Sunday, March 22, 2015

Books for March

Dead Wake by Erik Larson
Any book lover who lives in the Pacific Northwest, knows Erik Larson.  The writer of spectacular non-fiction books on specific pivotal moments in history has written another fascinating book, this time looking at the sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915.  I have been intrigued by his stories in the past:  Isaac's Storm - his look at the devastating Galveston hurricane at the turn of the century; Thunderstruck - the detailed journey of Marconi's invention of the wireless; The Devil in the White City - the juxtaposed stories of a prolific serial killer and the Chicago world's fair; and In the Garden of the Beast, the tale of the American ambassador and his family in Berlin during the rise of Hitler.  Each and every one of these books was meticulously well-written and deeply researched.  Larson does it again in Dead Wake.  He follows the story lines of some of the intriguing, and occasionally famous, passengers, as well as crew members, the British secret service, and the U-boat commander himself.  We are given details from captains' logs, passengers diaries, telegraphs, and letters, all placed together in a fashion to keep one turning pages.  Although we all know the torpedo hits and sinks the boats, I found myself breathlessly turning the last 100 pages, to see who lives and who dies, who is found responsible, and how America is reluctantly dragged into a war across the sea.  You will not only learn a great deal from this book, but you will be highly entertained.  (Warning:  it took me about 50 pages to get pulled into the story)

Evening of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
Sticking with the non-fiction trend, this tale of the end of the Plains native tribes, most specifically the Comanche, was a shockingly fascinating read.  Perhaps because when I grew up in the Northwest, kids studied Native Americans pretty much all the way through school, especially Sacajawea with the Lewis-and-Clark expedition.  After elementary school, I became obsessed with the Sioux and the destruction of Custer at the Little Big Horn.  (I know - I was a weird kid).  Then, as an adult I read a book on the massacre at Wounded Knee, and eventually the book Lies My Teacher Taught Me, which really detailed the destruction of the native people in North America.  With all this background, I was intrigued by this Dallas reporter's book on the dying days of the Comanche tribe, the greatest horseback warriors this world has probably ever seen.  They were lead in their dying days by a man whose mother was a white woman, kidnapped as a child and adopted into the tribe.  Add in some noble soldier and natives, as well as some pretty despicable ones, as well as the dishonesty and lies of both sides, and you've got a great tale.  With that said, do not expect a novel-based book; this is definitely an historical text.  When first looking at the pages, realizing little to no dialogue existed, I was a bit nervous about the author's ability to pull me into the story, but the story itself is just so fascinating I read the book in just three days...and it is dense.  Gwyne has done his research and shows in great detail what happens in the space of just one hundred years, of what occurs when a stone age people such as the Plains tribes, who were still in the hunter-gatherer part of evolution, meets the agricultural people of another millennium.  Tough to digest in some places but an altogether great learning experiences. 

The Professor by Robert Bailey
Remember the time, many years ago, when you picked up John Grisham's first bestseller, The Firm, and you were completely incapable of putting it down until you got to the very last page?  It didn't matter that it wasn't written like Fitzgerald or Morrison; you weren't looking for 'pretty' writing, just a darn good story.  Well...Bailey's latest book about a new team of lawyers will make you feel that way again.  We first meet Tom McMurtrie, the renowned professor of evidence at the University of Alabama law school, as he prepares for a difficult meeting with the school board.  Having played on Bear Bryant's national championship football team and having literally written the textbook on evidence, this man is an entity unto himself.  However, throw an illness, a lie, and a treacherous friend, and the story gets going.  Next, mix in a young brash lawyer with a difficult past with Professor McMurtrie and his young beautiful clerk.  Then, stir in a terrible and tragic car crash with a nasty trucking company.  And voila - you have a page turner that is literally impossible to put down.  It's not perfect writing, but it's not bad.  It's not always politically correct, but it tries.  It's not the next Pulitzer prize winner, but it doesn't matter - it's just really good. 

The Secret Speech by Tom Robb Smith
The second in the Child 44 series, Smith seriously hit another home run.  Quite often, I find the second book not as good as the first, but occasionally (like the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series), an author can continue the momentum.  And if you haven't read Child 44, do so - however, this thriller can also stand alone.  Leo, the ex-KGB officer and current homicide detective, is back in Moscow, living with his wife who now finds herself in love with her newly-reformed husband.  Together, they are raising the two daughters of the falsely-accused criminal who Leo arrested and ultimately saw murdered.  Needless to say, the oldest daughter is less than thrilled to be with the man she considers a killer, creating a tense family life. However, Stalin is now dead and Kruschev has now taken over, with a 'secret speech' that pretty much throws Stalin under the bus and decries the past abuses by the secret police.  This opens the door to a new serial killer - a gang of previously imprisoned dissidents from the Gulag who are hunting down their former tormentors.  The story takes us into the streets of Moscow, to the gulag prisons in Siberia, and even the spring rebellion in Budapest.  The history of those early days of the Soviet Bloc is fascinating and Smith has created complex characters and no-win situations to heighten the suspense.  This book was another five-star for me, and yes, I will be reading the third and last installment soon.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
After falling in love with the End of Life Book Club last fall, I have tried to commit to reading at least one 'must-read, classic, prize-winner, good-for-your-brain" book a month.  This was the March pick - the autobiographical look at a year of tragedy in author Joan Didion's life.  As her daughter lies in the ICU, deathly ill from sepsis, her husband sits down to dinner and literally drops his head to the table and is gone in seconds from a massive heart attack.  This is the story of how she survives sudden widowhood, as well as how she recreates a life for herself.  It is interspersed with many details of her rather fabulous and famous life with her husband.  Both writers for novels and Hollywood, famous people inhabit some of their past days as you see how her life was shaped by her relationship with him.  It is a painfully honest book about how one grieves, and how the world expects one to act which is often two opposing directions.  It is not a long book, but it is a book that will stay with you for quite some time.  I would recommend this to someone who has lost a loved one, or has a close friend/relative who is grieving; it gives us a world into a bereaved soul that is powerful and poetically written.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
This is a 'throwback' story, one from forty years ago that some of us in 'middle-age' may recognize.  It is the story of a family who does not belong in their neighborhood due to race.  However, your first thought is probably issues of black and white and the civil rights movement, but you would be wrong.   Author Celeste Ng takes this idea and twists it around, to the story of a family with a Chinese father and a Caucasian mother, raising mixed race children in the middle of small-town Ohio back in the 1970's.  What is a seemingly simplistic story lines - oldest daughter drowns in lake and police do not know why - become far more complex as the author creates characters with demons and hopes and passions that you would never think possible.  First is the father, a child of immigrants who never quite feels like he fits in, and often doesn't fit in due to institutionalized racism.  His wife Marilyn has not spoken to her mother since her marriage, carries deeply bitter feelings about her own life choices, and has rather questionable parenting techniques.  The older brother merely wants to get away...but it is far deeper than that as one comes to find out.  The youngest child is a bit of a cypher not only to the reader, but also to the rest of the family.  As Ng strings out the details of their past lives and all the secrets inside their hearts that were never expressed, it paints a picture of a complicated family life that was doomed to lead to tragedy.  This is an intriguing book that I think would lead to some intriguing book club discussions.

Cant We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
Remember the book Being Mortal that I reviewed last month - the one that is life-changing, about aging and how we choose to die? Beautifully written, incredibly researched, and poignantly told by a doctor with aging parents himself...well, this is the funny side of that book, honestly.  Roz Chast is a renowned cartoonist, frequently featured in the New Yorker.  She has created a graphic novel/cartoon-ish type of book that invites us on her journey as her parents age.  As the story begins, we meet the parents - children of Jewish immigrants, residents of their NYC apartment for 48 years, parents of an only child (Roz), and stubbornly refusing to see their life change as their health fails.  Roz nails it as she recounts conversations about how often and how long she visits, what her parents think of the assisted living places they visit, and what it's like to take care of her addled father while her mother is in the hospital.  While I found myself laughing out loud, I also cringed inside frequently as I recognized myself.  Roz strives to find that balance between being a good daughter and having her own life, never an easy thing.  This book is a must-read for anyone dealing with aging parents; it will remind you to smile, to be be more patient, and to remember we are not perfect, just trying to make the last days a little better.

The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber
I saved this book for last, as I am still torn about my actual opinion of it.  It has received rave reviews everywhere as Faber's 'masterpiece' and I will admit, it is beautiful written.  As a lover of weird, futuristic type of books, I figured this one was right in my ballpark.  The main premise is that Earth is getting pretty messed up (what else is new with dystopic novels?) so a company has created a new civilization out in the solar system and is taking applications to go there.  Peter, a reformed drug addict/thief turned born-again Christian preacher, gets chosen.  However, his wife Bea does not.  While they run their London-based church together, they decide that it is worth the separation for Peter to bring the word of God to the creatures on this new planet.  And yes...that's where Faber lost me.  The company base has some interesting characters once we get to this new place, but Faber focuses so much on Peter and his need to preach and convert the natives, that I think he misses a chance for a more complex story.  As Peter continues to hear of truly horrible things happening on Earth, he never thinks to return and help out his now pregnant wife.  He stays completely obsessed with the conversion of the natives, to the detriment of many.  This is a looooong, well-written book that I admittedly did not enjoy due to my own personal beliefs on the harm missionaries can do. I constantly waited for Peter to learn something about himself, to question his mission, to allow other beliefs, but that never happened.  Thus, I ended the final page feeling disappointed in both Peter and the author.  


Monday, March 2, 2015

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Remember when you were a kid back in the 1960's-1980's?  Every bad guy in every thriller or spy movie was a Russian, in every Olympics we booed and hissed the steroid-heavy athletes, and we even had the 'hide under your desk - an atom bomb is being lobbed at us' drills in school.  Seriously, the USSR was baaaaad.  However, once 1989 hit, the wall fell down, and we actually got to see the Eastern bloc countries, we realized...maybe they're not so bad.  (Of course, the Putin-era and his Ukraine fetish has not been good for PR)  The point is, we forget how truly imprisoned the Russians were by their government; Tom Rob Smith reminds us in this stellar thriller set in 1953 Russia.  Leo, the main protagonist and proud member of the MGB secret police, does his job willingly - arresting, interrogating, and sending away anyone who is perceived as 'guilty.' His school teacher wife is a bit of a cipher, as is their relationship.  However, once a strange murder of a little boy is discovered and Leo sees the work of a serial killer, their lives take a variety of turns, none of them particularly positive.  As Leo goes from war-hero to alienated policeman, he is compelled to find this killer and more deeply explore the relationship with both his country and his wife.  The beauty of this book is that it is not only a complex and frightening mystery, it also gives us a thoughtful look into what Russia used to be like.  I give this one a rousing five stars.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
Picoult, the consistently best-selling author, is at times problematic for me.  She can pull me in with fantastic story lines as she did in Nineteen Minutes (provoking book on a school shooting) and The Story Teller (Nazi war criminal hiding in middle America), and then lose me in The Tenth Circle (too stupid to bother explaining).  However, in Leaving Time, I was fascinated by a very different story line that definitely made me keep reading until the shocking ending.  The main characters are Alice, a zoologist who seemingly knows everything there is to know about elephants, and her daughter Jenna, a thirteen year old, sassy redhead who wants to know why her mother disappeared and never returned ten years ago.  The story also includes a rather grumpy, drunken, middle-aged policeman and a hilarious new-age psychic, down on her luck after hitting it big in Hollywood, all with compelling voices.  I learned some very interesting facts about elephants (Picoult definitely did her research) and was highly entertained.  Be prepared for some wild twists and turns at the end that were creative and well done, in my opinion.  Great book:)


The Magigician's Lie by Greer Macallister
The people of the post-Civil War in America seemed to be quite fascinated with magic and illusions - perhaps it was their way to escape the reality of the death and destruction.  Greer Macallister has written a very solid debut novel about the life of one such illusionist as she tells her story to a quirky little policeman who has captured her after she has allegedly killed her husband.  The 'Amazing Arden' begins at her beginning: her childhood with her mother's escape from overbearing parents into a life of poverty; her budding relationship with either the love of her life or a charlatan; the mentor she finds in a wily old illusionist who fools thousands of people; and the constant cloud of her creepy step-cousin hanging over her.  Macallister embues this book with a sprinkling of magic, mystery, and historical tidbits about the life of a magician long ago.  I found it a compelling and fascinating read.






Lillian on Life by Alison Jean Lester
This rather autobiographical book is getting quite a bit of buzz out on the reading blogosphere so I thought I'd give you my lowly opinion - I was not a fan.  Lillian is a middle-aged woman who looks back on her youth with some wit and sassiness, but I found too much arrogance and self-satisfaction than I did any 'life lessons.'  Lillian recounts her college days, her long-term affair with a married man, illness, family, etc. in short, succinct chapters.  It is a quick read - that is one positive I can recount.  Some of the chapters are entertaining and humorous, but it reminded me of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem of the tree metaphor and all the birds/lovers who have come and gone.  Everyone makes choices - I don't really want to read a book that whines and brags about some of those choices.  However, it could be an interesting book to discuss at a book club and its brevity is a plus in this world of 500 page books.

The Little Friend by Donna  Tartt
If you have not heard of Tartt's latest book, The Goldfinch, you've been hiding under a rock this past year; it won a Pulitzer and numerous accolades.  Since reading it last winter, I have gone back to her previous two books The Secret History (fabulous re-do of a Lord of the Flies type of story set in college days) and her very first book, The Little Friend, from 2002.  I understand why she takes so long between books - each is a tome of more than 500 pages.  However, Tartt is a master of the written word; even when you'd like to hire her a new editor to slash a hundred pages, the compulsion to keep reading exists.  Rightfully compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, this book has a number of similarities:  the black housekeeper who watches the two children left behind after the murder of their older brother; the quirky and humorous elderly aunts who help to raise the youngest daughter; some dark and intriguing neighbors in their small southern town; and most importantly, a brash, smart, sassy independent little girl and her sidekick friend Hely who attempt to solve the aforesaid murder of her now infamous brother, Robin.  However, the outer appearance of similarities are just that...outer.  As with all Tartt novels, she delves into the dark, deep, hidden parts of the human soul and reveals the ugliness within.  None of these characters shine with the beautiful humanity of Harper Lee's Maycomb characters (there is no Atticus Finch).  At times you will despise each character for their selfishness or cowardice, but the complexity of their choices and the deepening mystery of Robin's murder will force you to keep turning pages.  Will you be satisfied in the end?  Unclear.  But my bet is you will be as intrigued and fascinated as I was.

Adultery by Paulo Coelho
Our latest book club read, I was less than thrilled with the choice, as I was one of the minority in the world not enamored with Coelho's The Alchemist.  However, the story line was so different I figured I wouldn't be bombarded with a long allegory and a preachy voice.  I was half right.  The plot line is straight forward with no metaphorical language or fantastical characters.  Linda has the perfect life in Geneva, Switzerland - she's beautiful and smart, has a rich, handsome husband and two perfect children, but surprise, surprise - she's unhappy, poor girl.  When an old boyfriend returns to her life, we get a 'Fifty Shades of Crap - oops, I mean Grey' kind of story.  Oh, and let's not forget the painfully long preachy voice from Coelho, about love and what is important about life.  Perhaps I would have been more open to the 'lessons' if he had not painted such patently unsympathetic characters.  I found nothing redeemable in Linda, and the boyfriend was no better.  Blech...not a fan.  While it may provide for some interesting book club conversation, my bet is other stories of love, adultery, the stresses of marriage, etc. could do the same thing in a more elegant, literary way.


Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbol
Admittedly, I just like the title.  Seriously, how fun is it to tell friends I'm reading Doctor Death, especially when they all know I'm obsessed with creepy murder mysteries, especially by ones from Scandinavian writers? This is the first in a new series by Kaaberbol, a Danish writer from Copenhagen, who sets her story in a French province that borders Germany, during the turn of the century when woman were 'owned' by parents or husbands, educational opportunities were few and far between for young girls, and the idea of working with forensics was a view into the future.  Madeleine Karno is a twenty year old girl who eavesdrops on her father's work as a pathologist, soon to be drawn into his world as an accident sidelines him and he needs his daughter to do his investigating.  A young girl has been found dead, and her death leads to subsequent violent deaths in their small provincial town.  Add in a nerdy German insect scientist, some big scary wolves, a few Catholic nuns, and a good mystery is born.  Kaaberbol sets up the ending nicely for her subsequent sequels; I look forward to reading more about the independent, intelligent, driven young Madeleine Karno.