Setting the Bar

Besides the fact that Katie Crouch has a great name, this book left something to be desired. Sarah Walters is a Southern debuttante (literally, she is - the first story is about how she and her friends are at cotillion dancing class) who lives in the shadow of her beautiful, Yale-educated, smart sister Eloise. She eventually moves to New York where she attempts to jumpstart her career as an editorial assistant (to her, that means a slave). During the novel, she enters into relationships with some nice and not so nice guys.

I got through this whole book and got done with it and didn’t feel like I ever learned anything about these women, except that each of them had really bad parts of their lives - the kind of bad things in their lives that peopel that have real problems aren’t going to buy into.  I didn’t connect to any of the women at all. Perhaps I would have if I felt like I had gotten to know them.  The writing style was fantastic - I really enjoyed it because it was sharp and witty. It was the only reason why I finished the book because there wasn’t really a plot. This was more of a collection of short stories about these friends.  It is a quick, easy read - more of a beach read than a real, substantive book.

I heard about Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson on one of my favorite book podcasts - Books on the Nightstand (which is now a weekly podcast, by the way!!) so I got it out of the library. This novel is a dystopian novel, in the same vein as The Handmaid’s Tale , 1984 and a Brave New World.

The book starts out starkly.  It is obviously winter and the setting is obviously in what used to be the United Kingdom. An eight year old boy is ripped from his family’s home and placed in a school - more of a re-education center actually - during the early part of the ReArrangement. The Government has ordered the removal of children and other adults during the early part of the rearrangement and moved to different zones, depending upon  psychology, or the four humors: choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine.  Placed into an orphanage and renamed Thomas Parry, he is then transferred to a new family in the Red District. As he grows into adulthood, he becomes a rising star in the Red Quarer bureaucracy, where his main responsibility is to oversee the expulsion of people to other quarters.  During a business trip to the Blue Quarter, he goes to a nightclub where he receives visions of what his life was life before the Re-Arrangement and, as a result, he begins to question his absolute faith in the current scheme of things.

He actually manages to visit each of the other quarters during this voyage of self-discovery. Thomas becomes caught up in a terror attack in the Yellow Quarter; is shipwrecked on the coast of the Blue Quarter, and is farmed off to an angst-ridden Green Quarter boarding house, eventually escaping and joining the itinerant and stateless White People, a band of nomadic outsiders who drift aimlessly from quarter to quarter, spurned and shunned by the populations of this new and unsettling world. He realizes, over the course of his journeys, that while people may be different, they really just long to be together again and not forcefully separated.

I loved this novel - it was depressing and bleak and eerily prescient. One gets the feeling that our society is slowly getting to the point where our governments may feel that it has no choice but to separate people out depending upon their psychological make-up, even if it means tearing up families and exacerbating the evils that they intended to fight by splitting people up in the first place. I found myself able to explore my own perceptions about the role of the individual and the family in society, while reading about Thomas’ perceptions and experiences within the various “families” that he encounters and/or becomes a part of. I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to all.

Book 50/100

I heard about this book from many, many other sources, but I hesitated to pick it up right away because it dealt with the 9/11 attacks and I didn’t think that I could handle it.  Until now, so I picked it up!

This novel is about a precocious nine year old boy named Oskar Schell, whose father we learn very early on is killed in the 9/11 attacks because he is at the World Trade Center for a meeting on that day. He is very independent for a nine year old - he makes jewelry for his family and friends, he writes letters to famous people (most notably Stephen Hawking, his hero) and he walks around New York City (no public transportation because it freaks him out) with only his tamborine for a companion. On 9/11 he discovers five messages on the family’s answering machine from his father, who is trapped in the North Tower, right before it collapses and he hides the messages from his mother, a trial lawyer. This novel is about he tries to deal with this unimaginable and inconsolable loss, pretty much on his own because he distances himself from his mother, his grandmother and anyone else who may care for and/or be able to help him. At one point he says to his mother that he wishes that she were the one who had died on that awful day (although not in so many words). In the days, weeks, and months after the attacks, Oskar finds an envelope in his father’s belongings that says the word Black on the outside and which contains a key. Oskar spends his free time attempting to and locating every single person with the last name of Black in the city of New York in the hopes of remembering and gaining some insight into his father.

I truly wanted to like Oskar.  It seemed like this was a no-brainer of a character to create.  And at times, I loved him and empathized with his losses.  I know people that died on 9/11 and it’s an awful feeling. So awful, that I can’t even imagine losing a parent and then hearing their voice moments before their death.  But there were also times that I thought to mysel: “this character is almost a stereotype.”  Foer could have done so much more with this character and could have been so creative with him, but he almost fell flat with it.  What I also found unrealistic, especially in a post-9/11 New York, is that Oskar’s mother NEVER enquires as to where he is going, who with, when he is coming back and what he is doing when he goes off on his mission to talk to all the Blacks in New York.  It just seems that for a family that has suffered such loss, one would think that good parenting would kick in and a parent would be, in essence, required to ask about whereabouts.

What I did appreciate is that Foer took a risk. He risked writing about a situation that every other contemporary author is going to try to write about due to the magnitude of the event. But he managed to make the attempt without sounding trite, guilty or smarmy. And I liked that, because it would have been easy to be all three of those. On the spectrum, I found stereotypical much preferable to trite and neat and smarmy.

Book 49/100

So, after my husband decided to see this movie without me on Thursday (although I can’t complain too, too much because we had talked about it beforehand), I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince tonight (not in Imax though). This movie was typical of the latter Harry Potter movies with a major character dying (the depiction of which still had me crying, even though I knew that it was coming) and the darkness of it.  What was somewhat different is that the adult Lord Voldemort (the name really has no scariness for me!!!) wasn’t seen once in the entire movie, although we have depictions of a young Tom Riddle making cameos at various points during his studenthood at Hogwarts . Professor Albus Dumbledore enlists Harry’s help once again in order to enable the good guys to get a leg up, even though it appears that they are losing badly in the fight against Voldemort and the Death Eaters . Dumbledore hopes that Harry can convince Professor Slughorn, who has come out of retirement and is teaching potions once again in Hogwarts, to give him an unadulterated memory of the dark magic that is key to the defeat of the Lord Voldemort. Also prevalent in this movie are the attractions that spring up between maturing teenagers - Harry deals with his growing affections for Ginny and Hermione and Ron deal with their feelings for each other.  Throw in Lavendar, a cute, hyperactive girl with a penchant for snogging Ron and there’s a lot of hormonality going on at Hogwarts this year.

The casting remains the most impressive. Of course, the key characters we all knew and loved because they were simply perfect.  Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe (who always was Harry to a t) and Rupert are wonderful. But Evanna Lynch is, also, the true personification of Luna Lovegood - disarmingly airy and yet, so brilliantly observant and understated.  She delivers her lines deadpan with perfect timing and inflection - exactly as you imagine Luna would were you really there with her. And Jessie Cave did a masterful job channeling Lavender Brown, in all of her hyperactive glory.  I look forward to seeing more of these newly found actresses in the future.

The movie itself remained somewhat true to the book, although there were bits at the end that were changed slightly - things were easier for the characters in the movie than in the book (that’s all I can really say without giving too much away) and, because things were easier, it made actions taken by characters earlier in the movie questionable. Specifically, it made Draco’s obsession with making sure that certain hidden items worked properly seem just over the top, obsessive (whereas in the book, it makes much more sense).

Keep an eye out for the next installments in the Harry Potter series - Part I of Deathly Hallows is due out in November of 2010, and Part II is due out in July of 2011.  I’m looking for babysitters now!

Dreaming in Hindi  by Katherine Russell Rich has seemingly been all over the place. There have been reviews everywhere from the New York Times to the lowly book bloggers, like me and for good reason.

I’ll be dead serious here - I love memoirs about people that have traveled. And usually, I find myself falling in love with and reading travel memoirs or memoirs about people who live in foreign countries for extended periods of time. It’s one of the guilty pleasures that I have about books - hell, if I can’t go to a place, at least I can read about someone else who has! I was really happy to pick this book up, although I could have done a lot less with the science that she put in the memoir.

In this  memoir, Ms. Rich recounts the year that she spent living in Udaipur in India, learning how to speak Hindi. While there, she not only took classes but lived with an Indian host family, who were supposed to speak only Hindi to her, so that she could be immersed in the language. Ms. Rich elected to do this in mid-life, after having lost her job at a magazine. This is scary and I give her a lot of credit for going to a completely different part of the world, where she didn’t know the language and didn’t have any connections whatsoever.

The memoir part of the story is, in itself, well-written. Ms. Rich is a sharp observer of the people around her, from her Indian host family to her countrymen, who are living there and learning the language.  Her sharpness and keen observations make for fantastic writing that engages all of the senses. The reader can see, hear, smell and vividly experience everything that Ms. Rich does. However, interspersed throughout her beautifully written memories about India, Ms. Rich has elected to educate us about the science of acquiring a second language. And I found this to be absolutely boring and dry as hell. I simply wasn’t interested and it ruined the flow of the rest of the memoir.  It was so bad that I often skipped over the hypertechnical science speak so that I could focus on the beauty of her writing on India.

Overall, I thought that this was a generally enjoyable book even though the science bits were often very difficult to navigate.

This first novel by Nancy Horan is the fictionalization of the life of Mamah Cheney who is, perhaps, best known as the woman that ruined Frank Lloyd Wright’s first marriage.  I first heard about this novel on All About Books, a public radio podcast out of Nebraska and I finally decided to give it a shot.  It was also reviewed in the Times in 2007.

This novel takes place in the years just before World War I, and focuses on the live of Mamah Cheney, a woman that was ahead of her times in many ways. She was educated, held a college degree and earned her own income.  This was scandalous in and of itself. But she created more scandal by falling in love with the famous architect that designed her family’s home and then living with him, in sin (they never married in part because Wright’s wife wouldn’t grant him a divorce). The two flee to Europe - she leaving behind two children and a husband, he six children and a wife. Public outrage follows them across the Atlantic and manages to find them in the various European cities that they visit. Wright’s career and professional reputation is put at risk by this affair. The novel follows their affairs over the years.

What I loved about this book is how Ms. Horan was able to critique the society that Mamah lived in - this book was as much about the society’s culture as it was about the affair and the constrictions that the society placed upon the players in this book.  I also loved how she delicately tore about the hypocrisy that Mamah’s heroines - namely, Ellen Key - encompassed.  The surgery performed was devastatingly powerful but also devastatingly powerful at the same time, which made it all the more powerful to read and soak up. I also found myself drawn into this book and following along quite easily even though I didn’t know anything about Frank Lloyd Wright’s work or private life.  Knowing things about Wright is not a prerequisite to reading this novel and appreciating it.

I highly recommend this book and would recommend it to all.

Book 47/100

I got this book by Giulia Melucci to review and I had mixed feelings when I put the book down. This memoir is about Ms. Melucci’s failed romantic relationships interspersed with recipes (which are, probably, the best parts of the book - I can’t wait to try them one by one!!!).  The recipes play an immensely important role in her tales, as they were what she used to seduce her lovers (and being Italian, she loves and appreciates and has a passion for food that I can relate to). Ms. Melucci grew up in an Italian house in Brooklyn, NY, where her mother spent a lot of time cooking traditional Italian meals for her and the family. It was because of this that Ms. Melucci grew up loving food and using it to emotionally feed and seduce the people in her life and to fill holes in her life when things went wrong.

Ms. Melucci was born in Brooklyn (and apparently still lives there to this day) and didn’t start dating until after college.  She progresses through her relationships over the years. This memoir is her attempt to memorialize those failed relationships.

I’m not quite sure why one would want to commemorate their failed relationships. My failed relationships are not something I generally want to rehash to myself, or my new partner let alone with the whole world, so I don’t like the premise of the book intially.  The best pars of the book were the recipes, which, as I mentioned above, I cannot wait to try, one delicious weekend after the other.  Some of the dishes I probably won’t try until wintertime because they seem perfect for those cold, gray New England mornings when the snow is piling up outside. I also loved Giulia’s writing style and her wit - she was satirical and funny and it came out in her writing. I didn’t feel like she learned anything from her relationships. She kept engaging the same sort of person and kept getting hurt. Then she would engage in the same unhealthy cycle all over again with the next person. She also was the sort to sink in with all her might, even though the relationship wasn’t salvageable and that annoyed me. I didn’t have much sympathy for her - she had so much going for her and was so smart that she should have been able to get beyond the despearation of being with someone.

This book is worth it simply for the recipes.

Book 46/100

I have heard about this book from everyone it seems and it has come highly recommended from all. For good reason I should add. Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows did a tremendous job in co-authoring this novel.

This book is comprised exclusively of letters, which begin in 1946.  Thirty something author Juliet Ashton has been writing a column under a pseudonymn and has been feeling apathetic about her success, which has been tremendous, when she receives a letter from one of the founding members (Dawsey Adams) of a literary society in Guernsey, an island in the English Channel that was occupied by Nazi forces during World War II. Juliet sees this as a way to break out of her coverage of the sunny side of a really awful war and jumps on the opportunity to break out of her previously sunny coverage of the War. As a result, Juliet begins corresponding with Dawsey and other members of the literary society as a means to research her next project.  During these letter writing campaigns, she comes to know and love the writers and the island of Guernsey and admires how the islanders used literature and reading to bond and forget the stresses and troubles of occupation, even though it was only for a few hours.

I loved this book. It was utterly charming and I finished it wanting to go to Guernsey to see what the fuss was all about! The authors did a masterful job in writing the letters in the voices of different characters and weaving them together to tell an amazing story of perserverance and survival, while never losing the voices of the characters describing the events. It was absolutely astounding to read and to partake in.  I found myself growing fond of the characters as I got through the book (with a few exceptions of course, but to explain more would be to give away plotlines that are best discovered by the reader!!). This book is deceptively easy to read.  You’ll be tempted to fly through it unless you remind yourself to slow down and savor it.  But don’t be deceived because it covers some pretty somber material - occupation by the Nazis and concentration camps and sending island children away to be spared the occupation are no easy subjects to write about, let alone read about and they come up often enough in this novel. The writing flowed very well, even though the letters were usually no longer then a few pages.  It didn’t feel jerky at all and the plot seemed to move along well.  The characters were wonderful and developed very well.  Each seemed to have revelations that were reasonable for them given their personalities and their circumstances. It is also obvious that the authors have a tremendous love of people, history and literature. That love was conveyed in this novel.  I would highly recommend this hopeful, beautiful and memorable novel to anyone and everyone.  It’s one that you will remember, love and cherish throughout your entire life.

Book 45/100

Ursula Hanks was born in Germany in 1943 and has had an amazing life.  She and her mother and sister fled to Bavaria in 1945, leaving her father behind. Then, they reunited with him and they all moved to San Francisco in 1955.  In My Heart is a memoir that is based on factual events and is heavily influenced by her life’s events. It is more of a soul searching type of book that reveals the impact of her aging parents’ challenges on her own life.  This series of events leads her to review her own memories of her family’s epic history, including what she thought was in her own heart.

While Ms. Hanks had an amazing, and at some points very difficult life, this book was very difficult to read. I found it very difficult to engage and remain engaged throughout the course of the book.  Some parts were downright trite and boring and self-indulgent. This 107 page book failed to engage me in any meaningful way, not because the author didn’t give it her all but in part, perhaps, because I haven’t had to experience caring for a sick parent.  There are some redeeming qualities about this book that may make it enjoyable to others more so than it was for me.  Ms. Hanks shines with pride over the successes of her parents and rightfully so. Their struggles and how they have overcome them are wonderful accomplishments that should be celebrated and that is what Ms. Hanks is in part, trying to do in this memoir.  She also struggles with word choices and how to describe her emotions and what is going on. To me, this shows that she wants to ensure that her parents retain their dignity and show that she doesn’t want to hurt them.

This is a book that you should try to read because, while I may not have enjoyed it, you may.

Book 44/100

Piers Paul Read is a British author that has outdone himself with The Death of a Pope , his latest mystery novel and this is a novel that all should read, because it is so entertaining!

Juan Uriarte is, perhaps, the central figure in this novel. He is a Basque, and an outspoken Catholic ex-priest that draws attention to himself during and immediately following his terrorism trial in London. During that trial, he presents very well - as the model for non-violent demonstrations and compassion for the absolute poor. He has done lots of work for the Misericordia organization in the Sudan and in Uganda. However, his organization becomes suspected of being a front for religious radicals. Kate Ramsey, the reporter that covers his trial, is drawn into Juan Uriarte and what he does. She becomes obsessed with him and figuring him out - so obsessed that she follows him to Uganda, volunteers at his camps down there, begins a purely sexual relationship with him and assists him in carrying out what could be the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11 - a sirin bomb plant at the Vatican during the conclave to select a new Pope in the wake of the death of Pope John Paul II.

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. I thought that I would be tired of this sort of religious/Catholic thriller after being inundated with the likes of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons but this was actually really, really good. The plot was complex - not the fluff of the aforementioned novels and the characters were actually really interesting.  I enjoyed learning about them and their motivations, which were often very complex and required me to do a bit of research into Catholicism and the philosophies mentioned in this novel. I really enjoyed how Mr. Read handled the split between liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics and their differences of opinions on the role of women, birth control and sex as well as how they handled the AIDS epidemic.  He was able to adequately educate the reader, without dumbing down the material or making the reader feel stupid for not knowing the differences.  Someone who never had any sort of education when it came to Catholicism’s positions on these topics would not feel like they were missing anything by reading this book because Mr. Read does such a phenomenal job in breaking everything down for the consumer.

There were a few things that did turn me off.  Mr. Read could have used a good proofreader - there were several minor errors in grammer and spelling that could have been avoided but nothing majorly factually wrong (for instance getting the date of Pearl Harbor wrong). I also didn’t think that Kate’s major of theology in college rang genuine. She seemed woefully ignorant on things that perhaps she wouldn’t have if that were actually true.

All in all, a wonderful read.

Book 43/100