I love supporting local authors from my home of Washington State. Jamie Ford is one of those authors. His book of several years ago Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was a New York Times best seller. I enjoyed that book but I think I actually liked Love and Other Consolation Prizes even more.

Once again Ford brings the reader to Seattle, following the lives of a young Chinese boy, a young Japanese girl and raucous yet refined house of ill repute during the early 1900’s when Seattle hosted the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition.

Young Ernest (his adopted name on the arrival in Seattle) is based on an actual boy who was auctioned off during the 1909 AYP Expo. Author Ford uses this real life event as a jumping off point to develop the fictional story of what life was like in Seattle from 1909 to 1962 when Seattle next hosted the World’s Fair.

Though a fictional story, the book includes a great deal of factual information about immigrants, indentured servants, government corruption, prostitution, women’s votes (or lack of) as well as great detail about both the AYP and the ’62 World’s Fair. All woven believably into a tale of love, loss, and life as an Asian immigrant in the Pacific Northwest.

****Easy to read with a lovely plot and history lesson too. Four stars for Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

Read last week’s review of The Glass Hotel.

My current read Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

I’ve been waiting for this book to come out, I absolutely couldn’t contain my excitement to read St. John Mandel’s next novel, given how much I loved Station Eleven (a pandemic story by the way which you should read if you haven’t).

But…unfortunately my expectations were too high. I liked The Glass Hotel but I didn’t love The Glass Hotel. I think I just set my heart on something that wasn’t realistic…a novel as good or better than Station Eleven.

The Glass Hotel takes the reader through a series of events (a few too many coincidences in my opinion) that bring together small town girl Vincent (a bar tender in rural Canada) with millionaire Jonathan (a New York financier) in an unlikely relationship. Their lives and those of the people who swirl around them will all be devastated when the Ponzi scheme Jonathan is running collapses.

The web that Jonathan has created through his years of lies and deceit will not only take him down, but all those he has touched and lied to for decades…including his own family and Vincent.

In the end Jonathan begins to lose hold of reality, Vincent faces an icy fate and lives are torn apart and ruined by greed.

****Four stars for The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandle

Read last week’s review of The Splendid and the Vile

My current read Middlemarch by George Eliot

I really loved this book. What a great story told with such expression. I read the book on my Kindle but can imagine it would be excellent on Audible too…and now I hope to see the movie…if I ever get off this crazy island I’m trapped on.

Reading is such a blessing during this lockdown, and a book like Motherless Brooklyn for me is the perfect distraction; a compelling story about believable characters in real world situations with modern day afflictions. It was a page turner.

Lethem brilliantly creates a character living with full-on Tourette’s syndrome by using a combination of creative story-telling and ingenious tactile components in the story. His writing gives the reader a first hand experience of living with Tourette’s, while bringing together other elements of the character’s unique and obsessive mind. You will fall in love with the character of Lionel Essrog.

Motherless Brooklyn follows Lionel’s life from childhood to mobster hood in Brooklyn and Harlem, as Lionel emerges as a talented detective, unafraid, detail obsessed and out to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend.

High praise for all the characters in this story, the remarkable and unique plot, and the beautiful writing of Lethem.

*****Five Stars for Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem.

Read last week’s review of The Giver of Stars

My current read American Dirt

Book Review City of Thieves by David Benioff

Note: There will be two blogs today (extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures). I hope you can enjoy both – this is the first.

Such a great story. And a true story too. You will love City of Thieves by David Benioff – his telling of his grandfather’s life during the Nazi’s seige of Leningrad.

Somehow Benioff has grown up not knowing anything about what brought his grandfather and grandmother to America. He knows his grandfather was a soldier…he has heard it whispered all his life that his grandfather killed two Germans. Is it true? Benioff finally decides to sit down with his grandfather and find out. The story he gets is beyond belief.

Poignantly told in the view of Lev Beniov, the sweeping tale is both hilarious and terrifying, heartfelt and thrilling. It is a tale of love, friendship, survival, optimism and the deepest and darkest of wartime crimes.

Benioff is a magical writer and brings the characters so clearly to life through a masterful storytelling talent that will have the reader shivering in the Russian winter snow, feeling the terror of Nazi torture and tasting the warmth of a cup of tea while starving. You will be transported to Russia during World War II. This book review of City of Thieves by David Benioff is a definite thumbs up for a unique WWII story in a current plethora of books on this topic.

*****Five stars for City of Thieves by David Benioff

Read last week’s review of The Delight of Being Ordinary

My current read The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

This is a fun, sweet (but totally unrealistic) story of how the Pope and the Dalai Lama decided to take a vacation. I enjoyed this lighthearted story and I think you will too.

As the world has been on lockdown for weeks and months, I came coming back to this story and how it must feel to be someone like Pope Francis or the Dalai Lama whose lives are scheduled to the second and there is no control of your own personal time…ever.

Maybe they feel the need to “get away from it all” from time to time? Well in this fictional story that is exactly what happens. Many of the steps that take place to make this spontaneous get-away happen are ridiculous and could never really happen in real life, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun story.

I enjoyed the portrayal of both the Pope and the Dalai, even though for me some of the religious and second-coming references were less believeable. And yet, anyone, whether religious or not will find this story a quick and easy read, with laugh out loud escapades as well as deep perspective moments.

****Four Stars for The Delight of Being Ordinary by Roland Merullo.

Read last week’s review of The Secrets We Kept

My current read Motherless Brooklyn

We love it when you share our blog.