The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

Over the weekend, I attended local bookseller association's annual dinner. I was there to exhibit our new books . . . but I also came home with a few new books myself. The highlight of this event is the book box attendees get. It's filled with offerings from all kinds of publishers . . . and has led to my gluttonous situation. This year, unfortunately, the books weren't so great. I got a bunch of young adult books, which I'll donate to 826LA, my favorite nonprofit. I did end up with a couple of novels and a short story collection that look interesting . . . and Elizabeth's Kostova's new novel, which I've been wanting. I guess it's really better that I didn't end up with another huge stack--after all, I started this project because I had way too many unread books hanging around!

Speaking of the book box, I read one that I received last year over vacation: Tiffany Baker's The Little Giant of Aberdeen County. From reading the description, I thought there would be an element of magic--something akin to the movie Big Fish. Truly is a large woman living in a small town. Everyone calls her a giant. She uncovers the secrets of one of the town's ancestors, who was rumored to be a witch. She was the only source of medical help before a modern doctor moved to town. Truly deciphers the code and starts learning some of the herbal remedies. The book turned out to be a much more realistic novel than I anticipated, but it was still a good read. Perfect for an airplane, too! It was captivating and quick.

American Wife

I just returned from a two-week vacation, where I had plenty of plane and beach time for reading! My ideal plane/beach read is something that is captivating and complex enough to hold my interest, but not too complicated or heavy, since I'll be frequently interrupted. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld was perfect!

It's supposed to be a novelization of Laura Bush's life, but it is first and foremost a novel. The similarities are there--she marries the wild son of a political family who buys a baseball team and later becomes president. But it's a literary telling of her life, with a couple of incidents--killing someone in a car accident and an abortion as a teen--that become linchpins for everything that follows. (The car accident actually happened, but the abortion is pure fiction.) She doesn't always agree with her husband's political views, but she sticks by him and is--mostly--supportive.

The coverage of Bush's presidential years center around the protests of Cindy Sheehan--except in the book it's a bereft father who camps out in Washington, hoping the President will meet with him. Flashbacks cover other events--the election controversies, 9/11--but it is the war and his handling of the war that receive the most attention. Which, really, is in line with Bush's legacy as currently viewed.

The Blackwell family in the novel isn't nearly as powerful as the real-life Bush family. His father was merely a governor, not a president, and his brother a member of congress. I thought that was a strange choice, since living up to or surpassing his father's presidential legacy was such an important component in other Bush made-up biographies, especially the Oliver Stone movie.

In any case, whether you choose to focus on the Bush parallels or take it at face value as a piece of fiction, this is an absorbing novel and perfect for vacation reading. I got through two more novels, which I'll post about shortly!

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

I wrapped up my children's books month with a really cute middle grade novel: A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. Ten-year-old Zoe Elias wants nothing more than to play the piano. She dreams of performing at Carnegie Hall. Her father, a recluse hooked on correspondence school courses, goes out and buys her a Perfectone electric organ instead. She is deeply disappointed, but starts taking lessons anyway. As she works her way toward the Perfectone Perform-O-Rama, she learns a lot of things about herself, her friends, and her family.

This quirky little book has the spirit of the old Beverly Cleary novels, and yet it's very current. I really liked that this brought a kids' novel into current times without adding the supernatural or adult themes. It has a good moral without feeling like a book with a moral. A very fitting end to children's book month. And now, as much as I love kids' book, I am looking forward to reading something written for adults!