Month: June 2013

interpreter of maladies

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Lahiri, Jhumpa. interpreter of maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

“Interpreter of Maladies” is all about human nature and how perceptions can change in the blink of an eye. Mr. Kapasi is a Indian tour guide with a second job as a interpreter for a medical center. While chauffeuring a family of Americans around he shares this information and explains that since he is multilingual he is able to interpret the patient’s malady to the doctor and the doctor’s remedy back to the patient. He has never thought about this occupation as being anything more than that until the mother of the family compliments him and shows an interest in his work. Mr Kapasi is at first flattered and his head soon fills with a fantasy involving the mother. This fantasy grows until she shares a terrible secret with him. Everything changes. The woman he once admired and fantasized about is nothing more than a dumb tourist.

“A Temporary Matter” is such a sad story! Plain and simple it’s about a marriage. Their relationship is young, only four years old, but it is damaged by the stillbirth of their first child. As with any couple devastated by the loss of a child, they each handle the tragedy differently. The one thing they have in common is a mutual pulling away from one another. When the electric company sends notice that their electricity will be cut for one hour each night for five days they look forward to the darkness; of not being able to see one another. It’s during this dark period that secrets come out and it seems like their relationship can be turned around.

Reason read: June is National Short Story Month

Author fact: Lahiri has also written a book, The Namesake, that was made into a movie.

Book trivia: Interpreter of Maladies has won a Pulitzer, a PEN/Hemingway, a New Yorker Debut and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

Golden Spruce

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Vaillant, John. The Golden Spruce: a True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

I like to think of Vaillant’s book as a guided tour. He flies his readers over British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, giving us a bird’s eye view of the forest sacred to the Haida tribe. He then swoops in lower to let us examine the history and culture of not only the land and its people, but of the logging industry hellbent on destroying it all. Once we have an understanding of the amazing expanse of British Columbia’s natural forest Vaillant lands us squarely on the life of Grant Hadwin, logger turned activist. Vaillant has strategically shown us both sides of the coin before introducing us to Hadwin’s shocking act of protest. Once responsible for mapping out logging roads Hadwin had a change of heart (and mind – he was rumored to be mentally ill and on medication) about the work he was supporting and defiantly cut down the area’s largest 300 year old Sitka spruce.

The only thing off-putting about the entire book was the ginormous photograph of John Vaillant on the back of his book. True, it’s his first book so he’s allowed to be proud of the effort but it seemed a little over the top for me.

Quotes I liked, “The trail of a person, or the thread of a story, is easily lost in such a place” (p 8) and, “Relatively speaking, most people up here feel about Hadwin they way people in the States feel about Timothy McVeigh: he’s an outsider who came into their place and killed something precious” (p 235).

Reason read: Roald Amundsen supposedly died in June (1928). He went missing and his body was never found. Ironically, 1928 is the same year Glen and Bessie Hyde went missing (Grand Ambition). But, Amundsen was the first explorer to traverse the Inside Passage. Oh, and by the way – Grant Hadwin also went missing and was never heard from again after he was set to go to trial for the felling of the great golden spruce.

Author fact: The Golden Spruce in John Vaillant’s first book.

Book trivia: I like it when a book broadens my horizons in unusual ways. Vaillant made me look up and find Our Lady of Good Voyage although he did not describe her as such. I had the following clues to go by: Mary, boat, statue, Gloucester.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go  in the chapter called “Inside the Inside Passage” (p 106).

The Bridegroom

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Jin, Ha. The Bridegroom: stories. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

“A Tiger-Fighter is Hard To Find”
It all starts with a letter from the governor’s office, praising a television series about a tiger killer. The show is a good example of a hero but there is one tiny flaw – the tiger doesn’t look realistic enough. If they can solve that dilemma their series might be chosen to compete for a national prize. The solution? The hero should battle a real tiger, a real Siberian caught in the mountains. Told from the point of the lowly set clerk who has the responsibility of making each take look like the last, he is witness to the obsession which dominates cast and crew behavior once the idea of competing for a national prize sets in. They go to great lengths to secure the tiger and even greater lengths to find someone to “kill” the tiger. It is a devastating story.

“After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town”
A sad story about an American chain restaurant in China – a culinary culture clash. Five restaurant employees are confused by their Americanized friend. He used to be one of them until he went to America and came back with a changed name and a new attitude. As their resentment towards him grows the five friends set up to sabotage the restaurant only to have their plan backfire horribly.

In both stories the major theme is a loss of control and the lengths people will go to to get it back.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month….have I said that before?

Author fact: Ha Jin is probably better known for his novel Waiting.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “China Voices” (p 110).

Suzy’s Case

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Siegel, Andy. Suzy’s Case. New york: Scribner, 2012.

Suzy’s Case is a rolling stone. After the plot gets a little push the action gets faster and faster. Enter Tug Wyler, personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer who defends mostly small time crooks and big shot criminals. When asked to beg off a no-win case for a colleague Wyler finds himself reluctantly giving it a second look for unprofessional reasons. When Suzy, a young sickle cell patient, is left severely brain damaged after a freak stroke every professional told her mother there was no evidence of hospital malpractice. Every expert involved swore off the case except Suzy’s determined mother. If it weren’t for her good looks and ever better figure Wyler would have been walking away as well. As an excuse to get closer to Suzy’s beguiling mother Wyler declares there is a case and suddenly the game is on. Murder and mayhem ensue. Wyler’s life is even endangered three different times.
It took me a few chapters to warm up to Siegel’s main character, Tug Wyler. It was if Siegel was trying too hard to make Wyler a complete personality without letting the character development happen organically. It’s almost too much too soon. Wyler comes across as a hybrid of jerk and sensitive guy. He is wisecracking and womanizing and less than ethical in his tactics to win a case. He’s almost a cliche lawyer; the kind you love to hate. But, in the end you root for him because, after all that, he’s one of the good guys.

Reason read: Blood is thicker than water.

Author fact: Suzy’s Case is Andy Siegel’s first book.

Book trivia: Don’t be put off by the author’s photo on the dust jacket! Although, you’ll end up doing what I did – staring at the picture trying to determine how much Tug Wyler is in Andy Siegel and vice versa.

In the Land of Men

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Nelson, Antonya. In the Land of Men: Stories. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1992.

“In the Land of Men” is a twelve page enormously powerful tale. What would you do if you lost your mother to cancer and left you alone with a father and three teenage brothers; left you living “in the land of men?” What would you do if said brothers, Les, Sam & Donald, find and kidnap your rapist? He’s in the trunk of the family car and their only question to you is, what do you want to do? The story leaves you hanging, holding your breath.

“Goodbye Midwest” could also have been called “Goodbye Roxanne.” It’s the story of an adult woman looking back on a lost friendship from childhood. Best friends from middle school, Roxanne was her opposite in everything. Why they were even friends in the first place is a mystery…but that’s the beauty of coming of age. Everything is a mystery.

Quote I liked, ” She wants to be young, off balance, teetering purposefully next to her husband, drinking something serious like bourbon” ( 120).

Reason read: June is short story month. Still.

Book trivia: In the Land of Men is comprised of fourteen short stories of which I only read two. But, I do have other Nelson books to read on the challenge list.

Author fact: Antonya Nelson’s stories have appeared in Playboy.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p ).

Patrimony

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Roth, Philip. Novels and Other Narratives 1986 – 1991. Patrimony: A True Story. New York: Library of America, 2008.

I will admit this was hard to read. For starters it is about the relationship Roth had with his father and the illness that finally took that relationship away. Any story about a father tugs at my heart strings because mine is no longer with me. Secondly, Roth’s father died of a brain tumor. My aunt had a brain tumor and while it isn’t the same kind her life has been changed forever because of it. I grieve for the person she used to be.

Philip Roth delivers a touching tribute to his father. With eloquence,  humor and the utmost respect he shares his father’s illness leading up to his final days. Herman Roth wakes up one morning to a strange paralysis, drooping eyelid, slack cheek and slurred speech, on one side of his face. Thinking he has had a stroke Philip takes his father to see a doctor. The news is worse. Herman has a brain tumor at the base of his skull that has been growing for ten years. What follows is a journey of father and son, navigating medical treatments and traversing the rough road of relationships. The result is a touching memoir of discovery for both father and son. If you have never read anything by Roth, read this.

Line that stopped me dead, “You clean up your father’s shit because it has to be cleaned up, but in the aftermath of cleaning it up, everything that’s there to feel is felt as it never was before” (p689). Wow.

Reason read: Father’s Day is June 16th this year. I am reading Patrimony in honor of the father I lost on September 21, 1992.

Author fact: An interesting website for Roth is here.

Book trivia: In 1992 Roth received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony: a True Story.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 163).

Impossible Things

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Willis, Connie. Impossible Things. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.

“Ado” is a super short story about an English teacher trying to get her class to study Shakespeare. The problem is this, every play is contested by some watchdog group. Mortician International takes offense to the word, “casket” in Act III, Students Against Suicide protest Ophelia’s drowning, and so on. Even the students are allowed to refuse to learn a subject. Willis prefaced the story with an explanation, “political correctness is getting out of hand” (p 115).

“At the Rialto” had me laughing from the very first pages. Dr. Ruth Baringer is a quantum physicist attending a chaos conference in Hollywood, California. Only she can’t even check into her room because her name isn’t in the registry. In fact, nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Rooms where lectures are supposed to be occurring either have talks on channeling or stand empty. To make matters worse there is a colleague who is hell bent on trying to distract Dr. Baringer from attending a single lecture even if it is the wrong one. The chaos is just trying to attend the conference on chaos.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month.

Author fact: Oddly enough I couldn’t find an award for Impossible Things which seems entirely impossible because Willis has won awards for nearly everything else she has written.

Book trivia: Impossible Things is made up of eleven stories of which I only read two.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Connie Willis: Too Good To Miss” (p 247).

Full Catastrophe Living

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Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Random House Audio, 2008.

Let’s start with the bad news. I listened to this on audio while driving to and from work. Not a good idea. When the cd would finish and start again at track one I wouldn’t notice for a few moments. I wouldn’t notice for two reasons. One, there was nothing in the way of a fictional plot to make me say, “hey, I’ve heard this before” and two, the book was so repetitious I wasn’t sure if the cd was starting over again or if Kabat-Zinn was just repeating himself again. The other reason why I shouldn’t have listened to this on cd is the fact I wasn’t paying full attention to his words. Pretty ironic since that’s what his whole premise is about, being mindful of everything you do. I couldn’t be 100% mindful of what I was listening to without giving some attention to the automobile I was operating. The good news is this – I learned something. I took away huge chunks of Kabat-Zinn’s lessons. There are two parts that really resonated with me: seeing your mind as an ocean. On the surface the waves are choppy, chaotic and stressful. But, if you drill down to your very essence you will find a calmness, a serenity that should be tapped into each and everyday. Kabat-Zinn’s parallel example is the ways in which we used to live by nature’s rhythm. Before electricity we rose with the sun and worked for as long as there was natural light. We slept when it was dark. Modern conveniences have pushed us out of those rhythms, allowing us to keep working long past dark. The second ah-ha moment was the connection to food. I never thought about the what, where, when, why, how, and with whom aspect of eating. The psychological attachments to what we eat, when we eat, why we eat, how we eat and with whom we eat is profound and I never thought about it that way before. It changes my relationship with food. All in all, despite the repetitive nature of the book I enjoyed Full Catastrophe Living. Next time I will read the book!

Reason Read: Jon Kabat-Zinn was born in June.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Help Yourself” (p 110).

Among the Missing

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Chaon, Dan. Among the Missing. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

Two short stories from Among the Missing:

“Big Me” is the creepy tale about a boy who thinks he sees his adult self in a substitute teacher at his school. Andy fantasizes about being a detective and spends his spare time torturing confessions out of cats and breaking into people’s homes. When he snoops around the home of his teacher he discovers a photograph of a boy who looks a lot like him. Soon Andy is keeping a journal of his adult self’s life as if it were his own.
Best quote, “Sometimes I think: if no one knows you, then you are no one” (p 52).

“Something to Remember Me By” is the even creepier tale about a man whose best friend had disappeared when they were fourteen. Even though it’s fifteen years later Tom still feels the guilt. The missing boy’s parents have inserted themselves into Tom’s life as if to keep the memory of their own son alive. Seeing them makes Tom feel guilty. What drives Tom’s guilt is the fact he knows more about his friend’s disappearance than he’s letting on. And, to add to the guilt he knows he can never tell.

Reason read: June is national short story month. Hence, a whole bunch of short stories.

Book trivia: Among the Missing is a National Book Award finalist.

Author fact: Dan Chaon has a website and the main page is his blog which appears to be links to reviews. So, not really his blog…theoretically. You can check it out here, if you want.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Short Stories” (p 220).

Death in Verona

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Lewis, Roy Harley. Death in Verona. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

Matthew Coll is looking for the real Romeo and Juliet. He has gone to Verona for a little holiday and to research the Capulets and Montagues to find out if these families did indeed exist. Matthew has reason to believe Shakespeare repeated a familiar story already told a few times and that a journal hand written by Sen. Capulet is out there somewhere. Unfortunately for Matthew, when he arrives in Verona his holiday isn’t what he expected when he finds himself squarely in the center of a murder and he’s accused of being the murderer.

Great line: “They stared at me blankly; crooks who obviously never contemplated legitimate means of making money” (p 107).

Reason read: The Arena di Verona festival is in June.

Book trivia: Death in Verona is the fifth book in the series featuring Matthew Coll, bookseller/detective.

Author fact: Roy Harley Lewis is a bookseller specializing in rare books just like Matthew Coll…hmmm… wonder if he is a closet detective as well?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Verona” (p 244).

Grand Ambition

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Michaels, Lisa. Grand Ambition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001.

The year is 1928. America is spellbound by adventurous feats like the one of Charles Lindbergh’s first transatlantic flight. Amelia Earhart is in the news with her own daring flight. It’s only natural that a man by the name of Glen Hyde, interested in running whitewater, would want to set some records of his own.

Grand Ambition starts with the first person narrative of Reith Hyde, father of Glen Hyde. Reith sets the ominous tone and the sense of foreboding. Keeping track of his son and new wife’s progress down the rapids of the Colorado River he knows they are late reaching their next point. Surely, something is wrong…
Glen, 30 and Bessie Hyde, 23 are a true life ambitious and adventurous newlywed couple who dared to go down the rapids of the Grand Canyon in a homemade boat in late 1928. Glen, an experienced boater, wanted to be the fastest man to complete the journey. Bessie was romanced by the idea of being the first woman to do the same even though she was a novice. They were almost at the end when something went horribly wrong and they were never heard from again. Lisa Michaels takes to task telling their heroic story, imagining what they went though and their ultimate demise. Interspersed between the adventure is the personal history of Bessie and how she came to meet Glen, fall in love with him and find herself boating down the rapids of the Colorado River. On the other side of the story is the search for Glen and Bessie. Glen’s desperate father, Reith, will stop at nothing to find his son.

As I was reading this I couldn’t help but think of my friend and the book he wrote about his own adventure down in the Grand Canyon. I wondered if he saw the same rock formations, the same rapids untouched by time.

Lines to remember, “…she had been a brief accident of his early twenties made into holy law…” (p 21), “Death didn’t miss you because you stood still” (p 44), and “Love is another country” (p 195).

Reason read: June is adventure month. Knowing this always makes me feel like I should be living an adventure, not reading about one.

Author fact: Grand Ambition is Michael’s debut novel.

Book trivia: I could see this being a really cool movie, but it’s not.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Adventure By The Book: Fiction” (p 7). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “AZ You Like It” (p 31). As an aside, Grand Ambition is indexed as just Ambition in Book Lust To Go.

When Blackbirds Sing

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Boyd, Martin. When Blackbirds Sing, a Novel. London: Abelard-Schman, 1962.

When Blackbirds Sing is the last installment in the Langton quartet. We rejoin Dominic as he journeys back to war, re-enlisting at the start of World War I. Leaving his wife in Australia to tend to their sheep farm he heads back to England and reconnects with an old flame, Sylvia.
After killing a man and witnessing the atrocities of war Dominic has sobered of all immoral actions and indiscretions. He returns home to Australia a changed man inside and out.
I can honestly say I enjoyed this book much more than the last three (none of which I completely finished). Still, everything about Boyd’s quartet was old and stuffy. The series is supposed to depict the early 1900s but the writing seems older and more staid than that.

Reason read: to finish the series started in April – April being the best time to visit Australia.

Author fact: Boyd was better known for his book Lucinda Brayford.

Book trivia: The jacket cover for When Blackbirds Sing is hideous.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29).

Cat Who Ate Danish Modern

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Braun, Lilian Jackson. The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern. Read by George Guidall. New York: Recorded Books, LLC, 1990.

Jim Qwilleran is a reporter for “The Daily Fluxon.” He has led a simple life until he is asked to write for “Gracious Abodes,” a magazine specializing in interior decorating of lavish homes. Qwilleran is paired with David Lyke, an interior designer who leads him to all the fashionable homes he has put on his designer touch. Oddly enough after each cover story is published something terrible happens at the featured home. First, there is the home of George Tait. His expensive jade collection is stolen and his wife dies of an apparent heart attack. Then, house number two is raided for being a brothel after it is featured on the cover of “Gracious Abodes.” At the third residence there is a murder…Qwilleran keenly watches the behavior of his Siamese Cat, Koko, to figure out the mystery.

“Reason read: June is National Cat Month…or something like it.

Book Trivia: Get the audio version and listen to George Guidall read the character of David Lyke. It’s hysterical.

Author fact: Braun passed away two years ago which is a shame because I really think I would have gotten along with her. Her descriptions of cat behavior are spot on!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Cat Crazy ” (p 52). Incidentally, Pearl says this particular “Cat” book is her favorite.

Servants of the Map

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Barrett, Andrea. Servants of the Map. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.

“Servants of the Map”
Max Vigne is an English Civil Junior Sub-Assistant surveyor in the Himalayas away from his wife and young family. As a member of the surveying party, through letters he describes his daily existence, leaving out the hardships and cruelties (like finding the body of a man who apparently died of the elements). Through those same letters the reader is exposed to Max’s inability to synthesize with this surroundings. Being from England he is embarrassed by his lily-white skin while everyone else on the team is dark and tanned. The differences go deeper than skin and culture. Max is drawn to the natural world, wanting to explore it more than reconnect with his marriage and life back home.

“The Cure”
It is December 1905 in the Adirondacks. Elizabeth and Andrew run a private home for health-seekers. They have nine boarders at the moment and one, Mr. Martin Sawyer, is dying. Elizabeth thinks her husband hides whenever someone is sick but really he is channeling the healing powers of Nora Kynd. Andrew believes in the healing qualities of magnets. They “shift the shape of the aura surrounding each person into a new and more healthful alignment” (p 203). On Nora’s birthday he honors her spirit by placing magnets in the chimney, hoping it will help Mr. Sawyer.
There are a lot of other characters to keep track of. Here are just a few:

  • Livvie and Rosellen – they help Elizabeth run the house
  • Mrs Temple – the nurse who left three days earlier
  • Dorrie and Emeline – they also run private homes for health-seekers
  • Bessie Brennan – Dorrie’s mother. She was the first to rent a room to a sick stranger
  • Mr. Woodruff – a Baltimore banker who roomed with Bessie
  • Olive – Bessie’s cousin
  • Aaron Brown – a boarder who died
  • Mr. Davis – another boarder
  • Mr. Cameron – an astronomy teacher from Connecticut, also a boarder
  • Nora Kynd – she taught Elizabeth, Dorrie and Emeline their trade. She came from Detroit, Michigan and has passed away.

Barrett takes the time to jump back to Nora Kynd’s story – how she fled to America from Ireland; how she was separated from her only living relatives, her two younger brothers; how she befriended a healer by the name of Fanny McCloud who taught her everything she knew; how she came to the Adirondacks. Like “Servants of the Map” this story focuses on science, this time trying to cure people of consumption or tuberculosis.

Line I liked, “Trying to stay in touch without touch; how that effort changes us” (p 29).

Reason read: June is short story month and so the short stories continue.

Author fact: Barrett was born in Boston.

Book trivia: Servants of the Map was nominated for a Pulitzer. Very cool.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 102).