CARTWHEEL

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Cartwheel, Jennifer duBois, Random House Inc, 2013, 326 pp

Right up front I have to say that I did not like this as much as her first novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes. I had signed up to discuss Cartwheel as part of an on-line book discussion so possibly I pushed myself to read it at a time not ideal for me. I felt annoyed while reading it.

I think that generally fictionalized accounts of real life events are not my favorite novels. Some are better than others but I can usually feel a certain constraint affecting authors I otherwise enjoy. Cartwheel is "loosely inspired" by the story of Amanda Knox, an exchange student in Italy accused of murdering her roommate. I knew nothing about Amanda Knox, but in this story of an exchange student in Argentina arrested for the murder of her roommate, I missed the emotional impact of Ms duBois's astounding first novel.

I suspect however that my annoyance stemmed from the pervasive influence of the tabloid press, social networking, and the current practice of police being able to subpoena the cell phone and internet data of an accused criminal. All of these factors now carry much more weight than ever before in a criminal investigation. Being confronted with this makes me want to never send another text or email, never post another blog and go off Facebook. It just creeps me out to the max.

I found myself desperate to know for sure whether or not Lily killed her roommate, but it was not made clear and I was unable to decide for myself. In fact, I could not decide much about any of the main characters.

I get it that really knowing another person is nearly impossible. I am aware that we all see other people through our own perceptions. Heck, sometimes I feel I don't really know the people closest to me. Lately I can't figure out how I feel about President Obama. I admit that Jennifer duBois made me look at these upsetting truths about life and that made me mad.

I recognized the skill by which she created this disturbing mess of human weakness and probable injustice. Yes, Lily Hayes was naive and careless, unable to see the consequences of her actions. But aren't we all like that to a degree? And how can anyone live if we must be so careful and savvy about the world to avoid ruining our lives irreparably? I was left feeling that life itself is a lost cause.

This author really got to me in both of her novels. The first time, I loved it. This time I almost hated it.

(Cartwheel is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THINNER THAN SKIN

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Thinner Than Skin, Uzma Aslam Khan, Clockroot Books, 2012, 299 pp

There are plenty of ways to get and be lost in this world. Because I have a poor sense of direction, I get lost easily. Because I am drawn to novels by authors from locations and cultures distinct from my own, I often feel lost while I am reading. The impact on me from Uzma Aslam Kahn's fourth novel was a vertigo of feeling lost, afraid, and anxious.

Thinner Than Skin opens with the meditation on her former life by a woman making the yearly journey from the plains to the highlands of summer. Maryam walks along the shore of a lake with her daughter, a mare, a filly, three buffaloes, four goats, and numerous sheep. Two mountain peaks, mist, and a wind that carries a sense of foreboding. Maryam has a vision of a strange man. Where is she? I do not know. Already in the first three pages I am lost as well as filled with Maryam's foreboding.

I read on and meet Nadir and his girlfriend Farhana, sleeping in a cabin in a place called Kaghan. Finally I find out they are in Northern Pakistan, having traveled from San Francisco. Both are of Pakistani descent, their relationship is as rocky as a steep mountainside, and by the end of that chapter I know they are both doomed in some way because of their youth and self-involvement. Despite education and a certain amount of privilege, they are essentially clueless.

I get to the end of the novel. I have been all over a part of the world so foreign to me that even a map showing Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan as they relate to Afghanistan and Pakistan makes me feel lost. The distance between Nadir and Maryam, in worldview, in emotional response, in human interaction, is so vast that though they are both Pakistani and human, they may as well be alien species to each other.

After a terrible fatal accident for which Nadir and Farhana are responsible, the forces of tribal custom, terrorism, and nature pursue these two across a glacier, across a culture, to an outcome even more doomed than I had foreseen at the beginning.

Then comes the ending where the author leaves me, lost in Nadir's mind but found in Maryam's. A trip in every sense of the word.

(Thinner Than Skin is available in paperback and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE NIGHT CIRCUS

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The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern, Doubleday, 2011, 512 pp

I was immediately attracted to The Night Circus when I first heard of it. I love books about magic and magicians. Then I began to read a ton of whiny reviews about how there was no plot and nothing ever happens and it was too slow and long.

Well, I was right in the first place. I loved it the way I loved The Little Princess and The Story of the Amulet when I was a child; the way I loved Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and The Magicians as an adult.

I took it with me on my vacation and it fit perfectly with the forests and snow-capped peak of Mount Shasta. It became a compliment to the beloved magical friend I stayed with, her house filled with paintings and rune rocks, her incredible creations in the kitchen, the big bed I slept in covered in a down quilt with tons of pillows.

I think this is a book for a certain kind of reader. One who loves old world beauty, who is easily captivated by illusion and the unseen, who secretly harbors a longing for the virtues that have gone missing in today's world.

Then there is the high risk game between Celia and Marco, their tragic pasts, the way they are constrained by that type of heartless person found only in the world of faerie. I am always intrigued by a love affair between two equally strong, able, and intelligent people who understand that love includes so many more factors than romance and lust.

If you are one of those readers, you will not be disappointed by The Night Circus.

(The Night Circus is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA

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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra, Crown Publishing, 2013, 400 pp

Thanks to Tina's Reading Group, I read this excellent first novel sooner rather than later. It has a lot going for it but most of all it is excellently written with wonderfully drawn characters and is readable without being dumbed down in any way. Everyone in the reading group loved it which is sometimes the death knell of discussion, but we talked about it for a good hour or more.

The story is set in Chechnya, after two decades of war. The characters are mostly inhabitants of a small village meaning they have lived through all the horrors and know each other well. An excellent device because the history of Chechnya is long and vast. Instead of a historical novel, Marra gives us the effects of that history on these individuals, making it come alive for readers who live far away and know little or nothing about the place.

According to the author, that was his intention. He is an American, well educated, so how did he do it? He studied for a time in Russia, he spent time in Chechnya, he read (in Russian) everything he could about the place, and discovered there was not a single novel about it in English. So he wrote one.

The main characters:

Eight-year-old Havaa, orphaned by the conflict and hunted by an informer who lives right there in her village.

Akhmed, an incompetent doctor but accomplished artist, who protects and ultimately saves Havaa.

Sonja, a fearsomely great surgeon, who is keeping the one hospital in the area open to treat the wounded and who, against her will and reason, helps Havaa.

The informer, the villain of the piece, though the actual villain is a condition called war, who became who he is due to various complicated factors, all of which are revealed.

It is common in contemporary novels to have a plot that floats in time with much nonlinear jumping around. If we are voracious readers, we have gotten used to it but it is not always done well. Anthony Marra does it throughout his novel but masterfully and only to illuminate the characters, their inner lives, motives and frailties. No sooner does he get you wondering why a character is behaving a certain way than he takes you back and shows you why.

I came to the end feeling I knew Chechnya, its history and peoples and possible future much better than I should have after only 400 pages, a bit of map study and a brief look at Wikipedia. I also knew more about love, evil, honor, and sacrifice. That is amazing!

(A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is available in hardcover and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore. It will be released in paperback in January, 2014.)

THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS

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The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls, Anton DiSclafani, Riverhead Books, 2013, 388 pp

I read this because it is about the sexual awakening of a teenage girl, something I am teaching myself to write about. DiSclafani writes about that, and so much more, very well.

Thea Atwell was raised along with her twin brother in virtual isolation. It is the 1930s, the Depression has hit, and the Atwell family lives far from any major town on a plot of land in Florida. The family has money, the father is a doctor, the children are home-schooled, and the mother loves her house and gardens. The only people they see are the family of the father's brother who has one son.

Thea loves horses and rides her own horse everyday. When she is discovered messing around with her cousin, she is banished from home by her parents. They send her to the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls in Georgia where she is abandoned by them at the age of 15. No visits, even when she gets dangerously ill, only letters now and then.

This novel is sad, dreamy, and atmospheric. I loved the writing and the excellent capturing of that time of life when a girl doesn't know enough about life to understand what is happening to her. Thea wants whatever she wants strongly and fearlessly, so of course she suffers mightily. She learns the perils of wanting but she turns her misfortunes to her own advantage as she processes the terrible hurt her family has laid upon her.

Most of all, I admired the author's admission of how strong the sexual desire of a teen girl can be. She takes up the subject where Judy Blume left it in the 1970s.

All mothers of teenage girls would do well to read this novel. Whether we went through our teens easily or tortured, we don't always remember it well and mothers will always worry for their daughters. There have to be ways to deal with these things that are helpful, healthy, and give a young girl the support and understanding she needs. The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a good example of how not to handle it but also an example of a girl with a strong sexual appetite who figures it out for herself.

I think Simone de Beauvoir would have loved this novel.

(The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

SNOW

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Snow, Orhan Pamuk, Alfred A Knopf, 2004, 426 pp

My accomplishment is making it all the way through a novel by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who was awarded the Novel Prize for Literature in 2006. I didn't love it completely but I loved things about it.

Pamuk is the Naguib Mahfouz of Turkey. He writes for his countrymen (who don't appreciate him) and for the rest of the world. He tells us about Turkey, both its history and its present. Such a long, turbulent history, and like Egypt it was at the center of world events for a long time. Many different peoples, religions, and political views accompany the nation's awkward progression into the modern world.

Much of that progression can be found in Snow, seen through the eyes of Ka, a poet, and through various characters from the impoverished and forgotten town of Kars. Ka was raised in Istanbul amidst middle class comforts, as was Pamuk. His youthful political efforts and writitngs earned him exile in Germany but in the novel Ka has returned to Turkey for his mother's funeral.

On a whim, he travels to Kars. It is the dead of winter so he arrives just as a blizzard has closed all roads. Soon he is caught up in personal, political, and religious conflicts because he funded his trip by agreeing to write an article about a recent rash of suicides by Muslim girls who were made to remove the veil. Within the first day he falls in love with the beautiful Ipek. Then he is approached by Blue, the terrorist of the region. As he goes around the town, seeking interviews, religious aspirations and doubts are reawakened but most of all, he breaks out of years of writer's block and begins to write poetry again.

In a combination of literary, melodramatic, and comedic writing, Pamuk drew me into the lives of these very foreign people. I loved the insight into how a poem is written. The love affair between Ka and Ipek is more like a soap opera, showing me that no matter the culture men and women can become fools for love. The suspense builds as Ka digs himself deeper and deeper into the political intrigues of the town until I wondered if he would get out alive.

About two thirds into the novel, the author tells his readers that Ka does return to Germany and meets his doom there but somehow this news does not allay the suspense. I would have to read the book again to figure out how he did that.

Snow was named one of the best books of the year by no less than nine major book review sections, including the New York Times. I agree that it is a feat of literature but possibly has a limited readership. It is a challenging and confusing read at times with a distinctly Middle Eastern tone. I felt rewarded by the reading experience because it is a look into people and places so different from what I know and yet so similar in their humanity.

(Snow is available in paperback on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. It is also available in hardcover and eBook by order.)

NEIL GAIMAN KEEPING THE WISDOM

I don't often post links to other things here but this is so good and so important to readers, writers, booksellers, librarians, and parents, as well as so important to people who couldn't even read it because they can't read, that I couldn't resist.

It is a lecture given by Neil Gaiman to The Reading Agency in London about the value of libraries and the importance of literacy in the world.

Read it today!

Then go to your local library and check out a book. I may be weird, well I am, but I go to the library regularly and check out loads of books even though I may not get to all of them before the due date, because that is a way of keeping libraries around, open, funded, etc. USE THEM!

TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES

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Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, Sarah Weinman-editor, Penguin Books, 2013, 352 pp

This post is dedicated to readers and writers of mystery and crime fiction, of which I know a few. Sarah Weinman, queen of mystery and crime fiction reviews, has done a great thing. In this collection of stories, subtitled Stories From the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, she has revived female writers of such stories from the middle third of the 20th century. These women laid the groundwork for Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Tana French, and many more.

I do not generally enjoy short fiction. I am a novel reader. Short stories just seem too short and don't give me enough time to sink into them before they are over. But back in my teen years when mainstream magazines still published shorts, I read every one I could find in my mom's mags (Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal) as well as my own (Seventeen, Mademoiselle.) After reading this collection, I think I have been trying to read the wrong short stories lately.

These fourteen selections feature daughters, wives, and mothers who are either frustrated with the roles available to them or simply refuse to stay within those roles. I don't mean Rosie the Riveter types or even fast, promiscuous types. These are girls and women, entrenched in domestic life, who go a little nuts and take matters into their own hands.

Each author gets a short bio and career overview before the selected story. A couple of them have already been "rediscovered" in the past decade: Patricia Highsmith and Shirley Jackson in particular.

In "The Heroine," an early story by Highsmith, a young woman whose insane mother has recently died, takes a job as a nanny to convince herself that she is not crazy like her mom. The results are what you would expect from Highsmith. Shirley Jackson's tale of a runaway daughter ends with a psychological plot twist reminiscent of her novel The Road Through the Wall. "Louisa Please Come Home" was first published in Ladies Home Journal in 1960 and I very well may have read it then!

Several stories feature women who resort to murder. The planning, the attention to detail, the multitasking involved, show women whose domestic skills come in quite handy when they put their minds to murder. "The Purple Shroud" by Joyce Harrington takes place at a summer art colony where her serially unfaithful husband teaches painting. Mrs Moon is a weaver and spends the summer weaving the shroud of the title, in which she wraps Mr Moon after she murders him on the last day of that summer session. She is so successful that she sets off in her VW bug to commit another crime.

The calm and deliberate building of suspense interwoven with the motives and inner lives of women are what make reading these stories thrilling, even juicy. You know those days when a man in your life has made you so angry you could just kill him? Well, some women go ahead and do it!

For over a decade I have been carrying out a self-created project of reading 20 to 40 novels for each of the years I have lived, in chronological order, including best sellers, award winners, genre and literary fiction. (Known on this blog as My Big Fat Reading Project.) The Edgar Awards, created by the Mystery Writers of America, began awarding a best novel each year in 1954. In making my way through those winners I was introduced to excellent novels by Charlotte Armstrong, Celia Freeman, and Margaret Millar, all three of whom are featured in Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives.

These authors made a living writing mystery and crime novels and short stories. In my opinion they did as much for women as all the stages of feminism have, by counteracting the straightjacket women of the 1950s and early 1960s were expected to wear. Want to know what those women really felt, what they really wanted? Take a look at some of these stories.

(Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

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A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M Miller Jr, J B Lippincott & Co, 1960, 334 pp

This science fiction classic, though published in 1960, won the Hugo Award in 1961. It messed with my head.

The only other sci fi I've read that included the Catholic Church was The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. For my tastes, she did a better job because she used a light touch with the religious stuff. The paperback copy of Canticle that I read, published in 2006, contains an introduction by Russell. She has read it three times. I don't know if I could stand to read it again.

Miller covers three periods of time over thousands of years. Each section, originally written as a novella, deals with a nuclear disaster and a monastery where monks preserve whatever relics of the ruined civilization they have been able to find. They work tirelessly in the hopes that a "civilized" culture can be rebuilt.

Spoiler: the final section says IT CAN'T.

These monks speak Latin to each other. I was forced to take two years of Latin in high school in the early 1960s and I confess I hated it. I saw no use in studying a dead language. When I grew up I discovered a use: understanding words more fully by knowing their Latin origins.

I certainly did not retain enough skill to be able to understand what the monks were saying. Fortunately, because you do need to understand, I found a nifty Wikipedia list of all the Latin phrases in the book with their translations.

Miller's writing isn't bad but it lacks smoothness. Even after getting the Latin translations, I could not read quickly. Though I suspect that human life on Earth may be doomed, it sure did not cheer me up to read Miller's take on it.

All that back-breaking and thankless work to preserve and reinvent scientific knowledge over and over, only to have the psychotic element in mankind demolish it again and again! What a rat race, a squirrel cage, an exercise in futility.

No wonder people need religion. But at least the secular humans get to have some fun and enjoy the good times. The popes and abbots and monks just worry and struggle and try to promote reason while they do a lot of praying.

There is a last ditch, hopeful bit at the end, involving extreme uncertainty, hardship, and more suffering. Reading A Canticle For Leibowitz was like going to the doctor to see about some health problem and finding out you only have a short time to live; no cure. But you may as well draw up your will in case the ones you leave behind might have a better time.

If you have read this book and can give me another viewpoint of it, please leave a comment.

(A Canticle For Leibowitz is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

IN MEMORIAM: JANE HUMPHREY

Mary Jane Humphrey
1934 - 2013

As the founder of Once Upon a Time Bookstore, October 4, 1966,  just a short walk down Verdugo Road from our current location, Jane became a pioneer in children's bookselling.  Taking a cue from her dear friend, and neighboring shopkeeper, Fiona Bayliss, Jane treated children's books as gift items -- displaying them, not like traditional bookstores or libraries with spines stacked together on bookshelves, but with the books "faced out" on antique furniture. Showing the artwork of picture books elevated the perception of children's literature and has since been copied by countless other stores. Her love of art, nature and quality literature shone through and our community responded. Jane never dumbed down or thought children inferior, and our shop has always been seen as a bit sophisticated -- not with primary colors screaming for attention, but with cool shades of blue.  Jane's wit,  irreverent humor, whimsy and creativity were her calling cards.  Countless THOUSANDS of children have passed through this store, found reading gems highlighted by Jane and became lovers of literature.  My two children are to be counted among Jane's enduring fans, along with hundreds of grateful parents & grandparents. Our community will long remember her spirit, fortitude and foresight - and will forever be changed.

May she rest in peace with her Mr. Bob and enjoy all the Dixie-land music and books available.

(Written by Maureen Palacios, current owner)

WILD

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Wild, Cheryl Strayed, Alfred A Knopf, 2012, 311 pp

I am wild about this book! Memoir, a travel book of the extreme-adventure type, and a portrait of a certain kind of late 20th century woman. What a combination.

Unmoored by grief over her mother's death, Cheryl was a 22 year old girl gone wild. Sex and drugs and waiting tables. I always got waitress jobs in my wild days--easy to get, easier to quit--but I was not as crazy as Cheryl. On a whim, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. By herself.

She planned and planned. She saved money, she shopped, she organized, but in the end she was a babe in the woods. Pack too heavy, boots too tight, money too scarce. She did it anyway. She got tough and strong, convincing herself everyday that she was not afraid and would not give up.

I find it interesting that she waited almost twenty years to write and publish the story of her hike. First she wrote an autobiographical novel, then a collection of advice essays, finally the memoir. I like to think that she had to live another chunk of years in order to prove to herself that she truly did transform her life.

Her writing is a mix of swagger, honesty, and suspense. She can also do self-deprecating humor but this is a completely different story from Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

What I liked most was this: Females are often told to be careful and aware of danger, to stay safe. Cheryl Strayed's book makes the case for a female who can be reckless and wild but still survive, still create a career, a family, and a life that works. She tells us we can learn from hardship, danger, and loss.

(Wild is currently available in paperback on the shelves or in hardcover and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

OCTOBER READING GROUP UPDATE

The New Book Club: 

Tina's Group:

World's Smallest Reading Group:

Once Upon A Time Bookstore Adult Fiction Group:

One Book At A Time:

Bookie Babes:

What are your groups reading this month?

THE CARPETBAGGERS

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The Carpetbaggers, Harold Robbins, Simon & Schuster Inc, 1961, 679 pp

Harold Robbins wrote many bestsellers over his long career and this one was the #4 bestseller in 1961. It was also made into a movie. Robbins hits all the tropes of a big fat trashy page turner. I read tons of books like this when I was in my thirties, raising my sons and dreaming of adventure. It was kind of fun to read one again now that I am such a literary fiction reader.

Jonas Cord, a motherless kid with a Native American cowboy named Nevada Smith as his male nanny, was raised in the Nevada desert on his father's ranch. Mr Cord Sr was a fabulously wealthy, hard bitten tycoon whose tough love left Jonas feeling unloved. When his father keels over from a stroke, Jonas inherits the business at age 20. 

He does his best to become his father, even trying to marry his father's wife. Within a few weeks he suddenly develops business savvy, though he loses out with the wife. He is already a pilot, a womanizer, a hard drinking fearless dude. On it goes through WWI, WWII, the rise of Hollywood, airplanes, and modern life as it was known in the late 1950s.

The women are all beautiful and sexy, the men ruthless and violent, and everyone has something in the past making them act the way they do. Very entertaining, especially the Hollywood parts. I suppose most men wanted to be tycoons and most women wanted to be movie stars in 1961; heck, many still do!

How satisfying to read that the rich and famous also have hard times. Reading it today with all its sex and glamor and business high jinks, I saw that business ethics and Hollywood's methods have always been on the shady side, that human nature craves such stories, and that women are only a couple generations beyond the objectification and exploitation that was simply taken for granted in 1961.

But I never did figure out why the book was called The Carpetbaggers.

(The Carpetbaggers is available in mass market paperback by order [and subject to availability] from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

GOING ON VACATION

ROAD TRIP!!

I am going on vacation. I usually do this time of year after the tourists have gone back to work and school. I am driving up the I5 freeway to visit a friend. I have two books on my iPad: Duplex by Kathryn Davis and Thinner Than Skin by Uzma Aslam Khan. In case technology fails, I have two print books: Cartwheel by Jennifer DuBois and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. 

But really I plan to relax, hang out with my friend, eat her astounding cooking, maybe take a walk in the woods. I will be back next week with more reviews, perhaps a little travelogue. 

THE CUCKOO'S CALLING

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The Cuckoo's Calling, J K Rowling/Robert Galbraith, Mulholland Books/Little Brown and Company, 2013, 448 pp

J K Rowling can sure write a good story. She proved that seven times over with the Harry Potter series. Some say she didn't do as well with her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy. I haven't read that yet so I can't say. Writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, she demonstrates her chops in The Cuckoo's Calling.

Call it a mystery, a thriller, or a work of crime fiction (it is all of those), she entertained me on every page. Private detective Cormoran Strike and his "temporary" office girl Robin are complex characters whom I grew quite fond of. It is a feat that supermodel Lula Landry comes across as a fully realized character even though she is dead throughout the entire book.

Then there is Rowling's knowing take on pop culture, fame, paparazzi, social networking fans, and too much money. I know that sounds like a lot of stuff but she weaves it in seamlessly.

Finally, I really don't like it when I can figure out who done it before a mystery ends. I had no idea until it was revealed.

That is all I am going to say because any more would spoil the reading experience one way or another. I hope she does a series. I want more of Strike and Robin.

(The Cuckoo's Calling is available on the shelves in hardcover and in eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

FLIGHT BEHAVIOR

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Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver, HarperCollins, 2012, 386 pp

Wow! Back to back, I read two of my favorite authors. Immediately after finishing Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam, I began Flight Behavior. It was equally great.

Barbara Kingsolver, aside from being a wonderful storyteller, always brings a societal issue to life with stories about characters living under the influence of said societal issue. In Flight Behavior, Dellarobia Turnbow is a frustrated wife and mother, living in near poverty in a small Appalachian town. The story opens on a day when Dellarobia has decided to be unfaithful to her husband. On the way to a prearranged tryst, she witnesses a forest valley filled with an orange flaming light.

Religion is a big deal in Feathertown, TN and though she is not a true believer, Dellarobia goes to church just because one must. But she is so stunned by the vision in the valley that she feels a miracle has saved her from making a big mistake.

Before long it becomes clear that the valley, which is on her in-laws' property, is filled with butterflies that have detoured from their normal migratory route. Soon enough, the scientist Dr Ovid Byron, the media, the townspeople, and the in-laws are embroiled.

So the story is about climate change, about religious fundamentalism, about the inability of all of us to believe that we have already just about killed off our planet. But it is also about a woman, who through her own foolishness and misfortunes, has just about ruined her life.

Dellarobia, whose high level of intelligence is her best characteristic, muddles her way through the turmoil in her town and family. She emerges with a sense of self she had never had before and makes a decision which split my reading group into two opposing camps.

Kingsolver is an extremely canny author. She gets accused of preaching but actually she never gives easy answers to either the big issues or the personal problems of her characters. She just gets readers thinking about all these things. Do we have a responsibility to our environment no matter what economic status we occupy? Does a woman, especially one with children, have a right to happiness and a fulfilling life? For that matter, what is a fulfilling life?

(Flight Behavior is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

MADDADDAM

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MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood, Nan A Talese/Doubleday, 2013, 390 pp

Margaret Atwood is one of my top three favorite authors. She is frighteningly intelligent, has a sense of humor, and writes about women better than anyone else. Her speculative fiction trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake, followed by The Year of the Flood, wraps up perfectly in this final volume.

I suppose you could read MaddAddam as a stand alone but if you don't already know Oryx, Crake, Jimmy, the God's Gardeners, and the Crakers, you might not get all that goes on in this one. She delves more deeply into the back-stories of the characters, tying together loose ends and making the whole story even more believable.

The survivors of the pandemic that wiped out most of the human race at the end of Oryx and Crake are holed up in a rustic dwelling subsisting on whatever they can scavenge and fortifying their space against the crazed Painballers. They have been joined by the bio-engineered Crakers and are also dealing with possible interbreeding.

Though Atwood achieved wide spread acclaim after The Handmaid's Tale won the Booker Prize in 1986, I don't think that was her best novel. In her novels Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin she reached a pinnacle, defining the roles of women in society while writing novels as compelling as any bestselling fiction. Where else could she go but back to the future?

The heroine in MaddAddam is Toby. She is the one whose practicality and level-headedness kept things together for the God's Gardeners in The Year of the Flood. But she also fell in love with the renegade Zeb, whose checkered life story is finally revealed in full. Toby is no babe, she has been beat up by life, and she has a few flaws. Atwood uses the love story between Toby and Zeb to great tragicomic effect, tackling sexual jealousy and possessiveness, commitment and promiscuity, as well as testosterone vs estrogen. In fact, the entire novel contemplates whether or not, given another chance, the human race could create a better pattern for existence.

One of the ways humans create the future is by telling stories about the past. Toby gets the role of storyteller as she invents for the Crakers, in terms they can understand, tales about who they are, where they came from, and how they can help the hapless, violent, destructive humans. Crake created his creatures to be free of the characteristics that spell doom for the human race, but evil is still afloat in the wake of the waterless flood. The Crakers need protection but the humans need abilities only the Crakers have.

We know these books are just stories about what if we go on as we are. Margaret Atwood has said so. She is not making predictions, though many of the details are based on prodigious scientific research, making them all possibilities. But in a great interview with KCRW's Michael Silverblatt on his show BookWorm, she makes it clear that she has hope for us idiots. If you are in despair about the state of the world, I highly recommend reading the trilogy in full. If you just want an entertaining story about the future, you will get that as well.

(MaddAddam is available in hardcover and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE LOWLAND

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The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri, Aflred A Knopf, 2013, 340 pp

Earlier this summer, I began Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. It was tough going and I spent as much time in the dictionary and on the Internet as I did reading, due to my ignorance of Indian history. Because I am a book reviewer and am ruled by deadlines, I had to abandon that book and so far have not gotten back to it. But it turned out to have been time well spent because the time scape fits with the beginning of The Lowland and I was at least somewhat in the know about the early years after India achieved independence.

Jhumpa Lahiri is not Salman Rushdie and The Lowland is not Midnight's Children but both are challenging books. Lahiri lacks any sense of humor; she is concerned with the serious side of history and family but she has a sixth sense for the emotional detritus of family conflict and the subtle effects that social and political upheaval can infuse into personal life.

The story revolves around two brothers, Subhash and Udayan, born 15 months apart in a suburb of Calcutta shortly after World War II. Subhash is the elder brother but has no memory of life before Udayan arrived. They might as well have been twins. 

The opening chapters cover their childhood, their schooling, their pranks, the bond between them and the development of their eventual separation. Subhash is the obedient, conservative and somewhat fearful brother while Udayan is bold, daring, and defiant. They are both brilliant in school, studying science, and by college show promise while bringing pride to their middle class parents.

Udayan becomes a member of a communist group dedicated to righting the wrongs in India. It is the 1960s; his heroes are Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung. Subhash opts for study in America. Enter The Woman. Udayan falls in love with his best friend's sister, Gauri. This young woman has been raised by her grandparents who took her in when she was a small child. Left to her own devices, she is not a protected Indian girl but allowed to attend University and to spend all her time studying philosophy.

She and Udayan marry and go to live with his parents, as is traditional, but because she was not a wife chosen by the family, she brings shame to the household. Within a year of the marriage Udayan is killed by police because of his revolutionary and subversive activities. Subhash comes home to find Gauri rejected but still living in the family home. She is also pregnant. Driven by grief and sympathy, Subhash marries her and takes her back to America. Nothing goes right after that point and in fact goes about as wrong as could be.

The lives of these desperately unhappy people infested my mind and spirit like the termites in my mimosa tree. I did not lose any limbs, only sleep and any ability to digest food. This is perhaps one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, not due to violence or evil, but because I felt how close we all are to overwhelming despair and dysfunction. Subhash only wanted to be a loving brother and obedient son. Udayan only wanted equality for his fellow men. Gauri only wanted personal freedom. The loss of Udayan could not be overcome.

In the end, Lahiri allows a glimmer of hope brought about by a child. And so it goes. We make our choices or are the victims of circumstance, we suffer the consequences, and the young pick up the pieces. The novelists tell the story over and over. Somehow a story told with this much insight and compassion is a glimmer of hope in itself.

(The Lowland will be published on September 24, 2013 and is available now in hardcover or eBook for pre-order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

BABOUSHKA AND THE THREE KINGS

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Baboushka and the Three Kings, Ruth Robbins & Nicholas Sidjakov, Parnassus Press, 1960, 22 pp

 

THE SUNDAY FAMILY READ

This retelling of a Russian Christmas tale won the Caldecott Award for 1961. The illustrations, ink pen with a wash of primary colors, look almost like cartoons.

Baboushka is busy cleaning her small hut when she is visited by the Three Kings who tell her they "have been following a bright star to a place where a Babe is born." They ask Babouhska to join them in the search but she will not leave until her cleaning is done.

The next day she attempts to follow them but heavy snow has covered their trail. Though she goes from village to village she never finds the Kings or the Babe.

The folk tale says that every year children await the coming of Baboushka who leaves "poor but precious gifts" behind her during her yearly search. She is a Russian Santa Claus.

I am so grateful to the Burbank Public Library where I have found every Caldecott winner since 1940. 

I've no idea why this book took the prize in 1961. It is not remotely an American story; the illustrations are perhaps avant garde for the times but didn't impress me. Maybe they wanted toddlers to not be too afraid of the Russians.

(Baboushka and the Three Kings is available in library binding and paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

ENON

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Enon, Paul Harding, Random House Inc, 2013, 238 pp

Enon. An abbreviation of a Latin word? A biblical name? Here it is the name of a small town in New England, home of Charlie Crosby. I have not read Tinkers, Paul Harding's Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, but Charlie is the grandson of the man who is dying in Tinkers.

The writing is exquisite. It moves along at the pace of a stroll down a country lane, always imbued with a sense of the history layered in the surroundings.

First paragraph:

"Most men in my family make widows of their wives and orphans of their children. I am the exception. My only child, Kate, was struck and killed by a car while riding her bicycle home from the beach one afternoon in September, a year ago. She was thirteen. My wife, Susan, and I separated soon afterward."

I honestly don't know how any parent survives the death of a child, especially a young child who still lives at home. Charlie barely did and this is his grieving story.

Charlie is a reader, a life long reader. Since he was a young kid, he read mysteries and horror stories and books on history and art and science and music. He liked big fat tomes so he could linger in other worlds and in other people's lives. Those big books are the sign of a true reader. "What I loved most was how the contents of each batch of books mixed up with one another in my mind to make ideas and images and thoughts I'd never have imagined possible." Exactly!

When Kate dies, Charlie falls apart, completely and utterly. His wife moves back to live with her parents in Minnesota. He met her in college. She was a schoolteacher and he became a guy who took care of people's lawns, just so he could make some money, because he really had no skills or even ambition. His life and all his emotions and energy were invested in Kate. As if he did not have a personality of his own, so lived through her.

Most of the novel is about the unraveling of Charlie. It is gruesome though strangely not without a sort of wry humor. Here and there are some stories about how he met his wife, what their life had been, and about his grandfather George Crosby, a man who repaired clocks. But mostly we go with Charlie as he walks all night long, night after night, in the woods, to the graveyard, around the town. Out of his mind on booze and painkillers and finally hard drugs, he deteriorates before our eyes.

Since Charlie is telling the tale, he must have lived to tell it. Truly though, I was convinced he was going to die. But he doesn't and it appears he was saved by a vision he had when he was just on the edge of passing out as he wandered in the night.

"There is a sound that no human ear can hear, coming from a place no human eye can see, from deeper within the earth but also from deep in the sky and the water and inside the trees and inside the rocks. The sound is a voice, coming from a register so low no human can hear it, but many people throughout the town are disturbed from their sleep by it. It is a note from a song the shape of which is too vast ever to know"

That is Charlie describing what saved him. Or what made him decide to save himself, or at least to go on living. I would not call this novel hopeful or inspiring, at times it was frightfully depressing. What kept me going is that it sounded like truth.

(Enon is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

A DARK REDEMPTION

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A Dark Redemption, Stav Sherez, Europa Editions, 2013, 345 pp

My review of this exciting new author's book is available for viewing at BookBrowse until September 13 even if you are not a subscriber. 

My review begins: "I have done my share of deep and heavy reading this summer, so it was a great pleasure to read a crime fiction novel by an author new to me. Not that A Dark Redemption wasn't deep and sometimes heavy, but it is an ideal read for the end of summer: entertaining, compelling, yet addressing issues that stay with us as we return from the beach or vacation." 

 

You can read the rest of the review here.

 

 

( A Dark Redemption is available in paperback and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

MILA 18

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Mila 18, Leon Uris, Doubleday & Company Inc, 1961, 539 pp

The #4 bestseller of 1961 was another door stopper but mostly a page turner. It is the second version I have read of events concerning the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. I also read John Hersey's The Wall as part of my reading list for 1950. Each book takes a slightly different look at this atrocity but it is hard to say which is better. 

Because he is Leon Uris, he had to put several love stories in his version, but compared to his 1958 bestseller Exodus this book is so much better in terms of writing style and the characters. He makes clear the evil deeds of Hitler and his henchmen when it came to their treatment of Jews, the ways that they fumbled towards the "final solution," the psychopathic inhumanity of all involved, and the methods used to spin the news about what was happening.

In contrast, we see the bravery and humanity of the Jewish leaders as they try to keep as many as possible alive in that ghetto. Mila 18 is the name of the building inside the ghetto where the Jewish resistance had their headquarters.

Both this book and The Wall make it clear that the journals and diaries of certain people inside the ghetto are responsible for the knowledge we now have about what happened there. Even as the final residents were being obliterated, some took the steps necessary to keep the journals secure and get the information about their locations into safe hands.

To me, that is a story worth telling at least twice. As our continuous wars go on, seemingly always presented as a necessary slaughter of people, whether of another religion or another political system, it is sobering to read about how mankind has forever succumbed to such madness. But it is also steadying to read about the victims who resist, who record, and thus live on.

(Mila 18 is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

SEPTEMBER READING GROUP UPDATE

Here is the line up for September in my reading groups:

The New Book Club:

Once Upon A Time Adult Fiction Group (well once in a while we read non-fiction):

One Book At A Time:

World's Smallest Reading Group:

Bookie Babes:

Some of these groups do welcome new members. If you live in the Los Angeles area and are interested in joining or attending the September meeting, send me an email.

What are your reading groups reading this month?

VOICES

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Voices, Ursula K Le Guin, Harcourt Inc, 2006, 341 pp

 

THE SUNDAY FAMILY READ

This is the second volume of Le Guin's young adult series, the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy. I read Gifts some years ago and found it as great as any other books of hers I have read. 

If possible, I liked Voices even more. Memer of Ansul is an orphan raised in one of the best homes of the city. She lost her mother at birth and is a half-breed resulting from the rape of her mother when a brutal and superstitious race conquered Ansul.

The conquerors fear the written word like some people fear the devil. By means of torture and fire, they found and destroyed all the books in Ansul, or so they thought. Memer finds the hidden library in her home and is taught to read by the master of the house. Being strong willed and a survivor, she becomes involved in an attempt to free Ansul from it occupiers.

Besides the theme of a literate people being oppressed by illiterate, religiously fanatic barbarians, the story includes a beautiful testament to the connection between education, love of learning, and peace. The people of Ansul have resolved their difficulties for centuries through dialogue, not violence. Women are respected, the natural world is held in reverance, and many gods are worshiped as spiritual presences who aid mankind.

Having been different all her life, Memer is open to new ideas and approaches life with an inherent bravery. In other words, she is a heroine and her coming of age coincides with the freeing of Ansul.

Le Guin never preaches or talks down to her readers, adults or teens. Voices was exciting, thought provoking, and worked on me like a blessing from some kick-butt goddesses.

(Voices is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

SWEET TOOTH

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Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan, Nan A Talese/Doubleday, 2012, 321 pp

I have long considered myself a fan of Ian McEwan. Turns out I'd read just one of his novels, Atonement, which goes to show what a fine novel that is. Even so, I was shocked to discover that Sweet Tooth is only the second book I have read by him. I loved it just as much but for different reasons.

Set in 1970s London, Sweet Tooth is the code name for an MI5 operation aimed at manipulating the public mind by funding writers whose politics agree with the aims of British intelligence. A cockeyed scheme indeed, but according to McEwan it had been attempted during the early years of the Cold War with authors such as George Orwell and Arthur Koestler. Since buying an author is right up there with herding cats, you can imagine the amount of backfiring that goes on in the story.

Serena Frome, beautiful and intelligent, well read and perpetually horny, is recruited into MI5 by the usual subterfuges made known to us by John Le Carre. Subsequently, because she is also politically naive and a bit ditsy, she accepts an assignment to infiltrate the literary life of a budding writer and offer him the means to write full time. The author of course is taken in by her story about a foundation and its grants to promising writers. Serena of course sleeps with the author and falls in love with him. Horny and ditsy don't mix well with intrigue.

So things get messy, it is all very tense, and then there is a surprise ending. Have you noticed I like surprise endings and rarely see them coming? I am sometimes embarrassed by my gullibility as a reader but it sure makes reading novels like Sweet Tooth fun.

I also fell for all the inside details on the literary scene in 1970s Britain plus the historical insight I gained about a decade during which I was either stoned or raising babies (not at the same time.)

So, literary romance mixed with spy craft. Totally fun. McEwen is such a good writer.

(Sweet Tooth is currently available on the shelf in paperback and in hardcover or eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

THE WASTE MAKERS

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The Waste Makers, Vance Packard, David McKay Company Inc, 1960, 327 pp

This is the third volume in Vance Packard's series of books about American life and sociology. In it he makes the case for calling America a society of waste makers by documenting the wanton discarding of automobiles, appliances, and gadgets due to the desire for the newest and the latest. That desire was created by advertizing.

During the 1950s, manufacturers began building obsolescence into their products both by lowering quality so that stuff wore out faster and by focusing on yearly style changes. American shoppers were made to want the newest, the latest, and even homes bought from previous owners were called "used homes." 

Behind this was a carefully planned emphasis on consumerism perpetuated by the belief that to maintain a healthy economy more and more goods must be manufactured and bought whether people needed them or not. Even having more babies and encouraging population growth was a good thing because it created more customers!

He captures the materialistic mood of the 1950s and goes on to expose the inevitable consequences: depletion of natural resources, pollution, the decline of cities as suburbia grew, the failure to predict the costs of educating all those extra kids, as well as the moral and spiritual effects on a population whose main goal was to acquire things.

As in his other two books, Packard pretty much predicted the mess we are in today. In fact, reading this one was an eerie experience because most of what he warned about in 1960 is right here all around me in my life and the lives of my children and grandchildren.

Packard was brutally attacked by big business in his day for exposing their strategies. He was also mocked for writing "popular" sociology. But I know my dad read his books and now I know why we had a Rambler as the family car. I bet Ralph Nader read him and Betty Friedan was inspired to write The Feminine Mystique by reading The Waste Makers.

In fact, many of his suggestions for resolving the issues created by such rampant consumerism are now also part of life as people who can see beyond their cars and restaurant level kitchen appliances and computers and phones, attempt to bring our world into balance.

I recommend these books, The Hidden Persuaders, The Status Seekers, and The Waste Makers, to anyone who cares about life for our descendents, because he explains clearly and fairly concisely how we got to where we are. Happily in each book he is a better writer. This one was not boring at any time.

(The Waste Makers is available in paperback and eBook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

CARAMELO

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Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros, Alfred A Knopf, 2002, 439 pp

Some years ago I bought this book for the title. I had a new kitten, a calico with a caramel colored strip right down the side of her face. Since I love caramel in any form (those chewy candy squares, Ben and Jerry's Caramel Cone ice cream, caramel in coffee drinks, etc) I named her Caramelo.

I am sorry to report that the book is not nearly as entertaining as my cat. It begins with the Reyes family making one of their yearly summer trips from Chicago to Mexico City to visit the "awful grandmother." It take them forever to leave and another few forevers to get there.

This Mexican American family has a history. All families do, in fact I am writing the story of mine. It is a trick to keep it interesting to anyone else but myself. Also like me, Cisneros views the family through herself and the coming of age of Lala, the only daughter and the baby of the family, who has six older brothers.

It took me forever, it seemed, to read. I don't know Spanish and she uses tons of Spanish words which I looked up because they were not always explained by the context. I enjoyed seeing late 20th century life through the eyes of a woman of Mexican heritage. I don't know much about that culture, though I am surrounded by it in Los Angeles, and now have gained more affinity for Mexican Americans. I liked that too.

My problems with Caramelo were a writing style I could not get used to and the feeling that Cisneros failed to keep her readers in mind. Still, I'm not sorry I read it because I don't think I have read any novels by a female of Mexican descent or a female of Mexican nationality, except for The Wedding by Mary Helen Ponce, whom I know personally.

Now that I think of it, Cisneros shows in her novel the cultural reasons for the lack of successful Mexican female authors. It was worth getting through Caramelo just to learn about that. Perhaps I was not her intended ideal reader and she wrote this book for other frustrated Mexican women.

(Caramelo is available in various formats in both English and Spanish by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)