The House I Loved / Tatiana de Rosnay

The grandiose avenues and squares of Paris, the impossible conceit of l’Etoile, the romantic uniformity of the golden stone facades and their wrought iron balconies—all this was imposed upon a medieval network of streets and passages. In the course of about fifteen years in the mid-1800s entire streets and neighborhoods were literally wiped off the map to make room for the new triumphant boulevards, parks, and grand public spaces. What effect did this have on the people of Paris and their neighborhoods? Tatiana de Rosnay (Sarah’s Key) attempts to investigate this by recreating a historic street that is scheduled to yield to Baron von Haussmann’s wrecking crews in order to make room for the new Boulevard Saint-Germain. Rose Bazelet, a widow, is the homeowner at the center of the story, a person whose life is so rooted in the neighborhood and the very house in which she lives, that she cannot consider abandoning it. Her life story is revealed chapter by chapter as the demolition team approaches her secret hiding place in her beloved home.

A fascinating insight into a particular time in Parisian history, this story reminded me a bit of Tracy Chevalier’s historical novels and made me want to find out more about Paris before it was transformed into the beauty it is today—we know what was gained, but The House I Loved attempts to show the reader what was lost.

[Oh, and the cover of the book is totally wrong—whoever photoshopped it and whoever approved it never read the story. But I don’t much like the British version either. The best one I saw was probably the Norwegian version since it gave a glimpse of an old neighborhood that was lost.]

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Here we are / Graham Swift

This short novel offers a nostalgic look at England in the 1940s and 1950s. Evie, having just lost her husband after a long marriage, looks back at the fateful summer when they met up at the pleasure palace at the end of the Brighton pier. Evie was meant to marry someone else, Ronnie Doane, aka “The Great Pablo,” a magician whose talents really pull in the crowds in the days before television kept people in their front rooms (and to whom she serves as the feather-plumed magician’s assistant). The novel tells of Ronnie’s back story as a London child war evacuee, whose second family in Oxford is so nurturing and loving that he is conflicted about going back to his real home when the war is over. But Evie marries Jack instead and is ghosted (quite literally) by Ronnie even in her final years of life. A wonderful story about people and relationships.

Addie Pray / Joe David Brown (more recently published as Paper Moon ) Click here to check for availability at AFPLS This 1971 novel was the inspiration for the Peter Bogdanovich movie Paper Moon . Eleven-year-old Addie and her maybe-father “Long Boy” Moses Pray crisscross the Deep South “ramifying” (scamming) people during the Great Depression. Addie’s street smarts and perceived girlish innocence, along with Long Boy’s cleverness and shrewd business acumen build their operation until they are dealing in millions. The movie remained pretty true to the first half of the book (though it moved the location from Alabama to Kansas), but the adventures continue far beyond where the movie left off. The decades haven’t dimmed the magic of this rollicking adventure, either in the film or the book. ©Ken Vesey, 17 June 2010

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie / Alan Bradley

Pippi Longstocking meets Miss Marple in the character of precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of three daughters in a once well-to-do family in early 1950s rural England. This first mystery in an intended series finds Flavia beating the local police inspector at his own game in solving the mystery surrounding the murder of an old school mate of her father's in their back garden (in the cucumber patch no less). Clues include a bird indigenous to Norway, a rare stamp, and a bit of flaky pie crust. This nostalgic and innocent whodunnit will have you at the edge of your seat by its suspenseful climax. I can see BBC/PBS picking up on the popularity of this charming mystery. The second in the series has already been published and the third is soon to follow. And by the way, here's a great library quote from Flavia on page 50: "... it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No

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