Fiction:
**Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a witty and wise debut novel by Helen Simonson that introduces the unforgettable character of Major Ernest Pettigrew. The widowed Major epitomizes the Englishman with the "stiff upper lip" who clings to traditional values and tries unsuccessful to pass these along to his yuppie son, Roger. The story centers on Pettigrew's fight to keep his greedy relatives (including his son) from selling a valuable family heirloom--a pair of Churchill hunting guns. The embattled hero discovers unexpected comfort and consolation from his neighbor, the Pakistani shopkeeper, Jasmina Ali. Pettigrew and Ali's backgrounds and life experiences couldn't be more different, but they discover that they have important things in common. This wry, yet optimistic, comedy of manners with a romantic twist has great humor and insights on almost every page and is my favorite book of 2010.
**The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley was a surprising contender for my favorite 2010 book. Ptolemy Grey is 91 years old, suffering from dementia and regrets while living as a recluse in his Los Angeles apartment. Ptolemy begins to change when Robyn Small, a 17-year-old family friend helps clean up his apartment and straighten out his life. He volunteers for an experimental drug regime that may restore his mind, but shorten his life. Ptolemy uses his rejuvenation to solve the mystery of the recent drive-by shooting of his great-nephew, and to render justice, guided by the memory of his murdered childhood mentor, Coydog McCann. Though the medical details of his ‘recovery’ aren’t convincing, it is a creative literary technique that provides Mosley with a chance to show how talented a writer he is.
**The Lacuna is Barbara Kingsolver's best new novel in nine years since the excellent Poisonwood Bible). It focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the son of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of an American military academy and seeing the “bonus army riots”, Harrison spends several years in Mexico in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky. When Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S. and settles in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel starts slowing, but achieves an emotional peak when Harrison wittily defends himself before the Un-American Activities Committee (the panel includes a young Dick Nixon). I thought Kingsolver subtly wove parallels between the fall of Aztec civilization, the 1930s and 40s (and by implication), our own era. Kingsolver was masterful in resurrecting “a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist.”
*Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore is a charming “coming of age” Southern novel in the tradition of Harper Lee or Fannie Flagg. It’s the early 1970s, and Catherine Grace Cline is the quick-witted daughter of Ringgold’s third-generation Baptist preacher, who is dying to escape her small-town life. Every Saturday, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plots her getaway to Atlanta. At 18, she packs her bags, leaving her family and the boy she loves, to claim the life she’s always imagined. But before things have even begun to get off the ground in Atlanta, tragedy brings Catherine Grace back home where a series of extraordinary events alter her perspective–and she begins to wonder where her place in the world may actually be. “Intelligent, charming, and utterly readable, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen marks the debut of a talented new literary voice.”
*The Inperfectionists by Tom Rachman charts the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Each chapter is an exquisite short story with the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper—and one woman who reads it religiously. Obit writer, Arthur Gopal, whose overarching goal at the paper is indolence, encounters personal tragedy and, with it, unexpected career ambition. Late in the book, as the paper buckles, recently laid-off copyeditor Dave Belling seduces the CFO who fired him. Throughout, the founding publisher's progeny stagger under a heritage they don't understand. As the ragtag staff faces down the implications of the paper's tilt into oblivion, “there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels.”
*The Widowers Tale by National Book Award winner, Julia Glass, is “elaborately plotted and luxuriously paced, … inquisitive, compassionate, funny, and suspenseful… addresses significant and thorny social issues with emotional veracity, artistic nuance, and a profound perception of the grand interconnectivity of life.” The widower is Percy Darling, an acerbic patriarch and former Harvard librarian. His historic property includes a large house, pond and a spacious old barn, once his late wife's dance studio, now an upscale preschool. A mischievous and erudite curmudgeon, Percy only agrees to the school’s intrusion in the hope that his floundering daughter, Clover, will finally secure a job that makes her happy. Not that she'll ever catch up to her sister, a celebrity oncologist. Glass is great with the character development of family members and their associated contacts from a variety of social classes.
Non-Fiction
*Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin is the best, by far, of the four books I’ve read about the 2008 campaign—gossipy, insightful and informative. “Sarah Palin was serene when chosen for V.P. because it was “God’s plan.” Hillary didn’t know if she could control Bill (duh).”The men get less attention than the women who tend to come off slightly better. “Obama can be conceited and windy; McCain was disengaged to the point of recklessness; Biden talks a lot, and John Edwards is a cheating, egotistical blowhard.” But, hey, that’s politics. The authors worked their “200 sources” well. Many of the book’s events were covered previously, but sometimes, this volume delivers totally behind-the-scenes and genuinely surprising information. I was a campaign junkie, but was surprised that Senators Schumer and Reid (official Hillary supporters) encouraged Obama to seek the presidency and that Palin was initially screened by a Google search for “female Republican officeholders.”
*Comeback America by David M. Walker, former comptroller general of the US is an important analysis and set of recommendations to address the fiscal catastrophe facing America. Walker does excellent analysis and makes courageous recommendations in a totally non-partisan manner. Everyone needs to read this book—or at least the summary provided at the Peterson Foundation web-site.
*Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz is a “spirited attack on Wall Street, the free market and the Washington consensus.”As a Nobel Prize winner and chairman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, Stieglitz has some practical insights on what lead to the “Great Recession” and how to prevent the next one. He provides an understandable overview of modern economic theory and “the wrongheaded national faith in the power of free markets to regulate themselves and provide wealth for all.” It is hard to make economics consistently interesting, but Stiglitz comes close and ends with a plea for the original focus of economics as “moral philosophy.”
*The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida is a broad, optimistic look at the current economic crisis and the opportunities it presents. Florida examines the latest of the "Great Resets," moments of transformative upheaval (like the Great Depression) "when new technologies and technological systems arise, when the economy is recast and society remade, and when the places where we live and work change to suit new needs." Though Florida often rushes to neat generalities and cheerleading, his background as a historical geographer provides interesting insights and a unique perspective on the yet unresolved economic calamity.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Books Read in 2010 (cont.)
*I Am Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira is the story of a 20-year-old midwife who dreams of becoming a surgeon and finds in the Civil War, an opportunity to gain the medical experience that is denied her by the establishment. From a variety of perspectives—Mary, Dr. Stipp (her reluctant mentor), the soldiers, their families, and social, political, and military leaders—“the novel offers readers a picture of a time of medical hardship, crisis, and opportunity.” Oliveira graphically depicts the amputation of a leg, the delivery of a baby, and soldierly life in gripping, historical detail and presents a far more accurate picture of the War than Gone with the Wind.
61 Hours by Lee Child is, according to the NYT, “the craftiest and most highly evolved of Lee Child’s electrifying Jack Reacher books.” There’s always a ticking clock in the background as Reacher, finds a wrong that needs righting. Reacher lands in Boulton, South Dakota, and finds himself helping out the local police as they attempt to protect a key witness in an upcoming drug trial. Then there’s the underground installation outside of town, formerly a military outpost, but now apparently housing a meth lab. As the hours pass, tension builds, and we learn more about the installation, the local cops, the witness, and a Mexican drug lord whose own clock is also ticking. A good formulaic treatment with excellent character development.
**The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley was a surprising contender for my favorite 2010 book. Ptolemy Grey is 91 year old, suffering from dementia and regrets while living as a recluse in his Los Angeles apartment. Ptolemy begins to change when Robyn Small, a 17-year-old family friend helps clean up his apartment and straighten out his life. He volunteers for an experimental drug regime that may restore his mind, but shorten his life. Ptolemy uses his rejuvenation to solve the mystery of the recent drive-by shooting of his great-nephew, and to render justice, guided by the memory of his murdered childhood mentor, Coydog McCann. Though the medical details of his ‘recovery’ aren’t convincing, it is a creative literary technique that provides Mosley with a chance to show how talented a writer he is.
Outwitting Trolls by William Tapply was favorably reviewed in the NYT. “Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney who focuses on a few private clients and the legal drudgery of their everyday life, which leads to a generally unexciting life”—and book. An old friend and former neighbor, in Boston for a conference, Ken contacts Brady for an uneventful get-together. The next day, Brady gets a call from Nichols’ ex-wife. She’s standing in her ex’s hotel room, Nichols is lying dead on the floor of his room, and she needs Brady’s help. But this murder is only the first, and Brady is soon trying to find the connection between these long ago friends and the violence dogging their family. A pleasant, but ‘unexciting’ read.
**Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a witty and wise debut novel by Helen Simonson introduces the unforgettable character of Major Ernest Pettigrew. The widowed Major epitomizes the Englishman with the "stiff upper lip," who clings to traditional values and tries unsuccessful to pass these along to his yuppie son, Roger. The story centers on Pettigrew's fight to keep his greedy relatives (including his son) from selling a valuable family heirloom--a pair of Churchill hunting guns. The embattled hero discovers unexpected comfort and consolation from his neighbor, the Pakistani shopkeeper, Jasmina Ali. Pettigrew and Ali's backgrounds and life experiences couldn't be more different, but they discover that they have important things in common. This wry, yet optimistic comedy of manners with a romantic twist has great humor and insights on almost every page and is my favorite book of 2010.
61 Hours by Lee Child is, according to the NYT, “the craftiest and most highly evolved of Lee Child’s electrifying Jack Reacher books.” There’s always a ticking clock in the background as Reacher, finds a wrong that needs righting. Reacher lands in Boulton, South Dakota, and finds himself helping out the local police as they attempt to protect a key witness in an upcoming drug trial. Then there’s the underground installation outside of town, formerly a military outpost, but now apparently housing a meth lab. As the hours pass, tension builds, and we learn more about the installation, the local cops, the witness, and a Mexican drug lord whose own clock is also ticking. A good formulaic treatment with excellent character development.
**The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley was a surprising contender for my favorite 2010 book. Ptolemy Grey is 91 year old, suffering from dementia and regrets while living as a recluse in his Los Angeles apartment. Ptolemy begins to change when Robyn Small, a 17-year-old family friend helps clean up his apartment and straighten out his life. He volunteers for an experimental drug regime that may restore his mind, but shorten his life. Ptolemy uses his rejuvenation to solve the mystery of the recent drive-by shooting of his great-nephew, and to render justice, guided by the memory of his murdered childhood mentor, Coydog McCann. Though the medical details of his ‘recovery’ aren’t convincing, it is a creative literary technique that provides Mosley with a chance to show how talented a writer he is.
Outwitting Trolls by William Tapply was favorably reviewed in the NYT. “Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney who focuses on a few private clients and the legal drudgery of their everyday life, which leads to a generally unexciting life”—and book. An old friend and former neighbor, in Boston for a conference, Ken contacts Brady for an uneventful get-together. The next day, Brady gets a call from Nichols’ ex-wife. She’s standing in her ex’s hotel room, Nichols is lying dead on the floor of his room, and she needs Brady’s help. But this murder is only the first, and Brady is soon trying to find the connection between these long ago friends and the violence dogging their family. A pleasant, but ‘unexciting’ read.
**Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is a witty and wise debut novel by Helen Simonson introduces the unforgettable character of Major Ernest Pettigrew. The widowed Major epitomizes the Englishman with the "stiff upper lip," who clings to traditional values and tries unsuccessful to pass these along to his yuppie son, Roger. The story centers on Pettigrew's fight to keep his greedy relatives (including his son) from selling a valuable family heirloom--a pair of Churchill hunting guns. The embattled hero discovers unexpected comfort and consolation from his neighbor, the Pakistani shopkeeper, Jasmina Ali. Pettigrew and Ali's backgrounds and life experiences couldn't be more different, but they discover that they have important things in common. This wry, yet optimistic comedy of manners with a romantic twist has great humor and insights on almost every page and is my favorite book of 2010.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Books Read Since July 1
Out Stealing Horses by Pers Petterson is the story of Trond Sander, a widower nearing seventy, who moves to a bare cabin in remote eastern Norway, seeking the life of quiet contemplation. A chance encounter with a former neighbor causes him to ruminate on the last summer he spent with his adored father, who abandoned the family soon afterward. The novel focuses on an afternoon, when he and a friend set out to take some horses from a nearby farm. Beginning as an exhilarating adventure, the day ended abruptly and traumatically in an act of unexpected cruelty. “Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing force, and the narrative gains further power from the artful interplay of Trond’s childhood and adult perspectives.”
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet by David Mitchell is one of the NYT “Top Ten for 2010.” Mitchell is known for his experimental, puzzle-like fiction. Unfortunately, some of the puzzles, names and places in this historical novel set in Edo-era Japan, eluded me—obviously, my bad. This suspenseful and meticulously detailed story of forbidden love — between a young Dutchman and a Japanese midwife, who is abducted by a mysterious group of monks —“ unfurls, musically, to become a meditation on East and West, superstition and science, tradition and change.” An important work for more sophisticated readers.
Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez is a post-apocalyptic tale told by 13-year old Cole, the son of liberal atheists and a smart, self-contained boy who loves to draw and is a keen observer—“a classic coming-of-age story with a terrifying medical catastrophe and a profound battle between secular and religious viewpoints.” The pandemic orphans and nearly kills Cole, who ends up living with a kindhearted Evangelical pastor and his wife in Salvation City, a community preparing for the Rapture and focused on bible studies, guns, rapture children, and saved adults. “ Nunez brilliantly contrasts epic social failure and tragedy with the unfurling of one promising life, reminding us that even in the worst of times, we seek coherence, discovery, and connection."
The Confession by John Gresham is a not-too subtle critique of capital punishment in general and the Texas justice system in particular. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, Travis Boyette abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and sent him to death row. Nine years later, Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess. The book focuses on the challenges of trying to get the attention of politicians who are rewarded for their conviction and execution record. Travis and an idealistic minister try to convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man.
*The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva is an excellent thriller about Gabriel Allon, art restorer and Israeli super agent. In Glastonbury, an art restorer is murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting dating back to WWII. He deals with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world. “Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose.”
The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone, one of my favorite Southern writers is an overly- ambitious blend of humor, mystery, adventure and sentimentality. Navy pilot Annie P. Goode comes home for her 26th birthday to her doting aunt and uncle in Emerald, NC, exactly where Jack, her con man father, left her 19 years earlier. Jack calls to say that he is dying and needs Annie’s help. Within a week, Ann finds herself in St. Louis, Miami, and Havana, always a step behind Jack, as everyone seeks a golden, gem-encrusted statue. Malone employs his trademark cast of Southern characters, literary references and wry humor, including using titles of old movies for his 55 chapters. With some serious editing, this long novel could have been one of his best, but “Bizarre coincidences, caricatured criminals and characters who spurt groan-worthy puns, classic movie lines and Shakespeare quotes in place of meaningful dialogue keep the novel teetering toward the absurd.”
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz, psychology professor and dog person, applies ethology (the science of animal behavior) learned from white rhinos and bonobos, to dogs. Over eight years of study, she concludes that dogs know us better than we know them. Horowitz invites readers to imagine living 18 inches or so above the ground, with incredible olfactory senses comparable to the human capacity. Social and communications skills are also explored, as well as the practicalities of dog owning (Horowitz disagrees with the "pack" approach to dog training). “Dog lovers will find this book largely fascinating, despite Horowitz's meandering style and somnolent tone.”
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré shows that the author is near, but not at, the top of his game. This Russian mafia spy thriller has an Oxford tutor and his lawyer girlfriend meet Dmitri "Dima" Vladimirovich Krasnov, an avuncular Russian businessman who challenges Perry to a tennis match. Perry wins, Dima takes a shine to the couple, and soon, Perry conveys a message to MI6 in England that Dima wishes to defect. They are ‘invited by MI6 to an exhausting debriefing. Not only is Dima a Russian oligarch, he's also one of the world's biggest money launderers. After a slow start, Le Carré gradually ratchets up the tension until the sad, inevitable end. One reviewer said, “His most accessible work in years.” A good read but not his best.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larrson is “the exhilarating (and exhausting) conclusion to Millennium trilogy.” Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head in the final pages of Fire, is alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old cover-up surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Säpo, Sweden's security police. Sometimes the details of Swedish political history and personal backgrounds of minor characters are overpowering and there are almost endless sub-plots, Larrson is still hard to put down.
*The Widowers Tale by National Book Award winner, Julia Glass, is “elaborately plotted and luxuriously paced, … inquisitive, compassionate, funny, and suspenseful… addresses significant and thorny social issues with emotional veracity, artistic nuance, and a profound perception of the grand interconnectivity of life.” The widower is Percy Darling, an acerbic patriarch and former Harvard librarian His historic property includes a large house, pond and a spacious old barn, once his late wife's dance studio, now an upscale preschool. A mischievous and erudite curmudgeon, Percy only agrees to the school’s intrusion in the hope that his floundering daughter, Clover, will finally secure a job that makes her happy. Not that she'll ever catch up to her sister, a celebrity oncologist. Glass is great with character development of family members and associated contacts from a variety of social classes.
*Comeback America by David M. Walker, former comptroller general of the US is an important analysis and set of recommendations to address the fiscal catastrophe facing America. Walker does excellent analysis and makes courageous recommendations in a totally non-partisan manner. Everyone needs to read this book—or at least the summary provided at the Peterson Foundation web-site.
Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt got a positive reference from the NY Times and the mystery does have almost everything: a brilliant, lazy attorney with an attitude, two lovable dogs, an innocent man accused of murder, an almost super-human hit man, a nefarious criminal mastermind, etc.—You get the picture.
*The Privileges by Jonathon Dees is an intelligent, contemporary, morality tale about a charmed couple, a hedge fund, insider trading, vast wealth and the impact of acquiring great wealth. Supremely confident and ambitious Adam and Cynthia marry right out of college and quickly have children, April and Jonas. Adam excels at a private equity firm in Manhattan, but, impatient for the big money, he also launches a high-stakes insider-trading venture. The gleaming Moreys become so impossibly rich they don’t seem quite human to others, and, of course, money doesn’t preclude suffering. It could have been a compound cliché but excellent writing and good humor make it an excellent book despite a weak ending.
*The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida is a broad, optimistic look at the current economic crisis and the opportunities it presents. Florida examines the latest of the "Great Resets," moments of transformative upheaval (like the Great Depression) "when new technologies and technological systems arise, when the economy is recast and society remade, and when the places where we live and work change to suit new needs." Though Florida often rushes to neat generalities and cheerleading, his background as a historical geographer provides interesting insights and a unique perspective on the yet unresolved economic calamity.
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrson continues the chronicle of Lisbeth Salanderelf paired and journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of another sinister criminal enterprise. This time, however, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past if she is to stay out of prison-and alive. One reviewer described the book as “a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists.” That’s true but some of the twists and coincidences strain the credulity of even Larrson fans. Expect healthy doses of high tech hacking, murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as more varied sex and family disfunctionality than a Jerry Springer show.
*Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz “digs into notions of class and wealth in her debut novel, chronicling the upward strivings of a middle-class Jew as he loses himself in the strange world of the fabulously wealthy.” Handsome and smart, Robert Vishniak dreams of escaping his lower middle-class Philadelphia neighborhood. At Tufts, he rooms with the unconventional, but wealthy, Sanford Trace. Trace and his buddies introduce Robert to Smith College girls, fancy clothes, and New York State's elegant Tuxedo Park. Much of the novel evolves around Robert's relationships with three women: Gwendolyn, a Brit with a terrible secret; his wife, Crea, the daughter of his law firm's founding partner; and Sally Johannson, a shoeshine girl from his old neighborhood. The fascination with Sally makes the book more a soap opera than an insightful analysis of the spiritual malaise of the wealthy. Still, the novel is insightful, well-written, easy-read with an intriguing, complicated hero at its center.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson the first in a trilogy of Swedish best-selling page-turners. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Life looks bleak until a unique offer extended by an elderly titan of Swedish industry. Blomkvist will be paid handsomely to spend a year preparing a history of the family, their businesses—and, researching a mysterious disappearance from nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a few authority issues. Lots of twists, turns and coincidences, but the theme is “you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.”
*Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow is “a small but sweeping masterpiece about the infamous New York hermits, the Collyer brothers.” It offers a broad panorama of modern U.S. history from an iconoclastic point of view—ranging from WWI through the boomer ascendency. The Spanish flu pandemic kills Homer and Langley's parents, Langley, the elder, goes to war leaving Homer, alone and going blind. When Langley returns, real darkness descends on the eccentric orphans. Langley hoards newspaper clippings and starts innumerable science projects inside their shuttered Fifth Avenue mansion. Occasionally, outsiders wander through the house, exposing it as a living museum of artifacts, Americana, obscurity and simmering madness
The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis by Joseph E. Stiglitz is a summary ofwork done by a UN panel of 20 leading global economists to review the recent financial crisis and suggest ways of preventing further disruptions of major proportions, chaired by Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz the panel ees the recent financial crisis as the latest and most damaging of several concurrent crises—of food, water, energy, and sustainability—that are tightly interrelated. The analysis and recommendations in the report cover the gamut from short-term mitigation to deep structural changes, from crisis response to reform of the global, economic, and financial architecture. An important and well-reasoned analysis, but it isn’t beach reading.
I’ll Never Be French by Mark Greenside “is one of the nicest of the trillions of books about (life in) France.” After a ten-week visit in Brittany, Greenside decides that his attachment to France is more permanent than the relationship that brought him to France. The quasi-impulsive purchase of an old stone house is made possible with the help of Madame P. who figures prominently and entertainingly through the rest of the book by facilitating several of the author's transactions with the sellers and the local servicemen who provide necessities such as heating oil and insurance. “Greenside tells a charming story about growing wiser, humbler and more human through home owning in a foreign land.”
One Good Dog by Susan Wilson is melodramatic fiction for dog lovers. Self-made Adam March loses his temper, his job, his family, and his house and is living in a bleak apartment working off his community-service sentence in a local men’s shelter. Adam’s story alternates with the perspective of Chance, a former fighting pit bull who has escaped, lived on the streets, and back at the animal shelter. Adam adopts Chance and comes to realize the joy and comfort of animal companionship. Adam’s and Chance both fight to begin new lives and relationships. Too saccharine, even for Miss Marples’ humble servant.
*The Inperfectionists by Tom Rachman charts the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Each chapter is an exquisite short story with the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper—and one woman who reads it religiously. Obit writer Arthur Gopal, whose overarching goal at the paper is indolence, encounters personal tragedy and, with it, unexpected career ambition. Late in the book, as the paper buckles, recently laid-off copyeditor Dave Belling seduces the CFO who fired him. Throughout, the founding publisher's progeny stagger under a heritage they don't understand. As the ragtag staff faces down the implications of the paper's tilt into oblivion, “there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels.”
The God of the Hive: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie King should appeal to die-hard fans of Sherlock Holmes or lovers of the previous nine novels about Russell and her much older husband, Conan Doyle's iconic detective. The plot picks up in the summer of 1924 right after the Rev. Thomas Brothers, who seeks to unleash psychic energies through human sacrifice, has shot Holmes's artist son, Damian Adler, seriously wounding the young man. Holmes's desperate quest for medical help takes him to Holland, while Mary travels through Britain in an effort to keep Damian's half-Chinese daughter, Estelle, safe from Brothers and his allies. Cliffhanging situations abound as both leads benefit from the convenient appearance of extremely helpful strangers.
The Postmistress by debut novelist Sarah Blake Blake takes readers between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are new arrivals to Cape Cod. They listen to American reporter Frankie as she delivers powerful and personal radio reports from London and Europe. Emma waits for the return of her husband—a volunteer doctor in England. Iris comes across a letter with information that she chooses to hide. Dependent on a series of coincidences, yet “Blake captures—a naïve nation in denial and… a continent wracked with terror—with … willingness to take on big, complex questions.”
*The Promise: President Obama, Year One by Newsweek editor Jonathan Alter records Obama's first year (plus) as U.S. President, from pre-inauguration planning (when he assumed, by default, responsibility for managing a financial melt-down through the passage of health care reform in March, 2010. An engaging, fast-moving, well-written contemporary history, Alter explores Obama's "temperament, his approach to decision making, and a thoughtful analysis of his ambitious first year.
*The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller explores the psyche of four people who are bound together by the 9/11 death of Gus--Leslie, his older sister, his girlfriend, who has written a new play that explores the agonizing hours when a family gathers, not knowing the fate of their mother/ wife who was on a train attacked by terrorists. Rafe, the actor playing the ambivalent husband, processes his own guilt about his terminally ill and Sam who is being “fixed up” with Billy. While the plot doesn't have much suspense or action, the NY Times said, “… (It) conveys the subjectivity of all experience but also succeeds in creating a haunting chamber-music piece with many different solos. . . . Its power grows from Ms. Miller’s intimate understanding of her characters.”
*The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern is a madcap romp through the anguish and ironies of the Jewish tradition that “matches mysticism with mayhem, beatitude with organized crime, creativity with crassness”. The manic, almost surreal, action revolves around Rabbi Eliezer ben Zephyr who is frozen in a block of ice in 1889 but makes it to the U.S. where, in 1999, when the “great thaw” brings the reanimated rabbi to Memphis, Tennessee, where, enthralled by America’s TV capitalism, he opens a profitable and controversial House of Enlightenment. Excellent reviews and a fun read, especially if you know a bit of Yiddish.
Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich is a better than average thriller. Dr. Jonathan Ransom flies to London for a medical conference. The next day, Jonathan's world is torn apart after a large car bomb explodes in Westminster. Jonathan is sure his wife (Emma), a former ‘operative,’ is behind the bombing, but the police think Jonathan is responsible. A convoluted chase ensues with Jonathan hunting his wife, and the cops along with an MI5 agent tracking Jonathan. Everyone, including the reader, remains clueless during much of the book—and sometimes afterwards.
Money to Burn by James Grippando's is an “overwrought financial thriller” with a Kafka-est hero, Michael Cantella,facing scandals with subprime lending, short selling, and Ponzi schemes providing a timely backdrop. On his 35th birthday, Cantella goes from being a star Wall Street performer to a financially wiped-out victim of identity theft. His Job-like problems rock his second marriage and his firm and set him up for a life on the run or worse. Lots of surprising (and illogical) plot twists, but it is an engaging read.
Hannah’s List by Debbie Macomber is, I suspect, classic ‘chick lit.’ Hannah Everett dies at 36 of ovarian cancer, leaving a letter for her pediatrician husband, Michael to be opened a year after her death. In it, she suggests he consider one of three women as his next wife: her cousin, Chef Winter Adams; Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's divorced oncology nurse; and Macy Roth, a ditzy, animal-loving artist. It seemed formulaic and very predictable, but then I’m not a chick.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet by David Mitchell is one of the NYT “Top Ten for 2010.” Mitchell is known for his experimental, puzzle-like fiction. Unfortunately, some of the puzzles, names and places in this historical novel set in Edo-era Japan, eluded me—obviously, my bad. This suspenseful and meticulously detailed story of forbidden love — between a young Dutchman and a Japanese midwife, who is abducted by a mysterious group of monks —“ unfurls, musically, to become a meditation on East and West, superstition and science, tradition and change.” An important work for more sophisticated readers.
Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez is a post-apocalyptic tale told by 13-year old Cole, the son of liberal atheists and a smart, self-contained boy who loves to draw and is a keen observer—“a classic coming-of-age story with a terrifying medical catastrophe and a profound battle between secular and religious viewpoints.” The pandemic orphans and nearly kills Cole, who ends up living with a kindhearted Evangelical pastor and his wife in Salvation City, a community preparing for the Rapture and focused on bible studies, guns, rapture children, and saved adults. “ Nunez brilliantly contrasts epic social failure and tragedy with the unfurling of one promising life, reminding us that even in the worst of times, we seek coherence, discovery, and connection."
The Confession by John Gresham is a not-too subtle critique of capital punishment in general and the Texas justice system in particular. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, Travis Boyette abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and sent him to death row. Nine years later, Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess. The book focuses on the challenges of trying to get the attention of politicians who are rewarded for their conviction and execution record. Travis and an idealistic minister try to convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man.
*The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva is an excellent thriller about Gabriel Allon, art restorer and Israeli super agent. In Glastonbury, an art restorer is murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting dating back to WWII. He deals with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world. “Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose.”
The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone, one of my favorite Southern writers is an overly- ambitious blend of humor, mystery, adventure and sentimentality. Navy pilot Annie P. Goode comes home for her 26th birthday to her doting aunt and uncle in Emerald, NC, exactly where Jack, her con man father, left her 19 years earlier. Jack calls to say that he is dying and needs Annie’s help. Within a week, Ann finds herself in St. Louis, Miami, and Havana, always a step behind Jack, as everyone seeks a golden, gem-encrusted statue. Malone employs his trademark cast of Southern characters, literary references and wry humor, including using titles of old movies for his 55 chapters. With some serious editing, this long novel could have been one of his best, but “Bizarre coincidences, caricatured criminals and characters who spurt groan-worthy puns, classic movie lines and Shakespeare quotes in place of meaningful dialogue keep the novel teetering toward the absurd.”
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz, psychology professor and dog person, applies ethology (the science of animal behavior) learned from white rhinos and bonobos, to dogs. Over eight years of study, she concludes that dogs know us better than we know them. Horowitz invites readers to imagine living 18 inches or so above the ground, with incredible olfactory senses comparable to the human capacity. Social and communications skills are also explored, as well as the practicalities of dog owning (Horowitz disagrees with the "pack" approach to dog training). “Dog lovers will find this book largely fascinating, despite Horowitz's meandering style and somnolent tone.”
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré shows that the author is near, but not at, the top of his game. This Russian mafia spy thriller has an Oxford tutor and his lawyer girlfriend meet Dmitri "Dima" Vladimirovich Krasnov, an avuncular Russian businessman who challenges Perry to a tennis match. Perry wins, Dima takes a shine to the couple, and soon, Perry conveys a message to MI6 in England that Dima wishes to defect. They are ‘invited by MI6 to an exhausting debriefing. Not only is Dima a Russian oligarch, he's also one of the world's biggest money launderers. After a slow start, Le Carré gradually ratchets up the tension until the sad, inevitable end. One reviewer said, “His most accessible work in years.” A good read but not his best.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larrson is “the exhilarating (and exhausting) conclusion to Millennium trilogy.” Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head in the final pages of Fire, is alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old cover-up surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Säpo, Sweden's security police. Sometimes the details of Swedish political history and personal backgrounds of minor characters are overpowering and there are almost endless sub-plots, Larrson is still hard to put down.
*The Widowers Tale by National Book Award winner, Julia Glass, is “elaborately plotted and luxuriously paced, … inquisitive, compassionate, funny, and suspenseful… addresses significant and thorny social issues with emotional veracity, artistic nuance, and a profound perception of the grand interconnectivity of life.” The widower is Percy Darling, an acerbic patriarch and former Harvard librarian His historic property includes a large house, pond and a spacious old barn, once his late wife's dance studio, now an upscale preschool. A mischievous and erudite curmudgeon, Percy only agrees to the school’s intrusion in the hope that his floundering daughter, Clover, will finally secure a job that makes her happy. Not that she'll ever catch up to her sister, a celebrity oncologist. Glass is great with character development of family members and associated contacts from a variety of social classes.
*Comeback America by David M. Walker, former comptroller general of the US is an important analysis and set of recommendations to address the fiscal catastrophe facing America. Walker does excellent analysis and makes courageous recommendations in a totally non-partisan manner. Everyone needs to read this book—or at least the summary provided at the Peterson Foundation web-site.
Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt got a positive reference from the NY Times and the mystery does have almost everything: a brilliant, lazy attorney with an attitude, two lovable dogs, an innocent man accused of murder, an almost super-human hit man, a nefarious criminal mastermind, etc.—You get the picture.
*The Privileges by Jonathon Dees is an intelligent, contemporary, morality tale about a charmed couple, a hedge fund, insider trading, vast wealth and the impact of acquiring great wealth. Supremely confident and ambitious Adam and Cynthia marry right out of college and quickly have children, April and Jonas. Adam excels at a private equity firm in Manhattan, but, impatient for the big money, he also launches a high-stakes insider-trading venture. The gleaming Moreys become so impossibly rich they don’t seem quite human to others, and, of course, money doesn’t preclude suffering. It could have been a compound cliché but excellent writing and good humor make it an excellent book despite a weak ending.
*The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida is a broad, optimistic look at the current economic crisis and the opportunities it presents. Florida examines the latest of the "Great Resets," moments of transformative upheaval (like the Great Depression) "when new technologies and technological systems arise, when the economy is recast and society remade, and when the places where we live and work change to suit new needs." Though Florida often rushes to neat generalities and cheerleading, his background as a historical geographer provides interesting insights and a unique perspective on the yet unresolved economic calamity.
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrson continues the chronicle of Lisbeth Salanderelf paired and journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of another sinister criminal enterprise. This time, however, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past if she is to stay out of prison-and alive. One reviewer described the book as “a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists.” That’s true but some of the twists and coincidences strain the credulity of even Larrson fans. Expect healthy doses of high tech hacking, murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as more varied sex and family disfunctionality than a Jerry Springer show.
*Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz “digs into notions of class and wealth in her debut novel, chronicling the upward strivings of a middle-class Jew as he loses himself in the strange world of the fabulously wealthy.” Handsome and smart, Robert Vishniak dreams of escaping his lower middle-class Philadelphia neighborhood. At Tufts, he rooms with the unconventional, but wealthy, Sanford Trace. Trace and his buddies introduce Robert to Smith College girls, fancy clothes, and New York State's elegant Tuxedo Park. Much of the novel evolves around Robert's relationships with three women: Gwendolyn, a Brit with a terrible secret; his wife, Crea, the daughter of his law firm's founding partner; and Sally Johannson, a shoeshine girl from his old neighborhood. The fascination with Sally makes the book more a soap opera than an insightful analysis of the spiritual malaise of the wealthy. Still, the novel is insightful, well-written, easy-read with an intriguing, complicated hero at its center.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson the first in a trilogy of Swedish best-selling page-turners. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Life looks bleak until a unique offer extended by an elderly titan of Swedish industry. Blomkvist will be paid handsomely to spend a year preparing a history of the family, their businesses—and, researching a mysterious disappearance from nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a few authority issues. Lots of twists, turns and coincidences, but the theme is “you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.”
*Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow is “a small but sweeping masterpiece about the infamous New York hermits, the Collyer brothers.” It offers a broad panorama of modern U.S. history from an iconoclastic point of view—ranging from WWI through the boomer ascendency. The Spanish flu pandemic kills Homer and Langley's parents, Langley, the elder, goes to war leaving Homer, alone and going blind. When Langley returns, real darkness descends on the eccentric orphans. Langley hoards newspaper clippings and starts innumerable science projects inside their shuttered Fifth Avenue mansion. Occasionally, outsiders wander through the house, exposing it as a living museum of artifacts, Americana, obscurity and simmering madness
The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial Systems in the Wake of the Global Crisis by Joseph E. Stiglitz is a summary ofwork done by a UN panel of 20 leading global economists to review the recent financial crisis and suggest ways of preventing further disruptions of major proportions, chaired by Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz the panel ees the recent financial crisis as the latest and most damaging of several concurrent crises—of food, water, energy, and sustainability—that are tightly interrelated. The analysis and recommendations in the report cover the gamut from short-term mitigation to deep structural changes, from crisis response to reform of the global, economic, and financial architecture. An important and well-reasoned analysis, but it isn’t beach reading.
I’ll Never Be French by Mark Greenside “is one of the nicest of the trillions of books about (life in) France.” After a ten-week visit in Brittany, Greenside decides that his attachment to France is more permanent than the relationship that brought him to France. The quasi-impulsive purchase of an old stone house is made possible with the help of Madame P. who figures prominently and entertainingly through the rest of the book by facilitating several of the author's transactions with the sellers and the local servicemen who provide necessities such as heating oil and insurance. “Greenside tells a charming story about growing wiser, humbler and more human through home owning in a foreign land.”
One Good Dog by Susan Wilson is melodramatic fiction for dog lovers. Self-made Adam March loses his temper, his job, his family, and his house and is living in a bleak apartment working off his community-service sentence in a local men’s shelter. Adam’s story alternates with the perspective of Chance, a former fighting pit bull who has escaped, lived on the streets, and back at the animal shelter. Adam adopts Chance and comes to realize the joy and comfort of animal companionship. Adam’s and Chance both fight to begin new lives and relationships. Too saccharine, even for Miss Marples’ humble servant.
*The Inperfectionists by Tom Rachman charts the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Each chapter is an exquisite short story with the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper—and one woman who reads it religiously. Obit writer Arthur Gopal, whose overarching goal at the paper is indolence, encounters personal tragedy and, with it, unexpected career ambition. Late in the book, as the paper buckles, recently laid-off copyeditor Dave Belling seduces the CFO who fired him. Throughout, the founding publisher's progeny stagger under a heritage they don't understand. As the ragtag staff faces down the implications of the paper's tilt into oblivion, “there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels.”
The God of the Hive: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie King should appeal to die-hard fans of Sherlock Holmes or lovers of the previous nine novels about Russell and her much older husband, Conan Doyle's iconic detective. The plot picks up in the summer of 1924 right after the Rev. Thomas Brothers, who seeks to unleash psychic energies through human sacrifice, has shot Holmes's artist son, Damian Adler, seriously wounding the young man. Holmes's desperate quest for medical help takes him to Holland, while Mary travels through Britain in an effort to keep Damian's half-Chinese daughter, Estelle, safe from Brothers and his allies. Cliffhanging situations abound as both leads benefit from the convenient appearance of extremely helpful strangers.
The Postmistress by debut novelist Sarah Blake Blake takes readers between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are new arrivals to Cape Cod. They listen to American reporter Frankie as she delivers powerful and personal radio reports from London and Europe. Emma waits for the return of her husband—a volunteer doctor in England. Iris comes across a letter with information that she chooses to hide. Dependent on a series of coincidences, yet “Blake captures—a naïve nation in denial and… a continent wracked with terror—with … willingness to take on big, complex questions.”
*The Promise: President Obama, Year One by Newsweek editor Jonathan Alter records Obama's first year (plus) as U.S. President, from pre-inauguration planning (when he assumed, by default, responsibility for managing a financial melt-down through the passage of health care reform in March, 2010. An engaging, fast-moving, well-written contemporary history, Alter explores Obama's "temperament, his approach to decision making, and a thoughtful analysis of his ambitious first year.
*The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller explores the psyche of four people who are bound together by the 9/11 death of Gus--Leslie, his older sister, his girlfriend, who has written a new play that explores the agonizing hours when a family gathers, not knowing the fate of their mother/ wife who was on a train attacked by terrorists. Rafe, the actor playing the ambivalent husband, processes his own guilt about his terminally ill and Sam who is being “fixed up” with Billy. While the plot doesn't have much suspense or action, the NY Times said, “… (It) conveys the subjectivity of all experience but also succeeds in creating a haunting chamber-music piece with many different solos. . . . Its power grows from Ms. Miller’s intimate understanding of her characters.”
*The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern is a madcap romp through the anguish and ironies of the Jewish tradition that “matches mysticism with mayhem, beatitude with organized crime, creativity with crassness”. The manic, almost surreal, action revolves around Rabbi Eliezer ben Zephyr who is frozen in a block of ice in 1889 but makes it to the U.S. where, in 1999, when the “great thaw” brings the reanimated rabbi to Memphis, Tennessee, where, enthralled by America’s TV capitalism, he opens a profitable and controversial House of Enlightenment. Excellent reviews and a fun read, especially if you know a bit of Yiddish.
Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich is a better than average thriller. Dr. Jonathan Ransom flies to London for a medical conference. The next day, Jonathan's world is torn apart after a large car bomb explodes in Westminster. Jonathan is sure his wife (Emma), a former ‘operative,’ is behind the bombing, but the police think Jonathan is responsible. A convoluted chase ensues with Jonathan hunting his wife, and the cops along with an MI5 agent tracking Jonathan. Everyone, including the reader, remains clueless during much of the book—and sometimes afterwards.
Money to Burn by James Grippando's is an “overwrought financial thriller” with a Kafka-est hero, Michael Cantella,facing scandals with subprime lending, short selling, and Ponzi schemes providing a timely backdrop. On his 35th birthday, Cantella goes from being a star Wall Street performer to a financially wiped-out victim of identity theft. His Job-like problems rock his second marriage and his firm and set him up for a life on the run or worse. Lots of surprising (and illogical) plot twists, but it is an engaging read.
Hannah’s List by Debbie Macomber is, I suspect, classic ‘chick lit.’ Hannah Everett dies at 36 of ovarian cancer, leaving a letter for her pediatrician husband, Michael to be opened a year after her death. In it, she suggests he consider one of three women as his next wife: her cousin, Chef Winter Adams; Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's divorced oncology nurse; and Macy Roth, a ditzy, animal-loving artist. It seemed formulaic and very predictable, but then I’m not a chick.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Summer Update: Newcomers in Paradise
NIP has enjoyed a busy summer. We did four signings and discussions at local shops, made presentations at two book clubs, the SB Yacht Club and at a Sotheby's Realty meeting. We hosted a Newcomers "Life Styles" event at Casa Alegria and got three nice references in the NewPress and Montecito Journal. I even managed to get the book mentioned in a leadership article in the Wall Street Journal, August 23rd edition. Now, I worry about a short slide back into oblivion.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Newcomers at the SB Museum of Art
Pat and I attended the Newcomers event at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on June 4. It brought back memories of the event we attended a decade ago...See NIP pages 21,65, 66.
The food was Cosco's best, the docent tour featured a colorful, post-abstract expressionism exhibition, and the attendees were just as excited to be in Santa Barbara as we were (and are).
Based on the great people we met, the Newcomers Club is still doing well . Several discerning intellectuals mentioned that they were enjoying "Newcomers in Paradise" and looking forward to the club's book group session on June 30. Obviously, the people who have signed up for this event are the "best and brightest" with unusual good taste and perceptiveness.
The food was Cosco's best, the docent tour featured a colorful, post-abstract expressionism exhibition, and the attendees were just as excited to be in Santa Barbara as we were (and are).
Based on the great people we met, the Newcomers Club is still doing well . Several discerning intellectuals mentioned that they were enjoying "Newcomers in Paradise" and looking forward to the club's book group session on June 30. Obviously, the people who have signed up for this event are the "best and brightest" with unusual good taste and perceptiveness.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Latin American seminars
I just got back to Santa Barbara after seminars for Harvard Business Review of Latin America in Ecuador and Paraguay. The audiences were enthusiastic and fun to work with. The only negative came when I arrived in Asuncion at 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning (with seminar to start the following day), I was told that a visa was required (that neither my client, travel agency or airline had mentioned). I wound up flying on to Bolivia and back to Lima where the folks in the American University of Paraguay worked some magic. This enabled me to come back to Asuncion at 2:30 a.m. on Friday with the seminar to begin at 8:00 a.m. The net effect was that for 86 hours, I had a total of four hours in a bed! Nevertheless, the people were great and the program went well. Santa Barbara did seem like Paradise when I got back home.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Bob's Books Read in 2010
Here's my take on the best books I've read in 2010 (July 1, 2010)
American Sucker tells how author, David Denby (Great Books) was captured by greed and manic belief that the stock market offered easy opportunities for unlimited prosperity. Denby sunk his family’s funds in NASDAQ stocks, became addicted to CNBC and the Wall Street Journal, lost his balance in the excess of the time-stock tickers in strip clubs; then lost his money when the market crashed. Denby nearly suffered a nervous breakdown when his wife of 18 years left him, and making enough money to buy out her share of their apartment was his initial motivation for investing in the market. Denby details his decline, from a night of impotence to a six-month obsession with Internet porn. “His dissection of his own Upper West Side narcissism offers some of the most candid critiques of the Manhattan bourgeoisie ever found outside of a Woody Allen film.”
*The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone is a medical thriller set in 1889 Philadelphia. The narrator is Ephraim Carroll, a young, idealistic and somewhat naïve doctor, who works alongside William Osler, often described as the father of modern medicine. Carroll is troubled when Osler forgoes an autopsy of a woman without explanation. Carroll's curiosity is further piqued after George Turk, a colleague who also seemed unsettled by Osler's actions, dies, apparently of cholera. When Turk's autopsy reveals trace amounts of arsenic, Carroll's suspicions of foul play are confirmed. Goldstone artfully integrates a manuscript the actual Dr. Osler wrote and ordered sealed for half a century after his death. This is top-notch historical page-turner that captures the era, the power of social class and the evolution of medical practice.
Replay by Kim Greenwood is a fantasy about Jeff Winston, a failing 43-year-old journalist, who dies and wakes up in his 18-year-old body in 1963 with his memories of the next 25 years intact. Jeff's knowledge becomes both a curse as a blessing. After recovering from the shock (is the future a dream, or is it real life?), he plays out missed choices with differing levels of frustration. Not an original theme, but developed in a thoughtful, engaging manner.
*Solar by Ian McEwan received mixed reviews. The protagonist, physicist Michael Beard, won a Nobel Prize several years ago and has been resting on his laurels ever since. A serial cheater, he is now married to his fifth wife, who leads a totally separate life, indicating her complete disdain for his wandering eye. An accidental death which he covers up, a politically incorrect statement before a professional audience, and his usurpation of research ideas from a deceased ‘post doc’ are part of his disintegrating character. Beard is a despicable, but modestly charming, character. The book blends interesting insights into scientific research, climate change, the press, aging and egoism.
Mennonite in a Simple Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen got great reviews, “an intelligent, funny, wonderfully written memoir.” I didn’t see it—maybe it is a ‘chick’ thing. Her 15-year relationship with Nick ends when he leaves her for someone he met on “Gay.com.” She comes to recognize her co-dependent role in their marriage (even as she tweaks the 12 steps just a bit). She moves back in with her Mennonite parents and “looks at her childhood religion with fresh, twinkling eyes.” One reviewer gushes “… women will immediately warm to the self-deprecating honesty”—but maybe not guys.
*The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine is an ‘Austenesque’ novel about three women figuring out how to survive and thrive in ‘exile.’ Betty Weissman is 75 when her husband announces he's divorcing her. She moves out of their grand CPW apartment and the conniving girlfriend moves in. Betty lands in a rundown Westport, Conn., beach cottage, but things quickly get more complicated when Betty's aging daughters run into their own problems and move in with her. “It's a smart crowd pleaser with lovably flawed leads…the literary version of a delectable desert”
Siege by psychologist Stephen White has the Yale campus as the site of a unique act of terrorism. Unidentified attackers take over a building belonging to one of Yale's secret where they hold several students hostage. They seem to make no demands, agree to no negotiations and execute or release hostages depending on their unknown logic. Suspended Boulder, Colo., policeman Sam Purdy eventually teams with maverick FBI agent Christopher Poe and CIA terror expert Deirdre Drake in an effort outside official channels to thwart the creatively conceived plan. “This intellectually challenging and provocative thriller brings home the lesson that 9/11 might have been a mere prelude to more sophisticated assaults.”
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, offers a detailed (almost 700 pages) but boring account of Barack Obama's history. One reviewer called it a “major contribution to the river of Obama books…a sharply honed work of biographical journalism.” I found it 300 pages too long due to the author’s tendency to include any related reference or quote he accumulated. For example, in talking about Obama’s job as a community organization, he adds long references to Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis on Saul Alinsky, Alinsky’s background and how he influenced the person who hired Obama. The subtitle of the book could have been, “More than you ever wanted to know about Obama”—and for me that’s pretty hard to do. A tough editor would have helped.
*Innocent by Scott Turow picks up the characters and personality of his hugely successful Presumed Innocent, 22 years after the events of the earlier book. Former prosecutor Rusty Sabich, now an appellate judge, is again suspected of murdering a woman close to him. His wife, Barbara, died in her bed, apparently of natural cause; Yet Rusty comes under scrutiny from acting Tommy Molto, who unsuccessfully prosecuted him for killing his mistress decades earlier. Tommy's chief deputy, Jim Brand, is suspicious because Rusty chose not to report Barbara's death for almost an entire day, which could have allowed traces of poison to disappear. Rusty's candidacy for a higher court and a recent affair with his attractive law clerk further complicate matters. Turow displays an uncanny ability for making the passions and contradictions of his main characters accessible and believable.
**The Lacuna is Barbara Kingsolver's first ambitious new novel in nine years (after the excellent The Poisonwood Bible). It focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the son of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of an American military academy after seeing the “bonus army riots”, Harrison spends several years in Mexico in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S. and settles in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel starts slowing, but achieves an emotional peak when Harrison wittily defends himself before the Un-American Activities Committee (the panel includes a young Dick Nixon). I thought Kingsolver subtly wove parallels between the fall of Aztec civilization, the 1930s and 40s (and by implication, our own era). Kingsolver was masterful in resurrecting “a dark period in American history with the assured hand of a true literary artist.”
*The Road by Cormac McCarthy is “profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose…The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece.” The depressing darkness of the book kept me from reading it for a long time, but it is a powerful book that describes a post-nuclear world with gray skies that drizzle ash, most wildlife is extinct and starvation is nearly all-encompassing. A seriously ill father is walking with his sickly son toward warmer weather but are constantly watching for danger that could come in any form—perhaps one of the bands of cannibals who roam the country-side with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. Anyone who doesn’t want to reduce our nuclear stockpile should be required to read this book.
*Body of Lies by David Ignatius tells the story of idealistic CIA agent Roger Ferris, newly stationed in Jordan after being wounded in Iraq. Ferris, is dedicated to forestalling further al-Qaeda attacks, develops an intricate scheme modeled after a British WWII rouse. Ferris's plot to turn the terrorists against each other by sowing seeds of suspicion that their leaders are collaborating with the Americans puts his personal life in turmoil and threatens his professional relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence. It may be the best post-9/11 espionage novel, with well-developed characters, intelligent, informed writing and plenty of suspense. Unfortunately, the book’s potential for a great movie wasn’t realized.
A Game of Character by Craig Robinson, presidential brother-in-law, Ivy-League MVP and head coach at Oregon State, takes readers behind the scenes to meet his most important influences in the “winning traits that are part of his playbook for success.” The book is a tribute to his remarkable parents who showed their children to believe in themselves and live their lives with love, discipline and respect and a great recruiting tool for OSU. I suspect Robinson is a great coach and brother, but writing isn’t his greatest strength—but this is a great read for high school basketball players.
*The Condition by Jennifer Haigh follows a dysfunctional New England family as it struggles toward normalcy in a poignant novel from the PEN/Hemingway-winner. We follow the children of resentful, controlling, Paulette and distracted, MIT professor Frank. Billy, the oldest and most successful, keeps a secret about his sophisticated New York life. Scott, the uncontrollable brat of the bunch, sees himself in his own troubled son. Meanwhile, Gwen suffers from a genetic condition that prevents her from developing into womanhood. The story starts slowly but each family member grows and matures as the narrative leads to a surprising and satisfying conclusion.
Caught by Harlan Coben is filled with the tension and unanticipated machinations that have become the author’s trademark. A ‘straight arrow’ high school senior is missing. A reporter on a mission to identify sexual predators via elaborate sting operations targets a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but the story soon becomes much more complicated, and sometimes hard to follow. The first half is excellently written with an ending that is surprising and engaging.
Food Rules: An Eater’s Guide by Michael Pollan, perhaps the country’s most trusted food writer offers a simple guide for anyone concerned about health and food. Simple, sensible, and easy to use, Food Rules is a set of 64 memorable guidelines for eating wisely. You can probably read it in an hour, and it might change your eating habits and make you more mindful of the food you eat.
*Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz is a “spirited attack on Wall Street, the free market and the Washington consensus.”As a Nobel Prize winner, and chairman of Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, Stieglitz has some practical insights on what lead to the “Great Recession and how to prevent the next one. He provides an understandable overview of modern economic theory and “the wrongheaded national faith in the power of free markets to regulate themselves and provide wealth for all.” It is hard to make economics consistently interesting, but Stiglitz comes close and ends with a plea for the original focus of economics as “moral philosophy.”
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton is set in 1988 when Kinsey takes on a client who claims to have recovered a childhood memory of men burying a suspicious bundle shortly after the unsolved disappearance of four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh in 1972. Chapters told from the point of view of other characters in other time periods add texture, allowing the reader to assemble pieces of the case as Kinsey works on other aspects. A subplot involves Kinsey wrestling with conflicting information about her estranged family. Engaging, but Grafton seems to be tiring of Kinsey.
How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins is a mediocre book from a great business writer. The book attempts to explain the five step process by which once great firms become obsolete and how they can avoid the downward trajectory. Collins is a brilliant consultant and writer who has done some of the best analysis of business success. This makes this 120 pages of content and 100+ pages of appendices, notes and index, with moments of great insight but a hurried, almost superficial, feel more disappointing than if someone else had dashed this off. Borrow and scan the book, but don’t buy it.
Increment by David Ignatius has been compared to le Carre’s A Spy Who Came in From the Cold, but for my money, is a better read. Harry Pappas, CIA chief of the Iran Operations receives an unsolicited e-mail from an alleged Tehran scientist that implies Iran is continuing its nuclear weapons program and is a threat to global peace and finds an administration bent on a preemptive strike. Pappas, whose only son was killed while serving in the second Iraq War, must somehow identify the scientist, get him out of Iran and mine his knowledge before the U.S. blunders into another unnecessary war. The insightful and realistic story line builds to a somewhat predictable ending but is well crafted and written.
Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta uses Google as a stand-in for the digital revolution and takes readers inside the firm’s closed-door meetings and paints portraits of Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Auletta shares the "secret sauce" of Google's success, and shows why the worlds of "new" and "old" media often communicate as if residents of different planets. With the operating principle of “Don’t do evil,” Google engineers assume that the old ways of doing things can be improved and made more efficient. The firm is poised to become the world's first $100 billion media company and has been a positive, yet disruptive influence in many areas. Yet, it faces internal threats, from its burgeoning size to losing focus to hubris. An important book that gets a little tedious in the middle.
*The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe, the skillful campaign manager of Barack Obama's 2008 historic campaign is described by one reviewer as “essentially a bound sheaf of press releases.” The NYT thought it provided “a visceral sense of the campaign from an insider's point of view...(with) acute assessments of the larger dynamics at play in the 2008 race.” Plouffe is obviously a genius campaign manager, a decent writer, and honest about missteps that the Obama campaign made. I agree with the Miami Herald that it is an "engaging, detailed and frequently illuminating account of the Obama presidential campaign..."
*Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler, like her previous books is about an unexceptional man of modest means and limited ambition. At age 60, he's been fired from a teaching job that was already below his academic training and original expectations. An unsentimental survivor of two failed marriages and the emotionally detached father of three grown daughters, Liam life is jolted after he's attacked in his new apartment and loses all memory of the experience. His search to recover the lost hours leads to an uneasy exploration of his disappointing life and an unlikely new relationship with “a socially inept walking fashion disaster who is half his age.” Tyler has an understated ability create empathy with this flawed but decent man. Readers will “marvel at how this low-key, plainspoken novelist achieves miracles of insight and understanding.”
An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain by Diane Ackerman is about the "crowded chemistry lab. " Ackerman grounds the scientific information with her own poetic experience of discovery. “The common thread she spies running through the tangible world of the evolving brain and the intangible world of emotion and memory is the ‘sleight of mind’ that provides us with a self-identity through which we experience the world in a unified yet complexly fragmented way.” Even brain buffs used to a more detached approach are likely to be won over by her uniquely personal perspective. Chapters on topics such as consciousness, language and the mental differences between the sexes help you keep up with brain research news without wading through the scientific jargon.
Fugitive is Phillip Margolin’ is fourth thriller to feature Portland, Oregon lawyer Amanda Jaffe who can't turn down the opportunity to defend Charlie Marsh, aka Guru Gabriel Sun. Marsh was a prisoner whose freedom came when he saved the life of a guard during a riot. He became a guru and published The Light Within, in which he spoke of how to achieve personal transformation. Marsh fled the country in 1997 after being accused of murdering Congressman Arnold Pope Jr., and has spent 12 years in the African country of Batanga under the protection of its “benevolent ruler”, whose threat to kill Marsh for sleeping with his favorite wife prompts a return to the U.S. to stand trial. Add Pope's revenge-seeking father, several homicidal maniacs and the evil head of the Batanga secret service, and you've got an above average plot in an engaging quick read.
*Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore is a charming “coming of age” Southern novel in the tradition of Fannie Flagg. It’s the early 1970s, and Catherine Grace Cline is the quick-witted daughter of Ringgold’s third-generation Baptist preacher, who is dying to escape her small-town life. Every Saturday, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plots her getaway to Atlanta. At 18, she packs her bags, leaving her family and the boy she loves to claim the life she’s always imagined. But before things have even begun to get off the ground in Atlanta, tragedy brings Catherine Grace back home where a series of extraordinary events alter her perspective–and she begins to wonder where her place in the world may actually be. “Intelligent, charming, and utterly readable, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen marks the debut of a talented new literary voice.”
*A Happy Marriage by Rafel Yglesias is brutally honest in this deeply personal account of his thorny, but ultimately loving, marriage. He tells the parallel stories of the beginning and the end of this relationship "in something of a tour de force of novelistic architecture" (New York Times), which strikes a fine balance between the heady excitement of budding romance and the agonizing loss of enduring love. Though the story line may seem predictable at first, Yglesias throws in enough twists, surprises, and emotional urgency to keep readers turning the pages, and his fully realized—if not always likeable—characters are wholly convincing. A "profound deliberation on the nature of love, marriage, and the process of dying" (New York Times), this visceral, poignant novel will break your heart.
The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Michael Belfiore tells how the surprise launch of the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik lead to the establishment of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA's mission was to prevent future technological surprises and to stimulate its own world-changing technologies. Early achievements included contributions to NASA, missile technology, the Internet and the Global Positioning System. More recent projects have included electroprostheses, remote robotic surgery, driverless vehicles, battery technology, alternative energy and hypersonic flight. The writing is accessible, even for scientific dunces, but has a few too many ‘chatty asides.’
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford describes, a Chinese-American in Seattle who has just lost his wife to cancer. The narrative shifts between 1986 and the 1940s in a predictable story that chronicles the losses of old age and the confusion of youth. Henry recalls life in Seattle during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American friend, Keiko are “scholarshipping” in an all white school. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry is horrified by America's anti-Japanese hysteria and his father's anti-Japanese sentiment. Henry's adult life and his relationship with his college-age son, Marty are contrasted with Henry's alienation from a father who was determined to Americanize him but maintain a Chinese identify) but seemed contrived. The wartime persecution of Japanese immigrants is presented well, but the narrative is often flat. I still enjoyed the ‘contrived’ ending.
All the Living by C.E. Morgan is a debut novel about a young woman who moves to Kentucky with her bereaved lover in 1984. Aloma, herself an orphan from a young age, leaves her job at the mission school to help her taciturn, brieved boyfriend, Orren, with his family farm. He retreats into himself and working the land, leaving Aloma to wrestle with her desire to pursue her dream of being a concert pianist. Aloma finds work as a pianist at a nearby church was develops a friendship with the preacher that complicates her feelings for Orren, who drags his feet on marriage. Her growing understanding of love and devotion in the midst of deep despair is lyrically, and Morgan’s prose captures the local dialect beautifully. The writing is insightful, eloquent and positively reviewed, but never quite clarifies why, other than great sex, an aspiring concert musician would give up on her dream for a moody, distant, almost literate lover.
Born to Run by James Grippando is a better than average thriller. In this latest Jack Swyteck story, the vice president dies during an alligator hunt in the Everglades, and Jack's father, the former governor of Florida, is picked to fill the vacant v-p slot. Jack goes to Washington as his Dad’s legal counsel, but soon he is investigating a mystery that could bring down the sitting president. The book's plotting is suspenseful and there is a good sprinkling of diverse characters—not great literature, but a fun read.
Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich is a bleak chronicle about the collapse of a family. Irene is a beautiful, introspective woman struggling to finish her dissertation while raising three children. She is married to Gil, a painter whose reputation is built on a series of now portraits of Irene who has fallen out of love with him and discovers that he's been reading her diary, so she begins a new, hidden, diary and uses her original diary as a tool to manipulate Gil. Erdrich alternates between excerpts from these two diaries and third-person narration to portray, in a disjointed way, the family’s emotional wars. The NY Times thought it was “A portrait of an 'iconic' marriage on its way to dissolution… (with)startlingly original phrasing as well as flashes of blinding lucidity.” I didn’t see it this way, but the NYT is probably more dependable.
*The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell is reportedly the world’s current best-selling mystery novel. After massacre in a remote Swedish village, Judge Birgitta Roslin comes across diaries from the house of one of the 19 mostly elderly victims kept by an ancestor of Roslin's. The diaries cover his time as a foreman on the building of the U.S. transcontinental railroad. An extended flashback charts the journey of a railroad worker, San, who was kidnapped in China and shipped to America in 1863. After finding evidence linking a mysterious Chinese man to the murders, Roslin travels to Beijing to see if the crime is rooted in the past. Sections of the book range over 150 years and from the building of the railroad and bleak frozen landscape of northern Sweden to modern-day China, London, and Zimbabwe in a compelling, but somewhat disjointed manner.
Super Freakonomics by Economist Stevan Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner capitalize on their best selling Freakonomics with another effort to make the dismal science go gonzo. For me, there's a disappointing lack substance to the authors' project of applying economics to all of life. Their method is to notice some contrarian statistic (adult seat belts are as effective as child-safety seats in preventing car-crash fatalities in children older than two), turn it into economics by tacking on a perfunctory cost-benefit analysis (seat belts are cheaper and more convenient) and append a libertarian sermonette (governments tend to prefer the costly-and-cumbersome route). “The intellectual content is pretty thin, but it's spiked with the crowd-pleasing provocations.”
Ordinary Thunderstorms by Whitbread-winner, William Boyd (A Good Man in Africa), moves into thriller territory with a fun, fast-paced Hitchcockian wrong-man whodunit. While in London interviewing for a job, Adam Kindred meets immunologist Philip Wang at a restaurant who leaves a folder of papers behind. Adam tries to return them to Wang's flat only to find the man's bloody corpse—and to leave lots of evidence of his visit. Fearful of pursuing police and a persistent hired assassin, and without much thought or logic, Adam flees with Wang's papers and goes underground. Meanwhile, at Wang's pharmaceutical company, there’s a coup brewing to rush to market a potentially dangerous anti-asthma drug. The disparate story lines weave a competently plotted, intelligently written tale of corporate and criminal skullduggery that almost sinks with too many improbable coincidences and stock characters.
Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor, writer-host of NPR's long-running Prairie Home Companion promotes egalitarianism, manifested by good-neighborliness and a social safety net sustained by government, as the bedrock of being a Democrat. The Party goes wrong when it forgets the powerless, and fails to focus on "real consequences in the lives of real people." The real value of the partisan but beautifully written autobiography is the recollection of growing up in a simpler time and place.
*Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin is the best, by far, of the four books I’ve read about the 2008 campaign—gossipy and informative. “Sarah Palin was serene when chosen for V.P. because it was “God’s plan.” Hillary didn’t know if she could control Bill (duh).”The men get less attention than the women and tend to come off slightly better. “Obama can be conceited and windy; McCain was disengaged to the point of recklessness; Biden talks a lot, and John Edwards is a cheating, egotistical blowhard. But, hey, that’s politics.” The authors worked their “200 sources” well. Many of the book’s events were covered previously, but sometimes, this volume delivers totally behind-the-scenes and genuinely surprising information. I was a campaign junkie, but was surprised that Senators Schumer and Reid (official Hillary supporters) encouraged Obama to seek the presidency and that Palin was initially screened by a Google search for “female Republican officeholders.”
Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor posits that Democrats embrace “the politics of kindness," and he traces his ideology to his kindly aunts and his access to good public education. He reminds readers that “Do-Gooder Democrats” are responsible for positive programs from civil rights to clean air., though he acknowledges, "The great hole in the compact is health care." "The good democrat," he says, “distrusts privilege and power, believes in equality, supports unions, and is individualist.” It vintage Keillor– a marriage of Prairie Home Companion and Air America or a liberal, intelligent Glen Beck, if you can imagine it
*Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo describes a ten year art scam that bruised the reputation of museum archives and experts alike. Struggling painter and single father John Myatt advertised copies of famous paintings, but never imagined he'd become a key player in one of Britain's biggest art frauds. Enter John Drewe, who claimed to be a physicist and avid art collector. Soon Drewe was passing off Myatt's work as genuine, including paintings in the style of artists like Giacometti and Ben Nicholson. When buyers expressed concern about the works' provenance, Drewe began falsifying records of ownership, even posing as a benefactor to plant false documents in the archives of London's Tate Gallery. Eventually, suspicious historians and archivists assist Scotland Yard in bringing him to justice. Thoroughly research and elegantly written, Provenance is a blend of thriller and art history course.
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve who worked in Kenya as a journalist early in her career, returns with the story of a photojournalist and her doctor husband, whose temporary assignment there goes sour. The trip is a research opportunity for Patrick, but leaves Margaret floundering in colonialist culture shock, feeling like an actor in an old British play. When a climbing trip to Mt. Kenya goes fatally wrong, Margaret’s “guilt” creates tension between the couple. Compound stressors include multiple robberies, adulterous temptations, and Margaret's freelance work for a controversial newspaper. One reviewer thought it was “written in a strangely emotionless third person …stuffed with travelogues and vignettes of privileged expatriate life.” Perhaps not Shreve’s best, but still enjoyable to me.
The Last Child by John Hart is about the aftermath of 12-year-old Alyssa disappearance on her way home in a small North Carolina town. Her twin brother continues to search the town, street by street, even visiting the homes of known sex offenders. The lead cop on Alyssa's case keeps a watchful eye on Johnny and his mother. When a second girl is taken, Johnny is even more determined to find his sister. What he unearths is more sinister than anyone imagined and puts Johnny's own life in danger. “Despite a tendency to dip into melodrama, Hart spins an impressively layered tale of broken families and secrets that can kill.”
True Blue by David Baldacci is a formulaic ‘thriller’ with cardboard characters. It introduces Beth Perry, chief of the DC Metropolitan Police, and her younger sister, Mace, a former police officer was seized by bandits, drugged and taken along on a series of armed robberies. Mace is getting out of prison after a two-year sentence, risks everything to clear her name. The murders of a powerful lawyer and U.S. attorney provide Mace an opportunity to vindicate herself. “While Baldacci draws his characters in bright primary colors, and some of the action reaches comic book proportions, he delivers his usual intricate plotting.”
Friday, April 9, 2010
Bob's Best Books from 2009
Fiction
**The Help by Kathryn Stockett who, like her heroine, Sketer Phelan, grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. The novel is set during the civil rights movement when black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver or use a guest bathroom. Skeeter is just home from college in 1962, without a husband and anxious to write something more significant than the Junior League newsletter. She begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies by enlisting Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's been fired several times after mouthing off to her white employers. The stories are scathing, shocking, totally believable, and help bring pride and hope to the black community, while alienating Skeeter from her lifelong friends. Written in three distinct voices that are pitch perfect and confident, this my favorite book so far this year. (written in March and true for the year)
*Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is a wonderful 534-page first novel by a physician (and Stanford Professor) about identical twin boys born in Addis Ababa in 1954 and orphaned when their mother, a nun, dies in childbirth, and their surgeon father flees. Lovingly raised by Indian doctors at the mission hospital, Shiva and Marion have an almost telepathic connection until an adolescent love story goes awry and they go in very different directions with the practice of medicine. The sometimes exhaustive gore of medical procedures is matched by a poetic perception of the world. After medical school in Ethiopia, Marion escapes to America where the past catches up with him and he “must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.”
*The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is the first novel of the very talented Tiffany Baker—and is what The Ugly Duckling might have been if John Irvine had written it. Truly, the largest baby ever born in Aberdeen, is blamed her for her mother's death and becomes the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers while her sister is destined to be May Queen and the wife of the youngest in a line of Dr. Robert Morgans. When her sister leaves town and a loveless marriage, Truly becomes a serf to Morgan and mother substitute to her eight-year-old nephew. She is a “flawed, prickly, enchanting heroine--part Cinderella, part Witch, and part Behemoth…(who learns) that happy endings are possible but hard-won.” Truly's brother-in-law degrades her more than anyone could take —and ultimately Truly doesn’t. She finds her calling--the ability to heal with naturopathic techniques--hidden in a Morgan's family quilt and takes control over her life and herself.
*We are Rich by Dori Carter who seems to have an uncanny ability to pick just the right words to construct the most elegant sentences to portray powerful, poignant and hilarious insights about her neighbors in “Brigadoon by the Beach”. I couldn't put the book down or sleep until I finished it and now can hardly wait to read it more slowly and savor each page. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The Rich are very different from you and me”. Carter shows us just how different they are from the rest of us--and from each other. From the cook's son who has the audacity to make it big in silicon valley to the gardener’s son who marries the boss' daughter, a new generation in Rancho Esperanza is displacing the old guard (‘men with noses that look they've been sniffing Bordeaux’, you will never feel the same way about the top level of a Santa Barbara parking deck again.
*Still Alice by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard, is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard when she begins a sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease. Alice Howland is happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives the most frightening of diagnosis. Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. Sometimes heartbreaking and inspiring and often terrifying, Still Alice describes what’s it must be like to literally lose your mind.
*Wild Nights: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates. In these stories, Oates imagines the final days of five of America’s best known writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway. Each of these is homage to the writer, an often ironic look at their work, and a tribute to Oakes’ knowledge and facility. After his death, Edgar Allan Poe finds himself on a desolate island, where he keeps a rambling diary and ultimately mates with a sea creature. A robotic replica of Emily Dickinson, “EDickinsonRepliLuxe,” is in danger of being ravished by her owner while showing the shallowness of contemporary life. Sam Clements grows weary of Mark Twain and is threatened with a lawsuit by the parents of one of his beloved young “angelfish”. As a volunteer at a London hospital during the Great War, Henry James finally finds love and learns that life is more brutal and bloody than his genteel, finely constructed prose reveals. Finally, in Ketchum, Idaho, Ernest Hemingway reevaluates his rugged “macho” persona and puts a shotgun to his head. Oates succeeds in capturing the style of each author and reveals more of their sexual proclivities than I needed to know; however, if the book were for a class in writing agility, Oates deserves an A.
Non Fiction
*The Battle for America—2000: The Story of An Extraordinary Campaign by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson is the winner in the battle to claim the Theodore White mantel for best book about the last presidential campaign. Written in more engaging terms, and with much better editing and organization, than Richard Wolfe’s Renegade, it provides an “evenhanded and comprehensive account of the race, based on interviews with key players.” Even for campaign junkies (like me), there’s lots of new insights. “It's fast-paced and beach-worthy, as good a page turner as any mystery thriller”—except, of course, you do know how it turns out.
*My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, A very positive review in the New York Times encouraged me to pick up this book about how 37-year-old neuroanatomist Taylor experienced a massive stroke that erased her abilities to walk, talk, do mathematics, read, or remember details. The book details her slow recovery of those abilities (and the cultivation of new ones) and recounts exactly what happened with her brain. The explanation of how the brain works is the best part of this fascinating memoir of the brain's remarkable resiliency and of Taylor’s determination to regain her faculties and recount her experience for the benefit of others. Although she is now fully recovered, Taylor is not the same driven scientist that she was before the stroke. Her holistic approach to healing will be valuable to stroke survivors and their caregivers, who can pick up suggestions from Taylor's accounts of how her mother provided just the kind of care to bring her back to life. The last section of the book suffered, in my opinion, with a little too much ‘energy dynamics’ and ‘angel cards.’ Maybe I just haven’t been in California long enough.
*Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer explores unfamiliar (at least to me) often-overlooked places in art and literary history where artists, writers and even a cookbook writer predicted scientific breakthroughs with their artistic insights. The 25-year old former Rhodes Scholar draws from his diverse background in lab work, science writing and fine cuisine to explain how Cézanne anticipated breakthroughs in the understanding of human sight, how Walt Whitman intuited the biological basis of thoughts and, in the title essay, how Proust penetrated the mysteries of memory by immersing himself in childhood recollections. Lehrer also draws from George Elliot, Virginia Wolfe, Stravinsky and Auguste Escoffier, the chef who essentially invented modern French cooking. I thought it was insightful, illuminating and well-written.
*The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls opens with the author, en route to a spiffy NYC event, spotting her mother on the sidewalk, “rooting through a Dumpster.” Walls's parents were a matched pair of eccentrics. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could “stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs” and had “a little bit of a drinking situation.” Dad’s version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful; but he wasn't so charming when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Walls is a worthy heir of Dickens and McCourt.
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