The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk

The reverberations of this strange 728 page novel are amazing. While the story is simple, the telling of it has the reader wondering what is love, what is happiness, where does sanity lie, how do things (i.e. physical objects) relate to our emotions. The first person narrator is establishing a museum to honor the love of his life, and much of the book is about his deep love for her and the excruciating pain he felt when she refused to see him. After she has married another man, our hero worms his way back into her life and spends years observing her and loving her from within the role of family friend. The story takes place in Istanbul starting in 1975, and while the country is modernizing, there is still an attitude of protectiveness towards women that restrains them.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The second of the Larsson trilogy is just as much a page-turner as the first. This time the focus is on "the girl" as a victim of a murder investigation. While I have enjoyed Larsson's books, I have two complaints: 1. The girl's skills seem a little too good to be true; and 2. Larsson seems to really enjoy thinking about the torture of women. Of course he excoriates it, but it is a very dominant theme in his work. It's possible to read The Girl Who Played with Fire without having read the first in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I wouldn't.

Nothing to Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes

The title is printed over a gawping empty grave on the cover of this memoir by the accomplished British author Julian Barnes. I therefore assumed it would be a reassuring book about death, but I found it to be sad and a little frightening. Barnes' memoir includes non-judgmental discussions of atheists and believers, as well as stories of how different people (some famous, some not) have exited this life. None of it leads to any kind of conclusion, but is simply the author making himself comfortable with mortality. But in spite of my disappointment in not finding a particular "answer," I enjoyed the writing and literary nuances. Barnes is a brilliant writer.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

An elderly Jewish gentleman and a fourteen year old girl, living their separate lives in New York, are both on track to uncover the history of a broken love affair. The gentleman's motivation is to search for a son he has never connected with; the girl's is to find a new love interest for her lonely mother. This is a convoluted story beautifully written. However, time sequences are not always clear and the voice of the narrator changes from character to character. A beautiful book, but it needs close attention.