tim Gerard Reynolds narrates all three of these books. Reynolds does such a good job portraying the heart of Darrow, our main character, that he seems the perfect person to read these stories. Reynolds hails from Ireland with classical theater training. His strong Irish accent gives the story depth and character and it is pleasing to listen to.

One initial caveat: Reynolds takes on a haughty voice when he narrates the characters who are Golds (the all-powerful group in Darrow's world), "I do say! My good-man!" and to be honest, this threw me right out of the first book and I did not think I could listen if he did this voice continuously. Luckily, this annoyance fades and you get used to the portrayal. The haughtiness and genteelness make sense for the characters he is portraying - the Golds are nothing if not haughty. 

As the books progress, we find Darrow fighting against a whole society of people who would have him remain a slave and will die trying to keep the status quo. Which leads me to one of the things I am most impressed by with these books. This author really knows how people manipulate others to get what they want and how the minds of warlords might plan their strategies. As I listened, I kept being amazed at the ideas and logic the author created for his characters. This first book does spend a lot of time world-building, which can be get old, but then you are thrust into this amazing world suddenly. It keeps you guessing and you don't know who Darrow should trust or who will betray him.You have to hold on tight, it's quite an adventure. 

Once you have made it through this epic trilogy, be on the lookout for Iron Gold, a new book in the Red Rising Universe, considered to be book four of the Red Rising Saga. It is set to be released in January 2018. It begins ten years after the events of book three and is a start to a new trilogy. Hopefully, Carnegie-Stout will have the audio book soon after its release. It too will be narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds.

~Angie, Adult Services

Staff Review: The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

I know, I know, you've been wondering when a book about writing was finally going to be featured. Well, your long wait is over! The Art of Memoir, by poet and memoirist Mary Karr, is so engaging, it deserves a little time in the spotlight.

Who better to write a book about the memoir genre than the author of The Liar's Club, Cherry, and Lit, a trio of memoirs published between 1995 and 2009 that are said to have re-ignited the genre's popularity, though I imagine The Glass Castle had a little something to do with that as well.

Born into a dysfunctional circus of a family in what she calls the ringworm belt of Texas, Mary Karr's gritty, funny, lively, and irreverent. She's been teaching memoir-writing in Syracuse's MFA program for years. Her book on the craft, The Art of Memoir, will appeal not only to those who want to write a memoir but to those who enjoy reading them as well.

Karr begins each chapter with an intriguing quote and then tackles some aspect of crafting a memoir, from how to approach writing about loved ones to the importance of enlivening your story with lots of sensory detail. I particularly enjoyed her frequent -- and vehement -- insistence that memoirists tell the truth, even if that truth is, by necessity, somewhat subjective.

Karr provides concrete examples of effective technique from a wide variety of fine memoirs, all of which sound so good you'll intend to read every one just as soon as you finish reading her book. Karr kindly includes a handy, six-page Required Reading list of these titles and many more at the end of the book.

If you're in the mood to read even more about the crafts of writing and editing, check out our November display of writing guides, set up by the first-floor Recommendations Desk. The display features dozens of titles, including some of the classics: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, and On Writing Well by William Zinsser. 'Cause the next best thing to writing is reading about it, right?

~Ann, Adult Services