Ask the Dust, John Fante, Stackpole Sons, 1939, 165 pp
(According to Dan Fante, John's son, Stackpole Sons folded shortly after publishing Ask the Dust, because they were sued by Adolf Hitler for publishing Mein Kampf. Ha.)
Last year the movie version of Ask the Dust came out with big hoopla, though the reviews were terrible. I got interested in John Fante then and finally read the book. It is not great, but it is good. I was trying to put my finger on the style and decided that it reminds me of early John Steinbeck, such as Grapes of Wrath, The Wayward Bus, Cannery Row.
It is a story about a young writer struggling in Los Angeles in the 1930s. He is impassioned, poor, conflicted. Fante evokes the mood swings and the young man's breathless ventures into women and love. Camilla, the woman he falls for, is of Mexican descent, loves another man and really is quite a messed up girl.
What I liked was the contrast as Arturo Bandini, the writer, begins to have success but lives in an agony of unrequited love and unreleased sexual tension, amidst a seedy Los Angeles setting. Wow, I could just feel it and see it due to the writing and also thanks to having read lots of Raymond Chandler.
Then I saw the movie and although the plot was altered somewhat, it was a great film and for once did not violate the pictures I already had in my head from the book.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
IDA B
Ida B, Katherine Hannigan, HarperCollins Publishers, 2004, 264 pp
My boss handed this book to me last January when I began work at the bookstore. It is quite good. Ida B (not to be confused with her mother, Ida) is a happy homeschooler who talks to trees and the brook in their apple orchard, who believes in fun and who always has a plan.
Then her mom gets cancer and everything goes wrong. Despite any plan she can make, things keep going more wrong and Ida B has to learn some hard lessons about herself, others and life. It is a fine story, sensitively told and Ida B is one heck of a strong female character.
Some of the vocabulary is of a fairly high level because Ida B is so intelligent. There is some great stuff about how to learn math. Good all around. (Recommended for 8-12 years old readers)
My boss handed this book to me last January when I began work at the bookstore. It is quite good. Ida B (not to be confused with her mother, Ida) is a happy homeschooler who talks to trees and the brook in their apple orchard, who believes in fun and who always has a plan.
Then her mom gets cancer and everything goes wrong. Despite any plan she can make, things keep going more wrong and Ida B has to learn some hard lessons about herself, others and life. It is a fine story, sensitively told and Ida B is one heck of a strong female character.
Some of the vocabulary is of a fairly high level because Ida B is so intelligent. There is some great stuff about how to learn math. Good all around. (Recommended for 8-12 years old readers)
Monday, January 28, 2008
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED
The Beautiful and the Damned, F Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922, 449 pp
This is an incredibly depressing book which I read at this point because it was a reading group pick. Anthony Patch lost his mother at five and his father at 11. He is heir to a fortune made by his grandfather, Adam Patch, in the robber baron days, but that old man has become a humorless reformer of vice.
Anthony is highly intelligent, graduated from Harvard at 19, but he is socially inept, with only two friends, one of whom is a writer. He lives in New York City alone in an apartment, cultivating irony and existing on his allowance.
Gloria is the only child of a dreamy mother, who calls herself a Bilphist (a quasi-religious philosophy made up by Fitzgerald) and a self-made, well-to-do father. They are from Missouri but live in New York. Gloria is the most beautiful girl in town and lives to party and be admired by men.
She and Anthony fall in love, marry and begin a life of travel (only in the US because WWI is raging in Europe), decadence and parties. They are waiting for Grandfather Patch to die so Anthony can come into his inheritance. It is all downhill from there because neither of these people have any semblance of a sense of self nor do they have any goals or purpose for life.
The writing is good; I have to admit that. I suppose one could say that the personality study is deep and thoughtful. Fitzgerald added to the literature of the lost generation. Today we have Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But do we really care? I grew to hate Anthony and Gloria by the utterly degraded end of this sordid tale.
This is an incredibly depressing book which I read at this point because it was a reading group pick. Anthony Patch lost his mother at five and his father at 11. He is heir to a fortune made by his grandfather, Adam Patch, in the robber baron days, but that old man has become a humorless reformer of vice.
Anthony is highly intelligent, graduated from Harvard at 19, but he is socially inept, with only two friends, one of whom is a writer. He lives in New York City alone in an apartment, cultivating irony and existing on his allowance.
Gloria is the only child of a dreamy mother, who calls herself a Bilphist (a quasi-religious philosophy made up by Fitzgerald) and a self-made, well-to-do father. They are from Missouri but live in New York. Gloria is the most beautiful girl in town and lives to party and be admired by men.
She and Anthony fall in love, marry and begin a life of travel (only in the US because WWI is raging in Europe), decadence and parties. They are waiting for Grandfather Patch to die so Anthony can come into his inheritance. It is all downhill from there because neither of these people have any semblance of a sense of self nor do they have any goals or purpose for life.
The writing is good; I have to admit that. I suppose one could say that the personality study is deep and thoughtful. Fitzgerald added to the literature of the lost generation. Today we have Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But do we really care? I grew to hate Anthony and Gloria by the utterly degraded end of this sordid tale.
DRAGON BONES
Dragon Bones, Lisa See, Random House Inc, 2003, 343 pp
Dragon Bones is the third of Lisa See's international thrillers. I have read the first, Flower Net, but not the second, The Interior. This volume again features Chinese Inspector Liu Hulan of the Ministry of Public Security and her American husband, attorney David Stark.
Apparently they had and lost a daughter in the second book, so now the marriage is falling apart because Liu cannot get over her grief nor can she forgive herself for letting another loved one die.
Nothing like a little mystery, danger and a trip out of town to turn their lives around. An American archaeologist has been murdered at the site of a huge dig where also China's largest project since the Great Wall will result in the Three Gorges Dam, providing electricity to millions but flooding ancestral ground and displacing millions.
Lots of issues here: ancient mythology, a current religious cult, art and artifacts with crooked dealings going on, international political tensions, not to mention love, greed and ecology. The author mostly pulls it off though I was confused at times since I know so little about China. Still a good story, intriguing mystery, though as usual See is low key on emotions. The book highly motivated me to learn more about China.
Dragon Bones is the third of Lisa See's international thrillers. I have read the first, Flower Net, but not the second, The Interior. This volume again features Chinese Inspector Liu Hulan of the Ministry of Public Security and her American husband, attorney David Stark.
Apparently they had and lost a daughter in the second book, so now the marriage is falling apart because Liu cannot get over her grief nor can she forgive herself for letting another loved one die.
Nothing like a little mystery, danger and a trip out of town to turn their lives around. An American archaeologist has been murdered at the site of a huge dig where also China's largest project since the Great Wall will result in the Three Gorges Dam, providing electricity to millions but flooding ancestral ground and displacing millions.
Lots of issues here: ancient mythology, a current religious cult, art and artifacts with crooked dealings going on, international political tensions, not to mention love, greed and ecology. The author mostly pulls it off though I was confused at times since I know so little about China. Still a good story, intriguing mystery, though as usual See is low key on emotions. The book highly motivated me to learn more about China.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
INES OF MY SOUL
Ines of My Soul, Isabel Allende, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006, 313 pp
This is Allende's latest novel and I can still say that I have read all her novels written for adults. While I loved her earlier novels the best, I continue to like her stories, plus at least one of my favorite authors is still writing novels.
Ines was born poor and lower class in Spain in the 16th century. She was skilled as a seamstress and a cook, but she was also interested in men, sex and adventure; in other words, a typical Allende heroine. These skills and interests led her to the New World, specifically Peru and Chile. As mistress to Pedro de Valdivia, she became a co-founder of Chile as a Spanish conquest.
This is historical fiction in the classic mode with plenty of romance and daring. The ways of Spanish conquest are fully exposed with just enough sympathy for the conquered Incas and native Indians to make it clear that while the conquerors do what they must, it is done at the expense of other human beings, cultures and natural resources.
Allende tells the story and bears witness to the sources of societal and political madness that continue to this day, all without one boring paragraph. She is a master storyteller.
This is Allende's latest novel and I can still say that I have read all her novels written for adults. While I loved her earlier novels the best, I continue to like her stories, plus at least one of my favorite authors is still writing novels.
Ines was born poor and lower class in Spain in the 16th century. She was skilled as a seamstress and a cook, but she was also interested in men, sex and adventure; in other words, a typical Allende heroine. These skills and interests led her to the New World, specifically Peru and Chile. As mistress to Pedro de Valdivia, she became a co-founder of Chile as a Spanish conquest.
This is historical fiction in the classic mode with plenty of romance and daring. The ways of Spanish conquest are fully exposed with just enough sympathy for the conquered Incas and native Indians to make it clear that while the conquerors do what they must, it is done at the expense of other human beings, cultures and natural resources.
Allende tells the story and bears witness to the sources of societal and political madness that continue to this day, all without one boring paragraph. She is a master storyteller.
ANOTHER PLACE AT THE TABLE
Another Place at the Table, Kathy Harrison, Jeremy P Tarcher, 2003, 224 pp
I read this as research for a story I am not working on but which I hope someday to finish. It is the memoir of an excellent foster mother from Massachusetts. At the time of writing, she had been providing foster care for over 13 years to almost 100 different children. She had also won awards and worked to train other foster parents. She and her husband had three kids of their own plus three adopted daughters. In her area, she had seen it all.
It is a highly emotional and heartrending story. Most kids who end up in foster care have suffered some kind of abuse: physical, sexual, neglect, nutritional, emotional as well as prenatal conditions affected by drugs and alcohol. The story goes like this: children of abusive parents grow up to be abusive parents. Add in poverty, alcohol, drugs and crime and it is almost a hopeless cycle that goes on and on.
I came away from the book in awe of this woman. She is very open about her own shortcomings and failures, but to me she is some kind of saint, not to mention her amazing husband. Through the years she got more savvy and tougher in dealing with the social services system, though she is eloquent in her analysis of the political issues, underfunding and the overloading of not enough case workers in that system. She makes it clear that it boils down to good people both in the system and among the foster parents.
My first introduction to the foster care system was White Oleander by Janet Fitch, who paints a very grim picture in her novel. Another Place at the Table is more balanced. Some of these kids are so damaged as to have become psychotic but many, at least in Kathy Harrison's home, got help and hope.
I read this as research for a story I am not working on but which I hope someday to finish. It is the memoir of an excellent foster mother from Massachusetts. At the time of writing, she had been providing foster care for over 13 years to almost 100 different children. She had also won awards and worked to train other foster parents. She and her husband had three kids of their own plus three adopted daughters. In her area, she had seen it all.
It is a highly emotional and heartrending story. Most kids who end up in foster care have suffered some kind of abuse: physical, sexual, neglect, nutritional, emotional as well as prenatal conditions affected by drugs and alcohol. The story goes like this: children of abusive parents grow up to be abusive parents. Add in poverty, alcohol, drugs and crime and it is almost a hopeless cycle that goes on and on.
I came away from the book in awe of this woman. She is very open about her own shortcomings and failures, but to me she is some kind of saint, not to mention her amazing husband. Through the years she got more savvy and tougher in dealing with the social services system, though she is eloquent in her analysis of the political issues, underfunding and the overloading of not enough case workers in that system. She makes it clear that it boils down to good people both in the system and among the foster parents.
My first introduction to the foster care system was White Oleander by Janet Fitch, who paints a very grim picture in her novel. Another Place at the Table is more balanced. Some of these kids are so damaged as to have become psychotic but many, at least in Kathy Harrison's home, got help and hope.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
THE DARK RIVER
The Dark River, John Twelve Hawks, Doubleday, 2007, 368 pp
The elusive John Twelve Hawks brings us Book Two of the Fourth Realm Trilogy, the sequel to The Traveler. The story opens with the destruction of New Harmony, an off-the-grid community in the desert where Gabriel Corrigan (the good brother) got his training as a traveler. The community was destroyed by The Brethren, the bad guys whose goal is to bring all society under their control.
Gabriel, Maya (his Harlequin protector) and friends are hiding out in NYC, but word comes that Matthew Corrigan, the father and last remaining Traveler, is alive in Ireland. So the chase is on. We meet Mother Blessing, Michael's Harlequin. In the end Gabriel follows his father into one of the other realms which is somewhat like hell and through which runs the Dark River.
This book ends with just about everything up in the air. It is not quite the totally exciting read that the first one was, but it has its moments. According to a blog I found on fantasy/sci fi, it is common for the second book of a trilogy to be a bit lower key than the first and then the big finale comes in the final volume. That is fine with me. There was a lot of stuff to explain and now that has been accomplished.
I again became aware, as I did in The Traveler, of how much is known about each of us because of the amount of surveillance that we are under. Twelve Hawks also points up the insidious but constant reminders that we must be afraid of "terrorists" so that we will go along with all the surveillance for our own protection. Whew! I am looking forward to the final book.
The elusive John Twelve Hawks brings us Book Two of the Fourth Realm Trilogy, the sequel to The Traveler. The story opens with the destruction of New Harmony, an off-the-grid community in the desert where Gabriel Corrigan (the good brother) got his training as a traveler. The community was destroyed by The Brethren, the bad guys whose goal is to bring all society under their control.
Gabriel, Maya (his Harlequin protector) and friends are hiding out in NYC, but word comes that Matthew Corrigan, the father and last remaining Traveler, is alive in Ireland. So the chase is on. We meet Mother Blessing, Michael's Harlequin. In the end Gabriel follows his father into one of the other realms which is somewhat like hell and through which runs the Dark River.
This book ends with just about everything up in the air. It is not quite the totally exciting read that the first one was, but it has its moments. According to a blog I found on fantasy/sci fi, it is common for the second book of a trilogy to be a bit lower key than the first and then the big finale comes in the final volume. That is fine with me. There was a lot of stuff to explain and now that has been accomplished.
I again became aware, as I did in The Traveler, of how much is known about each of us because of the amount of surveillance that we are under. Twelve Hawks also points up the insidious but constant reminders that we must be afraid of "terrorists" so that we will go along with all the surveillance for our own protection. Whew! I am looking forward to the final book.
RUN
Run, Ann Patchett, HarperCollins Publishers, 2007, 295 pp
I do love this author. This is her latest novel and I read it in a day. Ann Patchett makes you believe that all you need is love and that no matter how flawed some people are, there is always a being there who is made of love.
In this story, a family in Boston consists of Bernadette, the mother; Doyle, the father; Sullivan, their natural son; and two black adopted brothers, Tip and Teddy. Doyle was once mayor of Boston and believes in politics. When they were unsuccessful at having more children, Bernadette, who only wanted to be a mother, convinced Doyle to adopt. But then she died and each of the remaining males had their own issues with this.
Enter Tennessee, a poor black woman and her daughter Kenya, who is 12 years old and a natural athlete who can run like the wind. Everything changes and I won't give it away. Some critics might say that there are a few too many improbable coincidences here. I say it is fiction, it might be a tall tale, but even real life is a series of unfortunate events punctuated by coincidence and unlikely connections between people.
I am glad there are authors who tell this tale.
I do love this author. This is her latest novel and I read it in a day. Ann Patchett makes you believe that all you need is love and that no matter how flawed some people are, there is always a being there who is made of love.
In this story, a family in Boston consists of Bernadette, the mother; Doyle, the father; Sullivan, their natural son; and two black adopted brothers, Tip and Teddy. Doyle was once mayor of Boston and believes in politics. When they were unsuccessful at having more children, Bernadette, who only wanted to be a mother, convinced Doyle to adopt. But then she died and each of the remaining males had their own issues with this.
Enter Tennessee, a poor black woman and her daughter Kenya, who is 12 years old and a natural athlete who can run like the wind. Everything changes and I won't give it away. Some critics might say that there are a few too many improbable coincidences here. I say it is fiction, it might be a tall tale, but even real life is a series of unfortunate events punctuated by coincidence and unlikely connections between people.
I am glad there are authors who tell this tale.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
TOP 20 FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2007
I read 124 books in 2007 which is down quite a bit from 2006, when I read 141.
It must have been a good reading year though because I had trouble narrowing down my favorite reads to only 20.
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Archangel, Sharon Shinn
Away, Amy Bloom
The Book of Salt, Monique Truong
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier
Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta
The Higher Power of Lucky, Susan Paton
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
The Keep, Jennifer Egan
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Mercy of Thin Air, Ronlyn Domingue
Ruined by Reading, Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Run, Ann Patchett
The Spanish Bow, Andromeda Romano-Lax
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz
Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
If you had a list of favorites this past year, please share in the comments. I love reading book lists!
It must have been a good reading year though because I had trouble narrowing down my favorite reads to only 20.
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Archangel, Sharon Shinn
Away, Amy Bloom
The Book of Salt, Monique Truong
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier
Eat the Document, Dana Spiotta
The Higher Power of Lucky, Susan Paton
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
The Keep, Jennifer Egan
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Mercy of Thin Air, Ronlyn Domingue
Ruined by Reading, Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Run, Ann Patchett
The Spanish Bow, Andromeda Romano-Lax
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz
Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
If you had a list of favorites this past year, please share in the comments. I love reading book lists!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR
Shortly after my last post I went into Holiday Sale mode at the bookstore followed by long days of inventory. Somewhere in there was New Year's Eve and we were in 2008. Oh wow! This should be quite a year in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The Friday after New Year's Day, my husband and I got in the car and drove to Sedona, AZ, where we spent a week of bliss. I had never been there before and was expecting a lot but it was beyond that. We hiked, in rain and sun; we ate and drank wine; we slept and did the other thing you do in bed; we watched movies and read books.
It just smells good wherever you go in Sedona. The best place for breakfast (we went there three times) is the Coffeepot Restaurant, just below Coffeepot Rock, where they have 100 different omelets and the most amazing biscuits I have ever tasted. We learned to say, "What is the name of that rock?" and we were filled with the energy of the vortex.
I found the good bookstore in town, called The Well Red Coyote, which is owned and run by a former resident of Los Angeles. Just in time, the Images of America series had released a book on Sedona, which I bought and read to learn the history of the place. Sedona was a woman who came to the area with her husband in 1901. In front of the very fine Sedona Public Library is a bronze statue of Sedona Schnebly.
I read all 601 pages of Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins while we were there. Most of that book takes place in Paris, France, the location of my last big trip. It is an excellent story and gave me a look at the way many French people viewed America and the Marshall Plan in the postwar years. In these days of very American politics, it was refreshing to look at how it goes in another country and to see that everywhere there are people who want freedom and ideals just as much as we do.
I could go on and on but I will just say that all my New Year's plans and resolutions seemed entirely possible after such a fine journey and vacation. Here's to a year of great reading and keeping the wisdom.
Coming tomorrow is the popular Judy's Top Books read in the past year.
The Friday after New Year's Day, my husband and I got in the car and drove to Sedona, AZ, where we spent a week of bliss. I had never been there before and was expecting a lot but it was beyond that. We hiked, in rain and sun; we ate and drank wine; we slept and did the other thing you do in bed; we watched movies and read books.
It just smells good wherever you go in Sedona. The best place for breakfast (we went there three times) is the Coffeepot Restaurant, just below Coffeepot Rock, where they have 100 different omelets and the most amazing biscuits I have ever tasted. We learned to say, "What is the name of that rock?" and we were filled with the energy of the vortex.
I found the good bookstore in town, called The Well Red Coyote, which is owned and run by a former resident of Los Angeles. Just in time, the Images of America series had released a book on Sedona, which I bought and read to learn the history of the place. Sedona was a woman who came to the area with her husband in 1901. In front of the very fine Sedona Public Library is a bronze statue of Sedona Schnebly.
I read all 601 pages of Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins while we were there. Most of that book takes place in Paris, France, the location of my last big trip. It is an excellent story and gave me a look at the way many French people viewed America and the Marshall Plan in the postwar years. In these days of very American politics, it was refreshing to look at how it goes in another country and to see that everywhere there are people who want freedom and ideals just as much as we do.
I could go on and on but I will just say that all my New Year's plans and resolutions seemed entirely possible after such a fine journey and vacation. Here's to a year of great reading and keeping the wisdom.
Coming tomorrow is the popular Judy's Top Books read in the past year.
Friday, December 28, 2007
THE SPANISH BOW
The Spanish Bow, Andromeda Romano-Lax, Harcourt Inc, 2007, 547 pp
This first novel came in as an Advance Reader Copy. I liked it so much I convinced the owner to order it for the store.
The main character is Spanish, born in the early 1900s near Barcelona. Though he is poor, he grows up to be a famous cello virtuoso. As the novel follows his life, you also get a history of Spain in the first half of the 20th century. I learned the most about that country that I have ever learned and added to what I knew from For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway and from one of the Lanny Budd books by Upton Sinclair.
The cellist is loosely based on Pablo Casals though it is completely fiction. He has a musical partner, a pianist, who comes in and out of his life. I loved the way the author showed this relationship: they were in complete accord whenever they were playing music but were so different as personalities and politically that their association was often painful and torturous. Isn't that just the way it is with musicians?
The story also explores the question of what use is art in times of war and political upheaval. The power of music to uplift people is beautifully evoked and the power of war to break an artist's spirit is horrifically shown.
Not a page turner and a bit pedantic in writing style but a fine story not often told. I cannot dislike a book about musicians.
This first novel came in as an Advance Reader Copy. I liked it so much I convinced the owner to order it for the store.
The main character is Spanish, born in the early 1900s near Barcelona. Though he is poor, he grows up to be a famous cello virtuoso. As the novel follows his life, you also get a history of Spain in the first half of the 20th century. I learned the most about that country that I have ever learned and added to what I knew from For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway and from one of the Lanny Budd books by Upton Sinclair.
The cellist is loosely based on Pablo Casals though it is completely fiction. He has a musical partner, a pianist, who comes in and out of his life. I loved the way the author showed this relationship: they were in complete accord whenever they were playing music but were so different as personalities and politically that their association was often painful and torturous. Isn't that just the way it is with musicians?
The story also explores the question of what use is art in times of war and political upheaval. The power of music to uplift people is beautifully evoked and the power of war to break an artist's spirit is horrifically shown.
Not a page turner and a bit pedantic in writing style but a fine story not often told. I cannot dislike a book about musicians.
BLIND SUBMISSION
Blind Submission, Debra Ginsberg, Shaye Areheart Books, 2006, 328 pp
I read this in one day; I'd been planning to read it since I first heard of it last year because it is set in the world of publishing. In fact, it is the Nanny Diaries and the Devil Wears Prada of the publishing industry. Plus, who knew? It is a mystery though there are no murders or even bloodshed.
Though a definite chick lit aura abounds and the writing is a tad not that good, the story telling rocks and I was completely seduced. Angel Robinson was raised by a hippie mom, moving from commune to commune in her youth. She ends up working in an independent bookstore in Marin County where she meets a handsome aspiring writer. They fall in love and in a covert self-serving gesture, he convinces her to apply for the job of admin assistant to a hot literary agent when the bookstore closes.
Angel gets the job, figures out quickly what sort of psychopath the agent is, but is drawn into the work because she loves writers and is good at spotting potential and at editing. When an anonymous "blind submission" comes in, Angel gets caught up in the mystery of who is this author? Her boyfriend? An annoying pestering wannabe? And as the novel comes in chapter by chapter, it bears a creepy similarity to Angel's life.
Great stuff. Clever really. All is solved with a happy ending. Despite the writing, Ginsberg obviously knows books, literature and the business. Who could ask for more really?
I read this in one day; I'd been planning to read it since I first heard of it last year because it is set in the world of publishing. In fact, it is the Nanny Diaries and the Devil Wears Prada of the publishing industry. Plus, who knew? It is a mystery though there are no murders or even bloodshed.
Though a definite chick lit aura abounds and the writing is a tad not that good, the story telling rocks and I was completely seduced. Angel Robinson was raised by a hippie mom, moving from commune to commune in her youth. She ends up working in an independent bookstore in Marin County where she meets a handsome aspiring writer. They fall in love and in a covert self-serving gesture, he convinces her to apply for the job of admin assistant to a hot literary agent when the bookstore closes.
Angel gets the job, figures out quickly what sort of psychopath the agent is, but is drawn into the work because she loves writers and is good at spotting potential and at editing. When an anonymous "blind submission" comes in, Angel gets caught up in the mystery of who is this author? Her boyfriend? An annoying pestering wannabe? And as the novel comes in chapter by chapter, it bears a creepy similarity to Angel's life.
Great stuff. Clever really. All is solved with a happy ending. Despite the writing, Ginsberg obviously knows books, literature and the business. Who could ask for more really?
Thursday, December 27, 2007
RON CARLSON WRITES A STORY
Ron Carlson Writes A Story, Ron Carlson, Graywolf Press, 2007, 112 pp
I also learned of this book through a book review. The author is a short story writer and teaches creative writing at UC Irvine. In this short volume, he takes the reader through his day of writing a particular story, showing his process.
I liked the book and the story he wrote was just OK. The main point he made was to "stay in the room"; meaning don't blow from the process and you will keep the creative mind open and flowing. The other point, which helped me the most, is that as a writer, I don't have to know how a story is going to end until I get there. Ha. Somehow I thought I did have to know that.
I also learned of this book through a book review. The author is a short story writer and teaches creative writing at UC Irvine. In this short volume, he takes the reader through his day of writing a particular story, showing his process.
I liked the book and the story he wrote was just OK. The main point he made was to "stay in the room"; meaning don't blow from the process and you will keep the creative mind open and flowing. The other point, which helped me the most, is that as a writer, I don't have to know how a story is going to end until I get there. Ha. Somehow I thought I did have to know that.
THE UNCOMMON READER
The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2007, 120 pp
I read about this book in the NYT Book Review, picked it up at a bookstore that week and read it in an evening. What a cool surprise of a book!
Bennett is primarily a British playwright and wrote "The History Boys" which became a movie; one I haven't seen yet. I certainly had never heard of him before. This novella is a fictional account, a "what if" story, about the Queen of England getting into reading and speculates on how reading changes her, makes her aware of people around her and humanizes her.
He is brilliant on all the little details of the monarchy and its ways, politics and English society in the 21st century. The book is funny, charming and an impassioned defense of reading and literature in its power to increase awareness in people, even Queens. I loved it.
I read about this book in the NYT Book Review, picked it up at a bookstore that week and read it in an evening. What a cool surprise of a book!
Bennett is primarily a British playwright and wrote "The History Boys" which became a movie; one I haven't seen yet. I certainly had never heard of him before. This novella is a fictional account, a "what if" story, about the Queen of England getting into reading and speculates on how reading changes her, makes her aware of people around her and humanizes her.
He is brilliant on all the little details of the monarchy and its ways, politics and English society in the 21st century. The book is funny, charming and an impassioned defense of reading and literature in its power to increase awareness in people, even Queens. I loved it.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
BACK ROADS
Back Roads, Tawni O'Dell, Viking Press, 2000, 338 pp
After reading Sister Mine earlier this year, I decided to go back to Tawni O'Dell's earlier novels. This one was an Oprah pick and why is it that Oprah's books are so often about wholly dysfunctional people? Still this book is equally as good as Sister Mine, though considerably darker.
Harley Altmeyer is 18 and as the oldest sibling with three younger sisters, he is trying to support and raise those girls without parents. Their mother is in jail for the murder of their abusive father. Due to the abuse, all five living members of the family are majorly screwed up. As the story progresses, Harley and the oldest sister learn what was really going on in their family.
Meanwhile, Harley begins having sex with the mother of his youngest sister's friend and it all ends up with Harley in jail for the murder of this woman, which isn't what really happened either. O'Dell is a master of highly skilled plotting and realistic characters and dialogue. (I don't think she attended any MFA writing programs.) I loved the spot-on encounters between Harley and his State appointed shrink. When Harley thinks about stuff, O'Dell includes certain words in capital letters, just like J D Salinger did for Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
Quite a book. I learned much about the insidious effects of abuse on children; effects that stay with them as they grow up and lead to all manner of social ills. I realized that most of the students I taught at a school for kids who had fallen behind were victims of either abuse or abandonment, which is what made them so hard to help.
After reading Sister Mine earlier this year, I decided to go back to Tawni O'Dell's earlier novels. This one was an Oprah pick and why is it that Oprah's books are so often about wholly dysfunctional people? Still this book is equally as good as Sister Mine, though considerably darker.
Harley Altmeyer is 18 and as the oldest sibling with three younger sisters, he is trying to support and raise those girls without parents. Their mother is in jail for the murder of their abusive father. Due to the abuse, all five living members of the family are majorly screwed up. As the story progresses, Harley and the oldest sister learn what was really going on in their family.
Meanwhile, Harley begins having sex with the mother of his youngest sister's friend and it all ends up with Harley in jail for the murder of this woman, which isn't what really happened either. O'Dell is a master of highly skilled plotting and realistic characters and dialogue. (I don't think she attended any MFA writing programs.) I loved the spot-on encounters between Harley and his State appointed shrink. When Harley thinks about stuff, O'Dell includes certain words in capital letters, just like J D Salinger did for Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye.
Quite a book. I learned much about the insidious effects of abuse on children; effects that stay with them as they grow up and lead to all manner of social ills. I realized that most of the students I taught at a school for kids who had fallen behind were victims of either abuse or abandonment, which is what made them so hard to help.
AWAY
Away, Amy Bloom, Random House Inc, 2007, 235 pp
Man! This book was amazing. I love it when I open a book, hopeful as always of a good read, and just get ambushed by such unexpected power of writing and uniqueness of tale.
Lillian Leyb is a young mother in a tiny Russian Jewish village when an attack by anti-Semitic neighbors kills almost everyone including Lillian's parents and husband. Her four year old daughter Sophie disappears.
That was in 1923. A year later Lillian arrives in New York City to live with a cousin. Then she learns on the immigrant grapevine that Sophie is alive and possibly in Siberia. She begins a journey across America, up to Alaska and intends to cross the Bering Straight into Siberia.
The characters in this story are completely human examples of the variety of beingnesses found on earth. Lillian's misadventures are myriad and her pluck is endless. She lives on love and a refusal to succumb to loss. This is extreme adventure, as described by Lynne Sharon Schwartz in Ruined by Reading, but it is the male and female types combined into one character.
The emotional impact of the story is huge and stayed with me for hours, days really, maybe forever.
Man! This book was amazing. I love it when I open a book, hopeful as always of a good read, and just get ambushed by such unexpected power of writing and uniqueness of tale.
Lillian Leyb is a young mother in a tiny Russian Jewish village when an attack by anti-Semitic neighbors kills almost everyone including Lillian's parents and husband. Her four year old daughter Sophie disappears.
That was in 1923. A year later Lillian arrives in New York City to live with a cousin. Then she learns on the immigrant grapevine that Sophie is alive and possibly in Siberia. She begins a journey across America, up to Alaska and intends to cross the Bering Straight into Siberia.
The characters in this story are completely human examples of the variety of beingnesses found on earth. Lillian's misadventures are myriad and her pluck is endless. She lives on love and a refusal to succumb to loss. This is extreme adventure, as described by Lynne Sharon Schwartz in Ruined by Reading, but it is the male and female types combined into one character.
The emotional impact of the story is huge and stayed with me for hours, days really, maybe forever.
MILLICENT MIN GIRL GENIUS
Millicent Min Girl Genius, Lisa Yee, Scholastic Inc, 2003, 248 pp
My boss at the bookstore gave me this book to read when I first started working there. Lisa Yee lives somewhere in Los Angeles and did an event at the store before I came there to work. She now has three books out.
This is a wonderful book for readers aged 8-12. Millicent is a certified genius, going into her senior year of high school at age 13. She is a geek of course and quite socially challenged, so her mom makes her take volleyball in the summer. She also gets roped into tutoring another Chinese kid named Stanford Wong, who is a jock but failing English.
At volleyball, Millicent finally makes a friend named Emily and because Millicent is afraid to tell Emily about her IQ and all, plenty of trouble ensues. Especially gnarly is the attraction between Emily and Stanford Wong.
Yee does a great job with Millicent's geeky ineptness side by side with her intelligence. The emotions of 12 and 13 year olds are in the same turmoil no matter what else is going on, so that is where these three characters touch and affect each other. Even the ending, where everything gets worked out, is handled well and never feels sappy. I am glad I read it and recommend it often.
My boss at the bookstore gave me this book to read when I first started working there. Lisa Yee lives somewhere in Los Angeles and did an event at the store before I came there to work. She now has three books out.
This is a wonderful book for readers aged 8-12. Millicent is a certified genius, going into her senior year of high school at age 13. She is a geek of course and quite socially challenged, so her mom makes her take volleyball in the summer. She also gets roped into tutoring another Chinese kid named Stanford Wong, who is a jock but failing English.
At volleyball, Millicent finally makes a friend named Emily and because Millicent is afraid to tell Emily about her IQ and all, plenty of trouble ensues. Especially gnarly is the attraction between Emily and Stanford Wong.
Yee does a great job with Millicent's geeky ineptness side by side with her intelligence. The emotions of 12 and 13 year olds are in the same turmoil no matter what else is going on, so that is where these three characters touch and affect each other. Even the ending, where everything gets worked out, is handled well and never feels sappy. I am glad I read it and recommend it often.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
THE PAINTED KISS
The Painted Kiss, Elizabeth Hickey, Atria Books, 2005, 268 pp
This is one of those books that I very much liked while I was reading it, but whenever I think back on it I like it even more. I have recommended it to tons of customers at the bookstore where I work and they all liked it too. It is historical fiction about Gustav Klimt, told from the viewpoint of Emilie Floge, who was in love with Klimt and may have been his mistress.
I liked it because it is about artists and Vienna at the end of the 19th century before it was changed forever by two world wars. Emilie is a somewhat maddening character. In affairs of the heart, she was reticent and passive in the extreme, at least the way Hickey portrays her. She spent most of her life pining for Klimt but never actively made him hers. He was a womanizer and viewed life through his purpose as an artist.
All the same, Emilie grew up to be the owner of one of the most successful fashion salons of her time in Vienna and was an artist in her own right. For a woman of her time, she probably had one of the best lives she could have had.
This is one of those books that I very much liked while I was reading it, but whenever I think back on it I like it even more. I have recommended it to tons of customers at the bookstore where I work and they all liked it too. It is historical fiction about Gustav Klimt, told from the viewpoint of Emilie Floge, who was in love with Klimt and may have been his mistress.
I liked it because it is about artists and Vienna at the end of the 19th century before it was changed forever by two world wars. Emilie is a somewhat maddening character. In affairs of the heart, she was reticent and passive in the extreme, at least the way Hickey portrays her. She spent most of her life pining for Klimt but never actively made him hers. He was a womanizer and viewed life through his purpose as an artist.
All the same, Emilie grew up to be the owner of one of the most successful fashion salons of her time in Vienna and was an artist in her own right. For a woman of her time, she probably had one of the best lives she could have had.
A WALK IN THE WOODS
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson, Broadway Books, 1998, 274 pp
I read this book for a reading group and was totally surprised by it. Bryson tells the tale of his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. His writing is brisk, clever and humorous and anyway I am a sucker for such quests.
The book is full of pertinent and interesting historical background on the trail, no-nonsense appraisals of ecological issues and the hilarious, uneasy relationship with his walking partner, so I was captivated most of the time. Of course, the idea of walking the trail from start to finish (called "through-walking") appealed to my compulsive A to Z nature. They did not achieve it but learned much in the attempt. The majority of the enterprise is just walking, up hill and down for hours and days and weeks. "Walking, that's what we do," he would say.
It is much like my Big Fat Reading Project: reading, page by page, book by book, year by year. Reading, that's what I do. I admire that approach to anything. I'm glad I read this book and if it weren't for reading groups, I never would have.
I read this book for a reading group and was totally surprised by it. Bryson tells the tale of his attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. His writing is brisk, clever and humorous and anyway I am a sucker for such quests.
The book is full of pertinent and interesting historical background on the trail, no-nonsense appraisals of ecological issues and the hilarious, uneasy relationship with his walking partner, so I was captivated most of the time. Of course, the idea of walking the trail from start to finish (called "through-walking") appealed to my compulsive A to Z nature. They did not achieve it but learned much in the attempt. The majority of the enterprise is just walking, up hill and down for hours and days and weeks. "Walking, that's what we do," he would say.
It is much like my Big Fat Reading Project: reading, page by page, book by book, year by year. Reading, that's what I do. I admire that approach to anything. I'm glad I read this book and if it weren't for reading groups, I never would have.
THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER
The Hummingbird's Daughter, Luis Alberto Urrea, Little Brown and Company, 2005, 495 pp
Here is another book I had on my shelves for quite a while. I bought it for the title. I proposed it for reading groups a few times (one of my strategies for getting to books on my shelves) but it was never picked.
I had mixed reactions. It took a long time to read and I was never dying to read it. Mostly I plodded along. But I liked the story, the characters and in the end he got me and I decided I liked the whole book. The ending was the best part but it wouldn't have been that good if it hadn't been for all that came before. Urrea's style is similar to Isabel Allende and a bit to Gabriel Garcia Marquez though without their magical sparkle. He creates his characters with empathy and humor. There was just something missing in terms of pulling the reader into the story.
Set in Mexico in the mid to late 1800s, it is the story of Teresita, whose father was a wealthy rancher and whose mother a lowly ranch worker, known as the Hummingbird. Teresita is abandoned by her mother and once she figures out who her father is, she worms her way into his household with her considerable wiles, where she is raised by a woman healer/midwife. Eventually Teresita becomes a symbol for the Mexican Revolution, though she is a passionate believer in non-violence.
I was glad I read it and learned new things about Mexico, but it sure was hard getting to the end.
Here is another book I had on my shelves for quite a while. I bought it for the title. I proposed it for reading groups a few times (one of my strategies for getting to books on my shelves) but it was never picked.
I had mixed reactions. It took a long time to read and I was never dying to read it. Mostly I plodded along. But I liked the story, the characters and in the end he got me and I decided I liked the whole book. The ending was the best part but it wouldn't have been that good if it hadn't been for all that came before. Urrea's style is similar to Isabel Allende and a bit to Gabriel Garcia Marquez though without their magical sparkle. He creates his characters with empathy and humor. There was just something missing in terms of pulling the reader into the story.
Set in Mexico in the mid to late 1800s, it is the story of Teresita, whose father was a wealthy rancher and whose mother a lowly ranch worker, known as the Hummingbird. Teresita is abandoned by her mother and once she figures out who her father is, she worms her way into his household with her considerable wiles, where she is raised by a woman healer/midwife. Eventually Teresita becomes a symbol for the Mexican Revolution, though she is a passionate believer in non-violence.
I was glad I read it and learned new things about Mexico, but it sure was hard getting to the end.
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