Books In The Mirror

City of Light

Lauren Belfer

Dial Press

   It is 1901 in Buffalo, New York, a city of wealth and sophistication. The electric power development at nearby Niagara Falls and the Pan American Exposition promise to bring the Great Lake City of Light even more recognition. Louisa Barret is the attractive headmistress of the Macauley School for Girls. She is treated as an equal by the all-male board who control the life of the city. She feels secure in her position until a mysterious death at the power plant causes a series of events that forces her to return to a past she has struggled to conceal. A love story and thriller set in a city just before the turn of the century, Belfer’s novel captures a past age poised at the beginning of a new century which reverberates in our times. Highly recommended.

Miriam Call

Anne Esaki-Smith

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

   To Hanako Shimado, recently divorced, Luciano Pavarotti is a god. Emily, her daughter, feels this fixation will pass. Hanako meets him and invites him to dinner in their Westchester home. When she hires Alex, a handsome Greek, to renovate the kitchen, Emily begins to worry. Alex becomes very close to Hanako and tells her daughter that the renovation is in preparation for a visit from Pavarotti. Emily wonders if her mother might be losing it. Anna Esaki-Smith has a very understanding appreciation for this problem and writes a very compelling story.

Miriam Call

Zoe Jenny

Simon and Schuster

   Rich in images that lingered long after I laid the book down, Jenny’s debut novel is a powerful story of broken families and adolescence.

   It follows the path of a girl from the age of three to her early twenties. Her mother leaves when she is three and as she struggles toward her self-identity, the reader struggles with her. Powerul and moving, this German work is a wonderful novel.

Susan Jonaitis

Jorge Luis Borges

Penguin

   This is a phenomenal volume of poetry from one of the true masters of the pen. This compilation of fourteen books of poetry written by Borges is bilingual and includes translations by multiple translators, including W.S. Merwin, John Updike and Robert Fitzgerald. The New York Times and, more importantly, Doug Dutton heralded the release of his complete fiction. This book continues the celebration.