The famous novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. *One of* his famous novels, even.

Left it at the OBCZ shelf.

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by the memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.

Picked this up at OBCZ Hotel De Doelen as part of my "leave one, take one" philosophy, and this looked sufficiently different to fit my quirky tastes.

It does take a bit of getting into. One thread of the story is set in a very Jewish Ukrainian stetl at the end of the 1700s; one thread consists of letters written by Alex, who regularly uses the wrong word from a thesaurus in his translations to English (I still don't know what "spleened" should really be); and the third thread follows a road trip through the Ukraine where Alex plays down the negative things said to Jonathan when he translates.

It's all a bit confusing, and a bit exaggerated (and reminded me of The Tin Drum by Günther Grass) but it does all come together in a whirlwind of revelations at the end.

Left on the guests' bookshelf in the lobby

[Release entry relocated from Guyane Francaise / Wild release somewhere in state]