By: Thubron, Colin
Thubron has penned a number of entertaining and insightful books over a long career, and he may be one of the last in the British tradition of “gentleman travelers.” His is an elegant style. He writes with crystalline clarity and his narratives, and travels, inevitable veer from the beaten track, bringing us vivid tales from faraway places inhabited by strangers who soon become our familiars. In this book, he details his journey through modern Asia along the ancient Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean through Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, revisiting some of the same people and places he detailed in two earlier books, only twenty years on. His descriptions of history, cultures and people are vivid and unforgettable.
Reviewer:
Tim Strawn
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By: Alexie, Sherman
Alexie’s first Young Adult title won him the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature last year. My 11-year old daughter described this book as, “very funny and sad at the same time,” which we adults somtimes call “bittersweet.” But what narrative of Native American life, historical or modern, would not be tinged with sadness? Alexie, who is of Spokane heritage, writes with humor and poignancy about his anti-hero, Arnold Spirit, born hydrocephalic who happens to have a great jump shot, and a number of odd friends and relations. Life on and off the “res,” and the shifting boudaries between modern Native American and Anglo culture are deftly explored. This book is not preachy at all, but there are lessons here for all of us.
Reviewer:
Tim Strawn
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By: Horwitz, Tony
When it comes to history and the “discovery” of America, Tony Horwitz is a dummy and he is betting that his readers are as well. During a visit to Plymouth Rock, Horwitz discovers, much to his priate school educated chagrin, that he knew next to nothing about the people who traveled the continent (before and after Columbus), much less the folks who inhabited “America” before European contact commenced. Horwitz writes a well-paced and humorous travelogue of self-tutoring as he sweats it out in a lodge with MicMacs in Newfoundland, follows Coronado’s trail all the way to Kansas (who knew?) and tours present-day Roanoke which was briefly settled, not by fantasized Pilgrim forebears, but by a, “… motley crew of slave traders, tourists, castaways and Tudor knights….” Horwitz neatly balances historical narrative with his own present-day travel stories for an engaging and entertaining history lesson.
Reviewer:
Tim Strawn
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By: Boyle, T. Coraghessan
This is T.C. Boyle’s seventh collection of short stories. Since 1979, Boyle has published 19 works of fiction all of them fully engaging the human condition with hilarity and compassion. I am continually drawn to his short stories because his ruminations on and illuminations of our human plight are so intense. Boyle is what I would call a lunatic-humanist-surrealist who can elicit laughter and tears simultaneously. This collection assembles 14 of his darker stories, all gems and not to be missed. From the story of an unlikely romance between a fetching American ornithologist and a spinster Scot on the isle of Unst to the tale of a drive-time radio host’s attempt to break the world record for continuous hours without sleep, Boyle fascinates while enlivening his characters with frailty, humor, compassion and odd heroics.
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Tim Strawn
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