Amazon Junkie

Year of Wonders

2009-02-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

written by Geraldine Brooks

I got all crazy about this book almost from the moment I picked it up, and I started telling everyone how great it is. Then I got to the ending and I wished I hadn't been quite as evangelistic about getting everyone to put this on their next-to-read list. Don't get me wrong, it's still an amazing book, and Geraldine Brooks (alas, no relation) is an amazing writer. But I won't mince words here: I hated the ending.

The book is definitely fiction, but it's based on the true story of the villagers of Eeyam, a hamlet in the English countryside which was nearly decimated by the Plague in the mid-1600s. The town voluntarily quarantined itself when it became apparent that the contagion was running rampant in their village. An estimated two-thirds of the villagers ended up dying.

The story's told by a widow named Ann Frith. Already struggling to care for her home and her children after her husband is killed in a mining accident, she endures wave after wave of additional and profound loss as the Plague takes hold of her community and courses through the village. Her heroism, though, is unmatched — except perhaps by the town rector and his wife. The three of them tirelessly care for those who are sick, dying, or mourning, risking their own health in the process.

For three-fourths of the book, I could not get enough of the story. Even though it sounds depressing, the character development and story line were totally riveting. The three main characters — Anna, the rector, and the rector's wife — though heroic, were also human and believable. I loved the author's portrayal and her use of language. It was amazing.

Then comes the ending. In a bizarre turn of events, (spoiler warning!) just as the death toll finally stops and the village is about to declare itself Plague-free, the rector's wife ends up murdered by a crazed villager, the rector turns near-catatonic and completely gives up his faith, and Anna skips town with another woman's illegitimate baby to make a new life for herself in — get this! — the harem of an Algerian Muslim! It's almost like a different author altogether penned the last 60 or 70 pages of the book!

At first I thought "oh, I'm bugged by the ending because it's sort of a slap in the face to any sort of Christian virtue that was evident in these characters' lives earlier in the book." But you know what - that's not quite true. In fact, I'm totally okay with books about murderers and heathens and illegitimate babies and harems and all the rest ... those sorts of things are, after all, often important and illuminating parts of compelling novels. But not in this book. The ending was such a disappointment that finishing this book ended up being a hollow experience indeed.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

2009-01-24T03:35:00.001-08:00

written by Mark Haddon

I was in a serious bind on New Year's Day... there I was, with a day off from all responsibilities, the kids were happily parked in front of Guitar Hero, Jay was busy with some photo editing, and I had the entire afternoon to curl up with a book. Only problem was, I didn't have a book. And the library wasn't open. And there was a furious blizzard brewing up outside, so no way was I going out to the bookstore.

So I stopped by my friend Summer's house and asked if she might have something I could borrow. To my delight, she walked me upstairs to a huge shelf full of books and said to take my pick. Ironically, right at eye level was a novel that had caught my eye at the library recently. At the time I first saw it, I was in the middle of reading something else, so I hadn't picked it up. But here it was, so I took it.

It's a quick, interesting read and it gets you inside the head of a young man named Christopher who is apparently autistic. At his teacher's urging, Christopher decides to write a book, and ostensibly the story is about the death of his neighbor's dog. But along the way we learn about Christopher's life and needs, the fragile state of his family. and how autistic people are so easily misunderstood. The book is alternately comedic, sad, touching, and harrowing. And I certainly found it to reveal, at times, my prejudices about mentally impaired people... prejudices which I guess I didn't realize were there.

Lisey's Story

2008-12-31T05:29:00.000-08:00

written by Stephen King

I used to have a thing for Stephen King books back in the day. Like way back. Then in my early days of figuring out what I wanted to do with God and spirtuality, I got kind of creeped out by how dark these books were, and I didn't touch any of his stuff for a long while. But I've had this one lying around for about a year and finally decided to pick it back up. It was an impulse purchase I made in a moment of panic when I thought I might need to go on a road trip, bookless ... but then the trip ended up being canceled and I never did get into the book. I tried a couple times, but I just couldn't quite get my interest piqued.

Which brings me to my first complaint about the King of horror: the guy just meanders all over the place in his later writings, and it takes forever to get to the point. But I guess he's entitled to do that now that he's made his millions and can just write for the fun of it. I envy that, actually.

Quick synopsis of the book: it's a disturbing tale (big surprise there, huh?) of a middle-aged writer named Scott Landon, who has been plagued for his whole life by what appears on the surface to be a mental illness that runs in his family. His father and his brother both suffered from extreme and bizarre mental breaks, and Landon's means of escaping from the pain and danger of living with such circumstances leads him to discover (create?) an alternate reality - not a mental one but an actual physical one where he can travel away from his current anguished existence to another "plane" of reality. Not only does that escape route prove to be his means for staying (seemingly) sane, but the whole experience provides him endless material for his career as a horror fiction writer.

So the obvious question here is, did King write this book about himself? Did he suffer under a hellaciously crazed father and a brother who suddenly turned into a dangerous animal-like beast? I don't think so. After reading the book I poked around to find out a little about his life, and it looks to me like he had a fairly ho-hum upbringing. But the guy does have some twisted imagery in his head, let's be clear on that. The book portrays mental illness as startlingly predatory, and I won't spoil the story for you, but I will say that eventually the beastly darkness hunts down some folks, and it's not pretty.

It's actually a really good story once you get into it, and it sated my appetite for something scary, at least for a while. I like King's style and his creativity. So even when he got into the meandering parts of the book, I didn't really mind all that much because his writing is so fun to read. One of his really remarkable skills is to seamlessly take you across many different locations and time periods without being at all confusing. I don't know how he does it so artfully, but I love that. Another notable thing is that there are a lot of subtle but clever references to other literature, and to music. I probably only got half of them (or less!), but they were fun to discover nonetheless.

The only glaringly "off" thing in the story seemed to be that the heroine, Lisey (Scott's wife) was a little too steely. There is no way that any woman (or any person, for that matter), no matter how strong, could endure some of the experiences in this story without completely freaking out into a nervous fit. But whatever. If he had baked that into the story, I'm sure it would have added even more bulk to the already-bulky 653 pages.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

2008-12-21T03:00:00.001-08:00

written by Lisa See

For one reason or another, I've really fallen off in my consumption of fiction these last few months. I hate it when life gets in the way of reading! This was a great novel to dive back in with. It came from my very smart and well-read mother-in-law, who reads all the good books out there.

This book is both amazing and disturbing. It chronicles the lives of two Chinese women living in rural nineteenth-century China, and the horrific struggles they endure simply because they are female. Though the two women, Snow Flower and Lily, are not related, at around age 6 they are matched with each another by their families as laotong. Literally translated, this means "old sames," implying that the girls' past, present and future are so aligned that they are sort of soulmates.

Not all Chinese girls of that era were matched with a laotong, and it seems to be something of a privilege. The seriousness of the match was almost akin to marriage; families had to consent to the pairing of the girls, and there was a legal agreement involved which the girls had to sign (at age six or seven!), pledging to be faithful to this contractual friendship for life. The relationship provided lifelong emotional support for the two women, and it was often also a boon to the families involved: alliances between respected or prosperous clans helped to cement the economic and social stability of both families.

Lily and Snow Flower endure the barbaric ritual of footbinding together (Google it — you'll be appalled), they grow into young women together, and they both eventually "marry out" to men of their families' choosing. Through all the stages of their lives, they share and document their histories in nu shu (a secret writing created by Chinese women) on the fan that they share.

Once the girls reach adulthood and marry, the novel gets pretty turbulent. Through circumstances that neither of them can control, Lily marries into a well-to-do family and Snow Flower marries into a despised family. Their lives diverge and their friendship suffers, though they are still bound together through a handful of shocking and heartbreaking experiences. Both endure amazing hardships, and you're left with the impression that it generally sucks to be a woman in nineteenth-century China — regardless of how well off your family might be. As one of the traditional sayings from the book quips, "Raising a girl and marrying her off is like building a fancy road that others may use." Nice.

This would be a good book for any young woman to read, as it's a jarring reminder of how far women have come, not only in the Chinese culture but in the world in general.

The Shack

2008-08-31T04:22:00.000-07:00

written by William P. Young

My niece Melissa passed this book along to me. Generally I avoid the genre of "Christian fiction" because to me, books in this category too often feel too tidy, too scrubbed-clean. But since I was hearing a little bit of buzz about this book, I thought what the heck.

Before I lambast it, let me just say that it is thought-provoking, and I like books that challenge my paradigms and stretch my thinking. This one certainly does that, particularly in how it portrays the trinity. (Spoiler warning!) Suffice to say that if you have never envisioned God the Father as a large, boisterous black woman (think Whoopi Goldberg), this book will probably take you a little off guard.

Nutshell version: a guy named Mack loses his youngest daughter to a horrific child-molesting murderer. Two years later, still grieving, he receives a note in his mailbox, ostensibly from God, inviting him to the shack in the woods where his daughter was killed. He goes there, encounters God in a fantastical otherworldly series of events, and basically goes away healed and restored.

Well, anytime you write a book about God, you're going to offend or agitate somebody, and I think this book does a pretty good job of that. Just take a look at the ratings on Amazon — generally, people give it five stars and gush about it, or they give it one star and condemn it. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. As far as literary quality, I think it tends toward the low end of the scale. Portions of it are really poorly written and downright cheesey. Many elements of the story seem misplaced and underdeveloped. (If you've read it, think about the weird spirit-lady-being that Mack finds in the cave. Huh? What was that?) By the middle of the book I found myself wishing that whoever did the editing for this book had been far more ruthless.

But anything that shakes the tree a little and gives me a different view of the many facets of God's personality — well, I'm open to that. In fact, I rather like the fact that this book seems to really hone in on the loving, nurturing facets of God's character ... mostly because I think the church universal is a little too uptight for its own good and could use a good dose of love/nurture to counteract the centuries of penance/guilt in which it's been steeped.

Howevah! If you're looking to this book as a source of theological truth, don't. Repeat after me: it is just a fable. Treat it about the same as you would treat Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Take what works for you (there is some good allegory) and leave the rest (there's a lot to leave, trust me).

My biggest complaint about the book actually has nothing to do with the plot or the theme or the writing quality. It's the shameless self-promotion at the end. After finishing the book, you find several pages that urge you to tell all your friends about the book, write positive book reviews about the book, buy multiple copies of the book and give it away to friends, post on online bulletin boards about how great the book is. Please. That, too me, is just slimey.

The Stepford Wives

2008-08-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

written by Ira Levin

Now here's a throwback for you! I had always heard of the movie, but had never seen it and never even knew it was based on this little novella. The book was originally published in 1972, during a time when feminism was kind of the up-and-coming thing. But it was a bit before my time so I didn't know too much about it, except that it had something to do with some kind of sinister plot to make all the wives in the town of Stepford think and act the same.

I'm told the book was quite groundbreaking back in the day, because of its not-s0-subtle feminist messages. And even though it's no longer what our present-day culture would consider revolutionary, it is pretty entertaining. Basic plot is, a family moves to the charming town of Stepford, which they are initially quite pleased with, but soon the wife begins to see that all the women are subservient cookie-cutter Mrs. Cleaver types. Additionally, the men essentially run the town and most evenings can be found congregating at the local men's association (which of course excludes women). Uneasy about this, she does some research and finds that a handful of the most influential men have backgrounds in either experimental science or have worked at Disneyland, the acknowledged hub of all things animatronic. Her conclusion is that the men calculatingly do away with their real wives and replace them with lifelike fembots whose functions are pretty much limited to housework and sex.

At times the book is laugh-out-loud funny. The most entertaining element to me, though, was to observe that what was edgy and borderline-conteroversial back in the early seventies actually comes off as a little chauvinist and provincial today. For example, the main character, though she considers herself a feminist, has what we would today consider a very conventional lifestyle: she doesn't work (except that she's somewhat of a hobby-photographer), her husband is the family breadwinner, and she busies herself with taking care of the house and the kids. Sure, she's a little feisty and independent, but even so, she takes part in a fair bit of daytime grocery shopping, ladies' luncheons, and mid-day tennis matches. Not that those are bad things; they just don't fit our present-day definition of feminist. Kind of interesting, I think, to note how our picture of feminism has shifted quite a bit in 30 years.

This is a quick, short book — only 123 pages, and although it doesn't quite fit the description on the back cover ("a masterpiece of psychological suspense"? That's a bit of an overstatement, I think!) it's still kind of a fun read.

Oh, and my favorite line in the book: when the main character is visiting a friend, they're sitting outside next to the friend's pool and "the maid, a slightly gray-haired woman named Nettie, brought them a pitcher of Bloody Marys and a bowl of cucumber dip and crackers." Who knew I'd make a cameo appearance!?

Good Family

2008-07-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

written by Terry Gamble

Wow, I've read two books inside of two weeks. You can tell I've been on vacation!

This book is billed as fiction, but you definitely get the sense that many elements of it are autobiographical. It's about a wealthy, WASP-y family steeped in old money, and the story is told by the adult daughter of the dying matriarch. The setting is a sprawling "summer cottage" (read: mansion) on an island in northern Lake Michigan, where the matriarch's daughters and an assortment of other relatives are gathered to see her through her final days.

Though the locale is fictional, any midwestern reader will picture Mackinac Island right away. The island has large, Victorian-style homes, a quaint historic downtown, and no automobiles are allowed. The author, I found out later, has a lot in common with the protagonist: she grew up in California but spent her summers at a family beach house on Lake Michigan. This novel grew out of her experience of losing her mother under circumstances similar to what's described in this story.

There isn't a ton of action in this book, and at times I wished the dying mother would just die already. The whole ordeal seems to kind of drag on and on. But even though the mother's looming death feels a bit wearisome, it does give the author a good backdrop for unfolding a really well-done character study. You get a vivid peek into the past of the daughter, Maddie, who, despite her privileged upbringing, has endured a lot of pain and dysfunction, including alcoholism, a failed marriage, loss of a child, and some really out-there family relationships. You also get a candid view of some of the kooky aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

If your family is anything like mine, you'll recognize some of the experiences and character traits in the stories the author tells. In fact, the book reminded me in some ways of the movie The Family Stone, which also portrays some archetypical characters and relationships.

It was really helpful to have a chart of the family tree at the front of the book, just because some of the characters seemed to run together in my mind.

Overall, it's not a bad summer read. Despite some of the kind of depressing themes, I think Gamble is a really talented writer, and I felt quite drawn in by her portrayal of individual characters.

The Dogs of Babel

2008-07-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

written by Carolyn Parkhurst

This tale is of a university professor and linguist named Paul Iverson who marries a quirky, artsy woman nine years his junior and who loses her, tragically, under mysterious circumstances. He comes home from work one day to find his wife dead in the back yard, at the base of an apple tree. No witnesses - not even neighbors or passersby - have any clues as to what happened, and only the couple's dog, Lorelei, was present at the time of death. Iverson finds himself on a desperate mission to tap into the dog's knowledge of what happened, and he takes a sabbatical from his job in order to teach Lorelei to communicate. The story follows him through months of reclusive research, encounters with a psychic hotline, and a brush with a criminal and cult-like subculture that performs bizarre and cruel surgeries on dogs to teach them to talk.

It sounds kind of weird, and it is, but overall it's actually not a bad novel. The wife is a heartbreaking but fascinating character who is brilliantly creative and spontaneous, and who apparently suffers from depression and maybe some sort of mood disorder. I wonder if the author had some exposure to someone like Lexy in real life. It is painful to read at times - I guess more so if you have known anyone with depressive tendencies or if you've ever (spoiler warning) lost anyone to suicide.

One piece that I thought was really artfully done was the parallel plot of Lexy's career: she happens to be an artist who specializes in making sculpted masks, and throughout the book, her work is often expressive of some of the tensions and struggles she is battling. Another thing I appreciated about the book is that it does not have a tidy, buttoned-up ending. It is sad and haunting and makes you think. On the down side (and yes, I know I'm no Jane Austen), parts of the novel seemed a little amateurish. The psychic hotline stuff was just hokey. And the characters in the dog-maiming cult were very cliche and not well developed. The biggest thing that bothered me, though, was that you find out in the last 75 pages or so that the husband knew a critical piece of information early on, which wasn't shared with the reader but would've made the reader feel completely different about the entire story. That felt manipulative and to me, and it really cheapened the story to almost a dime-store-level.

Still, the book was a good read-in-the-car book on the way to Maryland; it certainly beats looking out the window at Ohio for two and a half hours.

A Girl Named Zippy

2008-07-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

written by Haven Kimmel

Haven Kimmel is a most excellent storyteller. She takes what you might otherwise consider a disjointed jumble of memories about growing up in a podunk Indiana town, and spins them into one of the funniest books I've read in a long time.

I'm not usually that into memoirs, but part of what's so appealing here is that I can relate to some of her childhood experiences. Like Zippy, I grew up in the midwest in the early 1970s, lived in a very small town (still live there, in fact), and was (am) the baby of the family. But even if the genre of thirtysomething midwestern women reflecting on childhood doesn't float your boat, I'm betting you will like this book. It's really funny stuff.

One evening after dinner, I actually read a few pages of this book out loud to my kids and their cousins, because it was just too funny not to share. I won't give away the punchline, but it involved a crazy story about Zippy eating a shocking number of raw carrots (because her mom had - gasp - taken a job outside the home and Zippy was forced to forage for a snack while her mom was at work). The ensuing aftermath was awful and hilarious at the same time.

An interesting wrinkle is that some of the things Zippy writes about are kind of disturbing. For example, she casually observes that there are never family dinner times in her house, that the house is always filthy and has little or no food in it, that her dad sometimes disappears for hours or days with no explanation, and that her mother sits on the couch for days on end, reading science fiction. One can assume from reading this book that Zippy's dad was something of an alcoholic and compulsive gambler, and her mom suffered from bouts of depression, so the homefront was not always blissful — yet all this is presented quite matter-of-factly, even humorously, not in a life-stopping, psychosis-bending, pity-me-because-my-family's-dysfunctional sort of way. I like that, not because I think that family problems should be minimized or swept under the rug, but because all of us (yes, even wholesome midwesterners) can point to a fair bit of dysfunction in our upbringing. But unlike some of the other chick lit out there, Kimmel's memoir doesn't let these darker points define her childhood; they're merely there as part of the fabric.

My friend Lisa, who also read this book, told me that Kimmel has written a follow-on memoir about her mom, called She Got Up Off the Couch - and Other Heroic Acts from Moreland, Indiana. I'll have to check that out.

Starvation Heights

2008-06-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

written by Gregg Olsen

Scary book, this.

It's a piece of true crime, set in the early 1900s, about a quacky "fasting doctor" named Linda Burfield Hazzard, who was actually not a doctor at all. She was a charlatan who applied a "fasting treatment" to her patients (many of whom ended up dying of starvation) at her Wilderness Heights "sanitarium" on an out-of-the-way island in the Pacific Northwest. It just so happened that several of her patients were rather wealthy, and what do you know, much of their wealth ended up in the hands of the good doctor (supposedly according to the patients' wishes) prior to their deaths.

It was a case of not only malpractice but also brainwashing, and I found it fascinating.

In the book's spotlight are Claire and Dora Williamson, sisters and young British heiresses who had traveled to Washington state on holiday. Upon reading about Hazzard's fasting treatment, they decided to put themselves under her care for some unnamed malady that they both claimed was sapping the life out of them. The author implies that there was likely nothing major wrong with the two young women; they were just faddists whose interest in alternative healing methodologies led them to the wrong place at the wrong time. Within a month of arriving at what the locals had dubbed Starvation Heights, the two women were emaciated, delusional, and unable to walk or care for themselves. They had withered away to mere shadows after weeks of consuming little more than water and vegetable broth.

Oh and much of their money and jewelry had disappeared in the process.

One of the sisters ended up dying of starvation at the sanitarium. The other sister then began to see that Hazzard's practices were manipulative and unsound. However, too weak and withered to check herself out of the place, she secretly sent a desparate plea to a friend in Australia. This set in motion a long process of being rescued from the sanitarium and participating in a trial in which Hazzard was eventually convicted of medical malpractice.

I don't usually love true crime stuff, but this book reads like a novel and I enjoyed it a lot. I'd recommend it.

How to Breathe Underwater

2008-05-10T04:11:00.001-07:00

written by Julie Orringer

This is one of the darkest books I've read in a long time. It appealed to me because it's a collection of nine short stories, all self-contained and unrelated — and since these days I'm hard pressed to read more than a handful of pages a day, I figured it would be kind of nice to be able to actually finish something inside of a week for a change. As it turned out, I ended up taking the book with me to Mexico on vacation, and I think I finished the whole thing in just a day — not because it was a particularly stunning work, but because I had more time than usual to lounge around with a book in my hand.

All of the stories feature young characters in the spotlight, each of them thrust into adulthood (or at least into very complex adult matters) far too soon, either by their own doing or by circumstances beyond their control. The book is sometimes painful to read, I guess because some of the stories stir up difficult memories of my own adolescence. Lots of self-absorption going on in those years, and that's true for many of the characters in Orringer's stories too.

The best of the nine stories, I thought, was The Isabel Fish, because it's the only one that seems to have any form of resolution. Like the other stories, though, it deals with a fair amount of moribidity: the main character is a girl who survives a horrible car accident in which her brother's girlfriend dies. She and her brother, in a clumsy but courageous effort to overcome the scars of that experience, end up learning "how to breathe underwater" by taking scuba lessons, and in the process they deal with some of the anger and blame that has hung between them since the accident. It sounds kind of dorky when I write it out that way (yeah... taking scuba lessons to get over the drowning death of someone close to you...), but really, it's kind of a cool story.

The most disturbing of the nine stories, I thought, had to be the very first one in the book. In Pilgrims, we see a horribly twisted plot involving all kinds of death and dysfunction. It features a sad and desparate family in which the mother is dying, another family in which the mom has already died, bratty elementary-age children who are completely out of control and see no problem with torturing one another ... anyway, the upshot of it is, some of the children actually kill another child and then attempt to cover up the deed. Don't look for any resolution in this story, because there is none. In fact there doesn't even seem to be a real ending — the story just stops, as if the author got up for coffee and forgot to come back.

One thing that made the book somewhat more interesting is that the author is perhaps from (or familiar with) my own stomping ground, as in many of the stories there are references to Royal Oak, Ann Arbor, and Chicago.

Overall, I think this writer has an interesting and engaging style, and certainly the stories are thought-provoking. But I don't know as I'd recommend the book, because I really prefer stuff that's less dark and morose — or at least stuff that comes full circle with a complete, cogent ending.

The Color of Water

2008-04-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

written by James McBride

This book caught my eye right away when I saw it at the library because its subtitle is A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. Now doesn't that just make you want to know all about this guy's story? It truly is an amazing memoir — the moving story of McBride's own life but also a beautiful portrayal of the tough-as-nails woman who raises 12 incredible children, McBride among them, under the worst of circumstances.

The story alternates between McBride's recollections and his mother's, and it is as much her story as it is his. While providing a rich history of his mom's own upbringing in an abusive home under the rule of a very crooked white Jewish rabbi (she fled her abusive family home in the south and became "a black woman in white skin" by moving to Harlem and marrying a black man), he also explores his lifelong struggle with his own racial identity. Is he Jewish? White? Black? Or the color of water? While tackling these questions, he provides a sometimes-humorous, sometimes-poignant chronology of his own growing-up years, including lots of colorful stories about his siblings and extended family.

It's a cool book that sends the powerful message that true love and dignity can overcome a world of hardship.

The Know-It-All

2008-02-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

written by A.J. Jacobs

This was a book that came to me from my boss. She picked up a copy for me and a copy for herself because her daughter had read a bit of it and thought it good. It's a funny, funny book, but man, you need to read it in small doses. Jacobs' style is a bit like Dave Barry's: extremely entertaining, but after a while, extremely exhausting.

Jacobs took a year to read through the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and somehow managed to turn his experience into 369 pages of light and funny reading. The book includes his reflections on key Brittanica entries and a lot of self-deprecating humor and personal stories about his own life. It also contains an absolutely dizzying amount of trivia gleaned from the pages of the Britannica. Someone with a better memory than I might actually learn some things from this book, but I think the only fact I remember is that gymnasium, when translated literally in Greek, means "school of naked exercise." Who knew?

The book is organized alphabetically, just like the encyclopedia. So you'll find a healthy handful of entries regarding words that begin with A, another bunch for B, and so on. It's easy to read this book in short bits of time because most entries are less than a page long. And short bits of time are perfect, since he does start to get annoying if you read too much at a time. He's a really entertaining writer, but you can only take so much sitcom-esque material at one time.

The New York Times calls Jacobs a "stunt journalist" because he tends to do crazy things and then write funny stuff after the fact. In addition to the Britannica stunt, he also wrote a book called The Year of Living Biblically, in which he documented how he dedicated one year of his life to carrying out the literal interpretation of every command he could find in the Bible.

Overall, this is a fun and easy read.

When the Emperor Was Divine

2008-01-20T02:23:00.000-08:00

written by Julie Otsuka

It's been a while since I've blogged a book. Life has a way of getting in the way of my reading! In any case, toward Christmastime I picked up this book from the library for something to read over the holidays, and I'm just now getting around to blogging it.

It's a very cool, short, high-impact novel about a Japanese-American family that was placed in detainment camps for nearly two year during the 1940s. I love this book because it sheds much light on the experience of the children who became detainees. In fact, I think it would be a great book for middle schoolers or high schoolers, just because it gives such a vivid perspective on what it would've been like to be part of this heartbreaking and shameful period in our country's history. Certainly it's too succinct to provide an in-depth study of the internment camps, but it sure does give a snapshot about this often-forgotten group of World War II victims.

Three Weeks With My Brother

2007-10-18T06:01:00.000-07:00

written by Nicholas Sparks

My friend Kellie loaned me this book and talked me into giving Nicholas Sparks a second try. This is his first nonfiction book, and I will admit, I did like it better than his smarmy novels. There's some candid, touching stuff here as he tells some stories about his childhood, set against the backdrop of a travelogue from a current-day trip that he embarks on with — you guessed it — his brother. His style still irritates me, though.

Of note:

The byline includes Sparks' brother Micah, but the entire book is told only from Nicholas' perspective. I find that kind of weird. I kept expecting to hear from Micah, but that never happened.
Sparks calls this "a memoir." I'm sorry, but the guy's only thirtysomething! Is he really entitled to use the word "memoir" when his life isn't even half over yet?
It was fun to read about some of these brothers' childhood antics, especially because they grew up around the same time as I did. The parenting styles and cultural trends of the early and mid-seventies are certainly things that I identify with.
Even in his nonfiction, Sparks is guilty of oversimplifying just about everything! Case in point: he tells of how his son seems to have some form of learning disability or autism or something, and scads of respected medical professionals couldn't agree on a diagnosis or effective treatment. So what does Sparks do? He basically just pulls the kid up by the bootstraps, spends hours on end "working with him" and by third grade the son ends up being pretty much normal. Huh? Anyone with a special-needs kid knows that life just isn't that simple! You don't solve a learning disability by just "working with" the kid more, or harder.
Sparks seems to have a perpetual need to to puff himself up, sending the message that his biggest fault is that he just can't quit accomplishing so much. Check out this self-important statement about one of the more difficult periods in his life: "Somehow, despite all that, I squeezed in time to earn a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, lift weights, and jog daily. I continued to read a hundred books a year. I slept less that five hours a night..." (And he did this all while writing a sizeable collection of very simplistic but bestselling novels, each of which he carefully and clearly mentions by name, several times.) Looking past all the overachieving, I see a dysfunctional dad/husband/workaholic who just seems driven to write more books and make more money.
There is some pretty enjoyable humor here, though if you're super-sensitive to cultural propriety, there might be some stuff that offends you. In some of their travels, the two brothers come off as dorky, juvenile, overgrown nine-year-olds swept up in a lot of buffoonery, with no appreciation for foreign cultures. (Micah, for example, gets busted for lying down on a sacred ritual stone at a Mayan ruin and asking to get his picture taken.)
There were some kind of aimless ponderings about God and faith, but they didn't materialize into much. Sparks seems to have a vague sense of devotion but can't quite seem to close the loop on why God should matter - to his brother or to anyone else.
The recounting of the loss and pain this family has experienced is memorable. I think any person will empathize with some of the difficulties Sparks experienced through the death of his parents and his sister.

The Innocent Man

2007-09-25T14:09:00.001-07:00

written by John Grisham

There was a time in my late twenties when I went on an "extreme Grisham" kick and within the span of about a year, read every book he wrote. No small feat, considering I had a newborn at home to contend with back in those days, and there was precious little spare time for reading (or anything else!) in my life.

So now, just for old time's sake, I try to keep up with the newest stuff he comes out with. This one was published in 2006, so I was a little late getting around to it. It's his first-ever nonfiction book. It tells the story of Ron Williamson, a man whose life was pretty much ruined when he was wrongfully convicted of a brutal rape and sent to death row.

Of note:

Grisham makes some important and disturbing points just by telling Williamson's horrific story. If even half of the stuff about the mishandling of William's case is true, I fear for anyone who finds themselves at the mercy of our criminal justice system, which is apparently ruled by the good-old-boy network and is deeply riddled with heinous flaws and injustices.

His storytelling is really plain Jane in this book — quite lackluster compared to the drama and suspense you find in his fiction. Maybe it's because he gets so bogged down in the details of the story, or maybe it's because he didn't want to poison the well by inserting his own dramatic twist on this appalling real-life story. But I felt he could've been a lot more engaging. Parts of the book seemed to drag on and on; it became a bit of a chore to keep reading. In some areas he repeated himself. I came away believing that Grisham's should really stay with his forte: fiction.

Why on earth are the pictures inserted in the middle of the book? The photos and their captions totally give away the ending of the story! That was really annoying. If you plan on reading the book, force yourself to bypass the pictures till the end.

The Human Stain

2007-08-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

written by Philip Roth

When this book caught my eye at the library, some murky corner of my memory told me that I'd heard of it (or was it just the movie by the same name?)... anyway, I vaguely remembered it being acclaimed by ... someone, I don't know who. After reading the back cover, I was intrigued enough to check out the book: it details how a dean at an upper-crust New England university gets ousted for purportedly being a racist, despite the fact that his secret and shocking personal history "would astonish his most virulent accuser." In a nutshell (spoiler warning!), he's actually black — but because his skin and features are not profoundly African-American, he has spent most of his adult life passing himself off as a white man with Russian Jewish roots.

Kind of an interesting premise, but I generally did not like this novel. One reason was that Roth's writing felt quite laborious to me (sentences spanning several lines - enough to send a technical writer running)... but the bigger reason I disliked it was because there was just too much offensive vulgarity. And before you accuse me of being too prudish, I need to say that yes, I do get the fact that modern literature usually has a hefty dose of sexual themes. But this book just contained far too much desperation and sleaze for me. The main character, Coleman Silk, reminded me a lot of the protagonist in Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee: an intelligent, mature, seemingly respectable man who, just under the surface, is disturbingly immoral. Still, like the Coetzee book, there were some pockets of great writing that did make me want to keep reading.

Of note:

I could not get a clear picture of Faunia Farley, Coleman Silk's mistress. She seemed like an utterly unknowable character in this story. Maybe that was the way the author intended it? She was, after all, a woman with a very troubled life and appeared (to me at least) to have some incredibly complex social problems. Maybe her unknowableness was an intentional reflection of that.

There is a really brilliant section of the book in which Faunia observes and contemplates crows. I know it sounds funny, but I found it to be such a profound and symbolic passage. And then Roth artfully closes the loop on the symbolism by bringing it back in near the end of the book. It was very cool. You have to read it to understand what I mean.

Coleman Silk has a colleague at the university, a Pariesienne-born female professor, who takes up way too much of this book. She is a sub-plot that feels very unnecessary to me, and the long sections on her foibles really drag.

Also unnecessary was any mention of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. I'm not sure why that had to be a backdrop to the story. It was annoying.

Bottom line: I wouldn't recommend this book. Am I getting cranky? I haven't read any real you-must-read-this books lately...

Once Removed

2007-08-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

written by Mako Yoshikawa

I am not above being drawn to a book by its cover. The art on this novel's front, along with its title, made me curious, so I checked it out from the library in hopes that it would be a good summer read. After a few difficult starts (my fault, not the book's - life is just too busy sometimes to get engrossed in a new book without some effort!) I re-started and finished this book while Jay and the kids and I were visiting my in-laws in Maryland.

The story is mainly about a whole bunch of conflicted women. Two of them are stepsisters (Claudia and Rei) and though they forged a deep relationship as children when the dad of one married the mom of the other, the parents divorced when the girls were both 17. The girls consequently drifted apart. The book picks up 17 years later when they rekindle their relationship. The main thread of the novel, though, is not really about Claudia's relationship with Rei, but rather the tension between Claudia and Hana (Rei's mother and Claudia's stepmother).

Of note:

One of the reasons I found it hard to get engaged in this book from the beginning is because there is such a complicated web of relationships to keep track of: the two sisters, their own natural parents, the parents' former spouses... and then there's also a persistent romance between Claudia and a married man, so you'll need to keep track of his wife and children in the mix. Interestingly, though, this kind of complexity is a reflection of real life, with so many of us being part of blended families and step-relationships.

The title is clever, given the story line. And like I suspected, the art on the cover does have some significance to the story.

Rosie (Claudia's natural mother) feels like a flat, incomplete character to me. Even though her role becomes bigger toward the end of the book, we never really get a clear picture of what kind of person she is.

On the other hand, the author portrays Henry (Claudia's natural father) with great clarity. Her descriptions of his mannerisms and personality were really vivid.

The author draws interesting parallels between Hana as the "other woman" who broke up Claudia's parents' marriage, and Claudia's own relationship with Vikrum, a married man. I especially found it intriguing that both of these illicit relationships were intercultural.

There is a lot of looming, unresolved drama surrounding Hana's experience as a girl when she witnessed the Hiroshima bombing. The novel implies that Hana's choice to keep her experience a secret is what led to her marriage dissolving. Huh? I don't get that.

The back cover of the book is full of hyperbolic adspeak, particularly the last paragraph, which claims that the novel "Tak[es] us from the exotic Japan of the 1940s and '50s, to the verdant English countryside, to the urban streets of Boston..." Come on now! The book is about relationships, not locales! In fact, I had to think hard to remember what part of the book even took place in the "verdant English countryside."

There are big (and sometimes painful) observations here regarding love, marriage, devotion, and betrayal.

Our Lady of the Forest

2007-07-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

written by David Guterson

This was a pretty funky book, the funkiness probably compounded by the fact that I read it in one sitting, immediately after a week-long solo hike on the Appalachian Trail, when my head was still spinning from walking out of the woods and back into the frenetic buzz of civilization.

The novel deals with a homeless teenage runaway named Anne Holmes who, while hunting for mushrooms in a remote area of the Pacific northwest, encounters several Marian apparitions. She confides mainly in two people: a fellow wanderer named Carolyn who doesn't really believe in the apparitions but is excited about the potential financial benefits, and a confused young priest who is struggling with doubt and his role in the church.

Of note:

I liked the way Guterson develops such a vivid picture of the depressed logging town where the story takes place. North Fork is definitely a gloomy place in need of redemption, and this becomes all the more apparent when Anne's visions create such a swell of activity and hope. North Fork kind of reminds me of some of the towns I've seen in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Towns that have lots of history but are now sadly languishing under economic hardship and loss of purpose.

The character of Tom Cross, an unemployed logger with all kinds of problems, is intertwined with Anne's visions, but his story felt underdeveloped to me, and his abrupt transformation in the end of the book seems very trite and unsubstantiated.

The priest in whom Anne confides has a complicated sexuality that I found really bothersome to the story. And yes, I know there's a point to be made here about how those trained and chosen for sacred work (like the priest) are sometimes much less qualified and much less spiritual than mundane but faithful riffraff (like Anne). But the constant references to the priest's issues with lust and masturbation got old.

I think the book makes an interesting point made about how society is quick to grope for the miraculous, and to turn spiritual phenomena into commercial ventures. Once word gets out about Anne's visions, miracle-seekers from all over the surrounding area start coming out of the wordwork, turning Anne's experiences into frenzied media-worthy events.

A Walk to Remember

2007-06-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

written by Nicholas Sparks

In preparing for my June backpacking trip, I stopped at the library in search of some light reading, literally and figuratively. I needed something that wouldn't require too much concentration and wouldn't add too many unnecessary ounces to my backpack. This book met both requirements, so I added it to the small pile of stuff on my ping-pong table that I would eventually shoehorn into my pack (which, incidentally, ended up tipping the scales at a mere 27.5 pounds, even after adding the book).

It was classic Nicholas Sparks - definitely a chick book, and a tearjerker on many levels. If you haven't read any of Sparks' books, think Message In a Bottle, the movie from 1999, which was based on one of his novels.

This story's about an unlikely match between two high-school students in the 1950s: an affable, underachieving boy and an angelic but dowdy and hyperreligious girl. In a sweet but far-too-perfect romance, they end up facing a horrific situation together (spoiler warning): she finds out she has leukemia and has only a short few months to live, but they end up marrying anyway.

Lots of cliche here, to be sure, but if all you want is a quick read and don't mind the schmaltz, it's not bad. As for me, it suited me fine for a backpacking trip (anything that doesn't mention bear attacks or predatory mountain dwellers pretty much qualifies as okay reading) but I don't know if I'll be shopping for more Sparks books.

The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days

2007-06-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

written by Frederick Buechner

This is the first of three autobiographical works by Frederick Buechner. (Although I think he would argue that there's a bit of autobiography in each of his books, even the novels.) It's a very compelling story, this candid retelling of how he came to faith. He strings together bits of childhood memories and recollections of his early adulthood, and in the process points to how many of the events of his life - both the overtly significant ones and the seemingly mundane ones - guided him along a path (without his knowing it) that culminated in his realization of God's active and loving presence in his life.

Particularly powerful, I think (and this is a spoiler, so be warned!) are Buechner's ponderings about his father's suicide. If you have been affected yourself by the suicide of someone close to you, I think you might find his perspective interesting - maybe even healing.

Unlike some of his other stuff, this book is easy and quick to read. You'll find yourself doing a lot of your own self-reflection as you read his impressions and thoughts about God and life. You will see yourself in this book. But you won't feel preached at or proselytized. In fact, if you're like me you'll probably find it extraordinarily refreshing that Buechner doesn't purport to have all the answers to life's hardest spiritual questions; nor does he persuade you to join up with any particular line of thinking, or make you feel less-than-worthy if you disagree with him.

Telling the Truth

2007-05-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

written by Frederick Buechner

One of my college literature professors, Jeff Duncan, has been on my mind recently, and here's why. I went on a cleaning rampage last month, one of my chief missions being to reduce the size of my burgeoning library. As I was doing some tough love on the bookshelves, I came across Frederick Buechner's Telling The Truth, which Duncan kindly gave me when I was the ripe age of 21. At that time I tried my darnedest to slog my way through it, and I remember being a bit bewildered and confused, thinking: perhaps one day I'll understand some of what this guy is saying. If memory serves, I don't think I made it through the entire book.

Fast-forward 16 (oy!) years, and there I sat in my home office, trying to decide whether to keep the bloody book or move it on. I decided to give it another try, and whoa. It was somehow both jarring and gentle at the same time. I guess some things are just more compelling now that I "have a little age on me," as my dad used to say.

Buechner spins the gospel in light of human failure (tragedy), the hilarity of God's free gift of redemption (comedy), and the amazing truth of how in the end there is resolution and good really does triumph over evil (fairy tale).

Now I find myself on a steady diet of Mr. Buechner's other works - fact, it's been all Buechner all the time around here lately, and for that I have Duncan to thank. It's funny how sometimes God starts a little something in us and then waits around patiently — sometimes years! — while we dilly-dally, drinking nothing but milk for far too long but then finally one day accepting a few morsels of solid food.

I'm so grateful not just for the book Duncan gave me, but that he had the guts to give a flighty, self-absorbed student something to ponder. It took me a while, but I'm pondering now.

Blue Like Jazz

2007-05-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

written by Donald Miller

This book came on recommendation from my friend Dave. Every Tuesday morning, Dave and I supervise the dropoff area at our kids' school while solving most of the world's problems in about 30 minutes. One of our favorite woes to discuss is how the church (universal) has become pretty dogmatic and in many ways irrelevant to the rest of society. Hence this book.

The author, Donald Miller, wrote this book as a commentary on "Christian spirituality" - which he carefully differentiates from what you and I think of as mainstream evangelical Christianity. He equates Christian spirituality to jazz music, saying that he never used to like jazz because "it doesn't resolve." But after exeriencing God in a multitude of ways outside of the usual boxy white-bread evangelical Christian paradigms, he comes to know and love Jesus in a different way. A way that still "doesn't resolve" but is embraceable nonetheless.

Of note:

The premise of this book is sort of "Velvet Elvis lite." Which is pretty arrogant for me to say, actually, now that I think about it, since I haven't even read all the way through Velvet Elvis yet. (Jay has though - and isn't that almost the same thing?) Anyway, one of the themes is this: what you're used to thinking of as normal, right, Christian living might not be normal, right, or Christian.
Donald Miller's style was refreshing to me for about the first 20 pages. Then it got annoying. The guy needs an editor. Badly. Some of the essays in the book read like a Junie B. Jones story.
One of the biggest things in the book to resonate with me was how Miller describes his ineptness at living out biblical community. I feel like he is describing me as he compares his life to a movie with just one central character: "Life was a story about me because I was in every scene. In fact, I was the only one in every scene. I was everywhere I went. If somebody walked into my scene, it would frustrate me because they were disrupting the general theme of the play...the movie, the grand movie, was about me... that is the way I lived." That was, and unfortunately to a great extent, still is, the way I live.
The other big thing I loved about this book is how he blasts the traditional notion that to be a Christian, you have to be a right-wing Republican, hate homosexuals and hippies, and never question or doubt. Who can live like that, really?

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

2007-04-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

written by Bill Bryson

I picked up this book because I thought I loved Bill Bryson. Certainly I did love A Walk in the Woods and have also enjoyed portions of A Short History of Nearly Everything and some of his travel writings. He's famous for his ability to capture the humor and idiocy of the places and people he visits, and Thunderbolt makes this evident - only this time it's not a travelogue of a physical journey, but a journey of his growing-up years.

But his writing, to me, falls short this time. It's funny but not funny. Part of it's a generational thing; I think people of Bryson's generation (who grew up in the fifties and sixties) might get more out of this book than I did. Some of the story line just felt plainly uninteresting, since the events of the time didn't hold personal relevance for me. And although the typical Bryson humor is there, I grew weary of his overused hyperbole. Sometimes it just felt like he was trying way too hard to be funny. Some of the humor was even annoying or offensive, like the frequent cutting references to the "fat kids" he grew up with, or the parts about constantly trying to persuade his classmate Mary O'Leary to disrobe.

After reading other Bryson stuff, this book felt like a disappointment. Like a quick, thrown-together patchwork of some of his childhood memories, with no real point to the story. If he hadn't already made a name for himself with his previous work, I don't think this book would be that big of a seller.

How to Be Lost

2007-04-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

written by Amanda Eyre Ward

This is perhaps the first time since high school that I've read an entire novel in under 24 hours. But I guess anyone could pull that off if trapped on a tour bus for most of a day. I brought this book along on the one-day Grand Canyon excursion that Janet and I signed up for while we were in Las Vegas for a few days. (The heck with Girls' Night Out — how about a Girls' Weekend Out!) Since the drive time between Vegas and the Grand Canyon is a staggering 4.5 hours across a barren desert, this book is what prevented me from going catatonic while listening to the torturously bad jokes of the tour bus driver.

I'd first heard of this novel from Cindy, who read it during our backpacking trip through Great Smoky Mountain National Park last spring. I remember her being both engrossed in this book and shocked by some of its twists. It sounded to me like a good "chick" book.

It's about a girl named Caroline Winters whose younger sister Ellie vanishes at age 5. The family basically falls apart in the ensuing years. Much later, when Caroline's an adult, her mother shows her a page out of a magazine, and in the background is a woman who the mom thinks is the missing sister. Caroline ends up going on a quest to Montana to find the woman.

Of note:

The style of this book is very Jodi-Picoult-ish, which Janet and I decided is a pretty common theme lately in new novels. You get a fairly close and disturbing look at a dysfunctional family with many layers of problems, and there's not a necessarily tidy ending. You also get to see things from multiple people's perspectives, which I always find kind of cool.
There are some wandering side plots that go nowhere. (The following might be a spoiler if you plan to read this book.) A major example is when Caroline finds the woman she thinks is Ellie but it ends up being someone who just looks a little like Ellie. The mistaken identity becomes obvious to the reader pretty early on, yet the story lingers way too long on this. Other annoying tangents that take up too much of the reader's time include the premature birth of Caroline's niece, her (other) sister's rocky marriage, and the sudden death of Caroline's mother.
The ending was abrupt and lame. Definitely a lot of unfinished business and loose ends. I got the feeling that the author's publishing deadline was looming or something, and she just stopped writing.
I loved the character of Agnes Fowler and the way the author revealed her personality through letters. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that Agnes reminds me a little of myself. Trusting, naive, very un-savvy in many ways, yet fairly competent in other ways. For the record, though, I must clarify here that, unlike Agnes, I have never visited a website called AlaskaHunks.com.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

2007-04-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

written by Azar Nafisi

My friend and stepsister Terry gave me this book. Back in January we endured a very long day together at St. Joe's hospital as we waited for the ER doctors to figure out what to do with my very ill, very frail stepmother. (Which, believe me, is another story for another blog altogether.) As a diversion, we began chatting about what we'd been reading lately, and Terry found out that I had this book on my must-read list because I'd heard good things about it from Jay's mom. She promptly ran out to Borders and bought it for me.

It's a compelling true story about Azar Nafisi, an Iranian professor of literature, who weathers a turbulent and socially repressive period of political upheaval in Iran. Sadly, she quits her job at a university in Tehran due to the rampant Islamic authoritarianism and the rigid restrictions placed upon women. As a means of promoting and affirming the right to independent thought, she assembles a small group of women who believe in the power of literature, and conducts a makeshift class once a week in her home. The book is a memoir of those difficult years, told through a discussion of the novels they read together.

So the book is really a combination of literary criticism and poignant memoir. Woven throughout is Nafisi's political commentary about the transformation of Iran from a vibrant, progressive nation to one where much of the population is manipulated through repression and intimidation. It's a sad, disturbing glimpse into a society that attributes very little value to women.

Of Note:

Overall, I felt very uneducated as I read this book, mainly on two levels: (1) I know very little about the political and religious history of Iran, and this book places you smack dab in the middle of the Iranian revolution. (2) I used to think I knew something of great literature, but after reading this book I realize I know next to nothing. Of the many novels that the author weaves into her memoir, I recognized the titles of maybe two in ten. Maybe.

The one big take-away that I LOVED in this book is the message that literature, even if it portrays immoral people or bad behavior, does not in itself corrupt the reader. The Islamic regime in Iran wanted to prohibit citizens from reading such controversial stories as Pride and Prejudice and Lolita because the assumption was that if you read that stuff, you become just like the main characters (i.e., you read about sin, you become sinful). Interesting that some ultra-conservative Christians would say the same thing! I'm not saying that I necessarily recommend or embrace the particular novels Nafisi mentions, but I do believe that reading literature can only open our eyes and our minds, helping us to contemplate issues of truth and justice in a way that allows us to see for ourselves what is right.

She makes reference several times to "her magician" -- a man who was a champion of free thought but who had intentionally withdrawn from the educational and social system in Iran. He is her sometimes-friend, sometimes-counselor, sometimes-colleague. I found it weird that she portrayed him as some kind of mysterious, Yoda-like being. He was underdeveloped and too murky of a character for me to understand or connect with.

I found it interesting that there was not a lot of Persian pride, language, or culture woven into the story. Have you noticed that some stories that take place in non-English-speaking locales are filled with the language and imagery of the protagonists' ethnicity? Not this one. In fact, I would even say that the author goes to some length to show that she and her proteges think and act very much like the typical Western citizen, except that they live under a restrictive totalitarian regime. There are very few references to Persian foods (she does mention eating Western goodies, though, such as sandwiches and ice cream) and very few instances where she uses Persian epithets or Persian words. Rather than drawing attention to the uniqueness of Iranian culture, it feels to me like she instead draws attention to the fact that Iranian people, if left unrepressed, would be essentially the same as American people. I'm not saying this is a bad or incorrect view; just notable different than the style of many other foreign authors.

The story meanders; there's no nice way of saying it. There were several points where she lost me with her long and complicated dissections of literature such as The Great Gatsby, Lolita, and Jane Austen novels. I get the fact that there are parallels to be drawn between some of those books and the plight of life in Iran... but at times the literary criticism started to annoy me. I would've been happier if she had focused more on the lives and personalities of her students and herself.

The Broker

2007-03-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

written by John Grisham

I've been out of the Grisham scene for a couple years. Not because he fell out of favor with me, but because I ran out of his books to read. I thought I had read all of them except the newest one (the one based on a true story). So when I ran across this one at the library I was surprised I had missed it. John Grisham novels are like an old shoe - sometimes overworked and weary but always comfortable - so I couldn't not pick it up.

Portions of the book are formulaic Grisham: he builds sympathy for a crooked but amiable protagonist, and drops him in an unknown place where he (and you) have to get to know the town (in this case, Bologna, Italy) and the culture in order to fit in. There's a little bit of legal and political stuff thrown in, because that's what Grisham does best. But most of the book is about espionage and an American man trying to reinvent himself in another country after a sudden and inexplicable release from prison and a presidential pardon for the treasonous dealings he engineered in Washington six years prior. Several covert agents from four different countries want his head on a platter, and the CIA (who also wouldn't mind him dead) leaks his whereabouts to these enemies, so the poor guy's on the run from the get-go.

Of Note:

At times throughout the book, you almost get the feeling you're reading about Grisham's notes from an Italian vacation. There's a lot of travelogue-type stuff in here that you won't necessarily appreciate if (like me!) you've never been to Italy. There's also a fair amount of annoying insertions of Italian phrases as you observe the main character, Joel Backman, trying to learn Italian.
At a few points in the beginning of the novel, you get a glimpse of the bumblehead president who pardons Backman. Something familiar about that...
Unlike other authors in this genre, Grisham is pretty tasteful when he chooses to blend in romance with his plots. In this book, Joel Backman has an Italian language tutor, Francesca Ferro, who ends up helping him escape Italy. You get the feeling there could be a nice little little happily-ever-after brewing, but then he abruptly leaves Italy on the lam and at first it doesn't look like he'll be returning. On the last page, though, Grisham brings Francesca back into the picture. I like the way he did that. No raunchy side plots were needed.
The book could've gotten a lot more mileage out of the relationship between Backman and his son Neal, who helps him escape the foreign villains who are out to get him. Neal was a very flat character.
The action really cranks up in the last hundred pages or so. If you can bear with the Fodor-esque tour of Italy in the middle 25 chapters, you'll like the ending.

Murder in Foggy Bottom

2007-02-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

written by Margaret Truman

It's appalling that I haven't blogged a book in so long. No excuses, except that I just haven't been reading a lot of fiction in the last few months. Actually, I haven't been reading a lot of anything — unless you count the newsletters from the kids' schools, and benchmarking stuff for work. Fact, lately I've been feeling like it's a good week if I can sneak into a corner for a few minutes to read a magazine article here or there. It's a bad sign when you start looking forward to your kid's orthodontist appointments because it could mean a solid 20 minutes of uninterrupted reading time!

Murder in Foggy Bottom caught my eye in early January as I was perusing the shelves at the library, waiting for Joe to pick out a book about trains. I noticed a spate of books by this author, all titled with the same theme (Murder on the Potomac, Murder in the White House, Murder at the Kennedy Center, etc.) Closer inspection revealed that all the novels are set in the D.C. area, which is a little familiar to me. It's always kind of fun to read fiction that's set in a real place that you've been before.

The novel follows two intertwining story lines: the unexplained murder of a Canadian embassy worker, and the sudden and simultaneous bombing of three civilian planes in three different parts of the country. An investigative reporter (Joe Potamos) ends up uncovering the connection between these two crimes.

Of Note:

It was a little spooky to me that this novel was written in 2000, prior to the September 11th attacks. There are some eerie similarities (terrorists downing three civilian planes) that made me swallow hard.
The author, I found out after the fact, is the daughter of President Truman. No wonder so much of her fiction centers on the goings-on in Washington, D.C.!
I love authors who can quietly and casually inject incredibly cool but little-known words into their story line, driving me to http://dictionary.reference.com/! Betcha don't know what "imbroglio" means. And if you do, try using it in a sentence as seamlessly as Truman does on p.264 — I dare you!
The book's a little annoying in the first 150 pages or so, because there are just too many seemingly unrelated people and relationships to keep track of. Or maybe that's just my impression and is indicative of my inability to devote more than 20 consecutive minutes of attention to any one piece of writing at a time. Never mind that I started the book in January and it took me over six weeks to complete it...
There's nothing super-complex or controversial here... just a decent, simple read with some interesting twists and a minimum of offensive language. A good book to take on vacation with you.

The New Work of Dogs

2006-10-31T03:50:00.000-08:00

written by Jon Katz

Okay, okay, I know I just blogged about another dog book a couple entries ago. I can see all you cat people rolling your eyes and pursing your lips, and I promise that this blog will not become all dogs all the time. But when my librarian sister-in-law Michelle told me about this book I really wanted to investigate. Plus, something silly in me just couldn't resist a dog book written by a person named Katz.

It's a social commentary, not a novel — although some of the characters could easily be something out of strange fiction. Katz gives you a snapshot of several dog owners in and around the spendy suburb of Montclair, New Jersey. His intent is to illustrate anecdotally how we as a culture depend on these "social parasites" (his phrase, not mine) to fill all kinds of emotional and social needs that, once upon a time were fulfilled by other humans. No big surprise there, right? I mean, anyone who's ever loved a dog knows that these animals provide the kind of companionship that truly does earn them the nickname "man's best friend."

Some of the dog owners he shadows are downright pathological. Others are a bit more "normal" but reveal some of the foibles we've all seen in certain dog owners (and maybe in ourselves): for example, the lonely, childless dog owner who treats her canine as a surrogate child. Or the manly-man dog owner who connects easily and naturally with his gargantuan Labrador yet can't connect in a significant way with his wife or kids. Or the tireless dog-rescue lady who spends every spare moment and dime caring for discarded pets and finding them new homes. All of the dog lovers he describes, though, share a common dependence on dogs that begs some hard questions: Are dogs capable of filling the social and emotional expectations we have of them? Are we better off for forcing them into these roles? Are they?

Really cool elements:

It's an interesting idea, this concept of dogs taking on a "new work" in our culture — where their job is to satisfy humans' social and emotional needs. In a postmodern society that no longer relies so much on family and other human relationships to cement our social network, I can totally see how dogs have found themselves filling an almost-human role. (Heck, look at me! I'm the one who acquired a family dog just weeks before my youngest kid started attending full-day school! Coincidence?)
In his portrayal of a dog-rescue operation, Katz brings up a good point: howcome there are people out there who will lay down their very lives for dogs — showing mercy and acceptance even for animals who are aggressive and dangerous — yet we have trouble doing the same thing for people?
Katz sends a message that it's not necessarily healthy to humanize our animals — to attribute all kinds of complex expression and emotion to a dog is to really make the dog into something bigger than life. It's a good reality check to remember that no, they really are animals. Beasts. Nice beasts, sure, but not people.
Several stories in the book underscore the problem of "throw-away pets"—animals that are abandoned or mistreated because the owners had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I'm all for raising awareness of that problem, in the hopes that it might convince readers to adopt homeless animals rather than add to the problem by purchasing or breeding more dogs.

Not-so-cool elements:

Katz believes that dogs really are not the fiercely loyal, undyingly loving creatures that many of us dog people make them out to be. In fact, he suggests that if your dog is separated from you for a couple weeks and is given a comfortable place to live and lots of food, he'll promptly forget you ever existed. I'm sorry, but Buster and I both object to that sentiment. :)
There is an off-color statement near the end of the book that refers to physical training tools (such as choke-chains and invisible fences) as torturous. Katz even implies that those who use such tools are lazy and irresponsible pet owners. Now that felt pretty judgmental! I care for my dog, I walk him several times a day, and I do not take shortcuts in providing care for him. I would even go so far as to say I love my dog. I also know that, because of our proximity to a very busy road, I cannot risk him darting out of the yard after a rabbit or a squirrel. So I use an invisible fence. I won't defend here why I think it's appropriate, but suffice to say that not all pet owners who use them are lazy, irresponsible, or inhumane.

The Bean Trees

2006-09-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

written by Barbara Kingsolver

A while back, I had read Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and although I found parts of it disturbing and sad, I did like her writing and had sort of been wanting to read some more of her fiction. So I picked up this little beauty at the library, not knowing at first that it was in fact her first novel. As you might expect, the plot's definitely a little thinner than what you see in Poisonwood, but I must say, it's a witty and touching little story. Whimsical and entertaining, with just enough depth.

The book's narrated from the perspective of Taylor Greer, a young woman who leaves Kentucky (with almost no money and a car that's barely functional) to make her way in the world. Shunning the hillbilly lifestyle of many of her former classmates, some of whom ended up pregnant before their eighteenth birthdays, she figures she'll head west and see what kind of life she can make for herself. By the time she gets to Arizona, her new unfettered lifestyle has already come to an end. She has become, quite unexpectedly, the unofficial custodian of a mysterious, nameless, baby girl — the infant was hurriedly and desperately handed to her by a frightened Native American mother who obviously feared for the infant's safety.

The rest of the book is a story of resourcefulness, friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice. You follow Taylor as she develops some amazing relationships in her new surroundings and gets her bearings in the unfamiliar world of motherhood.

Really cool elements:

I love first-person narratives where the protagonist is so colorful. And Taylor's youthful but streetwise manner is so entertaining and easy, you feel like you're sitting right there listening to her as she tells her story. I especially love her folksy grammar and vocabulary; it's kind of like a Junie B. Jones book for grownups.
Taylor's friendship with Luann is just beautiful — a mirror image of the many real-life friendships among the zillions of women out there who find themselves in trying circumstances and help to hold each other up. Though I've never been in such dire straits as Taylor and Luann, I can definitely say that I've had some similar friendships that have seen me through some hard times.
There is a heart-tugging side plot here about an immigrant-smuggling Good Samaritan and some of the things she teaches Taylor, by example, about doing the right thing and laying down your life for your friends.

Not-so-cool elements:

I really wish there had been more closure to the story of Esperanza and Estevan, an immigrant couple that Taylor ends up helping to transport to safer territory. Their story became so intertwined with Taylors that I would've liked to know more about the outcome of their struggles.
Am I beginning to relax my standards, or is it just a coincidence that I don't have much to whine about in the books I've read lately? No other complaints on this one!

Angela's Ashes

2006-08-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

written by Frank McCourt

Wow. Just... wow. I had heard that this book was intense, and I had been wanting to read it for a while now, but oh my word. I was not prepared for how desperate Frank McCourt's Irish Catholic childhood was. It was so eye-opening, to read this man's very personal story of growing up in the poorest of poor slums in Limerick, Ireland.

The memoir chronicles the story of how Frank's parents met and married, his early years as the eldest child in an Irish immigrant family in New York, the family's return to Ireland, and the many desperate events and circumstances that characterized his life as he grew from boyhood into being a young man of his own.

In my opinion, it's an important book to read because most of us have no idea what it's like to live without comforts and trappings. But do be aware that the book has some unsavory explicit parts that aren't appropriate for younger readers.

Really cool elements:

I admire McCourt for finding humor and joy in a most unexpected place: a childhood plagued by alcoholism, depression, loss, and astonishing poverty. Amazingly, though the book documents some very sad events, it doesn't really feel like a sad book. It's a beautiful testament to the resilience of the human spirit. I guess it's because the way McCourt chooses to muscle through his struggles, learning and growing all the while, rather than allowing them to define him and victimize him. I hope at the end of my life I can say that I did the same. (Though after reading his story, I have a hard time pointing to any area of my life that would qualify as hardship.)
I've heard some complain that the book could be shortened by at least a few hundred pages because of the repetitive stories of McCourt's father's alcoholism. I disagree. I think to take out any of those portions of the book would be to downplay the severity of the disease and its impact on the family. Malachy McCourt struggled mightily to stay off the Guinness and hold a job, and though he seemed to love his family, his alcoholism made it impossible to provide for them, materially or emotionally. After knowing a few families who have been similarly broken by alcoholism, I'm all for McCourt telling it like it is, painful details and all.

Not-so-cool elements:

McCourt writes the entire book from a child's point of view, which means the story is somewhat stream-of-consciousness, with very few complete sentences and only about half the required punctuation. If that kind of thing bugs you, you might find it kind of tedious to get through the book.
Maybe I missed something, but I don't get the title. I know the book is as much about Frank's mother (Angela) as it is about himself, but where do the ashes come in? I guess I thought there would be something about his mom dying and him doing something with her ashes, but there's nothing like that. Or is the title a reference to the ashes of the Woodbine cigarettes she always smoked? Or maybe the cold ashes in the fire, since the family always lacked enough fuel to have a warm, cozy home? I don't know — I didn't see a strong enough connection to figure it out.
The book ends kind of weird. The final installment in McCourt's memoir depicts him finally making his way back to America at age 19 to secure gainful employment. He immediately has a fling with a married woman, and that's the end of the book. It's not that I think he should gloss over this or pretend it didn't happen — this is a memoir after all, and if it happened, it happened — but it was such a disappointing ending. Is he implying that after all he's been through, he's really the boss of himself now and can do what he wants? Or that he's become enlightened enough to be above the church-manufactured sin/guilt complex that plagued him as a child? I don't know. I just know that I would've liked to see more profundity — some kind of significant parting statement, I guess — after such a provocative book. I wanted to find out more about whether he found fulfillment and purpose once he returned to America, and how he gained some closure to his fractured family relationships. But I guess that's what second books are for. Guess I have to add 'Tis to my library list...

Promise Me

2006-08-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

written by Harlan Coben

This is apparently a revival of Coben's oft-used hero, Myron Bolitar. I haven't read any of Coben's previous books, but I do know that many people rave about the Myron Bolitar series.

The book opens with Bolitar telling two teenaged girls (one is the daughter of a friend) to call him if they ever find themselves in trouble or need a lift, especially to avoid riding with a drunk driver. Of course, one of them ends up taking him up on his offer, and he gives her a ride to her "friend's" house in the middle of the night. When she turns up missing the next morning, Myron (who was the last person known to be in contact with the girl) finds himself embroiled in a sticky police investigation in which he may be implicated for abduction. Suddenly a sports-agent-turned-crime-sleuth, Myron gets to the bottom of the mystery and pretty much saves the day.

Not-so-cool elements:

Is it just me, or is the plot unnecessarily complicated by about a million different two-bit characters? And many of the characters are so over-the-top silly that they seem like caricatures. Almost like you're reading a comic book.
Coben goes overboard with sexual references. Can't a book be intriguing without all the trash?
Some of the lines in this book are just pure cheese. It's like the literary equivalent of a really bad Stephen Seagal movie. For example: "His worn blue jeans hung low, displaying enough plumber crack to park a bike." Sigh.
I think a good mystery book should be at least halfway believable. This one just wasn't. The twist at the end felt particularly contrived.

Cool elements:

I have to give Coben credit for the way he can hook a reader and maintain interest. Maybe he took lessons from James Patterson. Their books are like train wrecks -- you know they're horrible but you just can't look away.

Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad

2006-08-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

written by David Eddie

This was another twenty-five-cent find at the library's used book sale. It caught my eye because Jay and I are good friends with a couple in which the dad is the stay-at-home parent. The book looked funny and I thought I might read it and pass it along to our friends.

Lesson learned: there's a reason why certain books are sold for only twenty-five cents at used book sales.

Well, no, actually this book isn't all bad. There are a lot of redeeming elements that are hilarious, touching, philosophical, even thought-provoking. There's also a surprisingly useful 20-page stretch in which the author pontificates about how to cook -- portions of which are, in fact, making me contemplate hanging onto the book instead of feeding it back into the book donation bin for the library's next used book sale.

Cool elements:

If you are a stay-at-home parent (male or female, doesn't matter) you will find a lot of humor here. Eddie covers all the typical woes of parenting: sleep deprivation; disobedient children; kids' impact on your marriage; the mental toll of interacting with people under five years old, all day every day; the "what-do-you-do-all-day" question asked by well-meaning but clueless friends... and he does it in a way that you can really identify with. His style reminds me of a machismo version of the Girlfriends' Guide series of books by Vicki Iovine.

Not-so-cool elements:

In too many places, Eddie tries just a little too hard to be funny. I got tired of hearing him prattle on, sometimes boastfully, about what a raunchy cad he was (and still would be, if it weren't for having children) in his pre-fatherhood days. In fact, it was annoying enough that I almost pitched the book after the first few chapters. It also caused me to decide not to pass the book on to our friends that I mentioned above. The good and funny parts are offset too much by the overly animated retelling of his days of womanizing, drug use, and general irresponsibility.

Marley & Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

2006-08-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

written by John Grogan

This is a funny, sweet, poignant book. One that I devoured in just under two days -- which is a real feat, I assure you, considering how our willy-nilly summer schedule is busting at the seams with kids' activities, barbecues, beach outings, work commitments, houseguests, and of course everything that goes into doting on our own canine prince, Buster.

The book made me laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously. This is, I think, because about a year ago I became a Dog Person. It's not that I didn't like dogs before that -- in fact, as a kid growing up in rural Dexter, I almost always had one of our family dogs by my side. Dogs occupy a well-deserved place in my long list of happy childhood memories.

But until July 2005 I had never had a dog of my own, as an adult. Never had a dog that depended on me and me alone for safety, food, shelter, and love. So it was with some serious deliberation that Jay and the kids and I added Buster to our family after studying his "please adopt me" posting on www.petfinder.org. We haven't looked back since. We are smitten with him, all of us.

So I know where John Grogan's coming from when he says, "A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges people ... by who they are inside. A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his... Sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners, and pure intentions to help us see."

Grogan really tells two stories in this book. One story is of a hilarious, crazy, misbehaved hundred-pound retriever and how he turns the life of his master into an unpredictable, embarrassing, expensive, messy labor of love. The other story is how man's best friend captures the heart of his master and teaches him a thing or two in the process.

Really cool elements:

Naughty dogs like Marley are pretty funny all on their own. (Especially when they're not yours!) John Grogan's wonderful, easy style and storytelling ability make them even funnier. You will laugh out loud at some of the stories in this book. And if you've ever owned a naughty dog yourself, you will see yourself in many of these stories. You might even find that you too are part of what Grogan calls the "Bad Dog Club."
Any pet owner knows that one of the most difficult parts of having a pet is coping with the eventual death of an animal that was a special and important part of life. The end of the book describes in tender detail -- with just enough levity to keep it from getting too depressing -- how the Grogan family worked through Marley's aging and death. It's really a pretty beautiful account of how a family deals with loss.
Grogan gives ode to Marley's life by describing how he "was a central player in some of the happiest chapters in our lives... chapters of young love and new beginnings, of budding careers and tiny babies. Of heady successes and crushing disappointments, of discovery and freedom and self-realization. He came into our lives just as we were trying to figure out what they would become." I love how the story of Marley was inseparable from the story of this man's life: his marriage, his children, his work, his friendships. Dogs are like that. Dogs are just ... cool.

Not-so-cool elements:

Being a Dog Person, I really can't think of anything in the book to complain about. Except for the fact that the story might be lost on Non-Dog People. So if you're not into dogs, you might want to just skim. I can see a Cat Person trying to get through this book and thinking, "Please. Do we really need to know about every couch-eating incident? Every embarrassing moment in the dog obedience class? Every instance of finding some bizarre foreign object in the piles that Marley deposited in the back yard?" If you're not into dogs, the book might feel a little like listening to some over-involved parent prattling on about their wonderful children, when anyone with eyes can see that the kids are little demons who would be better off at reform school.

A Walk in the Woods

2006-07-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

written by Bill Bryson

There are few books that appeal to me enough that I read them multiple times. This is one of them. I think I've had a copy of A Walk in the Woods on my bookshelf since 1999 — not the same copy all that time, mind you, because I keep giving this book away and re-buying it. It's that good.

I know you're probably thinking that, since I kind of have a thing for hiking, any book about the Appalachian Trail would earn a permanent spot in my library. Not so. In fact, the only other AT book I own is the austere but sensible Appalachian Trail Data Book which, in 74 pages (each crammed with five narrow columns of 6-pt. font), lists every shelter, water source, road crossing, campsite, and other point of note along the 2200-mile Trail. Helpful, but not exactly something you keep on your nightstand for pleasure reading.

In the category of more prose-y AT books, there are lots of titles out there, and trust me, most of them aren't worth hanging onto — reason being, they're written by hikers who decide to try their hand at writing. Bill Bryson, on the other hand, is a writer who decides to try his hand at hiking. The result is a wonderfully easy read that gives you a taste of what it's like for an ordinary joe to attempt a very big hiking trip.

I hadn't read the book in a while but picked it up again earlier this summer, after returning from a seven-day hike on the Appalachian Trail through Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I was prompted to re-read it — this was probably my third or fourth time — because while hiking through Newfound Gap, another hiker remarked to me, "Hey, now we can say we've made it further than Bryson did." (Bryson abandoned his lofty ambition of "thru-hiking" the 2200-mile trail after the first few hundred miles.) Since the story details a lot of Bryson's impressions of the very section of the trail I had just finished, I really wanted to go back and compare his experience with mine.

The book tells of how Bryson first learns of the trail ("Not long after I moved to New Hampshire I happened upon a path that vanished into a wood on the edge of town..."), how he enlists the companionship of the wayward but loveable and out-of-shape Stephen Katz, and their colorful experiences as they seek to conquer "the granddaddy of long hikes."

Not-so-cool elements:

Some AT purists out there would have you believe that since Bryson aborted mission after the first few hundred miles, he's a complete failure who has no business telling others what it's like to hike the Trail. These same people are usually the ones who also lose sleep over the fact that Katz commits the indecent act of unashamedly littering in the wild by flinging coffee filters, brown sugar, cheese, peanuts, and Spam into the woods in a desperate attempt to lighten his backpack. And! Bryson commits the equally egregious act of recounting all this as a string of wildly humorous anecdotes. To anyone upset by this, I must just say: Come. On. People. Not that I at all condone the mistreatment of our environment, but please. Lighten up. It's a book. And the guy is trying to be funny.
If you're looking for a blow-by-blow guidebook-style account of everything you'd encounter on the AT if you hiked from the top of Springer Mountain to Newfound Gap, this isn't it. Having hiked the same stretch that Bryson did, it's interesting to notice not only what Bryson chose to include in his book, but also what he chose to omit. I guess it's evidence that, as my friends on Whiteblaze are fond of saying, everyone's gotta hike their own hike.
Bryson is very critical of the National Park system and their efforts at conservation. I found this a little off-putting, especially after spending a fair amount of time hiking alongside park service employees who have laid down their very lives to care for the woods and the trail.
Bryson is none too complimentary of southern culture. Being a Yank myself, I have to admit that I share some of his prejudicial impressions. Just know that if you live south of Cincinatti, it's likely that you'll take offense at some of the jabs he makes.
The cover of the book leads you to believe there's a great bear story here. There isn't. The first time I read the book, I kept waiting to get to the part about the bear, and it never came. That did bug me some.

Really cool elements:

Even if you've never hiked a mile in your life, you'll enjoy this book because so much of it is more about the human experience than about hiking, or about the AT. While Bryson wittily describes his foray into the wilderness, he also gently and humorously opens up all kinds of sensitive topics, including conservation of our fragile environment, our astonishingly sedentary culture, friendship, and loyalty. Even alcoholism gets some air time in this book. There's a lot more here than just a funny travelogue.
If you've never been out in the wild for days on end, away from creature comforts, or if you've ever casually wondered, "How would it be to subsist on dehydrated food and Power Bars while walking up and down mountains until my feet resemble hamburger," this book is a great low-risk method of exploring such things. Though Bryson, like any author, takes some artistic license in his storytelling, his account of the AT is, in my estimation, pretty true to life.
I love books that are funny and easy to read but still have interesting story lines and concepts that stretch one to think a bit. Bryson's satiric wit and Dave-Barry-ish writing style make this feel like an easy read. But he inserts enough societal and relational issues that you feel like it's also a good-for-you kind of book.

Airframe

2006-06-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

Written by Michael Crichton

When I first started reading this novel, something about it felt suspiciously familiar. But since there are a slew of plane-crash disaster stories out there, I figured maybe I'd read something similar once. About halfway through, though, I realized that I had read this book, or at least part of it, maybe ten years ago. The details were hazy in my memory, and I don't think I ever finished it. Which should have been a warning sign. It's a pretty slow, lackluster story.

In a nutshell: a flight from Hong Kong to Denver unexpectedly starts "porpoising" — pitching violently up and then down several times. End result: four people dead, 56 injured. Casey Singleton, a nice, wholesome midwestern type who has managed to make her way to a VP position at Norton aircraft (the builder of the plane), is assigned the duty of investigating what went wrong. While she's unraveling the myriad of details related to the accident, a bitter labor dispute is brewing, and an investigative news program is trying to expose Norton as a negligent, money-hungry corporate beast that has no regard for passenger safety.

Really cool elements:

I loved the way Crichton makes fun of the media. The television people in this story are of the "60 Minutes" variety. Crichton has some fun developing their characters as shallow, finger-pointing monsters who are only interested in sensationalizing the accident for the sake of their ratings.

Not-so-cool elements:

There was an awful lot of technical detail, without much explanatory help for those of us who don't build or service airplanes. Lots of acronyms too (which I'm sure is reflective of real life in the airplane-building industry). Maybe I'm just not enough of a gearhead to get my brain around all the details, but I found it easy to get bogged down.
Some of the subplots just end up going nowhere. For example, in the first half of the book, some of Norton's union thugs are out to get Casey; the company even assigns 24-hour bodyguards to trail her every move. But we never find out anything concrete about the thugs who lurk in the dark hangar corners, and we never hear any more about the guards (wouldn't they kind of have an impact on her daily life?)
The ending really lacked punch. After 350 pages, I felt like I deserved a much more exciting explanation for why the plane nosedived.

3rd Degree

2006-06-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

Written by James Patterson and Andrew Gross

Could someone please explain to me why I still read James Patterson? I guess you either love him or you hate him, and believe me, based on the last Patterson book I read, I was hesitant to start this one. But so many of his novels get such good reviews, I thought I'd give him another try.

This book was one of several I picked up at the Dexter Library's used book sale as potential reading material for my spring backpacking trip to the Smokies. Being an aspiring ultralight backpacker, I wanted a very light read — and I do mean that literally. This one made the cut because it weighed a few ounces less than the other options, according to the scale on my kitchen counter.

The story: Police Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer just happens to be jogging by a house as it blows up. She runs inside to perform a heroic rescue and then is the only one smart enough to figure out that a red backpack placed suspiciously near the house is connected to the bombing. (None of the fire/rescue/police personnel even notice this.) In the ensuing days, several related homicides follow, all linked by melodramatic messages from a mysterious perpetrator self-named "August Spies." One victim happens to be a close friend of Linday's; and since another friend of hers just happens to be the medical examiner, Lindsay stands around watching the autopsy. (Are you getting the feeling this story is slightly unrealistic? Wait, there's more.) Lindsay singlehandedly figures out the identity of the murderer, makes all the necessary arrests, and pretty much carries the world on her shoulders while still finding time to chat it up with her girlfriends at the coffee shop and snag the hottie from the Department of Homeland Security who swoops in from Washington to help with the case.

Not-so-cool elements:

All the main characters in this book are female. You might think that's kind of cool at first, in a "you go girl" sort of way. But within the first 10 or so pages, you realize it's all just a contrived, patronizing attempt by Patterson to cash in on the women's book clubs who might be drawn to absolutely outlandish girl-power dramas.
This is a very predictable, made-for-TV-type novel. Both the story and the characters are flat and unrealistic. There is just nothing inventive here. When you're through, you'll feel like you just read a glammed-up Hardy Boys mystery.

Really cool elements:

If you're looking for a quick no-brainer that you can read anywhere, anytime, and still follow the plot effortlessly despite distractions, this is the book for you. And actually, it served that purpose pretty well when I took it on my backpacking trip! I was able to pick it up briefly each evening after an exhausting day of hiking, and just veg out a little bit while reading. I know I'm being kind of hard on Patterson in some of my criticisms, but isn't there a time and a place for silly novels? I think so.
At least it's a low-risk read. I spent a whopping fifty cents to purchase this book used. A quick search of Amazon.com shows 288 copies available for $.01 each. (Does that not send a certain message? Kinda like walking into a restaurant that's absolutely empty at 7 p.m. on a Friday night?)

The Nanny Diaries

2006-04-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

Anyone who has ever smugly noticed the flaws in another person's parenting style (that includes pretty much all of us, right?) will find some enjoyment in this book. It's billed as a novel, but because the two authors spent a combined eight years working as real nannies for real Manhattan families, you know that there's more truth to this story than meets the eye!

To sum up the theme: a spunky, down-to-earth graduate student gets a job caring for the only child of a wealthy Park Avenue couple. The parents are condescending, dictatorial, and ungrateful toward the nanny, and they're coldly detached from their four-year-old son. Sounds like a somber story, I know. But the authors do a great job of picking on the upper-crustiness of the family, and wrapping it in such humor! The nanny's employers are just so rich and snooty (and their parenting shows it!), that you can't wait to keep uncovering more evidence of how they're completely out of touch with real life. Most of the anecdotes revolve around the wealthy, uptight mommy, who has way too much money and way too much time on her hands.

If you're a snobby Park Avenue parent, you'll probably be offended by this book. Everyone else will probably get some good laughs from it.

Really cool elements:

For the most part, this is a quick, fun, easy read. Good choice for the beach or a vacation.
Might seem like a minor point, but I liked how the main character in this story (the nanny) is named, intuitively enough, "Nanny." Similarly, the family for which Nanny works is called the "X" family — as in "I was hired by Mr. and Mrs. X to care for their 4-year-old son." Some will find this pretty cheesy, but I think the naming is a kind of cute way for the authors to send the message that they really are sharing some true-to-life stories and have genericized the names to protect those involved.

Not-so-cool elements:

My major complaint — and it's a big one — is that, unlike most of the book, the ending was anything but funny. In fact, it might be so disturbing that you wish you hadn't read the book at all. The final chapter was abrupt, far-fetched, lacked closure, and felt quite mismatched to the rest of the story. Very disappointing, because the authors had built up such an entertaining groove by reveling in the parental sins of the X family, but then blew it by turning the plot dark and serious.
A side story about Nanny's relationship with a young man felt like a cheap, raunchy afterthought to the main plot. Looked to me like a really lame attempt at baking in a "love interest" when none was needed.

The Queen's Fool

2006-03-27T06:11:00.000-08:00

written by Philippa Gregory

I'm not usually one to read sequels or go on a book-series jag, but since I enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl and had the next of Gregory's books on hand, I figured I'd pick it up. The Queen's Fool takes a little different approach to historical fiction, and I like it. Unlike in The Other Boleyn Girl, the main character, Hannah Verde, is completely fictitious, and she tells quite a story of her own. Along the way, she gets you into the court and you experience the dramatic turbulence of Queen Mary's reign, from her rise to power to her heartbroken end.

Hannah is a young Jewish girl who has fled to England from Spain with her father. While working in her father's printing business, she is noticed by Robert Dudley, a dashing and iconic court figure. Dudley brings Hannah to the court as a "holy fool" because Hannah has the gift of "sight" — a prophetic leaning which sometimes reveals to her future events or truths.

A little background to fill in the gap between the end of The Other Boleyn Girl and the beginning of The Queen's Fool: when Hannah comes to court, King Edward is on the throne. He is Henry VIII's only son and, too young and too sickly to rule the country, he is cared for and advised by protectors and counselors, of which Dudley's father is one. Edward's two half-sisters are Princess Mary — daughter of Queen Catherine, who Henry divorced in order to marry Ann Boleyn — and Princess Elizabeth — daughter of Ann Boleyn.

Hannah quickly gets caught up in a variety of toxic rivalries. She swoons over Dudley even while promised in marriage to a respectable Jewish boy of her father's choosing. She works as a spy for Dudley even while serving Queen Mary with devoted adoration. She later cares for Princess Elizabeth even though the princess is in a fierce battle with Mary for the throne and the heart of England.

Really cool elements:

Knowing that the main character was decidedly fictitious, I felt less distracted by whether the book was historically accurate or not. I guess knowing that there's lots of fabrication freed me up a bit to just enjoy the story.
Gregory keeps many plots going at once, but never so many that you get confused or lose interest. The book is surprisingly readable, considering the slew of characters and how much is going on among them. Being a romantic, I especially liked the story of Hannah's initial rejection of Daniel (her betrothed) and the way their relationship changes over the years into one of tolerance, then admiration and respect, and then beautiful, faithful love. And I liked how their story contrasts so starkly with the way love and relationships are portrayed among the royals.
Though you can read this book and enjoy it without first reading The Other Boleyn Girl, I'm glad I read the two books in succession, because I liked how Gregory builds the character of Elizabeth to so strongly reflect Elizabeth's mother, Ann Boleyn. There's also a strong theme of sisterly rivalry that carries through both books, and I liked that too.
The book does a great job of bringing out the fact that our allegiances and affections are often paradoxical. I appreciate that portrayal, because I think all of us are riddled with paradox — at least I know I am! For example, observing Hannah's admiration of Queen Mary, I'm reminded that it's possible to be a virtuous, powerful, gracious person (like Mary) on one hand — but on the other hand commit atrocious, hurtful, damaging acts of barbarism (also like Mary). And watching Hannah's volatile affections first for Lord Robert and later for Daniel, I'm reminded how I too seek independence and empowerment in my relationships — yet at the same time I expect to be cared for and protected.

Not-so-cool elements:

Hannah's character was an awful lot like Mary Boleyn in Gregory's last book. Other than that, the only thing that was a little bothersome was that this novel wasn't so quick a read as The Other Boleyn Girl. In fact, I wasn't totally hooked till about the halfway point. Then it became hard to put down.

The Other Boleyn Girl

2006-02-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

written by Philippa Gregory

I am normally not one to pick up a nearly-700-page book. My mother-in-law, however (who left this book here for me when she visited at Christmastime), assured me it would be a very quick read. How true! It took me about a week, start to finish, and it was certainly a captivating story.

Billed as historical fiction, the novel introduces the lesser-known Boleyn sister, Mary, and uses her voice to tell a tale of love, deceit, politics, and power struggles as it follows the Boleyn family's attempt to gain a foothold in the court of King Henry VIII. Stopping at nothing to win the King's favor, Mary's uncle, upon noticing Henry's interest in Mary, arranges for 14-year-old Mary to become Henry's mistress. (This despite the fact that two years prior Mary had been given in an arranged marriage to another man of the court, and Henry had been wed to Queen Katherine for many years.) After a few years of "bedding the King," Mary gets eclipsed by her sister Anne, a much more cunning and manipulative sort with greater worldly beauty and magnetism than the dignified but humble Mary.

What begins as Anne's attempt to elevate her family's station in the royal pecking order evolves into a more self-centered plot: she ultimately ousts the virtuous Queen Katherine — poisoning and blackmailing a few courtiers and royal counselors along the way — and becomes queen herself by marrying Henry. To her own chagrin, though, she is unable to produce what Henry ultimately wants from her: a male heir. And we all know what happens to her in the end.

Really cool elements:

This book helped me understand why Britons are so taken with the drama and intrigue wrapped up in the royal family. It's kind of like the morbid fascination our country has (or had) with the wiles of the Kennedy family, only on a much grander scale. It's like politics as entertainment.
I love the literary technique of re-telling a famous story through the perspective of a not-so-famous character...
...and what an an appealing character Gregory spins up in Mary! She's a spirited but helpless pawn, caught in perpetual competition with an evil sister and victimized by a male-centric social system. And though she's a privileged and refined member of nobility, eventually she chooses to marry for love (instead of class) once she decides she can make a break from the corrupt goings-on in the royal court. She loves her children fiercely, she serves and supports her family tirelessly, she accepts her lot in life with dignity and grace. You can't help but pull for her as you read.
Though the story doesn't exactly match up flawlessly with history, the flavor you get for a life in the day of the Tudor dynasty is, I am told, pretty accurate. It's very eye-opening, this glimpse into royal culture. It sheds light on the moral and spiritual tumult that can result when a society pays blind devotion to a very fallible human being. It's a good lesson even for our culture — though our society no longer idolizes a king, as individuals we are sometimes tempted to ascribe undue power and influence to other fallible humans, like presidents, pastors, bosses, spouses, parents, teachers, whoever.

Not-so-cool elements:

Don't make the mistake of thinking this book is a pure portrayal of real history. Spend twenty minutes Googling "Mary Boleyn," "Henry VIII," and "Anne Boleyn" and you'll find more than a handful of discrepancies between historians' beliefs and Gregory's novel. I realize that "historical fiction" by definition includes fabrications of real characters' feelings, conversations, etc. And I do know that some historical records are patchy enough that authors must exercise artistic license to fill in the gaps. But many of the details in Gregory's story contradict verifiable facts. For example, most historians believe Mary was at least 16 or 18 before being foisted upon King Henry by her family; Gregory's version puts her at barely 14. Also, history shows that Mary had no contact with her sister Anne during the final few years of Anne's life; Gregory's story has their lives tightly intertwined all the way up to the time of Anne's public execution. Even more interesting is what Gregory chooses to omit from her story: before Mary ever became bedfellows with Henry, she was mistress to the King of France! I will admit, though, that the incongruity between the book and reality doesn't really both me that much, because ultimately books like these give me an appetite to dig and research and discover truth — and that can only be a good thing.
Gregory's story vehemently villanizes Anne Boleyn as a power-hungry monster with absolutely no moral boundaries, especially when it came to advancing her own position. Since I knew next to nothing about English history at the time I picked up this book, at first I assumed this portrayal was accurate. Only after reading some background information on the Boleyns did I find that Anne, even though she wasn't exactly a popular favorite among the English people, probably was wrongly accused of the adultery charge that led to her beheading. In fact, she is almost universally believed to have been a deeply religious person with very clear moral convictions. The same is true of her brother George, whose role in Gregory's novel wasn't exactly savory either.
This is petty, but some of the sentence structures in this novel are horrid. Maybe it's just a cultural thing (the author is English) or maybe it's because she is emulating patterns typical in English writings from the 1500s. In any case, sentence fragments abound. For example: "We sat long over dinner, this court had become gluttons." What harm would there be in using a semicolon instead of a period in that sentence?

The Lincoln Lawyer

2006-02-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

written by Michael Connelly

I borrowed this novel from my friend and co-worker Diane (I say co-worker because she doesn't like being called my boss, even though that's what she is!). Once she heard that I had read Consent to Kill, she left this book on my desk because it has similar themes of tension, action, and suspense. I started it around Christmas time but things got too busy with holiday stuff, and I had too many other parenting books and work-related reading material going, so I didn't really get too far into it till last week. After about fifty pages, I couldn't put it down and plowed through the rest in a matter of days!

The jacket of the book says that this is Michael Connelly's first legal thriller. That's hard to believe, considering the confidence with which he writes about courtroom goings-on and the criminal justice system. From the background information I've read about his writing and this book in particular, it appears he's quite a master of research, and I think he must've done a sugarload of it for this book. Not that I'd have any idea if his writing has any resemblance to real-life legal proceedings, but I like his easy style and he comes across at least as in-the-know as Grisham. (Whether that's saying something or not, I don't know!)

The story is told from the voice of Mickey Haller, a "bottom-feeding trial lawyer" whose livelihood involves getting criminals off the hook, whether they're truly innocent or not. In Haller's words, "The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation...my job was to peel away the paint and find the cracks...to make them so big that either the house fell down or, failing that, my client slipped through."

The book focuses on a "franchise case" in which Haller represents a wealthy young real-estate broker (Louis Ross Roulet) who's willing to pay big money for Haller to defend him. Roulet's being nailed for the assault and attempted murder of a prostitute, and all evidence points to no one but him. As the case unfolds, it becomes pretty obvious that Roulet is, as they say, guilty as sin — and the case at hand isn't his only offense. As Haller learns of the depth of Roulet's history, Haller himself gets pulled into a tangled web through a set-up in which Roulet makes it appear that Haller actually committed a heinous crime. The remainder of the book portrays how Haller manages to defend a client who now has the potential to ruin Haller's life and career.

Really cool elements:

Okay, by now you know I'm a sucker for a book that's not afraid to do a little moralizing. Though Haller's certainly no saint, I like how Connelly weaves in themes of true justice, and in the process (especially in the ending of the book), reveals that even a bottom-feeding trial lawyer has a conscience.
Though some of the stuff that happens is a little predictable, there are a few twists toward the end that will surprise you. Or at least they surprised me. I love that.
The last 150 pages (the book has about 400 pages total) describe the courtoom proceedings for the Roulet case. If you had told me that before I picked up this book, I would've never opened it up. I'd have assumed that even 20 pages —much less 150! — focusing on courtroom stuff would've bored me silly. But Connelly keeps it all very fast-moving and engaging, and I had no trouble staying interested. (This, I'm sure, is where his story-telling differs wildly from real-life litigation!)

Not-so-cool elements:

Not much to crow about. Some gratuitous swear words and stuff like that, but nothing you wouldn't expect out of a legal thriller.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

2005-12-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

written by Alan Alda

Alan Alda is just one of those people that you can't help but like. And I don't think it's just because of the Hawkeye thing — I think he really is a nice, likeable, genuine person, or at the very least a really, really good actor who plays the part well. His book is an enjoyable, quick read.

I picked it up because of its title — how can this one not draw you in!? The message behind the title stems from one of the stories in the book: as a youngster, Alda had a dog named Rhapsody, who died and ended up being taxidermied by his well-meaning parents. His point is that sometimes there are experiences or relationships in our lives that are useful, precious, exciting, life-changing — but once they've run their course, it's okay to let them go. Propping them up artificially and trying to pretend that they're still alive and vibrant can be destructive, painful, or in the case of Rhapsody, just plain strange.

Really cool elements:

Alda is so frank and real that anyone can identify with him. He doesn't put on airs of superiority or trump up his accomplishments. In fact, he comes across as an ordinary guy who's thankful for the opportunities he's been given and a bit amazed that he even made it big in show business.
How many actors do you know who have been married to the same person for nearly fifty years and still talk as if they really like their spouse? How refreshing! It's very clear that through the difficult times in his adult life, Alda's wife Arlene was a source of comfort and encouragement.
I vaguely knew Alda had some issues with his Catholic school experiences and wondered if he would use the book as a vehicle to express some bitterness toward God. He does talk about some faith crises, and I wouldn't call his position on religion complimentary to the church, but certainly there was nothing venomous or hateful.

Not-so-cool elements:

We all know Alan Alda is funny, and because the title seemed funny, I thought the whole book would be funny. It wasn't. There are funny parts, but much of it — especially the first hundred or so pages — are kind of sad and depressing. You learn a lot of details about his not-so-normal childhood and the problems in his family. Not that I think he should've whitewashed all that; I guess I just didn't expect it.
While Alda's sense of humor works great as spontaneous, improvisational comedy, it comes across a little disjointed in print. The book feels very stream-of-consciousness, with no real overarching theme. In fact, I think it's kind of a stretch to call it an autobiography. To me it seems more like just a string of loosely related anecdotal stories of his life, many of which I wish he had developed further. For example, I wanted to know more about his relationship with his schizophrenic mother, the joys and struggles of parenting his three girls, and how on earth he held his marriage together through some really difficult times.

Bold Spirit

2005-12-11T04:07:00.000-08:00

written by Linda Lawrence Hunt

My sweet mother-in-law sent me this book not long before I headed out to the Appalachian Trail for another hiking adventure. Perfect reading for a hike! It's about a woman who completes the monumental challenge of walking across America with her teenaged daughter from Spokane to New York City, unaided, in 1896. I was so fascinated by the premise of the book — epsecially in light of my own odyssey of completing the Appalachian Trail — that not only did I read it en route to the trailhead in North Carolina, I actually added it to my backpack so that I could continue reading while I was out in the wild. Now, that might not sound so astounding, but trust me — any object that is not absolutely necessary for survival (especially one that weighs 11.125 ounces, like this book does) has to be pretty captivating if I'm going to consider adding it to a backpack that's already frighteningly close to 35 pounds.

The story is of a Norwegian immigrant named Helga Estby, whose life appears to have been filled with hardship from the get-go. She emigrated from Norway to Manistee, Michigan with her parents (she was an only child) at age 11 and just four years later, found she was pregnant. The circumstances of her pregnancy are unknown. It appears she soon became party to a marriage arranged by her family. Her groom was an older Norwegian man who was likely not the father of her child. Together they endured a harrowing move across the country and several devastating events, including a fire and fears of debilitating diseases that devastated many prairie communities. They eventually settled in the Pacific Northwest, and life was very hard. In additon to Helga's firstborn, Clara, they had seven more children and endured the constant physical and financial struggles of a pioneer family. Helga survived a life-threatening "female illness" (no further details on her malady exist) that required dangerous corrective surgery. A wildly fluctuating economy made it impossible to sustain financial security. At the time that Helga began walking across the country, the family was in such financial straits that they were in danger of losing their farm and all that they owned.

Which is the biggest reason why Helga undertook the challenge of walking those thousands of miles. Apparently, some mysterious sponsor in New York offered to pay $10,000 to Helga if she was able to complete the journey according to an agreed-upon contract which stipulated a strict timeline and rules. That sum of money, in Helga's estimation, would help her and her husband unbury from their debt and preserve their farm and family.

Really cool elements:

Just the idea of this woman and her daughter (Clara, age 18, accompanied Helga on her journey) taking on such an unthinkable challenge is so cool! Though the hiking I do on the Appalachian Trail certainly pales in comparison to what Helga and Clara endured, I love reading about seeminly ordinary women of previous generations who pushed back boundaries and took on things that no one thought they could handle. One particular quote near the end of the book says it all: "For women to walk unescorted in the wilderness...was simply incomprehensible..." (p. 248). Have I not heard those words myself?!
I love how Helga's adventure is not just a story of a woman and her daughter doing something amazing; it's also a reflection of a bigger picture that colored the culture of the 1800s. Society as a whole — both women and men — was grappling with the ideas of women's worth, women's rights, and women's tenacity. People's reactions to Helga and her journey were very mixed. Some admired her. Many disdained her. She was doing something that women "weren't really supposed to do." (Sad to say, in some ways, times haven't changed that much! Any woman I know can easily point to countless examples of ways she is heavily influenced by what others deem is proper — or improper — for our gender.) The author does a great job of showing how this bold walk exemplified the emergence of a new attitude towards women's roles and abilities.
Ladies, it will definitely give you a certain "girl-power" feeling to read this book, but the really cool thing is that it doesn't do so at the expense of men. I get so sick of how feminist literature often implies that recognizing women's worth requires that we simultaneously malign and scorn men. This book rightly allows the worth of women to stand on its own, with no need to trash the other gender.

Not-so-cool elements:

The author is a scholar, and it shows. In many places the book reads like a research paper because, well, it is! This isn't a bad thing; it just makes for some boring passages that I think an artsy-er writer could've breathed a little more life into.
You might become frustrated by the lack of detail on certain topics. For example, there's no firm information on the mysterious New York sponsor. Who was it? Was Helga hand-picked by this person, or was some kind of contest involved? What were Helga's fears, concerns, triumphs? Unfortunately, many, many details of the story have been lost. Helga's memoirs were destroyed by family members who disapproved of her adventure and took steps to silence her story. Sad.

Consent to Kill

2005-11-26T15:15:00.000-08:00

written by Vince Flynn

So I was at this conference with my friend and colleague, Catherine, and after five days of absorbing all kinds of information about corporate universities and how we might help launch one, our eyes were bloodshot and our brains were reduced to pastey mush. As I prepared for my flight home, I was longing to self-medicate with a good mind-numbing novel, but foolishly had forgotten to bring any pleasure reading. Well, Cat had just the thing for me. She had finished Consent to Kill on the way to the conference, so that became my elixir on the ride back to Detroit. I was a little leery at first because, although Catherine raved about this book, she described it as a really great "suspenseful political thriller," which is not a genre that would normally hook me. See, I'm generally repelled by anything with the word "political" in it ... plus I'm not that great at keeping track of dozens of characters with lots of interrelationships and a complicated story line. Give me some intrigue, sure, but don't make me work too hard for it.

Well, now I'm a "suspenseful political thriller" convert and there's no going back. To use a cliché, I was riveted to this book until the last page. And I mean to the point of allowing the laundry to pile up and ignoring my family's pleas for dinner.

The novel is the latest in a series about a CIA "special operative" (read: hit man) named Mitch Rapp. Because he is reputed to be the killer of a fanatical Muslim terrorist (that story's covered in an earlier book, I believe), the terrorist's father, aided by a crooked Saudi prince, hires a pair of international assassins to do away with Rapp. Their plot is foiled when (stop reading if you don't want me to spoil the story for you!) they accidentally kill Rapp's newly pregnant wife but only injure Rapp himself. The story becomes more complicated when the assassins (a man and wife who are romantically involved) learn they too are expecting a child. The rest of the novel follows Rapp's maniacal quest to avenge his wife's death by finding and killing those responsible.

Really cool elements:

You'll be engrossed in this story from the first page. Trust me. Flynn skillfully unpacks a complicated story line without losing my attention, which is no small feat.
If you forget a name or a detail that was mentioned a hundred or so pages ago (which I am wont to do), no problem. Flynn very tactfully bakes in reminders of who's who so you don't get lost. It makes me feel much less mentally feeble about reading a book with a complex plot.
The ending is very surprising. Rapp has a perfect opportunity to kill the assassins who murdered his wife, but he chooses to let them be. I'll let you read the book to find out why. It's a good twist.

Not-so-cool elements:

I have almost no complaints, but there are several passages that detail graphic torture and violence. None of them seemed overdone or excessively long, but if that sort of thing bothers you, it might sour you on the book. Then again, what can you expect from a novel about professional assassins who are on the hunt to dust each other?

Disgrace

2005-08-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

written by J.M. Coetzee

This novel was recommended to me by Michelle, my book-loving sister-in-law who is a librarian at the Plymouth Library (and whom I can always count on as a great source for thought-provoking literature!). It tells of the pitiful demise of David Lurie, a white South African professor whose indiscriminate sexual appetite winds up getting him fired after he seduces (rapes?) one of his students. He drops out of the university scene, intending to spend some time regrouping at the home of his earthy twentysomething daughter Lucy, who owns a combination dog kennel/organic farm. Misfortune seems to follow him, and the farm is burglarized by some thugs who also beat up Lurie and rape Lucy. The rest of the novel tells of his leaving the farm for a time to work on an opera he's writing, then returning to try to get Lucy to move away from the farm and away from danger.

Really cool elements:

If you can get past Lurie's abhorrent view of women, the book contains some interesting paradoxes that show the moral disconnect which often plagues the human heart. For example, He nonchalantly objectifies women in general... yet seems to feel genuine love for his daughter Lucy. He is a professor of "Communications"... yet can't seem to master the art himself. He has no functional relationships in his life (even his relationship with Lucy is strained) ... yet begins to feel something resembling compassion for unwanted dogs in a veterinary clinic where he begins to volunteer. I can identify areas in my own life where similar paradoxes emerge. I think it's evidence that we have both (1) an innate thirst for virtue and "rightness," because we're all made in the image of a perfect Creator, and (2) an inexplicable attraction to abasement, because we're also born with a bent toward sin. The novel does a good job showing this. Maybe too good.

Not-so-cool elements:

I was so repulsed by Lurie and his dehumanizing view of women that it was difficult to pay respects to the the overarching story. About the first 75 pages are devoted to a subplot focusing on Lurie's relationship with a prostitute. This sets the stage for his alarming emotional manipulation and physical seduction of Melanie (the student), which by any standards is painful to read. Later in the novel, while staying with his daughter Lucy, he matter-of-factly seduces one of Lucy's friends: middle-aged Bev Shaw, with whom he has begun working at the animal clinic. Lack of moral character is one thing, but complete and repeated disregard for the value of women really bothers me. It made me angry at the author and became such a major distraction that I had a hard time even finishing the book.
At the end of the book (and this is a spoiler, so be warned if you plan on reading it yourself!) Lurie finds some sort of peace in arranging for the euthanization of a dog that he has become particularly attached to. I tried hard to figure out what this is supposed to symbolize, and I just couldn't come up with anything that made sense. Is he finally saying goodbye to any shred of decency he has left? Is he letting go of his desire to control his daughter's decisions? Trying to put to death the parts of his character which make him tick but which he knows are immoral? I still don't know.
I found myself wishing for more detail about Lurie's daughter. What were her thoughts about her father and his moral demise? What were her thoughts about the rape and burglary? Did she somehow see these things as related? Didn't she fear for her safety after the assault? I thought it odd that she would choose to stay on in a place that was dangerous, even after the known rapist moved in next door with her former hired-hand. Having known closely a handful of women who have been assaulted in real life, I wish that Lucy had at least had her own voice in this story. Her character seemed underdeveloped to me.
This might be trivial, but it seems silly that Lurie's daughter calls him "David" and not "Dad" or something similar. Is it a sign of their dysfunctional relationship? Or perhaps a sign that she never really considered him a father figure? Who knows, but it's annoying.
Because I know next to nothing about South Africa, I wish the author would've brought in more description about the surroundings, the people, and the culture. Odd that he would even choose South Africa as a setting and then opt not to flavor the novel with lots of detail about that part of the world and its people. In fact, at times I didn't even know if certain characters were white or black (Melanie the student, some of Lurie's colleagues, Bev Shaw, the police who investigated Lucy's rape and burglary), and whether this had any impact on their interrelationships.

The Poisonwood Bible

2005-08-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

written by Barbara Kingsolver

This was a really disturbing book on many levels, yet I'm really glad that I read it. The novel chronicles the lives of the wife and daughters of a total nut case (Nathan Price) who passed himself off as a Baptist missionary to Congo in the 1960s. (You might know Congo as Zaire, which is what it was called from 1971 to 1997.) I call Price a nut case because the guy's character (or lack thereof) literally destroyed his family, alienated the very people he was trying to impact, and painted such a warped picture of God that I'm betting most readers of this novel (unless they already have a firm faith in God to begin with) will most certainly be driven further from him (God, not Price!) than before they picked up the book.

Granted, the author provides some background for why Price is such a kook, but still. It made me long to have a private moment with each reader of this book and gently explain that not all missionaries are self-seeking, condescending, holier-than-thou proselytizers whose main goal is to force Western culture onto foreign nations. There really does exist a pretty vast number of people who sacrifice their careers, wealth, comforts, possessions, and the familiarity of home in order to respectfully and humbly bring a selfless, unadulterated Gospel to people who have never heard the name of Christ. I know this because I've met people like this, even worked alongside people like this briefly in Argentina. And their goal really isn't to sweep away a culture's identity in the name of God, or to make that culture bow to the ideals of Western capitalism or even democracy.

But I digress.

The book is really well done. The main characters take turns telling their story in first-person. Sometimes the stories they relate overlap, sometimes not.

Really cool elements:

Kingsolver does a fabulous job portraying Rachel, the sister you love to hate. She is shallow, selfish, unthinking, blonde (in every sense of the word) and generally the archetype of that annoying relative we all have -- the one you're embarrassed to share a gene pool with. Particularly witty is the way Kingsolver allows Rachel to unknowingly reveal her dimness through constant linguistic faux pas. For example: "You have your way of thinking and [Africa] has its, and never the train ye shall meet." Another one that made me laugh right out loud was, "Nelson was not going to sleep in our chicken house for all the teeth in China."
The portrayal of Adah (one of the middle sisters, who suffers from some vague mental and neurological disorders) is fascinating. Adah is a study in paradoxes. She is brilliant yet mentally challenged; incredibly strong, yet her physical body is damaged goods. And as you read her narrative you really do get right inside her head and experience with her the pain and tragedy of her African (and then American) experience.
Perhaps the most valuable part of this book, to me at least, was that it offers quite an education on the dramatic political upheaval that brought Congo out from under the thumb of Belgium and into its own African nation, for better or for worse. It just makes me realize how little I know of world affairs and the abhorrent corruption that often disguises itself as "aid" to poor nations. The atrocities committed are eerily similar to what is happening in present-day Iraq.

Not-so-cool elements:

This book was torturously long, at least to me. Have I ever read a book that's 543 pages?
As I mentioned above, it's sad that a lot of readers will come away from this book with a bad taste in their mouths about Western missionaries.

The Beach House

2005-08-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

written by James Patterson

Which came first, Grisham or Patterson?

This is only the second novel I've read by James Patterson and it was vastly different than the first (which was Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas, but that's an entry for another day). The Beach House is pretty captivating in a Grisham-esque way, which is fine if you like that sort of thing. And I do, when I'm in the right mood. Nothing wrong with a somewhat predictable, formulaic good-guy-versus-bad-guy(s) plot, with a little love story and litigation thrown in for good measure.

The story takes place on Long Island and is told by Jack Mullen, a local boy who's nearly done with his law degree at Columbia. Jack's brother Peter is found dead on the shore the morning after a wealthy businessman throws a swanky party at a beachfront mansion. Jack is convinced that the police, who chalk up the death to suicide, are puppets for the wealthy businessman and are covering up the real reasons for Peter's death. The book follows Jack's quest to discover the facts and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Really cool elements:

Call me schmaltzy, but I like the idea that a regular smalltown guy can take on rich, powerful, evil people and win. Though the story might be a little hokey in spots (there is a trial scene toward the end that is quite unbelievable, and the ending borders on ridiculous), I do like the message.
This book gets pretty high marks for entertainment value, because it draws you in quickly and holds your attention until the very end.

Not-so-cool elements:

As Jack uncovers details about Peter's life and the reasons for the murder, some dark and violent sexual themes surface. I'm guessing Patterson probably intended this as a way to bake in some shock and intrigue, but please. Uck.
Is it really necessary to have 113 chapters in one 350-page book? Some of the chapters were like two pages long. I felt a little insulted over that, like the author didn't trust me to have a grown-up's attention span.

My Sister's Keeper

2005-07-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

written by Jodi Picoult

It's been a long time since I've gotten worked up enough about a book that I actually cry over it. I don't know, maybe this says something about the dearth of good literature that crosses my coffee table. (Oh wait, I don't have a coffee table.) All I know is, I can count on my pal Janet to pass along a good gut-wrenching read when she finds one, and she did. I figure any book that reduces me to whimpering on my couch at three in the afternoon has to be pretty good.

The gist of the story: there are two sisters. One's 16 and in the late stages of a wicked form of leukemia. The other, who's 13, was conceived specifically to be a donor for her sister and has undergone all kinds of medical procedures in order to prolong the older sister's life. The novel begins with the 13-year-old tenuously seeking out a lawyer to help her gain medical emancipation from her parents.

As if this isn't enough, add to the mix a controlling and martyr-like (but well-intentioned) mother, a dad who's caught in the crossfire, a neglected and rebellious older brother, and you have the makings of a pretty profound page-turner.

I like the way the auther puts it: "...this isn't an easy book, and you know from the first page that there are no easy answers."

Really cool elements:

Picoult's writing style is easy and inviting. Throughout the book, she gives voice to each of the main characters, flipping back and forth among each of their perspectives. If that sounds annoying, give it a chance anyway — it's surprisingly easy to read because Picoult does it so well. I found it pretty amazing that she could, for example, go from being a 13-year-old girl, to the fortysomething firefighter dad, to the used-to-be-attorney mom, to the slimey (but yet likeable at some levels!) lawyer who represents the main character. Only thing that felt weird was, the perspective of the sick daughter was never revealed until the very end. It will become obvious why, if you read through to the last page.
Though certain characters cause a lot of messy moral themes to surface (drug use, promiscuity, arson, and parental rights are a few that come to mind), there is some form of resolution to many of these problems in the end.
And speaking of the end. If you like twisty plots like I do, this is the book for you. If you hate being shocked, better read the last chapter first.

Not-so-cool elements:

This is a great parable about human love and sacrifice, and because the main characters are teenagers, about 80 percent of the book is awesome material for the 13-and-up crowd — especially since readers of that age are beginning to look outside themselves and ponder larger issues of morality. Only problem is the other 20 percent of the book. Particularly the parts that focus on the unruly older brother, who uses some pretty raw language and gets himself into all sorts of mayhem while the rest of his family is focusing on the sick sister. There's also some hanky panky between the attorney and the court-appointed guardian ad litem, which seemed unnecessarily explicit.
For being such a realistic book, portions of the ending seemed a little too tidy, maybe far-fetched. Nuff said. I won't spoil it for you.

Snow Mountain Passage

2005-07-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

written by James D. Houston

This was a great summer read — a fascinating piece of historical fiction that brings to life the ordeal of the famous Donner Party. The story focuses mainly on James Frazier Reed, one of the group's leaders, but the author folds in recollections from Reed's daughter, Patty, who was eight at the time the pioneers attempted to cross the Sierra Nevadas.

You probably already know bits of their story because the nation developed (and still maintains) a morbid fascination with the fact that certain members of the party resorted to cannibalism — an early snow trapped most of them in the cruel mountains, with almost no means of obtaining food once their supplies ran out. What the book does, though, is go far beyond the gore (the cannibalism bit isn't even a focus of the story until about the last 75 pages) and instead affords appropriate attention to the experience of these remarkable people who gave new meaning to the idea of human endurance. Houston skillfully develops themes that we can all relate too: human conflict, power struggles, loss, grief, hopelessness, and survival — not only physical survival, but survival of the spirit.

Really cool elements:

At the risk of spoiling the book for you, I need to mention that there is a beautiful theme of reconciliation that doesn't fully materialize until the end.
Houston paints a portrait of Reed that holds him up as an amazing example of husband and father, without coming off as trite or phony. His character is genuine, believable, human, and (yes) flawed. His flaws and mistakes are what make this book captivating.
Teachers and parents won't have trouble recommending this book to kids that are middle-school-aged and older. Though some of the themes are disturbing, they reflect the conflicts we experience in real life. There are only a handful of swear words (and aptly used, I might add) and there's nothing in the book that I would consider raunchy.

Not-so-cool elements:

There are a lot of names to remember here. The Donner Party was really big, and many characters come into play as Reed's story unfolds. If you read like I do — in short snatches here and there, between carpool responsibilities and work appointments or whenever a blessed commitment-free minute presents itself — you might need to keep a list of who's who.