Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

Every once in awhile, I enjoy a nice long saga. Double points if it's historical fiction. In the past, I've enjoyed Ken Follett's historical works Pillars of the Earth and World Without End , so I figured I'd check out his latest book Fall of Giants , which is the 1st book in his new Century Trilogy. Fall of Giants details the events leading up to and including World War I through the eyes of several different characters. What's interesting about FoG is that these characters are all not only from different socioeconomic situations (e.g. an Earl, a suffragette, a poor mining community), but also from different countries as well (Allies as well as German), so it was definitely enlightening to view the war through various lenses. The bulk of the novel deals with a lot of military talk, so if that's your thing, great. For me, at times, it seemed a little tedious. Despite that, Follett is a decent storyteller and his depictions of battle were very cinematic. As pa...

Whoa, what a long and strange trip this book was. In a nutshell, the novel is about Toru Okada's (an "Everyman" kind of character) journey to find his wife who left him suddenly and mysteriously. But really, this book is way more than that - along the way, Okada encounters a bunch of very eccentric and weird characters. What results is an intensely surreal, bizarre and disturbing story. I like how Amazon puts it - Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Murakami is very popular in Japan, but for some reason, never made it into the American mainstream, which is a shame.