The oddest reading experience this month was the mostly accidental pairing of ex-married-couple Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer's new novels. The highly regarded and formerly married authors released Forest Dark (Krauss) and Here I Am (Foer) after long intervals since their previous novels. Both books feature characters in failing marriages; those characters spend a lot of time either thinking about the significance of Israel to American Jews; both are struggling--Jacob in Here I Am is having a midlife crisis that plays out in sexting with a colleague and a decision to go to Israel to fight in the war that has broken out following a natural disaster while Nicole in Forest Dark is a writer who can't find the thread for her next book (and who feels that she has somehow slipped into the multiverse). I didn't love either book, but of the two I preferred Here I Am, in part because the children in the failing marriage were so interesting; the book's narrative structure was also more traditional than that of Forest Dark, which in this case I thought worked better. Finally, Forest Dark had so many long passages about Kafka that it sometimes felt more like a textbook than a novel. I wonder if Krauss and Foer see the similarities in their books or whether they would deny, pointing to the many differences. Still, to me it was fascinating that a couple who is no longer coupled would produce works with so many similarities.
On to other reading . . .
The Best Books I Read This Month
Tales from the Tummy Trilogy, by Calvin Trillin. Mr. Trillin describes some of his eating adventures, and it's not deep but it is good fun. I also always appreciate the way Trillin talks about his late wife, for whom he obviously had great respect and affection.
Improvement, by Joan Silber. Improvement is a novel in the form of linked short stories. It starts and ends with a young single mother Reyna, living in New York; her boyfriend Boyd is on Ryker's Island. When he gets out, he involves her in an illegal scheme with some of his friends. We bounce from her life, to her eccentric aunt who lived in Turkey as a young woman, to a couple the aunt met casually while traveling across Europe, to the girlfriend of one of Boyd's friends who doesn't know he was killed in a car accident, to the sister of another friend. There are some overly coincidental connections, but overall the book works, in part because Silber makes us care about nearly all the characters.
Matilda, by Roald Dahl. Matilda is a very funny book about a gifted little girl who wreaks havoc on her horrible parents and the abusive headmistress of her school. Dahl captures the revenge fantasies every child must have felt, while still making Matilda entirely lovable. Recommended by me and my granddaughter!
The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer. Greer Kadetsky is a young college student, enraged to be stuck at a second-rate New Jersey college because her aging hippy parents couldn't figure out the financial aid forms at Yale. She becomes friends with the much more political Zee Eisenstadt and, through her, meets the feminist Faith Frank, a Gloria Steinem-esque character. The timing is perfect, as Greer is recovering from being groped by a fraternity bro and needs inspiration for her new activism. After a conversation in the restroom following a campus speech by Frank, Frank gives Greer her card. Upon graduation, Greer calls Faith and gets a job with her (in the process, betraying Zee). Greer and her high school boyfriend have managed to sustain a long-distance relationship (he went to Princeton and then got a job in Asia) until a family tragedy turns his life upside down. The book explores feminism, friendship, and mentorship (along with an unnecessary side trip to lambaste Teach for America--I agree with Wolitzer's point but the section in which Zee works for a TFA stand-in is out of place in the book) and I enjoyed it--although the ending seemed a tad too neat.
Also Read
The Babysitter's Club: Kristy's Great Idea, by Ann M. Martin, and Katie and the Cupcake Cure, by Coco Simon. My granddaughter's been loaning me books (I feel honored) and I found it interesting that these two are both about entrepreneurial girls struggling with friendship issues. Both were entertaining and gave me some insight into my granddaughter's fifth-grade life! I'm afraid of middle school!
Drinking in America, by Susan Cheever. My sister found this book really interesting and I can understand why, but I was irritated by Cheever's historical misstatements and attempts to draw connections for which she provided little evidence. Still, I was intrigued by the idea that drinking has been rampant among soldiers at war throughout U.S. history. I'd need more evidence to feel really confident she's right about this, but it's an idea that makes sense to me.
Defensive Wounds, by Lisa Black. I can't even remember this book, so . . .
Young Jane Young, by Gabrielle Zevin. An intern has an affair with a politician, gets vilified by the press, and rebuilds her life. Okay but lacks the heart of Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.
Heartburn, by Nora Ephron. I read this book years ago and wasn't crazy about it but decided to give the audible version (featuring Meryl Streep) a try. I liked it better this time but still didn't love it--perhaps if I had read it just as I was getting divorced, it might have resonated.
The Light between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman. A young couple meets, falls in love, marries, and takes up life as lighthouse keepers. When a child washes up in a boat, the wife, who has had multiple miscarriages, begs the husband to keep the child and pretend she is theirs. The husband agrees but his regrets will bubble up again, dooming their happiness. Ugh.
The Leavers, by Lisa Ko. I heard Lisa Ko talking on NPR and enjoyed the interview, so decided to read her highly reviewed book, which is an immigrant and adoption story. It took me three starts to get through it and almost didn't make it--the two mothers in the book are so terrible and their shared child's life so screwed up, it was really hard to take.
Daughters of the Samurai, by Janice P. Nimura. Somewhat interesting account of Japanese girls sent to the United States to be educated in the late 1800s and how they fared when they returned to Japan.
A Criminal Defense, William L. Myers, Jr. At first, I thought this legal thriller was somewhat interesting, but as the book progressed, every character was revealed as to be so morally repellent and the story so far-fetched that it lost its appeal.
Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff. There really wasn't that much new in this book--just a close-up view of what we already knew to be true about the Trump White House. My favorite moment: George W. Bush saying about Trump's inaugural address: "That was some weird shit."
Favorite Passages
And how strange, too, that laughter would characterize so much of what they did from that night on, even if some of it was the laughter of helplessness in the face of what was unfixable.
Meg Wolitzer, The Female Persuasion
But people often wanted payment for what they only wished they'd done.
Joan Silber, Improvement
Monday, April 30, 2018
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Hamilton--Better than Any March Books!
I saw Hamilton this month and it did not disappoint. In fact, it dazzled. None of the books I read this month came close to Hamilton's virtuosity (write a book, Lin-Manuel!), but that will not stop me from some literary commentary. The month's reading seemed to have a couple of themes--how hard it is to be a teenager (or pre-teen) and what home means.
The Best Books I Read This Month
Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng. Set in wealthy suburb Shaker Heights, OH, in the 1990s, Little Fires Everywhere is an indictment of suburban smugness and conventionality. The Richardsons appear to be an ideal family, both parents are professional, their four children are (mostly) doing well. Certainly, Pearl Warren, who lives with her art photographer mother Mia in a house owned by the Richardsons, is enamored by the family's surface perfection. Little Fires Everywhere has a structural similarity with Ng's earlier book Everything I Never Told You, in that we know from the beginning that the story will end with a disaster, in this case an arson fire at the Richardsons' home. Between the arrival of the Warrens in Shaker Heights and the fire, Ng deals with many issues, notably teen pregnancy and abortion, cross-cultural adoption, race, and what it means to be a good mother. Although some of the characters are one-dimensional, the story is still engaging. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Mia's work--I really wanted to see the photographs (much like the installation constructed by the protagonist's mother in Bee Season). Not a perfect novel, but well worth reading.
The Story of Arthur Truluv, by Elizabeth Berg. Arthur is a widower in his 80s who eats lunch every day at his dead wife's grave. He has a special gift (or an especially good imagination) for sensing the lives of the folks buried nearby. Maddy is a bullied teenager with an unhappy home life who spends her lunch hour at the cemetery to avoid the school cafeteria. Most of what happens after the two meet is utterly predictable, and it still manages to charm. An actual feel-good book.
Also Read
Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia, by Gerda Saunders. Saunders combines a rather clinical discussion of dementia with recollections of her childhood in South Africa and her adult life in Utah. I appreciate the author's courage in taking on this task following her diagnosis, but I didn't love the book.
Blubber, by Judy Blume. This book scared the bejesus out of me on behalf of my fifth-grade granddaughter, who loaned me the book. I asked her if fifth-grade was as bad as it is portrayed in this book (these kids are freaking brutal!) and she said "no," but I'm still scared.
Stalking Susan, by Julie Kramer. Number 1 in a mystery series featuring a Twin Cities TV reporter--mediocre but not bad enough to ensure I won't try number 2 in the series.
Night Moves, by Jonathan Kellerman. Better than some of the other recent entries in the Alex Delaware series.
Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate. The story of child stealing and illegal adoption in the first half of the 20th century that this novel reveals is shocking, but the novel itself is not that great.
The People We Hate at the Wedding, by Grant Ginder. I perversely loved the title of this novel, but perhaps it should have warned me the book would be full of hideous people. Ugh.
The Martian, by Andy Weir. I am late to The Martian party and didn't really love it--too much "uh-oh something broke," "How can Mark fix it?", "Mark can fix it," "Yay, Mark fixed it!" for me.
Down a Dark Road, by Linda Castillo. A bit of a bounce-back for the Kate Burkholder series but by no means a fabulous mystery.
Dear Fahrenheit 451, by Annie Spence. I really wanted to like this book, which is a series of letters from the author to books she has read and it wasn't the two subtitles, the foul language, and the ironic sass that ruined it--it was the fact that it essentially added up to nothing.
The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband, by David Finch. Good insight in Asperger's (and how hard it would be to be married to someone with Asperger's), but perhaps not the book for a devoted anti-marriagist like me.
Say You're Sorry, by Melinda Leigh. More a romance than a mystery.
An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones. Like a couple of the other books on this "Also Read" list, An American Marriage deals with important content: the devastation to families/marriages when someone is wrongly convicted due to racism. If I hadn't developed such a strong dislike for all of the characters, I might recommend the book, which was an Oprah book club selection.
Best Day Ever, by Kaira Rouda. The author chose to have the villain be the narrator of the book and he is perhaps one of the most despicable characters ever. And predictable, so totally predictable.
The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud. This was a highly regarded book in 2017, and I admit that the author writes beautifully. However, the plot feels like something I've read before: BFFs grow apart as they grow older and one spirals downward, in part due to the villainy of her mother's boyfriend.
Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell. This book has some similarities to The Burning Girl except that it involves a high school romance that allows a troubled girl to escape her home, where life is hell due to the villainy of her stepfather. Many reviewers seem to find the description of the young couple falling in love "delightful," but I (perhaps because of my grandmotherly status) found it slightly creepy.
What Remains True, by Janis Thomas. The free Kindle books you get from Amazon Prime really aren't very good.
Favorite Passages
Arthur thinks that, above all, aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance.
Sometimes I wonder what the world would sound like if everybody stopped their complaining. It sure would be a quiet place.
Hiraeth: A Welsh word that means a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or maybe never was. It means nostalgia and yearning and grief for lost places.
Elizabeth Berg, in The Story of Arthur Truluv
“Home”was that feeling of falling asleep to the distant muffle of your parents’conversation, a sound rising through the floorboards almost as a reverberation not just in your ears but in your body. It was a particular set of familiar smells—the orange-flower soap in the downstairs bathroom, or the tinge of old fire smoke in the living room even in summertime, when it rained—and patches of warm air near the vents, followed by a chill near the windows.
--Claire Messud, The Burning Girl
The Best Books I Read This Month
Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng. Set in wealthy suburb Shaker Heights, OH, in the 1990s, Little Fires Everywhere is an indictment of suburban smugness and conventionality. The Richardsons appear to be an ideal family, both parents are professional, their four children are (mostly) doing well. Certainly, Pearl Warren, who lives with her art photographer mother Mia in a house owned by the Richardsons, is enamored by the family's surface perfection. Little Fires Everywhere has a structural similarity with Ng's earlier book Everything I Never Told You, in that we know from the beginning that the story will end with a disaster, in this case an arson fire at the Richardsons' home. Between the arrival of the Warrens in Shaker Heights and the fire, Ng deals with many issues, notably teen pregnancy and abortion, cross-cultural adoption, race, and what it means to be a good mother. Although some of the characters are one-dimensional, the story is still engaging. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Mia's work--I really wanted to see the photographs (much like the installation constructed by the protagonist's mother in Bee Season). Not a perfect novel, but well worth reading.
The Story of Arthur Truluv, by Elizabeth Berg. Arthur is a widower in his 80s who eats lunch every day at his dead wife's grave. He has a special gift (or an especially good imagination) for sensing the lives of the folks buried nearby. Maddy is a bullied teenager with an unhappy home life who spends her lunch hour at the cemetery to avoid the school cafeteria. Most of what happens after the two meet is utterly predictable, and it still manages to charm. An actual feel-good book.
Also Read
Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia, by Gerda Saunders. Saunders combines a rather clinical discussion of dementia with recollections of her childhood in South Africa and her adult life in Utah. I appreciate the author's courage in taking on this task following her diagnosis, but I didn't love the book.
Blubber, by Judy Blume. This book scared the bejesus out of me on behalf of my fifth-grade granddaughter, who loaned me the book. I asked her if fifth-grade was as bad as it is portrayed in this book (these kids are freaking brutal!) and she said "no," but I'm still scared.
Stalking Susan, by Julie Kramer. Number 1 in a mystery series featuring a Twin Cities TV reporter--mediocre but not bad enough to ensure I won't try number 2 in the series.
Night Moves, by Jonathan Kellerman. Better than some of the other recent entries in the Alex Delaware series.
Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate. The story of child stealing and illegal adoption in the first half of the 20th century that this novel reveals is shocking, but the novel itself is not that great.
The People We Hate at the Wedding, by Grant Ginder. I perversely loved the title of this novel, but perhaps it should have warned me the book would be full of hideous people. Ugh.
The Martian, by Andy Weir. I am late to The Martian party and didn't really love it--too much "uh-oh something broke," "How can Mark fix it?", "Mark can fix it," "Yay, Mark fixed it!" for me.
Down a Dark Road, by Linda Castillo. A bit of a bounce-back for the Kate Burkholder series but by no means a fabulous mystery.
Dear Fahrenheit 451, by Annie Spence. I really wanted to like this book, which is a series of letters from the author to books she has read and it wasn't the two subtitles, the foul language, and the ironic sass that ruined it--it was the fact that it essentially added up to nothing.
The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband, by David Finch. Good insight in Asperger's (and how hard it would be to be married to someone with Asperger's), but perhaps not the book for a devoted anti-marriagist like me.
Say You're Sorry, by Melinda Leigh. More a romance than a mystery.
An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones. Like a couple of the other books on this "Also Read" list, An American Marriage deals with important content: the devastation to families/marriages when someone is wrongly convicted due to racism. If I hadn't developed such a strong dislike for all of the characters, I might recommend the book, which was an Oprah book club selection.
Best Day Ever, by Kaira Rouda. The author chose to have the villain be the narrator of the book and he is perhaps one of the most despicable characters ever. And predictable, so totally predictable.
The Burning Girl, by Claire Messud. This was a highly regarded book in 2017, and I admit that the author writes beautifully. However, the plot feels like something I've read before: BFFs grow apart as they grow older and one spirals downward, in part due to the villainy of her mother's boyfriend.
Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell. This book has some similarities to The Burning Girl except that it involves a high school romance that allows a troubled girl to escape her home, where life is hell due to the villainy of her stepfather. Many reviewers seem to find the description of the young couple falling in love "delightful," but I (perhaps because of my grandmotherly status) found it slightly creepy.
What Remains True, by Janis Thomas. The free Kindle books you get from Amazon Prime really aren't very good.
Favorite Passages
Arthur thinks that, above all, aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance.
Sometimes I wonder what the world would sound like if everybody stopped their complaining. It sure would be a quiet place.
Hiraeth: A Welsh word that means a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or maybe never was. It means nostalgia and yearning and grief for lost places.
Elizabeth Berg, in The Story of Arthur Truluv
“Home”was that feeling of falling asleep to the distant muffle of your parents’conversation, a sound rising through the floorboards almost as a reverberation not just in your ears but in your body. It was a particular set of familiar smells—the orange-flower soap in the downstairs bathroom, or the tinge of old fire smoke in the living room even in summertime, when it rained—and patches of warm air near the vents, followed by a chill near the windows.
Sometimes I felt that growing up and being a girl was
about learning to be afraid.
--Claire Messud, The Burning Girl
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Cold February, Hot Books: The Best Books I Read This Month
It was a cold February in Denver, but I did read some good books--two of which were books I had originally read years ago and decided to "revisit"--good decision! I also (as usual) read some less-good books, but such is life.
The Best Books I Read This Month
Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S. Connell. Set in Kansas City in the 1930s, Mrs. Bridge is the story of a well-to-do woman who lives as an appendage to her husband and children. In a series of vignettes, we see her go to the club; interact with her children, husband, friends, and household help with little apparent insight into their wants or needs; judge others for their clothes and their children's behavior (while fearing that others are judging her). Her life is essentially meaningless, and at some level she knows and regrets this. The book has a flat tone but still manages to be funny (the family's attempts to engage a chauffeur, for example), insightful, and sad.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I read this book in my late teens or early twenties and found the story of Esther Greenwood, a college student whose mental health breaks down over the course of a summer, devastating. While it doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance when read at 67, it's still a wonderfully written (semi-autobiographical) novel that provides a window into how depression colors every part of life and insights into gender relations as seen through the eyes of a young woman. The book is doubly sad because of our knowledge of the author's own life.
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. I also read this book some time ago (probably in my 40s), but it was well worth a second look. Angle of Repose operates on two levels: it is simultaneously the story of retired and wheelchair-bound historian Lyman Ward, who is writing a family history focused on his grandparents (especially his grandmother), who lived in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the family history that he writes. Ward's grandfather, Oliver Ward, was a mining engineer and inventor who worked at various locations around the West, often being screwed over by the mine owners and investors. His grandmother, Susan Ward, was an Easterner, disappointed in love when the refined man she wanted married her best friend; she brings to her Western life with her rough-around-the-edges husband a rather stiff and judgmental point of view. Yet she perseveres, even in light of tragedies and numerous setbacks. As he constructs Susan and Oliver's story, largely from Susan's letters to her best friend, he reconsiders his own life. The book works on both levels and is beautifully written, though those who don't like kind of a iterative style may not enjoy it as much as I did. I also think the title is one of the best ever, since it has both a geological meaning and a metaphorical one and is, to me, beautiful.
The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn. First I have to say I am happy A.J. Finn did not call this The Girl in the Window (I am heartily sick of titles that use the term "girl" to describe a woman in peril). The book is about a woman suffering from agoraphobia who spends her days observing the people in her neighborhood and posting on a webpage for agoraphobics. Things start to get strange when a new family moves into the neighborhood. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say the book is very "twisty" and I was surprised by several developments throughout the novel. Not perfect, but it kept me interested!
The View from Mount Joy, by Lorna Landvik, I read Landvik's Patty Jane's House of Curl 20 years ago and thought it was hilarious but have been disappointed by subsequent books until The View from Mount Joy. Joe Andreson is a budding hockey star who moves to Minneapolis with his widowed mother. He becomes enamored with the high school's "hot girl," Kristi Casey, who manages to keep his attention for 30 years. At the same time, however, he makes lifelong friends in the quirky Darva and Kristi's brother Kirk. As Joe and Kristi grow into adulthood, their paths diverge (Joe becomes a grocer whose store is a community in itself, Kristi becomes an evangelist) but always seem to "re-tangle." The book is funny and a bit corny, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sunburn, by Laura Lippmann. Sunburn is one of Lippmann's stand-alone mystery/thrillers and it's a pretty good one. I enjoyed it primarily because I didn't see the twists coming. The characters are a pretty despicable lot. Basic plot outline: a PI (he's not so much despicable as stupid) is hired to find out where a woman has hidden money his client regards as rightfully his; the PI and his subject become involved. As more is revealed about the woman's past, he begins to question whether he can stay with her--but he can't make himself leave. Things end badly--but not for everyone.
Also Read
Letters to a Young Writer, by Colum McCann. I have enjoyed Colum McCann's work, but this was more a collection of one-line encouragements than deep advice about writing. If you love an Irish accent, however, the author's voice reading his work on the audiobook edition will be enough to satisfy.
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, by Matthew Sullivan. Because it was written by a former employee of the Tattered Cover, I wanted to enjoy this mystery, but it was rather pedestrian.
Running Blind, by Lee Child. My first and last Jack Reacher.
Look for Me, by Lisa Gardner. Okay mystery featuring both D.D. Warren and Flora Dane--but the guilty person was obvious long before the end.
Tips for Living, by Renee Safransky. A ridiculous mystery with a potentially fun device (the protagonist writes an advice column) that isn't used in any meaningful or entertaining way.
All Dressed in White, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. Dumb, just dumb.
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen. Funny memoir focused on a period of the author's life after her husband left her for a man and she returned to her parents' home to recover from a car accident. I wish she hadn't made quite so much fun of her mother, who I thought was charming (perhaps this is the defensive mother in me reacting).
M Train, by Patti Smith. Random thoughts and accounts that bored me silly (sorry to the many people who love Patti Smith's work). The author's recording of the book was nominated for a Grammy but I thought it was as monotonic, mostly good for falling asleep to.
The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather. It took me years to finish this book and I was unmoved by the story of Thea Kronberg, her musical talent, and her (to me) inexplicable ability to get adult men to fall in love with her while still a child.
Favorite Passages
The Best Books I Read This Month
Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S. Connell. Set in Kansas City in the 1930s, Mrs. Bridge is the story of a well-to-do woman who lives as an appendage to her husband and children. In a series of vignettes, we see her go to the club; interact with her children, husband, friends, and household help with little apparent insight into their wants or needs; judge others for their clothes and their children's behavior (while fearing that others are judging her). Her life is essentially meaningless, and at some level she knows and regrets this. The book has a flat tone but still manages to be funny (the family's attempts to engage a chauffeur, for example), insightful, and sad.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I read this book in my late teens or early twenties and found the story of Esther Greenwood, a college student whose mental health breaks down over the course of a summer, devastating. While it doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance when read at 67, it's still a wonderfully written (semi-autobiographical) novel that provides a window into how depression colors every part of life and insights into gender relations as seen through the eyes of a young woman. The book is doubly sad because of our knowledge of the author's own life.
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. I also read this book some time ago (probably in my 40s), but it was well worth a second look. Angle of Repose operates on two levels: it is simultaneously the story of retired and wheelchair-bound historian Lyman Ward, who is writing a family history focused on his grandparents (especially his grandmother), who lived in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the family history that he writes. Ward's grandfather, Oliver Ward, was a mining engineer and inventor who worked at various locations around the West, often being screwed over by the mine owners and investors. His grandmother, Susan Ward, was an Easterner, disappointed in love when the refined man she wanted married her best friend; she brings to her Western life with her rough-around-the-edges husband a rather stiff and judgmental point of view. Yet she perseveres, even in light of tragedies and numerous setbacks. As he constructs Susan and Oliver's story, largely from Susan's letters to her best friend, he reconsiders his own life. The book works on both levels and is beautifully written, though those who don't like kind of a iterative style may not enjoy it as much as I did. I also think the title is one of the best ever, since it has both a geological meaning and a metaphorical one and is, to me, beautiful.
The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn. First I have to say I am happy A.J. Finn did not call this The Girl in the Window (I am heartily sick of titles that use the term "girl" to describe a woman in peril). The book is about a woman suffering from agoraphobia who spends her days observing the people in her neighborhood and posting on a webpage for agoraphobics. Things start to get strange when a new family moves into the neighborhood. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just say the book is very "twisty" and I was surprised by several developments throughout the novel. Not perfect, but it kept me interested!
The View from Mount Joy, by Lorna Landvik, I read Landvik's Patty Jane's House of Curl 20 years ago and thought it was hilarious but have been disappointed by subsequent books until The View from Mount Joy. Joe Andreson is a budding hockey star who moves to Minneapolis with his widowed mother. He becomes enamored with the high school's "hot girl," Kristi Casey, who manages to keep his attention for 30 years. At the same time, however, he makes lifelong friends in the quirky Darva and Kristi's brother Kirk. As Joe and Kristi grow into adulthood, their paths diverge (Joe becomes a grocer whose store is a community in itself, Kristi becomes an evangelist) but always seem to "re-tangle." The book is funny and a bit corny, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sunburn, by Laura Lippmann. Sunburn is one of Lippmann's stand-alone mystery/thrillers and it's a pretty good one. I enjoyed it primarily because I didn't see the twists coming. The characters are a pretty despicable lot. Basic plot outline: a PI (he's not so much despicable as stupid) is hired to find out where a woman has hidden money his client regards as rightfully his; the PI and his subject become involved. As more is revealed about the woman's past, he begins to question whether he can stay with her--but he can't make himself leave. Things end badly--but not for everyone.
Also Read
Letters to a Young Writer, by Colum McCann. I have enjoyed Colum McCann's work, but this was more a collection of one-line encouragements than deep advice about writing. If you love an Irish accent, however, the author's voice reading his work on the audiobook edition will be enough to satisfy.
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, by Matthew Sullivan. Because it was written by a former employee of the Tattered Cover, I wanted to enjoy this mystery, but it was rather pedestrian.
Running Blind, by Lee Child. My first and last Jack Reacher.
Look for Me, by Lisa Gardner. Okay mystery featuring both D.D. Warren and Flora Dane--but the guilty person was obvious long before the end.
Tips for Living, by Renee Safransky. A ridiculous mystery with a potentially fun device (the protagonist writes an advice column) that isn't used in any meaningful or entertaining way.
All Dressed in White, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke. Dumb, just dumb.
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen. Funny memoir focused on a period of the author's life after her husband left her for a man and she returned to her parents' home to recover from a car accident. I wish she hadn't made quite so much fun of her mother, who I thought was charming (perhaps this is the defensive mother in me reacting).
M Train, by Patti Smith. Random thoughts and accounts that bored me silly (sorry to the many people who love Patti Smith's work). The author's recording of the book was nominated for a Grammy but I thought it was as monotonic, mostly good for falling asleep to.
The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather. It took me years to finish this book and I was unmoved by the story of Thea Kronberg, her musical talent, and her (to me) inexplicable ability to get adult men to fall in love with her while still a child.
Favorite Passages
For a while after their marriage she was in such demand that it was not unpleasant when he fell asleep. Presently, however, he began sleeping all night, and it was then she awoke more frequently, an dlooked into the darkness, wondering about the nature of men, doubtful of the future, until at last there came a night when she shook her husband awake and spoke of her own desire. Affably he placed one of his long white arms around her waist; she turned to him then, contentedly, expectantly, and secure. However, nothing else occurred, and in a few minutes he had gone back to sleep.
This was the night Mrs. Bridge concluded that while marriage might be an equitable affair, love itself was not.
Evan Connell, Mrs. Bridge
I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn't groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.
I wonder if ever again Americans can have that experience of returning to a home place so intimately known, profoundly felt, deeply loved, and absolutely submitted to. It is not quite true that you can't go home again. I have done it, combing back here. But it gets less likely. We have had too many divorces, we have consumed too much transportation, we have lived too shallowly in too many places.
Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
It was one of those still days of intense light, when every
particle of mica in the soil flashed like a little mirror, and the glare from
the plain below seemed more intense than the rays from above. The sand ridges
ran glittering gold out to where the mirage licked them up, shining and
steaming like a lake in the tropics. The sky looked like blue lava, forever
incapable of clouds—a turquoise bowl that was the lid of the desert. And yet
within Mrs. Kohler’s green patch the water dripped, the beds had all been
hosed, and the air was fresh with rapidly evaporating moisture.
Willa Cather, Song of the Lark
Thursday, February 1, 2018
In the Bleak Midwinter: The Best Books I Read in January
January was not a great reading month--in part because I was so busy with work that I mostly read mindless fair and in part because I listened to a 36-hour book, which sucked up a lot of the reading time I did have. Thus, the "best books" list is a bit slim this month.
The Best Books I Read This Month
Conscience of a Conservative, by Jeff Flake. There's a lot of space on the political spectrum between Jeff Flake and me. I disagree with him on most issues and cringe at his oft-expressed admiration for Barry Goldwater. But I do agree with his analysis of the destructiveness of our current political climate and his call for a return to debating ideas and fighting for principles. While the book has been billed as an attack on Trump--and it certainly is that--it is also broader, pointing out the contributions of both parties to the polarization and dysfunction that characterize government today. Even if you, like me, are a progressive/liberal/lefty, it's a worthwhile read.
Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid. A highly regarded book of 2017, Exit West is the story of two young lovers fleeing a war-torn country. Sound like any other refugee story? Not so much, as fantastical and dystopic features and wonderful writing give the story a deeper resonance. I'm not describing this well--it's hard to describe--but it's interesting and strange and recommended.
Black Man, White House, by D.L. Hughley and Michael Malice. This is not a book I would have picked up, except that I was having trouble finding any interesting audio books on Overdrive and this was available. Presented as a set of fake oral history comments about the Obama campaign and presidency, with (fake) Michelle Obama providing the narrative thread (President Obama himself gets only one line), it is laugh-out-loud funny. Like most satires, it sometimes misfires, but if you can't laugh at Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel (two of my least favorite politicians of the past 20 years), I feel bad for you. I don't know if it would be as amusing in print, but the audio book is very entertaining.
Also Read
Water Signs, by Janet Dawson. Mediocre mystery but I was interested to learn that the publisher, Perseverance Press, is completely dedicated to mid-list mystery authors dropped by larger houses. Interesting mission!
The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead. A weird book about elevator inspectors and race. I admire the creativity but didn't really love the book.
I Almost Forgot about You, by Terry McMillan. I think McMillan peaked with Waiting to Exhale.
No One Is Coming to Save Us, by Stephanie Powell Watts. This book has been called Great Gatsby set amid African Americans in the South . . . but I do not get it at all.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundahti Roy. I did not care for this book (and I feel bad about that).
Host, by Robin Cook. I hadn't read a Robin Cook book for at least a decade, but they haven't changed at all--nefarious doings in drug companies and hospitals. Plus this one has a slightly weird racial vibe between the best friends who uncover the wrongdoing.
Where They Found Her, by Kimberley McCreight. Bad mothers in various guises--ugh! By the end, we learn the dads are bad, too, but it doesn't redeem the book.
All the Missing Girls, by Meagan Miranda. I thought this sounded interesting because part of it is told in reverse chronological order. Not really.
4 3 2 1, by Paul Auster. This is the 36-hour book--I listened to the whole thing and it held my interest. But it's too long--even given the fact that it's really four books in one, since it presents four different versions of the life of Archie Ferguson. However, it's not the best of what I call "Sliding Doors" books; for a better review than I could write, see the review in the New Yorker, which was spot on (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/paul-austers-novel-of-chance).
Favorite Passages
Decency on this occasion won out, and bravery, for courage is demanded not to attack when afraid.
Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
If principle is only defended when there's nothing at stake, then it is probably not much of a principle after all.
Jeff Flake, The Conscience of a Conservative
The Best Books I Read This Month
Conscience of a Conservative, by Jeff Flake. There's a lot of space on the political spectrum between Jeff Flake and me. I disagree with him on most issues and cringe at his oft-expressed admiration for Barry Goldwater. But I do agree with his analysis of the destructiveness of our current political climate and his call for a return to debating ideas and fighting for principles. While the book has been billed as an attack on Trump--and it certainly is that--it is also broader, pointing out the contributions of both parties to the polarization and dysfunction that characterize government today. Even if you, like me, are a progressive/liberal/lefty, it's a worthwhile read.
Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid. A highly regarded book of 2017, Exit West is the story of two young lovers fleeing a war-torn country. Sound like any other refugee story? Not so much, as fantastical and dystopic features and wonderful writing give the story a deeper resonance. I'm not describing this well--it's hard to describe--but it's interesting and strange and recommended.
Black Man, White House, by D.L. Hughley and Michael Malice. This is not a book I would have picked up, except that I was having trouble finding any interesting audio books on Overdrive and this was available. Presented as a set of fake oral history comments about the Obama campaign and presidency, with (fake) Michelle Obama providing the narrative thread (President Obama himself gets only one line), it is laugh-out-loud funny. Like most satires, it sometimes misfires, but if you can't laugh at Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel (two of my least favorite politicians of the past 20 years), I feel bad for you. I don't know if it would be as amusing in print, but the audio book is very entertaining.
Also Read
Water Signs, by Janet Dawson. Mediocre mystery but I was interested to learn that the publisher, Perseverance Press, is completely dedicated to mid-list mystery authors dropped by larger houses. Interesting mission!
The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead. A weird book about elevator inspectors and race. I admire the creativity but didn't really love the book.
I Almost Forgot about You, by Terry McMillan. I think McMillan peaked with Waiting to Exhale.
No One Is Coming to Save Us, by Stephanie Powell Watts. This book has been called Great Gatsby set amid African Americans in the South . . . but I do not get it at all.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundahti Roy. I did not care for this book (and I feel bad about that).
Host, by Robin Cook. I hadn't read a Robin Cook book for at least a decade, but they haven't changed at all--nefarious doings in drug companies and hospitals. Plus this one has a slightly weird racial vibe between the best friends who uncover the wrongdoing.
Where They Found Her, by Kimberley McCreight. Bad mothers in various guises--ugh! By the end, we learn the dads are bad, too, but it doesn't redeem the book.
All the Missing Girls, by Meagan Miranda. I thought this sounded interesting because part of it is told in reverse chronological order. Not really.
4 3 2 1, by Paul Auster. This is the 36-hour book--I listened to the whole thing and it held my interest. But it's too long--even given the fact that it's really four books in one, since it presents four different versions of the life of Archie Ferguson. However, it's not the best of what I call "Sliding Doors" books; for a better review than I could write, see the review in the New Yorker, which was spot on (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/paul-austers-novel-of-chance).
Favorite Passages
Decency on this occasion won out, and bravery, for courage is demanded not to attack when afraid.
Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
If principle is only defended when there's nothing at stake, then it is probably not much of a principle after all.
Jeff Flake, The Conscience of a Conservative
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Best of 2017
Who would have thought that I would read two zombie/vampire books in 2017 or that I would take up more science fiction than ever before or that I wouldn't read a single mystery I thought was worthy of the "Best of" designation? Still, there were some worthy books:
Best Novel(s)
Anything Is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout. With this book, Strout returns to the form she so successfully employed in Olive Kittredge--creating a set of interlinked narratives about individuals with a connection to a central character, in this case Lucy Barton, one of the few Amgash, Illinois, residents who has "escaped" and become successful (but not without scars). The stories are sad, funny, and ultimately redemptive.
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Saunders' novel won the Mann Booker and made more "best books of 2017" lists (22!) than any other book this year. It's innovative in form and content--Willie Lincoln, son of President and Mrs. Lincoln dies and, after the funeral, the President visits the crypt where his body lies as an entire community of dead but not departed spirits observe, comment, and attempt to influence; interspersed with the story are accounts of historical events constructed from primary sources. It's odd and enthralling.
Honorable Mention: A House among the Trees, by Julia Glass; Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel; The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson (for a newcomer to science fiction, I feel it would be presumptuous for me to have a "Best of Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction" category, but the latter two books would be on it if I did have such a category!)
Best Short Stories
The Refugees, by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I didn't read that many short story collections this year, but this one would be worthy of a "best of" designation even if I had read dozens. The stories depict the lives of refugees from Vietnam, including struggles unique to their experience as well as universal human challenges. Nguyen just received a MacArthur fellowship and I have no trouble granting that he deserves the genius designation often associated with that award.
Best Nonfiction
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie. This memoir combining prose and poetry and featuring a complex structure is filled with rage, pain, love, and humor. I thought it was fantastic.
Honorable Mention: Light the Dark, edited by Joe Fassler
Surprisingly (for me), I read a number of memoirs that I admired this year. They included: Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, by Danie Shapiro; Society's Child, by Janis Ian; Hunger, by Roxane Gay; The Bright Hour, by Nina Riggs; Brain on Fire, by Susan Cahalan; and Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken (yes, I am sad just typing this).
Favorite Passages
Last year, a lot of my favorite quotes were about truth. This year my theme seemed to be writing and story--maybe it's a sign I'll be writing a novel in 2018 (ha!).
I think it demonstrates why we need poetry, why we need songs--to say the things tha can only be expressed in this kind of elegant, inexplicable way. Things that, if you could explain them straightforwardly, you wouldn't have to have poetry, you wouldn't have to have songs.
Jeff Tweedy, quoted in Light the Dark
It is supposed that a writer writes what he knows about and knows well. It is not necessarily so. A writer's subject may just as well, if nor more likely, be what he writer longs for and dreams about, in an unquenchable dream, in lush detail and harsh honesty.
Mary Oliver, Upstream
She thought how for years onstage she had used the image of walking up the dirt road holding her father's hand, the snow-covered fields spread around them, the woods in the distance, joy spilling through her--how she had used this scene to have tears immediately come to her eyes, for the happiness of it, and the loss of it. And now she wondered if it had even happened, if the road had ever been narrow and dirt, if her father had ever held her hand and said that his family was the most important thing to him.
Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible
Best Novel(s)
Anything Is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout. With this book, Strout returns to the form she so successfully employed in Olive Kittredge--creating a set of interlinked narratives about individuals with a connection to a central character, in this case Lucy Barton, one of the few Amgash, Illinois, residents who has "escaped" and become successful (but not without scars). The stories are sad, funny, and ultimately redemptive.
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Saunders' novel won the Mann Booker and made more "best books of 2017" lists (22!) than any other book this year. It's innovative in form and content--Willie Lincoln, son of President and Mrs. Lincoln dies and, after the funeral, the President visits the crypt where his body lies as an entire community of dead but not departed spirits observe, comment, and attempt to influence; interspersed with the story are accounts of historical events constructed from primary sources. It's odd and enthralling.
Honorable Mention: A House among the Trees, by Julia Glass; Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel; The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson (for a newcomer to science fiction, I feel it would be presumptuous for me to have a "Best of Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction" category, but the latter two books would be on it if I did have such a category!)
Best Short Stories
The Refugees, by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I didn't read that many short story collections this year, but this one would be worthy of a "best of" designation even if I had read dozens. The stories depict the lives of refugees from Vietnam, including struggles unique to their experience as well as universal human challenges. Nguyen just received a MacArthur fellowship and I have no trouble granting that he deserves the genius designation often associated with that award.
Best Nonfiction
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie. This memoir combining prose and poetry and featuring a complex structure is filled with rage, pain, love, and humor. I thought it was fantastic.
Honorable Mention: Light the Dark, edited by Joe Fassler
Surprisingly (for me), I read a number of memoirs that I admired this year. They included: Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, by Danie Shapiro; Society's Child, by Janis Ian; Hunger, by Roxane Gay; The Bright Hour, by Nina Riggs; Brain on Fire, by Susan Cahalan; and Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken (yes, I am sad just typing this).
Favorite Passages
Last year, a lot of my favorite quotes were about truth. This year my theme seemed to be writing and story--maybe it's a sign I'll be writing a novel in 2018 (ha!).
I think it demonstrates why we need poetry, why we need songs--to say the things tha can only be expressed in this kind of elegant, inexplicable way. Things that, if you could explain them straightforwardly, you wouldn't have to have poetry, you wouldn't have to have songs.
Jeff Tweedy, quoted in Light the Dark
It is supposed that a writer writes what he knows about and knows well. It is not necessarily so. A writer's subject may just as well, if nor more likely, be what he writer longs for and dreams about, in an unquenchable dream, in lush detail and harsh honesty.
Mary Oliver, Upstream
She thought how for years onstage she had used the image of walking up the dirt road holding her father's hand, the snow-covered fields spread around them, the woods in the distance, joy spilling through her--how she had used this scene to have tears immediately come to her eyes, for the happiness of it, and the loss of it. And now she wondered if it had even happened, if the road had ever been narrow and dirt, if her father had ever held her hand and said that his family was the most important thing to him.
Elizabeth Strout, Anything Is Possible
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Why We Need Poetry: The Best Books I Read This Month
It's an unusual month for me when my two favorite books were nonfiction, but such is the case for December. Still, Louise Erdrich kept fiction from being totally disgraced!
The Best Books I Read This Month
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process, edited by Joe Fassler
Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdrich
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War, by Helen Thorpe
The Hate U Give has been something of a sensation as a young adult novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. While author Angie Thomas is clearly outraged by the police killings of black men, the novel is not a diatribe; rather, it's a complex look at how teenager Starr Carter reacts when her friend Khalil is killed by a police officer in her presence. The decisions she must make about what to tell people, including her white friends at the suburban private school she attends, whether to take a public role in speaking out about the killing, and how to speak up on Khalil's behalf are problems are young people should not have to face. While some characters seem constructed to represent a point of view (Starr's police officer uncle), the book still works and would be a great stimulant to conversation with young people.
Light the Dark is a collection of essays put together by Joe Fassler, who interviews writers for the "By Heart" column in The Atlantic. The focus is on what inspires writers and how that inspiration affects their creative work. Among the authors represented: Elizabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan, Junot Diaz, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Roxane Gay, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Edwidge Danticat, Khalid Hosseini--the list goes on and on. The authors' processes and views of literature are incredibly diverse, as is what they value--narrative, truth, language, communicating with a reader, finding the voice, writing an opening line that works. Considering how they read their "inspirations" is a model for reading, interesting to me as both a reader and a writer. Two odd things I can't keep myself from sharing: Hanna Yanagihara is inspired by Lolita but has never read past the first 100 pages--for her it's all about Nabokov's language. She seems to actively resist the narrative and the characters. Jeff Tweedy, a songwriter, mumbles sounds while he sings his melodies; he lays tracks over each other, so that his mumbles rest on top of each other. But then he listens to what he has recorded and "hears" actual words and ideas in the mumbling, which then become lyrics?!? Highly recommended.
Future Home of the Living God is a dystopic novel, set in the near future when climate change has continued, with many negative consequences, and evolution has reversed itself, with women giving birth to babies that have regressed on the evolutionary scale (i.e., become more monkey-like). The first part of the narrative seems to be an almost comic story about Cedar Hawk Songmaker finding her biological family; Cedar Hawk is Native American but was adopted by an Anglo couple despite the laws that discourage such adoptions but wants to find her birth family for a variety of reasons (they do not have the special powers she hoped they would). But then the narrative shifts and becomes the story of Cedar Hawk's attempts to elude the powers that are imprisoning pregnant women for nefarious purposes. Much about the book was confusing to me and I don't think it is Erdrich's best work--but it's still worth reading and pondering. It may even merit a second read.
I resisted Helen Thorpe's first book for a long time but really liked it when I finally read it. Then I repeated the pattern with Soldier Girls, a look at three Indiana women who served in the National Guard, with deployments to Afghanistan (all three) and Iraq (two of the three). Much about their stories was interesting, but I was particularly struck by two points: (1) how difficult the readjustment to civilian society is whether you saw combat or not, whether you come home injured or not and (2) the extent to which we do actually have what Thorpe refers to as "the economic draft"--two of the three women are in the Guard because their financial circumstances made it one of their few options (the third had more enthusiasm for the military but still had financial issues as well). Thorpe raises the issue of whether, given the potential damage to children, mothers should serve overseas (interestingly, I read an interview with her when the book was published, in which she said she had not gone to Afghanistan or Iraq as part of her reporting because she had a young child and she didn't want to take the risk); personally, I would raise a similar question about fathers (and sons and daughters and husbands and wives). I also would question the title, though I get the reference to the Shirelles song (or I assume that's the reference)--these are women, not girls. All of that notwithstanding, Soldier Girls is well worth reading.
Also Read
Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain--a story full of pain not redeemed by what feels like an inauthentic happy ending.
Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin--Baldwin was a gifted writer and observer of society, but this autobiographical novel did not, for some reason, move me.
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson--Since I hadn't seen the movie, I didn't know this was another zombie/vampire book, but it was free from Audible!
Meet Me at the Morgue, by Ross McDonald--Classic noir.
I Know a Secret, by Tess Gerritsen--I've already forgotten the plot of the latest Rizzoli and Isles mystery.
Gray Mountain, by John Grisham--a screed against coal mining and strip mining particularly masquerading as a novel.
Deadfall, by Linda Fairstein
Absolute Power, by David Baldacci
16th Seduction, by James Patterson
Resolution for 2018: Read fewer mediocre mysteries.
Favorite Passage
Intentions always look better on paper than in reality.
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
We forget as readers of long form fiction that at one time we didn't know how to do that--we had to acquire the skill through cultural education.
William Gibson, quoted in Light the Dark
I think it demonstrates why we need poetry, why we need songs--to say the things that can only be expressed in this kind of elegant, inexplicable way. Things that, if you could explain them straightforwardly, you wouldn't have to have poetry, you wouldn't have to have songs.
Jeff Tweedy, quoted in Light the Dark
. . . there's a degree to which literature's means and methods are unknowable. We don't know what's happening when somebody reads a poem. We know that even if a writer labors and labors to make a precise text, much will be lost in translation--we'll have no real idea, even, how much gets through. It gives me tremendous respect for the difficulty and variety of language.
Ben Marcus, quoted in Light the Dark
The Best Books I Read This Month
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process, edited by Joe Fassler
Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdrich
Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War, by Helen Thorpe
The Hate U Give has been something of a sensation as a young adult novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. While author Angie Thomas is clearly outraged by the police killings of black men, the novel is not a diatribe; rather, it's a complex look at how teenager Starr Carter reacts when her friend Khalil is killed by a police officer in her presence. The decisions she must make about what to tell people, including her white friends at the suburban private school she attends, whether to take a public role in speaking out about the killing, and how to speak up on Khalil's behalf are problems are young people should not have to face. While some characters seem constructed to represent a point of view (Starr's police officer uncle), the book still works and would be a great stimulant to conversation with young people.
Light the Dark is a collection of essays put together by Joe Fassler, who interviews writers for the "By Heart" column in The Atlantic. The focus is on what inspires writers and how that inspiration affects their creative work. Among the authors represented: Elizabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan, Junot Diaz, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Chabon, Stephen King, Roxane Gay, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Edwidge Danticat, Khalid Hosseini--the list goes on and on. The authors' processes and views of literature are incredibly diverse, as is what they value--narrative, truth, language, communicating with a reader, finding the voice, writing an opening line that works. Considering how they read their "inspirations" is a model for reading, interesting to me as both a reader and a writer. Two odd things I can't keep myself from sharing: Hanna Yanagihara is inspired by Lolita but has never read past the first 100 pages--for her it's all about Nabokov's language. She seems to actively resist the narrative and the characters. Jeff Tweedy, a songwriter, mumbles sounds while he sings his melodies; he lays tracks over each other, so that his mumbles rest on top of each other. But then he listens to what he has recorded and "hears" actual words and ideas in the mumbling, which then become lyrics?!? Highly recommended.
Future Home of the Living God is a dystopic novel, set in the near future when climate change has continued, with many negative consequences, and evolution has reversed itself, with women giving birth to babies that have regressed on the evolutionary scale (i.e., become more monkey-like). The first part of the narrative seems to be an almost comic story about Cedar Hawk Songmaker finding her biological family; Cedar Hawk is Native American but was adopted by an Anglo couple despite the laws that discourage such adoptions but wants to find her birth family for a variety of reasons (they do not have the special powers she hoped they would). But then the narrative shifts and becomes the story of Cedar Hawk's attempts to elude the powers that are imprisoning pregnant women for nefarious purposes. Much about the book was confusing to me and I don't think it is Erdrich's best work--but it's still worth reading and pondering. It may even merit a second read.
I resisted Helen Thorpe's first book for a long time but really liked it when I finally read it. Then I repeated the pattern with Soldier Girls, a look at three Indiana women who served in the National Guard, with deployments to Afghanistan (all three) and Iraq (two of the three). Much about their stories was interesting, but I was particularly struck by two points: (1) how difficult the readjustment to civilian society is whether you saw combat or not, whether you come home injured or not and (2) the extent to which we do actually have what Thorpe refers to as "the economic draft"--two of the three women are in the Guard because their financial circumstances made it one of their few options (the third had more enthusiasm for the military but still had financial issues as well). Thorpe raises the issue of whether, given the potential damage to children, mothers should serve overseas (interestingly, I read an interview with her when the book was published, in which she said she had not gone to Afghanistan or Iraq as part of her reporting because she had a young child and she didn't want to take the risk); personally, I would raise a similar question about fathers (and sons and daughters and husbands and wives). I also would question the title, though I get the reference to the Shirelles song (or I assume that's the reference)--these are women, not girls. All of that notwithstanding, Soldier Girls is well worth reading.
Also Read
Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain--a story full of pain not redeemed by what feels like an inauthentic happy ending.
Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin--Baldwin was a gifted writer and observer of society, but this autobiographical novel did not, for some reason, move me.
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson--Since I hadn't seen the movie, I didn't know this was another zombie/vampire book, but it was free from Audible!
Meet Me at the Morgue, by Ross McDonald--Classic noir.
I Know a Secret, by Tess Gerritsen--I've already forgotten the plot of the latest Rizzoli and Isles mystery.
Gray Mountain, by John Grisham--a screed against coal mining and strip mining particularly masquerading as a novel.
Deadfall, by Linda Fairstein
Absolute Power, by David Baldacci
16th Seduction, by James Patterson
Resolution for 2018: Read fewer mediocre mysteries.
Favorite Passage
Intentions always look better on paper than in reality.
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
We forget as readers of long form fiction that at one time we didn't know how to do that--we had to acquire the skill through cultural education.
William Gibson, quoted in Light the Dark
I think it demonstrates why we need poetry, why we need songs--to say the things that can only be expressed in this kind of elegant, inexplicable way. Things that, if you could explain them straightforwardly, you wouldn't have to have poetry, you wouldn't have to have songs.
Jeff Tweedy, quoted in Light the Dark
. . . there's a degree to which literature's means and methods are unknowable. We don't know what's happening when somebody reads a poem. We know that even if a writer labors and labors to make a precise text, much will be lost in translation--we'll have no real idea, even, how much gets through. It gives me tremendous respect for the difficulty and variety of language.
Ben Marcus, quoted in Light the Dark
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Back from the Brink: The Best Books I Read This Month
The extreme ennui brought on by October's reading has passed, but I have decided to focus on the books I really liked and to simply list the rest with no more than a one-sentence comment (neither section in any particular order other than what I read early in the month and what I read later). Luckily, I read a number of interesting books this month. Read on . . .
The Best Books I Read This Month
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, by Dani Shapiro. As I was reading Shapiro's story of her marriage, I kept asking myself: "Is this book really brave or a betrayal of the intimacy she shares with her husband?" Assuming that she had her husband's permission, I guess it was the former. Shapiro intersperses excerpts from the journal she kept on her honeymoon (interestingly, the last journal she ever kept--despite having been a lifelong diarist); quotes from philosophy, poetry, and theology (she is also a keeper of commonplace books--collections of quotations) with reflections on and anecdotes from her long marriage. The effect is almost collage-like, building ideas from numerous small pieces. Particularly interesting to me are her reflections on whether she made the right decision in getting married and becoming a family person and who she (and her husband) might have been if they had made difference decisions--similar to the questions asked by the fictional protagonist of our One Book One Broomfield 2017 book Dark Matter. Beautifully written and thought-provoking, even for a long-time divorcee like me!
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. I'm embarrassed to admit I had never read this classic dystopian novel describing a society based on Henry Ford's concept of the assembly line; mass production (including of people), homogeneity within a rigid class structure, and consumption of disposable goods are hallmarks of the culture. When vacationers bring back a "savage" raised in a different culture, he is treated as a celebrity and has trouble adapting to the ways of the World State. This synopsis just hints at the complexity of Huxley's work, which remains relevant nearly a century after it was written.
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. Roth imagines what the world would have been like for a young Jewish boy named Philip Roth if Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940. It's a frightening prospect--and one that feels scarily apropos to some of what we are observing under our current president. I was a little disappointed with the ending, which wrapped things up very quickly and neatly after building dramatic tension over the course of the book, but the novel is still well worth reading. As always with Roth, his brilliance is tempered by his need to include some gross sexual content--here young Philip's fantasizing about nuns and his aunt--but somehow with Roth I manage to get past this.
Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky -- This book presents two parts of what the author intended to be a five-part "suite," but tragically, she died in Auschwitz in 1942. Her manuscript languished in suitcases for decades until being published in 2006. Both parts of the book deal with aspects of the defeat and Occupation of France that I knew almost nothing about. The first part focuses on the chaotic mass exodus from Paris in 1940 when the Nazis were about to enter the city; Parisians of all classes/incomes evacuated, suffering a variety of physical and emotional deprivations. The second section of the book looks at how the life of a small town is affected when German soldiers occupy their town for an extended period of time, often living in their very homes. Some of the villagers resist, while others try to get along with the Germans; a few even fall in love with their occupiers. For me, a very different look at World War II.
Society's Child, by Janis Ian -- I was never a particular fan of Janis Ian, though it seems like I should have been (that was the type of music I liked and sang). However, I am a big fan of her autobiography, which is well written and provides insight into the music business and the creative process. It must also be said that Ian had a lot of bad luck and faced a lot of prejudice--but it all makes for an interesting story. The audio version is enhanced by Ian singing a snippet of at least one song per chapter, which brings the discussion of music and composing to life.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing -- Not at all my usual type of book, but the unbelievably grueling nature of what Shackleton and his men went through is riveting.
Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books, by Cara Nicoletti -- Voracious is yet another food-related blog that has been turned into a book--but don't hold that against it. The author is obsessed with food scenes in books and what they mean. She talks about food in a wide array of works, from Little House in the Big Woods to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Lord of the Flies, Middlesex, and The Odyssey. For each work she discusses, she also provides a recipe that, to her, reflects the role of food in the book--pea and bacon soup for Charlotte's Web, biscuits with molasses butter for To Kill a Mockingbird, and a perfect soft-boiled egg for Emma. It's fun and just migh tmake you pay a little more attention when a character in a novel is eating!
Also Read
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert -- an early and very dark example of realism
Chaos, by Patricia Cornwell -- mediocre
A Taste for Murder, by Claudia Bishop -- very silly
Deep Freeze, by John Sandford -- latest Virgil Flowers, of whom I am growing weary
The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica -- one of Audible's 20th-anniversary freebies; has a twist at the end that I didn't see coming, and yet I also didn't care
The Color of Fear, by Marcia Muller -- meh
My Mad Fat Diary, by Rae Earl -- the author's late 80s diary about teen life in the UK is scary!
Dignity, by Donna Hicks -- a friend described reading this book as a "gift to yourself," but, while I think Hicks makes valid points about how humans should interact with one another, I found myself unmoved.
The Memory Watcher, by Minka Kent -- another mystery with a twist that you really don't care about.
Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes -- I don't understand why this author is so popular.
Favorite Passages
It was as if an internal axis had been jarred and titled downward; words and images slipped through a chute into a dim, murky pool from which I could not retried them.
The future you're capable of imagining is already a thing of the past.
Dani Shapiro, Hourglass
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly--they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
The Best Books I Read This Month
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, by Dani Shapiro. As I was reading Shapiro's story of her marriage, I kept asking myself: "Is this book really brave or a betrayal of the intimacy she shares with her husband?" Assuming that she had her husband's permission, I guess it was the former. Shapiro intersperses excerpts from the journal she kept on her honeymoon (interestingly, the last journal she ever kept--despite having been a lifelong diarist); quotes from philosophy, poetry, and theology (she is also a keeper of commonplace books--collections of quotations) with reflections on and anecdotes from her long marriage. The effect is almost collage-like, building ideas from numerous small pieces. Particularly interesting to me are her reflections on whether she made the right decision in getting married and becoming a family person and who she (and her husband) might have been if they had made difference decisions--similar to the questions asked by the fictional protagonist of our One Book One Broomfield 2017 book Dark Matter. Beautifully written and thought-provoking, even for a long-time divorcee like me!
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. I'm embarrassed to admit I had never read this classic dystopian novel describing a society based on Henry Ford's concept of the assembly line; mass production (including of people), homogeneity within a rigid class structure, and consumption of disposable goods are hallmarks of the culture. When vacationers bring back a "savage" raised in a different culture, he is treated as a celebrity and has trouble adapting to the ways of the World State. This synopsis just hints at the complexity of Huxley's work, which remains relevant nearly a century after it was written.
The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. Roth imagines what the world would have been like for a young Jewish boy named Philip Roth if Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940. It's a frightening prospect--and one that feels scarily apropos to some of what we are observing under our current president. I was a little disappointed with the ending, which wrapped things up very quickly and neatly after building dramatic tension over the course of the book, but the novel is still well worth reading. As always with Roth, his brilliance is tempered by his need to include some gross sexual content--here young Philip's fantasizing about nuns and his aunt--but somehow with Roth I manage to get past this.
Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky -- This book presents two parts of what the author intended to be a five-part "suite," but tragically, she died in Auschwitz in 1942. Her manuscript languished in suitcases for decades until being published in 2006. Both parts of the book deal with aspects of the defeat and Occupation of France that I knew almost nothing about. The first part focuses on the chaotic mass exodus from Paris in 1940 when the Nazis were about to enter the city; Parisians of all classes/incomes evacuated, suffering a variety of physical and emotional deprivations. The second section of the book looks at how the life of a small town is affected when German soldiers occupy their town for an extended period of time, often living in their very homes. Some of the villagers resist, while others try to get along with the Germans; a few even fall in love with their occupiers. For me, a very different look at World War II.
Society's Child, by Janis Ian -- I was never a particular fan of Janis Ian, though it seems like I should have been (that was the type of music I liked and sang). However, I am a big fan of her autobiography, which is well written and provides insight into the music business and the creative process. It must also be said that Ian had a lot of bad luck and faced a lot of prejudice--but it all makes for an interesting story. The audio version is enhanced by Ian singing a snippet of at least one song per chapter, which brings the discussion of music and composing to life.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing -- Not at all my usual type of book, but the unbelievably grueling nature of what Shackleton and his men went through is riveting.
Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books, by Cara Nicoletti -- Voracious is yet another food-related blog that has been turned into a book--but don't hold that against it. The author is obsessed with food scenes in books and what they mean. She talks about food in a wide array of works, from Little House in the Big Woods to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Lord of the Flies, Middlesex, and The Odyssey. For each work she discusses, she also provides a recipe that, to her, reflects the role of food in the book--pea and bacon soup for Charlotte's Web, biscuits with molasses butter for To Kill a Mockingbird, and a perfect soft-boiled egg for Emma. It's fun and just migh tmake you pay a little more attention when a character in a novel is eating!
Also Read
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert -- an early and very dark example of realism
Chaos, by Patricia Cornwell -- mediocre
A Taste for Murder, by Claudia Bishop -- very silly
Deep Freeze, by John Sandford -- latest Virgil Flowers, of whom I am growing weary
The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica -- one of Audible's 20th-anniversary freebies; has a twist at the end that I didn't see coming, and yet I also didn't care
The Color of Fear, by Marcia Muller -- meh
My Mad Fat Diary, by Rae Earl -- the author's late 80s diary about teen life in the UK is scary!
Dignity, by Donna Hicks -- a friend described reading this book as a "gift to yourself," but, while I think Hicks makes valid points about how humans should interact with one another, I found myself unmoved.
The Memory Watcher, by Minka Kent -- another mystery with a twist that you really don't care about.
Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes -- I don't understand why this author is so popular.
Favorite Passages
It was as if an internal axis had been jarred and titled downward; words and images slipped through a chute into a dim, murky pool from which I could not retried them.
The future you're capable of imagining is already a thing of the past.
Dani Shapiro, Hourglass
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly--they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
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