Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Laura B (now Laura H) recommended this book to me after her book club read it.  Within thirty pages I kept remarking to Web as I read it each night before bed, “this is an incredibly ambitious book” and I think that summarizes how I feel about it.  Ambitious-good, as in, choosing a very lofty theme and complex route to get there, not ambitious-bad, as in, sets high expectations for itself them doesn’t meet them.  This may well be the best-crafted book I’ve ever read.

The story takes place in the summer of 1974, around the time when Philippe Petit found a way to string a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walk across it.  The story of how he prepared for this feat is like a memorable musical theme that plays throughout the book, but it isn't the main plot.  The story is about ten New Yorkers and what their lives were like that summer.  The characters range from prostitutes and graffiti artists to a set of mothers who have lost their sons in Vietnam.  Each character is incredibly well-developed, and many of them are also incredibly sympathetic. 

What is special about the book is how McCann ties all the stories together and calls on Petit's story as an interlude.  His capture of place and time is exquisite.  I think it will be a while before I find another book as special as this one.

The Glister by John Burnside

This book made several of the year-end lists in 2010 so I picked up a copy.  The premise was compelling – a town built near a major chemical plant starts experiencing strange disappearances of its young men.  I expected it to be an eco-thriller, and I was under the impression it had a supernatural bent.

Well, it may have started out that way.  The writing was good and the characters interesting.  The narration passed from one character to another, not linearly.  However, at some point I just totally lost track of what was going on.  Those of you who read this blog regularly know that this is not a normal occurrence for me.  But Burnside took a left and I kept going straight and then the book ended. 

Certain online reviews expressed a similar confusion.  Can’t say I would recommend this book, and I feel cheated out of what I thought it would be.

Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer

This was another book I had on my list from the year-end reviews.  The action starts when a man accidentally sees another man hurting a seemingly harmless dog and decides to intervene.  The story is about what happens to each of them, and what the impact on each of their lives and relationships this meeting has.  It is also about the background each of the men has.

I though this book had great potential.  The characters were guided by very strong moral directions which made them easy to connect to or root against.  I also enjoyed the drama and build up that the author represented with internal dialogue.  However, something did not work for me overall in this book.  The main character’s girlfriend was a very spiritual person who writes self-help books – think Elizabeth Gilbert.  But she was also overly sexual, which I couldn’t help but be distracted by and suspect the male author of fantasizing a bit.  I also didn’t love the book as it went on: the final third was not that compelling and some of it seemed reasonably predictable.

I think I’d try something else by this author but this one didn’t do it for me.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Sara in my book club suggested this title and it was a great choice.

The story is about a group of slave women who accompany their plantation masters annually to a vacation resort in Ohio.  The premise is unusual and I was glad to find out it was based on a true story, because it would have required a significant suspension of disbelief otherwise.

Lizzie, the main character, is a likable woman.  She has several children with her master and is very focused on ensuring that her kids have access to education and other benefits.  She describes being in love with her master, and feeling like he loves her back, but the reader can easily see that his special treatment of her is far from a healthy love. The first part of the book talks about her first summer at the resort with him.  In later parts of the book, Lizzie relates how her relationship with her master started, and what the (strange) logistics were around their interactions on the plantation.

It was hard to read the descriptions of how cruelly the slaves were treated.  One minute they are sitting in a dining room with their masters, "playing house" and the next minute they are shackled to a tree as punishment for something.  Equally hard to read was the differences they could see between their own lives and the glimpses of freedom afforded to blacks in the North.  I had a hard time remembering that this occurred reasonably recently.

This book was an easy read, written in a style that reminded me of YA books used in a classroom setting.  That didn't take away from my fascination and sadness in the story.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

The title of this book caught my attention as a clever idea - I like when authors play around with the meta-components of a story.  In this case, the story is about a boy whose father builds time machines.  As he grows up and goes into the business of repairing time machines, he comes to terms with the complex relationships that define his family.

Yu makes many obvious nods to the pantheon of classic science fiction.  Readers are expected to be familiar with ideas like the paradox of meeting one's self while time-traveling and the alternate realities that spring up every time you make a decision.  The main character has a relationship with his custom computer and his "nonexistent but ontologically valid dog."  All of that was clever and fun to read. 

But what I really liked about the book was that all of this was really a mechanism for writing the story of how someone can grow up and learn about their parents as people.  Certainly science fiction fans would enjoy the setting and innovations, but the story was sweet too.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but continually expecting a different result.  Which is what I did when I decided to read another one of Jonathan Franzen's books. 

The book starts off pretty well, it's about a family living in the suburbs and Franzen does a great job describing the place in their neighborhood this particular family had.  Patty, the mom, is a near-perfect wife and mother, Walther, the dad, is reserved but well-liked.  Their son Joey is difficult, dating the slightly lower-class next-door neighbor's daughter, and their daughter Jessica was a near-perfect child. 

After an initial introduction, the book changes into a memoir written by Patty about her life growing up leading to how she met and married Walter.  This part of the book was enjoyable as well - Walter's charismatic roommate, Patty's manipulative best friend both figuring prominently in the story.  But after this section, the book take a difficult turn.  The narration leaves the memoir and follows different member of the family.  Some of their stories - like Joey's failed businesses - are interesting.  But some parts of the book are significantly overwritten and veer into very strange political commentary. 

By the time I was 2/3 of the way through the book I was exhausted!  The details were extensive, the speeches some of the characters give way too long, and the overall story loses its direction.  The characters each make predictable mistakes.  Then they have to find their way back to being authentic.  By the end of the book, most of the loose ends were tucked neatly away, but at 550+ pages, I didn't really care that much by then.

I think I'm pretty much done with Franzen.  Sorry, Oprah.

The Angel's Game by Gabriel Ruiz Zafon

This book had been on my reading list for a while; I believe it was on one of the year-end book lists.  It is a mystery set in Barcelona in the 1920's. 

I was hoping to like this book.  The story is about a young author who is fired from his job at a newspaper and then approached by a mysterious man to write a particular book for him.  The man is not who he seems, and neither are some of the other characters.  Ruiz Zafon does a wonderful job evoking a creepy, gothic Barcelona that is scary and damp and filled with suspicious characters.  But where the book fell short for me was that the plot was very complex with a long cast of characters.  Significant portions of the book were devoted to discussions of theology and belief systems that did not connect to the plot for me.  And there were several surprises and plot twists that were annoying to me rather than delightful.

Ruiz Zafon remains one of the most admired contemporary mystery authors, but this one missed the mark for me.

Makers by Cory Doctorow

WOW.  Wow.  WOW.  Loved.  This.  Book.

I don't remember where I first read about this book but the author's name caught my eye since he's one of the editors at Boing Boing, a great tech blog.  I took it to Belize and could not put it down.  It was a wild ride and I kept appreciating Doctorow's storytelling ability as well as his sharp eye for how technology impacts us.  I will warn you, though, that this book is not for everyone.  If you are not a geek, nerd, techie, or otherwise appreciative of things like the idea of a 3-D printer, then I'd skip this.

The story is incredibly imaginative and I don't want to ruin too much.  One of the first things that happens in the story is that Duracell and Kodak merge, and the new company's mission is to fund innovation in small pockets around the world.  Silicon Valley reporter Suzanne flies to Miami to check out what engineers Lester and Perry are funded to do - and she discovers them living in an abandoned mall cranking out interesting things on a 3-D printer.  In the early part of the book, Doctorow's demonstrates his grasp of how innovation can be iterative. 

As the book goes on, he exercises his ability to make social commentary about IP law and corporate espionage.  Then while you were busy paying attention to that, he's made you completely invested in several characters fraught with foibles.  And once you are distracted by that, he starts in on the value of open source communities and user-created communities, but without really making the book about technology.  Oh, and he takes on Disney and dieting on the way because, heck, why not?

I came away from this book with my brain chugging to keep up with Doctorow; I felt like he was a tour guide to the future. 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Mer recommended this book to me and then I suggested it to my bookclub.  It was fantastic.

The book is about a widower who lives in a small town in England.  Upon the death of his brother, he becomes embroiled in estate problems with his brother's family and his son.  At the same time, he grows close to a Pakistani widow who runs a shop in town.  In his quest to navigate his family and his love life, he must break with many of the social norms of his proper English town. 

There were two things I really enjoyed about this book.  First, there was something reminiscent of Alexander McCall Smith's work in the earnestness of the characters and their simple situations.  Like in his books, the writing was clear and easy to read, and the plot was simple to follow.  Both of those qualities often made me forget how ambitious the book was.

The other thing I enjoyed was how well Simonson captured the inconsistent nature of "proper" society.  Her depictions of neighbors interacting and of social events perfectly described the implicit prejudices around race and class that the characters would have, on the surface, denied. Many reviews have referred to this aspect of  the book as being a "novel of manners" in the spirit of Jane Austen.  Perhaps it is past embarrassing that I haven't read anything of hers by now.

All told, a great read.  I'd try something else by Simonson but (impressively) this is her first novel.

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

I have been saving this sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for vacation, so when we left for Belize I started it on the plane.  While the first book in this series had a raft of characters to develop and describe, this book focused on a subset of those characters.  In particular, this book is really about Lisbeth Salander: she becomes more obviously the central character than she was in the first book.

Salander begins the book more balanced and adjusted than we've seen her in the past.  She deals with real estate problems and updates her appearance.  She does ultimately kick ass and take names, but before that happens, her character has matured and we get to know her better, including some detail about her early life.  We also follow Mikael Blomkvist, the publisher from the first book, who decides to publish an expose on the sex trafficking industry.  Blomkvist and Salander begin the book in unrelated storylines but ultimately (not without Salander's hacking skills) their paths cross again.

I enjoyed this book even more than I did Dragon Tattoo.  I thought the characters were more compelling and the story easier to follow.  I also appreciated Larsson's continued themes around exposing abuse of women as a major social problem.  I can't wait for my next vacation to read the final book in the trilogy.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I suggested this book to my book club and it was our February pick.  Many of my book friends have been reading it and it received numerous positive reviews. 

This novel is about a set of twins who are orphaned in an small Catholic Ethiopian hospital.  They are lovingly raised by a married doctors who work there.  The book chronicles their lives from birth through adulthood, spanning both Ethiopia and the U.S.  While the twins are very different personalities, they are quite close, and both become doctors themselves.  The narrative switches between a few different voices, but the majority of the story is told by one of the twins.  Though ultimately professionally successful, he struggles with issues of identity for much of his life, haunted by his missing parents. 

I liked this book but it was long in places. There were descriptions of medical procedures that seemed unnecessarily detailed, as well as a lot of detail around the political backdrop of Ethiopia.  That said, it was also stunning in places, with exceptional writing and twists in the story that I was not expecting.  About halfway through the book it dawned on my that the memoir I had just finished reading was also set in Ethiopia and it was interesting to compare the depiction of the country in both books.

For my doctor friends I'd say this is probably required fiction, for everyone else, it's for the readers more tolerant of a long, involved, densely written story.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ewa recommended this to me several years ago and although I have given it to several people as a gift I had not read it myself. 

Ali's memoir of her childhood in Africa and subsequent immigration to Europe is memorable and shocking.  She grows up in both Muslim Ethiopia and a secular Kenya, and as she gets older is troubled by the treatment of women in Islam.  Her childhood is very traditional - she is ritually circumcised, her absent father makes a lot of the family decisions, and she sees women being beholden to men's choices.  The first third of the book that covers this part of her life is gripping, but long.  At some points it was confusing as to why so much of the book was what felt like background.

The next part of the book chronicles her escape to the Netherlands where she seeks asylum and settles into this very different society.  She has a boyfriend and a job, and decompresses from her years of oppression.  The contrast between her life in the Netherlands and that of her life in Africa is where many of her political ideas come from.  At some point in the book she begins to argue quite aggressively that Islam is bad for women and thus bad for societies.  She suggests that any Islamic country is intrinsically backwards based on their treatment of women.

It is this core belief that begins Ali's ascent into politics, which is the subject of the third and final part of the book.  She becomes a highly public figure in Holland politics and, at times, is seen as quite contraversial.  As she struggles with the demands on her public life, she faces difficult choices in how much is at stake when she stands up for what she believes in.

I enjoyed reading about Ali's life and I appreciate the honesty in her memoir.  While the flow of the narrative was uneven, the story was fascinating. 

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

This was a great book - not sure how I missed it a few years ago when it was on the bestseller list.

The story starts as a courtroom drama - a man has been accused of murder in a small town on an island off the coast of Washington state.  The accused is Japanese and the victim Caucasian.  Since it is 1954, the memories around WWII, both foreign and domestic, are still fresh. While parts of the book revolve around the proceedings of the case in a way familiar to those of us in the Law & Order generation, other sections dive into many of the characters' personal histories.  Most memorably, the accused, the victim, the accused's wife, the prosecutor, and a local reporter.  Through these characters' backstories, the town's character is also revealed. 

The most memorable moments in the book were not around the case.  One that sticks in my mind was when the Japanese learned they were being taken away from their homes.  Another notable section described the relationship between a Japanese man and a family he was purchasing land from.  And there is a love story between two characters when they were teenagers that is similarly unforgettable.

Several years ago I read When the Emperor Was Divine, also about this period in history.  While I remember that book as ethereal - strong characters without names - a single family's devestating experience in an internment camp told in what I remember as a fugue/dream - this book was much more solid.  I like to think of these books together, telling different versions of a similar trope.

It's only January, but I suspect this book will be one of my favorites for the year.  It had solid plot, interesting characters, excellent setting of place and time, and a good resolution. 

Book Spree

I got a gift card at work a few months back and I've been wondering what to do with it.  Today I decided to go on a shopping spree at Barnes Noble.  With a trip to the West Coast next week and vacation soon after I got everything in paperback.

Here's what I got.

Cutting for Stone
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Let the Great World Spin

Makers
Angel's Game
Those Who Save Us
The Glister
Too Much Happiness
Pack of Two
Velva Jean Learns to Drive

I'm very excited.

What to Read in 2011

WOW - Not barely out of 2010 and The Millions had a comprehensive list of great books scheduled to publish in 2011.  Kevin Brockmeier, Ann Packer, and Ann Patchett all have new books as do a slew of other authors.  it is hard to believe how long my reading list is about to get!

http://www.themillions.com/2011/01/most-anticipated-the-great-2011-book-preview.html