Great House by Nicole Krauss

Multiple stories are embedded in this novel about an antique desk and the people associated with it. Krauss is a good writer who presents challenging work by splitting her stories into fragments that are often hard for the reader to piece together. Great House takes the reader from NYC to London to Jerusalem without explaining how the scenes in these places are linked. That is something the reader must do by reading to the very end of the book. This same style of presentation is also used in her earlier book The History of Love and I really don't like it. Writing, plot, and character development are all excellent but I don't see the point of scrambling the story.

Parrot & Olivier in American by Peter Carey

Carey, a two time winner of the Booker Prize, presents an interesting look at American culture through the eyes of a character modeled after Alexis de Tocqueville. The relationship between the aristocrat named Olivier and the penniless Parrot provides a look at the French Revolution from different points of view. Peter Carey is a brilliant writer and his work is irresistible to me.