The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

In 1930 Czechoslovakia, the new Mr and Mrs Landauer commission a man they meet on their honeymoon, Rainier van Abt, to build a modern house for them. His answer is the Landauer House, a house with a glass room that is the talk of the town, where they raise their two children and hold dinners and piano recitals, and where Mrs Liesel Landauer feels truly content. But when the Nazi regime begins to gain ground in Europe, the family has to find a way to escape, eventually leaving their beloved house, never to truly return. In their absence, the house becomes many things - a lover's paradise, a bartering centre, a place for research - always waiting for the return of its original inhabitants.

The Glass House is a beautifully written story, and while Mawer writes a great deal about what goes on the house itself, his main focus is on the Landauer family and Liesel's closest friend, Hana, through their extramarital affairs, trials and tribulations. This is a beautifully written novel, and is an extremely enjoyable novel. It's not a book for the beach, and it's a sad novel, but beautiful nonetheless.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I had previously read Fingersmith and immensely enjoyed it. Then Sarah Waters' newest book, The Little Stranger, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, so of course I had to read it. Waters is an amazing writer of historical novels, but this was a little bit different from her previous books. It's partly a ghost story, but mostly it's a novel about class in postwar Britain.

Dr Faraday is a quiet country doctor and the son of a maid; Mrs Ayres is the owner of Hundreds Hall, a once-grand manor now in shambles; her two children are Caroline and Roderick, whose leg was damaged in the war. Strange things start happening in the house, with no explanation, and Dr Faraday, the gallant narrator, relays the story to us through his eyes. He begins treating Roderick using induction coils, but quickly integrates himself into the Ayres household, and consequently shares in their various misfortunes.

Unfortunately, I was dissapointed with this novel. While it's gotten great reviews and it's certainly worth a read, I didn't think that it was up to the standards of or Waters' other novels. It may be that it's a little bit creepy, but I also felt that some of the suspense-building in the middle section was a little bit too much, and then when it did speed up near the end, the action seemed to be going too quickly and even wildly. The Little Stranger is by no means a long and tedious novel, but I felt it might have been better if the middle was made shorter and the last part made longer.

As said before, however, this novel is worth a read, especially if you liked Sarah Waters' writing style as seen in her Victorian trilogy. But I don't see it as Man Booker material, if only because I enjoyed Fingersmith so much more.