What Happened in October, 2014

Reviews

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Ever since Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer, there has been an awful lot of Goldfinch bashing going on.  The prime complaints seem to fall into one of two categories, the first being that Tartt needed a more cutting editor, and the second being that Tartt's characters spent too much time talking about drugs.  I, on the other hand, am in the camp of The Goldfinch defenders, which I sort of didn't expect. 

The Goldfinch is a long book, at 771 pages, but that alone does not mean that Tartt needed a better editor.  I can't say that not a single word could be cut, but neither I could cite many examples of areas where I was bored.  For the most part, the parts where one could think that an editor was needed were times were Tartt was deliberately prolonging the story to show how time was dragging on for the main character, such as at the engagement cocktail party, or while he was alone in Amsterdam.  I loved every page, and wish for another hundred or two.  As for the drugs, if this was too much for you, please don't read Edward St. Aubyn. 

Lest you think that I entered into this book with rose colored glasses, I have never been Donna Tartt's biggest fan.  Time and time again, I tell people that if they liked Tartt's Secret History, they will love Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl, which is similar, but in my opinion, better.  I rarely even talk about Tartt's The Little Friend, as it was really not that great of a book, but for some reason, it is one of those books that sticks in my mind with images reappearing constantly.  In The Goldfinch, Tartt hits the mark, and earns her reputation.

The Goldfinch starts with Theo and his mother visiting a NYC museum exhibit of Dutch artists, where a girl with red hair catches Theo's eye.  Theo is drawn to the girl, who is at the museum with a man who appears to be her grandfather.  He follows them, when suddenly a bomb explodes, and Theo's life is forever changed.  Theo becomes an unwitting art thief, and spends the next 20 years  hiding his treasure.  Theo's mom is killed in the explosion, and as a result, he moves in with his wealthy friend, Andy, and his family.  As might be expected, Theo's deadbeat father reappears, and whisks him off to Las Vegas.  In Vegas, Theo meets a new friend, Boris, whose life is at least as dysfunctional as his own.

Theo is charmed in that he has amazing people in his life.  Boris, flawed as he may be, is just what Theo needs, right when he needs him, time and time again.  Hobie, who Theo meets while trying to figure out what certain things that happened at the museum meant, shapes Theo's life, and gives him all of the stability that he was missing. Andy and his family, the Barbours, give Theo the illusion of normalcy, while also giving him a place to belong, if he wants it.

I listened to The Goldfinch on audiobook.  It was read by David Pittu, who won two Audies for his performance.  He should have won even more - as many as were available.  There had to have been at least 30 characters, all of whom had distinctive voices and accents.  The voices for Hobie and Boris were my favorite.  Pittu made Hobie seem old, dignified, and somehow more affluent than the customers who shopped in his store.  He made Boris sound impulsive, risky, shady, and yet still trustworthy and loyal, all with a Russian/Austrailian/Ukranian accent. 

I loved The Goldfinch, and will happily read it again, hopefully in the near future.  I am adding it to my list of Favorites.  The Goldfinch was a NYT Notable book for 2013.

Challenges:  Audiobook Challenge

Tags:  Big Fat Books, Favorites, Pulitzer Winner, NYT Notables, Awesome Audio,

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey is the story of an ex-pat experience, as told by a husband who felt that it was a complete success, and a wife who felt miserably out of place.  George and Sabine Harwood moved to Trinidad in 1956, just as the colonial rulers are losing power.  The new Prime Minister, Eric Williams, promised to change the country and free its true citizens from the control of outsiders.  George loves Trinidad, and loves the ex pat lifestyle, so much that he never wants to leave.  Sabine sees Trinidad with more weary eyes, and is hopeful that the people will find the leader who they are hoping for in Williams, even if he scares her with his anti-establishment promises.

There are a couple of stories that are going on in White Woman.  The first is that of a revolution, as seen through the eyes of an outsider.  Sabine, the only white person at the rallies supporting Williams, is hopeful for him and his followers, and would be more than happy to leave Trinidad to them.  When he gains power, and fails to make the changes that were promised, she sees him falling into the ways of the former rulers, and is disappointed that he is letting his people down, even if she was never an intended beneficiary.  While reading this, I couldn't help thinking about Kwame Kilpatrick.  As a person who lives near but not in Detroit, I was excited for Kilpatrick to be elected.  He was young and Detroit and whole metro area was ready for someone fresh to make a change.  Instead, the Detroiters who elected him were rewarded with scandal, corruption, and outright theft.  Like Sabine, I was on the outside, looking in, but hoping that the new leader would make a difference, even if the changes wouldn't directly help me.  Also like Sabine, I was disappointed and disillusioned with the results, even if a part of me knew that I was foolish to hope for more.

Another story that unfolds through out White Woman is that of people who catch each other's eye in a crowd, and never quite let go.  One day, while she is riding her bike, Sabine and Eric Williams lock eyes.  While they don't know each other, they feel a connection.  Over the next several years, they run into each other from time to time, and fall into conversations as if they have been speaking daily, saying things to each other that no one else would say.  While it could never happen in America, Roffey makes it seem completely reasonable that the Prime Minister of Trinidad would speak freely with a woman who he has only briefly met, but who looked really cute while riding her bike.

Challenges:  Rewind

Tags:  British Stories

Yankee Broadcast Network by John F. Buckley and Martin Ott

Although I haven't done any Industry Requested Reviews in a couple of months, I still get requests every day.  One request that caught my attention was that of John Buckley and Martin Ott, who wanted me to review their book of poetry about television.  While they were really straight forward about what their book was, I guess that I was a little surprised that literally every poem related to television.  My fault - not theirs.  What disappointed me though was that while they think about television enough to want to write a book of poetry inspired by it, they seem to really hate it.

For most of us, television is a guilty pleasure, but for Buckley and Ott, the pleasure is all gone, leaving nothing but guilt, and a dash of disgust.  One of the things that caught my attention when deciding to accept the review request was their poem called "The Real Housewives of Wayne County."  Wayne County, in case you don't know, is the county where Detroit is located.  However, it's also the county where Grosse Pointe (remember "Grosse Pointe Blank" starring John Cusack?) is, which makes Wayne County an area where extreme wealth abuts complete poverty.  The poem that Buckley and Ott wrote relied only on the Detroit brand names and stereotypes, and missed the opportunity for a study in contrasts.  In fact, they could have renamed it with the name of any county, and inserted the names of products made in that county, instead of "Better Made" and paczki.

My favorite poem was "Burn'ded" which was obviously a satire of Ashton Kucher's show, "Punk'd".  In the Buckley and Ott version, there are many people playing ever escalating "pranks" ending with a home grown terrorist who eventually sees the episode in which he stars with his fellow inmates.

Yes, Yankee Broadcast Network was exactly what it promised it would be.  I just didn't like it as much as I hoped I would.

Tags:  Industry Requested Reviews

Book Group Reports

The Neighborhood Book Group met to discuss The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.  There were 8 of us who met, and only 4 had finished the book.  2 more were not quite finished, and the other two of us (I was in this group) never picked the book up.  At the beginning of the meeting, I would have said that of the people who read it, half liked it, and half didn't.  Unfortunately, after discussing various unlikely twists and coincidences, the people who had started off saying that they liked it changed sides.  I think I won't bother trying to pick this one up. 

We chose to discuss Sweetness because we are trying to read something from various genres, and this one was chosen as a mystery.  In December we will meet again to discuss The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, which we have classified as science fiction.

The Typical Book Group met this month to discuss . . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer.  We picked this book as our summer Big Fat Book (BFB) in June, and delayed meeting until October to discuss it.  Even with this delay, of the 9 people at book group, only 2 had finished the book.  There were 3 more of us who had started it and were in various stages of progress, but the rest didn't even give it a try.

I talked about . . .And Ladies in my August and September wrap ups.  Basically it is an 1100+ page book about a book group that formed in the late 1800s, and the course of the lives of the original members.  As I've mentioned, I frequently fall asleep after reading only a few pages.  The two groupers who finished the book said that somewhere around page 500, the story picked up so that they could easily read 50 pages at a time, and that they thought about the book all of the time when they weren't reading it.  I'm somewhere around page 700 now, and I am not experiencing that at all, but then again, I've been putting it down for 2 or 3 weeks at a time and coming back to it, instead of immersing myself in the story.  Maybe this month I'll stick with it until I'm done.

All told, the people who finished the book liked it, and thought that it was worth reading.  I did notice though that one of them only gave the book 3 GoodReads stars.  So, while I'm now expecting something worth finishing, maybe I won't expect it to be life changing.

Next month we'll read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

In Other News

The Man Booker Prize was announced on October 14.  This year's winner was The Narrow Road to the Deep North  by Richard Flannigan.  Based on the Amazon reviews, this sounds like a really good book.  The main character is an Australian surgeon in a Japanese POW camp during World War II.  I'll be keeping my eyes open for more on this one.

November Preview

People, I am burnt out on blogging, and almost even dreading it.  So, I'm not making any promises about even doing a monthly summary for November.  But in case you are interested in what I am planning to read and listen to, here you go:

In Paper Form:
. . . And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer.  Yes, I promise to finish this book in November.
Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett, if I can get it, or Bread and Butter by Michelle Wildgen, if I can't.
Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King

On Audio Book:
1Q84 by Haruki Murikami
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

AUDIOBOOK GIVEAWAY

I have big news!  June is Audiobook Month.  You know that book that everyone is talking about this year?  The one that won the Pulitzer for fiction?  And that also won Audies for the best Literary Fiction Audiobook and Best Solo Narration?  YES!  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, which has been on my TBR list for months.  I get to give it away! 

The Audio Publisher's Association, the voice of the audiobook industry, has picked my campy little blog to give away The Goldfinch, as read by David Pittu.  I recently enjoyed listening to Pittu read The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eudenides, and I am certain that you will love hearing him read this one.

A blogger was chosen to give away an Audie winner every day in June.  You can follow the giveaways on Facebook and Twitter, #audiomonth or #Audies2014.  Some blogs that my readers might want to check out are Geeky Blogger's Blog Book, which is giving away Dr. Sleep by Stephen King on June 9, Oddiophile, which is giving away the Audio Book of the Year, Still Foolin' Em by Billy Crystal on June 11, Wholly Books, which is giving away another copy of The Goldfinch on June 15, and Bookgooine, which is giving away another Pulitzer winner, Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King on June 17.

So, here are the rules:  One entry per person per day, between now and June 12 at 6:00 p.m..  A winner will be randomly chosen by Rafflecopter on June 12, and will be posted here.  I will also try to contact the winner via the email you give with your Rafflecopter entry.  If the winner does not respond within 5 days, another winner will be chosen.  The winner must have a US shipping address.  Have fun, and check out the other giveaways!  I'd also love to know what audiobooks you have loved, so please leave a comment, and tell me what books make for great listening.

Thanks to Hachette Audio for making this audiobook available to us! 


a Rafflecopter giveaway
Still Listening to:  The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

Still Reading:  Great House by Nicole Krauss

Flood Insurance

In The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, a group of people who call themselves "God's Gardeners" are preparing for a waterless flood that they believe will afflict humanity.  They are not sure what form that flood will take, but they prepare by learning about plants and wildlife and creating store houses of supplies.  TYOTF is the second book in the series that began with Oryx and Crake, and many of the Oryx characters make appearances.  We catch glimpses of Jimmy as a boy, but more closely follow the stories of his girlfriend from high school, Ren, and her fellow Gardeners. 

The Gardeners are sort of a cult, and sort of a progressive religion.  They worship saints such as Saint Stephen King, and Saint Diane Fossey.  On the whole they strive to be good people who are preparing for the inevitable in a thoughtless and selfish world.  However, the people controlling the Gardeners just might be working to make the waterless flood come sooner rather than later through eco-terrorism.  Darwin would be appalled when the flood actually strikes.  It is not the strong that survive, but the lucky and the secluded. 

TYOTF is a more linear book than Oryx and Crake.  Oryx went back and forth between the present and Jimmy's memories, with the reader trying to figure out what was happening when.  In TYOTF, the story progresses through years of the Gardner calendar, starting in about year 4, and ending in year 25.  Because the stories cover the same time period from different perspectives, one could really read either book first.  It would be interesting to talk to someone who read TYOTF first, to see how their impressions of the characters differ from those of a person who read the books in their proper order.  TYOTF actually ends about four hours after Oryx, which is good because Oryx ended with a cliff hanger.  For the last 1/4 of TYOTF I kept wanting to tell Jimmy to stop and not jump off that cliff.  Those extra four hours resolved the issue that was left open in Oryx, but left the characters with another dangerous challenge to face in the final book of the series, Maddaddam.

My dad listened to TYOTF  on audio book, and insisted that I had to listen to it instead of read it.  He was totally right.  There are at least 10 Gardner hymns in the story, which I would have skimmed at most if I was reading.  In the audio version, the hymns are set to music, with guitars, percussion and back-up singers.  None of the hymns are destined to be Top 40 hits, but it showed the Atwood put a lot of thought and care into the audio version by including the songs in this way.

The Year of the Flood was a New York Times Notable Book for 2009.  I am counting this one for my Audiobook and I Love Library Book challenges.

Next Up on CD:  A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay

Still Reading:  Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Speaking the Language

In The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Victoria is an orphan who was given up by her parents as an infant.  She floated between foster families until she was finally deemed to be unadoptable as a preteen.  When she was 10, Victoria was living with a woman named Elizabeth, who owned a vineyard.  Elizabeth had family problems of her own.  Her sister lived next door to her, on a flower farm, but they hadn't spoken in years.  Elizabeth and her sister were separated at a young age, but they learned the language of flowers so that they could write to each other, and their mother wouldn't know what they were saying even if she intercepted their notes.

In the Victorian era, people communicated through flowers, with specific flowers or colors of flowers representing specific words.  The yellow rose plays an important role in The Language of Flowers.  That flower is first said to mean "infidelity", but then later to possibly mean "jealousy".  Obviously, those meanings are very different, so it is important that the people communicating are using the same flower dictionary as a reference.  Elizabeth teaches Victoria the language of flowers.  Once Victoria becomes an adult and ages out of the foster and group home system, her knowledge of flowers allows her to find work as the assistant to a florist, Renata. 

Victoria is quickly in demand, as her bouquets are believed to bring out the qualities in the recipient that the giver is hoping to see.  Soon she is surprised when someone at the wholesale flower market begins to send her messages in the language that she believed only she could speak.

When I started listening to this book, I couldn't help but think back to White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  I mean, we had a foster child and flowers having secret powers that make them essential to the story.  The Language of Flowers is a completely different story, however, and is focused much less on Victoria's foster care nightmares than on her relationship failures.  Again and again Victoria has been let down, and has let down the people around her.  Though she knows how to fix her customers' relationships, she has no idea what to do with her own.

I loved listening to this story in audio form.  It was read by Tara Sands, and I can't imagine Victoria with any other voice.  While I was happy listening to the book, I got a little jealous when my friend, Kim, mentioned that the paper form of the book includes a flower glossary at the back.  As crazy as it sounds, I really want a flower dictionary after reading this book.  Not that I give people a lot of flowers, but I'd sort of like to know what messages I am sending with the perennials I've planted outside of my house.  Have I cursed us?  Should I plant something else to insure good health and eternal happiness?  There is a companion book to The Language of Flowers called A Victorian Flower Dictionary by Mandy Kirkby, with a forward by Diffenbaugh, that I'd like to own. 

Since I listened to this book in audio form, and checked it out of the library, I am counting this one for both the Audiobook and the I Love Library Book Challenges.

In Other News:   I turned 44 yesterday!  Yep, I did.  Recently I stumbled onto this obituary that got me thinking.  Remember?  I'm an estate planning attorney.  I read more obituaries than the average person!  Anyhow, I really liked this one.  In case you don't feel like clicking on the link above, it is an obituary of Toshiko d'Elia, who you, like me, have probably never heard of.  D'Elia is described as a "Gritty Runner" in the headline of the obituary.  The interesting thing is that she took up marathon running when she was 44, and was so good at it that she is remembered for it 40 years later.  Now I've talked before about Julia Child, and how awesome it is that her career as we know it began when she was in her 40s.  But an athlete?  To begin that late?  Amazing, and inspirational.  I'll just have to think of something besides running that I can start.

Next Up on CD:  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Still Reading:  Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple.  I'm tearing through this one.  You'll be hearing more about it soon!

In With the New!

Welcome to 2014!  A blog hop starts today, where book bloggers are going to list their 3 favorite audio books that they listened to in 2013.  What's a blog hop?  Well, we are learning together here.  Apparently, a few bloggers host the "hop" and other bloggers sign up to participate.  The readers then get linked to other bloggers who they probably have never heard of by clicking to the hop, and then choosing some blogs to check out.  Lots of the blogs will also be offering prizes, so give it a try, and sign up to win! 

The blogs participating in the Hop are all listed at the bottom of this post.  Just click away, and check out a few.

So, what are my three favorite audio books of 2013?  (You can click on the links below to get to my full reviews)  The first one is an easy pick:

1.  The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison.  I loved the story, and the reader, Jeff Woodman, was amazing. This is one of my favorite books of all time.

Next, I have to reluctantly give props to Junot Diaz, for his book:

2.  This is How You Lose Her by Diaz.  I am always intrigued by a book that is read by the author.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I really think that I liked TIHYLH more because Diaz read it, than if I would have read it myself.  The main character, Yunior, who is seemingly based on Diaz, is a total pig, who would be a nightmare to date.  But when Diaz does the reading, the listener almost feels empathy for Yunior, when he just can't help cheating one more time.

The third was a tough pick, but in the end I had to go with this one:

3.  Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  This audiobook is 25 discs, or 30 hours, long, but don't despair!  John Lee is such a great reader that you'll wish for more.  In fact, I'm listening to the next book in the series, Winter of the World, right now, so Lee is still reading to me. 

If you just can't get enough, by clicking this link, you can get to the reviews of all of my favorite audiobooks.

Have fun on the Hop, and check back soon for my review of The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.  Fair warning, not everyone on the Hop reviews best sellers or contemporary literature.  Feel free to judge a blog by its name, and brace yourself for books with shirtless men on the cover if you click on a blog with "nympho" in its name. 

Best of 2013 Audiobook Blog Hop

1.	Felicia @ Geeky Bloggers Book Blog	19.	Berls @ Fantasy is More Fun
2.	Hot Listens (Int)	20.	Amy @ bookgoonie
3.	The Book Nympho	21.	Cornelia Amiri
4.	The Bookaholic Cat	22.	Lisa @ Captivated Reader
5.	Literate Housewife	23.	Tanya @ Rantings of a Reading Addict
6.	AudioGals	24.	Concupiscent Bibliophile
7.	Rabid Reads	25.	Wholly Books
8.	The Oddiophile	26.	Bookswagger
9.	The Reading Date	27.	Mary Matthews
10.	Anya @ On Starships and Dragonwings	28.	Blue Moon
11.	Rina @ Read-Love-Blog	29.	Alysia @My Little Pocketbooks
12.	Under the Covers	30.	Victoria @ Random Nerdery
13.	Just Reading For Fun	31.	Sue @ Books, Books, The Magical Fruit
14.	Marie Hélène	32.	Urban Girl Reader
15.	Delighted Reader	33.	Booked & Loaded
16.	Mother/Gamer/Writer	34.	So Not a Runner
17.	Cat @ Addicted 2 Heroines	35.	The World According to Lady Bren
18.	Heidi@Rainy Day Ramblings (Int)

The Good Guys

When we first meet Benjamin Benjamin in The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison, his wife has left him and he has lost his children.  Because he had been a stay at home dad, he is also unemployed and in need of money.  He takes an adult education class in care giving, and decides to apply for a job as a caregiver for Trevor, a guy who is 19 years old, living with his mother, and suffering from muscular dystrophy. 

Like the mom in Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, Trevor's mom is more concerned about finding someone who her son will get along with than with finding the person most qualified to deliver professional care.  Right away, Trevor and Ben hit it off.  However, soon Ben's personal life gets in the way, and Trevor's mom fires him.  Through a series of clever notes and inevitable disasters, Trevor's dad convinces Trevor to come visit him in another state.  Next thing we know, Trevor and Ben have set off on a road trip. 

On their trip, Trevor and Ben find other lost souls in need of care giving, like Dot, a girl in her late teens who is trying to hitchhike from Tacoma to Denver, and Peaches, an enormously pregnant girl trying to change a flat tire in the rain.  To Ben's surprise, he begins to see that he actually is a mature adult, capable of finding and caring for the people who need him.  The next question is whether he can care for himself.

Although Trevor has muscular dystrophy, all he wants is to be treated like a normal guy.  While Trevor's substantial disability is never forgotten, it is clear that he is so comfortable around Ben, Dot, and Peaches because they see him as a person, not a person with a disease.  This is an especially timely book for the start of the Labor Day Weekend.  I have memories of watching the muscular dystrophy telethon every Labor Day Weekend when I was growing up, and this year I just might need to make a donation in Trevor's honor.

Judging a book by the cover, I expected Fundamentals to remind me of The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon.  I could see the van in the picture, I knew that there was a person in a wheelchair, and I expected a cross country road trip to ensue.  But where Homan and Sam stole away on their trip and figured it out as they went along, Ben and Trevor are organized and full of plans.  There are some similarities with the road trip in Beautiful Girl, especially as Ben and Trevor pick up their assorted mix of traveling companions, but not as many as I expected.  When I read the first chapter, about Ben interviewing for the job of caregiver because he didn't think he could find any other job, I immediately thought of Me Before You.  But where MBY tended toward the sappy love story, Fundamentals is a story of guys growing into themselves by gently encouraging each other out of their comfort zones.

What I did not expect, was to be reminded of one of my favorite books of all time, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  Ready Player One is a science fiction story about a teenage boy, Wade Watts, living in the 2040s, and trying to win a potentially life changing video game based on trivia from the 1980s. My son just finished reading it, and also loved it.  When he was done, he asked me what other book is like it.  As far as I was aware, there was none.  So, I was thrilled when Ben's character reminded me so clearly of Wade's, even though their stories are so different.  Let me just say that if Wade Watts was living in 2012, and was in his early 40s at that time, he would be Benjamin Benjamin.  They both have the same dry humor, accidental hipster posture, and self deprecating manner that make them characters to root for.

I listened to Fundamentals on audio book, and it was read by Jeff Woodman.  I would listen to him read anything.  He had perfect voices for Ben, Trevor, and Dot, especially.  There were times when Ben's daughter, Piper, began to sound like Dot, but I think that may have been deliberate.

I first heard of Fundamentals when I read about it at River City Reading.  Thanks, Shannon!  I am sure to talk about it lots more in the months to come, and I plan to pick it for The Typical Book Group when we meet at my house.

So, without further adieu, Go. Get. It. And. Read.  God that feels good!  I haven't gotten to say that since January when I read (and loved) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I'm adding Fundamentals to my list of Favorites, and giving it 5 stars on GoodReads.

Next Up on CD:  The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve

Still Reading:  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

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

Alone in the 80s

In Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, the main character, June, is a 14 year old LARPing party of one.  She loves to dress up in a Gunne Sax dress and Medieval boots, go into the woods, and pretend that she has gone back in time.  Not surprisingly, June doesn't have a lot of friends her own age.  Her best friend is her uncle, Finn, who lives in New York City, and who is the only adult who pays much attention to her. 

Unfortunately, we are in the 1980s, and Finn has AIDS.  Shortly after the story begins, June loses him to the disease.  At his funeral, June learns that Finn had a man who was his "special friend", Toby.  June's family is full of accusations and hatred for Toby, and June really doesn't know why. 

June and Toby are drawn to each other by their feelings of loss for Finn.  Although their relationship is secret and fragile, they become more important to each other as the story progresses.  June's relationship with her sister, Greta, also develops.  From the beginning, June sees Greta as the perfect one.  As the outside world sees Greta's life getting better and better, June begins to see cracks in her sister's facade, and through those cracks, she sees signs of the sister who she used to be friends with.

There were a lot of good things that I really liked about this book.  However, the 1980s pop culture references were awkward.  They felt more researched than remembered.  I checked the author's bio, and was surprised to see that she is the same age as me, and lived all of her teenage years in the 80s.  What rang true, however, was our misunderstanding of AIDS, how one could get it, and how a person with AIDS should be treated.

I listened to the book on audio form.  Coincidentally, there was an article in the NYT yesterday about how the audio book reader makes the book.  I'm not sure if the NYT asks John Schwartz to write an article about great audio book readers every year, but it was his article on the topic that was published last May 18 that inspired me to listen to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  June, in Tell the Wolves reminded me a lot of Rose in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.  Aimee Bender read Particular Sadness herself, and I really liked how she made Rose sound real.  Amy Rubinate read Tell the Wolves, and I found myself wishing for Aimee Bender, even though she is an author and not an audio book reader.  I think that she would have made June sound more authentic and less dreamy.

While listening, it occurred to me that this was not my first AIDS story involving a "June."  I was thinking specifically about Three Junes by Julia Glass, which also had a character who was touched by AIDS.  I remembered though that the three Junes that Glass was referring to were months, not people.

All told, I really liked Tell the Wolves, and will definitely recommend it to friends.  The Typical Book Group will discuss it next Tuesday, so I'll talk more about it then.

Next up on CD:  Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Still Reading:  The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman

Nothing I Do Better Than Revenge

I'll put it out there:  Junot Diaz is now the Taylor Swift of literature.  Taylor is said to date a lot of boys, so that they can dump her, so that she will have something to write her hit songs about.   Junot Diaz' main character gets dumped so many times in his book of short stories, This is How You Lose Her, that Diaz is worthy of the same reputation.  Of course, his little ditties are a lot dirtier than Taylor's.

In the nine stories of Lose Her, Diaz revives his character, Yunior, from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  Yunior tells the tales of his sexcapades, in a way that somehow becomes literature.  While I found the use of Dominican words without translations really annoying in Oscar Wao, the Dominican in Lose Her is not as bothersome.  Maybe I've just warmed up to him. 

I listened to Lose Her on audio book.  Diaz read it himself, and his voice for Yunior was perfect.  I loved how he talked about his "boys", and how his pauses and pronunciations gave another meaning to the plain words.  There was only one story where Diaz read as a woman, "Otravida, Otravez".  At first he sounded self conscious. When another character accused the first of sounding like a man, I wondered if the book really included those words (it does) or if Diaz said it to explain his discomfort.  By the time the story was finished I thought that his voice for this character was also just right.

After listening to the audio book, I checked the real thing out of the library.  Looking at it, I am really glad that I listened instead.  Diaz chose not to use quotation marks, and without them I found the characters' voices harder to imagine, even after hearing them.  There's something about Diaz' telling of Yunior's sexual conquests that makes them charming or at least excusable.  Reading the same stories on paper made me realize that I don't want my son, or my dad for that matter, to read this book.

The stories included lots of  sex and breakups, an affair with a high school teacher, a story of a woman trying to ignore the fact that her boyfriend has a wife in the Dominican Republic, a story of a brother dying of cancer, and the most-likely-to-be-mostly-true story of Diaz's five year attempt to get over his ex. 

There were a ton of great quotes.  Here are two of my favorites:

". . . arms that are so skinny that they belong on an after-school special." from "Alma"

"Both of you are smiling.  Both of you blinked."  from "Miss Lora"

It doesn't make for a great quote, but I also loved this from "The Cheater's Guide to Love".  The Dominican tough guy, Yunior, says about his "boy", Elvis, "He's going to yoga five times a week now, is in the best shape of his life, while you [Yunior] on the other hand have to buy bigger jeans instead."

When Yunior wonders why all of his ex girlfriends are sending him invitations to their weddings, Elvis' wife explains that it is because living well is the best revenge, and they want to show that they are over him.  In the end, Yunior finds his own way to live well, even if it is his ex who deserves the revenge.

It is hard not to think that Yunior is a thinly veiled Junot Diaz.  But then, I had to wonder if Yunior wasn't like a superhero version of him instead.  It was sort of funny to imagine Diaz with no swagger; a guy who can't get laid even with a Pulitzer.  Somehow that seems unlikely.

This is How You Lose Her was a NYT Notable for 2012.

Next up on CD:  The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.  My ears need some cleansing after all of Diaz' b*tches and ho's!

Still reading:  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

POSTSCRIPT - August 15, 2013.  I admit it - I deleted a quote from above.  Normally I don't edit my posts after they have been published, except to correct  typos or misspellings.  But tonight, while I was paying bills I had the TV on in the background, and I heard the quote that I deleted come out of Charlie Sheen's mouth on Two and a Half Men, a show that I never watch.  That Charlie Sheen's character said the words that I thought Yunior was clever for saying caused me to rethink my impressions of the book.  Yes, Yunior is supposed to be a sexist jerk.  But if I wouldn't watch Two and a Half Men because of the outrageous sexism and dumb humor, why would I praise the same behavior in a book?  Still thinking about that one.  It also makes Diaz seem unoriginal.  Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men in March of 2011, and This is How You Lose Her wasn't released until September of 2012.  In Diaz' defense, he said that the quote was an old saying, but still.  Come up with something new.

Listen Up!

When I read John Schwartz' NYT essay about the audio books that he listens to while exercising, I immediately added Ready Player One to my TBR list.  According to Schwartz, Ready Player One was "the perfect marriage between author and reader".   The author, Ernest Cline, is a self described geek who is obsessed with '80s pop culture. The reader, Wil Wheaton, was one of the stars of the movie "Stand By Me", an 80s classic, and he is actually mentioned in the story.

Ready Player One is set in the 2040s in the Midwest United States.  The Great Recession has completed its third decade, and people desperate for a safe place to live have flocked to cities.  There, trailers, campers, and vans are stacked, 20 or 30 high, with a metal framing keeping them in place, and with several families occupying each.  Inside these trailers, each resident is voluntarily hooked into the OASIS.

The OASIS is the invention of James Halliday, and was said to have been launched in December of 2012.  The OASIS is something like Facebook, or if you have kids the age of mine, the Webkins' world, on steroids.  Each OASIS user would create an avatar, and do things through their avatar like explore outer space, go to school, or even fall in love with and marry another avatar, who he probably has never even met in real life.  Like a drug, the OASIS is addictive, and given the bleak state of reality, millions of users log into it each day to escape their lives.

Halliday was a reclusive billionaire who, like Cline, was obsessed with 1980s pop culture.  When he died, Halliday revealed a giant game in the OASIS, where people could try to piece together clues to solve riddles.  The ultimate prize for solving all of the riddles is control of the OASIS and Halliday's multi-billion dollar fortune.  The protagonist, who I haven't even mentioned yet, Wade Watts, joins the hunt for clues and spends every moment of his free time studying 1980s books, sitcoms, TV commercials, and especially video games in order to prepare for the challenge.

Wheaton's reading of the story is excellent.  He uses "up talk" so perfectly that although I was listening to the book on CD, I wanted to see the paper version to see if Cline actually had inserted  question marks where commas should be in his characters' conversations.  He did not.  I went on every extra errand that I could think of so that I could drive more in order to keep listening, but it still wasn't enough.  Yesterday, I checked the book out of the library so that I could read it too.

Now mind you, I have not spent more than $10.00 playing video games in my entire life.  I don't consider myself to be 80s obsessed.  But I could not get enough of Cline's book.  Cline has thought through the OASIS so thoroughly that I am wondering if he has applied for patents.  If he is half the geek that he claims to be, then he surely has.

I agree with Schwartz that sometimes the reader makes the audio book.  I've mentioned before that I thought I might not have liked a book as much if it hadn't been read in the right way.  With this in mind, I'm adding a new "label":  "Awesome Audio".  Just in case you haven't figured out how labels work yet, by clicking on "Awesome Audio" at the top of the column to your right, every review that I have tagged with that label will show up.  You can tell which labels I have used the most by the size of the font.  There are many more "NYT Notables" than there are "Recipes Included", for instance.

One thing that the audio listener will miss out on is Cline's own game.  Like Halliday, Cline is said to have left clues in both the paperback and hardcover versions of the book.  If the astute reader collects the clues and figures out the puzzle, there will be a video game challenge, and a DeLorean will go to the winner.  I did spot a couple of words or letters that appeared to have been marked.  Given my gaming skills however, I'm out.

As Schwartz mentions, writer John Scalzi has referred to Ready Player One as a "nerdgasm."  I couldn't agree more, and consider myself totally fulfilled.   Go. Get. It. And. Read.  Or better yet, Listen.  I'm also tagging this one as a Favorite.

One more down for the Support Your Library Challenge!

And Now, Back to Reading:  The Muslim Next Door by Sumbul Ali-Karamali.  At first, I was rushing through this one, because I wanted to be able to read Ready Player One instead.  Then I finally realized that I could put this book down, pick up RPO, and then return to this (approximately 36 hours later) when I finished RPO.

Next Up on CD: Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin

Author Stalking

The most simple description of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, would be that it is a story about a boy who finds a book that he loves, and when he can't find any more books by the same author, he tries to find out why the author's works are unavailable.  The boy is Daniel, and the author is Julian Carax.  The story takes place in Spain, during and after its revolution.  It has hints of a ghost story, a Spanish language soap opera, and a mystery, but what I really think Shadow is, is a story about boys who attended high school together, and the grudges and friendships that they held on to from high school until death.  Much of the story takes place in the crumbling estate of a formerly wealthy family, but other interesting settings include a maze like cemetery of forgotten books and a hospice where one just might find a prostitute.

This was a fantastic story, with interesting characters.  Daniel's friend, Fermin, is funny, tragic, likable, obscene and true, all at once, and he quickly became one of my favorite characters that I have read or heard in a long time.  I listened to the book in audio form, and benefited from the reader's pronunciation of the names (Julian is "Hoo-li-on", and Bea is "Bay-ah", for instance), but for some reason, hokey music played whenever something important was happening, which contributed to the soap opera feel.

My friend, Ann, recommended this book to me, but she said that she thought that it was about 100 pages too long.  Knowing that, I kept waiting for the boring part to come.  It never did.  I also kept thinking that I knew what was going to happen next, only to be surprised by what occurred.  There were some obvious twists that I didn't see coming, which is a credit to the author.

One thing that I didn't like about the author's style, is that he incorporates an 80 page letter from one of the characters into the story, in order to tell the story more fully than Daniel may have otherwise been able to discover.  I complained about Jonathan Franzen employing this technique in Freedom as well.  In both Shadow  and Freedom there was an awkwardness to the new point of view that just didn't work.  Throughout Shadow, Daniel's father is a bit of a shadow himself, in that the action takes place around him, but he is left in the dark as to what is happening.  I would have preferred if the 80 page letter had instead been a 1 page letter saying "Talk to your father - he knows more than you think" so that what was told in the letter could have been detailed in a conversation between Daniel and his father.  This would have both strengthened the relationship between Daniel and his father, and given the father a lacking dimension.  My guess is that Carlos Ruiz Zafon tried something like that, but found that the back story could be explained more fully through the letter.

Shadow is action packed, and charming.  According to Wikipedia, it is one of the  best selling novels of all time.  Anyone who has ever loved a book and felt connected to the author will understand Daniel's determination, and will root for his success.

One more down for the Support your Library Challenge!

Next up on CD: The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer

Still Reading:  A Moment in the Sun  by John Sayles.  I'm 67% complete . . .

New York Winters

At the end of 2010, I read A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin, and I liked it, but I couldn't say that it was life changing.  For some reason, after that, I picked up another book by Helprin, Winter's Tale, and added it to my nightstand, where it has sat, waiting for me to read it.  As part of the Off the Shelf Challenge, I am trying to plow through the books that have been just sitting around my house not being read, and I came to Helprin's book.  Now I only wish that I had read it in 1983 when it was first released.  In the right hands, Winter's Tale could change lives.

Winter's Tale begins with Peter Lake trying to make his way in New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The city is a rough and magical place, which only becomes more surreal when Peter meets Beverly Penn, a wealthy girl, dying of consumption, who takes him to her family's vacation home in the Lake of the Coheeries.  The descriptions of the Penn home, and especially of Beverly's rooftop sleeping deck are amazing.  Likewise, the descriptions of New York City during the hard winters of the early 20th century are enough to make one want to travel back through time.  Without giving away the whole story, we fast forward to 1995, meet new characters, and reunite with some from the past.  One of the modern day characters is seeking a perfectly just city.  Many of the others find work at the enlightened newspaper, The Sun, which is constantly battling to stay ahead of its better funded counterpart, The Ghost.  All of the characters seem to be living in a charmed, golden age, where harsh winters and cloud walls hide secrets that defy the concept of time.

The story in Winter's Tale screams to be interpreted for Biblical meaning.  Most obviously, the white horse, Athansor, invokes the image of Aslan, the lion in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe who was said to represent Jesus.  It is less clear to me who is who if I compare Helprin's human characters to their Biblical peers.  We have a fallen angel, who may be the devil.  Could Peter Lake be Jesus, or is Athansor Jesus?  Some characters seem immortal, and others rise from their graves.  I would love to talk to other people who have read this book about whether they feel certain characters may have been intended to represent figures from the New Testament.   Each summer, The Typical Book Group reads a Big Fat Book (BFB), and this year I have recommended Winter's Tale.  If they pick this one, I will be sorry to not have a new BFB assigned for me to read this summer, but excited to see what they thought about it.

An interesting feature of this book is that Helprin wrote it in 1983, predicting the future with specific focus on New York at the turn of the millennium, but I read it in 2012, with New Year's Eve of 2000 now seeming like the distant past.  Helprin predicts fires that will try to destroy New York at the turn of the century.  Speaking of the fire, Praeger de Pinto, who is then the Mayor of New York says "The city's not going to burn forever.  We're going to rebuild it. . . If this fire stops at night, we'll begin to rebuild on the next morning.  If it stops in the morning, we'll begin to rebuild in the afternoon.  When that happens, I want all the arsonists to be dead, and I want anyone who even entertains the idea of lighting a match to be able to remember what happened to the people who started this fire."  Couldn't you just hear Giuliani saying that on September 12, 2001?  How about this description:  "The bridges were crowded with uncountable thousands of refugees who streamed across their darkened roadways . . . They walked in stunned silence, children on their backs, briefcases and bundles in their hands.  The streets became a huge rag-and-bone shop as people carried off an infinite assortment of objects that they wanted to save."  Doesn't that sound just like the images of people leaving their offices to walk home on September 11?

I listened to the book on CD in my car, and then read ahead at home.  The audio book reader, Oliver Wyman, was amazing.  He had distinct and true voices for each of at least 20 characters, all of which seemed to fit them perfectly.  I would listen to Wyman read again any time.

In my humble opinion, this is one of the best books ever written, and it will definitely be on my list of Favorites.  Helprin's character development is fantastic, his scene descriptions are second to none, and although the stories twist and turn, they come together just as they should.  For some reason, this was not a NYT Editor's Choice Book (the 1980s equivalent of the Notable Book), and in fact, no book by Helprin has ever won any awards.  This is astounding, and disappointing to me.  NYT gave Helprin an excellent review, which you should read if I have not yet convinced you to read Winter's Tale.   Rumor has it that Winter's Tale may be made into a movie starring Will Smith.  Based on how well I have thought that The Help and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close have been interpreted on the big screen, I will be first in line to buy tickets.


So, Go. Get. It. And. Read.  Really.


Next up on CD:  Lit by Mary Karr


Next up on Paper:  Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl

Driving Hazards

Did you know that if, instead of going straight to work, you sit in your car listening to a book on CD in the parking lot of your child's school, you may wind up spending the morning with your dad, and your husband, and when neither of their jumper cables are long enough, the guy from AAA roadside assistance?  Yep.  It happened.  I was listening to Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, and it's just too good to only listen to while driving.

I am only about 1/3 into the story, but so far, it is like a long fairy tale for adults.  The main characters at this point are Peter Lake, an orphan who raised himself in New York City at the turn of the last century, his nemesis, Pearly Soames, and Beverly Penn, the woman he falls in love with while trying to rob her father.

This is another 27 hour long story, so I have a lot more listening to do.  I'm asking for extra long jumper cables for Mother's Day, because I just can't be sure that I won't drain down my battery listening again.

By the way . . . don't forget to vote for this blog in the Independent Book Blogger contest by April 23, 2012.  The link is on the top right corner of this Blog. 

Still Reading:  Moby Duck by Donovan Hohn

Happily Listening to:  Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Destination Unknown

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris is the story of a man with a disease of sorts, that requires him to walk for hours on end, without the ability to stop walking.  He has met with endless doctors, and they are all unable to determine if this "disease" is a true physical ailment, or if it is a mental disorder.  Have I lost your interest yet?  I thought so.  My interest was also lost at that point, which explains why I delayed reading The Unnamed  for so long.

However, I had read Ferris' earlier book, Then We Came to the End, and I really liked it.  That story is almost like a literary version of the television show "The Office", with the strange glitch that it is all written in first person plural ("We all went out to eat."), so that we don't know whose story it is until the end.  My sister blogged about that book here, which is where I first heard about it, even though it was apparently hyped in hipper circles than my own.

I was interested in The Unnamed when it first came out, but based on the blurbs and reviews that I read, I just couldn't bring myself to add it to my TBR list.  I wound up listening to it on CD, which I loved.  As I mentioned earlier, Ferris reads the book himself, and reads it perfectly.  This is the best audio book that I have ever listened to, in that the author seems as committed to getting the audio book right as he was to the original novel.  Certain conversations are recorded so that one participant is heard through the right speaker, and the other participant through the left.  At the end of the CD, there is an interview with Ferris, which made me love the story even more.   Listening to The Unnamed was the first time that a story caused me to cry while driving.

So what makes The Unnamed worth reading?  Ferris' character development. Tim, the person suffering from the walking disease, is at first a high powered, hard working litigation attorney.  He and his wife, Jane, find ways to cope with the disease, while hiding it from his partners and clients.  At a certain point, however, Tim stops trying to fit the disease into his life, and decides instead to live his life to fit the disease.  Tim and Jane, and even their daughter, Becca, progress, regress and digress, while coping with Tim's prolonged absences.  Ferris shows the changes in Tim in a way that is believable, and yet still catches the reader off guard.

This was an incredibly moving book, but it was not at all sappy.  Once again, Ferris has done something that no one else is doing, and he has done it incredibly well.  He created a disease, but not a cure.  He created a family, but he didn't fix it.  While I enjoyed both Then We Came to the End and The Unnamed, I'm not sure that I'll be adding either to my list of favorite books.  However, Ferris has secured a place as one of my favorite novelists, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Next Up on CD:  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Still Reading:  Exhaust the Limits by Charles Dambach

Any Many Convincing Voices

After reading Great House by Nicole Krauss, I could not imagine how it missed out on winning the 2010 National Book Award.  The award went to Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, which didn't even make the NYT Notable Books list.  I added Lord of Misrule to my TBR list, confident that I would be berating the judges after I read it.  After reading, I have no such complaints.

Lord of Misrule is the story of a race track, set vaguely in the early 1970s, and the characters who inhabit it.  The book is divided into parts named after horses, but the horses serve primarily to unite the people who care for them and bet against them.  It is the development of these characters that won Gordon her prize. 

In reading Lord, I couldn't stop myself from comparing it to Great House.  Oddly, both books are divided into four parts.  Lord has its four separate stories involving most of the same characters in each, while Great House  has four stories with characters who may or may not overlap and are united by a desk.  Additionally, both books touch on complicated relationships within Jewish families.  But more than Great House, Lord reminded me of The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

Gordon's best character voice is that of Medicine Ed, who is an older black man who has lived around race tracks for most of his life.  Medicine Ed speaks of "any many" colored hair, and can't just use the word "but" as a conjunction, using instead "yet and still".  His voice is enthralling and true, like that of Aibileen in The Help.  It is interesting that both Kathryn Stockett and Jaimy Gordon, who find these great African American voices, are themselves white.  It would have been taboo, or at least disrespectful, for a white person to purport to be able to speak for such a character not so many years ago, yet Stockett and Gordon both were rewarded with popular and critical success.  Let's hope this is a sign of a more color blind or blended world to come.

I, personally, preferred Great House, but I am so biased toward Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safran Foer that my opinion should be read more like an article in People than in Consumer Reports.  My friends who generally like the same types of books that I like were not impressed by Great House, and didn't quite understand my strong endorsement.  My hunch is that they would agree with the National Book Award judges, and give the award to Lord of Misrule.

Next Up on CD:  Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Still reading:  Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova.  I am reading this book at a pace of about 50 pages a day!  The cultural references make the book feel like it was written just for me.  The story starts off a week after the Columbine shooting, progresses to focus on the Impressionist painters, with special mention of Luncheon of the Boating Party and Mary Cassatt, and has a character reading Thackeray.  What more could I want?

Thinking Nice Thoughts While Cooking

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender is billed as the story of Rose, a young girl who can taste people's emotions in the food that they prepare.  One can guess that she would taste her mom's cake and see feelings that a 9 year old daughter would not expect, or that she would taste something that a stranger prepared and gain a new perspective on that person.  That's what I thought I would get, but I was pleasantly surprised when it got all Time Traveler's Wife-y on me.

Speaking of that, I should add The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger to my Favorites list.  (Done!) 

Rose feels very alone with her "gift" and doesn't talk about it very much.  Communication and the lack thereof within families is a favorite theme of mine, and there is a gaping hole within Rose's family, where words should exist.  As always, if the family had talked more, the individual members would have felt less alone.  Rose finds a good listener in one of her brother's friends, who is a science geek, and is willing to suspend disbelief in order to trust his findings completely.

It's really hard to make you want to read TPSOLC without giving too much away.  There are several questions that remained unanswered at the end of the book, especially involving Rose's mom's relationship with her own mom, Rose's mom's role within the family, and why Rose's mom does some of the things that she does.  This would be a good book group discussion book, if anyone is looking.

My favorite part of listening to TPSOLC on CD is that the author, Aimee Bender, read it herself.  I really appreciated having a competent reader reading to me, rather than an actress.  And who better to know the proper inflections than the author herself?   If this had been read differently, like with a dreamy, "soothing" voice, it would have sounded too hokey and unbelieveable.

Next Up on CD:  I'm not sure yet, but I'm headed to the library tonight.

Still Reading:  Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart.  I have no idea why it is taking me so long to read this book!  It is really good, and I enjoy reading it, but I seem to only be able to read 10 or 20 pages a day.  I still have 100 pages to go!