Landline

Landline by Rainbow Rowell, 310 pages

Fourteen years into a rapidly deteriorating marriage, screenwriter Georgie McCool is faced with a choice between a potentially career-changing meeting and flying to Omaha with her family for Christmas. When she chooses her career over her family, she's stuck in L.A. worrying about her relationship and unable to get a hold of her husband, Neal. But then comes the old landline phone she finds at her mom's house, which magically, mysteriously allows her to talk to a 15-years-younger Neal. Self-doubt and all-night conversations ensue.

I'll be up front about this: you can tell, almost from the beginning, how this book is going to end. It's like a chick flick in book form, and I'll be shocked (and kind of disappointed) if it never makes it to the movie theater. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean this is a bad book. Completely ignoring the somewhat-awkward time-warp phone aspect, Rowell does what she does best: illustrating a complex and very real relationship, from the point of view of a complex and insecure protagonist. When Georgie is wondering what went wrong in her marriage and trying to see herself from Neal's point of view, she becomes marvelously real.

This isn't Rowell's best book (try the YA novels Eleanor & Park and Fangirl first), it is definitely worth a read.

People of the Book

People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks.  372 pages. 2008

      I knew I was going to enjoy this book when I saw that Geraldine Brooks dedicated this novel to librarians everywhere.  This is a story that follows an Australian book conservator who is charged with working on what is called the Sarajevo Haggadah (an illuminated Hebrew codex).  As her work progresses, the mysteries begin to unravel, and we are shown glimpses of where the book has been.  The jumps from the past to present are nice, and help push the narrative along. 
       The characters can be compelling and are memorable, as well as Brooks's description of the Inquisition and the expulsion of Jewish people from Spain.  In each period of the book's history, someone was able to make the necessary sacrifice to preserve it, and I had to say that I enjoyed those parts the most.