Queen Anne Books

Just when you think you have an author pegged down, he up and surprises you. Ivan Doig has done just that with his latest novel, The Eleventh Man.

Doig once again has chosen to gently illuminate a piece of American history and has included the vast Montana landscape as you might expect in a novel by the gentleman. However, the larger backdrop is World War II opening up a whole new world for Doig's fans.

Ben Reinking was the eleventh man of a no-loss college football team, dubbed the Supreme Team, in Montana. His ten teammates are serving their country all around the globe while Ben, a reporter for an Army propaganda machine, is given the task of filing heroic reports on the Supreme Team. So Ben travels the world tracking down his friends trying to honor his friends as well as his job.

As usual, the characters are generally likeable and well drawn. The reader is immediately drawn into Ben's quest and haunted by the resulting stories. ~Patti

This is a story about a boy named Mau, he is the only one left after a big wave took away his whole island village, but it has also brought a girl, Daphne, the only survivor of a ship from very far away. At first Mau and Daphne are just struggling to survive and to communicate with each other but that changes when other survivors begin arriving on the island. Its becomes about caring for others, rebuilding a life, growing up, and finding courage and faith in oneself. This is a wonderful adventure with everything from mutineers, cannibals, grandfather spirits, to pantaloon birds who spit up a lot. This thought provoking story is humorous and beautiful all at the same time. Never a dull moment on the island and will be hard to put down until you find out what happens. ~Mara

For the past two days, I have been deliciously immersed in two Cambridges- Trinity College at Cambridge during WWI and Harvard University in Cambridge, MA in 1936- in the fascinating company of mathematician G. H. Hardy, all thanks to the Leavitt's historical novel, The Indian Clerk.

The story goes back and forth between the two Cambridges, telling the story of Hardy's relationship with Ramanujan, the "Hindoo Calculator"- a mathematical genius of raw and amazing talent who was brought from India to Trinity to be tutored and mentored by Hardy and his collaborator J. E. Littlewood. In his twilight years, Hardy gives a lecture at Harvard on the discoveries that he and Ramanujan made, while in his mind, he recalls his dear friend, from the first cryptic letter to Ramanujan's last days.

Leavitt's writing can be poetic, and his characters' emotional missteps contrast poignantly with their academic genius. Leavitt captures the esoteric thrill and passion that mathematicians have for their work, somehow making even the lay reader understand the excitement of trying to prove the Reimann Hypothesis. He also conveys the universal longing for human connection and understanding as Cambridge dons fumble through friendships, collaborations, competitions and love affairs.

The academic world that Hardy drags Ramanujan into is mysterious, archaic and full of bizarre traditions, and Leavitt brings it vividly to life with wild anecdotes about secret societies, jealous rivalries and thorny liaisons. The juicy tidbits about so many famous figures (Wittgenstein, A.A. Milne, Keynes, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and more are all on the scene) add extra sparkle to the stirring central story of brilliant men and the precarious world in which they lived. ~Tegan

I loved this book even though I didn’t know the meaning of every tenth word. That speaks so much to the compelling, and often funny, story Ghosh has created. Set in India in the 1830s, Sea of Poppies jumps from several different characters all connected in one way or another to a former slave ship, the Ibis. There is a broke Raja, a widow on the run, a homeless French girl, and, most importantly, an American octaroon “posing” as a white man (remember, it is the1830s). That just names a few of the wonderful characters in this book. This is magical realism India-style – full of colonial slang, inevitable conflicts and pairings, and a setting that seems both to be impossibly real, and impossible that it was real. My only warning, it’s a bit of a cliff hanger. This is the first of a planned trilogy about the Ibis. I still think it is well worth reading (it was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize). I can’t wait for the next one. ~Lillian