{"id":7763,"date":"2019-02-06T08:01:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T13:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7763"},"modified":"2019-02-06T08:01:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T13:01:11","slug":"three-minute-book-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7763","title":{"rendered":"Three Minute Book Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Tarot<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

You can read that headline two ways and either works. I\nenjoyed all three of these books, out of my usual crime fiction lane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

****The Immortalists<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chloe Benjamin\u2019s accomplished 2018 novel details the lives\nof four siblings who, as children, visit a fortune teller who reveals the date they\nwill die. We follow them then, in turn, and the question is, did her\npredictions engage them as accomplices in creating self-fulfilling prophecies,\nor was she simply right? The career of the younger daughter, Klara, who becomes\nan accomplished magician, was the most intriguing to me. Named \u201cone of the best\nbooks of the year\u201d by many sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

****<\/a>The Book Thief<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably you read Markus Zusak\u2019s 2005 best-seller when it\nfirst came out, but I missed both book and movie. Children (again) in a small town\noutside Munich face the coming of World War II\u2014the paranoia, the excitement,\nthe vicious militants. Liesel\u2019s mother has left her nine-year-old daughter in\nthe care of Rosa and Hans Hubermann. The deepening relationship between Liesel\nand her foster parents\u2014both kindly Hans and foul-mouthed, foul-tempered Rosa\u2014is\na joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They take in someone much more dangerous too. There\u2019s a Jew\nin the basement, son of the man Hans owes his life to. Just as I\u2019d become\nimmersed in the story, Death, a 20,000-foot observer of the book\u2019s events,\nwould intrude and pull me out again. I came to appreciate him as a character, though\nnot these constant interruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Midnight Blue<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another historical novel is Simone van der Blugt\u2019s 2018 book, her first published in the United States. In 1654, the young widow Catrin leaves her small village to seek her fortune and leave behind the suspicions about her role in her husband\u2019s death. In Amsterdam, she finds work as housekeeper to the wealthy Van Nulandt family. Madame Van Nulandt takes painting lessons from a local master, Rembrandt van Rijn, but Catrin, it turns out, is the real artist in the household. The secret of her husband\u2019s death returns, however, and her struggle to make a successful life despite all shows plenty of pluck and talent. Translated by Jenny Watson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Meg Lessard, creative commons license<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases\u2014a few pennies to put in a jar to pay my WordPress bills. When you buy the book through the link on my website, you help me fill the jar. Thank you!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You can read that headline two ways and either works. I enjoyed all three of these books, out of my usual crime fiction lane. ****The Immortalists Chloe Benjamin\u2019s accomplished 2018 novel details the lives of four siblings who, as children, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Three Minute Book Reviews - Very different, but all excellent reads. Two best-sellers and one from The Netherlands you may have overlooked!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[440,366,40,266,126,359],"tags":[1501,1063,1503,1504,1505,1500],"class_list":["post-7763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-drama","category-fiction","category-history","category-reading-2","category-review","tag-chloe-benjamin","tag-historical-fiction","tag-markus-zusak","tag-midnight-blue","tag-simone-van-der-blugt","tag-the-immortalists"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-21d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7764,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions\/7764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}