Blindness by Jose Saramago

Set in any city at any time, Blindness is a story about what happens when everyone loses their vision together. Well, everyone but one brave and courageous woman. As the government struggles to deal with this massive impairment, all hell breaks loose - think Lord of the Flies meets The Road. Through all of this nightmare, the woman (none of the characters have names because what good is a name when you can't see the individual?) must bear the brunt of watching society decay into something far worse than anyone imagined.

The one time in my life where I didn't follow my cardinal rule (always read the book BEFORE you see the movie) and man, did that screw me up! This book is an extremely dark allegory for all the awful things that mankind is capable of. While you're reading the book, all of this washes over you and hits home. The film was far too literal for my taste and mildly exploitative. There are many graphic scenes of violence, rape and death that work better in the imagination then seeing it splashed for gruesome effect on the big screen.

Overall, a powerful and deeply moving book. You will be disturbed by the end.

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Fault Lines by Nancy Huston

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008, Fault Lines takes an interesting narrative approach and follows four generations of a family counter-chronologically. Family secrets start to unravel as each generation's character is revealed. We first meet 6 year old Sol, a coddled spoiled brat of a character, as he and his family are on a trip to Germany to revisit a long-lost relative. Huston then introduces the reader to the other generations; his father Randall, grandmother Sadie, and great grandmother Erra. As each character's story unfolds, you can see how each narrative weaves into one. The last section, which centers on Erra, is the most eye-opening one and is the final piece of the novel's puzzle. I don't want to say much more because it'd be giving too much away, but suffice it to say, it's a pretty intense (and sad) read.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

A short but very moving tale about a man who uncovers the awful truth about a former lover. Michael is 15 when he first meets Hanna, who is 36. Despite the creepy age difference, the two become lovers, though Michael is far more captivated by the mysterious and distant Hanna than she is to him. Their affair is all too brief and one day, Hanna just disappears. Years later, Michael unintentionally sees Hanna as the defendant when he is observing a court case for law school. As Michael slowly learns about Hanna's horrible past, he must struggle to accept the question - if he loves (or loved) a monster, what does that make him? There is redemption in the end, but it's very bittersweet. And of course, they made a movie out of this one. If the weather is decent, perhaps I'll go see it this weekend - Kate Winslet is supposed to be fabulous.

"A Banquet of Consequences" by Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley mystery series is probably one of my favourites in the style of English detective stories. It's the series that I keep returning to, when I slip into a reading rut and can't focus on reading something new, particularly to the first book in the series A Great Deliverance. While there are lots of decent mystery series circulating now, the first book in George's Lynley stories has a certain grim insistence about it that keeps drawing me back to it. And in her latest contribution to the series, George has written a story that in many aspects parallels her first--however, these parallels did not become immediately apparent until the climax of the story. One of the things that I like best about Elizabeth George's writing is that she realises that a lot of times, the supporting characters can have better story potential than the main title character. She uses this to her advantage in almost all of the Lynley seri...

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