The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George

The narrative of The Little Paris Bookshop follows Jean Perdu, a Frenchman that was jilted by his lover over twenty years earlier finally opening the Dear John letter she'd left him, only to discover it wasn't what he expected. A bit of a madcap adventure ensues with Perdu picking up a couple of eccentric companions along the way, each with a quest of their own. The plot and characterization are both pretty thin, but the book shines in two areas: capturing the flavor of the countryside and illustrating the emotional might of storytelling.

As much as I enjoy living in Austin, getting away from civilization from time to time has always been a guilty pleasure. George depicts the transition from city to pastoral beautifully. "Something very specific was missing, something Perdu had grown so accustomed to that its absence gave him a slight dizziness and caused a humming in his ears. Immense relieve swept through him when he realized what it was. There was no rush of cars, no roar of the metro, no buzz of air conditioners. None of the whirr and grumble of millions of machines and transmissions and elevators and escalators. There were no sounds of reversing trucks, trains braking or heels on gravel and stone. None of the bass-driven music from the yobs two houses down, the crackle of skateboards, the chatter of scooters." The country is far from silent, but the noises of nature are much more soothing and pleasant than those of dense development.

My favorite things in life are my family and friends, Longhorn sports, beer, and books—not necessarily in that order. Reading has been a treasured companion of mine for as long as I can remember, and George is clearly a kindred spirit. She describes reading as having an "accompanying sense of wonder and the feeling of having a film running inside your head" which I think is as good of a depiction as any of what happens when consuming a novel. The back cover of my edition calls The Little Paris Bookshop "a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives." I wholeheartedly agree with this; the main lesson of the story isn't that good things come to good people or to those who wait, but to those that believe in the power of words to heal and shape ones soul.

While a bit treacly and overemotional at times, I quite enjoyed reading this book. It doesn't have the depth of Cyrano de Bergerac or the humor of The Princess Bride, but it is a pleasant read that makes for a solid diversion on a lazy weekend.

First Sentence:

How on earth could I have let them talk me into it?

The Escape Artist, by Brad Meltzer

This book captured my attention from the prologue. Nola Brown is killed in a plane crash, and the mortician that is processing her body discovers something is very wrong by finding a note she swallowed before dying that reads, "Nola, you were right. Keep running." That hook unfolds into a mystery that jumps back in forth in time, delving into the Nola's abusive past and her being hunted in the present by an off-the-books military unit. I thought the identity of the "big bad" was pretty obvious, but Meltzer did a good job with red herrings so there were other plausible candidates. The two main characters are fairly well fleshed out, but the others are a bit one-dimensional. The story moves so quickly though it isn't really a problem—much like a Liam Neeson action movie, it isn't deep but it is enjoyable!

First Sentence:

Jim "Zig" Zigarowski knew the pain was coming.

Never Mind, by Edward St. Aubyn

I was pretty excited when I picked up this book, the first of five in the Patrick Melrose novels. There was even a blurb on the back from an author I really like—Michael Chabon—reading, "One of the most amazing reading experiences I've had in a decade." Boy, was I disappointed.

The story recounts a weekend gathering of three thoroughly unlikeable couples in the British upper class. Patrick Melrose is the young son of one of these sets of parents, abused by his domineering father and ignored by his submissive addict mother. As a contrast to the coarse characters, however, the writing is both poetic and sophisticated. "After a while he no longer recognized what he was thinking and, just as a shop window sometimes prevents the onlooker from seeing the objects behind the glass and folds him instead in a narcissistic embrace, his mind ignored the flow of impressions from the outside world and locked him into a daydream he could not have subsequently described." Flipping through the book finds passages like this on virtually every page. Despite the beautiful prose, though, I couldn't get past the cruelty of the people being described. I struggled to finish this book, and I don't think I'll be picking up the next one in the series anytime soon.

First Sentence:

At half-past seven in the morning, carrying the laundry she had ironed the night before, Yvette came down the drive on her way to the house.