One Amazing Thing
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 2010
Hyperion/ Everywoman's Voice
220 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401341589
Summary
Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain.
—A punky teenager with an unexpected gift.
—An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating.
—A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11.
—A graduate student haunted by a question about love.
—An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption.
—A Chinese grandmother with a secret past.
—Two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.
When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive.
There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self- discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself.
From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions, and The Mistress of Spices, comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival—and about the reasons to survive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 29, 1956
• Where—Kolkata, India
• Education—B.A., Kolkata University; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas and San Jose, Calif.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prizewinning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. Her writings have appeared in more than 50 magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
Divakaruni was born in India and came to the United States at 19. She put herself through Berkeley doing odd jobs, from working at an Indian boutique to slicing bread in a bakery. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Extras
Excerpts from a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• During graduate school, I used to work in the kitchen of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley. My favorite task was slicing Jell-O.
• I love Chinese food, but my family hates it. So when I'm on book tour I always eat Chinese!
• I almost died on a pilgrimage trip to the Himalayas some years back—but I got a good story out of it. The story is in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives—let's see if readers can figure out which one it is!
• Writing is so central to my life that it leaves little time/desire/need for other interests. I do a good amount of work with domestic violence organizations—I'm on the advisory board of Asians Against Domestic Violence in Houston. I feel very strongly about trying to eradicate domestic violence from our society.
• My favorite ways to unwind are to do yoga, read, and spend time with my family.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her answer:
Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I read this when I was in grad school, and it really made me examine my own role as a woman of color living in the U.S. It made me want to start writing about my own experiences. It made me think that perhaps I, too, had something worthwhile to write about. ("Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The appeal of these life stories, like that of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, is that they throw the spotlight onto varied lives, each with its own joys and miseries. Together, the stories show how easy it is to divert young lives into unforeseen and restrictive channels, and how hard it is for people to realize their early dreams. Their shared experiences and fears form the frame that holds together this compendium of short stories into an absorbing novel....At the end of her novel, her readers are fully engaged in what will happen to those nine people.
Washington Post
The plot of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's new novel could be ripped from the horrifying headlines about Haiti in a strange case of art imitating life.... One Amazing Thing, which was written well before the Haiti earthquake, is receiving high praise.
USA Today
Masterful storyteller Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni examines such stories in an apropos novel for our times. Her suspenseful tale of nine souls who suddenly don't know if they will live or die is a tribute—on many levels—to hope and survival. But it is also, most successfully, a ringing rebuke to rushes to judgment. It's an adult, literary version of The Breakfast Club, with dire circumstances. 'Hell is other people,' Uma thinks as she looks at one of her fellow distraught victims. But redemption can be other people, too, Uma and the others soon understand.One more amazing thing we've learned from Divakaruni.
Miami Herald
In a soggy treatment of catastrophe and enlightenment, Divakaruni (The Mistress of Spices) traps a group of nine diverse people in the basement of an Indian consulate in an unidentified American city after an earthquake. Two are émigrés who work for the consulate; the others are in the building to apply for visas. With very little food, rising flood water, dwindling oxygen, and no electricity or phone service, the victims fend off panic by taking turns at sharing the central stories of their lives. Oddly, the group spends little time brainstorming ways to escape, even when they run out of food and water, and sections of ceiling collapse around them. They wait in fatalistic resignation and tell their tales. Some are fable-like, with captivating scene-setting and rush-to-moral conclusions, but the most powerful are intimate, such as the revelations an accountant shares about his impoverished childhood with an exhausted mother, her boyfriend, and a beloved kitten. Despite moments of brilliance, this uneven novel, while vigorously plumbing themes of class struggle, disillusionment, and guilt, disappoints with careless and unearned epiphanies.
Publishers Weekly
Nine people of diverse backgrounds trapped by an earthquake in the basement of the Indian consulate in an unidentified American city—that's the situation Divakaruni (The Palace of Illusions) sets for herself here. The thoroughly American Uma immigrated with her parents as an infant and is now a graduate student. She tries to concentrate on reading Chaucer while waiting to apply for a visa to visit her parents, who have moved back to India, but spends more time speculating about the people around her. When the earthquake hits, African American army veteran Cameron takes charge, while Uma encourages each of these modern-day pilgrims to share a story of "one amazing thing." The pilgrims range from a young Muslim man hoping that he can visit his parents' ancestral home to an upper-class Caucasian couple planning a trip to the Taj Mahal. As the stories unfold, they tell as much about the diversity of Indian culture as they do about the American "melting pot," which lets some groups Americanize more successfully than others. Verdict: Writing with great sensitivity, Divarkaruni presents snapshots that speak volumes about the characters, so unexpectedly drawn together. Highly recommended. —Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll.
Library Journal
After the glorious complexity of The Palace of Illusions (2008), Divakaruni...presents a wise and beautifully refined drama.... A storyteller of exquisite lyricism and compassion, Divakaruni weaves a suspenseful, astute, and unforgettable survivors’ tale. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
A diverse group trapped in the aftermath of a disaster shares tales of love, loss and desire. Divakaruni's latest (The Palace of Illusions, 2008, etc.) harkens back to her earlier collections of short stories more than it coalesces as a convincing novel. Seven visa applicants wait for the services of two bureaucrats in the basement-level visa office of an Indian consulate somewhere in America. "It was not uncommon, in this city, to find persons of different races thrown together," Divakaruni writes. "Still, Uma thought, it was like a mini UN summit in here. Whatever were all these people planning to do in India?" Suddenly, a massive earthquake strikes, trapping them in the dark and forcing them to confront each other. An angry young man named Tariq Husein seethes as Cameron Grant, an African-American veteran, assumes leadership of the trapped group. Mr. Pritchett, who had hoped a trip to India would lift his wife's depression, endangers them all by trying to light a cigarette despite a gas leak. Malathi, a clerk at the consulate, stands up to him when he takes away Mrs. Pritchett's medication. Jiang, an elderly Chinese woman injured in the quake, tries to protect her granddaughter Lily. In the midst of their ordeal, Uma, a grad student first glimpsed reading "The Wife of Bath's Tale," comes up with the idea of having each person relate an incident from his or her life. "Everyone has a story," she says. "I don't believe anyone can go through life without encountering at least one amazing thing." The individual tales are engaging, but the mechanical setup and the lack of resolution in the primary narrative make it difficult to fully embrace all that follows. Compassionate stories, many of them inspired, suspended in half of a novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. If you were to tell the story of one amazing thing that had happened in your life, what would it be? Would it be a memory of a gift, an experience, a person that you met, or an event that you witnessed? What made it amazing, and how did it change your life?
2. Would the experience of reading One Amazing Thing have been different had the narrative been from the point of view of just one person, or if the story was told by an outside figure removed from the events in the book?
3. If you were trapped in a similar dangerous situation as the characters in One Amazing Thing, how do you think you’d react? Was there an action or behavior by a character that resonated with you?
4. Out of the nine people in the visa office, did you identify with any in particular? Which one(s) and why?
5. Why was each character’s “one amazing thing” remarkable?
6. The book begins and ends with Uma Sinha, the graduate student. Why did the author choose Uma’s story to “bookend” the novel in this way? What about Uma set her apart from the members of the group, in your mind?
7. Which character’s story did you find the most unexpected? Conversely, were you able to predict what was to happen in any of the stories?
8. Refresh your memory with the stories of the female characters in the book. Did these stories have anything in common?
9. “Apologize to a woman and she would gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen” (pg. 55). What did you first think of Mr. Mangalam, and did this change after you learned his story?
10. Discuss Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett. Were you surprised, as their stories unfolded, to discover their reasons for going to India?
11. Almost all of the characters experience or perpetuate some kind of cultural misunderstanding. What did you learn about some of the cultures and religions explored in the book?
12. What did you think of the book’s ending? What do you think the group’s fate was? Why did Uma’s story end where it did?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
Jeffrey Archer, 1976
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312997137
Summary
The conned: an Oxford don, a revered society physician, a chic French art dealer, and a charming English lord. They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life's fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe. A brilliant, self-made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man.
With nothing left to lose four strangers are about to come together—each expert in their own field. Their plan: find Harvey, shadow him, trap him, and penny-for-penny, destroy him. From the luxurious casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot to the bustling streets of Wall Street to fashionable London galleries, their own ingenious game has begun. It's called revenge—and they were taught by a master. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 15, 1940
• Where—London; raised in Somerset, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University; Oxford Institute
• Currently—lives in London and the Old Vicarage,
Grantchester
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare is a best-selling English author and former politician whose political career ended with his conviction and subsequent imprisonment (2001–03) for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Alongside his literary work, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–74), deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86) and was made a life peer in 1992.
Early years
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital. He was two weeks old when his family moved to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where he spent most of his early life. He has an older brother born out of wedlock, also originally called Jeffrey, who was put up for adoption at an early age. The brother assumed the name David Brown and only discovered his relationship to Archer in 1980.
In 1951 Archer won a scholarship to Wellington School, in Somerset (not to be confused with the public school Wellington College). At this time his mother, Lola, contributed a column "Over the Teacups" to the local press in Weston-super-Mare and wrote about the adventures of her son 'Tuppence'; this caused Archer to be the victim of bullying while at Wellington School.
After Archer left school passing O-levels in English Literature, Art, and History, he worked in a number of jobs, including training with the army and for the police. This lasted only for a few months, but he fared better as a Physical Education teacher; first at Vicar's Hill, a Prep School in Hampshire where he taught fencing amongst other sports, later at the more prestigious independent school Dover College in Kent. As a teacher he was popular with pupils and was reported by some to have had good motivational skills, helping to instil personal confidence in the less confident.
Archer studied for three years, gaining an academic qualification in teaching awarded by the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The course was based at Brasenose College, Oxford, although Archer was never registered as an undergraduate student of the College.
He raised money for the charity Oxfam, obtaining the support of The Beatles in a charity fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the senior common room of Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they did not play there.
It was during this period that Archer met his wife, Mary Weeden, at that time studying chemistry at St Anne's College, Oxford. They married in July 1966. Mary went on to specialise in solar power.
Early career
After leaving Oxford, he continued as a charity fundraiser, working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity. He also began a career in politics, serving as a Conservative councillor on the Greater London Council during 1967–70.
One organization Archer worked for, the United Nations Association, alleged discrepancies in his claims for expenses, and details appeared in the press in a scrambled form. Archer brought a defamation action against the former Conservative member of parliament Humphry Berkeley, chairman of the UNA, as the source of the allegations. The case was settled out of court after three years. Berkeley tried to persuade Conservative Central Office that Archer was unsuitable as a parliamentary candidate, but a selection meeting at Louth disregarded any doubts.
Archer set up his own fund-raising company, Arrow Enterprises, in 1969. That same year he opened an art gallery, the Archer Gallery, in Mayfair. The gallery specialised in modern art, including pieces by the acclaimed sculptor and painter Leon Underwood. The gallery ultimately lost money, however, and Archer sold it two years later.
Writing career
His first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976. The book was an instant success, with BBC Television adapting the book in 1990, following a BBC radio adaptation in the early 1980s.
Kane and Abel proved to be his best-selling works, reaching number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. It was made into a television mini-series by CBS in 1985, starring Peter Strauss and Sam Neill. The following year, Granada TV screened a ten-part adaptation of another Archer bestseller, First Among Equals, which told the story of four men and their quest to become Prime Minister.
In 2011, Archer published Only Time Will Tell, the first of what will be five books in The Clifton Chronicles, which follow the life of Harry Clifton from his birth in 1920, through to the finale in 2020.
Political career
At 29, Archer was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth, holding the seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election on 4 December 1969. Archer won over a substantial proportion of younger members at the selection meeting.
In Parliament, Archer was on the left of the Conservative Party, rebelling against some of his party's policies. He urged free TV licences for the elderly and was against museum charges. Archer voted against restoring capital punishment, saying it was barbaric and obscene.
In 1974, he was a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme involving Aquablast, a Canadian company, a debacle which lost Archer his first fortune. Fearing imminent bankruptcy, he stood down as an MP at the October 1974 general election. By this time the Archers were living in a large five-bedroom house in The Boltons, an exclusive street in South Kensington. As a result of the Aquablast affair, they were forced to sell the house and move into more modest accommodation for a while.
Archer's political career revived once he became known for his novels and as a popular speaker among the Conservative grassroots. He was made deputy chairman of the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher in September 1985.
During his tenure as deputy chairman, Archer was responsible for a number of embarrassing moments, including his statement, made during a live radio interview, that many young, unemployed people were simply unwilling to find work. At the time of Archer's comment, unemployment in the UK stood at a record 3.4 million. Archer was later forced to apologise for the remark, suggesting that his words had been "taken out of context."
Scandals and trials
In 1986 Archer was the subject of an article in The News of the World, "Tory boss Archer pays vice-girl." The story claimed Archer had paid Monica Coghlan, a prostitute, £2,000 through an intermediary at Victoria Station to go abroad.
When the Daily Star also alleged Archer had paid for sex with Coghlan, he responded by suing that paper. The case came to court in July 1987. Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Archer stated he would donate the money to charity. This case would ultimately result in Archer's final exit from front-line politics some years later.
Archer lost a libel case after accusations in his book Twist in the Tale, portraying Major General James Oluleye to be a thief. (Oluleye is the author of Architecturing a Destiny and Military Leadership in Nigeria.)
In 1994, Mary Archer, then a director of Anglia Television, attended a directors' meeting at which an impending takeover of Anglia Television by MAI, which owned Meridian Broadcasting, was discussed. The following day, Jeffrey Archer bought 50,000 shares in Anglia Television, acting on behalf of a friend, Broosk Saib. Shortly after this, it was announced publicly that Anglia Television would be taken over by MAI. As a result the shares jumped in value, whereupon Archer sold them on behalf of his friend for a profit of £77,219. The arrangements he made with the stockbrokers meant he did not have to pay at the time of buying the shares.
An inquiry was launched by the Stock Exchange into possible insider trading. The Department of Trade and Industry, however, announced that Archer would not be prosecuted due to lack of sufficient evidence.
In 1999, Archer had been selected by the Conservative Party as candidate for the 2000 London mayoral election. But when the News of the World published allegations that he had committed perjury in his 1987 libel case (see above), Archer withdrew his candidacy.
After the allegations, Archer was disowned by his party. Conservative leader William Hague explained: "This is the end of politics for Jeffrey Archer. I will not tolerate such behaviour in my party." In 2000 Archer was expelled from the party for five years. In July, 2001, Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, though released after two.
Peerage
When Saddam Hussein suppressed Kurdish uprisings in 1991, Archer, with the Red Cross, set up the charity Simple Truth, a fundraising campaign on behalf of the Kurds. In 1992 Archer was made a life peer, as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, of Mark in the County of Somerset. Prime minister John Major recommended him largely because of his role in aid to the Kurds.
Novels
Kane and Abel series
–Shall We Tell the President? (1977)
–Kane and Abel (1980)
–The Prodigal Daughter (1982)
Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less (1976)
First Among Equals (1984)
A Matter of Honour (1986)
As the Crow Flies (1991)
Honour Among Thieves (1993)
The Fourth Estate (1996)
The Eleventh Commandment (1998)
Sons of Fortune (2002)
False Impression (2005)
A Prisoner of Birth (2008)
Paths of Glory (2009)
Only Time Will Tell (2011)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Cunning plots, silken style.... Archer plays a cat-and-mouse game with the reader.
New York Times
One of the top ten storytellers in the world.
Los Angeles Times
Archer...has an extraordinary talent for turning notoriety into gold, and telling fast-moving stories.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Archer is one of the most captivating storytellers writing today. His novels are dramatic, fast moving, totally entertaining—and almost impossible to put down.
Pittsburgh Press
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)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less:
1. Which of the victims' scams did you find the funniest? The most clever? Were any of them believable...or is that beside the point?
2. In what way do the four men use Metcalf's own personal idiosyncrasies against him?
2. Was the ending satisfying? Were you surprised by the plot twist at the end, oo did you find it predictable? In hindsight were there any clues to prepare you for the end? Or is the ending sprung on you from left-field.
3. This is obviously a plot-driven novel, which means little concern about character development. Nonetheless, do you find any of the characters convincing or particularly memorable? Any favorites?
4. Ocassionally, authors make their villains likable. Do feel that way about Metcalf? If so, what makes him likable. If not, why?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Alan Bradley, 2009
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385343497
Summary
In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story—of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school’s tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder—but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse...
An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions—and a rich literary delight. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1938
• Where—Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Awards—Debut Dagger Award, Crimewriter's Assn.
• Currently—Kelowna, British Columbia
Alan Bradley was born in Toronto and grew up in Cobourg, Ontario. With an education in electronic engineering, Alan worked at numerous radio and television stations in Ontario, and at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University) in Toronto, before becoming Director of Television Engineering in the media centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, SK, where he remained for 25 years before taking early retirement to write in 1994.
He became the first President of the Saskatoon Writers, and a founding member of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild. His children's stories were published in The Canadian Children's Annual, and his short story "Meet Miss Mullen" was the first recipient of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award for Children's Literature.
For a number of years, he regularly taught Script Writing and Television Production courses at the University of Saskatchewan (Extension Division) at both beginner and advanced levels.
His fiction has been published in literary journals and he has given many public readings in schools and galleries. His short stories have been broadcast by CBC Radio.
He was a founding member of The Casebook of Saskatoon, a society devoted to the study of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlockian writings. Here, he met the late Dr. William A.S. Sarjeant, with whom he collaborated on their classic book, Ms Holmes of Baker Street. This work put forth the startling theory that the Great Detective was a woman, and was greeted upon publication with what has been described as "a firestorm of controversy".
The release of Ms. Holmes resulted in national media coverage, with the authors embarking upon an extensive series of interviews, radio and television appearances, and a public debate at Toronto's Harbourfront. His lifestyle and humorous pieces have appeared in The Globe and Mail and The National Post.
His book The Shoebox Bible (McClelland and Stewart, 2006) has been compared with Tuesdays With Morrie and Mr. God, This is Anna. In July of 2007 he won the Debut Dagger Award of the (British) Crimewriter's Association for his novel The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first of a series featuring eleven year old Flavia de Luce. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Fans of Louise Fitzhugh's iconic Harriet the Spy will welcome 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce, the heroine of Canadian journalist Bradley's rollicking debut. In an early 1950s English village, Flavia is preoccupied with retaliating against her lofty older sisters when a rude, redheaded stranger arrives to confront her eccentric father, a philatelic devotee. Equally adept at quoting 18th-century works, listening at keyholes and picking locks, Flavia learns that her father, Colonel de Luce, may be involved in the suicide of his long-ago schoolmaster and the theft of a priceless stamp. The sudden expiration of the stranger in a cucumber bed, wacky village characters with ties to the schoolmaster, and a sharp inspector with doubts about the colonel and his enterprising young detective daughter mean complications for Flavia and enormous fun for the reader. Tantalizing hints about a gardener with a shady past and the mysterious death of Flavia's adventurous mother promise further intrigues ahead.
Publishers Weekly
An 11-year-old solving a dastardly murder in the English countryside in 1950 wouldn't seem to be everyone's cup of tea. But Flavia Sabina de Luce is no ordinary child: she's already an accomplished chemist, smart enough to escape being imprisoned by her older sisters and to exact revenge, forthright and fearless to the point of being foolhardy, and relentless in defending those she loves. When she spies on her father arguing heatedly with a strange man late at night and the next morning finds that man buried in the cucumber patch, she sets out, riding her bicycle named Gladys, to make sense of it all. And when her father—a philatelist and widower for a decade who still mourns his wife—is arrested, Flavia's efforts are intensified. She delves into the backstory, involving the death of her father's beloved teacher years earlier and the loss of a rare stamp, and puts together the pieces almost too late. The stiff-upper-lip de Luce family is somewhat stereotypically English, but precocious Flavia is unique. Winner of the Debut Dagger Award, this is a fresh, engaging first novel with appeal for cozy lovers and well beyond.
Michele Leber - Library Journal
When a stranger shows up dying in her family's cucumber patch in the middle of the night, 11-year-old Flavia de Luce expands her interests from chemistry and poisons to sleuthing and local history. The youngest of a reclusive widower's three daughters, Flavia is accustomed to independence and takes delight in puzzles and "what if's." She is well suited to uncovering the meaning of the dead snipe left at the kitchen door, the story behind the bright orange Victorian postage stamps, and—eventually—the identity of the murderer and his relationship to the dying man. Bradley sets the protagonist on a merry course that includes contaminating her oldest sister's lipstick with poison ivy, climbing the bell tower of the local boys' school, and sifting through old newspapers in the village library's outbuilding. Flavia is brave and true and hilarious, and the murder mystery is clever and satisfying. Set in 1950, the novel reads like a product of that time, when stories might include insouciance but relative innocence, pranks without swear words, and children who were not so overscheduled or frightened that they couldn't make their way quite nicely in chatting up the police or the battle-shocked family retainer. Mystery fans, Anglophiles, and science buffs will delight in this book and may come away with a slightly altered view of what is possible for a headstrong girl to achieve. —Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia
School Library Journal
A precocious 11-year-old chemist confesses to murder. Buckshaw, the de Luce ancestral home, is in a bit of an uproar. First the cook finds a dead snipe with a stamp jammed on its beak on the doorstep. Then young Flavia awakens in the dead of night to hear her taciturn father, who normally saves his passion for his stamp collection, arguing with someone. Creeping out to the cucumber patch below her window to see more, she finds a man who breathes out the word "Vale," then expires. When Inspector Hewitt arrests her father, Flavia decides that her confession will save him. Hewitt doesn't believe her, of course, and she is forced to solve the crime between making trips to her attic sanctum, poisoning her sister Ophelia's lipstick and ignoring her sister Daphne, who always has her nose in a book. The one person she trusts is the family factotum, Dogger the gardener, a shell-shocked war comrade of her father the Colonel. Her snooping leads her to an ancient episode involving her father, the corpse and another former alumnus of Greyminster who has few qualms about killing her. Brilliant, irresistible and incorrigible, Flavia has a long future ahead of her. Bradley's mystery debut is a standout chock full of the intellectual asides so beloved by Jonathan Gash readers. It might even send budding sleuths to chemistry classes.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. With her high level of knowledge, her erudition and her self-reliance, Flavia hardly seems your typical eleven-year-old girl. Or does she? Discuss Flavia and her personality, and how her character drives this novel. Can you think of other books that have used a similar protagonist?
2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie falls within the tradition of English country house mysteries, but with the devilishly intelligent Flavia racing around Bishop’s Lacey on her bike instead of the expected older woman ferreting out the truth by chatting with her fellow villagers. Discuss how Bradley uses the traditions of the genre, and how he plays with them too.
3. What is your favorite scene from The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie?
4. With her excessive interest in poisons and revenge, it’s no surprise that Flavia is fascinated, not scared, as she watches the stranger die in her garden. In your view, is her dark matter-of-factness more refreshing or disturbing?
5. Flavia reminds us often about Harriet, the mother she never knew, and has many keepsakes that help her imagine what she was like. Do you think the real Harriet would have fit into Flavia’s mold?
6. Flavia’s distance from her father, the Colonel, is obvious, yet she loves him all the same. Does their relationship change over the course of the novel in a lasting way? Would Flavia want it to?
7. Through Flavia’s eyes what sort of a picture does Alan Bradley paint of the British aristocracy? Think as well about how appearances aren’t always reality, as with the borderline bankruptcy of Flavia’s father and Dr. Kissing.
8. Discuss the meaning (or meanings) of the title The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
9. What twists in the plot surprised you the most?
10. Buckshaw, the estate, is almost a character in its own right here, with its overlarge wings, hidden laboratory, and pinched front gates. Talk about how Bradley brings the setting to life in this novel—not only Buckshaw itself, but Bishop’s Lacey and the surrounding area.
11. What does Flavia care about most in life? How do the people around her compare to her chemistry lab and books?
12. Like any scientist. Flavia expects her world to obey certain rules, and seems to be thrown off kilter when surprises occur. How much does she rely on the predictability of those around her, like her father and her sisters, in order to pursue her own interests (like solving the murder)?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Mistress of Spices
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 1997
Knopf Doubleday
338 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385482387
Summary
Magical, tantalizing, and sensual, The Mistress of Spices is the story of Tilo, a young woman born in another time, in a faraway place, who is trained in the ancient art of spices and ordained as a mistress charged with special powers.
Once fully initiated in a rite of fire, the now immortal Tilo—in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman—travels through time to Oakland, California, where she opens a shop from which she administers spices as curatives to her customers. An unexpected romance with a handsome stranger eventually forces her to choose between the supernatural life of an immortal and the vicissitudes of modern life.
Spellbinding and hypnotizing, The Mistress of Spices is a tale of joy and sorrow and one special woman's magical powers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 29, 1956
• Where—Kolkata, India
• Education—B.A., Kolkata University; Ph.D., University of
California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas and San Jose, Calif.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prizewinning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. Her writings have appeared in more than 50 magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
Divakaruni was born in India and came to the United States at 19. She put herself through Berkeley doing odd jobs, from working at an Indian boutique to slicing bread in a bakery. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Extras
Excerpts from a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• During graduate school, I used to work in the kitchen of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley. My favorite task was slicing Jell-O.
• I love Chinese food, but my family hates it. So when I'm on book tour I always eat Chinese!
• I almost died on a pilgrimage trip to the Himalayas some years back—but I got a good story out of it. The story is in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives—let's see if readers can figure out which one it is!
• Writing is so central to my life that it leaves little time/desire/need for other interests. I do a good amount of work with domestic violence organizations—I'm on the advisory board of Asians Against Domestic Violence in Houston. I feel very strongly about trying to eradicate domestic violence from our society.
• My favorite ways to unwind are to do yoga, read, and spend time with my family.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her answer:
Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I read this when I was in grad school, and it really made me examine my own role as a woman of color living in the U.S. It made me want to start writing about my own experiences. It made me think that perhaps I, too, had something worthwhile to write about.
("Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
(Audio version.) Divakaruni, author of the award-winning short story collection Arranged Marriage (1995), has crafted a fine first novel that makes a smooth transition to the audio format. Tilo, proprietress of the Spice Bazaar in Oakland, California, is not the elderly Indian woman she appears to be. Trained as a mistress of spices, she evokes the magical powers of the spices of her homeland to help her customers. These customers, mostly first- or second-generation immigrants, are struggling to adapt their Old World ideals to the unfamiliar and often unkind New World. Though trapped in an old woman's body and forbidden to leave the store, Tilo is unable to keep the required distance from her patrons' lives. Her yearning to join the world of mortals angers the spices, and Tilo must face the dire consequences of her disobedience. Divakaruni, whose conversational style translates well into audio, blends social commentary and romance into an eloquent novel of the human condition. With superb narration from Sarita Choudhury, this production is highly recommended for all fiction collections. —Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., Ohio
Library Journal
Mythical and mystical, The Mistress of Spices is reminiscent of fables and fairy tales....The story Divakaruni tells is transporting, but it is her gift for metaphor that makes this novel live and breathe, its pages as redolent as any freshly ground spice. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
The author of the promising story collection Arranged Marriage (1995) employs magical realism to delve back into the lives of Indian immigrants—all of whom, in this case, consult an ancient shamanic spice-vendor in their efforts to improve their lives. Born ugly and unwanted in a tiny village in India, Nayan Tara ("Flower That Grows by the Dust Road") is virtually discarded by her family for the sin of being a girl. Resentful at being treated so shabbily, young Nayan Tara throws herself on the mercy of the mythical serpents of the oceans, who deliver her to the mystical Island of Spices. There, she is initiated into a priestly sisterhood of Spice Mistresses sent out into the world to help others, offering magic potions of fennel, peppercorn, lotus root, etc. The place where Nayan Tara (now renamed Tilottama, or Tilo) eventually lands happens to be the Spice Bazaar in a rough section of Oakland, California—a tiny, rundown shop from which the now- aged Tilo is forbidden to venture. Here, she devotes herself to improving the lives of the immigrant Indians who come to buy her spices—including an abused wife, a troubled youth, a chauffeur with dreams of American wealth, and a grandfather whose insistence on Old World propriety may have cost him his relationship with a beloved granddaughter. As long as Tilo follows the dictates of her ancient island-bound spice mentor, particularly thinking only of her charges' needs and never of her own, Tilo feels in sync with the spice spirits and with the world at large. Her longing for love tempts her to stray, however, when a mysterious American arrives in her shop. A sometimes clumsy, intermittently enchanting tale of love and loss in immigrant America. Still, the unique insights into the struggles of Indian-Americans to transcend the gulf between East and West make trudging through some rather plain prose worthwhile.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The New York Times Book Review states that The Mistress of Spices "becomes a novel about choosing between a life of special powers and one of ordinary love and compassion." Did Tilo choose correctly? Why or why not?
2. How do the spices become characters in the novel?
3. Tilo only speaks her name out loud to one person in the novel. What is the significance of this action? What role do names play in the novel?
4. What do the spices take from Tilo? What do they give her? Is it a fair exchange?
5. Tilo left her shop for the first time early in the novel to look at Haroun's cab. But later she is drawn even further out by Raven. Was her course already set at that point? Would she have left again even without Raven's pull?
6. In what ways is punishment seen as a natural force in this novel? How are punishment and retribution tied to balance?
7. Tilo says, "Better hate spoken than hate silent." Does hate spoken achieve the effect Tilo intends or not?
8. Divakaruni chose to write The Mistress of Spices in the first person present tense. Does this point of view add or detract from the story?
9. What passages of the novel resemble poetry? How does Divakaruni make use of lyricism and rhythm?
10. What role does physical beauty play in this story? In Tilo's feelings about her body? About Raven? About the bougainvillea girls?
11. Does Raven's story (pp. 161-171) differ from Tilo's story of her past at the points where she tells it? Do these differences say anything about the differences between women and men, or between Indians and Americans?
12. How are physical acts of violence and disaster foreshadowed in the novel? What is the significance of foreshadowing in Indian culture?
For Discussion: Divakaruni's Novels and Stories
13. What do the characters in Divakaruni's novels and stories lose and gain as they become more "American"?
14. In the story "Affair," Abha says, "It's not wrong to be happy, is it? To want more out of life than fulfilling duties you took on before you knew what they truly meant?" How is this idea further developed in The Mistress of Spices? In Sister of My Heart?
15. In Divakaruni's stories, women are wives and mothers, but the men are portrayed primarily as husbands, not fathers. How are the men's roles in the novels similar to or different from those in the stories?
16. How does the Indian immigrant experience compare to that of other immigrants—Spanish, Italian, Chinese?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
City of Tranquil Light
Bo Caldwell, 2010
Henry Holt : Macmillan
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805092288
Summary
Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century.
There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng—City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love—and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?
Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints—and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents — City of Tranquil Light is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation.
A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes "vividly and with great historical perspective" (San Jose Mercury News). (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Rasied—suburban Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Northern California
Bo Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller The Distant Land of My Father and City of Tranquil Light. Her short fiction has been published in Ploughshares, Story, Epoch, and other literary journals. A former Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University, she lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[P]lainspoken and tender...makes for a lovely sustained chant.
San Francisco Chronicle
Caldwell (The Distant Land of My Father) draws from the biographies of missionaries in northern China during the turbulent first half of the 20th century in this mixed second novel. It traces the story of two young, hopeful Midwesterners—shy, bright Oklahoma farmer Will Kiehn and brave Cleveland deaconess Katherine Friesen—as they journey to the brink of China's civil war in the isolated town of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng: the "City of Tranquil Light." In the unforgiving "land of naught," they live the joys and perils of missionary life, including famine, spiritual rejection, the dramatic 1926 rise of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, and the forcible, often violent, exile of fellow missionaries. Throughout the unrelenting hardship, the remarkably stable couple remain in China, bound to their newfound roots and to the ideals of their larger mission. At times this novel seems more about rhetoric than relationships—the couple's unwavering dedication to each other and their mission is unbelievable at times—but Katherine's diary entries are emotionally deft, capturing the romance and anxiety of cultural estrangement.
Publishers Weekly
Caldwell (The Distant Land of My Father) draws on the lives of her grandparents for source material for her second novel. The story is told in two voices. In 1966, Will, who has been widowed for 20 years, remembers his former life with his wife, Katherine, starting with their meeting as young Mennonite missionaries on a ship headed for China in 1906. Interspersed through his tale are excerpts from the journal Katherine kept during their three decades in China. Katherine had nursing training, but Will had only his love for the Lord and his desire to share it. The two worked side by side, healing bodies and engaging souls through famines, earthquakes, civil war, encounters with bandits, and winters that were "five coats cold." They realize the many ways in which their neighbors enriched their lives as they see them through good times and bad, including the birth and death of their only child. Verdict: This is a sweet tale of an enduring love between this couple, their love of China and its people, and their love for their God. The novel will probably find its strongest readership among devotees of Christian fiction. Recommended for public libraries. —Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll.
Library Journal
Caldwell perceptively explores the deepening faith shared by her grandparents while at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the country they came to love more deeply than their own. —Deborah Donovan
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. City of Tranquil Light is framed at both ends by an elderly Will narrating from California. What does this structure lend to the novel? What is the effect of having key information early on about the story to follow—that Katherine predeceases Will, for example, and that they do not live out their lives in China—instead of learning it at the end?
2. Will and Katherine both note that they feel they are returning home, rather than leaving it, when they depart the United States for China for the very first time. What do you think makes them feel this way? Have you ever experienced a similar sensation? In what ways does the novel talk about home?
3. Edward and Will have a close bond; Katherine and Naomi do as well. What makes these connections so strong? Since we don't see the characters together that often, how are these ties shown? How do Edward, Will, Katherine, and Naomi lend support to one another?
4. Consider Chung Hao and Mo Yun, Will's first converts. Will and Katherine intend to help both of them, which they do. But how do Chung Hao and Mo Yun end up helping them? What about the rest of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng? Are Will and Katherine surprised to be the beneficiaries of this assistance? How are the themes of giving and debt dealt with?
5. In what ways are the American missionaries a modernizing force? How do they alter the ways of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng? Is it always for the better?
6. How does Lily's death test Will and Katherine's faith? What enables them to recover? Do you believe that they do fully recover? Do they ever give in to despair entirely?
7. What were your initial impressions of Hsiao Lao? What does his treatment of Will as a prisoner indicate about his character? What do you think of the assistance he gives to Will and Katherine later on? By the end of the novel, in what ways has he changed, and in what ways has he remained the same?
8. How are cultural differences portrayed? Certainly many of the Chinese people Will and Katherine encounter do things that would be considered odd—or outright wrong—in the West. Do you think the novel passes judgment on these differences? Do Will and Katherine? Does the novel help you to understand why things were the way they were in China at this time?
9. What role does fate play? Do Will and Katherine believe that in some sense, their destinies have already been laid out for them? What lends support to that idea?
10. What is it that ultimately pushes Will and Katherine to leave China? They consider it their home—how do they deal with the transition?
11. When Katherine passes away, Will finds himself distraught and asks, "What had been the point of all my years of believing if my trust faltered when I needed it most?" What do you think? Has Will's faith failed him? How is he able to find solace?
12. Upon their final departure for the United States, Will notes, "We had tried to dress up for our journey, but I saw how shabby we looked, how bereft, and what a contrast our appearances were to the rich lives we had led in Kuang P'ing Ch'eng." Would you agree that Will and Katherine led rich lives, despite their poverty? Were their lives ultimately happy ones, in spite of the sadness and many trials they faced?
13. Does Will and Katherine's faith change in the course of the novel? In what ways?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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