Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

With Seattle as the backdrop, specifically Chinatown and Nihonmachi (Japantown) and the finding of the belongings of a number of Japanese families in the basement of The Panama Hotel in 1986 as the catalyst Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet tells the story of Henry and Keiko. 

Jumping back and forth from 1986 and 1942-45 the story unfolds and you get to know Henry and understand how he ended up the man he has become.

Henry was born in Seattle to Chinese parents. His father is very traditional and longs for home. His parents speak almost know English but refuse to allow Henry to speak Cantonese to them so communication is almost impossible. On top of the language barrier is Henry's father's ultra-traditional views and hatred of everything and everyone Japanese for what Japan is doing to his beloved China.


Keiko was born in Seattle to parents also born in the US but her grandparents came here from Japan. Her family lives in Nihonmachi. She doesn't speak Japanese and has never been out of the country. She is American first and foremost. But it doesn't stop people from hating them because they are of Japanese descent and her family gets rounded up and sent to an internment camp.

Before the internment Henry and Keiko meet at school where they are both on scholarship and both the only non-white students. They bond over steam trays of slop working in the school cafeteria.

Henry is such a brave and strong boy and Keiko is such a sweet and open girl. Their story spans decades and is moving and beautiful.



(finished May 29, 2013)

And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

As in The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini makes the sights, sounds and smells of Afghanistan as well as the emotions of his characters come alive.

In And The Mountains Echoed Hosseini starts with one incident, like throwing a pebble into calm water, and then follows the ripples caused by the event.  


Brother and sister Abdullah and Pari are very attached to each other and their separation is the pebble. Nabi, their step-uncle is the first ripple overlapping with Nalia his employers wife and a poet. As each ripple is explored more of the siblings story is revealed as background details until the story reaches Abullah again. Full circle.


This was a lovingly told story showing how our actions extend beyond us in ways me may never know. Each life touches another and connections, often invisible, are formed.

Something else worth noting, this book is a departure from the other two in that less of the history of Afghanistan is part of this story and much of the story takes place in other places. 

(finished May 27, 2013)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I have seldom before read anything so painful yet so beautiful as the writing of Khaled Hosseini. His writing makes you feel every blow dealt to a character both physical and mental. But he does more, you can smell the exotic spice and kabob and sweat that make the market places, you can hear the music of the voices calling out to hock their rugs or other goods, you can hear the children playing in the streets. It is amazingly vivid, and even at its worst it is beautiful.

The Kite Runner was very hard to bear but yet makes you not want to put it down, a thousand times over. A tale of war and pain but also of love and forgiveness Hosseini puts you in the middle of history and makes it small and personal which allows you to connect with the people in a way that isn't hindered by any cultural differences and then gives the reader a bit more understanding about the people of the country of Afghanistan.

I am late coming to this book but oh so better late than never.

I held it together pretty well until the last page and then Amir utters 6 words that broke the dam and the tears and sobs held at bay for almost 400 pages flowed.

Beautiful!!!

(finished May 25, 2013)

The Woman Who Wouldn't by Gene Wilder

My friend Liz gave me a few books from her own library tied in a lovely ribbon as a graduation gift last week. One of them was this little gem. And yes it is by that Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka Gene Wilder.

This was a short, 167 pages, sweet little book. I read it in one day and was charmed from page one. Jeremy Webb, professional violinist, has a break down on stage and gives a drink to a tuba. It lands him the German health resort of Dr. Gross. While there Jeremy, notorious flirt, finds a gift he didn't know he wanted or needed in the person of sweet Clara, another guest at the resort. Also there is playwright Anton Chekhov who befriends our Mr. Webb.

There was a lot of heart in this short tale. While not exactly believable in its miracle I can imagine why he wrote it that way, and it felt right. There is also some humor. Clara talks about her husband and sex saying he would only put his willy in her private part and pump until he was done and then go smoke a cigar, and he never let her touch it, his willy. While this sounds silly, and it is, it too felt right.

Thank you Liz.

(finished May 22, 2013)

PS watch for reviews of the other three Liz books in the future.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I truly love when fictional characters are placed in real events and their story is told with the real event as a backdrop. When done right you get a gripping story and a bit of a history lesson. This book is an example of one done beautifully.

Set in Afghanistan starting in the late 60's going through 2003 A Thousand Splendid Suns is a story of love in its purest form. Starting with Mariam and joining later with Laila these are two of the most amazing women I have met in the pages of a novel. They both face loss, brutality and war with a grace most lovely to read and heartbreaking to imagine.

I am not a fan of spoiling people so I wont tell you the outcome or even how they come to be together. I will tell you that they love each other so fully that there isn't anything they wouldn't do for each other. Their story is one that deserves to be told and is easy to forget isn't about two actual women. It could be because Hosseini writes so beautifully. It could be because as you are reading about Mariam and Laila and learning a bit about what it was like in Afghanistan for women during this time you can imagine things like what they go through happening to actual women. Or it could be both, because you can imagine it, it has been told in news reports and non-fiction books and Hosseini does write beautifully.

I am going to use my graduation giftcard and buy more of his work!!! Watch for the reviews.

(finished May 22, 2013)

Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4) by Tana French

The 4th book in the Dublin Murder Squad books is a tightly wound journey into the mind of a detective and the mind of the murderer.

The case is a family brutally attacked in their home leaving husband/father Pat dead, children Emma and Jack also dead and mother Jenny barely clinging to life.

Was having lost his job too much for Pat causing him to cross some line and think his family would be better off dead? Was it a stranger? Was it someone else?

As Mick Kennedy and his new partner Richie Curran investigate they each think they know who did it. And while they are investigating the case Mick's past begins to be revealed and plays a part in how he handles this case.

I've enjoyed Tana French's writing in all four of her books. I love how in some of the dialogue it is written so it reads that you hear it in your head in an Irish accent. This one was slightly off to me because of the heavy use if "I said" but the story telling and writing was like a coil that slowly begins to tighten until the end when the truth comes out and the tension becomes very thick.

Over all I liked this book and will continue to read what ever she comes out with.

(finished May 21, 2013)

The other Dublin Murder Squad books:
Book 1- In The Woods
Book 2- The Likeness
Book 3- Faithful Place

Each book works as a stand alone as well but I read them in order.

Prelude to Catastrophe: FDR's Jews and the Menace of Nazism by Robert Shogan

I started reading this for my capstone paper. I finished the book because it was fascinating. Shogan did a great job with material that could have been dry and boring and made it gripping and interesting to read, not at all boring.

FDR and Hitler both came to their office of power in 1933. Hitler began almost immediately to destroy the Jews. FDR on the other hand surrounded himself with Jews and put them into positions of power in his government. On the surface it would seem that having so many Jews in his inner circle would have made him more likely to take action and help the European Jews, it did not.

Of the Jewish men closest to him, Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter (who later became a Supreme Court justice), speech writer Sam Rosenman, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and Rabbi Stephen Wise, only Morgenthau advised action.

The State Department holding back cables with pertinent information, antisemitism in the US and abroad, fear of political fall out and a host of so many other pieces kept FDR and the US from doing something to help a people being systematically exterminated.

I was angry and sad and so very disappointed in the leaders of the time for their inaction and political cowardice.

Francis Perkins tried to get something done but was blocked. It took Morgenthau what he called a terrible 18 months to get anything done but even that came 10 years after the start of Hitler's reign of terror.

This isn't just a dry historical tale, it is relevant and well written. And I didn't feel like it was a bash FDR book, just a laying out of the evidence.

(finished May 6, 2013)