Author: Jamie Ford
Think Romeo and Juliet, Seattle Asian-style. Henry and Keiko meet as the two Asian scholarship students at their all-white elementary school, just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They fall in love, she gets sent away to an internment camp. He promises to wait for her and love her forever. Then, forty years later, newly widowed and lonely, Henry can't keep his mind off of her.
I liked the book. It's a good book club book (my book club is discussing it tonight, in fact, and I finished with hours to spare), because it's relatively short, easy enough to read, and the writing is pretty. It also ends happily, which I like every once in a while, and I think it worked well here.
As a Whitney nominee, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an interesting case. It's probably the most famous book this year (with the possible exception of Fablehaven), printed by Random House. It's a New York Times bestseller, and Ford is a debut author who grew up in Seattle's Chinatown and now lives in Montana with his wife and six kids. Other than the six kids and very subtle things like a minor character named Palmyra, there's nothing overtly Mormon about the book. None of the characters is LDS. Last year when I interviewed Marilyn Brown for Segullah, she talked about how it was a dream of hers to see LDS authors writing for a mainstream audience, but that few were able to do it successfully. I think Ford is successful here, but without engaging his religious history (he does engage his ethnic history). It's a sweet love story, if somewhat self-consciously descriptive with the writing at times, and I enjoyed reading it a lot.
P.S. I got a new computer yesterday. It's my first mac, and I have no idea yet how to copy images from amazon and insert them into a post. So until I figure it out, this post will be photoless.
6 comments:
Shelah, to copy your pictures on a mac, press the control button (not the command button, the control button) while you click the mouse over the picture. You'll get a menu, you can choose to save the picture from that menu.
BTW, congrats on getting a mac.
I had no idea this author was LDS. I got the book for Christmas, but haven't cracked the cover.
new phone and a new mac on the same day. you are one lucky charm. do me a solid and put Hotel in your "blue wants to read eventually" pile. ♥
Shelah, I love your book reviews. This sounds like a good one and I especially like the title.
p.s. another way to put pictures into a blog with a Mac is to drag and drop the picture (say from amazon) onto your desktop. Then when you are in blogger and you want to add a picture you click on the browse button and it will be listed there in your "desk top" files. I find that its infinitely easier than a pc! Good luck figuring things out :)
Congrats on your Mac. Enjoy!
As for the book, I also received it for Christmas and promptly regifted it. Looks like I'll have to check it out from the library.
--Lupita
Great site,this information really helped me , I really appreciate it.Thanks a lot for a bunch of good tips. I look forward to reading more on the topic in the future. Keep up the good work! This blog is going to be great resource. Love reading it.
nice tip
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