What Are You Reading / Reviews - October 2016

[Terris]

Book Concierge wrote: "
Anne’s House of Dreams
– L M Montgomery – 4****
What I love about these books is Anne, herself. She’s so optimistic and friendly, with good common sens..."

I love these books too! I'll be reading Book #3 soon -- Anne of the Island :)

[Terris]

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, 4****s
I enjoyed this wonderfully told story about two families in Copehagen during WWII, one family being Jewish. The little girl that narrates the story is not Jewish, so this story is a little different than others that I've read. Since this is a book written for 10-12-year-olds, I was glad that the author wrote an "Afterword" explaining her inspirations for the story & characters, and the parts of the story that were fiction and which parts really happened. This is a good one, and I highly recommend it!

[Melissa]

Beverly wrote: "Rebecca
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
5 stars

This was a reread for me but I was thrilled to be reading it again--it was almost like reading it for the first time. Such a Gothic roman..."

I very rarely reread books, but this is one of my favorites and have read it many times.

[Book Concierge]

The Dinner – Herman Koch– 4****
In an oh-so-fashionable restaurant in Amsterdam two couples meet for dinner. I was completely fascinated by the psychological nuances explored in these two couples. Over the course of this meal they dance around the very serious situation their sons have gotten into. Emotions are triggered, and just as quickly suppressed. I can hardly wait for my F2F book group discussion!
Full Review HERE

[Terris]

Book Concierge wrote: "
The Dinner
– Herman Koch– 4****
In an oh-so-fashionable restaurant in Amsterdam two couples meet for dinner. I was completely fascinated by the psychological nu..."

I just started this one this morning!! Only on Chapter 7 but really enjoying the writing so far.

[Terris]

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella, 4****s
I really enjoyed this YA novel about a young teen-aged girl who has been through a traumatic experience at school (which is never explained in complete detail). She is now going to therapy for an anxiety disorder, is excused from going to school for a few months, and wears dark glasses all the time. However, it seems that the rest of this dysfunctional family are not in much better condition! Although, the book deals with this family's problems, it is told in a fairly light way and much of it is funny. I enjoyed it immensely, not wanting to put it down until I was finished to see how it was all going to end. It is recommended for 7th grade and up, but I enjoyed it a lot!!

[James]

Andy Gill, Bob Dylan: The stories behind the songs 1962-1969 [2011] 207 pages

Usually about this time of the year I begin reading the new Nobel Prize winner in Literature. This year's winner, of course, is Bob Dylan, and his works are basically song lyrics. (I think he did write one book, called Tarantula, but I've never run across it and it obviously wasn't the basis for the award.) This is fine with me; songs are the original poetry, and nearly all poetry before the last four hundred years was intended to be sung; and Dylan's lyrics are certainly among the most influential poetry of the late twentieth century. The library ordered the big book of all his lyrics, which I have on hold, but it can't be released until November 1, so in the meantime I read this little book. It's pretty lightweight, no in depth analysis or original research, just the biographical and factual background behind the songs, ranging from a couple paragraphs to a couple pages for each. I probably have had the words to most of these early songs memorized since I was a teenager; my sister can testify that whenever she turns on her karaoke machine, I download Dylan. But I'm not a "fan" type person, and I knew little about him as a person, so some of this was interesting to me (less so trying to guess which girlfriend was the basis for which "breakup" song, many of which were probably addressed as much to his "fans" as to actual women.) One thing that came across very clearly was that he was a poet and songwriter, and not, like his model Woody Guthrie, also a political activist; I don't doubt that he had strong and sincere convictions on racism and war which he expressed in his earlier work, despite his later cynical statements, but he resented the attempt to pigeon-hole him as a "folksinger" or a "protest singer" or involve him in supporting particular groups. It's a tragedy that some people tried to make him into something he wasn't and in the process turned him off from that type of content, which I would like to have had more of. I wonder whether his delay in accepting the Nobel, which is already being commented on, isn't based on a similar worry about being defined by others, in this case as "literature." Or perhaps he still remembers the Tom Paine award banquet (mentioned in the book as an example of his reaction to being turned into a political spokesman which he never intended to be.)

[James]

Although I was planning to read this anyway, it fits this month's challenge for this group (lots of Native American characters.)

Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse [1983; new epilogue and afterword, 1991] 646 pages

One of the most important events happening in the country today, though eclipsed in the media by the Clinton-Trump circus, is the resistance by Native Americans and their allies to the Dakota Access Pipeline. This book is important background to the Standing Rock struggle. Despite the mention of Crazy Horse in the title, this is not a book about the nineteenth century genocide against the Indians, which is covered in a first chapter only as background. What it is, is an account of the resurgence of traditional Indian beliefs and the defense of Indian lands against the energy companies and the government beginning in the 1960s, largely though not entirely through the influence of the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the government's attempt to destroy that movement, culminating in the trial and imprisonment of Leonard Peltier.

This is not an impartial account, but an indictment of the United States government's disregard of law, due process, and elementary decency in their campaign against a movement that threatened the profits of the energy companies. The book does not gloss over the faults of AIM, which are admitted by many of the AIM leaders themselves; they had a confrontational strategy and an unrealistic view of the possibilities of armed struggle against the government, and did not seek the sort of alliances that might have aided their cause -- the Black Hills Alliance and other attempts to unite with the general environmental movement, which led up to the current movement at Standing Rock, all came later. However, the book also documents that most of the important confrontations were forced on the activists by the government, the corrupt and violent tribal government on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the right-wing vigilante groups, and that there was an element of paranoia on the part of the FBI (remember this was the era of COINTELPRO) which resulted in a virtual state of war, with murders, rapes, assaults, and home invasions on the part of the FBI and the BIA and their supporters. The judicial process was constantly subverted in all the trials of AIM activists, not just in the case of Leonard Peltier.

The book is divided into three parts; the first part is background on AIM and the Wounded Knee occupation, the second part deals with the shoot-out for which Peltier was arrested and the trials, and the final part deals with the struggle to get the conviction overturned. I remember that the first significant political meeting I ever attended, was to hear an AIM spokesman, Lee Brightman, talk about Wounded Knee at the Upper West Side Militant Forum in New York, when I was a college student. This is a book that is difficult to read, simply because it made me so angry I had to stop reading every few minutes to cool off. I hope it has the same effect on other readers. After being published in 1983, it was suppressed due to lawsuits by Governor Janklow of South Dakota, and an FBI agent mentioned in the book; it was not republished until 1991. Leonard Peltier remains in prison; every President from Bush through Obama has refused to pardon him or commute his sentence, despite the documentation of government misconduct, falsified evidence and lack of due process at the trial.

Although Matthiessen was a good writer, this is not a particularly well-written book. Perhaps because of the mass of information he had to deal with, it is poorly organized and much of the information is presented out of order, skipping backwards and forwards in a confusing way; and often it was hard to remember who some of the minor characters were when they reappear later on. The information about the role of the energy companies in the Black Hills, which makes sense out of the whole government policy, is introduced at the beginning of Part III. But for all its faults, this is an important book for anyone who wants to know what lengths the US government will go to to crush dissent when it threatens the interests of the energy companies, as we are seeing today at Standing Rock and elsewhere.

As I was reading this, and also following Standing Rock on the Internet (it's not being adequately covered in the media) I saw two other things: the largest land grab of Indian lands since the nineteenth century is being considered now in Congress; and one of my Facebook friends was just arrested tonight for protesting another pipeline in New York.

[Book Concierge]

Midaq Alley – Naguib Mahfouz – 4****
I love stories that feature an ensemble cast such as this. Midaq Alley is but one of many such small streets in Cairo. The residents form a microcosm of society, and over the course of the novel they fall in love, endure heartbreak, commit crimes, become ill, take chances at new adventures, and simply move on with their lives. Mahfouz’s writing is wonderfully atmospheric – I could smell the bread baking, or hear the cacophony of sound in a busy public square.
Full Review HERE

[Beverly]

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan
5 stars

What a great read. I wasn't sure when I started this, it kind of jumps around and is a little hard to follow but once things started falling into place, I loved it. I've actually met Ms. Ryan at Magna Cum Murder a few years ago and she was lovely! I had every intention of trying one her books then but as usual, just never got around to it. So, I was glad when our book club leader decided to give her book a shot. This book is the first in the Jane Ryland series. Jane was a television reporter until she refused to reveal a source. She lost her job and is now working for a newspaper and dealing with fluff work. When 2 women are found dead within hours, both bodies near bridges within the city, the media is already attempting to build a case against the "bridge killer". But Jane and her police friend, Detective Jake Brogan, are hesitant to believe this. As the bodies and the clues build up, it begins to appear that the current senate race may also have some bearing on the case. The story has enough twists and turns to satisfy just about any mystery readers' cravings. One of the things I really loved about Jane's character is that although she's a go-getter, dedicated to getting her story and has great moral character...she's a little bit of a loose cannon. Many times I was thinking....really??? I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

[Beverly]

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
3 stars

I've never seen this movie but have heard about it and still this wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be. Basically a man is shipwrecked on an island where he finds a number of "monstrosities" created by a Dr. Moreau. Various animals have been combined and resculpted to resemble humans and then taught to live by certain "laws". As you might expect, it is difficult to maintain this transition and the beasts began returning to their more animalistic behaviors. It was OK and I'm sure that in it's time it caused quite the stir. I did find it rather atmospheric, the forested island with the channeled landscape. I kept imagining our narrator traversing the dark landscape, in the fog, hearing the cries of the mutilated beasts. Kind of creepy.

[Beverly]

Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe
4 stars

Reviewed for the Mock Caldecott Awards. What wonderful illustrations. The author used found pieces of wood to create the pictures on giving each page a beautiful textural appearance. I really enjoyed the color palette. The book tells the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat's child and young adulthood. Jean-Michel was interested in art from a very young age and would draw and create for hours. When he was 7, he was hit by a car and suffered severe injuries. His mother bought him a copy of Gray's Anatomy so that the pictures could help him visualize what was wrong with his body. His mother was eventually admitted to a psychiatric facility but he visited her for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 27 from the effects of drug addiction. This was a lovely and interesting book about an artist I knew nothing about.

[James]

Lily King, Euphoria [2014] 273 pages [Kindle]

I read this for a group on Goodreads. I was rather unsatisfied with the book. It started out for about the first three quarters of the book as a very close biographical novel about Margaret Mead ("Nell Stone"), Gregory Bateson ("Andrew Bankson") and Reo Fortune ("Fen"). While the names of the tribes they studied were slightly changed and the names of her book and Ruth Benedict's book (the Helen Benjamin of the novel) were also slightly changed, it was so close to the actual reality (apart from blackening the character of "Fen") that I wondered why she had bothered to change the names at all, and was just annoyed by the small deviations from the actual events. Then, three quarters of the way through, the book suddenly takes off in another, melodramatic direction. I wondered if the author had perhaps intended to write a biographical novel and then changed her mind? In any case, I don't think that the ending added to the book. Maybe I would have liked it better if I hadn't known that it was based on Mead's life; but that was the only reason I decided to read it. (I only participate in about half the discussions in that group, usually either the contemporary or the classic but not both). But even the first part, I had a problem with, because it reminded my so much of The Aviator's Wife, the novel about Anne Morrow Lindbergh (although this was better written): both took strong, feminist women and defined them entirely by their relationships to their husbands or lovers. Just as that book never describes Lindbergh's feats as an aviator in her own right, this book doesn't really get into the theories and insights that made Margaret Mead the towering figure she was in the history of cultural anthropology. To have shown her working out those ideas to me would have made this a much more interesting book (they're not too technical for a novel). Bottom line: if you haven't read Blackberry Winter, forget this book and read that instead; it's much more interesting and better written, and then follow up with her books on Samoa and New Guinea. If you have, this book may be more annoying to you. It did, however, make me want to read some of Bateson's books which I have had on my shelves for decades and never gotten around to.