The Invasion of the Tearling (Tearling Trilogy, 2)
Erika Johansen, 2015
HarperCollins
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062290410
Summary
In this riveting sequel to the national bestseller The Queen of the Tearling, the evil kingdom of Mortmesne invades the Tearling, with dire consequences for Kelsea and her realm.
With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling.
By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighboring kingdom of Mortmesne, she crossed the Red Queen, a brutal ruler whose power derives from dark magic, who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.
But as the Mort army draws ever closer, Kelsea develops a mysterious connection to a time before the Crossing, and she finds herself relying on a strange and possibly dangerous ally: a woman named Lily, fighting for her life in a world where being female can feel like a crime. The fate of the Tearling—and that of Kelsea’s own soul—may rest with Lily and her story, but Kelsea may not have enough time to find out.
In this dazzling sequel, Erika Johansen brings back favorite characters, including the Mace and the Red Queen, and introduces unforgettable new players, adding exciting layers to her multidimensional tale of magic, mystery, and a fierce young heroine. (From the publisher.)
The Queen of the Tearling (2014) is the first book of the series. This is the second, and The Fate of the Tearling is the third.
Author Bio
Erika Johansen grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She went to Swarthmore College, earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and eventually became an attorney, but she never stopped writing. (From the publishers.)
Read Erika's Buzzfeed article: Why We Need "Ugly" Heroines
Book Reviews
The Invasion of the Tearling glides over the sophomore slump, carrying the series upward with it.... The new Tearling characters are fascinating, and Johansen introduces them so smoothly, we care for them almost the instant we learn their names.
Entertainment Weekly
Get caught up with Kelsea, a heroine so badass, Emma Watson’s already signed up to play her.
Cosmopolitan
All hail Queen Kelsea! In the series’ second action-packed book, the teen saves her throne from a power-hungry neighbor.
Us Weekly
Genre-bending.... So good.... Gripping.
Buzzfeed
A dazzling and gripping followup.... Expertly combining modern and medieval themes, Johansen ratchets up suspense as she weaves a magical story that crosses time...one of the most original and well-written series in recent memory.
USA Today.com
Readers—Watson included —can’t seem to put down the novels, in large part because of the Queen of the Tearling herself: spunky, complex, tough-as-nails Kelsea Glynn.
Bustle
This sequel to The Queen of the Tearling continues Kelsea's story and provides the history that created Tea.... Verdict: Teens need to have read the first volume in order to understand and appreciate this sequel; both books should be at hand for fantasy fans. —Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA
School Library Journal
Gritty, gruesome, and enthrallingly magical fantasy.
Booklist
[T]he end gets all liony, witchy, and wardroby...requiring more than a little disbelief-suspension. Still, the writing is smart and...a touch above a lot of sword-and-sorcery stuff—but still very much bound up in the conventions of that genre. Overall, a satisfying close to a long but worthy yarn.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. We first encounter the Queen of the Tearling when she visits the Keep’s jail to confront several new prisoners. She is described not as "delicate," or "pretty," but "tough," with hair "short like a man’s." What does this add to our understanding of her? What role does appearance play in authority?
2. Consider Ewen, the Keep’s Jailor. Despite his intellectual "slowness," what admirable and valuable qualities does he possess? What of his constant attempt and admitted failure "to paint the things he saw"?
3. Queen Kelsea "had been born angry," but saw her destructive anger as "pure," and "the closest she would ever get to the girl she really was deep down." What might it mean for anger to be "pure"? When does it serve her well or not? In what ways can anger be valuable?
4. What is introduced to the novel with Kelsea’s dreamlike connection to Lily Mayhew and her experience in the time of the pre-Crossing? What’s the effect on the novel of shifting between the two eras and storylines?
5. What qualities do Kelsea and Lily share? In what significant ways are they different? Is this the result of personality or profoundly different times and circumstances?
6. Despite various differences, like the scale and scope of technology, how are the social situations of the pre-Crossing America and that of the Tear similar?
7. What are the attitudes toward and use of books in each society? Why are books and literacy so important to both Kelsea and Lily?
8. How did Lily, an intelligent and independent person, become married to an abusive and dangerous man like Greg? In what ways is this similar to or different from other abused women like Andalie?
9. How does the painful memory of Maddy influence and help Lily?
10. An important theme in the novel is the struggle to balance thoughts of the past and future and how they both affect the present. What’s the relationship between these three conceptions of time? How are they similar or different? What’s a healthy balance of concern for each?
11. Kelsea’s struggle with her own "plain" appearance—hating herself when seen reflected in a mirror—continues but is complicated by her gradual transformation into a beautiful woman. What are the origins of her concern with her looks? Why might personal beauty matter to someone with such significant power and responsibility?
12. Consider Andalie and her personal history. What more does her experience reveal about the complex social issues of equality for women, violence against them, autonomy of their own bodies and ability, and even the importance of personal strength? How does her story affect Kelsea? What do Andalie’s daughters, Aisa and Glee, each bring to the novel?
13. Andalie powerfully defines "the crux of evil" as those without empathy, "who feel entitled to whatever they want, whatever they can grab." What are the origins of such entitlement? In what ways is it the result of "upbringing," as Kelsea says? How does a system based on inherited royalty avoid encouraging such entitlement? How might such feelings of entitlement be "eradicated"?
14. How does Kelsea’s developing physical desire—to the point of almost being seduced by the handsome but evil "dark thing"—complicate her responsibilities as Queen? To what extent are these feelings natural or related to her self-critical thoughts about her "unremarkable" appearance? In what ways is her relationship with close guard and "paramour" Pen Alcott healthy or not?
15. Of what significance, literally and symbolically, is it that Kelsea must forgive and free "the dark thing" in her attempt to defeat the Red Queen? Why is the information she gets so powerful?
16. Despite their differences, Kelsea and the Red Queen both use their powers to harm themselves. Why is this? What relationship does each have to pain? What does self-harm suggest about the complex issues women face regarding beauty, autonomy and their own bodies?
17. Considering the history of the human species, the ebb and flow of enlightenment and goodness, Kelsea wonders if "the most defining characteristic of the species might be lapse." In what ways might this be true? Why is it so difficult to evolve toward the good despite increased knowledge?
18. The Better World Lily enters is still threatened by people potentially bringing "their own nightmares of the past." What does this mean? How do people’s personal experiences affect the building of a healthy society?
19. Tear explains to Lily that the Better World will be "doomed to fail" unless people can "put the community’s needs before [their] own." What are these community needs? What would it take to control or sacrifice one’s personal desires? What forces might be strong enough to enable it?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I'll Take You There
Wally Lamb, 2016
HarperCollins
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062656285
Summary
An evocative, deeply affecting tapestry of one Baby Boomer's life—Felix Funicello, introduced in Wishin’ and Hopin’—and the trio of unforgettable women who have changed it, in this radiant homage to the resiliency, strength, and power of women.
I’ll Take You There centers on Felix, a film scholar who runs a Monday night movie club in what was once a vaudeville theater.
One evening, while setting up a film in the projectionist booth, he’s confronted by the ghost of Lois Weber, a trailblazing motion picture director from Hollywood’s silent film era.
Lois invites Felix to revisit—and in some cases relive—scenes from his past as they are projected onto the cinema’s big screen.
In these magical movies, the medium of film becomes the lens for Felix to reflect on the women who profoundly impacted his life. There’s his daughter Aliza, a Gen Y writer for New York Magazine who is trying to align her post-modern feminist beliefs with her lofty career ambitions; his sister, Frances, with whom he once shared a complicated bond of kindness and cruelty; and Verna, a fiery would-be contender for the 1951 Miss Rheingold competition, a beauty contest sponsored by a Brooklyn-based beer manufacturer that became a marketing phenomenon for two decades.
At first unnerved by these ethereal apparitions, Felix comes to look forward to his encounters with Lois, who is later joined by the spirits of other celluloid muses.
Against the backdrop of a kaleidoscopic convergence of politics and pop culture, family secrets, and Hollywood iconography, Felix gains an enlightened understanding of the pressures and trials of the women closest to him, and of the feminine ideals and feminist realities that all women, of every era, must face. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 17, 1950
• Where—Norwich, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of Connecticut; M.F.A., University of Vermont
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Connecticut
Wally Lamb is an American author of several novels, including She's Come Undone (1992) and I Know This Much Is True (1998), The Hour I First Believed (2008), and We Are Water (2013). The first two books were Oprah Book Club selections. Lamb was the director of the Writing Center at Norwich Free Academy in Norwich from 1989 to 1998 and has taught Creative Writing in the English Department at the University of Connecticut.
Early life
Lamb was born to a working-class family in Norwich, Connecticut. Three Rivers, the fictional town where several of his novels are set, is based on Norwich and the nearby towns of New London, Willimantic, Connecticut, and Westerly, Rhode Island. As a child, Lamb loved to draw and create his own comic books—activities which, he says, gave him "a leg up" on the imagery and colloquial dialogue that characterize his stories. He credits his ability to write in female voices, as well as male, with having grown up with older sisters in a neighborhood largely populated by girls.
After graduating from high school, Lamb studied at the University of Connecticut during the turbulent early 1970s era of anti-war and civil-rights protests and student strikes. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Education from the University of Connecticut and an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College.
Writing
Lamb began writing in 1981, the year he became a first-time father. Lamb's first published stories were short fictions that appeared in Northeast, a Sunday magazine of the Hartford Courant. "Astronauts," published in the Missouri Review in 1989, won the Missouri Review William Penden Prize and became widely anthologize
d. His first novel, She's Come Undone, was followed six years later by I Know This Much Is True, a story about identical twin brothers, one of whom develops paranoid schizophrenia. Both novels became number one bestsellers after Oprah Winfrey selected them for her popular Book Club. Lamb's third novel, The Hour I First Believed, published in 2008, interfaces fiction with such non-fictional events as the Columbine High School shooting, the Iraq War, and, in a story within the story, events of nineteenth-century America. Published the following year, Wishin' and Hopin' was a departure for Lamb: a short, comically nostalgic novel about a parochial school fifth grader, set in 1964. In We Are Water, Lamb returns to his familiar setting of Three Rivers. The novel focuses on art, 1950s-era racial strife, and the impact of a devastating flood on a Connecticut family.
Teaching
Lamb taught English and writing for 25 years at the Norwich Free Academy, a regional high school that was his alma mater. In his last years at the school, Lamb designed and implemented the school's Writing Center, where he instructed students in writing across the disciplines. As a result of his work for this program, he was chosen the Norwich Free Academy's first Teacher of the Year and later was named a finalist for the honor of Connecticut Teacher of the Year (1989). From 1997 to 1999, he was an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Connecticut. As the school's Director of Creative Writing, he originated a student-staffed literary and arts magazine, The Long River Review.
Prison work
From 1999 to the present, Lamb has facilitated a writing program for incarcerated women at the York Correctional Institute, Connecticut's only women's prison in Niantic, Connecticut. The program has produced two collections of his inmate students' autobiographical writing, Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters and I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison, both of which Lamb edited.
The publication of the first book became a source of controversy and media attention when, a week before its release, the State of Connecticut unexpectedly sued its incarcerated contributors—not for the six thousand dollars each writer would collect after her release from prison but for the entire cost of her incarceration, calculated at $117 per day times the number of days in her prison sentence. When one of the writers won a PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, given to a writer whose freedom of speech is under attack, the prison destroyed the women's writing and moved to close down Lamb's program. These actions caught the interest of the CBS 60 Minute; the State of Connecticut settled the lawsuit and reinstated the program shortly before the show was aired.
Influences
Lamb says he draws influence from masters of long- and short-form fiction, among them John Updike, Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Raymond Carver, and Andre Dubus.
He credits his perennial teaching of certain novels to high school students with teaching him about "the scaffolding" of longer stories. Among these, Lamb lists Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He says Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other anthropological analyses of the commonalities of ancient myths from diverse world cultures helped him to figure out the ways in which stories, ancient and modern, can illuminate the human condition. Lamb has also stated that he is influenced by pop culture and artists who work in other media. Among these he mentions painters Edward Hopper and René Magritte.
Honors and awards
Lamb's writing awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Center for the Book's Lifetime Achievement Award, selections by Oprah's Book Club and Germany's Bertelsmann Book Club, the Pushcart Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, and New York Times Notable Books of the Year listings.
She's Come Undone was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times's Best First Novel Award and one of People magazine's Top Ten Books of the Year. I Know This Much Is True won the Friends of the Library USA Readers' Choice Award for best novel of 1998 and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's Kenneth Johnson Award for its anti-stigmatizing of mental illness.
Teaching awards for Lamb include a national Apple Computers "Thanks to Teachers" Excellence Award and the Barnes and Noble "Writers Helping Writers" Award for his work with incarcerated women. Lamb has received Honorary Doctoral Degrees from several colleges and universities and was awarded Distinguished Alumni awards from Vermont College of Fine Arts and the University of Connecticut. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/13.)
Book Reviews
It’s hard not to be touched by this sweet-natured novel.
Washington Post
A well-told story about a man whose dealings with women are as transformational as the women’s liberation movement itself.
Minneapolis Tribune
Lamb’s previous work has been quite sensitive to women, painting endearing portraits of female characters who have been ignored, shamed and often mistreated. He builds on that tradition in I’ll Take You There, a love letter to feminism and to trailblazing women-real and imagined-who have graced the silver screen or stood behind the camera.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Muralist
B.A. Shapiro, 2016
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616206437
Summary
When Alizee Benoit, an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), vanishes in New York City in 1940, no one knows what happened to her.
Not her Jewish family living in German-occupied France. Not her artistic patron and political compatriot, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not her close-knit group of friends, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner.
And, some seventy years later, not her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, who while working at Christie’s auction house uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind works by those now-famous Abstract Expressionist artists.
Do they hold answers to the questions surrounding her missing aunt? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Her own words
I am the author of seven novels (The Murialist, The Art Forger, The Safe Room, Blind Spot, See No Evil, Blameless and Shattered Echoes), four screenplays (Blind Spot, The Lost Coven, Borderline and Shattered Echoes) and the non-fiction book, The Big Squeeze.
In my previous career incarnations, I have directed research projects for a residential substance abuse facility, worked as a systems analyst/statistician, headed the Boston office of a software development firm, and served as an adjunct professor teaching sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University. I like being a novelist the best.
I began my writing career when I quit my high-pressure job after the birth of my second child. Nervous about what to do next, I said to my mother, "If I'm not playing at being superwoman anymore, I don't know who I am." My mother answered with the question: "If you had one year to live, how would you want to spend it?" The answer: write a novel and spend more time with my children. And that's exactly what I did. Smart mother.
After writing my novels and raising my children, I now live in Boston with my husband Dan and my dog Sagan. And yes, I'm working on yet another novel but have no plans to raise any more children. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Shapiro’s plotting is deft, and the anonymous paintings and Alizee’s disappearance add mystery and intrigue to the tale. Like her well-received 2012 novel, The Art Forger, this new story takes us into the heart of what it means to be an artist. …[V]ibrant and suspenseful. As tens of thousands of modern-day asylum-seekers from the Middle East and Africa surge into Europe, and pictures of their mistreatment are broadcast around the world, The Muralist is a grim reminder that history continues to repeat itself.
Washington Post
B. A. Shapiro makes the radical, varied, and sometimes enigmatic world of abstract expressionism altogether human and accessible in her smart new historical thriller. …It has more emotional ballast and is more skillfully written than what one customarily finds. The novel evokes the horror and sorrow of the Holocaust in just their tedious administrative tasks of retracing steps, of sifting through wreckage. Shapiro also does a wonderful job of restoring complexity to the historical moment and stripping away the clarity of retrospection.
Boston Globe
The Muralist is, like What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman or Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline, a historical novel that brings the 20th century to life.
USA Today
B.A. Shapiro captivated us in 2012 with her "addictive" novel The Art Forger. Now, she’s back with another thrilling tale from the art world, set right on the brink of World War II.
Entertainment Weekly
Shapiro’s writing pulses with energy…. The Muralist brings the time period and setting to life. Readers will appreciate Shapiro’s seamless integration of fact into the story and will feel immersed in a time when the world tipped into chaos. Art, history, and mystery—an intriguing and satisfying blend.
Washington Independent Review of Books
Though compelling, Shapiro’s latest is bogged down in relaying well-researched material about the pre-WWII politics and developments in the art world, ultimately undermining the power of the fictional story.... Danielle, lacks depth, diminishing the denouement.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Shapiro follows the enthusiastically received The Art Forger (2012) with an even more polished and resonant tale. [Her] novel of epic moral failings is riveting, gracefully romantic, and sharply revelatory; it is also tragic in its timeliness as the world faces new refugee crises.
Booklist
In The Muralist, novelist B.A. Shapiro deftly layers American art history, the facts of World War II and the fictitious stories of Alizee and Dani. …The Muralist is a compelling mystery. …The Muralist elevates Shapiro to an even higher plane and is sure to be a crowning touch in an already celebrated career.
BookPage
The immortals of abstract impressionism drink, argue, and flirt with the muralist. But...the dialogue is wooden; the characterizations predictable.... Shapiro tries too hard to make her fiction into moral instruction.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Muralist exposes many facts about the situation in the United States before World War II, including the denial of visas to qualified refugees, the majority of the country’s opposition to entering the war, and the open discrimination against Jews. Did you find any of this surprising? In the wake of the Allies’ victory, how has history generally portrayed this prewar period in America? Do you think there are parallels to the United States in the twenty-first century?
2. The issue of refugees running from war and oppression is as current today as it was during World War II. What similarities and differences to do you see between nations’ responses today and those before World War II? What about in attitudes among U.S. citizens?
3. The author places Alizee, a fictional character, among the real-life artists who created the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York in the 1940s. How did living there at that time inform their art? Is there something quintessentially American about Abstract Expressionism?
4. Alizee and her friends are employed by the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program funded by the government to give work to artists. Do you think a government program like this could happen in today’s political climate? How are art and artists valued or supported differently in today’s society?
5. In what ways might artistic talent and mental illness be linked? Did you see manifestations of a link in Alizee? How did that differ from the portrayals of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko?
6. Alizee wants to believe that art can change the world. Does art have the power to affect history? Are there examples of it doing so in the past?
7. Alizee decides to be part of an assassination attempt in the hopes of thwarting a greater wrong. Do you agree with what she does? Are there times when such decisions are justifiable? What was her state of mind when she made the decision?
8. How much do the times in which you live affect your individual life choices? How might Alizee’s life have been different if she had lived in the twenty-first century? Would her artistic dreams have been realized? How does Alizee’s artistic life compare with that of her grandniece Danielle?
9. When Danielle finds out the truth about what happened to her aunt, she seems able to become the artist she was meant to be. Why? Which was more important: finding the answer, or asking the question in the first place?
10. Were you surprised at how Alizee’s life turned out? Relieved? How do you think Alizee felt about it? How did her art define her life, even amid drastic change?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
To Capture What We Cannot Keep
Beatrice Colin, 2016
Flatiron Books
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250071446
Summary
Set against the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this novel charts the relationship between a young Scottish widow and a French engineer who, despite constraints of class and wealth, fall in love.
In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Emile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris, France—a moment of pure possibility. But back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata become clear
Cait is a widow who because of her precarious financial situation is forced to chaperone two wealthy Scottish charges. Emile is expected to take on the bourgeois stability of his family's business and choose a suitable wife.
As the Eiffel Tower rises, a marvel of steel and air and light, the subject of extreme controversy and a symbol of the future, Cait and Emile must decide what their love is worth.
Seamlessly weaving historical detail and vivid invention, Beatrice Colin evokes the revolutionary time in which Cait and Emile live—one of corsets and secret trysts, duels and Bohemian independence, strict tradition and Impressionist experimentation.
To Capture What We Cannot Keep, stylish, provocative, and shimmering, raises probing questions about a woman's place in that world, the overarching reach of class distinctions, and the sacrifices love requires of us all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1963
• Where—London, England, UK
• Raised—Scotland
• Education—B.A., University of Glasgow; Ph.D., Strathclyde University
• Currently—lives in Glasgow, Scotland
Beatrice Colin is a British novelist and radio dramatist who lives in Glasgow, Scotland. She has several novels under her belt, including two for children, and has written original plays for BBC Radio 4.
Born in London, England, Colin's family moved to Scotland when she was still a child. Her parents come from a line of Russian-Jews, who converted to Christianity in the 19th Century and departed Russia during the 1917 revolution.
One of her great-great-grandmothers had been a bestselling novelist in Russia at the turn of the 20th Century, and her great-aunt, Nina, had been a film actress in Germany between the first and second world wars. Nina became the inspiration behind Colin's 2008 novel, The Glimmer Palace (the UK title is The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite).
Colin attended the University of Glasgow where she studied English; following graduation, she worked as a journalist for the arts & features pages of the Scotsman, Sunday Herald, and the Guardian. She returned to school, earning her doctorate in 2010 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Her doctoral dissertation argued for the potential of historical fiction to reclaim individuals who, due to the absence of diaries or memoirs, have never been recognized through the lens of history.
Novels
Colin's novels include To Capture What We Cannot Keep (2016), The Songwriter (2010), The Glimmer Palace (2008, US title), Disappearing Act (2002), and Nude Untitled (2000). Her two children's novels include Pyrate's Boy (2013) and My Invisible Sister (2010), which has been adapted to film by Disney.
Plays and short stories
Colin has written extensively for radio—both adaptions and original plays—on BBC Radio 4. Perhaps her best known play is The True Life of Bonnie Parker (2013), which was broadcast as a Woman’s Hour serial.
The author's short stories have been broadcast and published in anthologies and literary magazines such as Ontario Review and the London Magazine.
Beatrice is currently a lecturer in creative writing at Strathclyde University. (Author bio adapted from The Scotsman and the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Even while telling a very intimate story, Colin attends to the extraordinary mechanics and publicity surrounding this controversial project.... Colin is a talented literary engineer.... To Capture What We Cannot Keep will provide a string of shocking plot twists.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
It’s sexy escapism, but the book’s real selling point is its illumination of 19th-century Paris and that phenomenal landmark (Book of the Week).
People
Colin ably brings to life a time before the iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower became an iconic part of the Parisian landscape. To Capture What We Cannot Keep is part history lesson and part thrilling love story, leading to an ending full of depth, promise, and hope.
BookPage
(Starred review.) To be in Paris to witness the construction of the Eiffel Tower is a magnificent occasion: to have a hand, however small, in its building, even better…. This exquisitely written, shadowy historical novel will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including fans of the Belle Epoque
Library Journal
Beautifully restrained love story, told in a refreshingly unhurried manner and grounded in the era’s social constraints.... Drawn with care and suffused with stylish ambience, Colin’s Paris is a city of painters, eccentric aristocrats, desperate prostitutes, secret lovers, and the magnificent artistic vision taking shape high above them.
Booklist
Colin has a sure hand with the atmospheres of both [Paris and Glasgow] and with the mores and dress of the period, and she manages to continually raise the stakes for her characters without ever resorting to melodrama. A novel of soaring ambitions, public and private.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the novel’s epigraph, by Gustave Eiffel:
Before they meet at such an impressive height, the uprights appear to spring out of the ground, molded in a way by the action of the wind itself.
What sort of tone does the epigraph establish? How does it resonate with the novel that follows?
2. Caitriona is very much a woman constrained—by her status as a widow, by her poverty and her fall from high society, even by the clothes she wears. In our introduction to her, on the novel’s first page, Beatrice Colin writes:
She had laced tight that morning, pulling until the eyeholes in her corset almost met, and now her chest rose and fell in shallow gasps as she tried to catch her breath—in, out, in and out.
Were you therefore surprised by how her story turned out?
3. Jamie describes Cait as "a lady with real class," despite the fact that she is penniless. Discuss the complex and nuanced portrayal of class in To Capture What We Cannot Keep. How is class tied to material wealth, education, social status, and family? How do the classes mix in the novel, and what is the fallout?
4. Eiffel tells Emile, of Paris, "reputation in this city is everything, you know that." How does reputation shape the lives of Colin’s characters?
5. During a sightseeing boat trip in Paris, Alice watches...
with a mixture of horror and delight, as one of the women, still with a glass of red wine in one hand, pulled up her skirts to reveal purple bloomers and danced alone on the deck.
Discuss how Alice is frequently pulled between social propriety and Bohemian freedom. Does her character evolve over the course of the novel?
6. It’s clear that all of Colin’s characters are participating in sexual adventures. Yet as Jamie and the count show, the men seem immune to any censure while for the women, it can be their ruin. Does this double standard surprise you? Do you think things are much different today than they were back then?
7. Why is Gabrielle so devastated when she discovers that it was Emile who bought all of the paintings of her? When she laments, "I thought, I thought that at last all this meant something," what does it reveal of her insecurities about her romantic life and her artistic legacy?
8. Do you find Gabrielle likable or sympathetic? Did your opinion of her change as the novel progressed? Discuss your feelings on the likability of the characters in general.
9. Discuss the important role the Parisian art world plays in the novel. Were you surprised at the contemporary reactions to now-beloved Impressionist painters? How does the aesthetic of the Eiffel Tower fit in (or clash) with Impressionism?
10. Emile believes that, in his art class, "his style was the exact opposite of his technical work; his line was loose, economical, free. And he wanted to capture what he couldn’t keep, the fleeting, the transient." He believes, of his engineering, that "there was finesse in his composition of girders and blots; it was bold and brilliant, it was art." How do these two artistic passions shape him? How do they complement his attraction to both Cait and Gabrielle? What does the novel’s title mean to you? How do you think it speaks to the other characters in the novel?
11. Why do you think Emile’s mother holds such sway over him? What does she represent in the novel?
12. Discuss this conversation between Cait and Emile, about the Eiffel Tower:
But the fact is that it is not trying to be anything rather than what it is. Nothing is hidden and the reverse is also true; nothing in the city can hide. From the top on a clear day, you will be able to see everything. It will all be gloriously transparent.
It’s what we want, isn’t it? Transparency. One so rarely finds it.
What is the symbolic importance of the Eiffel Tower in the novel, and in Emile and Cait’s relationship?
13. To Capture What We Cannot Keeps moves between Glasgow, Paris, Edinburgh, and West Africa. How are the characters affected by setting, and how is a sense of place evoked in the writing?
14. Were you surprised that Cait moved to West Africa? What do you think her future holds?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Spy
Paulo Coelho, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524732066
Summary
In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, brings to life one of history's most enigmatic women: Mata Hari. The story of her celebrated yet mysterious life as an exotic dancer and courtesan, and her controversial execution as a spy during the First World War unfolds as a fascinating first-person narrative of self-creation and bravery.
Her only crime was to be an independent woman: "I do not know if the future will remember me, but if it should, may no one ever view me as a victim, but as someone who moved forward with courage, and paid the price she had to pay."
On the occasion of the centenary of Mata Hari's execution for espionage in 1917, Paulo Coelho reconsiders her life and character in a fictional memoir.
In a series of letters, written from prison on the eve of her death, Mata Hari reflects on the choices she has made to always pursue her own truth—from her childhood in a small Dutch town, to unhappy years as the wife of an alcoholic diplomat in Java, to her calculated and self-fashioned rise to celebrity in Paris and across Europe as an exotic dancer and confidante to the most powerful men of the time.
Though there was little evidence to incriminate her, Mata Hari was unable to escape persecution and prosecution by French military intelligence, and at the novel's end, Coelho re-creates a final letter, written by Mata Hari's lawer, Edouard Clunet, that offers a captivating view of Europe at war and the fatal price of suspicion. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1947
• Where—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Education—Left law school in second year
• Awards—Crystal Award (Switzerland); Rio Branco Order (Brazil); Legion d’Honneur (France);
Brazilian Academy of Letters (Brazil)
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Paulo Coelho de Souza is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist. He is the recipient of numerous international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He is best know for his novel The Alchemist (1987, 1994), which has been translated into 80 languages.
Early life
Coelho was born in Brazil and attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded,
My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?
At 17, Coelho's introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20
Born into a Catholic family, his parents were strict about the religion and faith. Coelho later remarked that
It wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn't know what to do... They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me.
At his parents' wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started using drugs in the 1960s Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs.
In 1974, Coelho was arrested for "subversive" activities by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist, and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.
In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a turning point in his life. On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage In an interview, he aserted,
[In 1986], I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water— to use the metaphor in The Alchemist, I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.
Coelho would leave his (by then) lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.
Writing career
In 1982, Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make a substantial impact. In 1986 he contributed to the Practical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves since he considered it "of bad quality."
After making his 1986 pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Coelho wrote The Pilgrimage (1987), and the following year, he wrote The Alchemist, publishing d it through a small Brazilian house with an initial print run of 900 copies. It was decided not to issue another reprint.
Later, however, he found a larger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida, The Alchemist took off. HarperCollins, then the biggest publishing House in the U.S., decided to publish the book in 1994. It became, first, a Brazilian bestseller and, later, a world-wide phenomenon. The Alchemist has gone on to sell more than 83 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into 67 different languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.
The Alchemist, easily known as his most successful book, is a story about a young shepherd who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. No one knows what the treasure is or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within.
Later writing
Since the publication of The Alchemist, Coelho has generally written one novel every two years, in total, some 30 books. Three of them—The Pilgrimage,The Valkyries and Aleph—are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are fictional, although rooted in his life experiences. Others, like Maktub, The Manual of the Warrior of Light, and Like the Flowing River, are collections of essays, newspaper columns, or selected teachings. In total, Coelho has sold more than 210 million books in over 170 countries worldwide (June 2015 sales figures), and his works have been translated into 80 languages
Coelho writes up to three blog posts a week at his blog,[16] and has over 28.5 million fans on Facebook, and more than 11.1 million followers on Twitter, a higher number than authors such as Stephen King and J.K. Rowling.[17] Coelho discussed his relationship with readers through social media platforms with The Wall Street Journal in August 2014.[17]
Não Pare na Pista
In November 2014, Paulo Coelho finished uploading around 80,000 documents-manuscripts, diaries, photos, reader letters, press clippings-and created a virtual Paulo Coelho Foundation,[19] together with the physical foundation which is based in Geneva.
Personal life
Coelho has been married to his wife, the artist Christina Oiticica, since 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year in Rio de Janeiro and the other half in a country house in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Coelho and Oiticica now permanently reside in Geneva, Switzerland.
In 1996, Coelho founded the Paulo Coelho Institute, which provides support to children and the elderly. He continues to write, following his own version of The Alchemist's "Language of the World."
Though he was raised in a Catholic family, he left his faith in his 20's. However, he later returned to his faith and is a devout Catholic now, attending Holy Mass regularly and participating in several charity programs organized by the Church. Though he accepts the supremacy of the supreme pontiff, the Pope, he is suspicious and often criticises various views of the Church, such as the its views on gay marriage. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/5/2016).
Book Reviews
[S]triking.... Although...not Coelho's strongest work, the ending is brilliant in its irony, and throughout, he displays an ability to inhabit her voice.... [R]eaders will believe they've read Zelle's actual letters.
Publishers Weekly
The absurdity of the charges against Mata Hari comes through clearly, but even as she tells her own story we never get a sense of her humanity, only her various personas and masks. A sympathetic but sketchy portrait of a legend.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, feel free to use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion...then take off on your own:
1. After reading Coelho's book, what do you think of Margaretha Zelle AKA Mata Hari? How would you describe her? Do you find her, say, admirable or deeply flawed, astute or devious, manipulated or manipulative (did she use men, or they her)? Did she ever understand the ease with which her power over men could be be demonized?
2. Discuss the views of Mata Hari's contemporaries: how did the society in which she lived see her?
3. What was the evidence was used to accuse and convict Mata Hari?
4. Performing undressed on stage, what does Mata Hari mean when she says, "I was nothing, not even my body. I was just movements communing with the universe." She asks that her attitudes about sexuality and self-expression be taken as universal truths. Do you think they are? If not then, are they now, a century later?
5. How well does Coelho portray the character of his heroine? Is his depiction superficial or does he plumb her depths? Does Mata Hari come to life for you?
6. Could Mata Hari's life have ended another way? Was her execution inevitable? What about the men who could have stepped forward to free her—why didn't they?
7. Mata Hari was a victim of patriarchy. Do you consider her a proto-feminist, perhaps even a martyr to feminism? Or do you see her as a self-promoter, as someone who led a daring but thoughtlessly reckless life?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)