Tag: Fiction

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).

A Fresh Start for June

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May is ending with disappointment. The caboose of the story (instead of the whole train) is that due to work obligations Kisa & I were not able to make it to Maine for a long weekend over the holiday. As a result I had to burn two vacation days at home. June will be a better month. But, to be fair – May wasn’t so shabby for books:

  • Brilliant Orange by David Winner
  • Bold Spirit by Linda Hunt
  • Jordan by E. Borgia
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn
  • Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill
  • The Chosen by Chaim Potok
  • Map of Another Town by MFK Fisher
  • All the Rage by Martin Moran (ER)

ADDED:

  • Arab and Jew by David Shipler
  • Perks of Being a Wallflower by  David Chbosky

DNF:

  • Master of the Senate by Robert Caro

For JUNE, here are the books & why:

  1. Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada by Zoe Valdes in honor of Caribbean Heritage Month
  2. Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill to continue the series started in May
  3. Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich in honor of her birth month
  4. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble in honor of family month
  5. A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan in honor of World War II (D-Day)

June is National Short Story Month:

  • from Birds of America by Lorrie Moore:
    • Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens
    • People Like That are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk
  • from Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger:
    • The Orphan
    • Outside the Eastern Gate
  • from Nine Stories by JD Salinger:
    • A Perfect Day for a Bananafish
    • For Esme: with Love & Squalor

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)

May I Read

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I never recapped April nor predicted May. For the first time ever, April books are still being read. To be fair, the Lyndon Johnson series started in February so technically these leftovers are not specific either April nor May.

April was an oddball month in that my reading was all on the fly. I trained for another half marathon and that took a lot of my time. Not nearly as much as the full mara, but still…

Here are the Challenge books finished in April:

  • King Lear – Shakespeare (not scheduled)
  • Guernica – Van Hensbergen (not scheduled)
  • Grand Tour – Tim Moore
  • Green Thoughts – Eleanor Perenyi
  • Alice in Sunderland – Bryan Talbot
  • Considerable Town – M F K Fisher
  • Don’t Eat This Book – Morgan Spurlock

Here are the just for fun books:

  • Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work – John Gottman
  • Spark Joy – Marie Kondo (not scheduled)

Here’s what on tap for May:

For the Early Review program through LibraryThing:

  • All the Rage by Martin Moran

To celebrate May:

  • Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer by David Winner ~ in honor of the tulip festival in Holland
  • Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt ~ in honor of Just ‘Cause and their 60-mile walk (although this year it’s in June).
  • Jordan: Past & Present: Petra, Jerash & Amman by E. Borgia ~ in honor of Jordan gaining independence in the month of May
  • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn ~ in honor of Russia’s Victory Day (may 9th, 1945)
  • Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill ~ to celebrate Laos Rocket Day (already read – this took me less than a day)
  • Chosen, the by Chaim Potok ~ in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month (AB – already read)
  • Map of Another Town by MFK Fisher ~ to finished the Two Towns book started in April
  • Master of the Senate by Robert Caro ~ to finished the series started in February in honor of Presidents’ Day.

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).

Chosen

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Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. Read by Jonathan Davis. New York: Recorded Books, 2003.

Reason read: May is American Jewish Heritage month.

Danny Saunders and Rueven Malter shouldn’t be friends. For starters, Danny almost blinded Reuven with a line drive straight to the head during a “friendly” baseball game in 10th grade. They have always been on opposite sides of the Jewish faith as well. Danny is a practicing Hasidic Jew and Rueven is a practicing secular Jew. They dress differently, they interpret the Talmud differently, their relationships with their fathers is vastly different. Yet, they become the best of friends. Despite their seemingly strong friendship as they get older they learn their differences have the potential to sabotage any relationship, no matter how strong.
There is such a push me-pull me element to The Chosen. As both boys come of age and are more aware of the political world around them their interests take them on different journeys. When you finish The Chosen you will see one defining consistency, forgiveness.

Author fact: Potok started writing when he was 16 years old.

Book trivia: even though this is a book appropriate for ages 12 and up, every adult should read this.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust from two different chapters, the first being “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 134) and the second, “Good Reads Decade by Decade: 1960s” (p 178).

King Lear

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Shakespeare, William. “King Lear.” The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. 1249-1305

Reason read:Billy the Bard was born in April.

I think I have had to read King Lear half a dozen times in my academic career. It keeps coming back. It is interesting to note that this time I didn’t read it as a Pearl pick, but rather as a Pearl comparison. King Lear is compared to a Jane Smiley novel in More Book Lust in the chapter, “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest (Iowa) (p 27).

So, back to Mr. Shakespeare and his brilliant tragedy. To sum up the play in one sentence: this is the story of a king seeking to divide his kingdom among his three daughters based on who could articulate her love for him the best. Beyond that it is the tragedy of emotional greed – of wanting to be loved at any cost. It is the tragedy of politics and family dynamics. Youngest daughter Cordelia is unwilling to conform to her father’s wishes of exaggerated devotion. Isn’t the last born always the rebel in the family? As a result Cordelia’s portion of the kingdom is divided among her two sisters, Goneril and Regan. The story goes on to ooze betrayal and madness. Lear is trapped by his own ego and made foolish by his hubris.

Author trivia: it makes me giggle to think that Shakespeare was married to a woman named Anne Hathaway, only not that Anne Hathaway.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called (as mentioned before), “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest (Iowa)” (p 27).

Alice in Sunderland

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Talbot, Bryan. Alice in Sunderland. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books,  2007

Reason read: April Fools

One word: savor. Savor this book slowly. It’s only 319 pages but let every page have it’s moment in time. This is a beautiful piece of art, chock full of culture, biography, history, creative use of the English language (“follow your spirit” with a picture of someone chasing a vodka truck), a comic book inside a graphic novel, brimming with literary references (Thirty-Nine Steps and Rugby, the same school made infamous by Tom Brown’s Schooldays, to name a few) and much, much more. This is a comprehensive walk through history with a myriad of people and places leading the way. In Book Lust To Go Nancy Pearl called it “one of the richest experiences of her life (p 68).

The premise is really quite simple. Bryan Talbot has researched his hometown of Sunderland and found every possible parallel connection to Lewis Carroll’s famed The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. It’s brilliant. Read this alongside The Annotated Alice for a healthy dose of all things Wonderland.

Best quote, “All the lives seen tonight…so many lives…” (p 290). Case in point: here’s the ridiculously long list of Who’s Who in Alice in Sunderland. How about a game? How many people do you recognize?:

  • Abraham Lincoln
  • Al Davison
  • Alan Hargreaves
  • Alexandria “Xie” Kitchin
  • Alfred Jarry
  • Alice Liddell
  • Ally Sloper
  • Andy Capp
  • Arthur Racham
  • Arthur Frost
  • Bande Dessinee
  • Beatles
  • Bede
  • Benedict Biscop
  • Benny Hill
  • Beryl Formby
  • Bessie Wilcox
  • Betty Boop
  • Bill Shakespeare
  • Blondin
  • Bobby Thompson
  • Bram Stoker
  • Bryan Ferry
  • Caedmon
  • Capt. Edward Robinson
  • Capt. Joseph Wiggins
  • Capt. William Bligh
  • Caryl Hargreaves
  • Cary Grant
  • Catherine Cookson
  • Charles Dickens
  • Charles Kingsley
  • Charles Lutwidge Dodson
  • Charles Weiss
  • Charlie Chaplin
  • Chaz Brenchley
  • Chster P Hackenbush
  • Chico Marx
  • Chris Mullin
  • Clarkson Stanfield
  • Colin Wilbourn
  • Craig Knowles
  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
  • Dave Stewart
  • David Malan
  • David McKean
  • Dennis Potter
  • Dick Turpin
  • Disraeli
  • Doctor Who
  • Dorothy Williamson
  • Dracula
  • Duke of Wellington
  • Earl Zetland
  • Earl of Bute
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • Edgar Atheling
  • Edith Liddell
  • Edward Bulwer Lytton
  • Edward Burne Jones
  • Edward Hylton
  • Edward Schoeder
  • Edwin Moss
  • Eileen O’Shaughnessy
  • Elizabeth I
  • Elizabeth Liddell
  • Ellen Terry
  • Emily Pankhurs
  • Emperor Claudius
  • Eric Gill
  • Florence Becker Lennon
  • Frank Caws
  • Franz Kafka
  • Frederick Cotton
  • Fredericka Liddell
  • Friar Tuck
  • George “Dubya” Bush
  • George Formby
  • George Hudson
  • George Lightfoot
  • George Lilburne
  • George Orwell
  • George Stephenson
  • George Washington
  • Gerald Frow
  • Gertrude Bell
  • Grace Slick
  • Grant Morrison
  • Harry Furniss
  • Harry Lauder
  • Harry Potter
  • Henry VIII
  • Hedworth Williams, Sr.
  • Henry George Liddell
  • Henry Holiday
  • Henry Hylton
  • Henry Irving
  • Henry Lambton
  • Henry Stanley
  • Houdini
  • Hunt Emerson
  • Ian Watson
  • Irving Berlin
  • Isabella Hazard
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel
  • Jack Crawford
  • Jack the Ripper
  • James Herriot
  • James Joyce
  • Jan Svankmeyers
  • Jeff Smith
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Joe Nattras
  • John Bunyan
  • John George Lambton
  • John Humble
  • John Lawrence
  • John Lennon
  • John Lilburne
  • John Millais
  • John Paul Jones
  • John Proctor
  • John Ruskin
  • John Tenniel
  • Jonathan Hanker
  • Jonathan Miller
  • Jordan Smith
  • Joseph Conrad
  • Joseph Swan
  • Joseph Wiggins
  • Joshua Wilson
  • Karl Fisher
  • Karl Marx
  • Kate Adie
  • Keanu Reeves
  • Kelly Osbourne
  • Ken Russell
  • Kevin Cadwallender
  • King Athelstan
  • King Charles I
  • King Ecgfrith
  • King George I
  • King Harold
  • King James I
  • Lady Montagu Wortley
  • Lawrence of Arabia
  • Leo Baxendale
  • Leopold Hargreaves
  • Les Dawson
  • Lewis Carroll
  • Lily Lumley
  • Lizzie Webster
  • Lord Ravensworth
  • Luther Arkwright
  • MacDonald Gill
  • Manfred Mann
  • Manuella Bute Smedley
  • Margaret Thatcher
  • Marie Lloyd
  • Marilyn Manson
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Mark Lemon
  • Marlene Dietrich
  • Mary Ann Robson Cotton
  • Mary Shelley
  • Mary Wortley
  • Max Ernst
  • Mervyn Peake
  • Michael Bute
  • Michelangelo
  • Mike D’Abo
  • Miles Standish
  • Mother Shipton
  • Mr T
  • Nannie Scott
  • Ned Kelly
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Nellie Melba
  • Nicholas Hawksmoor
  • Odo of Bayeux
  • Olga Lowe
  • Olive Hardy
  • Oliver Goldsmith
  • Oswald Moseley
  • Oswald Stoll
  • Ozzy Osbourne
  • Patrick Lavelle
  • Paul McCartney
  • Peter Camm
  • Peter O’Toole
  • Peter Smart
  • Peter Sutcliffe
  • Prince Leopold
  • Queen Elizabeth II
  • Queen Victoria
  • Ralph Steadman
  • Ravi Shankar
  • Reginald Hargreaves
  • Rev. Charles Collingwood
  • Rev. John Wesley
  • Rev. Robert Gray
  • Rex Hargreaves
  • Rhoda Liddell
  • Richard Nixon
  • Richard Thornton
  • Richard Wallace
  • Rick Griffin
  • Robert Bowes
  • Robert Graves
  • Robert Heinlein
  • Robert Liltburne
  • Robert Stephenson
  • Robin Hood
  • Robinson Duckworth
  • Roger Skelton
  • Roland Wilson
  • Rudolf Toffer
  • Saint Cuthbert
  • Saint Godric
  • Saint Hilda
  • Sally Geeson
  • Salvador Dali
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • Sarah Junner Lawrence
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar
  • Scott McCloud
  • Septimus Scott
  • Sheri Holman
  • Sidney James
  • Sir Henry Havelock
  • Sir Humphrey Davy
  • Sir John Lambton
  • Sir John Conyers
  • Sir Walter Scott
  • Sir William of Hylton
  • Stan Laurel
  • Steven Spielberg
  • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
  • Suzy Varty
  • T Arthur
  • TS Eliot
  • Tennyson
  • Thomas Dixon
  • Thomas Edison
  • Thomas Edward Lawrence
  • Thomas Henry Liddell
  • Thomas Paine
  • Thomas Randall
  • Tom Taylor
  • Tony Blair
  • Tove Jansson
  • Trina Robbins
  • Ulysses S Grant
  • Vesta Tilley
  • Virginia Woolf
  • Vladimir Nabokov
  • WC Fields
  • WH Auden
  • Wee Georgie Woods
  • Whoopi Goldberg
  • Wilkie Collins
  • William Bell Scott
  • William Blake
  • William Clanny
  • William Hogarth
  • William Hylton
  • William Joyce
  • William McGonagall
  • William Mills
  • William Morris
  • William Mowbray
  • William Reid Clanny
  • William the Bastard
  • William the Conqueror
  • William Wilcox
  • Windson McKay
  • Winnie Davies
  • Woody Allen
  • Yehudi Menhin

Fun stuff: Ever wonder why all public doors are supposed to open outward? The answer is in Alice in Sunderland. Did you know there is a missing Alice chapter called Wasp in a Wig? Or that Grace Slick is such a huge fan of Alice that she created a whole series of Wonderland inspired paintings when she retired from music.

Favorite line, “Don’t confuse the genre with the medium” (p 187).

Author fact: Talbot has his own website here.

Book trivia: I know I said it before but this book is an oversized visual treat.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Comics with a Sense of Place” (p 68).

April Comes Quickly

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I don’t know where March went. I’ve looked under calendars and in date books and I still can’t figure it out. The month went by so fast! Here are the books finished for March:

  • Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
  • The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
  • Family Man by Jayne Krentz
  • Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (AB)
  • The Brontes by Juliet Barker (DNF)
  • Means of Ascent by Robert Caro (DNF)
  • Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan (Fun)
  • In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White (would have been an Early Review book a long time ago)

On tap for April (besides a little Noodle 5k run):

  • A Considerable Town by MFK Fisher ~ in honor of April being the best time to visit France
  • The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman ~ for fun
  • Green Thoughts by Eleanor Perenyi ~ in honor of gardening month
  • Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot ~ in honor of April Fools
  • Don’t Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock ~ in honor of April being Food Month (AB)
  • The Grand Tour by Tim Moore ~ in honor of Harvey Ball passing in April

The Lacuna

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Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. Read by Barbara Kingsolver. New York: Recorded Books, 2009.

This was an anniversary gift from my beloved Kisa when it was first published. Kingsolver is my favorite author so I have been savoring it like fine wine.

Reason read: Two reasons. As I mentioned before, Kingsolver is my favorite author and March is the best time to go to Mexico. Or so they say…

Mexico, 1929. In the beginning American-born Harrison Shepard is a simple young boy just barely holding onto his Mexican mother’s apron strings as she drags him through one failed relationship to another in her never-ending quest for all-adoring lover. He is without friends or proper parenting. His closest companions are housekeepers and servant boys.
As Harrison matures he he finds work as a plaster-mixer/cook in artist Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo’s home. He befriends political figures like Lev Trotsky. He is now in a world where packing a machine gun along with food and a blanket for a picnic is nothing out of the ordinary. He writes everything down. From there, this coming of age tale turns political. America, 1941. Harrison finds his way to Asheville, North Carolina and goes on to be a successful author. Polio and Communism are the growing paranoias of the times. Harrison’s personality, unchanged since childhood, and his involvement with Rivera and Trotsky put him on a dangerous path of presumption and suspicion.
This is a tale of loyalty and love; a portrait of a quiet, unassuming man just trying to make it in the world.
Read it. Read it. Read it!

I could quote entire sections of The Lacuna but I will limit myself to just a few (while trying not to go overboard): “The ocean is the last dream in the morning before the noise from the street comes in” (p 49), “Yesterday’s heroes fall beneath the shoes of the city” (p 68), “You seemed to be excavating your soul to locate some kindness” (p 184), “Even morality is a business of supply and demand” (p 396), and – last one – “Years do not erase bereavement” (p 506).

Author fact:Kingsolver reads her own book. This is a special treat because the author knows her own story. She knows what emotion to put into a character’s mouth as the words come out. Later next month I’ll be listening to Spurlock read his own book, Don’t Eat This Book. Should be interesting.

Book Audio trivia: In addition to Kingsolver reading Lacuna there is music before each part of the book. I especially liked the instrumental before Part IV.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter “Postcards from Mexico” (p 186).

Gilead

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Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. Read by Tim Jerome. New York: Macmillan Audio, 2005.

Reason read: Maine became a state in March. This is a real stretch because Gilead doesn’t take place in Maine, it isn’t about Maine in any way, even the author isn’t even from Maine. The only real connection is that the protagonist’s grandfather was born in Maine and he’s been dead for decades by the start of the book.

This is another one of those books where I feel like I am reading the wrong book. On the back cover of Gilead is praise for another Robinson book, Housekeeping.

The first thing you need to know about Gilead is that it is an epistolary novel. Reverend John Ames has lived in Gilead, Iowa for almost his entire life and is now dying. Via a letter to his young son he reminisces about his early childhood (Kansas born in 1880), his family, and his relationship with religious scripture. He calls this reminiscing his son’s “begat story” because he tells a great many stories of his own father and grandfather. And yet, as 77 year old men are bound to do, Ames wanders in his narrative. He remembers past illnesses, wars and woes and seems to be fixated on the Boughton family, especially “young” Jack.
One regret is that Robinson never reveals Ames’s son receiving or reading the letter. That would have been an interesting epilogue.

Lines I lingered over, “I believe I’ll make an experiment with candor here” (p 6), “My grandfather told her once that if you couldn’t read with cold feet there wouldn’t be a literate soul in the state of Maine (p 17), and “It is hard to make people care about old things” (p 113).

Author fact: Marilynne Robinson won a Pulitzer and a National Book Critics Circle Award for Gilead.

Book trivia: Some say Gilead is book one in a trilogy. However, Robinson’s next book, Home does not continue the story of the Ames family.

Audio book trivia: Tim Jerome’s reading of Gilead is great. I couldn’t tell you why I think this, but he has the perfect voice for it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135). As I said before, from what I can tell the only connection to Maine is that John Ames’s grandfather was born in Maine.

The Assistant

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Malamud, Bernard. The Assistant. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985.

Reason read: Malamud died in the month of March. Sad book for a sad occasion.

Confession: I have a hard time with Malamud. He writes with a melancholy I can’t put my finger on. The Assistant is no different with its depressing tone. From page one it is laced with utter sadness. This quote from the introduction seems to sum up Malamud’s writing perfectly, “Malamud was a master of the short story, and it sometimes seems that his characters are too poor to live in longer fiction” (p viii).

Morris Bober is a Jewish grocer in poverty stricken, post-WWII Brooklyn. He can barely make ends meet but does the best he can for his wife and twenty-three year old daughter. When his meager store is robbed the dye is cast.It only gets more complicated after Frank Alpine mysteriously comes into his life to help with the store, court his daughter and change his life. One of the most beautiful elements to Malamud’s writing is that for all his sadness, there is a thin thread of hope that winds its way through the story. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the story ends with hope.

The Assistant is rich with the culture of life as an immigrant. It’s also rich with the climate of the era. Can you picture a time when people  said things like, “Say, baby, let’s drop this deep philosophy and go trap a hamburger” (p 44)?

Quotes I fell in love with: “He crawled towards sleep” (p 10), “Wisdom flew over his hard head” (p 18), “How complicated could impossible get?” (p 89), “Where there was no wit money couldn’t buy it” (p 153) and “What you did was how bad you smelled” (p 174). They are so simple yet powerful.

Book trivia: Jonathan Rosen’s introduction is unfair when he says “…finish the novel before you finish this sentence…” (p ix).

Author fact: Malamud taught at Bennington College in Vermont. Cool.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called, of course, “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 134).