Library Loot #5

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg and Claire that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Frances:
Consequences by Penelope Lively
I've already finished this one.  I have only read one other novel by Penelope Lively, Spiderweb, and I didn't enjoy it that much.  I chose this one because I enjoy reading books set during WWII but I wasn't sure I wasn't sure I would like it based on my previous experience with Lively.  I loved it!  It begins with a chance meeting in 1935 that results in a love affair and marriage.  The story moves through the devastation of WWII, to the social revolution of the 1960's, and the early 2000's.  Lively chronicles the choices and consequences that comprise a family's history, offering an intimate, moving reaffirmation of the the force of connection between generations.

April in Paris by Michael Wallner
Again, I have chosen a novel set during WWII - more specifically in occupied France.  The novel recounts the impossible love affair between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter.

The London Train by Tessa Hadley
This novel follows to people, Paul and Cora, connected by a chance meeting on the London train that will have immediate and far-reaching consequences for them both.

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
Another train!  From the jacket:  Raimund Gregorius teaches classical languages at a Swiss lycee, and lives a life governed by routine.  One day, a chance encounter with a Portuguese woman inspires him to question his life - and leads him to an extraordinary book that will open the possibility of changing it.  Apparently, a movie is being made based on the book starring Jeremy Irons.

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
This novel is told by the Vietnamese cook, Bihn, employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris.  Since I have been reading about Literary Paris in the 1920's, I was drawn to this book.  The jacket says:  A mesmerizing narrative voice, an insider's view of a fabled literary household, and the slow revelation of heartbreaking secrets contribute to the viceral impact of this first novel.



Rose:
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
The description of this novel leads me to believe that it is either a fabulous success weaving past and present together in a story of history and murder or a grim and gruesome Chicago murder mystery. I will be greatly disappointed if it is the latter.

The Book of Fathers by Miklos Vamos
I could not resist checking out this book from the library purely because the author is praised as a Hungarian version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Kornél Esti by Dezso Kosztolanyi 
Last year I read Kosztolanyi's Skylark and loved it. This is a new English translation of his final novel. A man and his doppelganger, an alter ego from his childhood, write a book together. I hope that, like Skylark, this book manages to be both incredibly funny as well as thought-provoking.