Exiles in the Garden by Ward Just

Exiles in the Garden by Ward Just
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another quiet, beautifully written tale of "moral ambiguity" from Ward Just about life and politics in the nation's capital with forays to Eastern Europe through several characters.  While not as suspenseful as others of the author's books, I found the book compelling as the aging photographer protagonist contemplates his life and his accomplishments.  Equally interesting are the well-drawn characters of his ex-wife and her father, a Czech dissident soldier who appears late in the story but captivates the characters and the reader.


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Fine Romance by Cynthia Propper Seton

A Fine Romance by Cynthia Propper Seton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Many critics praised Seton's work, calling her "a latter-day Jane Austen, writing a comedy of manners." Her third novel, A Fine Romance, was nominated for a National Book Award in 1976. In addition to writing, Seton lectured on literary and feminist topics and taught at the Indiana Writer's Conference."

So many fine books and authors just slip away yet they gave me such pleasure on first reading.  I'm not a re-reader but I remember and treasure authors like Seton for their lasting position in my literary life.  If I were to run a reprint publisher, she'd be one of the first.


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Nada by Carmen Laforet

Nada by Carmen Laforet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Laforet's novel of post-Civil War Spain is as fresh and as compelling as it was when it won the Premio Nadal in 1944.  Her main character, 18-year-old Andrea, exemplifies the romance, optimism and utter despair of being a teenager, starting off in college, housed with a half-crazed, impoverished family on the Calle de Aribau.  Analogies to the economic and desperation in Spain after the war are inevitable, but the story rings with the truth of "having not" amongst classmates who have plenty and the agonies of youth as Andrea observes, weeps, roams through the memorable streets of Barcelona.


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Howards End by E.M. Forster

Howards End by E.M. Forster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading the book in class was rewarding as we talked about far meatier subjects than I might have tackled on my own:  the industrial revolution which brought aspirants like Leonard Bast and Jacky, too,  into the city from the farm and made money for others like the Wilcoxes; the rise of feminism for those with time and education to embrace it; the mystical, ghostliness of Mrs. Avery, the housekeeper at Howard's End; changing morals with the rest of the cultural & social changes occurring; the altered landscape of London and affordable housing at the expense of the countryside and large estates; and what kind of future for Baby who is assured of money, education and WWII(portents of doom from Germany).


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Home by Toni Morrison

Home by Toni Morrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is a beautifully written book about the return of a young man from the Korean "Conflict" to his Georgia home, from the American Army to the segregation of the USA, a perfect Memorial Day read.  His Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is in full flower and his coping mechanisms at low ebb as he crosses the country from discharge in Seattle to his Georgia town.  I found something wanting in the tale, perhaps character development?  I'm not sure.  The plot was credible although the evil doctor seemed tacked on at the end and his work shrouded in haziness and the disloyalty of Sarah continuing to work for him as his victims passed through troubled me.


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More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi

More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Insightful recollections of the author's short marriage to a Hungarian nobleman at the beginning of WWII as their estate is flung back and forth between warring factions placing them in Hungary, Czechlaslovakia, Ruthenia, and the Soviet Union in a few short years.  Her youth and naivete as an  American girl abroad is evident but it also allows for for her enthusiasm and bold spirit facing historically entrenched culture and prejudices.  She wrote a marvelous gardening book Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden on planting and growing on this property which lead me to More Was Lost.


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God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam

God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Humor and heartbreak in delectable prose.  I adore Gardam and have for decades.  As the first paragraph of the NYT review by Nancy Kline puts it:
“God on the Rocks” is so charming a novel that you don’t want to give away a single one of the many twists of its plot. As its central character might ask: “Why can’t she just — not?” But Jane Gardam must be shared. She’s a find who’s just beginning to be found, at least on our side of the Atlantic (thanks to the novels “Old Filth” and “The Man in the Wooden Hat”), although more than 20 of her books have been published in England and she has won numerous prizes. Now at last comes the American publication of her early novel “God on the Rocks,” which was a finalist for the Booker Prize back in 1978. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/boo...



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