Review: This is Where I Leave You

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Jo recommended this to me - and it's a current movie starring Jason Bateman. I liked it a lot - it's about a family whose patriarch dies and his dying wish is that the family sits shiva for him - that is, stays together in the house for a week as is Jewish custom.

The family of grown adults, however, are pretty dysfunctional - particularly as a clan. The main character's marriage is falling apart because of infidelity. He has three siblings: one struggling with infertility and bitterness, one whose marriage is helplessly unhappy, and one who is dating someone highly inappropriate. Their mother has secrets of her own. Still, they spend the week together and just barely manage not to kill each other.

The story was well-written and fun to read. Best of all, the ending was good. Lately, too many books I've read have tidy endings, and this one doesn't. This ending is a resolution, but it isn't tidy. Which, given the characters, seems very believable. My only criticism is that parts of the book felt too obviously like they were being written for a movie script. Which....maybe they were.



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Review: Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink

Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink by Katrina Alcorn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I heard Alcorn speak at the Massachusetts Conference for Women and thought her story was interesting enough to buy her book. The book was ok - it was a memoir of how she became overwhelmed as a working mother. She details how her anxiety and panic grew as she took on more responsibility at work and added a second, and then third child to her family. Finally determining that she needed a break from work, she takes time off, only to discover many other women in similar circumstances.

Interspersed with each chapter of her story was a short 2-3 page section about research supporting things she was going through - like maternity leave in different countries, or the percentage of women with undiagnosed post-partum disorders. While she explained in the preface of her book that she did that to make it more interesting than just a memoir, that's where I felt like the book failed. I wanted to hear someone's personal story, not read the same statistics and facts that I keep seeing in the news.

While I applaud her for both finding a solution that worked for her family as well as sharing the personal details of her story with a large audience, I didn't love the book, mostly because it purported to be more than that, when that would have been more than enough.



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Review: Orphan Train

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book was great - I think Jo may have recommended it to me. It's about an actual train that used to take orphans from the streets of New York City and bring them to the Midwest to be adopted by families who either wanted children or wanted cheap labor during the 1920's and 1930's. The book follows one particular girl through her journey and the different families she ended up living with, many of whom were abusive, and only one of whom ever treated her kindly as a member of their family.

This story is unwinding at the same time as another young woman in the 1990's is slowly aging out of the foster care system. As community service for a petty crime, she ends up helping an elderly neighbor clean out her attic, where they find the elderly neighbor's history is as one of these orphans.

While some of the parallels are obvious to the reader and some of the plot rather predictable, overall this book held my attention as I rooted for both orphans to find happiness.



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Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I tried with this book - I really did. The premise was cool - a strange circus that arrives unannounced and only operates at night. The circus is actually the site of a decades-long competition between two rival magicians' proteges, which they are only somewhat aware of. The setup was so interesting that I was eager to read the book.

It just got too darn weird for me. Too much supernatural and fairy-tale, not enough character development. I spent half of the book convinced that two female characters were the same character, which didn't make my experience any better, but did make me feel like I was right about character development being lacking. The ending seemed like a cop-out with minor characters suddenly having major parts.

The author, I recall reading, sees herself as a crafter of modern fairytales. If that is the case, she did a good job with that genre - i just didn't care for it.



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Review: An Echo in the Bone

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I am sad to be catching up to Gabaldon in this series (I read them faster than she can write them) because they are always so.darn.good. This one has Claire and Jamie in the US as the Revolution begins, but soon they leave for Europe - although at 800+ pages, that certainly doesn't go as planned. Some new characters begin to get more air time as well.

Meanwhile, Brianna and Roger have returned to modern times to cure their daughter's health problems, and they are adjusting to life. They learn how Claire and Jamie are doing through a cleverly sent set of letters, but soon they are into their own problems with neighbors and colleagues at work.

With the same meticulous research and character development that fueled the first 6 books, this one continues to enthrall me as a romance and an adventure.



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Review: Maya's Notebook

Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't know why I've been so intimidated to read something by Isabel Allende - she's been on my "I should read something by her" list forever. Well this was one I found on a Barnes and Noble trade paperback table and I ended up really liking it. It had great plotting, nuanced characters, and (thwarting my worst fears) absolute readability.

The story is about Maya, a young woman who is raised in her grandparents' home. She ends up as a troubled teenager, in with the wrong crowd, then suddenly in the middle of a dangerous world of drugs and prostitution. To help her escape, her grandmother sends her to a remote island off the coast of Chile, where Maya begins to rebuild her life.

This was a book I was reluctant to put down because it was so compelling, starring a damaged but compelling main character. Also - I'm no longer afraid of Allende. :)



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Year end booklists

There are so many great year-end booklists coming out now.  These are some of my favorites

NPR's Book concierge - great interface

NYTimes Notable Books - old faithful

Millions Year of Reading - lots of different perspectives

Chicago Tribune's Best Books

Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2014

National Book Award Winners

Booker Prize Winners

Also, kind of unrelatedly, Joel Gasciogne also shared his list of 50 books that transformed his business and his life.

Review: Sycamore Row

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It happens every time I read a John Grisham book - I forget how much I enjoyed the last one and how good he really is.

This book is about a case where the main lawyer is the same one from [b:A Time to Kill|32542|A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)|John Grisham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390195915s/32542.jpg|1804929]. While I didn't remember very much about that book (other than liking it) this one provided enough background to set the stage for the story. In this book, a black maid becomes the only heir to a rich white man's estate, and Jake Brigance (the underdog lawyer from the last book) gets assigned as the attorney for the estate. The book follows Jake as he figures out how to deal with the deceased's children, whether the maid is trustworthy, and eventually what to do about the clear racial issues that surface in the situation.

As usual, this book was eminently readable, familiar but not predictable, and filled with colorful characters, both savory and not.



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Review: Benediction

Benediction by Kent Haruf

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I was excited when I saw this book, I hadn't known that [a:Kent Haruf|16266|Kent Haruf|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1309205400p2/16266.jpg] had written a third book in the [b:Plainsong|77156|Plainsong (Plainsong, #1)|Kent Haruf|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388200586s/77156.jpg|1402373] series, the first of two of which I really enjoyed.

This one didn't hit the mark for me as much. While there were things about it that reminded me of the first two - the same small town, a few of the same characters, small things happening to people that are written about in a profound way - I didn't like this one as much. I found it to be too sappy in some places, and some of the characters doing thing that were too unlikely in others. His other books have a way of drawing a character without too much detail but the right details that paint a picture, and this one didn't do that for me either - I often couldn't picture the characters, even what they were like mentally.

I'd like to read some of his other books and see what I think, but as a follow up to Plainsong and Eventide, this was a disappointment.



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Review: The Time in Between

The Time in Between by María Dueñas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I really, really liked this book. It had languished on my reading list for several years and I finally got around to grabbing it from the library. It's long, and seems intimidating at the beginning, but it was as gripping a novel as I can remember reading, particularly for something that is more seriously Literature and not at all an Airplane Read.

The story was really unusual - Sira is a young seamstress when the Spanish Civil War breaks out and she flees Spain for Morocco, following a charismatic, but as it turns out untrustworthy man. Alone in a foreign country, she works to become a sought-after dressmaker for expatriates from all over Europe as WWII breaks out. During the war she returns to Madrid, and opens a similarly popular dressmaking business; however, this time she takes advantage of her access to officers' wives to pass information and messages as a spy.

What I liked about this book was that it was a really compelling female character in a sweeping complex story. I rooted for her the entire book - and she does go through some very hard times. The story was adventurous and fun to read.



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Review: The Imposter Bride

The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book was one of those that I just picked blindly at the library. It was pretty good - it was about a Jewish woman who arrives in Montreal after WWII having assumed the identity of someone else. She arrives somewhat as a mail order bride, but ends up marrying the brother of her intended. When a member of the actual woman's family realizes she isn't who she says she is, things get complicated for her.

At the same time, the book alternates between this time and several years in the future, when her daughter (whom she abandons as an infant) is trying to figure out what her real life story is, and why she left.

I liked this book for a few reasons - the plot was unusual and not in any way formulaic. I enjoyed the characters, all of whom were very well-developed, and I really liked reading about a Jewish community outside of the US.



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Review: The Lost Wife

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I've read a lot of Holocaust fiction yet I keep being surprised that authors find new ways to describe both the mass horror and individual losses and triumphs in stories. This book was no exception.

The story is about two young Jewish people who fall in love in Prague just as WWII is beginning. While there is a short window of time when they can both leave Europe and escape the Nazis, and they marry hastily, ultimately the woman (Lenka) declines, preferring to stay with her family until they can all leave together. The book follows both her story, through the concentration camps of Europe, as well as her husband (Josef)'s resettlement in America. They quickly lose touch. Prior to the war, Lenka is an art student, so she survives the camps through creating art for the Nazis (as well as a great deal of resilience and of luck.) Josef makes a life for himself in America, but always wonders about his first wife who he left behind. Eventually Lenka makes it through the war and herself marries and has children as well.

It is only at their grandchildren's rehearsal dinner decades later that they accidentally reunite. The plot was an unusual twist, and I really enjoyed reading about the theme of art throughout the book. The writing was wonderful, and the characters very well-developed.



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Review: Everybody's Got Something

Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Let me start by saying - Roberts herself is a five; it's just this book that is a three. I first learned about Roberts at last year's Mass Conference for Women, where she was a keynote speaker. Familiar to those who watch Good Morning America, she is also a cancer survivor, a former ESPN anchor, and an all-around nice person. She was also reasonably well-known for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which involved her search for her own family members, as well as her coming-out upon her most recent remission from cancer.

So my issue with this book wasn't Roberts, or any of her life decisions. In fact, I think she's a pretty amazing woman, and I enjoyed reading some of the backstory of the major events I knew about her. What I was missing in the book was any reflection, or commentary. It was a lot like reading a log of what happened to her and only a small amount of what she felt. It wasn't that she didn't share, or didn't divulge what she was feeling at different times, but it was more that she had so many stories to relate that she didn't leave herself enough space for reflection.

That said, I did enjoy reading it, and as someone who doesn't watch GMA, it did make me into a Robin Roberts fan nonetheless.



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Review: Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood

Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood by Drew Magary

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a fun book to read, and a quick one. I enjoy Magary's writing for Deadspin - always funny and usually smart. This book is his take on raising kids and did not disappoint.

The book opens with one of his children having a life-threatening condition as an infant and he immediately dives in to the gory details and the practical nature of how scary and gross it all is. While he could veer into being a typical guy in his book's narrative, he doesn't; instead he demonstrates being a pretty sensitive, self-aware, and involved father. True, he and his wife align on classic gender roles and she is indulgent to his boy-like behaviors, but most of the book is a humorous reflection on parenting from someone who has spent a long time thinking about it.

I add as a footnote the following link, a sort of denouement to this book, wherein he gets a vasectomy and it goes a bit wrong...http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-amazing-true-story-of-my-exploding-balls-1661128148



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Review: Identical

Identical by Scott Turow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a great train commute read. Like many people, I read Turow's [b:Presumed Innocent|425029|Presumed Innocent (Kindle County Legal Thriller, #1)|Scott Turow|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404412704s/425029.jpg|7732] many years ago, then kinda forgot about him. I'm glad I noticed this one.

The story is about a set of identical twins - one is up for parole for murder, while the other is running for mayor. The book flashes back through their backgrounds, as well as the backgrounds of the victim, her family, and various law enforcement officials who are also involved. While there are some obvious plot twists Turow could have chosen for a whodunit with identical twins, what he did was significantly more clever.

Parts of this book were a little slow, but overall it was a perfect airport/T station read. Particularly cool was that the story took place within the Greek community, and he brought in several allusions to Greek myths throughout the book.



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Review: Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book was imperfect, but I'm glad I read it. It's written by an American who marries a British man and has two babies while they live in Paris. She notices a lot of differences between how Americans treat babies and how the French treat babies, from pregnancy through toddler-hood. This book is an analysis of that set of observations.

At first, she points out a lot of appealing things that French babies do, like sleep through the night after 8 weeks, eat full meals out late in restaurants, play independently at parks and dinner parties. Some of the things she points out seem to make a lot of sense - like "The Pause" (how the French don't respond to babies right away, they wait a moment to see what the child will do), training them to eat just four times each day, and nearly universally sending them to state-run day cares. Pregnancy is handled with much less focus on worst-case situations, and more focus on general health.

However, I lost a bit of faith in the book when she contrasted the French attitude towards daycare to the American, saying that upper middle class Americans would never send their kids to daycare (surprise! we do.) It made me wonder what generalizations she was making about French society that were equally inaccurate. I was also strongly aware that while there is a simplicity in how French may not focus on any achievement-oriented activities for little kids (swim lessons are just about splashing, for example), they also live in a Socialist society which has different values from ours.

From a logistical point of view, I also disliked that the second half of the book was a restating of the first half, just in bite-sized tidbits numbered from 1-100. Finally, I didn't think that many of the things that the French do were things I was going to be able to execute myself in the US - for example, even if I wanted to put Sash on a 4x/day eating plan - what would I do about how she is fed in daycare or at birthday parties or even how we eat as American adults?

All that criticism aside, there were a few things I did pick up reading this - mostly that kids can be taught to wait a moment. Also that at Sash's age - 20 months - their being happy and comfortable at daycare, and learning how to socialize with other kids is what's important, nay, not just important, but critical.



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Review: Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book was great fun. I think Gregg suggested it and I loved it.

The story takes place in the future, where the world is pretty close to post-apocalyptic. At the very least, it's dangerous with scarce resources and a breakdown of government. Most people, including the hero of the book Wade, spend most of their time in a virtual reality world, even attending school there. When the creator of the game dies, he leaves his fortune as a reward for a treasure hunt within the game. Both individuals like Wade and corporations race to win the game.

The book was fun because it was a race to win something, but also because it was a homage to 1980's video games and movies, references to which were all over the book. But it was not just pulp - parts of it reminded me of [b:Makers|6422238|Makers|Cory Doctorow|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408371819s/6422238.jpg|6611457] in its prescience and pessimistic view of all but a few people living in the future. And parts of it reminded me of [b:Ender's Game|375802|Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet, #1)|Orson Scott Card|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408303130s/375802.jpg|2422333] in its mixing of real world experiences with simulations.

Would love to see what else Cline can do.



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Review: Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father

Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I heard Abbott on NPR (on The Moth I think) and decided I wanted to hear more of her story. Raised by a single gay father in San Francisco in the 1980's, she was well-spoken and well-adjusted, and I thought her memoir would be interesting.

Abbott's childhood reminded me of that of [a:Jeannette Walls|3275|Jeannette Walls|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1188356528p2/3275.jpg], [a:Augusten Burroughs|3058|Augusten Burroughs|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1337222509p2/3058.jpg], or [a:Alexandra Fuller|13900|Alexandra Fuller|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1330629732p2/13900.jpg]. As they grew up, they though their lives were pretty normal, but reflecting as an adult, it is obvious that some very basic needs weren't being met. This is not to say that her father was neglectful - he was attentive and involved. But he was also involved in his own building of an identity as a newly-out gay man and figuring out how that fit with being a father.

What I came away from the book with was the feeling that she loved her father, and saw him not as the father of her childhood but as a human adult. Worth a read about a unique upbringing.



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Review: The Secret History

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I had tried to read [b:The Little Friend|775346|The Little Friend|Donna Tartt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327936589s/775346.jpg|1808852] many years ago and couldn't get into it, but when Tartt won the Pulitzer for [b:The Goldfinch|17333223|The Goldfinch|Donna Tartt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1378710146s/17333223.jpg|24065147], I wanted to give her another try. I ended up really enjoying this book.

The story follows six students who attend a small liberal arts college in Vermont. While one of them is from a middle-class family from rural California, the others are rich and raised with trust funds and prep school. What brings them together is an obscure Greek curriculum taught by an eccentric professor. Early in the book, you find out that one of them dies, and the rest of the book sets up the circumstances of his death. The book is told in first person from the less well-off student.

I don't remember a book that I've read recently that was so...taut emotionally. Even though I knew how the book would end - or at least what the defining event was - I was nervous for the characters as everything was happening. I also found many (if not all) of the characters extremely dislikable, but the book surprisingly compelling.

I'll give it a few months, then get into the Goldfinch.



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Review: Skeletons at the Feast

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Mom gave me this book last time I was in Florida - from the receipt inside, it looks like it was actually from Rochelle.

It was a gripping book - hard to put down but also terribly sad. I remember reading several books by Bohjalian, particularly [b:Midwives|5166|Midwives|Chris Bohjalian|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405281567s/5166.jpg|3221872] followed by a few others when that was popular, but I hadn't read him in at least a decade. I forgot how well he could tell a story and develop characters. Both of which - boy - he can.

This book is about several intersecting stories during WWII. One is about a few women in a concentration camp. One story line is about a Jewish man who survives WWII by pretending to be a German soldier. And the third story is about a German family who, when it becomes obvious that Germany is going to lose the war, begins to walk across the country in the hopes that the Scottish POW they have living with them will be their ticket to safety. I think it's the inclusion of the German family that makes this story unique among Holocaust literature I've read in the past.

One clever thing that Bohjalain does is contrast the trek that the German family is making with that of the women in the concentration camp. You're reading about the Germans, and how they are running out of food, then trading their jewelry for food, and being scared by the bombs and shooting. Then in the next chapter are unspeakable horrors at the camp and you remember that the Germans supported Hitler and don't actually have it so bad.

He does a lot of great character building - the young Jewish man, the POW, the daughter of the Jewish family, one woman at the camp - all of them are central characters, thoroughly described and developed.

I really enjoyed this and will be sure to put him back in my reading rotation soon.



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Review: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I've been enjoying the Outlander series for several years now, treating myself to a new book each time I go on vacation. For the Adirondacks this summer, I was up to #6. Coincidentally. Starz network chose this summer to air a miniseries adaptation of Outlander, so there was a lot of buzz about these books going on this summer.

This was definitely one of my favorites in the series. I thought it was really fascinating to see what was going on just when the Revolutionary War was starting. But was was really special about this book is that several long-running plot threads had some great payoffs - some of Jamie's family history, of Jocasta's relationships, of Lord John's story - many of them that have been building for so many books were resolved.

Unlike the last two books, which I liked but found a little long and far-fetched (yes, in the scope of a time traveler story, things can still be near- or far- fetched), this one kept my attention fully and I enjoyed every page. Can't wait until November when I embark on #7.



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Review: A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran

A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran by Shane Bauer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I think I heard about this book on NPR - in any case it is a shared memoir of three friends who were prisoners in Iran for several years. They begin by hiking in Iraq and either accidentally or carelessly end up crossing the border into Iran where they are captured and thrown in prison.

The book alternates in each of their voices telling the story. You can feel their struggles and their joys, and how they are alternatively feeling hopeful and hopeless. They capture the soul-dullingly boredom of prison, the agony of solitary confinement, and the confusing relationships they had with the guards. While they weren't tortured (and in fact were given sufficient food, clothing, and medical care), they were manipulated, tricked, and often played against each other. At times they were allowed to share rooms or free time, but other times they were isolated. The relationships they had with each other were complex and fragile.

Not just a political statement (although it is), this book is about surviving with little to no information. It is about friendship and love, and about persevering through the unimaginable as a team.



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Review: Townie: A Memoir

Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really liked this book. It is a memoir by an author whose books like [b:House of Sand and Fog|7944648|House of Sand and Fog|Andre Dubus III|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348794554s/7944648.jpg|932849] and [b:The Garden of Last Days|2079538|The Garden of Last Days|Andre Dubus III|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1409436719s/2079538.jpg|2084812] riveted me in the past. He is such a great writer, and his telling of his real-life story is no less consuming.

Andre and his three siblings live in New England and when his parents get divorced, they end up with his mom. The five of them struggle in poverty in different towns like Haverhill and Newburyport while his father becomes a professor at a nearby college, seeing the children once a week and either ignoring or not noticing the conditions under which they are growing up.

As he gets older, he turns to anger, and violence, and also forges an unusual relationship with his father. We know the ending - that ultimately he grows into a highly successful novelist - but the book ends long before that happens. How he gets there and what his formative years are like is the real story. What I liked most about this book was the writing - Dubus was able to describe both time and place as well as emotions with great skill.



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Review: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really interesting memoir.

Sierra Leone is bookmarked in my head as an African country with atrocities that have been going on for decades. I have to admit, I sometimes confuse it with Sudan and Rwanda - but this book was a sad education on Sierra Leone itself through the eyes of Beah.

Beah is a young boy - not even a teen - when civil war erupts in SL. He and several of his friends end up on the run, their families killed, trying to figure out how to live in a war zone. It is unclear to the reader and probably the boys who is right and who is wrong in the conflict - there are rebels and a national army and they seem to blend into one military force.

Beah ends up recruited into the army at 13, drugged and manipulated, and becomes a soldier. It is only after several years that NGOs and the UN step in to rescue him and many other boys in his situation (on both sides of the conflict). It is a testament to his core as a person as well as help he receives along the way that he emerges from this trauma as an optimistic functioning human being.



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Review: The Silver Star

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book, by the author of [b:The Glass Castle|7445|The Glass Castle|Jeannette Walls|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1400930557s/7445.jpg|2944133], was great. It follows the story of Bean and Liz, two sisters who go live with an eccentric uncle after their mother abandons them. It was hard not to draw comparisons between this novel and Walls' real childhood, where her parents were benignly neglectful, bordering on abusive with their childrearing style. In both cases, she (or in this case, the narrator, Bean) shies away from blaming her parents, rather, she is optimistic and ultimately perseveres.

This book was eminently readable. The narrator and her sister were very likable characters, strong little girls who tried their best to riddle out how to live in an adult world. The story and plot kept me interested, while the writing itself was easy to absorb and kept my interest.

I'll keep being interested in what Jeannette Walls writes.



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Review: Blowback

Blowback by Valerie Plame

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I really wanted to like this book. I had read Plame's [b:Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House|1815529|Fair Game My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House|Valerie Plame Wilson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327869499s/1815529.jpg|1815022] about her life as a CIA spy and figured this would be a really fun novel.

It barely qualifies as a good airport read crossed with a bad episode of Covert Affairs. The story followed spy Vanessa Pierson as she hunts down a known nuclear arms dealer who is otherwise impossible to find. She has assets, a secret boyfriend, and people who don't trust her in the CIA.

While I have a lot of respect for Plame in real life, her novel was not much more than pulp.



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Review: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is probably the top business book that has been recommended to me since I joined a startup. Now that I have read it, I can understand why - it ought to be required reading for anyone coming from a big company into a fast-paced startup. I had many a "a-ha" moment reading this, like "Oh, that's why we are shipping a product that seems incomplete...it's on purpose!"

The concept of Lean Manufacturing grew out of the Toyota Production Systems innovations of the mid-20th century. This comprised the idea of constantly improving systems, measuring more important things, and driving organizational learning. In grad school, I remember learning about this, and about its influence on the software industry. Agile/scrum development seems to have its roots in Lean.

So all this forms the backdrop for the ideas in this book - that companies and projects in general can use a lot of the same concepts that have fundamentally improved Manufacturing and Software Development. There's a real focus on learning and structuring the product development process to increase the speed with which everyone learns. (And it is worth pointing out that like Innovator's Dilemma, this is relevant for innovative parts of big companies, not just startups.) Two items stuck with me the most:

1. Vanity Metrics - Ries argues strongly against using vanity metrics when evaluating a change to a product. He says that too often metrics are chosen that look like improvements when really they aren't, like number of downloads (without number of repeat customers) or number of repeat customers (without number of paying customers.) He says you really need to know what you are measuring and why.

2. Experiments - Ries gives several examples of how you want to run experiments about your product in real life with real customers. If your audience is big enough, A/B test actual features. Release great products without all their features to see if you have Andreesen's elusive product/market fit. Ask focus group customers the right questions, not question your existing assumptions.

It's his examples that I liked the most - they were perfectly relevant and constructive. He's delightfully honest about how hard it is to learn this way by sharing his experiences at his company IMVU. In any case, this is a MUST-READ for people interested in the model for success in technical innovation in the next decade. It's in my mental bookshelf next to "Innovator's Dilemma" "Good to Great" and "Crossing the Chasm."



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Review: The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really interesting book. I saw it at Trident Cafe and bought it on a whim.

The story is about a young author (Marcus) whose author mentor Harry Quebert is accused of murdering a young woman. Marcus, who is having difficulty writing the followup to his best-selling book, puts his life on hold to help Harry clear his name in a small town in New Hampshire.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a classic mystery - with Marcus, I was figuring out what happened, among a cast of quirky, colorful, odd characters. I kept being surprised by twists in the plot, and I kept wanting to know what would happen next. I liked how some of the story was told through a book Harry wrote, and some of the story was told through a book that Marcus wrote.

While I did find a few sections in the middle a little slow, overall this book kept my attention and I enjoyed it.



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Review: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Michael Lewis never, ever (ever) disappoints. And this book was no exception.

Released with little pre-press lead-up, this book starts with a detailed description of a fiberoptic cable being laid through the Alleghany Mountains. *Through*, not *around*, being the operative word - because going through the mountains reduces the computer latency between NY and Chicago by a couple of milliseconds, and this is how people make money.

Lewis looks into this dark, weird, shady part of the financial industry, called "high frequency trading" that basically exploits unnatural benefits like millisecond differences in who has information when. His narrative follows some guys at Royal Bank of Canada who figure out what is going on and set out to find a different way to more fairly operate a stock exchange. As usual with Lewis, the characters were well-developed and appealing to follow.

Though the book was heavily criticized by insiders as being everything from entirely untrue to being a sales pitch for this new exchange, I think it's a case where criticism is indicating concern on the part of the incumbents.

As a stockholder, I was horrified by this book. As a reader, I was enthralled.



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Review: Some Girls: My Life in a Harem

Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I first heard Jillian speak on an episode of The Moth, on NPR. Her story - that of being a theater school dropout who interviews with a "casting director" for what turns out to be a gig "entertaining" the younger brother of the Sultan of Brunei - caught my attention.

It was the People Magazine-reading part of me that thought this would be an appealing story, and it was satiated at that level of quality. This was a fun read, a quick read, but not a high quality Jeannette-Walls read. I liked reading about her time with the other women in Borneo, and I was fascinated by her relationship with the Sultan and his brother. And I'll admit, I was more than a little curious reading about a harem and its goings-on.

But I didn't find the book uplifting, or the author particularly likable. She comes across as victimized but really made a lot of choices at a lot of junctures to get her where she ended up. Her brief forays into her personal life growing up and as a young adult didn't change my mind about her either, and seemed kind of choppy in the narrative.



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Review: Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession

Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession by Apostolos Doxiadis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A new friend at work recommended this book to me, and it was one of those things where you appreciate new book friends who expose you to books you wouldn't otherwise know anything about.

This novel was close to my heart in that it was about a mathematician who spent his life chasing an elusive proof of a difficult problem. The story is told by his nephew, who also pursues mathematics. I really liked the storyline itself as well as the glimpses of math. There is a pivotal plot element based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, which I spent several courses at school studying, so that was fun, too.

My only complaint was that the writing and the character development weren't great. And I think you really had to be a math person to read this That said, I'm glad I gave it a try!



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Review: Crow Lake

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Terry recommended this book to me years ago and I just go around to reading it. It was wonderfully written - very sad but great.

The story follows Kate Morrison and her two older brothers (Luke and Matt) and younger sister Bo. Growing up in Ontario, her parents are tragically killed when she is a child. Her older brothers sacrifice their own futures to keep the family together and the book follows the children into adulthood.

The writing in this book was superb. I could feel what the characters were feeling (heartbreak, yearning, hope) and see their surroundings. The characters were very likable, although imperfect, and the epiphany the protagonist goes through towards the end is one of the most striking I can remember reading recently.

Definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading another by the same author.



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Review: The Middlesteins

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really, really weird book. Meredith recommended it to me.

The story is about a woman who is obese. When her husband leaves her right as she's facing a medical emergency, there are ramifications for the entire family. The story jumps around in time, tracking her weight gain from when she is a child, through her career as a successful lawyer, through becoming a mother, and then as a grandmother. The story is told through many different perspectives, including her daughter-in-law, her children, her boyfriend, and even a unique chapter representing a group of couples that she and her husband knew socially for years through the synagogue. Some people try to help her lose weight, others enable her to continue gaining weight, and others just find her disgusting.

I thought the writing was really good in this book - simple and direct, but created moods and characters quickly and eloquently. All the characters were very well-developed, and the setting was too. Glad I read it.





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Review: Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital

Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't remember what list I originally found this on, but I thought it would be like reading the New York Times' "Well" column - clever and interesting anecdotes about a doctor at a large city hospital with quirky characters.

Not even close.

Manheimer is the Medical Director at Bellevue hospital, which is the oldest public hospital in the country, and yes, the one that has the psych ward featured on Law and Order. The stories he tells are much more complex politically and socially than I expected; they are less than about the medicine. There are illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, families with generations of obesity, convicts in Rikers Island, and even the author himself. (Manheimer suffered from throat cancer.) He and his wife have a house in Mexico and an affinity to Central America - and he uses that expertise with many of the patients who are Latino.

The book was significantly longer and more complex than I expected, but I really liked it.



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Review: Once We Were Brothers

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I had very mixed feelings about this book that Jo recommended.

It was billed as a "legal thriller", and opens in the present time when a senior citizens accuses a prominent civic leader and philanthropist of being a Nazi war criminal. The story is told in the present time, but large sections of it are flashbacks to Poland in the 1940's, as the senior citizen is telling his lawyer the story. It is, like many stories about the Holocaust, both a very individual story as well as that of a whole nation. Jews in Poland begin the war optimistic, then end up in some of the worst conditions known to humankind.

This book read as if it were a YA book. If it is designed to be a pedantic piece of historical fiction, then it did a good job. But as a modern novel, or even a thriller, its characters were not well-developed and the plot was pretty transparent. Something like [b:The Book Thief|19063|The Book Thief|Markus Zusak|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1390053681s/19063.jpg|878368] was a YA book but so uniquely written that it had wide appeal. This book was not that - I was caught up in the story (at least the story of the war) but not the writing or the book itself.

As an aside, it was a good reminder of the importance of continuing to remember what happened during the Holocaust.



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Review: February

February by Lisa Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Found this book in the "Globe and Mail" list a few years ago and finally got around to requesting it from the library. It was very sad but I'm glad I read it.

The story is about a woman who loses her husband when an industrial rig sinks. She has several young children, who she raises on her own. The book toggled between current day, where one of her sons finds out he is about to become a father, and the months around when she lost her husband. The characters were very well-developed, and while the story was tragic (and the description of the drowning devastating), I enjoyed reading it. The main character was in particular was incredibly complex - she does a lot of reflection on what her life could have been or what may have happened, and accepting that she did the best she could.

I'd definitely read something else by Lisa Moore in the future.



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Review: Ordinary Grace

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Jo recommended this book to me. I am not sure - I think maybe the first chapter had been excerpted somewhere because it was eerily familiar. Either way, I liked it.

The story is about a minister's family, told from the point of view of 13-year-old Frank. He has an older sister and a younger brother, and the story unrolls over a summer. At the beginning of the summer, a young boy is killed and Frank goes with his father to learn more of the details. Throughout the summer, there are more people killed and the small community struggles with grief, racism, and accusation.

What I liked most about this book was that it was a coming-of-age story more than it was a mystery. Both Frank and his younger brother are shocked by the events of this summer and grown into young men. The story was really well-written, the characters sympathetic, and the story interesting.




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Review: The Shoemaker's Wife

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My mom and sister both recommended this book, and for the most part, I really liked it.

It starts in Italy in the early 20th century, with two young people who meet under sad circumstances. Ciro is effectively an orphan, sent to live in a convent, who gets a job digging the grave of a child who has just died. That chid is the youngest sister of Enza, a large family's eldest daughter. Through various turns of plot, both CIro and Enza end up in America many years later, where they cross paths again, a few times, but often with bad timing in other relationships.

The first two-thirds of this book was great - I loved reading about their small towns in the mountains of Italy, their immigrations to the US, and their first few years getting settled and established in America during the 1930's and 1940's. He becomes apprenticed to a shoemaker, while she tries to find work as a seamstress. Ultimately they do end up together, which seems inevitable, but it is still fun to read about how that happens.

Where the book disappointed me was the ending. I found it to be too neat, too many loose ends all tied up. Not that everyone lives happily ever after (they don't) but a few coincidences are too coincidental at the end, and time speeds up too quickly. I'd read something else by Trigiani, because she really has that novelist's ability to transport her reader, but hope for a more well-developed conclusion.



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Review: On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Meh. This book was ok, not that good. I enjoyed McEwan's longer, more complex books much more.

This book mostly takes place all in one night - the wedding night of Edward and Florence. They are a refined, repressed young couple who have a proper courtship, a proper wedding, and are facing their wedding night with different sorts of panic. Florence, dreading the act, and Edward, not being able to wait for the act.

This is a short book, maybe 200 small pages, but McEwan fits a lot of character development into those pages. I did enjoy hearing about the characters' backgrounds and their courtship. The tension he builds during their wedding night dinner was very well-crafted. But after that I was kind of bored - their is a haphazard attempt at coupling, followed by a conflict, followed by a long multi-year denouement of the after-effects.

All in all, kind of a sleepy book.



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Review: Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell

Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this book. Having just started a new job in Kendall Square, it was really fun to be reading a book about innovation and in many ways that is what this book was about.

The title and subtitle of the book made it seem like it would be a hacker-like story, kind of like [b:The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage|18154|The Cuckoo's Egg Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage|Clifford Stoll|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385177918s/18154.jpg|19611]. And there definitely were parts that were exciting and had the characteristics of a thriller like that. But the book was really two stories - one was about the people who figured out loopholes in the phone system to make free calls, the other was about the phone company itself and how it developed.

See, to understand the hacking, you really have to understand the entire system and Lapsley did a great job interweaving the story from Alexander Graham Bell to the breakup of the local phone companies decades later with that of the hackers. Each time the phone company changed their technology to expand or offer new services, the hackers found new loopholes, some by technology and some by social engineering.

This book is definitely one of my recent favorites - but really only suitable if you are a geek. You'll appreciate Lapsley's writing style which is somewhat informal and irreverent, as well as the early hacker pioneers who he profiles very closely.



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Review: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really liked this book! I bought it at the end of my hiatus between jobs and it was the first book that I read on my "T" commute.

This is a memoir - part "Eat Pray Love" and part "A Walk in the Woods", It follows Cheryl as she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail (think Appalachian Trail but less well-traveled) alone, as a single woman. Through the book, she tells the story of her childhood, failed first marriage, descent into drug abuse, and circumstances that led her to decide to do the hike.

Also chronicled is the real-time experience of hiking - the blisters, the companions, the frustrations, the gear, the weather, the solitude, the miscalculations of difficulty and finances (and boot size), and the challenge of it all. As someone who has camped and hiked a handful of weekends, I was amazed that she took this 1,000 mile hike on.

This book really held my attention. I was fascinated by her stories, both the past and the current.

I'll be very interested to see how Reese Witherspoon captures her in the movie adaptation.



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Review: The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael D. Watkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Meh.

I start a new job tomorrow (YAY) and thought this would be good preparation to get back into the work mindset and get started on the right foot.

Some of the book was interesting - it categorized different types of new opportunities (Startup, Turnaround, Accelerating growth, Realignment, Sustaining). Subsequent chapters on setting goals and managing a team and other dimensions referred back to this STARS model.

There were some helpful tips on creating a learning plan, finding different types of people in the organization to help, and getting some quick wins in an area important to your manager. For me the best part was a short assessment than helped me see where some of my blind spots are (finance). I did appreciate the assessments and worksheets scattered throughout the book.

But overall I didn't think anything in the book was rocket science...I would have gotten the same value out of a short article.



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Review: The Racketeer

The Racketeer by John Grisham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Once again John Grisham does not disappoint. I was part way through [b:Life After Life|15790842|Life After Life|Kate Atkinson|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358173808s/15790842.jpg|21443207], hating it, and on vacation...so I chucked it for this and ended up much happier.

The story starts with a federal judge being murdered. An inmate in a white collar prison claims to know the identity of the killer and strikes a deal to provide that information to the feds in exchange for his freedom. The story is definitely not as straightforward as that, but that's at least a starting point.

The book is a fun romp - there's Witness Protection, a love story, a main character similar to [a:Nelson DeMille|1238|Nelson DeMille|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1377030719p2/1238.jpg]'s John Corey, a twisty plot, and about 40 pages where I was completely lost as to what was going on. I flipped back a bunch of pages, reread, was still lost, and soldiered on. The payoff at the end was worth it.

My only criticism was a few paragraphs in a few places where Grisham got on his soapbox around prison reform and legal system reform. But I'll allow him that...as long as he keeps writing books that are fun to read.



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Review: The Innocents

The Innocents by Francesca Segal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Confession: I didn't know this book was a modern retelling of [b:The Age of Innocence|53835|The Age of Innocence|Edith Wharton|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388248423s/53835.jpg|1959512] by Edith Wharton, and truth be told I've never read that anyway. And I almost didn't read this at all - Meredith recommended it but the story sounded trite. In a close-knit Jewish community in London, a young couple who has been together for years gets engaged, then the woman's promiscuous cousin comes to town and shakes things up.

But I am glad I decided to read it anyway - because it was well-written, subtle, and nuanced. While the high-level story isn't surprising, it's the journey of this book (vs the destination) that is so special. I enjoyed reading about the Jewish community in another country - both familiar and foreign. I also enjoyed following the plot. The characters were surprisingly well-developed and the story was compelling.

It also piqued my curiosity to read Wharton....



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Review: Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Anna Quindlen is definitively one of my very favorite authors. I particularly liked her first book, [b:Object Lessons|77478|Object Lessons|Anna Quindlen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389148994s/77478.jpg|1554085], and this is the next book of hers that I think even approaches that one in terms of quality, but I find all of her work so pleasant to read. When I read her books and essays I can really get lost in the worlds and families she creates and describes.

This book was lovely - reminded me of [b:Plainsong|77156|Plainsong|Kent Haruf|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388200586s/77156.jpg|1402373] in its being a simple story about people in a small town. A well-known artist leaves NYC for a small cottage in the country, and establishes a new life there. The characters are well-developed and likable, the story is nice to follow. It's the kind of book you can enjoy, and recommend to your mother, and to your grandmother.

I was happy to see Quindlen return to a simple story and focus on the storytelling and the characters. Some of her more recent books (like [b:Black and Blue|5157|Black and Blue|Anna Quindlen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1388459940s/5157.jpg|2349447] and [b:One True Thing|176839|One True Thing|Anna Quindlen|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320401814s/176839.jpg|1445239]) were so focused on a particular political topic or Big Theme that her value as a good writer got lost for me.



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Review: The Dinner

The Dinner by Herman Koch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I picked up this book at Barnes and Noble during a hiatus between jobs. This was a really unusual book and one that I liked it. The story was about two related couples whose sons do something (you don't find out what it is until part-way through the book) and they go to dinner together to decide what to do. The entire book takes place during the dinner, narrated by the father of one of the families.


In some ways, the book had a lot in common with [b:Defending Jacob|11367726|Defending Jacob|William Landay|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1329612158s/11367726.jpg|16298550], with a father-son relationship, a violent event, and a story told in flashbacks. However, the writing was very different from most books I've read. The narrator is oddly stoic, similar to the narrator from [b:Never Let Me Go|6334|Never Let Me Go|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1353048590s/6334.jpg|1499998]. Like that book, there's a reason for this behavior, but like that book, it puts a wall between the reader and the characters. This may be compounded by the book being translated from the Dutch, I never find translations to be as easy to connect with emotionally as books written in my native English.

The narrator is a really complex character, and I often couldn't put the book down, waiting to find out more about him. The other characters were very well-developed as well; the story was compelling and surprising. I definitely recommend this book.



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Review: Sing You Home

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I got stuck walking around Boston during one of this winter's snowstorms and ducked into the library instead of trekking home. Found this book on the shelf and started reading it while I waited out the storm.

I thought this book was OK. Pretty similar to most Jodi Picoult books - likable characters, political and ethical conflict, and very very readable. Sometimes with her books I wish for more linguistic complexity to match the complexity of the conflict and the plots.

The story starts with a marriage that breaks up over infertility. When the exes find new lives and new people to share them with, the question of what happens to their still-frozen embryos suddenly becomes very relevant. I liked the story and looked forward to reading it each night, but over all I didn't think the book was anything special.




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Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really special book. It's classified as non-fiction because of the extraordinary reporting and research that Boo did but it reads like a novel.

The narrative follows the lives of several families living in a shantytown outside the airport in Mumbai, India. I've never been to India but it a lot of the Caribbean I always wonder as I'm whisked from the airport to the resort, "who lives there, what are their lives like?" and this book answers that.

The poverty described here is not American poverty - it's not poverty with McDonalds or Cable TV - it's poverty with mud, and sheets that separate families, and polluted water as the local lake, and people who collect and sell garbage to support families of 10. All of this is the shadow of luxury hotels and with the imminent threat of the government bulldozing their homes.

There are several characters who Boo follows most closely, a young man who is supporting his family by finding and selling garbage, a one-legged woman who lives next door, the neighborhood politician who is trying to bridge herself into middle class politics, and her daughter who is going to college. It was hard to remember that these are all real people and not characters Boo made up.

Definitely recommend this book although it is a heavy subject. Kudos to Boo's reporting and attention to detail that brought this "undercity" to life.



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Review: Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football

Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this book. I first heard about it on NPR's It's Only A Game, and decided to read it right after the Super Bowl when my withdrawal symptoms from football were at their worst.

In this book, Dawidoff basically embeds with the Jets for the 2011-2012 season, as if he were a journalist embedding with a military unit. He attends practices and team meetings, travels with the team to all their games, and gets to know the coaches, players, and staff.

The 2011 season was a strange one - it was the year after Hard Knocks chronicled the Jets on HBO, the year after Rex Ryan's infamous foot fetish video, and the year of the labor strike that divided players from organizations for much of the off season. Cromartie and Sanchez and Holmes were key players that year.

It was really fun to ride along with Dawidoff. He did a great job characterizing the coaches and players, without idolizing them; Rex Ryan is profiled as a likable person, but not all the other coaches are. It was really interesting to hear how the Draft works from the teams' perspectives, and reading about training camp was fun.

It got even more interesting once the season began. I learned so much about how teams approach each game, what the rhythm of their week is like - how much a Thursday game throws them off, and what they do during the bye week. I learned a lot about football strategy as well - what differentiates one team's approach from another, and how they try to design an appropriate defense each week.

Definitely a must-read for football fans.



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When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman

When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

WOW WOW WOW.  This was an incredibly well-researched and well-executed book.  At 500+ dense pages, there were some sections where I slogged through a bit, but I am really glad I read this.

When I was a child, my dad took me to Washington DC with our synagogue to protest Soviet Jewry - I might have been 10 or so (it was the late 1980's) and I can remember being taught that Jews in Russia weren't allowed to practice Judaism and that we were going to DC to get our congressmen to change that.  I can remember singing the song the title of the book came from, and I can remember having a "Russian twin" who I mentioned at my bat mitzvah.  Books in my Hebrew School library abounded on this topic - Monday in Odessa is the one I remember most clearly.

So I was interested to read this book to fill in the gaps in my knowledge - little did I know it would be a sweeping history of Jews in the Soviet Union starting in 1963.

Beckerman puts forth two major factors that drove attention to the plight of Soviet Jews that were not clear to me as a 10-year-old.  One was that many American Jews felt guilty that they did not pressure the government to do more to save Jews during WWII, and saw this as an extension of the Civil Rights movement in their own country.  The other was that newly minted Israel needed an influx of immigrants to ensure its safety in numbers and voting.  These two factors are discussed at length throughout the book.

But part of why I enjoyed this book is that Beckerman also painted characters so quickly and sharply that it was easy to get to "know" people.  And there were all sorts of community organizers in the US, USSR, and Israel, there were politicians, dissidents, and many other types of people who joined in the fight.  Famous ones included Heschel, Weisel, Carlebach, Reagan, and most famously Shcharansky.  But the lesser-known people were also heroes fascinating to follow.

Things in the USSR were no joke.  For decades, Jews were regularly harassed, arrested, imprisoned, and exiled to Siberia.  They weren't allowed to practice Judaism (although many did in different degrees of secret), they couldn't learn Hebrew, or speak positively about Israel.  They lost their jobs once they applied for visas out, but few visas were approved and then they were stuck in the country where it was illegal not to have a job.  This was tens of thousands of people - 'refusniks' who could not leave.

There are many other dimensions to this book that I could write about - Soviet-US relations, politics in Israel, a long section appropriately dedicated to Shchransky's imprisonment, American immigration policy, examinations of the prevalence then fall of Communism within the USSR - but I'd summarize by saying that if this time in history is in any way intriguing to you, this is *the* book to read.


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This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am a big fan of Ann Patchett's, but with the exception of Truth and Beauty, her memoir of her friendship with now-deceased Lucy Grealy, I've only ever read her fiction.  This book is a collection of her essays spanning several decades of her life.  The essays range from those written for various magazines to speeches she's given.

I really enjoyed reading this - it was reminiscent of reading Anna Quindlen's work - written so smoothly and so easy to digest.  But like Quindlen, Patchett covers plenty of difficult subjects, including her failed first marriage, her current marriage, her decision not to have children, her career, and her friendship with Grealy.

Perhaps one of the most interesting sections was after Grealy's death when Patchett was hired to speak at Tulane's freshman invocation.  Right-wing conservatives at Tulane saw her friendship with Grealy as lesbian and perverse, and she is picketed, protested, and treated oddly during her visit.  Following this essay is the text from her speech as well.

But the book is far more than another memoir of her relationship with Grealy, it also is a memoir of writing, relationships, and even some more mundane adventures - like when she decided to try to get into the LAPD academy.  Overall, an enjoyable read.


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