Book Review: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

By: Nina Sankovitch

Pub. Date: June 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Hardcover , 256pp  

ISBN-13: 9780061999840

ISBN: 0061999849

Source: Borrowed from the library

Synopsis:

Nina Sankovitch has always been a reader. As a child, she discovered that a trip to the local bookmobile with her sisters was more exhilarating than a ride at the carnival. Books were the glue that held her immigrant family together. When Nina's eldest sister died at the age of forty-six, Nina turned to books for comfort, escape, and introspection. In her beloved purple chair, she rediscovered the magic of such writers as Toni Morrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ian McEwan, Edith Wharton, and, of course, Leo Tolstoy. Through the connections Nina made with books and authors (and even other readers), her life changed profoundly, and in unexpected ways. Reading, it turns out, can be the ultimate therapy.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair also tells the story of the Sankovitch family: Nina's father, who barely escaped death in Belarus during World War II; her four rambunctious children, who offer up their own book recommendations while helping out with the cooking and cleaning; and Anne-Marie, her oldest sister and idol, with whom Nina shared the pleasure of books, even in her last moments of life. In our lightning-paced culture that encourages us to seek more, bigger, and better things, Nina's daring journey shows how we can deepen the quality of our everyday lives—if we only find the time.

My Review:

Nina Sankovitch's Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a wonderful memoir on her year of reading one book every day for a year. Following the death of her sister, Nina felt her life becoming a downward spiral as she tried to cram everything in to live for both herself and her sister. She tried giving everything that she could to support all of her family around her but it was too much.

Finally, she realized that she needed to slow down and give herself time to reflect and accept life as it is... leading her to start her mission of making reading book her work for a year. With a lot of planning and support from her family, Nina did just that and a lot more on the way.

Blending her love of books with her own life's journey, Nina's story is a great reminder that life is both great and terrible and sometimes you just need to stop, calm down, and reflect on it all. I loved how Nina brought in the stories that she was reading and specific quotes that she found inspiring. I especially liked the final chapter where she relates her year's journey to her father's time off in life and how important the past year had been to her.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair has completely reaffirmed my love of books and the importance that I place on them. I also made a list of books that I want to read now because of how they were described in Purple Chair. I found Nina's story to be very relatable and I hope that when tragedy and grief strike my family, which is inevitable at some point, that I remember her story and find my own comfort from the pages of beloved books.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Want to learn more? Check out Nina Sankovitch's website!

Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By: Stieg Larsson

Pub. Date: November 2010

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Format: Hardcover, 465 pages 

Series: Millennium Trilogy Series

ISBN-13: 9780307595577

ISBN: 0307595579

Source: Personal Copy

Synopsis:

Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

My Review:

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a thrilling novel set in Sweden (it is a Swedish book that has been translated into English). The original title of the book was Men Who Hate Women. In many ways I like the original title a lot more because it makes a lot of the points in the book even stronger. There are many instances of violence and force used against women throughout the novel, including Swedish crime statistics of violence against women that are found in the beginning of every chapter. However, the new title definitely fits in better with the series as a whole.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about a disgraced journalist who ends up leaving Stockholm for a remote area of Sweden to write a biography of and investigate the family of Henrik Vanger. Vanger is the head of a once very prominent business family. Although their business is now slowing down they still remain a large corporation. As Blomkvist, the journalist, begins the biography he slowly learns more about an unsolved mystery in the family.

Ultimately, Blomkvist needs more help, which leads him to bring in Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo.  As they unfurl the family mystery, danger creeps closer to them.

Stieg Larsson is an excellent story-teller. I was entertained the whole time, even if I was also disturbed by the actions of some of the characters. I still always wanted to know more. I look forward to the second installment in the trilogy, The Girl who Played with Fire.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Book Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin

By: Margaret Atwood

Pub. Date: August 2001

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Format: Paperback , 544pp

ISBN-13: 9780385720953

ISBN: 0385720955

Source: Personal Copy

Synopsis:

The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Larua drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris Chase Griffen, sole surviving descendant of a once rich and influential Ontario family, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story improvised by two unnamed lovers who meet in digy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

What makes this novel Margaret Atwood's strongest and most profoundly entertaining is the way in which the three wonderfully rich stories weave together, gradually revealing through their interplay the secrets surrounding the entire Chase family- and most particularly the fascinating and tangled lives of the two sisters. The Blind Assassin is a brilliant and enthralling book by a writer at the top of her form.

My Review:

This is the second Margaret Atwood book that I've read. The first was Alias Grace.  I liked Alias Grace  a lot but I really liked The Blind Assassin... especially towards the end.

I found The Blind Assassin a little difficult to get into right from the beginning because the characters seemed distant and cold and the narrative kept changing. The Blind Assassin is a story-within-a-story-within-a-story. That's right, there are three stories in The Blind Assassin, so you really get your money's worth for this one book :)

The Blind Assassin is mostly Iris Chase Griffen's reminiscence of her past. Iris was the daughter of an important businessman, who had little time for his children. Iris had a younger sister, Laura, who she felt responsible for taking of during their childhood. The dynamics of Chase sisters childhood is a sad story of a neglect and detached emotional relationships.

Within Iris's present and her past, the reader is also given excerpts of a book, The Blind Assassin. Personally, I loved The Blind Assassin excerpts. They were very imaginative. Once I got a bearing of the different stories, I really got into each of them and wanted to know how it turned out for all of the characters. I won't say more because I don't want to give away any of the endings.

By the end of the book, I just felt pity for all of the characters and their lives. I wanted them to have much more than they had gotten in life. The Blind Assassin is a beautifully narrated book that is emotional and poignant.


My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu

Uncle Silas

By: Sheridan Le Fanu

Original Pub. Date: 1864

Pub. Date: June 2001

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Format: Paperback , 528pp   Series: Penguin Classics Series

ISBN-13: 9780140437461

ISBN: 0140437460

Source: Personal Copy

Synopsis:

From the moment that Madame de la Rougierre is hired as governess to the young, naive Maud Ruthyn, a dark cloud of foreboding hangs over the entire household. A liar, a bully and a spy, Madame eventually leaves, taking her dark secret with her. But, unhappily for Maud, that is not the last of Madame de la Rougierre. For when Maud is orphaned she is sent to live with her mysterious Uncle Silas, a man with a scandalous- even murderous- past, and encounters Madame once more. This time her sinister role in Maud's destiny will become all to clear. With its world of spirits, locked cabinets, kidnapping and past secrets that spill into the present, Le Fanu's shocking novel of sensation is a chilling and groundbreaking psychological thriller.

My Review:

I'm torn how to rate Uncle Silas. I give it an A for atmosphere and writing but a B-/C+ for plot. Right from the beginning of Uncle Silas, the reader knows that the are reading a classic Gothic novel. The young protagonist, Maud, is naive and isolated from the world. She lives relatively alone, with only her distant father and a few servants. In order to remedy Maud's education, her father hires a governess, who turns out to be cruel and mad.

Shortly after convincing her father to fire Madame de la Rougierre, the governess, Maud's father dies. Maud then has to follow her father's last instructions, which include communicating with a seemingly-creepy man, and then following the instructions in his will. Maud's father instructs that Maud is to be under the care of his brother, Silas. Silas is a reclusive man with a rumored past... rumors which include murder.

It's during this time when the plot seems to falter. The middle of the book had very little action, and what did happen didn't really seem to build up to the conclusion at all. It may have let the suspense build up since the reader knows something bad will happen but doesn't know what or who will be the cause of it. Uncle Silas is full of seedy characters- some who turn out good and others not so good.

The conclusion is excellent. Most of the loose threads are tied up and the reader can finally breathe easily.

I recommend this book for those who like classic books with mystery and gothic aspects but also the patience to read through some tedious passages.

P.S. Isn't the picture on the cover creepy??! I did not like it sitting on my bedside table when I went to bed... it's too scary.

My Rating: 3.5-4 out of 5 stars

Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help

By: Kathryn Stockett

Pub. Date: April 2011

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Format: Paperback , 544pp

ISBN-13: 9780425232200

ISBN: 0425232204

Source: Personal copy

Synopsis:

Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

My Review:

Wow! I know I mentioned once before that I normally don't read the big bestsellers right away because I think a lot of times books can be hyped up too much. But this book deserves all the hype it can get. I found The Help to be wonderful, inspiring, funny, scary, and a great read.

Its 1962 and 'Skeeter' Phelan just graduated and moved back home to a criticizing mother and no husband or boyfriend. But Skeeter has dreams of being a writer... which leads her eventually to the idea of writing about the help, the colored women who work for the rich white women in Jackson, Mississippi. The social rights movement is beginning to get off the ground and Skeeter gets a little positive feedback from an editor at a publishing company in New York City for her idea.

Skeeter is young though and doesn't realize how difficult it will be to get the maids to talk to her. She will have to cross the color line, and when she does, she'll begin to understand just how dangerous the territory is that she has entered.

Aibileen, the first colored maid that Skeeter befriends is a wonderful woman and my favorite character. She is wise and loving, which is apparent in the care she shows for the little white girl that she cares for in her job.

The maids stories are wonderful and sad. I think Kathryn Stockett did a great job portraying the early 1960s in the south. I don't want to give any more away... so go ahead- believe the hype and read The Help.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars