29 September 2009

The time-traveler's widower is also dead (but it's okay)

Audrey Niffenegger's HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY hits stores today, the follow-up to the wildly popular novel (which I actually liked) THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE. The new book follows a London woman buried in Highgate Cemetery (pictured) who becomes a ghost haunting her younger lover and her twin nieces, who have inherited her apartment. I hear not-so-great things, including from Commenter Marjorie who called it "twisty without being really satisfying" but I'm still putting it on my library hold list.

Guilty pleasure Sara Paretsky's new V.I. Warshawski thriller HARDBALL is also out today. I don't need to pretend like the Washington Post that these books have some Greater Significance other than gluing my eyeballs to the page for hours at a stretch. I won't buy this one in hardcover either, I'll wait for the mass-market, but I'll enjoy it when it gets there. On the other end of the teeter-totter from Paretsky, Richard Powers' GENEROSITY, his follow-up to the National Book Award-winning THE ECHO MAKER, describes a writing teacher in Chicago who becomes involved with a perpetually cheerful student. Surprised he didn't go for the Homesian title THIS BOOK WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.

Photo: tyla

3 comments:

Marjorie said...

I actually thought Lev Grossman's review of HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY in Time was right on--I don't normally turn to them for book coverage. But by all means read it yourself and see what you think. (I enjoyed it more while I was reading it than in retrospect.)

Ellen said...

It's not that I don't trust your judgment -- and Molly L's review on Goodreads was somewhat similar to yours in what she didn't like about the book -- but it's such a blockbuster, it'll be interesting to see whether her huge audience takes to it.

I have always waited for my twin (non-identical) siblings to exhibit creepy connective behavior, but so far, nothing they'll admit.

Marjorie said...

No offense taken! I'm curious to see what you think, as well as how the book does.