Top Books of 2010

It is hard to believe that 2010 is almost over.  In February, Web and I went to Mexico to attend a wedding.  Shortly after returning, we brought home an adorable, friendly, happy cockapoo puppy ("Lucy") who has been a delight to add to our family.  Over the summer we went to Iceland, then in December celebrated our 10th year together.  I secured a new position at Dell that will start in February and Web continues at his job during the day and his MBA at night.

But enough about me - what about the books?  All in I read 48 books, 10 which were non-fiction, the rest of which were novels. I finally found a reliable book club with interesting people.  Throughout the year, I read a nice mix of new books and items that had been on my list for many years.  I have not moved to an e-reader, and have no plans to give up paper books anytime soon.

This year, I've included some narrative around my favorite reads, rather than just a list.  (Psst: if you like this format, check out The Millions Year in Reading series for some seriously well-thought out recommendations.)

Adding Lucy to our family has been life-changing.  Not growing up with pets other than a curmudgeonly bird, I had no idea what it was like to have another being around all the time.  She is so happy to be doing what we are doing, and so eager to explore and play and meet new people.  I was interested in reading about others' experiences with dogs to figure out what I was feeling about it.  The two novels I liked most were The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Art of Racing in the Rain.  Edgar Sawtelle was an intriguing story of a family who bred a very special type of dog, and the coming of age of their mute son.  Reading that was when I discovered that the training methods we were using had a long and universal history.  Similarly, the feelings I had about dogs shared a long history with many, many people - I remember being in a hotel room in Argentina several years ago and feeling very isolated and scared.  After talking to Web for several hours about different scary travel situations we'd been in, we crept downstairs for dinner, only to find a lively dining room full of happy people in a completely lovely and secure hotel.  That's how I felt about getting a dog - "oh, look at this whole universe I've been missing out on that's been going on around me all these years."  

The second dog novel, Racing in the Rain, was wonderful in that it told the story of an aging race car driver through the eyes of his dog.  It could have been corny or ill-contrived, but it was neither.  It felt like a rare glimpse inside of the inner life of a dog - kudos to Garth Stein for his execution of "voice" in this book.  I also loved reading about the rehabilitation of the dogs involved in Michael Vick's fighting ring in The Lost Dogs. Authored by a Sports Illustrated reporter, the book chronicled both the legal and the canine sides of the story. 

Lest you think I've "gone to the dogs" I'll move on from the canine theme.  I have finally found a book club that I like and many of my favorite books this year came from this group.  Some of the books from this group would probably have ended up on my night table anyway: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Little Bee, A Reliable Wife, and The Unit.  I caught Larsson fever just like everyone else and thought Dragon Tattoo was extremely engrossing, and a unique mix of corporate/financial intrigue, mystery, and interpersonal situations.  I have the second book in the series lined up for my next vacation.  Little Bee, while not as special as its mysterious jacket flap description would indicate, was a strong political statement wrapped up in an unusual story.  I adored A Reliable Wife - it was creepy and set in a dark, wintry, 19th century town where a man mail-orders a bride.  Both man and wife discover that the other has an ulterior motive in getting married.  The Unit, which I just finished, was thought-provoking and some of the best science fiction (or as Atwood likes to put it, speculative fiction) that I read all year. The Unit is a compound that childless adults are sent to once it is time for them to begin participating in medical experiments that mark the end of their useful time in society.

What's fun about being in a book club, however, is the books that I would not have otherwise read.  In this case, I really enjoyed two books in particular that others chose: Do They Know I'm Running, and The Book Thief.  Do They Know I'm Running is about a young man whose illegal immigrant uncle is deported to El Salvador, and he goes there to retrieve him and bring him back to the U.S.  The writing and plot was good enough that I was half way through before I realized it was a political statement (kind of like Little Bee).  I don't know why this book didn't get more attention this year.  The Book Thief was probably the most unusual book I read this year - and in some ways was my favorite.  For some reason it was published in the U.S. as a Young Adult book which is indicative only of the simplicity of the language used, not of the plot or the style.  Narrated by Death (yes, that Death), this book follows the story of a young girl sent to live with a foster family during WWII when her mother is arrested as a Communist.  See what I mean?  Not really YA.

As far as non-fiction this year, there's no discernible theme among my favorites.  As they See 'Em was a fun excursion into the world of baseball umpires.  I saved this book to read in April, which was a great choice - I loved reading a section and then seeing some of it in action during a televised game the next day.  I can't remember where I picked up A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome, but that was a good read.  While reading it, I felt like I was touring Roman ruins and had a good tour guide who was bringing the antiquities to life for me.  The memoir I liked best this year was Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.  Janzen's depiction of her return to her childhood home after a failed marriage was both amusing and honest. 

I have a soft spot for dystopian novels (isn't that a phrase you see everywhere) and this years I read a few.  In addition to The Unit, I also enjoyed Stephen King's Under the Dome and Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood.  I could hardly put down Under the Dome while on vacation; it was the story of a small town that gets encased in a clear dome and the logistical and political complexities that ensue.  If I didn't work full-time I'd re-read this 1000-page tome with The Stand By Stephen King and develop some complex theories about the structure of Stephen King's works.  What I liked about Year of the Flood was that Atwood revisited a world she had created in a previous novel, Oryx and Crake.  I might suggest this was a "feminist retelling" of O+C, or just another set of stories from the same point in time, but either way it was as fun to read more about this world as it must have been for her to write it. 

Everyone I knew seemed to be reading Sarah's Key and The Help, neither of which disappointed me.  Sarah's Key was a novel about a young girl's experience during the Holocaust and a modern-day journalist's quest to find out what happened in that little girl's town.  A couple of images and stories in that book really stuck with me.  A true book-lover who recommended Sarah's Key to me passed away this year and I will remember her respect for that book.  The Help, probably second only to Dragon Tattoo in popularity in my informal poll, was a great historical novel too.  It was about the relationships between several women and their maids ("The Help") in 1960's Mississippi.  While seemingly long in pages, the voice and plot made the book go by quickly.

I didn't see any common themes in the final three books I enjoyed this year until I listed them all together.  Turns out, they each explore an imperfect marriage, though in vastly different settings.  Weight of Heaven is about a couple who move to India after losing their young son in an accident.  Not unexpectedly, a change of scenery doesn't solve any of their problems, although the depiction of ex-pats in a developing country and the related ethical challenges was excellently depicted.  In A Country called Home, a young couple choose a life in rural Idaho in the 1960's.  The story of their surviving in that environment, as well as that of their daughter's life in the next generation, are beautifully written in this book.  I'd consider this another "sleeper" book that should have gotten far more press than it did.  Just last week I finished Shadow Tag, about a woman whose marriage is falling apart and  who begins to keep two diaries when she discovers her husband is reading one of them.  Not nearly as epistolary as I expected, this book is a significant anatomy of a broken relationship.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And that concludes my descriptions of the best books I read this year.  Below is a link to my review of each of the books mentioned here.  I hope you will comment below on your favorite books from this year too - and what you thought of these.

I look forward to a 2011 filled with a new set of books that engross, transport, teach, and delight me...and  wish the same to each of you.

Sheryl

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle  
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Lost Dogs
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Little Bee
A Reliable Wife 
The Unit
Do They Know I'm Running
The Book Thief
As they See 'Em
A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Under the Dome  
Year of the Flood
Sarah's Key  
The Help
Weight of Heaven
A Country called Home
Shadow Tag

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

My book club chose this book for January from my list of ideas.  Last year I had noticed it on Flashlight Worthy's end of year list.  So far that site has had some great suggestions - including this one.

The Unit is a facility where older childless people go to donate themselves to science.  They live there for a few months to a few years and participate in medical experiments, donate their non-essential organs, and ultimately participate in their "final donation" of their heart and lungs.  The book follows a woman named Dorrit as she arrives at the Unit. 

On the surface, the Unit is not a terrible place - each resident has a private apartment, and there are parks, restaurants, cinemas, and many activities.  But the professional, chipper, and seemingly empathetic staff are committed to a government-sponsored strategy to use the "dispensable" humans who live there as efficiently as possible.  The glimpses we have of the "outside world" through flashbacks also depict a society that has been mandated to respect only a particular type of family and of societal worth. 

I will borrow Margaret Atwood's classification of this as "speculative fiction", as Holmqvist's world is not, strictly speaking, science fiction.  Like Atwood and other authors of the genre, Holmqvist was able to make significant social commentary with this story.  In this case, she comments on our treatment of the elderly, our views on childless adults, and, more broadly, our definitions of family.

It was difficult to think about this book without also thinking of Never Let Me Go; though the styles were quite different, with The Unit being far more transparent and emotional, the themes were very similar.  The other book this made me think of was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Both books were translated from the Swedish and I couldn't help but wonder if the act of being translated was what made both books somewhat matter-of-fact or if that was an indication of a cultural norm.  It makes me wish I knew any language well enough to read the same story in the original and the translation. 

I liked this book, largely because it was well-plotted and made me think.

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdich

I read Erdrich's Plague of Doves a few years ago and while I thought it was pretty good, I didn't love it.  However, when I read a review of this book in the New York Times Book Review, the plot intrigued me immediately: a woman whose marriage is falling apart realizes that her husband has been reading her diary, so she begins to keep a second, secret, diary for herself.

This was, indeed, quite a book.  Thankfully it was not as epistolary as that description would indicate - while there are some excerpts from both diaries, the book is mostly told in a traditional narrative.  Erdrich could have written this book in several different ways based on this idea, but her choice of execution was excellent in its avoidance of relying on an obvious gimmick.  The only unusual stylistic choice was a lack of quotation marks around conversation, which (intentionally I believe) created a fuzzy boundary between internal and external dialogue.

This book tells the story of the dissolution of a troubled marriage and the impact on all the members of the family.  The husband is a painter who has been supporting the family by selling a variety of pieces of artwork depicting his wife.  Like Plague of Doves, Native American culture is strongly featured, along with many of its current societal challenges, including alcoholism and violence.  Not to say that the situations these characters find themselves in are uniquely Native American - clearly they are not.  But this heritage plays a strong role in character development.

The book is reasonably short and simply written, and yet somehow Erdrich managed to weave a very complex story.  The writing was very good and I was tempted to return to the first page and read it all over again when I was done - not because there were many hidden meanings or a surprise ending, but because I wanted to appreciate for a second time the beauty, delicacy, and pain that Erdrich depicted.

Vida by Patricia Engel

I enjoyed this collection of short stories about a Colombian-American woman.  NPR included this in their list of top books from 2010 about 'outsiders' and I think that is a great category for this book.  The stories follow Sabina from childhood through young adulthood, oddly not chronologically, with varied points of view.  While many of the stories held my attention, the change in perspective was especially unusual and refreshing - particularly the story told in second person.

In some ways this was a predictable read, in that the themes were familiar - first generation American with parents caught between the old country and the new.  Sabina had struggles fitting in at school as a child, difficulties choosing a partner, and complex friendships with others who were similarly in-between.  But something about the book was also unique - perhaps it was the storylines or the character development - and I didn't feel bored or unsurprised.   And the writing was very good - sometimes I would pause while reading a passage or section and reflect on how well Engel captured a particular feeling or idea.

The best part of reading this was remembering how much I enjoy short stories.  I know I reflect on this every time I read a new collection of shorts but I will need to add a couple more to my list for 2011.

Best Book Lists

All the papers and blogs have their Best of 2010 book lists out.  I find this very stressful!  I see my "on deck" list grow and grow and I add more books each year than I read.

NYTimes Notables, LA Times, Wash Post, step aside.  My favorite end-of-year lists this year were from NPR:  http://www.npr.org/series/131336530/best-books-of-2010

Love how they chose to categorize the books and the descriptions are just the right length for me.

Do they Know I'm Running by David Corbett

This novel was last month's selection for my book club.  I would never have chosen it otherwise but I liked it - one of the benefits of being in a book club.  The story is about a young man named Roque whose illegal uncle is deported back to El Salvador.  Roque travels to El Salvador to bring his uncle through Mexico and smuggle him over the U.S. border. 
 Along the way, he meets a young woman named Lupe and an army pal of his cousin's named Samir, both of whom travel with him and his uncle. The trip is not easy, and Roque and his companions meet with much adversity along the way, including gangs, bribery, and violence.  The people they have paid to assist in bringing his uncle back turn out to be extremely dangerous, and even among the four travelers, there are vastly differing values and priorities.  On the other side of the border, his family is facing difficulties as well: his cousins become involved in some criminal activities that are distantly related to Roque's trip, and suddenly find themselves in deeper than they expected. 

I'm surprised this book wasn't more widely acclaimed.  There were a few sections where (as someone in my book club said) I had trouble connecting to the book.  However, I stuck with it, and despite those hiccups, Corbett managed the balance of the elements of the book very well.  The plot moved at a quick pace while each character was given an extensive background and set of motivations.  The scenery and locations from El Salvador through Guatemala and Mexico and into the U.S., were excellently depicted.  The action that occurred in many scenes was well-described without being a play-by-play.  And even the minor characters were detailed enough to keep them fresh in my mind when they were dormant for several chapters.

What Corbett has written, however, is not just a well-balanced novel but a political statement on immigration.  Someone looking to make that statement more strongly ought to option the movie rights because this would translate exceptionally well onto the silver screen.

The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant

This was a well-written book by a Sports Illustrated reported chronicling the story behind the dogs involved in Michael Vick's dogfighting group.  The first half focused on the discovery and investigation of Vick's dogfighting ring.  The second half of the book was about several individual dogs and the process of their being rehabilitated and adopted.  I could hardly put this book down.

The depiction of what dog fights are like and of the conditions in which fighting dogs are kept helped me understand for the first time exactly how terribly dogs are treated in this environment.  One of the methods Gorant used to describe these conditions was through imagining how a couple of the dogs might have felt during their time living at the dogfighting compound.  I thought this was an effective way to personalize (dog-ize?) a difficult topic. 

I really enjoyed reading about the rehabilitation.  Of the 50 dogs rescued from his property, I believe only 3 or 4 had to be put down for health or behavior issues.  While an initial assessment of the situation had experts believing that rescuing 5 dogs would be "good news", the panel of experts actually assigned to evaluate each dog found that most of them were unsocialized and/or scared, but very few were aggressive.  This is contrary to what the ASPCA had previously though about dogs rescued from fighting rings and the story of these dogs' rehabilitation has influenced the ASPCA to change their policy on dogfighting rescue dogs.  The stories of the individuals who worked with the dogs through this period, some of whom are also the people who end up adopting them, were riveting.  Tears came to my eyes often, reading of little victories that reminded me of my own dog's behavior as the dogs adjusted.

The only aspect of the book I did not connect to was the characterization of a few of the investigators.  I thought Gorant was trying to make that an equally compelling storyline but I just wasn't as interested in reading that as I was in reading about the dogs.  That aside, I am really glad I read this book and learned about the dogfighting culture and about the rehabilitation of these wonderful animals.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

Wow.  This was an epic book - hundreds of pages and a remarkable story.  Both Julie on my block and Christian from my book club recommended it to me the same week so I treated myself to it in paperback as a reward for getting a new job (yay me!).  People stopped me on the street to comment on how much they liked it - one gal at Starbucks even said that she was embarrassed to admit that she didn't read anything for a year after this book because nothing could stand up to it.  With all that leading up to it I had high expectations.

Huh.

I can't say I loved it - although I did finish it.  The author is a man who escaped from a New Zealand jail and lived in the underworld in Bombay...and the book is about a man who escaped from a New Zealand jail and lived in the underworld in Bombay.  But he claims that it is fiction so I tried to read it like that.  The book spans many locales - most memorably the slums of Bombay, the Afghanistan countryside, and Bombay jails, all described in extreme detail.  There are many well-developed characters that the narrator depicts also in great detail.  The story doesn't really follow a linear path, and I didn't find the ending to be comprehensive.  But the main character does grow and change, and it was fun reading about his extraordinary experiences.

I guess what I disliked about the book was the author's tone.  In some places, the writing was extraordinarily good: poetic and descriptive.  And there were a few sections where he captured an emotion or thought that I found incredibly beautiful or unusual.  I think that is why other people loved the book so much, because they found the majority of the book that way.  But most of the time I found the narrator to be naive - and unrealistic - and also too willing to see something special in someone that was not expressed to the reader enough.  He seemed to be going through these experiences in a Zen-like trance with pithy observations.

I was disappointed - given the glimpses of "special" that I got in a couple of the passages, I wish that could have been the entire experience I had reading this book.

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Were I a well-known pithy book reviewer I might have titled this review "Fall of Giant".  But I'm not, so suffice it to say this was not one of my favorite books this year. 

The premise is appealing:  Follett sets out to write a trilogy of books about a large set of characters (five families' worth although I lost count) spanning the 1900s and multiple continents.  This first book in the trilogy follows several characters during the outbreak and length of WWI. 

Except Follett's skill as an epic storyteller, so perfectly executed in The Pillars of the Earth, was missing.  The characters were thinly developed, and every third page had someone conducting an illicit affair.  The descriptions of battle were incredibly boring while those of diplomacy were tedious.  And there was no flow to the book as a whole - perhaps that is what happens when you know you are writing a trilogy at the beginning of Book One.

As a Follett fan, I am bummed.  I wanted to like this book but it missed the mark entirely for me.  Too bad, too, that I have to sit out his next two before I can read something new of his again.  Good thing I still have World Without End sitting unread in my bookcase to tide me over.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I like Jennifer Egan - I think she is one of the most creative writers of our time.  All her books start off straightforward then take a 90 degree turn into something I never expect. 

Goon Squad was no exception - it was an interconnected set of stories centering around a woman who is an assistant to a music producer, but the further into the book you get, the more ancillary the characters you thought were central become.  In fact, reading this book felt like idly clicking on hyperlinks on the web and finding yourself pages and pages away from what it was you started out to research.  I suspect that was by design - Egan provides some strong commentary on our technology-obsessed world towards the end of the book.

Also present was a theme Egan likes to return to - our society's obsession with beauty and celebrity a la Look at Me: A Novel.  In one chapter, she describes a has-been PR agent who has taken on a very unusual client.  One of the most unforgettable scenes in the book was the story of how that agent became a has-been. 

The other characters in the book were also compelling - they are seriously flawed.  Once is a kleptomaniac, one eats gold dust, and that is not actually the most interesting thing about either of them.  Egan's ability to develop characters is strongly on display in this book.  She has more characters than usual given the format, and yet they all come alive off the page.

I liked this book, but be warned of two things - first, take notes.  I had to keep track of who's who after the first three chapters.  Second - don't expect a neat and tidy ending.  There isn't one.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen

This book was a very fun read.  It's a memoir of Janzen's return home to her Mennonite parents after the collapse of her marriage.  Parts of her life are perfect for a memoir - for example, her husband of fifteen years leaves her for a man named Bob who he meets on Gay.com.  Seriously.  But it is also her excellent writing, ability to write humorously, and willingness to share things that others might find too private or too shameful, that make this book so good.  I laughed out loud repeatedly while reading this - causing Web to ask a few times just what could be so funny about a book about Mennonites. 

Janzen's memoir covers a lot of ground: she reports on her marriage (arguably broken from the start), her upbringing in an austere, frugal, and loving Mennonite family, relationships with her siblings, and her educational path.  She also spends several chapters educating the reader wryly about Mennonite customs and culture, incidentally, it seems, reflecting on how growing up in that background shaped her choices and beliefs as an adult.  She takes the reader through her emotional convalescence and how she comes out of it both more independent and, at the same time, more rooted in the things she grew up with. 

At the end of the book, she writes a short afterword which summarizes Mennonite history.  It might have been nice to have that sprinkled throughout the book.  That said, I don't have any other criticisms of this book - like most good memoirs, it was brave, funny, and felt like a friend telling me their particularly interesting life story.

The Lion by Nelson Demille

I noticed this book at Jo's house - Dad had gotten her a copy - and when I got home I put it on my library queue.  Until I started reading it, however, I had forgotten how much fun it is to read a Nelson DeMille book, in particular one that stars John Corey. 

John Corey is a recurring character in many of DeMille's books.  A retired NYPD detective, he works on an anti-terrorism task force with his wife, Kate, an FBI agent.  Like in previous books, he is sarcastic, irreverent, clever, and successful. 

In this book, he is up against Asad Khalil, a terrorist with whom he matched wits in The Lion's Game.  Khalil has returned to New York for revenge on him and Kate.  The book chronicles Corey's strategy in protecting himself and his wife from Khalil, while also trying to find Khalil and bring him in...i.e., kill him.  It was fun to revisit some of the other characters from the previous books - many of Corey's coworkers re-appeared, as well as Boris, who had been contracted to train Khalil to kill many years back.

This was a fun, quick read that was hard to put down.  As a bonus, Corey was written with more depth than in the previous few books.  A+ airport read if you're a fan of his.  DeMille's or Corey's, that is. 

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

I missed the meeting when my book club chose this book; when I heard this was what we were reading, I was not really looking forward to it.  However, I ended up liking it more than I expected.  By the same author as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, this book took a serious look at Lincoln's little-known history as a vampire slayer, as documented in some secret diaries.

What was fun about this book was that historical anecdotes were interspersed with fantasy.  I enjoyed refreshing my memory on Lincoln and the Civil War.  But just when I would get absorbed in a section around Lincoln's beliefs or his relationship with Stephen Douglas, Grahame-Smith would thrown in a connection between vampires and slavery, or would "out" a famous politician as being a vampire.  It kept me chuckling.  The book was part narrative, part excerpted from diaries, letters, and telegrams.  There were illustrations of parts of the story as well. 

Only two real complaints with the book - one is that there were a few scenes dealing with violence against slaves that felt disrespectful to read as part of a fantasy book.  The other was that the book started in a modern-day "frame" and it would have been nice to have it wrap up that way.  Other than that I enjoyed the book as a light-hearted read.  It got me thinking whether this could be used as an educational tool with middle-school aged-kids, too.

Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature was just announced...congratulations to Mario Vargas Llosa.  One of my all-time favorite books is Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter: A Novel.  Not your everyday book but a wonderfully fun excursion into South America's magical realism.

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner

This book is about a woman who has built her life around her politician husband.  An early scene has her waiting at a breakfast buffet for his omelette while he catches up on the newspaper at their table.  As a young adult she had been a lawyer, but choose this path instead.  When a scandal about him hits the news, she needs to re-evaluate her life.  At the same time, her two adult daughters (one a recovering addict and the other a lifelong overachiever) are struggling with their own identity crises.  The book changes point of view among the women, each one narrating a chapter at a time. 

Relevance of the subject matter aside, I just can't get into Jennifer Weiner.  Every one of her books I read is good but not great, and this was no exception.  The characters were interesting but a little too predictable.  The writing kept my attention but was nothing sophisticated.  And the story was just ok.  It was neither a story of the road to forgiveness nor of personal transformation.  I enjoyed American Wife's treatment of similar subject matter much better.  Not sure I will read Weiner's next book. 

Surprise Book

An unexpected copy of Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy) just showed up.  What a fun surprise!!  And what a lucky woman I am that there are several people in my life who might have sent it as a treat.  In the end...thanks Dad.  :)

Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

My inlaws got me this book last year for Christmas.  Referred to by some as a "prequel" to Atwood's Oryx and Crake, it takes place during the same time period as that book, with overlapping characters.  I did not like this book as much as O+C because I didn't have thrill of discovering Atwood's creepy universe for the first time.  However, I did enjoy reading it and it kept my attention.  As usual with Atwood's books, I forget between reading them how good a writer/poet she is because her plotting is so good too.

The story follows two women who are surviving after a "waterless flood" apocalypse.  One is trapped inside a high end strip club where girls wear genetically altered lizard skins, and the other is barracaded inside a spa where women would come to get genetically created treatments that help them stay young.  Prior to the flood, both women had sought refuge with God's Gardeners, a splinter eco-friendly religion, but each had reason to leave.  Much of the story takes place in flashbacks to the era leading up to the flood, characterized by violence, "Big Brother" police, and genetically altered foods and products. 

I and am hoping that Atwood decides to return to this universe again with future books.  According to one interview I read, she wrote this one because fans wanted to know what happened after the end of O+C, and because that book was told from a male point of view.  She also commented on how environmental change (even to the degree it's worsened in the past few years) has influenced her to revisit this universe as a cautionary tale.  I wonder what other alternate points of view she could explore in a third novel.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

This is one of the loveliest books I've read in a long time.  I got it from my inlaws several years ago at Christmas but just got around to reading it.  I'm glad to have waited: it was especially good to read now that I have a dog of my own. 

The story is about a family of dog breeders in Wisconsin.  The title character is born mute, but otherwise healthy, and his family includes him into the family business when he is young.  His early life is idyllic, until the untimely death of his father.  When his unstable uncle moves in to help with the business, Edgar's life becomes more difficult. 

Wroblewski created excellent characters and an expertly resolved story line.  The individual dogs even have their own characters, although he doesn't anthropomorphize them - their personalities are canine and neither he nor Edgar assign them human emotions.Where he gets lost a little in the middle of the book with too much detail, it is forgivable, as his character is lost too. 

As my mother said, "not that much happens for more than 300 pages."  I can't say I disagree, except the joy in reading this book is not about a thickly plotted narrative - its about the description of how dogs are raised, how children are raised, and how people and dogs can form exceptional bonds.  It was the dog book I was hoping to find.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

This is not a book to take lightly.  At 900+ pages, it has intimidated me from my bookcase for years.  As a techie, I've always known that I should read it for "street cred" but it seemed overwhelming, even for a voracious reader like me.  However, on the way out the door on the way to Iceland, I stuck it in my suitcase, figuring maybe on vacation I could plow through it. 

The copy that I have is one I swiped off my dad's desk during a trip home a couple years back.  He says its from his friend Stu, but there is an inscription in the front to "B-squared" thanking said recipient for all his help with math tutoring.  I have no idea who that is but it was nice to read a book that someone had received as a gift.

I started to read The Book of Dave: A Novel in Iceland and knew by page 30 that I was not going to finish it.  It's still sitting in a hotel room in Reykjavik.  With a deep breath and high hopes, I turned to Cryptonomicon.  Cryptonomicon was published in May of 1999, right around when I graduated college.  It's a wild book - alternating between WWII, where a group of Americans have broken the German Enigma code but have to pretend they haven't, and the current day, where a small group of entrepenuers are trying to build a "data safe haven" in the Philipines as the Internet is becoming more relevant to globalization.

I am not sure what is more impressive, Stephanson's attention to detail in his character development (which can be pages long just to make a small point) or his prescience in technology.  He describes several technologies that I don't remember from 1999, including cameras in laptops and handheld Internet devices.  He also predicts Internet currency which hasn't come to pass but I wouldn't bet against.

Another fun part of reading the book is his depiction of famous people - a tactic I am not always a fan of in fiction.  However, I could hardly dislike his rendering of Alan Turing or General McArthur as they came alive on the page.  Also notable was his collection of codes and mathematics in the text.  Most memorable is a particular code that was created for the book by a favorite techie of mine, Bruce Schneier.

And all of these components of a book come together in something that reads like a Tom Clancy novel with a little didactic Jostein Gaarder thrown in.  I'd say reading this is a rite of passage for geeks and for WWII buffs.  For everyone else it may not be worth the effort.

Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas

I have been adding a lot of dog books to my list recently since getting a dog of my own.  Becoming a dog owner has been a much bigger life change than I expected - with the help of my husband, the logistics and scheduling haven't been nearly as difficult as I expected.  However, the emotional parts of having a dog have been much greater than I expected.

So I chose to read this memoir to continue my quest to understand what I am feeling about owning a dog.  Granted the author's situation is worlds away from mine - her husband is in a serious accident and loses certain types of his memory.  Her relationship with her dogs is central to her maintaining her own mental health while also maintaining her relationship with her husband.

I liked this book and I think that Thomas was brave to write it.  That said, I didn't think it was really about her dogs very much.  Certainly she talked about each of her dogs and their personalities - also about how she acquired each one and what it was like when the each joined her family.  But she spent more of the book detailing her husband's condition (hallucinations, short term memory loss, long term memory loss, great anger and fear).  She talks about her decision to stay married to him, and her interactions with other family members and friends.  Reading it felt like walking into a stranger's kitchen and sitting down and spending some time there.

I'll read something else by Thomas in the future.  For now, still looking for some canine-themed books.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

This was a wonderful book. 

I had seen this book on the bestseller list but until Jim across the street mentioned it had been on his reading list, I didn't know it was a dog-book.  The story is about a man who is a struggling race car driver, and his relationship with his dog.  Uniquely, it is told through the dog's point of view. 

Right away, I will tell you that unless you are a "dog person" this is a book you probably want to skip.  I envision myself reading it a year ago and I'm not sure I would have made it past the first few chapters.  But now that I have Lucy and spend hours wondering what she is thinking and how much she understands, this book was a joy to read.

Enzo (the dog) is loyal, well-behaved, and well-educated from the TV his owner leaves on for him during the day.  He sees his owner through love, loss, job success and job failure, and develops a strong appreciation for watching races on TV.  He has strong feelings about the humans around him, resenting someone putting his favorite toy in the washing machine, for example, or thinking that "get busy" is a ridiculous cue to urinate at.  He also grasps a complex court case his owner is involved in, and catches many subtle interactions between humans.  In fact, he is the ultimate narrator, present for most of the story but invisible as pets can be during human interaction with each other.

At times, I thought it was indulgent to create a dog character who was anthropomorphized so strongly into a perfect companion.  But then I thought about how we are taught to "be a pack leader" and practice other activities the way a puppy's mother would have done it and realized that this is just another attempt to better relate to our canine friends.

Ravens by George Dawes Green

I heard about this book because the author, George Dawes Green, is one of the founders of The Moth, one of my favorite NPR shows/podcasts.  The Moth is a collection of 10-15 minute stories told live without notes to an audience about all sorts of topics.  Green said he started The Moth to preserve the art of storytelling; the name coming from moths that used to collect near his porch light growing up when his family and friends would stay up late telling stories.

Enough about The Moth - on to Ravens.  I figured someone dedicated to the art of storytelling would tell a good story himself...so the story Green tells is about a family who wins the lottery.  Two con men decide to hold the family hostage and threaten them to get half of the winnings.  The book follows the days just before and after the lottery win.

The book was ok, not great.  Stephen King really liked it which raised it on my list, but he seems to be doing a lot of reviews these days.  I thought the characters in the book were well-developed with excellent backstories justifying their actions throughout the book.  The desperate middle-America mom, the daughter anxious to spread her wings, her offbeat best friend, her loving grandmother (and the policeman in love with her) all left a mark in my head.  Both of the con men out to take their money were memorable as despicable and weak, respectively.  But something about the book just didn't come together for me: the story was slow to develop and reasonably predictable.

I'd be interested to read some non-fiction from Green to see if he is better at telling a real-life story.

Not Me by Michael Lavigne

Ruth recommended this novel to me and I was immediately intrigued by the plot.  A man discovers that his elderly father, known throughout his life as an activist and philanthropist in the Jewish community, may actually have been a Nazi.

The story held my attention - it alternated between the son's life in the present, and the father's diaries which outlined his past.  I was very interested in the story portrayed in the diaries, not just the questions around identity, but also the depiction of Israel in its infancy. 

The present story, however, was less interesting.  The narrator is a comedian, and that self-depreciating and sardonic personality that I associate with stand-up comedians was apparent.  I did not really "like" him or find his character's relationships realistic. 

One theme I came away from the book with was that family secrets always haunt the next generation, even if they are so secret they are unknown.  I got the impression that the narrator's failed and stalled relationships were inevitable based on his father's past.

Overall, this story was unusual and creative - just not sure the execution was as good as a good editor could have provided.

A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela

This was a fun book to read.  It reads as described - taking the reader through a typical day in the life across several socio-economic experiences in ancient Rome.  Stylistically, it was easy to read - translated from Italian, it read like a high school history book with a short chapter on each subject.  In that simplicity it reminded me of Sophie's Wold.  While the translation resulted in less-than-perfect grammar in a few places, most of the text was simple and clear.

The book discusses Rome around 115CE, after the Republic, once it is part of the Empire run by Trajan.  I was fascinated by how large it was geographically (Scotland to Iran, Sahara to the North Sea) and by population (proportionate to a country today having the population of the US, Russia, and China combined.)

I was amazed by how many "modern" things existed back then - toothpicks, bleach, ironing, sun umbrellas, crosswalks, even barbers and bookies!  There was glass but no prescription glasses.  There were many foods that are familiar to us (even some recipes included) but no coffee.  The author discusses how the issues in the city then are familiar to us now - rising rents in crowded apartments, traffic, safety, and pollution.

There are also several sections on parts of life different from how we live now: slaves, gladiators, bathhouses and public deaths to name a few.  It was fascinating to read a section on something familiar to our values, then have the next section be about stoning, or betting on a death for sport. 

While I got a little bored towards the end (the novelty of the book wears off) I did enjoy the experience of reading it and seeing what ancient Rome was like.  When I was a kid, my parents took us to Italy and we spent a day in Ostia Antica - today a popular tourist spot but then a little-known excavation that was fun to walk around...this book brought those memories back to life. 

Methland by Nick Reding

Crystal Methamphetamine has become a pop culture staple - Law and Order episodes are based on it, Third Eye Blind sings about it, and it often makes the evening news.  Last year I watched an HBO documentary on how badly meth had hurt the town of Brocton, MA, just 20 miles from where I live.  So when I noticed Reding's book on meth and its impact on a small town in Iowa, I was interested to read it.

Reding spent several years in different small town to form an opinion of exactly how lethal meth is to people, families, and communities.  This anthropological take on meth was interesting and devastating to read.  He included stories of people so desperate to get the drug or the ingredients that they would do terrible things.  He also included stories of people hallucinating on the drug who would ruin their lives during trips.  I came away from reading this book believing that meth is the most dangerous and ruinous drug in America.

In Olewin, Iowa in particular, the woman most responsible for bringing meth to the town is - oddly - comedian Tom Arnold's sister Lori.  From her story, Reding details the different ways meth has gotten into small towns, both through local labs, importing it from Mexico, or driving it from its most common source, southern California. 

What I also enjoyed about the book was the science  - how it impacts brain receptors - and history - how it was legally prescribed to mothers and soliders through the '80's - that he included also.  Reding also spends a significant section in the middle of the book detailing the politics around what could have been done to slow its distribution (limiting pseudophedrine production or distribution) and how that was not done for many years (because of the pharmaceutical lobby). 

The final theme of the book was around the connection between meth and economically depressed small towns in middle America.  One point he makes is that with economic troubles around agriculture in the Midwest, meth is a way for people to stay awake and work multiple jobs.  He also makes the case that as big agricultural conglomerates take jobs away from small-town America, the people in those towns turn to meth because there is little else to do to occupy their time or make any money.  While some of his conclusions seemed a little weak to me, the book also made me think of In Defense of Food and Pollan's conclusions around how our agricultural system was impacting small towns. 

Overall, I learned a lot reading this book.  I thought the writing could have been better edited in some places, and I also would have liked to see more focus in other areas.  But I would recommend it as an introduction to the difficulties in much of America around this devastatingly addictive drug.

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

This is definitely a book to read in the summer.  Sag Harbor is a town on Long Island known for a large African-American summer community.  This book is about one particular summer when Benji (the main character) is 14.  His twin brother and he spend the summer there among their friends and summer jobs and occassionally their parents. 

This book has very little plot.  It's a very rich description of Benji's summer on Sag Harbor - a perfect depiction of a specific time and place and point in someone's life.  During most of the book I felt like I was one of Benji's friends, just running around the town with him and his crew.  The drama of a 14-year old's minutiae was at the center of each chapter - who makes the best waffle cones at work, who is on whose BB-gunfight team, who is going to walk to the beach because the car doesn't seat the whole gang.  And some serious content around his parents' imperfect marriage and his older sister's chosen isolation from the family.  Each chapter seemed to be able to stand alone as a short story - about half-way through I figured out that there was no overarching storyline other than "what happened this summer" so I could enjoy each chapter on its own.

The other thing about the book that I liked was that it depicted life among African-American teens in the 1980's in New York very well.  The division between middle-class and "street" communities, the music, clothes, hairstyles, foods, lots of details of Benji's life both in Sag Harbor and in NYC, where he lived, were described.

I liked this book.  It transported me to Benji's world and showed me a community I didn't know anything about.  Well-written and nicely executed.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Nearly everyone I know who is in a book club or keeps up with modern fiction had read this book by the time I got to it.  Lots of people recommended it and I could see why; although it was not incredibly high-brow literature, the characters were given strong voices and the plot was fast-moving, albeit a bit predictable. 

The story is about "The Help" - that is, the full-time black housekeepers in 1960's Mississippi.  Most of the women who employ them are prejudiced and range from thoughtless to cruel towards them.  Some of the help are treated well, but only when it is convenient for their employers; other help is berated and accused of stealing and other allegations at whim; others are treated with a distance - asked to use a separate bathroom or set of dishes.  And all the while, the housekeepers are engaged in a most intimate of tasks: raising their employers' children while the ladies lunch and play bridge.  Secondarily explored are the social norms and cliques among the white women.  Things in town get interesting when one young white woman, for reasons of her own, decides to befriend the housekeeper community.  The results are both surprising and significant for both her and for the black women. 

The book held my attention because the characters were very compelling.  There were people I rooted for and people I rooted against.  The voices of the different characters were clear and well-developed.  I also found myself wanting to know what would happen to certain characters and storylines.  Stockett did a good job of keeping a lot of themes rolling at once without a lot of complexity. 

It was interesting to read this book just as To Kill A Mockingbird reached its 50th anniversary; set in 1930's Alabama, that book also explored a second class Black community and an empathic White hero.  What was shocking was how little things had changed for Blacks between 1930 and 1960.

I enjoyed this book and categorize it as one that transported me to a different place and time.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This was a great juicy read.   

The book begins when a man who has arranged for a bride through the classifieds is waiting for her arrival at a train station.  We learn that he is very particular and measured, and she is less simple than she lets on.  As it turns out, neither of them has signed up for pure companionship - each has an ulterior motive and the story unfolds in a completely unexpected way. 

There was so much to like about this book.  The plot was exceptional.  The characters were complex.  Even the town the characters live in is well-crafted: an author's note at the end of the book indicates that it is based on a real town whose occupants suffered from sudden madness at the turn of the 20th century. 

The other thing about the book I really enjoyed was that Goolrick created a Harlequin-Gothic-Trashy Novel-Spooky vibe but wrote an exceptional book.  Definitely recommended and hope to see more fiction from Goolrick in the future.

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

This was a fun quick read in the spirit of Robert Ludlum or (as many of the critics have said, John LeCarre).  A "tourist" is a top-secret CIA operative in a foreign country - you know, one of those people in one of the programs the government denies having.  Milo, the title tourist, is actually trying to leave the business of spying when the book starts, but is drafted into one last operation that of course does not end tidily - that would make for a boring book.  Naturally, he has a wife and stepdaughter who get thrown into the action as well.

What I liked about this book was that the plot was complex but the writing was very accessible.  I didn't always expect all the twists in the plot, and I didn't always understand the characters' strategies right away, but I enjoyed reading it all the way through.  I also thought that compared to other books of this genre, Steinhauer explored the Milo's personal anguish over some of his decisions more thoroughly and completely.  Ultimately this is more a character study of the loneliness of being a spy than it is an action novel, although it masquerades as the latter.  In that way it reminded me of parts of the Bourne trilogy - the books at least, more than the movies.

The Tourist was definitely a book that kept me up late reading several nights in a row.  I hear that George Clooney's production company has bought the rights to make it a film.  "LIKE."

Just Like Us by Helen Thorpe

This is an ambitious book.  Helen Thorpe is a journalist whose initial idea is to follow four high school girls who are Mexican-American, two of whom are in the country legally and two of whom are not.  Halfway through her research for the book, Denver (where the girls live) becomes embroiled in a huge immigration conflict, when an illegal immigrant kills a police officer.  Thorpe includes this incident into her book, with a particular vantage point: her husband is the mayor of Denver at the time.

So there is a lot going on in the book.  I most enjoyed reading about the girls' experiences as they grew into young adults in college.  They struggled with basic logistics of paying for school - doubly difficult for the illegal girls - a well as complex emotional issues around identity and belonging.  The girls each had families that spanned Mexico and America, and several of them had significant family pressures on top of everything else they were dealing with.  I was also interested to see what kind of private funding the illegal girls were able to find.

Slightly less interesting were the sections on the crime and trial of the man who killed the police officer.  While I'm sure it was central to Thorpe's life at the time, it confused the narrative for me.  I understood that it had a profound effect on the city and subsequently on the girls, but I am not sure she wove it together tightly enough. 

It is a testament to Thorpe's journalistic background that I finished the book unsure of what her take on illegal immigration is.  I did, however, finish the book left with the one thing I think she wanted her readers to ponder: what do we do with young adults who have been in the U.S. illegally their entire lives, once they become adults?  I don't know the answer to that question and I'm not sure that Thorpe does either.  But I did see that as a complexity in the immigration debate I had not thought about previously.

I liked that this book made me think, I just wish it had been more cohesive.

As They See 'Em by Bruce Weber

Every once in a while, there is a book that I hear about and decide to save until its season rolls around.  This one waited patiently on my book list until summer time because it is about Major League Baseball umpires and after hearing it on Fresh Air last April I didn't get to it in time.  I'm glad I waited because it was really fun to read this during baseball season.  It was really fun to read this book, period.  Unlike other non-fiction, this was interesting all the way through - sometimes I find the idea of a book fascinating, and the first half interesting, but then I lose a little steam.  Not so with this one!

Bruce Weber is a reporter for the New York Times who began this book by traveling to Florida to attend one of the two accredited umpire schools.  Umpiring is a very competitive business - there are fewer than 100 positions in MLB, and umpires don't often leave their jobs.  The salaries are high - upwards of $250K for the ones with a lot of experience, but to get there, they go through years, sometimes even decades, of harsh travel, school, politics, and barely enough salary to live on.  All that, and they are disliked by fans and players alike.

So at umpire school, the candidates (and Weber) learn about all sorts of rules - Weber relates several scenarios in the book with calls that I was very surprised to learn the answers to.  The other big thing that umpire school covers is how a crew of two or three or four men (and yes, they are almost exclusively men) cover a field.  There are clear rules at to who runs where during every particular type of play and umpire school has hours and hours of practicing that too.  In fact, Weber suggests the next time the reader watches an MLB game that he or she watch the umpires instead of the players, and you may find that there is what seems like a completely different game going.  I did and it does.

Interestingly, one topic not covered in umpire school is how to call balls and strikes.  Weber covers it extensively, however: both what the actual rules are as well as how the umpires use it to communicate with pitchers.  In his commentary on balls and strikes, Weber makes one of his most enlightening points about umpires - umpires are distinct from officials in other sports in that they are essential to the game play.  In other sports, officials determine if any rules have been broken, but in baseball, umpires' calling balls and strikes is necessary for each play to continue. 

The book continues on to detail how umpires are chosen and rated.  A significant portion of the book is focused on labor relations between umpires and MLB, culminating in an ill-fated attempt by umpires to all resign at once in 1999.  The book also details several umpires famous for their controversial calls.  Weber also covers many ancillary topics like life on the road and instant replay.  Finally, he details his own umpiring of a game - minor league, but legitimate MLB.

I really liked the book.  Weber made it easy to learn about the world of umpiring with a lively-paced book and plenty of anecdotes.  Interestingly, I was reading this book during the controversy around umpire Jim Joyce's incorrect call that cost Armando Galarraga his perfect game.  To see what Weber had to say about it (and to get a taste of his writing style) check out this article in the New York Times.

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

I have been a fan of Quindlen's for a long time - Object Lessons is one of my all-time favorite books, and I read and re-read Living out Loud several times. 

This book is about a normal American family - Mary Beth and Glen are happily married with three teenage children - Ruby, Max, and Alex.  The first half of the book is about their everyday lives, and I enjoyed this part of the book.  I liked Quindlen's rendering of Mary Beth's distinct relationships each with her children.  I also enjoyed reading about Mary Beth and Glen's marriage: imperfect but solid.

After the family is victimized by violence, their lives take a different turn.  The family has to rebuild and figure out who they are after a vicious attack.  The book ended with my having the feeling that family takes many different forms and that people can be very resilient.

I'm not sure I really enjoyed the second part of this book.  While the writing was excellent (it always is...), the story did not hold my attention as much as the mundane descriptions of the family's life before the violent episode.  I felt like I was watching the evening news - or a made-for-tv movie - that was very dramatic but somewhat hollow.

I'll always try the next book Quindlen writes - hopefully it will be engaging all the way through.

Stieg Larsson article in NYT Magazine

Good article about the issues still surrounding Stieg Larsson's estate:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Larsson-t.html

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I really enjoyed this book.  Someone in my book club picked it but then left the book club before we got to it.  Thanks anyway - sorry you decided not to come back!

The book is about a young girl who is sent to live with a foster family at the beginning of WWII in Germany because her mother is a Communist.  Her new mother is harsh but cares for her well; her new father is very kind and helps her adjust to her new life by teaching her how to read.  Soon after, she develops a lifelong love of books, but finds herself often stealing books she has no other way of acquiring. 

Her life gets even more complicated when her best friend is an outcast in Hitler Youth and then her parents secretly hide a Jewish man in their basement for several months during the war. 

While this book was told through the eyes of a young girl, it was not exclusively a children's book.  Zusak managed to keep the writing simple and the story lively while still describing very adult situations and emotions.  His style was reminiscent of Vonnegut - Death (yes, as in 'Death himself') narrated the story and often broke from the action to point out a strange word or frame a story or remind the reader of something.  Several times, Zusak has Death reveal a major 'spoiler' from later in the story so as the reader I was forced to pay attention to things other than just the plot.

This might have been the best thing I've read so far this year.

The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller

I always like Sue Miller's books and this was no exception.  It is about a woman who loses her lover on 9/11 and has written a play about a man waiting to hear if he's lost his wife in a terrorist train incident.  The book begins when the lover's sister is on her way to see the play.  Throughout the book, the characters take turns telling their part of the story.  Among the characters are the playwright, her lover's sister, one of the actors in her play, and a man the sister is trying to set her up with. 

Miller did a great job of picking an interesting set of characters to act as the narrators.  She had them tell slightly different versions of the story which built their personalities quickly and strongly.  It reminded me of Irene Dos Santos in how the author used the different points of view to tell a particular story. 

Another thing I liked about the book is that it takes place in my neighborhood - Boston's South End - and included scenes in several restaurants and theaters that I go to regularly. 

The other book this brought to mind was Dubus' Garden of Last Days, because that was also about 9/11.    Also a 9/11 book, that one was a more frantic, more direct, novel about the hijackers.  This one, in contrast, commented on the Human Condition simply and expertly.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

This is a tough review to write, because (like Liberated Bride) there were a lot of things about the book I liked but some fundamental flaws I am not sure I can get over.

The story is about a young woman named Tassie from a rural town who is attending a liberal college in the Midwest.  Looking to make some money, Tassie is hired by a couple (Sarah and Edward) to be the nanny for their not-yet-adopted baby.   Sarah and Edward (and Tassie) are white and the baby is mixed-race, mostly black. The first half of the book is mostly about her interactions with the family - who are not exactly who she thinks they are - and her bonding with the child.  I really enjoyed this section of the book because it was well-balanced between plot, characters, and internal monologue.  Sarah is quite a well-developed character and Tassie's inner monologue reminds me of myself in college - a weird combination of precocious, bright, cynical, and naive.

Then the book take a weird turn.  Something happens with Sarah and Edward, then also with Tassie and her boyfriend, and so she goes home to her parents.  Life at home, always stoic and bucolic, suddenly becomes uncertain and scary.  The remainder of the book takes a completely different trajectory, with dense descriptions of her home and farm and what feels like a different narrator.  I was so disappointed at this part of the book!  I felt really invested in the story of Tassie's interactions with Sarah and Edward, and then let down by the lack of closure.

What I've left out of this description (other than plot spoliers) is that there are several post-9/11 themes within the book.  I can only guess that Moore wanted to make some political statements through this book and that threw her off course.  I would have really enjoyed reading a book about Tassie's interaction with Sarah and Edward and the baby.  These other parts took a coherent story and engaging plot and made it a disjointed book.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

This book had been knocking around the house for a while.  It's a memoir of Bill Bryson's attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail.  He sets out with a set of expensive gear and an eccentric friend and begins hiking in Georgia with hopes of making it up to Maine.  While he does not finish the Trail (at least not as a 'through hiker') the book is interesting and funny.

I had hiked a few miles of the Long Trail in Vermont which is part of the AP, but I had no idea before reading this how intense a process it is for people to hike the entire thing.

The funny part of the book relates to his adventures with his friend. His friend is an admittedly overweight recovering alcoholic.  Together, they subsist on ramen noodles and Snickers, meeting unusual traveling companions along the way and both encouraging and annoying each other.

Interspersed with their adventures is a lot of other information about the Appalachain Trail: the genesis of it, its famous hikers, encounters with bears and murderers, its current status, and plenty of pleasant folklore.  Bryson did have some scathing criticism of the National Forest Service, who maintain much of the Trail - he talks about logging and conservation in several places.  I enjoyed reading these information sections as much as I did his individual adventures.  Bryson did a good job of balancing the personal with the broader perspective. 

I enjoyed this and think this would be a good read for anyone who likes the outdoors.

The Liberated Bride by A. B. Yehoshua

I started this book at my parents' house because I had finished Next sooner than I expected.  Though Mom hadn't liked this very much, I remember seeing poetry books by Yehoshua in Jenne's bookcase in college so I decided to give it a try.

There are a lot of layers to this book and I believe I missed some of Yehoshua's point of view.  On the surface, the story is about a father who is obsessed with finding out what happened to his son's marriage after an abrupt divorce.  There are also several storylines and characters representing different parts of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Finally, there is a significant portion of the book devoted to the relationship between the man and his wife.

I enjoyed reading this book most of the time.  There are a few sections where Yehoshua incorporates folk tales and poetry into the story and I was a little bored by those.  Perhaps if I had discussed this book with other people who had read it at the same time I would have been able to understand the symbolism - because I do believe that I did not "get" the book in its entirety, not that Yehoshua missed the mark.

I did enjoy reading the descriptions of modern-day Israel.  Particularly, the characters visit parts of the Middle East near Israel that are Arab several times in the book and I was fascinated by the descriptions of those visits.  I also enjoyed reading the sections about the main character and his wife because I thought they represented a realistic marriage although what do I know about what it feels like to be 30+ years in??  The main story about the son and his divorce was well-crafted.

Overall I think this was a good book but that I would have benefited from reading it with a group or at least with someone to talk to about it.

Next by Michael Crichton

This book had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while; I think I bought it at Costco a few years back.  The book is about several storylines all relating to genetics.  On major plotline was about the legality of patenting genes, another was about hybrid humans and animals, and another was about using DNA testing to assess someone's propensity towards certain diseases.


Like most Michael Crichton books, this was a quick and easy read.  Crichton moved among the storylines often (and there were a lot of them) which I did find a little hard to follow in some places.  But overall I liked the stories and was invested in most of the characters.

This was obviously a political book for Crichton - after the story he spent about 10 pages suggesting a set of policies and laws that were necessary to ensure that genes and DNA weren't misused.  Fine airport read.

A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch

My book club chose this book as this month's read.  I wasn't crazy about it and I guess the group wasn't either because only two of us showed up to discuss it.


The book takes place in the 1800's in London and follows a detective named Lenox who is asked to help solve the mystery of a woman's murder.  He works with several assistants, including his brother, his neighbor Lady Jane, his butler, and some other associates. While they are trying to solve the case, a second murder occurs and Lenox then solves both related cases.

The most unique thing about this book was that while it was written in the past decade, it was written in the style of Victorian England.  Lenox and Lady Jane have some very proper flirtation and everyone has tea every day.  While this made the book drag in some places, it was delightful in others.  Lenox was charming and even progressive for his time.  There were, however, some references to the "new technology" of fingerprints that I found was too deliberate in setting the time and place.

Overall I thought the solution to the mystery was clever but not something I could have figured out myself by reading carefully.  Despite how well the setting and style were done, I wouldn't be too interested to read another book from this series any time soon.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

This book came up in my library queue. It had been in a lot of end-of-year lists in December. The story follows three intertwined stories: one is about a high school senior who runs away with her teacher, one is about a man who didn't know his dad wasn't his biological father until college, and one is about a guy searching for his mentally ill twin brother.

The writing in this book is pretty good. I didn't really notice it which it think is a good thing - not too deliberate but not sloppy either. The characters were well-developed although the ways in which their stories intertwined left me with different opinions of them at the end than when I was reading the book. And the twists in the book - the way the stories come together -was definitely worth the read. While it wasn't one of my favorite books ever, it was well-done, unique, and certainly a modern take on identity.

Worth the read.

A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes

This was a delightful book.

I first heard about it from the NextReads email list. It was described as being about a young couple who leave everything they know to move to a small town in Idaho in the 1960's and buy a farm.

The book certainly starts there and details their difficulty in adapting to the new surroundings and some of the people in the town whom they meet and employ. Through a series of flashbacks, the couple's meeting and courtship is described as well. The second half of the book is the story of their daughter who grows up on the farm too.

I enjoyed reading this book for several reasons. First, the writing was spectacular. It was descriptive but not boring; the characters were complex and dynamic; the plot was at times surprising but never far-fetched. Another reason I found this book so good was that there were several incidents and family secrets that held significance throughout the length of the book. I liked how the author illustrated how a few events and choices made when the characters were young haunted/impacted them throughout their lives. Finally, I appreciated the story itself - one of sadness and of redemption for different characters in different ways.

Definitely recommended.

The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar

I received this book from Harper Collins as part of their online book club. I recognized Umrigar's name as the author of The Space Between Us, which I read last year.

The story is about two Americans who lose their young son to a sudden illness. In an effort to repair their marriage, they move to India for the husband's job. There, they meet the young son of their home's caretakers and form a relationship with him. While the theme and initial plot are familiar, even trite, the execution is excellent. And because as a reader I knew the father would try to take this boy on as a confusing replacement to his son, and because I knew that could not end well, reading this book was about how a marriage breaks and how a person deals with grief, without having to be as focused on a complex plot.

Umrigar also captures a few periods of time in the novel - the present, when the couple is living in India, as well as the past, both when they met and when their son got sick. I was rooting for the couple to work things out throughout the story, and found them both to be likable and fallible. I could really feel both the desperation and the hope they each feel throughout the book.

The climax could be ruined with too much commentary on it, so I will just say that this book in its entirety was incredibly well written and well plotted. Recommended.