tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53226956320187857412024-03-13T22:52:03.693-07:00Notable Books~ Discuss, review and challenge yourself to read Notable Books ~Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.comBlogger248125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-30838972844947712332013-11-30T08:45:00.002-08:002013-11-30T08:45:13.428-08:00Notable Books Challenge to Close The first post to the Notable Books Challenge blog was in August of 2007. Since that time, hundreds of reviews have
been published here by many bloggers enthusiastic about the Notable Books lists, including The New York Times Most Notable.<br />
<br />
But, 6.5 years is a long time and there have been a lot of changes and
challenges in my life - especially over the last year or so. My energy
for blogging has dipped - I no longer have the drive to administer
multiple blogs and I no longer want the pressure to maintain this blog or the challenge.<br />
<br />
Because I get the stats, I know there are readers still coming here and
reading the reviews. It is a nice resource to readers to have this
site...and so, the site will stay open (at least for awhile) and the
reviews already posted will remain.<br />
<br />
<b>The site will be closed for new posts beginning January 1, 2014. What
does that mean? Well, I will be removing all the authors from this site
(except myself) beginning December 31st. </b><br />
<br />
I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has contributed to The Notable Books Challenge blog - your insights, reviews, and participation have
helped it become a popular blog amongst literary readers. I hope you
will choose to keep your reviews posted here, but if you choose to
delete any reviews, that needs to happen before December 31st.<br />
<br />
Thank you all!Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-70835376598493893032013-08-03T14:24:00.003-07:002013-08-03T14:24:49.258-07:00Dark Places, by Gillian FlynnDark places, inhabited by unstable, unpredictable characters.<br />
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The main character, Libby Day, is 31 at the opening, a bitter, angry young woman not given to trusting others. Or even having others in her life. She's always been a bit standoffish but events in her early life sent her down a road of manipulation and guardedness.<br />
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At the age of seven, in early 1985, Libby was in the house when she heard others being attacked. Although she did not see anything, she head enough to make her afraid. She managed to slip out of the house and hide in the nearby woody area. She heard her brother Ben calling for her a little later but remained hidden.<br />
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Her mother and two sisters were killed that night: her mother was knifed, then shot in the head, her sister Michelle was strangled in her bed, and her sister Debby was axed to death. Libby herself stayed out all night, made it to a gas station to call for help, and ultimately lost two toes and a finger to frostbite.<br />
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Ben was charged with the murder, and in part because of Libby's testimony, he was sent to prison for life. Libby grew up with her aunt, the subject of much attention from the press, and at age eighteen inherited a large amount of money from collections made for her. In her twenties she was persuaded to co-author a self-help book, a pop survival book, but she herself didn't believe much that was in it.<br />
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At age 31 she learns she is almost out of money. Getting a regular job just seems too much to her. She feels too tired and she doesn't get along well with others. So when the opportunity to earn a little money by talking to a group of "murder fans" comes along, she takes it. She meets this odd assortment in an old building, where they are split into interest groups - interest in various sensational murder cases. Her case draws interest because many people believe Ben to be innocent. They want to locate the real killer.<br />
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Eventually, although she is upset to find that everyone in the group believes Ben to be innocent and her to be complicit in his conviction, she comes up with a plan to get more money from them. She will talk to various key players in the episode, ask them questions that possibly only she can ask. And thus she sets off on a journey that takes on a life of its own.<br />
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The chapters alternate between 1985 and "now". Libby's chapters are in first-person, the others in third. Gradually we creep up on the actual night of the murders, inch by inch, through the experiences of Ben, Libby's mother Patty, and a few others, with breaks for Libby's current travels. The technique builds suspense to the point where I found it almost unbearable to go on. Or to not go on.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-67793797880392331732013-07-30T08:53:00.000-07:002013-07-30T08:53:37.998-07:00Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">I do like a book with an edge to it. And this one has more than its share of edges. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Nick and Amy. Perfect couple. Perfectly in love. Except they aren't. Were they ever? On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy disappears, leaving suspicious traces. Was she abducted? Was she murdered? Did she just leave? And what about Nick? He's hiding something.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">The couple, living in Nick's home town in Missouri, share their stories in alternating chapters. When they talk of the same incident their takes are entirely different. Normally I prefer one narrator to two or three or four. In this case, the two-narrator setup seems to be ideal for the development of suspense and suspicion. We do get to know the two rather well. It doesn't matter than both are substantially flawed. They both experience some kind of change.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">When Amy first disappears, the press and public are vocally in sympathy with Nick. Over time, though, as more information is revealed, this perception changes, and Nick desperately needs to bring it around again. Together with his twin sister Go (for Margo), he fights what each revelation suggests. And we wonder. Then we begin to learn more about Amy and the story shifts. Amy, who is the model for her parents' successful children's book series, Amazing Amy, has reason to be a little resentful now and then.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Highly addictive.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-6619538534873286422013-07-06T12:07:00.000-07:002013-07-06T12:07:53.033-07:00Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward<br />
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I found this book, at times, difficult to read. But ultimately highly rewarding.<br />
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The story features fifteen-year-old Esch, living with her family in New Orleans, who discovers that she is pregnant. Her father, who drinks too much, doesn't have a lot to offer the family, other than the land held by his family over generations. Her older brother Randall is hoping for a career in basketball, hoping that he will be chosen to go to basketball camp this summer. He is a solid family member, helping with the younger members as needed. Junior is the youngest and mostly hangs around hitching rides on others' backs or riding a bicycle without a seat. The other primary character is Skeeter, a year younger than Esch, who has a dog, China.<br />
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Skeet enters China in dog fights. This is where the novel became difficult for me. I worried about the dog, who is pregnant at the beginning of the book, and I worried about the place dog fighting has in the story. I found a different kind of view of these dogs than the one we often hear about, the Michael Vick type story. We find that Skeet loves China, perhaps more than any other creature. This love is not inconsistent with the fighting that she does: pitbulls are known for their desire to please, which may be even stronger than that of other dogs. This is the real reason they make good fighters.<br />
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Of course I found it difficult, still, to think of these dogs facing horrible injuries and of the owners having few resources for helping them with their wounds. Skeet does an admirable job in this regard. But I could imagine there would be many instances when his skills would not be up to the task.<br />
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We follow this family through the days leading up to the day Hurricane Katrina hits. By the time it does its worst we know them. We understand why they did not leave their home. We understand why it would be so difficult to understand what a category 5 hurricane, particularly this one, would be so different from the hurricanes they have experienced in the past.<br />
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I found the book enlightening both in the way that it describes how a very poor southern family sees the world and in the details of living through Katrina. In all the coverage I read and saw of that hurricane I never before heard it described as it is here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-84848390827945715012013-06-10T21:18:00.003-07:002013-06-10T21:18:41.128-07:002013 ALA Notable Books<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">Source:<b> </b></span><a href="http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/notablebooks/lists/2013" style="background-color: transparent;">http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/notablebooks/lists/2013</a><br />
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.05746160685070001" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">FICTION</span><br style="display: block;" /> </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Díaz, Junot. “This is How You Lose Her.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Riverhead.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Yunior, a smooth-talking Dominican, explores the complexity of love, fidelity and cultural identity in these inventive, uncompromising stories.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Edugyan, Esi. “Half-Blood Blues.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Picador.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Two aging African-American musicians return to Berlin to find their friend, a jazz trumpeter arrested in Nazi-occupied France.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Eggers, Dave. “A Hologram for the King.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> McSweeney's.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">In a nod to Godot, an American salesman is in Saudi Arabia to close a deal which may salvage his way of life.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Erdrich, Louise. “The Round House.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Harper.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">On the Ojibwe reservation, Oop hunts for his mother's attacker and learns that law does not always provide justice.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Ford, Richard. “Canada.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Ecco.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">The twin teenage children of once upstanding citizens who rob a bank are left to fend for themselves. The murders come later, in Saskatchewan.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Fountain, Ben. “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Ecco.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Bravo Squad was caught live on camera in a firefight. Now temporarily stateside, they are being exploited in a hyped-up victory tour.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Heller, Peter. “The Dog Stars.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Knopf.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; vertical-align: sub;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">A man, his dog, his airplane and a will to survive in post-apocalyptic Colorado.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Johnson, Adam. “The Orphan Master's Son.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Random House.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">In a surreal sortie to a world of fabricated reality, Pak Jun Do is forced to become many people by the North Korean government.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Joyce, Rachel. “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Random House.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Delivering a letter to a dying friend becomes a 500 mile journey of reflection and redemption.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Lam, Vincent. “The Headmaster's Wager.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Hogarth.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">What happens when you are blind to the realities of war? Percival, a Chinese expatriate in Vietnam, makes bad bets with tragic consequences.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Tropper, Jonathan. “One Last Thing Before I Go.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Dutton.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">No one can understand how Silver has made such a mess of his life. Can he fix it before the clock runs out?</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Watkins, Claire Vaye. “Battleborn.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Riverhead.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">The aching beauty of Nevada from the mid-1800s to the present is depicted in these nuanced and elegant stories.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">NONFICTION</span></div>
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<br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Boo, Katherine. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Random House.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Documents the lives of the slum dwellers of Annawadi, whose work as garbage pickers barely keeps them alive.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Cain, Susan. “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Crown.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Compelling arguments for why we should turn down the volume.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Colby, Tanner. “Some of My Best Friends are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Viking.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Answering a simple question uncovers the surprisingly complex roots of contemporary segregation.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Dyson, George. “Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Knopf.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">The story of the eccentric personalities whose work in Los Alamos and Princeton initiated the modern era.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Egan, Timothy. “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Houghton Mifflin.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Illuminates one man's quest to document and preserve the culture of indigenous American tribes.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Holt, Jim. “Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">W.W. Norton.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Why something instead of nothing? </span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Ingrassia, Paul. “Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Simon & Schuster.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">From the Model T to the Prius, we are what we drive.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Iverson, Kristen. “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Crown.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">The personal story and public politics of life beside plutonium triggers.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">King, Ross. “Leonardo and the Last Supper.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Walker.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Think you know everything about da Vinci and his masterpiece? An enlightening and entertaining treatment of an iconic subject.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Murphy, Paul Thomas. “Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Pegasus.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Queen - 8, assassins - 0.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Roberts, Callum. “The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Viking.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Sail and swim through our threatened waters towards ideas for creating a sustainable future.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Winterson, Jeanette. “Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Grove.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">Religion, sex, class, libraries, politics, madness, art--the memoir of a young woman discovering the sanctuary of literature.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">POETRY</span></div>
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<br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Alighieri, Dante. Trans. Mary Jo Bang. Illus. Henrik Drescher. “Inferno.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Graywolf.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">A rollicking, contemporary trip through the Underworld.</span><br style="display: block;" /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline;">Olds, Sharon. “Stag's Leap.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> Knopf.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">An arc of verses which touch the raw nerve of betrayal, lost love, forgiveness, healing and finding peace.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-69057846419833074372013-05-03T20:54:00.001-07:002013-05-03T20:54:41.645-07:00The Red Door, by Charles Todd<br />
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A different kind of mystery, at least to me. Shortly after the end of WWI, Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned two investigations: into a man who has been attacking people at night, and into the disappearance of a prominent citizen. He sets his own pace, however, not always showing up where he is expected to be.<br />
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The disappearance is of a former missionary, Walter Teller, followed his hospitalization for a mysterious illness. He apparently came out of the paralysis that siezed him and took off out of the hospital, sight-unseen. Teller and his brothers were "assigned" their vocations by their overbearing father, and while they complied with his wishes none of them found their careers satisfying. Some people suspect that Walter was reacting to a call from his church to return to the field, a return he clearly did not want to make.<br />
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But there is a wrinkle in the whole family story. A woman is found dead in another community, and it turns out her last name is Teller also, and that she married someone named Peter Teller, the same name as Walter's brother. Coincidence? After all, Peter already has a wife. IS this a relative or is it bigamy or what? This is the question Rutledge has to answer.<br />
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We get to know Rutledge in part through his work on these cases. We learn that he is suffering from "shell shock"and hears the voice of a former subordinate in his head. He has bad memories of how this person died and is careful not to let anyone know that he is talking to him. I found his investigative method a little odd. Perhaps I expected more of a standard procedure to be followed. Nonetheless, he followed his own instincts and got there in the end. It's as much a story about Rutledge as it is about the people he investigates. I am always on the side of stories that dig into characters like this.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-59307917358657379982013-05-02T19:30:00.001-07:002013-05-02T19:30:25.268-07:00Bury your Dead, by Louise Penny<br />
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Complexity! And lots of it!<br />
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Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (of the Surete) is pulled into a strange case while taking a leave of absence. An amateur archeologist, bent on discovering the grave site of the founder of Quebec, is found murdered in the basement of the Literary and Historical Library, an old and treasured library of books in English. The local police ask Gamache's informal assistance. Although he tries to stay out of it Gamache cannot help himself. His mind churns endlessly, searching for answers.<br />
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Meanwhile, he is haunted by memories of a recent confrontation with the kidnappers of a young subordinate. Bits of the final scene and the hours before it play in his mind like a tape, stopping and starting seemingly without his control. His broken memories gradually reveal to us the mistakes he made and the consequences of his actions, as well as those of others in command, until we finally get the full picture.<br />
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But that isn't all. A previous case has been kept alive in his mind as well. The partner of a convicted man remains unconvinced of the guilt of his friend. He writes a note to Gamache every day, asking "Why did he move the body?" When Gamache finally decides the case deserves another look, he sends Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir in to Quebec to investigate quietly, informally. Neither man is particularly convinced that they got the wrong guy, but Beauvoir is willing to do his best to find out.<br />
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These three cases run alternately through the book, to the setting of Quebec and particularly Old Quebec City. I did have to pay some attention to the description of this lovely city and to think about visiting myself some day. Or at least looking at it in Google Earth. For Ms. Penny seems determined to impart some of her own love of the city to the reader.<br />
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We learn, too, of the uneasy alliance between the French and English in Quebec, where the English are a decided minority. Although their fighting times are long over, memories seem to span generations.<br />
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An interesting introduction, for me, to Chief Inspector Gamache. I felt I got to know him a little in this long book, to know his heart, as well as that of his mentor and a few of his subordinates. The case of the dead archeologist turns out to take many different turns, while Gamache does a great deal of reading at the Lit and His and beyond. I am wondering how he behaves in more familiar stomping grounds now.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-73376689975408800172013-03-23T09:19:00.001-07:002013-03-23T09:19:40.532-07:00Freedom - by Jonathan Franzen<br />
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The main character of this large book appears to be Patty Berglund. Her husband Walter figures prominently as well, as do several other characters. But Patty is the only one who gets to write portions of her own "autobiography", oddly in the third person.<br />
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Patty was an athletic young girl who got knocked off the track to a basketball career when she injured her knee. She changed her dreams, married Walter, had children, did her best to become a super housewife. She knew all along that she was not as nice as others thought she was, but there was much she did not know about herself.<br />
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Patty was originally attracted to Walter's best friend, Richard Katz. Katz was a musician, womanizer, who initially did not respond to Patty's hints. Patty, however, found herself increasingly attracted to Walter anyway. Walter was almost an anti-Richard. Thin, geeky, an environmentalist. Something in him, though, responded to something in Patty, the ex-athlete who was not much aware of the environment.<br />
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We follow Patty and Walter through many years, dipping into the lives of their children and parents as well. Until comes a time when something has gone out of their marriage and Patty is dissatisfied in general. She has become less and less fun to be around for just about everyone. In spite of which Richard is drawn to her.<br />
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What is "freedom" in this context? The freedom to do as we please? The freedom to be away from others, to be alone? We watch as Richard continues his self-destructive life, as free as can be. We see Patty and Walter's son free himself from the nest, then later engage make some questionable choices in his career, free from interference. Patty and Walter live their own lives, essentially free of each other.<br />
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Some reviewers have called this a novel of its time, and as I think of it I can agree. In a way, it sums up life today in the US for many in the upper middle class in a way that reminds me of John Cheever. There is a lot of humor but underlying that is real warmth. Something you don't see so much in Cheever.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-18632687337720816292013-02-09T08:43:00.000-08:002013-02-09T08:43:33.396-08:00Started Early, Took My Dog - by Kate Atkinson<br />
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Kate Atkinson's novels just delight me. I get great pleasure reading them. There are books that I like but these I love.<br />
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As in the others, this novel features a range of characters, some central and some peripheral. Jackson Brodie is again featured, former detective now supposedly retired. He falls for one more case: to find out who gave birth to a woman, Hope McMaster, a woman who now lives in New Zealand but who was born in England. Jackson figures it shouldn't be that hard, considering he's already traveling. Wandering, really, not settling anywhere. Might as well look into the case while he's on the road.<br />
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Another major character is Tracy Waterhouse, former police detective, present head of security for a retail store. Tracy is an amply-built woman who has made her job her life, for the most part. She is not married, has no children. When she spots a familiar woman on the street, pulling a small child, she can guess what will happen to that child when she gets home. She confronts the woman, a drug addict Tracy had arrested when she was with the police. On the spur of the moment she does something highly unusual and unexpected, which changes the course of her life.<br />
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When Jackson starts to hunt down birth and adoption records he runs into a blank wall. The presumed birth parents do not appear to exist. So who really did give birth to Hope?<br />
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There are other minor characters whose lives are intertwined with these and whose actions surprise and delight at times. It's like a full, satisfying meal that left me feeling just right.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-57012763618898722562013-02-08T02:00:00.000-08:002013-02-08T02:00:13.512-08:00The Secret River, by Kate Grenville<br />
Curious story. A kind of historical fiction that I can live with.<br />
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In 1806 William Thornhill, illiterate waterman, is convicted of theft and sentenced to hang. By paying for letters pleading his case to be sent to authorities, he manages to get his sentence commuted. He is sent to New South Wales (now Australia), along with his wife and small children, to live out a life sentence there.<br />
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The system in New South Wales allows Thornhill to work his way out of his life sentence. He is still "branded" as a former convict but is able to be free on the continent. Working on the water again, he discovers a piece of land that is fairly remote from any kind of civilization, and he covets that land. In time he moves his family there and they take on the task of creating a home and growing food, while he continues to run his boat.<br />
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Throughout this time he encounters "savages". There is a conflict, because they were there first, although they don't tend to have the same concept of property ownership. Thornhill and eventually his convict workers push against the land, forcing it into submission. He even makes a kind of peace with the savages, an uneasy one.<br />
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His wife Sal is strong and capable but not in love with this land. Thornhill is deeply in love with his wife and struggles with his two loves: the land and Sal. Eventually the savage situation comes to a head, an ugly and violent one. Throughout the book the tension is almost unbearable. In a way the ultimate "resolution" was almost a relief.<br />
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I read The Fatal Shore years ago. It impressed me with its details of convict life in early Australia and the settling of the continent at the expense of the aborigines. I remember life for the convicts being harder than indicated in this book, but there were different settlements. I have no reason to doubt the details in this book, written by an Australian writer and praised by fellow Australians. This fiction story fills out the story I read so long ago.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-81922618799730788012013-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:002013-01-26T17:29:43.286-08:002012 Christian Science Monitor's Best Fiction<strong>The Christian Science Monitor's<a data-mce-href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/1203/10-best-books-of-2012-fiction/Arcadia-by-Lauren-Groff" href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/1203/10-best-books-of-2012-fiction/Arcadia-by-Lauren-Groff"> best books of fiction of 2012</a> - gleaned from those books which they reviewed over the year.</strong><br />
<ol>
<li><em>Arcadia</em> by Lauren Groff</li>
<li><em>Canada</em> by Richard Ford</li>
<li><em>Bring Up the Bodies</em> by Hilary Mantel</li>
<li><em>Billy Lynn's Halftime Walk</em> by Ben Fountain</li>
<li><em>In The Shadow of the Banyan</em> by Vaddey Ratner</li>
<li><em>Gone Girl</em> by Gillian Flynn</li>
<li><em>Where'd You Go, Bernadette</em> by Maria Semple</li>
<li><em>The Yellow Birds</em> by Kevin Powers</li>
<li><em>The Round House</em> by Louise Erdrich</li>
<li>Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson</li>
</ol>
Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-12529073857976438362013-01-26T12:24:00.002-08:002013-01-26T12:24:33.984-08:00Home - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="color: maroon;">Weeks later, when her baby,
delivered on a mattress in Reverend Baily’s church basement, turned out
to be a girl, mama named her Ycidra, taking care to pronounce all three
syllables. Of course, she waited the nine days before naming, lest death
notice fresh life and eat it. Everybody but Mama calls her “Cee.” I
always thought it was nice, how she thought about the nae, treasured it.
As for me, no such memories. I am named Frank after my father’s
brother. Luther is my father’s name, Ida my mother’s. The crazy part is
our last name. Money. Of which we had none.</span> </em>- from Home, page 40 -<br />
<br />
Frank Money has returned from the Korean War with anger, regret,
guilt and the need for redemption. He arrives back in an America where
racism is still dividing the country. As he travels to his hometown of
Lotus, Georgia to rescue his little sister from an abusive situation, he
remembers scenes from his childhood. His memory of Lotus is not a good
one and he does not think of the place as home.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;"><em>Lotus, Georgia, is the
worst place in the world, worse than any battlefield. At least on the
field there is a goal, excitement, daring, and some chance of winning
along with many chances of losing. Death is a sure thing but life is
just as certain. Problem is you can’t know in advance.</em></span> – from Home, page 83 -</blockquote>
But, what Frank finds in Lotus is not just a sister in need, but
something less tangible that binds him to the place. Deep in the south
he finds himself immersed in the rich African-American culture and
reconnecting to the people who are there to carry him forward.<br />
Toni Morrison’s newest novel explores the scars of war (both physical
and emotional), the depths of grief and regret, and the road to
recovery. Morrison does not spare the reader the ugliness of racism in
the mid-century south, a blight on American life which robbed people of
their dignity and freedoms. She also touches on the medical
experimentation which impacted black women during that time – something I
had very little knowledge of until I read this novel. I researched this
topic after reading <em>Home</em> and found <a href="http://mississippiappendectomy.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/black-women-in-the-1960s-and-1970s/">this article</a> which notes:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;"><em>In the US South,
throughout the the 1960s and 1970s, federally funded welfare state
programs underwrote the coercive sterilization of thousands of poor
black women. Under threat of termination of welfare benefits or denial
of medical care, many black women “consented” to sterilization
procedures. Within southern black communities knowledge of the routine
imposition of non-consensual and medically-unnecessary sterilization on
black women was well known – a practice so common it came to be known as
a “Mississippi appendectomy.” (Roberts 2000)</em></span></blockquote>
<em>Home</em> is a sparse book (less than 150 pages) which packs a
big punch. Morrison’s writing is poetic, rich, and character-driven. She
makes a huge impact on the reader with very few words – one reason, I
believe, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.<br />
Readers who appreciate literary fiction will want to read <em>Home</em>, a novel about a man who must return to his past in order to move forward into his future.<br />
Recommended.<br />
<br />
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Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-35097994505155066802013-01-26T12:22:00.000-08:002013-01-26T12:22:13.592-08:00Flight Behavior - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="color: navy;">A small shift between cloud and sun
altered the daylight, and the whole landscape intensified, brightening
before her eyes. The forest blazed with its own internal flame. “Jesus,”
she said, not calling for help, she and Jesus weren’t that close, but
putting her voice in the world because nothing else present made sense.</span> </em>- from Flight Behavior -<br />
<br />
Dellarobia’s life changed at seventeen when an unplanned pregnancy
forced her into marriage…the same year she was orphaned when her mother
succumbed to cancer. Despite a miscarriage, she stayed in her marriage
to Cub, a man whose life is defined by his parents – the rigid Bear and
his opinionated and religious wife, Hester. Now, ten years later,
Dellarobia is disillusioned with her life as mom to two young children,
barely scraping by on a small sheep farm in Feathertown, Tennessee on
the edge of the Appalachian mountains. She longs for a brighter future, a
more romantic relationship than the one she has with Cub, and an escape
from the poverty and sameness of each day. So one day she heads up the
mountain to consummate a tryst with the telephone guy. But instead of
discovering love, Dellarobia finds the trees on the mountain aflame
with Monarch butterflies. Believing this to be a message from God, she
turns back down the mountain and vows to stay in her marriage and make
it work. The butterflies soon become a sensation, bringing a team of
scientists to Dellarobia and Cub’s farm and upending the tenuous balance
in a family which is living on the edge.<br />
<br />
Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel explores the impact of global
warming and the divide between science and religion. Kingsolver lightens
these heavy themes with warm hearted, genuine characters and a finely
wrought sense of humor balanced by poignancy. Dellarobia is an
insightful, smart woman who has been denied an education. She loves her
kids. She grapples with her faith. She longs for a life of beauty and
meaning. She is one of those characters who a reader can get behind even
though she is far from perfect.<br />
<br />
Kingsolver lays down a dilemma for Dellarobia: Should she stay in
her life and make it work, or should she take flight? Her journey is
symbolized by that of the butterflies – insects who migrate thousands of
miles even though they have never been shown the way. What choices do
we have when faced with potential catastrophe and the unknown? How do we
determine truth? What factors influence our decisions and beliefs?<br />
<br />
I am a huge Kingsolver fan. I love her beautiful prose, her complex
characters, her sense of humor, and the relevancy of her themes. I
expected to love this book, and it did not disappoint me. Critics of the
global warming argument may be put off by the underlying message
regarding the dire nature of environmental change, but no one can fault
Kingsolver’s imagination and ability to bring to life a set of
characters facing one of the most controversial topics facing this
generation. It is her skill at character development against the
backdrop of nature where Kingsolver shines, and in Dellarobia, she has
given her readers a character who is truly memorable.<br />
<br />
Highly Recommended.<br />
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<em><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-3943" height="200" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/tlclogo.jpg" title="tlclogo" width="200" />FTC Disclosure:</em> I was sent this book by the publisher for review on my blog. Thank you to <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/">TLC Book Tours</a> for giving me the opportunity to share this novel with my readers. Please <a href="http://tlcbooktours.com/2012/10/barbara-kingsolver-author-of-flight-behavior-on-tour-november-2012/">visit the tour page</a> for links to more reviews.Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-74179606907987169762013-01-15T17:58:00.002-08:002013-01-15T17:58:56.616-08:00New York Times Most Notable Books of 2012<br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.46875px;"><b>Source: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2012.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">New York Times</a></b></span></span></div>
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<strong>FICTION & POETRY</strong></div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/books/review/alif-the-unseen-by-g-willow-wilson.html" style="color: #666699;">ALIF THE UNSEEN</a></strong>. <em>By G. Willow Wilson. (Grove, $25.)</em> A young hacker on the run in the Mideast is the protagonist of this imaginative first novel.</div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/books/review/almost-never-a-novel-by-daniel-sada.html" style="color: #666699;">ALMOST NEVER</a></strong>. <em>By Daniel Sada. Translated by Katherine Silver. (Graywolf, paper, $16.)</em> In this glorious satire of machismo, a Mexican agronomist simultaneously pursues a prostitute and an upright woman.</div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/books/review/an-american-spy-by-olen-steinhauer.html" style="color: #666699;">AN AMERICAN SPY</a></strong>. <em>By Olen Steinhauer. (Minotaur, $25.99.)</em> In a novel vividly evoking the multilayered world of espionage, Steinhauer’s hero fights back when his C.I.A. unit is nearly destroyed.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/review/arcadia-by-lauren-groff.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ARCADIA</strong></a>. <em>By Lauren Groff. (Voice/Hyperion, $25.99.)</em>Groff’s lush and visual second novel begins at a rural commune, and links that utopian past to a dystopian, post-global-warming future.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/at-last-the-final-installment-of-edward-st-aubyns-patrick-melrose-cycle.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>AT LAST</strong></a>. <em>By Edward St. Aubyn. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.)</em> The final and most meditative of St. Aubyn’s brilliant Patrick Melrose novels is full of precise observations and glistening turns of phrase.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/books/review/beautiful-ruins-a-novel-by-jess-walter.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BEAUTIFUL RUINS</strong></a>. <em>By Jess Walter. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99.)</em> Walter’s witty sixth novel, set largely in Hollywood, reveals an American landscape of vice, addiction, loss and disappointed hopes.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/books/review/billy-lynns-long-halftime-walk-by-ben-fountain.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK</strong></a>. <em>By Ben Fountain. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $25.99.)</em> The survivors of a fierce firefight in Iraq are whisked stateside for a brief victory tour in this satirical novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/blasphemy-by-sherman-alexie.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BLASPHEMY</strong></a>. <em>By Sherman Alexie. (Grove, $27.)</em> The best stories in Alexie’s collection of new and selected works are moving and funny, bringing together the embittered critic and the yearning dreamer.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/books/review/the-book-of-mischief-by-steve-stern.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE BOOK OF MISCHIEF: New and Selected Stories</strong></a>. <em>By Steve Stern. (Graywolf, $26.)</em> Jewish immigrant lives observed with effusive nostalgia.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/bring-up-the-bodies-by-hilary-mantel.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BRING UP THE BODIES</strong></a>. <em>By Hilary Mantel. (Macrae/Holt, $28.)</em> Mantel’s sequel to “Wolf Hall” traces the fall of Anne Boleyn, and makes the familiar story fascinating and suspenseful again.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/books/review/building-stories-by-chris-ware.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BUILDING STORIES</strong></a>. <em>By Chris Ware. (Pantheon, $50.)</em> A big, sturdy box containing hard-bound volumes, pamphlets and a tabloid houses Ware’s demanding, melancholy and magnificent graphic novel about the inhabitants of a Chicago building.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/books/review/by-blood-a-novel-by-ellen-ullman.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BY BLOOD</strong></a>. <em>By Ellen Ullman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.)</em> This smart, slippery novel is a narrative striptease, as a professor listens in on the sessions between the therapist next door and her patients.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/books/review/canada-by-richard-ford.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>CANADA</strong></a>. <em>By Richard Ford. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.99.)</em> A boy whose parents rob a bank in North Dakota in 1960 takes refuge across the border in this mesmerizing novel, driven by fully realized characters and an accomplished prose style.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/carry-the-one-a-novel-by-carol-anshaw.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>CARRY THE ONE</strong></a>. <em>By Carol Anshaw. (Simon & Schuster, $25.)</em> Anshaw pays close attention to the lives of a group of friends bound together by a fatal accident in this wry, humane novel, her fourth.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/books/review/city-of-bohane-by-kevin-barry.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>CITY OF BOHANE</strong></a>. <em>By Kevin Barry. (Graywolf, $25.)</em> Somewhere in Ireland in 2053, people are haunted by a “lost time,” when something calamitous happened, and hope to reclaim the past. Barry’s extraordinary, exuberant first novel is full of inventive language.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/books/review/jack-gilberts-collected-poems.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>COLLECTED POEMS</strong></a>. <em>By Jack Gilbert. (Knopf, $35.)</em> In orderly free verse constructions, Gilbert deals plainly with grief, love, marriage, betrayal and lust.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/review/dear-life-stories-by-alice-munro.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>DEAR LIFE: Stories</strong></a>. <em>By Alice Munro. (Knopf, $26.95.)</em> This volume offers further proof of Munro’s mastery, and shows her striking out in the direction of a new, late style that sums up her whole career.</div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/books/review/the-devil-in-silver-by-victor-lavalle.html" style="color: #666699;">THE DEVIL IN SILVER</a></strong>. <em>By Victor LaValle.</em><em> (Spiegel & Grau, $27.)</em> LaValle’s culturally observant third novel is set in a shabby urban mental hospital.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/books/review/kathryn-harrisons-enchantments.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ENCHANTMENTS</strong></a>. <em>By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $27.)</em> Harrison’s splendid and surprising novel of late imperial Russia centers on Rasputin’s daughter Masha and the hemophiliac czarevitch Alyosha.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/books/review/flight-behavior-by-barbara-kingsolver.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>FLIGHT BEHAVIOR</strong></a>. <em>By Barbara Kingsolver.</em> <em>(Harper/HarperCollins, $28.99.)</em> An Appalachian woman becomes involved in an effort to save monarch butterflies in this brave and majestic novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/books/review/fobbit-by-david-abrams.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>FOBBIT</strong></a>. <em>By David Abrams.</em><em> (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $15.)</em> Clerks, cooks and lawyers at a forward operating base in Iraq populate this first novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/the-forgetting-tree-by-tatjana-soli.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE FORGETTING TREE</strong></a>. <em>By Tatjana Soli. (St. Martin’s, $25.99.)</em> In Soli’s haunting second novel, a mysterious Caribbean woman cares for a cancer patient on an isolated California ranch.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/gathering-of-waters-by-bernice-l-mcfadden.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>GATHERING OF WATERS</strong></a>. <em>By Bernice L. McFadden. (Akashic, $24.95.)</em> Three generations of black women confront floods and murder in Mississippi.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/books/review/gods-without-men-by-hari-kunzru.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>GODS WITHOUT MEN</strong></a>. <em>By Hari Kunzru. (Knopf, $26.95.)</em> Related stories, spanning centuries and continents, and all tethered to a desert rock formation, emphasize interconnectivity across time and space in Kunzru’s relentlessly modern fourth novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/hhhh-a-novel-by-laurent-binet.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HHhH</strong></a>. <em>By Laurent Binet. Translated by Sam Taylor. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.)</em>This gripping novel examines both the killing of an SS general in Prague in 1942 and Binet’s experience in writing about it.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/books/review/a-hologram-for-the-king-by-dave-eggers.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING</strong></a>. <em>By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney’s, $25.)</em> Eggers’s novel is a haunting and supremely readable parable of America in the global economy, a nostalgic lament for a time when life had stakes and people worked with their hands.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/books/review/home-a-novel-by-toni-morrison.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HOME</strong></a>. <em>By Toni Morrison. (Knopf, $24.)</em> A black Korean War veteran, discharged from an integrated Army into a segregated homeland, makes a reluctant journey back to Georgia in a novel engaged with themes that have long haunted Morrison.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/books/review/hope-a-tragedy-by-shalom-auslander-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HOPE: A TRAGEDY</strong></a>. <em>By Shalom Auslander. (Riverhead, $26.95.)</em> Hilarity alternates with pain in this novel about a Jewish man seeking peace in upstate New York who discovers Anne Frank in his attic.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/books/review/how-should-a-person-be-by-sheila-heti.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE?</strong></a> <em>By Sheila Heti. (Holt, $25.)</em> The narrator (also named Sheila) and her friends try to answer the question in this novel’s title.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/books/review/in-one-person-by-john-irving.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>IN ONE PERSON</strong></a>. <em>By John Irving. (Simon & Schuster, $28.) </em>Irving’s funny, risky new novel about an aspiring writer struggling with his sexuality examines what happens when we face our desires honestly.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/the-yard-by-alex-grecian-and-more.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME</strong></a>. <em>By Wiley Cash. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $24.99.)</em> An evil pastor dominates Cash’s mesmerizing first novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/review/married-love-stories-by-tessa-hadley.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>MARRIED LOVE: And Other Stories</strong></a>. <em>By Tessa Hadley. (Harper Perennial, paper, $14.99.)</em> Hadley’s understatedly beautiful collection is filled with exquisitely calibrated gradations and expressions of class.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/nw-by-zadie-smith.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>NW</strong></a>. <em>By Zadie Smith.</em> (Penguin <em>Press, $26.95.)</em> The lives of two friends who grew up in a northwest London housing project diverge, illuminating questions of race, class, sexual identity and personal choice, in Smith’s energetic modernist novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/books/review/poems-and-stories-by-lucia-perillo.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ON THE SPECTRUM OF POSSIBLE DEATHS</strong></a>. <em>By Lucia Perillo. (Copper Canyon, $22.)</em> Taut, lucid poems filled with complex emotional reflection.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/books/review/pure-julianna-baggotts-dystopian-novel.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>PURE</strong></a>. <em>By Julianna Baggott. (Grand Central, $25.99.)</em> Children battle for the planet’s redemption in this precisely written postapocalyptic adventure story.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/the-right-hand-shore-by-christopher-tilghman.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE RIGHT-HAND SHORE</strong></a>. <em>By Christopher Tilghman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.)</em> A dark, magisterial novel set on a Chesapeake Bay estate.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/books/review/the-round-house-by-louise-erdrich.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE ROUND HOUSE</strong></a>.<em> By Louise Erdrich. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.)</em> In this novel, an American Indian family faces the ramifications of a vicious crime.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/books/review/salvage-the-bones-by-jesmyn-ward-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SALVAGE THE BONES</strong></a>. <em>By Jesmyn Ward. (Bloomsbury, $24.)</em> A pregnant 15-year-old and her family await Hurricane Katrina in this lushly written novel.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/books/review/san-miguel-by-t-coraghessan-boyle.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SAN MIGUEL</strong></a>. <em>By T. Coraghessan Boyle. (Viking, $27.95.)</em> Two utopians from different eras establish private idylls on California’s desolate Channel Islands; this novel preserves their tantalizing dreams.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/shine-shine-shine-by-lydia-netzer.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SHINE SHINE SHINE</strong></a>. <em>By Lydia Netzer. (St. Martin’s, $24.99.)</em> This thought-provoking debut novel presents a geeky astronaut and his pregnant wife.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/books/review/shout-her-lovely-name-by-natalie-serber.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SHOUT HER LOVELY NAME</strong></a>. <em>By Natalie Serber. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24.)</em>The stories in Serber’s first collection are smart and nuanced.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/books/review/silent-house-by-orhan-pamuk.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SILENT HOUSE</strong></a>. <em>By Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Robert Finn. (Knopf, $26.95.)</em> A family is a microcosm of a country on the verge of a coup in this intense, foreboding novel, first published in Turkey in 1983.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/books/review/the-starboard-sea-amber-dermonts-debut-novel.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE STARBOARD SEA</strong></a>. <em>By Amber Dermont. (St. Martin’s, $24.99.)</em> Dermont’s captivating debut novel, whose narrator is a boarding school student and a sailor, takes pleasure in the sea and in the exhilarating freedom of being young.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/sweet-tooth-by-ian-mcewan.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SWEET TOOTH</strong></a>. <em>By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.95.)</em> The true subject of this smart and tricky novel, set inside a cold war espionage operation, is the border between make-believe and reality.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/swimming-home-by-deborah-levy.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SWIMMING HOME</strong></a>. <em>By Deborah Levy. (Bloomsbury, paper, $14.)</em> In this spare, disturbing and frequently funny novel, a troubled young woman tests the marriages of two couples.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/books/review/telegraph-avenue-by-michael-chabon.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>TELEGRAPH AVENUE</strong></a>. <em>By Michael Chabon. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.)</em>Chabon’s rich comic novel about fathers and sons in Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., juggles multiple plots and mounds of pop culture references in astonishing prose.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/books/review/the-testament-of-mary-by-colm-toibin.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE TESTAMENT OF MARY</strong></a>. <em>By Colm Toibin. (Scribner, $19.99.)</em> This beautiful work takes power from the surprises of its language and its almost shocking characterization of Mary, mother of Jesus.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/this-is-how-you-lose-her-by-junot-diaz.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER</strong></a>. <em>By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $26.95.)</em> The stories in this collection are about love, but they’re also about the undertow of family history and cultural mores, presented in Díaz’s exciting, irresistible and entertaining prose.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/books/review/three-strong-women-by-marie-ndiaye.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THREE STRONG WOMEN</strong></a>. <em>By Marie NDiaye. Translated by John Fletcher. (Knopf, $25.95.)</em> In loosely linked narratives, three women from Senegal struggle with fathers and husbands in France. This subtle, hypnotic novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2009.</div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/books/review/tobys-room-by-pat-barker.html" style="color: #666699;">TOBY’S ROOM</a></strong>. <em>By Pat Barker.</em><em> (Doubleday, $25.95.)</em> This novel, a sequel to “Life Class,” delves further into the lives of an English family torn apart by World War I.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/books/review/thomas-mallon-reimagines-watergate.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>WATERGATE</strong></a>. <em>By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $26.95.)</em> This novelistic reimagining of the “third-rate burglary” proposes surprising motives for the break-in and the 18-minute gap, and has a sympathetic Nixon.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/nathan-englanders-new-collection.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK: Stories</strong></a>.<em>By Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $24.95.)</em> Englander tackles large questions of morality and history in a masterly collection that manages to be both insightful and uproarious.</div>
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<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/books/review/the-yellow-birds-by-kevin-powers.html" style="color: #666699;">THE YELLOW BIRDS</a></strong>. <em>By Kevin Powers.</em><em> (Little, Brown, $24.99.)</em> A young private and his platoon struggle through the war in Iraq but find no peace at home in this powerful and moving first novel about the frailty of man and the brutality of war.</div>
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<strong>NONFICTION</strong></div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/books/review/all-we-know-three-lives-by-lisa-cohen.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ALL WE KNOW: Three Lives</strong></a>. <em>By Lisa Cohen. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.)</em> The vanished world of midcentury upper-class lesbians is portrayed as beguiling, its inhabitants members of a stylish club.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/books/review/american-tapestry-by-rachel-l-swarns.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>AMERICAN TAPESTRY: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama</strong></a>. <em>By Rachel L. Swarns. (Amistad/HarperCollins, $27.99.)</em> A Times reporter’s deeply researched chronicle of several generations of Mrs. Obama’s family.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/american-triumvirate-by-james-dodson.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>AMERICAN TRIUMVIRATE: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and the Modern Age of Golf</strong></a>. <em>By James Dodson. (Knopf, $28.95.)</em> The author evokes an era when the game was more vivid and less corporate than it seems now.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/are-you-my-mother-by-alison-bechdel.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ARE YOU MY MOTHER? A Comic Drama</strong></a>. <em>By Alison Bechdel. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22.)</em> Bechdel’s engaging, original graphic memoir explores her troubled relationship with her distant mother.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/books/review/barack-obama-by-david-maraniss.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BARACK OBAMA: The Story</strong></a>. <em>By David Maraniss. (Simon & Schuster, $32.50.)</em> This huge and absorbing new biography, full of previously unexplored detail, shows that Obama’s saga is more surprising and gripping than the version we’re familiar with.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/katherine-boos-behind-the-beautiful-forevers-explores-a-mumbai-slum.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity</strong></a>. <em>By Katherine Boo. (Random House, $27.)</em> This extraordinary moral inquiry into life in an Indian slum shows the human costs exacted by a brutal social Darwinism.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/books/review/belzoni-the-giant-archaeologists-love-to-hate-by-ivor-noel-hume-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BELZONI: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate</strong></a>. <em>By Ivor Noël Hume. (University of Virginia, $34.95.)</em> The fascinating tale of the 19th-century Italian monk, a “notorious tomb robber,” who gathered archaeological treasures in Egypt while crunching bones underfoot.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/the-black-count-by-tom-reiss.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE BLACK COUNT: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo</strong></a>. <em>By Tom Reiss. (Crown, $27.)</em> The first Alexandre Dumas, a mixed-race general of the French Revolution, is the subject of this imaginative biography.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/breasts-by-florence-williams.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>BREASTS: A Natural and Unnatural History</strong></a>. <em>By Florence Williams. (Norton, $25.95.)</em> Williams’s environmental call to arms deplores chemicals in breast milk and the vogue for silicone implants.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/books/review/charles-murray-examines-the-white-working-class-in-coming-apart.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>COMING APART: The State of White America, 1960-2010</strong></a>. <em>By Charles Murray. (Crown Forum, $27.)</em> The author of “The Bell Curve” warns that the white working class has abandoned the “founding virtues.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/books/review/darwins-ghosts-by-rebecca-stott.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>DARWIN’S GHOSTS: The Secret History of Evolution</strong></a>. <em>By Rebecca Stott. (Spiegel & Grau, $27.)</em> Stott’s lively, original history of evolutionary ideas flows easily across continents and centuries.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/books/review/a-disposition-to-be-rich-by-geoffrey-c-ward.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>A DISPOSITION TO BE RICH: How a Small-Town Preacher’s Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States</strong></a>. <em>By Geoffrey C. Ward. (Knopf, $28.95.)</em> The author’s ancestor was the bane of Ulysses S. Grant.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/far-from-the-tree-by-andrew-solomon.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>FAR FROM THE TREE: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity</strong></a>. <em>By Andrew Solomon. (Scribner, $37.50.)</em> This passionate and affecting work about what it means to be a parent is based on interviews with families of “exceptional” children.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/books/review/the-story-of-lawrence-v-texas-by-dale-carpenter.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>FLAGRANT CONDUCT. The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans</strong></a>. <em>By Dale Carpenter. (Norton, $29.95.)</em>Carpenter stirringly describes the 2003 Supreme Court decision that overturned the Texas sodomy law.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/the-folly-of-fools-by-robert-trivers-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE FOLLY OF FOOLS: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life</strong></a>. <em>By Robert Trivers. (Basic Books, $28.)</em> An intriguing argument that deceit is a beneficial evolutionary “deep feature” of life.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/books/review/the-grey-album-by-kevin-young.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE GREY ALBUM: On the Blackness of Blackness</strong></a>. <em>By Kevin Young. (Graywolf, paper, $25.)</em> A poet’s lively account of the central place of the trickster figure in black American culture could have been called “How Blacks Invented America.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/books/review/haiti-the-aftershocks-of-history-by-laurent-dubois-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HAITI: The Aftershocks of History</strong></a>. <em>By Laurent Dubois. (Metropolitan/Holt, $32.)</em>Foreign meddling, the lack of a democratic tradition, a humiliating American occupation and cold-war support of a brutal dictator all figure in a scholar’s well-written analysis.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HOW CHILDREN SUCCEED: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character</strong></a>. <em>By Paul Tough. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27.)</em> Noncognitive skills like persistence and self-control are more crucial to success than sheer brainpower, Tough maintains.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/david-byrnes-how-music-works.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>HOW MUSIC WORKS</strong></a>. <em>By David Byrne. (McSweeney’s, $32.)</em> This guidebook also explores the eccentric rock star’s personal and professional experience.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/iron-curtain-by-anne-applebaum.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>IRON CURTAIN: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956</strong></a>. <em>By Anne Applebaum. (Doubleday, $35.)</em> An overwhelming and convincing account of the Soviet push to colonize Eastern Europe after World War II.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/books/review/kayak-morning-reflections-on-love-grief-and-small-boats-by-roger-rosenblatt-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>KAYAK MORNING: Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats</strong></a>. <em>By Roger Rosenblatt. (Ecco/HarperCollins, paper, $13.99.)</em> This thoughtful meditation on the evolution of grief over time asks the big questions.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/books/review/lincolns-code-by-john-fabian-witt.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>LINCOLN’S CODE: The Laws of War in American History</strong></a>. <em>By John Fabian Witt. (Free Press, $32.)</em> A tension between humanitarianism and righteousness has shaped America’s rules of warfare.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/books/review/little-america-by-rajiv-chandrasekaran.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>LITTLE AMERICA: The War Within the War for Afghanistan</strong></a>. <em>By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. (Knopf, $27.95.)</em> A beautifully written and deeply reported account of America’s troubled involvement in Afghanistan.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/memoir-of-a-debulked-woman-by-susan-gubar.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>MEMOIR OF A DEBULKED WOMAN: Enduring Ovarian Cancer</strong></a>. <em>By Susan Gubar. (Norton, $24.95.)</em> A feminist scholar recounts her experience and criticizes the medical treatment of a frightening disease in a voice that is straightforward and incredibly brave.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/books/review/my-poets-by-maureen-n-mclane.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>MY POETS</strong></a>. <em>By Maureen N. McLane. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.)</em> Part memoir and part criticism, this friendly book includes essays on poets canonical and contemporary, as well as lineated poem-games.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/the-obamas-by-jodi-kantor.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE OBAMAS</strong></a>. <em>By Jodi Kantor. (Little, Brown, $29.99.)</em> Michelle Obama sets the tone and tempo of the current White House, Kantor argues in this admiring account, full of colorful insider anecdotes.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/books/review/oddly-normal-by-john-schwartz.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ODDLY NORMAL: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms With His Sexuality</strong></a>. <em>By John Schwartz. (Gotham, $26.)</em> A Times reporter’s deeply affecting account of his son’s coming out also reviews research on the experience of LGBT kids.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/on-a-farther-shore-by-william-souder.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ON A FARTHER SHORE: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson</strong></a>. <em>By William Souder. (Crown, $30.)</em> An absorbing biography of the pioneering environmental writer on the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring.”</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/review/on-saudi-arabia-by-karen-elliott-house.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>ON SAUDI ARABIA: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines — and Future</strong></a>. <em>By Karen Elliott House. (Knopf, $28.95.)</em> A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist unveils this inscrutable country, comparing its calcified regime to the Soviet Union in its final days.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/books/review/the-one-rj-smiths-biography-of-james-brown.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE ONE: The Life and Music of James Brown</strong></a>. <em>By RJ Smith. (Gotham, $27.50.)</em>Smith argues that Brown was the most significant modern American musician in terms of style, messaging, rhythm and originality.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/the-passage-of-power-robert-caros-new-lbj-book.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE PASSAGE OF POWER: The Years of Lyndon Johnson</strong></a>. <em>By Robert A. Caro. (Knopf, $35.)</em> The fourth volume of Caro’s magisterial work spans the five years that end shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, as Johnson prepares to push for a civil rights act.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/review/the-patriarch-a-joseph-p-kennedy-biography-by-david-nasaw.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE PATRIARCH: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy</strong></a>. <em>By David Nasaw. (Penguin Press, $40.)</em> This riveting history captures the sweep of Kennedy’s life — as Wall Street speculator, moviemaker, ambassador and dynastic founder.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/books/review/people-who-eat-darkness-by-richard-lloyd-parry.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>PEOPLE WHO EAT DARKNESS: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished From the Streets of Tokyo — and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up</strong></a>. <em>By Richard Lloyd Parry. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $16.)</em> An evenhanded investigation of a murder.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/books/review/red-brick-black-mountain-white-clay-by-christopher-benfey.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>RED BRICK, BLACK MOUNTAIN, WHITE CLAY: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival</strong></a>. <em>By Christopher Benfey. (Penguin Press, $25.95.)</em> Mixing memoir, family saga, travelogue and cultural history.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/books/review/books-about-conservatism-and-the-tea-party.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>RULE AND RUIN. The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party: From Eisenhower to the Tea Party</strong></a>. <em>By Geoffrey Kabaservice. (Oxford University, $29.95.)</em> Pragmatic Republicanism was hardier than we remember, Kabaservice argues.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/books/review/saul-steinberg-a-biography-by-deirdre-bair.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SAUL STEINBERG: A Biography</strong></a>. <em>By Deirdre Bair. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $40.)</em>A gripping and revelatory biography of the eminent cartoonist.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/books/review/shooting-victoria-by-paul-thomas-murphy.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SHOOTING VICTORIA: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy</strong></a>. <em>By Paul Thomas Murphy. (Pegasus, $35.)</em> An uninhibited and learned account of the attempts on the life of Queen Victoria, which only increased her popularity.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/books/review/short-nights-of-the-shadow-catcher-by-timothy-egan.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis</strong></a>. <em>By Timothy Egan. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28.)</em> A deft portrait of the man who made memorable photographs of American Indians.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/books/review/the-social-conquest-of-earth-by-edward-o-wilson.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH</strong>.</a> <em>By Edward O. Wilson. (Norton, $27.95.)</em> The evolutionary biologist explores the strange kinship between humans and some insects.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/books/review/sometimes-there-is-a-void-memoirs-of-an-outsider-by-zakes-mda-book-review.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: Memoirs of an Outsider</strong></a>. <em>By Zakes Mda. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35.)</em> The South African novelist and playwright absorbingly illuminates his wide, worldly life.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/books/review/spillover-by-david-quammen.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>SPILLOVER: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic</strong></a>. <em>By David Quammen. (Norton, $28.95.)</em> Quammen’s meaty, sprawling book chronicles his globe-trotting scientific adventures and warns against animal microbes spilling over into people.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/the-taste-of-war-by-lizzie-collingham.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THE TASTE OF WAR: World War II and the Battle for Food</strong></a>. <em>By Lizzie Collingham. (Penguin Press, $36.)</em> Collingham argues that food needs contributed to the war’s origins, strategy, outcome and aftermath.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/books/review/thomas-jefferson-the-art-of-power-by-jon-meacham.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>THOMAS JEFFERSON: The Art of Power</strong></a>. <em>By Jon Meacham. (Random House, $35.)</em> This readable and well-researched life celebrates Jefferson’s skills as a practical politician, unafraid to wield power even when it conflicted with his small-government views.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/books/review/victory-by-linda-hirshman.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>VICTORY: The Triumphant Gay Revolution</strong></a>. <em>By Linda Hirshman. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.)</em> Written with knowing finesse, this expansive history of gay rights from the early 20th century to the present draws on archives and interviews.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/books/review/when-god-talks-back-by-tm-luhrmann.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>WHEN GOD TALKS BACK: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God</strong></a>. <em>By T. M. Luhrmann. (Knopf, $28.95.)</em> Evangelicals believe that God speaks to them personally because they hone the skill of prayer, this insightful study argues.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/jeanette-wintersons-new-memoir.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL?</strong></a> <em>By Jeanette Winterson. (Grove, $25.)</em> Winterson’s unconventional and winning memoir wrings humor from adversity as it describes her upbringing by a wildly deranged mother.</div>
<div itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em;">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/why-does-the-world-exist-by-jim-holt.html" style="color: #666699;"><strong>WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST? An Existential Detective Story</strong></a>. <em>By Jim Holt. (Liveright/Norton, $27.95.)</em> An elegant and witty writer converses with philosophers and cosmologists who ponder why there is something rather than nothing.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-78613564346768075622012-12-29T06:51:00.000-08:002012-12-29T06:51:00.217-08:00State of Wonder. by Ann Patchett<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P3YeThftiaI/UN8B0RD3GFI/AAAAAAAAwjE/LQZQK-4x7tk/s1600/stateofwonder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P3YeThftiaI/UN8B0RD3GFI/AAAAAAAAwjE/LQZQK-4x7tk/s1600/stateofwonder.jpg" /></a></div>
Ah, to have another novel with the same sense of wonder as Bel Canto! And even named "State of Wonder" to boot.<br />
<br />
Dr. Marina Singh, employed by a pharmaceutical company, follows fellow scientist Anders Eckman into the Amazon at the behest of her boss (and lover), Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox had received a letter from a field scientist, Dr. Swenson, saying that Eckman, who had come to urge her to provide more frequent reports of her progress, had gotten a fever and died there. Swenson's work is part of an effort to develop a fertility drug for the pharmaceutical company.<br />
<br />
There are complications. Not least of them is the fact that Swenson is notoriously difficult to find and to persuade. She wants to do things her way and not be hurried or harassed. She has a young couple set up in her "town" apartment whose main job is to divert those who are interested in meeting with Swenson.<br />
<br />
Marina was chosen in large part because she was a student of Swenson's years ago. Supposedly she knows how to get through to her. Marina is not so sure but allows herself to be persuaded to go. The main reason she decides to go is that Eckman's wife wants to be absolutely certain that her husband is dead. She wants Marina to find proof. She prefers to believe that he is still alive until she is given that proof.<br />
<br />
The first many days in the little town are spent trying to connect to Dr. Swenson. When she is finally successful she follows the good doctor into the Amazon, on her boat. There she is soon absorbed by Swenson's work and by meeting and learning about the natives.<br />
<br />
Marina's character is caring and giving, and also very human. It is easy to relate to her and to want the most for her and even to want her affair with "Mr. Fox" to go well in spite of the large difference in their ages (Fox is many years older.) There is a warmth and kindness not only in Marina but in many of the other characters as well, even, to some extent, the unyielding Dr. Swenson. Is it this that attracted me to this book? Yes, but there is more. There is the way Marina faces her life in the Amazon, how she makes her decisions, what she actually does, that is just delightful, although that word may not seem appropriate at times. As in Bel Canto, there is unexpected pleasure throughout. What more could you want?<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-2660495893480596532012-12-28T16:28:00.000-08:002012-12-28T16:28:00.534-08:00Cheever: A Life. By Blake Bailey<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6qlX4_tGjMk/UN45AVIkUTI/AAAAAAAAwiE/GpoOSgIy1Yc/s1600/cheever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6qlX4_tGjMk/UN45AVIkUTI/AAAAAAAAwiE/GpoOSgIy1Yc/s1600/cheever.jpg" /></a></div>
I have read many of Cheever's short stories and I may have read a book or two as well - but am not sure about that. His stories are usually engaging and sometimes brilliant, but I did form the opinion that he was a misogynist. In his stories he always seems to be creating unsympathetic women, and men who are caught in their webs. I was curious about his own life. And it all became clear here.<br />
<br />
He did have problems with women. He also had severe long-term problems with alcohol. He appeared to have been self-absorbed, selfish, often thoughtless. Yet many thought of him as kind and fun to be around as well.<br />
<br />
He was hard-working but had trouble keeping the wolves from the door. Selling short stories, of course, is rarely if ever as lucrative as selling a novel. Thus he worked hard on the few books that he did write. It took him many years for the first one, and every one was very difficult for him. He excelled at writing the short stories but not so much at the novels. Some writers are just made to create the little jewels, which honestly would be enough in this case.<br />
<br />
One theme that was in much of his work, if not always immediately apparent, was his frustration with his sexual orientation. He was bisexual but did not admit it, and even when having sex with another man he would not admit how many such affairs he'd had over the years. I suspect that he told the same lies to himself, to be fair. Learning about this part of him illuminates a great deal that may have seemed incomprehensible in his work. Certainly I am just as much an admirer as I was before. I never hold a writer's flaws or predilections against him.<br />
<br />
I do hope that this biography is bringing a whole new set of readers to Cheever.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-15907889515414072482012-12-17T08:54:00.003-08:002012-12-17T08:54:51.525-08:00The Invisible Bridge - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j39-OfF0BM4/UM9OGn7ZNKI/AAAAAAAADIY/T3Ei4dzkYQQ/s1600/InvisibleBridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j39-OfF0BM4/UM9OGn7ZNKI/AAAAAAAADIY/T3Ei4dzkYQQ/s1600/InvisibleBridge.jpg" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: navy;"><em>One and a half million Jewish men
and women and children. How was anyone to understand a number like that?
Andras knew it took three thousand to fill the seats of the Dohany
Street Synagogue. To accommodate a million and a half, one would have
had to replicate that building , its arches and domes, its Moorish
interior, its balcony, its dark wooden pews and gilded ark, five hundred
times. And then to envision each man and woman and child inside as a
unique and irreplaceable human being, the way he imagined Mendel
Horovitz or the Ivory Tower or his brother Matyas, each of them with
desires and fears, a mother and a father, a birthplace, a bed, a first
love, a web of memories, a cache of secrets, a skin, a heart, an
infinitely complicated brain – to imagine them that way, and then to
imagine them dead, extinguished for all time – how could anyone begin to
grasp it?</em></span> – from The Invisible Bridge, page 536 -</blockquote>
<br />
Andras Levi, a Hungarian Jew, finds himself full of hope and
excitement on a train to Paris in 1937. He has won a scholarship to a
school of architecture, an unbelievable opportunity for a Jewish man
living in the shadow of war. In Paris, he nurses his art and ambition,
finds camaraderie with men who will change his life, and discovers love
with a beautiful ballet teacher. He misses his brothers – Tibor, a
medical student who finds opportunity in Italy, and Matyas, a boy who is
on the brink of becoming a man and whose carefree spirit finds joy in
theater. But as Europe becomes embroiled in war, all three young men
will find themselves back in Hungary and struggling to survive the labor
service and the steady erosion of human rights as Hitler’s influence
and power come ever closer.<br />
<br />
Julie Orringer’s novel <em>The Invisible Bridge</em> is a searing,
sweeping, and ultimately triumphant story about love, war, survival and
the endurance of the human spirit. Andras, his brothers, their wives,
their children, their parents, and the friends they discover are all
wonderfully developed by the talented Orringer. Paris with its noisy
bars and beautiful architecture and radiant theaters and opera houses
comes alive as Orringer’s characters establish their lives and nurse
their dreams of a future.<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>The Invisible Bridge</em> is a heartbreaking novel – how could it
be anything less? One does not have to be a student of history to know
the story of the Jewish people during WWII. But in this sprawling novel,
Orringer puts a human face on the tragedy and gives her readers a
glimpse of an often ignored part of the story – that of the Hungarian
Jews whose government allied with the Germans early on and used its
people as slave labor in the war machine. The sense of inevitability is
strong as Orringer builds her story. I found myself breathless,
emotional, wanting to stop the march forward as Andras and his brothers
and the people they love are thrust into a world beyond their control.
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;"><em>He wanted to believe
that someone could be watching in pity and horror, someone who could
change things if he chose. He wanted to believe that men were not in
charge. But in the center of his sternum he felt a cold certainty that
told him otherwise. He believed in God, yes, the God of his fathers, the
one to whom he’d prayed in Koyar and Debrecen and Paris and in the work
service, but that God, the One, was not One who intervened in the way
they needed someone to intervene just then. He had designed the cosmos
and thrown its doors open to man, and man had moved in and begun a life
there. But God could no more step inside and rearrange that life than an
architect could rearrange the lives of a building’s inhabitants.</em> </span>- from The Invisible Bridge, page 432 -</blockquote>
As with all memorable works, <em>The Invisible Bridge</em> succeeds
through its careful attention to detail, the development of its
characters and the strength of its prose. Orringer has a finely honed
sense of who her characters are – their fears, their vulnerabilities,
their strengths, their dreams. She takes them to the edge, and then
allows them to find their way back – battered, wiser, but never
diminished.<br />
<br />
There are big themes in this novel – the importance of art, the
strength of familial bonds, the idea that we are but a speck in the
universe being born along on a tide of which we have little control.
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;"><em>Of course. Why would a
man not argue his own shameful culpability, why would he not crave
responsibility for disaster, when the alternative was to find himself to
be nothing more than a speck of human dust?</em> </span>- from The Invisible Bridge, page 489 -</blockquote>
It would be easy for an author to allow these themes to sink her
novel into despair. But it is a testament to Orringer’s talent that she
never vacates hope and a promise for something better for her
characters.<br />
<br />
It is no surprise that I loved this novel. I loved its scope, its
humanity, and its honesty. I loved Orringer’s prose, and her ability to
resurrect the feel of a generation marching towards war. I loved the
characters – Andras with his generous heart, Tibor with his sensitivity
and Matyas with his free spirit. I loved that Orringer did not abandon
me in darkness, but lifted me into the light. This is a book that adds
to our understanding of history and provides insight into the human side
of war. It is remarkable. And you should read it.
<br />
<br />
Highly recommended.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" /><br />
<br />Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-78955322967495386082012-05-25T08:19:00.001-07:002012-05-25T08:19:27.659-07:00Buddha in the Attic - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vNZcR2ThSLQ/T7-iZHxn2FI/AAAAAAAADEs/AZbM2iWPUNU/s1600/Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vNZcR2ThSLQ/T7-iZHxn2FI/AAAAAAAADEs/AZbM2iWPUNU/s1600/Buddha.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: maroon;"><i>On the boat we were mostly virgins.
We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall.
Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had
slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and
were still young girls ourselves.</i></span> – from Buddha in the Attic, page 1 -<br />
<br />
It is the early part of the twentieth century and young girls from Japan are arriving in San Francisco as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_bride">picture brides</a>.”
Their husbands have been chosen by a matchmaker in Japan, selected only
by a photo and vague promises in scrawled letters. For the girls on the
boat, their futures seem bright. But nothing is ever really as it
seems.<br />
<br />
Unfolding over many years and written in the collective first person
plural narrative, Julie Otsuka reveals the lives of these young women as
they meet their husbands for the first time, bear children and find
work in their communities. Culminating in the bigoted years of World War
II when thousands of Japanese Americans were rounded up and torn from
their homes, <i>Buddha in the Attic</i> is a powerful look at one aspect of the immigrant experience in America.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: maroon;">There was talk of a
list. Some people being taken away in the middle of the night. A banker
who went to work and never came home. A barber who disappeared during
his lunch break. A few fishermen who had gone missing. Here and there, a
boardinghouse, raided. A business, seized. A newspaper shut down.</span></i> – from Buddha in the Attic, page 81 -</blockquote>
Otsuka’s decision to use first person plural as her narrative voice
is unusual and haunting. Instead of an individual point of view, the
novella presents the collective perspective of a community joined by
ancestry and common experience. What Otsuka does well is tease out
individuals from the group, sharing their differences and then pulling
them back together as one voice. The result is a story which builds to a
powerful conclusion. More than just a story of one person, this is a
story of a generation of immigrant women who arrived in America with
hope and discovered the reality was not exactly what they expected.<br />
<br />
In the end, the voices of these women disappear and are replaced by the collective voice of the community they left behind.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: maroon;">The Japanese have
disappeared from our town. Their houses are boarded up and empty now.
Their mailboxes have begun to overflow. Unclaimed newspapers litter
their sagging front porches and gardens. Abandoned cars sit in their
driveways. Thick knotty weeds are sprouting up through their lawns. In
their backyards the tulips are wilting. Stray cats wander. Last loads of
laundry still cling to the line. In one of their kitchens – Ei Saito’s –
a black telephone rings and rings. </span></i> – from Buddha in the Attic, page 115 -</blockquote>
This is a book which grows more powerful after the final page has
been turned. I have found myself thinking of these women, their stories,
their community, their ultimate fate…and their voices echo in my head.
It is hard to turn away from them. I was left with the feeling that the
community they inhabited is less now in their absence…and I think this
is, perhaps, the message which Otsuka wanted her readers to get.<br />
<br />
This slim book delivers on every level. It should be required reading in history classes.<br />
Highly recommended.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" /><br />
<br />
<i>FTC Disclosure:</i> I purchased this book.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BookiesToo/?yguid=9384854">Join the discussion at Bookies Too</a> from June 1-15, 2012.<br />
<br />
Awards for this book:<br />
<ul>
<li>2012 PEN/Faulkner winner</li>
<li>2011 National Book Award finalist</li>
<li>2011 New York Times Most Notable book</li>
</ul>
<br />Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-87102855853863918142012-05-12T09:39:00.002-07:002012-05-12T09:39:39.915-07:00The Submission - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SALz4mq8STo/T66SKcgsntI/AAAAAAAADDU/HHWN_tHvzBI/s1600/Submission.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SALz4mq8STo/T66SKcgsntI/AAAAAAAADDU/HHWN_tHvzBI/s1600/Submission.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
“[...]<em><span style="color: #003366;">The attack made everyone
afraid of appearing unpatriotic, of questioning government leaders. Fear
has justified war, torture, secrecy, all kinds of violations of rights
and liberties. Don’t let it justify taking the memorial away from Khan.
Everything these past couple of years has been about abdications. Don’t
succumb to the fear; don’t mistake the absolutism of Khan’s opponents
for morality…</span></em>” -from The Submission, page 226 -<br />
<br />
Two years after the 9-11 tragedy, a group of jurors has been selected
to choose a memorial design to occupy the space where the twin towers
once stood. The jurors include art critics and one family member still
reeling from the death of her husband. The submissions are anonymous to
the jurors – they have only the designs and no names to make their final
decision. After a contentious process, one design is finally chosen and
the name of the designer is finally revealed…Mohammad Khan, an American
born Muslim. Khan’s selection ignites a firestorm of protest. Should a
Muslim be allowed to design this memorial which touches the hearts of so
many Americans? Does one’s religion define who they are? Thus begins
Amy Waldman’s provocative and deeply emotional novel.<br />
<br />
Told in multiple points of view, <em>The Submission</em> takes a
searing look at one of the most traumatic events in American history and
examines our prejudices and fears seated in religious ideology,
patriotism, and collective grief. Claire Burwell, the lone family member
on the jury, is a complex character who initially fights for Khan’s
design. But political pressure and media propaganda work on her
emotions, making her doubt her convictions. Khan himself is an enigmatic
character – a man who doubts his religion and then discovers it matters
not what he believes so much as the label attached to him.<br />
<blockquote>
<em><span style="color: #003366;">What was he trying to
see? He had been indifferent to the buildings when they stood,
preferring more fluid forms to their stark brutality, their
self-conscious monumentalism. But he had never felt violent toward them,
as he sometimes had toward that awful Verizon building on Pearl Street.
Now he wanted to fix their image, their worth, their place. They were
living rebukes to nostalgia, these Goliaths that had crushed small
businesses, vibrant streetscapes, generational continuities, and other
romantic notions beneath their giant feet. Yet it was nostalgia he felt
for them. A skyline was a collaboration, if an inadvertent one, between
generations, seeming no less natural than a mountain range that had
shuddered up from the earth. This new gap in space reversed time.</span></em> – from The Submission, page 32 -</blockquote>
Waldman includes several engaging characters including a rabid
journalist who is willing to twist the truth for a story, a power-hungry
politician who finds the controversy is very good for votes, a radical
anti-Islamic extremist, and a Muslim woman who is in America illegally
and who is mourning her husband who worked as a janitor in the doomed
towers.<br />
<br />
This is an affecting novel which uses one question to propel its
complicated plot. I found the title itself to be fascinating as it
alludes to not only the design which is “the submission,” but also
examines the process of judgement and the struggle for a common ground
which unfurls throughout the novel. Synonyms for the word submission
include: appeasement, assent, backing down, giving in, humility,
resignation, and surrender. And, indeed, these are words which resonate
in the story. Khan is forced to examine his motivations for submitting
his design in the face of pressure to step down and give up the
commission.<br />
<br />
Waldman also explores creative inspiration. From where do our
artistic renderings come? Is inspiration a simple process, or does it
encompass experience, ideology and something less tangible which is
difficult to define? Some characters in <em>The Submission</em> insist
on labeling Khan’s design as anti-American and read intent where none
may exist. Khan himself seems, at times, to wrestle with the origins of
his work – what exactly <em>was</em> the inspiration?<em> </em><br />
<br />
<em>The Submission</em> is compelling fiction and would be a terrific
book club choice. It was recently nominated for the Orange Prize for
Fiction and I believe it deserves that nomination. Waldman writes with
clarity and passion and challenges readers, especially Americans, to
look deep within themselves about essential questions related to
religion, politics and fear.<br />
<br />
Highly recommended.<br />
<ul>
<li>Quality of Writing: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" /></li>
<li>Characters: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" /></li>
<li>Plot: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-549" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars4h.gif" title="4hStars" width="71" /></li>
</ul>
Overall Rating: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" />Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-826909627838610092012-05-12T09:37:00.001-07:002012-05-12T09:37:44.118-07:0011/22/63 - Wendy's Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2dGMyqatr30/T66Rq9CQrNI/AAAAAAAADDM/iWyzyk8Ttt8/s1600/11.22.63.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2dGMyqatr30/T66Rq9CQrNI/AAAAAAAADDM/iWyzyk8Ttt8/s1600/11.22.63.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: maroon;">I knew where I was; Lisbon Falls, Maine, deep in the heart of Androscoggin County. The real question was <i>when</i> I was.</span> – from 11/22/63, page 31 -<br />
<br />
Jake Epping is thirty-five years old, a high school teacher living in
Maine in the year 2011. Jake makes a little extra money teaching GED
classes and he meets a janitor named Harry – a soft-spoken man whose
essay about the murder of his mother and siblings in 1958 blows Jake
away. So when Al, a friend of Jake’s who owns a local restaurant,
reveals a “rabbit hole” to the past, Jake takes it. What unfolds is
travel back in time to the late 1950′s, just over four years before JFK
is assassinated. Jake has the power to change the past, but will it make
the future better, or worse?<br />
<br />
Stephen King’s latest novel, <i>11/22/63</i>, is a sprawling
doorstopper filled with realistic characters and plenty of “what-ifs.”
He takes the reader back to a time in history when gas was cheap, racism
was rampant, women’s rights were just beginning to be glimpsed, and
people left their doors unlocked. There is no Internet, no terrorists,
no hyped up airport security. As Jake navigates this world from the
past, he must live two lives – one as an affable school teacher and
another as a man from the future who plans on changing history forever.<br />
<br />
In true King fashion, readers will recognize characters from previous
novels. Jake spends a bit of time in Derry, Maine – the town where <i>It</i>
was set – and the “clown murders” are still being talked about there.
Derry is still not quite right with the stench of industry and the dark
Barrens where the sewers empty.<br />
But the focus of the book actually takes place in Dallas and just
outside of that city. King spends a lot of time creating Jake’s
alternate life there, introducing dozens of characters and intertwining
their stories. Sadie, a school librarian, becomes a central character in
the story, a twist that makes the plot less predictable.<br />
<br />
Thematically, King explores the idea of history repeating itself, the
sense that things happen for a reason, and the danger of trying to
change history. The Butterfly Effect, the idea that small change at one
place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later
state, becomes a major theme in the novel.<br />
It was clear to me that King spent a lot of time researching for this
book – the history, politics, and sociology of the times is staggering
in its detail. That detail allows the reader to become fully immersed in
the story and transports her back in time.<br />
<br />
King is truly a master storyteller. It has been a long time since I
have read one of his novels – but I was instantly reminded why I have
always loved his books. The characters leap from the pages, fully formed
and believable. Despite this being a time-travel book, something which
is clearly outside reality, I found myself firmly believing the premise.
And this is what King does best – he engages his audience, takes them
places where they might not travel themselves, and convinces them <i>this could happen</i>.<br />
<br />
My only criticism is that I think the novel could have been edited
down by about 200 pages. But, this is Stephen King, not only a master
storyteller, but the king of the chunkster…and so, this minor quibble
should not deter anyone from picking up a copy of <i>11/22/63</i>. Despite its heft, the novel is intriguing enough to keep even the most distracted reader turning the pages.<br />
<br />
Readers of horror, historical fiction, and time travel novels, as
well as those who have loved Stephen King’s work in the past, will not
want to miss <i>11/22/63</i>.<br />
<br />
Highly recommended.<br />
<ul>
<li>Quality of Writing: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-549" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars4h.gif" title="4hStars" width="71" /></li>
<li>Characters: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-550" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars5.gif" title="5stars" width="72" /></li>
<li>Plot: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-549" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars4h.gif" title="4hStars" width="71" /></li>
</ul>
Overall Rating: <img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-549" height="13" src="http://www.caribousmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stars4h.gif" title="4hStars" width="71" />Wendyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14332796775305098552noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-53235446258474572312012-05-09T21:32:00.000-07:002012-05-09T21:32:32.231-07:00The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski<br />
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I had no idea what this would be about when I got it. I thought it would be about a photographer in the 1800s who specialized in photographs of Native Americans. I don't know why I thought the name was Sawtelle- I think the name I really meant was Curtis. In any case, I thought this would be an account of this photographer, nonfiction.<br />
<br />
Not so. It is a lengthy first novel, finely crafted, about a boy and his family in northern Wisconsin. I may have missed references to the time frame. My guess is it takes place in the 1950s or 1960s, maybe 1970s.<br />
<br />
Edgar Sawtelle was born without a voice. He could hear but could not speak. Doctors could not determine the cause or a solution, so he learned sign language. Over time, he modified sign language to include his own idiosyncratic signs, which his mother and father, Trudy and Gar, learned easily. The family business is the breeding of dogs - a special breed - "Sawtelle dogs". When Edgar's grandfather began breeding, he did not care about pedigree. Instead, when he saw a dog with characteristics that he found special, he would acquire the dog to breed with his stock. He did this over the years, hoping to impart special qualities to his dogs.<br />
<br />
Another aspect that set the dogs apart from traditional breeders is that the Sawtelles realized that too many dogs are "ruined" by incapable owners in their first year. So they did an unusual thing: they did not sell puppies. Instead, they sold fully trained young dogs, trained to their exacting specifications.<br />
<br />
Edgar loves the dogs and loves working with him. One special dog, Almondine, was there when Edgar was born and became almost his other half. They did everything together.<br />
<br />
The small family is doing reasonably well when Gar's brother Claude shows up out of the blue. He had been in prison and Gar lets him stay for a while. The two have conflicts, however, and in time Claude is invited to leave. He moves into the small town nearby and does odd jobs.<br />
<br />
Then Edgar and Trudy's lives are turned upside down. Edgar is there when his father has some kind of seizure and falls to the floor. Edgar is unable to use the telephone, although he tries. He even damages it in the process of trying to make himself heard. Gar dies before anyone can get to him.<br />
<br />
Trudy and Edgar are then in a precarious position. It is difficult to manage the home and business between the two of them, and harder still when Trudy becomes very ill and has to stay in bed. During this time Claude offers some help, and gradually works his way into the family. Edgar, however, never accepts him. In fact, after a time he has a memory of seeing something that makes him wonder about Claude. It is here when the story takes on more than a hint of Hamlet. Complete with ghosts.<br />
<br />
When there is another accident and the vet dies in their barn, Edgar takes off with three of the dogs. He manages to make his way through the northwoods without being spotted, existing on very little at first but eventually finding a way to feed both himself and the dogs. It is then that the small group has an emergency that results in their meeting Henry, a lone man who lives in a remote cabin, and a tentative friendship develops.<br />
<br />
And finally, a dramatic finish worthy of Hamlet, very suspenseful in the last pages.<br />
<br />
The story caught my attention but I never fully embraced Edgar. I know that part of my difficulty is with the breeding. I am very opposed to the breeding of dogs. Any breeder has to destroy animals that do not come out right. There are many missteps in deliberate genetic manipulations. It's not simple science. I am also disturbed by the belief that purebred dogs are superior to "mutts". I have never known this to be true in real life. But that's, of course, for another dissertation. The point here is that this large aspect of the story disturbed me. It was hard for me to ignore it, to separate my personal ethics from the story.<br />
<br />
The training was another aspect that at times made me suspicious. The author consulted training books ad infinitem and I am sure that much of what he writes is what many trainers do. I just did not like all that I read. But I feel that this is an area of evolving practice, and here in 2012 I learn about types of training that probably did not exist at the time of this novel. What is clear is that the dogs matter to the family, that they are special, that they are loved.<br />
<br />
I was enough attached to Edgar to want better for him, to want his suspicions to be verified to others. I wanted more than a tragic ending, frankly, after getting to know him and his dogs for so many pages.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-86615129634879383482012-05-04T14:55:00.002-07:002012-05-04T14:56:58.367-07:00Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson<br />
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I put off reading this because of the title. I had it on my list because it has received honors from several places. But the title made me think of...stealing horses....and I did not like the idea. I thought maybe it would be cowboyish, that horses would come in for some ill treatment.<br />
<br />
But the title doesn't mean what it says. It has more than one meaning in the book, but neither has to do with actual stealing of horses. Trond Sander, 67, has chosen to live the rest of his life alone, in a remote cabin in snowy Norway. He'd had his city life and family but now he just wants to be alone with his thoughts. And his dog. His thoughts bring back memories of his youth, in particular the most significant events of that youth, the time his father left him.<br />
<br />
The young Trond, 15, is on vacation with his father for the summer. The two travel by train a long way to a cabin in the country, near the border with Sweden. His father had acquired the cabin long ago, initially a mystery to Trond because the family's finances had never been great. But he loves being there, working side by side with his father on the cabin, on other tasks, and just being there by himself. He becomes friends with a neighbor boy and the two do everything together, until one day Trond says something that triggers a response in the other boy, making him suddenly remote.<br />
<br />
It isn't long before he discovers what caused his friend to go quiet. But although Trond had nothing to do with the tragedy, he has still lost a friend. It is only later that pieces start to come together, glued by what a friend of his father's tells him. The story is both simplified and made more complex. And now, in his later yet still fit years, Trond has chosen to live with nature. But it doesn't end there. He meets his nearest neighbor by chance and discovers that he actually knows him from those many years ago. In a way, the circle closes.<br />
<br />
Elegantly and simply written, a story of love and loss. Isn't that what life is?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-23117520757056799992012-03-19T13:51:00.002-07:002012-03-19T13:51:55.002-07:00The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey EugenidesBeen a long time since I posted here, but I noticed I recently did read a Notable Book. Crossposted from <a href="http://www.aquatique.net/">Aquatique</a>: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374203059/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=animeshouho&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0374203059"><img alt="The Marriage Plot" class="aligncenter" height="160" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51bakKhF-8L._SL160_.jpg" title="The Marriage Plot" width="107" /></a></div>
<br />
I have read both of Eugenides's other books: <em>The Virgin Suicides</em> and <em>Middlesex</em>. In fact, I liked the latter so much, I even own after having it seen it discounted at Chapters. I don't really buy new books often. I have enjoyed his work. It's really in the characters, prose and to a certain extent, how good Eugenides is about writing about gender and relationships. With TVS, the characters seem both real and mythical. That worked was definitely filled with nostalgia and a surreality. But it was in Middlesex in which I found him to be a very good writer. The characters in it were believable, good and real. In the Marriage Plot and in Middlesex especially, he deals with sex, gender, feminism, and these ideas in Western society. I don't mean to say he is very political about it, but he shows an understanding of these topics or the awareness of it between cultures. There's a moment in Paris where one of the main characters sees a woman (p.157):<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
When Mitchell looked at her; the girl did an amazing thing: she looked back. She met his gaze with frank meaning. Not that she wanted to have sex with him, necessarily. Only that she was happy to acknowledge, on this late-summer evening, that he was a man and she was a woman, and if he found her attractive, that was all right with her. No American girl had ever looked at Mitchell like that.</blockquote>
<br />
The book is one largely about relationships, desire, unrequited love and being in love, both good and bad: "What was interesting about being the needy one was how much in love you felt" (p 25) Which isn't all about how love is, but it does describe the early rush of it and that neediness you feel to be with the other person.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, Eugenides has touched on mental illness lightly before, but he tackles it much more in this book as one of the characters seems clinically depressed and the consequences on the other characters, both direct and indirect.<br />
<br />
There isn't a lot of plot in Eugenides books, but it's not as slow moving as some other novels. I think like many good stories, there is actual growth or movement for all the characters, but like life, it's not perfect. The ending was sort of meta and fitting. Maybe a bit abrupt, but somewhat realistic and showed a lot of growth in all the characters.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-61613109443164690012012-02-01T15:12:00.000-08:002012-02-01T15:12:11.868-08:00The Most Dangerous Thing, by Laura Lippman<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oVBdvAUL9Xg/TyDjIRl3RuI/AAAAAAAAsgI/KQINmTYQkkQ/s1600/lippman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oVBdvAUL9Xg/TyDjIRl3RuI/AAAAAAAAsgI/KQINmTYQkkQ/s1600/lippman.jpg" /></a></div>
Lippman takes "thrillers" in a different direction. I don't know if it's even fair to describe this book as a member of any genre, really.<br />
<br />
A group of five young people find each other. There are two girls and three boys, the three boys all brothers and the two girls friends. They do a lot of exploring together, and one day happen upon a shack far from anywhere, and learn that an old black man lives there. They make his acquaintance and visit him from time to time. He lives on handouts and they manage to slip food from their homes to bring to him.<br />
<br />
One day it all changes. One of the girls, Gwen, gets together with one of the brothers, Sean, and the group breaks apart. The two take to the shed from time to time to make out, when "Chicken George" - their name for the old black man - is not there. One evening the youngest boy, Gordon, is not home for supper on time and fathers head out to look for him. They come upon Gordon and Mickey (the other girl) running from the shack, and Chicken George lying on the ground. They tell the adults that George had molested Gordon and they knocked him down.<br />
<br />
This much we learn fairly early on.<br />
<br />
This much the group carries around with it, as do the fathers involved. We, the readers, know there is something more, but what it is we do not know. Gordon was always a fuck-up, from an early age. He becomes an alcoholic and ultimately kills himself, and this is when it really begins. But it's not really a rerun of "The Big Chill". Chapter by chapter we get to know the different friends a bit more and we get to know little bits more about their time together and apart. And in the end we do learn the secret. I won't tell.<br />
<br />
I had some trouble liking the characters, got a bit impatient at times, but kept reading and as the book started closing in it started to grab me. I had trouble putting it down and kept thinking about it when I was not reading it. It's really more an exploration of character than of a particular event. We can't trust Lippman to bring us out safely, which is one of the intriguing things about her.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5322695632018785741.post-11534628283296834762012-01-23T18:28:00.000-08:002012-01-23T18:28:45.487-08:002012 ALA Notable Books<div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/notablebooks/lists/2012" style="color: #860000; text-decoration: none;">http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/notablebooks/lists/2012</a></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>FICTION:</strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Banks, Russell. Lost Memory of Skin. Ecco. 9780061857638</strong><br />
A surprisingly sympathetic exploration of the lives and treatment of sex offenders and how this reflects on our society.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Knopf. 9780307957122</strong><br />
A 60-something retiree living near London searches through his memories to discern what role, if any, he may have played in a decades-old tragedy.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>deWitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers. Ecco. 9780062041265</strong><br />
A darkly comic and quixotic quest western tale about two brothers whose divergent world views are presented in sparkling prose and originality.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Goldman, Francisco. Say Her Name. Grove. 9780802119810</strong><br />
Poetic novelization of the author’s struggle to cope with his young wife’s accidental death.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Harbach, Chad. The Art of Fielding. Little, Brown. 9780316126694</strong><br />
One man’s failure to attain perfection on the baseball field reveals the pain and beauty that life offers in this psychologically astute novel.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>MacLeod, Alexander. Light Lifting. Biblioasis. 9781897231944</strong><br />
Seven fearless short stories explore the limits of physical and emotional endurance in muscular prose.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Obreht, Téa. The Tiger’s Wife. Random House. 9780385343831</strong><br />
After the death of her beloved grandfather, a young doctor navigates family history, folklore, and love across ethnic barriers in a war-torn country.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Ondaatje, Michael. The Cat’s Table. Knopf. 9780307700117</strong><br />
An adventurous 21-day ocean voyage filled with a rich assortment of characters and escapades resonates through a boy’s life on his way to a new life.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Phillips, Arthur. The Tragedy of Arthur. Random House. 9781400066476</strong><br />
In an adulthood marred by family dysfunction, an author who dislikes Shakespeare reluctantly finds himself in possession of the Bard’s lost gem. Or does he?</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Russell, Karen. Swamplandia! Knopf. 9780307263995</strong><br />
An inventive story set in an alligator theme-park navigates boundaries between childhood and adulthood, imagination and reality, in an American landscape both familiar and surreal.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Torres, Justin. We the Animals. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 9780547576725</strong><br />
Searing portrait of a troubled, mixed-race working class family centers on the youngest son as he struggles to find his identity amid affection and abuse.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Trevor, William. Selected Stories. Viking. 9780670022069</strong><br />
These finely sculpted and timeless stories provide a greater appreciation for finding beauty in the minutiae of daily life.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>NONFICTION:</strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Adams, Mark. Right Turn at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time. Dutton. 9780525952244</strong><br />
In this humorous travelogue, the author sprinkles historical anecdote with investigative reporting as he retraces the steps of early explorers into ancient Peru.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Bartók, Mira. The Memory Palace. Free Press. 9781439183311</strong><br />
Beautifully wrought memoir chronicles the 17-year estrangement of the author and her homeless, schizophrenic mother, and the painful reunion that brings them together.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Gleick, James. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. Knopf. 9780375423727</strong><br />
This comprehensive study, a melodious interplay between science and literature, documents the transmission of human knowledge from the talking drums to the Internet.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. Norton. 9780393064476</strong><br />
Meditation on the power of literature, examining how a medieval book hunter’s serendipitous discovery of an ancient prose poem provides a theoretical bridge to the Renaissance.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Random House. 9781400064168</strong><br />
An Olympic runner’s physical and inner-strength is tested by the experience and aftermath of a plane crash, 42 days at sea, and Japanese imprisonment.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Hitchens, Christopher. Arguably: Essays. Twelve. 9781455502776</strong><br />
Polymath and public intellectual displays his considerable range and biting wit in these thoughtful, incisive pieces that provoke and challenge.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Homans, Jennifer. Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. Random House. 9781400060603</strong><br />
Elegant, authoritative work traces the evolution of classical dance from the 16th century to today, highlighting social and cultural dimensions of this traditional art form.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. 9780374275631</strong><br />
Entertaining look at the complexities and oddities that characterize our mental processes from the only psychologist ever to have won the Nobel Prize for Economics.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Marable, Manning. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Viking. 9780670022205</strong><br />
Definitive work on his life and transformation from petty thief to charismatic leader of during the turbulent civil rights era.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Millard, Candace. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President. Doubleday. 9780385526265</strong><br />
Era of great corruption and change in U.S. history is illuminated through the tragic story of two men – one destined for greatness, the other a madman.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Mukherjee, Siddhartha. Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Scribner. 9781439107959</strong><br />
The history of these diseases and their treatment is examined through the stories of those seeking to discover a cure and the individuals affected.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Reitman, Janet. Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 9780618883028</strong><br />
An investigation of the origins, personalities, and controversies of this uniquely American religious movement.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>POETRY:</strong></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Rimbaud, Arthur. Illuminations. Translated by John Ashbery. Norton. 9780393076356</strong><br />
A vigorous new translation of the French prodigy’s last poems as rendered by one of America’s finest contemporary poets.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><strong>Bartlett, Jennifer, Sheila Black, and Michael, Northen. Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. Cinco Puntos. 9781935955054</strong><br />
Collection of poems and essays that provides insight into the lives of the estimated 50 million Americans with disabilities.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0