RidgewayGirl's Reading Part Two

A quiet Sunday afternoon seems a good time to shift my books over to these fresh shelves here.

Currently Reading (or about to begin, or under consideration, planned for soonish or started, but put down for now)



Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace I expect that I will be reading this one for much of the year.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman

Sorry by Gail Jones

In Europe edited by Geert Mak

Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda

Books read in 2013

January
Broken Harbor by Tana French
Forged: Why Fakes are the Great Art of Our Age by Jonathon Keats
My First Murder by Leena Lehtolainen
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
The Female of the Species by Joyce Carol Oates
Cell 8 by Anders Roslund
Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
There But For The by Ali Smith
Black Irish by Stephan Talty
Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

February
The Moon By Whale Light by Diane Ackerman
The Collector by John Fowles
Black Dahlia & White Rose by Joyce Carol Oates
NW by Zadie Smith
Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer
The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
Tenth of December by George Saunders

March
The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Raised Right by Alisa Harris

April
Dear Life by Alice Munro
Lessons in French by Hilary Reyl
A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory
The Cat by Edeet Ravel http://www.librarything.com/work/13194798
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington
Son of a Gun: A Memoir by Justin St. Germain
Astray by Emma Donoghue
How to Survive a Natural Disaster by Margaret Hawkins

May
Close to Home by Peter Robinson
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
Funeral Music by Morag Joss
The Burning Air by Erin Kelly
Them: Adventures with Extremists by Jon Ronson
Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler

June
Economix by Michael Goodwin
The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
The Dinner by Herman Koch
Image Before My Eyes by Lucjan Dobroszycki
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
How to be Alone by Jonathan Franzen
The Philadelphia Quarry by Howard Owen
Five Bells by Gail Jones

More books read in 2013

July
Third Culture Kids by David C. Pollock
The Jane Austen Marriage Manual by Kim Izzo
The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min
Blame by Michelle Huneven
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace
All That I Have by Castle Freeman, Jr.
Mrs Kimble by Jennifer Haigh
Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina
A Crack in the Wall by Claudia Pineiro
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

August
This Must Be the Place by Anna Winger
Border Songs by Jim Lynch
A Hell of a Woman edited by Megan Abbott
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Red Road by Denise Mina

September
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Cradle in the Grave by Sophie Hannah
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
The Other Woman's House by Sophie Hannah
The Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella
The Expats by Chris Pavone

October
Go With Me by Castle Freeman, Jr.
The Collected Traveler: Venice by Barrie Kerper
Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That by Susie Hodge

Interesting books mentioned by other Club Read members:

Quiet London by Siobhan Wall (mentioned by kidzdoc)
Traversa by Fran Sandham (discussed by dchaikin)
The Recognitions by William Gaddis (recommended by EF)
Paris Changing by Christopher Rauschenberg (spoken of in passing by petermc)
Trapeze by Simon Mawer (reviewed by southernbluestocking)
New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani (wandering_star reviewed it)
The Absolutist by John Boyne (from Cariola's thread)
Alfred Andersch and Ernst Toller (authors suggested by edwinbcn)
The Maimed by Hermann Ungar (arubabookwoman wrote an excellent review)
Great House by Nicole Krauss (kidzdoc loved this one)
How Literature Works by John Sutherland (Nickelini thought it had merit)
Portrait Of The Mother As A Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius and The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter Englund (both beautifully reviewed by wandering_star)
Blade of Grass by Lewis de Soto (SassyLassy liked it)
The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min (Cariola reviewed it)
The Rebel Sell by Joseph Heath (ljbwell had interesting things to say about it)
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer (torontoc thought it was worthwhile)
The Last of the Just by Andre Schwartz Bart (reviewed by labsf39)
Crimson China by Betsy Tobin (endorsed by Edwinbcn)

Edeet Ravel's new novel, The Cat, tells the story of a single mother whose son is killed in a car accident. Beginning shortly after Elise returns from the hospital, the story is weighted down with an overwhelming grief. Already solitary by nature and her upbringing, Elise wants nothing more than to join her son in death, but the presence of her son's cat prevents her; she knows he would want her to care for Pursie. And so, painfully, Elise continues to live and slowly finds herself drawn back into the living world despite herself.

As you might imagine, this isn't a fun or comfortable read. There are stark and unforgiving emotions on display. I have a son just a few years younger than Elise and, like them, my son and I went to the Humane Society one afternoon to adopt a cat. But the emotions Ravel describe ring so horribly true that I don't think one needs to identify with the main character so much as to identify with her humanity and the pain she's enduring. Despite the subject matter, I enjoyed The Cat. Elise is prickly and unfriendly, but she's also capable of kindness and understanding. And the book ends on a note of hopefulness.

The Cat is now on my wishlist despite that Library Journal says, "This is a slighter work from Ravel, a borderline purchase." The subjects and the actual reactions to the book appeal to me.

Robert

Robert, it does have a limited scope and the reader does spend the entire book inside the protagonist's head. But I found it very well written and meaningful. I can't imagine that it would be a blockbuster though.

You do find interesting and unusual books!

Yvvette Edwards's debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, begins with an older man knocking on a London door in the pouring rain. The man is from the worst part of Jinx's past, the part involving her stepfather and the murder of her mother, for which she feels responsible. Lemon was her stepfather's best friend. Together, over the following days, they discuss their shared past.

Edwards begins her book by making Jinx, the narrator, unsympathetic and then works forward to make her actions and thoughts understandable. This is an uncomfortable book, with its theme of domestic violence tied to the coming of age of a teenage girl. Jinx may have made her home as clean and uncluttered as possible, but as Lemon cooks for her, her house fills with the tastes and aromas of her childhood, as the only child of an emigre from Montserrat, and with that the memories of when her mother fell in love with the wrong man.

Thanks, Rebecca, but I'd say you beat me on that count. Is shelf envy a thing?

I'm currently reading Son of a Gun, Justin St. Germain's memoir about his unconventional upbringing and his mother's murder. That's three books about sudden death and its impact on the remaining family members in a row. I'll have to cleanse with P.G. Wodehouse.

>9 RidgewayGirl: You are not helping with my "no more books this month" resolve...

Making the main character borderline bad and then showing why it should not be seen this way seems to be a common way to tell stories... but it relies on people not giving up on the book - which these days does not happen that often. So I am surprised to see it in a new novelist.

I like an unlikeable character, Annie. The main character, Jinx, is a poor mother and has an off-putting personality; It was interesting to see her see her own failings but be unable to correct them, partially because she doesn't know what the appropriate action is but also because she's so afraid of rejection, she does the rejecting ahead of time. A Cupboard Full of Coats was a very interesting book. I could tell the author was new to her craft, but that didn't detract from the story she was telling.

Unless I'm wrong, I believe I found this book due to a review by kidzdoc.

Catching up with your no-longer-so-new thread and these uncomfortable, but quite interesting last three books. You remind me that I want to read something by Edeet Ravel.

Await Your Reply tells three stories that seem utterly unrelated for much of the book, so that I read Dan Chaon's book like I read a book of short stories; slowly, putting down the book between chapters, often for long stretches. Of course, this is a novel and the three different stories are each exciting and deal in some way with questions of identity and what it means to be lost. Ryan's a college student, but he's failing his classes and he's spent his tuition money, so when an uncle he'd heard about but never met shows up to tell him that he's his father, Ryan is ready to take off with his father for a cabin in Michigan without telling anyone. Lucy's parents died recently and she was living with her older sister while finishing high school. She falls in love with a teacher and they run away together to hide out in his childhood home in Nebraska. And Miles is always looking for his mentally unstable brother. He'll settle down somewhere, telling himself to forget Hayden and their shared past, but each time he receives a rare communication from his brother, he drops everything to try and find him again. This time it's a letter that draws him to the town of Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories.

For a stretch it doesn't seem possible to draw these different stories together, then they gradually reveal similarities and echoes of each other, until I could see a thread uniting them. For the last part of the book, the stories merged and parted, then united. Despite an intricate plot stretched from the tundra to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the real strength of Await Your Reply is in the characters and how they relate to one another. How do we know who we are? If we assume another identity, are we the same person underneath? Which is quite a feat for a novel that features references to Lovecraft, a grisly mutilation, computer hacking and menacing Russians, among other things.

Good review of Await your Reply, which seemed to work for you Ridgewaygirl

It did, Bas. After reading two books about grief (and I'm currently reading a third) it was a relief to concentrate on complexity and obscure references and the spinning of a story.

Interesting review. I found it well written, creepy, and compelling, but maybe a little obvious and a little over the top in places. Unlike you, I couldn't put it down!

Rebecca, I neglected to mention that I stayed up late last night finishing it. It was sometimes over the top, but in the best kind of way.

I'm pleased that a few of the books I reviewed made your 'interesting' list! And you've certainly done the same for me with that review of Await Your Reply.

"What about Darlene?"
"When she was really living right, she drank it," he said.
When she was really living right, she drank poison. What a peculiar idea, the journalist in me thought. But who was I to judge?

The story begins when Dennis Covington, a freelance journalist, is asked to write an article about a trial taking place in nearby Scottsboro, Alabama, in which a preacher stands accused of trying to kill his wife with the venomous snakes he uses in his church services. Covington's coverage of this lurid story is the least interesting thing in Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia, but it forms Covington's introduction to a little known and oft-mocked sect of Pentecostal Christianity.

Snake handling began, not as a practice of the people living in the Appalachians, but when they came out of the mountains to work in the mill towns on either side of the range. Confronted with an alien culture, they fell back on their faith, creating their own version of Christianity. The first episode of snake handling occurred in 1910 and while the churches that practice it range from the Florida panhandle up into Ohio, the number of worshippers is small. They also drink poison and handle fire, but the focus is on the snakes, the rattlesnakes and copperheads and even cobras that they collect, keeping them in sheds or even in aquariums set on the kitchen counter.

It might seem odd that this small, tightly knit community would open their doors to Covington, who is clear about his occupation and about his intention to write about them, often bringing photographers with him to church services. But they believe as strongly (and probably much more so) in their version of the truth as any other believer. They are willing to travel for hundreds of miles several times a week to attend services in small, tucked away churches in forgotten communities all along the edges of Appalachia. And Covington is respectful and interested in their beliefs. So interested that he becomes, for a time, one of them, like an anthropologist joining in the private ceremonies of a remote tribe.

Snake handling isn't a safe practice, and there are few who haven't been bit, many more than once. Some seek medical help, but most don't and most have relatives who were killed by snakes. The snakes themselves don't fare much better. Snake handling isn't gentle, and the snakes aren't designed to be roughly shaken and jostled. Few last longer than a few months.

She had a video, though, of herself and others holding their arms and legs in the flame of the kerosene-soaked wick. That's what she was doing one July night after she'd sworn she'd never handle rattlesnakes in July again. She'd been bit the previous two Julys. "I decided I'd just handle fire and drink strychnine that night," she said.

Good idea, I thought. It always pays to be on the safe side.

The problem arose as Gracie tried to handle the fire with her feet. She lost her balance and fell on top of three serpent boxes. "I crawled on my knees and got every one of them serpents out," she said. "My friends said, 'Gracie, you said you wasn't gonna handle serpents tonight,' and I said, 'I wouldn't if I hadn't gotten in the fire.'"

It all came to an end a few years after he met those members of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following. The rapid inclusion of an outsider into a group of only a few hundred people, many of whom were related, caused a certain amount of friction. The connection was broken, finally, when he was asked to speak at one service and stepped over a line by contradicting the previous sermon, by his mentor, who railed against women, saying, A woman's got to stay in her place! God made her helpmeet to man! It wasn't intended for her to have a life of her own! If God had wanted to give her a life of her own, he'd have made her first instead of Adam, and then where would we be!" Covington counters that by reminding him that, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared first to a woman, who brought the news to the remaining disciples, making her the first evangelist. And, with that, his time with them came to its end.

At the height of it all...I had actually pictured myself preaching out of my car with a Bible, a trunkload of rattlesnakes, and a megaphone. I had wondered what it would be like to hand rattlesnakes to my wife and daughters. I had imagined getting bit and surviving. I had imagined getting bit and not surviving. I had thought about what my last words would be. It sounds funny now. It wasn't always funny at the time.

Sounds like another world to me Ridgewaygirl; enjoyed your review of Salvation on Sand Mountain

Wow! Thanks for the great review!

That's incredibly interesting. My cousin and her family have recently moved to Alabama; she would love this book!!!!

*Sigh* I am terrified from snakes - to the point that I cannot read a book with a snake on the cover without covering it and hiding it. And yet - that sounds very interesting (and this is a great review).

I was raised in a Pentecostal church, but nothing like this. They would have been as appalled as anyone at the idea of handling snakes or taking poison being some kind of religious act. But I confess to having handled a snake just last week: I found a garter snake in the house and put him (or her) gently back outside.

Snakes are amazing creatures. I've had a few and desperately want another one!

Amazing to think communities like this still exist. I actually like snakes, although of course not poisonous ones. When we were children, my parents kept track of the snakes they saw around our family's house in upstate New York (in a pamphlet of local snakes), and I have continued that. There are rattlesnakes up there but I have never seen one as they tend to stay in hidden rocky areas up in the mountains.

Thank you, all. Regarding snakes; I'm not phobic or fascinated although there's a Gaboon Viper at a zoo we visit that I like quite a bit. He looks both deadly and like he's wearing someone else's skin. Anyway, the day I finished Salvation on Sand Mountain, my son found a snake, very young. It was not clear to me what it was, whether copperhead or juvenile rat snake or a variety of brown snake, so we put a tupperware over it and weighed the container down with stones. Unfortunately, my son could not leave it alone and the mystery snake escaped, to either hunt rodents benignly in our yard, or to kill us all, it's undetermined at this point in time.

Oh my! I'd really miss you! Hoping for the best!

I think in general snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them, so we will probably continue to enjoy your presence here in Club Read!

For future reference, i believe young venomous snakes can be more deadly than the adults. There was a story in our local paper many years ago, where two young kids were fishing in the river near their home. They dug up what they thought were worms to use as bait. It turned out that they were baby water moccasins, and both boys were bitten. Both died.

Hoping you're still alive. You left me fascinated by Salvation on Sand Mountain, that was such a great review. I'm also intrigued by Await Your Reply.

The south western Ontario town I used to live in had a librarian from West Virginia who brought in all kinds of interesting books that would never have made it to the shelves otherwise. Salvation on Snake Mountain was one he brought in when it was first published in 1994. I loved it then and never forgot it, so when the fifteen anniversary edition came out, I had to buy it ( who says libraries save you money?). Nice review of a fascinating book.

Everyone is still alive!

Colleen, my children informed me of that after we'd secured it (temporarily as it was) under the tupperware. Not reassuring.

Merrikay, thank you. I hope so.

Rebecca, maybe we taught him to stay away from us! Although two neighbors have found numerous snakes on their property, the constant, enthusiastic presence of cats, dogs and children seem to keep them away.

SL, that is a memorable book! I think what makes it so interesting is the respect with which he approached a group that is a pretty easy target for ridicule. I'm keeping my copy, although I've already loaned it out.

Daniel, Await Your Reply was a fun book to read. More fun than Deuteronomy in any case, although less eventful, probably.

In Son of a Gun: A Memoir, Justin St. Germain revisits his past in order to come to terms with his mother's murder by his step-father. Justin and his brother hadn't particularly liked Ray, his mother's last husband, but they'd liked him more than most of his mother's husbands and boyfriends and thought that they were happy together. Debbie had been in the military and she wasn't a passive woman. She'd left men when things turned sour, so why did she stay with Ray?

Less a murder mystery like My Dark Places than an attempt by the author to find a place to put his rage and unresolved questions that dogged him for a decade after his mother's death, Son of a Gun is a hodge podge of memories, history of his hometown of Tombstone, Arizona and account of his own search for the reason behind her murder. It really shouldn't work, but maybe because of the author's willingness to be honest and the admiration he feels for his mother, a woman who loved him and who always fought to keep her head up and her optimism intact, this book is worth reading and hard to put down.

Son of a Gun is finding its way to my wish list. It sounds interesting.

It is, Colleen. The author's life is so different from my own and it's so interesting to see how life shapes people and how they deal with what they begin with. In that way, it's similar to The Liars' Club.

Astray is a collection of short stories by Emma Donoghue, which I intended to read slowly, allowing each story a day or two to settle before reading another one. That's the ideal way to read a book of short stories, and one that I'm rarely able to manage. Astray was gulped down over a few days, grabbing moments as I got them, sometimes reading a few paragraphs while I cooked dinner and supervised homework and when time permitted, reading several stories in one sitting. This book deserved better than that, but Donoghue should really have not written so beautifully, or with such heart or at least chosen less interesting characters.

This is historical fiction, each story based on an article in a newspaper, a locally published family history or a surviving letter, and each story about loosing one's moorings and going out into the world, sometimes for a better life, a different life and sometimes because of circumstances. Beginning with an Elephant, having been sold to an American circus, who refuses to be parted from his keeper, to the final story of two sculptors who, having lived and worked together all their lives, are now parted by the ill health of one of them. Donoghue takes the snippets of historical record she finds and makes vivid pictures of lives she imagines.

My favorite story takes place in 1735, and concerns a young lawyer who sees his chance of improving his circumstances when a naive young widow asks him to settle her husband's estate. That it's based on actual events makes it that much more fun.

Sounds intriguing. I was not a fan of Room, but that was because I felt it was a little manipulative, as I was very impressed by Donoghue's writing skills.

Astray also sounds like a good read. My wishlist is eventually going to be longer than my list of books in my "library" at this rate. I may have to start adding books from the past to balance things out a little bit. :)

Colleen, you can do what I've done and buy an awful lot of books to bring down the size of the wishlist. Of course, now my TBR pile is monstrous and the wishlist still grows. It does make me wonder about people asking for suggestions of books to read.

Rebecca, I have a copy of Room and keep eying it, but haven't yet read it. I loved, loved, loved Slammerkin. Donoghue really shines at historical fiction and although she has a very different writing style, she reminds me of Hilary Mantel in that regard.

I also loved Slammerkin. That may be the only other Donoghue that I've read.

I'm a big fan of Mantel, although I'm generally not big on historical fiction, but Slammerkin sounds intriguing, and I'll look for it. I had misgivings about reading Room, and maybe reading it confirmed my preconceptions.

you can do what I've done and buy an awful lot of books to bring down the size of the wishlist. How true, and I'm actually off to the bookstore later today to help reduce min!

I really liked Donoghue's early stuff (Stir-Fry and Hood), but tried a couple of the historical novels and didn't really rate them, so I haven't read her since. Perhaps I'll give Astray a try.

41 oh my Ridgeway I LOVE your style! So laughing at the buying your wish list books to keep your wish list down. That is absolutely brilliant!

>41 RidgewayGirl: You are buying to keep your wishlist down? Aren't you moving in the not-too-distant future?

41 - You know Ava, you could just be quiet about that and we could go buy stock in the shipping company!

Lois, I am moving and not even taking my entire TBR. The current justification is that I will have fewer book buying opportunities in Munich. And the rate at which I am adding books is much, much slower than last year.

The interesting part will come when I start to box books up for storage, knowing that I won't have access to them for two entire years.

"The interesting part will come when I start to box books up for storage, knowing that I won't have access to them for two entire years. "

That would be so hard.... the kindle holds a lot......

The current justification is that I will have fewer book buying opportunities in Munich.

Oh, you sound like me! That's exactly the logic I would come out with. Also: because you're not entrenched in life there, you will have more free time for reading and will need more books.

Colleen, it makes me itchy. I keep thinking about making sure a box or two is at the front of the storage unit so that I can visit it when we come back for a few weeks next summer.

Joyce, that's it. Of course I'll have tons of time to read. Even with all of those museums right there. I've missed having access to all of that art and I plan to overdose on it. And we plan to travel around each weekend -- that's one of the reasons we're going -- to introduce the kids to as much Europe as we can fill them with, but that shouldn't take any time away from reading, right?

How to Survive a Natural Disaster was a frustrating book. There was so much potential and the writing was adept, but the book was too short to do what it seemed to be trying to do. Margaret Hawkins tells the story of a family disaster (not natural one as the title suggests) through short segments, each narrated by a different family member or neighbor, including the family dog.

There's a huge amount going on in each person's unusual life, far more than can be described in the few pages each character is given to narrate. Even the dog, Mr. Cosmo, a three-legged geriatric weimarainer, has unique talents and an out sized personality. Add into that an outrageously precocious child who wants desperately to go live with her father and wealthy grandparents, an adopted baby who doesn't speak, but who can understand everything, to the point of being able to know what her birth mother did after they were parted, a slacker artist who goes along to get along, but whose real passion is cooking and who found he loved his wife's children with all of his heart, a woman who undergoes emotional crisis after emotional crisis, a grandmother who smokes, plays cards and can nurture everyone except her daughter and a neighbor whose husband died and who has been hiding in her house ever since. That's a lot for a single novel to hold, let alone one as slim as How to Survive a Natural Disaster, especially when the book hints and foreshadows the coming disaster relentlessly so that when it finally arrives, the paucity of description is less important than it's anti-climactic effect.

Hawkins creates wonderful characters. They seem a bit much all in one place, but each is so huge and vivid, I'm surprised that she didn't use each as the centerpiece of their own book. There are also a thousand pages worth of themes hinted at but not explored. What does it mean to be a family? What role does religion play in forming who we are and what we expect? Can a family formed from parts of other families be as strong? I can add another dozen big ideas to this easily.

In the end, this is the beginning of what could be a very good story.

Well dang cause it sure sounds interesting!

Well, it did to me, too, Merrikay!



Peter Robinson has a long running series of crime novels set in the Yorkshire moors. They're good, but not great; atmospheric and interesting without breaking new ground. Close to Home, the thirteenth installment, was a solid offering. Banks begins this novel on vacation in Greece, but he is called home again when the body of a childhood friend who disappeared when they were both sixteen is found. He doesn't know what he can do to help the local police solve the cold case, but he knows he has to try. At the same time, his former subordinate is called in when another teenage boy goes missing.

>48 RidgewayGirl: I'd be interested in seeing your wishlist, if you care to share. I still have translations and other purged paperbacks in the garage waiting for me to hawk them at the bookstore. There might be something in there I need to send you! :-)

Since we are planning to move in the next year, I have calculated that it will take 200 boxes to pack up our books (that's after we are done purging). These 200 are what I consider the "perfect" box size that holds 30-35 lbs of books (a not too heavy box). We will order them from uline.com so that they will all be uniform and easily stackable.

Agree with you about the Peter Robinson crime thrillers. However the British T V series DCI Banks starring Stephen Tompkinson is very good indeed. It captures the Yorkshire-ness very well and Tompkinson is brilliant in the leading role.

Lois, boxes that you can lift are important. Also stackable.

Bas, I'll look for the TV series when we're in Germany. I suspect we'll end up getting British shows on satellite for the kids and my SO and I will enjoy the BBC series. We like Inspector Lewis quite a bit, mainly for the Oxford setting.

Also, number the boxes (on top and on all sides!) and keep a list of what type of books are in each box. That way, if you don't unpack all the boxes right away, you will know where to look for a particular book if the fancy strikes you.

>58 rebeccanyc: This.

Otherwise you will end up with either buying the same book when you really want to read it or with a mess of half empty boxes and books all over the place. :)

Hmm, I guess this is one task not to leave to the movers!

In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell gives the history of Hawaii the same treatment she's given to mainland American history. If you've read her books before, you'll be familiar with her style of rigorous research combined with strong opinions and a passionate love of history. The story of how these Pacific islands went from being a group of warring kingdoms to becoming an American state is interesting and complex.

Missionaries from New England brought more than Christianity to the islands. They also imported their culture, architecture, capitalism and style of government. There's no question as to their devotion and sacrifice and Vowell has a real soft spot for those dour missionaries building saltbox style houses and dressing the Hawaiians in petticoats and stockings. Vowell has much less of a soft spot for those grandsons of the missionaries who parlayed the American government's dream of expansion into an uncivilized land and power grab.

Vowell clearly enjoyed her time in Hawaii, but her real strength lies in her love of Puritans and stern men in uncomfortable hats.

I have listened to several of Sarah Vowell's books and really enjoyed them. She reads them herself, and if you have ever heard her on NPR radio, her distinctive voice adds the correct quirkiness to go along with her enthusiasm. I will need to look for this one.

but her real strength lies in her love of Puritans and stern men in uncomfortable hats. - Love it

Oh, audiobook--great idea. I love her when she is on Jon Stewart/the Daily Show and I wondered if she would come across as well in reading format (many don't--Covert Baily, Stephen Covey)

One thing that struck me from Unfamiliar Fishes was the complicity, willful or not, of the Merry Monarch in the taking of the use of the land from the Hawaiian public. Lands not held by anybody and open to public use (survival, not recreation) were taken from them and put in private, Caucasian and a few alii, hands. Where else have we heard of that?

Robert

>61 RidgewayGirl: Agree about Vowell's true love. I loved The Wordy Shipmates and I liked it better on audio also.

>58 rebeccanyc: Packed alphabetically by category and or book size, boxes labeled (with a printed label).

#66 I packed by category, but the key is putting the label on all sides, not just on the top, and keeping a list. But you probably know that!

one of the rare times I wish everything I owned was electronic. VERY rare times! I still have cartons with nowhere to put the books after downsizing in my retirement.

Oh, but Merrikay, a living room with a bookshelf is so much more immediate and evocative that a full kindle sitting on a coffee table!

Lois and Rebecca, I am listening hard and making my own plans for the books that will need to start being packed up in a few short weeks. My labels will be hand-written. I do love a sharpie.

Colleen & Joyce, even in book form, her works carry that same distinctive voice. I do like that dry, opinionated wit she employs, but I think I'd like it a lot less if her research was not so clearly rigorous and her love of history not so evident. She likes flawed people.

Robert, I agree with you entirely. Vowell's unable (and may not even have felt it worth bothering) to come across as neutral and unbiased. Those men made a bundle off being the white guys in charge.

I had some sort of vague viral thing over the weekend and am busier than is appropriate. As a result, my reading is becoming decidedly escapist. You are forewarned.

The Burning Air is a typical crime novel of the sort currently being written by British authors. Erin Kelly's book has the same feel as books by Rosamund Lupton and S.J. Bolton; solidly plotted and ably written suspense stories centered on a family. In this book, the MacBrides have always led comfortable lives. Well educated and well off, they have a weekend home in an isolated renovated barn, where they meet one Guy Fawkes weekend to scatter their mother's ashes. There are cracks in the family veneer; the oldest daughter's marriage is on shaky ground and the son's brought his new girlfriend along, disturbing the usual balance of things. They are, as is expected in this kind of book, about to be menaced by a malevolent outside force that will test their bonds.

For the most part, I enjoyed this purely escapist read. It certainly flew past and I was never tempted to just put it down and do something else. Kelly keeps the tension going for the full length of the novel and there's a clever twist a few chapters in that turned the picture of what was going on on its head. The villain is sympathetically portrayed, at least in the book's first half, which added depth to the events. But in the end, the book was disappointing. I won't hint at the outcome, but I will say that I think that the author pulled her final punch, lessening the impact of the ending, which was one of the tidiest conclusions I've encountered. I think I've also grown weary at the tired set-up of the charmed and well-to-do family menaced by someone who is poor and had a bad childhood.

Spent last week in Munich house-hunting and setting things up for the move. We have a house -- a row house in a quiet neighborhood three blocks from an U-Bahn station. We finished up with a few days to show the kids Munich, which they like. I even got to leave them for a few hours to visit the newly redone Lenbachhaus. It's been expanded with a modern wing and so much more of the Blue Rider paintings are on display. I'll have to go back a few more times to absorb.



As for the modern block grafted onto the beautiful, late nineteenth century villa; I'm reserving judgement until I get used to it. The villa is entirely preserved with the back of it inside the new structure. Here's a view of the front of the museum.



With the expansion, so many more of the paintings saved by Gabrielle Munter (an artist who was Kandinsky's partner for over a decade and who owned a house in Murnau they and their friends often went to paint) are on display and now there's a strong sense of the shared history of that group of artists as well as a clear sense of their development.

Thanks for posting those pics - intriguing!

and....so glad you found a place.

Thanks, Merrikay, I'm glad we've found a good place, especially considering we're bringing two cats and a fifty pound dog with us.

The art museums are fantastic in Munich. I'm looking forward to being able to spend lots of time in them.

It sounds like a wonderful experience for your children.

Hope you find your feet in Munich

March brought The Morning News Tournament of Books and I followed this year's tournament with the same level of interest my brother brings to the NHL play-offs. There's a similarity to sports competitions here, with books pitted against each other by a judge, followed by a winner being declared, color commentary from the hosts and the best comment section I've found on a website. While it's fun to gorge oneself on a previous year's competition, there's nothing like pouring a cup of coffee and opening up one's laptop, knowing how enjoyable the day's match-up will be. It did things to my wish list, too. The Tournament this year featured everything from Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; a diversity of novels that had me considering books I otherwise would not have. In honor of The Tournament, I give you here my thoughts on two very similar books that I read because they were both contenders.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter and Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple are alike in more than just the cover color. Both are episodic tales with shifting narrators that center around a search for someone, and in understanding why that person disappeared in the first place. Both are also compulsively readable, to a ridiculous degree.

Beautiful Ruins has the more sweeping and substantial plot, spanning several decades and with a large and colorful cast of characters. Primarily, though, it focuses on a young, dying actress who disembarks at a tiny fishing community one day in 1962 to stay in the small hotel there and wait for her lover, and on the young man who dreams of making his village a tourist destination. From there it journeys back and forth in time telling their stories and those of the people around them, ending up in present day Idaho, with plenty of side trips into Hollywood and the world of film-making.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is set in Seattle, where a small family of a Microsoft developer, an architect fleeing her old life in Los Angeles and their precocious and brilliant daughter live in a crumbling old school. Bernadette hates Seattle, the rain, the earnest people and more than anything else, the parents of the students at the school her daughter attends, who encourage parental participation and are confused and angered by Bernadette's indifference, given that she's a stay-at-home mom. Bee, her daughter, is loved by everyone and, in turn, she's perfect, but still not enough to provide her mother with the fulfillment her former architectural projects gave her and Bernadette's life is a mess, as she feuds with her neighbor and alienates everyone but her daughter. Adding to her stress levels is her daughter's graduation present; a family trip to Antarctica.

Both books are perfect "summer reads", which is to say, they are both light and episodic, as suits a book written about the movie industry and the other authored by a former television writer. They're both well written and ably plotted, airy without being trite or whimsical, the kind of book that's easy to read under distracting circumstances. These are the books to read in a hospital waiting room, on a plane or sitting next to a pool full of shouting children.

In the end, though, I loved one and merely liked the other, even as I couldn't put it down. There's more parody in Where'd You Go, Bernadette and, despite my usual love of unsympathetic characters, I never warmed to Bernadette, whose problems were those of her own making, or her daughter, who was just too perfect to be interesting. Even at their worst, the characters in Beautiful Ruins never became strident or stereo-types, even the ridiculous Hollywood producer.

In any case, both books were entertaining in the very best sense.

Hope things are going well.

I will look forward to following your thread more closely, and read about the exchanges between your experience and reading in Germany.

Nice post about the Lenbachhaus.

Just catching up. I have Beautiful Ruins on my iPod. I think I will move it up the list for listening soon, based upon your review. And Where'd You Go Bernadette is already on my Wishlist.

I'm still around, but so busy that I've had very little time to read, which leaves me feeling vaguely unsettled.

Currently, the need to put things in boxes is being put on hold by the need to have a very clean and tidy house for potential renters. Also, there is a quantity of paperwork and phone calls involved in moving a household from one country to another. The pets alone have necessitated reams of paper and a close relationship with our local vet and the USDA at the state capitol.

Looking forward to being settled and settling in with a cup of tea and a large book. That should happen by late August.

Thanks, Edwin. I was asked yesterday what I'll find to do in Munich and received a blank look when I started to ramble on about the art museums. It's good to have like-minded people on Club Read to keep me from feeling like an oddity.

A reliable debut into the ever-expanding genre of Scandinavian crime novels. The detective in charge is not lonely or alcoholic, which is a twist, but he doesn't work well with others anyway. The story centers on a psychologist who was doing research into using hypnosis to help traumatized individuals, but who stopped abruptly. He's called back to get time sensitive information from the young survivor of the massacre of a family. Predictably, things are not as they initially seem.

This was a good book for a busy, stressful time. It was diverting enough to hold my attention, without needing too much in the way of undivided attention. I can't tell you if I would have liked it under normal circumstances, but it was a good book for the circumstances.

"I can't tell you if I would have liked it under normal circumstances, but it was a good book for the circumstances."

sometimes, that is all that is needed.....

"not lonely or alcoholic, which is a twist" laughing

I just posted my comments on Where'd You Go, Bernadette? on my thread, and then I stumbled into this thread and reread yours. You describe the book so much better than I did! I should just send everyone over here. I agree that the daughter was too perfect, but then I never read the novel as being particularly realistic, so I didn't let it bother me as much as it might have otherwise.

80 > I get the same blank stare from some of my siblings if I start to talk about the art museums and authors' houses we go out of our way to visit on road trips. I envy your time to explore the Munich art museums.

First of all, a big thank you to Bragan for reading this first! Who would have thought that a survey of economics could be so fun to read? And who would have thought that comics would be a good way of teaching economics?

Economix is a look at the history and theory of economics. Michael Goodwin begins with early economic theories, from The Wealth of Nations to laissez-faire to Maynard Keynes. He then provides an economic history of the United States. All of this is communicated clearly and concisely in the format of cartoon panels, making the whole thing, well, enjoyable. I'm not sure that this is enough to get economics to shed it's reputation as the dismal science, but Economix did give me a greater grasp on what's going on. I'd like to read it again soon, but my father now has my copy. I'll get a good discussion out of it, in any case. He keeps texting me his thoughts on the subject as he reads.

>86 RidgewayGirl: I thought I had already added this one to my wishlist, but, when I checked, it wasn't there. Thank you for the nudge.

How is the big move coming along?

The big move is a big hassle right now, actually. But I've spent a little time planning fun things for the kids and I to do on our summer weekdays once we arrive and that's helping to give my mind something to rest on that's not all the things that must be done right now!

I have Economix on my TBR list -- not to find the time to sit down with it.

It's astonishingly easy reading. I read much of it while watching my kids play in a swimming pool.

Yay! So glad you liked it. Another fan.

>86 RidgewayGirl:: You're very welcome! It's amazing, isn't it? And to think, I almost passed that one by, myself. I bought it in one of those moments of weakness I so often have, where I find myself snapping up books I'm not entirely sure about because, well, they're on sale! Sometimes those really pay off.

And it is, indeed, a very fast, easy read. I finished it in two days, and probably could have read it in one sitting if I hadn't had to stop and go to work.

(Good luck with the move, by the way!)

Thank you, bragan. I think most family members will make it through largely intact.

I was impressed with Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout's book of connected short stories, so I was quick to pick up her newest book, The Burgess Boys. Strout's writing is clean and unobtrusive; the kind of writing that seems effortless, but which clearly cannot be. She's also adept at creating multi-dimensional characters in a few paragraphs. These qualities are in evidence in The Burgess Boys.

The Burgess Boys are Jim and Bob, small town Maine boys who were raised, along with their sister, by their mother after the early death of their father. They both did well, living as lawyers in New York City, although Jim's success is flashier and larger than his younger brother's quieter life. They are both called back to Shirley Falls when their sister's only son is arrested for throwing a pig's head into the town's mosque, which is used by a growing community of Somalis.

The Burgess Boys is less about an apparent hate crime than it is about the ties of family and place, but with such a charged crime, it was a hole in the story that its commission was never more than superficially explained. Strout seemed uncomfortable writing an "issue of the day" kind of book and I wonder why she did, when the interactions between the siblings was so complexly and compassionately rendered. Important threads are dropped or discounted and the ending is abrupt, but the parts that work, work very well.

Interesting review of The Burgess Boys. I haven't read anything by Strout yet, and think I'd start with Olive Kitteredge if I get to her.

Of the two of hers I've read, Olive Kitteridge is the best.

I loved Olive Kitteridge, especially for being a sympathetic depiction of an imperfect character. I think I need to check out the new book.

The Dinner, by Dutch author Herman Koch, was inescapable for a while this Spring. It was being reviewed everywhere and often compared to that earlier book-of-the-moment, Gone Girl. There are some very slight similarities to that book in that the characters are far from sympathetic, but there all comparisons stop. The Dinner recounts a shared restaurant meal between two couples; brothers and their wives, but it's anything but fraternal in tone. For one thing, they are meeting to discuss an event that concerns the sons of both families, and as the dinner progresses one is given a clearer view of what happened. The narrator is, quite simply, the most unlikeable character I've encountered in a book. But the events of the evening, as viewed through his eyes, take on a repulsed fascination. This wasn't a book to set aside easily, but it made for queasy reading.

You've got my curiosity up!

Are you taking Infinite Jest with you to Munich?

Edwin, of course I am. I have it on my kindle. I'll admit to having lost momentum on this one. I'll read a few pages here and there, but I'm still less than halfway. This book was why ereaders were invented. It's an odd book; parts are really compelling and others are a chore to read -- it's a bloated, self-indulgent book, but I can't see where cuts should have been made.

Merrikay, it's certainly an interesting book. You can't be someone who needs a sympathetic character, however, as there are none.

All of us, except for our container of things, have arrived in Munich, largely intact. And while our house may be mostly empty, it does contain a computer and wifi was set up last night, with only a moderate amount of swearing by my SO.

Our dog has successfully navigated the U-Bahn and enjoyed a Bier Garten. The kids are getting used to different ways of doing things, but are mostly good-natured. They approve of the bakeries. With our things scheduled to arrive the first week of August, I will have to get reading. There is a significant pile of books that I felt had to go by air freight and in various suitcases.

The number of reviews I have to write is growing. I will get to them soon, but for now, the kids want to watch a movie. I took them to the Englischer Garten today. They gave out before I did, being unused to walking places. They will adjust, but there will be complaints along the way.

Congratulations on a successful move! Hope you all settle in soon.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about your adventure. Such a great experience for your kids!

Yes, I am looking forward to reading your updates. Sounds great so far. I remember the bakeries from when I was in Munich in 1992--they were wonderful.

Joyce, the bakeries are fantastic. And they are everywhere. We can grab a quick and healthy lunch for less money and faster than a fast food joint. I had a slice of pizza yesterday that consisted of tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and then was piled high with fresh arugula and drizzled with a basalmic glaze.

Today I drive. Munich traffic is daunting! I'm used to my small city (really, it barely qualifies) where driving etiquette is still polite and there's only one road that sometimes gets slightly congested. But if I don't jump in now, I'll just take the U-Bahn everywhere. And the U-Bahn isn't really convenient for today's goal of buying a bed and some chairs at IKEA.

Happy shopping

So exciting! Thanks for the update. I look forward to more.

Good luck settling in. Sounds like you are in for a terrific experience.

Glad to hear that the move to Munich went well. I'd love to read more of your comments about the city, and see photos if possible.

Image Before My Eyes by Lucjan Dobroszycki is a collection of photographs of Jewish life in Poland from photography's advent to the Second World War. While many of these photographs were saved by people fleeing the holocaust, the emphasis is not on the coming horror, but on the the daily life of ordinary Jewish people during the first half of the last century. There are many family portraits, as well as pictures of village and city life, giving a vibrant portrait of a time and place where a large minority population could live peacefully and were able to live in groups where they could live traditionally and practice their religion or to pursue modern lifestyles in cultural centers. Jewish theater and literature took off, with Yiddish newspapers and social clubs abundant in places like Warsaw.

What remains with me from the many photographs, is how the families, despite the different clothing and settings, look out at the photographers with the same pride and optimism that is visible in family portraits today. And also the enormous labor involved in keeping those white dresses and shirts clean and starched.

Thanks to SassyLassy for pointing me in this book's direction.

I always enjoy seeing pictures from that time period. There is a quality that isn't evident in our digital world.

That sounds like a lovely book; thanks, RG and SassyLassy.

Somewhere, I have a copy of A Vanished World, a collection of pre-Holocaust Eastern European photos. I'll have to look for it.

Colleen, they aren't photoshopped! But, yes, I understand what you mean.

Rebecca, that was the other book that SL recommended.

That does sound wonderful - I'm so glad it exists actually!

I don't know why but that cover of All That I Have just really caught my eye. Actually it was the combination of cover pic and title.

Then I clicked on the others in touchstones and ended up back at the French Resistance. Fate.

So glad you found the book. Looking forward to hearing about Munich.

Hope you find A Vanished World Rebecca. Many of Vishniac's photographs are in Image before my Eyes, but Dobroszycki chose to focus only on photographs from the area that was the Second Polish Republic, although not just that time period. The two books have different sociological themes, so they nicely complement each other.

I'm really aware that my grasp of Eastern European history is tenuous at best. I think that every class I ever took stopped at the Polish border. I'll have to remedy that. I'm looking at Norman Davies books about Polish history as a possible beginning.

#118 - Are you thinking of a side-trip to Poland? That would be interesting.

#117, I'm pretty sure I know where it is, Sassy, despite the reorganization of my bookshelves.

#119 I was briefly in Cracow in Poland in the early 90s, largely to visit Auschwitz. The Jewish cemeteries in Cracow had been desecrated, but they were in the process of being refurbished because the city hoped, in the post-Wall era, to attract Jewish tourism; I found this infuriating. Since then, of course, I've read a lot more about Poland and by Polish writers, and perhaps have a more nuanced view, but I'm not sure I'd want to go back.

Thank you for the review of Image Before My Eyes, it does sound great. Following Rebecca's and Sassy's comments, I also was put in mind of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World - which I once spent an afternoon looking through at a friend's house in Jerusalem. I like Sassy's comment that the two compliment each other, so I'm going to try and keep an eye out for this one as well. I'd love to have a book that can show me images of the world my ancestors came from before splitting for London!

Joyce -- yes, definitely. At least to Cracow, which I haven't visited, and possibly Warsaw, where my SIL is from. We're using all of our spare time to travel and explore while we're here.

Rebecca, it's always a complex issue. In Berlin, there's a group putting information about the people arrested and sent to the camps in the sidewalks outside the buildings where they used to live and they've had opposition from both sides. Those who don't want to be constantly reminded and those who feel it's not the best way to remember. No matter how touristy and avaricious the motivation, it has to be better than what was left of the ghetto in Warsaw when I was there 15 years ago. A small, characterless memorial plaque stuck in a corner in the middle of Soviet era apartment blocks. It was clearly the very least they could do.

I've already added the Vishniac's book to my list.

I'm going to play catch-up and do a few short reviews of some of the books I've read this summer.



If you like David Sedaris's wry brand of humorous personal essays, you'll love Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. The colonoscopy story alone is worth the book's price tag.



I have this odd weakness for chick-lit books based on the works of Jane Austen and I will inevitably read any that I find, no matter how unpromising. The Jane Austen Marriage Manual by Kim Izzo was phoned in, and over a crackly line at that. The romance aspect made no sense. I did like that the main character was less silly (although her actions often were) than is sometimes the case and that she could have a fling with someone she had no intention of having a relationship without anyone thinking the less of her for it.



Michelle Huneven's novel, Blame, tells the story of Patsy, who, while driving home drunk on a suspended license, hits and kills a mother and her daughter. She serves her time in prison, but feels that there is more she needs to do to make amends for the unforgivable. Along the way she forms a tenuous relationship with the husband and father of the women she killed. The story is interesting, although it spends a lot of time wandering around before returning to its original focus.

Kay, Have you ever read P. D. James Death Comes to Pemberley? She takes Pride and Prejudice six years after the marriage of Elizabeth and Darcy, and throws them into the middle of a murder mystery at the estate. I can't say that it is James best work, but I do enjoy her books. I thought it was fun, as long as you know she is playing with the Austen book.

Colleen, I like them set in modern day. None of that Darcy solving mysteries or finding out what happens next to Lizzie Bennett. When they're well done (see Shannon Hale) there are subtle allusions to various Austen characters and plot twists and the fun is in spotting a minor character who is Willoughby or a scene referencing Persuasion. That kind of thing.

And PD James was an amazing author. But her last two books in the Dalgleish series were dreadful. It's like she suddenly got old and reactionary and uber-Tory. The same thing happened to Ruth Rendell. It makes me wish they'd stopped writing earlier.

I agree about James' last books. They were disappointing. And I understand what you say about the reference to classics in modern literature. I think I looked at that one as more of a lark. I need to check Shannon Hale. I am not familiar with her.

She writes mainly YA, but she has two adult books, Austenland and Midnight in Austenland which are great fun.

#122 Interesting. With respect to the cemeteries, I can see it both ways. My instinct at the time was that they should be left in their desecrated form to show what was done to them, but I can also see the point that they shouldn't be left in desecrated form. It was probably the tourist motivation that especially irked me: first they kill the Jews, take their apartments, and destroy their cemeteries, and then they want to get their money when they come back to visit.

The issue of memorials is broader than this, and was a main topic of the disappointing It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway, about the Soviet era, which I read earlier this year.

The Philadelphia Quarry is the second installment in Howard Owen's excellent series about Willie Black, an older journalist holding on to his job in a dying industry. He's made his share of mistakes and continues to make a few more, but he does have a degree of self-awareness and a compassion for the people around him in Richmond, VA.

Years ago, a black man was convicted of the rape of a wealthy young lady, but DNA evidence has now set him free. Willie Black's newspaper had been vocal in their support of his incarceration, and when the lady in question is murdered soon after his release, the paper renews their editorials calling him a monster. But Black has his doubts, and while he isn't convinced of the man's guilt, he isn't sure he's innocent either. And so Black goes to work ferreting out the truth, no matter who he offends and whether he'll have a job at the end of the day.

Owen's series is a pleasure to read; well plotted and adeptly written, Owen has also created a fascinating protagonist. Black is deeply flawed, but compassionate and very likable. He may not be dependable, but he does try. And he'd be great fun to have a drink with, as long as you aren't depending on him for a ride home.

Uh oh, another series that I should try to resist, but probably will not. It sounds good. I am adding it to my list. Thank you.

That sounds really good - I want to read that!

It is a good series, and there are only two books in it so far, so you can get in before there's no hope of catching up.

"so you can get in before there's no hope of catching up."

That has never stopped me before. :)

DC Alex Morrow has changed over time. In the first few books of this series she was combative and angry, but now, in Gods and Beasts, what with being a mother of twins and happy in her personal life, she's mellowed at work and worried that the officers working under her can sense she's gone soft. And this is Glasgow. No place for a cop who's lost her edge.

A few days before Christmas and there's been a brutal shooting during a robbery at a post office, leaving a man dead. There are questions about the victim's behavior before he was shot and the man who had been standing behind him seems to be more than just a by-stander. Morrow wants to do more than just find the perpetrator, she wants to find out why it happened. Along the way, there's a disgraced politician and the possibility of police corruption.

Denise Mina always writes fantastic books, tartan noir at its finest. Alex Morrow is a wonderful protagonist; she's tough and ballsy, while still able to hurt for all the people scarred by life in a tough city.

>134 RidgewayGirl: Oh my, Kay, you are dangerous for my wishlist. :) Another interesting review.

I was trying to get away from mysteries for a while, but your last few posts have sucked me back in, I think!

Sorry. I saved a small stack of crime novels I thought were reasonably sure to be good for the move and now I'm enjoying them.

Tartan noir! I love that!

The first novel in David Peace's Red Riding Quartet, Nineteen Seventy-Four, is set in the Northern mining towns of Yorkshire and is relentlessly Noir. There isn't a bright moment, or even a pause for breath in the book. Edward Dunford is a young journalist who, while investigating the brutal torture and murder of a young girl, is drawn into a web of police corruption and brutality. Nobody's hands are clean. I like my crime novels dark and gritty, but this reached the outer edge of my tolerance, less for the violence, which was extensive, than for the bleak, hopeless picture of life in Northern Britain. So much for James Herriott's charming Dales.



Now this one was very good. Castle Freeman, Jr. has written an altogether enjoyable and compassionate book called All That I Have, about a sheriff of a rural county in Vermont, whose marriage is faltering and a rival is threatening his position in an upcoming election. Lucian Wing holds to the principles he's been using since he joined local law enforcement and he sees no reason to alter course, despite Russian gangsters and home-grown threats.

The strength of All That I Have centers on Wing's voice. He's careful and thoughtful and has a dryly humorous way of expressing himself that makes every page a delight.



A Crack in the Wall is not quite a crime novel, although there is a dead body and secrets to be kept. Claudia Pineiro's novel is instead an examination of one man's life; an architect in Buenos Aires who was involved in the cover-up of a crime and of how his life changes as a result.

Pablo Simo lives carefully, following the same route to work every day, drinking a single cup of strong, black coffee in the same cafe every afternoon and arranging his pencil diagonally across the cover of his notebook on his desk. Years ago, he helps dispose of a body and now a woman has shown up asking about the dead man, shaking up his careful routine and causing him to question the trajectory his life has taken.

Pineiro has written a psychologically suspenseful novel reminiscent of Barbara Vine and Minette Walters. I'll be looking for more by this author.

I couldn't put the Red Riding Quartet down, but it horrified me.

I've added Nineteen Seventy-Four to my wishlist. It might be another series for me to read.

LOL - so much for the charming Dales!

Oh dear, I thought I might try the Red Riding Quartet, but the levels of violence may well be beyond my limits

Ha! I should have known with this group, bas tastefully excepted, that the bleakest book would be the most appealing.

Of course, Nineteen Seventy-Four hit my wishlist as a direct result of two reviews warning that the book was devoid of both whimsy and hope.

Years ago, when I was moving between two countries, I was given a stack of cassette tapes of talks given by David C. Pollock, the author of Third Culture Kids, so the contents of the book were more a reminder than new information. I will say that several of the points he makes were enormously helpful a decade ago and are still just as useful to anyone moving to another country. His emphasis in this book is on how to help children make the adjustments needed to thrive in a new culture, how to return to their original country later and how having been raised in more than one culture can be both a great enhancement and a challenge, but the contents will also be valuable to any adult in that situation.

This summer, I packed up a household of children, pets and things and followed my SO out to Germany. It's an adventure and a great opportunity for the kids to see Europe, now that they're old enough to remember it. But there are challenges involved in moving them away from their familiar places and people. Reading Third Culture Kids has been useful in helping me to prepare the kids for the experience.

Some of the things that stood out was the reminder that no matter how difficult the adjustment, there will be a time, a few months down the road, when everyday activities are routine. I remind myself of that daily. He also emphasized the importance of leaving the previous place with good-byes said, parties attended and any conflicts resolved before you leave. Knowing that people care about you and will miss you does make it a lot easier to jump into a new environment with both feet, secure in those old relationships and knowing that, in time, new relationships will form.

Hey, our furniture arrives tomorrow morning! I will be so pleased to deflate the air mattress, sit on a sofa instead of a hastily purchased lawn chair, to eat at a table on proper plates, and to transform this place from a camping spot to a comfortable home.

Bon courage ridgewayGirl

Catching up with short reviews of books which deserve longer reviews. If I wait until I have the time and calm atmosphere to write them, I'll have to reread them. The house is full of boxes. It's chaos, with all the stuff that fit quite nicely into one place, not fitting together in a differently shaped location. And Germany is The Land Without Closets. We'll get moved in, but I've reached the stage where thought has to go into where things go and progress is slow. Also, the movers did not know how to pack books which, being rectangular, must have presented unique challenges. They were, for the most part, loosely packed, spines up with heavy items on top. There are many maimed and severely injured hardcovers and the paperbacks will require time laid flat under something heavy to recover.



Five Bells by Gail Jones made the rounds here on Club Read earlier this year. I'm so glad it did. It's a quiet book, but beautifully written and full of empathy for the characters. This is how books should be written. I'll be looking for more by her.



Years ago, I read Red Azalea, Anchee Min's harrowing memoir of growing up during China's Cultural Revolution. It's really an amazing jackhammer of a book and I've reread it more than a few times. The sequel to that book, The Cooked Seed, is now out and it tells of Min's life from when she decides to try to emigrate to the US to the present day. The determination she had to survive, and then to succeed is astonishing and the story of how she got to Chicago and how she got by is well worth reading. The book loses something when Min describes her life after Chicago; I suspect she is still too close to those memories to write about them with any sense of objectivity and those chapters read more as justifications than memoir. If you've read Red Azalea, you'll want to read The Cooked Seed, but if you haven't, read that first, although the picture of modern immigrant life is compelling.



Scarlett Thomas's unusual fantasy-rich novel, The End of Mr Y, is outside of my usual wheelhouse. I'm glad it ended up in my hands, because it was an utterly enjoyable book. Ariel is a graduate student whose advisor has disappeared. She finds a copy of a book that supposed didn't exist anymore, The End of Mr Y, that both she and her academic advisor had been interested in. She is then drawn into an odd world called the Troposphere, while being hunted by some unsavory men claiming to be with the CIA and helped by an ex-priest. It's an imaginative tale, studded with odd bits of philosophy and physics. It's kind of The Night Circus meets Sophie's World.

Five Bells and Red Azalea are already on my wish list, but you have pushed them to the front of mind. I'm sorry to hear about your books. Hopefully, you and your books will be able to settle nicely.

Me too - how stupid of the packers! I hope that the books make a decent recovery.

I was a little disappointed by Five Bells, but I did think the writing was lovely.

How idiotic of the movers! I can't believe they never packed books before! The thought is scary.

I am not sure I would trust anyone to pack my books and I certainly would not let them anywhere near my record collection.

I actually learned a lot about book packing when some book packers from the Strand bookstore came and packed up the books in my father's apartment (after, of course, I had taken the books I wanted). They packed big books first, and fit in smaller books around them.

I'm sorry it has taken me a month to get in here and see that you have safely arrived in Germany. I'm glad you are getting settled (OMG, "land without closets"?)

Glad you liked the Castle Freeman and the Gail Jones. You will probably also like Freeman's Go With Me. I'd like to read his first, Judgment Hill, but I haven't chased down a copy yet. I've read all of Jones's novels and a few of her short stories (there are two collections, which I have, but other than a bit of selective reading, I've not read them thoroughly yet). I'm not sure which is my favorite...Dreams of Speaking, maybe. I adore her lyrical style.

RG congratulations on getting to Germany and already getting somewhat settled! I, too, marveled at Min and The Cooked Seed and am eager to read Red Azalea.

Oh, Bas, most of my books are safely in storage, in boxes packed with my own hands. They're fine. Those movers, though. They seem to have had it out for my books. Is there a secret cabal of boxers sworn to a sacred vendetta against the printed page?

MJ, Red Azalea is a fantastic book and I'd like to reread it again myself, especially now having the story of its writing. It's in a box in a storage unit, so I will have to wait.

Lois, Castle Freeman, Jr has several books available in my library's ebook collection, so I'll be reading more soon. He's an enjoyable author -- I know he came to my attention back when you reviewed Go With Me, so thank you for that.

I tremendously enjoyed Five Bells. Yesterday I left the house without a book, and so picked up a copy of Sorry, which I am now reading.

That really is too awful about the books tho. Interesting reviews, as always.

Anna Winger's novel, This Must be the Place, is set in Berlin during the dreary days of early winter. Hope is an American who has just moved to the city with her husband and who is not doing very well; Walter is an aging actor. He'd been famous when he was young, acting in a popular soap opera, but now he's making a living as the voice of Tom Cruise in movies dubbed into German and dreaming of a more successful life in California. The novel follows both characters as they meet and form a tenuous friendship and as they try to move forward.

The plot was slight and simultaneously far-fetched and very quiet. But the feel of living in a large German city as a newly-arrived foreigner was accurate. Winger gets the atmosphere right. And while Hope's reasons for her passivity are entirely valid, she's more unprepared for life in Berlin than I'd expect, especially given how well-educated she is and the months she had to prepare. For example, she's unaware of both history and the basic information present at the beginning of any guidebook. She's ignorant of both the Berlin Wall and how to use the U-Bahn. She would have been a more believable character if people weren't forever patiently explaining things she really should have known.

I'd chosen this book as I'd wanted something set in Germany to read as I settled in. I also wanted the book to not be about WWII in any way, or a crime novel. This was it.

I'm glad the book worked for you despite its flaws.

Yes, I enjoyed the parts about how it is for a foreigner in a German city! Although I do have to add that yesterday I listened to David Sedaris talking about German and his few paragraphs were more fun and more accurate than that entire novel.

>159 RidgewayGirl: I'm wondering if Sedaris was reading "Easy, Tiger"? I read it recently and laughed very hard at the paragraphs about German.

>159 RidgewayGirl: I think that David Sedaris can make just about anything funny.

That's the one, MJ. I'd read it before, but hearing it after having spoken German all day was perfect.

You're right, Colleen. He does half hour readings for BBC Radio4, which is available online. He does make the task of making dinner fly by. Better than the news, in any case.

I took a few hours yesterday to go into central Munich and visit the Kunsthalle, which hosts temporary exhibits. Currently showing is one on Nordic artists from 1860-1920, which was advertised as MUNCH, and others, but which has very little Munch (two relatively unimportant works) and lots of fantastic artists I knew nothing about.

The quality of the majority of the paintings was very high, but the exhibit itself was poorly done. The paintings appear to have been whatever they'd been able to borrow, and whoever organized things did so in the laziest and least cohesive way possible. The rooms were organized into random themes, including "landscapes", "death" and "illustration" and the many artists had their works put into different rooms. So that, in one case, the explanatory blurb mentioned that this painting was the last he did before he became schizophrenic and three rooms back (in the "death" room, of course) was a painting done at the height of his illness. So back I traipsed to compare them. The time span is badly placed as well, with the stated intention of showing how painting moved from the traditional to being influenced by movements like impressionism and pointillism. But only a few of the later paintings moved from the traditional.

The paintings were stunning, though. There was a prevalence of light and water. We're planning a trip up to Scandinavia next summer and I'll have to work in a few hours, here and there, to see these works in their proper settings.

What are the Germans thinking of, putting on a poor art display, they obviously need to take lessons from the Parisians.

It's the first badly arranged one I've seen here. The renovated and newly opened Lenbachhaus has done a brilliant job. It's one of those things you don't notice unless it's been botched. I'll go see another exhibition there, when one comes along that I want to see -- the next is Pompeii, which will have to be missed in favor of more alluring things. There's a temporary exhibit of Dali's sketches that closes soon, that I will try to see next week.

Years ago, I picked up a mass market paperback with a cover illustration of a hardbacked chair in an otherwise empty room. That book was Garnethill and the book was a revelation to me. It was gritty, crime-ridden and featured women as complex as they were tough and damaged. I've loved Denise Mina's books ever since. She has a talent for getting into the heart of her characters. Even the worst of criminals (and some of her criminals do terrible things) is a human being.

Her newest book, The Red Road, is the fourth book in her series set in Glasgow following DI Alex Morrow. It pays to read the series in order, because Morrow has changed over the course of her career. She's not what one would call a people person, but she's a good cop; hard-nosed and direct most of the time, but compassionate when needed. As Red Road opens, Morrow is unhappy at work. The people she'd worked with have been dispersed as a result of a scandal and her new team doesn't know her well enough yet to see beyond her gruff exterior. But she has twins at home and a roof that's in need of replacement. She's testifying in court against a felon with ties to organized crime when his fingerprints are found at the scene of a murder, despite he having been in custody at the time the crime was committed.

Like all of Mina's novels, this is a grim tale of lives destroyed before they'd really gotten started, of corruption embedded in high places and full of the unhappiness people can cause each other. It's excellent, though I would have liked it to be longer.

I will check out The Red Road. I love a good crime/mystery series.

Colleen, I think you would like Mina's books. Start with Still Midnight, though. It's worth watching how Morrow's life progresses.

Thank you, Kay. I will.

The Portrait of a Lady dispelled for me the notion that Henry James wrote impenetrable, stuffy novels. Instead, this was a beautifully written series of character studies, full of an understated humor. Isabel Archer comes to England at the invitation of her aunt, to stay at Gardencourt, where she grows close to her uncle and her cousin, the kind and sickly Ralph. She's young and full of herself (really, she's wonderfully self-involved and in love with her own charms), but she's also determined to forge her own independent path, despite her lack of means and society's expectations. To that end, she turns down marriage proposals from eligible men and plans to travel with her aunt.

This book is chock-a-block with great character studies. There's Henrietta, a brash, out-spoken young woman working as a journalist. She's a comic character, but James writes of her with open affection, despite the things she says. Then there's Madame Merle, a femme fatale as calculating as any found in a hardboiled crime novel, and the character you can't (and shouldn't) look away from. And, of course, Isabel, who acts erratically and is misled, but who longs so much for freedom, even as she's uncertain of what that would look like.

So, once again, I read a Victorian novel, expecting it to be a slog and finding, instead, a page turner with delicious pacing.

Hmm.. you may have changed my mind about "will I ever read Henry James".

The Portrait of a Lady dispelled for me the notion that Henry James wrote impenetrable, stuffy novels

Yay for you! I used to be freaked out by Henry James because the first "short" story (it was really long actually) I had to read of his was indeed impenetrable. So I resisted him for years after that. But then someone convinced me to try his earlier work, and voila! A new favourite author.

So, once again, I read a Victorian novel, expecting it to be a slog and finding, instead, a page turner with delicious pacing.

Yep, that sounds like something I find myself saying.

So if you're looking for more Henry James, I suggest work at his earlier stuff first and then move on to his later. At least that's what I'm doing. Daisy Miller is highly regarded by critics and is very short (I think 70 pages?), and Washington Square is also a short accessible novel. The latest one that I've read is What Maisie Knew, which was a bit more difficult but still very good. I haven't found the courage to tackle The Wings of the Dove or The Ambassadors yet, but they're in my TBR pile waiting. Another book you might want to check out is The Master, by Colm Toibin, which is a novel about Henry James.

Let me know anytime you want to talk Henry James!

Joyce, I have The Master on my TBR and I've loved everything by Toibin that I've read. I'm thinking that Washington Square will be next, although I have a copy of The Golden Bowl that has a beautiful cover:



I've yet to read a Victorian novel that I haven't loved. I know that all the dreck has fallen away, but there's something about the pacing and ability to take time with a story that I love.

I think The Golden Bowl is one of the scary ones . . . ;-)

But yes, that cover is indeed lovely!

Great. Thought I was going to spend a couple of hours in Germany but now you are making Scotland sound pretty fun.

I have to admit that I struggled with What Maisie Knew not quite impenetrable but difficult to hack through. I think Henry James later novels became more difficult to read.

I've been avoiding Henry James for years (well, except for The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers), after not getting through The American back when I was in college. If anything could make me try again, it's your review, though.

Will look for Denise Mina too.

I'll continue with the earlier James novels, then. That's The Turn of the Screw and Washington Square. Thanks for the warning. I guess I'll keep going until it get too murky to see where I am.

Rebecca and Merrikay, Denise Mina is fantastic. If you're not too delicate, I'd recommend Garnethill. It's Glasgow at its grittiest.

I'm not too delicate, but as you suggested earlier I'd like to start with the first one.

Carson McCullers wrote her first novel when she was just 23. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a series of character studies of five lonely people living in a mill town in Georgia in the closing years of the Great Depression. Singer is a deaf mute whose companion, another deaf mute, is institutionalized. Moving into a boarding house, he is befriended by a motley collection of loners, all who see him as understanding and sympathetic. Mick Kelly is entering her teenage years and is often responsible for the care of her two younger siblings. She is passionate about music and would love nothing more than to own a piano or even to have music lessons, but her family's financial situation, already precarious, becomes more and more desperate as time goes on. Dr. Copeland is the town's African American doctor and he fights everyday for the health and future of his people, even as he fears that no one is listening. His relationship with his children is tenuous and his own health is failing. Biff Brannon is the owner of a cafe, one that stays open at all hours. Brannon is a listener and a compassionate man, willing to let a debt slide or to help out someone who needs a place to stay. Jake Blount is perhaps the most interesting of the characters here. He sees and feels too strongly the suffering of the people around him and knows that if they would just rise up or even just understand what is going wrong, they could be saved. His passion has made him into a drunk, leaving him with nothing. These four lonely people look to Singer for solace and understanding, failing utterly to see Singer's own pain.

This is no heart-warming story of friendship and fried green tomatoes. There's no happy ending for anyone to be found. McCullers has written a brilliant book about suffering and loneliness. It's beautifully written and utterly heart-breaking.

>180 RidgewayGirl: I have had this one on my shelf for years. I should really pick it up.

Terrific review of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Also enjoyed your review of Potrait of a Lady...(along with the other posts on James) these leave me with many books to read.

Lovely, lovely review.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is such a great title for a book. Whenever I hear it mentioned I vaguely wonder what it is about. Thanks for filling in the details Kay.

Great review -- and wonderful picture of McCullers. I read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and the Member of the Wedding years ago -- but I really should revisit them.

Great review of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Kay. I am also intrigued by your discussion of Denise Mina. I have been sorting through books for donation and came across one of hers that is not listed on LT: Deception. I had it ready to go before reading your review of The Red Road, but have pulled it back.

Great review of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Kay. I was completely blown away when I read this novel for the first time, and it's high on my list of favorite American novels.

Thank you, all. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is an amazing novel. Darryl, I can see why it's one of your favorites. I'd like to reread all her short stories now, but my very nice copy of her collected stories is in storage in another country. Pity how my past self could not anticipate the reading needs of my present self as accurately as desired.

An old friend just friended me on Facebook. Since then (a few hours ago) I've been inundated with her posts -- all far right wing links that might embarrass Rush Limbaugh. How long before I can politely defriend her?

189 -
Well, first you can simply remove her from your newsfeed. That way you don't have to read any of her posts unless you actually go to her profile page.

Otherwise, if I discover I shouldn't have friended them, I wait a month then silently remove them.

That's funny! I wouldn't wait a month--depending on my mood, I might do it right now. Do you care whether you offend her? Do you think she'll be offended? Hiding her from your newsfeed is an excellent idea whatever you decide.

>189 RidgewayGirl: Oh boy! I have one of those, but she is my cousin so I can't remove her. But I did hide her from the newsfeed.

192 -
My cousin is such an idiot that I removed him a long time ago and never regretted it. :P

>193 lilisin: LOL.

Thanks. I didn't know I could block her newsfeed. I just did that - the last thing she posted was by Glen Beck, so glad that was the last thing I'll see!

I unfriended a cousin on Facebook, but I figured he probably hasn't noticed yet although it has been years. I guess we all have at least one nutty/creepy/slightly alarming cousin out there.

Ha ha! Another good reason not to be on Facebook at all!

My wacko cousin sent me this message: Come to the conservative side. We have cookies.

Boy did he walk right into that one! I replied: Yeah but we have brownies.

I can't unfriend people like that, I would have to unfriend almost every single one of my neighbors...

Must be tough for you living there, Dan!

So sorry, Dan.

>197 mkboylan: Bwahahahaha!!!!! That's funny!

I too have a far-right flung conservative relative on FB. And a very far-left uncle. It's fun to watch them argue with each other. There are times I think I should comment on his many conservative posts, but I think "what's the point?"

So I just watch.

There are times I think I should comment on his many conservative posts, but I think "what's the point?"

Exactly! One of the things I learned a long time ago on the internet (and less perfectly in real life!) is that I don't have to respond to everything just because it's there, and that it's not my job to educate everybody.

In The Cradle in the Grave, Fliss, a producer on the low end of her production company's totem pole receives an odd card featuring a block of numbers. She's working for the brilliant Laurie Nattrass, who is making a documentary about a doctor whose expert testimony about crib deaths may have sent innocent and grieving mothers to prison. At the same time, one of the women who spent time in prison, but who was eventually acquitted and who was working with Nattrass on his documentary, is found murdered in her home, and an identical card is found on her body.

Sophie Hannah writes well-plotted mystery novels that are reminiscent of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters. The locale and police working the cases remain the same through all of her books, but as they are a secondary focus, it's not necessary to read her books in order. I am, because of the slowly developing relationships between the different detectives are so interesting; in this installment, Waterhouse is no longer working with Zailer and is forced into closer proximity to his supervisor, a man for whom he feels nothing but contempt. Waterhouse is a seething mass of anger and repression and it's always interesting to see if he can hold himself together, let alone solve the crime.

Hannah's books are always fun to read; there are always several twists to the plot and she keeps the reader guessing until the final pages without cheating or pulling her punches. The Cradle in the Grave was a solid offering in a well written and diverting series.

I will add that her books have different titles in Britain and the US, with the US titles being utterly devoid of meaning and therefore hard to keep track of. The author was told that Americans need unambiguous titles that reflect the genre, instead of intriguing titles that reflect the actual book. The British title for this book is A Room Swept White, which makes perfect sense if you've read the book and is a much better title than the mystery-genre-appropriate The Cradle in the Grave.

>203 RidgewayGirl: The Cradle in the Grave sounds good. I like to have books like this to lighten up after a heavy book. Adding to my wish list. Thank you.

Adam Johnson's Pulitzer winning novel, The Orphan Master's Son is an intriguing story of love, despair, hope and pain set in North Korea. Following the life of Jun Do, from his childhood in a grim orphanage, through his life in the military (including some covert operations in Japan and on the sea) to his unlikely rise to the upper ranks of the elite surrounding the Dear Leader.

North Korea is possibly the least known part of the world; this certainly isn't another novel set in New York or London. Pyongyang and the tunnels underneath the Demilitarized Zone are less familiar in western literature than the wilds of Antarctica. Despite the exotic setting and alien society, Johnson has written a book with recognizable people, longing for love and desperate to hold onto whatever they have. This is a novel about remaining human under totalitarian control and while it's not a cheerful book, Johnson allows for hope and add a lot of wild and improbable adventures, which work nonetheless, given the already impossible setting.

Found and starred your thread. Lots of interesting books for me to explore. I also am looking forward to hearing more about your sojourn in Germany. Have you read The Expats? Might be a fun read for you at this stage of your transition.

Hi, Lisa. I brought a copy of The Expats with me, coincidentally enough. I even know where I put it, which, since I unpacked quickly by just shelving everything randomly, is unusual.

Great minds think alike! ;-)

P.S. I read with horror your story of bad book boxing. That would annoy me to no end.

Wonderful review of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
>185 janeajones: Jane I want to read both of those
ha! entertaining thread on Facebook and family

The Other Woman's House begins with such an outrageous series of unlikely events that it seemed impossible that Sophie Hannah could pull it off. She does, though, with each odd happening explained in a way that fit the story. My only complaint is that in order to do so, she is forced to use the old-fashioned trick of having the baddie meticulously explain their nefarious plan as they hold the protagonist hostage.

Connie has been certain that her husband has a lover ever since she found the evidence in his car and nothing he can say or do can convince her otherwise. She obsesses about the woman she thinks he's having the affair with, spending hours following her around. When the woman's house is put up for sale, Connie takes the virtual tour on a real estate website, looking for evidence of her husband's presence in the house. Instead, she sees a murdered woman, briefly visible, in the house.

Hannah's strength is in writing well-plotted mysteries centered around a troubled protagonist. Her heroines aren't always easy to like, but they are always in the middle of something horrible, whether by design or accident. Connie is, by nature, nervous. Her family ties her in knots with their unspoken expectations. She can't leave her husband, but she can't trust him either. She's a mess. And then someone starts playing with her perceptions of things. This is a clever book, sometimes sacrificing authenticity for that cleverness, but it's a diverting and entertaining read.

>210 RidgewayGirl: that one sounds good, Kay. I will look for it.

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton has been the subject of countless laudatory reviews and was, until the longlist was announced, a constant on the lists on various sites of possible contenders for the National Book Award. And I can't figure out why this over-written novel of thin characters has come in for so much praise. Sure, it's got the young woman on death row thing which, to be honest, made me want to read it over more worthy books set in less exotic locations. Here's the premise; Noa P. Singleton is sitting in prison, waiting for her execution date, having exhausted her appeals when the mother of the woman she shot appears and offers to help with her final plea for clemency. The rest of the book looks back on the events leading up to the crime, explaining Noa's motivation and the circumstances that led her to kill another person.

I know, right? I was on board from the start and ready for something that I wouldn't be able to put down. Then, over the course of the first chapter I noticed that the author had chosen to give Noa an overblown style of expression, with no noun or verb left undecorated and with a wide assortment of metaphors and similes called into use. Often Noa made no sense, but I chalked it up to the author choosing to write Noa's words like she were competing for the Bulwer-Lytton Prize. Then Elizabeth L. Silver added a series of letters written by the mother of the dead woman and used the same unreadable style and I was forced to acknowledge that the poor writing wasn't a conscious choice, but actual poor writing.

His moans lubricated the phone lines like a sexually transmitted disease.

Waves of perspiration dripped over my fingers.

He had eyelids like meat patties, slight flaps of creamy skin folded over his lids like a blanket tucking his pupils in.

Dark black hair hung over those phosphorescent eyes, while her Greek knob of a nose poked through the waterfall of curls.

These are not occasional flights into sloppy writing (dark black? Really? As opposed to light black? And what about those STDs to make a woman wet?) but a constant barrage of randomly constructed descriptions. And despite the first person narration, I knew as little about the main character on the final page as I had on the first. Sure, there's the Big Reveal at the end to explain some of her actions, but it was too little, too late.

oh dear god

Those examples are funny. Thanks for the warning about The execution of Noah P Singleton I love a bad review (thumbed)

Sounds like one to steer way clear of!

The eyelids one is my favorite! Just terrible!

Yikes! Run away!

His moans lubricated the phone lines like a sexually transmitted disease.
Ewwww!!! That is the grossest and funniest simile I've ever read.

That really is gross.

Wow. Thanks for taking one for the team, Kay. I do think this novel is award worthy, though; that STD line is surely a contender for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (the award for the worst written sentence) or the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

>212 RidgewayGirl: It sounds like you deserve a couple of five star reads after pushing through that one, Kay.

Darryl, I am suddenly very grateful that there were no sex scenes in The Execution of Noa P. Singleton. The moments when she vomits or wets herself indicate that it would be enjoyable for no one. Silver is very interested in secretions.

What fascinates me about this book is that the author teaches writing at a reputable university and has been through the MFA song and dance, which indicates that an awful lot of people have read her writing and found it wonderful. I keep looking up various favorable reviews and still don't understand what people saw. They seem to think the author brave because she chose to write about someone on death row, and think its all very gritty and real. Real like meat patty eyelids, y'all.

Bulwer-Lytton indeed. I don't get it. But I loved your review!

Great review there. Hilariously bad excerpts as well.

He had eyelids like meat patties, slight flaps of creamy skin folded over his lids like a blanket tucking his pupils in.

- Has to be my favourite as well.

ETA - Are you sure it's not meant to be bad?

So funny! I wonder what her creative writing classes are like!!

I have read a couple of things recently which imply that the journalist thinks writers who've been through writing programmes are better than writers who haven't - which to me is a reversal of what people thought when creative writing programmes first became popular. All else being equal I would rather read someone who hasn't been through one of those programmes.

ETA: just went to the book page to thumb your review and found a goldmine of other terrible quotes!

About her newest lawyer "…his voice docile as a prostrated ocean, as if he had slipped from his mother’s womb begging for a nonprofit position and studio apartment to match.”

When Kate's husband comes home one night and tells her he's had a great job offer in Luxembourg, Kate is more than ready to give up her own job and move out of the house which needs renovations they just can't afford. Kate's job, the one she's eager to leave, is a desk job with the CIA. She had been out in the field for years, but now she's a mother to two young boys. They move and Kate learns to negotiate life in another country, even as her husband works long hours for a company he will not name and grows secretive. They meet another couple, but soon Kate's training tells her that everything isn't aboveboard with the friendly Chicagoans they keep running into everywhere they go.

The Expats by Chris Pavone is a thriller, a genre I'm largely unfamiliar with. There are secrets and double-crosses and elaborate plans. Things move along quickly. The characters remain thinly drawn, but I guess that's a secondary thing in a thriller. There were extended explanations of each person's role in the book, which weighted down the final chapters, but this was a fun, if forgettable book.

I do have a quibble with this book; the author has chosen to make his protagonist a woman, but he's not really up to the challenge. Kate was a man in a woman's body. The book would have been just as effective and possibly more interesting had the roles been reversed and the main character a man whose wife was offered the job in Europe. It's a pretty common thing now, but not written much about. Also, Kate was a working mother whose family was struggling financially at the start of the book. Yet the parts of the book where the author talks about daily life are largely full of Kate's boredom and outrage at the responsibility of laundry, cooking, cleaning and childcare, tasks she would have been doing in addition to her job in the US. In a man who had previously little to do with these activities, this reaction would have felt authentic. As it was, I kept wondering how she'd avoided cleaning a bathroom or folding laundry beforehand, especially when it was casually mentioned that her husband had never done much around the house.

Although I think I liked Expats more than you, you make a good point about his choosing to make his protagonist a woman. Especially since he was the one who actually lived as a stay at home dad when his wife got a job in Luxembourg. He was quite funny when talking about his experiences in a Books on the Nightstand podcast.

Yes good review of Expats - it was only a two star read for me. You make some good points that I could,t articulate. I just knew I didn't like it.

Thanks for the link to the Pavone podcast, Lisa. He seems to have taken a much funnier book and turned it into a thriller. I stand by my statement that the book would have been much improved had the protagonist been a guy having to take on the frustrating role of househusband.

One of things that happens when you're an accompanying spouse is that your proficiency level drops dramatically. You go from having a life and being seen (and seeing yourself) as highly competent in your job and your life to feeling barely able to manage. Speaking involves feeling like the third grader allowed to stay up with the grown-ups, as your skill in speaking the language is tested. It's a bit of a struggle to remember that you are, in fact, still intelligent and good at stuff. Also, you don't have that place you belong - a workplace or school, so you're adrift in finding a place for yourself while the rest of your family has a scaffolding to build on.

Well, that's one woman's experience. There's a lot great about it, like the way it does test you and it is, after all, an adventure that not everyone gets to go on. We're popping down to Venice because it's a long weekend, but first we're checking out Oktoberfest. There's no question as to how fortunate I feel. I bought a year's membership to the Pinakotheken last week and I get to go look at amazing art anytime I want. And there's value in learning to negotiate unfamiliar cultures.

Let the good times keep rolling and enjoy yourself in Venice, one of my favourite places.

I quite enjoyed The Expats but you make excellent points in your review. I thought along those lines too as I was reading but didn't bother to think it through. As you say - fun but forgettable.

I've looked at The Expats in a bookstore, but never quite was interested enough to buy it -- now I know why, but I still may try it.

I took my family to the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice this weekend. Before entering the museum proper, I took the kids to the gift shop and had each pick out three postcards and then told them to find the art on the postcards in the museum. This worked well, at least at the Guggenheim, which was small and busy with people getting out of the rain. My ten year old son really enjoyed the experience, got a little excited about pointillism and he adored this painting:



My daughter on the other hand, took her influence from her father and while she started out excited, she soon started complaining that any little kid could paint those. Next time I'm leaving my husband home, but in the meantime I picked up Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That. In it, Susie Hodge looks at 100 works of art that have been controversial and puts them in their historic and artistic context, explaining why each one is important and worth looking at and not something a child could come up with. The artists represented range from Munch, Matisse and Picasso, through Twombly, Warhol and Pollock right up to contemporary artists like Hirst, Emin and Gilbert & George.

The author does a fine job explaining the influences on each artist and on each represented work as well. The entries are fun to read, with each artwork reproduced in color and then the rest of each two page spread broken into brief blocks of text. Other artworks by each artist are suggested. My daughter enjoyed paging through the book and looking at the works that caught her eye. I liked the clear and concise explanations of each work and how the author put each work in context. I would have liked a less American/British focus to the book, but that's a small quibble. The book could also have used a bit more of a sense of humor, after all much of the art represented here was painted to poke fun at the art establishment.

What a great idea using the postcards. I have to steal that idea.

Go ahead, Colleen. I stole it from some guidebook or another. It does get them into the place full of enthusiasm.

That sounds like an interesting book!

What a great idea with the postcards! And the book would have come in handy when I took my husband and daughter to the Pompidou Center.

>233 RidgewayGirl: I have a friend who comments, "I could have done that" and the best I've come up with is, "But would you have thought to?" I'm interested in creative inspiration, so this goes onto the library list.

On a separate note, I just read your excellent review of A Place of Greater Safety and immediately put it on my list. I haven't read any of her books yet, and this one sounds like a perfect jumping off point. Having just toured the Conciergerie and other sites this summer, I have been thinking about the revolution.

It is surprising to find the Peggy Guggenheim art gallery in Venice. Modernity amongst all that religious art from the 16th and 17th centuries. In some ways it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Lisa, I'm a big Mantel fan, but I think A Place of Greater Safety is her best work.

Lisa, would you have had your husband choose postcards as well? Because my daughter took her cues from my husband. I may see if we can leave him behind when I take the kids to the Pompidou. Also, A Place of Greater Safety is excellent and hard to put down. My only complaint is that she doesn't think much of Danton, my personal favorite.

Bas, exactly! Except this trip featured only one cultural stop. Those kids! I was angling for my husband to take them off to see glass made, but no luck. They decided the Guggenheim sounded more fun. On the other hand, they have agreed to go to more art museums with me in the future.

Venice was a great experience with the kids. No traffic and children are not only tolerated but enjoyed. Also, Venice is the attraction -- we didn't need to do anything more than wander around for all of us to be happy. The quantity of gelato places didn't hurt.

labs, agreeing with rebecca (241), definitely her best, although I will be sorry to see the end of Thomas Cromwell in her current work.

I'm not a big fan of modern art museums--at this point in my life I feel like I've seen enough. I'm the one in the family who has studied art history, but do you think they listen to me? No--my family, and especially my husband, love modern art. They don't know much about what they're looking at, and we spend a lot of time making fun of it, but in a respectful not mocking way. It does make for a fun experience and lots of laughs are had by all. What a terrible family we are! ;-)

Great idea about getting the postcards before heading into the museum.

And lucky you to go to Venice! There's no place like it.

Venice: The Collected Traveler is not a travel guide in the usual sense. Instead, Barrie Kerper has collected a selection of articles about the city and the surrounding area and presented them according to topic. I read several of the articles while traveling to Venice and there were a few that did enhance our time there, especially those on the food and wine of the region. There was also a wonderful essay by Jan Morris about a day on Torchello that was worth the price of the book, although we didn't visit that island. There were fewer articles about Venice than I expected because the author wanted to include a large area around Venice, explaining that she wasn't going to do a full book about the region, but wanted to include the articles she'd collected. The first two hundred pages of the book are taken up with an abbreviated traditional travel guide to Venice, giving not enough information to serve instead of a travel guide, while taking up space that could have been used to include more interesting articles. There was some good information in this first section, but it could have been covered in an article written by the author, omitting all the repetitive items and things best covered elsewhere.

In short, this is a good book to use to prepare for a trip to Venice, but not one to carry along with you. It suffers from a lack of focus, but many of the articles in the book are worth reading.

LOL! Bad husband!

245 - Nice review. Too bad it didn't pan out as a satisfactory guide also or else NOT a guide! Because it sounds like way better reading and great preparation.

Daryl, I know! And he's such a genial guy -- he wants to join me even if he won't enjoy himself. And there's no kind way to point out that I'd rather go without him. He's happiest when I go to sporting events and boring car rallys with him, even when I bring a book and want to leave early. Of course, he's also great about taking the kids elsewhere so I can read or go somewhere on my own.

Merrikay, I have the Paris version. I'll read it over the next few weeks and see how it compares. It's a good idea and I'm hoping it just lost focus because she wanted to cover too much ground.

Meanwhile, it's snowing!

Is that usual for it to be snowing in October?

Very. But exciting for the kids who were disappointed to find out that a bit of wet snow that melted a few hours later was not grounds for closing the school. The cat was merely disgusted.

laughing at the cat.....plus altho it only snowed about every 3 years where I lived, my children's school buses parked up a little in elevation and got snowed in even when we didn't get ANY snow so they had snowless snow days. It was pretty fun.

Really like your review of Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That - I've just thumbed it and am adding it to the wishlist. Slightly disappointed that Damien Hirst is included in the book, as I think his art is a bit of a bad joke - but there you go!

Thank you so much, avaland, for pointing this author out to me.



Castle Freeman, Jr. is a very good writer. So good that you never notice that his writing is any good at all; you're too busy following the rapidly moving plot, in which the tension is gradually mounting and things are about to go very wrong. You don't even notice the pitch perfect tone of the dialog because it sounds just like ordinary people sound, while talking about ordinary things. The cadences and patterns fall so perfectly that they are invisible and all you notice is a couple of old guys shooting the breeze.

In Go with Me, Lillian sits in her old car in the parking lot behind the sheriff's office. Armed with a paring knife, she waits to tell him that Blackaway's after her. He's killed her cat and he's coming after her. The sheriff sends her to the old mill to ask Scottie for help. What she gets isn't him, but an unlikely pair of protectors who set out for the backwoods of the lost towns to find Blackaway and get him to leave her alone.

Go With Me is a short book, but it's full of atmosphere and foreboding. There's not a wasted word in the book and each character is fully fleshed out in so few words, they shouldn't feel as fully alive as they do. Set in a forgotten corner of rural Vermont, Go With Me is close to perfect.

Well I couldn't resist THAT one!

My new thread is here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/160092