As with Coen brothers’ films, I do love me some Nick Hornby novels. His latest, Juliet, Naked, does not disappoint especially for an aging music fan like myself. Duncan, a Brit, loves the music of Tucker Crowe. In fact, Duncan is obsessed with Crowe. Thing is, Crowe disappeared from the music scene decades ago for unknown reasons. So Duncan is part of an online community that obsesses over everything about Crowe, include a pre-release unplugged version of Crowe’s last album. But Duncan’s longtime girlfriend isn’t so enamored with the mystique of Crowe anymore and their relationship is stressed because of it. I won’t spoil the rest of the plot, but I enjoyed it very much.
The latest book I received for free through LibraryThing.com’s Early Reviewers group is Angés Humbert’s Resistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France. Humbert was an art historian in Paris in 1940 when Paris fell to the Nazis, where she began to journal her part in the resistance movement. But soon enough he was arrested and spent the next 4 years in prisons in France and Germany facing interrogations, a show trial, isolation, food deprivation, and many other hardships. Through all that, she remained part of an order of prisoner resisters. And then her prison was liberated by U.S. forces in 1945 where she helped restore order and out Nazis. A wonderful story of courage and perseverance.
Not sure how one follows up on the greatness that was The Godfather, but Fools Die is not it. Mario Puzo at least tried to put together a very different story, instead of changing the scenery and title (Dan Brown, are you listening?). Set in the 1960s, three guys meet in Vegas and do very well in just a short run. One can’t handle to success and meets his end. The other two go on to separate lives–one as a somewhat successful writer and small time scammer, the other as an increasingly powerful casino manager–but they remain close. I never got hooked by the story, and the lack of distinct voice in the story was odd and distracting.
