Amanda Reads Books?

Well I finally got a library card and decided that I should start reading from the huge list of recommendations I've gotten from people. I looked around our little branch looking forward to starting a good book that night and all (and I mean ALL) the books anyone had recommended to me were gone. Book 2 or 3 of David Weber's March series was in...The Lions of Al-Rassan but no Tigana to be found. No Tom Robbins, no Ursula K LeGuin and I couldn't remember Sarah Monette's name.

I ended up putting a bunch of books on hold but in the meantime I needed something to read right away. So what do you do in a tiny tiny library when you want to read something new, something good and you can't find any of the books your friends & family recommend?

I thought about asking a librarian but I couldn't find any that weren't being hassled to death at the check out area. I thought about looking up recommendations online but I don't have any favorite websites for that kind of thing.

Here's what I did. I wandered up and down for a while trying to figure out what I was looking for--and how to judge a book by its cover. I wanted something short (I had a bunch of books on hold, this was just to tide me over), something contemporary (just my mood), something without a slutty heroine (so no squirrelly pink titles and no Fabio on the front) and something without 800 pages of fight scenes that seemed to be written with a pen in one hand and a d20 in the other (so fantasy was risky). Having decided that, I started in the general fiction section (past the SciFi, past the Mystery, Horror & Romance) and just picked something on the first shelf of the A Authors that seemed to fit the criteria.

I found The Translator by Leila Aboulela. I don't think my choosing methods are very refined or effective so I was pleasantly surprised to have really enjoyed it. It was quiet and lonely, tragic and contemplative but in the end it was a satisfying subtle story about religion, love and family.

The writing style was very distinct and when I began the book I wasn't sure if I was absorbing all the information. The metaphors were rich and placed so subtly I felt like every sentence was so much more than I was seeing. After a couple of chapters I became accustomed to the flow of the writing and realized that the dense imagery and the quick shifts between memory and the present added to this idea of feeling solitary and quiet in a loud and crowded, fast-moving world.

The story was about a Sudanese widow who works as a translator for a university in Scotland. How she deals with the death of her husband, her young child, her place as a Muslim in Western Culture, her relationship with her colleagues, her Mother-in-law and family back in Sudan is all explained in this quiet, thoughtful manner that makes you feel as though you've gotten some secret insight into a very private woman's darkest and most sincere thoughts.

Her life experiences have very little to do with my own but reading this book allowed me to understand that we all feel the same things-- inadequacy, sorrow, fear, joy, love, faith and doubt.

If you're looking for a quiet book and a quick but satisfying read, I completely recommend this book. It's a chick-flick as far as books go and a little more challenging than the brain-candy I've been reading lately though so make sure you're not in a Tom Clancy place when you start it!

So tell me, when you go to the library and can't find this book on the shelf, how will you pick?