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THE FLOATING BOOK

Name: THE FLOATING BOOK
Author: Michelle Lovric
ISBN: 0-06-057856-4

by Michelle Lovric ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2004

Maddeningly over the top and self-important, but as seductive as Venice.

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A mix of fact and fiction juxtaposes the brief life of Roman poet Catullus with the sensation caused by the first printed edition of his highly charged poetry in 15th-centuryVenice.

Catullus arrived in Rome in 63 b.c. and promptly and permanently fell under the spell of a heartless, despicable noblewoman named Clodia. His sensual poetry addressed to her resurfaced in Venice during the late1400s, when most of Lovric’s bulky debut novel takes place. Wendolin von Speyer—who, like many of the characters here, actually existed but whose portrayal here should not be taken literally—has recently arrived from Germany with his printing press in tow. He falls deeply in love and marries the earthy, enchanting Lussièta. Meanwhile, Sosia, a Dalmatian Jewess whose rape as a child has damaged her soul, begins a journal describing all the Venetian men she sleeps with, most for money. Several powerful noblemen are thoroughly besotted with her, as is von Speyer’s young editor Bruno. The scribe Felice Feliciano is the one man Sosia herself loves, but he loves only books and, secretly, Bruno. Von Speyer’s publication of Catullus’s poems creates a public outcry and private crises. Sosia’s licentiousness gradually takes over her intellect. In the meantime, misunderstanding and distrust worm their way into the von Speyer marriage. Eventually, thanks to a mix of magic and/or happenstance, Sosia is destroyed, like Clodia before her. (Eaten up with venereal disease, she is accused of witchcraft.) Bruno finds a love worthy of his virtue, Felice sacrifices for his love, and the von Speyers regain their marital equilibrium. Lovric juggles these love stories and half a dozen others, including her characters’ passion for the written or printed word, but her own true love is Venice itself. The novel is rich in sensual descriptions of the city and its citizenry.

Maddeningly over the top and self-important, but as seductive as Venice.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-06-057856-4

Page Count: 496

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE TRUE AND SPLENDID HISTORY OF THE HARRISTOWN SISTERS
by Michelle Lovric

- BOOK REVIEW
THE REMEDY
by Michelle Lovric

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.