What Happened in September, 2014

Reviews

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

Two Christmases ago, my daughter gave me Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks.  The movie was coming out, and the plan may have been to trick me into taking her to see it by giving me the book first.  The plan didn't work, and Safe Haven sat in my nightstand  unread for a year and a half.  In August, my family rented a house in North Carolina, and I decided that it was the perfect time to give Safe Haven a try.  I expected it to be a good beach book, with the added benefit that my daughter would see me reading it and appreciating her gift.

I have to say that Safe Haven was pretty much exactly what one might expect from a Nicholas Sparks book.  The main character, Katie, has left her abusive husband and fled to a small North Carolina town.  There she meets the recently widowed Alex, and falls in love with him and his two children.  All is going well until, yep, you guessed it. 

While the story was predictable, it was a page turner, and I found myself oddly unable to put it down.  Sparks played some hokey name games, and threw in an unexpected but equally unbelievable twist at the end.  Still, if you are renting beach house and looking for something to bring along, you might as well bring this one!

Challenges:  Rewind

Tags:  Light and Fluffy

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

I'm a pretty persistent reader.  Most of the time, if I can make it through the first hundred pages, I'll finish the book.  Last month, I put down . . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer after over 400 pages.  This month, I'm quitting The Finkler Question, despite being 2/3 through.

The Finkler Question is the story of three men living in London, Julian Treslove, Sam Finkler and Libor Sevcik.  Julian and Sam are about the same age as each other - mid 40s, and Libor is in his 80s.  Libor and Sam are recently widowed.  They are also Jewish.  So what, you ask?  Jewishness is all that they talk about.

Julian is mugged, and believes that he was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack.  Although he is not Jewish, he then experiences a huge case of Jewish envy, and tries to become Jewish by changing his manner of speaking and actions, without actually converting.  Libor is seemingly happily Jewish, although he spends a great deal of time thinking about whether attacks on Jewish people and places are understandable, if not justified.  Sam Finkler, on the other hand, joins a group who identify themselves as ASHamed Jews and are opposed to the Israeli state.

Much of the dialogue in The Finkler Question is focused on what it means to be Jewish, whether one can be Jewish and be ashamed of other Jewish people, and whether Jewish people who disagree with what other Jewish people are doing, especially in Israel, are anti-Semitic.

If you are Jewish, and are questioning your beliefs, this might be a great book for you.  I was actually not aware that some Jewish people don't support Israel, which I probably should have known.  So much of the book is about Jewish people as a group, and then the opinions of particular Jewish people.  All of this is great, but it just got old.  I was looking for another dimension to the characters.  Being Jewish, or being jealous of people who are Jewish, shouldn't be all that they are.

The Finkler Question won the Man Booker Prize for 2010. 

Challenges: Rewind, Audiobook, and I Love Library Books

Tags: British Stories, Man Booker Listed, Questioning Religions

. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer

Well, I picked it up again.  This time I read from where I left off, at page 413 in 1880, until page 613 in 1887.  Some more club members have died, others have married, and the kids are mostly grown.  There are some hints that someone might be a lesbian, but I'm not sure if that was a topic discussed in popular fiction in 1982 when the book was first published, so I'm not expecting anything explosive.

The other members of The Typical Book Group are also struggling with this one.  We usually discuss our summer Big Fat Book in August, or possibly in September if everyone is out of town at the end of the summer.  This year, we have decided to move the meeting back until October.

Although this book is taking me forever, I am liking it.  It has a nice, soothing rhythm.  There's not a ton of action, but there is something about it that I like.  I'm taking a break again, but after I finish The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon, I'll try and knock out another 200 pages.

The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon

In 1930, a judge in New York named Joseph Crater suddenly disappeared and became the "The Missingest Man in New York".  His wife, Stella was at their vacation home in Maine, while Crater went to Atlantic City with his mistress, Sally Lou Ritz.  He came back to the City, had dinner with Ritz and his lawyer, William Klein, then got in a cab, and was never seen again.  In her book, The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress, Ariel Lawhon offers a theory of what may have happened.

Lawhon's story focuses on the tangled connections between Stella and Crater and a cast of characters including a mob boss, Owney Madden, his unexpectedly friendly thug, Shorty, and the Craters' maid, Maria.  No one seems to actually have liked Crater, so there were lots people who might have preferred for him to disappear.  In fact, in real life as in the book it took 10 days for anyone to start wondering where he was.

During Crater's lifetime, there were rumors about how he secured his appointment to court. Lawhon speculates that Owney Madden was involved, and became worried when a grand jury was convened to investigate alleged corruption.  She then also guesses that the police investigating the crime may be indebted to Madden themselves.

Sometimes in a historical fiction book, there is something that happens that is so unbelievable that you know it must be true.  In this story, when it turned out that the Craters' maid was married to one of the policemen investigating the case, I knew that it must have been true, because there's no way that a police officer would be charged with investigating his wife's boss' mysterious disappearance, so no author would make that up.  However, when I got to Lawhon's end notes, it turned out that was a fictional twist.  The Craters did have a maid, but there's no indication that she was married to an investigator. 

All told, this was an interesting story, made all the more so with its morsels of truth.

Challenges:  I Love Library Books Challenge

Tags:  Historical Fiction   

In Other News

Pass it On

You might remember that I got my copy of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson from a Little Free Library.  I finished that book while I was staying that the beach house that I talked about in my review of Safe Haven, and so I left it there.  The shelves were crowded with more beach reads than literary fiction, but I found it a nice spot next to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.  While Safe Haven would have fit right in, I wasn't done with it yet.  So, I'll return Safe Haven to my Little Free Library instead.  Pass it on!

Man Booker Short List

The Man Booker Prize Shortlist was announced on September 9.  To my surprise, David Mitchell's new book, The Bone Clocks, did not make the cut.  Instead, Joshua Ferris' book, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour made the list, along with books by Howard Jacobson, Karen Joy Fowler, Richard Flanagan, Neel Mukherjee and Ali Smith.  Despite an earlier so-so review, the Times published this almost glowing review of To Rise Again on September 15.  What brought on the reconsideration?  I just might suspect that they didn't want to be left on the wrong side of the hype if Ferris wins this one.  More power to him.

Blogging for Rivera

This month, I had dinner in the Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  No biggie really, I've been there before, and anyone in my tri-county area can go for free.  But it is pretty spectacular.  If you need a reason to visit Detroit, this could be it.

But anyway, sitting there, sipping wine, I was thinking about Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo, and I couldn't help but think about The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.  The thing about The Lacuna is that although I know that it was a good book, and it was about Rivera and Kahlo, I can't tell you much about it.  Unfortunately, I read it during the period when I had officially started my blog, but before my Parent Rant that got me really writing about what I read.  And this is why I'm still blogging.  I'm convinced that if I stop, I won't remember the details about the books that I read.  So, here I go, blogging toward another month.

October Preview

In October, I plan to read and review the following books:

On Paper or Electronic Format:

. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer

White Woman on a Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

Bread and Butter by Michelle Widgen

On Audio

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami



What Happened in August, 2014

Reviews

And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer

I tried.  Seriously, people, I tried.  For a full month I have been reading . . . And Ladies of the Club and I am still only 1/3 of the way through. 

. . . And Ladies of the Club was a popular book in the 1980s, and The Typical Book Group picked it as our summer BFB (Big Fat Book).  The story starts just after the Civil War, when two of the main characters, Sally and Anne, graduate from college and enter the real world of Waynesboro, OH.  They are asked by one of their teachers if they are interested in becoming part of a yet to be formed literary women's club, and they quickly agree.  From there, we meet 10 other women who become club members, their families, and their husbands. 

400 pages in, I am still in the late 1800s, three of the club members have died, and several others have been admitted.  The members have confronted social and political issues, like calls for prohibition, presidential elections, and the challenges of reuniting a divided country. 

The story reads like a classic, with not a lot of action, and lots of social dilemmas.  While I don't find it  boring, it is so soothing that it frequently lulls me to sleep after 5 or fewer pages.  So, I'm taking a break.  I would hate to waste two months reading a book only to say "meh" at the end.  We'll see.  If I read a couple more books and keep thinking about this one, I'll come back.

Tags:  Historical Fiction, Big Fat Books

The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Circle is a company, likely based on Google or Facebook, where everyone who is smart and young wants to work.  They have a campus, which they would prefer that you not leave, where bands clamour to perform, where food and health care is provided and where innovation is constant.  The Circle wants to find out everything that is knowable in the modern world.  Do 27 year olds prefer Cancun or Hawaii?  How many grains of sand are there in the desert?  What happens when you transfer sea animals that have never before been seen into a Circle designed habitat?  The Circle is all about transparency.  If a person visits a park and doesn't post pictures to Facebook to tell their friends about it, why didn't they?  Were they ashamed?  Are they trying to hide their activities?  Or are they being anti-social?  It is quickly determined that all people are entitled to all experiences.  If you go to an art show in California, and I am stuck in Michigan, I can be there with you if you post about it.  But if you don't post about the experience, you are stealing that opportunity from me.  

Mae, a floundering Carlton College graduate, begins to work for The Circle when her friend, Annie, invites her to apply.  Mae quickly finds herself overwhelmed with gratitude to Annie, but also surprised by how much of her life The Circle wants to consume, and how much she is willing to give it.  Mae's dad is suffering from MS, and she is able to get better insurance coverage for him through The Circle.  In exchange, The Circle will monitor all of his care, which will obviously require live video supervision from 10 different cameras in his house.  Soon her parents begin to feel that this is too much, but Mae is insistent that The Circle knows best. 

The Circle is a commentary about how much of our privacy we are willing to give up while getting little in return.  As a customer experience worker, Mae finds herself devoting valuable time to people who she has never met but who have asked her to like them, instead of spending time with her family members and real life friends.  The instant gratification of having another "friend" and getting a favorable rating outweighs anything that Mae believes her parents could provide to her.

Part 1984, part "War Games", and part MaddAddam, The Circle predicts a not so distant future where online participation is mandatory.  Individuals control crime by mounting inexpensive video cameras which anyone can log into and see through.  This sounds good enough, but in a world where secrets are considered lies the superficial takes the place of the real.  Margaret Atwood calls much of her work "speculative fiction" instead of "science fiction", which is very apt in this case.  We can't be too many years away from a time when much of The Circle's technology is possible.  It is as though The Circle is a predecessor to the corporations that control the world in Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy.  In MaddAddam, each corporation has a campus and controls the lives of its employees, but there secrets are essential, and the corps will do anything to keep their secrets from getting out.  In the timeline of speculative fiction, The Circle would be placed between Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore and Oryx and Crake.  The Circle was a NYT Notable for 2013.

Eggers did an incredible job of imagining the world that could be.  Some of the technology that he explains, especially the "See Change" video cameras which can be mounted anywhere and are so inexpensive that they are readily available to everyone, seems possible.  My guess is that this is something that Eggers has mulled over, and that he hasn't gotten too many hours of sleep, for fear of the future.

The Circle was read by Dion Graham, who also read several of Egger's earlier books including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What is the What.  To me, he is the voice of Dave Eggers.  It is a testament to Graham's ability that he is able to read these stories with such a range of topics and characters.

Challenges:  Audiobook Challenge, I Love Library Books Challenge

Tags:  NYT Notables; Sci-Fi-ish

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Have you ever had that feeling that if you just had something to do over again, you would do it differently?  So has Ursula Todd.  In Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, the novel consists of a series of episodes in Ursula's life.  There are three primary story lines, being the stories of Ursula's birth, that of her 16th birthday, and that of her World War II experience.  In each of these, the first time the story is told, it ends horribly for her, and she dies.  Each story is then retold, with Ursula making slightly different choices, as though she knows that she is trying to keep something from happening, but doesn't quite remember what.  Again, something horrible happens, and she dies.  The stories are retold again and again until Ursula has carefully navigated around all of the hidden hazards of her life, and can move on to the next episode.

Ursula feels a strong sense of deja vu, and eventually realizes that she has the ability to change the course of history, one tiny interception at a time.  If her maid falls down the stairs and can't go to a celebration in London, she won't bring the flu back to Ursula's household.  If she befriends Eva Braun, could she prevent World War II?

Atkinson's novel twists and turns while moving two steps forward and one step back.  It is almost as though she took Ursula's life, couldn't decide which way to go, and told the story every way that she could imagine.  However, the result is so carefully constructed that the novel presents Ursula's choices almost as a form of Darwinian evolution rather than simple drafts that didn't work out.

Life After Life was a NYT Notable Book for 2013, and the 2013 GoodReads Choice winner for Historical Fiction.

Tags:  Historical Fiction, NYT Notables, WWII Civilian Stories, British Stories

September Preview:

In September, I plan to read and review the following in paper or electronic form:

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hoover Santmyer (Try, Try again!)
The Wife, the Maid and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon

I also plan to finish listening to The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, and will post about that, and will start listening to The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  However, at 32 hours, I am unlikely to post a review of this one before October.

 

Reason #27 Not to Play with Dead Rats

In 1665, England had a problem.  People were dying of a mysterious disease that no one knew how to stop.  It started in London, so of course anyone with the means left the city.  By leaving, however, the Londoners took the plague with them to the neighboring villages and towns.  One village, Eyam, found the plague to be within its borders, and took the drastic step of quarantining itself.  It is in this village that Geraldine Brooks sets her story, Year of Wonders.

In Year of Wonders, Anna is a young widow and mother who takes in a boarder to help her make ends meet.  The boarder is a tailor who travels outside of the village on a regular basis.  Soon he falls ill and dies, directing Anna to burn all of his unfinished work, for fear that it has been contaminated.  After other villagers begin to die, they realize that they have been overtaken by a plague.  They make arrangements with a neighboring town to keep them supplied with goods, provided that they do not leave the village and risk infecting others.  This quarantine is the idea of the rector, Michael Mompellion.  Time passes and more and more villagers die, causing them to question their decision and their leader.

While I was listening to Year of Wonders, I kept wanting to yell to the characters "Now go wash your hands!  Right now!  With soap!"  They didn't listen to me, but in reality, it may not have mattered if they had.  The thinking now is that the plague was spread through flea bites.

Although this sounds like a terrible book, in the first chapter Brooks introduces us to characters who  lived through the disease, and mentions some who died.  It is definitely more a story of survival than a story of tragedy.  I have read all of Brooks' novels, and Year of Wonders is probably my second favorite, behind People of the Book.  Other Brooks novels that I have reviewed on this blog are March and Caleb's Crossing. 

Year of Wonders was a NYT Notable Book for 2001.  For the Challenges, this one is a triple countsie - Rewind, Audiobook, and I Love Library Books.

Next Up on CD:  Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood

Still Reading (and Loving!):  The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

On to the War

When I finished reading The Furies by John Jakes I was pretty sure that the next book in the series, The Titans, would take place during the Civil War.  But I had no idea that it would take me almost 3 years to get around to reading it!  The Titans is the fifth book in the Kent Family Chronicles, a wildly popular eight book series that my parents read in the 70s.  The Kent Family Chronicles tell the story of the Kent Family (obviously!) and its journey from Europe in the mid 1700s, through 1877.  The Titans focused exclusively on the months leading up to the Civil War, and the first year of battles, 1860 through 1862.

There are three intermingled stories in The Titans.  The first is that of Michael Boyle, a trusted advisor and friend to Amanda Kent, and the person who became the guardian of her son, Louis, when Amanda died.  Louis' role in The Titans is fairly minor, but he is set up to be a bad guy in book 6, The Warriors.  Louis plans to profit from the war by selling goods to both sides through shell corporations.  Michael finally gives up trying to help Louis and joins the Union Army to make the separation complete.

The second story is that of Jephtha Kent, Amanda Kent's cousin.  Jephtha was a preacher working against slavery in The Furies.  In The Titans, Jephtha has quit the church, and is working as a news paper reporter for a pro-Union paper.  Jephtha has three sons, but his former wife, Fan, won't let him see the boys.  Fan is on the side of the Confederacy, and she and the boys live in the South.  Fan and Jephtha cross paths again when her new husband brings Fan and one of the boys to Jephtha's home city of Washington D.C. in order to try to stir up anti-Union sentiment.

Jephtha's oldest son, Gideon, is the protagonist in the third story.  Gideon is a headstrong Confederate soldier, who is confident that the South will be able to force the North to back down and allow them to secede in a matter of days. 

An interesting piece of Civil War history that I had never considered was how vulnerable Washington D.C. was in the early days of the war.  The South was sure that if they could seize the capital, the North would surrender.  D.C. was so close to the Confederacy, that it is easy to see why they would be confident that it would fall.

A nice thing about The Titans, especially for me, a person who waited 3 years between book four and book five, was that the characters frequently reminded the reader of what had happened in earlier books by telling about the family history and legends.  The Titans also wasn't as Forest Gump-ish as The Furies.  Because all of the action took place over two years and within a specific region, there was less opportunity for the characters to meet the famous people of the day.  There was also less talk of the inventions and trivia.

If you have made it this far in The Kent Family Chronicles, yes, push on and tackle The Titans.  If this would be your first introduction to the Kent Family, you should probably start at the beginning, with The Bastard, which I think was my favorite book in the series so far.  The Titans was better written than The Furies, and would be interesting to anyone who loves reading about the Civil War.  I have added The Warriors to the collection of books in my nightstand waiting for me to read them, but it may be another three years before I get there.

This is one more book down for the Rewind Challenge!

Next Up:  Great House by Nicole Krauss.  This is one for the Year of Re-Reading Challenge.

Still Listening to:  The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

Handful of History

Charleston, in the early 1800s, was not a great place to live if you were a slave, or a slave owner's daughter with a conscience.  The story of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, begins with said slave owner's daughter, Sarah, being given the gift of her very own slave, Hetty, for her 11th birthday.  Sarah immediately objects, but a slave is not the type of item that is easy to return.  Hetty was born to Sarah's family's household, and was named "Handful" by her mother, Charlotte, who is also a slave working for the family.

Sarah and Handful have a relationship that is different from Sarah's parents' relationships with their slaves.  While not treating Handful as an equal, Sarah is able to see her as a person.  In an instant that she knows she will come to regret, Sarah promises Charlotte that she will do whatever she can to help Handful become free.

In the beginning, the conditions for slaves in Sarah's family were not the worst imaginable, although the occasional misbehaving slave was whipped, and Handful was never allowed to meet her father because Charlotte was separated from him.  Sarah's father is a respected judge, and he seems sympathetic to Sarah's misgivings about slave ownership.  However, as the story continues, Sarah's family's fortunes take a turn for the worse, and life for the slaves becomes more brutal.

In protest of slavery, Sarah moves north and becomes a Quaker.  The Quakers were opposed to slavery.  At first this protest seems a little lame, as Sarah is not actually doing anything to end slavery or improve Handful's situation.  Soon, Sarah's sister, Nina, moves to Philadelphia to be with her, and together the two find their voices and fight for their cause.

While my summary might sound heavy, The Invention of Wings is a page turner.  Normally I read before I go to bed to relax myself, but this book got my adrenaline pumping and made it hard to sleep.  Anyone who liked The Help by Kathryn Stockett will like this book too.  However, where The Help was famously said to be purely fiction (Stockett was sued by her brother's maid who claimed she was the basis of the book), Wings is based on fact. 

Only because I have been helping my son study for this U.S. History exams this year, some of the characters' names were recognizable to me.  Charlotte has a child with Denmark Vesey, a man who was accused of trying to start a slave revolt.  Sarah lives for a time with Lucretia Mott, a famous abolitionist.  Sarah and Nina work with Theodore Weld, who also fought against slavery.  And I haven't told you Sarah and Nina's last name.  It's Grimke.  Sarah and Angelina Grimke were said to be the most famous and infamous women of the 1830s, fighting for equality for slaves and for women. 

The Invention of Wings is sure to be one of the best sellers of 2014.  It is an Oprah Book Club book, and I am reading it for my book group as well.  I was asked to review it in December, but foolishly, I passed.  Nevertheless, Annie Harris from Viking Penguin would never let me down, and she sent me this link to a book group kit that includes discussion points, and even a few recipes.  She also wanted me to remind you that Sue Monk Kidd will be discussing Wings with Oprah on April 13 at 11:00 am, on OWN.

Next Up:  Who's the Slow Learner:  A Chronicle of Inclusion and Exclusion by Sandra Assimotos McElwee

Still Listening to:  The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Egg Hunt

In City of Thieves by David Benioff, Lev is a boy in his late teens who is living in Leningrad during the siege.  His father has disappeared, and his mother and sister left to find safety away from the city, leaving Lev a virtual, if not a true, orphan.  When a dead German paratrooper falls from the sky outside his building, Lev and his friends break curfew to see what they can claim from his body.  Lev is caught and arrested, and faces execution for looting.  Soon a Red Army desserter, Kolya, is thrown into Lev's jail cell.  Kolya and Lev are given a reprieve, and told that if they can just bring a dozen eggs to a certain colonel by the following Thursday, they will be set free.  Of course, finding a dozen eggs in Leningrad during the siege is no easy task.

Kolya and Lev are given a letter from the colonel allowing them passage out of Leningrad, and they are off, searching the Nazi filled countryside for eggs.  Along the way they encounter a cast of characters - some who help them and some who make their journey more difficult.  If this is sounding like a chummy little adventure, remember that they are in the middle of World War II, everyone is starving, it is winter, and the Nazis are everywhere. 

This story of the siege of Leningrad is completely different from Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah.   City is a men's coming of age story, and Winter Garden is a mother's version of the siege.  Both stories were great, and they really compliment each other with their differences.  A reader looking for more action would prefer City of Thieves.

While I really liked City, I would have liked it even more if it was true.  Benioff teases the reader by starting off with a prologue where a young writer named David is interviewing his grandfather about his life in Leningrad.  It was enough to make me think that City of Thieves is David Benioff's grandfather's story, much like Everything is Illuminated is based on Jonathan Safran Foer's grandfather's experience during the war.  Unfortunately, Benioff insists that the story is pure fiction.  I was willing to accept some of the more unlikely plot twists, and was especially impressed with Benioff's grandmother, when I thought that most of the story was true.  After all, if Louis Zamperini's story is true, what is so strange about two young men escaping execution by finding eggs? 

This book is one off my list for the Rewind Challenge.  Since I checked the audio book out of my library and listened to it that way, it also counts for the Audiobook Challenge and the I Love Library Books Challenge.  I'm moving right along. . .

Next Up On CD:  Manson:  The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn

Still Reading:  The Vanishing by Wendy Webb

The War Part 2

A lot has happened between the end of  Fall of Giants, and the start of the sequel, Winter of the World, by Ken Follett.  The whole next generation has grown up, and as expected, they are old enough to fight in the second World War.  We catch up with some of our favorites from the first book, and we lose some others.  

Much of Winter focuses on Maud Fitzherbert, who became Maud Von Ulrich in Fall.  She and her husband, Walter, are living in Berlin with their teenage children, Carla and Erik.  Erik is enthralled by the Nazis, and quickly joins their ranks.  Carla starts off as a young girl, but is a nurse as the war gets underway, and later enters politics.

We also reunite with Maud's brother, Fitz, who lives with his wife, Bea, and their son, Boy, in England.  This family becomes entangled with Lev Peshkov's American family when Lev's daughter, Daisy, visits London.  Fitz had a child with Ethel Williams in Fall, and in Winter, that child, Lloyd, is an important player.  The Williams and Fitzherbert families remain entwined in Winter, with Boy and Lloyd living very different lives, but finding it hard to get away from each other none the less. 

Lev Peshkov also has two illegitimate sons, Gregory, who lives in America, and Vladimir, who lives in Russia.  These boys are both strong characters in the novel, with Gregory drifting between politics and physics, and Vladimir becoming a skilled spy, who can't help questioning his loyalty to his country.

Finally, the Dewar family in America is even more important in Winter than they were in Fall, with Gus Dewar serving as a senator, his son, Woody, working in Washington and his other son, Chuck, serving in the Navy and stationed in Hawaii.

Of course, there are also lots of new characters who make appearances.  Some of my favorite characters from Fall did not have very important roles in Winter.  One such character is Grigori Peshkov, who is only relevant in Winter as the step-father of Vladimir.  Another is Billy Williams,  who is just a sideline character in Winter.  I missed Billy more than Grigori, probably because Vladimir was a such great character that he made up for his father's loss.

The fun of this story is to guess how the characters will find themselves connected, and I'm not going to spoil that for you.  The nut shell synopses of this 940 page book is this:

The story starts with the Nazis rising to power in Germany.  The Nazis close Maud's newspaper, and her husband's cousin, Robert, is persecuted for being gay.  Ethel is a member of Parliament in England, and is doing everything that she can to fight fascism, while not getting caught up in a war with Germany.  The Americans, the Peshkovs and the Dewars, are less concerned about the unfolding problems in Europe, but have their hands full with politics and social engagements.  In Russia, Vladimir is involved with the Red Army, and trying to protect Russia from Germany.  Soon, Daisy is in London, flirting with Boy and Lloyd.  The Germans are beginning to suspect that the Nazis are rounding people up and killing them, but are not sure what they can do to stop them.  Eventually, all of the children are involved in the war effort, with Erik fighting for Germany, Lloyd fighting in Spain, Boy flying for the British, Vladimir in the Red Army, Woody and Chuck in the US military, and Greg is using his skills for America, even if he doesn't wear a uniform. 

By the end of the story, Carla has two children, Greg has one, Woody has two, Daisy has two, Lloyd has two, and Vladimir has one.  Lloyd, Carla, and Maud are all in Berlin on the Russian side, but no one has mentioned a wall.  And so the stage is set for Follett's next book, Edge of Eternity, which is due out on September 16, 2014.

One thing that I'd like to note is that Winter is a World War II story, and not a Holocaust story. Obviously, Follett did his research, and I think that his goal was to present the story of the concentration camps from the perspective of the people who lived outside of them during the period.  In Winter, the Germans know that Jews are sometimes rounded up, that gays are targeted, and that the disabled and the elderly seem to disappear.  But some of the Jews come back, and in the story as in real life, the Jewish hospital remains open in Berlin, with Jewish doctors and nurses treating Jewish patients, right up until the Russians invade the city.   After the war ends, the Americans mention camps being found, and the Germans claim that the Russians are re-opening the camps.  The words "concentration camp" are never used, that I can recall.  Additionally, there is no mention of the siege of Leningrad, even though there are Russian characters.  If you are interested in Holocaust stories, you should read Night by Elie Wiesel, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, or Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  For a great story about the Siege of Leningrad, try Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah.

This book is the first that I have finished for the I Love Library Books Challenge, and for the 2014 Audiobook Challenge.  Winter of the World was read by John Lee, who did a great job handling all of the accents, just as he did in Fall.

Next up on CD:  City of Thieves by David Benioff.  I must not have had enough of WWII.  This is another Siege of Leningrad story.

Still Reading:  The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

Such is Life

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey is a novel.  Well, duh, right?  Not so fast.  As an American, I had never heard of the Kelly Gang, but it is quite a big deal in Australia.  In fact, the National Museum of Australia is developing a collection of "Kellyana", as they call it.  So, True History could have just as easily been nonfiction.

Ned Kelly and his family lived in the late 1800s in Australia.  His father was an Irish man, who was brought to Australia as a prisoner.  His parents became settlers, seemingly like American settlers in our West.  They were able to get an inexpensive piece of land, but were subject to strict rules as to what they had to do to keep it.  The police took an unusual interest in the Kelly family, and the Kellys believed that they were being unfairly targeted for prosecution.  One thing led to another, and Ned Kelly and his brother, Dan, became "outlaws" in the style of Jessie James, with a large dose of Robin Hood.

The most unusual thing about Ned Kelly was that he wrote letters to members of the government and others that he hoped would be published in the newspapers that explained what he was doing, and why he was being unfairly pursued.  Some of his letters are so long that they are sometimes referred to as "manifestos".  What Peter Carey does in his True History is to turn these letters into a 368 page novel.  Carey tells the story in Ned's voice, and with an almost complete lack of punctuation.  At first (as in on the first page) it is hard to read, but one quickly becomes used to the style and voice.  In fact, the narration reminded me a lot of the voice of Zachry in the "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Everythin' After" section of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. The interesting thing about this comparison is that Mitchell was writing about a fictional character in the (hopefully) distant future, and Carey was writing an authentic voice from the past, but somehow the same style works in both cases.   Don't let that comparison scare you off - if you like reading westerns, this one will fit right in.

The True History of the Kelly Gang won the Man Booker Prize in 2001.  That same year, David Mitchell was shortlisted for number9dream.  Cloud Atlas was shortlisted in 2004.  This is also one more to cross off my list for the Off the Shelf Challenge.

Next up:  Upload by Mark McClelland

Still Listening to:  The Iliad by Homer

The Face of a Model

In The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan, the author attempts to add dimensions to one of Degas' models, Marie van Goethem.  In fact, Degas also attempted to give Marie three dimensions, in his most famous sculpture, Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, which is pictured below.

In her book, Buchanan appears to have invented sisters and a mom for Marie, and given a full back story to the dancer's life.  What surprised me was when I got to the Afterward, and found that Marie's life actually is well known, and that Buchanan, for the most part, stuck to the facts.  At the time that Degas was creating his art, Paris was the center of the art world, and many of the artists of the time were well known.  His contemporaries included Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Cezanne, Gauguin, Cassatt, and Renoir, most of whom were working in Paris at the same time.  The artists of that period must have been like our celebrities today, so much so that a fourteen year old model's name would be known now, more than 100 years later.  Buchanan is not even the first to write about Marie.  From what I have seen, she has at least three other books written about her and a BBC special.  This is not to mention the Marie doll and snow globe, which I would assume could be purchased at the gift shop of the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, or in any of the museums where the brass castings of the original wax sculpture are on display.

Nor is Buchanan the first to write about the subjects of famous works of art.  A similar book that I reviewed a few years ago is Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper by Harriett Scott Chessman.  The best known recent book about the subject of a painting is The Girl With the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.  My favorite is Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland.  Luncheon tells the story of the making of the famous painting primarily from the point of view of the painter.  Buchanan takes an entirely different approach, and one more similar to Chevalier's, by focusing on the subject of the art instead of the artist.  The interesting thing about Painted Girls is that it attempts to explore Degas' motives, especially in regard to a theory about whether the shape of a person's face can predict their future, but that it does so without Degas' voice.

Marie's life is made for a novel.  As a parent who has paid the "pay to play" fees for the last 15 years, I was surprised that the ballerinas of Paris in the late 1800s started as poor children who were paid to attend the classes.  The pressures on the 14 year old Marie were astonishing.  That the ballet would pay her enough to survive, but expect her to find a sponsor to help her put food on her table was pure exploitation.  Even Degas' treatment of her would now land him on a sex offenders registry.  Buchanan takes some liberties in tying Marie's story together with that of another of Degas' subjects, but she does so in a way that seems possible.

I read this book for The Typical Book Group, and I will write more about it when we get together to discuss it in November.  We are sure to talk about Marie's relationship with her sister, Antoinette, about a choice Marie made, and a certain lie Antoinette told her.  I'll fill you in soon.

Next Up on CD:  Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.  I'm not so sure about this one . . . I'll give it a few discs to decide.

Still Reading:  The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Perfect Shot

A group of boys go into the woods.  One of them has a slingshot that he made himself.  The boys all think the slingshot is pretty great, but they doubt the boy, Will, when he claims to be able to hit a rook on a branch far away.  Somehow, he finds the perfect trajectory, and the bird falls.  The boys are thrilled!  While they don't know it, William Bellman's life has been changed forever.  And so begins Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield.

From that time on, death follows William everywhere.  His family members, his friends, his children, everyone he loves seems to be dying.  For some reason, the same person appears at all of their funerals.  William doesn't know who this stranger is, but he begins referring to him as "Black".  In a fit of grief induced madness, William decides to make a deal with Black, to try to keep his last daughter alive.  The problem is that once the deal is made, William is not quite sure what he agreed to do.

William spends the rest of his life trying to live up to his end of the commitment.  He creates a funeral department store, selling everything that a mourner could need.  He makes a fortune, but carefully saves a fair share for Black.  It is only when business declines that Bellman recognizes a familiar trajectory from his past.

I went into this one expecting a ghost story.  Perhaps this is because the full title is Bellman and Black:  A Ghost Story.  There wasn't anything in the story that sent tingles down my neck or made me wonder what was lurking behind my curtains late at night.  The ghost here (if there was one) was more like the Ghost of Christmas Past than like the ghost in The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.  It's funny though, because when I reviewed Setterfield's last book, the best seller, Thirteenth Tale, I cautioned my readers that although it too was billed as a ghost story, it really wasn't.

What Bellman and Black is like, unexpectedly, is World Without End by Ken Follett.  Both stories begin with children in the woods being part of something that shapes the rest of their lives.  They both involve families struck down by the plague, a daughter who miraculously survives, and a revolutionary building project, with Merthin in World building a bridge and William in Bellman building his department store.  Merthin and William share the same business acumen, attention to detail and foresight.  But where the bad guy in World is an evil person in a position of  authority, that role in Bellman is played by Black.  The question of whether Black is evil or even if he is a person, is shimmering at the edge of every page.  If you liked World, you will tear through Bellman, which is only 336 pages, compared to World's 1,024.

There is more that I want to say about Bellman and Black, but I don't want to ruin it for you, so I will post those comments on my Spoilers Page, for you to read after reading the novel.  And you should read the novel.  It's certainly a good book, even if it isn't scary.  Bellman and Black will be released on November 5, 2013.

Full Disclosure:  I was offered and claimed a free electronic copy of this book from Net Galley.  No promises were made, no payments were received.

Next IRR:  I've noticed that the last five Industry Requested Reviews that I have done were for books by well known if not best selling authors.  While I do like doing those, I'm feeling like I'm missing out on the "unknowns" out there.  So, for next month, I have requested two books from lesser known authors, Melt:  The Art of Macaroni and Cheese by Stephanie Stiavetti, Garrett McCord and Michael Ruhlman, and Upload by Michael McClelland.  If I get them both, I'll review them both!  Stay tuned.

Next Up on Paper:  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Still Listening to:  In the Woods by Tana French

Nice Enough

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin is an exploration of the choices available to young women at the end of World War II, and the consequences of those choices.  Eilis (apparently pronounced "Elle-ish") is a woman from Toibin's hometown of Enniscorthy in Ireland.  Enniscorthy is portrayed as a small town, with very limited options for a smart girl who is not in a rush to get married.  With the help of her sister and a friendly priest, Eilis is given a chance to move to Brooklyn and work in a store while going to school. 

Throughout the story, Eilis makes a ton of life changing decisions, but in doing so, she barely considers the consequences that her decisions will have for her.  She thinks about what the other people in her life would want for her to do, and then that is what she generally does.  Although she is free to make choices, she restricts herself to what people around her would want. 

In the years after World War II, many women must have found themselves in similar situations.  They were encouraged to work, but only until they got married.  If they wanted careers, they didn't look for a husband.  They could live apart from their families, and even in distant countries, as long as they are under the supervision of a mom-like character or a friendly priest.

Eilis is a very pliable character.  When she is in Brooklyn, she likes it well enough.  When she is in Ireland, she might as well stay.  She is struck by how her not-so-exciting life in Brooklyn seems glamorous to her neighbors who have never left Ireland.  All told, while this was a nice story, that's really all that there was to it.  It had the Jane Austen feel of a book without a lot of action, focused on whether someone is or is not in love with someone else.

Brooklyn was long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2009.  It is also another book of my list for the Off the Shelf Challenge.

Next Up on CD:  In the Woods by Tana French

Still Reading:  Who Asked You by Terry McMillan

Just Amazing

It is time for you to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and in fact, I might ask, what has taken you so long?  Amazing was published in 2000, was a NYT Notable Book for that year, and won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2001.  And still you haven't read it?  Neither had I, despite the fact that it had been sitting in my nightstand for 3 or 4 or 5 years, just waiting for me.

Amazing is the story of Josef Kavalier, who starts off as a teenage boy living in Prague as Hitler rises to power.  Josef is interested in magic, and worships Houdini.  His mentor, Bernard Kornblum, teaches him illusions and the tricks of escape artists.  Joe's training is tested when he escapes from Prague and manages to find his way to the United States.  Joe's cousin, Sammy Klayman, is living in New York, where one day Joe appears.  Joe and Sammy are about the same age, and form a quick bond.  Sammy wants to find Joe a job at the Empire Novelty Company, where he works.  Joe has an artistic talent that gives Sammy a great idea.  What if he and Joe could create a comic book that Empire could publish to compete with the new Superman comics?

Joe has never even heard of a comic book before, but he trusts Sammy, and will do what Sammy says to help him get a job.  As Sammy tries to persuade his boss to start a comic book, Joe draws up a few quick sketches of a Golem.  A Golem is a character from Jewish folklore which is formed from inanimate materials, such as sand, but becomes alive and powerful.  The Golem is all wrong as a superhero for America in the 1940s, but with Sammy's boss' tentative approval, they try to come up with something else that the American public will embrace.  And so, the Escapist is born.  The Escapist fights Nazis and other evil forces, and becomes an immediate hit. 

Sammy and Joe's boss becomes incredibly wealthy from the success of the Escapist, and even Sammy and Joe are making more money than they need.  Joe saves every penny to try to help the rest of his family escape from Prague before it is too late.  The juxtaposition of the golden age of comics in the US versus the oppression of Jews in Prague is stark, and leaves Joe feeling lost and conflicted. The years go by, and the cousins grow up and grow apart, while always remaining connected by one woman, Rosa.  Rosa is the inspiration for their most successful female character, Luna Moth.  The love triangle between Joe, Sammy and Rosa is entirely unconventional, but it works. 

There are a couple great quotes in Amazing.  The first that I loved is when Joe is explaining that he's not satisfied to write the Escapist in more commercially viable terms.  He says "I'm tired of fighting, maybe, for a little while.  I fight, and I am fighting some more, and it just makes me have less hope, not more.  I need to do something . . . something that will be great, you know, instead of trying always to be Good."

Another is explaining why Joe loved comic books, even years after he had quit working for Empire:  ". . .he loved them for the pictures and stories they contained, the inspirations and lubrications of five hundred aging boys dreaming as hard as they could dream for fifteen years, transfiguring their insecurities and delusions, their wishes and their doubts, their public educations and their sexual perversions, into something that only the most purblind of societies would have denied the status of art."

A few years back, when I was reading McSweeney's 36, which included Fountain City:  A Novel Wrecked by Michael Chabon, I mentioned how he had given us such intimate details of his writing process and personal life, that I knew that he slept in the nude, which was maybe a little more than I wanted to know.  In Fountain City, Chabon comments about how although he hadn't realized it, other people had told him that in his novels he seems to have a thing about sleepwear.  I laughed the first time that I noticed a detailed description of pajamas on page 471 of Amazing, but by the end of the book I had turned down the corners on 4 more pages of PJ descriptions.  A thing indeed.

I have often wondered, and complained to anyone who would listen, about why Carter Beats the Devil by Glenn David Gold has gotten so little attention, when it is a truly great book.  I have attributed its lack of acclaim to the fact that it was published less than a month before The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen which was ridiculously (but deservedly) hyped, and also less than a month before 9/11.  It seems obvious now, that while Gold and Chabon likely took years to write their respective books,  it was really unlucky for Gold that Chabon was able to publish a great book also focused on magicians just before Gold's book hit the stores.  While the stories are entirely different, there may have been a little bit of magic burn out in 2001.  But, if you do read and like Amazing, I recommend that you also give Carter a try.

I am adding The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to my Favorites list.  At 636 pages, it is also a BFB.  Amazing is the last book that I need to complete my revised goal for The Off the Shelf Challenge.  This is THE book that has made doing the OTS Challenge for the last 2 years worthwhile for me.  I never would have gotten around to it if I hadn't had a goal of trying to get through the books that had been crowding my nightstand.  In its honor, and since it's only September, I think I'll extend my goal by another 5 books, to 25.

Next Up:  Who Asked You by Terry McMillan

Still Listening to:  Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Doing What Dad Did

For years, Amazon and GoodReads have been recommending that I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.  At first, I thought that it was a newly released book.  Then, I noticed it in the "classics corners" of used book sales. Finally, I had seen it enough times, and I had to pick it up.

Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, who is an honored man within his village.  Okonkwo has a few wives and many children.  He lives in his fathers' village and worships his fathers' gods.  I didn't misplace my apostrophe.  In Okonkwo's world, the man always lives in his father's village, and his father lived in his father's village, and so forth, so that many generations of men before Okonkwo were living where he lives in very much the same way that he is living.  Okonkwo's time is different from that of his fathers though, because villagers are beginning to see white men.  At first, the white men are thought to be albinos, or possibly even lepers.  All too soon it becomes clear that these white men are not just people from a nearby village with a disease or a skin condition.  They are people from another country, intent on converting Okonkwo's people to Christianity.

While reading Things Fall Apart, I was never sure of when the story was supposed to have been taking place, or where it was set.  Most obviously, Okonkwo's village was called "Umofia", and I could tell by the tone of the story, the names that were used, and the fables of the villagers that Umofia was in Africa.  I knew that the book was published in 1958, but because of how the villagers referred to the passage of time, it was not clear what decade they were living in.  According to Wikipedia, it was set in the 1890s, which I probably would have realized if I knew more about the colonizing of Africa.  Wiki also says that Umofia was supposed to be in Nigeria.

I thought a lot about what, exactly, makes Things Fall Apart a "classic".  Judging by the standard of whether it was published before my parents graduated from high school (check) and whether it is likely to appear on my son's high school required reading list (check), then it is a classic.  I've complained about my son's required reading lists to my son, saying that he should be reading more modern works.  While he likes contemporary fiction, he doesn't feel that anything new is likely to ever qualify as a classic.  It's tough to think of anything, even books that I love, that are going to be discussed and relevant in another 20 or 50 years.  As much as I would like for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer to become a classic, it may not translate well to people who weren't alive on 9/11.  Some of the other books that I've loved that are set in a less specific period and may remain relevant longer, like The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen or Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin are simply too long for required reading lists.  Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is a solid candidate that has been suggested by others with voices louder than mine, and I have noticed that my son will be seeing some Barbara Kingsolver on his lists in his junior and senior years.  But what makes a classic?

As I was reading Things Fall Apart, I was sort of thinking of it in comparison to Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.  Both stories are set in a time in the past, and paint vivid portraits a certain  community during that period.  A person in Africa reading Grapes of Wrath and thinking that they have a good understanding of America in 2013 would be just as misled as a person in America reading Things and thinking that they understand the modern tribes of Africa.  There are great books set in Africa that could give a reader a better grasp of what it is like now (or at least during my lifetime), including The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and What is the What by Dave Eggers.  However, like those books mentioned above, these are also a little long for reading during a high school trimester.  Things' short length, at only 209 pages, may be what has kept it on the reading lists, which is sort of sad.  Maybe spending a longer amount of time on a longer book, rather than trying to fit a set number of books into the trimester would allow our kids to stop the cycle of reading the books that their fathers read, for the sake of reading what their fathers read.

Next Up on CD:  Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

STILL Reading:  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.  I have no excuse as to why this book is taking me so long to read!  I am really liking it, and even considered whether it could be considered a modern classic.  But if it is taking me this long, how long would it take a distracted high school student?

Weighed Down

Given a real life murder, with a question as to whether the person executed for the crime actually committed it, combined with a modern day love polygon, what could go wrong?  Sadly, more than you might think.

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve is the story of Jean, a woman who is doing a photo shoot on the island of Smuttynose, off the coast of New Hampshire.  What intrigues Jean and her editor about Smuttynose are the murders that were committed there in 1873.  At that time, according to Shreve, only one family lived on Smuttynose, but the family included quite a few people.  The house belonged to Maren and her husband, John, but John's brother, Maren's brother, Maren's sister and her sister in law were all living in the same very small home. 

Shreve cleverly mirrors the tight quarters of the house in modern times by having Jean, her husband, her daughter, her brother in law, and his new girlfriend visit the island on a 41 foot sailboat, where they stayed for the duration of their trip.

In 1873, Maren's sister and sister in law were killed one night while the men were off the island.  Maren escaped by hiding in the rocks near the ocean.  A man who had stayed with the family as a lodger was accused of the crime, and was executed despite proclaiming his innocence.  Shreve takes some liberties with recreating the crime, which I'll discuss more on my Spoilers Page, because I'm a little critical of her choices, but don't want to spoil the story for anyone who is still interested.

Meanwhile, on the boat, Jean begins to suspect that her brother in law's girlfriend may have more of a connection to her husband than anyone has revealed to her.

All told, this should make a great story.  For some reason, it didn't.  I listened to the book in audio form, and as much as I sometimes rave about how the reader makes the book, this time I have to wonder if the reader didn't do the book a disservice.  The story is told primarily through the voices of Maren and Jean.  Maren uses very stilted language because she is supposed to be a Norwegian immigrant in the 19th century.  It is less clear why Shreve chose to give Jean such a pretentious voice.  Maybe it is that she is married to a poet, and wants to appear to be highly educated at every opportunity.  I think that if Jean had used a more conversational or friendly tone, the story might have been more interesting, and Jean would have been more sympathetic. As it is, Jean and Maren are very similar in the lack of empathy that the reader feels for them.

Well, I can't love them all.  At least that's one more off my list for the Off the Shelf Challenge.

In Other News, the Man Booker Shortlist was announced yesterday.  The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin is still in the running!

Next Up On CD:  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Still Reading:  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.  I am really liking this book, and it's crazy that it is taking me so long to read it.  I'm torn between wanting to rush to see what happens next, and wanting to slow down and make it last longer.

The Story of the Son

The Testament of Mary is Colm Toibin's take on what Mary, mother of Jesus, would have written if she had the opportunity to write her own version of what happened when her son died.  Although Mary is said to be illiterate, Toibin's story is  in her voice, telling the truth as she knows it, as opposed to what Jesus' disciples would have wanted her to say.  In fact, throughout the story, some of Jesus' followers are asking her for her story, and claiming to write down what she says.  Mary doubts that they are really writing her words when they refuse to read her what they have written.  As time goes on, they worry less about offending her, and simply tell her that she is remembering wrong, but that they'll write the story as it "really" happened.

As Jesus is raising Lazarus from the dead and turning water in to wine, Mary doesn't doubt what her son is able to do, but she wishes that he would stop.  Like the worried mother that she is, she doesn't want her son to draw attention to himself. She is convinced that if she could just get him to come home and stay there for a while away from his friends, maybe the authorities would forget about him.  Like a typical son, Jesus is having none of that, even if he knows that his mother is right.

While I don't purport to be a Biblical scholar, even I can recognize that there are significant differences between the story of Jesus's life as we have learned it, and the story that Mary tells.  My major objection to the Bible is that although much of it has remained the same for hundreds of years, there is no denying that it has been edited, and entire books have been omitted or deleted.  There are many current versions, all calling themselves "The Bible", but using different words to say the similar things.  People who believe that the Bible is literally true are putting their faith in these editors, without knowing who they are or what motives they may be pursuing.  In Toibin's story, even the very first written version of Mary's testament has been shaped to fit the disciples' objectives.

At only 81 pages, The Testament of Mary  is testament sized.  It is a very fast read, and very well written.  It is believable that this could have been another book of the Bible.  I'm pretty sure that once again, I will treat historical fiction as fact, and will always remember the story of the crucifixion through the mother's eyes.

The Testament of Mary was a NYT Notable Book for 2012, and is currently on the Man Booker Longlist.  The Shortlist will be announced on September 10, and I would not be surprised to see Testament move up.

Next Up:  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Still Listening To:  The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

The War Part One

The five main families in Fall of Giants by Ken Follett all approach the World War I from different perspectives.  The Williams family from Wales is forced to confront the reality of war when the son, Billy, is drafted.  Billy's sister, Ethel, finds the war to be an unexpected opportunity to fight for voting rights for women.  The Fitzherberts are a wealthy English family, except that the patriarch is married to a Russian princess.  Earl Fitzherbert is immediately named an officer in the British army, not because of his military expertise, but because of his social rank.  His sister, Maud, also works for the rights of women, and obviously befriends Ethel.  The VonUlrichs are a German family of diplomats, who spend a great deal of time in England prior to the war, but fight for Germany when the war is inevitable.  The Peshkovs are Russian brothers who raised each other after their parents were killed by the Czar's regime, and ultimately find themselves on opposite sides.  Finally, the Dewars are a wealthy American family, with a son working for President Wilson.  In Follett's style, the five families are intertwined in some predictable and in some surprising ways. 

World War I is the backdrop for this story.  As told by these characters, the war was completely avoidable, and seemed to have more to do with rulers being bored and greedy than with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.  The war ultimately showed flaws in the reasoning and strategies of each of the countries involved. 

By the end of the Great War, it is clear that another war is destined to be, due to the sanctions imposed on the losers.  The sanctions, coupled with general civil unrest in Germany and Russia, created a toxic atmosphere, which we all know eventually exploded into World War II.

By the end of the book, it is equally clear that a sequel is destined.  The Williams, Fitzherbert, VonUlrichs, and Peshkovs all have children, who will be just about the right age to fight in World War II.  The Dewar son is a newlywed, and children are surely not far away for that family either.  Although I'm not ready to start it yet, I will add Winter of the World, the second book in the trilogy, to my TBR list.

My favorite characters in Fall of Giants were the Williams family.  I started off really liking the Fitzherberts too, but there were plenty of reasons to like them less by the end of the story.  In some of Follett's earlier books, there have been characters who were just pure evil.  In this one, there is a police officer who is a clearly a bad guy, but he didn't quite rise to the level of evil in World Without End or Pillars of the Earth.  I'm sort of thinking that they may get worse with age, and that by Winter of the World they will really be people to avoid.

I listened to Fall of Giants for the first 2/3 of the book, and then listened and read the last 1/3.  I found that I could read an hours worth of story in about 40 minutes.  John Lee was the audiobook reader, and he did a great job.  He had a distinct voice for each character, with a believable accent, which must have been difficult given all of the nationalities involved.  The book was 985 pages, and the audiobook was 24 hours, so this was clearly a BFB.  I will have more to say about this one when The Typical Book Group gets together to discuss it. 

Next up:  The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

Next up on CD:  The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine

Half Time Update

I am now officially half way through listening to Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  This is the big fat book (BFB) that the Typical Book Group picked to read over the summer.  Right now, the characters are in The Great War, the Schlieffen Plan is failing, England is storming a German entrenchment, and the Lusitania has sunk, but the US has not yet entered the war.  The story is focused on a British earl and his sister, a Welsh family, two Russian brothers, a German who is in love with the earl's sister, and an American who is in love with the daughter of a Russian immigrant entrepreneur.

Follett has allowed the reader to see all of the angles of story of the beginning of World War I, without seeming to choose sides.  All of the key characters are questioning the reasons for the war, and the strategies of their respective countries.  For as much as I am learning about World War I, however, I have to say that the story is a little fluffier than I would have expected.  While I don't think that Follett has actually used the words "throbbing member", the sex scenes are of that caliber, and so far two hymens have been painfully broken.  I know this because those are almost exactly the words Follett used.  Hmm. 

Once I finish reading Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn, I am going to read Fall of Giants in addition to listening to it, which should get me through the second half a little faster than the first.  Not that I'm rushing.

Giveaway Update:  Each time that I give a book away through this blog, I also offer the winner the opportunity to write a review as a guest blogger.  I recently checked in with Mary who received a copy of  Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli, to see how she liked the book.  The news wasn't good.  Mary reported that in her 70 years of reading, she had finished all but a handful of books, but that she couldn't bring herself to finish Glow.  She found it confusing, and wasn't sure why it had received so many "glowing" reviews online.  Oh well.  Hopefully the more recent giveaway winners will have better experiences!

In Other News:  The Man Booker Prize Longlist is out.  The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin, which is next on my TBR list, is on the Longlist, and so are a few others that look interesting.  I know it's only a matter of time until I read TransAtlantic by Colum McCann, and I've also read good things about A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.  How can I not want to read a book by someone named NoViolet Bulawayo, especially when it's called We Need New Names?  She certainly does not.  I'll wait for the Shortlist to come out in September to narrow down my choices.

Still Reading:  Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn

Still Listening to:  Fall of Giants by Ken Follett