Tag: book review

Love Medicine

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Louise Erdrich. Love Medicine. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984.

Reason read: Erdrich’s birth month is in June. June is also Family Month, so take your pick.

This is such a powerful book on so many different levels. It is the story of two different Native American families, rich with culture and tradition. Even though June Kashpaw dies within the first chapter, her spirit threads through the entire rest of the story. Just like the history of the land they live on, every subsequent character is complicated and vibrant. This isn’t a plot-driven novel. Instead, the characters with their robust personalities and passionate life experiences make Love Medicine come alive.

Quote worth mentioning, “She always used the royal we, to multiply the censure of what she said by invisible others” (p 7).

Author fact: Erdrich also wrote Beet Queen which is also on my Challenge list. Another piece of trivia – Erdrich was married to Michael Dorris who wrote Yellow Raft in Blue Water one of my all time favorite books.

Book trivia: Love Medicine was a national bestseller.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American Indian Literature” (p 23) and also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains: the Dakotas” (p 106)

Nine Stories

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Salinger, J. D. Nine Stories. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1948.

Reason read: June is Short Story Month

 

Both short stories I read share a central theme of a soldier who is more comfortable conversing with a child than any adult.

“A Perfect Day for a Bananafish”
He is a soldier who strikes up a conversation with a young child on a Florida beach. The phone conversation his wife has with her mother early in the story indicates he is suicidal, although the reader doesn’t clearly see this until the end. For that reason, it is worth rereading. Clues become clearer with a second read.
Line I liked, “She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing” (p 4).
“For Esme – with Love and Squalor”
He is a soldier who strikes up a conversation with a teenager in a restaurant. She is precocious and intelligent. Wise beyond her years. Through letters with Esme the soldier is able to cope with the squalor of war.

Author fact: Everyone knows Salinger penned Catcher in the Rye because everyone has read Catcher in the Rye. Right?

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

Thirty-Three Teeth

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Cotterill, Colin. Thirty-Three Teeth. New York: SoHo Press, 2005.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Rocket Day in Laos.

Thirty-Three Teeth takes up exactly where The Coroner’s Lunch left off. It is now March 1977 and an Asian black bear has just escaped from somewhere. Is this the terrible beast that has been mauling unsuspecting victims to death?

Adding to Dr. Siri’s title of reluctant coroner is confused psychic – “for reasons he was still trying to fathom he’d been delegated Lao’s honorary consul to the spirit world” (p 13).

Siri still has his sidekicks, Nurse Dtui, Mr. Geung and even Saloop, the dog who hated him in the beginning of Coroner’s Lunch. Nurse Dtui and Saloop have bigger roles this time around.

As an aside, the title of the book comes from the belief that if someone has 33 teeth it is a sign they were born as a bridge to the spirit world. You guessed it, Dr. Siri has 33 teeth. One of the best scenes is when he is trying to run his tongue along his teeth to count them.

Spoiler alert: Revenge is a powerful thing. I was very sad by what happened to Saloop.

Lines that made me laugh, “Diarrhea, in it’s most vindictive state, can erase even thoughts of terror” (p 20), “Siri was impressed that the department of information could provide so little of it” (p 31), “Honesty can be a dirty gift” (p 65), and one more, “When you befriend a man whose mind lives on a distant star, you deserve whatever you get” (p 159).

Author fact: at the time of publication of Thirty-Three Teeth Cotterill was living in Thailand.

Book trivia: Thirty-Three Teeth is short; easily read in one day.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Laos” (p 128).

Lucky Girls

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Freudenberger, Nell. Lucky Girls: Stories. New York: Harper Collins, 2013.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month

“The Orphan”
This is the short story of a family splintering in different directions. The parents are separated and on the verge of getting a divorce. The nearly adult children are in Thailand and Bangor, Maine – worlds apart from one another. When the family converges in Bangkok it is an orphan that shifts the tide for them all, individually and as a family.
I can’t decide if I like Alice or not. As a mother, what should she have done when her kid calls up and says not only has she been assaulted, but raped as well? That’s not the sort of thing you let drop when the kid suddenly changes her story and says it’s no big deal.
Lines I liked, “She drops the dog, possibly robbing him mother of his life” (p 31) and “…often, when you step around the conventional way of doing things, you end up with something worse” (p 56).

“Outside the Eastern Gates”
The protagonist in “Outside the Eastern Gate” is like any 40 year old person facing the deteriorating aging of a parent. There is a sense of bafflement at the role reversal; a sense of sadness about being away for so long. Upon returning to Delhi she remembers the desperate longing for her mother’s love while simultaneously coping with her father’s Alzheimer diagnosis.
A line to like, “The bogeyman appears in the first forty seconds after nightfall” (p 68). Good to know.

As an aside, did you see Jimmy Fallon’s tribute to Prince (otherwise known as the ping pong story)? Now, whenever anyone mentions ping pong (as was mentioned in “Outside the Eastern Gate”) I will think of the last line of Jimmy’s story, “Ask your boy.”

Author fact: Feudenberger has taught English in Bangkok and New Delhi.

Book trivia: Lucky Girls is Feudenberger’s first book.

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

The Millstone

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Drabble, Margaret. The Millstone. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1965.

Reason read: June is national family month.

Rosamund is pregnant. In her world, this might be okay if she was married and looking to start a family. The problem is, she is a Renaissance literature scholar pursuing her doctorate and living off mommy and daddy while they tour Africa. She only became pregnant right after her first and only sexual encounter. She’s as naive as they come. She had been dating two guys at once and was still a virgin…until she met George (who she thought was gay and therefore had nothing to worry about). It is very telling when she asks herself, “I wondered on how many other serious scores would I find myself ignorant” (p 44). Just wait until you read how she thought she could make herself miscarry.
But, all is not lost. When Rosamund decides to keep the baby and starts to experience motherhood first hand a new personality emerges.

Lines I liked, “The gin kept me gay and undespairing and I thought that I might ring up George and tell him about it” (p 20), “She just stared straight ahead and the word that was written on her face was endurance” (p 75), “I knew something now of the quality of life, and anything in the way of happiness that I should hereafter receive would be based on fact and not hope” (p 158).

Author fact: A.S. Byatt and Margaret Drabble are sisters.

Book trivia: Drabble writes in pages-long paragraphs that I sometimes found distracting. Of note: there aren’t any chapters so finding good stopping points was tricky.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 6).

Master of the Senate

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Caro, Robert. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2009.

Reason read: to finish (finally, finally!) the series started in February in honor of Presidents Day.

This was a chore for me. For one, I have never been a huge history buff. Secondly, Caro painted Johnson to be such a lying and bullying politician in the first book that I didn’t think I wanted to know anything more about him, as master of the senate, future president, or not. To say that Master of the Senate is well researched is an understatement. This biography goes well beyond Lyndon’s life. Like Path to Power and Means of Ascent before it, Master of the Senate broad in its scope and extremely thorough.

Book trivia: Master of the Senate won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies (p 192).

Arab and Jew

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Shipler, David K. Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. Read by Robert Blumenfeld. New York: Blackstone Audio, 2003.

Reason read: May is the most beautiful time of the year to visit the middle east…or so I have heard.

This is the history of the relationship between Arab and Jew. Shipler painstakingly traces the prejudice back to its origin and examines the cultural, religious, and socioeconomic divide that has existed ever since. Shipler’s reporting is exemplary. He is unbiased but obviously very concerned about the everyday ordinary people just trying to survive in this land of unrest. Shipler’s voice is at once delicate and forthright in his descriptions and details involving terrorism, nationalism, and political conflict. He refers frequently to information he has collected from textbooks of various grade levels to demonstrate the education & “miseducation” of middle eastern children.

Probably the most disturbing section (for me) was about sexual attitudes, especially those surrounding rape.

Quotes that caught my attention, “Battle has its thrills as well as its regrets” and “Too much hope seems doused in blood.” Because I am listening to this on (22!) CDs I have no idea what actual page these quotes are on.

Book trivia: I listened to an unabridged and revised edition of Arab and Jew. This was also made into a movie in 1989.

Author fact: Shipler won a Pulitzer for Arab and Jew in 1987.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the vague chapter called “The Middle East” (p 154).

Brilliant Orange

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Winner, David. Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer. New York: Overlook Press,2002.

Reason read: Holland celebrates its tulips in May with a big festival.

I didn’t know anything about dutch football (soccer) before reading this book. I have to admit I was a little worried I would be bored because, to be honest, I didn’t know anything about soccer period. It’s a sport I never played as a kid or watched as an adult.*

*As an aside, I just watched a documentary on Serbia soccer. Call me crazy but I don’t think the Dutch have anything on the Serbs when it comes to fanaticism.

ESPN had it right when they said on the back cover of Brilliant Orange, “you like soccer, you don’t like soccer, it doesn’t matter.” It’s true. Hate, indifference, like or love. No matter which way, this is an enjoyable read. Winner definitely knows his material and isn’t dry in his delivery. He could write about the science of flies on fly paper and I would probably browse it. Be prepared to learn a lot about soccer/football. Be pleasantly surprised by everything else you learn. Among other things, Winner compares soccer to ballet in its artistry. He makes comparisons to politics. He sees similarities with architecture, society, humanity.
Interesting points to mention – a paranormal expert thought the Dutch football team always lost because there was a problem with the team color of orange. Another “expert” blamed it on a deep seeded mistrust of authority so they couldn’t obey the refs.

Quotes to quote, “To play in a beautiful attacking way has become the Eleventh Commandment for the Dutch” (p 145),

Author fact: Winner likes soccer. He also wrote about the history of English soccer.

Book trivia: It would have been really cool to have pictures of the football teams or at least one of the sport’s hero, Johan Cruyff.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust to Go in the cheesy chapter called “Hollandays” (p 96).

Perks of Being a Wallflower

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Chbosky, Stephen. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. New York: Gallery Books, 1999.

Reason read: May is considered “Birds and Bees Month” and oddly enough (or coincidentally?), some schools chose to teach their sex ed at this time. Spring is the time for renewal!

This is one of those books you can read cover to cover on a rainy afternoon but be forewarned, once you hit the last page you will flip back to page one and start all over again. At least I wanted to…Even though this was, “best for teens” as Nancy Pearl says, I loved it.
Charlie is a typical shy teenager on the eve of his first day as a freshman in high school. With a strong desire to unburden his life he’s writing letters, diary style, to an unknown person he has chosen out of the phone book. Why he writes these letters we’ll never know, but what emerges is a portrait of a sensitive kid just trying to make it in the world. Like a diary we are privy to his coming of age, his intellectual growth, his emerging personality. As I got to know Charlie better and better I found myself constantly sucking in my breath, willing him to not get hurt. I came to care about him that much. Even though the ending is a clear as an oncoming rain storm I didn’t want to believe in its terrible beauty.

Lines to mention, “Then, I turned and walked to my room and closed the door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be” (p 26), “So I guess Zen is a day like this when you are part of the air and remember things” (p 43), and the sentence that sums up Charlie the best, “I was just quiet and I watched him” (p 60). Typical wallflower behavior.

As an aside: Every book that Bill asks Charlie to read is a favorite of mine and when Charlie makes Patrick the mixed tape I knew every song (except I though he could have added more. Who ever heard of a mixed tape with only 13 songs?)

Author fact: Chbosky also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of rent.

Book trivia: Perks was made into a movie which I haven’t seen…yet.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23)

Two Towns in Provence

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Fisher, MFK. Two Towns in Provence: Map of Another Town. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.

Reason read: to finish the collection started in April in honor of Paris.

Two Towns in Provence contains two shorter geographical portraits, Map of Another Town and A Considerable Town. Confessional: I read them backwards: I thought Considerable Town was first until I received Two Towns in Provence.
There is no doubt a love-hate story within the pages of Two Towns. Fisher’s connection to Aix-en-Provence and Marseille couldn’t be clearer. In Map of Another Town Fisher focuses on Aix-en-Provence, France’s capital. Her stories weave around her time bringing up two small daughters, renting an apartment, and observing people and their culture. She spends a fair amount of time having imaginary exchanges with the locals. Most striking were the lessons on society and class: no matter the level of distress a person should not accept help from someone of a lower class and getting a child vaccinated was a process.

Quotes I’d like to quote, “It pressed upon my skin like the cold body of someone unloved” (p 17), “I wrapped myself in my innocence” (p 125), and “He was a man of the same indescribably malnourished twisted non-age of all such physical jetsam being helped by government benevolence…” (p 200).

Author fact: Once I am attuned to a language I seem to latch onto it. Words like evil, dangerous, hell, shabby, grotesque, dirty, desolate…Fisher complains for a lot of Map of another Town. I don’t know what it was about her tone, but she came across as bitchy to me. Fisher seems uncomfortable with the sick or elderly, always hurrying away from the dying. She seems easily annoyed by those around her.

Book trivia: Map of Another Town has wonderful illustrations by Barbara Westman. In the midst of this coloring craze, I could see someone filling in the black and white drawings with a little color.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Provence and the South of France” (p 187).

All the Rage

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Moran, Martin. All the Rage: a Quest. New York: Beacon Press, 2016

Reason read: Early Review for LibraryThing

Wow. Am I glad I requested this book and actually received it. Wow. I’m glad I read it, too. There are layers and layers to All the Rage. You could call them onion-like because some layers will make you cry but there is more than just sadness: humor, beauty, sarcasm, wit, and yes, rage. Moran finds his mad. I read this from the perspective of not knowing Martin’s story. I didn’t read his 2005 memoir, knew nothing of the play and missed the headlines concerning him entirely.

It is one thing to come to terms with being a victim of any kind of abuse but it’s another to sort out the myriad of feelings connected to and as a result of that abuse during and more so, afterwards. If your abuse is a secret, you live in constant fear of being found out. If you are “out” you are constantly bombarded with doubts that you are dealing with it appropriately. That is exactly what Moran addresses in All the Rage. When people learn of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of an adult they all want to know why he isn’t more angry. Where is his outrage? Where is his fury? Moving back and forth from memory to present day Moran is able to piece together his coping mechanisms and to see how every emotion is part of the process.

Beautiful lines, “The vague smell of medical sadness hung in the air, the business of staying alive a little longer” (p 125).

Author fact: Broadway doesn’t comes to Western Massachusetts very often (unless you consider Tanglewood an equivalent), so I was unaware of Moran’s talent as an actor. I think I liked it better that way because I wasn’t distracted by celebrity status and could just concentrate on the writing.

Book trivia: Read the praise for All the Rage on the back cover and you still won’t know what the book is about. The only thing you will know is that you want to read it. Now.

 

Bold Spirit

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Hunt, Linda Lawrence. Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America. Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 2003.

Reason read: I think it’s ironic that I am reading my first book in honor of Just ‘Cause the same year I chose not to participate. But, there you have it. Another irony is that this year Just ‘Cause is not doing their walk in May. It’s in June.

On May 5th 1896 Helga Estby and her daughter, Clara, embark on a cross country journey on foot to raise money for their impoverished family. Everything about this journey is fraught with risk. Consider the facts. First, her home life: Helga has nine children she must leave in the care of her out-of work-husband. As a Norwegian, this is a scandalous decision simply because women do not leave their families for anything. Second, the “scheme”: a wealthy yet unknown sponsor with ties to the fashion industry is offering a reward of $10,000 if Helga can walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City in seven months. Helga knows very little about this benefactor and the trip will be extremely dangerous. In addition, although this unknown sponsor wants to prove the physical endurance of women, she has a few rules.

  1. Helga and her daughter may only start out with $5 a piece. All other income must be earned along the way. [They end of selling photographs of themselves and doing odd chores.]
  2. They must visit each state’s capital.
  3. They must acquire the signature of prominent politicians
  4. Once arriving in Salt Lake City, must don a “reform costume” otherwise known as a bicycle skirt. This was an effort to display the latest fashion – a dress that was several inches shorter to give women “leg freedom” and was considered quite scandalous.
  5. They could not beg for anything – rides, food, or shelter.
  6. They could not pay for rides.
  7. They had to arrive in New York by early December.

This sets the stage for Hunt’s Bold Spirit but what emerges is a story about courage and commitment. Unfortunately, because Helga Estby and her family were so ashamed of her venture when it was all said and done, very little evidence of her walk was properly preserved. Most everything was willfully destroyed. As a result Hunt has to rely on speculation to fill in the gaps. Language like “they were likely”, “perhaps”, “it is possible”, probably”, and “they might have” pepper the entire book.

Book trivia: I like the design of this book a great deal. The photography is wonderful, too.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Walk Right In” (p 250).

Jordan

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Borgia, E. <Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash, Amman. Italy: Tipolitografica CS, 2001.

Reason read:

“We reconstruct lost memories to guide you into the past.”

Jordan: Past & Present is made up of three chapters, “Petra”, “Jerash” and “Amman – Philadelphia”. Each chapter outlines the plan of the city, historical data and an architectural  structure of interest (for my favorite, Petra, it was the theater and famous tombs). What makes this book so unique are the transparencies that cover current day photographs. The transparencies show what each city must have looked like, overlaying the current day photograph. It’s a unique blend of old and new that works very well.

Book trivia: I already mentioned the uniqueness of the transparencies.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Jordan” (p 119).

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day if the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: Signet, 1963.

Reason read: May is supposedly one of the best times to visit Russia.

Ivan Denisovich Shukhov (#S 854) is a prisoner in a Stalinist work camp in Siberia with only two years left on his sentence. This is one day in his life, from reveille to lights-out. It has been called extraordinary and I couldn’t agree more. Ivan is the very picture of bravery, hope and above all, survival. Solzhenitsyn relentlessly reminds the reader of the Siberian bitter winters by using variations of words like frost, ice, snow, chill, freeze and cold over 120 times. Added to that is the constant lack of warmth (mentioned another 25 times). While Solzhenitsyn is reminding readers of the cold, Shukov is stressing the importance of flying under the radar; avoiding detection and unwanted attention. Whether he is squirreling away food or tools he is careful not to rock the boat. He knows his fate can be altered in the blink of an eye or the time it takes for a guard to focus on him.

Lines to like, “No clocks or watches ticked there – prisoners were not allowed to carry watches; the authorities knew the time for them” (p 32) “The thoughts of a prisoner – they’re not free either” (p 47) and “As elated as a rabbit when it finds it can still terrify a frog” (p 118).

Author fact: Solzhenitsyn served in the Russian army & was accused of making anti-Stalin remarks. He was sent to prison and after Stalin’s death, pardoned. Later still the Soviet Union revoked his citizenship so he moved to Vermont. Go figure.

Book trivia: One Day was published as s short story in 1962 in a Soviet literary magazine and was seen as a social protest. This is his first published novel.

BookLust Twist: from two places: Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210) and from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Siberian Chills” (p 205).

Coroner’s Lunch

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Cotterill, Colin. The Coroner’s Lunch. New York: SoHo Press, 2004.

Reason read: Laos Rocket Day is in May. Coroner’s Lunch takes place in Laos.

This was one of those books where the plot steals you away. You sit down to read and before you know it your lunch break is over, your coffee is cold and a hundred pages have flown by before your eyes. It’s a fun read.
The year is October 1976 and Dr. Siri Paiboun is a reluctant chief police coroner for the Republic in Laos. He didn’t want the job. At 72 years old, he was ready to be a gardening, reading, coffee and brandy drinking retired physician. He lacked the qualifications to be a coroner, had next to no on-the-job training with dead people (in theory, as a physician he tried to avoid the dead at all cost) and truly lacked enthusiasm for the job entirely. Yet, when bodies suddenly start popping up with suspicious causes of death, with the help of few slightly charred textbooks from 1948, some ghosts, and his sidekicks, a Downs Syndrome technician and a dowdy nurse, Siri slowly embraces the role of detective/coroner. Complicating matters is the Communist Pathet Lao party. They want Siri to report on these deaths in only one way – natural causes. But thanks to Siri’s disregard for authority and his sly sense of humor he only wants one thing – the truth.
Yes, there is a paranormal element to The Coroner’s Lunch but it works. Everything about this book works. In fact. I read it in one day.

Author fact: Cotterill has one of the best websites I have seen in a long time here. I knew I would love it as soon as saw the “nose” joke. You’ll get it when you visit the site, so GO!

Book trivia: I got really excited when I read S.J. Rozen’s review of The Coroner’s Lunch because Cotterill was compared to Alexander McCall Smith, another favorite author.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called, “Laos” (p 128).