on the bookshelf: Romance Language

As anyone who has been a Peace Corps volunteer knows, books are GOLD.  They are passed around from volunteer to volunteer, read and re-read.  I’m fortunate that my neighbor to the north, Melody, and my virtual site-mate, Alex, both are great book hook-ups.

Melody recently gave me the book Romance Language by Alan Elsner to read.  The book is about Romania circa 1989 from the perspective of an American journalist and Romania circa 2007 from the perspective of the journalist’s American-born daughter. It’s two love stories framed within the historical/political context of the 1989 revolution and within the current metropolitan lifestyle that is Bucharest. It was a good read.  I was drawn into the book because:

1. I’d been to places he vividly described in current Bucharest,
2. he described Romanian quirks from an American viewpoint but he did not degrade the Romanian way of doing ,
3. overall historically, he kept to generally accepted facts and he painted a believable picture of what life was like for some under the communist regime, and
4. the love stories were compelling and interesting without being overly dramatic or gratuitous.

Definitely a good read for a lazy rainy day (or days)…..

Synopsis on author’s homepage.