Booty

Just wanted to share a snap of this thicc stack of books my wonderful husband gave to me for Christmas:

"Hiddensee" by Gregory Maguire

I was ultimately a bit disappointed in this retelling of The Nutcracker. I saved it to read at Christmas time, but the majority of the book wasn't very Christmas-y; in fact, the actual nutcracker story that everyone knows from the ballet didn't play a large part, and could only be found in the last thirty pages or so. And so much of the story was ethereal, floating just out of my grasp, more similar to the dreamlike portions of Mirror, Mirror (not a favorite) and less like the gripping intrigue of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (the Maguire I've enjoyed the most).

The book focuses largely on Herr Drosselmeier, maker and gifter of the well-known nutcracker, but even though the book tells the story of his life, it doesn't allow the reader to become intimate with him. I reached the end of the book feeling like I didn't know any more about him than I knew at the beginning. I think this is one of those books that asks more questions than it answers.

Cool cover art, though. Both on the dustcover (above) and underneath:

"We Others" by Steven Millhauser

Discovering new authors that you love is great, but it's even better when you discover an old author you love -- because you don't have to wait for the next book to come out, you can just dive into the author's backlist. This has happened to me in recent years with James Ellroy and Patricia Highsmith, and now it's happened with the somewhat less famous Steven Millhauser. In all three cases, it was movie adaptations that drew me in: LA Confidential, The Talented Mr Ripley, and - in this case - The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton.

I rewatched The Illusionist recently and, curious about its source, read the credits and found out that it had been adapted from a short story by Steven Millhauser. I had never heard of Millhauser, though apparently he is now in his seventies and has won the Pulitzer Prize. He has written a few novels, but is more renowned as a short-story writer. I generally don't read many short stories. The only ones I can think of that I've ever really loved are by Kafka, Borges, Calvino and Poe, because, in all four cases, they're like novels or entire encyclopedias miraculously shrunk down into a few pages: the universe in a grain of sand. Now, guess who Millhauser's stories were compared to in the first review of him I read online? Kafka, Borges, Calvino and Poe!

So I bought We Others, which is a selection (by the author himself) of the best of his published short stories over a 30-year career, plus a collection of six new stories. And I loved it. Maybe not every single story. On the whole, I thought the shorter stories were by far the weaker: unlike Borges, for instance, Millhauser seems to need at least 12 pages to create a world and/or a narrative that really sucks you in, and his very best stories are more like 25-50 pages long. But at their best they are truly wondrous, and I am still thinking about several of them now, weeks after finishing this collection.

On the whole I would place him on the Borges/Calvino end of the supernatural fantasy spectrum: whimsical and miraculous rather than dark and gothic, though there are certainly some nicely dark moments here, particularly among the more recent stories. At his best he is subtly disturbing, haunting, but also inspiring, with just the right blend of fantasy and reality. His prose is beautiful and concise; it reads as though it's been lovingly polished, planed down to a perfect smoothness.

His stories tend to take place either in late 20th century America or in late 19th century Europe. Many of his characters are either inventors and illusionists  or ordinary adolescents, and he is equally deft at evoking fin-de-siecle Vienna or the porch gliders and suburban back lawns of what I assume was his own childhood. He also appears to have a thing for girls who push their sweater sleeves up to their elbows. I really enjoyed the recurrence of these autobiographical and obsessive details throughout these wildly different stories. Without them, the whole thing might have come across as an exercise in style, a little too abstract and intellectual, but with them you have a sense of his life and personality.

He can also be quite funny. A few of the stories reminded me of David Mitchell, who is one of my favorite contemporary novelists. The one that really lodged in my mind, though, was 'The Next Thing', a sort of dystopic vision of a world taken over by a brilliantly convenient company a bit like Amazon. It's all too plausible, and it's made me feel guilty every time I've pressed 'BUY IT NOW' recently. But given that I discovered and bought this book on Amazon, I guess I'm not quite ready to give up the habit altogether.

"Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland

This is the story of a painting with the style and expertise of a Vermeer, but it's been kept hidden for decades. Could it actually be a Vermeer, or was it just painted to look like one? Each chapter takes the reader farther back in time, slowly revealing the painting's origins.

At first glance this might seem like a knockoff of Girl with a Pearl Earring (the story of the creation of Vermeer's painting by that name) but it's interesting to note that the two books were published the exact same year (1999). And books like these don't just appear the way I feel James Patterson novels must, so it's not as if one of the two books might have been published in early 1999 and the other author thought, hey, I can do something like that, and hurriedly dashed off a similar novel.

In fact, Girl in Hyacinth Blue started as a short story (the first chapter) that was later followed by a related short story (the last chapter) and then filled in by two more short stories in the middle; Vreeland continued filling in the gaps with short stories until she realized what she had was a novel.

I enjoyed reading this book and found it well-written and interesting, but I must admit I preferred Girl with a Pearl Earring. (The two books are actually not that similar and are really only linked by Vermeer, but I can't help comparing them.)

"The Paying Guests" by Sarah Waters

This is the story of Miss Frances Wray and her mother, two upper middle class British women whose fortunes took a turn when all the men in their family died. Now it's 1922, and in order to keep their house, they're forced to take in lodgers: a young married lower middle class couple named Leonard and Lilian Barber. At first this change feels like an intrusion that Frances bears quietly, just like all the other burdens in her life, but it isn't long before life brightens with Lil's new friendship. And things just keep getting brighter and brighter . . . until suddenly they don't. It's a page-turner that is full of suspense which constantly teeters on the edge of depressing hopelessness. And if I weren't so tired I might actually be able to think of more things to say about it. As it is, this will have to suffice: I liked it.

"Conversations With Friends" by Sally Rooney

This book did for me what the previous book was supposed to do and didn’t. How is it that I can read a book about something painful that I have endured and the book doesn’t touch me, but a book I have nothing in common with does? And how did I identify so strongly with a main character who was so different from me? Maybe she and I had a few characteristics in common. And where we differed, I admired her. Maybe wherever I wasn’t her, I wanted to be her; she may have alienated everyone around her, but she didn’t alienate me. I didn’t envy her life--I would much rather have my life than hers (lucky for me). It did fascinate me, though.

This book tells the story of Frances, a 21-year-old Irish university student, poet, and all-around cold, intimidating and intelligent person (as seen by others)--or someone formless and void, marked more by absence than presence of personality (her own assessment). Frances has a best friend (and former girlfriend) named Bobbi, and the two often perform readings of Frances' poetry. One of their readings is attended by Melissa, a classy photographer and published author, and the three end up forming an odd friendship. And the rest is just too exhausting to summarize.

I find myself wondering, how does this book differ from Women’s Fiction--or its slightly more fluffy sister, Chick Lit--which I tend to scorn? (Look at that cover. This LOOKS like Women's Fiction.) Take Me Before You, for example. I felt nothing for that book, and as a result I wondered if maybe I wasn’t human. But this book made me feel more human than human.

I haven't done this book justice. I feel like it's one that will stick with me. Not necessarily in the details, which are always difficult for a literary amnesiac to hang on to, but for the sweeping sensation it left me with . . . swept away? swept up? swept out?

"Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation" by Rachel Cusk

I thought I would really connect with this book, that it would strike a deep chord with me, that it would bring raw emotions back to the surface. Which might be a bit difficult or uncomfortable, but wouldn't be wholly unwelcome; I thought enough time had passed that it would feel more cathartic than painful. So I was surprised to find this book didn't really resonate with me. Maybe this is just, to paraphrase Tolstoy, because all happy marriages are alike but every divorce is unhappy in its own way?

I'm not sure there's any real need to summarize this book, as it's all right there in the title; it's basically the author's autobiography covering this very brief and specific period of her life. And while I'm glad I read it, and I am appreciative of Cusk's writing, I doubt I would pick this title up again.

"The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters

I had so much fun reading this book. It was like a ghost story in Downton Abbey (if Robert Crawley had died and the house had fallen into disrepair), only the house was called Hundreds Hall and was owned by the Ayreses. The story is told through the eyes of the family doctor who has lived in the area all his life and can remember the Hall as it was when he was a child. Dr Faraday is shocked at seeing the state of the house thirty years later, when he is called to see to a young housemaid complaining of a bellyache. Over the following weeks and months he finds himself back at Hundreds Hall more and more often, and as the Ayres family become accustomed to his presence, they begin to reveal to him the strange things that are going on in the house.

It's frustrating in a delicious way when I want to devour a book but I also don't want it to end. I wish I could still be reading this book now. And while I find in retrospect that it doesn't necessarily stand up to much scrutiny, that does nothing to diminish my agreement that (like the cover says) this is "a classic gothic page-turner."

"Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe" by Bill Bryson

I enjoyed this one much more than I remember enjoying my previous (and only other) Bill Bryson read. Bryson harshed on a few cities pretty hard and (maybe I'm just too sensitive?) I imagined that the people in those cities might be a bit insulted by what he wrote, but since most of the disparaging comments seemed to be about the inanimate cities and not specifically about the people in them, maybe it would be easier to avoid taking it personally. Either way, this time none of the comments were about me or about any city I would consider mine, so I was better able to laugh with Bryson. In fact, I actually literally laughed out loud more than once (but after the first time--p41 with the dead beaver in Paris--when I tried sharing the humor with my husband and he just stared at me, unsmiling, while I snorted with laughter, I decided to keep the rest of it to myself).

Obviously I haven't been everywhere in Europe, and just as obviously this book doesn't cover everywhere in Europe, but my past travels had surprisingly little overlap with Bryson's catalogued "travels in Europe." However, I wrote a little list of places I haven't been to (yet) which this book made me really, really want to see:

• Bruges, Belgium (p60)
• Sorrento, Italy (p144)
• Capri, Italy (p148)
• Como, Italy (p174 . . . and are you starting to see a theme?)
• Split, Yugoslavia (just kidding . . . Croatia, p218) 

There were also quite a few places the book made me NOT want to see but I didn't write them down and now the only one I remember is Brussels, Belgium. Sorry, Brussels! It's Bill Bryson's fault, not mine. 

"Grief is the Thing with Feathers" by Max Porter

This is a unique little novella. (Despite the fact that the cover claims it is a novel, it just doesn't have enough pages or enough words or enough breadth to truly be
a novel.) And though I found it impressive and worthy (in a good way), it was not what I expected.

It's the story of a man who has just lost his wife and is left alone with their two young sons . . . until a giant crow moves into their flat with them. (To avoid confusing you with my next sentence, I must explain that the widower is writing a book about Ted Hughes, and Hughes wrote a collection of poems called Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow.) Now, I know very little about Ted Hughes and even less about his writing, and maybe my ignorance skewed my expectations, but I expected Crow to be a physical manifestation of grief. And maybe it was sometimes, or mostly? But not always, and not to its greatest potential.

In general, though the writing was striking and interesting and vivid, I found it easy to skate over without really feeling the grief of its characters. Maybe that's just evidence that I'm a replicant? But as I read, I couldn't help thinking, this is written by a man who has never lost his wife. (I didn't even know if that was true, and how should I know what it's like? I've never lost a wife--or had one, either--and I was prepared to feel very bad if I looked Porter up online and found that he had indeed experienced the death of his spouse.)

Maybe this is just too neat--too easy to blame the book instead of the reader--but I did find a little bit about the book's background, and I feel like I've hit upon the reason the man's grief did not seem raw and real to me. I found nothing about Porter having lost a wife . . . but at the age of 6 he did lose his father. I wonder how much more deeply this book might have touched me if he'd written it largely from the perspective of the boys, drawing more upon his own experience?

"The Hazel Wood" by Melissa Albert

I LOVED the first half of this book. It tells the story of Alice Crewe, a 17-year-old student at a posh private high school in Manhattan. Alice hadn't always lived in a penthouse apartment, though. Life surrounded by snooty rich people was a recent development, and one that Alice wasn't entirely comfortable with. Before Alice's mother Ella married her rich stepfather Harold, mother and daughter had spent Alice's entire life moving from place to place, mooching off any friends they could find, until they overstayed their welcome and had to move on. Or, as Alice put it, until their bad luck caught up with them.

Alice didn't fully understand the reasons behind their itinerant lifestyle, though she knew it had something to do with her grandmother, Althea Proserpine, whom she had never met. Althea was the author of a book of fairy tales called Tales from the Hinterland. Book and author alike were surrounded by an air of mystery. The book had somehow become both very famous as well as extremely hard to find, and Alice had never read it. Even if she could have gotten her hands on a copy, she knew her mother wouldn't approve.

But one day Alice comes home to find that her mother has disappeared, and she doesn't know who to turn to. All she can think to do is travel to her grandmother's estate, The Hazel Wood--maybe there she will find clues that will lead her to her mother. She's joined by Ellery Finch, the closest thing to a friend that she has. It isn't long before bizarre fairy-tale circumstances start creeping into real life.

And up to this point, this was the best book I had read in a long time. The story hummed with energy. It was taut and tense. But it was exactly on page 199 that the book began to go wrong. It's like the thread was cut and the tension was lost and the story made all the sense of a dream. The thread that had been strung so tightly up until that point became a jumbled, tangled mess. I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy the rest of the book, but it was disappointing that it didn't live up to the expectations set by the first half.

“IT” by Stephen King

I must (grudgingly) admit I had fun reading this book. Stephen King is definitely not my typical choice; Bookworm Child was reading this last fall, and I started picking it up to pass the time while I was waiting for her Monday night band sessions to end (partly out of curiosity, partly because I was starved to it). When Monday night band season ended, I forgot all about this book . . . until Monday night band season started up again this year, and I remembered my nasty little It-reading habit. By that time Bookworm Child had long ago finished reading It, and I decided to see if I could finish it too. (By now I'm hyper-aware of how many times I'm using the word "it" and I'm annoying myself.)

Well. I did it. It was definitely easy to read and went by pretty fast while also seeming a bit unhealthy and wasteful (imagine reverse diarrhea, no cramps). Lots of plot, very little thinking. I'm sure you all know the story (child-killing clown terrorizes Derry, Maine every 27 years or so) and I liked the mystery and suspense of it.

However, I could have done without the horror. Yeah, I know, the horror is the main point of this book and that's what most people actually like about it, but not me. The gross gore, grime and guts do nothing for me. I suspect a more subtle hand could have actually upped the creep factor. (I know the scariest movie I ever saw as a kid was the one where they never even showed the monster.) I think I could have skipped every scene of horror without feeling like anything was missing. I might have said "ew" less often while reading, but saying "ew" while reading is not something I eagerly seek after. And then there was all the Chüd hoopla. It's like this book started as one thing and then took a wrong turn and ended up as something completely different.

Verdict: Yeah, as much as I hate to admit it, I enjoyed reading this book (for the most part). But I would have preferred a book that ended with a whimper instead of one that ended with a (gang) bang.

“Burning Bright” by Tracy Chevalier

I didn’t like this book as much as I’ve liked others by Chevalier. At first, something about the writing bothered me. Either that wrinkle smoothed out or I got used to it, but I never really got invested in the story, which is tangentially about William Blake. (He lives next door to one of the main characters). I think I would have preferred to read more (or more directly) about Blake than about Jem and Maggie.

This is the 5th Chevalier I’ve read and I only remember really loving one of them (Girl With a Pearl Earring). That's the funny thing about my memory, though (and the good thing about having a book blog): I re-read my posts on the other four books and found that I definitely liked three and only didn't really care for one. I'd rank Burning Bright as #4 of the 5. 

“The Maze at Windermere” by Gregory Blake Smith

The Maze at Windermereis an ambitious novel that doesn't tell just one story, but five different ones:

Sandy Alison, former pro tennis player who once cracked the top 50 but by 2011 is pretty much a has-been, is also poised to crack his way into a spot with richest families in Newport, Rhode Island. If only he had the killer instinct.

Franklin Drexel, a charming bachelor in 1896 who mingles with the upper echelon but knows he'll soon need to marry into it in order to continue with the life that pleases him, also knows he needs to continue to keep his biggest secret.

A young Henry James, just dipping his toe into his literary career in 1863, struggles with the desire to record life rather than living it.

British officer Major Ballard lusts after the beautiful young Jewish daughter of a Portuguese merchant living in America during the hostilities of 1778, and he is cold and calculating in his strategy for seducing her. And he does have a killer instinct.

Fifteen-year-old Prudence Selwyn finds herself orphaned, in charge of her baby sister and their small household, when their father is lost at sea in 1692.

What links all these stories that are so disparate in time and characters? The maze at Windermere. (Or, more broadly, the town of Newport). Every storyline takes place there. I thought for sure there would be some sort of time travel or the maze would play a larger part, but this isn't that kind of book. Instead, the maze is just a link that loosely binds the stories together in place if not in time.

But (apart from being an ambitious novel) this is also also a novel of ambition. Each character is discovering and recognizing what they want from life, and slowly learning what they are willing to do to realize their dreams.

I really enjoyed reading this book, especially as it took on a breakneck pace towards the end with the stories more quickly interleaved, but I was a little bit sad when I finished reading and didn't really know what the future held for any of the characters! (At least I have Wikipedia to help me out with Henry James.) Each character was left with several options and I don't know which they chose. But although I wanted to know the answers, it's probably better this way. I'm left to speculate and wonder rather than being disappointed or dissatisfied. 

“You Think It, I’ll Say It” by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is one of those books I enjoyed so much that I read it too quickly and now I’m sad it’s over already.

It’s a book of ten short stories, only one of which has a male narrator. Each was basically about relationships (not all romantic), none of which were easy or stress-free—instead, they were so real and honest and full of quietly riveting conflict. The humiliation, the lust, the envy—it was never overblown or melodramatic, it was just fully human. I can’t think of any story in which there was a hero or a villain, characters I felt I was meant to love or hate—just people with both good and bad in them, people who made totally understandable mistakes, people who interacted in ways that made complete sense. People who couldn’t possibly have been made-up characters... but (I assume) they were. 

This is one of the only books of short stories I’ve ever finished reading with the ability of looking at the table of contents and remembering the gist of every story as I run my eye down their titles. It’s also (considering how many unread books remain in the world) added to a very short list of books I would pick up and reread again someday. I think I liked it even more than Rachel Cusk’s Outline, and I’d definitely be interested in reading more of this author’s work.

Bonus: look where I bought it! Fun experience that I highly recommend for any book-lover. 

“The Seas” by Samantha Hunt

The Seas is a nice short absorbing book, weird in an intriguing way. 

In a coastal town far to the north, a 19-yr-old girl lives with her mother and grandfather. Her father, who disappeared (or died?) eleven years ago, used to tell her she was a mermaid. And, for whatever reason, she’s just detached enough from reality that she believes him. Her best friend is Jude, a veteran of Iraq who is almost twice her age. It just so happens that she’s also in love with him. I don’t think I consciously noticed this as I read (probably because I was too engrossed in the story), but the book and its characters felt very real and believable, despite the fact that I didn’t especially identify with the narrator. 

I must admit I’m not even really sure what happened at the end. But I think I’m not supposed to be sure. It’s just odd, though—in the rest of the book, there were muddled and vague passages, but things eventually became clear (in a satisfying, not annoyingly or insultingly obvious way). The ending never really clarified itself and left me wondering. I’ve enjoyed ruminating about the possibilities.

An interesting side note: I finally got around to watching The Shape of Water recently (and really enjoyed it, too) and I think if I weren’t too lazy I could draw a lot of parallels between that movie and this book. Definitely not saying the two tell the same story but they certainly have some similar themes.  

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera

Here’s a book that’s been on the periphery of my awareness seemingly forever without actually directly penetrating my consciousness. Which is to say I’d heard of the book (and the movie) but didn’t know anything about them. 

Now that I’ve read the book, I’m still not sure I know anything about it. I mean, I definitely got the surface plot. (Minimalist as it is... although I must admit I’m not sure where Franz came from. I can’t remember if I forgot his introduction, and thus his link to Tomas, or if the more tenuous link that I do remember—Sabina—is the only one. Anyway...) It's mainly the love story of Tomas and Tereza, told against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Prague during the late 1960s.

But the book is full of symbolism and philosophy and I’m not sure I grasped all the deeper layers. I bet this book is perfect for studying in English class. But most of the time I have to have the hidden meanings pointed out to me. 

In a way it reminded me of Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist (deceptively simple and full of quietly confident philosophical statements), but whereas I found Coelho’s statements often did not withstand scrutiny, I thought many of Kundera’s did. 

For example, Kundera states that “we all need someone to look at us,” thus he divides humanity into four types of people: 

1. Those who “long for an infinite number of anonymous eyes” (fame)
2. Those who “have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes” (esteem) 
3. Those who “need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love” (love)
4. Those who “live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present” (dreams)

Assuming this is true, which one are you? (I’m #3)

I’m interested in seeing the movie. So much of the book is internal—how did they externalize it??

“The Art Book” (Phaidon)

I don’t think this is necessarily the type of book that’s meant to be read cover-to-cover. It’s kind of a coffee-table-style book (though my copy was a small paperback) and I think of those as books to flip through or dip into occasionally. However, perhaps due in large part to my completist tendencies, I really wanted to read it straight through, so that’s what I did (though admittedly I took my time with it—kind of like a book of short stories, the format is well-suited to picking it up and putting it down as time allows). Right down to the glossaries in the back!

The book has a one-page entry on 500 different artists, showing a representative work by each, with a few short paragraphs of facts about the artist’s life and style. It’s organized alphabetically by the artist’s name. It doesn’t include every artist I’ve ever beard of (no Henk Chabot, August Macke or Grandma Moses) but all the big ones are there (and lots I don’t remember hearing of before). 

Alphabetical order often resulted in an odd juxtaposition...

On the very next page, you would see this.

On one page, you would see this . . . 

I found myself wishing I could rearrange the book using a variety of different categories: by the date each work was created, by nationality of the artist, by artistic movement, etc. I don’t think I would have wanted to read an electronic version of this book... but it would have been convenient to have an electronic version I could restructure at will.  

Unfortunately I must admit I probably didn’t retain much of what I read here. It’s a broad (albeit shallow) wealth of art history which should have really enriched my knowledge of art, but I would probably fail a test based on this book. So I’ll just have to be glad I don’t have to take a test, and focus on the fact that I enjoyed reading it. 

“Paris in Stride: An Insider’s Walking Guide” by Jessie Kanelos Weiner & Sarah Moroz

This is a charming little book. I love it as a mere object, with its beautiful watercolor illustrations and the way it just feels good in my hand. I also loved reading through it. I think it would be a lovely book even if only to read and dream over, but it’s even nicer using it to plan.

The book is divided into seven main chapters, each proposing a walking route through one or two arrondissements (though it skips nearly a third of them; I don’t know Paris well enough to be sure of this, but I assume the features of the skipped ones are of less interest to a visitor than the ones in the book).

One quibble: the authors could easily have included the distance of each walking route. With the help of a Maps app I’m sure I can calculate the distances myself, but it would have been much simpler for me if the distances were part of each chapter. Alas, this is not one of those very specific guide books. It doesn’t give the dollar sign symbols to tell you how expensive restaurants are, or the hours of operation of the businesses, and the maps (as with all the other illustrations) are hand-drawn. It gives more of a general feeling of each place than a compendium of details. Which makes it much more fun to read through!

See how pretty? 

“The Night Bookmobile” by Audrey Niffenegger

I read this graphic novel about a month ago and never got around to writing about it. I know I enjoyed the story, which turned out to be a bit darker than I expected (not a bad thing). I must say I was less than impressed by the artwork (that's not to say I could have done better . . . although someone could have) but luckily that didn't detract from the story.

I really liked the premise of this book: everyone has a "magical" traveling library that holds every book they've ever read. The more they read, the more books are added. Although my blog obviously doesn't go all the way back to my Dr Seuss days, it's kind of like my very own Night Bookmobile from 2009 on! And much easier for me to find.

“Outline” by Rachel Cusk

It's happening again. I'm reading faster than I'm blogging and I'm getting behind. Yeah, I know, I have that rule that I can't start another book before I've blogged about the last one . . . well, I broke the rule a few times. Oops.

It's really unfortunate in this case, though, because I thought Outline was a great book, and now I won't be able to do it justice because I finished reading it weeks ago. If I'm honest with myself, though, I may not have been able to do it justice even if I'd blogged about it right after I finished reading . . . at least now I have an excuse.

This book's structure kind of floats somewhere between short stories and a novel. It seems like each chapter could stand alone as a short story, but the chapters are linked more than those in the usual book of short stories, and various characters appear and reappear (and the narrator remains the same throughout).

The general background of the book (I don't feel like it can be called a plot, and I don't know what else to call it): an English writer travels to Athens for a week (or was it a month?) to teach a writing course. The book is entirely composed of conversations the writer has (with her seatmate on the plane, a few friends, and the students in her class). I fluctuated between disbelief (that people would actually open themselves up enough to have such deep, meaningful conversations with practical strangers) and envy (that people have such intelligent conversations and I don't . . . though it made me feel better to remember this is fiction, after all), but despite disbelief and envy, these conversations were pretty intriguing. And it was really interesting to get a brief glimpse into the life of each student in the writer's class (in the first chapter where they are introduced) . . . but frustrating to come back to them a few chapters later and have to flip back in the book to match up the new stories with their old ones. 

So . . . I can't remember anything else I wanted to say about this book. But I am looking forward to reading the following book, Transit.

“A$$holes: A theory” by Aaron James

This book was less fun than I expected. It's a slightly tongue-in-cheek but mostly serious philosophical work (or as serious a philosophical work as I'm ever likely to read, considering that I graduated from college during the previous century . . . not that graduating from college in the previous century precludes me from reading philosophy--I'm just saying I would probably only read philosophy if I had to for a class, and that's not going to happen). I think the majority of its light-hearted feeling stemmed only from its repeated and frequent use of words like "asshole" which (I assume) are not likely to appear in most serious philosophical works. I had the feeling that the author was reveling in this fact, maybe even giggling about it at times. 

As for the actual content beyond the giggles, it was interesting to watch James polish his definition: what exactly is an asshole? Not just a jerk or a bastard, but an actual, honest-to-goodness asshole? James gives a fairly specific and limiting definition. Apparently the state of being an asshole is a constant state, based on entitlement. An asshole systematically allows himself special advantages over others and is immune to any resulting negative reactions. (Notice how I said "himself"? James covers that in the book too.) And if you're worried that you might be an asshole . . . well, no need to worry. True assholes would have no such worries. 

I suppose I gave some extra thought to the distinction that an asshole is always an asshole, whereas others might just act like an asshole sometimes. When the asshole (or not) is someone you have a brief encounter with, how can you determine whether that individual is, in fact, an asshole and not just acting like one in that moment? In fact, what difference does it make to the "victim" in that moment? 

Anyway . . . I'm not sure I retained much about what you can actually do about the assholes in your life. Did the book say "avoid them as much as possible, because you can't change them," or is that just my own philosophy intermingling with my memory of the book? I guess I'll never know. I do know, however, that I don't like using the word asshole on my blog. It's unprofessional. So, you know, if you're offended, my apologies. 

“The Hand That First Held Mine” by Maggie O’Farrell

I’ve been impressed with Maggie O’Farrell ever since I read After You’d Gone and haven’t been disappointed by anything of hers that I’ve read . . . until now. Ok, maybe that’s a bit more harsh than necessary, because I still ended up enjoying the reading experience. It just wasn’t up to the standard that I’ve come to expect.

I think the problem was the characters. They just didn’t seem real to me. The more developed characters floated just outside the realm of believability, and the rest seemed amorphous and faceless. (Except for the babies! I could vividly picture their movements and behavior.) This had the unfortunate consequence of failing to make me care about any of the characters in the book, which means the occasional tragedy seemed like little more than a blip. 

This is one of those parallel stories (half of the plot is in the past, half in present day) with two completely different sets of characters (well, for the most part; the whole point of the book is the slow reveal of how the two stories are interlinked.) Plot A centers on Lexie Sinclair and begins on the cusp of her escape from her mundane post-war life in the English countryside. She shocks her family and moves to London and then has jobs and is slightly immoral and blah blah blah. Plot B is about Ted and Elina and their new baby and how difficult parenthood is, mostly for Elina at first, but then moreso for Ted. I won’t tell you how the two plots are linked because that would  just be mean, but I will say... if you read a more detailed blurb about the book and then have a guess, you’ll be right. 

“Girl in Snow” by Danya Kukafka

I’d never heard of this book (and haven’t heard anything about it since, come to think of it) before Sam gave it to me for Christmas. He liked the image on the cover, and the similarity of the author’s last name to Kafka; and the endorsement by Paula Hawkins on the front cover didn't hurt.

Girl in Snow is definitely in the same category as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train (and not just because it has the word "girl" in the title). All three are well-written, tightly plotted mystery/thrillers that are definitely fun and worth reading. If I had to rank them I think I'd say this one isn't as good as GG but is slightly better than TGotT. (Is Gone Girl inflated in my memory? Because no thriller seems to quite compare to it anymore.) 

The story here is a murder mystery told from the perspective of three different characters. Two are teenagers who attend the same school as the girl who was killed, and one is a cop who was with the phalanx who first responded to the murder scene. There's a little bit of Northern Exposure going on here, as all three characters are almost a little bit too quirky to be true . . . or maybe everyone is really that quirky on the inside, and we just don't have the opportunity to realize it the way we do when we're reading someone's innermost thoughts?

Lots of parallels were drawn between characters (art, ballet, people with fathers who are were policemen--maybe there were more similarities than this, but I'm too lazy to search for others) which was *almost* (but not quite) enough to make things a little confusing sometimes, but was definitely enough to be interesting and make me think about the connections between people and how similar situations can affect people in different ways. 

I have only one complaint, which isn't really much of one. Once again I guessed the solution early on. I first wondered on page 50, first suspected on 142, my suspicion deepened on 299... and the actual revelation wasn’t until 305. At least this wasn’t a case where all the characters were being stupid because the clues were too obvious, or a case where it was annoyingly easy to guess the killer. It was both satisfying and frustrating to crack the case early. Maybe I’m just too good at it! I guarantee you, though, I would NOT be good at solving real-life murders. I’m sure the criminals would never be as accommodating in handing out clues as authors are. 

“The Imperfectionists” by Tom Rachman

This may sound like a stupid thing to say, but I love books that I enjoy reading. And I really enjoyed this one.

The Imperfectionists is marketed as a novel, but it’s really a book of short stories. (Don’t let that put you off, though! That makes it great for taking it in small bites and reading one chapter at a time.) This book did not reach critical mass (I assume because of the format, or maybe my one-chapter reading habit?) but my reading experience was better without it. 

Though there is a tenuous narrative arc (the stories are tied together by a fictional newspaper based in Rome; each chapter is about someone who works there, and people who are featured in one story often make small appearances in others) the relative lack of plot is a benefit rather than a detriment. What really shines in this book is the characters. 

The characters weren’t necessarily lovable or impressive (more often the opposite), but they felt real and true. As I read, I don’t remember thinking “Wow, these characters seem like they could be real people,” which is a good thing because that would have taken me out of the story. And that’s always annoying. (Though that would have been better than if I’d been thinking, “Wow, I totally can’t imagine any of these characters as real people.”) But looking back now, after having finished the book, I’m definitely thinking “Wow, those characters seemed like they could have been real people.”

“In the Orchard, the Swallows” by Peter Hobbs

This is a beautiful little book, through and through. I mean, look at that lovely little cover! And what’s inside is even better. I actually finished reading this book several weeks ago, and I hate that I put off writing about it, but I think that’s because I was afraid I wouldn’t do it justice. That’s still true, but the longer I wait the worse it will be.

Which is unfortunate, because reading this book was rewarding, and I would really like to savor that feeling. The story is told so calmly and peacefully, almost a Zen experience, but it has strength and a quiet passion too. It’s the story of a young man who returns to his village in Pakistan after years of unjust imprisonment . . . and that sentence right there would NOT interest me in reading this book. But the writing is subtle and taut, the story offered in sweet but tart nibbles, so that reading it was almost like eating one of the pomegranates that grow in the book’s orchard. The plot gently shifts between the man’s adolescence, his imprisonment, and his following convalescence, slowly revealing the series of events that brought him to the present day. 

It’s a very short book, but it’s the kind that any Goldilocks worth her salt would close with a satisfied sigh. 

“Riding in Cars with Boys” by Beverly Donofrio

I only got this book because I’d heard of the movie. That’s not a good enough reason. It's a nice little I-was-a-teen-mom-and-lived-to-tell-about-it memoir, with the added twists that Donofrio grows up to be a published author, and the baby who seemingly ruined her life grows up to be her best friend. So, kind of like a fairy tale. But I do appreciate the sentiment expressed at the end. Many people have limitations... but it’s up to the individual to decide whether to stew about those limits or whether to learn from them and find them enriching.

I haven’t seen the movie, and now I probably won’t. That’s mainly because I totally can’t picture Drew Barrymore playing Beverly. I was thinking of someone more like Leah Remini as I read (dark hair, looks convincingly Italian, and is a sharp sarcastic talker who has perfected the eye-roll). I expect that Barrymore did well with the scenes where Beverly got high (admittedly that’s probably almost all of them) because she’s good at the dreamy, slow-speaking, happy-go-lucky characters. Maybe I’m underestimating her range, but I just don’t think Barrymore could successfully “be” Beverly as written in the book.

Or maybe I’ll have to watch the movie just to find out if I’m right?

“The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena

AAAGH. UGHHHHH. I can't believe I read the whole thing. (Actually that's not true. I can hardly bear to not finish a book, no matter how bad it is.) I feel as if I just ate an entire mega-sized bag of peanut M&Ms: a little bit sick, and full of regret.

I suffer a slight twinge of guilt when I slag off a book by a living author, mainly because I imagine how the author would feel if they read my blog post (however unlikely). In this case I will assuage my guilt with the knowledge that this book was a NYT bestseller, so surely Ms Lapena won’t care if one lowly little blogger didn’t love her book. Or even if one lowly little blogger hated her book. 

I can understand why readers (including me) find the idea of this book intriguing. The Gone Girl-esque cover draws you in, and then the blurb piques your interest: Anne and Marco’s perfect little family suddenly begins to unravel after “a terrible crime” is committed while they are at a dinner party. And there is the promise of many secrets, and a shocking truth. 

But OMG, the writing was awful. Gone Girl it was not. It was pretty bad all the way through, but it certainly wasn’t helped by the resolution of the plot that was so explain-ey... and then there was that last part at the very end. It was just so stupid and pointless and unnecessary, existing purely for shock value, and not even doing a very good job of that. 

In fact, this book was so bad that I refused to read the selection from the author’s next novel that was tucked in at the end of this book, which is totally out of character for me. (Ms Lapena, if you are reading this, console yourself with the thought that I probably couldn’t have done any better if I had tried to write a book myself. Not to mention the fact that you HAVE written books, and I haven't.) There was a plot, and it wasn’t boring, but I can’t think of any other positive things to say. Other than the fact that the book was short. 

“Grendel” by John Gardner

I’ve always been curious about Beowulf, but never quite curious enough to attempt to read it (yet . . . and even if I do read it someday, I won’t reach for an original Old English version). But I have never familiarized myself with the plot. When I picked up Grendel (at The Wild Detectives) I was hoping it might be a Cliffs Notes-cum-Gregory Maguire version of Beowulf.

Unfortunately I found Grendel was more obscure and less accessible than I’d hoped. I think someone familiar with Beowulf wouldn’t describe it with either of these adjectives, but alas, we’ve already discussed the fact that I am not familiar with Beowulf. Thus, obscure and inaccessible it was.

It’s not as if I couldn’t follow the plot and didn’t appreciate the book whatsoever. It’s clearly an old tale told from a new perspective—that of the monster Grendel. To me he seemed bitter and angry, like a sullen teen but with an age-old weariness. The book appeared to suggest (without explicitly saying so) that Grendel was a descendant of Cain—that his kind were once human, but had grown increasingly less so over time. The book follows Grendel as he terrorizes Hrothgar and his people.

An interesting side note: I'd assumed Grendel was a new publication. It wasn’t until I read the bio at the end of the book that I learned the author died 35 years ago and this book was first published in 1971. That changes my perspective. I feel less “Maguire did it better” and more “Gardner did it first.” And knowing the publishing industry finds enough value in it for it to remain in print makes me think I should probably find more value in it than I did. Maybe it’s time to tackle Beowulf...

“I Am, I Am, I Am” by Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell is a really strong writer, which I first realized when I read and loved After You'd Gone, probably fifteen years ago. Since then I've also read Instructions for a Heatwave, and I have two other O'Farrells waiting in the wings, and now I'm not sure why I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. I think that MO'F and Geraldine Brooks must be my two favorite female authors . . . and I haven't read everything of GB's yet either. But maybe I need to reframe? Rather than berating myself for not completing their canons, I can feel a little frisson of delight at what I have to look forward to. 

I Am, etc, is a collection of short stories bound by a stronger-than-usual thread, as all the stories are tied together by a common theme (made clear in the book's subtitle: Seventeen Brushes With Death). The collection is made even more unique by the fact that each chapter relates a real-life (as well as near-death) experience of the author's. It's basically a morbid memoir. 

Before reading, I found it slightly belief-defying that any one person would have almost died seventeen times during what is more than likely just the first half of their lifetime. In fact, one of the chapters is about O'Farrell's daughter, and (though I must admit I already don't remember many of the remaining sixteen incidents in great detail) I remember thinking at least one of the others had a pretty tenuous claim on belonging in this book. But as I read I found it didn't matter whether the number of experiences defies belief. O'Farrell's writing made me feel, and made me care, and made me understand. 

One passage that particularly resonated with me: towards the end of the chapter about her daughter, O'Farrell lists all of the things that might make the typical parent panic, but are nothing compared to the issues her child has dealt with; issues that have caused O'Farrell to realize, "This stuff is small; life is large." How fortunate for her readers who can come by this wisdom (and, I hope, hang on to it) without the heartwrenching experiences that wrought it. 

“Lullaby” by Leïla Slimani

This one's a definite page-turner, and great to blog about because I don't think it would be possible to post spoilers. I mean, what you would think would be the biggest possible spoiler is right there on the cover of the book. 

Lullaby tells the story of a killer nanny. It's not your typical thriller; the who, what, where, and how are all laid bare in the first (brief but intense) chapter. The rest of the book is about the why.

I think, despite the fact that it's deeply horrifying, the story is also very satisfying. Not, by any means, due to justification or retribution or resolution. It's because we're given the explanation. Think about it—any time something like this happens, what do people want to know? Why. How could she? And this book delves into the gritty details, the complex blend of circumstances that could lead to needless tragedy. 

And explaining why fills an entire book. It's an extensive study of the main characters and their various relationships (but nowhere near as boring as that makes it sound), and not something that could be distilled into a headline. But really, as satisfying as it is to know the back story . . . knowing why never *really* explains it. Knowing why doesn't help as much as you'd think it would. I mean, it's not as if knowing why makes it acceptable. I suspect the same would be true for all of those horrifying crimes you hear about on the news.