Smile at Strangers

Susan Schorn has written an entertaining, educational, and amusing memoir about the lessons learned in her practice of karate. I'm not a martial artist, I have no desire to be a martial artist, but I really like her writing style and her sense of humor, both of which are very approachable and relatable.

Schorn is an imperfect person (a real person, thank God), who uses what she learns in the dojo to deal with pushy people, disappearing contractors, family illness, and all the other little things that can annoy us. Along the way she also gives the reader some great hints for setting limits, finding personal strength, and making oneself feel easier in difficult situations. This is a good read that I enjoyed enough to want to read more from its author, so I'll be looking up Schorn's web site in the very near future.

Smile at Strangers

The Beautiful and Damned

Since I just finished reading a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald, I thought it fitting to read one of Scott's novels, so I picked up The Beautiful and Damned for my Nook at the library. I've read a bunch of his short stories and of course Gatsby, and Tender is the Night, and I loved all of them, so I thought I would love this, his second novel, as well.

I did not love this novel. I know, it's shocking, but it's true. In my opinion this novel just doesn't stand the test of time the way the others do. The language is stilted, the characters are unlikeable, and the story just feels very old-fashioned to me. I got about two-thirds of the way through and then my check-out expired and I just didn't renew it. I feel horrible about it, I do, but I just don't care anymore what happens to Anthony and Gloria Patch,  I just don't.

I'll try to read his first novel, This Side of Paradise, at some point. But I wonder if maybe I just prefer an older F. Scott Fitzgerald (although he never did get that old). We'll see. But I'm damned disappointed that I just couldn't enjoy this one.

The Beautiful and Damned

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Ever since I took an English lit class focusing on Fitzgerald and Hemingway, I have been drawn to almost anything written about them. This is the first time I've ever read anything focusing on Zelda Fitzgerald, and it shows quite a different perspective from what I am used to. Yes, this is a work of fiction, but the author clearly shows with whom her sympathies lie.

It's 1918, when we meet high-school-aged Zelda Sayre at her hometown in Alabama, where there is a street named for her family. She is beautiful and charming and could have her pick of any boy, but she falls head-over-heels for the handsome officer stationed there, Scott Fitzgerald. Her family would like her to marry someone with a profession (writing it not a profession by their standards) but she'll have none of it. So begins the fun, wild, interesting, intriguing, and heart-breaking life of THE premier Jazz Age couple.

My main problem with the novel is that the author, Fowler, places pretty much all of the blame for the couple's problems squarely on Scott's (and to an extent, Hemingway's) shoulders. Yes, Scott is a needy alcoholic artistic genius (bordering on abusive), but I don't believe Zelda is as innocent as she is portrayed. Fowler takes tons of artistic license, including making up correspondence between Zelda and Scott, despite having the actual letters available as reference. Fowler also makes Hemingway out to be just a horrible person, which I think is over-simplifying one of the greatest literary minds of a generation.

Having said all that, this is still a GREAT read. The characters are rich and interesting, the story moves very quickly, and I really like Zelda. She was arguably one of the most interesting women of the 20th century, in fiction or reality.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

The Dark Witch

Okay, so all of you who regularly read this blog (all 3 of you!) know that I have a love-hate relationship with Nora Roberts. On the one hand, her books are just so easy to read, and she tells a gripping story. On the other hand I often find her formulaic and a little repetitive. But I have to say, I really enjoyed this first book of her new Irish trilogy, The Dark Witch. It's got Ireland and castles and witches and spells - what's not to like?

American Iona Sheehan has felt different her whole life, and when her grandmother urges her to go find her distant cousins in Ireland, she leaps at the chance. When she meets cousins Branna and Connor, she feels a special kinship right away, and she realizes that coming to Ireland is fulfilling her destiny. Hitting it off with sexy stable owner Boyle is just icing on the cake.

So Iona, Branna and Connor are the three who are destined to vanquish the evil witch Cabhan, thanks to their ancient ancestor Sorcha's curse. They get help from Boyle and friends Meara and Fin - Fin being a descendant of the evil Cabhan, wouldn't you know. This is mystical realism/romance at it's best, and Nora does it better than anyone.

I'm already looking forward to book two, which I'm guessing will focus on Meara and Connor. She'll probably save Branna and Fin for the last book.

The Dark Witch

The Boleyn King

In this gripping and imaginative novel, Laurie Andersen imagines what would have happened if Anne Boleyn had given birth to the boy baby she miscarried, thereby changing the history of England as we know it?

We meet the young king - William to his friends - just as he is about to turn 18 and take full control of his realm. His father has been dead for several years and his mother is in failing health, but he has close companions in his older sister Elizabeth, friend Dominic Courtenay, and co-birthday celebrant Minuette, daughter of Queen Anne's favorite lady who was raised practically as a sister, and who now is Elizabeth's chief lady. The four of them are a lively, attractive, and intelligent group, with Minuette surprisingly at the center.

If you are a British history buff there is plenty for you here. There are battles, court intrigues, all the fun Tudor stuff. And the novel is a real page-turner. My only complaint is that it ends so abruptly - nothing was resolved to my satisfaction. Then I find out it's the first in a trilogy, and the second book is due out in about a month. I've already pre-ordered it from Barnes and Noble.

The Boleyn King

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

You know I like my mystical realism and my time-travel novels. This is a fabulous one. I will say that it started a little slowly for me, but once I got into it I couldn't put it down.

Greta Wells is a 30-something woman living in NYC in 1985. Her twin brother has just died of AIDS and her long-time lover has left her for another woman, so she is understandably depressed. When her doctor suggests electric shock therapy, she figures it can't hurt and gives it a try. Little does she know how it will change her lives (yes, I said lives). Because the treatments send Greta back in time, to her previous lives - to 1918, and to 1941. In both lives she finds all of the same people from 1985 - her beloved twin Felix (now carefully hiding his true self); her lover Nathan (who is her husband in these previous lives); and her beloved Aunt Ruth (in whom Greta confides her time-travel). Greta is having the shock treatments in each of these lives, and after each treatment she moves on to the next life, in a normal sort of pattern. But then she figures out that while 1985 Greta is traveling, 1918 and 1941 Greta are traveling too, and all of them are interfering in each other's present day life.

I think it's interesting that the author, Andrew Sean Greer, picked the years he did: 1985, at the height of the AIDS "plague"; 1918, when WWI is just ending, and there is a massive flu epidemic; and 1941, when WWII is just starting for America. These were all kind of turning-points in American culture, and predate the shrinking cultural effects of the Internet and cell phones and Twitter. I also have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well a male author inhabited a female character. I will definitely look for other books by Greer.

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

The Last Original Wife

I think Dorothea Benton Frank is one of today's best southern writers. She really captures the spirit of the South, and I always want to visit Charleston after I read one of her novels! Her latest is no exception.

Leslie Carter is the "last original wife" of the title - all of her husband's friends have married younger women, and she's stuck trying to make conversation with "the Barbies" every weekend at their posh Atlanta club. When Leslie and her husband Wes take a trip to Scotland with Harold and trophy-wife Courteney, Les has an accident and winds up in the hospital - and Wes goes off to play golf and leaves Courteney there to keep her company. Well, that's pretty much the last straw for Les. Once home she flies to her brother, Harlan, in Charleston. There she finds love, acceptance, and her old high school boyfriend... and the courage to stand up for the life she is entitled to.

DBF writes great characters, top among them Leslie, Harlan, and Leslie's best friend Danette. She's also a natural with southern dialect and expressions. But on top of that, her descriptions of Charleston are like the best tour book I ever read. I'm not kidding, we went to Charleston and Savannah one year over the holidays because of the way she described Charleston at Christmas in one of her books. I swear. And this is just a fun novel, and a really easy read. I just ate it up, y'all.

The Last Original Wife

Inferno

This is Dan Brown's fourth Robert Langdon novel. I liked it. I didn't read the last one, The Lost Symbol, but I liked Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code. This one is right up there as far as drawing you into the story and keeping you involved right until the end.

Langdon wakes up in a hospital in Florence, Italy, suffering a gunshot wound and unable to remember how he got there. When someone enters with the apparent intention of shooting him, Dr. Sienna Brooks helps him escape, and the adventure begins. It seems that some crazy person has planted a virus somewhere in Florence, and Robert must use his knowledge of Dante's Inferno to figure out the where/why/when. Sienna is helping him, and luckily she's brilliant and beautiful.

 Brown is certainly not what my writing professor would call a "good" writer, and this is certainly not great literature. But Brown's talent is in creating a story and a situation that immediately draws you in and doesn't let you go - I HAD to know what was going to happen next. And the fact that the reader gets a guided tour of Florence is pretty exciting too. The typical Brown switch-backs and flip-flops kept me guessing, but I thought the ending was just a little flat.

I would definitely recommend this book, but I have never and will never see a movie based on one of the Langdon books. The reason: the horrible miscasting of Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. I mean, really, how could anyone who has read one of these novels ever have pictured Hanks in the role?

Inferno

And the Mountains Echoed

This is just a wonderful novel by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. It's a story of love, and family, and how we are all connected. We start in 1952 in a little village in Afghanistan, with brother and sister Abdullah and Pari. The siblings are as close as two people can be, but when they are cruelly separated, their lives take very different paths.

Hosseini uses Abdullah and Pari's story to interweave several other stories, all different, yet all connected. He takes us from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to Greece, and back again. We go from 1952 to 2012 to 1968 to 2003. Through it all we meet a group of people who are connected in ways they can't even imagine, and who show us the different ways we love, and the different ways there are to be a family.

I just gobbled this book up, it was just a fabulous story.

And the Mountains Echoed

Revenge Wears Prada

Okay, so everyone read The Devil Wears Prada, or at least saw the movie, right? So if you enjoyed the book and/or movie, you will probably enjoy this book. Is it great literature? Nope. Does it make you think, or teach you something new? Nope and nope. But it is entertaining.

Andy Sachs is 10 years older now, and she and former nemesis Emily are best friends and partners who publish a high-end wedding magazine, called The Plunge. Andy still superficially looks down her nose at all the trappings of the fashionable while still having, hoping to have, or admiring them. She has a handsome, well-connected husband and a job she loves, so all is good in the world. And then The Devil, Miranda Priestly, sees how successful The Plunge has become, and she wants it in her little empire.

What happens then is entertaining, not really surprising, but fun to read. It's a quick read, and if they do make a movie and bring back all of the same cast, I'm likely to go see it (or at least put it on my Netflix).


Revenge Wears Prada

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I really enjoyed this adult fairy tale by Neil Gaiman. It's a compelling story that draws you in, and hold you until the very end (which isn't that long). If you're into mystical realism/fantasy, you'll love this novel.

Our unnamed narrator is approaching 50 when he returns to his hometown for his father's funeral. Finding himself with time on his hands, he returns to the place he grew up - though the house is long gone - and finds himself at the big farmhouse at the end of the lane, where his friend Lettie lived. He sits on a bench overlooking the pond, and thinks back to when he was seven-years-old, and the series of intriguing, scary, and fantastical events that took place.

This is a fairy tale, but it's not for kids. It's dark, and scary at times, and explores themes of loss and betrayal and memory. A really great read that I just couldn't put down. I'll definitely look for more of Gaiman's work.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Salt Sugar Fat

This book is a must-read for EVERYONE. Seriously. If you shop at grocery stores and eat any packaged/canned/processed food, you need to read this book.

I consider myself to be a healthy eater. I don't drink soda, I generally avoid cookies/chips/candy, I eat fresh fruits and vegetables as much as possible. When I do indulge, I indulge with homemade or bakery sweets, or good quality dark chocolate. But Michael Moss has shown me that you need to read the label of EVERYTHING you buy in the grocery store, from salad dressing to yogurt to breakfast cereal, because the food manufacturers add sugar, fat, and salt to everything. Seriously, read the label on a Yoplait yogurt, then read the label on any brand of cookies - I bet the Yoplait has more sugar than a cookie. Seriously.

Moss is a really good writer - Malcolm Gladwell-ish, in that he takes a lot of information and distills it down to something normal people can read, understand, and enjoy. And he doesn't preach, this isn't a diet book, it's just a book that says, "this is what the food industry does - how will you deal with that?" Probably one of the most interesting things is that almost every food industry insider he interviewed said they did not eat the products their company made, or only ate them in very small quantities. Now what does that tell you?

Salt Sugar Fat

The Color of Tea

I had a hard time getting into this first novel by Hannah Tunnicliffe, I have to admit that. It just started out a little depressing for me, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to keep reading. Grace and Pete have just moved to Macau for his job with a casino, and she's a bit adrift, depressed after learning she's unable to have children, and wallowing in sadness.

Luckily, things get better.

Grace rediscovers her love of baking and decides to open a café, catering to mostly expats but some local Chinese as well. It's during that process that she meets Rilla, a hard-working young Filipino girl with a sweet disposition and a secret she's hiding; Gigi, a sassy native girl who's crusty exterior hides a warm heart and a talent for baking; and Margery, the gorgeous Aussie who's a little too salty for the "ladies who lunch" crowd. With these women - and a few others - Grace finds a new kind of a family and finds a way to make a life in a foreign land.

The characters are lovely, and pastry descriptions are decadent. I wound up really enjoying this novel.

The Color of Tea

The Lost Art of Mixing

So apparently this is the second book in a series, but don't let that deter you - I didn't read the first one and I didn't miss it.

Lillian is the owner/chef at a restaurant in a small town in the Pacific Northwest (it took me a while to figure out exactly where the story takes place, and to be honest I'm still not exactly sure). She has a way of drawing people to her - Al, her accountant, stuck in a loveless marriage; Chloe, her sous-chef, who thinks she'll never be good enough; Isabelle, quickly going into Alzheimer's but still with so much to share; and Finnegan, her dishwasher, taller than everyone but often overlooked; these are just a few of the diverse characters in Lillian's world.

This isn't an action story, and there's no mystery. It's just a lovely little story about a group of people who find each other. It's about how your family is not necessarily the one you were born into (or gave birth to), and how even the people who live with us the longest may not know us at all, and misread us all the time. It's about finding your home, wherever it may be. I thought it was wonderful.

The Lost Art of Mixing

Peaches for Father Francis

This is Joanne Harris' follow-up (I think there is one in between, too) to Chocolat (which was also a great movie). It does not disappoint.

Vianne Rocher, now living in Paris, receives a letter from beyond the grave from an old friend. So she and her two daughters return to the village of Lansquenet where she caused such a stir so many years before, to find things are very different. The town is now split between the natives and a large group of Muslim immigrants. The townspeople never did take to strangers, but these strangers have built a mosque, and more and more of their women are dressing head to toe in black, and they don't seem to want to fit in with the natives... and Vianne's old nemesis Father Reynaud is at the center of all of the problems, it would seem.

I just gobbled up this story. It's beautifully written, haunting and mystical. The descriptions of the sights and smells are beguiling to the senses, and the magical bits are not too contrived. And the characters are just wonderful, so clearly drawn that one can almost see them.

But aside from all of that, this is a story about otherness, and acceptance, and finding ones place in the world. It's about how appearances CAN be deceiving, and how the thing that we think is hidden is often right in front of our faces. I highly recommend it.

Peaches for Father Francis

The Witness

Nora Roberts is like the Mob.... I keep trying to get out, and she keeps pulling me back in. I saw this book on the new book shelf in the library and I just couldn't resist it. I'm glad I didn't. It's the story of Elizabeth Fitch, a super-intelligent and highly-controlled 16-year-old who, in a fit of rebellion, makes a couple of fake IDs and sneaks with her friend Julie into the coolest nightclub in Chicago. When she and Julie hook up with the club's very sexy Russian owners and head back to their Lake Shore Drive mansion, things go south in a hurry.

Fast-forward 12 years, and Elizabeth, now living as Abigail Lowery in a tiny town in Arkansas, just wants to live her quiet life with her dog, her security cameras, and her arsenal. But the town's Sheriff Brooks Gleason has something to say about that. How can you not like a character named Brooks? Although that is one of those oops moments you sometimes get from an author: first his mother came to Arkansas from Pennsylvania, but next she's a rabid Orioles fan who names her son for Brooks Robinson? I guess we'll give Nora the benefit of the doubt and say Mom came from Southern PA, the part that's right over the line on Route 95.

Other than that it's a great read, I got through it in just a couple of days. Great suspense, great characters, great story. I think this might be my favorite Nora Roberts stand-alone novel.

The Witness

The Fault in Our Stars

Okay, so technically I believe this is a Young Adult novel, but if you hadn't told me that I never would have guessed. This is the story of Hazel Lancaster, a 16-year-old terminal cancer patient, granted a few more years from medical science but not expected to reach adulthood. Hazel is smart, funny, irreverent, and she has pretty much accepted the fact that she's dying, but she is doing it on her terms. One night at the Kids with Cancer support group that her mother forces her to attend, she meets the gorgeous Augustus Waters, who lost a leg to cancer a year ago, but now aged 17 is back to school and leading a normal life (well, normal for a one-legged-17-year-old).

Meeting Augustus changes Hazel's life, and probably more importantly, it changes what she expects from her life.

I won't give the story away, but I just want to say that these are two smart, funny, interesting teenagers, and they manage to be those things without being wizards or vampires. They are normal kids dealing with tragic situations in the best way they can.

I've never read any John Green before, but I definitely will read more. He made me laugh, cry, and think, and there aren't a lot of authors who can do that.

The Fault in Our Stars

Maid Marian

I really enjoyed this retelling of the Robin Hood legend from Marian's point of view. The novel seems well-grounded historically while still giving us a fun and exciting story. The author, Elsa Watson, portrays Marian as a smart, strong, and progressive character, quite different from how she is usually portrayed.

Marian is an orphaned noblewoman who is married off at the age of 5 to an equally young nobleman. When he dies mysteriously before they've had a chance at consummation, the marriage is annulled and Marion goes home to await her fate - sure to be another arranged marriage. But Marian isn't going to give in so easily this time, so she goes in search of the legendary Robin Hood, in the hopes he can help her find out what Queen Eleanor plans for her, by stealing the royal mail from the messenger traveling through Sherwood Forest. And so begins a great romance and a series of great adventures.

Marian and Robin are both super likeable and interesting characters. It probably speaks to the author's sensibilities that the nobles are almost entirely unlikeable while the commoners are good, kind, and warm people. At any rate, this was an enjoyable read and I highly recommend it.

Maid Marian

Behind a Mask

I picked up this book in a quirky little bookstore, intrigued by the idea of reading "thrillers" by Louisa May Alcott, the author of all those books for girls that I read in my youth (I had the whole collection, it was six or eight books... Little Women was only the first). These stories are certainly QUITE different from those.

If you read Little Women, you know that the character Jo March is very much Alcott. These stories equate to the stories Jo "scribbled" away at, the ones Professor Bhaer said were beneath her. I have to say, I tend to agree with him. In fact I found them pretty horrid. They reminded me of the Gothic tales that Jane Austen based Northanger Abbey on, rather lurid and pretty transparent, in my opinion. But they are probably what I should have expected in the writing of an innocent young lady of the era.

It's funny, there are about ten reviews of this book on Amazon, and all of them are four-five stars. I totally disagree with that. I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.


Behind a Mask

The Dinner

This was such an intriguing novel! Herman Koch has written one of the most interesting unreliable narrators I have ever read. We start the novel with the idea that Paul Lohman is your average nice guy who has the misfortune to be the brother of a very famous pompous ass, but through the course of the story we find out that what we believe isn't necessarily so.

The whole story is told through the course of a dinner between Paul and his brother Serge and their wives, from aperitif through dessert. Both couples' teenaged sons have gotten into some trouble together, and the purpose of the dinner is to decide how to deal with that. But through the course of the meal we learn that appearance are deceiving, that things are not always what they seem, and that there are people in this world who are fooling everyone regarding their character and intentions.

Koch writes with humor, acerbity, and suspense. Although I came to like Paul less and less the more I read, I needed to find out how the meal ended, and when it was finished I was both satisfied and disturbed. This is just a really intriguing character study.

The Dinner

A Week in Winter

If you're a Maeve Binchy fan, here's your last chance for a new book. This is Binchy's final novel, published posthumously following her death last year. And it's typical Binchy all the way.

What do I love about Binchy novels? The warm characters, the beautiful scenery, and the very "Irishness" of them. This one does not disappoint. Chicky is a small town girl from Western Ireland who falls in love with an American boy and goes with him to New York City. When she returns to her small town of Stoneybridge without him some 30-years later she decides to open in inn in the big house on the hill. With the help of her friends and family she creates the perfect environment for a relaxing week in winter.

Aside from Chicky, her niece Orla, and her friends Miss Queenie and Rigger, we meet by turns each of the group of guests for the opening week of business. They're all unique, and all are looking for a unique experience from their week's stay at Stone House - and they all get what they are looking for.

This is just a lovely Irish story, and a must-read for all Maeve Binchy fans.

A Week in Winter

Life After Life

I don't want to go overboard here, but I think this may be one of the best novels I have ever read. Seriously. I just finished it last night and I am ready to read it again.

Kate Atkinson is the author, and she offers up an interesting premise: suppose someone keeps being reborn as themselves, over and over again, learning something new from each life? Such is the case with Ursula Todd, born on a snowy night in England in 1910. Through each successive life she learns how to live a little longer, a little better, a little differently, but without really realizing exactly what she's doing (although she has maybe more of those deja vu moments than the rest of us have). Some of her lives are mundane, some are tragic, some are even heroic, but they all build upon each other, culminating in a satisfying ending.

Aside from the nifty premise, Atkinson writes some really great characters, full of what I consider typically dry British humor. Ursula is witty and self-deprecating, and her family - particularly Aunt Izzie - are a varied and amusing group. I'm definitely going to check out some of Atkinson's other works.

Life After Life

The Queen's Vow

So I've read A LOT of British history, but not much Spanish history, so I decided to check out this novel about Queen Isabella of Spain (as in Ferdinand and Isabella). I really enjoyed it, and I learned a lot too (although it is a fictionalized account, all of the characters except one lady's maid are real people).

Isabella was a strong, intelligent woman, at a time when women were subservient to men and were mostly uneducated. She inherited a kingdom - Castile - that was in ruins, thanks to the ineffective previous kings, but she made it into one of the most respected European dynasties ever - with the help of her husband, Fernando (Ferdinand) of Aragon. They are the first rulers to unite the whole of Spain.

Isabella is an intriguing character. She's headstrong, but also extremely religious. That dichotomy leads to the two most disturbing aspects of their reign, the Inquisition and the expelling of the Jews. The author does a nice job of giving us some reasons behind why she allowed these atrocities, but of course no one can say what was in her heart.

The novel is a who's who of Spanish history, including Torquemada, Columbus, and little Catherine of Aragon. And it's a really great read.

The Queen's Vow

City of Dark Magic

Loved this novel! It's sort of mystical realism, sort of romance/mystery, and very much an enjoyable and engaging read. Sort of like The Davinci Code, but with a sexy young female protagonist and fewer religious overtones.

Sarah Weston is a young Ph.D. candidate in music who is invited to Prague for the summer, where the manuscripts of Beethoven are being cataloged for a new museum. Just before she arrives, people start to die - including her mentor, who had been working on the collection she's been invited to catalog. When she gets there she meets the mysterious Prince Max, an ageless and intriguing dwarf named Nico, and all sorts of interesting characters. And the action just does not stop. I honestly had a hard time putting the book down, and finished it over the course of two days of travel.

I know I've been off the grid for a while. I took a writing class so I was reading mainly just short stories, and this is really the first book I've read in a while that made me want to blog about it. But hopefully I'll be back at it on a regular basis.

City of Dark Magic

The Perfect Hope

This is the third book in Nora Roberts' Inn Boonsboro trilogy. I read it in roughly 2 days, maybe 3. It's not a challenging read, but it's an enjoyable one.

Hope is the innkeeper at the Inn Boonsboro. Her friends Clair and Avery got their Montgomery brothers in book one and two, so Hope gets hers in book three. Not a surprise - I believe in my post about book two I said I knew what book three would be about. I was right. But that didn't take away from my enjoyment.

I think what I like most about Nora is her characters. Yes, they're all beautiful and handsome and well-built, but if you look past that you see that they are real people. They have flaws. They argue. They swear, even use the f-bomb. The children - there are 3 little boys in this trilogy - are wild and cute and funny and normal.

Is Nora a great writer, a Hemingway? No, but she is a writer who writes people that the average person can relate to, and like. And I like that.

I also really want to spend a weekend at Inn Boonsboro... I may just have to check out the website.

The Perfect Hope

The Casual Vacancy and others

So, this is the long-awaited adult novel by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.

It's a disappointment.

Yes, I said it. Rowling is windy, just way too wordy. She introduces all of these characters in this little town, and I was having a hard time keeping straight who went with who and what their connection was to the others. It should be a charming story - Barry Fairbrother, member of the Parish Council, dies unexpectedly, and the townsfolk have to fill the vacancy. But she describes what feels like every moment of... 12 different characters reactions to Barry's death. And then every moment of the next day. It's just very tedious.

I'm also reading Hemingway on Writing. Ms. Rowling should think about doing so. This elegant little book is all Hemingway quotes about writing, taken from his letters and books. What a gem! I recommend it for any Hemingway fan, even if you aren't interested in writing, because it gives a wonderful flavor of the man himself.

The Casual Vacancy

Hemingway on Writing

More Stuff I Didn't Like

So here are another couple of books that I started reading but couldn't finish, both because I just didn't like them.

State of Wonder is a novel by Ann Patchett, whose Bel Canto I loved. I didn't love this one. It's the story of Dr. Marina Singh, who is sent to the Amazon by her employer and lover, Mr. Fox, president of the drug company where she works. Marina is supposed to find out what's going on with Dr. Swenson, who has been down there in the jungle working on her research but who isn't very good about keeping in touch. I just found the story hard to get into, I didn't love the characters, it's just not my kind of book.

Everybody knows what The Hobbit is. I am probably one of the few adults who never had to read it in school - I went to Catholic school, they didn't go in for fantasy. So I asked Shari if I could borrow it since the library's copy is on hold forever. Again, I just couldn't get into it. I like fantasy, but Tolkien's writing is very dense, and I found his tone to be a bit condescending - intended for children, but not giving them much credit for understanding everything. So that's the end of that.

State of Wonder

The Hobbit

The Orchardist

I really enjoyed this novel by Amanda Coplin. It's the story of William Talmadge (known to everyone as just "Talmadge"), living at the turn of the 20th century in the Northwest US with his orchards of apples and apricots. He's a quiet man, living a quiet, lonely, life. Then one day two young girls, pregnant runaways, come into his orchard, and his life is changed forever.

Talmadge takes a liking to the girls - Jane and her sister Della - even feels a certain responsibility for them, so he begins to take care of them. And so a family of sorts is born, with all the heartbreaks and joys that go along with being part of a family.

Coplin's writing reminds me a bit of Hemingway's. The language is spare but extremely descriptive, and the characters have great depth and realism. And it's a heartbreaking and beautiful story that I just couldn't put down.

The Orchardist

Life of Pi

I've been on hold for this ebook forEVER, and finally got it right after Christmas and in time for my trip to Florida. I realize I am probably one of the last readers in America to read it, and I'm sorry I waited. What a fabulous novel! And I mean fabulous in a couple of different ways, as anyone who has read the book understands.

For those of you who haven't, this is the story of Pi Patel, a 16-year-old Indian boy whose family owns a zoo. When his parents decide to close the zoo and move from India to Canada, they travel by freighter with several of the zoo animals. Unfortunately the ship goes down in the middle of the Pacific, and Pi is the only human survivor - along with a hyena, a zebra, and orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Pi's adventures on the lifeboat with this group aren't pretty, adventures they certainly are. The fact that he survives some 200-odd days in the open sea is simply amazing, and his ability to deal with Richard Parker is pretty wonderful. I also found the end to be quite surprising - I didn't see it coming at all, and that made it all the better.

I highly recommend Life of Pi, and will definitely plan on seeing the movie.

Life of Pi