Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Fiction
2014 Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Read by Kirsten Potter
Finished on May 28, 2015
Rating: 2/5 (Meh)




A National Book Award Finalist
A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist


Publisher's Blurb:

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

I love post-apocalyptic and dystopian tales, but Station Eleven was a disappointment. Had I not been listening to this on audio, I am fairly certain that it would have been a DNF. I only continued because I was curious to see how it would end. I am definitely in the minority, as I see most of my blogmates gave it five stars on Goodreads, but since it's been six months since I finished, I can't remember enough to tell you why it failed to entertain me (bad blogger!). Give it a try. Perhaps you'll have a better experience than I did.

The Infinite Sea

The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
The 5th Wave Series, #2
Teen Fiction
2014 Penguin Audio
Readers: Phoebe Strole and Ben Yannette
Finished on April 10, 2015
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)




Publisher's Blurb:

How do you rid the Earth of seven billion humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.

Surviving the first four waves was nearly impossible. Now Cassie Sullivan finds herself in a new world, a world in which the fundamental trust that binds us together is gone. As the 5th Wave rolls across the landscape, Cassie, Ben, and Ringer are forced to confront the Others' ultimate goal: the extermination of the human race.

Cassie and her friends haven't seen the depths to which the Others will sink, nor have the Others seen the heights to which humanity will rise, in the ultimate battle between life and death, hope and despair, love and hate.

I don't remember too much about this follow-up to The 5th Wave (which I loved), but according to my notes, I zipped through the audio book in four days. Zoom! That's fast, especially for me, since I usually just listen while I'm at work (and only for two hours each morning). So, apparently, it really pulled me in and held my interest. It's only been seven months since I finished, so I'm a little surprised that I don't remember it in more detail. Oh, well. It was entertaining and that's what matters, right?

The final installment (The Last Star) is due to be released in May 2016.

The first installment (The 5th Wave) is due to be released in theaters in January. 

I plan to read and watch both, respectively. How about you?

The Dog Stars

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Fiction – Post-Apocalyptic
2012 Vintage Books
Finished on October 15, 2014
Rating: 4.75/5 (Terrific!)




Publisher’s Blurb:

Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. Now his wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hanger of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper. But when a random transmission beams through the radio of his 1956 Cessna, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life exists outside their tightly controlled perimeter. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return and follows its static-broken trail, only to find something that is both better and worse than anything he could ever hope for.

I have a friend in Texas who never fails to recommend some of the best books I’ve ever read. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving), Plainsong (the late Kent Haruf), Ready Player One (Ernest Cline), and just over two years ago, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Had I not read Lee’s glowing review for Heller’s debut novel, I probably would have let it slip under my radar and ultimately miss out on a great read. Lee gave the book a perfect 5/5 and said:

A poetic post-apocalyptic story? This is it! This debut novel by Peter Heller is set in the Rocky Mountains after a super-flu epidemic has killed off almost everyone. This is an amazing mixture of poetic reflection, beautiful writing about nature & some amazing intense action. The hero, Hig, is an amateur pilot, who maintains the perimeter by flying patrol in his aging Cessna with his faithful dog, Jasper. His partner in survival is Bangley, a former neighbor who is a survivalist and weapons expert.

After a hunting trip that goes bad, Hig, takes off on a mission to find a mysterious voice he heard on the radio years before. The book really takes off here and Hig's life changes profoundly. At times, "The Dog Stars" is every bit as depressing as McCarthy's "The Road", but there is a sense of hopefulness that makes this a joy to read. This is a book that makes me want to go fishing and to learn how to fly a plane. It is also a book that I wanted to go on long after I finished reading.

Well, I didn’t yearn to go fishing or learn how to fly a plane after reading the novel, but it did make me want to immediately start over and read it a second time. I read Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize Winner, The Road, in 2007 and gave it a 4/5 rating. It’s one of the grimmest books I’ve ever read and, truthfully, I didn’t care for it the entire time I was reading. But, you know, once I finished, it stuck with me and eventually grew on me. I’ve gone on to read other post-apocalyptic novels (The Passage and The Twelve by Justin Cronin; The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey; The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier; I Am Legend by Richard Matheson; Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank), but The Dog Stars is by far my favorite. The telegraphic delivery of dialogue (and the lack of quotation marks) took some time to get used to, but the more I became engrossed in Hig’s story, the less I focused on the structure of the narrative. And of course, with the recent outbreak of Ebola, this was quite the timely read!

On Simple Beauty (and Hopefulness): 

I could almost imagine that it was before, that Jasper and I were off somewhere on an extended sojourn and would come back one day soon, that all would come back to me, that we were not living in the wake of disaster. Had not lost everything but our lives. Same as yesterday standing in the garden. It caught me sometimes: that this was okay. Just this. That simple beautify was still bearable barely, and that if I lived moment to moment, garden to stove to the simple act of flying, I could have peace.

Final Thoughts:

Peter Heller has written a beautiful tale about the end of the world as we know it. The taut pacing, believable (and at times, heart-racing) plot and a very satisfying conclusion make for an excellent read. This is one to own, one to share and one to read again and again.

“For all those who thought Cormac McCarthy’s The Road the last word on the post-apocalyptic world—think again.... Make time and space for this savage, tender, brilliant book.” ~Glen Duncan, author of The Last Werewolf

“Heart-wrenching and richly written…. The Dog Stars is a love story, but not just in the typical sense. It’s an ode to friendship between two men, a story of the strong bond between a human and a dog, and a reminder of what is worth living for.” ~Minneapolis Star-Tribune

The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Fiction – YA Post-Apocalyptic
2013 G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Finished on 5/5/13
Rating: 4.75/5 (Outstanding!)





If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans. ~ Stephen Hawking

Publisher’s Blurb:

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, just one rule applies: TRUST NO ONE.

Now it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

From award-winning author Rick Yancey comes a gripping epic of catastrophic loss, unthinkable odds, and unflinching courage.

I don’t read a lot of teen fiction. Other than The Book Thief (which became a widely popular cross-over novel with adult readers and is one of my all-time favorite reads ever), there have been less than a handful of teen novels that have piqued my interest. While I enjoyed The Hunger Games and Twilight, the sequels were disappointing and I quickly grew tired of all the teenage angst. However, I love a good post-apocalyptic story (The Stand, Swan Song, The Road, and The Passage, are just a few of my favorites), so when the ARC of The 5th Wave arrived I knew I wanted to read it, but decided to let my husband have first dibs. I figured he could save me some valuable time, if he felt it was poorly written or not compelling enough. Well, surprisingly (as he rarely ever reads teen fiction), not only did he finish the book, he thought it was very good. And, much to my relief, not filled with a lot of angst.

I dove into the book as soon as I finished The Light Between Oceans (something I rarely do, as I like to have a little break between books, if only a few hours) and was immediately drawn into Cassie and Evan’s stories. Other than a few instances in which I thought that Cassie’s internal monologues depicting her romantic attraction toward another character were beginning to feel overly saccharine, I loved the book. While not as intricate or sophisticated as The Stand or Swan Song, it was highly entertaining and much better than I had anticipated. With that said, I will continue to hold out hope that the second installment (yes, this is the first in a trilogy) doesn’t follow the trend of disappointing sequels.

Final Thoughts:

The 5th Wave is a tautly written page-turner, sure to satisfy readers of all ages and appeal to fans of Ender’s Game and The Hunger Games. I look forward to the next novel in this trilogy, but meanwhile, I plan to check out Rick Yancey’s backlist. Any recommendations?

Go here to read Justin Cronin’s (best-selling author of The Passage and The Twelve) review of The 5th Wave.

The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave hits the shelves tomorrow morning! 

I plan to post my review in the next few days, but wanted to let you know that it is, in a word,

FANTASTIC!

Better than the Twilight trilogy.

Better than the Hunger Games trilogy.

Better than The Passage trilogy.

Imagine a mash-up of Ender's Game, The Road and The Hunger Games.

Don't care for teenage angst and silly romantic head games? Not to worry.

Oh, and, my husband thought it was great, too!

Happy Reading!

The Twelve

The Twelve by Justin Cronin (Book Two of The Passage Trilogy)
Fiction (Horror; Post-Apocalyptic)
2012 Random House Audio
Length: 26 hours, 23 minutes
Reader: Scott Brick
Finished on 4/8/13
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)



Publisher’s Blurb:

In The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic tale continues with The Twelve.

In the present day: As a man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos, desperate to find others, to survive, to witness the dawn on the other side of disaster. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother; Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver”; and April, a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a minefield of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.

A hundred years in the future: Amy, Peter, Alicia, and the others introduced in The Passage work with a cast of new characters to hunt the original twelve virals… unaware that the rules of the game have changed, and that one of them will have to sacrifice everything to bring the Twelve down.

I listened to Justin Cronin’s amazing novel, The Passage, last fall and loved it, giving it a near-perfect rating of 4.75/5. When it came time to read The Twelve (Book Two in the trilogy), I debated as to whether I should listen to the audio or read the ARC. I opted once again for the audio, as I had so enjoyed Scott Brick’s narration of The Passage and assumed that listening to him read this follow-up would be just as enjoyable. And, of course, my Nano is much more convenient than lugging such a chunkster around with me, not to mention the fact that I can listen to close to 2 hours every day while working on various projects at work before the store opens.

I should’ve chosen the ARC.

Listening to the audio version of such a weighty epic is quite the challenge. Cronin’s narrative is far from linear and, from beginning to end, new characters are introduced, old favorites discarded, storylines intertwine, and time and location shift relentlessly. With a printed edition, the reader is able to discern these shifts with visual cues on the page, whereas the audio only allows for a brief pause in narration. I found myself listening to many chapters more than once and whined to my husband (who was reading the ARC at the same time as I was listening to the book) about the need for a timeline, list of characters and a map to keep track of the comings and goings of the huge cast of characters. Ha! Lo and behold, at the back of the book there is a “Dramatis Personae,” to which I referred on several occasions. I was even tempted to tear it from the book and carry it with me as I listened, but decided to keep the ARC intact. With that said, I will definitely keep it handy when it comes time to read the final installment in this trilogy. I may even read a few chapters to refresh my memory before diving into The City of Mirrors, which is due to hit the shelves sometime in 2014. Or, better yet, I’ll peruse Cronin’s website and check out the forum posts and discussions.

Final Thoughts: 

Not as solid as The Passage, but entertaining nonetheless. It took me close to a month to listen to the 26+ hours of narration and by the time I finished, I wasn’t sure what to think of the epilogue (my husband was no help either, as he was just as confused as I was!), but I was happy to have completed the book and look forward to the final installment… which, by the way, I plan to read rather than listen to. I’ve learned my lesson!

The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin
Fiction
2010 Random House Audio
Length: 36 hours and 52 minutes
Readers: Scott Brick, Adenrele Ojo, Abby Craden
Finished: 10/14/12
Rating: 4.75/5 (Terrific!)
R.I.P. VII Challenge






"Imagine Michael Crichton crossbreeding Stephen King's The Stand and Salem's Lot in that lab at Jurassic Park, with rich infusions of Robert McCammon's Swan Song, Battlestar Galactica and even Cormac McCarthy's The Road." The Washington Post

Publisher’s Description: 

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear — of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey — spanning miles and decades — toward the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

I’ve had a copy of The Passage ever since it was first released back in 2010, but it wasn’t until I decided to participate in Carl’s R.I.P. VII Challenge that I finally took it down from the shelf. Actually, I downloaded the audio version (all 36 hours and 52 minutes!) from my library, but occasionally flipped through the book for clarification of a specific passage. I was reading another large book (The Thorn Birds) at the time, so the audio turned out to be the perfect way to manage this tome. And, I think The Washington Post nailed it when describing the book as a mash-up of The Stand, Swan Song, Battlestar Galactica and The Road. With the exception of BG, I found myself comparing the story to these outstanding post-apocalyptic tales, all of which I loved, by the way.

In spite of the audio format, I still took over a month to complete this read, partly due to the fact that it’s just so very long, but also because I found myself repeating tracks for clarification or to remind myself of a certain group of characters. As with The Stand, there is a large cast of characters, as well as a shift in locations and plot threads. Scott Brick does an excellent job with the narration, performing each chapter with perfect pacing, and the sense of urgency and raw emotion the book demands. I was quickly drawn into the story and in spite of the length, found myself wishing it were longer. Thankfully, it turns out to be the first in a trilogy, so I can look forward to enjoying more of this saga.

Final Thoughts: What begins as a terrifying story filled with vampire-like creatures (one which might have caused a nightmare or two), turns out to be an exceptionally imaginative (and highly addictive) post-apocalyptic tale of both love and survival. I have the ARC of The Twelve in my stacks, as well as the audio version on my Nano, but it will be a few months before I return to Amy Harper Bellafonte’s story. The holiday season is upon us and my concentration level requires something a bit more uplifting and light-hearted.


Every so often a novel-reader's novel comes along; an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin's The Passage. Read fifteen pages and you'll find yourself captivated; read thirty and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: Read this book and the ordinary world disappears. ~ Stephen King

Post-Apocalyptic Endcap

I set a new endcap at work this week. I'd been planning to do this for quite some time, but really wanted to wait until I had read all the books displayed. I finally came to the conclusion that it may be a year (at least!) before I actually get all of these read, so I went ahead and put up the display. Hopefully, I can still hand sell a bunch of these books, based on what I already know about them.

Click on the titles for more information. The red titles are books I've read. (Some are reviewed on this blog.) The green titles are those I hope to read.

Click on photo for a closer view

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Multiple Authors

Brief History of the Dead
Kevin Brockmeier

I Am Legend
Richard Matheson

Offworld
Robin Parrish
(Bookfool has a great review here.)

The Island at the End of the World
Sam Taylor

Alas, Babylon
Pat Frank

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks

Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut

The Stand: Expanded Edition
Stephen King

Swan Song
Robert McCammon
(New trade size paperback coming out in November!)

The Road
Cormac McCarthy

the dead and the gone
Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It
Susan Beth Pfeffer

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins

A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Dies the Fire
S.M. Stirling

Lucifer's Hammer
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Unmanned (Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1)
Brian K. Vaughan

Now to decide which one of these to read first! I'm pretty sure I'll go with A Canticle for Leibowitz since I've been wanting to read it for years.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Young Adult Fiction
2008 Scholastic Press
Finished on 4/15/09
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)



Product Description:

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

Wow! It's been a while since I've read such a good teen novel. While not quite as good as The Book Thief, it sure comes a lot closer than Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series. It may even be as good as the Harry Potter books.

The Hunger Games was my book club's choice for this month's discussion. We had a fantastic meeting, and yes, we all loved it. I've gotten to where I don't read any reviews or even the dust cover blurbs prior to reading a book, as I prefer to go in completely unaware of what might take place between the covers. And since this was a book club choice, I just assumed I'd give it a try without really knowing what it was about. As I began reading, I immediately wondered what I was getting into. I'd heard very good comments about the book, but wasn't aware of the premise of the "games." I had an uneasy feeling that it would be a bleak, depressing story about killing and death, but I continued on and quickly became engrossed in the characters and story. I think the author did a very good job of keeping the story interesting and suspenseful without resorting to gratuitous violence and gore. There was no lingering detailed description of the actual killings and I never felt uneasy or disturbed by the acts of violence.

On life in Panem:

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?

On the Hunger Games:

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen."

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the other. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

Fans of The Giver (Lois Lowry), Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), The Most Dangerous Game (short story by Richard Connell) and, yes, the Twilight series (Stephenie Meyers) will not be disappointed. I know I'm not alone when I say I'm anxiously awaiting the release of Catching Fire, the second in the trilogy, which is due out on September 1st. Until then, I may have to check out the first in Collins' young reader series, Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles).

Further praise from fellow bloggers:

What an exciting YA book! I saw this when it first came out and didn't give it a second glance when I discovered it was science fiction (I am so not a fan), but then I started seeing it getting very popular on Amazon and decided to give it another look-see. I'm so happy I did because I was always eager to learn what was going to happen next. (Joy, from Thoughts of Joy)

What more can I say about a book that received rave reviews from Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer and Rick Riordan? Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is the best young adult novel I've read in over a year. It's an addictive, fast-paced story with a feisty teen heroine. (Lesa, from Lesa's Book Critiques)

Go here to read Stephen King's wonderful review on The Hunger Games.

Final words: Highly addictive!!

The Brief History of the Dead

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Contemporary Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic
2007 Vintage Contemporaries
252 pages
Finished on 9/19/08
Rating: 4.75/5 (Fabulous!)
R.I.P. III Challenge #2


Publisher's Blurb:

The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City's only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out. Kevin Brockmeier alternates these two story lines to create a lyrical and haunting tale about love, loss, and the power of memory.

Wow! What a fantastically unique story. I was intrigued when I first read about this book on Carl's blog and I'm glad his R.I.P. III Challenge inspired me to move it up in my stacks. I haven't read such a thought-provoking and imaginative story since Jose Saramago's Blindness.

Brockmeier's novel originally appeared as a short story in The New Yorker (2004). I just finished skimming through the story and have to say (with one caveat) I'm glad he decided to re-work it into a novel. My quibble lies in the last two chapters. The surreal finale was a bit too mystical for my taste, thus my less-than-perfect rating. Nonetheless, I firmly believe this compelling story will stay with me for a long time. I was completely engrossed, not wanting to finish, yet not wanting to put it down. This is definitely going on my Top Ten list for the year. Thank you, Carl, for bringing this marvelous book to my attention.

Some thought-provoking passages:

Occasionally one of the dead, someone who had just completed the crossing, would mistake the city for heaven. It was a misunderstanding that never persisted for long. What kind of heaven had the blasting sound of garbage trucks in the morning, and chewing gum on the pavement, and the smell of fish rotting by the river? What kind of hell, for that matter, had bakeries and dogwood trees and perfect blue days that made the hairs on the back of your neck rise on end? No, the city was not heaven, and it was not hell, and it certainly was not the world. It stood to reason, then, that it had to be something else.

and

Dying had changed Marion Byrd. She had been so weary back when she was alive: weary of talking and weary of eating; wear of thinking, remembering, desiring, anticipating; weary, most of all, of the prospect of seeing her life out to its natural end. She felt as though she had spent the last ten years of her life carrying a tremendous unshaped stone on her shoulders. The effort of keeping her legs upright and simply walking underneath it had nearly crippled her. She didn't know how to cast it off, or even where it had come from, only that she had to carry it.

But then the virus had appeared and she had died, and suddenly everything was different.

On people you've known during your life:

How many people was any one human being likely to remember? A thousand? Maybe if you were cursed with a particularly slipshod memory. So then—ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? Of course, if you ran out your life in some small village deep in the Himalayas, the number would be greatly diminished, but Michael Puckett wasn't thinking about Himalayan villagers. Or monks, or nuns, or kids who never lived past that falling-down-drunk stage of toddlerhood. He was thinking about himself, his own life, and by extension, he was thinking about Laura. She was the common element, after all, the link or what have you. After all the discussion he had heard in the city, that much was obvious.

He had spent the better part of a week trying to come up with a good solid number, one that took his entire forty-three years of life into account. At first he tried to make the calculations mentally, sorting through the great crowd of people in his head as he listened to the stereo or rested in bed at night. But when he realized how complicated the whole matter was turning out to be, he pulled out his #2 pencil and a blank pad of paper and settled down to work.

This one really got me thinking. I didn't go so far as compiling a written list of everyone I could remember ever meeting, but I did find myself thinking about people from my past: that cute boy (Matthew?) in my first grade class, my third grade teacher (Mrs. Bauer), a family I used to babysit for who had the BEST junk food (!), former co-workers... the list is endless! How many people have you known in your lifetime?

Now I'm even more inspired me to continue with this genre, tossing around an idea for a new endcap, one that concentrates on novels with post-apocalyptic themes. So far, I have On the Beach, Wastelands, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Lucifer's Hammer to add to my TBR stack. Any other recommendations? I've already read The Road, Alas, Babylon, Earth Abides, Swan Song, The Stand, and I Am Legend. Any favorites I'm missing?

Be sure to check out Carl's fabulous review here. This is such a gripping story and I look forward to hand-selling several copies this holiday season.