Category: Books

Only one “grown-up” book this month and the rest of reading was full-up with books for children and teenagers.  But some good stuff there.

Read
Vivian Maier Out of the Shadows
Cahan & Williams
I found out about Vivan Maier because I downloaded the Fathom Events movie theater show of This American Life.  I paid five dollars to watch that show and I had an amazing two hours.  Vivian Maier was one of the discoveries.  This book publishes a retrospective of Maier’s work and short essays tell the photographer’s story.  Maier’s work is stunning–her portraits of people she encountered are moving.  Her body of work is even more amazing when a page of her negatives are viewed.  She mostly just took one shot of each subject.  But what a shot.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Benjamin Alire Saenz
Read for Librarian Book Group
Wonderful story of two friends in high school, chock-full of poetic details.  This deserves a longer review, because I really liked it, but it isn’t going to get one.

In Darkness
Nick Lake
Read for Librarian Book Group
This was dark and disturbing, but the good kind of dark and disturbing  where I’m happy the book has won major awards.  Good insight into 19th century slave rebellion and present-day Haitian ghetto (or so I assume, having not experience either time or place.)

Love and Other Perishable Items
Laura Buzo
Read for Librarian Book Group
I love this book and not just because I’ve written an essay on a similar topic. Here is why this book has a place in my heart.  Our female lead is Amelia,  a 15-year-old in typical adolescent transition.  Her parents seem unhappy; it’s that time when the boys are starting to notice the girls at school and she’s not sure what to do with that.  She works in a supermarket and is hopelessly in love with her 21-year-old coworker, though she knows nothing can ever come of it. “I’m not even sure what ‘getting’ Chris would involve; all I know is I want him” she says early on in the book.

Meanwhile, our male lead is Chris, the 21-year-old coworker at the grocery store.  He’s in his last gasps of college, his friends are moving on to other things and he’s paralyzed by both the looming future and a broken heart.  I love that this book details the post-college transition, which for me was horrible and made more horrible by the fact that no one told me it was coming.  I read a lot of novels and nothing ever addressed the transition to full-on adulthood.  This does.

It also captures the hierarchies of the supermarket.  If the author didn’t put in some hours working as a grocery clerk at some point in her life, she sure knows how to do her research.  The story is told in alternating voices, first Ameila’s, and then the journal of Chris.  In the beginning he has no idea Amelia feels anything for him.  What will happen when he figures it out?  Therein lies the dramatic tension.

This book is also funny, taking the ache of what one can’t have (for Ameilia, Chris; for Chris, his departed girlfriend) and finding the humor in the pathos.  Take this (rather long) excerpt from Chris’ journals:

“Last night was just a temporary setback, a stumble, a blip in the getting-over-it process.  I really was doing a bit better.  I was dealing with the pain.  Or at least successfully medicating it with ever-increasing amounts of alcohol and caffeine.  When I read back over what I’d written, I seriously thought about ripping out all the pages. It was a pretty poor showing all the way through, but when I got to the bit where I was writing out the lyrics from the Dire Straits “Romeo and Juliet” song, I had to rip that out.

“But then, I really want to be more honest in this dairy than I have been in past ones, so everything else stays in.  It’s bad enough that I present such a heavily edited version of myself to my friends and family; if I start editing my diary, it will reinforce my already overwhelming tendency to be gutless.  But let us never speak of it.

“For the record, she really did cry when we made love and said she loved me like the stars above and would love until she died.  But, you know, people say shit in the moment.”

I laughed, my heartstrings were tugged, I think you should read this.

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
Thom Hartman
Read for Kenton Book Group
The first third of this book outlines all the problems we’ve got going on, on this planet.  Since this book was published originally in 1998, it covered ground I was pretty familiar with.  No solutions were offered, though.  Then, there was a section about culture and then a third section.  Hartman is fond of “Old Way” thinking, characterizing modern society as “Young Way” thinking.  According to him, primitive cultures had it going on. But what to do about the fact that we don’t live in primitive cultures anymore?  There are no solutions in this book!  Near the end, I hit this paragraph which made things clear:

“Missing the point of a book like this is quite easy to do, because the book makes a radical departure from the normal fare of self-help and environmentalism.  It presents the problems, delves into the causes of them, and then presents as a solution something that many may think couldn’t possibly be a solution because it seems unfathomably difficult:  change our culture, beginning with yourself.”

Okay then.  I’m off to change the culture, beginning with myself.

Nelson Mandela
Kadir Nelson
Read for Librarian Book Group
Very pretty picture book.  Had one hitch in the narrative early on where I had to flip backwards to regain equilibrium.

Penny and Her Marble
Kevin Henkes
Read for Librarian Book Group
I found this to be so-so in that the values seemed rather traditional in a stagnated type of way.

I’ve joined a new book group which is going to send my month totals higher than they have been lately.  It’s a book group consisting mostly of people who are Youth Librarians at the Multnomah County Library.  Every month or so they circulate a list of picture/children’s/young adult books and then they get together and discuss them.  My favorite librarian friend mentioned I might enjoy this.  Would I?  You betcha’!  So my total this month is back up to eight, but three of those were picture books and went by quickly.

Read
I, too, am America
Langston Hughes
Illustrated by Bryan Collier
Read for Youth Librarian Book Group
I enjoyed the illustrations of this poem, and even more so when I read the note from the illustrator afterward.

Ellen’s Broom
Kelly Starling Lyons
Read for Youth Librarian Book Group
One of the things I loved about being a history major was finding out little details from the past.  The author seems to have the same enjoyment because this book is based on a little bit of history she found: a list of former slave couples who were finally able to really marry once they were free.  In this book, Ellen tells the story of her parents who were first married by jumping the broom, but after freedom were able to walk to the courthouse and make it official.  Illustrated with lovely woodcut illustrations.

Dodger
Terry Pratchett
Read for Youth Librarian Book Group
I loved this tale of the Artful Dodger as a teenager.  The book was lush with Victorian London details.  There was also fun slang and interesting characters, some taken from history, some taken from fiction.  Overall, it was a delight.

Love’s Winning Plays
Inman Majors
My library branch (the most excellent Kenton Library) had a “blind date with a book” display and I took this one home mostly because the two hearts on it said “Romance” and “College Football.” Intrigued, I tore open the wrapping and dove into a very funny tale of a Graduate Assistant Football Coach at a big football-centric state school in the South.  It did indeed provide me with both romance and college football and also enough laughs that I disturbed the boyfriend while he was taking a GRE practice test.

10 Little Indians
Sherman Alexie
Read for Kenton Book Group
Enjoyable stories about many different kinds of Indians.  This was the 2013 Everybody Reads selection of the Multnomah County Library and I found it (refreshingly) racier than the usual choices.  The stories were funny in places and sad in places and I greatly enjoyed reading them. 

The Leftovers
Tom Perrotta
A ticket-seller at Portland Center Stage gave this an “okay” review and thus I took my time getting around to read it.  I think he was spot on.  It was interesting to examine how different people deal with a good chunk of the population just disappearing, poof, into thin air. But it was not incredibly gripping.  A solid book, “good effort” is the rating I give.

Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog
Kitty Burns Floey
A short book full of the author’s love for diagramming sentences. As a child, I cried through most of my sentence diagramming units, but as an adult I want to have enjoyed the process.

Electric Ben
Robert Byrd
Read for Youth Librarian Book Group
History of Ben Franklin with each two-page spread covering a different period of his life.  Ben Franklin’s quotes are sprinkled throughout the book and also included on both inside covers.  It was interesting to realize how many of our sayings come from Mr. Franklin.

It’s 1/4 of the way through February and I haven’t written any of these reviews.  I’m going to do them now and I’m going to make them short.

Read
White Teeth
Zadie Smith
Read for Kenton Book Group
Loved it!  Funny!  Really crappy ending, but the rest was so delightful Zadie Smith is forgiven.  Also funny in a way you can read it on the train without people looking at you like you are a crazy person. It is more of a “snort to yourself” rather than a “cackle out loud.”

Peaches
Jodi Lynn Anderson
I got this because I loved the writing in the author’s Tiger Lily and I wanted to see if this had similar writing.  Alas it did not.  It was a solid good female friendship book, but not much else to write home about.

A New Dress A Day
Marisa Lynch
Interesting.  I think I will never do anything she does in this book, but I was curious to see how she transformed things.

Telegraph Ave
Michael Chabon
I don’t so much read novels by Michael Chabon as I immerse myself in words.  His novels are made up of a lot of words and this one is no different.  There were so many words, I couldn’t finish them all in a three-week period and had to return the book and request it again.

If you don’t mind immersing yourself in words, this book is a joy to read.  It’s full of interesting characters of many different generations, set in an interesting place and comes complete with an interesting plot.

Started and didn’t finish
Nothing Daunted
Dorothy Wickenden
I wanted to like this book, but the whole thing felt rather padded.  There were all sorts of digressions which were kind of interesting, but not really.  I probably would have eventually ambled to the end of the book, but it was called back to the library.

Five books!  Only five books!

Read
Othello
Shakespeare
For once the “modern analysis” at the end of the book gave me a very interesting insight into the play.  As usual, I enjoyed the performance much more than reading.

The Fault in our Stars
John Green
Matt and I read aloud
John Green makes for good read aloud.

Liar & Spy
Rebecca Stead
Read for Mock Printz
I enjoyed this book, the last I read for the Mock Printz Workshop, but I think it’s not a YA book. In fact, the library agrees with me, shelving it in the Juvenile section.  The prose was lively, the characters interesting.  I even put aside things so I could finish the book, which is always a good sign.  Also, two boy characters.   Always a good thing for the boy readers. 

Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar
Read for Kenton Book Group
I did not like this, Sam I Am, I did not like Hade-re-an.  The first person perspective made me feel as if I was trapped on an endless phone call with someone who never let me interrupt his soliloquy and ask clarifying questions.  There was a lot of surface and not much detail.  When I read historical fiction, I like to learn about the historic period in question. Hadrian’s endless blathering meant that I got a glimpse into things I might find interesting, but there was never any follow up on those things.   The book club member who chose the book began by apologizing for choosing it, because, though it is his desert island book, it is not a “book-club” kind of book, not being very linear.

Days of Blood and Starlight
Laini Taylor
Ah, the tricky “middle book” in a series of three where one must build plot, maintain characters, and juggle what happened in the book before this one with what will happen in the book after this one.  Taylor does a good job on all fronts.  We, who don’t have a clear memory to every plot point are looped back in with grace and there is inner struggle between the two ill-fated lovers.  Even friends manage to make the transition to the second book.  All in all, it was a pretty gripping read.  I’m a bit impatient for the third in the series.

Full-on Mock Printz prep this month. Plus a great non-Mock-Printz-YA Novel which will probably be a top 5 favorite for this year.  And Dennis Lehane’s new book, which I didn’t like very much, alas.

Read
The Brides of Rollrock Island
Margo Lanagan
Read for Mock Pritnz
This is that kind of fiction that I think is supposed to be “literary” because there are a lot of words, and pretty, carefully written words at that, but not a lot of explaining because, I guess, the author thinks the reader should be smart enough to figure things out.  But when it’s not really clear to me from the beginning what is going on, it’s hard for me to attach to the book.  Also, I didn’t find the characters very distinct from  one another, so I was always a bit confused.  That said, there are a few pages in the last quarter of the book that are beautifully written and if you “need” to finish the book, just keep waiting for them. They might make the whole book worth it.

Every Day
David Levithan
A very clever plot device (main character wakes up in a different body every day) executed brilliantly by Mr. Levithan.  This book questions the nature of gender, love, brain chemistry, sibling relationships, family relationships, body type, race, sexual orientation and probably other things I’m forgetting.  I couldn’t figure out how he was going to end the book in a way that made everything okay, but he did it.  I will be recommending this for years, so you should go and read it now so I don’t have to harangue you.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Emily M. Danforth
Read for Mock Printz
I recently lamented that all the up-and-coming actors in my age demographic have either become “too old” and disappeared (mostly the women) or have become established actors, full of gravitas (mostly the men.)  However, it seems the novelists in my age demographic are just now really getting started. Ms. Danforth would be a novelist in my age demographic who has set her story in the same period (more or less) when I attended high school which had a lot to do with my enjoyment of this book.

But!  I also liked that it was set in a tiny Montana town where a friend lived and worked after college and I have even visited that town so I could picture it in my mind’s eye.

And!  I loved it was a coming-of-age novel about a lesbian as those are in short supply (at least I think so, I don’t come across them often.)

Also! I loved the writing–at least three passages made it to my quotes page–and the characters were great. Danforth is quite good at capturing little details that made the story come alive.  The hair tucking of the young minister who looked like Jesus, or Eddie Vedder was one such example. This was one of those books I liked so much I was recommending it to people before I had even finished it.


The Quitter
Harvey Pekar
Read for Book Group
Eh.  It’s a graphic novel, which aren’t my medium.  And I’m not the biggest fan of Harvey Pekar’s schtick.  I thought the art was a good fit for the time period, but I didn’t love this book.

Live by Night
Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane, here are the things you do very well as an author:  You create fabulous characters, fully-formed, flawed, smart and smart-assed.  You write plots that are interesting, complicated, a bit dark and have a social justice bent to them.  These things are very good and will keep me always reading your books. But you know what you do better than everyone else?  Star-crossed love.  And when your book, interesting as it might be and this one was, does not have star-crossed love I feel a great sadness and find myself feeling a bit cheated.  So you maybe you want to move away from star-crossed love.  Okay, I’ll still read your stories.  But I’ll be patiently awaiting your next book with star-crossed love.

Ask the Passengers
A.S. King
Hey look, it’s another book about a girl who likes a girl!  And it deals with that whole “questioning” issue.  That’s a good thing.  I think there is a lot of questioning going on.  Overall, I thought this was a pretty successful book. The main character’s relationships with her sister, family, friends and girlfriend felt pretty true-to-life.  The “ask the passengers” device never stopped feeling like a device.  But I kind of liked it.

Started and did not finish
Moonbird
Read for Mock Printz
I get a big heavy feeling in my chest when I read about species in peril because it seems to be too big of a problem for anyone to solve and the whole thing feels hopeless.  This book is about the amazing journey of a bird, but  it’s also about the trouble his fellow birds are in.  I don’t know what to do about that and dealt with my despair by putting the book down and never picking it up again.

Also, I found the prose rather breathless.  And that annoyed me.