As some of you know, and can relate to, if a book gets too much hype and attention, I tend to shy away from reading it, sometimes for months, years or even indefinitely. I have a hard time going into it with an objective frame of mind, and more often than not, come away disappointed and wondering what all the fuss was about. So when Everything is Illuminated started getting on all the critics’ radars a few years ago, I was hesitant, especially when I heard about the clever literary tricks the author had utilized. I knew if I read it, I’d have a ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ reaction, and suspected it would be the latter. So I put off reading it, although when I came across a used hardcover copy for $1 at a library book sale, I bought it thinking perhaps someday. That someday arrived when my book club chose it as their first selection for 2008. With a great deal of trepidation mixed with a good dose of skepticism, I opened its pages. And was immediately ensnared by a story that was by turns comedic, vulgar, horrific, baffling, tragic, mundane and magical.

Foer places himself in the story, as a Jewish American who travels to the Ukraine to search for the woman who saved his grandfather during WWII. He enlists the aid of Alex Perchov, a translator and guide (of sorts), along with Alex’s grandfather and an excitable dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. Running parallel to this story is one that begins more than two hundred years earlier, in the shtetl of Foer’s ancestors. That storyline is quite fantastic, a kind of Yiddish magical realism. Like many stories of the Holocaust, something terrible lies beneath. What’s amazing is that with all the novels written that focus on that period, Foer managed to write something truly original. There were moments where I grew tired of Foer’s stylistic maneuvers or his more sordid descriptions, but generally I was pleasantly surprised, and eager to read his second novel.

Since Foer’s debut novel was the recipient of several awards, including the 2002 National Jewish Book Award, I’m counting it towards completion of the Book Awards Challenge.

Another book club selection for January was The Faith Club, written by a trio of women who come together in the aftermath of 9/11 to write an interfaith children’s book. One is a Muslim, one is Jewish, and one is Christian, and what they embark upon is much more than collaboration on a children’s book. Rather, the three women enter into a frank, sometimes painful discussion of their faiths – the similarities, differences and issues of contention and controversy. While they gain invaluable insight into each other’s faiths, what’s arguably more powerful is the evolution and enrichment of their own faith and spiritual practices. What I was left wondering is how typical these women are of their faiths, particularly the Muslim woman, as that is the religion of which I know the least. Then again, perhaps that’s not the point. The point may be how these three individuals found a way to reach out to others through faith, in spite of, indeed because of, their differences. Our discussion for this book won’t take place until early February, and I’m keen to discuss this with the other women and further delve into this book and these women’s lives.

I have been a fan of Bill Bryson ever since I first read A Walk in the Woods several years ago. Since that time, I’ve read several more of his books, and enjoyed them all. He even managed to do the impossible and gave me a yen to someday travel to Australia. So I expected to be thoroughly entertained by reading his ‘memoir’ about his 1950s Midwest American childhood. Sadly, that was not the case. After suffering through the first fifty or so pages, I resigned myself to the fact that rather than being entertained, I was bored and saw no respite from it. So, I skipped to the last twenty or so pages, but not even the presence of Stephen Katz could keep me interested. Perhaps if I’d grown up during that period, or in that area of the country, I might have enjoyed it, but whereas Bryson’s over-the-top anecdotes and cynical wit usually enhance his books, and so while reading them I am still learning about the people, places or events he’s describing, in The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, it’s just one silly, not-very-funny, juvenile, tall tale after another. I had opted to use this one as the weather event selection for the What’s in a Name Challenge, but alas, now I’ll have to find another.