Recent Reads - September 2008

Here are some reviews I've posted on Amazon.com during September and August. I've read more books than this since May, but I am still behind on reviewing.

The Tsar's Dwarf by Peter H. Fogtdal

As it was for me, Peter Fogtdal's "The Tsar's Dwarf" may be the first novel you've ever read translated from Danish. I hope that the book sells well and that some of Fogtdal's novels get the same treatment.

In a first-person narrative that reads a bit like John Irving channeling Charles Dickens on a trip through 18th century Russia, Danish dwarf Sorine Bendsdatter takes us on the journey of her life--a journey of survival in a world that treats dwarves as animalistic freaks of nature rather than as human beings.

Sorine battles with her owners, her so-called protectors, her lovers, demons from her past deeds, and her God, first living in her native Denmark and then in Russia after being given by King Frederick of Denmark to Russian Tsar Peter the Great. Along with being Sorine's personal tale of her fight for survival, identity and a small measure of happiness in mostly cold, gloomy and vermin-infested surroundings, "The Tsar's Dwarf" tells us a good bit of Peter's story. Some of the story could be interpreted as historical fiction. Other parts are presented through "dwarf eyes", imaginations built from cruel experience.

"The Tsar's Dwarf" isn't a thriller, but Fogtdal's fast paced writing style and short chapters, some just snippets, make it read like one.

As a tale of personal courage and a look at history in long-ago and faraway places, "The Tsar's Dwarf" is hard to beat. Five enthusiastic stars for adult readers and for well-read teenagers.

A Dog in a Hat: An American Bike Racer's Story of Mud, Drugs, Blood, Betrayal, and Beauty in Belgium by Joe Parkin

The recent focus on use of performance-enhancing drugs in various sports, but especially cycling, makes American Joe Parkin's cycling memoir "A Dog In A Hat" seem timely even though his career as an expatriate Belgian cyclist ended more than 15 years ago. There's little glamour and lot of the title elements of mud, drugs, blood and betrayal in Parkin's story of competitive cycling. Parkin writes colorfully enough so that you can almost feel the crashes, smell the cheap hotels, and taste the nasty road food eaten by cyclists on their multi-hundred kilometer rides. I expect that cyclists and serious cycling fans will really enjoy this inside look at their world. For the cycling lay person like me, Parkin could have provided a more satisfying reading experience by including a glossary to define the many technical terms associated with competitive cycling.

3-1/2 stars rounded down for the difficulty the average reader might have with the cycling jargon.



The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis De Bernieres

In his debut novel from 1990, Louis De Bernieres drops you straight into morass that is South America in the '60s and '70s, or at least as seen through his fevered imagination. So many characters, including the title's Don Emmanuel (who turns out to be a relatively minor figure), are introduced in the first 25 pages that I had to keep a list on paper. De Bernieres ambition is impressive as he tackles politics, terrorism, Communism, economics, the military, ecology, natural history, anthropology of any number of Indian tribes, theology, spirituality, geography (jungle to mountains and in between), agriculture and even dabbles in butterflies in taking us to an imaginary South American country (a conflation of several actual ones) that he astutely never names, lest be accused of libel (or so I'd hope - the political machinations and military strategies of DeBernierera (for lack of a better name) make what we know about the horror stories of America's analogous institutions look like child's play). To top it all off, De Bernieres presents the story in a tragicomic style, frequently causing the reader to literally "laugh out loud." The scene from which De Bernieres gets the title of the book is one of those moments. There's also romance, from the overtly and almost pornographic sexual to the literally spiritual and a rather jarring amount of torture, explained in exquisite detail.

De Bernieres writing doesn't flow with the grace he demonstrated in Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Birds Without Wings, which were more romantic works at heart, albeit each with significant political content. The style of Don Emmanuel fits the humid, noisy, colorful world of the jungle. It's an entertaining read for most of the trip, and even one that finds some redemption (albeit again, mostly of a spiritual nature) among all the internecine warfare being depicted.

Fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende will recognize and enjoy the setting (although De Bernieres' style is considerably more frenetic). Fans of Mark Helprin's tragicomic novels, A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir From Antproof Case, and Freddy and Fredericka will enjoy De Bernieres style in The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts.

Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy by Donald B. Kraybill (Author), Steven M. Nolt (Author), David L. Weaver-Zercher (Author)

The authors examine all aspects of the amazing grace demonstrated by the Amish people in tiny West Nickel Mines, PA after the ghastly killing of five school-age girls by a distraught "Englishman". The Amish's version of Christianity, focused sharply on the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount, tells them to forgive others, lest they be forgiven by God for their sins. Centuries of thinking and living this way make other reactions to tragedy almost unthinkable within the Amish community, though forgiveness does not erase grief. Christians may think differently about their interpretation of Christ's teachings after reading this book. Description of the killings themselves are mercifully brief, though still poignant.

Very highly recommended to all readers.


Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices by Jodi Picoult

I understand Ms. Picoult's desire to present compelling stories of modern day family life in literary packages but she unnecessarily complicates her first novel, "Songs of the Humpback Whale", with multiple narrators (at least you learn this up front on the title page) including a character that tells her story on a reverse timeline. Assuming she did her research right, I did learn quite a bit about the behavior of humpback whales, which I'm sure has some relationship to the behavior of the humans in the story, though I didn't take enough time to sort it all out. My wife and daughter are big Picoult fans, but they struggled with "Songs of the Humpback Whale" as well.

Three stars for taking on a challenging structure and for interesting technical info on humpback whales.



A Great Day in Cooperstown: The Improbable Birth of Baseball's Hall of Fame by Jim Reisler

For me Reisler's book was a very timely story, as I read it just before visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in June 2008. He begins with the interesting public relations and (and almost religious) story regarding baseball's creation myth - that Gen. Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown in 1839, a myth that caused the Hall of Fame to be placed there. The Museum itself both honors the myth and discredits it in neighboring rooms. Also entertaining are Reisler's accounts of how the first enshrinees handled that first day of immortality in 1939. Even among those who'd spent their working lives before the public, there were some who didn't quite appreciate the throng that gathered in Cooperstown. A fun puzzle is to try to identify the Hall of Famers on the front cover, both before you read the book and as you go through.

Recommended to baseball fans, particularly to fans of the history and lore of the game. Others might wonder what all the fuss was about, as baseball has been elbowed aside by other sports (pro football in particular) for the adulation of American sports fans. Me, I like baseball.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Resonating against the backdrop of current-day events in The Sudan is remarkable young author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's engrossing story set during the brief history of Biafra, a breakaway area of Nigeria that had a short, bloody existence as a nation during the 1960s. In the post-colonial era when many new African nations were born, many native Nigerians saw their new government as little more than a black version of their white European oppressors. Achidie's lead character, Professor Odenigbo, an ethnic Igbo, lives comfortably, to the extent that he can hire a houseboy, 13-year-old Ugwu. These two main characters provide the adult, academic and child's-eye, non-academic view of both revolutionary rhetoric and action.

Adichie's story of revolution is also a family story as Odenigbo's beautiful girlfriend Olanna, her twin sister Kainene, and her boyfriend, white author/journalist Richard become involved. Peripheral characters also play an important role in the interpersonal plot development. Adichie does a wonderful job describing the lives of various classes in Nigerian society - haves, middle-class and the dirt poor inhabitants of refugee camps. For me, she struck her only wrong note with a series of chapter summaries from a book being written by Richard. I felt that these could have been expanded to real chapters or left out. "Half of a Yellow Sun" refers literally to the design of Biafra's national flag. Ironically it also represents the reality of this small country, on which the sun never truly rose.

Highly recommended to readers of historical fiction, and to those who want to learn more about life in Africa. Four strong stars.


The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett - I'm beginning to think that there are novels written by women for women. Ann Patchett's debut novel, "The Patron Saint of Liars" must be one of them. I felt nary a whit of sympathy for, nor gained a dram of understanding about protagonist Rose Clinton, whose behavior toward the men who love her defies either.

Patchett does provide an interesting look into the world of homes for unwed mothers (which in itself is an ironic setting), a no doubt declining industry in a world that has become progressively more tolerant toward what are now called single mothers. But even that connection is disappointing after a prelude that implies that the setting may have some ultimately redemptive qualities, which it didn't, at least for Rose.

Two-and-a-half stars, rounded up to three for the look at homes for unwed mothers.


The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer

Journalist J.R. Moehringer has written a rollicking coming-of-age memoir set on Long Island and centering around a small town version of the TV bar Cheers. The story opens with the author at about age six being raised by his mother and grandmother at his grandparents' house, his golden-voiced and leaden-souled father having disappeared into thin air. Before long he finds that his best childhood friends and father figures are a bunch of bartenders and drunks at the most popular bar in town, Dickens. Once he reaches drinking age, it's hard for J.R. not to become an alcoholic. One of the bartenders is his uncle and the bar's policy is that relatives drink free (but must pay for any drinks they give to others).

Obviously, the young protagonist becomes a successful writer. How he reaches that stage provides two great stories--that of the struggling student and journalist, and that of the rollicking young alcoholic. That you are reading the book removes some of the suspense about the outcome, but Moehringer and a cast of Dickensian characters at both Dickens and his grandparents' house makes the journey very entertaining. If you like Frank McCourt's various memoirs, particularly Angela's Ashes, or if your childhood included alcoholic caretakers (parents or otherwise), you'll love "The Tender Bar".




I'm now current reviewing all the books I've read in the last three months.

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

Russo’s latest novel about life in the rural Northeast promises much with its romantic title and cover art showing a country bridge merging into the famous bridge in Venice. Russo delivers a charming narrative on growing up in upstate New York, but little else in a well-written but ultimately disappointing effort.

As the story starts, protagonist Louis “Lucy” (Lou C. – get it?) Lynch and his wife Sarah are planning a trip to Venice to reconnect with childhood friend Robert “Bobby” Noonan, who has escaped rural New York to become a world-famous artist. Quickly the story flashes back to Lou’s childhood—an almost year-by-year account of life in a small New York company town from age six to high school that will resonate with readers who grew up in similar circumstances. Interspersed are “look-ins” at Noonan’s life in Venice and the Lynches’ life in present-day Thomaston, New York. Eventually the stories intertwine, but they lost me in the figurative and literal trip across the Bridge of Sighs and in a denouement that depends on the appearance of a completely new character to bring the tale to a close.

In spite of Russo’s obvious skill in recreating the feel of a boy’s life in a small town, I can only give his book three stars for an ultimately unsatisfying trip across its metaphorical bridge. Still it’s possible that other readers will get more out of the journey across the Bridge of Sighs.



Einstein: His Live and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson's biography of Time's "Person of the 20th Century", Albert Einstein, welcomes us to the world of one of history's most famous scientists. So well known that his name is nearly a common noun synonym for genius, but still misunderstood on many fronts, Einstein emerges much more intact than most famous people subjected to a biography of this length. He wasn't a great father for most of his life, perhaps shockingly so in one case. At one time a revolutionary figure in his field, he became quite conservative in his views late in his career, with his major contribution coming tangentially as others answered his objections to more modern theories of uncertainty and reality. Often thought of as the father of the atomic bomb, Einstein played a very minor role, other than to recognize the awesome potential of E = mc2 and making the effort to communicate his concern to those who needed to know in the volatile days leading up to World War II. The story of the emigration of Einstein and other German scientists is chilling in its implication. Had they stayed and developed the bomb for Hitler, the world might be a much different place today.

A book about a theoretical physicist has a good chance to sail right over the general reader's technical ability to understand it. Isaacson does a good job of keeping that part of the story near the ground, presenting concepts and Einstein's famous "thought experiments", but essentially no higher mathematics. I did better with E = mc2 and issues of uncertainty and reality presented later in the book than with the theory of relativity. Isaacson does his best work examining Einstein's conceptual mind--his career-long search for a unified field theory that would explain all the major forces in the universe, and his long dedication to a unified form of world government that would mediate the risks inherent with nationalism and mechanized, even nuclear, weapons. The stories about Einstein's family life, while humanizing and revealing, were the least interesting to me, though they did convey Einstein's basic humility with his place in the cosmos.

It took me quite awhile to read this book, but I'll give it five stars, particularly for biography readers and those with a scientific bent.


A Golden Age: A Novel by Tahmima Anam

Ms. Anam tells the story of the 1971 revolution in East Pakistan that resulted in creation of the independent nation of Bangladesh. She focuses on how such a cataclysmic event affects the lives of just a few people--primarily a woman and her two almost-grown children with ties in both East and West Pakistan. Americans may think of the Indian subcontinent as being one giant overpopulated place, but the diversity of language, religion, and culture creates both animosity and shaky alliances. The drama and poignancy of the events during time of war bring to mind three other excellent books - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Sophie's Choice by William Styron and the more recent The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The relative obscurity of Bangladesh's battle for independence might prevent Anam's book from gaining the following of these classics, but the power of her story is hardly diminished.

My only quibble was how quickly Anam related the end of the war (which lasted less than a year) once the difficult choices at the heart of the story were made. Perhaps she thought that by doing so, she kept the focus on the family, and not on the larger story. Still, I would have liked to learn more about how such an apparently desperate and overmatched guerilla-based revolution succeeded in less than one year. Five stars for what is there minus a star for what is missing. Still, a highly recommended read for lovers of fiction about the subcontinent.


Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb

Now You See Him served as an intro into my upstate New York period, as I followed it with Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. Gottlieb's short novel, his second and first since 1997, reminded me of another recent read on death in suburban/rural America, Jeffrey Eugenides The Virgin Suicides. The "him" of the title, author and minor celebrity Rob Castor, is dead before the story starts, perpetrator and victim of a murder/suicide. Around to tell us more about Castor, and eventually why the death of this childhood friend has hit him so hard, is narrator Nick Framingham. Little by little we learn about the relationships among Nick, Castor and Castor's sister Belinda, while Nick's marriage disintegrates along the way. Surprises ostensibly abound, both regarding current relationships, and in revelations about the past, but none are too surprising until the final, jarring scene, which I'm not sure I bought into. A quick and moderately entertaining read, Now You See Him is still well short of being either a great story or great literature. Three stars.


So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger

So Brave, Young and Handsome, Leif Enger's second novel (he debuted in 2002 with the charming and spiritual Peace Like a River takes the top spot among all books I've read in the Amazon Vine program. It's the book about the last days of the Old West that Larry McMurtry could have written if he wasn't already so famous--instead he wrote the mediocre Telegraph Days.

The odyssey of Enger's protagonist, one-hit wonder novelist Monte Becket living in the second decade of the 20th century, rumbles on water, land and rail across the Midwest and Far West, all the way on a Grapes of Wrath-like journey to California. In a brisk 280 pages, divided into very short chapters, our "hero" and his newfound friend, outlaw Glendon Hale, encounter all matter of obstacles and assistance - the latter from a Billy the Kid-like auto mechanic named Hood Roberts (after one of Enger's father's friends), the former in the person of aging and violent ex-Pinkerton detective Charles Siringo (a historical character), who pursues both Hale and Roberts. Becket joins Hale on his journey for forgiveness from a wife Hale deserted years ago to take up a life of crime. All the major male characters - Becket, Hale, Roberts and Siringo, are exquisitely drawn as is a California citrus rancher who comes late to the story.

Through the voice of author Becket, Enger maintains the slightly formal writing style of his first novel, though at heart the story comes from the same part of his soul that created the wonderful character of 9-year old Swede Land and her epic poetry about lawman Sunny Sundown in Peace. Enger even includes a Swede-like character, albeit with different passions, in Becket's outdoorsy son Redstart, named after a bird.

I savored this story in small bites for awhile before surrendering and reading the last 200 pages on one day of a business trip.

Five enthusiastic stars for all readers - McMurtry lovers will rank So Brave, Young and Handsome up there with the master of the modern Western's early, poignant works, and likely become Enger lovers, eagerly anticipating his next tale.

Winter Book Reviews

Winter is usually a good time for reading, but for whatever reason I haven't gotten through too many books since the beginning of the year. Here are reviews of five books I've finished since January 1.

I just started two biographical books, Walter Isaacson's "Einstein" and "Dear Theo", a compilation of letters from Vincent Van Gogh to his brother.


The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Death in Suburbia

With "Suicides" (implying more than one) in the title, talented author Jeffrey Eugenides' debut The Virgin Suicides promises to be somewhat depressing, and it delivers. Plot becomes unimportant as the only mystery is just how many of the five daughters in a suburban Michigan family of the 1970s will kill themselves and how. Suicide number one by the youngest happens in somewhat spectacular fashion. The rest of the novel is given over to a third person description of how the family handles the tragedy as told by someone (an unnamed neighborhood teenage boy) who can only infer much of the action through closed drapes, rarely opened doors, and a collection of objects that is eerily archaeological--artifacts of a culture that has died right before his eyes.

All of this can be a bit confusing and a lot depressing to the reader, but I expect that such a reaction is exactly Eugenides' point--sharing the outsiders' view of what has to be an intensely personal tragedy for any family. Then again, perhaps the suicides and parallel ongoing extinction of elm trees by Dutch Elm disease are metaphors for the death of the American suburban soul.

For me, The Virgin Suicides was better in the analysis (four stars) than in the reading (three stars), during which it reminded me greatly of another depressing, but well-written tale of suburban life, Rick Moody's The Ice Storm: A Novel. I'll round up to four stars. Readers would be better served to start with Eugenides' amazing 2002 offering Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club), a definite five-star book all the way.


The Unvanquished by William Faulkner

Approachable Faulkner

A local English professor's answer to a radio call-in question, "What's a good place to start reading Faulkner?" sent me looking for The Unvanquished. This short novel of the Civil War and Reconstruction was created out of a series of magazine stories written by Faulkner in the 1930s, with one previously unpublished story added. Faulkner maintains his famous stream-of-consciousness style, but manages to remain approachable, perhaps because his narrator is a young boy, around whom (and his slave/friend) the stories revolve. The narrative is a little disjointed on a chapter-to-chapter basis, as each was written to stand alone. Apparently Faulkner didn't add much to enhance continuity in the novel format.

Like Cold Mountain, the story focuses on the homefront during the Civil War. Rather than spouses, children and older people are the lead characters. Their ingenuity during the hard times of war is impressive, as is the general chaos surround organizing a war effort. The book's last chapter "An Odor of Verbena" focuses on the Reconstruction period. Our current politics can't compete with this era for danger and intrigue, depicted at the local level in this story.

Some of my forays into Faulkner have foundered on his infamously difficult style--dense language, paragraph-long sentences and chapter-long paragraphs. The Unvanquished lowers this hurdle while retaining the sense that you are inside the character's minds while they deal with the challenge and tragedy that is the Civil War.

Recommended for all adult readers and even teenage readers with an interest in literary fiction or the Civil War.


Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus

Evolutionary Developments

In Kluge, author Gary Marcus takes on the evolution of the human brain, a potential subject for a difficult 10-page article in Scientific American, and presents it in a well-organized and readily understandable 200-page book. In chapters on memory, language, belief, and other aspects (including even mental illness) of human brain function, Marcus shows how lower, reactive brain functions, carried forward from man's earliest non-mammalian ancestors, both complement and compete with higher, analytical functions, and how each may have travelled the evolutionary path. Fascinating also is the idea that evolution is not an long-term optimizing process, as it can only add to what's developed already, when sometimes the best answer in hindsight might be to start anew (the non-brain example of the esophagus being used both for breathing and ingestion illustrates this concept well--choking wouldn't be a risk if we had separate paths for each). Marcus spices the text with descriptions of various modern psychological experiments that demonstrate aspects of the kluge (an inelegant solution to a problem) that is the modern human mind. Highly recommended to readers with even a casual interest in the field, including teenagers. Another book coming at the subject from a religious perspective is Michael Dowd's Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World, which I'm still reading and will review later.

Note: As an Amazon Vine reviewer, I read a pre-publication copy of this book, which will be generally available on April 16, 2008


An Unpardonable Crime by Andrew Taylor

Great Story But Someone's Missing

Andrew Taylor's 2004 publication, An Unpardonable Crime, is billed as a period thriller suggested by the years Edgar Allan Poe spent in England as a orphaned child. As a period thriller, it works beautifully. Like a 21st century Dickens, Taylor takes the reader deep inside 19th century London (a place where I've spent a good deal of fictional time lately, having just seen "Sweeney Todd" at the movies)--to the landed gentry, public squalor and many places in between. The thrill ride has the requisite number of twists and turns--the villains are dastardly, the settings foreboding, the murder circumstances murky and the hero determined, albeit a little at odds finding his place within society, having been rescued from an asylum by his now dead aunt/benefactor.

The book was a quick and fascinating read that I finished in less than two days. Ultimately, what it wasn't, however, was very intimately involved in the life of young Poe, who appears as essentially an extra character. Perhaps his exposure to macabre events like those depicted in this the book shaped his literary sensibilities. Certainly his years in Europe helped him write convincing fiction with European settings. But we didn't need this novel to know that. I came to this book on the recommendation of a Poe scholar, for which I thank him. Still, An Unpardonable Crime enhanced my understanding of the life and mind of Edgar Allan Poe very little.

I recommend the book to lovers of both mysteries and 19th century period fiction about Great Britain (5 stars). As a story I liked it even better than the similar The Dante Club: A Novel by Matthew Pearl. However, I warn Poe fans that they may not get much about the anticipated connection between Poe's life and this story (minus one star). Total--four stars.


Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Self-Taught Copper

Having enjoyed Going Postal, my first Terry Pratchett, I jumped on Night Watch with a Christmas gift certificate and started reading it right away. Somewhat inexplicably, the book took me nearly a month to finish. Pratchett parodies modern societal infrastructure in his books (communications in Going Postal; law enforcement in Night Watch). Perhaps I'm just not clued in enough to police work to get all the jokes.

The story blends elements of The Time Machine (as protagonist Sam Vimes is accidentally thrown about 30 years into then past), Les Misérables (Signet Classics) (a citizens' revolt involving heavy use of barricades makes up much of the action) and The Streets of San Francisco - Season 1, Vol. 2, but with a time-twist as the veteran Vimes (the Karl Malden character) trains a young Vimes (the Michael Douglas character) thirty years in the past. I expect that there's a British TV version of this old cop/young cop story (without the time-shifting, of course).

Still, it doesn't work out as wackily as it sounds. Slowing down the fun, Pratchett devotes many pages to the drudgery of night policing (the "night watch" of the title) and to the inner workings of a precinct house. Sectioning the book into more chapters might have also helped the story flow better. I will say that the ending came together well, if a little on the sentimental side. Though I didn't enjoy Night Watch (3 stars) as much as Going Postal (4 stars), I still plan to read more Pratchett. I'm told that some of the earliest books in the Discworld series have more of the jocularity that charmed me in "Postal".

Top 20 Books I Read in 2007

I've been posting book reviews in here for most of the year. Here's a compilation of my top twenty--fiction (12) and non-fiction (8). The titles are linked to their pages in Amazon.com.

Fiction

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002) was the best book I read of any kind in 2007 and one of the 10-20 best novels I've ever read. Eugenides' sprawling tale of the Greek immigrant experience as told by recovering hermaphrodite Calliope Stephanides is rollicking, insightful, fascinating and often hilarious. Calliope/Cal is the best fictional narrator I've met since John Irving's T.S. Garp.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007) was other than Harry Potter VII, probably the most eagerly anticipated novel of 2007. In my view, transplanted Afghani-American author Hosseini outdid his previous publishing sensation The Kite Runner in this touching story of life over 40 years in Afghanistan from the perspective of two women. Less sentimental and dependent on coincidence than The Kite Runner, Hosseini's new book provides a poignant and often harrowing look at the life of females in the Islamic world.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006) was the most readable novel I encountered in 2007, averaging about one-and-half days per reader in my household. Gruen takes the reader under the big top of a Depression-era traveling circus for a show an order of magnitude more entertaining than Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's current version. Truth proves to be just as strange as fiction, as Gruen populates the story with vignettes discovered in her research about circus life of the era.

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (1988) was this fine author's first novel and first of two stories (along with Pigs in Heaven) about Taylor Greer and her young charge Turtle. Kingsolver's writing is impressive in so many ways. As a trained biologist she handles the botany implied by the title effortlessly, as she does the touching relationship between adult and child. Her first-hand knowledge of Kentucky and Arizona, her two homes, also shines through. The Bean Trees is a wonderful book for readers of all ages.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (1984) came to me via my ninth-grader's summer reading list. After being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, Ms. Burns wrote this novel about life in small town Georgia during the early years of the 20th century based on the recollections of her grandfather. The result is a warm and funny book that shimmers with authenticity of place and time.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (2001) is another debut novel from my daughter's summer reading list. (I'm impressed by the literary acumen of the high school English department.) Enger tells a story set in rural Minnesota during the 1960s about the fascinating Land family, spiritual father Jeremiah, asthmatic son (and narrator) Reuben, violent older son Davey, and precocious daughter Swede. A highlight is Swede's ongoing epic poem about the Old West. Peace Like a River is a well-written and touching novel about family and the nature of miracles--touching even to a reason-based UU like me.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (2007) was his much awaited followup to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Chabon's fabulous imagination is again the centerpiece of his Jewish whodunit wrapped in the alternate history of a US-leased Sitka District in Alaska inhabited by Jews who lost the Israeli war for independence in 1948. The world of an imagined Judeo-Eskimo community is a particular treat. Chess and a kosher Mafia fit into the story as well. Free your mind and enjoy the amazing talent of Michael Chabon.

On Chesil Beach by British author Ian McEwen (2007), more novella than novel, is an intensely personal story of the sexual intiation of a newlywed couple on their honeymoon in the U.K. of the 1960s. Almost uncomfortably intimate with his characters at times (but without becoming pornographic), McEwan makes an excellent point about the impact of communication or lack thereof in a relationship. For adults only.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007) was my introduction to this celebrated author. His unadorned, almost free verse style fits well with a bleak story of a man and his son in the U.S. after some sort of apocalyptic event that devastates both the population and the landscape. About the same time as I read The Road, I watched the Italian movie Life Is Beautiful . While more comic in nature, the story arc and the relationship between Guido and Joshua in "Beautiful" took me back just a month to the story of father and son in "The Road." I highly recommend both the novel and the film.

The Company by Robert Littell (2002) provides a captivating look at the history of the CIA and KGB during the Cold War through the adventures of both fictional and historical characters. You'll recognize Kim Philby, the Hungarian revolt, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan among other historical characters and events. Fictional spies recruited from Ivy League colleges work their way through the ranks to play roles in all the mayhem. The Company is my favorite spy novel, though I haven't read many.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (2005) tells the story of Lily and Snow Flower, two "old sames" in 19th century rural China. This complicated relationship, akin to marriage between two women in parallel with traditional male/female marriages) carries on for 70-plus years. The two women communicate using the nu shu language (unknown to men) on their "secret fan." Ms. See writes both prose and poetry adeptly as she tells the story of this little-known aspect of Chinese history.

Spud by John van der Ruit (2007) was a publishing sensation in van der Ruit's native South Africa. He tells the coming-of-age-at-boarding-school story of young John "Spud" Milton, so nicknamed for the slow pace of his pubescent development, who develops in many other ways as he struggles to survive in a world of crazy classmates, sadistic upperclassmen, drunken teachers, from whom his only escape is the occasional weekend visit to the maniacal world of his parents and grandmother, Wombat. Mostly hilarious to non-boarding school veterans, and both hilarious and relevant to such graduates, Spud is a waiting joy for both teenage and adult readers.

Fiction Honorable Mention - What is the What by David Eggers, Jesus Out to Sea: Stories by James Lee Burke, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, Landsman by Peter Charles Melman, Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult, The Master and Margarita by Michael Bulgakov, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan, Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon, and Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver.

Non-Fiction/Biography

The Innocent Man by John Grisham (2006) - I've already posted a review of this important book in here twice and on Amazon.com. Here's a link to the dadlak review.

Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss (2004) - I had trouble reading this excellent biography of the late baseball star and Puerto Rican icon, Roberto Clemente, because I knew it would end tragically. Near the end of his Hall of Fame career, a plane carrying both Clemente and relief supplies from Puerto Rico to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua crashed into shark-infested waters off the island. Maybe by delaying reading about his death I could somehow delay its reality, or at least its renewed emotional impact. Clemente helped me understand how a great baseball player, who was so much more than that, journeyed to his fateful and heroic end.

In The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth E. O. Wilson (2006) appeals to fundamental Christians (as one of which he was raised) to consider the commonality of their beliefs--that the miracle of creation, whether made by God in seven days, or evolved after the Big Bang over a period of billions of years, is something worth saving. He goes on to demonstrate how humans, the supposed lords of the earth, depend of the rest of nature for their continued existence. Whether you come at the subject from the scientific or religious perspective, or from somewhere in between, you'll gain a broad perspective on the issue of global sustainability and mankind's role in the struggle. Highly recommended to all readers--middle school on up--even a 5th or 6th grader with a strong interest in nature could enjoy and learn from Wilson's short but powerful book.

1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose (2007) - The most personal book I've read about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans is this collection of newspaper columns from New Orleans Times Picayune writer Chris Rose. Proving that living somewhere involves more than occupying a house there, Rose seemingly suffers the trauma of all New Orleanians, even though his own house and family endure essentially no damage from the storm (other than a four-month relocation of wife and children to Maryland). The title refers to words painted on the side of a house as a message to recovery crews. More than a year after the storm, the words are still on that house. 1 Dead in Attic stands as a chronicle of the Katrina's impact on one man and his city.

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman (2003) is a wonderful first-person account of a young Peace Corps worker's experiences in Ivory Coast in 2000 and 2001. She served as a health care worker, primarily trying to teach the village women about prenatal health and infant care. AIDS became an issue while she was there. Erdman shows maturity beyond her years in her efforts to relate with people of all ages and stations in a little village as remote from her private school upbringing as could be imagined. Both her work with the local people within their culture and her writing skills are inspiring, hopefully enough so to cause other young people to serve the world and themselves in similar fashion.

The Subway Chronicles: Scenes from Life in New York by Jacquelin Cangro (editor) (2006) - You'll recognize some of the authors in this entertaining collection of essays surrounding the New York City subway system--Calvin Trillin for sure, novelist Jonathan Lethem and others, but many of the essays result from Ms. Cangro's successful http://www.thesubwaychronicles.com/ website--launched after an idea born at Thanksgiving dinner with friends--and as such are written by hoping-to-be-published writers. Ms. Cangro has done an admirable job with the material--chasing the pace and style of the essays to keep the subject fresh for the reader. The book also offers a feel for the psyche of the urban dweller--folks who live their life without a car--an unimaginable state of being in the small town or suburban life (or even big city like LA or Houston) that has come to dominate American culture.

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (2006) - As an almost lifelong Democrat, I was a ready-made candidate to enjoy Barack Obama's second book. Obama's comfortable writing style almost makes you forget that you're reading a policy outline, though he does provide a good deal of background about his views on the Constitution and about his personal experiences. What's especially encouraging is his even-handed approach to issues--carefully considering and respecting where those who might oppose his position are coming from. I encourage people from all political backgrounds to learn more about Senator Barack Obama. The Audacity of Hope is a good place to start.

The Cold War and the Color Line by Thomas Borstelmann (2001) focuses on the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson during the U.S. civil rights era. Borstlemann describes how America's racial segregation, and support of European colonial powers and the segregationist regime in South Africa hampered it as third world countries as they chose between capitalist/democratic systems and the Communist model. Bortelsmann also notes that the presidents doing the most in support of civil rights were those who grew up in the South--Truman desegregated the military; Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act, and both Carter and Clinton took a strong interest in the rights of both African-Americans and blacks in Africa. On the other hand, the presidents raised outside the South (Eisenhower in Kansas, Kennedy in Massachusetts, Nixon in California, Reagan in Illinois and Bush in Connecticut) viewed racial equality as a secondary issue at best, or in some cases even worked to reverse past gains. Highly recommended to students of history and race relations.

Non-Fiction Honorable Mention - Bagels and Grits by Jennifer Moses, Breach of Faith by Jed Horne, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson.

December Book Reviews - Grisham non-fiction (reprise), Kingsolver novel, French philosophical novel, Katrina columns, Pakistani debut, Jewish memoir

The Innocent Man by John Grisham

I reviewed this one in December, but once again, here's my review from Amazon.com.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

The phrase "Grisham book" and word "important" aren't often found in the same sentence, but John Grisham's 2006 non-fiction book, "The Innocent Man", allows me to state that Grisham has now written the most important book of his mega-successful career, and one of the most important I've read by any author.

The book recounts two murders in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma. Both victims are young women. In both cases, the local and state police investigating the case are stumped. But with a toxic blend of extremely circumstantial "evidence", shocking crime scene photos, junk science, inexpert experts, jailhouse snitches and critical "dream confessions" induced by near-torture tactics, the police pin the murders on four young men of the area, two per murder.

The "innocent man" of the title is 30-something ne'er-do-well Ron Williamson, a schoolboy baseball star whose dreams of playing in Yankee Stadium dissolve in the low minors in a mix of arm injuries, booze and the onset of mental illness. By the time of the murder that consumes most of Grisham's tale, Williamson has washed up back home in Ada, and deservedly earned a reputation as a loudmouth loose cannon of sorts. Still his worst crime is passing a $300 phony check.

Skipping forward quickly, Williamson becomes the focus of the police's investigation and ultimately finds himself on death row in an Oklahoma criminal justice system whose aim seems to be to continuously reduce the amount of respect shown to death row inmates until it reaches zero. Shrewd detectives that they are, the police "know" that there's a second killer because of a misspelled warning message written in catsup at the scene, "dont chase us or ealse." Enter suspect two, single father Dennis Fritz, whose main crime is to be a friend of Williamson.

I'll stop here regarding the "plot", even though this is a news story and you could look it up. While novelistic in format, "The Innocent Man" reads more like a newspaper report, or like a lawyer dispassionately recounting the facts of a case. (Well after awhile not so dispassionately, as the injustices against the accused and then convicted men pile up.) The issues raised by the case and brought to light by Grisham cover the gamut of criminal justice - abuse of police power, single-minded focus on particular suspects and deliberate ignorance of others, near-torture-induced confessions, prosecutorial arrogance, lack of resources provided to defendants, mishandling of evidence, coercion of expert witnesses, use of junk science to dazzle a jury, the general and mistaken belief by the community that the police only arrest guilty parties, and most compellingly in Williamson's case, the inability of the criminal justice system to recognize and deal humanely with mentally ill prisoners.

My wife read the almost 450-page paperback version in one day. She then bugged me to read it for several days until I interrupted my second attempt at Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer: A Novel and dove in. Even while sick, I finished it in a day-and-a-half. After his disappointing novella "Bleachers", I'd pretty much written off Grisham (never have considered him much better an airplane read in the first place), but I'm deeply grateful to him to recognizing the power of this story and bringing to the attention of so many people with this fine book. I also salute him for sticking to the non-fiction format, resisting the novelist's urge to fictionalize the story and embellish it with tie-ins to the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and the like. "The Innocent Man" may not stand up as literature to recently-deceased Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, but it's still a great book--the best true-crime story I've read with the most important messages about America's criminal justice system and its generally unrecognized threat to innocent men and women everywhere (and especially in Ada, OK where the DA that prosecuted the cases is still in office).


Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Natural Passion

Published in the year 2001, this novel is surprisingly the last one Ms. Kingsolver has written, as she's since shifted to writing essays and non-fiction. In Prodigal Summer, she combines her training as a biologist with her experience living in Kentucky to tell three stories about people and nature in Appalachia.

In the first story subtitled "Predators", Deanna is a forest ranger living in virtual isolation in the Zebulon Mountain. In an opening chapter that kept me away from this book for about five years, she falls for animal bounty hunter Eddie Bondo. Lust ensues, then conflict as predator-protector Deanna and predator-pursuer Eddie compare notes. I learned a lot more about the delicate balance between predators and prey than I did about the relationship of lovers from this story.

Story two, "Moth Love", involves city girl Lusa, another trained biologist (the kind who studies moths), less comfortably situated as the new wife of a rural tobacco farmer with four overbearing adult sisters. Tragedy turns her already unsettled life upside down. Lusa's creative efforts to find both herself and her way among mountain folk are revealing, surprising and entertaining. Kingsolver's knowledge and compassion for country folk and her skill with scenes involving adults and children shine in this section.

The third story, "Old Chestnuts", features two neighboring antagonists, who, like Deanna and Eddie, are set in conflict by opposing views of the relationship between man and nature. 80ish widower Garnett Walker believes in the chemical destruction any and all pests, despite his more life-affiming work trying to save a nearly-extinct form of chestnut tree. Miss Nannie Rawley, a Unitarian of all things, takes a more holistic view of nature that is endlessly annoying to Walker. Kingsolver charmingly depicts the thawing of their relationship.

For the most part standing on their own, but told in an alterning manner, by their end the stories tell us of long-standing relationships among the characters--relationships that help shape their destinies.

Put off for years by the "lust in the moss" opening chapter, but despairing the wait for Kingsolver's next novel, I came back to this book. I'm glad I did, as Kingsolver's knowledge and love of nature combined with her skilled storytelling make for another special reading experience.

Four stars for both adult and teenage readers, especially those with a love of the natural world.

The Power of Flies by Lydie Salvayre

A Foothold in the Void

Author Lydie Salvayre, daughter of refugees from the Spanish Civil War (an experience so well conveyed in the amazing film Pan's Labyrinth), explores the metaphysical nature of murder and madness in the short, but startling book, "The Power of Flies". The protagonist, trying to maintain "a foothold in the void" as he awaits sentencing on a murder charge, "explains" his actions and his life to an audience of judge, lawyer, psychologist and others in a rambling monologue that owes heavily to the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Among other dichotomies, he and Pascal claim that both great evil and great good can exist, and one doesn't have to choose between the two. The main character's prejudices, by turns humorous and disturbing, keep him from being very sympathetic, but he's always interesting, right to the last page as he works his way around to the crime that put him in his current predicament.

Four stars for adult readers for a challenging read, but not too challenging given that the book is only about 150 pages long.



1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose

A Man and His City

The most personal book I've read about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans is this collection of newspaper columns from New Orleans Times Picayune writer Chris Rose. Proving that living somewhere involves more than occupying a house there, Rose seemingly suffers the trauma of all New Orleanians, even though his own house and family endure essentially no damage from the storm (other than a four-month relocation of wife and children to Maryland). The title refers to words painted on the side of a house as a message to recovery crews. More than a year after the storm, the words are still on that house.

Along with chronicling Rose's personal journey, the book serves a second purpose of telling the stories of dozens of other New Orleanians and "The Thing", as Rose calls Katrina. Among my favorites is the guy who collects magnets off the thousands of abandoned rerfigerators to cover his truck. Rose waxes poetic and fantastic along the way. You'll love "Refrigerator City" and maybe even his rants about Mayor Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" comment (the column about breakfast with God and Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of a kind.)

This second edition is a combination of the popular shorter first edition and a second book initially intended to be published separately as "Purple Upside Down Car" (a phrase taken from Rose's young son noticing one of the many destroyed cars around the city).

My only complaint with the book is with its somewhat haphazard organization. The book is organized into several subsections and is for the most part chronological, but often not. Still, the columns within each subsection don't necessarily fit together that well. It's a minor complaint, since each column is so interesting that the reader is pulled along from one to the next. The book ends with Rose's year-end column from 2006, more than a year after the storm.

Four-and-a-half stars for the personal story of a storm's impact on a man and his city.

Bittersweets by Roopa Farooki

True Lies

Ms. Farooki's first novel has a clear theme--the power that lies can have over people's lives and the ultimate redemptive power of the truth. Though the story is set in Bangladesh and London, the story could be told in any setting. For at least the first half of the book, Ms. Farooki seems to hopscotch through the story--a little more depth might have helped the reader understand the characters better and give the story more continuity. When the final generation of characters is established and set in motion, the story tightens and improves, though the subplot of a son's sexual exploration seems a little drawn out and even superfluous. Some readers may find the ending to be a little too "sweet", but it's welcome after the "bitter" angst suffered by so many characters. "Bittersweets" has its charms, but doesn't quite measure up to the similar The Namesake: A Novel by Jhumpa Lahiri and lacks the scope and depth to compete with the brilliant writing about the subcontinent middle class by the incomparable Rohinton Mistry, author of A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club).

Just three stars for a book I spent a month trying to finish.


Bagels and Grits: A Jew on the Bayou by Jennifer Ann Moses

Book Better Than Title

I know the author, whose twin children go to high school with my daughter, and have read many of her columns on religious issues in the local newspaper. The unfortunately-titled "Bagels and Grits", which sounds more like a book on comparative cooking and culture between the Northeast and south Louisiana, made me feel like I know Jennifer Moses a lot better, as I've now read the story of her religious journey from a secular Jewish teenager in Virginia to a woman who teaches Hebrew at her synagogue and writes columns on religious issues.

Her journey and the book are inspired by of all things, volunteering a half-day a week in her new hometown of Baton Rouge, LA at an AIDS hospice. So many of the terminally-ill patients find comfort in their Christian faith, that Ms. Moses begins to consider how a deeper spirituality might improve her own life. Her longstanding Jewish identity prevents her from going all the way to Christianity, but a new rabbi at a local synagogue helps her find her way to a deeper understanding of Judaism. She even becomes a bat-mitzvah, completing studies in Judaism and Hebrew that Jews generally do while teenagers.

I found the story of Moses' rediscovery of Judaism in Baton Rouge (the "grits" part of the title) to be much more fascinating than flashbacks to her upper middle class upbringing in Virginia and young adult life in New York City (the "bagel" part). Still, Moses is a talented writer with a willingness to share quite personal information, making her book a quick read. One warning--if you're a big fan of "Tuesdays With Morrie" you might want to skip over Moses' two capsule reviews of that book. In her view, Mitch Albom's spiritual awakening doesn't quite measure up. I empathized more with Morrie's story than Mitch's, and didn't have such a negative reaction to the book, no matter its sentimentality.

Four stars for a well-written, serious and informative account of one woman's spiritual journey that will probably be best enjoyed by those of us in the Baby Boomer generation.

November (and One December) Book Reviews - Grisham True Crime; Ford's Jersey Series Continues; Hip Louisiana PI; US Defense Policy Analysis

I read just three books in November, one of which, Daydream Believers by Fred Kaplan, was an advance review copy from Amazon that to my knowledge, I'm only supposed to review on Amazon.com until the book's release in February 2008. That leaves two books: Louisiana Bigshot by Julie Smith and The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford. To beef up the numbers and to publicize what I think is one of the most important books written in awhile, I'm adding a December book to the list, The Innocent Man by John Grisham. I'll start with it and work backwards.


The Innocent Man by John Grisham

Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

The phrase "Grisham book" and word "important" aren't often found in the same sentence, but John Grisham's 2006 non-fiction book, The Innocent Man, allows me to state that Grisham has now written the most important book of his mega-successful career, and one of the most important I've read by any author.

The book recounts two murders in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma. Both victims are young women. In both cases, the local and state police investigating the case are stumped. But with a harrowing blend of extremely circumstantial "evidence", shocking crime scene photos, junk science, inexpert experts, jailhouse snitches and critical "dream confessions" induced by near-torture tactics, the police pin the murders on four young men of the area, two per murder.

The "innocent man" of the title is 30-something ne'er-do-well Ron Williamson, a schoolboy baseball star whose dreams of playing in Yankee Stadium dissolve in the low minors in a mix of arm injuries, booze and the onset of mental illness. By the time of the murder that consumes most of Grisham's tale, Williamson has washed up back home in Ada, and deservedly earned a reputation as a loudmouth loose cannon of sorts. Still his worst crime is passing a $300 phony check.

Skipping forward quickly, Williamson becomes the focus of the police's investigation and ultimately finds himself on death row in an Oklahoma criminal justice system whose aim seems to be to continuously reduce the amount of respect shown to death row inmates until it reaches zero. Shrewd detectives that they are, the police "know" that there's a second killer because of a misspelled warning message written in catsup at the scene, "dont chase us or ealse." Enter suspect two, single father Dennis Fritz, whose main crime is being a friend of Williamson.

I'll stop here regarding the "plot", even though this is a news story and you could look it up. (If you don't know the outcome of the story, skip over the photos in the middle of the book until you've finished reading.) While novelistic in format, The Innocent Man reads more like a newspaper report, or like a lawyer dispassionately recounting the facts of a case. (Well after awhile not so dispassionately, as the injustices against the accused and then convicted men pile up.) The issues raised by the case and brought to light by Grisham cover the gamut of criminal justice - abuse of police power, single-minded focus on particular suspects and deliberate ignorance of others, near-torture-induced confessions, prosecutorial arrogance, lack of resources provided to defendants, mishandling of evidence, coercion of expert witnesses, use of junk science to dazzle a jury, the general and mistaken belief by the community that the police only arrest guilty parties, and most compellingly in Williamson's case, the inability of the criminal justice system to recognize and deal humanely with mentally ill prisoners.

My wife read the almost 450-page paperback version in one day. She then bugged me to read it for several days until I interrupted my second attempt at Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer: A Novel and dove in. Even while sick, I finished it in a day-and-a-half. After his disappointing novella Bleachers, I'd pretty much written off Grisham (never have considered him much better an airplane read in the first place), but I'm deeply grateful to him to recognizing the power of this story and bringing to the attention of so many people with this fine book. I also salute him for sticking to the non-fiction format, resisting the novelist's urge to fictionalize the story and embellish it with tie-ins to the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and the like. The Innocent Man may not stand up as literature to recently-deceased Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, but it's still a great book--the best true-crime story I've read with the most important messages about America's criminal justice system and its generally unrecognized threat to innocent men and women everywhere (and especially in Ada, OK where the DA that prosecuted the cases is still in office).


The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford

Ford's Private Jersey

Action and plot take a backseat to character exploration in Richard Ford's third novel about New Jersey-based sportswriter cum real estate agent Frank Bascombe, who having survived loss, tragedy and a career change in his first two appearances (The Sportswriter, which I tried to read unsuccessfully several years ago, and Independence Day), returns in The Lay of the Land for his self-named Permanent Period. Naturally gregarious, Frank is quite alone (except for the atomic BBs in his groin--there to fight prostate cancer) in November 2000 (the Gore-Bush election dispute is an ongoing element of the story), his children grown and moved away from New Jersey, divorced by one wife and left by the second. With his protege, Tibetan immigrant and amateur Buddhist philosopher Mike Mahoney, Bascombe manages his thriving real estate office on the fictional island community of Sea-Clift off the Jersey shore. In a hospital cafeteria, in a bar (or three), or in his seaside condo (not for sale but valued in excess of $1 million) alongside a diminishing band of secretive and/or eccentric and annoying neighbors, Frank searches for human contact. He goes so far as to arrange a catered Thanksgiving dinner for his children and their spouses, partners, or dates, even going so far as to invite his first ex-wife, a move that both he and former tennis coach Ann Dykstra immediately regret.

Counting almost 500 pages in the trade paperback edition, the novel includes at least 350 pages of the inner workings of Frank's mind. In just three days of thought and action before and on Thanksgiving, we learn more about Frank than most people would know about their spouses after 20 years of marriage. Along the way we learn a good bit about the Jersey shore real estate trade and about the idiosyncractic makeup of the whole of New Jersey, an amalgamation of small towns, boros, and villages struggling to maintain their identities in a big box world that wants to smush them together into market segments. When it comes the action can be violent, comic, pathetic or some combination of the three.

Well-written throughout, The Lay of the Land may keep you going even if character-driven novels aren't your speed. The big ending, which I read about four times, will be your reward. Five star elements - writing, character-development, detailed insight into setting; four star or less elements - plot and action. Overall four stars. Folks that liked John Updike's Rabbit series will probably like this one. I hope that Ford will use his considerable talents to write a truly great book (at least to my tastes) like Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex: A Novel.


Louisiana Bigshot by Julie Smith

Hot Stuff Louisiana Style

Not being a big fan or urban detective fiction, I never would have bought this book if not for taking a half-day class on character development in fiction writing taught by the author. The class was fun and informative, but I haven't written any fiction since the class. However, I did buy and read Louisiana Bigshot, one of Ms. Smith's 20 or so detective novels. The heroine of the story is young African-American Talba Wallis, a PI by day and the performance artist Baroness Pontalba by night. A friend is murdered and she convinces her boss to take the case. Investigation involves digging in the past of a nearby small town that hasn't advanced much culturally since the 1950s. Race, sex, violence and politics, the grist of a good Louisiana-set novel, are all here and capably handled by Smith's fast-moving style.

Hip, computer-savvy, but accident-prone Talba is a fun leading character, but with some issues of her own that she works on in parallel with the murder investigation. Her boss Eddie is an obese Yat from the old school, but he knows the key to unlock almost any door. Smith also creates a touching character to be Talba's spiritual guide, an aging retired minister who devotes his life to caring for his aging and ailing wife. Though the town at the center of the story is fictitious, Louisiana readers will recognize many of the settings. Like a fresh fried shrimp poboy, Louisiana Bigshot (which sounds like a good name for a hot sauce or a drink) - is a quickly-consumed and tasty treat. Three-and-a-half stars for the book and the extra half for its author teaching the fun course for a total of four stars.


Daydream Believers by Fred Kaplan

As a regular reviewer at Amazon.com, I got an advanced copy of Daydream Believers this book through their Vine program. The book will be released in February 2008. The author writes the column War Stories in the online magazine Slate (http://www.slate.com/), which I've enjoyed for years. Having received the book for free, I owe a first review to that Vine program, so all I’ll say here is that if you read this book you will have a much greater understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the Iraq War and its aftermath. The title, taken from an old Monkees song, I think, undersells a very informative and important book. The “believers” part of the title is right on.

October Book Reviews - Enger, Wilson, and Burke Shine; Maeve Not Binchy's Best

October's books include a great novel by first-time author Leif Enger, a non-fiction manifesto by reknown biologist E.O. Wilson, both a set of short stories and a novel by one of Louisiana's most popular authors, James Lee Burke, and another tale of life in Dublin by Irish author Maeve Binchy.

In order of my enjoyment level, the titles are:

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Well Above Average - We picked this 2002 publication off our ninth-grader's summer reading list. It proved to be one of the best books I've read in 2007. First-time novelist Leif Enger tells a story from the land of Prairie Home Companion, Roofing, Minnesota in the early 1960s, but with miracles and a something like a murder to upset the normalcy. Fittingly the story moves from Minnesota to neighboring North Dakota, home of the Coen Brothers' movie Fargo, where life in the badlands makes no pretension of normalcy.

Like the children of fictional Lake Woebegone, Asthmatic 11-year old narrator Reuben Land and his precocious 9-year old sister Swede, a wordsmith who specializes in epic poetry with an Old West slant, are both well above average as they guide us through Enger's tale of the sometimes conflicting values of justice, loyalty and faith. Father Jeremiah Land and woolly woodsman Jape Waltzer add spiritual notes, on both sides of the age-old battle between good and evil. Grown-beyond-his-years brother Davey works both sides of the aisle on his own. FBI agent Martin Andreeson does his best to stay grounded in a manhunt (and man and children hunt). Several other minor characters pepper the story, with some such as travelling salesman Tin Lurvy finding their way unexpectedly into the plot. Such occurrences, unlikely as they seem, make the reader think about the nature of coincidence vs. miracle, a distinction that seems pretty obvious to an 11-year old boy who worships his father. The novel slows a little in the last third as the manhunt nears its end, but Enger concocts a surprising, touching and fitting ending to it all.

As a big fan of "the book inside the book", I loved Swede's ongoing epic poem about Western hero Sunny Sundown. I salute Enger for both mastering this form (perhaps a little too well for a supposed 9-year old, though who knows about prodigies--Mozart composed piano concertos at age 7) and working it into the story in such an entertaining and relevant manner. I also enjoyed the spiritual element brought to the story, primarily by the Land family patriarch.

Like the Georgia-based coming-of-age novel (also from the 9th grade summer reading list) Cold Sassy Tree, I recommend Peace Like a River to 100 years of readers-- age 11 to 111. I moved the bottom of the scale up a couple of years because of violent nature of the first few chapters, as the conflict and the killing are set up and carried out. As far as I can tell, this is Enger's only novel. I hope he's working on another.

The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by E.O. Wilson

A Miracle Worth Saving - I heard a sermon based this book at my church and bought a copy at the book table after the service. Like me, the eminent biologist Wilson is a secular humanist. Unlike me, Wilson has made study and thought about nature his life's work. In "The Creation" he appeals to fundamental Christians (as one of which he was raised) to consider the commonality of their beliefs--that the miracle of creation, whether created by God in seven days, or evolved after the Big Bang over a period of billions of years, is something worth saving. He goes on to demonstrate how humans, the supposed lords of the earth, depend of the rest of the nature for their continued existence.

Wilson's sincere attempt to bridge the gap between religion and science is much appreciated by a reader like me who tries to stay grounded in both worlds. My religious tradition, Unitarian-Universalism, calls the concept described by Wilson as the "interdependent web of life". It's heartening to read some real structure to add to that foundation. I also will follow with interest his effort to create an on-line Encyclopedia of Life (http://www.eol.org/). A prototype edition is due out in mid-2008. Wilson also offers ideas on how biology should be taught to develop a generations of citizen environmentalists who can each do their part in this civilization-saving work. After I read this book, I contacted my daughter's high school biology teacher. To my delight, she responded that Wilson was her hero, and that she assigned another of his books to her advanced placement class.

Whether you come at the subject from the scientific or religious perspective, or from somewhere in between, you'll gain a broad perspective on the issue of global sustainability and mankind's role in the struggle. Highly recommended to all readers--middle school on up--even a 5th or 6th grader with a strong interest in nature could enjoy and learn from Wilson's short but powerful book.

Jesus Out to Sea by James Lee Burke

From the Mountains to the Bayous - I've read a lot of novels by Burke, but this was my first short story collection (and maybe his too?) The title, cover and timing might lead you to think that Jesus Out to Sea would be a set of post-Katrina stories, all set on the Gulf Coast--site of so many of Burke's works. The title story and one other fit that mold, but the others are rooted in Burke's life as a resident of both Louisiana and Montana. He writes mountain stories, gulf stories, woods stories, bayou stories and a couple with an eye toward childhood that don't feature any geography at all, other than the lower class neighborhoods of small south Louisiana towns. After reading the Montana-based stories, I expect Burke to bring forth a northwoods novel before long.

After reading Burke's action-packed novels, I was a little disappointed at first by the lack of resolution in a couple of the early stories. Later stories ended more satisfyingly, but life can be unresolved as well. Maybe Burke was trying to make that point. Maybe I was expecting Dave Robicheaux to set things straight. Burke's skill with the language of common people carries over from his novels. He did a lot of living and listening before embarking on his very successful writing career.

Burke isn't quite the revelation he was when my wife and I discovered him 15 years ago, but he's always a thought-provoking and pleasurable read. Four stars for adult readers. Younger readers from Louisiana might be interested in reading what small town life was like 50 years ago, though the stories featuring younger protagonists have a decidedly creepy tinge.

Pegasus Descending by James Lee Burke

Burke Ascending - In the latest Dave Robicheaux story to reach paperback, James Lee Burke hits all the expected notes--Dave's past haunts him; Dave drinks; Dave and sidekick Clete Purcel battle lowlifes from all ranks of the social structure; Dave and Clete duel with law enforcement agents from all along the food chain; Dave loves his new wife Molly (number three after the tragic death of number one and the untimely death of number two) and his pet three-legged raccoon Tripod. With all this familiar ground, Burke has to work hard to keep his readers on their toes. This he accomplishes with a twisted plot that wraps around around not one, but three deaths--a hit-and-run from the cold case file, an apparent suicide of a young coed, and a no-doubt-about-it murder committed at close range with a shotgun, that Dave is convinced are related, even though he has precious little evidence to prove it. Somehow, a mob hit from Dave's early drinking days works its way into the mix. Burke skillfully keeps all these plates spinning, with his best trick being a finish that will surprise not only you, but Dave too.

Burke's hard-boiled, yet waxing-poetic prose falls short of great literature, but it's well worth the time needed to ride shotgun on Dave's wild beat. If his experience is anything like the real world of a deputy in a small town in south Louisiana, I live near one of the most dangerous places on earth. (One small complaint--the casino shown on the cover is misleading; the casino industry is a sidelight at the most. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a more fitting setting for cover art, might not have been too thrilled about seeing one of their buildings under the title.) Four bright stars for adult readers and teenage fans of the detective genre.

Quentins by Maeve Binchy

An Unappetizing Meal - I finally finished this one about a month after I started it. What a dropoff from number four on this month's list. We bought the hardback for a few bucks off a table of used books in a general store in downstate Indiana. The book was in fine condition. The story was not.

"Quentins" tells the tale of a young Irish woman's adventure in love and documentary filmmaking. Protagonist Ella Brady tries to rebound from a bad love affair by joining a small filmmaking crew who sets out to tell the story of Dublin's last 30 years through the customers and crew of a popular restaurant. The first reel is interesting from a soap operaish perspective. Reel Two is stultifyingly boring as the we slog through a series of vignettes meant to be the content of the documentary. The third reel is disappointingly predictable.

Peeking out from all this is a moderately interesting story of how Quentins came to be, from the perspectives of ownership, operation, and its grammatically-incorrect name. Like eating an unappetizing meal, I picked at this one for a long time, before the fast-approaching end of the month yelled at me to clean my plate, at which time I force fed myself the last 100 or so pages, just so I could show you this clean, shiny review and move onto dessert (which I'm eating, I mean reading, now--come back next month to see how I liked it).

That's it for October. Check back in early December for reviews of my November reads--"Louisiana Bigshot", a New Orleans-based mystery by Julie Smith, and "The Lay of the Land" by Richard Ford are first on the menu.

September Book Reviews - Now Complete - Melman, Burns, Pratchett, McEwan, Chabon

I read five books in September, all fiction--three period novels, one sci fi satire, and a young adult discovery story. All were at least four star books. Look for these and other of my reviews along with other information about the books at my Amazon Profile Page:

My Amazon.com Reviews

Landsman by Peter Charles Melman - The author went to grad school with my stepson at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Both now live in Brooklyn, NY. Melman's first novel tells the story of young Confederate soldier Elias Abrams who joins the fight to escape the consequences of his life as a street tough in pre-War New Orleans. The title refers to the protagonist's desire to have a settled life as a landowner, a dream that his upbringing and the war are doing little to advance.

Melman does a great job with the horrors of war and with the strange nature of epistolary love, which Abrams experiences when at the depth of his war experience, he receives a charitably motivated "Dear Soldier" letter from a young woman of New Orleans. After his first battle he befriends a fellow New Orleanian from a different walk of life, professor and self-described man of culture John Lee Carlson, who by turns both befuddles and inspires the semi-literate Abrams. A villain from Abrams' shady past in New Orleans lurks in the background. Melman handles it all deftly, especially for a first-time novelist, and his skill with language will often delight the reader.

Coincidentally, this is the second book I've read in two months that prominently uses the word "Landsman" in reference to the Jewish culture. The protagonist of Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" was named Mayer Landsman. The concept of owning land is critical to someone from these largely nomadic people.

My main complaint with the book is in what it is billed to do, but never really accomplishes--telling the story of the Jews who fought for the Confederacy. We hear the story of one not very pious Jew, and a bit about his dilemma of coming from an enslaved culture and then fighting to preserve slavery. Melman tells a great soldier's story, but falls short in an attempt to describe the experience of a culture in one of the great events of American history. To me, Abrams story could have been that of a young man from any religious tradition. Maybe Abrams' dream of becoming a landsman tells the larger story well enough.

Four stars for an excellently written war story--one star missing for the promised, but mostly missing, larger scope about Jews in the Civil War. Recommended or all readers. Teenage readers will need to be fairly well read to stay with the period story and literary style.


Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - this book was on my daughter's summer reading list for ninth grade. It's the story of life in small Cold Sassy, Georgia in the early 20th century, told through the eyes of a young boy whose grandfather marries the milliner from his general store just days after his wife of many years dies. Burns wrote this book, based on the memories of her grandfather, when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease in middle age. She finished it and the followup Leaving Cold Sassy before she died.

Looking back, the story had a lot in common with one of my favorite musicals, "Fiddler on the Roof", except that it's the older generation that tries to break with tradition. Grandson Will Tweedy, whom his grandfather always addresses by both names, represents the future of Cold Sassy and other small towns--torn between the comfort and support of tradition and the promises of happiness based on new ways of thought. Personally, I'm happy to live in a world where everyone's just a little more detached from their neighbor's business than were the people of Cold Sassy. John Prine and Dolores Kearns sang a duet about the situation, "In a Town This Size"--"In a town this size/There is no place to hide. . ." Ironically, the Internet is taking us back in time, but on a larger scale, where everyone can know everything about everyone, at least to the extent that someone is willing to share it on line.

But that's getting away from Ms. Burns' book, which shimmers with authenticity of time, place and language. You'll almost choke in the dust roiled up by grandpa's first trips in his new Buick. And, boy howdy, you'll try out some of the Southerisms out loud just to test whether people could really talk that way. (My daughter and I got a big kick out of this.)

With Cold Sassy Tree, Ms. Burns accomplishes everything she set out to do--preserve the memory of a place and time in her past; honor the life of her grandfather; and entertain generations of readers. Five enthusiastic stars for all readers from 12 to 112.



Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - my friends in Amazon.com reviewing community love this English author, so I decided to give him a try. Pratchett has written dozens of books about Discworld, an Earth-like place populated by bureaucrats, benevolent despots, and wizards, among many wondrous creatures (including golems in this story). Going Postal is the exciting story of the rejuvenation of a moribund postal service (really), led by a young swindler who's been given the choice of taking the job as Postmaster, or being executed for his previous crimes.

Pratchett's tone reminds me of Mark Helprin in Freddy and Fredericka, or Philip Roth in The Great American Novel - farcical and mischievous with language, but with a more than a smidgen of truth behind the farce. He's also done a great job of imagining all the pieces of Discworld and how they fit together into a whole. I'm sure that this impression would be reinforced by reading other Discworld books. Here, we met only one city and a few of its denizens.

In Going Postal, science fiction (or more accurately, alternate universe fiction) meets British cultural satire, a la Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Recommended to all readers with social awareness, a love of language and enjoyment of a good laugh, though younger readers may not get all the references to the foibles of adult society. On the other hand, British readers might enjoy the satire even more.


On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - again, my friends at Amazon recommended a British author, this time Ian McEwen. On Chesil Beach is more a novella than a novel. It's also nothing like the similarly-titled On the Beach or Beach Music. McEwan tells the short, but intense story of a young British couple on their honeymoon in 1962. Both are virgins, but with very different attitudes about sex, and, in keeping with the times, utterly incapable of discussing the subject.


With such a narrow scope, essentially the events of one evening of the couple's honeymoon, On Chesil Beach is necessarily intensely personal, sometimes uncomfortably so--even though we know that we're reading about fictional characters and the events of the story "happen" almost 50 years ago. Still in the retelling of those events, and of their consequences in the later lives of the characters, McEwan makes a very important point about dangers of miscommunication or worse, no communication, in relationships. Five stars for this short but powerful work, but for adult and near-adult readers only.

The climactic scene isn't lascivious, but it is fairly graphic. Younger readers may also get bored by the British understatement and calm of the first half of the book. I look forward to reading more of McEwan's novels.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon - this was the first novel by one of my favorite current authors (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union). It's not really a traditional plot-driven "mystery" novel, but rather a story of young man's search for his identity in the summer following his graduation from college. Chabon's potential as a novelist is apparent in the characters he creates and language he uses.

Protagonist Art Bechstein, whom you suspect of sharing more than a couple life details with the author, exists in the shadow of his gangster father, from which he's trying to escape. Aiding the escape, though not in a very organized manner, are best friend Arthur Lecompte, loose cannon Cleveland, and girlfriend Phlox (how could I forget that name?). You could easily see Art growing up to be the dissolute professor of Chabon's Wonder Boys. The book also reminded me quite a bit of Zach Braff's film Garden State.

If you like young adult stories along those lines, Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a good choice. If you haven't read any Chabon you might want to start with this one, so you'll appreciate his growth as a writer when you read Kavalier and Klay and his other, more mature novels. If you've already read more recent books, you may be disappointed with Mysteries, though it's still fun to read the portrait of the artist as a young man. Three and a half stars. I'll round up to four for Chabon fulfilling the promise he shows here in later works.