By Gabrielle Zevin

The Short Take:

A perfectly charming little story about a lonely book store owner and how a bundle left in his store changes his life.

Why?

This is an ideal for book clubs: moderate length, engaging plot, quirky characters, light, yet with a message. It’s not grand literature but it certainly is a joy to read.

In turn humorous, touching, and even mysterious, this rich reading experience builds around a romance yet never goes all gooey and sentimental. Plus, the front-of-chapter comments by the main character on a number of short stories are a hoot.

A Little Plot:

A grieving widower, Fikry owns a struggling bookshop on a New England resort island. On top of that, he’s a complete curmudgeon — a terror to book sales reps — which adds to his loneliness.

Then two extraordinary things happen. First, a rare and highly valuable Edgar Allen Poe book is stolen from his apartment. Second, a precocious toddler is abandoned in his shop.

Allbeit reluctantly, his life is changed in ways he never expected.

For more about Zevin, this book, and her other novels for adults as well as young adults, click here.

By James Joyce

The Short Take:

This was the second book of my 2015 self-challenge. I was feeling fairly smug after my Moby Dick experience. Well, James Joyce knocked me down several pegs. I was thrilled to actually follow what was going on — which wasn’t all the time. The only reason I finished was shear bull-headedness.

Why?

Everyone said Moby Dick was so hard. Well, I not only got through it, I liked it. So I approached this one with my confidence high. Ha ha ha!

There were many times when I thought the language was beautiful — if only I had some idea what Joyce was expressing. The stream-of-consciouness bits were the easiest to follow. It was the conversations that threw me for a loop: snippets of talk and action from more than one location were sometimes intermixed with no way to tell who was where and saying what. And, the long hallucinatory sequence in the brothel? Imagine reading a hundred pages written like The Beatles “I Am the Walrus,” only there’s no music. Just words. Ugh.

To see if I was “getting it” at all, I read notes on the various sections after completing them. I was often on the right track, but there were  occasions when my reaction was, “Really?! How did someone figure that out?”

I had read that Joyce claimed this book would have literary types guessing for years, and I can see where you could seriously study this book. Not me, however, I’m just glad its over.

A Little Plot:

It’s a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, which supposedly reflects the story of the hero Ulysses, who goes about doing and thinking one thing and another in Dublin.

PS. The final book in my challenge is Tolstoy’s War and Peace. However, Russian writers just don’t feel like summer fare, so I’m waiting till September to tackle that one. Until then, it’s back to usual.

By Aline Ohanesian

The Short Take:

This truly exceptional first novel explores the Armenian genocide during World War I, as experienced by a fifteen-year-old girl and her family. Horrendous cruelty, family secrets, ancient prejudices, and a budding romance weave together in her well-crafted story. It’s most excellent.

Why?

I remember my mother using the phrase “starving Armenians,” but had no understanding of the source. The ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI was well before both our times. Ohanesian focuses on one family to convey the tragedies that destroyed well over a million lives.

Moving between the era of these relocations and massacres and 1990, the veils of secrecy and illusion are gradually parted to reveal a stunning story — as engaging as any thriller yet founded in genuine human pain and endurance.

Ohanesian leavens the pain with philosophical observations and old sayings invoked by various characters; just like the rationales and justifications we all use to get through dark times. And, she does a masterful job of it.

A Little Plot:

A successful rug merchant dies, leaving a will that bequeaths the family home to a woman no one knows. His grandson, Orhan, seeks the woman out.

Reluctantly, she tells him of her family’s ordeal during the Armenian genocide. What he learns changes his perspective of everything.

For more about Ohanesian and her novel, click here.