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What I'm Reading July 2012
The Plague of Doves – Louise Erdrich
Audio book performed by Kathleen McInerney and Peter Francis James
4****
A family is brutally murdered in 1911 and a lynch mob hastily hangs several Ojibwe Indians living nearby. Decades later the descendants of those involved have intermarried and the stories of what happened have become distorted over time.
Erdrich published sections of this novel previously as magazine short stories. Different sections of the book are narrated by different characters. Unfortunately this does result in a somewhat disjointed story line, jumping back and forth in time between 1911 and 1970s. There is a huge cast of characters and some are known by more than one name. But please, do not let these elements deter you. Erdrich’s prose is lyrical and flowing. I was intrigued and interested in the lives of the inhabitants of this small town just outside the reservation in a corner of North Dakota. The novel deals with issues of identity and self-worth, of knowing and appreciating one’s background and family history, of love and passion, of forgiveness and revenge.
The audio book is well performed by the duo of Kathleen McInernery and Peter Francis James. They are able to differentiate the many characters, whether a young girl or an aging grandfather.
BC,Your reviews are very good and interesting to read.
I like the posts. I will put the books on my TBR list.
Ann wrote: "BC,Your reviews are very good and interesting to read."
Thank you. I write them mostly just to remind myself of what I've read and what I thought about it. Glad that you find them useful and enjoyable.
Two for the Road – Jane & Michael Stern
4****
Jane & Michael Stern met in grad school at Yale, where they both studied art. Newly graduated, they found that life hit them hard – parents died, a relative was institutionalized – and they just wanted to run away for everything. In a fit of genius – or desperation – they proposed a book about truck-stop dining to a young editor friend. He loved the idea and gave them a contract and an advance. The only problem is that they knew nothing about truck-stop dining, and didn’t even have a car. It took them awhile to discover a routine (and route) that would work, but Roadfood was a success and their careers as professional eaters were born.
This is a delightful memoir of decades spent on the road in search of quintessential American food, served in mostly out-of-the-way locations with little fanfare. We’re talking food that will fill the emptiest stomach and satisfy one’s need for comfort. They’ve sampled and enjoyed chicken dinners in Iowa, pork barbecue in South Carolina, cherry pie in Michigan, hot dogs in Rhode Island, and gallons of sweet tea served ice-cold.
The book should come with a warning label. I think I gained 10 pounds just reading about all this food! Parts are laugh-out-loud hilarious; my outbursts drew curious (or frightened) stares from people in the beauty shop and glares from the library staff (two of my favorite places to read – the beauty shop and the library). The section on menu misprints … well I start chuckling just thinking about it. (Fried Clamps, anyone? If that sounds too tough, how about Tender Oven-Baked Children?)
As an added bonus, there are recipes sprinkled throughout. I plan to try Doris Gulsvig’s Rhubarb Crunch (will have to wait till next year, as rhubarb season is over and we didn’t freeze any) or Mildred Brummond’s Beet Cake (which better be really good, if it’s going to beat my friend Carol’s recipe).
I have to go make something to eat now …
I just started E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Well, re-started. I'd put it down for a month or so, and lost track of the storyline. (Funny how that happens when you forget to finish what you started...) Earlier this spring I began George Eliot's Middlemarch, after five or six failed attempts, and LOVED it this time around. By the way there is a great blog, written by an English prof in Canada, called Novel Readings. The prof wrote about Middlemarch and book groups this spring here.
Book Concierge wrote: "[bookcover:Two for the Road: Our Love Affair with American Food]Two for the Road – Jane & Michael Stern
4****
Jane & Michael Stern met in grad school at Yale, where they both studied art. Newly g..."
Sounds like a fun book. I laughed at the tender baked children. I'm surprised the diner didn't get in trouble for that!
Susan_T. wrote: "I just started E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Well, re-started. I'd put it down for a month or so, and lost track of the storyline. (Funny how that happens when you forget to finish what you st..."Susan, I loved Middlemarch, too. Do you remember when CR had it for Classics? If you're interested, here's our old discussion:
http://constantreader.com/discussions...
BC - TWO FOR THE ROADI thought I recognized the Sterns. They often report on NPR's cooking show, SPLENDID TABLE. While checking this out, I also learned that they divorced in 2008, but still work together as a writing team.
Their book sounds fun.
Sherry, thanks so much for the link to the Middlemarch discussion. I will check it out. BC, thanks for review of the Sterns' book. I missed that one. I do appreciate their work in search of good food! I also liked Jane Stern's Ambulance Girl, about her experiences as an EMT.
Doing a re-read (on audio this time) of A Discovery of Witches in preparation for the arrival of the second book next week. Very smart, and the only time I've tolerated vampires (because it's really about witches, of course).
I just finished The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman Here's the review I posted.Don't let the title fool you. This isn't really about Mrs.Seidenman, but rather about a group of characters, loosely connected by her. This is Warsaw under the Nazi occupation, and these characters circle and touch each other briefly, like dust motes in Brownian motion. In the midst of a character's actions, the author often pauses to give us a brief summary of what will happen in the rest of the character's life. All these threads are so deftly interwoven that the tapestry of the story is beautiful.
Primeval and Other Times Seems like a fairy tale format with a common thread. I am enjoying it so far. I think Jolanta recommended it.
That's high praise from you, Ruth. I put THE BEAUTIFUL MRS. SEIDENMAN on my TBR list.
I've finished Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich and now I've started The Lost Daughter by Diane Chamberlain.
I am still moving slowly through Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson, an excellent history of the Civil War. (Moving so slowly I haven't arrived at Ft. Sumter yet!) At the same time, I am on my summer mystery marathon (not that I don't read them the rest of the year!), currently on Angels in the Gloom: A Novel, the third book in a five-book series by Anne Perry, set during WWI. I've decided to finish the series off this summer (if the library cooperates!), though I'm not sure that so concentrated a diet of Anne Perry will prove a good idea. In case I tire of her, I have a book by Henning Mankell waiting in the wings.
I'm putting Two for the Road on my to read list. Sounds interesting. I'm reading generosity:an enhancement by Richard Powers. I've only read one of his books--Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance (or is it a wedding, can't remember. Anyway. I liked it a lot, but it was challenging. He's an excellent writer, so ambitious that it can sometimes feel like work reading him, but I love this book and it has so many connections to things I'm reading in the paper about the implications of genetic mapping. It's about a woman with a really tragic past who is abnormally happy and the people whose lives she touches. It's also about the art of fiction itself...I really liked those sections, the omniscient narrator/author messes with the reader in a really interesting way. The characters and the structure of the story are fascinating to me.
John wrote: "I'm a couple of hours into listening to Stewart O'Nan's Emily, Alone, story of an 80-year-old upper-middle-class Pittsburgh widow. Very well written, but not much actually happens, almost as though..."Although I don't comment very often, I love visiting Constant Reader for the book suggestions! Thank you, John, for suggesting "Last Night at the Lobster." It was a good, quick read, and I think I might try other books by this author.
Misty - O'Nan's Snow Angels might be a good choice for you after Lobster. I found the plot a tad grim, but he's such an evocative writer that I felt I was "seeing" the story unfold, and I'm not usually a visual reader!
John wrote: "Misty - O'Nan's Snow Angels might be a good choice for you after Lobster. I found the plot a tad grim, but he's such an evocative writer that I felt I was "seeing" the story unfold, and I'm not usu..."The movie was quite good, although yes, very grim.
Hattie Big Sky – Kirby Larson
Audio book narrated by Kirsten Potter
4****
Hattie Inez Brooks is an orphan who has been shunted from family member to family member since her parents died. She feels she is “Hattie Here and There.” When she’s informed of a totally unexpected legacy she sets out for Montana at the tender age of 16 to lay claim to her uncle’s homestead.
This is a good story, based on the life of the author’s great-grandmother. When most of us hear “homestead” we think of the mid to late 1800’s, but this story is set in 1917-1918. There is a lot going on the in country at this time – the advent of motorized vehicles, the Great War (World War I), the expansion of the railroads and increased settlement of the West, and the great Spanish Influenza pandemic. All these elements and historical episodes come into play in this young adult novel. Larson has crafted a compelling plot, with a good balance of heartache and joy. We have a very strong heroine in Hattie Brooks, as well other strong men and women, and a few villains and cowards to even the score and make the story interesting and realistic.
Kirsten Potter does a fine job of narrating the audio book. Her pacing is good and her use of varying inflections helps to differentiate characters.
I really enjoyed this novel and would read more of Larson’s work. Definitely would recommend this for my nieces (ages 11 and 16).
Misty wrote: "John wrote: "I'm a couple of hours into listening to Stewart O'Nan's Emily, Alone, story of an 80-year-old upper-middle-class Pittsburgh widow. Very well written, but not much actually happens, alm..."I wish you could participate more, Misty, but it's good to know you're out there.
A Thousand Days in Venice – Marlena de Blasi
5*****
In November 1993 the author arrived in Venice with two friends in tow. As they lunched at a small local place, she noticed a table of four men seated nearby. After all the other patrons had left and she and her friends were alone in the restaurant, the waiter approached and said there was a telephone call for her. “Not possible,” she answered. They had only just arrived that morning and had not yet notified their friends where they were, surely they hadn’t told anyone where they were going for lunch! But the waiter insisted and she went to the phone, to hear a “deep, deliberate, Italian voice I’d never heard before” ask – Is it possible for you to meet me tomorrow at the same time? It’s very important for me.
She resisted for several days, but he kept finding her. And when she returned to St Louis, there he was two days later - come across the ocean to insist she return with him to Venice. He was “tired of waiting” for his life to begin, for joy and love to come to him.
This is a delicious memoir of a love that surprised these two middle-aged people – a Venetian banker and an American journalist (and chef). I am smiling thinking about it. I kept reading passages aloud to anyone who would listen (and even a few who didn’t want to listen). De Blasi is not only in love with Fernando (“the stranger”), she is in love with Venice. No, she is in love with life, and she imbues her writing with that love. Is it all smooth sailing? Of course not. He lives, and prefers, a Spartan life – simple, small meals, a functional but uninspired and colorless apartment. She is vibrant, wearing “too-red” lipstick, and wanting to surround herself in rich fabrics and deep colors. And, she is a chef – she loves to cook large elaborate meals, to nurture people. Oh, and she isn’t fluent in Italian, much less the Venetian dialect, and he doesn’t speak English. And yet … She held tight to her friend’s advice: “Take it in your hands and hold tight to this love. If it comes, it comes only once.”
Read this. And enjoy life!
Ann wrote: "I just finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Turkish writer Elif Shafak. The plot revolves around a nineteen year old Turkish girl who lives with her mother and 3 aunts in an all-female household in..."I read this for a book group but wasn't wild about it. But then I have a strong preference for realism over fablesque stuff.
Abandoned THE MOSQUITO COAST on p. 112, feeling very frustrated with myself. I thought it was very well written, but I just couldn't get into it. I'm probably the only one in the world.
Now I'm surviving tough family stuff by rereading some of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. Different books for different life moments.
Kat , I hope all will end well for you. There is nothing like a book to take you away, forget Calgon , just a book and a bath.
Kat wrote: "Ann wrote: "I just finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Turkish writer Elif Shafak. The plot revolves around a nineteen year old Turkish girl who lives with her mother and 3 aunts in an all-female ..."Nope, Kat. I'm feeling stupid with how many times I've started Mosquito, especially because everyone is raving about it.
I am going to start reading "Gold" by Chris Cleave. I enjoyed his book "Little Bee". "Gold" is set in London for the Summer Olympics. The reviews have been pretty good.
The Descendants – Kaui Hart Hemmings
Audio book performed by Jonathan Davis
3.5***
Most everyone thinks Matthew King is one of the luckiest men in Hawaii. His great-grandfather was a missionary who married a Hawaiian princess, making Matt a royal descendant and owner (with his cousins) of one of the largest pieces of undeveloped real estate in the islands. But that is not his focus these days. His wife Joanie lies in a coma after a boating accident and he is left trying to deal with his two daughters – 10-year-old Scottie and 17-year-old Alexandra. He’s adrift and not certain he’s doing the right thing for his children in this situation. And then he discovers that before the accident, his wife was having an affair and planning to leave him for her new love.
This is a contemplative novel, and Davis does a fine job of narrating it. In the beginning I found his slow, deliberate reading just too ponderous. I wanted to get on with the story. However, I soon came to realize that this cautious performance was perfect for voicing Matt King as he observes and absorbs what his family really is vs what he thought it was, considers his options re his inherited land, and contemplates what to do with the new information he has about Joanie.
I had seen the movie and couldn’t help but see George Clooney and the other actors in my mind. The book is better than the movie, as any character-driven work would be. It’s a fine debut novel. I would read another work by Hemmings.
I finished The Man in the Wooden Hat yesterday, and while it could stand on its own if read first, I'd strongly recommend Old Filth coming ahead of this one for folks who've read neither. I did find it started slowly, and to be honest I never really cared for Betty all that much to be fully invested in her story. Still, the quality was high and it complements Filth's story well.
I'm reading 3 books recommended by people here: Wolf Hall by Mantel, Rules of Civility by Towles, and The Swerve by Greenblatt.I'm furthest in Wolf Hall. I've been a fan of this period in history since the old public TV series Six Wives of Henry VIII. This book is well written and gives me a very real feeling of time and place. All is interpreted from the viewpoint of Thomas Cromwell, but the author consistently uses "he" rather than "I" when she tells us his thoughts and words. Because of the use of "he," (which generally, but not here,refers to the previous proper noun) I was often confused by who was speaking, but as I have continued reading, either the author has gotten clearer or I've gotten used to it.
This book really turns some historical ideas on their heads. Thomas Moore (who was a hero in my Catholic girlhood) comes off as quite nasty here. He insults his wife in front of her in a language she can't understand and personally participates in the torture of religious dissidents.
It all makes you wonder what really happened!
I need a break from this book sometimes because I know how badly it all ended for most of the characters. It seems to have been a horrible time to be alive for anyone with strong religious beliefs. Sometimes they burned Protestants, but with the next shift of power it could be Catholics - and so on and so on.
Ann wrote: "I'm reading 3 books recommended by people here: Wolf Hall by Mantel, Rules of Civility by Towles, and The Swerve by Greenblatt.I'm furthest in Wolf Hall. I've been a fan of this period in histo..."
Hi Ann,
I couldn't help noticing that you was interested in Thomas More. Have you read Utopia ?
Ann, I loved Wolf Hall and got accustomed to the unusual pronoun usage too. Hilary Mantel is planning to make a trilogy out of it and the second book, Bring Up the Bodies, is out now. I'm trying to figure out when I can fit it into my eastern European and CR reading.
Sara wrote: "Kat wrote: "Ann wrote: "I just finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Turkish writer Elif Shafak. The plot revolves around a nineteen year old Turkish girl who lives with her mother and 3 aunts in an..."Thanks, Sara! Good to know I'm not alone.
Just started rereading Pat Barker's Regeneration for my face-to-face book group. A truly outstanding novel.
Lone,I have heard of UTOPIA, but I have never read it. Is it interesting?
Barb,
Bringing up the Bodies seems to be getting even better reviews than Wolf Hall. I think I'll have to read that one too.
Has anyone read any of Hilary Mantel's other books?
Fools Rush In – Janice Thompson
1*
Bella Rossi and her loud, boisterous Italian family run Bella’s Weddings. Her parents want to retire and have turned over the business to her. Problem is she has never planned a theme wedding before and she has less than two weeks left to put on a Boot-Scootin’ Texas nuptial.
This is a cute premise, and I had no illusions that this would be anything but light, romantic comedy, with Christian overtones. But, oh, my stars! Thompson drags out every cliché of the romance / chick lit genre. She uses and overuses the same tired phrases. The characters are stereotypes (Italian aunt who lives to make great meals and feed the world, an Italian ex-boyfriend with a hair-trigger temper, an uncle with mob connections back in New Jersey, etc), and she includes two “cute” pets – a ferocious Yorkie-Poo named Precious, and a bedraggled parrot with a foul mouth.
Her plot totally gets away from her, as well. This is padded to an excruciating 325 pages. The key first-time wedding is over and there are still 100 pages of fill to get through. A good editor would have trimmed this to fewer than 200 pages.
Ann wrote: "Lone,I have heard of UTOPIA, but I have never read it. Is it interesting?
Barb,
Bringing up the Bodies seems to be getting even better reviews than Wolf Hall. I think I'll have to read that one..."
I just read Hilary Mantel's
Fludd, which is very different. According to an interview she did she writes two kinds of books, the first is comic with characters coming close to caricatures, the other, often historical, has complex characterization. Fludd is the first sort; it's short and hilarious. It's set in a working class English village in 1956 and deals with the impact on the Catholic church and convent there of a new curate who seems to be of supernatural origin. My book group spent the evening debating whether he was a demon or an angel, there was plenty of evidence for both viewpoints.
I realize that it's not the type of thing that most here read, but wanted to give a shout-out to Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work, a semi-memoir by Tim Gunn (I'd never heard of "Project Runway" before picking up the book). He focuses on stuff like treating others as you expect to be treated, giving examples of those he's run across who definitely did not practice such, but as examples rather than gossip, and he's quick to point out positive experience as well. He co,es across as really nice guy, without being corny or preachy. I'm nowhere near half finished, and already kind of down that eventually I'll have finished the book.
Book Concierge wrote: "The Descendants – Kaui Hart Hemmings
Audio book performed by Jonathan Davis
3.5***
Most everyone thinks Matthew King is one of the luckiest men in Hawaii. His great-gra..."
Does the book explain more of the wife? Her emotions?
Ann wrote: "Lone,I have heard of UTOPIA, but I have never read it. Is it interesting?
"
From what I've heard it does sound very interesting, at least to me. I have bought it and it's in my TBR pile.
Lone,Let us know what you think of UTOPIA when you get to it.
Ann
Kat,Thanks for the info on FLUDD. I'll give it a try. I do like comic novels - although I find that my sense of humor doesn't always jive with that of the author.
I think it is unusual for an author to write in two completely different styles. I know that British writer John Banville writes serious literary fiction and also writes mysteries under his pen name Benjamin Black. I have only read the mysteries.
Utopia was interesting as well as The Prince . Both are about how to run society , but are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I read The Prince first, then Utopia. The comparison was enlightening.
Carol wrote: "Utopia was interesting as well as The Prince . Both are about how to run society , but are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I read The Prince first, then Utopia. The comparison was enlightening."Hi Carol,
Who wrote 'The Prince' and when?
Carol wrote: "The Prince sorry I thought since you had Utopia you knew about Machiavelli."Thanks! I have heard the name before but never heard of the book. I noticed it was written a little later than Utopia but it's still interesting to see the differences.
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I am a big fan of Bill Bryson and also enjoyed A WALK IN THE WOODS. Do you review audio books professionally?
Jennifer, THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG came highly recommended to me, but I could..."
No, I don't review any books (audio or text) professionally. I just do it for myself.
Oh, and I loved Elegance of the Hedgehog - I listened to the audio for that one as well.