Librarything's Early Reviewer Programme

What a lucky girl I am!  I have been putting my hat in the ring for Early Reviewer books to review for a while, but this is the first time I have been successful three months in a go!  LibraryThing has been running this programme for a few years now and get some really interesting books.


From the September 2010 batch, I received  Pereira Maintains.  I read the previous translation a few years ago, but since then I have lived in Portugal and so the book has a different relevance to me.  This makes it hard to compare the books, as I am not the same reader.
The book takes place in 1938, Portugal is suffering under the dictatorship of Salazar, Spain is in the midst of a civil war and the Nazis are on the rise.  Pereira is a journalist, someone who should know the real news stories, but he is like many people living under a regime, scared to put his head above the parapit to ask questions.  This all changes one day when he reads an article about death, the article affects him so much that he has to find the author and meet him.  It is his meeting with Monteiro Rossi, a young dissident, which starts him on a new path, one on which he begins to question the world around him.
The book put me in mind of the famous poem, "they came first for the Communists ..."  As many others have done before and since him, Pereira could have continued on his path of ignorance, hiding in his translations of French literature.  Monteiro Rossi is young, passionate and the son Pereira never had, I think this is what inspires Pereira to rebel.
Tabucchi really captures 1930s Lisbon and life under Salazar, this is a well-deserved entry on the 1001 list.

Next up was Drive-by Saviours, from the October 2010 batch. I put my name forward for it because of the parallel stories in the blurb - frustrated social worker Mark in Toronto and OCD sufferer Buni in Indonesia.  Their meeting half way through the book changes their lives.

The action alternates chapter by chapter between telling the life story of Buni and Mark on the cusp of a crisis.  They are very different men from very different countries and having led very different lives.
Buni, somewhat of a child genius, is from Rilaka, a small Indonesian island and helps him father fish.  Buni finally gets his chance to go to school through one of Suharto's schemes, but it involves him having to relocate to Makassar along with many other young Indonesians.  Unfortunately, school doesn't live up to his expectations, and Buni is soon bored and looking for alternatives.  He makes friends with 2 beggars and gives them money in exchange for telling him stories.  As Buni grows up, he becomes more and more disenchanted with life under the regime, his suffering from OCD becomes more acute, as a kind of coping mechanism.
Mark is working as a social worker in Toronto, but it is not working out.  During a power outage, he experiences a sense of camaraderie which he tries recapture later in the book.  His growing frustration grows, causing problems with his work and relationship with Sarah, his girlfriend.  On meeting Buni, Mark thinks he finds what he has been missing, and soon develops a relationship with him, one which will help him to reconnect with his estranged sister.  I didn't really like Mark, I found him to be very selfish and he seemed to blame everyone else for his problems, but the character was well-written.

Last, but not least, was  The House of the Mosque, from the November 2010 batch.  The book follows the story of an extended family living in a mosque in Iran. Starting in the 1950s, the family's fortunes are intertwined with the changing religious and political scene in Iran, to such an extent that the family itself is driven apart.
The family in the mosque are a mixed bunch. First there is the Iman Alsaberi, a weak man obsessed with hygiene and rather negligent of his family. The household is kept together by Aqa Jaan, who also keeps the records of the mosque, as previous generations have done. Their brother Muezzin, a blindman, calls the people to prayer.
Times are changing, with the death of Alsaberi comes a vaccum, into which a new Iman steps, one that will change the path of the mosque. Aqa Jaan tries to keep everything together, but the political turmoil makes it harder and harder.
As an introduction to Iran, this is a good read, but will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens to the family. The author has taken care to show the reader the conflict and destruction brought upon the family, but at the same time showing, for me, a rather little-known side to life in Iran.