books du jour Archives - Page 10 of 14

Author du Jour: Ross King

09/16/201609/16/2016 by Frederic Colier

“Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies,” by Ross King
Bloomsbury
($30.00, 404 pages)

You may ask yourself why, as the title reveals, do we need another book, or rather a biography about Claude Monet, the painter, when there have been countless renditions. But to Ross King’s credit, his differs from the others. For a start, King’s research focuses mainly on the last 15 years of the painter’s life, just before WWI, when the artist, already in his 70s, saw no reason to keep on painting. He had lost his wife and eldest son. Crippling cataracts severely impaired his craft, and he suffered from nagging anxiety and depression, further aggravated by the arrival of new artistic painting sensibilities, cubist and Dadaist.

When most of us would have tossed the brushes aside, Monet decided to start painting again but on a giant scale, producing the colossal legendary paintings from his garden of Giverny. An incredible story strewn with friendships, notably Clémenceau’s, gives this book, which reads like a detective novel, full of intrigues, a welcome denouement.

Author du Jour: M. J. Pullen

09/14/2016 by Frederic Colier

“Regrets Only,” by M.J. Pullen (Thomas Dunne Books, p 322, $24.99)

Following her success with The Marriage Pact (2015) M.J. Pullen delivers the second installment of her engaging new series about a group of thirty-something in Atlanta. This time, the event takes place several years later. This coming of age story centers on Suzanne Hamilton, a young professional woman who has it all: the great career as an event planner, a rich social life, a trendy condo in the best neighborhood, and men forming a line outside her front door stretching to the street corner.

The story is no caricature however. Even though it starts on a high note, things quickly turn sour. After a freak accident, she loses pretty much all of it. This is when the novel kicks into high gear and finds its voice. Because the early thirty is really a time of readjustment. When coveted dreams end up in tattered, the nature of the dreams must be realigned to fresh perspectives. Often things we moan about or leave behind in grief are just step towards way better things.

Author du Jour: Agnès Martin-Lugand

09/13/2016 by Frederic Colier

“Happy People Read and Drink Coffee” by Agnès Martin-Lugand.

(Trans. Sandra Smith, Weinstein Books, p 242, $22.90)

Originally self-published in French, “Happy People Read and Drink Coffee” became a sensation in France before an international bestsellers, and deservedly. Though written in the current fashionable trend of story of awakening or recovery in the face of brutal personal drama, think Under the Tuscan Sun, Wild, and Eat Prey Love, tragedy, this book reads like a charm, in a clear and fast-pace prose.

Diane is a young woman, who has lost both her husband and daughter (I’ll spare you how). Despairing, she moves to Ireland to escape the crushing memories surrounding her. There, of course, life slowly creeps back in, and she develops a friendship with Edward, a local photographer. Ghosts however are powerful, especially when Diane and Edward’s relationship evolves. They stand in her way. I love how the book looks at compromises, not between the alive and the dead but in the narrow scope of the grey, which is the daily dance of compromise we face to deal with pain, sorrow and laughter.

Author du Jour: Amulya Malladi

09/12/201609/12/2016 by Frederic Colier

“A House For Happy Mothers” by Amulya Malladi (Lake Union Publishing, p 329, $14.95)

Here is another book dealing with a woman, who appears to have it all, except for one thing. In this case it is not a love partner but a child who is missing to complete self- fulfillment. Delivered with mastery by Indian bestseller author, Amulya Malladi, and with engaging characters, A House For Happy Mothers deals with the tough decisions and consequences to have recourse to surrogacy. Priya, one of the main protagonists, a tech guru in Silicon Valley, has been unable to conceive. She joins the “Happy Mothers” in India, where she meets Asha, whose poverty prevents her to send her gifted child to school. Resigned Asha accept to rent her only asset, her womb, to carry Priya’s child. But the story is not a sentimental celebration about rearing a child or an exposé on the conflict arising when foreign worlds collide with each other in order to help each other. It is also a commentary on the best and the worst of the rising Indian surrogacy industry.

Author du Jour: Boris Fishman

09/12/201609/09/2016 by Frederic Colier

“Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo”
by Boris Fishman
Harper/Harper Collins, p 336,
$26.99

A sophomore release from Boris Fishman, an author who appeared on “books du Jour, the TV series when he released his first book,
“A Replacement Life.” If you forgive me the cliché, the fruit never falls too far from the tree, and you could say that it is true about “Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo.” From Russian-Belarus descent, Boris writes characters as wide as legendary Russian rivers, with the same verve and punchy style.

Here we have a couple riding together the deceiving roads of life. The dislocation erupts when they adopt, Max, an eight-year-old boy from Montana, who little by little regresses to a feral state. Not what the couple had bargained for. It is precisely the dislocation that their son brings up that highlight the parent’s own sense of inner dilemma. Who are those Slavic transplants straddling a dual culture and languages, constantly playing a tug of war between belonging here and having the heart at times somewhere else? Perhaps it is this dislocation that will allow the family to survive and for the members to fine-tune how they see life in the future. But first they may have to visit part of themselves, which may not be too be comfortable, just to see who they are inside.

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