'Good reads' worth your time

"All these damn good books are keeping me from going to bed when I should!"

I'm so tired! All these damn good books are keeping me from going to bed when I should! I have a huge stack by my bedside, and I've read so many lately that I've enjoyed. So I thought I'd share a few recent "good reads" with you.

The Undertaking is a first novel by Irish writer and journalist Audrey Magee. But before I even tell you about that, I want to mention that I've been on a big Irish Writer kick lately. I love the author Colm Tóibín (who will be appearing at the Free Library of Philadelphia tonight with Jane Smiley). I highly recommend his novel Brooklyn. I also recently read a book called The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. It tells the story of an event in a small Irish town, and the tale is told in 21 chapters by 21 different characters. A very interesting approach and he totally pulls it off.

But back to Magee... The Undertaking begins with a German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. His marriage is being performed by a chaplain; his bride is far away in Berlin being married by another chaplain at the exact same time. Bride and groom have never met. It is a Nazi-arranged marriage of convenience, where the soldier is given a honeymoon leave and the wife will get a pension should the soldier not survive the war. However, when Peter arrives in Berlin to meet his bride Katherina, the two, surprisingly, fall in love.

What follows is a tale that alternates between the perspectives of Katherina, living in wartime Berlin with her parents, including a father who has an "in" with the Nazi party, and Peter's life on the Russian front in an increasingly futile battle. He and his mates are headed for Stalingrad, and we know how that turns out.

Magee's take on World War II and the Holocaust is to tell the story from the perspective of ordinary Germans, something rarely done in literature in English. Is it possible to feel any sympathy for these characters? Read the book and find out. Not only is it a fascinating look at the war from a different perspective, her writing style, stark and dialogue-heavy, is terrific.

I seem, quite by accident, to be reading a lot of war novels lately. I wrote recently of Kevin Powers' excellent story of soldiers in Iraq, The Yellow Birds, and I just finished reading a Civil War novel called Neverhome by Laird Hunt. This is Hunt's sixth novel, and his first published by a mainstream publisher, Little Brown. His previous books came from Coffee House, a small literary press in Minneapolis. This is significant because it likely means his new publisher thinks (and hopes) that this will be his break-out book. Indeed, film rights have already been sold and no doubt similarities to Cold Mountain (e.g. strong firearm-wielding female protagonist) will be mentioned in promoting the book.

Neverhome is a beautifully-written epic tale, with, as one character points out, Penelope going off adventuring instead of Odysseus. The nut of the story is about a woman disguising herself as a man and going off to fight in the Union army. I would tell you more, but I really want you to discover it for yourself. I encourage you to read it. And this is one of those books where I would caution you not to read the flap copy. Just pick up the book, take a look at the gorgeous watercolor art on the cover, plunge right in and see what you find.

And while you do that, I'm going to take a nap.