Bookmarks Magazine

Here's what looked good in Bookmarks Magazine Nov./Dec. issue:

Best Books of 2009 Article
A Mercy, Toni Morrison
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, Tiffany Baker
Daemon, Daniel Suarez SF
Cyberbad Days, Ian McDonald SF
The Lost City of Z, David Grann NF
The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes NF

The Suicide Collectors, David Oppegaard SF
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood
The Calligrapher's Daugher, Eugenia Kim
Cold, Bill Streever NF
The Sisters of Sinai, Janet Soskice

The Elephant Keeper S
Spooner, Pete Dexter S
Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon S
Notcurnes, Kazuo Ishiguro S
Gourmet Rhapsody, Muriel Barbery S
Bad Things Happen, Harry Dolan S

Bookmarks Magazine

Books that looked interesting in the September/October 2009 Bookmarks Magazine:

The Children’s Book - A.S. Byatt
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood
Mao’s Last Dancer - Li Cunxin NF
Commissario Guido Brunetti Series - Donna Leon
People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
Censoring an Iranian Love Story - Shahriar Mandanipour
Angel’s Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Fordlandia -Greg Grandin NF
Death with Interruptions - Jose Saramago (S)
Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon (S)
The Strain - Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (S)

RIP IV Wrap Up

It is hard to believe that the RIP IV challenge is over. I originally signed up for Peril the Second which meant that I was committed to reading two books. I read:

Hell House
Turn of the Screw
Pride Prejudice and Zombies
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Thirteenth Tale
House of Leaves

I guess I could have signed up for Peril the First but I appreciate Carl giving us options to participate as little or as much as we can. Each of the books was so different and I enjoyed them all. If I had to pick I would say that House of Leaves and Pride Prejudice and Zombies were my favorites. House of Leaves was the scariest house I have ever encountered and I enjoyed its experimental format and Pride Prejudice and Zombies was just plain fun. For short stories you cannot beat M.R. James and I really enjoyed Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

I am sorry that I didn't get around to Master and Margarita but I bought it so perhaps next year if not sooner. There are 693 reviews posted and I haven't gotten around to all of them yet so I am sure my wish list will be growing. I also ran across an interesting article in the Washington Post that asked famous writers to identify their favorite frightening tale - more fodder for the wish list. Thanks Carl for hosting a great challenge and I cannot wait for next year!

House of Leaves

by Mark Z. Danielewski

I first read this when it first came out in 2000, or maybe shortly before. At the time I was working at Barnes & Noble and the buzz on this was intense. My reaction then was that it was a great scary story imbedded in too much gimmick, the author needed to get over himself and the editors needed to focus on the story of the house. But over the years this story has stuck with me long after I have forgotten most of the other books that I read. And the house in this story is the scary house by which I measure all scary houses and so far they all come up short. So for Carl V’s RIP IV I wanted to reread this book and see what my reaction would be, especially since in the past nine years my appreciation for books with labels like postmodern, meta fiction and experimental has grown. So my question to myself was this: Is this still the scariest house I have ever encountered and if so does it work in spite of the unique format used or because of it?

At the heart of this story is a house. It is your ordinary suburban house but then a hallway appears where none was the day before. The house is measured and the interior dimensions are greater than the exterior. Then another hallway appears that leads to a labyrinth of hallways and rooms and a spiral stairway that leads down for miles. The walls of the labyrinth are featureless, the temperature is steady and there is no movement of air. Any article left in the labyrinth will gradually just disintegrate and disappear - including dead bodies. And it is not just the immensity of the labyrinth which is somehow inside a suburban house that is terrifying but its lay out changes continually. One minute you can see the bottom of the spiral staircase the next it takes seven days to walk down it. You walk into a room and a moment later the door you just entered is gone. Yes - this is still by far the scariest house ever. But if you just put the parts of this book about what happened in the house together you would only have a short story and House of Leaves is 709 pages which includes extensive footnotes, exhibits and appendices.

The introduction to the book is written by a character named Johnny Truant who claims that he rescued what will be presented from the trunk of a deceased recluse named Zampano. Zampano’s work, which Johnny reconstructs, is an academic scholarly examination of the allegedly famous documentary film, the Navidson Record. The documentary was allegedly made by a famous award winning photo journalist, Will Navidson, about his house on Ash Tree Lane into which he recently moved with his wife Karen, a former high fashion model, and their two children to reconnect as a family. As the house starts changing Will Navidson, his brother, a friend and a professional explorer and his team try to explore the labyrinth with disastrous results. It is only through this scholarly examination of the documentary film that the story of the house is revealed. Zampano’s work is not only written in a dry academic style with exhaustive footnotes and citations to authorities but does not focus on the plot of the Navidson Record or what is happening with the house but assumes that you are familiar with the plot. I often found myself wanting to skip ahead to find out what was happening with the explorers instead of wading through lengthy dissertations on architecture, the meaning of home or the nature of labyrinths. Not only is it written in an academic style but as the explorers are in the labyrinth the very text changes so that parts of the text are written upside down, sideways, backwards. The footnotes become even more difficult to follow as the footnotes have footnotes with footnotes and I know that some I simply could not find. This style really makes the reader feel the frustration of being inside of a labyrinth. And then the text shifts from being very dense and chaotic to only having a few words on an otherwise blank page. This is not your typical straightforward narrative.

Included in the footnotes are notes from Johnny Truant. Some of the foot notes comment on Zampano’s text, for example explaining that he has been unable to confirm the existence of the Navidson Record documentary, the existence of any of the people from the documentary such as Will Navidson, or the existence of the house. The bulk of the footnotes by Johnny however deal with Johnny’s life. As Johnny’s story is laid out in the footnotes we see him slowly descend into madness as he becomes obsessed with the text found in Zampano’s trunk and loses contact with the outside world. The appendices to the book include numerous letters from Johnny’s mother from a psychiatric ward further rounding out his story.

Reading House of Leaves reminded me of the August article in the Wall Street Journal by Lev Grossman entitled “Good Books Don’t Have to be Hard” which caused such a stir. See Mumpsimus or Conversational Reading. Mr. Grossman explains:

The Modernists introduced us to the idea that reading could be work, and not common labor but the work of an intellectual elite, a highly trained coterie of professional aesthetic interpreters. The motto of Ezra Pound's "Little Review," which published the first chapters of Joyce's "Ulysses," was "Making no compromise with the public taste." Imagine what it felt like the first time somebody opened up "The Waste Land" and saw that it came with footnotes. Amateur hour was over.

And House of Leaves takes the difficulty of the Waste Land to the next level. Does the difficulty of reading this text simply feed our ego so we can read a straight-out horror story of a creepy house while feeling superior to the “amateur[s]” or does the difficult text add to the experience? I think when I first read this book I wanted to just read it for the plot (which is a great one) but this time around I enjoyed the journey as much as the plot. And for the record I don’t usually like poetry but I love the Waste Land and have not yet been able to get through Ulysses.

House of Leaves is not the type of book you can read quickly but if you take the time I found it very rewarding. One of the things I loved about this book is its homage to Jorge Luis Borges, one of my favorite authors. Of course the labyrinth of the house as well as the lengthy discussion of labyrinths, and fiction portrayed as criticism made me think of Borges but the author even includes one of Borges characters. In the chapter about the significance of echos the footnote discusses the echo of Don Quixote by Pierre Menard, a character from Borges wonderful story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”. In that piece Borges reviews the work of fictional Pierre Menard who through total identification with Cervantes wrote Don Quixote (which is word for word identical to the original) in a manner that was more subtle and infinitely richer than the original. Zampono comments that Menard’s “nuances are so fine as to be nearly undetectable, though ... haunted ... by sorrow, accusation and sarcasm.” p. 42. Johnny Truant in a footnote to that foot note comments “Exactly. How the fuck do you write about exquisite variation when both passages are exactly the same?” I really enjoyed the interplay of Zampano’s serious scholarly work with Johnny’s honest gut reaction. I thought this was a very interesting way for the author (Danielewski) to make his commentary on literary criticism in a fun way.

I also thought that the format of House of Leaves (a story about a guy who finds a manuscript about a documentary about the exploration of scary house) works really well in exploring the distances between the characters. The most terrifying aspect of the house was the fact that the labyrinth was of infinite and changing distance. In one particularly horrifying scene Navidson is at the bottom of the spiral stair case when it moves so that he no longer is within sight of his friends at the top but is trapped at the bottom of the stairway many many miles away from anyone and his situation goes from being almost home to being without hope in a second. Most of the characters are struggling with distances in their relationships and interactions with others as well. The Navidson family specifically move to the house to try and reconnect and eliminate the distances that have been growing between them. Johnny Truant, struggles through out his life trying to make some type of connection with anyone, first his mother, then through numerous one night stands and ultimately ends up totally isolated, alone with Zampano’s manuscript. And the format of the book also places a great distance between the reader and the characters and main plot making you feel the frustration of that distance which I thought worked well.

Just like the Waste Land you could spend years examining the text and indeed, many articles, blogs and websites have done just that. The answer to my question is that I enjoyed the format and difficult text of the book and while it is still the scariest house I have ever encountered it is also a rewarding reading experience. Read it for the plot itself or read it more closely but in any case I highly recommend it.

The Thirteenth Tale

by Diane Setterfield

Vida Winter, a dying famous reclusive writer hires Margaret Lee, a young girl who works in her father’s bookshop, to write her biography. Margaret goes to stay with the ill Vida Winter at her estate and gradually Vida Winter tells her tale. I was excited to read it especially since it got such rave reviews during RIP III, in blog land and in traditional reviews. As is typical in sprawling family sagas the tale is about family, love, lies, deceits and betrayals. Although this is not the type of story that I usually read, I was caught up in the tale that Vida slowly reveals and the characters were interesting. This is a very atmospheric tale in the style of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre and I especially liked Angelfield, Vida’s childhood home.

***Spoiler Alert*** The only negative I have to say about this book is that Amazon and other sources refer to it as a ghost story so I kept looking for an actual ghost. Yes, Vida and others were haunted by their pasts, obsessed with departed loved ones and Margaret talks to and sees her deceased twin in mirrors but I didn’t take any of those instances to be more than usual human grief and longing and did not involve an actual supernatural ghost. I also saw the “twist” coming early on but I still enjoyed the story.

Over all it didn’t live up to the hype and I am not going to rush out and buy her next book but I have recommended this book to a couple of people who I think will enjoy it. For me I am much more excited about House of Leaves that I just finished and tackling Bolano’s 2666 which just arrived from Barnes & Nobles.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

For this Short Story Sunday I read Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James which I absolutely loved.

Montague Rhodes James (1862- 1936) was a medieval scholar at Cambridge and Eaton who also delighted in writing ghost stories which he then liked to read out loud to his friends during the holidays. This is his first collection of ghost stories originally published in 1904. He is one of my favorite ghost story authors and his stories tell tales of scholars or gentlemen, often upon discovering an ancient manuscript or relic, who let their curiosity get them into much more than they bargain for. While dripping in gothic atmosphere M.R. James does not shy away from horror. “Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, 'the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded.” M. R. James. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories". The Bookman, December 1929. These are perfect stories to curl up with on a dark and stormy night. This book contains eight stories.

Cannon Alberic’s Scrap-book tells the story of scholar who buys an ancient manuscript and wishes he hadn’t. Lost Hearts is about an orphan who goes to live with a distant cousin and finds that he is not the first child to be taken in and then mysteriously disappear. The Mezzotint is one of his classic tales of a gentlemen scholar who excitedly purchases a Mezzotint that strangely changes before his eyes. The Ash Tree is one of my favorites about the revenge of a witch burned at the stake and scarey spiders. Many of his tales can provide you with invaluable lessons to follow in your life. Number 13 teaches you when staying in a hotel to not even take a room that could have been near unlucky room number 13, even if it does not exist. Count Magus is also one of my favorites about the dangers of hanging out in mausoleums and talking to the inhabitants. Oh Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad convinced me that if I ever dig up a whistle from an ancient archaeological site I will just put it back. And finally, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas is very clear that if you ever come upon a well with stairs leading down into it, no matter what wonderful things you think you might find down there, don’t go.

I cannot wait to read his next collection, More Ghost Stories. I down loaded Ghost Stories of an Antiquarian for free from Feedbooks.com but you can also read it online or down load it from Project Gutenberg. Moreover I think many of the individual stories are also on line. I am also curious to read some of Sheridan Le Fanu ghost stories as I understand that M.R. James admired them. If you like ghost stories at all M.R. James is not to be missed.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

In case there is anyone out there who has not heard of this book, Seth Grahame-Smith has taken the original text of the classic Pride and Prejudice, which is in the public domain, and added his own sections into the story involving England’s plague of zombies, martial arts training in the orient for all well breed English ladies and armies of ninjas. Is this a gimmick? Absolutely, but I still greatly enjoyed this fun zombie romp. I certainly have read Pride and Prejudice and encountered some of the movies but I am not a rabid Austin fan. There will certainly be those that find taking such liberties with a classic to be appalling. I for one think imitation or parody is the highest form of flattery. To have both Darcy and Elizabeth skilled killers added an extra depth to their relationship that was missing from the original. This is not a work of great literature and while Pride and Prejudice will likely still be read a 100 years from now, this most likely will not. Nevertheless, literature does not need to be taken so seriously all the time and I enjoy a purely entertaining read now and then. I read this in one day while sitting on airplanes and in airports and it was the perfect read to keep me entertained and chuckling the whole day. I think that you will likely find it more amusing if you are a little familiar with Pride and Prejudice, but it would be interesting to hear someone’s take on it who had not read the original before hand. Those readers that are intimately familiar with the original text seem to be the ones most likely to dislike the book.

I read this for the RIP IV challenge and it has been quite popular with other participants as well. Here are some of their reviews:

Fuzzy Cricket
Book Rat
Biblio Addict
The Little Bookworm
MariReads

Egalia's Daughters

by Gerd Brantenberg

This was a book that I read for my book club. This feminist novel was originally published in 1977 in Norway and I must say that I found it a little dated and disappointing. I had high hopes for this novel in which the tables are turned and it is a woman’s world. Women hold the power, have careers and provide for their families while the men (or housebounds) stay at home and take care of the children. I thought it would be interesting to explore a society where the women were in control and was disappointed that the author simply flipped the roles of the sexes instead of really thinking about how a society run by women might be different. Of course by the time I got further into the book I understood that the author’s goal was to throw the spot light on our society, not theorize about a true women’s society. The men wear dresses, bows in their beards and fancy decorated “pehos” on their penises which stick through the skirts and hold the penis out straight. Every word with “man” in it has been changed to ‘wim” or “wom” for example seaman is seawim etc. The plot line is pretty thin and none of the characters are particularly engaging but then again, entertainment is not the point of this book. All in all I got the point early on and felt like I was being hit over the head with the authors point. Moreover, 32 years later, our society has changed immensely. Virtually all of the women in my book group are career women and while we can try and imagine what it was like for women in 1977, the issues presented didn’t really resonate with us. Interesting from a historical perspective but not great literature although it did engender a lively and interesting discussion.

Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

I like Henry James and since this is a classic ghost story, I am surprised to say that I had never read it so I thought it would be a perfect selection for RIP IV. It is the story of a governess hired to care for a young boy and girl at their uncle’s country estate. At first everything is going well and she finds the children charming but then she starts seeing a man and a women about the estate that cannot be accounted for. I don’t want to give the plot away but I was surprised by the ending and found myself wondering if this account, allegedly written by the governess, was “true”, whether she was leading us on with her version of the events, or whether she believed the events to be true but they were really all in her head. After I read the novella I read a little bit about this story on the internet and apparently there is quite a bit of scholarly debate “over the reality of the ghosts and the sanity of the governess.” In any case it was a fun novella which has been turned into both a ballet and opera as well as tv and big screen adaptions. You can read it for yourself on line or download it from Project Gutenberg or Feedbooks.

Hell House

by Richard Matheson

This is my first read for the RIP IV Challenge. One of my favorite horror stories is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson published in 1954 but I had never read anything else by this author. I loved I Am Legend because although about vampires, it is really about the terror of one man being truly all alone in the world. It does not focus on the vampires but focuses on the psychological terror. Which of course is absolutely nothing like the movie that came out a couple of years ago. I enjoyed the movie but I never would have guessed that it was based on this book if it did not actually say so on the trailer. So enough about I Am Legend except to say if you haven’t read it you certainly should.

Hell House was published in 1971 and while not as powerful as I Am Legend was an enjoyable read. I just love haunted houses and this is one of the creepiest evil houses there is. It is similar to Shirley Jackson’s the Haunting of Hill House but is less of a psychological thriller and has more graphic violence and sex. A dying millionaire wants to determine whether there is life after death before he finds out first hand. To do this he purchases the “most haunted house in the world”, Belasco House, and assembles a team to investigate it. The team consists of a physicist and his wife (Dr. Lionel Barrett and Edith), a mental medium who heads her own Spiritualist church (Florence Tanner) and a physical medium (Franklin Fischer), the only survivor of the last investigative attempt 30 years before. The investigative team initially argues over whether the evil nature of the house stems from the spirit of its prior owner Emeric Belasco or multiple spirits that were involved in the horrible acts of blasphemy and perversion that took place with Belasco as host or whether it is pure physical oddities that can be eliminated. Eventually the question becomes will anyone survive Hell House this time. I would have liked a little more background on Belasco and the history of the house because I am always interested in the why, but it was a fun read. If you haven’t read any Matheson however start with I Am Legend.

All She Was Worth

by Miyuki Miyabe

Blurb from the back cover:

A suspenseful noir thriller from one of Japan’s best-selling authors. All She Was Worth takes a journey through the dark side of Japan’s consumer-crazed society. When a beautiful young women vanishes in Tokyo, her distraught fiancé enlist the help of his uncle, a police inspector, to find her. The detective quickly realizes that she is not who she claimed to be, and his search for her brings him to a dangerous financial underworld where insurmountable personal debt lead to crimes of desperation. Her, spending frenzies, stolen identities, and unscrupulous creditors can create a lethal mix.

This is my first read for the Third Japanese Literature Challenge. I liked the main character, the police detective Honma, very much and the woman that he was in search of was very intriguing. I found the story compelling and read it fairly quickly because I wanted to know what happened. I found the census and registry procedures in Japan fascinating and especially liked the switching identity story line. Despite an ambiguous ending ,I enjoyed it very much.

There is one aspect of the story which I found a little puzzling which was the extreme consequences of getting over your head in consumer debt. This book was first published in Japan in 1992, 17 years ago. As I was reading I kept wondering whether I was finding it a little dated or whether it was a cultural difference. Today, especially in this recession, I think most people are well aware of the dangers and problems associated with using credit, especially credit cards, to excess and how it can rapidly get out of control. On the other hand, while today stories of people brought to ruin by credit card debt are common, in the U.S. that translates into financial ruin. While you might have to declare bankruptcy and not be able to use credit in the future, no one is going to kidnap or murder you. I suppose if you do go to loan sharks things could get dicey but I also think it unlikely that people in the U.S. go to loan sharks to pay off credit card debt rather than just defaulting on the debt. In the story people go to great lengths to avoid defaulting on debt and consequently get themselves mixed up with a deadly bunch of characters. Do people in Japan avoid defaulting on debt at all costs or has it become more common for people in Japan to simply walk away from debt these days?

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

by Stieg Larsson

translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland

My husband got me the new DX Kindle for my birthday, having taken custody of the Cybook that he had gotten for me a few years before. To give the Kindle it’s first spin I wanted a page turner and this best seller both in Europe and in the U.S. seemed to fit the bill. I don’t normally read mysteries but I really enjoyed this and immediately purchased the second book in this trilogy.

The original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women and the story takes place in present day Sweden. A disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist is approached by Henrik Vanger, a retired industrialist to attempt to find out what happened to his great niece who mysteriously disappeared 36years before. Blomkvist teams up with an unusual pierced and tattooed young girl, Lisbeth Salander, who is a genius investigator/hacker to try and solve the mystery. Lisbeth has been described in other reviews as having Asperger Syndrome but that is not clear from the book and I think it is also possible that she is just emotionally stunted by mysterious events from her past. In any case Lisbeth is a fascinating character. Obviously brilliant, emotionally distant but with rare and heartbreaking attempts to connect with someone. Although very young she is a survivor and does whatever is necessary to take care of herself. This is a part one of a trilogy so we only get glimpses of her background but I really want to read the other books to learn more about her. All the characters were well developed and I especially enjoyed the creepy and extended Vanger family. And the person at the heart of the mystery is also suitably terrifying. It was certainly a page turner with lots of interesting plot twists and a full conclusion to the mystery at hand. I highly recommend it.

RIP IV

It is time once again for Carl V’s Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge from September 1 through October 31. Yeah! Obviously I have put way too much thought into this because I have put together a pool of books far longer then I will be able to get to in the next two months. Nevertheless I am signing up for Peril the Second which means that I will read at least two books but hopefully more.

Definitely reading:

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I read this when it first was published in 2000 and it has always stuck with me as the scariest house I have encountered. I bought a new copy last year for the RIP III and was very disappointed that I didn’t get to it.

Hell House by Richard Matheson. He wrote I am Legend which I just loved.

Planning to Read:

Turn of the Screw by Henry James. I cannot believe that I have never read this classic and I have it downloaded on my new Kindle.

Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield which I have in audio on my ipod.

Short Stories:

This genre seems to lend itself to short stories and I currently have on my Kindle and hope to dip into short story collections by M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Allen Poe and a collection of Famous Ghost Stories by various authors.

I am also intrigued by Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Rampo which of course would also tie in nicely with the Japanese Literature Challenge.

Other Novels that look good:

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Great and Secret Show or Damnation Game by Clive Barker - I loved his Weaveworld.
The Stand by Stephen King - cannot believe that I have never actually read it.
The Terror by Dan Simmons
Pride Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - which has been sitting on my shelf since it came out.
We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson - I loved Hill House.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood - also been on my shelf since it came out.

No Great Mischief

by Alistair Macleod

Whenever I travel to a new place I like to read some literature set in that location. There are not many books set in Cape Breton Nova Scotia but this one was by a well respected author so I thought I would give it a try. It is the story of the Mac Donald clan that came to Cape Breton from Scotland two hundred years. It is told by one of the Mac Donald descendants who grew up in Cape Breton but as an adult now lives in Ontario. As he interacts with his siblings in the present he reminisces about growing up in Cape Breton and the family stories passed down through the generations.

Parts of the book are beautifully written. Here is a passage about his experience working in a mine with his brothers.

It was always a surprise to come to the surface and to be reacquainted with the changes of weather and of time. Sometimes it would be four in the morning and the night would be giving way to dawn, and the stars would appear to be going out like quietly snuffed candles as the sky began to redden with the promise of the sun. Sometimes the moon would gleam whitely above us and my brothers would say, “Chointhe, lochran aigh nam bochd,”, “Look, the lamp of the poor.”

I cannot say that I enjoyed it though. While I appreciate the craftsmanship and I think that it told a very interesting story it was simply too bleak and depressing for me and I had to force myself to finish it. And I am not the type of person that needs books with happy endings. I usually tend toward dark and disturbing stories. My issue with this was simply that the exact same story could have been told with the exact same characters and plot points without losing the tragedy of the whole thing while offering at least some small glimmer of hope. There was one particular episode from the time the narrator’s childhood which is particularly tragic and heart wrenching that is repeated over and over again in the book. I lost count after the sixth retelling of this particular story and would just cringe when it came around yet again. I felt that I was being beaten over the head. I get it, it is a tragic story, a story that keeps repeating itself throughout the Mac Donald clan and the author doesn’t want to sugar coat it. But I don’t believe that this tale is more “true” by virtue of leaving out any hope.

On Amazon it has a four star rating based upon 69 reviews and one reviewer even said he found it “incredibly life - affirming” . That is the great thing about fiction, different people will get different things out of it. To me the despair came through most strongly but you might find something entirely different.

Feeding Frenzy

Across Europe in Search of the Perfect Meal
by Stuart Stevens

I don’t remember if this travel book was a gift from someone or whether I bought it myself back when it came out in 1997 but it was still sitting on my shelf this year when I was looking for something light and fun to read. The premise is that a journalist and his friend Rat, a high fashion model, take a trip to Europe to eat. Rat’s boyfriend says that he will pay for the entire trip if they are able to eat in all 29 of the Michelin three star restaurants in Europe in 29 days. Hilarity ensues as they decide this must be done in an imported cherry red 1965 Mustang which arrives in Europe with no brakes and they inadvertently pick up a large golden retriever that they name Harry.

Although not great literature, it was very enjoyable. Not only was it funny but it was a very interesting look at many of the famous restaurants of Europe as well as the interesting chief /owners that created those restaurants. If you don’t enjoy reading about food, cooking, restaurants and chiefs I would give this a pass but if those are topics that interest you this is a fun way to vicariously experience a wild European Restaurant tour. If you are looking for serious and accurate writing about the famous restaurants try something else. This author has written other travel books and I would be willing to give them a try someday.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

by Muriel Barbery

Blurb from the book:

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

I was looking for some recommendations for my book club and had read such glowing reviews of this book that I ordered it to check it out. Before I got a chance to read it my husband snatched it up, read it and absolutely loved it saying it was one of the best books that he read in years. My book club also really enjoyed it when they read it.

It is beautifully written, which is hard to accomplish in translation. Although not plot driven it is a compelling story and I read the entire thing in a weekend because I couldn’t put it down although I would recommend taking your time and enjoying the language. I went back and re-read it more slowly before our book club and it was even more rewarding. I didn’t like either of the main characters at first but as the story unfolds and you get to see beyond their facade I really loved them both. Although the book includes serious themes such as class struggle, philosophy and the search for beauty don’t let that put you off as it is also laugh out loud funny at times and real joy to read.

Spin

by Robert Charles Wilson

Blurb from the book:

The time is the day after tomorrow, and three adolescents - Diane and Jason Lawton, twins, and their best friend, Tyler Dupree - are out stargazing. Thus they witness the erection of a planet-spanning shield around the globe, blocking out the universe. Spin chronicles the next 30-odd years in the lives of the trio, during which 300 billion years will pass outside the shield, thanks to an engineered time discontinuity.

I was really excited when this book came out because it sounded like an interesting premise and it got such great reviews. Then it won the Hugo for Best Novel and the Seiun Award (Japan’s Science Fiction Award) for Best Foreign Language Novel. I was so convinced I would love this that I got a paper back version as well as an ebook version from Tor’s new website. It has obviously taken me a while to get around to reading it and I must confess that I wasn’t that impressed. I didn’t dislike it but when it ended without a real ending I was not inclined to rush out and get the next book, Axis. I think the main issue I had was that while I found the concept and the scientific ideas interesting the book seemed more focused on the three characters. While normally that could be a good thing, I didn’t find these characters very well developed or compelling and I didn’t really care what happened to them. Obviously many people loved it (68 five star reviews on Amazon) but it just didn’t do it for me.

Japanese Literature Challenge 3

I am very excited that the Japanese Literature Challenge 3 is finally here. The challenge is very simple - read one book of Japanese origin between July 30, 2009 and January 30, 2010. For more information visit our host Dolce Bellezza and the review site.

I so enjoyed the challenge last year that I have been waiting with two selections sitting on my coffee table for the challenge to start. I will definitely be reading All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe and The Tatoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi. I also intend to read The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa and something else by Haruki Murakami. So far I have immensley enjoyed his Wind Up Bird Chronicles and Kafka on the Shore - perhaps After Dark, Hard Boiled Wonderland or A Wild Sheep Chase next. And then of course I have no doubt that I will find lots of other books reviewed by the other participants to add to my wish list.

Uncommon Reader

by Alan Bennett

This book was touted as a celebration of reading and irresistible to avid readers but I was disappointed. While it was cute and amusing and I appreciated the depiction of the Queen discovering the joys of reading and then refining her tastes as all readers do, the ending really spoiled it for me. ***Spoiler Alert*** I was annoyed that the Queen eventually abandons reading and decides that she must write instead.

Had she been asked if reading had enriched her life she would have had to say yes, undoubtedly, though adding with equal certainty that it had at the same time drained her of life of all purpose. Once she had been a self- assured single-minded woman knowing where her duty lay and intent on doing if for as long as she was able. Now all too often she was in two minds. Reading was not doing, that had always been the trouble. p. 100

[S]he did not want simply to be a reader. A reader was next door to being a spectator, whereas when she was writing she was doing, and doing was her duty. p. 102

As an avid reader I believe that there is value in reading and that reading is an end to itself, not simply a means to become a writer. If this were truly a celebration of reading then the Queen would not have given up reading in favor of writing. I was also annoyed that reading had such a pronounced detrimental influence on her performance as Queen. While I generally enjoy antidotes about the crazy things that people do who get a little too carried away by books or reading, the antidotes in this story did not strike me as humorous. Instead of identifying with the strong impulse to read that I believe all avid readers share, it merely made me sad that reading had turned into such a negative that she was unable to perform her duties, especially when she actually abdicated the throne to become a writer. I did enjoy the beginning of the book, especially the way that reading opened her eyes to to the world at large and made her more aware of the people around her. While I had high hopes for this little story, I was disappointed.

July/August Bookmarks Magazine

Here's what looked interesting in the July/August Bookmarks Magazine.

Angel's Game, S. Carolos Ruiz Zafon
Devil's Company, David Liss
Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson but read
Girl with the Dragon Tatoo first
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout (S)
Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver
Moscow Rules, Daniel Silva but start with first in series
Shadow of the Scorpion, Neal Asher but start with first in Polity series
Black Hole War, Leonard Susskind (NF)
The Company, Robert Littell
Stone's Fall, Ian Pears
The Family Man, Elinor Lipman (S)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells tower (S)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
The World to Come, Dara Horn
How it Ended, Jay McInerney (S)
The Scarecrow, Michael Connelly
Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon
Manual of Detection, Jedediah Berry
Pride Prejudice and Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
Brasyl, Ian McDonald (SF)
something by Paul J. McAuley (SF)
something by Alastair Reynolds (SF)