True Confession of a Book Glutton

America's Queen

2011-08-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

I did it! I've finally finished the last book on my list. Of course I saved the longest nonfiction for the end--America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford. 450 word-packed pages. A fan of all things of the Mad Men era, I was surprised to find that I really didn't like dear old Jackie O. At least in the biography, she came off as self-centered, frivolous, and profligate with money. She did seem to be a devoted mother, however. The Kennedys, frankly, came off as horrible people too. Everyone seemed to be sleeping with everyone! Jack with Jackie's sister Lee, Jackie--after Jack's death--with Bobby, Lee with Aristotle Onassis, and later, of course, Jackie with Aristotle.

I was interested in reading about Jackie because, in high school, a family friend used to tell me he knew what I would do when I grew up: the Jackie O. job. I knew this meant something in publishing, but it wasn't until I read this biography that I realized how accurate he was. Jackie was an editor and I work in sales and marketing, but she worked on a number of illustrated art books and museum catalogues, which is exactly what I work on. It was during her publishing career, in fact, that she seemed the most likable. She worked hard on her books and didn't put on airs in the office, making her own phone calls and getting her own coffee. It also seemed to be the period of her life when she was happiest. She was in her most stable relationship and seemed to love her work.

Now that I'm done with "the list," I've been whipping through some (relatively) current fiction--Little Bee, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Forgotten Garden--and look forward to wandering into a bookstore and picking up some random book that strikes my fancy.

Billy Budd

2011-07-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

Herman Melville's Billy Budd very nearly made it onto my unfinished list. And really, looking back, I don't think that would have been such a bad decision. My first mistake was that I tried to read this at the gym. Melville has not been optimized for elliptical reading. The direct opposite of Hemingway, he uses about 10 words for every 1 he really needs. When nothing has really happened in the first 30 pages of a 100-page book, something is wrong. I gave up trying to read on the run, but felt like I should pick it up again under more studious conditions. After all, it was only 100 pages.

So I finished it. But that's about all I can say. I got lost in the wordiness of it all and never really cared about what was going on. There was a mutiny. On a ship. Billy Budd was framed. Or maybe he did it and was rightly punished. But I think it was the former.

Needless to say, I no longer have any inkling to read Moby Dick. I loved Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener," but now I think we must part ways. Only one book to go on the list! A biography of Jackie Kennedy. Of course I left a thick nonfiction book to the end. And there are lots of words on every page! It will take me a while--I think I will need to intersperse some fiction. It is summer, after all!

The Road to Yesterday

2011-06-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

The volume of short stories by L. M. Montgomery, The Road to Yesterday, instantly transported me back to childhood when I raced through the entire Anne of Green Gables series. Set in the small village where Anne and Gilbert Blythe have settled to raise their family, the stories concern the people surrounding the Blythes. Anne and Gilbert make cameo appearances here and there, but they are mostly mentioned in passing. Most of these mentions, however, occur in the form of snide remarks. It is quite blasphemous, in fact, the way the townspeople talk about the family--she is too clever for her own good and acts superior, he is accused of being too flirtatious with his nurses. One suspects most of this is mere jealousy, but it is hard to read for a devoted fan of the original series!

The events in the stories are familiar fare to fans of Montgomery's work--hard-luck orphans who suddenly find themselves in fortuitous circumstances, old maids finding love late in life, and serendipitous mistaken identities. They are a little more worldly than the original Anne books, with a couple involving illegitimate children and parents in jail, but they are charming stories nonetheless.

One story includes an appearance by Walter Blythe, the son who resembled his mother's spirit the most. I instantly remembered the moment in the series when he is killed in World War I. It is the first book I remember crying openly at. While these stories aren't quite as good as the novels in the series, the mere chance at seeing these beloved characters again makes it worth it.

Gone With the Wind

2011-05-31T20:01:00.000-07:00

When I started this project, I think the book people were most surprised that I hadn't read was Gone With the Wind. I'd always meant to . . . but it is 1,000 pages after all. But what a great 1,000 pages! I've seen the movie a few times, although not recently, and the book was just as sweeping and epic as I'd expected. But it also had a feminist bent I didn't really anticipate. Scarlet, who starts out as a flighty southern belle concerned with nothing more than snagging her beloved Ashley turns into a rather capable businesswoman when faced with the harsh realities of post-war Georgia. She runs her husband's store, and when she is tipped off on how profitable sawmills are, acquires two of them and runs them to the shock of gentile Southern society.

The book starts off as an American version of Emma, with Scarlet concerned only with eligible bachelors and opportune matches, has this interesting feminist pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps middle, then ends as an American Wuthering Heights with Rhett and Scarlet as two stormy and somewhat despicable lovers. Of course, what those British classics don't have is the race issue. A recent Time Magazine article celebrating its 75th anniversary calls it "unforgivably racist." As I was reading the book, I wasn't convinced Margaret Mitchell shared the racist views of her characters, but rather was portraying a time and a place from history. But who knows . . . 1934 Atlanta wasn't exactly the capital of civil rights.

I was actually surprised at how many issues from the war and Reconstruction the book included--the poor conditions of the Confederate soldiers, the unabashed extortion of the Carpetbaggers, the not-much-better-than-slavery conditions for the newly freed blacks, and the disenfranchisement of Southern citizens. It was a meatier picture of the period than I expected. But the romance of the book is probably the most captivating aspect. Even though I knew the outcome and was shocked by the foibles of both Rhett and Scarlet, I couldn't help but hope they pulled it together in the end. But frankly, he still didn't give a damn.

Our Lady of the Forest

2011-05-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson was quite a pleasant surprise! I loved Snow Falling on Cedars, but was hugely disappointed with his second novel, East of the Mountains. So much so I'm surprised I even picked up this book, but it was being sold at a bargain price at the Strand in NY, so I must have thought it worth the chance.

A teenage runaway who makes her living collecting mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest has a vision of the Virgin Mary in the woods. She tells a few people about it--an opportunistic fellow mushroom picker and the young priest of a struggling parish--and soon she has attracted hundreds if not thousands of followers. They descend on this small Washington town, setting up souvenir stands and selling snacks at outrageous prices. Some believe it is truly a miracle, while others are skeptical and think the girl's past drug use has something to do with her visions. The lives of the townspeople are woven into the story--the priest who wants to build a new church, the mother of a missing child, and a father who feels responsible for his son's debilitating accident. They all find hope in the Virgin's appearance, whether they truly believe in it or not.

This isn't the kind of subject matter I'm usually drawn to, but Guterson handles it well. We're never told definitively if the visions are real or false--it's left to the reader to decide. The mix of sincere belief and opportunistic swindling is an apt commentary on modern-day religion in America. It is often commercial and after the money of its followers, but occasionally people are sincere. Although not as sweeping as Snow Falling on Cedars, this was an engaging novel, and in the future I would happily pick up another of his books from a bookstore sale table.

Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories

2011-03-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

I read the Penguin Classics edition of Dorothy Parker: Complete Stories a little at a time--mostly on plane-rides to New York--over the course of a couple of years, so I can't recall a lot of detail about the stories. This is the first Parker I've read--I knew her by reputation, of course. Well, mostly for her famous, "I like to have a martini, two at the very most; three, I'm under the table, four I'm under the host!" Which, I just learned via Google, you can get on a bevy of martini glasses. It also appears on the cocktail napkins at the Algonquin Hotel bar, her famous haunt. What I enjoyed most about the stories, besides of course her acerbic wit, was how she could write a dinner party scene and reveal every character's foible through nothing but dialogue. The way her characters talk give away all the flaws they should be trying to cover up. And the way she uses details to poke holes in the image the character is trying to convey: "Lily Wynton wore, just as she should have, black satin and sables, and long white gloves were wrinkled luxuriously about her wrists. But there were delicate streaks of grime in the folds of her gloves, and down the shining length of her gown there were small, irregularly shaped dull patches; bits of food or drops of drink, or perhaps both, sometimes must have slipped their carriers and found brief sanctuary there. Her hat--oh, her hat. It was romance, it was mystery, it was strange, sweet sorrow; it was Lily Wynton's hat, of all the world, and no other could dare it. Black it was, and tilted, and a great, soft plume drooped from it to follow her cheek and curl across her throat. Beneath it, her hair had the various hues of neglected brass. But, oh, her hat." "In his zeal for order Mr. Wilcox strongly urges military discipline. In fact, he verges on the fanatical on this subject. He ardently believes that the louder an argument is uttered the more convincing it is; therefore, he is wont almost to shout, with accompanying virile thumps on a neighboring table, that the only thing which can save this country from ruin is three months' compulsory military training, annually, for all the men between the ages of eighteen and forty. Mr. Wilcox was forty-one last January." And, of course, none of her characters can seem to refuse a drink: "This is a nice highball, isn't it? Well, well, well, to think of me having real Scotch; I'm out of the bush leagues at last. Are you going to have another one? Well, I shouldn't like to see you drinking all by yourself, Fred. Solitary drinking is what causes half the crime in the country. That's what's responsible for the failure of prohibition. But, please, Fred, tell him to make mine just a little one. Make it awfully weak; just cambric Scotch." It makes you wonder if she ever met anyone she actually admired.

Jude the Obscure

2011-03-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy was quite the surprise. I'd heard mixed reviews of Hardy, so I didn't know what to expect, but I rather liked this book. I thought it had surprisingly modern ideas for a nineteenth-century novel. Jude is tricked into marriage by one girl, so it is already salacious when he starts pursuing Sue Bridehead, his true love. After his wife runs off to Australia and later seeks a divorce, he is free to marry Sue. But she is gun shy after her own failed marriage, so they live together and pose as a married couple without ever making it official. While this is nothing out of the ordinary in 2011, it seems pretty revolutionary for 1895.

And apparently many found it a little too nontraditional. The book was met with outrage when it was published, surprising Hardy, who thought of it as a moral tale. It was burned publicly and nicknamed Jude, the Obscene according to the Wikipedia article. Like many of today's accusations against books, it seems like an over-reaction. It's not giving too much away to say the couple faced many hardships due to their choices, so it was in no means an endorsement of the lifestyle.

Controversy aside, this was a pretty good read. I would definitely pick up more Hardy.

Sweetsmoke

2011-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Sweetsmoke by screenwriter David Fuller is a novel set during the Civil War that follows Cassius, a favored slave on the Sweetsmoke plantation. When Cassius learns that Emoline Justice, the woman who practically raised him in the absence of his own mother, has been murdered, he investigates who killed her and uncovers a secret intelligence system against the Confederate Army in the process.

Over the course of the story, Fuller delves into slave life and the plight of freed slaves. At one point, a fellow slave tells Cassius, "Free man go wherever he want, Cassius. Free man free to go hungry with no roof over his head, free man free to get picked up by the paddyrollers without a note from the Old Master to keep him safe. Free man free to be whipped like a common slave, since he look no different to the white man." When Cassius travels to the front lines of the war to find the son of his master, the conditions of the Confederate soldiers aren't much different--they are underfed, lack supplies and sufficient uniforms, and one is seen walking around barefoot.

While the story is okay, what I found really interesting about this book was Fuller's use of punctuation. The dialogue of free men and women is shown between quotation marks, but the words of slaves appear without quotation marks. Which means you have to pay attention, but as a copyediting student, I thought such a symbolic use of punctuation was unique and extremely effective at showing how these people were treated as lesser beings.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

2011-01-11T21:46:00.001-08:00

I didn't take to Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn right away. I probably would have given up about 100 pages in if a couple of close friends--whose reading tastes I trust--hadn't said this was one of their favorite books. It's not a grand epic tale by any means; it captures the everyday struggles and triumphs of Francie Nolan, a young girl growing up in early twentieth century Brooklyn. And ultimately, it does so with as much heart as other beloved coming-of-age novels like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables.

It was about halfway through the 400-page novel that I really got sucked in: when (spoiler alert!) Francie's father died. It was written so realistically and honestly it was a cathartic experience. After I finished the book, I read an article saying this was an autobiographical novel and that Smith had, in fact, lost her father at an early age.

I feel like I'm one of the few book lovers who didn't read this book growing up, so I won't go too much into the plot. I do want to be a major book nerd for a moment and write about the beautiful Reader's Digest edition that I read. I found this book in a Friends of the Library used bookstore. I thought Reader's Digest only published volumes of several condensed novels. But after confirming this was the full, unabridged text, I bought it. It's a handsome hardcover with 2-color printing throughout, and it's printed on thick cream-colored paper of much higher quality than your typical novel. There are even full-page engraving-style illustrations every so often. I don't think Reader's Digest still releases books like this, but they sure had a good thing going when they did.

The Winter Rose

2011-01-02T20:11:00.001-08:00

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly is a historical novel set in early turn-of-the-twentieth-century London. Among its many characters are India Selwyn Jones, one of the first graduates of an all-female medical school, and Sid Malone, the leader of the most infamous street gang. The two cross paths . . . his life needs saving, both literally and metaphorically, of course . . . and they fall in love. But in between the tale of star-crossed lovers and a few bodice ripper scenes, this sweeping epic of a novel weaves a pretty good tale. Of the many side characters, there is an up-and-coming politician and his wife, India's dastardly fiance who has political ambitions of his own, a couple of adventurous teens who lead us into the world of early mountain climbing, and India's plucky nurse sidekick.

Like Emma Brown, this book gets a little preachy in its modern day stance on social conditions of the time. India's great dream is to open a free clinic in Whitechapel, a working class neighborhood of London. She defies the doctor she works for by supplying women with contraceptives and actually providing sanitary conditions for her patients. A number of political issues, including women's suffrage, are touched on via the politicians. But mostly this is a love story. It's the kind of book you reach for on a rainy day when you don't want to leave the house--fully engaging and one you can't put down. Not the brainiest of novels, but meaty enough that you don't have to be embarrassed. It lost me a little at the end when the action moves to Africa--due to the kind of coincidences generally found only in nineteenth century novels, several of our characters end up on the continent independently only to cross paths later. But I found myself hoping for a happy ending so much I could overlook this.

I picked this up as a galley because I knew Donnelly from her young adult novel A Northern Light, which is loosely based on An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. It's about a murder on a lake . . . the details are fuzzy, but it was also a great read. Only 9 books left on the list! Single digits!!

Harry, Revised

2010-12-21T20:06:00.001-08:00

I didn't have high hopes for my latest gym book--Harry, Revised by Mark Sarvas--but it turned out to be better than I thought. The book opens with Harry sitting in a diner, waiting to work up the nerve to ask out the waitress. We know he is late for something, and it sounds like a job interview, but in the very last sentence of the chapter it is revealed that he is going to his wife's funeral.

The book is loosely influenced by The Count of Monte Cristo--Harry even orders a monte cristo sandwich in the first scene--with Harry trying to be a modern-day Dantes and helping an older waitress in the same diner. Of course, he only does so to impress the first waitress and get her to go out with him. He wants to help, but he ends up making life worse for the waitress more often than not, by acting before he really thinks through his plan. Interspersed throughout are flashbacks to his life with Anna, his wife, and we see that, along with impressing the cute waitress, Harry is also trying to atone for past mistakes. I haven't read The Count of Monte Cristo, so I can't really tell how much this book is influenced by Dumas's classic or how effective it is, but it is a worthwhile read in any case.

The only real fault I have with the book is that it is set in Los Angeles, a city I know well, but it feels more like New York. Maybe it is the diner that threw me off--while there's a diner on every corner in New York, they are few and far between in LA. Or perhaps because Anna came from and old money family in Connecticut. Something just felt very East Coasty. But a minor hang up for a pretty good book.

The Emperor of Ocean Park

2010-11-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

I picked up The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter at a used book sale, because it made quite a splash when it came out in 2002. And it was a story full of intrigue and suspense, and even action . . . but I thought it could have been told in about half as many pages. Most of the book moved at a slow pace. It would just start to take off with some bit of action or a new revelation, and then the next chapter got bogged down in back story.

Talcott Garland, who goes by the Dostoyevsky-inspired nickname Misha, has just learned of his father's death. His father, known even to his children as The Judge, nearly landed a seat on the supreme court bench, but was marred by scandal during his confirmation hearings. Misha's sister is convinced the judge was murdered and is conferring with conspiracy theorists over the internet. Meanwhile, Misha's shifty Uncle Jack is pressuring him to uncover The Judge's "arrangements." Chess pawns are mysteriously delivered to Misha . . . he is beaten and even shot. It's quite the ride. But, I found the end a little unsatisfying--especially for a 650+ page book!

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, but at least it's one more off my list!

Emma Brown

2010-11-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

I've had a galley of Emma Brown sitting on my shelf for years. Someone asked me when I started this project if there were any books I regretted letting sit for so long. This is it! Based on an unfinished manuscript by Charlotte Bronte, the book was finished by the Irish writer Clare Boylan. This is something I usually avoid--sequels or prequels to classic books written by other, usually lesser, writers. This, however, was a pretty good execution of one author filling in for another.

Bronte wrote the first two chapters of the book, and they were published in a magazine after her death. Matilda Fitzgibbon arrives under mysterious circumstances to a fledgling boarding school run by three spinster sisters. Yes, it's a Bronte novel with a boarding school. And yes, someone gets locked in an attic. But the mystery that unfolds as a few kind strangers try to discover who Matilda really is, and where she goes after she disappears, is captivating. The underbelly of Victorian London is exposed--especially the plight of poor children and orphans. In fact, the only time you can really tell the novel was written in the twenty-first instead of the nineteenth century is when Boylan rails against these harsh conditions. One review I read criticized it for relying heavily on coincidence, but I just thought that made it feel more authentic.

Now, if only someone could so convincingly complete Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

By Nightfall

2010-11-03T19:56:00.001-07:00

Still straying from "the list," I recently picked up Michael Cunningham's latest, By Nightfall, at an author event. A slim novel, it tells the story of Peter Harris, a middle-aged art gallery owner in New York. Peter is seemingly happy in his marriage, but when his wife's much younger, wayward brother comes to stay with them, he finds himself attracted to the young man. A loose homage to Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, this book isn't nearly as heavy-handed with literary references as The Hours or Specimen Days. And neither is it the sprawling family drama of Cunningham's earlier work, Flesh and Blood. In fact, it is a fairly quiet novel compared to these other examples. Not bad, but just not quite as remarkable as The Hours or Flesh and Blood.

Seeing Michael Cunningham in person was utterly delightful, however. I went to a reading and signing for this book. He read a couple of short scenes from it, then a rather lengthy chapter from what he's currently working on. He said it was a first draft, but if that's true, I can't imagine how I ever thought I could be a writer. It's so polished--I can't imagine he just sits down and writes that beautifully! I hope by first draft he meant the first draft that he was willing to show anyone. Otherwise, he's even more talented than I thought!

What I found most interesting in his talk was his theory that prose should sound rhythmic and artistic when read aloud even to someone who doesn't speak the language of the work. He really pays attention to the stresses of the syllables as he strings together his sentences, but not in a labored way. I hate prose that is trying too hard to be poetic--I'm sure everyone has seen that. You can tell each little word in a sentence is labored over. Cunningham's prose is beautiful and artistic but in a way that feel natural. You can imagine someone speaking the dialogue. The narrative doesn't feel forced. That, I think, is the sign of a truly talented writer.

Heart of the Matter

2010-10-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

A friend lent me Emily Giffin's newest novel, Heart of the Matter. I've read Giffin's four previous novels and enjoyed three of them quite a bit. Something Borrowed and Something Blue are the best chick lit I've read since the first couple of Shopaholic books. Heart of the Matter was a little more serious . . . it felt like chick lit's older, more responsible sister. Gone are the fun shopping sprees and intricate descriptions of fashion. Instead, we see a woman who has recently given up her career to stay home with her two small children and her surgeon husband who is rarely home.

I read this book after the high I had reading Freedom. I often do that--after a really great, intense read, I opt for something light and end up going too light. Any other time, I'm sure this would have been a nice, easy read. Coming off of Freedom, though, it felt trite and a little boring. Well, it did bog down a bit at the beginning. The narrative switches between Tessa, the mother mentioned above, and Valerie, the mother of a boy who was badly burned in a birthday party accident. Tessa's husband Nick, a pediatric plastic surgeon, is the boy's doctor. And he's handsome (swoon). As the story is set up, it becomes immediately clear that Nick and Valerie are going to have an affair. It just takes way too long to get there--about half the book. Once they do, the story picks up.

Giffin has definitely graduated from her chick lit origins. She seems to be trying to get into the Jodi Picoult/Lifetime movie genre . . . we feel sympathy for all parties involved and find it hard to blame anyone . . . but it doesn't quite have the urgency or emotion of a Picoult novel. I would think twice before reading Giffin's next novel. And please remind me not to pick up a cotton candy book the next time I finish a real masterpiece!

Freedom

2010-09-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

I downloaded Jonathan Franzen’s new book, Freedom, just a couple of days before leaving the country for a 2-week European vacation. (I went on vacation with my Nook instead of my usual stack of paperbacks, and I loved it! You just have to remember to keep it charged . . . ) It was only on my return that I learned it was the current Oprah pick! Now, I have nothing against Oprah and sometimes she picks really good books. But I consider myself a serious reader, and it’s not often I find myself reading an Oprah book right after she announces it. But, with or without a talk show host endorsement, Freedom is a great read.

I read Corrections way back when, and although I don’t remember it well, I seem to remember it being hard to get into. Freedom, on the other hand, is captivating right from the start. It’s the story of Walter and Patty Berglund, and their two children. It has a lot of the components of my favorite genre—the mutli-generational American family saga—but, unlike most of those stories, it isn’t told sequentially. In the first section, Patty’s son Joey gets fed-up with his parents and moves in with his girlfriend’s family instead. The next lengthy section flashes back to Patty’s college years, when she meets Walter but has a crush on his roommate, Richard Katz, a brooding musician. The love triangle that ensues is quite the soap opera, but then the next section becomes extremely political. Walter gets a job with a conservation group out to save a species of songbird, but the huge corporation funding the operation has sinister motivations. And all the while Walter’s true passion is fighting overpopulation. He enlists the help of Richard, now a bona fide rock star, to try to convince young people that it’s really cool to not reproduce.

The book is overly political—criticizing the Bush years and America’s current drain on the environment, not to mention the war in Iraq, the economic downturn, 9/11, and a number of other events from the last decade and a half. Not to mention Walter’s extreme stance on overpopulation and his belief that people shouldn’t have children at all. And yet, the story is engaging enough to carry it. Amidst the political points, I still found myself caring about what the characters did next and how events would shape them. If Oprah’s endorsement isn’t enough, I, too, would highly recommend this book!

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

2010-08-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

I picked up an old paperback copy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at a library sale in college. Since the title was in French, I assumed the whole book was in French. I bought it when I was still taking French classes, naively thinking I'd read it in its native language. Well, since I stopped taking French and would find it hard to read even Le Petit Prince nowadays, I had relegated it to decorative status. Until the day I showed it to my friend, a French literature scholar, who actually opened the book and we discovered it was in English.

So, I put it on my list. Instead of my old, decorative paperback, though, I read it on my brand spanking new Nook! I really like my Nook--it's much sleeker than the first generation Kindle I borrowed from work and much easier on the eyes than the iPad. But, back to the book. I was originally interested in reading Laclos' novel back when the movie Cruel Intentions, the modern day teenage version of the story, came out. Reading an eighteenth-century epistolary novel reminded me of my favorite literature class, but really I think I prefer the movie version of the story. It was sleeker and just a little bit crueler on screen. I kept picturing Selma Blair and Ryan Phillippe as I read.

I'm glad I read it and had the chance to give my new Nook a spin. I'm really looking forward to loading it up with new stuff and taking it on vacation!

The Bitch Switch

2010-08-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

This is not the type of book I usually read. Let me try to explain. I was at a bookseller’s dinner where Omarosa was signing her new book, The Bitch Switch. I met her as she was passing by the exhibitors on her way to the signing table. I didn’t watch The Apprentice, but knew her, of course, by reputation. She turned out to be quite charming! She explained how, on the show, she was really just playing a part and many of her antics were suggested by the producers. So, when I looked over and saw that she had no line, I decided to go get a book. (At bookseller’s dinners and trade shows, the books are free!)

This is sort of a self-help book and sort of a business book. It’s based on a communication course Omarosa used to teach, and it’s basically about how many women can be more assertive. Sadly, as so often happens with women, assertiveness becomes equivalent to bitchiness. The advice really isn’t anything new . . . learn to say no, don’t be a pushover . . . I think the most interesting thing is learning all the different jobs she’s had—from Clinton White House staffer to beauty pageant consultant, from CNN freelancer to soap opera actress, and of course, her many reality television show gigs. And I think she had a brief stint in the ministry shortly after I met her! She’s everything to everyone!

The writing is interspersed with various quizzes/exercises and letters from readers. To be honest, I skipped over those. I skimmed this book during two sessions on the elliptical. It is peppered with pithy quotes from famous people, and there are some side bars of famous “Switches”, including Janice Dickinson and Hillary Clinton. What a pair!

Falling in Love with Natassia

2010-07-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

My latest gym book was Falling in Love with Natassia by Anna Monardo, and to be honest, I almost abandoned it about 100 pages in. The jacket copy mentioned a character that was a New York City book editor, so I kept going, hoping that part would catch my interest. The character's role was small, but I was eventually sucked into the story.

Natassia was born to Mary and Ross when they were studying abroad in Italy. No longer together, they leave Natassia to be raised by Ross's parents (his father is the aforementioned book editor). Natassia is devastated after her much older boyfriend dumps her and tries to commit suicide. Mary's friends rush to her side to help, but during all the drama we learn that one of her friends committed some abusive behavior against Natassia when she was an infant. Mary takes her daughter to live with her on campus at the upstate prep school where she teaches dance, and the final scenes include a confrontation where the past abuse is brought out into the open.

This is a very melodramatic book. It's not quite as bad as a Jodi Picoult novel--where we're shown so many sides of each character we can't possibly blame anyone--but it would still be a good candidate for a Lifetime movie. Or maybe an episode of Law & Order SVU. All of these people have problems--personal problems, marital problems, problems from their childhoods. And with more than one therapist, you know you're in for a ride.

I didn't necessarily dislike this book, but I wouldn't really recommend it either. Unless you're needing a little melodrama in your life. But, really, who wants that?

The Book Thief

2010-07-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

I got a signed copy of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief a few years ago at a children's booksellers dinner. With all the critical claim and its long reign on the bestsellers list, I was really looking forward to starting it. At first, I didn't think I was going to get into it. It's narrated by Death, which puts some distance between the reader and the characters. Not to mention gives the book a sinister mood--which is not hard, considering it's set in Nazi Germany. But by the end, I was deeply involved in the story and found it hard to put the book down.

The story follows Leisel Meminger, who is the titular book thief, as she is moved to a new town to live with a foster family when her own parents are accused of being Communists. Her brother dies on the journey, and she steals her first book, a gravedigger's guide, when they stop to bury him. She continues the habit, taking books whenever she can. She finds solace in the words--and helps calm those around her--by reading aloud during air raids and reading to a neighbor after she learns of her son's death in the war fields. She eventually begins writing her own story, which saves her life. This reverence for the written word is likely why the librarians went so nuts for the book and why it bears a Printz Honor seal, awarded by the American Library Association. But it's a nice touchstone for any book lover.

It is eye-opening to read a story that counts not just Jews among the War's victims. It does include Jewish characters and the uncertainty that came with the concentration camps, as it rightly should. But it shows the other victims, too: communists whether real or perceived, the country's children, and ordinary German citizens who didn't see eye to eye with the Nazi regime. The fact that we're seeing this all play out through the eyes of an adolescent girl makes it all the more heartbreaking.

While The Book Thief was published as a young adult novel, I think there's something here for everyone, and would highly recommend it. The unique narrator and uses of art--stories and sketches--throughout makes it stand out from other World War II literature.

The Potrait of a Lady

2010-07-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I was feeling bad about never having read Henry James, so I picked up a Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Portrait of a Lady. Of course, a 600-page classic always seems daunting, so I went a few more years having never read Henry James. But, now that I have, I realize what I was missing!

Isabel Archer is an American orphan taken under the wing of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who now resides in Europe. Isabel becomes a part of the family, and when her uncle dies, her Consumption-stricken cousin Ralph, convinces his father to bequeath her a large sum of money. Ralph hopes the money will open up the world to her, allowing her to travel and freeing her from the necessity of having to marry for financial stability. Unfortunately, it only makes her prey to the scheming of some very selfish people.

While Jane Austen’s characters have silly foibles that are easy to poke fun of, James’s characters have foibles that are lethal. They don’t think twice of ruining another person’s life if it leads to personal gain. In the first half, I found it hard to sympathize with Isabel: she is vaguely intellectual and independent but immensely silly at the same time. By the end, after she has fallen victim to those plotting around her, it is hard not to feel sympathy for her and hope she finds a way to escape her circumstances.

On a lighter note, one thing in James’s world seems to continue today is the obnoxiousness of American tourists in Europe. Most of the central characters of this novel are American ex-pats, as was James himself. They are not quite on the same level as native Europeans, but they are more refined than those merely visiting from the States. Semi-professional journalist Henrietta Stackpole, upon seeing Michelangelo’s dome at St. Peter’s, declares that is suffers by comparison with the dome of the U.S. Capitol. Now, while I admit the Capitol building is spectacular, it is nothing compared to St. Peter’s—especially when one takes into account how much older St. Peter’s is. But it is that attitude of things in the U.S. always being superior that I—and many other travelers—find so annoying when encountering fellow—albeit more obnoxious—American abroad.

All in all, I enjoyed the novel, and will look for more James in the future. I have it on good authority that The Turn of the Screw is quite good . . .

Water for Elephants

2010-07-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen since it took the bestseller lists by storm a couple of years ago. So, when I borrowed a Kindle from work to try e-reading, it was the first book I thought of. It was great for a quick, summer read. It's engaging with great characters and just enough literary flavor so you don't feel like you're reading trash.

Jacob Jankowski is about to graduate with a veterinary degree from Cornell when his parents are killed in a tragic accident. He freezes during his final exams and walks out and away from the school. He hops on board a train in the middle of a night . . . only to find it's a circus train. When the circus staff discovers he is a veterinarian--at least in all but degree--they hire him on. We meet a whole cast of characters--the hot-tempered animal handle, the delicate horse rider, the corrupt manager, a midget clown--and feel the class struggle between the performers and the working men. Set against the Depression and Prohibition, Gruen even throws a little history in.

It's an absorbing story, and the only surprise about the upcoming movie is that it didn't come out sooner after the book's great success--especially with book clubs. I read that Rob Pattinson from Twilight is playing Jacob . . . I might have cast Zac Efron instead, but that's just personal preference. It will probably make a good, period movie for the fall serious movie season.

E-Reading Diary, Part 2

2010-07-07T19:47:00.001-07:00

So, shortly after I checked out the Kindle, we got an office iPad. I couldn't wait to get it home and try out all the e-reading apps: Apple's iBookstore, the Kindle app, the Barnes & Noble app, and Kobo, which is the reader Borders is using. iBookstore is the closest to a printed book: the layout has the outline of a hardcover book behind the page, there's an animated page-turn effect, the counter actually uses pages as a unit of measure, and it tells you how many pages are left in the chapter--which is great for me, because I compulsively check how long each chapter is.

The Kindle app is much like Kindle for PC--there is no search function, which made the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary I bought completely useless. (Although, to be honest, I can't remember if there was a search function on the actual Kindle.) The page turns are much faster than on the Kindle, as they are in all the apps. The B&N and Kobo apps are fairly similar. And all of them let you download samplers of many books--fairly generous samples, too--3 chapters of the new Emily Giffin novel. The iBookstore doesn't have nearly as many titles as the Kindle or B&N stores, though.

Overall, I didn't really like reading on the iPad. Even though you can adjust the brightness--and even change the page color from white to sepia in iBooks--the backlit screen is hard on the eyes. I was tired after reading for about 20 minutes. And, since I'm practically going blind already, I want to take it easy on my peepers! There were some cool apps that would only work on a color screen like the iPad. Zinio is a reader for magazines that keeps the layout of the print version. You can read selected free articles or buy whole issues. The DC Comics app is also really cool--you can read the full page of a comic, or go panel by panel. Batman has never looked so good! (Actually I don't know if that's true. I've never read a Batman comic in print.)

Now that I'm ready to buy my own e-reader, I'm leaning toward the Barnes & Noble Nook. Even though it doesn't do as much as the iPad, the e-ink is definitely the way to go for me. Who wants to get on an international flight and only be able to read for 20 minutes at a time!?

E-Reading Diary, Part 1

2010-06-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

I have officially read an e-book! After attending a scholarly publishing conference on the mostly digital future--although print books aren't going anywhere any time soon--I decided I should probably see what all the fuss is about. So, I checked out a company Kindle and downloaded Water for Elephants, a book I've been meaning to read.

The buying experience on the Kindle was a little clunky. Granted, I was using a first generation device, so it has likely improved. You navigate around the menus with a scroll bar on the right--I'm pretty sure newer models don't have that bar. I searched for the book, found it, clicked buy, and in about a minute it was ready to go. Browsing for books is a little difficult. You pretty much have to know what you're looking for or want something off a bestseller list. The preview chapters are also a little awkward--you can sample most books in the Kindle store, but instead of clicking a link to the sample chapters, you have to download them to the device. They seem to be quite generous, though.

I wasn't sure how I'd like reading on a screen, but once I got into the book, I didn't even notice I was reading in a different way. Great writing is great writing, and it really doesn't matter how you read it. Once I got the rhythm of clicking next page about a line early--there's a slight delay in the page turn, but again, this could be because it's an old Kindle--the "device" disappeared and I was just reading.

It's a little disorienting to let go of the idea of pages--there's a progress bar at the bottom of the screen, but no page counts. I usually flip through to see how long a chapter is, and I had to let that go. But otherwise, I was surprised by how much I liked using the reader. It's easier to hold in one hand than a printed book, which makes reading while eating lunch much easier. And it's lighter than most books.

I'm now excited about getting my own e-reader. I think it'd be great for travel--and just in general to always have a book in your bag. The only real drawback is the shopping experience, but having a specific book in mind is not usually a problem for me. I can always pick up a physical book when I find something new and exciting in a bookstore . . . I can't imagine switching over to e-books completely. But, I am more excited about e-readers than I thought I would be. Plus, if I had bought a paperback copy of Water for Elephants, it'd now be sitting in my pile of books to discard, so now I don't have to worry about it taking up room in my very full apartment.

I got to try an iPad recently, too, so I'll review my reading experience on that in my next post. I fully embraced technology this past week!

The Lost Symbol

2010-06-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

I picked up a copy of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol at a garage sale earlier this month. I couldn't decide what book on my list I wanted to read on my most recent business trip, so I took this along instead. What a great summer read! Just like the first two Robert Langdon novels, it was full of action and sophisticated intrigue. A thriller at heart, Brown weaves in so much history, symbology, science, and conspiracy theory, one can't help but feel smart reading it. (Especially when I figured out the biggest symbolic mystery close to the beginning!)

Abandoning the Catholic church, Brown centers this novel around the Masons. Theories about the Mason's involvement in the founding of America are not new--I caught a History Channel show about the subject on the same business trip. Many of the founding fathers were confirmed members, several prominent buildings in DC--including the Capitol and Washington Monument--commenced with traditional Masonic cornerstone ceremonies, and if you trace a 6-pointed star over the pyramid seal on the back of a dollar bill, the points will hit letters that spell out Mason.

When the highest Masonic leader in the country calls Robert Langdon to give a talk on symbology at the Capitol building, the action begins. He arrives to find the severed hand of this leader, who is also a close friend, sitting in the middle of the Rotunda room, newly tattooed with symbols of the Ancient Mysteries. And the action is nonstop from there. A madman is desperate to find a mythical portal, supposedly located in DC, that leads to the Ancient Mysteries--a new level of wisdom and knowledge for humankind.

This was a fun read, especially for summer. Of course, when my plane hit terrifying turbulence, reading about a woman running for her life didn't really keep my mind off the bumpy ride. But other than that, it was hard to put down, and I'd highly recommend it for a light read!

The Book of Unholy MIschief

2010-06-14T19:50:00.001-07:00

If my copies of The Da Vinci Code and Julia Child's My Life in France had a love child, it would have been The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark. Set in Renaissance Italy, it tries to be a Dan Brown-type thriller. Luciano, a teenage orphan who has been living on the streets, meets the chef to the Doge of Venice and becomes his apprentice. Meanwhile, all Venice is atwitter over a mysterious book said to contain the secrets to eternal youth, love potions, and alchemy. Not surprisingly, the chef knows something about the book, and a network of chefs dedicated to preserving knowledge is uncovered. Like The Da Vinci Code, a juicy secret about Christ is proposed . . . although it is much less juicy than the one in Brown's novel.

While the book strives to be an intriguing thriller, the best-written passages are those describing food. Newmark's father was a chef, and her writing really comes alive when she is describing ripe produce and the melding of flavors in the busy kitchen. I wonder how well researched it is--it seems odd that some of the recipes are still used today, but I suppose it could be accurate. I hope she leaves the historical mysteries to other writers and focuses on food in her next book.

Speaking of Dan Brown, I'm about 50 pages into his latest, The Lost Symbol. It has proved to be very hard to put down--he really is the master of that genre. Don't judge . . . we all need a little brain candy!

Flesh and Blood

2010-06-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

Picking up Michael Cunningham's Flesh and Blood was like a breath of fresh air in this project. A lot of the books that have been sitting around my apartment forever have been sitting around for a reason: I had something better to read. But this book made me realize what my very favorite kind of book is: sweeping novels that follow multiple generations of a family, preferably through most of the twentieth century. Bonus points if the first generation emigrates to America.

Flesh and Blood, which I liked even more than The Hours (which I really really liked!), is all of those things. Constantine Stassos, the patriarch of the novel, moves to New York from Greece around the fifties. We follow his children and his children's children through the sexual revolution of the seventies and the AIDS epidemic of the eighties and nineties, clashing constantly with Constantine's old world ideals. Constantine is a contractor and makes his fortune building track homes. There's an interesting commentary on the cheapening of building standards and the market for cheap houses as more and more people moved to the suburbs and wanted single family homes.

I just couldn't put this book down. Granted, I started on a cross-country flight, so I didn't have a lot of other options, but I breezed through the first 350 pages in two days. I was flying to New York to go to BookExpo, where I was happy to learn Michael Cunningham has a new novel coming out this fall: By Nightfall, which is schedule to release in late September. Here's hoping it's as good as Flesh and Blood!

Howard's End

2010-05-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

Two worlds collide in E.M. Forster's Howard's End: the intellectual, highly theoretical world of the Schlegels and the practical, capitalistic world of the Wilcoxes. The two families meet by chance--in fact the very lively opening of the novel finds Helen Schlegel announcing her engagement to Paul Wilcox only to say it is all over the very next day. Helen's older sister, Margaret, befriends Mrs. Wilcox, and when Mrs. Wilcox dies, she leaves Margaret the family's country estate, Howard's End. Outraged, the men in the family say the last whim of their wife and mother cannot be legally binding, and dismiss the claim.

Sexual politics are definitely at work throughout the novel. The Schlegels' parents died when they were young, so Margaret is used to being the head of the family. She and her sister are both highly independent and extremely well-educated, following a very avant-garde set of writers and artists. Both have their foibles, however. In fact, all of the characters have strong foibles, and only a few are endearing enough to get past them. Helen, especially, has an Emma quality to her. She takes on the cause of Leonard Bast, a clerk she meets by chance at a concert. Meaning well, she works to better his place in life. However, she goes about this mission foolishly and causes much pain in the process.

This was a very readable book--after I reached the midway point, it was hard to put down. Written in 1910, it included a lot of the society and marriage drama of the great nineteenth-century English novels, but the scandals were much more scandalous. Forster perfectly blended the theoretical aspects of the novel--the intellectual versus the practical--with an engaging story. This was the first book I've read by Forster, but I look forward to reading more.

Sea of Poppies

2010-05-18T19:41:00.000-07:00

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh was a sweeping, epic, historical novel set in nineteenth century India. It had romance, it had tragedy . . . it had a lot of characters to keep track of. That, plus the heavy use of Indian dialect, sailing terms, and pirate-esque slang made it very hard to get into. The first hundred and fifty pages, especially. After that, the characters' paths started crossing, so it was easier to keep track of who was who and became a more interesting story.

The main action surrounded the Ibis, a former slave ship that is being used to transport people to Mauritius. The many characters we meet in the first couple hundred pages either run the ship or end up as one of its passengers. Deeti, who could be considered the main character, was supposed to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, but instead escaped with a lover. Puli is a French orphan who falls for the ship's second mate Zachary, an American mixed-race sailor. Amidst the many love triangles and such there is quite a bit of commentary on the strict caste system in play at the time, as well as race politics.

Once I got into it, I thought this was a good read. If you can get past the jargon, it goes pretty quickly. I was about to give up around page 120, but kept going because a friend of mine had recommended it. (See comments to the When You Reach Me post.) She was right, and I would recommend this to others.

Songs for the Missing

2010-05-16T20:33:00.001-07:00

My latest gym book, Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan, was an interesting follow up to Every Last One. Both dealt with family tragedies, but here the action got going a lot sooner. In the first ten pages or so, we meet high school senior Kim Larsen. And then, right around the tenth page, she goes missing. The rest of the book follows her parents and younger sister as they search for Kim and eventually have to move on with their own lives even though the mystery of her disappearance remains unsolved.

Where Every Last One was slow at the beginning, Song for the Missing needed about 50 pages or so (out of 287 total) cut out of the middle. A hundred pages of friends and family searching the rural landscape for clues was quite repetitive. But, the book raised some interesting questions about how families deal with a disappearance. What happens when Kim's younger sister goes back to school? What do Kim's parents tell the college she has chosen when the fall semester starts and she's still missing? When can they go back to work after spending all their time searching for their daughter?

This certainly wasn't my favorite book, but I kept reading to see if Kim would ever be found, and I'm glad I did keep reading. It was a really poignant portrait of a family caught in a tragedy and how they return to everyday life even when the case remains unsolved.

When You Reach Me

2010-04-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

This past winter, I read several amazing reviews of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, and then in January it won the Newbery Award. Needless to say, I had high hopes for this one . . . and it just about lived up to them. On the surface, this is another middle grade novel with quirky characters: Miranda doesn't quite fit in at school and spends most of her time with Sal at the beginning of the story, she helps her mom prepare for her upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid, and she starts working in cranky Jimmy's sandwich shop at lunch for a salary of cheese sandwiches.

But there's a disquieting mystery at the heart of this story: Miranda receives a note saying someone is coming to save her friend's life if only she'll write him a letter first. The stranger who sends this note--and future ones--not only knows where Miranda lives, but he is able to predict things that happen to her and her family. As Miranda makes more friends at school, she is able to unravel the mystery with their help. And, of course, her obsession with A Wrinkle in Time helps, too.

The reviews had said you needed to be familiar with Wrinkle, so I read that, too, before jumping in. I'm not sure how I missed this one growing up--it's not like I didn't much as a kid. I'm not much for science fiction, so I didn't absolutely love it, but I did like the idea that people were fighting the dark force trying to take over the universe with art and intellect.

Both of these books were fun, adventurous reads . . . for children of all ages! Now, it's back to the list. I'm jumping back in with Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.

Every Last One

2010-04-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

So, I deviated from the list again. I'm good at doing that . . . which is probably how I ended up with a list in the first place. But, I got an advance copy of Anna Quindlen's new novel, Every Last One, from the First Reads program on Goodreads and felt obligated to get a review up on the site quickly.

I haven't read any of Anna Quindlen's fiction, but, as I said when I read her nonfiction work, Imagined London, I used to want to be her. She was both a journalist and a novelist, and I thought I wanted to be both of those things. Of course, I ended up neither. So, I thought I was in for a good read (no pun intended) when I picked up Every Last One.

And, her prose is good. It's very readable, and I liked the characters she had created. The first half of the book introduces us to the Latham family. Mary Beth Latham has 3 kids: a teenaged girl and twin middle-school-aged boys. She is happily married and owns her own landscape design business. Not too much happens in the first half; we see the family going through everyday events . . . her daughter, Ruby, finds the perfect prom dress, then breaks up with her boyfriend, someone she has known since early childhood. One of the twins, Max, develops depression, and that consumes much of Mary Beth's time and worry--and rightfully so. Except, at the same time, Ruby's ex-boyfriend just won't go away. He leaves her little gifts and keeps showing up, even though Ruby makes it clear she no longer wants to see him.

At almost exactly the midpoint of the book, an unspeakable tragedy occurs. The story was setting up for something to happen, but not an event of this magnitude. The second half follows Mary Beth as she picks up the pieces.

It's an easy read . . . the 300 pages move along at a fast clip. But it felt very Lifetime Movie-ish. I can see certain book clubs enjoying it . . . just the fact that the violence seems to come out of nowhere would offer some discussion. I didn't love it, however. There were some touching moments in the second half, but not enough to sustain the whole book. I think, in the future, I'll stick to Quindlen's nonfiction.

The Brothers Karamazov

2010-04-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

936 pages of nineteenth-century Russian fiction . . . but other than a couple hundred pages describing the happenings at the local monastery, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a great read. The jacket copy was quite titillating: "Compelling, profound, complex, it is the story of a patricide and of the four sons who each had a motive for murder . . ." I was ready for that murder, too, having been a fan of Crime and Punishment. I kept waiting for it . . . 200 pages in, okay now he's set up the story . . . 300 pages in, it has to be just around the corner . . . but it didn't come until about halfway through. And at that point, the book is hard to put down. There's a good soap opera going in the first half, too, with a couple of love triangles. Really, the writers of Grey's Anatomy could learn a thing or two.

I'm not sure what purpose the bit about the monastery serves. I'm sure it's brilliant--perhaps simply to give the novel its moral center, or maybe a commentary on the religious politics of the time. But parts of that section were hard to get through.

Once the murder occurs, though, the story just takes off. We see the police investigation and the courtroom proceedings, all of which is drama-laden. Like in Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky has created some vivid and sympathetic characters--despite their foibles. It really is a brilliant novel, and you don't really notice the page count once you get into it.

Now that this giant tome is crossed off the list, I really feel like the end is in site! 23 more to go, but not nearly as long as this one.

The Graveyard Book

2010-03-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

I came to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book with high expectations. The only other Gaiman book I've read is Coraline, which I loved. That, plus Graveyard's Newbury win created a lot of hype. The beginning, though, was similar to how Tim Burton described Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in an interview for his movie: a brat wandering around in a strange world where odd things happen to her.

The young protagonist, who we come to know as Nobody "Bod" Owens, barely escapes when a stranger murders the rest of his family. (A lot of children's lit is dark, but the beginning of this book was particularly so!) He crawls across the street to the neighborhood graveyard where, unlike the rest of the living, he is able to see the ghosts who inhabit it. The Owenses adopt him and Silas, who hovers somewhere in between the dead and the living, agrees to take care of him--bringing him food, monitoring his education, etc. The ghosts all pitch in to teach him usual and unique lessons: reading, writing, arithmetic, fading, dream-walking . . . He also explores a fantastical underworld, befriends a witch, and discovers the mysterious Sleer.

The second half of the book is where it really picked up. Bod crosses paths with the man who killed his family and works to uncover why he targeted them. Bod also discovers the drawbacks of living among the dead:

"In the graveyard no one ever changed. The little children Bod had played with when he was small were still little children; Fortinbras Bartleby, who had once been his best friend, was now four or five years younger than Bod was . . . "

This, plus the many scenes emphasizing how important Bod's lessons are, is what won the Newbury.

The Graveyard Book was an interesting pairing with Her Fearful Symmetry--although, I do find it slightly odd that I read two books set in a creepy English graveyard in the span of a few months. The Gaiman book was by far the better--a fun adventure set between earth and the afterlife.

Reading the Classics

2010-03-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

I came across this essay by novelist Cathleen Schine while flipping through a stack of recent New York Times Book Reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/Schine-t.html?scp=1&sq=dostoyevsky%20%22the%20idiot%22&st=cse

In it, she talks about being "illiterate" after developing an aversion to reading when she bit off more than she could chew as a seventh grader picking up Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. She describes standing in The Strand after years of graduate work in medieval history, trying to find something to read. She describes all the great classics that are still new to her--Dickens and Austen.

I'm fairly well-read in the canonical classics. I was an English major and focused on eighteenth and nineteenth century British novels. And yet I still relate to her feeling of the endless possibilities awaiting--especially as I'm hunkered down in my own Dostoyevsky novel. (1/3 of the way through Karamazov!!) I've never read a Henry James novel . . . or Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn. I've been wanting to read Lolita and Gone With the Wind for some time now. There are so many books out there, I think there will always be new territory to explore, even for life-long voracious readers.

Okay, enough wistful thinking. It's back to the 9o0+-page Russian novel for me!

Franny and Zooey

2010-03-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

Putting Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger on my list was really cheating--I've read it before. But, I've been wanting to reread it and now seemed like a good time to do so, in light of Salinger's death.

I wanted to revisit this book, because when I read it in high school, I remember being really moved by the discussions of religion and spirituality. I wanted to see if I'd still feel that way. Well, this time around, it struck me that Franny was being quite self-indulgent to have a major meltdown and refuse any help from her worried family during her crisis of faith. Sure, a crisis of faith is major, but it just seemed like she didn't have to ignore her family. Her brother Zooey, however, comes off as quite the saint by talking her through her conundrum.

Even though Franny did annoy me this time around, I still found it to be a brilliant book. Reading this and The Bell Jar and the short stories of Dorothy Parker, which I've been picking up now and again, I really want to audit some classes in twentieth-century American lit. I don't want to write papers or anything, but I'd love to be in a really smart book club led by an expert.

In the not-so-brilliant-book category, I tried to read Lauren Henderson's Jane Austen's Guide to Dating at the gym, but it took itself far too seriously. I thought it'd be a fun, tongue-in-cheek approach to looking at modern dating situations through the lens of Austen's characters, but it was an earnest dating guide based on principles from her books. It even had a quiz to see which Austen heroine you most resembled, which Austen hero your love interest matched, and then a chart to see if you would be compatible. I abandoned this one about 14 pages in.

Now it's on to The Brothers Karamazov, which I think I'll be reading for awhile . . .

The Monsters of Templeton

2010-02-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

As I'm reading through my accumulated books, I realize why many of them have sat on my shelves for years. Someone of them just aren't all that compelling. Lauren Groff's debut novel The Monsters of Templeton, however, was a hidden gem. Billed as part contemporary story, part historical novel, and part ghost story in the flap copy, I tacked it on to my series of supernatural books, following Her Fearful Symmetry and The Grift. The ghost story was minimal, though, and it turned out to be one of those sweeping novels covering several generations of a fascinating family. (I'd call it epic, but at only 360 pages, that seems like an overstatement.)

Willie Upton returns to Templeton, her small Hudson Valley hometown, when she finds herself pregnant with her thesis adviser's child. According to an author's note, Templeton is based on the author's home town, Cooperstown. Both were founded by--and named after--one man. Both are home to a famous nineteenth-century novelist. And both are home to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

To get Willie's mind off her predicament, her mother tells her that her father, who Willie had previously believed was one of three random guys at a hippie commune, actually lives in town and is related to the town's patriarch Marmaduke Temple through an illegitimate birth. This sends Willie scouring through the town's history and that of her family, learning many secrets of the previous generations.

The first 50 pages were a little disjointed, and I didn't think I was going to finish the book. But once Willie starts her quest to discover her father, it became unputdownable. After a quick internet search, it seems as if this book got a good reception--Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review--but doesn't seem to be an overwhelming bestseller. It'd be perfect for a book club. I will definitely look for more from Lauren Groff, although I may skip her short story collection Delicate Edible Birds, because I have a strong fear of birds . . . especially little delicate ones.

No Place Like Home

2010-02-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

My latest gym book was No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark. I used to qualify my reading of her books by calling them "brain candy" or "guilty pleasures," but I don't even think that's necessary anymore. She may not be a queen of lyrical prose (and insists on sending her characters to get a "container" of coffee instead of a "cup"), but she can tell one heck of a story. This was one of her best, too! At least of those that I've read.

When she was ten, Liza Barton accidentally shot and killed her mother while protecting herself from her raging stepfather. The crime rocked the small New England town where the Bartons lived, with the community assuming Liza meant to kill her mother. Now as an adult, Liza is living as Celia Nolan, an interior decorator and mother of one grade-school-aged son. As a surprise birthday present, Celia's husband buys her a house in a small New England town . . . the house where Celia/Liza grew up and killed her mother.

As soon as the Nolans arrive, vandals strike the house, which has never shed its stigma, and nearly everyone with any stake in the house or the crime starts turning up dead. Of course, Celia starts to look guilty, and she's constantly afraid someone will discover her true identity.

I usually don't even try to figure our Clark's mysteries. She creates so many plausible bad guys, it's nearly impossible to pick the guilty one. I did suspect one person from the start, however, and turned out to be right. I take this as a significant personal victory! At first I thought there were too many characters to keep straight, but when Clark reintroduces the characters, she does a good job of giving us some detail to remind us who the person is.

After reading The Grift, I appreciate Clark's mastery of mystery and suspense more than ever!

The Grift

2010-02-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

The Grift by Debra Ginsberg won the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association book prize for mystery this year. I received a copy of the book at the awards dinner last year, so I've been looking forward to reading it. Marina is a fake psychic who charges big bucks to tell people what they want to hear. She moves from Florida to northern San Diego County in California, and is putting money away so she can retire at age 37--not a bad idea. One of her first gigs in California is to work a party where she meets many of the clients that will become her regulars and the central figures--and suspects--in the mystery that unfolds.

About halfway through the book, she develops real psychic ability. This is, naturally, beneficial in solving the mystery involving arson and murder. But it is tough on business. She can no longer give the vague, generic readings her clients have come to expect. She sees detailed pictures of their immediate futures--mostly events they'd rather not hear about. The book is entertaining and a fast read. She's not quite Mary Higgins Clark, but the story does take some fun turns.

Ginsberg has written several memoirs and another novel--Blind Submission--which is a Devil Wears Prada-type send-up of an infamously difficult literary agent in San Diego. I haven't read the memoirs, but I did read Submission because a good friend of mine used to work for the agent. It was a fairly entertaining story, but I think I only enjoyed it because I felt like I was "in" on the joke. I'm not sure if anyone outside of publishing would find it interesting.

The Grift wasn't as good as I expected--I mean, it's award winning, after all--but I don't regret reading it. Continuing my string of books about the supernatural, next up is The Monsters of Templeton, which promises to be part historical novel and part ghost story . . . then maybe I'll head back to reality. Or, you know, as real as a work of fiction can get.

Her Fearful Symmetry

2010-02-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

Audrey Niffenegger's first novel since the phenomenal Time Traveler's Wife has been eagerly awaited . . . and yet, she hit the sophomore slump big time. Her Fearful Symmetry didn't start out that bad--in fact, I quite enjoyed the first 300 pages. Elspeth Noblin is dying of cancer, and she leaves her London flat, which sits adjacent to Highgate Cemetery, and everything in it to her twin nieces in America. The daughters of her estranged twin, who is supposed to have run off with Elspeth's fiance, the girls must live in the flat for a year before selling it. Elspeth's lover, Robert, will be their guide to life in London.

The twins, Julia and Valentina, are extremely close, as were their mothers before their split. They often hold hands, share a bed, and dress alike. They never do anything without the other. This incredible closeness--and the love triangle of the older generation of twins--echo Niffenegger's novel in pictures, The Three Incestuous Sisters. Without the actual incest, thankfully.

It was the last hundred pages of the book where it really fell apart. Elspeth's ghost is trapped in her apartment and learns to communicate with the girls. She and Valentina hatch a ridiculous scheme to help Valentina escape the grip of her overbearing sister. Before that, even despite the ghost story, it would have been an okay novel. Nothing compared to The Time Traveler's Wife, but decent enough. There is a very interesting side story about a man living in the same London apartment building as the twins who suffers from OCD. A friend of mine thought that should have been the main story. It was definitely the most interesting part of the book.

It's hard to follow such a smashing success as her first book. Many writers fail in their second efforts . . . so here's hoping the third time's the charm.

Shades of Gray

2010-01-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

I first read The Eyre Affair ages ago . . . probably in 2003. (Which feels like ages ago.) Since then, I've read everything Jasper Fforde has written. He's one of the few authors where I'll run and buy the hardcover as soon as it's published. His newest book, Shades of Gray, is a departure from his usual fare where characters jump in and out of books, mixing and mingling with fiction's greatest characters, to solve crimes.

Gray is set in the future. Something has happened to bring an end to civilization as we know it and a new human race has taken over earth. These new humans have limited sight--many people can only see one color, and those are the lucky ones. The rest see only in grayscale. This sounds bleak--and there is a bleakness to this world--but the book is full of Forde's quirky humor. One of the many mandates of the heavy-handed government is the leapback, when certain technologies are forbidden. One leapback prohibited the manufacture of spoons, so they are now a precious commodity. People cherish their spoons--if they are lucky enough to have them--and bequeath them to their heirs.

It is that despotic government, however, that gives the book its dark undertone. Citizens are subject to rules and regulations over every aspect of their lives--what clothes they can wear, when and where they can eat, what books they can read. But, in the midst of this oppressive world, Eddie Russett, with his high perception of red, is questioning the way things are and looking for ways to implement change. This, of course, gets him in trouble. He is banished to the outer limits of the civilized land where he uncovers even darker elements of the government. But, in Fforde fashion, he meets a girl and has some fun adventures on the way.

If people haven't read Fforde, I'd recommend starting with The Eyre Affair and the other Thursday Next books. But, if you're already familiar with his milieu, Shades of Gray won't disappoint!

P.S. I went to an author event for this book, and he said that he's working on a new Thursday Next novel.

My Life in France

2010-01-16T20:33:00.001-08:00

Julia Child's My Life in France was one of the most enjoyable nonfiction books I've ever read. (Which, admittedly, isn't very many.) I've never seen her cooking show, so my only picture of Julia is Meryl Streep's portrayal in Julie and Julia, but the same joie de vivre in Meryl's performance comes across on the page. One of her most endearing traits is her habit for nicknaming everything and everyone--her first Paris apartment on Rue de l'Universite was Rue de Loo, and her cookbook work was cookery-bookery.

Also noteworthy is that she really didn't start cooking seriously until her mid- to late-thirties. I still have time! But when she started cooking seriously, she took it very seriously . . . trying every recipe over and over to find exactly the right combination of ingredients and technique. She broke cooking down to a science, and she wanted every recipe in her cookbooks to be fool proof.

There was one part of the book that I did not find so enjoyable: the discussions she and her editor had when it came time to name Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She goes into detail about the different names that were proposed and the sales manager's objections . . . it all just reminded me too much of work! Actually, it was the part of the book I probably related to most.

In any case, it's a great read--I think it would even be interesting for people who don't like to cook. Because I do enjoy cooking, it made me want to get into the kitchen and try something new!

Quote of the Day

2010-01-15T12:11:00.001-08:00

"I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do."--Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897) (As seen in the Lonely Hearts Book Club column in the LA Times Magazine)

My thoughts exactly! Which is why I look forward to curling up with Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde tonight. The perfect end to a very long week!

Kids' Book Roundup

2010-01-03T15:28:00.000-08:00

I spent December reading through several kids books: Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs . . . a compilation published by McSweeney's, The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, and The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

I got Noisy Outlaws when it was published in 2005 because it was a fundraiser for 826, the series of writing centers started by Dave Eggers, and because it included stories by Nick Hornby, Neil Gaiman, and Jon Scieszka. It's a clever book--the stories are accompanied by some amazing artwork, especially by Shelley Dick--and it includes a comic, a crossword puzzle, and even a dust jacket where you can write your own story. There was a contest when the book was published. The stories were all amusing, but Jon Scieszka's stands out: "Each Sold Separately" is a 3-page dialogue written mainly in advertising slogans. ("'I got it,' he says. 'Got what?' says the girl. 'The real thing.' The girl looks in the bag. 'Wow. You just did it. You obeyed your thirst.'")

I was a huge fan of the Anne of Green Gables series when I was younger. A couple of years ago, I visiting Prince Edward Island as part of a Canada/New England cruise and took the Anne tour. Even though it was a rainy day, it is as beautiful as the books make it out to be! We visited both Green Gables and the home where L. M. Montgomery had lived with her grandparents. That's where I picked up The Story Girl, because one of the episodes in the book involves a blue chest that is still at the house. It's not Montgomery's best work, but it was entertaining enough, recounting the summer pursuits of several children on a farm on PEI. The central character, The Story Girl, resembles Anne a bit, but doesn't have her spunk.

The Wizard of Oz was--and still is--one of my favorite movies. Unfortunately, I'd say this is one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book. But probably because the movie is such a classic and I watched it so many times. But, the book does include episodes that were not in the movie and I was surprised to find characters from Wicked that I thought were the invention of Gregory Maguire. I've had this book forever--since I was two years told--but this was the first time I've read it. I was horrified to find that my two-year-old self had scribbled on just about every chapter-opener page! Luckily, I'd been wise enough not to scribble over any of the words!

I'm down to 30 books from my list of 59 and am celebrating this halfway point by going off-list and reading a book I just received for Christmas: My Life in France by Julia Child. (Yes, I did become interested in reading this only after seeing Julie and Julia!)

A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End

2009-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Kicking off another line-up of kids’ books, I read A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End: The Right Way to Write Writing by Avi, the author of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (which I distinctly remember not finishing as a kid). A sequel to The End of the Beginning, this silly tale follows a snail named Avon and an ant named Edward.

Avon sits down to write about his adventures from the first book, but is facing a bit of writer’s block. Edward decides to give him some advice. This book is more of a cute tale for aspiring writers than something kids would actually enjoy, but the silly plays on words far outweigh any actual writing advice—although the last 3 pages are quite inspiring. An anteater, coming after Edward, is convinced that what he really wants to eat are aunts. (“In this world U can make a difference.”) The humor is a cross between the cleverness of The Phantom Tollbooth and the utter zaniness of Monty Python.

Still, there are 5 rules to writing:

1) Write about what you know.
2) Write abut what you don’t know.
3) Write about what you don’t know as if you did know it.
4) Make sure that when you’re writing about what you don’t know as if you did know,

conceal the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing.
5) Always leave your reader guessing.

So, there it is, from a Newbury Medal-winning author. Happy writing!

The Swan Thieves

2009-12-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova was one of two books this fall on my own personal “highly anticipated” list (and thus not on my original list of books to get through). Kostova wrote The Historian, a blockbuster vampire novel that came out a few years ago, before vampire mania had really hit. That was good, but I enjoyed this new book even more.

It begins when a crazed artist bursts into the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and tries to stab one of the paintings. Robert Oliver, a successful contemporary artist and instructor, often works in a style similar to that of the nineteenth-century French Impressionists. One figure has occupied most of his canvases, yet it is not anyone in his life, as far as his psychiatrist, the main narrator, can discover. He is also obsessed with a little-known female painter from the nineteenth century, whose story quickly becomes a compelling mystery.

I received this book at a Southern California booksellers event where Kostova spoke. She said she started this book because she wanted to write about and describe paint. For someone really wanting to explore art in words, it was interesting that she chose Impressionism, as it isn’t highly regarded in serious art circles. Still, it was a perfect read . . . beautifully written without being too serious.

The Shop on Blossom Street

2009-12-02T16:47:00.000-08:00

I have never been a reader of romance novels. I sneer at pretty much everything that comes in a mass market paperback trim size. I loathe raised, foil-stamped titles. However, The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber was about a knitting shop, so I thought I'd give it a whirl as my latest gym book. (Knitting is a favorite hobby of mine.) And, I was pleasantly surprised!

Centering on 4 women who come to know each other at the titular shop, it's more grown-up chick lit than a romance novel. (Hen lit? I've never liked that term . . . ) One woman opens the shop after a couple of battles with cancer, another has just quit her job to try for a baby, an older upper-class woman decides to knit a baby blanket to feign enthusiasm for her unborn grandchild, and a younger woman chooses knitting for Project Linus as an easy way to fulfill her court-ordered community service. You can imagine the kinds of scenarios that ensue. And, it pretty much plays out like a Lifetime movie . . . but one of the better Lifetime movies that you don't regret watching!

I have a couple more of these books--hand-me-downs from my mother--stashed away somewhere. I will probably give them a whirl, too.

The Bell Jar

2009-11-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

So, while I've been reading and enjoying immensely The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova, I found myself at my parents' house over the weekend without it. So, I picked up my copy of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. (Yes, I have unread books at my parents' house, too. Not all of them are on the list . . . )

This book wasn't really what I expected. I knew it was about someone who worked at a magazine and who went crazy, but I thought she worked at the magazine longer and that her career had more to do with her craziness than it actually did. Instead, Esther Greenwood is in a month-long program at a Manhattan fashion magazine the summer before her senior year of college. My friend recommended this book to me when I started talking about working in New York publishing, but really Esther is only in New York for about the first third of the book.

Then, she goes crazy. Being Sylvia Plath, there are some interesting feminist comments, but it's mostly a description of her descent into crazy. An autobiographical description, according to the note at the back of my copy. I did enjoy . . . well, enjoy isn't the right word . . . I did think the book was well-written and compelling, but it wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be considering what a classic it is. Still, I'm glad I read it.

Spooner

2009-11-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I gave up on Spooner by Peter Dexter. I got 95 pages in and just couldn't bring myself to try to get to 100. It's not that it was bad . . . the writing was good and the setting and characters were well-conceived . . . I just couldn't get into it. It wasn't something that I looked forward to picking up, so I decided life was too short to force it!

Instead, I picked up The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. It grabbed me from the first few pages! I'm still only about 100 pages in . . . I don't know what's been keeping me so busy lately . . . but I look forward to posting about this one soon!

The Girl in Hyacinth Blue

2009-11-03T20:12:00.001-08:00

The third and final book I read on vacation was The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland. It was an ideal plane book in the sense that it was small and light weight . . . but on a 13 hour flight, it didn't have a high enough page count!! Even with a few hours of sleep and a couple of movies, it just barely lasted long enough!

The book wasn't what I expected. I thought it would be one continuous story about the creation of a Vermeer painting. Instead, it was short stories about various owners of the painting, touching on several historical periods. It was captivating enough, but didn't live up to the hype that surrounded it when it came out.

Since I've been back, I've been trying to get into Peter Dexter's Spooner, but it's not grabbing me. I give it 50 more pages before I decide if I want to ditch it. And in the meantime, there's been so much Tivo to catch up on! (Hey, I'm not that much of a book worm!)

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

2009-10-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-20T18:17:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

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!

Jack Plank Tells Tales

2009-09-27T15:10:00.001-07:00

In a fitting follow-up to the Peter Pan prequels, I just finished Jack Plank Tells Tales by Natalie Babbitt, the author of Tuck Everlasting (which I have never read). Jack Plank is a pirate who's no good at plundering. He is downsized from his pirate ship because of this and must find a new job. I know what you're thinking--but this was published in 2007. While staying at a boarding house, his fellow boarders suggest a number of occupations--farmer, musician, baker, fisher--but he has an excuse, and a tale, about why he cannot be any of those things. From bridge-dwelling trolls, to mermaids, to a sailor who turns into an octopus, his tales are reminiscent of old pirate lore. It's a cute book, but not earth shattering.

It's timely that I'm reading so many pirate books in September, because September 19 is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. I first started observing this quirky holiday when I worked for a children's books publisher and we published my favorite pirate book of all time: How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and David Shannon. It's a really cute picture book about a little boy who gets swept up in a crew of pirates when they come ashore during his beach vacation to bury their treasure. We did a big marketing pitch for Talk Like a Pirate Day, which I believe was only a year or two old at that point. We even had an office party with themed games, costumes, and a cake!

So until next September, "Avast, yeh scurvy dogs! Argh!"

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

2009-09-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

Continuing with my own personal children's books month, I just finished Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, the third book in Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's trilogy of prequels to Peter Pan. Well, it was supposed to be a trilogy, but they actually just released a fourth in the series. This will be the end of the road for me, however. The first two books were pretty good, but this last one didn't have the same cohesiveness. Instead of just sticking to the stuff already familiar in Peter Pan lore--pirates, Indians, and flying fairies--this book threw in monkey-operated rocket ships, flying carpets, and the secret desert kingdom of Rundoon. And starstuff--the magical dust that allows Peter to fly--is responsible for the very existence of matter itself. So, Peter must literally save the world. Not even Harry Potter went that far. I mean, sure it was an epic battle of good versus evil, but he wasn't fighting to save the very existence of the physical universe.

There were a few very Disneyesque glimmers. My favorite was when a large deposit of starstuff makes a pirate ship fly--just like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. I can't remember if there's actually a flying ship in the original Peter Pan or the Disney movie, but it sure makes me want to go ride the ride.

One week left in September, and I'm hoping to get through a couple of more kids' books before growing up again in September. We can't all live in Neverland!

P.S. If you'd like a more adult version of Peter Pan, see here:
http://onlygreatbooks.blogspot.com/2009/09/child-thief-by-brom.html

Classic Children's Books Made Into Movies

2009-09-24T09:01:00.001-07:00

Anticipating the upcoming releases of two picture books made into feature films--Roald Dahl/Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Maurice Sendak/Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are--Entertainment Weekly speculated on a few more picture books they'd like to see as movies:

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2009/09/21/classic-childrens-books-film-cloudy-meatballs/

I think my favorite pitch here is the Bradley Cooper rom-com version of Green Eggs and Ham . . .

Love in the Present Tense

2009-09-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

My latest gym book, Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde, is a Lifetime movie waiting to happen. I was suspicious when it said it was written by the author of Pay it Forward, but it was compelling enough. Pearl is raped, kills the attacker--a cop--and has a son 9 months later. She eventually disappears, and her son Leonard is raised by Mitch, an unsuspecting young web designer who happens to be Pearl's neighbor. This was a quick read--perfect for the elliptical. The characters were well developed, and the story was intriguing. But I won't be quick to pick up another book by this author.

Peter and the Shadow Thieves

2009-09-15T23:00:00.001-07:00

I became a Dave Barry fan back in the mid-nineties when the sitcom about his fictional self, "Dave's World," was on t.v. I started reading his newspaper column and loved his dry sense of humor. When I heard he was writing kids' books--about Peter Pan, no less--I had to check them out. I read the first book in the prequel trilogy, Peter and the Starcatchers, a couple of years ago. Co-penned with Ridley Pearson, it told how Peter got his magical flying and anti-aging powers.

I normally don't like it when authors write about characters created by more famous authors. Case in point: all the terrible Pride and Prejudice spin-offs. But these books are really pretty good. The second in the series, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, continues in the mythology set up in the first. There is a secret society of Starcatchers, whose job it is to ensure that the potently magical starstuff stays out of the wrong hands and is retrieved in the mystical Return. Of course, being an adventure story, all goes awry and Peter must save the day in a dashing climax equal to any of the Harry Potter books. Well, almost.

The real Peter Pan author, J. M. Barrie, even makes a cameo in this book. As Peter and Molly, mother to the future Wendy Darling, are racing through London they stop to ask Mr. Barrie for directions. "Second path to the right," he advises, naturally. I look forward to continuing my own personal Children's Book Month and reading the third book in the planned trilogy (although a fourth book has just been published), Peter and the Secrets of Rundoon.

September is Roald Dahl Month!

2009-09-06T13:15:00.001-07:00

September, so the promotional poster furnished by Penguin told me, is Roald Dahl month! And, I've decided to make September Kids' Books Month for my reading list. But, to celebrate the first, I decided to go off my list for one book and pick up something by Roald Dahl.

Danny the Champion of the World was recommended to me by a very good friend of mine. I didn't read much Dahl growing up--we read James and the Giant Peach in the second grade, and I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory just a couple of years ago when the Johnny Depp movie was coming out. So, Danny was a bit of a surprise to me in that there was no magic. Danny and his father live in a gypsy caravan behind their filling station. His father, Danny learns, has a hobby of going poaching for pheasants on nearby Mr. Hazell's land. On the night before Mr. Hazell's big hunting party, Danny hatches a plan so he and his father can bag more pheasants than any poacher ever has.

It was a very cute story, but I must say, I prefer Mr. Dahl's more fantastical tales. And speaking of fantasy, it's time to head back to the list and finish up Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry's Peter Pan trilogy . . .

(Almost) End-of-the-Week Fun

2009-09-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Oxford University Press, publisher of the famed Oxford English Dictionary, has set up a website to Save the Words!

http://savethewords.org/

When new words enter the dictionary, antiquated terms are retired . . . until now. Adopt your own word and pledge to use it in everyday conversation. I adopted veteratorian, which means subtle. The site e-mails you an authentic Certificate of Adoption, and for a mere $25, you can have your word printed on a t-shirt!

Imagined London

2009-09-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

In the movie Sabrina, the title character quotes Gertrude Stein and says, "America is my country but Paris is my home town." And that's how I feel about London. When I studied abroad in England during college I fell in love with the city, it being so well-mannered and full of tradition . . . not to mention literary pedigree. So, when I received Anna Quidlen's Imagined London for my birthday, I couldn't wait to read it. (Although it still took five months to get to the top of my queue.)

I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but I am learning to love travel writing. Quindlen explores London through the many lenses of the city's portrayals in literature. From the dark back alleys of Dickens to the posher surrounding of Waugh, she visits places made famous in novels. I thought this would be right up my alley--and I did enjoy it very much--but I thought I was rather well-read in British literature until I read this book! There were books and authors I had never heard of . . . the Forsyte saga, Nancy Mitford, Trollope . . . But it was still a fun and charming way to look at what the book jacket called "the world's greatest fictional city."

In high school, I wanted to be Anna Quindlen. Back then, I was sure I would grow up to be a serious journalist. Quindlen had just hit the Oprah Book Club with her novel Black and Blue, and then I learned that she worked for the New York Times, too. That's exactly what I wanted to do--work for a major newspaper (although I had my eyes set on the Washington Post) and write bestselling novels on the side! Well, I grew up to do none of those things. But, I enjoyed Quindlen's writing nonetheless.

14 books down, 45 to go!! September will be Kids' Books Month . . . the first of several, I'm sure.

Reading--Good for Your Health!

2009-08-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

I read a couple of blog posts this week about how good reading is for your health--both mental and physically! First, the Pepsi Optimism Project found that 88% of people surveyed said reading a book was the ultimate optimism booster. It didn't say what they were reading . . . I'm guessing it's nothing by John Steinbeck or William Faulkner. Here's the link to the story:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/monday_morning/want_to_feel_better_about_yourself_read_a_book_123891.asp

Then, in light of the raging debate going on over health care, historical novelist Jessica James came up with 5 easy--and free--ways to improve your health in your local bookstore:

1. A book specialist can help you find just the right book--with no co-pay.

2. You don't have to pay a deductible at a bookstore, and the value is unbeatable.

3. Bending over, standing up, crouching down to look at the bottom shelf is good exercise. (Repeat as necessary.)

4. Carrying a large stack of books to your car is great for cardio and muscle-building.

5. Books provide entertainment, promote a sense of wellbeing and insure you will have something to read in the waiting room.

So, if you don't have the cash to go see your shrink, head over for a free recommendation by your local book specialist and read to boost your mental health!

Fashionably Late

2009-08-25T20:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally met a book I couldn't finish. Nadine Dajani's Fashionably Late sounded like a cute chick lit novel. I picked it up for my latest gym book. The flap copy talked about quarter-life crises, a girl who fails her accounting exam and decides to go to Cuba instead of the trip to Cancun she planned with her colleagues, then, of course, figures out the meaning to life . . . Except I couldn't get past page 40.

First, the brand-name-dropping started to annoy me . . . Christian Laboutin this and Stila that . . . Then, as her boyfriend is proposing and she finds herself unsure how to answer, the main character accuses him of being selfish for proposing when she's waiting to hear the results of her big accounting exam. Then, as if it weren't doomed already, the nail in the coffin: our heroine reveals that she's 22 years old. I almost flung the book across the room from my perch on the elliptical. (My friend and coworker was on the machine in front of me, so I resisted.) Maybe it was bad writing, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I just didn't care about this adolescent's problems!

It's too bad, too. The book has a great cover--as you can see! The dark red and sky blue on the spine is my favorite color combination. Plus, the writer had the most thoughtful opening to her acknowledgments I've ever seen: "A book sitting on a shelf in a store may seem like any other commodity, a thing to be bought and sold. But to those who write, a book is a dream at the end of a long road, one I might have strayed from were it not for the many people who believed in me." Unfortunately, the heroine of the novel was not nearly as thoughtful as the author. Oh well, onwards and upwards. At least this gets a book off my list!

Two Little Girls in Blue

2009-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to take advantage of the waining days of summer to read a purely entertaining, beach read. Mary Higgins Clark's thriller/mystery Two Little Girls in Blue was undeniably un-put-down-able! I've read a few of her mysteries--usually over Christmas break--and enjoyed them. But this was the best of hers that I've read! Twin 3-year-old girls are kidnapped one night while there parents are off at a company dinner. They are instructed to pay a whopping $8 million ransom. They do and get instructions on where to find the girls, only to get there and discover one of the girls still missing and a note saying the kidnapper had accidentally killed the other child. Using twin telepathy, the returned twin starts telling her mother that her sister is scared and wants to come home. The rest of the book is a thrilling race against the clock to find the other twin. The characters are engaging, and the plot twists kept me on the edge of my seat!

I've often said that Mary Higgins Clark is a good story-teller, even if she isn't known for her poetic sentences. Other than a few awkward bits of dialogue that were used to divulge some back story, that didn't bother me in this book. I can't remember which book it was--it might have been one of the Christmas stories she co-wrote with her daughter--but she kept annoyingly saying that the character had a container of coffee. I'm pretty sure she meant a to-go cup of coffee from Starbucks, but kept using the word "container." It was very distracting. Where was the copy-editor!? This book, I'm glad to say, used the proper nouns to describe what the characters were holding. I highly recommend.

The Red Queen

2009-08-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble was published by the first company I worked for. I had already moved on to my current job, but when I went back to visit, a former co-worker just raved about it and gave me a copy. Well, I don't share her raves. Split into two halves, the first half is narrated by the Korean Crown Princess in the 18th century. Based on a true story, she tells of her life at the palace and how her husband went mad and was executed in a most horrific fashion. It would be a captivating story, but it is narrated by the dead crown princess in modern times. So, while telling her 18th century tale, she talks about later events and philosophies, such as Freud and modern psychology. It was a bit off-putting, and almost seemed like a lazy way for Drabble to be able to include her own modern knowledge. On the other hand, I suppose it could also be considered a creative way to reinterpret a classic text. But it was still off-putting.

The second half is about a scholar who reads the crown princess's memoir on her way to a conference in Seoul. The story moves her, and she visits to some of the palaces and such where the crown princess would have lived, but that's about all the interaction she has with the text. She's a scholar of medicine, so it's not like the memoir is part of her research, just a fun plane read. While the two parts don't seem to fit, the book does finally pick up about 75 pages from the end when the scholar has an illicit affair at the conference.

I think the best part of this book was the epitaph at the beginning:

"The dead weep with joy when their books are reprinted."--The Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov, 2003

I couldn't help but thinking, so do the living . . .

Petite Anglaise

2009-08-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

My latest gym book, Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson, was quite the hidden gem! It looked like a run-of-the-mill chick lit novel, but upon closer inspection, I saw that it was actually a memoir. Catherine decided early on that she wanted to live in Paris. And, after studying abroad in college, she never went back to her native England. She quickly found herself in a committed relationship with a Frenchman--although he wouldn't marry her--and they had a child together. When their daughter was a toddler, their relationship cooled, and Catherine was looking for a creative outlet, so she started a blog and adopted the persona Petite Anglaise.

Of course, her relationship falls apart, and she actually starts dating [spoiler alert] one of her blog readers . . . all of which she recorded in real time as she was blogging. But more than just a recap of what she blogged about, the book talks about how blogging affected her life and her decisions. "I was anonymous," she writes, "I went about my business incognito, and yet there I lingered in the minds of complete strangers." Later, when telling a friend that she keeps seeing a guy she's not that interested in to spice up her blog, her friend says, "You might want to try putting yourself first, and not that blog of yours . . . don't live your life to please your readers."

I haven't read Julie and Julia, but I did just see the movie (which is fabulous!!) and some of the same themes crop up there. Julie's husband accuses her of being self-absorbed as she puts everything else on hold to cook her way through all the recipes so as not to disappoint her readers. Catherine, too, is accused of becoming self-centered and not paying attention to what her friends are going through. As Julie says in the movie, blogs are inherently ego-centric. (Yes, I realize I'm saying this on my blog. Whatever.) I'll be interested to see if more blogs-turned-into-books address the role of the blog in the writer's life. In any case, Petite Anglaise was a great read, and much more captivating than most of the chick lit that's coming out these days.

3 Little Book Gluttons Go to a Book Swap

2009-08-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Goodreads.com sponsored a book swap at Book Soup yesterday. (See here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/08/scenes-from-the-goodreads-bookswap-with-kogi-bbq-at-book-soup.html) I have a growing stack of books to get rid of, now that I'm about 20% through my list (finished book #10 last night and have about 20 pages to go on book #11!), so I e-mailed a couple of friends to see if they wanted to go with me. I know what you're thinking--isn't that like inviting an alcoholic to a free-for-all at a liquor store? Friend #1 was very eager! She, too, has been complaining about how many books she had sitting around. Friend #2 acted like I was asking her to cut off her right arm. "What's a book swap?" she asked. "Does that mean I have to give away some of my books? I love all my books!" I assured her no one would force her to give up books, but--since she's getting ready to move at the end of the month--she did show up with a couple of bags full that she was willing to get rid of.

I have a few friends who can't bear to part with any of their books. Even publishing industry folks who acquire scads of books! I get sentimental over some--don't ask to even borrow my Harry Potters or The Time Traveler's Wife--but most of the stuff I read I donate to libraries or friends as soon as I've read them. I'm afraid my apartment would like the houses of those people you see on Oprah who have that hording disease if I didn't!

We all had a great time at the swap--especially since the Kogi Taco Truck was there, a must try for anyone in LA!--but none of us wanted to take away any books . . . all of us being book gluttons and all . . . Friend #1 did extremely well. She didn't bring home any books--even though she kept going back for one last look to make sure nothing was calling her name. Friend #2, the one who thought I was asking for her first born, took a couple of Friend #1's books. I, too, took a couple of Friend #1's books. One was a collection of short stories by writers I really like--Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, Melissa Banks--and the other was Curtis Sittenfeld's second novel, The Man of My Dreams. I really enjoyed Prep, and American Wife is on my list, so I figured why not!? No, I won't be adding these to my list. I'm sure there will be a phase 2, since I've found a few unread treasures on my bookshelves at my parents' house . . .

When I'm Done . . .

2009-08-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not anywhere near being finished with my list of 59 books. I am, however, close to finishing #10 on the list, and that makes it feel like the end is in sight. Yes, you may need a really large telescope to see it, but it's there. I have this fantasy about what will happen when I've read all the books in my apartment. This is how it goes: I'm sitting at home one evening with nothing to watch on t.v. I decide to pick up a book instead, only to realize I have no unread books! So, I go to the local independent bookstore and start browsing the shelves for something that strikes my fancy . . .

Now, the reality is that this will never happen for me. Yes, there may come a time when my stack of books to read has actually run dry, but I don't think I'll ever walk into a bookstore and not know what I want to buy. Even now, I have a little mental list of books I want to read once I get through my list. There's another list of books I will read before I get through my list (The Lost Symbol, Audrey Niffenegger's new novel, etc.). But, it's a nice fantasy, nonetheless.

One thing I definitely plan on doing when I finish is rearranging my books. I just read this amusing article in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/21/books-arrange-james-purnell I've been practicing the "cram it in wherever it will fit" method of book shelving recently. But, as I get rid of most of these books as I'm reading them, I look forward to organizing what's left. A friend of mine has organized her books by color--it looks great and she swears she's still able to find things. I'm sort of thinking I'll do mine by genre . . . because I have my really smart books from college prominently displayed, and really, who wants to hide those in favor of all my books with red spines? Granted, underneath my smart books is my collection of children's picture books that I started when I worked for a children's books publisher. I don't know what that says, except maybe that I'm a bit schizophrenic . . . at least as far as my book collection is concerned! We'll see. I think I will have plenty of time to think about this as I work my way through the remaining 49 books . . .

Red River

2009-08-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure where I picked up Red River by Lalita Tademy, a historical novel set in Louisiana during the Restoration. It's an advance reading copy (ARC-a paperback book printed ahead of finished books to send to reviewers and bookstore buyers), so I must have picked it up at one publishing event or another. It seemed promising--Tademy's first novel, Cane River, was a New York Times bestseller and an Oprah Book Club pick. Roll your eyes if you must, but Oprah doesn't pick out and out clunkers. Even the way the ARC was produced shows that the publisher had high hopes for the book. Most ARCs have slick, cheaply printed covers and use either Xerox or super pulpy paper on the inside. This one has a matte, embossed cover with flaps, high quality cream-colored paper, and even rough cut pages! (That's when the pages are slightly uneven on the edge--you usually see it on fancy novels or books that are trying to look vintage.)

Well, this book was a bit of a disappointment. I seriously considered ditching it around page 100. The first half of the 400 page book describes a horrible massacre in the town of Colfax, Louisiana. In 1873, blacks are allowed to vote for the first time and they vote in the Republican party--who, I gather from the text (my AP American History Class too distant in the past to be of much help) are sympathetic to the newly free black population. The incumbent government refuses to shift power, and when blacks protest at the town's courthouse, white supremacists blast them out, killing 150 men. Now, I'm not denying that this is an important story that should be told. But this section of the book could (and should) have been cut to 100 pages.

The second half follows the next 2 generations of the Tademy and Smith families, both who played an important part in the courthouse standoff. (The author used her own family's history as a source for the story, so it is based on actual people and events.) This part was a much better read, although I still didn't think the book was exceptional. I assume from the accolades that Tademy's first book, Cane River, was better than this one. Which leads me to believe that my friend, a former children's book editor, is on to something when she says most people only have one good book in them. Of course, when I googled Red River to see how it was received, it had glowing reviews from respectable sources, so what do I know? Still, part of me thinks those reviewers got sucked in by those rough cut pages . . .

The Kindle Debate

2009-08-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

The Kindle. It's been quite a hot topic in publishing circles for the past year or so. The industry has been predicting--mostly fearing--the domination of the electronic book for longer than that: I went to NYU's Summer Publishing Institute in 2002 and it was a hot topic then. A lot of bookish people don't like the idea, preferring the feel of a book in their hands, even the smell of the ink and paper. And I was firmly in that camp . . . until my friend, a literary agent, brought her Kindle with her on her last visit. Then my dormant gadget geek kicked in and I decided I had to have one!

The sleek design of Kindle 2.0 . . . the crystal clear type on screen (much easier on the eyes than I had imagined) . . . But what really sold me was when I figured out that I could take a Kindle out in public, and no one would know what I was reading. I was in the midst of the Twilight Saga at this point and hurrying to finish before an upcoming business trip, because I didn't want to be seen reading Twilight on the plane. But with a Kindle, I could read about teenage vampires or any other trash and no one would ever know!

At least one Kindle aficionado has even taken his e-reader along to a book signing, as seen in this story from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15kindle.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Of course, being a David Sedaris signing, the witty author inscribed "This bespells doom" on the shiny plastic surface.

Even as e-readers become more and more popular, I believe paper books will be around for a long time. And, even though the price for the Kindle recently dropped, I still haven't ordered one. Please--I let nearly 60 paper books build up in my apartment. How gluttonous would I be if I could acquire a new book at the click of a button and didn't even have to wedge it onto an already over-stuffed shelf?

Speaking of all those books, I'm nearing halfway through a historical novel called "Red River," but if it doesn't pick up soon, I will ditch it.

Livin' the Moment

2009-07-28T19:25:00.001-07:00

Okay, I despise the idea of a self-help book. But, I bought Yeah Dave's Guide to Livin' the Moment because the author, David Romanelli, is my favorite yoga teacher of all time. (By all time, I mean all of the 7 years I've been doing yoga.) When I found out he had invented workshops called Yoga & Chocolate and Yoga & Wine, I knew he was the yogi for me! With his goofy and irreverent sense of humor, this is not your typical self-help book. He described it as Eat, Pray, Love with an attitude. While the underlying message is to enjoy the present moment and to find pleasure everyday, he communicates this message through ridiculous stories about farting in yoga class, using manufactured pheromones to pick up women in a club, and--my favorite--a guru who combines all the current fitness crazes into yogaerobalatetate (pronounced yog-aroba-lahtay-tah-tay, in case you were wondering). Yes, most of this is made up. In fact, I'm surprised the book doesn't include some kind of James Frey-style disclaimer.

But, among the silly stories are gems of advice about slowing down and living a meaningful life. He includes many poignant quotes, like this one from the nineteenth-century clergyman Henry Ward Beecher: "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs--jolted by every pebble in the road." And "Being rich is a measurement of how much money you have. Being wealthy is a measurement of how much time you have." Yes, there are many books that spew similar wisdom, but Dave intersperses enough humor in the book that you can digest it without wanting to gag.

Madeleine is Sleeping

2009-07-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Sarah Shun-Lein Bynum's first novel Madeleine is Sleeping has been sitting on my shelf for quite a while. It garnered several stellar reviews when it came out in 2004, and I have to agree: it was quite an inventive novel with a charming story. As you can probably infer from the title, Madeleine, the main character, is sleeping. The novel follows her in her dream world, and it is told in short, dream-like flashes. The beginning is a little tough to get into--the very short (less than a page) chapters are almost prose-poems, introducing each of the fanciful characters: an obese woman who sprouts wings, a musician's wife whose body turns into a cello, an obese man who performs fart concerts. You can hear these passages being read aloud in that too-serious, too-slow, too-deliberate voice that poets use at readings. But as the characters' lives become intertwined and the story picks up, it becomes quite engrossing.

The story itself is something akin to Chocolat or Audrey Niffenegger's Three Incestuous Sisters--it is set in a provincial French town in the early nineteenth century (at least from what I can tell) and there is a definite element of magic to the story. Which works, given that this is basically an extended dream sequence. At times a little earthy, it is almost like Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups. It is also a quick read, which helps on a project like mine. Of the 257 pages, I'd say fewer than half have words on the full page.

So, I'm 7 books down with 52 to go. Is it indicative of my gluttony that I'm thinking about starting a list of books to read after this is over? Near the top would be Bynum's new novel published last year: Ms. Hempel Chronicles.

Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him

2009-07-19T14:18:00.001-07:00

There's no time like the summer for reading chick lit. Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him by Danielle Ganek--besides having a really great title--was lent to me by a friend who thought I'd like it since it's set in the art world. (I work in publishing at a prominent art museum.) It's not the best chick lit--or assistant lit, if you want to get technical--I've ever read, but it was enjoyable. Mia McMurray is a gallery girl at a mid-range Chelsea gallery. At the opening of what promises to be the most prominent show in the history of the gallery, the artist steps outside for a cigarette and is killed by an oncoming taxi. See--smoking really does kill. The rest of the book is about the ensuing scramble to snatch up the few paintings the artist had produced in his lifetime, most importantly the centerpiece of the gallery show: Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, a portrait of his niece.

The climax of the story occurs at Art Basel, an annual international art fair in Switzerland. What struck me most about the book is how similar Art Basel sounds to BookExpo, the biggest publishing industry trade show in the US. Mia remarks that gallery employees spend the majority of the fair complaining about their crappy booth positions. Same at BookExpo. Mia says not much important business happens at the show, because most of the pieces are sold before it opens. Same with BookExpo--except most of the business (ie book orders) happen after the show. Mia says despite this, you can't not go to Art Basel if you want to be taken seriously in the business. Same with BookExpo--until recently. This year, a lot of major players pulled out due to the tanking economy. I feel like the big companies can get away with this--what bookstore isn't going to see what Random House is publishing in the fall? It's trickier for the little guys, who might go unnoticed. It will be interesting to see if the show retains its importance moving forward.

Keeping in the spirit of summer is for chick lit, I just started Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson as my gym book. Well, I thought it was chick lit, but turns out it's more of a memoir about a Brit who moved to Paris, fell in love, and had French exploits. But the pink cover is totally chick lit. I'll let you know how it goes . . .

The God of Animals

2009-07-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle was a freebie I acquired through one publishing event or another. It has been my most recent gym book, but I finished it up today when we were sent home from work due to a brush fire. I love LA! This book was a surprise--I didn't expect much, but it turned out to be a beautifully written, multi-layered story. Set on a horse farm in the desert, it is narrated by 12-year-old Alice Winston. Her family has fallen on hard times, with her father trying to rustle up new riding students to make ends meet. He finally signs up privileged Sheila Altman, whose mother's checks far outweigh her show potential.

Perceptions play an important part in this book. The characters try to hide the truth, but others are not as naive as they appear: from twelve-year-old Alice to the sheltered housewife to Alice's shut-in mother. When Alice's grandfather visits unexpectedly and asks how things are going, she replies, "We had the barn painted. The trailer too." "I saw that," he replies. "Everything's nice and shiny, all right." Through the book, Alice learns that you can't hide things from people. Towards the end, she says, "I wondered how I could have ever believed that I was protecting anyone from anything. The world was what it was. There were no secrets. There were only things that went unsaid."

Never having gone through the ubiquitous horse phase most girls seem to have, I didn't think I would relate to this world of riding lessons, grooming, and horse shows. But the writing was engaging and just about anyone can relate to what Alice is experiencing, from her school life to realizing her parents aren't perfect. I would recommend this coming-of-age tale to anyone looking for an easy but not frivolous read.

The Left Hand of Darkness

2009-07-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

I received The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin as a birthday gift from one of my best friends from college. Another friend of ours absolutely raved about it. I, however, do not share their enthusiasm. Of course, I'm not a sci-fi fan, so I'm not really the right audience for this book. I was convinced to read it, however, when the friend who gave it to me reminded me that it was a favorite book of the cute guy in The Jane Austen Book Club.

The book is about an envoy to a distant planet where the people are ambisexual: they are asexual most of the time, only taking on gender for a few days each month. They do not always take the same gender, and they are free to mate with different people, or swear a partnership with one person. Now, I appreciate the talent and imagination it takes to create these alternate worlds. I don't doubt LeGuin's genius--or that of Tolkein and the other sci-fi/fantasy greats. I'm just not a fan myself . . . Harry Potter being the obvious exception. I read an article once on the difference between sci-fi and fantasy. Sci-fi is based on fact: set in this world and using technology that exists or is possible. In fantasy, as the name suggests, anything goes; it does not rely on the rules of this world. With this ambisexual race, I would put Left Hand in the fantasy category, although it is packaged as sci-fi.

I probably would have stopped reading this halfway through, but my friends' enthusiasm for the book and the love story mentioned in the jacket copy made me keep going. At least I thought the jacket copy mentioned a love story. I reread the blurb when I was 2/3 of the way through the book and still no romance. What it actually says is "in the course of a long journey across the ice he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians--it might even be a kind of love . . . " Well, it might be a kind of love does not a love story make. So, chalk this one up to literature appreciation. Now that I'm headed to Vegas for the weekend, I'm looking forward to some utterly trashy chick lit!

For those keeping count: 4 down, 55 to go!

The Hour I First Believed

2009-06-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb is the best book I've read this year. It's a big book, covering a family's history over several generations and a good chunk of American history along the way. But the central event of the book is the Columbine shooting. Lamb must have done painstaking research, and it shows in the haunting scenes of the shooting itself and the aftermath. The narrator of the book is Caelum Quirk, a high school English and creative writing teacher at Columbine. His wife, Maureen, is a school nurse at the same school. Caelum is actually on the east coast following a family death when the attack comes, but he learns of it through his wife's experience hiding in a cabinet in the library, the main site of the violence. The rest of the book is about how this event changed their lives and how they attempted to recover. One chapter, a little more than halfway through that ends with a life-altering accident, is so poignant it could stand alone as a short story.

Woven in through Caelum's family history is the fictionalized story of the first jail specifically for women built in the United States. Quirk Correctional Institute, named for Caelum's great-grandmother, who founded the institution, sits in the middle of the family farm where Caelum and Maureen return after the shooting. Lamb deftly combines the political aspects of the fight for such an institution with the personal events of the characters' lives. Descriptions of life in a modern-day prison contrast with the ideals held by Caelum's great-grandmother for a telling picture of today's society. It all combines in a rich, layered story with many parallels.

About two-thirds of the way in, I was afraid it was spinning out of control, however. After the accident in that chapter that is so beautifully written, new characters are introduced who have just fled Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. It gets to be a little much with Columbine and then Katrina--why not throw in 9/11 and the SARS outbreak? (Don't worry, the former gets a couple of passing mentions.) But it comes together again in the last 200 pages, and Lamb's thoughtful afterword gives some context to all the current events in the book. And it really does fit with the book's theme of overcoming evil and destruction. Overall, I highly recommend this book!

Brideshead, The Movie

2009-06-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

I watched the recent Brideshead Revisited movie last night. It was pretty faithful to the book, yet different enough to hang together as a movie. It's worth watching for the gorgeous locales alone! Emma Thompson was perfect as Lady Marchmain.

I was a little nervous watching it. Usually, when I really love a book, the movie is nothing but disappointing. There are some I've even refused to see--Snow Falling on Cedars is the one that comes to mind. I think I'm looking forward to the Time Traveler's Wife movie . . . but again, it might only be disappointing.

The reading is still going well, even though my book-finishing momentum has slowed. It's not that I'm not trying--I'm halfway through The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb . . . in all of its 700-page glory. It's a great book so far. It covers the Columbine shootings and some of those scenes are so haunting. I first read Wally Lamb when I got a copy of I Know This Much Is True as part of the studio audience at a book club episode at The Oprah Show. True story!

The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster

2009-06-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

When I started this project, I told myself I'd adhere to a strict 100-page rule: if a book didn't grab me by page 100, I'd ditch it. My friend, a literary agent, convinced me that 50 pages was sufficient--that's the criteria Nancy Pearl (www.nancypearl.com) uses. If it's good enought for Nancy, it's good enough for me.

But, with The Life All Around Me, my second book into this, I broke my rule. I started thinking about ditching it about 80 pages in . . . but since it was only a 200 page book, I figured I was close enough to the end that it had to pick up soon. The first book, Ellen Foster, had been gripping . . . certainly this one would pick up. Although I should have been suspicious since the same publisher didn't publish the sequel . . .

It did pick up around page 100, and then I read the rest of it the same day. But it took that 100 pages to get used to the rhythm of the writing. The author used a strange sentence structure, especially since the narrator is supposed to be a brilliant child prodigy. There were grammatical errors, and I was never sure if it was intentional or not. In either case, it was a mistake. A fifteen-year-old applying for early admission to Harvard (her application letter opens the book) should not make gross grammatical errors.

So, while I would highly recommend Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, the very first Oprah Book Club selection I ever read, the sequel is skipable.

I've Got the Horse Right Here

2009-06-14T12:48:00.001-07:00

My current gym book (yes, I read on the elliptical. These books go very slowly, since I only read about 20 pages at a time, 3-4 times per week) is The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. It takes place on a horse farm. Most girls go through a "horse period" during childhood, reading books like My Friend Flicka and Black Beauty, perhaps starting a collection of resin horse figurines, and, if they're very lucky, taking riding lessons. I was not one of those girls. I missed the whole phenomenon, although as a young book glutton I'm sure I had copies of both books. A good friend of mine took riding lessons for a year or so, and I used to go to the equestrian center with her to look at the horses. To me, they were just big smelly animals with lots of snot in their noses. Reading this book--about horse shows and riding lessons--feels like a second chance at this rite of passage.

The God of Animals and The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, which I'm also currently reading, are proving to be an interesting pairing. Both are narrated by pre-teen girls, and both girls are severely manipulative. In God, a girl in the narrator's grade in school has drowned. Not particuarly close to the girl except for a shared project in shop class, the girl is exaggerating their friendship to insinuate herself into the drama. In Life, Ellen Foster calls the foster home administrators to have the other two girls in her foster home removed, so she is the only child left with her guardian. Not to say those girls didn't deserve it . . . Since I'm still not very far in either book, it's hard to say what all this manipulation will come to, but it is an interesting commentary on pre-teen girls. I think we all knew at least one of these girls growing up . . . and hopefully it wasn't us!

Both books are considered adult novels. (Adult as in not children's, not XXX.) There was an interesting argument a few years back in one of the publishing world journals about what constitutes a YA novel and what is an adult novel when the narrator is a young adult. This came up around the time of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which sold well in both markets. I think the difference is whether it's a childlike view of the narrator's world, or a view seasoned by adulthood. Both of these books have the latter. There's enough nuance in the narrative that we see the manipulation working its way out in the girls' actions along with hints of the pain the girls are feeling that leads to the manipulation. It'll be interesting to see how each story progresses.

Brideshead Revisited

2009-06-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

Book one down, countless to go . . . Brideshead Revisited was not at all what I thought it would be. I have to admit (and it pains my literature major heart to say this) that I was interested in this book because of the movie that came out last fall with Emma Thompson. Judging from the ads for that, I was expecting a novel of manners set in a fancy estate in the English countryside. And while it had some of that, it dealt with much deeper issues than I was expecting . . . religion, adultery, impending war.

Brideshead was much more captivating and a quicker read than I anticipated. Certain elements reminded me of Atonement and The Talented Mr. Ripley--a man becomes enamored with a wealthy and quirky family. I was a little surprised when I opened the book to a picture of the author and discovered that Evelyn was a he. You would think this would have come up in one of my countless literature classes. I guess I never quite hit the 20th century in British lit.

Next I'm going to pick up the sequel to Ellen Foster . . . .

Some observations fro Mr. Waugh:

"For in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy."

"Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I great fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you."

The Project

2009-06-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have a serious addiction to acquiring books. I also enjoy reading them . . . but somehow I can't read as quickly as I acquire. I work in publishing, so I get a lot of free books. My friends know I love reading, so I receive a lot of books as gifts. Then, just to top it all off, I go out and buy books . . . new books . . . used books . . . and now I have too many books! So, I've decided to read all the unread books in my apartment over the next, well, however long it takes.

I'm not going to pretend that I will stop acquiring new books until I read all the ones I already have. There are too many big books coming out this fall to do that--a new one from Elizabeth Kostova, a new Audrey Niffenegger novel, and yes, the new Dan Brown. But, I've already cut back.

I was just in New York on business (at BookExpo, where I tried to find some free books, but there were very few to be had this year!) and my friend and I went into The Strand. If you've never been, The Strand is the most wonderful bookstore ever. They have everything you could want . . . and everything you never knew existed. Going in, I told my friend not to let me buy anything. She's quite the bookie too, and she's planning on reading War and Peace soon, so she didn't want to buy anyting either. Well, just like a gym buddy, it helps you stick to the program when you have a friend holding you accountable. We both--amazingly--made it through without buying anything. (Of course, I fully endorse buying lots and lots of things from your local independent bookstores!!)

So, if I slow down my acquisitons, and keep myself accountable with this blog, I really thing I can get through all these books! It may even be easier than getting my Michelle Obama arms . . .

The List (in no particular or any way organized order):

Brideshead Revisted, Evelyn Waugh
The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle
Love in the Present Tense, Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, Tiffany Baker
Fashionably Late, Nadine Dajoani
The Story Girl, L. M. Montgomery
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
Madeleine is Sleeping, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
Red River, Lalita Tademy
Two Little Girls in Blue, Mary Higgins Clark
The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Noisy Outlaws, Unfriend Blobs, and Some Other Things that Aren's as Scary, McSweeney's/826NY
Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland
The Shop on Blossom Street, Debbie Macomber
No Place Like Home, Mary Higgins Clark
Spooner, Peter Dexter
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
Imagined London, Anna Quindlen
Yeah Dave's Guide to Livin' the Moment, David Romanelli
American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld
Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, Danielle Ganek
Complete Stories, Dorothy Parker
A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End, Avi
A Crooked Kind of Perfect, Linda Urban
Jack Plank Tells Tales, Natalie Babbitt
Our Lady of the Forest, David Guterson
Harry, Revised, Mark Sarvas
The Bitch Switch, Omarosa
Emma Brown, Clare Boylan
America's Queen, Sarah Bradford
Sweetsmoke, David Fuller
The Grift, Debra Ginsberg
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fanny & Zooey, J. D. Salinger
Falling in Love with Natasha, Anna Manardo
Flesh and Blood, Michael Cunningham
The Emperor of Ocean Park, Setphan L. Carter
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Graff
Songs for the Missing, Stewart O'Nan
The Book of Unholy Mischief, Elle Newnark
Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, Lauren Henderson
The Road to Yesterday, L. M. Montgomery
Billy Budd, Herman Melville
The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Howard's End, E. M. Forster
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Les Liaison Dangereuses, Laclos
The Winter Rose, Jennifer Donnelly
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Petite Anglaise, Catherine Danderson
The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb