Thursday, December 6, 2007

Book Talk: No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel

Just some BOOK TALK in advance of Day to Read, January 10, 2008 today:

I just finished a truly remarkable book: No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel. It's a small book, in a lot of ways. A simple story about families and generations and labels. There's a romance. In fact, there are several.

It's so much more than the sum of its parts, however. I happened onto this book because it fit a category of research that I'm doing for my mystery. It was on my list of "books to read for research." While I usually enjoy these, I don't tend to jump up and down, as I might for, say, the latest John Burdett or Kathy Reichs.

This book was just exceptional, however, and absolutely earth shaking for me. Ms. Samuel gets families on a very deep level - the good, the bad, the ugly. She writes a book that brings ultimate joy from tragedy, but her characters have rough roads to cross along the way. I was entangled not only with her marvelous, rich characters, but with my own musings about my family relationships, past and present.

I ended up crying from about 3/4 of the way through the book until the very end. And I don't cry easily. And I didn't feel the least bit manipulated. This was just beautiful writing and beautiful characters and a perfect treatise on families and society and much more.

It's not for everyone who reads this blog. It's a quiet novel. There are no action sequences. No governments fall. But man, what a lovely, lovely story.

My best news of last night was that Ms. Samuel has several other books and I can now snap up. Happy reading!

8 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

Okay... I'm sold. I'll go see if I can find it. OTOH, right now I'm still terrifically emotional over Bailey, and cry at the drop of a hat. Does this mean I'll cry through the WHOLE thing? LOL...

anno said...

This sounds great! Is this the book you were telling me about yesterday? I think I may NEED to read this!

Flower Child said...

Sounds wonderful! I love Kathy Reichs too. and books where governments fall. But a good tearjerker is always welcome.

soccer mom in denial said...

You have me sold. I like this sharing of recent reads....

Wholly Burble said...

It's been so good hearing all these "reviews" on books. Great fun to get the low down on so many authors, so many good books.

Thanks for sharing what you're reading now.

Michelle | Bleeding Espresso said...

Sounds like something I'd enjoy. I like books in so many different genres--certain moods call for certain books, right?

Seems like we have similar tastes, particularly since you mentioned Kathy Reichs :)

Leslie said...

Sounds like a delicious book. My kind of book. I'll put it on my list!

Rebecca said...

certainly sounds like one worth checking out. I like quiet books!