Tuesday, January 9, 2007

UNITED WE READ 2007

The Kansas City Library and Information Network announces that THE FINAL SOLUTION by Michael Chabon is the United We Read selection for 2007. This deceptively simple novella, set at the time of the blitz in World War II Britain, resurrects an aged Sherlock Holmes, never actually mentioned by name. The old man is asked to help police discover the murderer of a commercial traveler and the whereabouts of a missing parrot belonging to a young Jewish boy rescued from Germany. As the mystery unfolds, layer upon layer of meaning is discovered and yet in the end the meaning is ambiguous. Chabon has penned an exquisite homage to Sir Conan Doyle, obliquely examining not only the horror of the Holocaust, but the legacy of racism in Great Britain, and the vicissitudes of aging. Readers of all ages will find much to discuss in this elegant novel. The Final Solution is the winner of the 2005 National Jewish Book Award and also the 2003 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by the Paris Review.

Submitted by Susan Burton KCMLIN