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SHADOWS SPEAK IN RIDDLES

Name: SHADOWS SPEAK IN RIDDLES
Author: Sami Gjoka
ISBN: 978-1456892999

by Sami Gjoka ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2011

Sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh and often insightful, Gjoka’s poems take readers on a journey, leading them to new...

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Gjoka’s first book of poems in English offers readers a rare chance to see the small moments of life through another’s eyes.

This latest offering from Gjoka contains poems that cover such topics as birth, death, lovemaking and what it means to be human. While readers may not connect to every poem, most will find something that resonates with them. The author offers a supreme command of language, image and metaphor, and readers will find themselves lost in those poems that touch them deeply. He is versatile in his poetic structure, alternating between moments of breeziness and brutality without sacrificing the beauty of language or the intensity of his images. Though translated from the original Albanian (with the original text appearing on adjacent pages), Gjoka’s poems retain much of their lyrical and rhythmic qualities; “The old stems, / Old and dying / Have burst into new flowers, / Vanished stars that left space / Long ago” (“Love the Scents of Every Flower”). Readers of foreign literature will understand the changes that take place during translation, since poetry contains many idioms and difficult to convey allusions. However, most of these poems seem to retain their power in English, and allow readers to view the world through the lens of a different culture; “Some say there is a snake / We must slay / Filled with venom of religion / Of some other distant lands, / Of some poor, unhappy people / Scattered through some oil fields” (“Here So Close to the Capitol”). Readers may be turned off initially by the fact that these poems are translated, but a taste of what the author offers should help them over their hesitation and allow them to embrace these lines. Poetry buffs will likely find something to treasure in this collection and readers who find themselves drawn to its rhythms and images should welcome this work into their library.

Sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh and often insightful, Gjoka’s poems take readers on a journey, leading them to new insights and helping them see the world through a unique perspective.

Pub Date: March 24, 2011

ISBN: 978-1456892999

Page Count: 234

Publisher: Xlibris

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2011

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.