This one looks quite fascinating and I even found it on Google Books to read the beginning until we get our copies!

Here is the synopsis from Random House:

The true story of thirteen women who took a risk on an expensive diamond necklace and, in the process, changed not only themselves but a community.

Four years ago, in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a diamond necklace in a local jewelry store display window. The necklace aroused desire first, then a provocative question: Why are personal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if we shared what we desired? Several weeks, dozens of phone calls, and a leap of faith later, Jonell bought the necklace with twelve other women, with the goal of sharing it.

Part charm, part metaphor, part mirror, the necklace weaves in and out of each woman’s life, reflecting her past, defining her present, making promises for her future. Lending sparkle in surprising and unexpected ways, the necklace comes to mean something dramatically different to each of the thirteen women.

From Publishers Weekly

In an entertaining if uneven debut novel from a U.K. publishing executive, dual story lines feature spirited English heroines—a 17th-century country girl and a modern-day craft shop owner—both with a gift for embroidery. As a farewell gift from her married lover, Julia Lovat receives a book published in 1625 and filled with a variety of sewing patterns. Inside the manual, Julia discovers the words, scribbled in pencil over the pages, of Cat Ann Tregenna, a 19-year-old British servant kidnapped by Muslim raiders and taken to Morocco to be sold into slavery. En route, the pirate leader, Al-Andalusi, is wounded in a battle, and Cat and her needlepoint skills are called on to stitch up the man’s wounds, an encounter that leads to a tangled interfaith rivalry. As Julia struggles to shake off the dregs of her affair, she finds inspiration in Cat’s makeshift diary and travels to Morocco to track down proof that Cat really existed; in the process, she discovers a new life of her own. Johnson imbues her historical story line with a captivating energy and momentum, but the humdrum contemporary quasi-romance doesn’t pull its share of the weight.

The female protagonist of this fast paced thriller has been cast in the American version of the movie and her name is Mara Rooney.

A relatively ‘unknown’ actress, she apparently beat out Emma Watson, Carey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and even Kirsten Stewart for the role …

Here is the publisher’s summary:

Biographer Margaret Lea returns one night to her apartment above her father”s antiquarian bookshop. On her steps she finds a letter. It is a hand-written request from one of Britain”s most prolific and well-loved novelists. Vida Winter, gravely ill, wants to recount her life story before it is too late, and she wants Margaret to be the one to capture her history. The request takes Margaret by surprise – she doesn”t know the author, nor has she read any of Miss Winter”s dozens of novels.

As Vida Winter unfolds her story, she shares with Margaret the dark family secrets that she has long kept hidden as she remembers her days at Angelfield, the now burnt-out estate that was her childhood home. Margaret carefully records Miss Winter”s account and finds herself more and more deeply immersed in the strange and troubling story. In the end, both women have to confront their pasts and the weight of family secrets. As well as the ghosts that haunt them still.

Lawrence Hill’s novel is inspired by a fascinating but little known historical document called the Book of Negroes, copies of which can be found in the USA at the New York Public Library, the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg (Virginia) and the U.S. National Archives in Washington D.C. In Canada, copies of the same historical document can be found in the Nova Scotia Public Archives and in the National Archives of Canada. Lawrence Hill wrote a feature article called “Freedom Bound” about the historical document The Book of Negroes in the February/March 2007 edition of The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine.

Lawrence Hill spoke with CBC Arts Online about the history and his novel. You can read the interview at http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/book_of_negroes.html.

When I picked up my copy of The Post-Birthday World, I also got the audio version of We need to talk about Kevin by the same author.  I have been listening to it when walking and am finding it quite thought provoking. It makes me think of the age old question of nature versus nature and whether personality is learned or ingrained.  Is Kevin the way he is because he did not properly bond with his mother?  Was his personality and desperation simply a part of him from when he was born?

Although the format of the book – letters from the teen’s mother written to her estranged husband – does not allow for you to get in the mind of any of the other characters, you are able to live through the events of her life as she saw them.  Definitely worth a read/listen. 

If you want to read a bit, click here for an excerpt.

In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the implications, large and small, of whom we choose to love. Using a playful parallel-universe structure, The Post-Birthday World follows one woman’s future as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men.

Children’s book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart, loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid. Until the night Irina unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player Ramsey Acton. The decision to give in to temptation will have consequences for her career, her relationships with family and friends, and perhaps most importantly the texture of her daily life.

Hinging on a single kiss, this enchanting work of fiction depicts Irina’s alternating futures with two men temperamentally worlds apart yet equally honorable. With which true love Irina is better off is neither obvious nor easy to determine, but Shriver’s exploration of the two destinies is memorable and gripping. Poignant and deeply honest, written with the subtlety and wit that are the hallmarks of Shriver’s work, The Post-Birthday World appeals to the what-if in us all.

Click here for a reading guide and here for Lionel Shriver’s biography

And if you would like to browse inside the book, give it a try here

En lisant ce livre, j’étais surtout frappée par les images évoquées par J-D Bauby. Il tisse une toile riche au fil de laquelle on perçoit le contraste net entre “le scaphandre” et “le papillon”, métaphores profondes de l’étouffement physique et de l’exaltation de l’imagination et de l’esprit. Pour moi, c’était un véritable plaisir de lire la version originale (c’est-à-dire en français) telle que conçue par Bauby. Je n’ai pas lu la traduction anglaise, et je n’en ai presque pas envie. . . sauf peut-être d’un oeil linguistique, pour voir si la richesse du langage et des images produisent le même effet dans une autre langue. Voici quelques-unes de la myriade des citations qui m’ont émue:

“Derrière le rideau de toile mitée une clarté laiteuse annonce l’approche du petit matin.” (9)

Cette phrase débute le livre. J’aime bien le soupçon de l’allitération qui fait que la phrase coule bien facilement. L’image de la qualité “laiteuse” de la lumière a une telle précision qu’en lisant cette phrase, je me sens presque éblouie par ce soleil qui perce à peine les nuages de l’aube.

“Le scaphandre devient moins oppressant, et l’esprit peut vagabonder comme un papillon. Il y a tant à faire. On peut s’envoler dans l’espace ou dans le temps, partir pour la Terre de Feu ou la cour du roi Midas. On peut rendre visite à la femme aimée, se glisser auprès d’elle et caresser son visage encore endormi. On peut bâtir des châteaux en Espagne, conquérir la Toison d’or, découvrir l’Atlantide, réaliser ses rêves d’enfant et ses songes d’adulte.” (10-11)

Evidemment, cette citation s’avère significative car c’est ici que Bauby se sert des deux métaphores qui ont donné lieu au titre du livre. J’étais attirée par la métaphore du scaphandre car j’ai une phobie d’être submergée dans l’eau. Je suis assez claustrophobe, et c’est la sensation d’avoir perdu contrôle et d’être sans ressource qui me fait peur. En mettant en parallèle mes propres sentiments vis-à-vis le scaphandre de Bauby (l’espace clos, la solitude devant l’immensité de l’eau qui nous engloutit), je peux imaginer ce que Bauby a voulu communiquer en se servant de cette métaphore.

“D’un seul coup j’entrevoyais l’effarante réalité. Aussi aveuglante qu’un champignon atomique. Mieux acérée que le couperet d’une guillotine.” (15)

Le choc de la reconnaissance de son état et de l’inexorabilité de son destin est rendu si vif par ces deux images: le champignon atomique et la guillotine. J’ai bien aimé la phrase “Mieux acérée que le couperet d’une guillotine” car c’était très “française”.

“Muni d’une tasse de thé ou d’un whisky, d’un bon livre ou d’une pile de journaux, je marinais longuement en manoeuvrant les robinets avec les doigts de pied.” (22-23)

Quelle description luxueuse! Cela m’a vraiment donné envie de prendre un long bain relâchant (ce que, regrettablement, je ne fais jamais. Un simple plaisir presque hédoniste dans son indolence. . .

“[. . .] j’ai enfoui ma tête dans les plis de sa robe de gaze blanche aux larges rayures satinées. C’était doux comme de la crème fouettée, aussi frais que la rosée du matin.” (30)

Un véritable délice des sens, surtout de la touche. J’ai aimé la variété de textures des tissus. Pour moi, c’était une description très sensuelle.

“D’autres lettres racontent dans leur simplicité les petits faits qui ponctuent la fuite du temps. Ce sont des roses qu’on a cueillies au crépuscule, l’indolence d’un dimanche de pluie, un enfant qui pleure avant de s’endormir. Capturés sur le vif, ces échantillons de vie, ces bouffées de bonheur m’émeuvent plus que tout.” (89)

Une fois de plus, c’est l’évocation des simples plaisirs et des activités quotidiennes qu’on a tendance à tenir pour acquis. Oui, c’est un cliché que des choses nous manquent quand on n’y a plus accès, mais Bauby réussit quand même à bien représenter ces tranches de vie. “L’indolence d’un dimanche de pluie” m’a beaucoup frappée, peut-être parce que j’ai passé bien de dimanches de cette manière?

“[. . .] une volée d’enfants arrive en vélo du marché. Des rires illuminent tous les visages. Certains de ces enfants ont atteint depuis longtemps l’âge des grands soucis, mais sur ces chemins bordés de rhododendrons chacun peut retrouver son innocence perdue.” (107)

L’insouciance de la jeunesse est mise en valeur par rapport au fardeau des responsabilités de l’âge adulte. J’ai trouvé beaucoup d’espoir et d’optimisme dans cette description.

Posted by: Manuela Vieira-Ribeiro