Notes From the Officer's Club

Book 4: The Lost Wife

2012-01-19T20:36:00.001-05:00

When I was younger, I read a lot of novels and books about World War II. These topics still tend to show up quite a bit in my reading lists, though I no longer necessarily pursue them actively. However, if someone recommends a Holocaust book or I stumble across one at the book store, I will usually pick it up. While browsing through Barnes and Noble last weekend (I had a four day weekend, and somehow, whenever I feel like I should leave the house but have no clue what to do, I always end up at the bookstore with a chai latte or white chocolate mocha), I noticed this novel on the shelf due to the vintage looking picture in a European setting (it's Prague, but I wasn't looking closely enough to consciously register that at first glance). After reading the back cover, I was sold. Now, as many Holocaust novels as I've read, I am not sure if I'm a good judge of them. Since it is a topic I have read so much over the past, one would think that would make me a harsh critique. Instead, I seem to have a blind/soft spot for these novels, and I will rarely find faults with them. For example, in any other novel, I would probably be skeptical of the love story or slightly cynical, but in this case, I basically accept that these characters meet and fall in love quickly (I also started this right after A Discovery of Witches, so I may have felt it was unfair that I bought Josef and Lenka's love story but not Diana and Matthew's, but really these characters are more developed in half the time).

The novel begins with a wedding in the present day. The groom's grandfather and the bride's grandmother meet for the first time at the rehearsal dinner, and the grandfather feels that he knows the grandmother from somewhere. The chapter ends with the man, Josef, declaring that he is her husband. From there, the novel flashes back in time to Prague in the 1930s, and alternate chapters between Lenka and Josef. The set up is interesting: while Richman alternates between the two characters, the stories are actually very different. Josef tells a story of life after loss, and his marriage to Amalia, another Jewish woman, whom he met after the end of the war. While discussing his life after the war, he occasionally goes back further as he reminisces about certain scenes in his life. However, for the most part, Josef tells about his life with Amalia and his children, their quiet and muted love that is rather passionless but safe. Both suffer from survivor's guilt, and Josef remains haunted by the thoughts of his first love, Lenka. Normally, it would bug me if someone was still obsessing about their first love after fifty years, but this wasn't a normal break up - Josef believes that he lost her to the war and the Holocaust. It's a relationship that ended unnaturally and suddenly and as result, it haunts him. Lenka's story on the other hand is one of survival, covering her time in Prague, as the rules get stricter and stricter until she and her family are moved to Terezin (Theresienstadt), the "model" concentration camp, or the one that Nazi officials used to show the Red Cross that they weren't mistreating the Jews.

Since Richman uses Terezin as a setting, she introduces many actual historical figures. Lenka was an art student, and ends up working in the art department, surrounded by men and women whose secret work, buried throughout the camp, survived the Holocaust to give witness to their experiences. Some of the people Lenka meets and knows include Bedrich Fritta, Leo Haas and Otto Unger. In fact, Richman's description of Otto's death reminded me of a scene from the TV miniseries Holocaust (back before Netflix, my dad would borrow very random things from the library) which may well have been inspired by the actual artist's life. The miniseries Holocaust and the film The Last Butterfly both explored life in Terezin since it was such an oddity, though I can't think of many novels at this moment that devote much time to Terezin. I'm sure there are some, but most tend to focus on the bigger camps (Auschwitz was also addressed in this novel since that's where many of Terezin's prisoners were eventually deported to). The prisoners of Terezin lived in squalor, misery, and fear, and yet they also had some chances and freedoms that weren't available in other camps. Richman explains in an interview that her original intent with this novel was to write about the Holocaust from an artist's perspective, and the love story idea came later after she overheard a conversation about a situation similar to the one that starts off the novel.

I thought the novel worked well; obviously, the reader knows that Lenka will survive, but I really enjoyed how Richman explored these characters' lives. I would warn that part of the back cover was misleading (at least to me). At one point, it states that "an unexpected encounter in New York leads to an inescapable glance of recognition, and the realization that providence has given Lenka and Josef one more chance." This novel doesn't explore this second chance. The wedding is used purely as a framing device, and while part of me was curious how things would play out between Josef and Lenka after all these years, the novel ended exactly where it needed to end. Basically, I definitely recommend this novel, although one further caveat: my copy of the novel calls it "The Sophie's Choice of this generation" - I feel like that statement does the novel a disservice, not because this isn't a good novel, but because I don't think the storylines of these two novels compare are really that parallel to each other. I could be wrong on that, though - Sophie's Choice didn't actually leave much of an impression on me.

Book 3: Bury the Chains

2012-01-17T20:28:00.002-05:00

Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild

I actually picked this book up because I was interested in Hochschild's book To End All Wars, but I wanted to check out his writing style before buying a hardcover book by an author I'd never read. While I still haven't picked up To End All Wars, another one of his books, King Leopold's Ghost, has made it to my to read pile since I started reading this. Being an American, I of course had the same American history class in 8th grade, 11th grade, and then the AP version in 12th grade. I also majored in history (among other things) in college, so I'm definitely aware of the big picture history of how slavery ended in the United States and some of the debates and conflicts leading up to the Civil War, and finally the end of slavery. However, I knew much less about what was going on across the ocean in Britain - I vaguely knew that slavery there had ended around 20 years before the Civil War started, and that the British didn't fight a war in the process of abolishing it. It vaguely made sense to me because it's not like England had much use for slavery. As it turns out, that is a very simplified version of looking at it, and this book tells the history of how the British Empire came to abolish first the slave trade and finally slavery itself.

Hochschild introduces the year 1787 as watershed year for the British abolitionist movement. In Britain, abolitionists didn't refer to people trying to end slavery; it referred to people trying to abolition the slave trade which included the journey over the middle passage that has become so famous. In the first part of the book, he describes the slave trade, and its importance to the British economy. He states that when the twelve men got together to formally begin the abolitionist movement, banning the slave trade would be comparable to starting a group that intended to get rid of cars - it was simply that big a part of the economy of the Empire and a part of live. He also introduces the men that would have such influential roles in swaying public opinion. For example, there was Granville Sharp, who was involved in a myriad of causes, and from an influential family. He played a role in a court case that would end slavery in England itself. As Hochschild explained, the ruling didn't quite state that, but that's what everyone thought it stated, and in a case of "perception is reality," the court case effectively ended slavery in England - if someone brought a slave there, they weren't slaves any longer. Another important man would be Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, who would be one of the first men to put his story to the page, thus gaining the sympathy of many. Thomas Clarkson was one of the driving forces in the movement and devoted his life to spreading the word. Additionally, the group quickly gained on member of parliament as part of its team, William Wilberforce.

While it wasn't easy going, and the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade faced many defeats and obstacles, Hochschild demonstrates just how innovative they were. Many of the things that groups still do today to raise awareness can be traced back to this society, who either invented or perfected the methods, such as newsletters, strategic boycotts (the boycotts against sugar were much more effective than the American boycott of tea), and collections of facts. Clarkson spent a large part of his time finding witnesses that told of the conditions on slave ships, on plantations, and the effect this industry had on white men, who were sometimes kidnapped or forced into contracts as sailors on these ships (speaking of the ill effects this had on white Englishmen helped the cause because it made it hit closer to home). The abolitionists realized that it was easier to raise people's sympathies by giving them the facts than citing religious texts. Though the slave trade wouldn't be abolished until 1807, public interest caused parliament to have hearings on the subject only five years after the society formed.

While slavery wasn't important in England itself, it played a huge role in the British Empire due to the actual slave trade, and the sugar plantations in places like Jamaica. The society originally focused on the abolition of the slave trade because they believed that without a constant resupply of slaves, slavery would eventually die out. While this would not be the case, the slave rebellions in Haiti (or St. Domingue) and the extreme loss of money and life that resulted from British involvement in trying to suppress these rebellions eventually led to more people being opposed to slavery. As it turns out, just because there wasn't a civil war doesn't mean that the British didn't participate in wars that had to with slavery.

I really liked this book - the end of slavery in the British Empire was something I knew very little about and had a rather simplistic view of prior to reading this. Hochschild states that he purposely doesn't get into the politics of the American abolitionist movement, but the book is still far-ranging, covering several decades and places on either side of the Atlantic. It certainly wasn't a simple journey, and Hochschild talks about the way this story was originally written in history. Since slavery was abolished due to both members of parliament, and a group of civilians, there were two routes through which this could have been seen: the benevolent empire giving freedom to all and being a shining beacon to the rest of the world, or a group of revolutionaries that engaged the public and forced the government's hand. For over a century, the first view won out, almost leaving people like Clarkson out of history (Clarkson was the only one of the twelve original members that survived to see slavery abolished in 1838). Fortunately, this book is a rather fitting tribute to the movement, showing how all the events came together that led to the abolition of slavery. Of course freedom didn't solve everything: owners were given financial restitution when the government freed their slaves, and the freed men and women were left to fend for themselves with no resources. Hochschild certainly doesn't try to glamorize the men, and later women, that were part of the different anti-slavery societies. Much like in the States, many of these people were confused as to how they felt about freed blacks and what they felt their roles should be. Some of them were paternalistic while others were oddly conservative when it came to just about every other topic, but overall they achieved something that would have seemed almost impossible when they started. I also liked that Hochschild didn't just show the white perspective. He included Equiano, and the slave rebellions in the West Indies, preventing this from being simply a story about white people being benevolent saviors.

Book 2: A Discovery of Witches

2012-01-16T11:06:00.003-05:00

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

This novel has been showing up in my Amazon recommendations for a while now, but I kept hesitating. I think the main issue for me was the part of the back cover that describes it as "equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense" - don't get me wrong, I enjoy a well written love story plot line as much as anyone but the word romance makes me think Harlequin. When Barnes and Noble had a whole shelf end devoted to the paperback edition of this novel, I ignored my instincts and picked it up. After all, this could still be an exciting story, and using the term romance may have been a way to appeal to a broader audience. Unfortunately, I should have trusted my gut.

The most simple way to describe this novel is an adult version of Twilight (except an adult version of Twilight would have sex, and this book doesn't). I feel a bit bad labeling it as such since the author obviously put a lot of work into the research, and unlike Meyers, can actually write a sentence (is it world-shattering, breath-taking prose? No, but it's grammatically coherent). However, it suffers from many of the same flaws as Twilight: a controlling man who is supposed to be romantic, two hundred pages of them staring at each other with little plot development, and lots of mooning which was pathetic for a 100 year old vampire but unforgiveable for one who is 1500 years old. Matthew, our vampire, also spends a lot of time talking about how hard it is to resist Diana and there is a lot of talk about what people, or Diana specifically, smell like (Buffy: "Did anybody ever tell you the whole smelling people thing's a little gross?")

However, a lame love plot with boring characters isn't the novel's only pitfall. I love historical fiction, and a few authors that have written good historical fiction have talked about some of the temptations they have to avoid: sometimes as part of their research, they discover fascinating and fun facts that have no place in the novel. It can be hard but as a novelist, it isn't the author's job to tell the reader every little detail they learned, it is their job to make the reader feel like what they are reading is authentic. The author needs to know the fun, obscure facts to make the novel real but the author isn't supposed to just list all the facts for the reader. Harkness obviously did a lot of research on a variety of topics, but there are several points where she just drops names or topics and they have no connection to the book. Matthew is old, got it, does that mean I need to know every single famous person he ever knew? One or two would have been sufficient. There are long discussions of wine, vintages and tastes - I drink wine but I can't distinguish flavors very well beyond sweet, fruity, and "not sweet, take it away." Learning about wine at a wine tasting would be very fun. Reading about people having a wine tasting is a lot less so, especially when they describe it as tasting like "chalk and butterscotch" - I'm not even sure if that's supposed to be good. There is a scene where Diana makes dinner for her new vampire friend, and it just gets annoying how much she describes what she might cook for him. Why do I care? I don't even cook for myself. Harkness also repeats herself quite a bit but also seems to contradict herself a lot. I can't even say how often she mentioned in the first hundred pages that the three species of creatures (daemon, vampires and witches) don't mix or like to interact.

Honestly, the worst part is that this novel actually had some good ideas and really could have gone somewhere if Harkness hadn't been distracted (was the yoga really necessary?) or had tightened her plotting. Diana, for example, is descended from a long line of powerful witches though she herself as tried to avoid using her powers since her parents were murdered when she was young. After she accidentally discovers a lost manuscript that has been magically sealed, she attracts the attention of the magical world: the book may contain the origin of their species, an explanation of where they come from and why they exist. Everyone's reactions to this manuscript also make Diana begin to reevaluate her parents' death - suddenly, it seems like there might be more to their murder. As a result, Diana begins to realize she needs to learn how to use her powers, and it is obvious that she has the most potential power any witch has had in a long time. There is also a group referred to as the Congregation which is made up of three representatives from each group of creatures to ensure everyone follows the rules. Matthew is a scientist, and he and two other vampires, have actually been examining the DNA of the different creatures, and have been able to genetically mark which powers a witch will have. Their research also shows that magical creatures are becoming weaker and may be on the verge of going extinct. The novel has a large group of supporting characters, all of whom are more interesting than Diana, the powerful witch, and Matthew, the controlling, love-struck vampire. However, someone decided that this should be a trilogy so instead of having one tensely plotted suspense novel, the public will get screwed with three meandering novels. Of course, the second and third one aren't out yet, so maybe I'll be proven wrong. Not that I'll know, because there is no way I'm picking up the sequel. The only reason I even finished this novel is so that I could accurately bitch about it. Below is just an example of some of the lines that annoyed me and my reaction:

"It was ludicrous to think that promises made by creatures in the Middle Ages could affect Matthew and me (274)" - um, sweetie, your boyfriend is 1500 years old - he was one of those creatures.

"She hunts out of biological need. You hunt because it makes you feel wholly alive (348)." - How the fuck is that better? And just because this is a vampire novel, do I really need to watch a vampire eat a deer? Or a rabbit?

Book 1: Monsters of Men

2012-01-16T11:06:00.001-05:00

Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking, Book Three) by Patrick Ness

As amazing as the first novel in this trilogy was, the rest of the novels don't hold up. Monsters of Men takes up right where The Ask and The Answer leave off, with the beginning of a war between the Spackle and the humans, who are themselves divided into two separate camps. In this novel, Ness decides to add a third narrative voice, that of The Return, or prisoner 1017, the only Spackle that survived the murders of the previous novel. While I enjoyed 1017's perspective, Ness also jumped around too much on occasion. The first 30 or 40 pages, not a single one of his narrators had more than two pages at a time, which made the novel a bit difficult to really get into.

I've also gotten tired of the relationship between Todd and Viola, and the fact that they would sacrifice the entire world for each other. While I understand that this is young adult fiction, it also just started seeming too unbelievable that these three teenagers (I'm counting The Return as one) would have such a say and an effect on the decisions the adults were making (I think that's one thing The Hunger Games did well - Katniss was a symbol of a movement, but when it came down to it, she was still a tool the adults used).

Also, Ness makes one other decision in the novels, and to me, it actually seems to weaken the rest of the series. It might just be me, but some of the things that happened in the previous novels were heartbreaking, and this decision actually reverses some of those things. It cheapened earlier losses. Also, this goes back to my earlier comment: the characters occasionally acted incredibly immature. I realize this is because they are about 14 years old, but given all the responsibilities the adults let them have, it is easy to forget how young they are. Due to this, when they make dumb decisions or harsh judgments, it is hard to be understanding. Instead of commiserating with the characters, I would often think, "stop being an idiot." As I said, this is due to the dichotomy of the characters' ages, and the way they are treated. If this had been the first novel in the series, I would not have recommended it. However, as the third in the series, everyone will of course read it just for the conclusion. It's not a horrible novel, but unfortunately, the trilogy as a whole does simply not do the first novel justice.

CBR III - Read But Not Reviewed

2012-01-07T20:56:00.001-05:00

I have till midnight to post the last few reviews for CBRIII. I definitely slacked off when it came to posting last year, and I'd actually already started slacking towards the end of CBRII so hopefully I can get better at it now that CBR IV has started up. While I have written over twenty updates in the last two weeks, I'm still nowhere near caught up, and some of the books that are left, I don't even have much to say about at this point. Some, this is due to the fact that they were enjoyable enough reads at the time but in retrospect, they were really just kind of there. Others were very good, but it's been so long since I've read them that I really can't even get into the detail they deserve (it doesn't help that my computer caught a virus Christmas Day and was at Best Buy until yesterday). Anyway, for some of these I might eventually develop the energy to write something more elaborate, but probably not. Here is the list of books read last year that I didn't review.

77. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4) by Rick Riordan

78. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5) by Rick Riordan

79. Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, Book 13) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

80. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

81. Horns by Joe Hill

82. Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees

83. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

84. Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

85. Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell

86. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

87. The Soldier's Wife by Margaret Leroy

88. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

89. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

90. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

91. Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War by Sebastian Faulks

92. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

93.The Raising by Laura Kasischke

94. Unbearable Lightness:A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi

95. Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV by Jennifer L. Pozner

96. I Know I Am But What Are You? by Samantha Bee

97. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

98. In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

99. Miss Timmins' School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy

100. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

101. Ghost Story (The Dresden Files, Book 13) by Jim Butcher

102. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

103. The Domino Men by Jonathan Barnes

104. The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

105. The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir

106. The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir

107. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

108. A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett

109. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah

One final word on these books - I enjoyed most of them. Some of them were incredibly well-written, others were fun but had some weak points, but the only one of these I absolutely couldn't stand was Falling Leaves. It was just horrible.

Book 76: Cemetery Girl

2012-01-07T19:57:00.001-05:00

Cemetery Girl by David Bell

This was kind of an odd book for me - Tom, the narrator, is the father of an abducted girl. It has been four years since her disappearance, and in order to gain closure, his wife has decided to have a memorial ceremony for their daughter Caitlin. Tom has never believed that their daughter is dead, and this memorial is basically the final straw that finally breaks their fragile marriage. However, shortly after this, the police find Caitlin, now a surely 16 year old. While Tom is happy that he was right, he soons finds that living with this daughter whom he doesn't even recognize is almost worse than living with the uncertainty of her fate.

The rest of the novel deals with Tom's questions about what happened, and while at first, the reader also wants these answers, at some point, his obsession becomes alienating. It quickly becomes clear that after four years of captivity, Caitlin has developed a case of Stockholm syndrome and is in love of her kidnapper. Tom is unwilling to let this go, and investigates despite the police, his daughter and his wife's wishes. Tom's descent from likable character to man driven to edge is hard to watch, and as a result, this novel was kind of difficult. I can't quite say I liked it - I could understand Tom's desire to understand what happened to his daughter, but there was also a degree of possessiveness about it that was rather off-putting. Basically, it seemed like his desire to know what happened to his daughter had less to do with his desire to help her and had more to do with some type of wounded male pride. Tom is also rather suspicous - in the beginning he describes that he feels like there was something untrustworthy or risk-taking in Caitlin that may have led to her disappearance, at other times he lashes out against his brother. Some of this appears to be due to his relationship with his step-father.

Bell also explores some of the different agencies involved in disappearances and cases, and paints a rather grim picture of some of these services. Even victim advocates have a certain agenda of their own, and it may not always match what the victim or their family need. I am not sure if I would recommend this book or not - while it was interesting to see the father's take on this (especially after reading Room), this novel turned into more of a thriller rather than an exploration of how a family might deal with this situation. I'd say I'm mostly ambivalent, but I think that's because the novel started strong. I didn't really like where it went though.

Book 75: Replay

2012-01-07T19:34:00.001-05:00

Replay by Ken Grimwood

After Jeff Winston dies in 1988, he wakes up 25 years earlier as his 18 year old self with all his knowledge of the next few years in tact. Given the chance to start over again, what would most people do? It is perhaps not a surprise that Jeff uses his knowledge of the future to get rich. Still, despite all his money, he isn't completely happy, and he dies again on the exact same day in 1988 only to wake up as a 18 year old yet again. This time, he chooses marital bliss and financial stability over extreme success and riches. No matter what, each iteration of his life, he dies at the exact same moment of his 43rd year. During his third "replay" of his life, Jeff discovers another person, a woman named Pamela, who is also replaying her life. They also realize that each iteration, they have returned at a later point, and that Jeff returns before Pamela.

The two of them fall in love, and spend various iterations together in different ways. One thing I kind of liked about the novel is that these people don't necessarily become wiser due to their extra time, and there are some choices they make that make them very unsympathetic. Part of this is that instead of enjoying the opportunity to live life over again, they waste a few lifetimes trying to find answers. In one of his lives, Jeff spends time involved in the drug culture because he is so unhappy about losing the life he had before and doesn't want to form any bonds or attachments. Even after Jeff and Pamela meet and fall in love, they don't end up together during every replay - since they come back later and later each time, they have opportunities to change their lives at different times. Jeff coming back at 25 rather than 18 for example means there are other things he now has a chance to redo and correct.

I quite liked the premise of the novel, and while there were choices that Jeff and Pamela made that I didn't like, I like that Grimwood didn't make his characters infallible. I know I sometimes wish I could start college over again with my current knowledge but I think that is something everyone can relate to. However as even this novel portrays, the past is the past, and the only thing that can be determined at this point is the future.

Book 74: Left Neglected

2012-01-07T18:39:00.001-05:00

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

First off, I loved Genova's other novel Still Alice, a portrayal of college professor living with Alzheimer's. As a result, I was glad that to see that she had written another novel, Left Neglected. This novel follows Sarah Nickerson, a successful career woman, wife and mother of three. She and her husband both have very demanding jobs that they enjoy which they attempt to balance with their family lives. After being involved in a car accident, Sarah wakes up in the hospital with a syndrome referred to as left neglect. Her brain simply does not register anything in her left field of vision, to include her own body parts. Since she isn't even aware of these body parts, she has to reteach herself to use them. This is just one of the issues that Sarah faces now that she must live with left neglect.

While she is at first in denial, she learns some methods to slowly adjust to her new impairment through physical therapy. Due to Sarah's accident, her estranged mother comes to Boston to help her and her family during Sarah's extended hospital stay. Eventually, Sarah attempts to return to her job but realizes that this will not be compatible with her new life. She also spends more time wih her children, and realizes that her son who has had issues in school similarly has a disorder that means normal methods of learning don't work for him, and with her new perspective, she is able to help and understand him much more.

While I actually quite liked Genova's description of how the syndrome works and how it would affect someone's life (and their family), there were other parts of the novel I didn't like quite as much. Since Sarah eventually decides against returning to her old position, this affects the family's financial situation. This part of the novel kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because Sarah goes through this whole journey and realizes how she and her husband may have been overly concerned with their material well-being. While I think these types of circumstances probably help people realize what is important in life, I'm not sure if I felt Sarah was in any position to tell me about priorities - she and her husband owned an expensive home in Boston, two expensive cars and a vacation home in Vermont. No offense, but I don't think it should have taken an accident to realize that all of these things aren't necessary in life - if you feel overworked and hate your job, then reconsider the need to own two homes. If you generally want those things, and enjoy your job as Sarah states she did, then more power to you. I guess the part I disliked is having a woman who owns designer shoes and all these other things start talking about enjoying the simpler things in life, especially since the same job that afforded her all these materialistic items also provided her with health insurance. Basically, I like the novel a lot when it focused on the day to day adjustments and relationships, but could have done without the little message Genova seemed to add. It's basically like complaints I read about the last Sex and the City movie - it's hard to relate to characters whose main problem is whether or not they can make a first class flight. Sarah as a woman with a stressful job and family commitments is relatable - it's when the novel gets into the details of how much her job provides her with that she goes from being relatable to having "rich white people" problems.

That is a small part of the novel, and while it made me enjoy this less than Still Alice, it's still a very good novel about the mysteries of the brain, and Sarah is generally a likable character.

Book 73: The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

2012-01-01T21:20:00.002-05:00

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner

While I had vaguely heard of Catherine de Medici and knew of her sinister characterization, I actually had no clue what she had done to deserve this description. I honestly had no idea that she was involved in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre even though I had attempted to visit the church where it occurred while in Paris (it was closed at the time).

Gortner uses his novel to try to redeem the maligned queen of France and for the most part he succeeds in making her a likable character that I wanted to root for, even if she employs an astrologer and is a bit superstitious. The problem with historical fiction, however, is that the author is still restrained by facts. As a result, given some of the facts in Catherine's life, it is necessary to portray the character as either completely powerless or incompetent and still have the actions match with history. Maybe it's me, but I'd almost rather have a real evil and entertaining villain than a good person who is constantly thwarted or makes stupid mistakes, at least when it comes to fiction. As a result, I enjoyed the first half of the novel much more than the second half.

In the first half, Catherine is new to the French court and trying to find her way and place therein. Being from Florence, she is not familiar with all the factions, but soon discovers that the deGuise family have quite a bit of power as well as her husband's friendship. She remains in a position of weakness due to her husband's mistress, and the length of time it takes her to produce an heir, which can be blamed on her husband's lack of interest (at least in the novel). Eventually she would have quite a few children, and Mary, Queen of Scotland would be her daughter-in-law.

The second half focuses on after her husband's death when Catherine acts as regent for her sons (three of them would sit the throne). Like many surrounding European countries, this was a time of great religious uproar since Protestants and Catholics didn't seem to find it possible to live side by side. While Gortner portrays Catherine as tolerant, there was only so much she could do against the other houses that were in power and the sweeping religious and political forces. He also portrays her as someone that feels she has been betrayed and becomes harsher and less trusting as time goes on.

Overall, not a bad piece of historical fiction though Catherine's actions didn't always make sense to me given the character Gortner had established earlier in the novel. Her children are all rather unlikable and it's probably a good thing that they were the end of the House of Valois. Catherine herself seems to have a voice similar too many other historical fiction novel heroines, but I definitely enjoyed learning a bit about French history instead of focusing on more English history (her father in law by the way was Henry VIII's contemporary).

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Book 72: Daughters of the Witching Hill

2012-01-01T14:34:00.001-05:00

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

This novel wasn't quite what I expected - when the back cover said that the women in this community would eventually be persecuted as witches, I expected the women to be healers who were maliciously attacked. The women, however, actually believed that they used magic and witchcraft, though they believed they used it for good. The story is based on true events which took place in 1612 in England, and while the actual belief in familiars and magic threw me off a bit, Sharratt still tells a tale of persecution grounded in historical realities.

There are two main characters, Bess Southerns and her granddaughter, Alizon, and both narrate different parts of the book. Of the two, I preferred Bess, an old woman caught between two worlds. She grew up in a Catholic world, and is now a member of a Protestant community. Along with Catholicism, many of her childhood traditions have been declared evil and superstitious, so that the world around her seems much more drab and unhappy to her than it once was. She has always had a gift with herbs, but as an older woman struggling to support her family, she also discovers that she has a familiar, so she begins to draw on this familiar to help her heal members of the community. Bess and her best friend have a falling out due to some misfortunes, and while Bess never believes the worst of her, the rest of her family quickly develops a rivalry with this other woman.

However, in the end it isn't witchcraft or this rivalry that causes the women's downfall. As usual it is pure greed: one of Bess's friends and customers is a rich landowner and a secret Catholic, which makes her a target for ambitious men. These men don't care what the cost in life is as long as they can further themselves. Additionally, Bess is the illegitimate child of a landowner - this hasn't helped her much in life, but it is why she is allowed to live where she does without paying rent. By accusing her and her family of witchcraft, the land will return back to her half-brother's control. In the afterword, Sharratt discusses the sources she used for this novel, and the fact that the women in this case really believed they were using magical powers. She notes that Catholicism left room more belief in magic than Protestantism did, and that many of the incantations the woman described herself as using were actually Catholic prayers. Certainly, Bess believes she uses her powers only for good, though she sees the ability to turn them into dark forces. While this wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was educational. Still, the style takes some getting used to, so I would only recommend this to someone with an interest in the topic.

Book 71: Secrets of Eden

2012-01-01T14:08:00.001-05:00

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian

Secrets of Eden begins after Alice Hayward and her abusive husband are found dead, victims of a murder-suicide. The first part of the novel is narrated by Stephen Drew, the pastor, that baptized Alice that same day, and their deaths have shattered his faith more than many of the other tragedies he has seen in the past. During the baptism, Alice uttered the word "there" to him, and in retrospect he believes this was her way of saying she was ready to die. It is debatable whether this is true or if it is something he must tell himself to ease his guilt. Drew comes off as a sympathetic but flawed man, and while at first the reader can only guess why this particular case had such an effect on Drew, it is confirmed quickly enough.

It is a good thing that Drew was the first narrator because it helped build up the reader's sympathy for him. The next two narrators have rather different views of him, starting with the state's attorney whose long years at work have taught her to find the worst in all, and particularly men. She quickly suspects Drew of hiding something, and doesn't believe that the case is quite as it seems. The next narrator is Heather, a woman who had been on a book tour in the local area, and found herself drawn to the pastor. She writes about angels and believes in guardian angels. Additionally, her own parents died in a murder suicide, so she believes that she may be able to help the Hayward's fifteen year old daughter Katie cope. Her interest in Drew is based on a quote from a newspaper article that makes it clear he has lost his faith. She finds herself drawn to him, and despite their very different belief systems, Drew is also interested in her. However, Heather is more damaged than she tries to let on, and very unforgiving of any perceived slights or breaches of trust.

The final part of the novel is told from Katie's perspective as she deals with her new parent-less status, and the media circus that her parents' demise inspired. All the characters are very well drawn, though Drew does have the advantage of being the first narrator, so the reader automatically wants to trust him despite what some of the other narrators may end up believing about him. Bohjalian's novels all tend to have rather different topics, but he excels at character development. They all have very distinct voices, and well developed backgrounds. He also does a great job of portraying how the characters view themselves and how they are viewed by different people in the narrative.

Book 70: In the Garden of Beasts

2012-01-01T10:37:00.002-05:00

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

While I've heard raves about The Devil in the White City for years, it wasn't until Larson wrote a book related to World War II that I was interested enough to actually read one of his books. In this book, Larson explores the first years of Hitler's regime as seen through the eyes of the American ambassador, William Dodd. Dodd was an unlikely fit for this position: he was a historian and his goal was to complete a series on the Old South. He originally became interested in civil service because he hoped it would give him more time to focus on writing his book because he could not find the time while serving as a professor. He had hoped to get a position in a small country, and the position in Berlin was certainly not what he had hoped for or wanted. After a discussion with his wife, he took the position, and his adult children accompanied their parents on this trip.

Among other American diplomats and ambassadors, Dodd was seen as an oddity, and they disagreed with many of the things he was doing: most ambassadors tended to be from money, and would live lavishly to impress whichever country they were serving in. Dodd refused to do, and planned on living within his salary. He also hated parties and late nights, which made him a rather odd fit. While in Germany, there were forces abroad and at home working against his appointment. Dodd had spent time as a student in Germany, so while he was at first excited to return, he also began seeing how Germany had changed. One of the problems is that it was hard to tell what was really going on in Germany: on the one hand there was quite a bit of mob violence, but things did seem to be calming down. Dodd attempted to be very diplomatic in his first months in Germany in the fall of 1933. He was hesitant to warn Americans against traveling to Germany, and many American tourists actually didn't see the dark side on short visits. However, the facade would crack for some - groups of Nazis would beat people that didn't return Hitler salutes, even if they were Americans.

Larson spends half the book focusing on Dodd and his growing awareness of Germany's descent into madness, his refusal to show support to the Nazi government (for example, he and the ambassadors of many other countries made the decision not to attend annual rallies in Nuremberg), and his problems dealing with the Germans as well as his own lack of trust in some of the other Americans. The other half concerns Dodd's daughter, Martha, who becomes involved with a series of men while in Berlin. She dates a high Nazi official, as well as a Soviet spy, and has various other suitors. At first Martha is very excited and enamored with Germany but as time wears on, she begins to see the dark side. It seems like Larson tried to use Dowd to tell the political piece and then used Martha to tell the more personal side, though Martha's story is anything but typical. In fact, while it is hard to tell how much Dodd knew about Martha's personal life, everyone else certainly seemed to know, and her behavior was viewed as rather scandalous.

With hindsight, it seemed like it Dodd long to see just how bad the Nazis were, but in reality, he was far ahead of his counterparts in realizing that their regime would eventually lead to war. At first he believed the Germans when they said they wanted peace, but in only a few months, he would realize and report that they only wanted peace in order to prepare themselves for war. Overall, I quite liked this book since it discusses World War II from a viewpoint that is new to me. I never would have thought to look into the story of the first American ambassador to Hitler's regime, but it was definitely a good way to see how the world viewed Hitler's rise.

Book 69: All Clear

2011-12-31T23:28:00.001-05:00

All Clear by Connie Willis

This is the continuation of the story Willis started in Blackout. It follows the same three characters, Polly, Eileen and Mike as they try to return to the future from London of 1940. It picks up right where the previous part ended. As with the first part, the characters occasionally act in ways that are unexpected for history grad students in that they seem to be much more clueless about World War II than one would expect. They also begin questioning the theories behind time travel as they fear that they may have changed the course of events - every time there appears to be even a slight discrepancy between what they think they know, and they think they see happen, they begin to freak out. Mike is especially bad about this as he constantly thinks that he has somehow altered events in a bad way and lost the war. One other character flaw that they have, especially Mike and Polly, is their desire to protect the rest of the group by withholding information to prevent them from worrying. Mike and Polly think that Eileen is too fragile and wouldn't be able to handle the truth, though I think Eileen ends up being the strongest of the characters.

Polly has an extra worry - part of time travel is that the traveler can't be in the same time twice - she has already been present in the later part of WWII so if she has not returned to the future by the date she comes back to the past, she will die. While Mike and Eileen would like to return home, Polly is actually racing against a ticking clock.

This novel also focuses some on a few other characters: Collin is teenage boy from the future that has had a crush on Polly for awhile and promised her he would always find a way to save her if she was ever in trouble. Polly spends much of the novel thinking about him, and hoping that he will keep his promise. The history department head had already noticed some issues with time travel, and goes on a rescue mission himself to find his students. Binnie and Alf, Eileen's charges, continue to play a role, and there are many moments of just missed chances that the historians experience during their search for a way home. Like in Blackout, while I like Eileen, Alf, Binnie and the vicar, the characters tend to be rather superficial. The setting and idea behind the novel were enough to make up for the weaker characters for me, and I think I'm getting soft in my old age, because I was definitely touched by Eileen's outcome in the novel.

Book 68: Blackout

2011-12-31T18:58:00.001-05:00

Blackout by Connie Willis

Reviewing this novel might be a bit of an oddity since it is part one of a two part book. Not a series, a book - Connie Willis's editors decided the novel was too long so they cut it in two. As a result, the ending is a bit abrupt, but since both novels are currently available in paperback, I didn't have to wait long to pick up the conclusion. Also, this novel isn't part of a series per se, but Willis has written other novels that take place within this universe - I was unaware of this, and it didn't prevent me from enjoying the novel, but from browsing through Amazon, people that are familiar with the other novels were disappointed with this one. I don't have that particular issue since this novel is first I've read.

The novel begins in Oxford in 2066 as several historians are preparing for their research trips. In this world, time travel has been discovered so historians are able to go back in time to do research and observe people as the events are happening. The theory of time travel is that the system protects itself so historians can't affect actual events or outcomes. Certain events are closed to time travelers, and it is simply impossible to get there, no matter how hard they might try. Additionally, there are occasional slips in time and location, and this too is part of the system protecting itself. However, as the novel begins, there is a lot of confusion because the director of the history department is changing the students' assignments and their orders. The novel follows three students who are studying the beginning of World War II into the past. First there is Polly Churchill who is studying the Blitz. The other is Michael (or Mike) who is doing an assignment on everyday heroes, and wants to observe the boats that crossed the Channel to save soldiers at Dunkirk. Finally, there is Merope, who goes by Eileen given her unusual name, who is studying the child refugees during the beginning of the war. Their assignments all take place over different time spans in 1940, but all of them soon discover problems: Michael and Polly both have slippage and end up arriving a few days later than planned, in both cases after the events they are studying have already begun. Eileen is the first one scheduled to return, and her drop won't open. As a result, she decides to go to London to try to find Polly and tag along with her. However, Polly and Michael also have problems returning to their drops or getting theirs to function.

While the three of them are all separated, they are all facing the same issues: they don't know as much as they should about World War II history since they focused on particular areas, and are afraid of sticking out due too much or too little knowledge. They also are concerned about returning home to the future. However, they all have to find a way to live in the situation they are in. Eileen in particular was rather amusing dealing with the children in the country, two of whom are incredibly rambunctious and provided much in the way of comic relief. The people that Polly spends the nights with during the raids decide to become a theater group because one of the men in their shelter is a Shakespearean actor - to his despair, the group chooses a play by J.M. Barry to perform. It was also interesting seeing how the historians' knowledge of the past squares with the actual experience of the past since reading about things and actually experiencing them are two very different things.

Personally I quite enjoyed the novel since it combines science fiction/fantasy and historical fiction, two of my preferred genres. While some of the writing may have been a bit shallow or made use of stereotypes and stock characters, it was a fun ride. As I said, it is a two part novel, so it definitely helps to have the second part on hand.

Book 67: Katherine

2011-12-31T17:12:00.001-05:00

Katherine by Anya Seton

I can't believe just how disappointing this novel was. I love well-done historical fiction, and I've heard this novel referred to as a classic historical novel. Even Alison Weir, one of my favorite non-fiction authors, had mentioned enjoying this novel when she was young, and had been inspired to write a non-fiction account of the main character's life. Unfortunately, I believe I missed the references calling this novel a classic romance. Also, it was written in the '50s, so I really did try to take that into account regarding the characterization, but it really just wasn't that good of a novel.

Katherine is beautiful. She has red hair, fair skin, luscious lips. Having been brought up in a convent, she is also rather innocent of the world. At the beginning of the novel, she is called back to the court by her older sister, who is engaged to Chaucer and serves as one of the queen's women. At this time, England is ruled by Edward III, son of Edward II and Isabella of France (Isabella led a rebellion against her husband), and he has several sons. His fourth son, John of Gaunt, is married to Blanche, but he takes notice of Katherine while she is at the court because he finds her rather annoying. This is supposedly the beginning of a great love story.

Now, everything in here has the potential for an interesting story: John of Gaunt was indeed the fourth son of Edward III, and Katherine would become his mistress. Eventually their descendants would find themselves on the throne of England through Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, the first Tudor king. In fact, John eventually even marries Katherine though she is below his station, thus legitimizing their children, who would all hold have positions of great power in the future. John's son, Henry of Bolingbroke, rebelled against his cousin, Richard II, and became Henry IV, leading to the events of the Wars of the Roses. Obviously, for Katherine to maintain the interest of John for such a long time given the difference in positions, she would have had to be incredibly beautiful and interesting. However, the only thing I really got from the book is that she was beautiful.

Now as far as the history goes, I think Seton does a good job of laying out the facts. The problem is she doesn't necessarily put them in a good context for the reader: the serfs decide to rebel in London, but Seton really doesn't do that good of a job of showing the political situation - she shows a series of events as they happened but leaves out the reasons. Katherine is completely clueless about what goes on around her, and honestly a bit of self entitled snob even though she herself acts above her station by being John's mistress. In the beginning she is married off to a knight, who is already a catch for her, but she just spends the whole time mooning around. When he leaves, she doesn't try to improve his badly run estates, and pretty much just sits around. I understand that she is sixteen, but please give me a competent heroine, not such a blank slate. Then again, I almost wanted to give Seton credit for not taking a historical figure and turning her into a modern day woman until I remembered this was written in the '50s. Was she actually giving a historically accurate presentation, or was this the idealized version of a '50s wife?

John of Gaunt goes from disliking Katherine to being desperately in love with her (all after his first wife, the pure and perfect Blanche, dies of the plague while cared for by saintly Katherine). There really wasn't anything that romantic about their relationship, and I disliked both characters. Given that it was written in the '50s, it should be no surprise to anyone that John of Gaunt is portrayed as having some serious Freudian issues. Katherine didn't become even half way likable till maybe the last 50-100 pages. Up until then, she is incredibly self-involved and egotistical but is supposed to be read as sweet and loving. For example, her daughter is unhappy with the match Katherine has chosen for her, but instead of showing the girl any sympathy, Katherine tells her she will do as told despite that fact that Katherine herself was forced into a marriage she didn't want, but then had the luck to end up with the man she did want. However, she is completely willing to sell her daughter out and doesn't even see the similarity in the situations. Additionally, the relationship between John and Katherine is so boring - they are in no way portrayed as partners - he doesn't discuss work or anything of the sort with her; he likes being around her because she is pretty and nice and it relaxes him. This is what great romance, passion and love are built on? The man defied convention and married her despite the differences in their statuses (granted she was a third marriage, he had done his duty already) - the relationship has to be anchored on something more than "she's pretty" to inspire that kind of gesture.

I wanted to read the fictional account before I read the non-fiction version but this novel left a bad taste in my mouth so I still haven't gotten around to reading Alison Weir's Mistress of the Monarchy. As a result, I can't say if it's better but given Weir's other books and how much I disliked this one, I would definitely recommend starting there if the topic is of interest. I think it really could make for an interesting story in other hands given the vague historical sketch I wrote above.

Book 66: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

2011-12-31T15:45:00.001-05:00

Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

I actually stopped watching The Office somewhere around the fourth or fifth season (whichever one had Michael drive his car into a lake due to his GPS) - I liked the second and third seasons, but I don't think the show ever had quite the same magic for me as other viewers. I also don't buy essay collections that often because it seems like there will usually be a few essays that are absolutely amazing and hilarious mixed with a lot of filler essays that are just okay. However, the title alone was enough to get me interested (it's a valid question), and then I found myself flipping through the first few pages of her essay on weight. When someone offered to take me on a shopping spree at the bookstore, this was one of the first books I added to my stack, and I am glad I did.

First off, it didn't seem like any of the essays were really filler as so often happens. They were all entertaining anecdotes from her life, or of her thoughts, and this is one of the few collections where I can honestly say they weren't a mix of hit or miss for me. Her humor is also very self-deprecating, and there were many things she said or did that I could have seen myself saying or doing. She also had random lists throughout the books, and really, I think she would fit in well at Pajiba. Personally, I like to think she's a reader. She had a list of stereotypical women one might find in a rom-com (such as the klutz, because that's the only imperfection a woman could possibly have), and explains that she loves romantic comedies but that she "feels almost sheepish writing that, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years or so that admitting you like these movies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity (99)." Doesn't that sound like a comment Dustin would agree with? She also has a short essay with a list of movies that might be coming to movie theaters soon, including Apples to Apples 4D, and other game based movies due to her having actually having sat in a meeting about the potential of Yahtzee as a movie. I feel like this also came up at Pajiba in response to the initial news of the development of Battleship.

Her discussion of one night stands is also hilarious since she is the prudish friend - when her friends start telling her about hook ups, she starts asking random questions that imply they could have been murdered. I really liked her take on commitment, relationships and marriage. She doesn't want the big romantic gestures or moments, she is more concerned with the day to day things, like sharing guilty pleasure television. She describes her parents' relationship and their shared interest in gardening and milkshakes. Of course she hasn't been married and neither have I, but I agree with her take on it. I definitely recommend picking this up - she is very self-aware, and sarcastic, and it's just a fun read. Besides, to quote Mindy: "This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It's mostly pink. If you're reading this book every single night for months, something is not right (5)." Why not give her two days? And let's be honest, it probably won't even take that long.

Book 65: Russian Winter

2011-12-31T15:09:00.001-05:00

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

Nina Revskaya, the famous Russian ballerina, emigrated to Europe and then the United States during Stalin's rule. Now an elderly woman whose body is failing her, she had decided to auction off her jewelry collection and donate the proceeds to the arts. Drew Brooks is the auction house representative in charge of her collection, though she finds that Nina is less than forthcoming with information regarding her past and some of her jewelry. Grigori Solodin is a Russian professor who has devoted his life to Nina's husband's work. Grigori believes there is a connection between himself and Nina that she has never acknowledged. When he finds out that she has donated her jewelry, he adds a piece of his own to the auction because it seems to be part of a set. Nina refuses to comment on this oddity, but it sets Drew on an investigation regarding the jewelry's origin.

Between the story of these three individuals, the novel also tells the story of Nina's rise in the ballet in the Soviet Union. She spends much of her time trying to ignore the bad things that go on around her, such as when her friend Vera's parents are taken into custody the same day that Nina and Vera first try out for the ballet, and just focuses on dancing. Eventually, she starts getting more important roles, and also meets and marries a man with some connections. The elder Nina seems to have a rather cynical opinion of some her past friends and associates, so the reader is constantly looking for clues of what went wrong, and how exactly Grigori might fit into the picture.

All the characters in this novel have flaws, or have vulnerabilities. Grigori, a widower, is haunted by questions of his origins; Drew, a divorcee, feels like she hasn't lived up to her parents' expectation, and Nina feels like she has done wrong in the past and been wronged. Throughout the novel it is definitely easy to relate to the younger Nina and her interpretations of events, though this doesn't necessarily mean it is easy to feel sympathy for her. As she goes from one stage and performance to the next, the people around her, including her husband's Jewish friend question whether and when they will be picked up by the police. Still, she refuses to open her eyes to the repression around her. Considering that most of the historical fiction I read tends to focus on WWII (or periods before that), it was a nice change of pace for me. Kalotay brought the paranoia and uncertainty of life in the Soviet Union to life very well, and doesn't try to make excuses for her characters. While I don't expect this to make any "best of" lists, it was a simple, well-written novel that told a familiar story of love, regret and misunderstandings in a compelling manner.

Book 64: The Ask and the Answer

2011-12-31T14:42:00.001-05:00

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

I immediately picked this up upon finishing the first novel in the Chaos Walking Trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go. To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't like it more - while many people felt that the second and third novels of The Hunger Games weren't as good as the first due to the slower pacing, I actually enjoyed them just as much but in different ways. This novel should have then caused a similar reaction but for some reason it didn't. It might honestly be that I should have waited a day or two between books so I wouldn't be expecting something quite as fast-paced as The Knife of Never Letting Go.

One of the things that kept me hooked with The Knife of Never Letting Go were the questions regarding what the truth really was as Todd discovered that his whole life had been a lie. In this novel, that question has been answered, and instead Todd gets to see first hand how politics and appeasement work. The New World capitulated to Mayor Prentiss without a fight. Instead of being upset with the new rules he puts into place, the citizens are grateful that he didn't treat them more harshly. The mayor is a master at manipulating the populace, and while Todd sees and understands some of it, he doesn't always see the big picture. He and Viola spend most of the novel separated from each other (this novel includes scenes from her perspective as well), and she is now part of the small group of rebels that try to fight against the mayor. Due to their separation, Viola and Todd spend much of the novel worrying about each other, misinterpreting each other, and being manipulated by others based on the strength of their feelings for each other. Having the two in different camps gives the reader to see the bigger picture, and see that both sides do things that are morally questionable.

Todd especially has to work in a grey area, all because he is afraid if he doesn't obey, the mayor will somehow hurt Viola. As a result, he ends up working closely with Davy Prentiss, a man (teenager really) whom he had severely disliked in the previous novel, and the mayor's son. He is forced to do much of the mayor's dirty work, and goes along with it. It also turns out that the Spackle hadn't all been killed during the war - some of them were kept as slaves by the citizens of Haven, and prevented from communicating with each other through a cure for the Noise (due to the presence of Noise on the planet, they had no need of a spoken language). He basically shuts down his emotions to deal with the world. Through him, Ness explores the question of why good men do bad things, and in Todd's case it is mainly to protect Viola. He also justifies his actions as he gets involved in darker and darker things by telling himself that if he doesn't do them, someone else will, and they will do them in a much harsher way. He believes in effect that he is reducing the damage that could be caused.

Normally, this is the kind of stuff I enjoy - seeing how the people in power massage the truth to get people to fall in line with them, seeing how people don't complain about the small changes until suddenly there are so many rules in place that it is too late to make a difference. I think the reason I didn't like it as much in this case is because as much as Todd cares for Viola (and vice versa), I sometimes had a hard time believing that he would acquiesce as much as he did. While The Hunger Games may have been a bit slow in the middle, I never had any doubts about things being in character with Katniss. Equally, I liked Viola more when I didn't know everything she was thinking. I guess it is easy to forget that the characters are only about 14, but Viola seemed the more naive of the two. Todd and Viola are both swept up by things larger than them but I preferred Todd's narrative to Viola's. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about Viola's perspective just didn't do it for me. It might be because the whole previous book was from Todd's perspective so I was much more concerned with him than I was with her. And to be honest, I don't think the things the rebels were doing was quite as interesting as watching the mayor and wondering what exactly his evil plan might be. The novel was a good study about power, and I think he left in a good place for the third novel in the series. For me, there was just something slightly off compared to the previous novel, but I definitely want to see how it all ends.

Book 63: Faithful Place

2011-12-30T22:17:00.001-05:00

Faithful Place by Tana French

I really, really liked Tana French's novel In the Woods, but was ambivalent about her follow up, The Likeness. The premise was interesting, I enjoyed most of the characters, but the main character got on my nerves a bit, or at least her actions in the novel did. Faithful Place was right up there with In the Woods for me, though. Something about reading French's Dublin-set novels tends to remind me of Dennis Lehane's Boston mystery novels - the tight knit communities that are closed to outsiders, the tough guys and women that populate them, the dysfunctional families. This is definitely a good thing because I love Lehane.

Faithful Place is narrated by Frank Mackey, who played a supporting role in The Likeness (much like the narrator of that novel had a supporting role in In the Woods) - I like how French isn't exactly writing a series, but keeps returning to familiar characters and giving them all a chance to tell their story. Frank works in undercover, his marriage has failed, and he has not spoken to his dysfunctional family with the exception of his little sister since he left 22 years before to start a new life with his girlfriend Rosie. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and Rosie didn't go with him, so instead of going to London, he ended up on the police force in Dublin. Still, he has enjoyed his work, and hasn't regretted his lack of contact with his family though he has wondered about Rosie, his first great love on occasion.

His little sister tells him that some people found a suitcase in an old abandoned building that the kids used to hang out in, and that his mother has possession of it. With this simple act, he becomes involved in his family's lives again, and starts questioning what he knew about his past, because it is quite clear that it is Rosie's suitcase. While he is investigating the building, he and his brother also discover a body later, and Frank has to start reevaluating everything he thought was true: he had spent his entire life believing that Rosie chose not to go with him, but now he finds himself involved in an investigation to find out who murdered her the day they were to leave and why.

In addition to this new mystery in Frank's life, French portrays his family issues and drama very well. His father is an alcoholic, his mother's manipulative and demanding, but part of him feels torn regarding his relationship with his siblings. He is also trying to balance his job with his relationship with his daughter and her interest in her father's family. French did a good job of balancing Frank's investigation into the crime with his personal relationships in the novel. As an undercover officer, Frank feels like he acts differenly than other police officers because of the way his jobs usually pan out, and this can be seen in the way he occasionally butts heads with the leading officer on the case, or how he gets involved when he shouldn't. The plot is tightly written, and French's writing helps elevate her mysteries above the average thriller even if by the end it is obvious who the killer was.

Book 62: A Murderous Procession

2011-12-29T12:17:00.002-05:00

A Murderous Procession by Ariana Franklin

I am a bit of a completionist - once I start a series, I will usually continue to read it unless it becomes completely horrible or repetitive. If I don't love the series, I won't rush out to get the next one, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for any paperback versions. This is the fourth in a series of murder mystery/thrillers that take place during the reign of Henry II, and follows the protagonist Adelia, a female doctor from Sicily that is trained as a forensic examiner/coroner. Her work from the past three novels as gained her the trust of Henry II, so he chooses her to escort his daughter Joanna to Sicily for her wedding. Given the sexism and superstition of the time, Adelia poses as the assistant to her friend and protector Mansur while he pretends to be a doctor. Since he is Muslim, the two of them still have a hard time being accepted into the princess's circle which is dominated by superstitious, racist and sexist church members with comparatively antiquated views of medicine.

The other issue is that the procession is plagued by bad luck and death. First a horse, then a knight, then a laundry woman. All of these creatures die for mysterious and odd reasons, and the only thing they have in common is that they appear to have irritated Adelia at some point or another. Rowley, Adelia's lover, is one of the bishops on this journey and he and Mansur believe that someone is trying to turn everyone against Adelia. Adelia doesn't believe them, even when they tell her of attempts on her life that took place before she left England that had been hidden from her. While I think this is one of the better novels in the series (whether this is the case because it actually is or because I've had a break from the series so it wasn't as repetitive to me), I did get annoyed with how long Adelia decided to live in denial and how long it took for her to realize that something was indeed afoot.

Franklin must have stumbled on some interesting communities during her research since she has Adelia and her friends become separated from everyone else during the trip, which gives her a chance to introduce them to the reader. While some of it was farfetched, I'm not exactly reading these for historical accuracy, so it was a fun read. The novel ended on what could be considered a bit of a cliff hanger (okay, definitely an open ended question), but to me it also seemed like a good way to end the series once I discovered that this was the last one. It leaves the reader to decide what destiny they want for Adelia and Rowley, and where they see things going. Some other things had already been implied earlier, so there really is only one question that needs answering, and as I said, the readers can decide how they want things to end. Of course, I have since discovered that the author has died so I'm not sure if it ended the way it did because she intended to write a sequel, or if she wanted to give her readers the choice.

Book 61: The Knife of Never Letting Go

2011-12-29T11:30:00.002-05:00

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

I don't read young adult fiction all too often but I've seen this novel referenced by several other Cannonball Read participants so I decided to try it out. It's very well plotted and paced, which makes it very hard to put down. I basically finished it in almost one sitting with a few interruptions, and already told my dad who enjoyed The Hunger Games to pick it up when I was about halfway through.

Todd Hewitt, the narrator, is the last boy in Prentisstown. Years ago, there was a war on New World between the local species called the Spackle and the settlers, and they released a germ into the air that killed all the women, half the men and left the rest of the men infected with Noise. Due to Noise, all the men can hear everyone's thoughts, including the animals in the area. This doesn't mean it is impossible to lie in the Noise because the men have learned to hide thoughts underneath the noise of other thoughts, but it does make it difficult to keep things hidden. This is the problem Todd faces 30 days before his 13th birthday, which is the day he will become a man - he discovers quiet. While in the swamp, he and his dog Manchee stumble across a hole in the Noise, and he doesn't know how to explain but also doesn't think he should share it with the town. Instead he goes home to tell Ben (his parents died due to the virus, and Ben and Cillian raised him). Ben and Cilian's reaction is unexpected to say the least - they pull out a backpack they've had packed for his escape, and tell him he must leave Prentisstown forever for his protection. The town's sheriff is already knocking at his door as his two guardians send him off with food, his mother's journal that he can't read and the message that he has been lied to his whole life.

The journal includes a map which Todd determines to follow. Honestly, I don't want to get too much farther into the plot - I was definitely expecting some of the twists but not necessarily all of them, and I would hate to ruin the surprise for other readers. Along the journey, Todd discovers many things that surprise him as well as the truth. The novel ends on a cliffhanger since it is part of a trilogy but I feel like it was a good place to end - it ended in a dark place, and has definitely left me wanting more (kind of like The Empire Strikes Back). I'm already kicking myself because I only got the first two books in the series - I figured if it was good, I would want to keep reading but wasn't sure if I actually wanted to commit to the whole trilogy or if it would be good. I only hope they still have a copy of the last part in the bookstore this afternoon.

Book 60: The Great Influenza

2011-12-29T08:52:00.001-05:00

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

I had only vaguely heard about the influenza epidemic of 1918 due to a historical novel, but don't remember ever hearing about it in school as part of World War I history or anything along those lines, despite the death rates it caused. This book is very extensive as Barry covers a multitude of topics to explain the situation during which the epidemic occurred - this means discussing the state of science, medicine and the government at the time and in the years leading up to the flu. I also have to say he did a good job of explaining himself enough for a laymen to understand, and sometimes repeating a few explanations from chapter to chapter for the non-scientist readers.

Medical science in the United States was a disgrace in the mid to late 19th century. It was easier to get a medical degree than a college degree, and doctors believed in many cures that didn't work, and in fact hurt the patient, such as bleeding. There were a few scientifically minded people that went to Europe to study medicine which had made great medical advances beyond the United States. It was this environment that lead to the founding of John Hopkins, intended to be a premiere medical institute in the United States under the lead of a group of scientifically minded physicians. While John Hopkins made great strides, and slowly began improving medical standards throughout the whole country, by the time the influenza struck there were still not as many good doctors as one may have wanted - there were still holdovers practicing from the earlier period. However, the men of John Hopkins had quickly made advancements in science and as an instituion was comparable if not better than ones in Europe. Basically, when the influenza hit there was a small cadre of brilliant men to lead the fight, but they didn't have an army of doctors to lead. As Barry put it, they had generals and were missing the sergeants.

Of course it didn't help the civilian population that a large percentage of the doctors approved by the medical association were part of the military as well as many nurses. As a result, many of the cities were completely overwhelmed and suffered a shortage of medical personnel when the influenza epidemic swept the nation (the military was overwhelmed as well - the camps were all overcrowded, beyond medical recommendations which helped spread the virus more quickly). The war led to a few other things as well: Wilson was completely focused on the war and didn't even address or discuss the influenza once. Soldiers kept getting moved around despite warnings, leading to the spread of the illness from one barracks to another, from one camp to another, and across the ocean. Wilson had mobilized the nation in his war effort, and the level of self-censorship and real censorship was amazing. Anything slightly critical of the government or the war could lead to imprisonment, people were ostracized for not buying war bonds - the nation had one focus, and that was to win the war. Newspapers saw it as their jobs to keep morale up, not to report the truth. This led to several issues when it came to the flu. First, the newspapers kept downplaying the epidemic instead of warning people. Even with the scientist racing to find solutions, there were none to be found. There were no cures, the only prevention that seemed to work was complete quarantine which is almost impossible to do, but it still would have been at least somewhat helpful to encourage people to limit their daily contacts earlier rather than later. The other problem is that even while the newspapers were downplaying the issues, the populace saw how bad the influenza was so they no longer trusted the papers. In fact their lack of knowledge made them even more fearful because they built the flu up to something that was even more horrific. As a result, in many cities people didn't help each other from fear of being infected. Barry states that San Francisco alone gave out true details, and they had a terrific response from the community. While many of the deaths may not have been preventable, in some cases, the people didn't die of the flu itself but due to the fact that they were too incapacitated to take care of themselves and get water or food. These types of death could have been prevented if there had been a larger corps of civilian volunteers.

In the end, the scientists didn't find the answers or a cure - the virus itself simply mutated enough that it became less dangerous, and the survivors developed resistance. It was only years later that scientists were able to answer the question of what had caused the epidemic accurately after having pursued some false steps during the crisis. One person's work on the flu led him to focus in on smaller and smaller details until he discovered the importance of DNA and genes (DNA had been discovered previously but not its purpose).

Overall, this book was very well done. He doesn't exactly stay very linear in the middle portion during the influenza outbreak, instead taking a topic and focusing on it, then jumping back in time and referring to earlier issues as part of another discussion. It works, but it is something to be aware of to avoid confusion. As I said earlier, for the most part, the parts where he repeats himself were helpful for me, especially the more scientific facts, but there were a few other points and ancedotes that he repeated that weren't necessary. However, given the topic I think I preferred having one or two things referenced more often than I needed than three or four things less often. The politics and the government's response or lack thereof were definitely illuminating, and it was crazy to see just how much the nation as a whole bought into the war. While today it seems crazy that a nation can have its military at war without the whole or at least part of the nation being involved, the extent to which it defined live in the American community during World War I is extreme. It is suprising that this isn't mentioned more than it is in history - we all still know about the plagues in Europe and depending on the numbers this flu may have caused similar death rates. Of course, coming on the tail end of a war that disillusioned a generation, it is perhaps no surprise that it would be glossed over due to all the other significant historical events that had preceeded and followed the epidemic.

Book 59: The Post-Birthday World

2011-12-28T12:14:00.001-05:00

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

In The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver explores the question of "what if?" Irina and Lawrence, two Americans living in London, have been in a committed relationship for several years, and have a yearly tradition of spending the evening with their friend/acquaintance Ramsey on his birthday. During the year when the novel begins, Irina ends up alone at dinner with Ramsey, and finds herself tempted to kiss him. From this chapter forward, the novel splits in two, with the chapters alternating between what things would be like if Irina did in fact give into temptation, and what things would be like if she didn't.

The novel is told from Irina's perspective, so it was very interesting to me how I was made to feel about the different men in her life based on which part of the narrative is occuring. I really enjoyed the novel, and the way Lionel Shriver explored the ways things would develop based on this choice. She takes the reader through many parallel scenes, leading the reader to believe that many things would have occurred similarly yet rather differently (for example, Ramsey attends a certain snooker tournament in both alternatives, Irina ends up writing a children's story rather than just illustrating in both relationships). Neither man is exactly perfect: Ramsey is temperamental, egotistical and starts many embarassing arguments, while Lawrence is arrogant and domineering. Still I preferred her life with Ramsey which was a bit of surprise since that's the one that involved her cheating. However, one thing that was good about that situation is that Irina didn't sneak around behind Lawrence's back for an extended period of time, and quickly made up her mind to leave him. In fact, I really liked Lawrence as the man she left, and felt very sympathetic for him, but strongly disliked his smugness when they were in a relationship together. I think one reason may be that Lawrence was a bit better at being diplomatic but in some cases this meant he sided against Irina while Ramsey would start arguments with others to defend her.

The chapter that closes the novel closes the loop again, and can be read as the ending to either story line. The ending is the same but the journey and the subtext of the scene are completely different based on the previous chapters. I liked that Shriver brought the stories back together the way she did, since it does support the saying, "it's not the ending that matters, it's the journey." It's one of the reasons I have no problems reading books, watching movies or shows even when I know what the ending will be. I really liked this novel, and how well Shriver developed the characters. I also thought it was easy to believe how different Lawrence would be from one narrative to the other since Irina was treating him differently - he acts considerate in response to her odd behavior, but completely takes her for granted when she feels appreciative of their relationship.

Book 58: At Home

2011-12-28T09:38:00.001-05:00

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Before reading this book, I had read two others by Bill Bryson, which left me in the ambivalent camp. I loved A Short History of Nearly Everything but really disliked Neither Here Nor There. From what I've heard, that last one wasn't exactly characteristic of him, but it has still made me hesitant to pick up any more of his travel writing. At Home, however, sounded like it would be more like A Short History and therefore, right up my alley. Having now read this one, I'm in the pro-Bryson camp (not fanatically or anything) for now.

Bryson states in his foreword that the idea behind this book was to stick close to home after having researched the history of the whole planet/universe. He also states that the project became much larger than he would have imagined, and as a result, his focus in this book is the home from 1850 onward. Using his own home from that time period as a stepping stone, he explores the different rooms of the house, their contents, their history and uses. In some ways, his approach was exactly what I was expecting, in others a bit less so. I guess there really is only so much you can say about the bedroom itself ("historically, this is where people sleep"), so it makes sense that he broadens his topics. For the most part, it works, although in one or two cases I thought he was reaching. For example, using the basement to discuss the history of building materials I could go with - it is after all the foundation of the house. Using the study to explore the animals and pests that live in the house because that's where he catches the most mice? Um, ok.

He introduces quite a few different people that made contributions to the world with their inventions, and never received the proper recognition, and can thank Bryson if anyone remembers their names after this. Since I spent a month in the UK over the summer, I especially enjoyed when he referred to some famous homes and their construction, such Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace. I also enjoyed the background on the landscape artist Capability Brown whose work I kept running into and enjoying in the gardens and parks of many of these famous landmarks. He also had a chapter that included a discussion of fashion, which was interesting and frightening and a bit of a call back to my 18th century literature class. The history of the home becomes a global history in the hands of Bryson as he discusses how tea became popular (and how it started to be grown in India), how ice became a commodity, and several other little details that quickly affected events throughout the world.

It was a pleasurable read, and I learned a few things. I generally take these types of general histories with a grain of salt, if only because I understand that Bryson can't complete super-detailed research on every single topic so there are going to be a few discrepancies or errors based on his source material. However, since I won't have time to pick up detailed reports or books about half the topics he addressed, it is an easy way to learn a little bit about a lot of topics, and if I want to learn more, I can use this book as a starting point.

Book 57: Committed

2011-12-28T08:12:00.001-05:00

Committed: A Love Story by Elizabeth Gilbert

I'll probably lose my Pajiba membership after this one, but I actually liked Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. Italy and food, what's not to like? Gilbert even addresses that book in her prologue. She wasn't expecting it to be the success it became, and says that if anything she was worried about her usual readership not enjoying the book when she wrote it. As easy as it is to judge her for running away from her problems and traveling, she actually approached it in a smart way: she sold it as a book to her publishers, and then went on the trip. If I could get someone to pay for me to travel and live abroad for over a year, I would absolutely do it. It's not like she quit her job: she was a writer, and she had also traveled for work before. Obviously, the Oprah-fication of the book is a whole different phenomenon, but I think people's reaction to the book and the book itself can be viewed separately.

Gilbert uses Committed to explore her feelings about love, marriage and committment. After her partner Felipe is detained and prevented from entering the States (he'd been using too many temporary visas), the only way for them to live together in the United States is marriage. For the next year, they live out of the country waiting for the immigration process to give Felipe a fiance visa so they can return to Philadelphia and get married. Given her bad divorce, she uses that year to explore the history of marriage, and her fears.

The best parts of the book are when she discusses the history of marriage and the expectations people have when getting married. While marriage has a long tradition in the world, it is a history that is rather fluid - nothing about the institution is really that set in stone: the early church was rather against marriage, and it wasn't until the medieval period that the church began to get actively involved in the institution. White weddings can be traced back to Queen Victoria, and it is only rather recently that love became the main determination in marriage partners. Given this whole idea of love, it seems that people sometimes maybe expect too much of their marriages which is why they can often fail. Much of this is common sense, but just because it is common sense, doesn't mean that everyone necessarily thinks of it that way until it's actually pointed out to them.

Mostly, however, the book focuses on the personal: her past, his past, her family background, their year long wait. Most of this fits in well with the book, though I think she could have cut a few pages, or shown more of the history. Since she is traveling in southeast Asia for part of this, she also uses this as an opportunity to speak to some of the locals about their marriage traditions. I'm not sure if those scenes necessarily needed to be in the book - they come very close to crossing that line of glamorizing "the noble savage."

Overall, it was a fun, light read, and she made a few points that I definitely agreed with. She does draw things out a bit much in some sections, and in others, she definitely goes a bit off topic, but it didn't hurt the book too much. She chose to make it more personal, though I think I would have enjoyed it more if there are had been more facts. She mentions some of the books and authors she used for her research, but a recommended further reading list would have been a great addition to the book as well.

Book 56: The Double Bind

2011-12-27T11:46:00.001-05:00

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

I loved Bohjalian's novel Skeletons at the Feast but it took me quite a while to pick up another one of his. I think I may have been worried that since I like Holocaust/WWII literature, I would of course love his novel on that subject, but that it wouldn't translate into good novels about other topics. However, while I am still not sure about all of his novels appealing to me, my worry was definitely unfounded.

The novel is told mainly from Laurel's perspective, but the novel does have a third person omnipotent narrator. It is also interlaced with excerpts from a doctor's report, and old photographs. The story kicks off after Bobbie Crocker's death, an old man that is connected to the shelter where Laurel works. Bobbie had always discussed his photography but not shared it with anyone. However, the pictures are among his effects, and many of them are quite good - since Laurel is also quite interested in photography, her boss places her in charge of a project to turn them into an exhibit to raise money for the shelter. As she examines the photos, she realizes that she and Bobbie had more in common than just a shared love of photography: they are from the same area. Laurel had grown up in the shadow of Jay Gatsby's old mansion, and she begins to suspect that Bobbie may have been a Buchanan. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes more paranoid, believing that the Buchanans want to hide the connection between themselves and a homeless man with a mental disorder.

As a reader, it was easy to become caught up in the mystery and wonder what other clues Laurel might find. Her friends and family all believe she needs to let the project go because they think she is too fragile given her past. While the novel's actions start with Bobbie's death, the first chapter actually tells the reader all about Laurel's attack in the woods during which she narrowly avoided rape. As a result of this attack, she became more withdrawn, and became involved in the shelter. Her best friend and roommate is one of the few people from that period of her life she is still in contact with. As she investigates Bobbie's past, she discovers there may be yet other links between them, making her face her past.

I was actually thrown a bit when I first read the references to Jay Gatsby, his mansion and West Egg. However, I ended up quite liking the idea that these characters lived in the same fictional universe as characters of The Great Gatsby. It really was quite interesting where Bohjalian went with that connection, and how he worked it in. It really made me want to revisit The Great Gatsby - I've always loved that novel (I couldn't get into some of Fitzgerald's other work, but The Great Gatsby always just seemed perfect to me). One other thing that is of possible interest: the photographs in the novel are actually all photographs that were found among the personal effects of an elderly man that had found a place to live through the help of a homeless shelter. That part of the story was inspired by real events, and the photos were quite striking.

While the story may sound like a simple thriller or detective story, Bohjalian turns it into a novel about much more and something completely different. His approach to the topic was rather creative, and I will definitely be reading more of him in the future (in fact, one of the reasons I haven't read much more of him by now is because I didn't want to read too many novels by the same author without blogging about them - I thought I might start confusing them too much in my head). I'm particularly interested in his most recent one I saw at the book store, which appears to be a ghost story.

Book 55: She-Wolves

2011-12-27T10:54:00.001-05:00

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor

The feminist anglophile in me had to have this book as soon as I saw it on Amazon. Castor takes a close look at four women, devoting about a hundred pages to each, that have played influential roles in English history between 1066 and 1553 (Queen Mary is briefly addressed in the prologue and epilogue since the title is before Elizabeth but is not the main focus). Castor uses Edward VI's imminent death as a framing device, since Edward's only possible heirs are all women. However, as much as the English may have wanted to deny it, there was a small precedence of women in power.

Castor begins with Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Her father's only son had died, and this left Matilda, who was married to the German Emperor Henry as his sole heir. After her husband's death, Matilda returned to England and the lords there swore to uphold her claim to the throne upon her father's death. Unfortunately for her, her cousin Stephen of Blois was in the right place when Henry died, ignored his vow and ran off to get himself crowned. Matilda, however, wasn't about to stand for this betrayal, leading to a period of civil war in England. Castor does a great job of analyzing the sources, and the inherent sexism that Matilda faced: some of her contemporaries found her haughty but it is debatable whether they would have really been using those types of words if a man would have displayed the same behavior. While Matilda herself was never able to completely regain the throne for herself, she did ensure that the throne would be there for her son, Henry II.

Henry II of course leads to the next woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was the ruler of Aquitaine in her own right before she even married Henry II. At various times, she ruled the country in her husband and sons' absences, and at one point even rebelled against her husband, leading her to be put under house arrest for over a decade until his death. I've already read a biography on Eleanor as well as one or two historical fiction novels, so this section while well-written wasn't quite as interesting to me. It was definitely a good review, though, and would work well as an introduction for people unfamiliar with Eleanor.

I quite enjoyed the next queen Castor discussed, especially given my fondness for the film Braveheart which alluded to many of the people in this chapter in completely inaccurate ways. Queen Isabella of France's husband Edward II was an ineffectual ruler, whose favorites gained too much power. While this would have been bad on its own, Edward II made bad decisions as a ruler, partially due to his favorites, he held grudges, and he didn't even pretend to give the Queen any type of respect or power (he gave on of his favorites on of her estates etc). Given how unhappy the whole country was with this ruler, Isabella took matters into her own hands, and decided to save the throne for her son, Edward III. Unfortunately, she also began an affair and it turned out she had many of the same flaws as her spouse when it came to government and giving favorites too much power. She quickly went from being seen as a savior to being seen as yet another despotic ruler. However, for a period, she should herself to be decisive, capable and powerful.

The last true subject of the book (as I said, the Tudors are discussed but I don't see them as the subject as much as prologue and afterword) is Margaret of Anjou, the woman who married Henry VI. This chapter is basically a brief run down of the Wars of the Roses. The rules of succession weren't always as set in stone as they were today, and sometimes, might made right. That is how the children of a fourth son gained the throne over the children of a second son. Henry VI was king, but there was another family that had a stronger claim to the throne - the Yorks. The Yorks may have been happy to ignore their claim, but Henry VI was gullible and easily guided, and completely cut them off from power. Margaret of Anjou may or may not have been aware of all the intriciacies and slights involved, but she certainly felt her, her husband's and later her son's positions were under threat, and she lobbied hard to protect them. While I read a book after this one that put me firmly on the side of the Yorkist, Margaret is portrayed as a very sympathetic character. Like her husband, she may have been too easily influenced by a certain part of the court - as a foreign princess, she didn't know all the background or traditions, and I can definitely see why having a foreign princess would be a bad thing for these reasons. Of course, if she had been English, she would have been showing her own family too much favor so it all simply depends on the person.

I quite enjoyed this book and its topic - while Mary and Elizabeth may have been the first recognized monarchs (Lady Jane doesn't quite count), there had been women before them that played influential roles in the government and history of England. These women in particular weren't happy to stay in the sidelines or be the woman behind the man, and weren't afraid to take matters in their own hands for themselves or their families if they thought it necessary. I definitely recommend this, and not just to history buffs since it is written in a very approachable style. She also included a list of books for further reading in the back.

Book 54: The Churchills

2011-08-14T22:49:00.001-04:00

The Churchills: In Love and War by Mary S. Lovell

I used my trip to England as an excuse to buy this book, and it was one of the reasons I ended up visiting Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill and home of the Dukes of Marlborough (Winston was the son of a younger son, so no title for him). The palace and the surrounding parklands were absolutely gorgeous. It took me a few chapters to get into the book, and I was ready for it to be over about fifty to a hundred pages before it was over, but in the middle, it was a mostly engaging overview of the Churchill family. However, I would say the title The Churchills is a bit misleading - the main character and focus is Winston. After a chapter on the family member that won the battle of Blenheim, and became the first Duke of Marlborough, Lovell fastforwards to Winston's parents' generation.

While the main focus is Winston, Lovell includes more about the rest of his family than would probably be included in a straight Churchill bio, though I would assume that much of the information would still be included. Lovell is very sympathetic towards her subjects, and defends some of the family members who have previously received a bad rap from other biographers. Compared to the rest of his family, Winston was actually a bit of a puritan, marrying for love and staying with the same woman for the rest of his life. Actually, his brother also didn't get divorced, but the rest of the family was constantly marrying for the wrong reasons (American heiresses for money, such as Consuelo Vanderbilt), and having lots of divorces and affairs, It was actually a bit surprising. Winston's mother was part of the Marlborough set (Edwards VII's social circle when he was the heir), and I was surprised by the amount of affairs taking place in Victorian England. It sounded like a lot of fun, though.

While politics played into it, the book focused more on the private lives (if public figures get to have "private lives") of the men and women of the family. There is an overview of Winston Churchill's political career, but while Lovell covers the basics, she didn't necessarily get into all the intricacies of it all. In a way, I almost felt like Lovell wanted to write a biography of Winston Churchill, but didn't want to compete with all the other ones already out there, so instead she sold it as a family biography that just happened to talk a lot about Winston. Overall, I would say it works well as an introduction (like most history books I seem to read anymore), and it definitely made me feel like I could tackle a pure Churchill bio. Given that so much is already out there about Winston, I actually wouldn't have minded a bit more about some of his family members, since sometimes it seemed like Lovell would forget about them and then include them after a few chapters about Winston. Also, she was very defensive of the family, and not critical of Winston at all. I understand that after spending a certain amount of time with a topic, it is easy to become very biased towards the topic, but that is another reason I am interested in reading a separate Churchill biography. Overall, Lovell had a very conversational and slightly gossipy approach to the topic which made it an engaging and easy read, but I wouldn't take it as the definitive book on the topic.

Book 53: Victoria's Daughters

2011-08-14T21:33:00.001-04:00

Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard

In preparation for my vacation to the UK, I decided to do things the proper way for once, and read a few books about the area before I went. I figured it would be a nice change from normal, such as when I picked up a history on the Medicis after returning from Florence. I had already read We Two a few months ago, but was a bit curious about a different perspective of Victoria. I chose this because I thought it would cover a wider range of history, and after reading about Victoria and her husband, reading about her and her daugthers seemed like a natural follow-up. I quite liked the book - I'm not an expert on Victoria or family by any means, so I can't say much one way or the other about some complaints on Amazon regarding the accuracy of the facts. I noticed one mistake when the author referred to Kaiser Wilhelm and Bertie (or Edward VII) as cousins in a foot note when in fact they were nephew and uncle, but that's the only one I caught. For someone with limited knowledge on the topic, this really seemed like the perfect book.

Given that Victoria had five daughters, and through them and her granddaughters was related to rulers like Czar Nicholas II and Emperor Wilhelm, reading about these six women is really an introduction to European history from the mid-19th to early 20th century. Packard discusses Victoria's lack of interest in her children, and states that she really only had them to keep Albert happy and as her duty. He argues that in some ways Victoria's interactions with her children caused them problems later in life, and it is certain that she could at times be hard and unforgiving. However, I also think he may be being a bit hard on her, because I don't think most society women in the 19th century really spent that much time with their children, and left them to governesses, tutors and private schools, so Victoria was following a trend. Since Victoria and Albert married for love, they also encouraged their children to marry for love within the proper circles, of course. Also, Victoria was protective of her family, especially as she got older. It was quite interesting reading about how she interacted with her grandchildren vs. her children but it seems like most people mellow and become more indulgent as they age.

While Packard spends a lot of time discussing Victoria to explain her relationship with her daughters, he also focuses on each of the daughters. Her oldest, Victoria, was brilliant and her father's favorite, and was the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. After reading We Two which talked about "poor Vicky" and her relationship with her children, and especially her son, it was rather refreshing to read Packard who also addressed some of Vicky's flaws, and discussed how her early expectations may have been part of the reason her relationship with her son was so strained. I've noticed this problem a lot while reading historical non-fiction lately: many foreign princesses have a hard time adapting to their new courts and don't understand them. It didn't help that Victoria kept telling Vicky to act like an English princess rather than advising her to act in a manner her new family would approve of.

Packard did contradict himself a bit when discussing Alice, the second eldest daughter who had an interest in social improvement and nursing: at one point, he said her Englishness made it hard for her to adjust to her German surroundings and caused her problems with the people, but he also said she was well-beloved and greatly mourned at her death (she was the first of the daughters to die; one of her daughters married Czar Nicholas II).

Of Victoria's other three daughters, Louise was least conventional and had artistic ability. She actually spent some time in Canada since her husband was appointed to an official job there, but they had some marital problems (he appears to have been gay). The other two daughters stayed near to home, and Beatrice, the youngest, especially was seen as Victoria's helper and assistant. At first, Victoria hadn't even wanted her to marry for this reason, but her husband agreed to be at the Queen's beck and call in order to marry her daughter.

Queen Victoria's family was full of personalities, and the fact that Victoria could be rather demanding certainly didn't make life easy. However, Packard portrays a close and loving family, especially among the women of the family (the reader learns about the sons in passing and only when their actions affect their sisters, but it seems that Edward VII and his mother had an especially difficult relationship). He doesn't fall into the trap of worshipping the royal family or trying to slander them, but instead presents portraits of a group of complex and flawed human beings.

Book 52: Juliet

2011-08-14T19:01:00.001-04:00

Juliet by Anne Fortier

While I have never agreed with the idea that Romeo and Juliet are the greatest romantic couple of all time, I have always enjoyed the play. I actually tend to think of the characters as dumb teenagers, Romeo being inconsistent and changeable (after all, he begins the play by declaring his undying love for Rosalind, a character that is never seen and smart enough to doubt his loyalty), and Juliet simply wanting a way out of her parents' house. If she'd seen Paris first, she might very well have fallen for him or maybe it was the parental approval that proved to be the turn off in that case. The magic of the play is less in the plot or the characters but the language, and Shakespeare's way with words. As a result, I always thought Romeo and Juliet would be a great candidate for a retelling, which seems to be a rather popular subgenre nowadays (see March, written from the perspective of the father of Little Women, or Ahab's Wife narrated by a briefly mentioned wife of the captain in Moby Dick- not that I could actually get through that last one). What if Juliet didn't kill herself, and went to a nunnery like Friar Lawrence offered?

Fortier doesn't quite go that route - Romeo and Juliet are still great lovers, but she grounds the story in a historical setting in Siena, where there are in fact two dueling families. I actually liked the liberties she took with the story and the ways she imagined it may have actually started before being distorted across the centuries. I was less happy with the part of the story that took place in the modern day. The premise of the novel is that when her great-aunt and guardian dies, Julie finds out that she is actually descended from the family of the real Juliet, and that there is a treasure waiting for her in Siena. Unfortunately, Julie is a bit dull and immature - at least in my opinion. When she first opens up her deceased mother's savings deposit box, she is disappointed because there are only old papers in there, not a bunch of money since being a dumbass 25 year old, Julie had never finished college or gotten a real job, and instead run up her credit card debt because she figured she'd inherit from her great-aunt. I'm not saying the heroine needs to have life squared away, but it would help if she wasn't a pushover, who didn't want to be a success because her twin sister was. I also understand that college isn't for everyone, it's hard to get a job nowadays, but there's a difference between going into debt because you have no choice and going into debt because you figure there might be money eventually.

Also, a 25 year old virgin? Really? Should I blame this one on Twilight? Why is there this idea that in order for it to be romantic and true love the woman needs to be a virgin? Was anyone's first time that great? How much fun can it possibly be to have sex with someone that has no clue what they're doing? I may look back and wonder at my taste in men on occasion, but I don't regret the fact that I had sex. You know for sure her "Romeo" isn't waiting for Juliet, and is hooking up with as many willing women as he can find. I guess there was a bit of a reason given one plot twist, but even that was a bit much (SPOILER this ancient order of monks checked the sheets for blood, but how many women even bleed their first time given gymnastics, athletics, tampons, etc. END SPOILER).

While in Siena, Julie quickly meets the descendents of the former dueling families as well as her own relatives. In some ways she is too trusting, telling everyone who she is and what she's doing after being warned to be careful, but naturally she doubts her ability to trust others (while there is no treasure in the box, there are clues that may lead to one). Speaking of which, could someone please write a thriller where the woman actually just trusts the guy she's attracted to and it all turns out alright? I'm getting kind of tired of the cliche where the heroine doesn't trust the guy she likes and wants to sleep with, and in the process of avoiding him gets caught by the actual bad guys. Just have her trust him, and have him be trustworthy. Or shit, let's really go for a twist, and have the main character be right to mistrust the guy.

I actually enjoyed the book while I was reading it, mostly because it alternated between past and present day setting, and I was really curious to see what Fortier imagined a real life version of Romeo and Juliet may have looked like. And Julie wasn't always that annoying, especially when she was trying to figure out the clues. Unfortunately this novel also contained a few cliches I've seen in other books, and I think I've just gotten sick of them, so I'm currently venting here, even though Fortier is not the only author guilty of them. Oh, and one other thing I could have done without - whenever Julie is with her Romeo, she makes comments like "Shakespeare wouldn't like that." Could you be anymore cheesy? Also, stop being so full of yourself: Shakespeare wouldn't care!

I guess this is a bit overdue

2011-07-23T14:05:00.001-04:00

At one point before I went on my vacation, I thought I would try and do a travel blog for a month. Obviously that didn't happen. With three weeks of travel already complete, I now feel like talking about my first impressions of Ireland. Now, take this all with a grain of salt because I am tired and grumpy which tends to make me even more of a misanthrope than I usually am. However, I think that's also why I feel like blogging (as irritated was I was with Bryson's take on Europe, it really is much easier to be grumpy, and to feel inspired by dissatisfaction than to simply talk about how nice things are, so I do understand it a bit more).

So far Dublin itself seems like a perfectly lovely city; however, it also seems to have way too many people in it for its size! I think many of them are tourists, and while I realize it's the tourist season, London and Edinburgh didn't seem quite as overrun with them. I knew that Dublin and Ireland were huge vacation spots, but I guess I didn't realize that the city wasn't big enough for all of them, or just how much of a cliche a visit to Ireland is nowadays. I guess it's a bit like Paris in that way which was another city that I felt was overwhelmed with tourists (Paris was the first place I went after last deployment, so I also just wasn't used to crowds of people in general anymore; I've hit Dublin after three weeks of traveling having only had three hours of sleep the night before so I may also just starting to feel a bit of fatigue). It also doesn't help the crowds that there was a zombie convention today (seriously). So while I've enjoyed the city, I've also been a bit irritated with all the people. I may have also just been timing things badly, but it seemed almost impossible to get pictures without random people in them, even inside the cathedrals. And then crowds of teenagers are really just rude. If it's a small sidewalk, please consider walking in single file lines or pairs rather than four or five next to each other, and don't give me a dirty look for not moving off the sidewalk into traffic so the five of you can walk next to each other. Also, I've noticed people quite often ask me to take pictures for them. I figure it's probably easier to approach a single person (especially if they have a camera and are also a tourist) rather than someone that is a part of a group, so I don't have a problem (unless you just happen to be the fifth person that day to ask; I'll do it, but I'll probably be a bit irritated at that point). However, one girl came up to me today, and really just pissed me off. I'm standing in front of a statue with the camera raised to take a shot, and then she comes, interrupts me and asks me to take her and her friends' picture before I'd even taken my picture - and it was rather obvious that I was in the middle of something given how I was holding the camera. I would have been perfectly happy to do it if she had waited until I actually lowered my own camera but that was just fucking rude. I still took it but I think she noticed that I was irritated (also, the few times I have asked people to take my picture for me, I usually ask if they would like me to do the reverse for them . . . just seems like the polite thing to do).

Today, I visited the Dublin Castle (unfortunately, it had the disadvantage of being seen after Hampton Court Palace, Windsor Palace, Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard, Warwick Castle, Leeds Castle and Sterling Castle, so with the exception of one room, it wasn't very impressive). They only let people into the building as part of a guided tour, and while in the drawing room, the guide pointed out pictures of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and then showed us George IV's throne in the next room. I understand that Ireland was under British rule for much of its history, so that is part of its history, but considering how much they wanted to be independent, I would have thought that portraits of old British monarchs would have been one of the first things to come off the wall after becoming their own rulers. Guess that shows what I know. I visited both the Christchurch and the St. Patrick Cathedrals today as well - the entry fee was about the same for both, and both churches combined were still cheaper than some of the cathedrals in England, but I would say that while Christchurch had the more picturesque outside, St. Patrick's had the more beautiful inside (although Christchurch had a mummified cat and mouse, so . . . win?)

I also hit up the Dublin Writers Museum but while I recognize some of the big names, and have even read a few, I'm generally don't read many plays, short stories or poems, so I wasn't exactly that excited about most of the authors. Naturally Joyce was a big part of the museum, but I've never read anything of his, and don't have much interest in Ulysses, either. I think they were glad to see me go, though - in the gift shop, I asked about what age a book of Irish fairy tales the book would be appropriate for, and the guy had no clue. I also asked if there were any good pubs that had any associations with writers (big blank stare), and if they'd been on the Literary Pub Crawl and if they'd recommend it. Count on me to ask all the dumb questions.

I'm actually doing two day trips in the next two days, so I won't have too much time to explore Dublin again until Tuesday, but I'm looking forward to the art galleries and the Book of Kells. I figure I should go to the Guinness area as well since it is Ireland. I'm just trying to figure out how to fit everything in and possibly do a walking tour. I'm considering a haunted one and the literary pub tour which would be in the evening and not interfere, but I guess part of me would also like to do one that just discusses the history of Dublin. Hopefully the crowds won't be as bad once the zombies are gone and the weekends over.

Book 51: The Paris Wife

2011-06-23T20:30:00.002-04:00

The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain

While the topic interested me, the deciding factor was that I read a few different positive reviews of this novel from a variety of sources. Unfortunately, I didn't quite agree with them. The novel is told from the perspective of Hadley Richardson, Hemingway's first wife or "the Paris wife." They met in Chicago after the Great War, and married after a swift courtship. Hadley, about eight or nine years older than her groom, lived a rather sheltered life and was a bit innocent and old-fashioned compared to her husband in some ways. The couple eventually decide to move to Paris for Ernest's writing career.

While there, the newlyweds make the acquaintance of several Americans and artists that are already big names (at least within the arts community if not the general public just yet), including Gertrude Stein and later the Fitzgeralds. Ernest writes and works while Hadley plays the supportive wife for these first few years. They also drink a lot, and Hadley realizes just how much her life revolves around her husband when he leaves for journalism assignments to supplement their income.

I realize that since this is historical fiction, there is a limit on what the characters can do, but it is still fiction, meaning the author can take certain liberties to add drama to the story (otherwise, I would just read nonfiction) - there is a certain amount of leniency that historical fiction novelists are given as long as they don't go too crazy or become too inaccurate. While it was definitely interesting to read about these years in Hemingway's life as well as his relationship with women given how very macho his writing is, the novel was a bit slow or dull for me. It wasn't badly-written, and the novel certainly explored some of Hemingway's flaws, such as taking some things to seriously, his need to proof his manliness, and his falling out with friends due to stubbornness and pride, I wasn't hooked. It took me a few days to get through this, because I just wasn't in a hurry to read the rest. Hadley always reassures Hemingway about his writing, and they go off on various vacations, and then he finally gets some short stories published. In ways, their struggle didn't quite hit home because I knew that soon enough Hemingway would be the world famous author Hemingway, and since they were constantly going on trips, they couldn't have been struggling that much anyway, right? And yet, it took longer for Hemingway to become successful than I expected or realized.

I enjoyed the last third of the novel the most, which follows Hemingway's trip to Pamplona, and basically recreates the scene that inspired The Sun Also Rises (which I want to revisit now), and then also documents a disintegrating marriage. Had there been warning signs before? As a reader and someone who knows that Hadley wasn't Hemingway's last wife, it is easy to judge some of the marriage scenes in the early years and see signs even if they aren't there. From a modern sensibility, Hadley is too wrapped up around Hemingway, but even she points out that in '20s Paris, her lifestyle was considered old-fashioned. The main issue with the portrayal of Hadley as the happy supportive housewife is that it doesn't make for a very exciting protagonist. She seemed too bland or too much like a blank slate for much of the novel rather than a distinct character - in fact, she could have been pulled out of any generic historical fiction piece.

The novel does an alright job of telling the story and setting the scene, but maybe this marriage wasn't that exciting, or something more was needed in the first half of the book to make it more engaging. The author says she was inspired to write this after reading Hemingway's portrayal of his first marriage in A Moveable Feast, so readers may get more satisfaction from that particular book - I think I read the first chapter of it many years ago, and put it down because Hemingway ordered a lot of drinks, and that was all that happened, so I was easily distracted by other novels. The novel has made me curious about Hemingway again, and the reality of this, so it does succeed in at least making the reader want more. It would have been nice if some of that more had come from the novel itself, though.

Book 50: Bad Blood

2011-06-23T20:29:00.002-04:00

Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment by James Jones

I had heard of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment at some point in school, but only knew very broadly what had happened: white doctors experimented on black men and let them die of syphilis in the '30s. What I didn't know is that the experiment continued into the '70s, or how it even came to be.

Jones does a very good job of telling the story behind the experiment, and what led to it. He doesn't even necessarily judge the doctors himself, letting their actions speak for themselves and also demonstrates how they rationalized the experiment to themselves. Jones begins with the history of racism in medicine, and goes back to the times of slavery. At that point, many believed that diseases affected blacks and whites differently but despite this the doctors used the same treatments for slaves as for their masters. After the Civil War, many whites thought that blacks would die out due to their death rates which could be directly traced to their living conditions. Some used this to show that blacks were inferiors to whites, while others realized that anyone in these conditions would face similar challenges. As a result, public health officials focused on education within poor and black communities. In the early 1930s, public health officials were in Macon County, Alabama to test for syphilis and were surprised by the rather significant rates of syphilis among the population. It was around this time that their funding for treatment (which still involved mercury and a year long succession of shots) was cut due to the Depression. One of the doctors determined that since the population couldn't be treated and wouldn't look for treatment on their own anyway, it was the perfect setting to examine the affects of syphilis, intending to observe a group of men for a period of six months or so. It is easy to see the justification here: the money wasn't there, the patients wouldn't have been able to afford treatment on their own, and it would only be short term. However, the doctors didn't straight up tell the patients what was being done to them/what they were being used for. Many believed they were receiving treatment. The doctors may argue that they had told the patients they were being examined because they had bad blood, believing it to be local slang for syphilis, but that wasn't quite accurate. Bad blood could be used to refer to a number of conditions, basically boiling down to ill health.

Additionally, after the six months were up, other doctors wanted to continue the experiment, believing it to be a one time opportunity to view the affects of syphilis on blacks (they still believed it affected blacks and whites differently). In order to do this, they involved medical professionals throughout the community, and made them promise not to treat the men in the group. In fact in later years, others would come down to treat syphilis in the area (during WWII, for example), but these men were not given treatment. Even when penicillin, a more effective treatment was developed, the scientist continued to deny the men help or tell them what was really wrong with them. Additionally, the whole experiment was flawed to begin with: one of the organizations that agreed to sponsor the original six month experiment said that all the men must be treated. The doctors gave all the men at least a few shots of the mercury, not enough to actually cure the disease, but enough to make the argument that this was a study of completely untreated syphilis invalid.

When the story finally broke, it invited comparisons to the Nazis, and with a few other cases that were making news, really made people wonder about patient rights and consent. I had actually heard of this book in particular from the bibliography of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and both of these books refer to a scientific experiment that involved people being injected with cancer cells (without their knowledge) to see what would happen. This is a later edition of the book, so it also includes a chapter about AIDS and the publics' reaction to HIV and AIDS. The book was educational, and very well researched. My one complaint is that the series of doctors really aren't that distinguished from each other, so there were basically a lot of names thrown out but I really couldn't say which one was involved in the experiment in which way at this point. Then again, that helps to show just how much bureaucracy there was in this whole process, and how a series of men who didn't see conflict between this experiment and their oaths as doctors.

Book 49: King Rat

2011-06-23T20:07:00.002-04:00

King Rat by China Mieville

I actually became interested in this author because I thought his novel Kraken sounded interesting. Or maybe I just liked the title. Either way, since it was out in hardcover at the time, I didn't get it because I didn't want to spend that much money on a new author. However, I eventually found this novel by Mieville and decided it sounded intriguing and like a good place to start. I admit my interest in this novel may have been for the wrong reasons: the thing that most caught my attention on the backcover was the idea of another London, a secret London hidden behind the ordinary world. I like London, I loved Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere which also had a secret London (and is totally the reason I have a shot glass that says "Mind the Gap"), and it probably really isn't a good idea to pick up one author's novel because of another author's work.

After Saul spends the weekend out, he returns home and goes straight to bed, only to be awakened by the police a bit later and questioned about his father's death or murder. While in lock up, King Rat visits Saul and helps him escape and it is at this point that Saul learns there is more to his heritage than he ever knew: he is part rat. While King Rat is less than open with information, his father's death had something to do with Saul and who he is, and the novel soon introduces the rats' old enemy: the Pied Piper. Saul may be the only one able to defeat him due to his unique heritage, but the Piper soon has Saul's friends under his spell.

I really liked the ideas in this novel. I thought the modernization of the Pied Piper was a great idea, and the story was a good one. Unfortunately, it all felt very impersonal. I didn't really care about Saul, I especially didn't care about his friends, and it was just hard for me to feel any real danger throughout the novel. If it had been written differently, this would have been a great novel, but unfortunately, I just found myself wanting it to be over already. With the characters that Mieville created, this may have been better as a short story. I may still try one of the author's other novels because he is obviously a creative and intelligent thinker, but this isn't the book to start with, especially if the reader is looking for something similar to Gaiman's style (and I wasn't intentionally looking for that except for the previously mentioned Neverwhere comparison).

Book 48: The Bone Garden

2011-06-14T11:59:00.002-04:00

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

While Maura Isles makes a short appearance in this novel as the medical examiner on a case, this is actually not part of the Rizzoli/Isles series. Instead it is a stand-alone historical medical thriller. The novel has few scences set in the present day that alternate with chapters set in 1830. Julia Hamill has recently gone through a divorce, and as a project to keep herself busy, she has bought an old house to fix up. While working on her garden, she discovers an old body which the medical examiners declare to be a female murder victim from some time around the 1830s period due to jewelry found with the body.

Julia Hamill is naturally curious about the history of her house, even though it was built around 1880 and a relative of the deceased former owner (who calls himself the family historian) contacts her, and gets her to help him go through the family papers. In its flashbacks to 1830, the novel focuses on Rose Connolly, a poor Irish immigrant, whose sister dies on the maternity ward in the first few chapters, and Norris Marshall, a poor medical student/former farmer that is working his way through school by body snatching, and is soon suspected of a series of murders.

While the pacing was fine, and Gerritsen knows how to drive a plot forward, the whole novel was way too derivative for me: several people are murdered (at first only women) and they all seem to be linked by their knowledge of a mysterious baby and her father's identity. Sounds a bit too much like a certain theory concerning a well-known serial killer called Jack the Ripper - remember the theory that Mary Kelly knew her friend had a relationship with a member of the royal family, and all the other prostitutes had used the name Mary at one time or another, and hence the killer kept getting the wrong victim? Also, there is a character in this book called Jack Burke - he is the grave robber that Norris helps with the hard labor. It would probably be a spoiler to reveal that Burke eventually realizes it's easier to kill people, and take them to the med schools than dig them out of graves except that there is a historical figure William Burke who had a friend William Hare, and they did the exact same thing in Edinburgh, Scotland back in the day. I haven't yet decided whether using the same name was a cute little reference or lazy writing on Gerritsen's part. There's a character that's mentally challenged and lives on the street, and he meets exactly the fate one would expect him to just upon meeting the character.

I like historical fiction, Gerritsen's medical thrillers are entertaining, but the mix of the two is way too derivative. Maybe I've just already heard too much about the difficulty of finding bodies for autopsies when people were still sceptical of science, but I don't feel like this novel taught me anything - usually, it's always nice to learn a few historical trivia facts from historically set novels, but this one had nothing new to offer. That said, predictable as it is, it is still a quick, engaging read, so I wouldn't recommend against it if a person has read the rest of her books.

Book 47: Ape House

2011-06-04T15:54:00.001-04:00

Ape House by Sara Gruen

When I looked through the meager book section of the Al Asad PX in hopes of finding a book that wasn't a mystery/thriller, this one caught my eye. I had actually enjoyed Water for Elephants, and decided her follow up novel would be worth a shot despite the fact that I'm not really that into monkeys or apes, and the description on the back made it sound like a lurid affair would take place. Fortunately, the description completely misrepresents that part of the book. Yes, Isabel's life changes after meeting "very married" reporter John Thigpen but that's because shortly after the interview, someone bombs her workplace, not because her romantic attraction inspires her to change her life. In fact, they don't even meet again till nearly the end of the novel, and he spends more time thinking about her (due to both her interview and the bombing that followed it) than she does about him. In fact she doesn't think of him until she needs a reporter on her side.

The first hundred or so pages of this novel are very good - it sets up and introduces the bonobos that are part of the Great Ape Language Lab where Isabel works. The six bonobos all have personalities, and there are quite a few cute anecdotes about them. It also introduces its human characters: Isabel Duncan, the scientist who sees the apes as family, and who gets caught in the explosion, and John Thigpen, a journalist working in the dying world of print journalism. Gruen makes allusions to Isabel's dramatic family background but it doesn't go anywhere besides showing why she is so attached to the apes. John's wife appears to be suffering from depression due to the lack of success her writing career has had, and is now considering being a writer in Hollywood, which leads to a bunch of insecurities on her part.

After the bonobos' habitat is bombed, and they are sold, the novel takes too long to track down the animals (there is a trip to lab to see if they are there - while it is a failed rescue attempt, it allows Gruen to portray some of experiments that have been done to chimpanzees, the bonobos' closest relatives), and bring the main characters back together. Isabel finds out some things about one of her colleagues and the plot twists are rather obvious, but I wasn't reading the novel for any conspiracies so that didn't bug me. The main issue with this book is simply that the human characters aren't that well developed, especially Isabel. She just seems so flat. John is a bit more interesting as he and his wife both struggle with their careers and dreams, which are failing. However, this also made the novel incredibly depressing and bleak for most of it - journalism and writing are not exactly easy to break into, and the novel seems to go from one failure for the Thigpens to another. While they are trying to set up careers and jobs with a future and meaning, Isabel spends the novel moping around, missing her animal family. As I said, it was much more depressing than Water for Elephants, which had moments of bleakness intermixed with hope and magical moments - it probably also helped that the miseries in Water for Elephants were set in the past. The stories in here just a bit too topical. In this novel, most of the charm is in the beginning. The bonobos are the most developed of all the characters, and their stint on reality TV was rather amusing.

Some of the situations John got into towards the end at his motel were also a bit ludicrous though amusing enough while reading them. It's not that this was a bad novel necessarily: the parts about the bonobos was interesting and how they compare to chimpanzees (they are less aggressive and more matriarchal), and while parts of the story were very predictable, I still enjoyed the overall story. I just didn't think the human characters were as developed as they could have been which makes this a rather forgettable novel. In fact, I finished the book today and almost couldn't remember the character's names (the human ones at least) - in fact, I can't remember John's wife's name. Basically, Water for Elephants is better, but if someone liked that and wanted to read more by the author, I wouldn't dissuade them from reading it. I could even see myself recommending this to a certain people, maybe someone looking for a semi-educational beach read, but definitely with a few caveats.

Book 46: The Sinner

2011-06-01T14:32:00.001-04:00

The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen

The third Rizzoli/Isles novel begins with a prologue set in India with a man trying to document a crime scene for the Octagon corporation. While there he stumbles upon a woman without a face before the prologue ends, and the novel shifts to a crime scene at a monastery in Boston where two women have been found bludgeoned. One of them has barely survived, but is unconscious, while the young twenty year old nun (the only novice to join in fifteen years) is dead. Due to the prologue, the reader has a bit more knowledge than Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Maura Isles, and is left to wonder from early on how exactly the India vignette is going to tie into the case. It is a secluded cloister, which means that the nuns live a life of reflection and prayer with no contact to the outside. Despite this, the medical exam reveals that the young nun had just recently given birth to a child. Immediate suspects of course include the unknown father, and as the only man with access to the nuns, their priest, Daniel Brophy is an early suspect.

Maura finds herself attracted to the priest, who more than willingly gives up a DNA sample to the police. However, her ex-husband also arrives in town, trying to rekindle old flames. Rizzoli and Isles spend some commiserating about men since things have fizzled between FBI agent Gabriel Dean and Rizzoli, and Rizzoli is now pregnant. However, Dean shows up to investigate a seemingly unrelated case of a murder victim whose limbs have been removed, though the woman is soon suspected to be from India.

This novel veers from the format set in the other two novels since this one isn't about a serial killer, and goes more of the conspiracy theory route. There are no coincedences in this world, and everything ends up tying together. Rizzoli's pregnancy softens her up a bit, and I think it was also helpful to have more of the novel be from Maura's perspective. I didn't think the sex scenes were very well written, and it seems like Rizzoli and Isles are both focused on their status as single women. I understand that everyone has those moments, but for two such accomplished women, I wish there wasn't quite as much self-doubt due to those types of things. Overall, there were a few red herrings, and the novel was entertaining, though it wasn't quite as tense as the first two in the series.

Book 45: An Artist of the Floating World

2011-06-01T11:32:00.001-04:00

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

While I have enjoyed all of Ishiguro's novels that I've read thus far, none have come close recreating the same magic for me as Never Let Me Go. Of course, I haven't read some of his more acclaimed works, such as The Remains of the Day, and have only read a few of his earlier novels since first reading Never Let Me Go.

Set three years after the end of World War II, the novel is narrated by the retired artist Masuji Ono and broken down into four parts covering different periods of time, beginning with October 1948, April and November 1949, and June 1950. The novel is not very linear at all, and the narrator goes on many tangents. He will at one point be discussing a conversation he had during a visit with his daughter which will then remind him of his times as an art student for his master. In this way, the novel slowly reveals Ono's life story, though there are no real surprises: the reader already knows the outcomes of his actions at the beginning of the novel.

As the novel begins, Ono's youngest daughter is in the middle of marriage negotiations, and things are tense since she is fast approaching old maid status and negotiations the previous year had turned unexpectedly bad. His other dauther is already married (she married before the war), and has a young son, Ichiro, who doesn't see much of his grandfather. Ono is not a very likable narrator, especially in the beginning: the way he portrays things, it seems like he is being stubbornly obtuse about things. He and his daughters don't appear to truly talk about what concerns them, and talk around things instead (his wife and son died in the war). He also keeps trying to bond with his grandson but obviously has no clue how to interact with children. They only time they seem to have anything to say to each other is when Ono makes promises that aren't in his power to make, or when they are making fun of the women of the family. He doesn't understand or approve of the changes in Japanese culture or the new American influence.

As Ono portrays it, it seems obvious that his daughters believe that his past with the Japanese empire are one of the reasons that the marriage negotiations went wrong, though Ono says that it was because his family had a higher status than the suitor's and appears to be in denial. He throws in many anecdotes of Japanese men committing suicide as an apology for what the older generation led the country into, as well as memories of conversations about the war with his son-in-law who has become very bitter and critical. Most of the novel, it appears as if Ono doesn't quite agree that it is fair to blame the war and its repercussions on his generation. He often justifies himself and his peers by talking about how they wanted what was best for the country and their intentions were pure. However, eventually he attempts to visit old colleagues to ask them to speak in his favor in case the family whose son may marry his daughter hire a detective or make inquiries.

Ono chose to become an artist despite his father's wishes that he be a businessman. He reminisces back to his times as an apprentice in a firm and then with a master who focuses on the fleeting beauty of the floating world, the world of geishas and pleasure. He also talks about his own students and how admired he was, coming across as pompous. He had decided to leave behind the art of beauty to focus on political art and propaganda in support of the empire. At first it seems like he is shirking any responsibility or blame, especially based on his portrayal of his daughters but later in the novel, I wondered. When his daughters contradict him later, is it because he misremembers, or do they not want to remember bad things because things are going well at the time? How important was Ono really? How culpable was he? The way he writes I'm not sure if he was making himself seem more or less responsible for whatever happened during the war. At first I definitely would have said he was trying to avoid blame, but at the end I wasn't sure anymore, and thought maybe he felt more guilt than he wanted to admit, or wanted to feel more important than he was.

While I really didn't like Ono in the beginning, I felt bad for him by the end despite some of the bad things he did. He has outlived his world, he can't relate to his family, and he doesn't even seem quite sure of his importance in his former world anymore. While the war only intensifies these issues, I'm sure many old people can relate to this. Ishiguro is very good at creating characters with regrets, lonely souls who spend their time living in the past. At the end, Ono says he has been painting again, so maybe he has finally taken his old master's words about fleeting beauty to heart. Still, I don't see much hope for Ono's happy ending: his time has passed and I don't think he will ever quite find his place in this new world.

Book 44: The Apprentice

2011-05-30T09:40:00.001-04:00

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

This is the second novel of what becomes the Rizzoli/Isles series. The book introduces medical examiner Maura Isles, and is told almost entirely from the perspective of Rizzoli (in the first of the series, she was more of a supporting cast member). The last novel ended with the apprehension of "The Surgeon," the serial killer that gave the book its title. Imprisoned in a high security facility, the novel still contains scenes in italics as seen from his perspective.

While investigating a case, Rizzoli receives a call from a detective outside the Boston district, because the detective on the case feels there are similarities to Warren Hoyt. Since Hoyt is in prison, it is not him, of course, but there are a few things about the scene that remind Rizzoli of him: the home invasion, the slit throat, the folded night clothes. There are big differences, though; this killer is going after couples, killing the husbands and abducting the wives before disposing of their bodies at a later time.

An FBI agent joins the case unrequested, and he is obviously hiding something from the Boston PD since he knows things about the case before Rizzoli and her team do. In the midst of this investigation, Hoyt breaks out of prison. adding to the stress level and intensity of the investigation, especially once it becomes clear that Rizzoli may have had a point in noting the similarities between the two killers.

Rizzoli isn't the most likable heroine but I liked reading about the investigation, and was eager to see the big picture and how the FBI fit into the case. The love story was the weakest part of the novel, but somehow people always end up coupled off in these things. My biggest complaint was the ending which seemed rushed and had a bit of a deus ex machina feel to it - I guess I would have just preferred more actual detectiving than there was at the end to discover the killers. Still, it was free and I wasn't in the mood for something super-reflective so this was a good read for that. I can't say I really like Rizzoli at this point, but the novels are keeping me entertained.

Book 43: Stones from the River

2011-05-29T14:47:00.001-04:00

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi

I'm not sure why I never read this book before. Originally, it may have been the fact that it was on Oprah's Book Club or perhaps I felt like I needed a break from World War II literature when my mom read it, I don't know. When I looked at it later, the comparison to Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum probably would have turned me off: I hated that book. I didn't like the protagonist at all, and thought he was oddly lecherous and devious. However, having read this book, I believe that comparison has more to do with the fact that both of the protagonists are dwarves in small towns in Germany rather than other similarities. Yes, both use a degree of magic realism (more so in Grass's case), but Trudi comes off as a real, normal person who happens to be a dwarf, someone who I wouldn't mind talking to, while the protagonist in The Tin Drum does not.

The novel spans from World War I era through the beginning of the post World War II period. It takes place in a small German town near Dusseldorf, and is the story of Trudi Montag. Conceived after her father returns home early from the war due to an injury, she is born in 1915 and her mother has a breakdown after her birth. Trudi realizes early on that she is different, and as she grows up she comes to realize the power of secrets and relishes discovering others. As a result, she becomes the town gossip, which is made easier by the fact that her father runs the town's pay library so there are always people coming in and out of the family business who are looking for new stories in the form of Trudi's gossip and novels. While Trudi has a hard time making friends at school due to her difference, she is also an integral part of the town. She may not always be well liked due to her sharp tongue, but her father is a very respected member of the community, and the women of the town are drawn to him after his wife's death, though their passions always remain chaste and unrequited. Trudi can be a very hard person as she withdraws and distances herself from friends before they can leave her, and she does a few things that are petty.

As the Nazis come into power, all the various characters of the town begin to splinter within the community. People that have been neighbors for ages and well-respected members of the town are now shunned because of their differences. Many of the Jews are some of Trudi's closer friends and she sees the effects first hand. Due to her own difference and inability to fit into the Aryan ideal, she is not drawn into Hitler's rhetoric like so many others, and she and her father end up sheltering Jews. While there are a few that speak up, most of these are silenced early on - in some cases, one prison visit is enough, in other cases they disappear never to come back again. Though the novel uses Trudi as its main protagonist and its eyes, it is really about a small community and the Nazi regime. Some of Hitler's followers were opportunist while others truly believed in him. Of course, most would claim after the war to have never agreed with Hitler and to have not known what was going on when only a few could really claim to have resisted. As horrible as the Holocaust is, it is easy to forget the small parts: the fact that in most cases it wasn't Germans attacking Jews they had never met: they went after neighbors, people that they had known for ages, whom they had sold or bought groceries from, doctors they had visited for aches etc.

In order to really reinforce this, it helps that Hegi begins her novel in 1915, thus truly showing the fabric of the town to the reader and how it gradually changed with the Nazis. Even the end of the war doesn't fix things: no one wants to talk about what has happened, and the people want to move on, but the silence and secrets are obvious. These aren't the only secrets the town tries to bury as the town also weaves lies and people in and out of its history throughout the novel, but Trudi remembers and digs for the truths at all times, cherishing her gossip and her stories. The only stories she does not share are ones about herself, letting people make their own conclusions about her based on her outward appearance. I quite liked this novel, and the rich tapestry that Hegi created in this town. I admit that at one or two points, I thought about how many stories about Nazi Germany tend to be about the "good" Germans, the ones that helped the Jews - on occasion, it seems like if there had been as many good Germans as are described in these novels, many more Jews should have survived, but Hegi does a good job of balancing the community, showing the people that were ambivalent, purposely blind, and fanatic compared to those what were actively attempting to make a difference. One character I thought was interesting felt like she had been a collaborator by helping to make the prisoners more tolerable. As she believed later, she had helped the Nazis by handing over calm and docile prisoners, and blamed herself - even those with good intentions could simply become cogs in the machine of genocide.

Book 42: Regeneration

2011-05-27T06:37:00.001-04:00

Regeneration by Pat Barker

When I took "British Lit 1798 to Present," my professor made the argument that World War I had a much greater impact on Britain and the British cultural imagination than World War II. In comparison, for Americans it was World War II that really made an impact and helped defined the ways they saw themselves. It certainly makes sense: almost a million young British men died in the four year conflict, which would have a huge effect on a generation, with about twice that many wounded (2.13% of the population according to Wikipedia). The Americans entered the war rather late. The US was much more involved in World War II comparatively, and when you go to an American book store's military history section, the Civil War and World War II take up the majority of it. It's an easy war to glamorize from an American perspective: there were clear good and bad sides, and the Americans helped achieve the victory, while then attempting to be gracious winners who helped rebuild the countries they had been at war with. Growing up in Germany, World War II and the Holocaust obviously overshadowed World War I, so the statement that World War I would have a greater impact was an interesting idea to me. However, World War I was the first war with casualties on such a huge scale, and certainly caused many of the things that led to WWII. It triggered a great deal of change and disillusionment, and it is still unimaginable how the war could have gone on so long with such dramatic tolls. I love the World War I poets, and the German novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and have definitely become more interested in the period over the years.

Regeneration is the first novel in Barker's WWI trilogy which centers around historical figures and fictional characters as its main protagonists. The novel isn't about the front lines of the war or the battles but its effects. The novel begins with Siegfried Sassoon's declaration against the continuation of the war. It appears that he is already a famous figure at this point in history (now of course he is known as one of the war poets), so rather than court martial him, the authorities declare him shell shocked and send him to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh where he comes under the care of Dr. Rivers. Originally, I expected Sassoon to be the main character, but I believe that title goes to Dr. Rivers (another historical figure), while Sassoon and Billy Prior (fictional character) are the two main supporting cast members with a few other extras to illustrate war experiences. The hospital Craiglockhart is for officers suffering from shell shock and other mental disorders as a result of the war.

Barker uses her characters to show some of the reactions that patients had: there are a few that suffer from "mutism" and are unable to speak. Burns is unable to eat because during an attack he was thrown headfirst into the stomach of a decomposing body. Another officer, a doctor, can no longer handle the sight of blood but still plans to return to medicine. The men in the novel are conflicted: they don't want to be in the war, but they don't want to leave their men behind and want to return. Sassoon especially feels guilt for leaving his men behind. Prior has a problem with anyone not involved in the war (they don't understand, they are continuing with their lives as normal), and even Rivers feels guilty that he was too old to be in the military. Rivers has read Freud's theories, and believes in many of Freud's ideas and practices such as dream analysis, and using talk therapy. Fortunately, he isn't that big on the sexual part, but he does believe that they are suppressing memories, and even uses hypnosis on a patient as a last result. As the novel progresses, Rivers must deal more and more with the inherent irony in his position: he is trying to help his patients and get them well to send them back into danger when really by remaining ill, they are possibly helping themselves more. Sassoon isn't ill but Rivers still has to get him to decide that he would be better off returning to his troops.

The language in the novel felt very sparse - it's been a very long time since I've read Hemingway but that's always the first thing I think of when I think of certain writing styles, even if that might not be completely accurate. The officers are generally sent to the hospital for about 12 weeks prior to seeing a board so the novel covers a time span of about 3 months. While the reader witnesses a few sessions that Rivers has with his patients, their healing process isn't always explained. Some of them simply get better without completely confronting their problems (Rivers for example isn't satisfied with one patient's recovery in particular) while others end up discharged from the military or on assignments outside the war zone. The end of the novel contrasts Rivers's treatment methods with another doctor's, who is very brutal by comparison, especially to modern sensibility.

Even in today's military we still often talk about the stigma associated with seeing behavioral health professionals and ways to combat this stigma given current suicide rates. While the stigma has definitely decreased in the last few years (there are of course always people that think that Soldiers seeking this type of help are malingering, but Soldiers are suspected of malingering for visiting regular doctors about physical ailments as well when these appointments appear to be at a too convenient time), it is interesting to see the World War I perspective when these types of problems were only beginning to receive recognition. I confused a few of the patients a few times, remembering them more based on their neuroses than their names since the novel definitely focused on the main characters and didn't develop some of the minor characters much beyond a collection of symptoms - I feel like these men in particular were more symbols than anything. Barker also included a few comments on women's positions at the time by including women workers, including one who has an abortion. Overall, it was an interesting look at soldiers' psyches as a response to the war, and I thought Barker did a good job of showing the internal conflict many of these men faced as well as demonstrating that it was the overall accumulation of war sights that caused the breakdown rather than one huge event (two men actually comment on the fact that their breakdowns happened after incidents that weren't even the worst they'd seen). While I liked the novel while I was reading it, I don't think it made a huge impact on me - many of the things Barker describes feel like they are now self-evident or common sense, but it was still nice to see a war novel written from outside the trenches that really doesn't try to glamorize things. I plan on reading the rest of the series but having read the book a bit less than a week ago, the characters are already starting to blend together for me, and naturally given the subject, there aren't huge plot developments in the novel but small stories of men attempting to slowly heal from the stresses of war.

Book 41: The Surgeon

2011-05-23T14:24:00.001-04:00

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

I heard about this author when I saw that TNT was making a show based on the series that started with this novel. I don't watch procedurals all too often, but I like the occasional Law and Order: SVU, and figured I might as well check out if this series was any different (I also think I saw a book that was later in the series that sounded like it had an interesting premise for a killer, but I obviously couldn't start in the middle). Having said that, it was an entirely enjoyable book given the genre it represents. I wouldn't call it ground-breaking in any way but it had a few nice ideas.

I was actually surprised by one thing about the novel: given that the rest of the series is the Rizzoli/Isles series, I was expecting one or both of them to be the main character in this novel. In fact, the novel is told from three perspectives (well, four when you include the pages in italics in the killer's voice), and Rizzoli is the one that receives the least attention. She wasn't even that likable, and while she had some good insights in the novel, she also made a huge mistake and didn't want to own up to it. The main characters are Thomas Moore, one of the other detectives on the case who is part of it because he investigated a murder with the same profile a year before, and Catherine Cordell, a surgeon and victim of a serial killer two years before. Cordell had escaped and shot her assailant, but even though the man that attacked her is dead, these current crimes are incredibly similar, and the new killer begins to focus on her.

The novel begins with a scene from the killer's perspective as he plots a murder, and then starts with a detective over a year later when a second body is discovered killed in the same manner: in both cases, the killer broke into the victims' apartments, incapacitated them with choloroform, tied them to their beds and immobilized them before cutting their uterii from their bodies while they were alive and conscious only to finally slit their throats. It ties to a case in Savannah that was closed two years before although in that particular case, the women had been raped prior to the other violence. Rizzoli and Moore are two of five detectives on the case, and they slowly find connections between the victims with some assistance from Cordell, who it soon becomes obvious is a target herself.

Since one of the main characters was a surgeon and worked at a hospital, there were a few scenes that read like a scene from E.R. I have to say medical talk like that is much more fun to watch than to read, but other than that, it was a good enough novel for what it was. It's entirely forgettable, although I liked the side trip to Savannah (I live/am going to live there). I don't think I'd really necessarily spend money on more from the series but considering that the MWR's book room is half full of these types of novels, I wouldn't be surprised if I could find the rest of the series there - this series would work pretty well on the stair master.

Book 40: About a Boy

2011-05-23T06:39:00.001-04:00

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

My 1SG has a theory on relationships. She believes that there is no one person that will be 100% perfect for someone else, and that the most anyone can hope for is to meet someone that meets 80% of one's expectations. However, she also believes that people are attraced to the new and always looking for the new, and that usually whoever this new person is will meet the 20% that the first person cannot. As a result, I obviously had to share this quote with her:

In the end, the thing that swung it for him in his affair with Angie was that he was not Someone Else. That meant in this case he wasn't Simon, her ex, who had problems with drink and work, and who, with a cavalier disregard for cliche, turned out to be screwing his secretary. Will found it easy not to be Simon; he had a positive flair for not being Simon, he was briliant at it. It seemed unfair, in fact, that something he found so effortless should bring him any kind of reward at all but it did: he was loved for not being Simon more than he had ever been loved simply for being himself. (24)

This is actually only the second Hornby novel I've read, which is honestly a bit surprising since one of my friends loves him (especially High Fidelity) and Hornby is rather popular with the Pajiba crowd. I decided to make this one the second because I haven't seen the movie, and kind of want to since I like Rachel Weisz (I'm only, what, ten years behind the rest of the world?)

Hornby tells the story from the perspective of Marcus, a 12 year old boy who is both old for his age and naive, and Will, a 36 year old man-child to say it in simple terms. Marcus is the child of divorce, and he and his mother Fiona have recently moved to London. His mother struggles with depression, and Marcus understands that things aren't quite normal. He also doesn't fit in at school because his mom is a feminist, vegetarian hippie who is opposed to most new popular culture and has raised her son on Joni Mitchell in the time of Nirvana and Snoop Dogg. Being the new kid, he gets picked on quite a bit.

Meanwhile, Will's friends are growing distant from him as they become more mature and have children. Will doesn't want children, but when he realizes during a chance meeting with Angie that he has a chance with beautiful women that would normally never give him the time of day simply because they are single mothers, he feels like he has hit a gold mine. Unfortunately, he doesn't know any other single mothers, so after Angie breaks up with him, he pretends to be a single father to join a group for single parents. Suzie, one of the mothers in the group, is friends with Fiona, and Marcus and Will meet during a single parents' outing. Suzie had invited Marcus to give Fiona a break but when they drop him off at the apartment, they find Fiona unconscious on the couch after a failed suicide attempt.

Marcus finds himself drawn to Will, and begins to spend time with him. While Will is not a father figure, he understands high school, bullies and pop culture, and both of them learn things about themselves and the world through their interactions with each other. Will becomes involved in the messiness of human relationships since Marcus pulls him into his world, and Will finds himself interacting with Marcus's parents as well. Marcus begins to make relationships in high school as he learns about modern culture, and how to fit in. At first Will doesn't understand these people, and he also says he would never want to kill himself because he doesn't care that much about anything. Fiona in comparison cares about everything so much that it is obvious that she would be disappointed and overwhelmed by life.

I actually quite enjoyed the novel. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Will, a man that has no job due to family money, but he develops depths as the novel progresses. I quite enjoyed Marcus, and his realizations about life. This novel was set in '93/'94, so I enjoyed the throwback to the grunge era, and Hornby created flawed but likable characters. It was a light read without being fluff, so I'm glad I finally got around to this.

Book 39: Half Broke Horses

2011-05-20T09:12:00.001-04:00

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls

I read the author's memoir, The Glass Castle, several years ago and quite liked it. Now, I barely the details of the book, though it was about Walls's upbringing and childhood with her less than stable parents. Her parents were erratic which led to both fun exciting adventures as well as poverty. In this book, Walls takes the family stories about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, and weaves them into a "true life novel."

Walls uses the stories that she and her mother remember about her grandmother to create this woman's life story. Since it is based on family myth, Walls doesn't title the story as a biography. The book reads very much like an oral history - it is told in Lily's voice in chronological order, but as a reader I could easily imagine that all the chapters were individual stories told at varying times to her daughter who then helped her own daughter place them in order.

In many ways, Lily feels like a portrayal of the quintessential (and possibly even stereotypical) frontier woman. She grew up in Texas and New Mexico; it was a tough life but her family had a roof (except when the tornados or flash floods took them away) and food. Still, there wasn't enough money to send her to school for more than a semester due to her father's schemes, though he made sure to home school his children with his strong views. Her mother tries to be a genteel lady in a tough environment, leaving Lily her fair share of responsibility early on. However, this clearly helps her since she is very strong-willed and independent as a result, leaving for Arizona to teach at fifteen (there was a teacher shortage due to the First World War) despite her lack of degree. Upon the return of the soldiers from the homefront, Lily finds herself out of a job and enroute to Chicago for better opportunities. While she attends night school and receives her high school diploma in Chicago, for the most part, it seems like an interlude in her life that kept her off track. She develops a close friendship with a factory worker who dies in an accident, and marries a man that turns out to already have a wife and family. Eventually, she returns west to take a teacher certification course, and finds her place back in the more rough and tumble life in Arizona.

While at first things go well in her new position, she soon finds further hardship before marrying and settling down with Jim Smith, which eventually leads to her running a cattle ranch. Lily definitely thinks of herself in the right in most things, and is portrayed as someone with strong beliefs that occasionally get her in trouble (or fired). No matter what difficulties she faces, she simply bucks up and continues to her new venture. This portrayal as well as the various occupations she faces make her seem both ordinary and extraordinary. On the one hand, her strength and determination are admirable and seem even more commendable for a woman in that time but based on other depictions (both fictional and non-fictional) of women in the West, it seems like her work ethic and adventures are far from unique. While she generally feels like she did the best she could and is unapologetic for any mistakes she may have made (she doesn't reflect on too many), Walls also portrays the parts of her grandmother that a modern day audience would easily frown upon such as her use of corporal punishment as a teacher.

While I remember little of the details of The Glass Castle, it does cast clarity on the lives her descendants lived. With such a strict and demanding mother, it is easy to see why Rosemary would choose a more hippie-like and unsettled life style in rebellion. Despite this, since much of the information for this book came from Rosemary, it is clear that Rosemary and Jeannette admired Lily, a strong feminist woman, even if she didn't want to be her or agree with her.

Book 38: Neither Here Nor There

2011-05-18T14:03:00.001-04:00

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson

I quite enjoyed Bryson's book A Short History of Everything. Not only did he show a great curiousity for the world around him, but he displayed a sense of humor as well as compassion. He discussed many scientists, their discoveries and quirks, and showed a certain amount of respect for their accomplishments, even when the individual in question was not a good person. He would poke fun at arguments, but it all was mostly focused on sharing what he learned about the planet's creation and past.

While I have since browsed for other books by Bryson, I have never really read much in the genre of travel writing, and it just didn't seem that reading about the Appalachian Mountains would really be my cup of tea. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when my friend sent me this book, focusing on his travels in Europe. I lived in Germany for eight years a child, and another three after graduating college, and have also been to a few of the places he visited. I figured it would be a perfect way to reminisce about places I've been and see what other places in Europe I should go.

Unfortunately, this book was nowhere nearly as well-written as A Short History of Everything. I don't feel like I learned too much about the places visited (I thought maybe he'd share random knowledge like in A Short History of Everything, but there wasn't very much) - for the most part, it felt like he simply reiterated stereotypes. I guess in some cases stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason but I expected better from Bryson. Also, having never read a travel book before, I wasn't sure what to expect - was it supposed to be a tour of the city, was it supposed to be about random mishaps the author encounters, a bit of both? Mostly, it seemed like Bryson walked around, ate, and pretty much didn't seem to enjoy himself very much. He seemed very negative about many things, and Copenhagen was the first place he described that he seemed too truly enjoy, enough to make me want to visit. He also loved Rome (who doesn't?) but hated Florence (which was one of my favorite trips). He became more positive towards the last half of the trip but he had lost me by that point.

In ways, I feel bad for disliking this book and his negativity. Having traveled myself, I'm sure I have shared a few of his thoughts on occasion. I thought Paris had a few too many tourists, and agree that the Mona Lisa really is barely worth seeing because you can't get closer than 10 feet to it, there's a huge crowd around (all of whom are trying to get a picture of themselves with the painting) and it's kind of small. I'm sure I have also regretted certain modernizations when looking at gorgeous old architecture. And I think I would have been fine with some complaints if they had also been accompanied by more genuine enthusiasm. I may not have enjoyed the Louvre as much as I would have expected, but I loved the Cluny (the medieval museum, it goes by a different name now). Don't even get me started on Florence (of course, I would be less favorable of Venice, so I definitely understand that not all cities appeal to everyone, but it just felt like this was all negative). I guess I just figured if you are going to write books about traveling it should be because you love it and the places, and reading the stories should inspire readers to follow in your foot steps. I didn't want to follow in his foot steps; some of his problems seemed to be due to lack of planning and preparation. Then again, it's admirable that he could just travel Europe day to day, and see where things took him. I'm going to be in the British Isles for the month of July, and I already have all my hotels booked, theater tickets, and the only thing that will be on the fly are the train tickets to get me from one city to another.

And that's another reason, I find it hard to judge Bryson completely (well, I totally am, but why I feel bad about it) - this book was published in the early '90s. How did people travel and plan trips before the internet? I mean, I know we took family vacations, and my mom called hotels and reserved them ahead of time, while my dad would then map everything out with giant folding maps, but where did she get the phone numbers? The back of travel guides? I have no clue. Also, visiting the cities I loved twenty years ago may have been a completely different experience - I don't know how much money cities have invested in restoration since this book was written.

Book 37: The Gathering Storm

2011-05-17T15:18:00.001-04:00

The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, Book 12) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

I can't remember the last time I zipped through a book in this series quite so quickly. Don't get me wrong, with all books in the series, I felt a need to know where it was going and what was going to happen so they kept me engaged, but there were also quite a few chapters that were a chore to get through. Sanderson, however, has definitely breathed new life into the series. Now, I feel bad saying this since the only reason he took over the series is because Jordan died, but this book is the best one in a long while. Jordan, of course, gets the credit for creating the storyline and the plot, having carefully drafted his vision ahead of time, but Sanderson actually made the novel engaging and quick paced. I wonder how Jordan would have handled the last novel in the series, and somehow I feel like he may not have done as good with the prose aspect. Originally Jordan had intended one final novel which Sanderson broke into three separate novels - I wonder if Jordan eventually also would have decided to do this if he had the opportunity to continue writing - if he hadn't, the final novel would have felt very rushed as he finally tied all the plot lines together, and he probably still would have spent too much time talking about clothes and then breezed over the important plot developments as he did in a few previous novels. I also liked that Sanderson didn't feel the need to incorporate a chapter for every character - while I have complained before about Mat or Egwene not being in a novel that's because they were cut out after cliff hanger endings. It was a wise choice to leave Elayne out of this novel - she gained the crown after way too long of a discussion about it at the end of the last novel, and there was really no need to talk about her pregnancy. As I said in my last review, I had hoped that separating Aviendha from Elayne would lead to some more development for Aviendha rather than simple side kick, and there were a few chapters from her view (she was a bit dense, but ends up enroute to Rhudean for her test to join the Wise Ones).

A large chunk of the novel is devoted to Rand, and while some of Rand's attitude about needing to be hard (confusing strength and hardness) is getting a little old, his chapters are still much more interesting than they have been in a while. Still, with all the women plotting to keep him from getting too hard (they fear if he is too hard, he will only be worried about the battle, and not what he leaves behind for the survivors), it seems like if they had just sat him down a few novels back and tried to reason it out with him, it might have worked better than attempting to manipulate him, thus making him untrusty and harder.

Mat had a few chapters but not too much plot development for him. His army is enroute to Caemlyn, and he encounters different adventures on the way. He definitely added some humor - some of it was cheesy, but still enjoyable compared to the overall seriousness of the book. He has promised Thom to help him rescue Moraine so that will probably be one of the main plot lines in the next novel.

Now as annoying as some of the Aes Sedai are, some of my favorite characters are Siuan, Verin, and Egwene, and Egwene completely owns this book. Her quiet and dignified stand against Elaida in the White Tower continues and her poise and logic gain her the respect of many women in the tower. Gawyn finally wakes up from whatever hill he was under, and discovers that Egwene is the Amrylin Seat for the rebels and that he is fighting on the wrong side (he also finally gets news that his sister is properly sitting on the throne). In the past few novels, Gawyn has annoyed me because he keeps picking the wrong sides - instead of trusting that all the women he loves are doing the proper thing, he stayed on the opposing sides, and only now switches over. One thing that quite amused me about the Amazon reviews, is that while most of them think Sanderson is doing a good job, others complain about his prose and how it took them right out of the narrative. I admit one of the lines they mentioned wasn't quite fitting, but as for the rest? One particular line seemed particular fitting for a character view from Gawyn because he is a whiny brat, and it's not like Jordan was a master of prose. Run on sentences, repetitive description - yes; master of beautiful phrasing - not so much.

One other good thing is that Sanderson tones down on the sexist portrayal of women. Yes, Nynaeve still pulls her braid but that's a character quirk so he couldn't completely get rid of that, and of course he had to have the women sniff here and there, but a lot less crossing of arms under breasts. Also, even though there wasn't much of Perrin and Faile, she didn't come off as shrill, and instead was portrayed as an intelligent woman that has to make tough decisions. Finally, a woman that can't wield the Power that might actually be well portrayed. Basically, if Sanderson keeps this up, the series is definitely going to end on a high note. He actually made me start caring about the characters again.

Book 36: Knife of Dreams

2011-05-13T05:49:00.000-04:00

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11) by Robert Jordan

While the novel has a slow start, it actually ends up picking up the pace and finally sees the conclusion of a few separate plotlines. The prologue starts with three characters I really don't care about at all, so that was just about the worst part to get through. First, Galad challenges a leader of the Whitecloaks to a duel, and then there are a few pages from the perspective of Rodel Ituralde (he's been making appearances in a few prologues but I honestly forget about him as soon as they are over so at this point his character doesn't have much of a purpose - yet another guy involved in battles in the West with Seanchan and the Prophet etc.). Suroth's pages weren't that exciting, either, despite a meeting with Semirhage and the announcement that she has killed the royal family in Seandar. After that the novel picks up as it returns to the White Tower and some of the things going on there. The rift between the Ajahs continues, and news of the events from the past few novels and Elaida's failures are starting to trickle in. Additionally, the Reds are still considering their plan to bond the Asha'aman as warders, while Alviarin begins to suspect some of the Aes Sedai that are searching for the Black Ajah. Finally, the prologue ends with Egwene, captured by the White Tower.

While the rest of the novel has a few chapters that aren't that interesting or exciting (Rand and Elayne, for example), for the most part, Jordan's plots finally show some forward momentum. Perrin has made an alliance with the Seanchan to rescue Faile, and has his battle planned out. Tam al'Thor even shows up, asking if his son is really the Dragon Reborn. Mat continues his journey out of Seanchan controlled territories while still wooing Tuon. Thom also reveals to him that Moraine is alive, and in order for any rescue to be successful, Mat must be a part of it. He also finally links up with elements of his army, so Tuon has a chance to witness him in his element. Egwene uses her position in the White Tower (Elaida believes that Egwene is too young to be responsible, and instead tells her she is a novice once again - while Egwene obeys orders, she also maintains that she is the Amyrlin) to gain support and create dissonance in the Tower. She orders the Rebels not to rescue her since she believes she can fight more effectively from within, and sees how bad Elaida's leadership has been. These were the parts of the book I enjoyed the most. Perrin started getting interesting again and slightly less emo. I can only hope that this also the last of Sevanna. In fact, it seems that Jordan may have actually tied up the Shaido storyline. About time.

As far the weaker aspects, Rand just isn't that interesting a character. He is possibly more emo than Perrin, with his big burden. There is a battle with an army of Trollocs and while Lews takes control and introduces some new weaves, the struggle barely seems to be with the Trollocs. Instead Jordan focuses on the conflict in Rand's head. He has cleansed saidin, but still feels sick when he reaches for it (I guess nothing can ever got right for him). Shit, there is a confrontation with a Forsaken in this novel, and I didn't get too excited. And Cadsuane's approach to Rand is just obnoxious while all the women around Rand continue to confuse him. Meanwhile, Elayne is still trying to gain her throne, and discovers that the head of her bodyguard is working with Darkfriends and members of the Black Ajah. The pregnant woman decides to confront them on her own (well, with three others, one of whom she suspects to be Black Ajah as well). At one point, Dyelin, one of the other nobles of Trakand, compliments Elayne and tells her that the worst thing that can happen to Andor is to have someone incompetent or foolish on the throne but that she is neither. I would hate to see what is considered foolish then. I liked Elayne in the first few novels, but she has gotten progressively more annoying as the series progresses. I think that basically applies to all the women in love with Rand. Aviendha left Caemlyn, but I'm hoping that maybe her character will start being interesting again now that she is no longer simply Elayne's sister and side kick. Of course, she would have had to appear in the novel again after leaving Elayne for that to happen. There was also a chapter about the Windfinders and Seafolk. When first introduced, these people also had potential, but have been reduced to bickering xenophobic women like everyone else in the novel that simply cannot believe it when people don't understand their customs. I want more of Logain. Can't he be the Dragon Reborn instead of Rand?

Still, overall, the novel showed quite some progress compared to the others. Jordan even did something with Lan's storyline and the fact that he is the surviving heir of Malkier. Some of the flaws from the series still remain, but it is wrapping up. The next three books are the ones that are cowritten by Sanderson so I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes them.

My favorite part of this Amazon review is the description of the cover art. I hate the covers on these - they look so cheesy, I almost feel weird reading this series in a public place.

Book 35: Bite Me

2011-05-05T05:33:00.001-04:00

Bite Me: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

If you've read Christopher Moore before, you know the type of humor to expect from this book - sometimes funny, sometimes on the juvenile side, almost always bizarre. This is the third part of Moore's vampire trilogy (at least I think this is it), and begins about five weeks after You Suck ended. Chet is a vampire cat and has accidentally created an army of vampire cats that hound the streets of San Franscisco and threaten the homeless of the city. Jody and Flood are still bronzed, and unable to escape. Jody can turn herself to mist and ignore her surroundings, but Tommy never learned that trick so he has been sitting there for five weeks, hungry, unable to move or speak, going crazy. The cats have caused enough havoc to make headlines so that the vampire clean up crew once again has to return to San Franscisco to take matters into hand, while the two detective and the Animals are trying to engage in their own attack of the vampire cats.

Abbie Normal and Steve, the genius PhD student, also play parts in the novel - Steve's main role seems to be to explain things, and provide a scientific reason for everything. Abbie first made an appearance in You Suck, and while she was irritating, she also wasn't that bad. In this novel, however, Moore makes the unwise decision to give her too much face time. The first twenty or so pages of the novel were a diary entry from Abbie with a quick summary of the previous novels of the series. While it was a good way to refresh readers' memories of the previous novels, I also couldn't handle 20 pages straight of Abbie-speak. Fortunately, she doesn't get that many pages at one time for the rest of the novel, but there isn't too much new about Jody and Tommy, and they aren't even together most of novel once they are freed from the bronze casting. While I would have like to see Jody and Tommy more, I also feel like their story has been told: at the end of You Suck, they realized they were in love but wanted different things (to be vampire vs. to be human). This issue still remains in this book.

Overall, it was entertaining, but not as good as the previous ones - too much Abbie, not enough about the cats, and really, Moore could have either left the series the way it had ended before, or simply had Jody and Tommy make their decision in the last novel instead of dragging it out another novel.

Book 34: Scandalous Women

2011-05-02T03:41:00.001-04:00

Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women by Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

This book arrived in a birthday package from my best friend along with a 12 pack of cherry coke (it's unavailable on bases in Iraq). It's not something I would have necessarily picked up on my own since I'm always afraid titles such as this will be rather shallow treatments of history. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the book. Not only were the short biographies well written and engaging, but it also introduced women I have never heard of/ discussed women whose names I recognized and put them in context. She also had a nice list of references at the back, so I have added a few biographies to my wishlist.

One other thing that I think is very awesome is that this book was the result of a blog which I have already added to my feed (http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com - make sure you keep woman singular, otherwise you end up on a swingers website). This obviously isn't the first author I've read who got a book deal as a result of a blog, but I really think it is awesome that someone is using their blog to discuss little-known figures in history. The blog also includes book reviews of historical fiction and non-fiction, and since historical ficion is a genre I generally like, it will be nice to get someone's opinion on some of those novels. Like fantasy, it's a genre that can be well-done or take a turn to ridiculous and trashy.

The book is broken down into seven parts or categories entitled Warrior Queens, Wayward Wives, Scintilatting Seductresses, Crusading Ladies, Wild Women of the West, Amorous Artists, and Amazing Adventuresses. Within each of these parts, Mahon then tells the stories of a selection of women. Some of the women were rulers, intellectuals and famous in their own right. Others became famous due to their sex lives and the famous men they slept with. However, as Mahon points out in her introduction, all of these women stepped outside conventions and made news as a result. Many of them ended up being very good at marketing themselves, and others used the powerful men in their lives to make a difference or gain power of their own. I enjoyed reading most of the stories, though there were definitely women I didn't agree with (Carry Nation, for example). In other cases, it completely changed the myth that surrounded the woman in popular culture (Mata Hari as a spy - not quite so accurate; nor was Calamity Jane a scout). My least favorite section was probably the one about Wild Women of the West, though I liked the section on Margaret Tobin Brown in that part. Say what you will about the movie Titanic, but I liked Kathy Bates in it as Molly Brown, and I quite enjoyed the real story behind the woman (who never went by Molly in real life, and was a great philanthropist). I also loved reading about Camille Claudel, a sculptor, who was Rodin's lover and model at one point. Unfortunately she became very paranoid, and suffered a breakdown. Some of her work is on display at the Rodin Museum, so now I feel like I need to go back to Paris, since I didn't even know about her last time I was at the museum. Other favorites were Emilie du Chatelet (genius, beauty, and involved with Voltaire), Gertrude Bell (spent much time in the Middle East so my interest is definitely influenced by my job), and Jane Digby (also due to the Middle Eastern conclusion of her life).

Overall, it's definitely a good introduction to many of the women discussed and points the way to resources for further reading. My one complaint is that the book is very Western-centric. Most of the women discussed are British or American with only very few other nationalities (Frida Kahlo is the only Mexican, for example). I don't know if there will be a follow up but if so, I hope it includes some women from Asia, Africa and South America, since many of their stories are probably even more obscure to a Western audience.

Book 33: We Two

2011-05-01T06:32:00.001-04:00

We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill

I was barely even tracking the Royal Wedding so it had nothing to do with the fact that I was reading this book the same week as all the hype. I stumbled upon this in the bio section of Barnes and Noble in January, but was slightly distracted by The Wheel of Time series, and as a result only recently started it. One of the reasons that the book appealed to me is that while I know about the Victorian Era, and the current stereotypes of the era's norms, I really didn't know too much about the woman who gave her name to the era besides that she was grandmother just about all the royals at war with each other during World War I and that she looked a bit grumpy in her pictures. I knew even less about her husband beyond that fact that I had seen his memorial in Kensington Park, and that the Victoria and Albert is named after them, and that I intend to go there next time I'm in London (two more months!). I also thought the last line describing the contents of the book sounded appealing since it said that Victoria was able to create a fairy tale of their relationship due to Albert's much earlier death.

The book is divided into three parts, beginning with the story of Victoria which has been rather well documented, and the circumstances that led to her becoming heir to the throne despite being a daughter of a fourth son. The second part concerned Albert's childhood and upbringing, and much of it focused on his family and their small kingdom since there are not many documents remaining from Albert's youth. As a result Gill chose to bring his surrounding world to life to explain his background. After Albert's death, Victoria wrote a biography of him, and Gill argues that Albert didn't necessarily give his wife a complete view of his childhood. Also, being in England, Victoria did not have access to many things, and several key personnel didn't contribute to the book, possibly because their views would have disagreed with Victoria's. As a result, her bio became the definitive word on her husband, but as an enamoured wife she was missing some of the context. These two sections were the best part of the book, and Victoria's story was written in an incredibly engaging way.

The third part dealt with Albert and Victoria as a couple with a concluding paragraph on Victoria's forty years as a widow. I enjoyed learning about the royal couple even though in some ways I had a hard time quite understanding their purpose. With parliament and prime ministers and the such, it rather seemed like there wasn't much point to the monarchy. In fact, Victoria took reign after rather weak kings and she and Albert hoped to see the monarchy restored to its rightful place. As a result, they were allies determined to regain some of their power. Gill also makes the point that the couple's, particularly Victoria's, popularity with the common people probably played a huge role in saving the monarchy while in many other countries, rulers faced rebellions (not that there weren't assassination attempts on Victoria). Since Gill focused Albert and Victoria, a few things were slightly glossed over, such as assassination attempts. However, while the book was informational, it just didn't seem quite what it promised. For example, Gill's subtitle contains the word "rivals," but I didn't feel like she really portrayed them as rivals. Yes, Victoria on occassion seems bored or unhappy with having lots of children, Albert disliked some of Victoria's confidantes and got rid of them, but I don't feel like they were really in a power-struggle. Victoria seemed to more or less happily give way to Albert in most things. Additionally, the book focused more on Albert than Victoria. Victoria is portrayed as completely in love with Albert, while Albert is more concerned with work and power. The last few chapters also dealt with different themes, such as their daughter Vicky, their son Bertie, the Crimean War, but all these things overlapped so sometimes this means it was hard to see how things truly progressed. For example, Gill makes a comment about Albert's steadily deteriorating health, but while she had mentioned he was sapped of energy after the 1851 Exposition, she didn't mention too many other health problems until the chapter on his death. Additionally, she says that the relationship between Albert and Victoria had been changing since 1857 or so, but I don't feel like I quite saw that, or maybe she had portrayed that but then gone back in time for her next two chapters so it didn't make the impression it should have.

For the most part, however, I liked reading about the era. When Victoria first came to the throne, it was after several monarchs had lived in complete excess and accumulated debts. Victoria actually attempted to live within her means, and upon their marriage, Albert assisted with this. Victoria had been raised to be pure and moral because Conroy, her mother's advisor, saw that this would endear her to the people, and Albert's family that wanted him to be Victoria's betrothed from early on, raised him with the same goal in mind. While this definitely worked to make the new royal family popular with the people, it didn't make them popular with the English royals, especially since Albert was so unforgiving and sanctimonious. Once he arrived at the court, he would not let anyone with even a whiff of scandal near Victoria. Victoria was more forgiving (or naive) when taking the reign, but she quickly agreed with Albert's ideas. Still the prudishness of the Victorian Era is more Albertian than Victorian. Gill portrays Victoria as fun-loving, outgoing, passionate, and quite the drama queen. Her portrayal of Albert is more complicated since Gill herself doesn't even seem quite sure how she feels about him - on the one hand, he was often influenced by the fate of Germany and his family's kingdom when making foreign policy, but he also did quite a bit for England and the monarchy. He argued with the wrong people, was incredibly strict and did not learn to make allies among the aristocrats but helped his wife win and keep the love of the commoners. He was a hard-working fish out of water, but also ambitious, power-hungry, and judgmental . His daughters loved him, his sons had complicated relationships with him. Overall, he didn't seem like the type of guy that it would be very fun to be around. His work and efforts helped the Empire, and Albert and Victoria's values reflected the growing middle class. However, this also means they are also less fun to read about then the people from previous reigns since there are fewer entertaining scandals.

Overall, I would say this book is a good beginning for the subject, and there are a few topics I would like to read more about a few topics as a result now. The chapter in which Gill addressed hemophilia was particularly of interest as it showed how this dirty secret affected generations of Europeans over the next few years since Victoria's descendants married into just about all the royal families of Europe. I feel like I still need to read a biography of just Victoria to truly understand what she did since she seemed more like a figurehead in this book, guided by ministers and her spouse. I'm not sure if I want to spend more time with Albert at this point, though. He was a bit boring for me. I've also found a few promising titles on Amazon, one about her three grandsons that were the reigning monarchs during World War I, and the other about her five daughters - Vicky's story in Prussia and as mother to Wilhelm sounds like it would be particularly enlightening. I also thought the author's style was engaging and very easy to get through for non-fiction, so despite my minor issues with the later half, I would definitely pick up another book by Gill.

Book 32: Crossroads of Twilight

2011-04-27T08:32:00.001-04:00

Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, Book 10) by Robert Jordan

This novel appears to be the most hated in the series based on Amazon, wracking in over 1500 one star ratings. I didn't think it was that bad though there were certainly parts that irritated me. The last novel concluded with Rand and Nyneave cleansing saidin. The first half of this novel takes place simultaneously, as Jordan shows us what all the characters were doing at that exact moment. Perrin and Mat do not feel the power being used, but due to the pull of the Pattern, they immediately realize that it has something to do with Rand. All the women that can channel feel the Power being used, and are worried about what this might mean. Thanks to their bond, Elayne and Aviendha also know it is related to Rand but not sure in what way.

Perrin is still looking for Faile, who is still held captive by the Shaido and a personal servant to Sevanna. His storyline actually almost got interesting but Perrin could not be distracted from his rescue effort. When Perrin and his forces visit a town to replenish their foodstocks, it turns out there is something odd about the area. Unfortunately, Jordan doesn't pursue this too much - yes, there are maggots/weevils in the grain, and apparently the town is haunted by ghosts but rather than investigating what is causing this or helping the people, Perrin decides to leave to save Faile.

Egwene is back, and continues her seige of the White Tower started two novels ago. Gawyn even makes a short appearance in the prologue but of course doesn't know what's going, who's sided with whom and continues to support the White Tower as a result. Given that all these people know how to Travel, communicate in dreams couldn't his sister or lover maybe drop by and explain exactly what's going? Just an update, really. "Hey bro, I'm alive, I'm queen, Elaida's a bitch. Egwene's the Amyrlin Seat and I'm pregnant." No? Egwene continues to suffer from headaches caused by Halima, a Forsaken in disguise, and a few people are murdered in the camp by Halima as well. Egwene for the most part handles her opposition deftly, but one thing that did irritate me was everyone's reaction to the incident with all the Power. Their very first assumption is that it is the Forsaken, and when they send out a recon party to investigate the area, they still assume it was a horrible weapon wielded by the Forsaken. So, whatever happened left Shadar Logoth, a place of unspeakable evil that even Trollocs fear, destroyed and you think the bad guys did it? This does, however, lead the women to think they might have to forge an alliance with the Black Tower. Oddly enough, a few people in the White Tower are beginning to have similar thoughts.

There are a few chapters with Mat but not very exciting ones. He is now traveling with the same circus that Elayne and Nynaeve once found refuge with, and trying to understand the Seachan noble, Tuon, he is destined to marry. I can't say much of significance happens, though Tuon is revealed as someone that keeps her word. The Aes Sedai of course act like children because that's how Jordan writes most of these supposedly strong women.

Meanwhile, Elayne and Aviendha become sisters by Aiel tradition, Elayne takes a bath, and tries to garner support while being irritated with the way she is treated due to her pregnancy. I'd be pissed as well to be treated as an incubator at only a month pregnant. However, I also can't help but think how stupid Elayne is - have sex with Rand in secret, it's all good. However, from everything we have learned about Andor, it is one of the more conservative societies, so maybe hold off on the pregnancy until the throne is secure. Her mother may have had lovers but this was after she had already done the political thing and had an acceptable heir to the throne while married to another noble.

So yes, there wasn't really that much going on in this novel. Parts of it weren't bad to read but I really don't even feel like I have to give spoiler alerts at this point because there was nothing to spoil. The novels are weird because it's hard to say if there is dramatic tension. Things might take forever to happen but the reader knows everything is going to work out: everybody ends up with the person they like, not even Rand had to make a choice between three women, and so far only one important character has died, so there is really no worry about sacrifices. Compare that to George R.R. Martin where so many beloved characters have died or the show The Vampire Diaries - so many characters died in the first season, some of whom I was rooting for and a bit attached to. I entirely expect Rand's prophesied death to be symbolic, and everyone will end up living happily ever after with a few scars.

However, this novel died have some truly inspired reviews on Amazon such as this one, this one, or this one. Really, just go to the main page, and start reading.

Book 31: Winter's Heart

2011-04-27T03:53:00.001-04:00

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time, Book 9) by Robert Jordan

This might just be me, but the attitude conveyed in these books about sex is weird. On the one hand, all the characters seem incredibly squeamish about sex, constantly judging people's clothes for being to revealing and calling people too forward (Perrin looks at Berelain in shock when she tells him he would only be 3rd, and it really seemed like he thought that was a lot - then again, maybe he was shocked that she was propositioning him after his wife was kidnapped), but on the other hand, the novels are oddly obsessed with sex. So many pages are devoted to descriptions of dress styles, and how the women in different nations have such low neck-lines and the women's "bosom" are barely contained. Considering that this seems to be the style everywhere but Andor, I would expect Jordan and the characters to stop commenting on this. One character comments that she likes cuddling as much as "the other" - newsflash: if you're old enough to do it, you're old enough to call it sex, fucking, whatever.

So there was a bit more progress in this book, though Mat still didn't show up until over halfway through! After the prologue, the first few chapters focus on the events immediately after Faile and her parties' capture by the Shaido, and her initial impressions of the camp (so ready for the Sevanna story line to be done). Perrin is heartbroken and is about ready to ignore his primary mission of getting Masema, the Prophet, under control due to his desire save his wife. Fortunately (?) for him, Masema agrees to go with him to help save Faile and her entourage. And that's basically it for that storyline. Faile is still kidnapped, and Perrin is mad. Of course, that's still more face time than Egwene gets who only shows up in a dream meeting with Nynaeve and Elayne, despite the fact that she was about to lay seige to the White Tower in the last novel (apparently, Jordan likes to end novels on cliff hangers for certain characters and then ignore them for an entire book - see Mat in A Crown of Swords and not at all in The Path of Daggers).

A good portion of the novel is spent with Elayne as she tries to gain the right to her throne. She is housing three different groups of women that can wield the Source in the palace, all of whom have varying approaches and disagree a lot (the Kin, the Sea Folk and Aes Sedai). For the most part, this section wasn't necessarily exciting or boring; it was just kind of there. Rand also has a plan to cleanse the male half of the Source and visits Caemlyn to involve Nynaeve in this. At this point, Rand finds himself in the same room with Aviendha, Min and Elayne, all women that he is in love with who are in love with him, and two of whom he has had sex with. The women all immediately tell him they are willing to share him, have come to an arrangement and bond him as their shared warder. This whole story line bugs me. Seriously, I still don't see anything that great about Rand. And then there is this whole weird voyeuristic feel to the whole thing since the warder bond means that the women can feel Rand's emotions as he is finally having sex with (and impregnating) Elayne, making for three out of three.

However, Mat's storyline finally progresses: he is still in Ebou Dar and serving as a playmate to the queen, Tyelin. The Seachan have taken control of the country, and a woman named Tuon shows up as well, a high-ranking Seanchan woman, Daughter of the Nine Moons. This is the woman that Mat was prophesied to marry many novels ago, although she doesn't share that part of her title upon arrival, and only the reader knows. Mat is plotting to escape Ebou Dar and Seanchan control, and promises to help a few Aes Sedai that have been captured.

A few characters from previous novels make a few appearances as well (there are Black Ajah in Caemlyn), and the Aes Sedai hunting for Black Ajah in the White Tower find their first. Just like in the last one, the fact that certain characters are now in the same city etc. means that it is slowly coming together. However, there are still a few plot lines that just need to be wrapped up ended. There are so many characters that just kind of show up, and barely serve a purpose, and so many of their names are almost the same, especially amongst the Aes Sedai - there's Lelaine and Leane, but at least they have large enough roles to keep straight. I'm just glad I'm reading these now that almost all of them have been released - at least, I just have to wait for the next Amazon order to show up to get a few more chapters about the characters I'm actually interested in. If I had to wait a year or two between novels with only so little progress and pay off, I would probably have been incredibly frustrated (kind of like it was a good thing I didn't start watching Lost until the sixth season was almost over), but as it is, I can at least get the answers eventually instead of having to wait forever. One thing that surprises me so much about the Amazon reviews though is when the talk about multi-dimensional Jordan's world and characters are - I'll give him world, although I'm not sure if crowded necessarily three dimensional, but characters? Maybe in the beginning, but since then they have all become shallow caricatures with few exceptions. Even Min was really annoying me in this one, and I generally prefer her to any of the women in the square (Elayne being my least favorite) - just too much hero-worship for Rand (when they bonded, all the women started crying because of the pain he feels - gah - a few more lines like that I might have to "sniff, pull my braid, and cross my arms below my breast").

Book 30: The Path of Daggers

2011-04-27T03:31:00.001-04:00

The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time, Book 8) by Robert Jordan

Oh my god, it took forever to get through the first half of this book! A Crown of Swords ended with Mat in Ebou Dar as the Seanchan are invading the city, and he doesn't even make an appearance in this novel. His ending was the cliffhanger of the last book, and then he doesn't even show up? I was very disappointed about that. For the most part, Jordan picks up right where he left off though at a snail's pace. Elayne and Nynaeve had found the Bowl of Winds and enough women with skill and strength in the Power to use it. Naturally, one would think this novel would start with them fixing the weather - which it sort of does after 150 pages! The first 100 or so pages mostly talk about Elayne, Nynaeve and their huge group Traveling and walking to the appropriate place to fix the weather while bickering at each other. However, they finally conduct the appopriate ritual, and then escape the Seanchan with the Kin (Aes Sedai runaways or rejects), the Seafolk women and the rest of their party, enroute to Caemlyn so Elayne can claim her throne.

Rand sent Perrin to Ghealdan to deal with Masema, the Prophet, who has been causing many problems in his name. While there, Perrin runs into Morgase who gives him a false name, and joins his party. While Morgase's storyline has bored me the past few books, I'm actually glad about this development since it means at least some of the characters are converging. Right now, it seems like one of the problems with the series is that each character is off doing their own thing, none of which seem related at all. Of course, all the other random characters don't help either: can we please kill Sevanna already? She's really just dumb and pointless. Egwene continues to struggle for control with the Hall of Sitters as the Amrylin Seat, and tries to make her way as an actual leader rather than a puppet.

The last part of the novel started to pick up a little bit. Rand decides to go after the Seanchan (unfortunately, he isn't written as a very appealing figure to me; he's sexist and I'm so tired of hearing about how much harder he takes every woman's death), and while he seems intelligent enough, he is too cold and boring to make for a charismatic leader or character. I also enjoyed the chapter about the search for the Black Ajah in the White Tower.

The best part about this novel honestly is where it ended: there are several things finally really in motion, and based on where the novel ended, it seems like quite a few things could finally come to a head in the follow up. However, considering that this is book 8, and there are still five or six left, it seems like Jordan is probably going to continue to drag things out with way too many descriptions about dresses, and reiterating things over and over that readers already know (Lan's favorite colors are blue and green).

And here are some of the negative reviews: I like this one's imagined description of a character blowing their nose, and I enjoy this one because there's a list of gripes.

Book 29: A Crown of Swords

2011-04-27T03:16:00.000-04:00

A Crown of Swords (Wheel of Time, Book 7) by Robert Jordan

I've heard that this and book 6 are the turning point in the series when any type of progress comes to a halt. Having said that, a few things actually happened much more quickly in this novel than the last novel. For example, during Lord of Chaos, I kept waiting for Lan to finally show up in Salidar since his bond had transferred to Myrelle, only for it be about two paragraphs at the very end of the novel. Egwene finds out that Lan's bond has been transferred (Myrelle has been hiding this because transferring a bond between warder and Aes Sedai without the warder's approval is very frowned upon), and orders him to follow Nynaeve to Ebou Dari to assist with her quest for the ter'angreal that will set the weather straight. I was actually pleasantly surprised when Lan actually caught up with Nynaeve before the novel ended - the way Jordan's been going, I thought that trip might still take a novel or two. However, Jordan does seem to be in a hurry to couple people off - Rand has obviously already slept with Aviendha, in this novel he hooks up with Min, Egwene and Gawyn declared their love for each other in Lord of Chaos, Perrin is already married, so I guess he wouldn't want to keep Nynaeve and Lan apart much longer. Speaking of coupling up, I wish he would stop trying to turn everyone into a couple, particularly Morgase and the young officer that is with her. In fact, the Morgase story line really seems to add absolutely nothing - she's a queen in exile, but nobody even knows she alive, and she doesn't do anything. Could we just kill her off already or stop wasting space on her? I'm also ready to be done with the White Cloaks. I'm much more interested in the White Tower and the Rebel Sedai. I think the reason these stories lines work for me is because it's only women. Jordan can occasionally be alright when he writes about women in a group. As soon as mix of genders in a group, though, his characters just start losing all common sense because they don't communicate. I'm also ready for the Shaido and Sevanna storyline to end. She's just irritating and boring. I don't feel like she is a threat, just dumb.

At the end of Lord of Chaos, Rand had defeated the Aes Sedai from the White Tower who had kidnapped him, and the nine rebels have sworn fealty to him. As this novel begins, Elaida dreams of glory with the Dragon Reborn at her heel, but soon finds these dreams destroyed, and is looking for a way to cover up her actions. Her distrust of Alviarin, her Keeper, leads her to order another Aes Sedai to search for traitors, though this woman interprets that as an order to search for the Black Ajah. The rebels are finally moving and on their way to the White Tower to assert their claim. Egwene is still trying to assert her power and authority, and I actually enjoyed reading her chapters dealing with all the manipulations she is dealing with. Unfortunately, she only had a few chapters in the beginning, and then didn't appear again. There also wasn't too much of Rand in this novel, which I liked, and he is mostly focused on reconsolidating his power since a few people took advantage of his temporary disappearance. There wasn't too much of Perrin in this novel, either, but that's actually a good thing. I quite liked Perrin at one point, but now Perrin means that there will be more Faile. I think Faile has the potential to be a great character: she is intelligent, cunning, brave, and is one of the few women that is portrayed as powerful without having any magical powers, but when it comes to her marriage, she is portrayed as a psychotically jealous crazy woman who likes to start fights and be dominated. And it's not like that last part would necessarily be bad even though it seems sometimes Jordan advocates that women just want to be spanked or physically punished (whatever works for you), but she's just so annoying about it. I liked her best when she and Perrin were fighting together to defend the Two Rivers. Since then, she has been too focused on trivial dumb things. And unfortunately, this affects how much time I really want the novel to spend with Perrin.

For the most part, the novel focuses on events in Ebou Dari and the search for the Bowl of Winds. During this search, the two women stumble upon a society of Aes Sedai rejects that still have some ability to channel and great respect for the White Tower. The split of the Tower, Egwene's vision and this pocket of women with talents all point to a complete overhaul of traditions, and possibly could return the Tower to its former glories if the Last Battle doesn't destroy them all. Mat and Birgitte hit it off quite well in a friendly way so Birgitte finally puts some sense into Elayne and Nynaeve regarding their treatment of him. Unfortunately they tend to be nicer to him afterwards more for each other's approval than because they care about Mat's feelings. Nyneave and Elayne aren't the only ones searching for the Bowl, and there are quite a few other people of interest in Ebou Dar. I'm still not sure why I'm enjoying the series when more than half the main characters annoy me. I like Mat the most at the moment, and Birgitte is rather refreshing since all those Two River and Andor folks are way too uptight about anything having to do with sex (as usual the women both loved the dresses and judged the low necklines - how is it that every nation has lower necklines than Andor? Do they wear turtle necks or something in that country?) I thought the ending felt rather tacked on and unnecessary. It's like Jordan realized he needed to have a big battle scene but since there had been absolutely no build up, it didn't feel climatic. Just weird. However, another part of the ending definitely promises for more progress in the next few novels, but then again it could also be yet another storyline that distracts from the final battle.

Also, negative Amazon review time. I couldn't decide between two: one was just funny, the other was a bit funny but also well-thought out.

Book 28: Lord of Chaos

2011-04-27T03:04:00.001-04:00

Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, Book 6) by Robert Jordan

While the prologues in some of the previous novels have been relatively short, this one devotes a few pages to all the minor/major characters that aren't Rand. Nynaeve and Elayne are with the rebel Aes Sedai where the fifth novel left them, and Elayne has had some success with creating ter'angreal, while Nynaeve continues to examine Leane and Siuan to find a cure for "stilling." After a novel long hiatus (I was definitely disappointed not to see Perrin in the previous novel), Perrin once again feels the pull of ta'veren, and embarks on a journey to Caemlyn, capital of Andor, to join up with Rand. Mat, meanwhile, has mostly accepted his role, and is planning an attack on Illian, or Sammael, the Forsaken who has taken it over, more specifically. The novel tells the reader straight up that Mat's attack is a strategic faint but it is not all the open about the actual plan of attack.

There is actually a lot of movement going on in this novel, and while it seems like most of the other novels have ended with the death of a Forsaken and/or a huge battle, I enjoyed the more political aspects of the novel. While there was a battle at the end, of course, for me the action doesn't always have to be actual action like battles so if this is how the lag in the series works out, I can definitely deal with it (I've heard that it's around book six that the series starts dragging on). Egwene is summoned to Salidar, and is finally reunited with Nynaeve and Elayne after several novels worth of absence. To her surprise, she is chosen as the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai but considering that they would all think Egwene's age would make her malleable, it might not be surprising that the different factions and powers could agree on her if they could not on each other.

While I found Mat quite annoying the first few novels, he is quickly getting up there with Perrin as far as favorite characters go. He has matured a lot over the last few novels, and I just think his arc is interesting. His mission is diverted since Rand decides it is more important to get Elayne back to Andor to take her throne. While the women weren't nearly as annoying in this novel (Elayne, Nynaeve and Egwene actually acted as friends without bitching), as soon as Jordan has his male and female heroes interact with each other, I generally want to strangle the necks of some characters - usually the women. It's bad enough that the characters don't communicate well, but they don't communicate at all across the genders. So many misunderstandings could be avoided by a simple question of "did you mean this or that?" instead of constant assumptions that the men are simply acting arrogantly. In fact, there were a few scenes from the view of the Forsaken in the novel, and I actually really like the evil women, especially Graendal. I like how capable she is. Somehow, I don't think the Forsaken are supposed to be among my favorite characters but they are just so much more entertaining - some of the other characters definitely have their moments of whininess.

One of the big things in this novel has to do with the Aes Sedai. Rand has followed through on his pardon to men that can channel and has established a school for them to be trained. Aes Sedai delegations have been sent from both the rebels at Salidar and the White Tower. One is at Caerhien and the other at Caemlyn, and Rand Travels back forth and between the two as he sees fit. This is another one where the women's attitudes get annoying because they see Rand has yet another man that has to learn his place and show them proper respect. Given how much power the Aes Sedai have lost over the past few centuries, they should consider learning a more diplomatic route - or perhaps use their common sense. The main plot revolves around how Rand will deal with the Aes Sedai, and mostly sets up for the next novel as it ends with several forces and characters enroute on various quests.

While the novel didn't drag at all, when actually writing down what occurred, it really doesn't seem like all that much necessarily happened. As I said, a lot of it was setting the stage for later events. Morgase, the Queen of Andor, is still with the White Cloaks but has not formalized their allegiance yet, while the Dark One is putting his Forsaken into motions although what his current endgame is remains unclear. One thing that does seem clear is that he appears to want Rand left alive. Lews continues to make his presence known in Rand's head, and one can only assume that Rand will learn to use the voice of the dead man in his head to advantage in the future though he currently fears that Lews will try to take him over. For the most part, the voice is rather annoying, constantly bewailing his dead lover/wife. When it comes down to it, I'm not really a huge fan of Rand's. I think the whole love triangle/square is obnoxious - really, Robert Jordan, your hero had to have three women fall in love with him at once? And they are all okay with it? I'm not sure if I want to see how he ties that one up.

From this book on, I admit one of my favorite things to do has been to look at the negative reviews on Amazon because some of them are hilarious. And generally, the negative reviews don't even get negative feedback - even the most radical fans are willing to admit to the series' flaws. I've decided for at least the next few novels I'm going to link to one of the more inspired Amazon reviews for entertainment.

Book 27: The Fires of Heaven

2011-04-27T02:38:00.001-04:00

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, Book 5) by Robert Jordan

Almost caught up on The Wheel of Time! This novel changes up the structure a bit since there is a large, defining battle in the beginning of the novel. In comparison, the rest of the novels have mostly built up to big battles and dead Forsaken - not to say that part doesn't happen as well . . . I don't think it's exactly a spoiler when the novels have started to display a specific pattern.

At the end of the last novel, Rand declared himself the Chief of Chiefs, and to prove this, revealed the secret Aiel history to all: that they had originally been peaceful, and the Tinkers were the ones that had continued to follow the true Aiel way while they had turned away by embracing the spear. Apparently this type of history was too shocking for some of the Aiel so they have refused to follow Rand, and have instead decided to side with the Shaido Aiel who leave the waste to wreak havoc on the wetlands. Rand, friends and allies pursue them to Cairhien and engage in a decisive battle (Cairhien had shown up in an earlier novel and is a city where everyone is well versed in politics and loading everything with extra meaning; they were also responsible for the last war with the Aiel 20 years ago). Rand also continues his complicated relationship with Aviendha who has been charged to teach him all things Aiel but since they are opposite genders and this is Jordan, they just don't understand each other. Translation: like every other female that isn't from Two Rivers, Aviendha wants Rand and he wants her in return.

While Perrin does not make an appearance in the novel, Mat puts his knowledge from his previous lives as a warrior to good use, and is incredibly useful during the battle. I would say it's in this novel particularly that Mat transitions from annoying to interesting as he starts developing his own skills beyond simply luck. Egwene continues to try to understand Aiel ways and learn dreamwalking, while Nynaeve, Elayne and Brigitte travel with a circus in order to avoid the Black Ajah's attention and find the rebel Aes Sedai. I really wasn't that into this story line. Thom was more interesting before he got attached to Elayne and Nynaeve - Rand and the men appreciated his skills, while the women grudgingly accept he might be useful and just don't take advantage of the tools at their disposal.

The rebel Aes Sedai story is interesting as Siuan tries to deal with her new standing now that she has been stilled. However, she continues to try to shape the world around her. Since the Aes Sedai treat women without the ability to channel as children, it is easier than she might have expected but she does have a hard time with her new, reduced position in the world. I quite like Siuan, and Morgase's rejected general and lover becomes involved with the rebels due to Siuan. Morgase meanwhile realizes that her kingdom has come to shambles under the guidance of her new lover, and decides to escape from his control to rally support. Given that she has ordered some of her most loyal subjects flogged, this will be harder than she imagines.

The ending has a few twists and deaths although Jordan does reverse a few of those. Rand is still rather annoying with his inability to hurt or kill women - I guess it's supposed to be noble and chivalrous but when they are engaging in battle with you, you might want to get over that. Of course, this all plays into Jordan's weird gender stuff, so no point beating a dead horse at the moment (on Amazon, there is a snippet of an interview with Jordan and he says he is incapable of lying to women - seriously?).

Book 26: The Shadow Rising

2011-04-26T08:15:00.001-04:00

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4) by Robert Jordan

I started reading the series The Wheel of Time back in January, and have finished the first ten novels. Unfortunately, I read the first five without writing any reviews, and I have not looked forward to going back to write them because the series tends to blend together quite a bit. However, I did learn my lesson, and wrote reviews for books 6-9 as soon as I finished them that are just waiting to be posted.

At the beginning of The Shadow Rising, all the main characters are together at the Stone of Tear. Rand has conquered Tear, and has proven to much of the world that he is the Dragon Reborn. Of course, there will always be naysayers, especially those further away from the action who believe it was an Aes Sedai plot, but Rand is on his way to unite the world for the final battle. As the novel progresses, the protagonists go off on different missions and quests, though in some cases this leads them on a common path for very different reasons. For example, as hesitant as Mat still is about Rand's ability to channel, he feels the need to go to Rhuidean, and accompanies Rand and his party. I didn't realize this when I started reading this, but this actually marks the last time that the entire group of main characters is in the same spot (excluding Min who was sent to Siuan at the White Tower during the last novel). In the six books since this one, some of the characters' paths have crossed and converged in different ways, but they have not been together as a group since then (despite everyone's increased abilities).

Rand goes to Aiel Waste to further prove some of the Dragon Prophecies true. Additionally, the Aiel believe that he is their prophesied Chief of Chiefs, and he wants to rally their support. Moraine, of course, chooses to go with him as she attempts to teach and guide him. Mat is drawn to Rhuidean in the Aiel Waste for reasons of his own after being given answers to three questions in ter'angreal at the Stone of Tear. Egwene accompanies them to meet the Aiel Wise Ones who she stumbled upon in the dream world to learn more about her talent, and the young Aiel woman Aviendha goes as well at the call of the Wise Ones because she must give up her spear to become one of their apprentices and learn to use the Power. Aviendha, Mat, Moraine and Rand all enter Rhuidean, an ancient Aiel city where leaders are tested to discover answers, and test for their future/prove their position. During this visit, Jordan reveals the true history of the Aiel which was interesting.

Nynaeve and Elayne continue on their quest for the Black Ajah and head westward after Elayne and Rand part who have spent the first part of the novel making out in corners. It wasn't a bad plot line; Nynaeve faces one of the Forsaken, Moghedien, but the two characters were incredibly annoying. Lots of braid pulling, sniffing, crossing of arms beneath breasts, bitching about low cut necklines while also coveting the material. Jordan cannot write women. Well, in his defense, his male characters aren't really that much more realistic. Meanwhile, Min has arrived at the Tower and is assisting Siuan by using her ability to read people's fate.

The best plot line by far was Perrin in the Two Rivers. After hearing gossip about the area, he decides to go home. Faile forces him to let her join him. On the one hand, Faile was rather annoying and badly written but I also am rather annoyed with how much the men see the women as the weaker sex. While I wasn't exactly excited to have her come along, I also was irritated with Perrin trying to protect her and make up her mind for her so I was ambivalent about her forcing herself along. Faile actually becomes a much better character in the Two Rivers when she is helping Perrin rally his friends and neighbors to defend themselves against Trollocs instead of relying on the White Cloaks.

At this point, there was still a lot of interesting plot development, but Jordan's characters are very whiny and are completely stuck in ideas of gender roles, and very culturally insensitive and judgmental. I'm mostly reading the novels because I want to see what's going to happen, not because I necessarily care about the characters. Even the ones I do like tend to do things that I would consider out of character or completely uncalled for, but since they aren't the main characters (by this I mean the top six of Mat, Rand, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne), it doesn't always happen as often. After reading this novel, Perrin was definitely cemented as my favorite character so imagine my surprise when that changes only two books later.

Book 25: The Dragon Reborn

2011-04-16T09:48:00.001-04:00

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, Book 3) by Robert Jordan

On the one hand, I quite liked Jordan's approach in this novel since it barely had any chapters from Rand al'Thor's perspective and was almost purely from his friends' points of view. There's only so much "woe me, I'm the Dragon Reborn, and I'm going to go mad" a reader can take. On the other hand, it is in this novel that Jordan's portrayal of women started getting on my nerves. I was willing to give Egwene some slack with some of her issues since she had been the one collared by the Seanchan in the previous book, and I figured some of her behavior was a result of this temporary enslavement. However, I quickly became annoyed with their attitudes in general - they all seem to think they know so much better than everyone around them even though they have a lot to learn. I'm not sure if this was an issue in this novel in particular (I'm a few novels past this one as I write the review), but they are also so fucking judgmental of other cultures that it's ridiculous, especially considering how much traveling they do. And yet, every time they meet people that do things differently from them they are scandalized and then instead of trying to understand these different cultures, try to make them change to conform with their views.

Rand has mostly accepted that he is the Dragon Reborn at this point, and even has a few followers after the battle that concluded the last novel which was somehow seen in the sky across the land. However, he feels frustrated that he's wasting time (just wait until the later books, Rand!), so in an effort to speed up his destiny, he takes off alone to Tear where the famed, impenetrable Stone of Tear is located. One of the prophecies of the Dragon Reborn states that the walls of Tear will fall, and that the Dragon Reborn will claim the famous sword that isn't a sword, Callandor. Instead of following Rand on his travels, the narrative focuses on his friends who are split into three groups. There are Loial, Perrin and Moraine that follow behind him; Elayne, Nynaeve and Egwene who end up enroute south; and Mat and Thom, the gleeman. Eventually all their paths and goals converge on at the Stone. The three Accepted (after being punished for running away, Elayne and Egwene are raised) are on the trail of the Black Ajah - thirteen Aes Sedai vanished shortly after they left the Tower, led by Liandrin, stealing ter'angreal and leaving three dead women. Siuan can't use any of the other sisters because she doesn't know who to trust, and most of the White Tower doesn't want to acknowlege the existence of the Black Ajah.

Moraine and her party discover that Illiam is under the thrall of Sammael, one of the Forsaken, setting up for the next novel, and Mat discovers that Elayne's mother's new lover has some evil plans for Elayne, and decides to follow her to warn her and his friends that her with her. As the reader discovers, Morgase's lover is actually another of the Forsaken, and the Stone also is under the control of one. Obviously, in addition to Rand's quest to get Callandor from the Stone, Jordan is setting up for quite a few adventures later. He introduces Faile (falcon in the Old Tongue) after Min warned Perrin that she had viewing of a hawk and a falcon perched on his shoulders. The legendary Aiel also appear throughout the novel as they search for the Chief of Chiefs, or their version of the Dragon Reborn.

Especially now that I'm much further into the series, it is amazing how much Jordan packs into these early novels. Not only does he set up stories and plots for later, but he also has a mission or quest that ties the novel together while the rest simply adds depth to the story. Still, as I said, he really starts losing me around here with the portrayal of his female characters. Mat also kind of irritated me in this novel since he grumbles way too much about his friends, and the way he cannot deal with Rand's ability to channel at all - every time someone tries to kill him he blames Rand instead of acknowledging the fact that he is also important. However, his luck that will become such a huge trait later really starts showing itself in this novel as well as the fact that he is ta'veren. That's another thing that surprises me as the series progress - while Mat annoyed me in the beginning, he is now my favorite of the male characters (although at this point and novel 4 it is definitely Perrin).

Book 24: Reading Women

2011-04-11T03:37:00.001-04:00

Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life by Stephanie Staal

Stephanie Staal attended Barnard as an undergraduate and took classes like "Feminist Texts." After college, she embarked on a career in journalism, but once she hit 30, she realized that she was facing similar problems as women 50 years ago. After starting her career, Staal ended up married and with a child. She and her husband both work from home, but somehow like most other women, she still found herself with a greater deal of the housework, and wondering how her life had led her to such a domestic spot. After reading a few chapters of The Feminine Mystique and relating, she gets the idea to go back to college and re-take "Feminist Texts" to see how her perspective has changed and how they relate to her current life.

The book is part memoir and part analysis of feminist texts. She discusses all the obvious suspects, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone deBeauvoir and Virginia Woolf, and also engages in these women's complicated and contradictory life styles. Compared to some of the young women attending the class for the first time, Staal has a more forgiving view of their personal lives, and understands the difficulties. It was definitely a nice reminder of some of the theories I had read in college, and I have wondered before how I would engage differently with some of these texts now vs. then. It's so easy to see things in black and white when younger. I know just when reading feminist websites now, I occasionally think people are going a bit overboard about things, I feel like there are way too many trigger warnings at some websites (are we really that fragile?), and become rather defensive whenever they try to talk about women in the military.

In her personal life, Staal discovers similar problems that have already been discussed endlessly in feminist classes - the difficulty of balancing personal life and career; the treatment her husband gets for being an engaged father while it's expected of her; the idea that women feel selfish for taking personal time (I don't remember how much we discussed this in my "Intro to Feminist Theory" class, but it definitely came up in my class about chick-lit since many of the chick lit texts about motherhood deal with exactly that - one novel in particular that we read was I Don't Know How She Does It - the point being that she wasn't doing as well in either her personal or professional as she wanted). She and her husband experience some marital difficulties after they move away from New York, and they attend therapy - their marriage counselor basically asks Staal what's wrong when told that he assists with some household tasks, doesn't cheat and makes money. They resolve their differences, though Staal doesn't elaborate too much on how they did that (they moved back to New York as well) other than combined dislike of their counselor and a new approach to communication.

I quite enjoyed the book while I read it but it's been about a week, and I feel like it was rather forgettable. This may be because Staal didn't go completely in depth with many things. I'm not sure if I felt like she'd really changed that much by the end of the novel with the exception of her location and I guess I would like to know more about how she is now doing balancing the professional and personal. Given her subtitle, I can't say I feel like her life really changed as a result of the feminist texts, and that may be more due to what she has told the reader - I guess moving back to New York is a big change, but it's the day to day that would interest me more, such as how did she communicate with her husband or get him more involved? Her analysis of the texts was also more of an overview rather than in depth analysis but it works for what she was trying to accomplish. She discusses her classmates' views some and compares them to students in the early '90s. I thought a bit more of this would have also been interesting. She touches on a few topics along those lines, such the different reactions to pornography in discussions now (it was more accepted now, and included arguments about women's empowerment). She also believes that the students are more aware of how impossible it is to have anything, while Staal had left college thinking she could have it all.

Book 23: We Need to Talk About Kevin

2011-04-03T09:35:00.001-04:00

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

I've kept in touch with a few of my college professors, and generally see them when I'm back home to visit my parents. Recently, one of them recommended this novel to me, and I finally had time to read it. The novel is written in the epistolary format, and is compromised of letters from Eva to her former husband, Franklin. Kevin is their son who is currently in a juvenile detention facility because he was "one of those Columbine boys." Only a few days before Columbine occurred, Kevin shot and killed several students and a teacher at his high school. Eva uses this correspondence to tell her side of the story, and attempt to understand her culpability, if any. As a result, while the novel is a series of letters, the level of honesty and detail also make it seem very journal-like.

As the novel progresses, Eva reminisces about her and Franklin's early years together, and their very different backgrounds. Eva is a jaded and cynical world traveler of Armenian heritage - her parents both lost family to the genocide in the 1910s. Franklin, on the other hand, has traveled, but loves the United States of America in all its glories. They have very opposite views, and didn't meet until their 30s, and as a result, become parents at a later age than many. Eva describes herself as very happy with Franklin, but eventually decides to have a child because she feels like Franklin wants one. Eva, on the other hand, is very ambivalent. She earns more than Franklin and developed her own company of travel guides but is willing to embark on this new journey. However, from the very beginning, motherhood disappoints her: as soon as Kevin is born, he rejects her breast and milk, and she never develops that maternal bond she hoped to. The interplay between Eva and Kevin, and its affect on her marriage, was fascinating. Eva believes that from early on, she and her son were engaged in a type of warfare with each other, and says that even as a child he would have a different personality when he was around her husband. Based on only this, it would be easy to say it was simply post-partum depression, and that maybe he was reacting to her based on her behavior, but it is obvious that Kevin is a difficult child: no one wants to babysit him more than once, he drives off nannies, children's play groups become much more disruptive after he joins them. Odd incidents occur when Kevin is around, and while Franklin is afraid he might be traumatized by them, Eva feels he caused them. Obviously, knowing that he would later kill seven students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher, it is easy to want to side with Eva and just see something cunning about Kevin from the beginning.

While it is easy to describe this novel as a study about nature vs. nuture (was Kevin the way he was because his mother didn't like him, or was it in his nature from the beginning?), personally, I think this debate is not quite the point of the novel. Even if Eva is a horrible mother, and mostly her sin is that she didn't want to be a mother, and that she is very cold, he had what could only be called a loving father, which is more than some children have and they don't shoot up their high schools. Instead, the part that interested me was the idea of Eva as a narrator. How reliable is she? Everything the reader sees is her interpretation of events, with the occasional comments during which she describes Franklin's interpretations. But really, even those are her interpretations of his interpretations. After all, I doubt any father would be quite as amused and excusing of some of Kevin's antics as Eva describes him. Clearly, Eva blames Kevin for the disintegration of her marriage, and there are various examples of Franklin picking Kevin over Eva. I would have loved to get this novel from Franklin's perspective.

I was interested in the novel from the beginning but it took me longer to get through the first hundred pages or so than the last three hundred. The first hundred are mostly set up and background, and it is only then that Eva really starts delving into Kevin's development. However, while Franklin always takes Kevin's side, Eva still believes that her son had more respect for her exactly because she saw through him. In fact, during one of her regular visits to Kevin's prison, Kevin tells her that she was the audience. Eva and Kevin are the only characters in the novel that are truly portrayed with any types of dimensions. While Eva loves her husband, it is hard to tell what the attraction was at times, and she has glamorized and simplified him as a very optimistic man's man. Celia, her much younger daughter, is incredibly sweet, and the exact opposite of Kevin. It gives the impression that Eva creates strong opinions of people at the very beginning and then pidgeonholes them, so no matter what they do, she interprets it to fit into her world view. For example, at one point she talks about how Celia is absentminded, and would forget to set the table or do other chores as a result. Yet if it had been Kevin, it would have been described as malicious and another battle. I looked through a few Amazon reviews, and what I found interesting is that most of the reviewers focus on the idea of the novel as a character study of Kevin, but it is just as much as character study of Eva.

Women's History Month March '11

2011-03-31T08:59:00.001-04:00

I already posted this on Facebook, but I was invited to speak at a women's history month event along with three other women today. One of them gave a great speech using the idea of foundation and building a sky scraper as a metaphor, listing various women's contributions as bricks. It was very well done, and she added a nice personal touch by incorporating her mother and daughter as bricks, thus making her one of the three generations of women serving in the military. The following is the speech I gave (I took out my unit info since I don't want people to find my blog while searching for my unit):

I am incredibly honored to be here today for Women's History Month. I never would have expected to have this type of opportunity this early in my career. This year's theme for women's history month is "Our History is Our Strength." As a history, and gender and women's studies major, I have always believed that history and context are very important so I relish this opportunity to discuss some of that context, and the long history of women in combat.

Right now, women make up about 14 percent of the Active Duty Army. Almost 11 percent of senior NCOs and nearly 14 percent of field grades and above are women. In 2008 GEN Anne Dunwoody became the first female four star general. SGT Leigh Ann Hester and SGT Monica Brown were the first two women to receive Silver Stars since World War II while serving in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, respectively.

While women's official integration into the United States Army is rather recent, it is not hard to find women warriors throughout history. Cleopatra, Zenobia and Boudicca all rallied and led their people against the Roman Empire; Joan of Arc led the French during the Hundred Years War, and these are only a few names that have made their mark on history. Boudicca, for example, was forgotten until Roman history texts were rediscovered in the Renaissance Era. It is impossible to say how many other women have been lost to time. Women's current service in the military is a continuation of this woman warrior spirit.

Within the United States, women were there from the beginning – during the Revolution, women acted as nurses, seamstresses and cooks, roles that would much later fall under the Army's sustainment branches. Some helped their husbands at war, and in the well-documented cases of Margaret Corbin and Mary McCauley, better known as Molly Pitcher, even took their husbands' places at the canons. Women's roles during the Civil War were similar, and many women made a name for themselves due to their selfless service in the medical field. Women enlisted disguised as men in both wars, though this habit would end with the implementation of physical exams. In World War I, over 21,000 women served in the Army Nurse Corps. An additional 230 women served in the Signal Corps though it would not be until 1979 that their military status was recognized. Additionally, women served as civilian cooks, clerks, seamstresses, and phone operators. In some cases, this simply meant women continued to serve in traditional women's roles; in others, this was also a revolution as formerly male gendered occupations, such as clerks and typists, came to be associated with women.

However, it would be World War II that saw the creation of the Women's Army Corps, originally the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, creating a space for women in the Army. The women served in many of the roles they had filled during previous wars but now they were actually part of the military and had a larger variety of options within the support areas. In 1948, President Truman signed legislation that made the WAC a permanent part of the Army. In 1978, the WAC was dissolved: with women's assimilation into male units and training, it had served its role.

That is some of the context and the history but what does that really mean? Well, let's take me for example. I'm a company commander in the ___ Brigade Support Battalion, ___ Infantry Brigade Combat Team. I signed my ROTC contract at 18, and graduated from the University of Illinois in May 2006, receiving my commission through the university's Reserve Officer Training Corps. It is only since 1976 that women have had the same minimum enlistment age as men – 18 without parental consent, 17 with. The first woman graduated through ROTC in May 1976. I attended the same Basic Officer Leader Course and Transportation Basic Leadership Course as my male counterparts. It wasn't till 1977 that combined basic training for men and women became policy. My first duty station was a three year overseas assignment at Grafenwoehr, Germany where I was a Transportation Platoon Leader. It was in 1976 that single women's overseas assignments were changed from 24 to 36 months to equal their male counterparts. I receive the same pay benefits as any other man who has completed the same schools and assignments as me on a similar time line. I have government life insurance. During World War II, the WACs had the same basic pay as male Soldiers but didn't receive overseas pay or the option for government life insurance. If I got pregnant today, there would be no question about my ability to stay in and do my duty. It wasn't until 1975 that the military eliminated involuntary discharge of women because of pregnancy and parenthood. There is a chance that if I do well and stay in long enough, I could be promoted to general officer. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson that removed promotion restrictions on women officers in 1967, making them eligible for general officer rank. Without the women before me, my Army career thus far would look very different.

It is only when looking at where we were that we can truly understand how remarkable the changes have been. The women that came before us faced great challenges, and their struggles and professionalism paved the way for us. I'm sure many of them could never have predicted their impact or expected to change the status quo. We, too, can pave the way ahead and open doors for the future women Soldiers by always striving for betterment, going above and beyond, and exceeding expectations. There are still many mile stones left, but this is the month to celebrate the road so far, and draw inspiration from it. These past ten years have showcased many women's achievements and opened doors, and as excited as I am about this, I look forward to a future where we no longer talk about "firsts" because these achievements have become the norm.

Book 22: Little Bee

2011-03-29T00:16:00.001-04:00

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

One thing I really liked about this novel is that for once the back of the book didn't give too much away. It simply stated that it was about two women who had met two years previously in a life changing event, and were about to meet again. Granted, if it hadn't been for the fact that this novel was on several bestseller lists, and I kept seeing it everywhere, this might have been too vague of a description to interest me, but as it was, it actually worked.

The story has two narrators with alternating chapters: Little Bee and Sarah, the two women described on the back. Little Bee is a refugee from Nigeria, and Sarah is a British woman who once spent a holiday in Nigeria with her deceased husband. While some novels would spend the majority of the novel trying to hide their relationship or some huge twist, that wasn't really the case here at all, another point in its favor. While the author doesn't come straight out in the first chapter or two and reveal their past relationship, he reveals it early enough so that the reader doesn't spend the rest of the novel racing through the novel to discover what happened. Instead, by revealing their link fairly early, he allows the story to focus the relationship between the women and its development.

Little Bee has spent the past two years at refugee detention center waiting for her request to be denied or granted, and at the very beginning of the novel is released. However, things seem slightly off, and her and the other three women's release may have actually been a mistake. Still, Little Bee has one advantage over her fellow refugees: she actually knows someone in England. Sarah is in her early thirties, has a 5 year old son named Charlie that refuses to wear anything but his batman costume, and she is about to bury her husband. It's a weird time for her to say the least because she and her husband have long been distant, not the least of which has to do with an incident from two years ago. Sarah is having a bit of midlife crisis as well: she runs a fashion magazine but especially now that the magazine has become more established, she is disappointed with its direction. Originally she wanted to run a magazine that was different from the average woman's magazine, one that actually focused on issues and not just fashion, but she now finds herself choosing articles about great orgasm or vibrators over articles about women in Baghdad etc. It is at this point that Little Bee comes back into her life.

Cleave uses this novel to explore the conditions of refugees in England, though I'm sure their treatment is comparable in other Western countries, and bring awareness to continuing issues in countries that now are considered relatively safe. As a refugee from Jamaica tells Little Bee early in the novel, people don't believe that they really need asylum from their countries and their requests tend to be denied. There were also quite a few pieces of humor mixed in. Little Bee explains that she was so afraid of certain situations that she would always plan her suicide and escape route whereever she was. She also applied this to historical situations, stating that the best way to commit sucide in under Henry VIII's reign would have been to "marry Henry the Eighth" (49). Sarah is a flawed character, but her struggles with her identity and her flaws make her very relatable. After all, how many people wanted to change the world at one point only to end up in successful career that really was simply going along with the status quo? And yet, despite all her flaws, she is still willing to do much more than many others. The novel doesn't offer simple answers or even a happy ending, though one could see a certain hopefulness in the bond these women develop - however, I don't if it's enough to make a difference. I can't say I quite believed the ending, or at least a certain part of it, but overall, I enjoyed the novel and the characters.

Book 21: The Great Hunt

2011-03-17T08:11:00.001-04:00

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, Book 2) by Robert Jordan

When I first started reading this series a few weeks ago, I made the mistake of reading a few of the novels before getting around to the reviews because I wanted to know what happened next. However, now I have to write reviews on those earlier books even though my opinion is now very much shaped by events that occur later. The further I get into the series, the more irritated I get with Jordan's portrayal of certain characters. However, this was not an issue while reading this novel, so I will focus as much as I can on just this novel without letting my opinion be colored by later novels. However, there will be spoilers for The Eye of the World so be warned.

While I enjoyed The Eye of the World, it felt slightly derivative to me - as the first of the series, it began with the quest and upheaval of the young hero, much like most familiar epic fantasy stories. That's not to say that Jordan didn't have his own take on the whole thing, but it just felt like yet another hero's quest. The Great Hunt is the novel that really got me involved in the series. The novel begins in the northern kingdom of Shienar where the previous novel left off. Mat is still bound to the evil dagger, and has to be taken the White Tower to have the link completely severed before it destroys him. However, during a raid by darkfriends, the Horn of Valere and the dagger are both stolen, and Fain, formerly imprisoned in the dungeon, escapes. Rand does not want to accept the fact that he is the Dragon Reborn and chooses to join the hunt for the Horn and the dagger. Perrin and Mat come as well, since Mat will die if they cannot recover the dagger.

While this is going on, Egwene and Nynaeve finally arrive at the White Tower to receive training as Aes Sedai. They also meet the heir to the throne of Candor, Elayne, while there and the three of them form a quick and strong friendship. The three of them have the potential to be the most powerful Aes Sedai in years with the proper training. Min also is a part of their group though her power has nothing to do with the One Source. She has the ability to read people's futures and auras, and she and Elayne had initially been introduced in passing in The Eye of the World. However, they do not spend the entirety of the novel in the tower, learning their lessons: circumstances arise, and the women find themselves in the same part of the realm as the men on the quest for the horn.

This novel introduces the Se'anchan, a nation from across the sea that has figured out a way to harness the One Source and use women that have the ability to work with it as slaves. Additionally, the Children of the Light, who are rather similar to an inquisition, play a role in this novel (Perrin made enemies of them earlier), and all these forces find themselves colliding in one place. The prologue also shows that some of the Aes Sedai have turned to the dark side since a few women with the serpent ring are observed at a gathering of darkfriends. While this becomes an bigger issue later in the series, it can already be seen here: the characters really do not communicate. Many of these people supposedly grew up together, and are supposed to be best friends, but Mat basically refuses to talk to Rand because he is the Dragon Reborn and can channel. Perrin does not tell any of his friends about his newly discovered ability to commune with wolves, though that is partially because he keeps trying to deny this ability to himself, much like Rand tries to pretend that he cannot channel, and that he is not the Dragon Reborn. Still, I wish Perrin would just embrace the wolf side instead of fighting against it as much as he does - he is definitely one of my favorite characters in this series. I quite liked that Jordan gave the women an important role in this series, and at this point, they have a much better grasp of their powers than the men, which I like. Additionally, the women together save themselves rather than relying on men to come to their rescue. While I definitely believe that Morgaine has good intentions, she remains so cryptic that none of the characters trust her. I'm not sure if I'm more annoyed with her for not opening up more, or with the others for not trusting her intentions. Actually, I think I'm more annoyed with the others. This novel shows how complex and varied Jordan intends his world to be, and this novel made me very interested to see where it was going, how everything was going to relate and what the solutions might be. Similar to George R.R. Martin, there are so many factions that it is impossible to see them standing together to fight the evil on the horizon.

Book 20: The Hand That First Held Mine

2011-03-17T07:05:00.001-04:00

The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell's novel After You'd Gone completely blew me away. I just loved how detailed the author was, how authentic the emotions seemed, and the non-linear structure. Her novel The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox didn't reach me the same way, but it was still a well-written story. Her novels may not have the most original ideas or be non-predictable, but her characters seem relatively real. The first novel was about love, loss and romantic relationships while the second dealt more with mothers and sisters (not that the mother-daughter relationship didn't play a role in the first but in that case it was more from the perspective of the daughter). Based on that, it is easy to think that the ideas may be related to what the author herself was currently going through - dating and marriage vs. motherhood, though I don't know what her biography is.

While The Hand That First Held Mine didn't capture me as much as After You'd Gone, I liked it more than I did The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. In fact it deals with all the themes of the previous two relationships: there is both the romantic relationship with the strong woman character as well as a look at motherhood, and different mothers. The novel is set up as two interweaving stories, and flashes back forth between Elina, a new mother who almost died during childbirth, and Alexandra "Lexie" Sinclair. Due to the extreme bloodloss during her labor, Elina is feeling especially disoriented as she adjusts to motherhood, and keeps losing chunks of time. Her boyfriend Ted was so traumatized by almost losing her that he will not talk to her about what happened to fill in her memories. Being around his new son also causes Ted to have odd flashbacks and memories from his childhood that don't quite fit. While Elina's narrative takes place in the present, Lexie's story begins in the '50s in England after she has completed school and returned home. Lexie does not fit in at home, and moves to London, becomes involved in the art scene and Soho, and falls in love. Her character is very matter of fact about things in a way that seems almost unreal but she was without a doubt my favorite part of this novel (although I enjoyed Elina's dislike of her controlling, snobby mother-in-law).

Lexie's life leads her too many places she wouldn't have expected. She works at an art magazine, becoming a writer, and falls in love with Innes Kent, the magazine's owner. However, the novel constantly hints that there is not a happy ending in store for her, stating that her face would never be lined with age. Since I have yet to read a novel with two story lines that don't end up connecting in some way, it is not difficult to guess what the connection between Elina and Lexie might be, but honestly, it doesn't matter. The story wasn't engaging because I was trying to guess what was going to happen; I kept reading because I liked the characters, I wanted to see how they reacted, and I wanted more of Lexie. Lexie was definitely more relatable for me since I'm not a mother, and much of her story is about a young woman discovering her potential, a new city and life. However, the novel also shows how secrets can destroy lives. At one point, Innes tells Lexie that young people like her always think the truth is so important even if it is painful, but it is exactly Innes's decision to withhold certain information that creates a lifelong enemy for Lexie, and causes some of the heartache later in the novel.

Shakespeare and Movies

2011-03-10T10:51:00.001-05:00

I'm currently about ten or eleven book reviews behind, but I don't want to write one right now. There was recently a list of Shakespeare adaptations on Pajiba, and it kind of put me in the mood for some Shakespearian films. I hadn't seen Baz Luhrman's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in ages, but I quickly procured a copy to watch. I remember loving this when I first saw this - I was in junior high (I watched it shortly after seeing My So-Called Life for the first time, and Claire Danes was definitely the main reason I wanted to see it), and I had it on VHS. However, I also remember that I stopped in the middle last time I tried watching it because it was too ADD. Rewatching it almost ten years later was definitely interesting.

I never have thought that Romeo and Juliet was a great love story - as much as I love the language, I felt like both of them were spoiled brats. Juliet just wanted to get away from her parents, and Romeo's feeling were inconsistent at best given that he was enamored with Rosaline when he went to the ball, only to fall for Juliet. However, rewatching this movie as an adult actually put that in perspective - they were teenagers. Of course that's how they would act - I couldn't believe how young Claire Danes and especially Leonardo Dicaprio looked! It made me feel old.

I was kind of amused by all the supporting actors in this as well - when Juliet rejects Paul Rudd's Paris, I just wanted to tell her, "go with Paul Rudd; Leonardo might be hot, and I get the appeal, but watch his other movies, he has some serious wife issues. Life with Paul Rudd would be much more fun." And I couldn't believe that Mercutio was played by Michael from Lost. I kept waiting for him to start yelling for Walt. Really, that seems to be his sole function as an actor: walk around yelling loudly while also pouting.

I had a few of my usual reactions to this film as well, such as questioning why Juliet would be so quick to threaten suicide rather than maybe running away. I also think Luhrman's decision to have Romeo hang out in a trailer park was odd - his family owns half of Verona, and his father couldn't spring for a nice penthouse somewhere out of town once his son is banished to a "fate worse than death" as he so dramatically puts it? Mostly though, I really would like to know how that priest even got a job. Because, seriously, he was rather incompentent with delusions of grandeur - "I can heal the rift between two families after decades of feuding" - yeah, okay, good luck with that. You might actually want to tell them what you did then. Or then when he was so worried about whether or not Romeo got his message? Maybe he should have just hung around Juliet's tomb to see if he would show up, and fill him in then. Of course, the priest's incompetence is even more pronounced in the actual play version: as I recall, he walks into the tomb to find Juliet alive with a dead Romeo, tells Juliet they can hide her in a nunnery, and walks back out to take care of some business arrangements, leaving an over-emotional teenager alone in a tomb with a pile of bodies. Genius plan. She had definitely killed herself by the time he got back. Speaking of Juliet's death, she was very selfish in the movie: she wakes up to find her lover dying and her first reaction is to chastize Romeo for not leaving her some poison - very thoughtful. Exactly the type of person I would want around to comfort me.

Of course being Baz Lurhman, the music played a huge role in the film, and I liked the music much more this time around - my tastes have definitely changed over the years. I still liked the movie but it and the soundtrack all felt very '90s. There are several shots of stages throughout the film, and while I realize this was as a tribute to the fact that this is a play, it also made me think of his film Moulin Rouge. The movie didn't resonate with me as strongly as it did when I was a teenager. On the other hand, I actually enjoyed 10 Things I Hate About You more when I recently rewatched it but that may have to do with my changed view of Heath Ledger. And JGL.

Book 19: The Girl in Hyacinth Blue

2011-02-12T11:47:00.002-05:00

The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

In The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland traces a painting's history back in time, introducing the reader to its various owners in short vignettes, and ending with stories from the perspectives of first the painter and then the subject. The last owner she introduces is a math teacher at a private school, and he received the painting from his father, a former Nazi who claimed the painting from an apartment after gathering up its Jewish owners in Amsterdam. The painting's current owner believes it is a Vermeer painting that has been lost to the world though he has no documentation to prove it (Vermeer has been fictionalized before in The Girl with the Pearl Earring).

The painting is owned by a variety of people, but all of them love this painting, seeing different things in the girl in blue. For one woman, she represents innocence, for another beauty; one man is reminded of his first love while a young Jewish girl in the occupied Netherlands sees someone equally thoughtful. Some of the stories were definitely more interesting to me than others, such as Hannah, and the family during a flood. However, I have never been a big fan of short stories, and while this is a novel rather than a collection of short stories, I didn't necessarily feel like the stories were that deep. They were vignettes, snapshots of lives, and as a result, I thought the book was pleasant but forgettable - I don't think I would recommend this to anyone, not because it was bad, but because there wasn't that much to it.

I understand that Vreeland was trying to show the influence of art and beauty on life as well as how people interpret art in their own ways, and she succeeded well enough but it wasn't an earth-shattering revelation. I admit that I have also never been a huge fan of the Dutch masters such as Rembrandt or Vermeer, so perhaps part of my reason for not connecting with this book had a lot to do with not connecting with those artists. I believe Vermeer is famous for scenes of domestic life which is what Vreeland appears to have been aiming for herself in this novel. The novel is well-written, many of the stories are well-done but there just wasn't enough for me to really think of this novel as very remarkable. I know I said I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this novel, but I really don't want anyone to think this was a bad novel or be dissuaded from reading it - for me, it was pleasant, leisurely but not very noteworthy read.

Book 18: The Eye of the World

2011-02-06T23:23:00.002-05:00

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1) by Robert Jordan

I've been vaguely aware of the Wheel of Time series for a while but had various reasons for holding off on beginning the series. At one point I was confusing them with A Wrinkle in Time, I had heard that it dragged in the middle, and I knew the series was over 12 books so far, all over 600 pages - it seemed like a bit more of a commitment than I was ready to make. However, a friend of mine over here recently received the latest in the series, and raved about the co-author of the last few in the series (Robert Jordan died, and Sanderson is finishing up the novels based on his outlines), so I decided to give the first one a shot - I didn't have to read the rest after all.

As a first novel in a series, it has a few similarities to much other popular fantasy: it tells the story of the hero's journey or quest, the reason a simple farm boy left his village behind. Actually, the novel begins with a prologue were a man is running through his home looking for his wife, surrounded by his dead relatives. An old enemy of his shows up and the man realizes he has gone mad, and killed his entire family. In his grief, he entombs himself in a mountain. As the book later shows, this man was the Dragon, a man that fought against the Dark One. From here, the novel transitions to three thousand years later to Rand al'Thor and his father who are enroute to their village for the springtime festival, even though the winter has been long and harsh and hasn't cleared. There are strange guests in the village, a woman and a man, a peddlar is there, and the village is expecting a gleeman - all things to make for an exciting festival. However, the village is attacked by Trollocs, the things of fairy tales even for these people, and the woman, Moiraine, turns out to be an Aes Sedai who can yield the One Power. Her efforts help save the village, and she convinces three boys (young men) that they were the target of the attack and the only way to save the village is to leave. These are Rand, Perrin and Mat. However, their escape doesn't go as smoothly or unnoticed as planned, and Egwene, one of the women of the village and Rand's girlfriend of sorts, follows along while the gleeman Thom also joins their party. Later, Nynaeve, the village's Wisdom (healer among other things) finds them as well to bring them back.

When they first leave, the goal is to get to Tar Valon, the city of the Aes Sedai for protection. However, there are several chases and adventures on the way, and the group gets separated. For the most part, the novel is from Rand's perspective but after they get separated there are a few scenes from Perrin's perspective. Eventually, the group finds each other again, and based on information they have found, they decide to head north in search of the Eye of the World.

While this is only the first in the series, Jordan packs in a lot of information about the different kingdoms and lives of the different people. Sometimes, he repeats himself (he has mentioned in every single novel, at least once, that certain tunes have different songs and words in different places), but for the most part he has developed a very rich world with several different cultures: there are the Tinkerers, a peaceful, gypsy-like people as well as the Two Rivers folk, and then the tough men in the North. He also portrays several different cities, and hints at the history of these societies. However, there was a part of me that wondered why we spent so much time on the quest, and this was the part of me that was thinking, "over 12 more books." However, while George R.R. Martin remains my favorite fantasy author, this series definitely combines the best of all worlds: it has political intrigue, and a large cast of characters like Martin, but also deals more with the fantasy elements such as the One Power and Trollocs like Tolkien. The politics aren't necessarily as obvious in this first novel, but especially as the series progresses, it becomes just as much about the game of thrones/houses as it is about fantastical elements.

Book 17: I Don't

2011-01-30T01:58:00.002-05:00

I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire

I feel kind of bad saying this, but I was a bit disappointed by this book. The author writes in a humorous fashion, gives a nice overview of the ways people's views of marriage changed over the years, but she concludes in the 16th century with Martin Luther. In some ways, it is really less of a history, and more a series of snapshots of famous and influential people's opinions. This is unfortunate, because Squire mentions that she spent 13 years working on this book, and while looking through her bibliography, I noticed quite a few interesting sources - she had a lot of information, but I wish more of it had been included in the book. I was also surprised to note that she didn't include Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Wife as one of her sources. I'm not sure if it was due to the fact that I've already read that, but I don't necessarily feel like this book presented that much new information.

In some cases, the information she presented focused more on men's views of women without really discussing these effects on marriages too much. One chapter that was particularly guilty of this was when she talked about the Malleus Maleficarum, "The Witches' Hammer," which was the infamous guide used to find witches from the late 15th century onward. It basically tells men that women are evil and to beware, but I felt like something else was needed to really tie it into the rest of the book a bit more (in her defense, I was slightly jetlagged while reading this, so I may have just missed that part), especially since this wasn't exactly new information to 15th century men.

Having recently read Guns, Germs and Steel, I felt she described how people settled down and started developing agriculture a bit simplistically, but that really isn't the point of the book. After that she begins with looking at gender roles in the Bible with Adam and Eve, and how the creation story will be used time and time again to justify women's position as inferior to men. At this point in time, the basic point of marriage is to "be fruitful and multiply" - she also analyzes the text and shows how Eve has been portrayed as an evil temptress though the text doesn't say anything about her tricking Adam despite popular belief (I guess we can partially blame that on Milton as well as centuries of sermons). The book was strongest in this part where she was analyzing the text and how its interpretations would later justify the dominance of men over women in all life and particularly marriage. She then moves on to the Greeks, who had a very divided system - there were wives for reproduction, courtesans of a sort for sex, prostitutes for other types of sex, and then men for plautonic love and intellectual conversation since women obviously couldn't fill this role.

Comparatively, Roman wives have more rights, but both Greek and Roman writing shows plenty of misogyny, and when people rediscover these texts during the Renaissance, they also rediscover justifications for looking down on women. From this point forward, the book shifts to the Christian perspective, and with this, there is also a shift in the reasons for marriage: it stops being about reproduction per se, and starts being about lust control, leading to such common sayings as "it is better to marry than to burn." Over a millenia, the men of the Church, some of whom have never had sex, become more obsessed with sex and with regulating sex. For example, Paul thought it was best to not have sex, but if someone was going to have sex, they should do it in marriage. He didn't really elaborate too much. As the years go on, priests, monks and churchmen would limit the types of positions that were appropriate, the times of day, and finally declare that sex should only be for reproductive purposes. Of course, some beliefs from back than were nice to hear about, such as the belief that women had to orgasm for conception to occur.

Another topic she discusses throughout are the ideas of the ideal wife, and how some men would illustrate these examples to women. Squire also mentions that most men liked to marry younger women because they believed they would be easier to control and mold into proper wives. However, this came with its own risks because the literature of the time demonstrates that many men were afraid of being made a fool or a cuckold. Chaucer, for example, used his stories to poke fun at old men married to lusty young wives.

Eventually, however, the idea of love is introduced. At first, it isn't within marriage, but as part of the chivalric tradition, there are finally stories about men and women dying for each other in honorable ways. Previously, most of the stories concerned men dying for other men, such as in the Greek traditions. With this introduction of love and sex, it opens the door for this to later be incorporated into ideas of marriage, and it is Martin Luther that partially does this. Additionally, she argues that the plague made people more willing to question the church so his timing was perfect. His wife is his helper in the traditional manner, but he doesn't try and dictate people's sex lives, and writes of a loving partnership, which Squire argues is the beginning of modern love and marriage even if there some hick ups after.

As I said, it's a great overview, though in some cases I think it can be deceiving because the book starts out in chronological order, but then the last few chapters tend to be more by themes since many of the things she discussed and addressed happened around the same time. And while Luther may have been the start of modern day marriage, it didn't just happen that quickly. I definitely would have liked to read about what happened after Luther, and up to today even. Additionally, it was Western-centric, so it only addressed the history of marriage in Europe. I wonder how much of the current book was the author's vision and how much was an editor telling her to cut it down. I guess my one other problem with the book had more to do with expectations: since she used the word contrarian in the title, I think I was expecting more of a polemic, such as Laura Kipnis's Against Love, but I don't feel like anything she argued was necessarily that extreme or contrarian. Still, as a quick overview with some humor, it is good. It is just necessary to look elsewhere for more something more in depth.

Book 16: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

2011-01-28T11:36:00.002-05:00

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

While I was on leave, I drank quite a bit of tea, and I think this novel may be partially to blame. The novel begins when Major Pettigrew finds out that his brother has died, and while he is processing this news, his town's shopkeeper drops by to pick up the newspaper money. As a result, Jasmina Ali sees the always proper major in a slightly disoriented state, and she volunteers to help him out as necessary, including a ride to the funeral. The major soon realizes just how forward he looks to seeing her, and having discussions with her, and a friendship slowly develops over tea and Kipling. They have both lost their spouses in the past, and get along easily but their different backgrounds provide some difficulties. Ali is Pakistani, and while she is accepted in the community, there is a certain type of racism and cultural insensitivity displayed towards her in the community. For example, when the golf club's committee of women decides to do an Indian theme (or actually Mughal), they start throwing in all types of stereotypes, and want to ask her. The major, who spent part of his childhood in India, attempts to explain just how off they are. While Ali graciously assists, the evening ends up being disastrous.

Additionally, Ali's nephew has come to assist with the shop, and he is also acting as a bit of baby-sitter. Simonson deals with the cultural differences and complications with a light touch that seems realistic rather than heavy-handed. The major has his own generational problems: he doesn't understand his young son, Roger, at all. Roger is very materialistic and focused on money while his father is more concerned with tradition. I can't say I ever liked Roger, but even with the novel being mostly from the major's perspective, none of the characters seem completely two-dimensional. One of the major parts of the narrative concerns Major Pettigrew's father's rifles. When he died, each of his sons inherited one, and as far as the major was concerned, they were to be reunited at either brother's death. However, his brother made no mention of this in his will, and since the set is worth 100,000 pounds this is obviously a point of contention. Roger is purely interested in selling them and making a quick buck, while for his father, they are a family heirloom.

The ending was a bit crazy compared to the relative calm of the rest of the novel, but it wasn't distracting enough to take away from the rest of the novel. I would definitely recommend this novel, and plan to read more by this author. I just liked her characters, and the way she incorporates old, traditional England with the evolving world, and how it affects the people in small towns. I liked that as much as the major cared about tradition, honor and family, he was also willing to take a chance, overlooked things his neighbors didn't, and tried to be a good person, even if he made mistakes and was fallible.

Book 15: The Lost

2011-01-23T23:26:00.004-05:00

The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn

Due to his love for his grandfather and interest in the family's history, Daniel Mendelsohn became the family historian early in his life. Part of the reason for this fascination was his grandfather's brother, Shmiel, who was "killed by the Nazis," and whom Mendelsohn bore a resemblance to as a child. However, since everyone in the family but Shmiel had already left their hometown prior to the Occupation, no one really knew what had happened to him, his wife and his four daughters. This book describes Mendelsohn's search for answers, and how he slowly realized that less important perhaps than finding out how they had died, was finding out how they had lived - who had these six people been?

Early in the book, Mendelsohn describes his love of Greek and Roman classics, and how he was much less interested in the Torah. He believes this has much to do with the stories' set-ups: the classics would go off on tangents and give background, such as Homer explaining the warriors' backgrounds before they would face each other, while the Torah was much more straightforward and linear. He believes this is because the first way reminded him of how his grandfather, the storyteller, would tell a story. This book follows that structure. Mendelsohn goes off on quite a few tangents to provide background only to return to his earlier point much later. However, having been given this earlier explanation relatively early in the book, it didn't bother me. The book really reads very much like someone telling a story, remembering things as he goes, and tying them in, repeating certain facts and phrases throughout for emphasis (sometimes unnecessarily).

Just like Mendelsohn didn't receive a clear, immediate answer regarding Shmiel, Ester and their daughters, the reader doesn't get the answer in the beginning. While Mendelsohn hints at points that he received further information later, or gives a sentence or two of it, the reader goes through Mendelsohn's journey of discovery with him. Based on what different eye-witnesses and survivors report to Mendelsohn, his conception of what had happened to his long lost cousins change, and sometimes they change repeatedly.

As he traces his roots, he realizes the resources he had had at his disposal at a child without actually being aware of it. Eventually he him makes contact with the survivors of Bolechow, his family's home town, through the Israeli branch of his family and these people help give him answers and lead him to others that may have more answers, both about his family and what their life may have been like, before the Occupation and as the Nazis took control. This leads him to places like Sydney, Copenhagen, and Israel. Their stories not only give some light on what happened (or may have happened) to his relatives, but also put other family stories and legends in a new perspective.

Some answers were much easier to find than others - Ruchele, the third daughter's fate, was the most clear, and there were no surprises later in the story. However, of the other five, some answers were never very clear, and others changed, such as who got transported to Belzec, who was hidden etc. Mendelsohn had to accept that he couldn't find all the answers but he still ended up with much more information than the family had originally. I know personally, there was one thing in particular I was wondering, and I'm sure Mendelsohn may have had a similar question in addition to many others.

I mostly enjoyed the book. As I said, Mendelsohn quite often went of on tangents, so for someone interested in the Holocaust, this book may meander a bit much. Even I thought that towards the end, he could have wrapped it up a bit more tightly or quickly, and maybe cut a few pages. I enjoyed the interviews with the survivors although some of them were only hinted at since the subjects only told them if they would not be put in the book. My one other complaint is that he doesn't have a list of sources or bibliography in the back. While he generally mentions books he read in the text, in some cases he mentions only the author but not the title, and there is no bibliography at the end. Since this is a memoir/family history and not a history book, I understand why there isn't an index and a bibliography but I would have liked one nonetheless, especially since I occasionally forgot who some of the many people he knew, interviewed, and referenced were.

Book 14: The Titan's Curse

2011-01-19T16:17:00.001-05:00

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3) by Rick Riordan

At the beginning of this novel, Annabeth, Percy and Thalia, Zeus's recently reawakened daughter, visit a boarding school after Grover alerts them that he has found two siblings, both halfbloods, there. Unfortunately, a monster has already found them as well, and Annabeth is kidnapped in the ensuing skirmish. Artemis and her Hunters happen to be in the area, and come to aid the demigods, but too late to help Annabeth. However, the monster mentioned some other looming threats, and Artemis decides to investigate them after accepting Bianca, one of the two new halfbloods, as one of her Hunters.

Given the danger, Artemis leaves her Hunters at Camp Half-Blood, but Artemis is soon captured, and based on the Oracle's prophecy, five heroes are chosen to go on a quest to save her. Originally, this includes three Hunters (Zoe, Artemis's lieutenant; Bianca; and one other) as well as Thalia and Grover. However, one Hunter is out of commission before the quest even starts so Percy secretly follows them so he can help save Annabeth.

This novel revisits many of the monsters and challenges that Hercules faced, and Percy also learns a bit more about the nature of Greek heroes from some of the immortals. The prophecy continues to loom, especially since Thalia's sixteenth birthday is less than a month away, and whatever the prophecy foresees was supposed to occur when the next halfblood child of one of the top three (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades) reached 16.

The series is definitely very fun, especially watching the young demigods explore their powers. However, I don't remember the heroes of ancient Greece being quite so powerful - obviously, they tended to be smarter and stronger than the average human, but were the heroes of mythology able to affect the elements in the same way as in these novels? Percy as the son of Poseidon, for example, can speak to horses, control water and breathe underwater, while Thalia can call up lightning, and not just in a "the elements are nice to them due to their parentage" way, but they actually manipulate their surroundings. It definitely makes the novels more entertaining so I don't have an issue with this, I'm just genuinely curious, and don't feel like googling it right now. Oh, my one other comment regarding these novels is that it's surprising to me how often Percy still comes across beings he doesn't recognize - he remembers some of the Greek myths but considering how his summers go, you'd think he would spend every waking minute of his off time reading up on obscure creatures of Greek mythology. Of course, it also gives the readers more motivation to read the original myths to find out exactly what happened.

Book 13: Interred With Their Bones

2011-01-19T16:11:00.001-05:00

Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell

It seems like the actual murderer tends to be rather easy to guess in murder mysteries, perhaps because being a novel, it is obvious that it is going to be one of the characters already introduced. Still, every once in a while they are well-written, and in those cases, it tends to be the story and motivation that are the most interesting part (and the characters when they are very well done), not just the ending. I picked this up due to the Shakespeare angle, and it had a staff recommendation attached to it.

The novel actually reads very much like The DaVinci Code, except in this case, the story concerns Shakespeare and not DaVinci. This isn't even a bad thing - The DaVinci Code on its own was a very entertaining thriller that just got way too hyped up and seemed to develop a type of cult around it. For some reason, people don't seem to be nearly as interested in Shakespeare as Jesus and DaVinci because I'd never heard of this before. Overall, I would even say it is better written than The DaVinci Code, although it has its flaws. For my tastes, there were just a few too many murders - I would have been happy with just a literary mystery that was started with a murder, and I could have done without the trail of bodies that accumulated in the novel (all the bodies were staged in a way to recall Shakespeare's plays which was a nice touch on the part of the murderer - one person is obviously a homage to Hamlet's father, another is Ophelia, there is a reference to Julius Caesar and his assassination etc.).

The novel begins when Kate, the narrator, receives a visit from her former mentor, Roz (Rosalind Howard), a tenured Shakespeare professor at Harvard, who tells her that she has found something, gives her a box as a gift, and arranges to meet her later. Kate was a Shakespearean PhD student but decided to leave academia to pursue a career as a director, and she is currently directing Hamlet at the Globe - quite the feat for an American woman under 30 as she explains. However, Roz misses the meeting, and there is a fire at the Globe, where Kate finds Roz's body. This leads Kate to open the box, and she soon is on a trail to discover whatever it was that Roz had found. Evidence leads her to believe it may be a manuscript of Cardenio, one of Shakespeare's lost plays.

In some cases, it seemed like the author had so many things she wanted to discuss that the novel was a bit cluttered, and there were a few trails that seemed to be slightly misleading, or at least they were rather long ways of getting to the answer. The novel also addresses the debate regarding Shakespeare's identity, and some of the candidates that have been offered as alternates to the actor from Stratford. Carrell includes scenes with the dark lady and the blond youth of Shakespeare's sonnets but doesn't clearly identify them. Much like in The DaVinci Code, the protagonist finds herself racing from one place to another in search of clues, often doubling back between the States and England. It was mostly an entertaining read though I had my doubts at the beginning. Although Carrell doesn't neatly wrap up all the answers, the murder mystery is neatly, though unoriginally, solved. Basically, good enough entertainment for an afternoon but altogether forgettable.

Book 12: Of Bees and Mist

2011-01-17T17:00:00.003-05:00

Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan

I picked this up based on a staff recommendation display at BookPeople (every other independent bookstore I have ever been in was very small so they couldn't compete with Barnes and Noble for me; between this store and the Alamo Drafthouse, I almost want to move to Texas), and wasn't sure what to expect exactly. The back cover describes it as the story of three generations of women, while the Amazon blurb calls it the story of two families. While these aren't exactly inaccurate, it is really the story of Meridia. Meridia's parents, Ravenna and Gabriel, are so angry with each other that Meridia is rather neglected throughout her childhood. Her father is distant, her mother forgetful, and it isn't until she is sixteen, when she meets Daniel, that she feels loved. The two marry and move in with Daniel's family. At first Meridia is enchanted with his family who appear to be the opposite of her own: loving, caring and attentive. However, as time goes on, Meridia is curious about certain things in the house, and realizes how controlling, manipulative and deceitful Eva, her mother-in-law, is. This leads to an ongoing battle of wills between the women, and Ravenna becomes very helpful to her daughter as she becomes slightly less involved in her own world.

Daniel goes back forth between supporting his wife and believing his mother. I also quite enjoyed Daniel's sisters, and their evolving relationships with their mother and Meridia. One thing that makes this novel stand out from being simply a family drama is the use of magic realism. The coldness that creeps into Ravenna and Gabriel's marriage manifests itself as a physical coldness inside the house which is also surrounded by an impenetrable mist. Eva's constant bickering at her family and husband to bend them to her will is represented by the swarming of bees.

The novel isn't set in any particular time period or town though it seems very turn of the century pre-World War I. While magical things occur, the mists, bees and other things simply symbolized people's feeling and emotions, so I don't think it should be too much of a turn off to people that aren't into magic - in this case, the magical events don't necessarily have to be taken literally, and it's not as if any of the characters actually attempt to cast spells. The characters were wonderfully portrayed and this is probably one of my favorite reads so far this year, and I feel like I've been quite lucky so far with selecting books I enjoy over the past few weeks.

Book 11: The Fall

2011-01-17T16:21:00.003-05:00

The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

This wasn't a bad book but it definitely felt like a place holder. Picking up after the events of The Strain, Manhattan is about to be completely run over by vampires. Unfortunately, I didn't care for the characters very much this time around. Abraham, the old vampire hunter, reveals even more of his backstory, and Vasiliy Fet, the exterminator, starts a blog. Additionally, the novel reveals the fate of the young Mexican gangster who was captured by the Ancients, the other old vampires that are at odds with "the Master." All this wasn't too bad, though so many of the characters read like stereotypes. Mostly, I just was very annoyed with Eph. Yes, the world around him is falling apart but could he be less emo about it? I also disliked that the only female character of any importance in this series is now relegated to girlfriend, and caregiver of Zac (well, only important female other than Zac's vampire mother, Kelly). Seriously? Eph is busy feeling sorry for himself, so why not make him the caregiver? I mean, really?

Overall, the novel deals with the continuing spread of the vampire virus, and the group's hopelessness. The sun didn't kill the Master as they'd hoped, and now they are at a loss. However, it turns out that even with all the chaos, a certain cursed and almost mythological book regarding vampires is about to be auctioned off and it may contain the answers they need - if only they had a few million dollars at their disposal. The whole world is now under threat though news is sketchy; for example, flights similar to the one that started The Strain have shown up in other cities, filled with inexplicably dead passengers.

Overall, there were definitely some interesting ideas expressed but for most part that is lost due to the novel's focus on characters like Eph. I know when The Strain appeared, there was some excitement because it was mixing up the current vampire trend, and somewhat more original, but nothing about this novel was very original . . . the characters were mostly cliche, and not very engaging.

Book 10: The Little Book

2011-01-14T21:49:00.003-05:00

The Little Book by Selden Edward

I loved the first half of this book. It was just perfect. The last half had a few flaws but overall, I would still recommend the novel. The novel begins with the hero walking down Ringstrasse of 1897 Vienna, Austria. He doesn't remember how he got there, nor does he spend too much time wondering about the "when." Wheeler Burden from 1988 America quickly realizes that he needs to find some new clothes to blend in, though, and steals them from a traveler at a hotel.

The novel doesn't spend too much of the next few hundred pages trying to explain the idea of time travel. Instead it goes back and forth between Wheeler's time in Vienna, a subject he has only recently published a book on, and his childhood. The first half is both time travel story and a Bildungsroman. While it was fun seeing Wheeler meet various famous personalities in turn of the century Vienna, I quite enjoyed the stories about his eccentric and unique youth. Additionally, there is also quite a bit of story from the perspective of Wheezie Putnam, a young Bostonian woman traveling in Vienna and writing articles under a male pseudonymn. Vienna is an incredibly cultured and incredibly conflicted city at this time - the youth want a revolution, the mayor is one of the first to use anti-semitism as a campaign message in the way he does, psychoanalysis is being born in Freud's office, and World War I is just around the corner. It is a fascinating time. In fact, books have been written about the time, and the phrase fin-de-siecle is most associated with this time period (though most strongly with Paris, not Vienna). While Edward does a great job of bringing this period of history to life, the novel is strongest when it is focusing on its characters' stories.

As I said the first half of the novel was perfect - Edward would foreshadow his characters' futures just enough to be interesting without being annoying, I loved Wheeler's mother and grandmother, and I was excited to see how everything would be connected. Burden's family has always been fascinated with Freud and his work so it is no surprise that he takes the opportunity to meet the man - after all, it would be hard to mention Vienna without mentioning one of its most famous thinkers of that period. However, while I enjoyed Wheeler and Freud's conversations, I was less than enthused when Edward chose to have Wheeler use psychoanalysis on another character - it seemed a bit contrived to me. While I actually enjoyed the idea of two of his characters together, I felt like the conversation between them in the last half of the novel was unrealistic, and combined with its psychoanalytical flavor, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It also seemed like the characters started repeating themselves a bit in the last half, making comments and telling each other things they had already told each other. It was only a few small comments but I wondered why the author repeated them, whether he'd forgotten he'd already mentioned these things or if he was trying to emphasize them. However, other than those issues (and really, it was mostly the application of Freudian analysis that was an issue), it was a very original and entertaining read. Of course, since my mom is German, there were a few other pieces that were of interest to me - Empress Elizabeth made an appearance (there was a movie trilogy about her made in '50s Germany called Sissy which my grandmother used to watch), and they mention a cafe/bakery that is several centuries old that I visited when I was in Vienna almost two years ago. I don't think "Sissy" is even very famous in the States, but she was orginally from Germany, and due to the mini-series her name is still very well know. Additionally, she was rather popular in Hungary when it was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire - they even still have a bridges or parks named in her honor in Budapest.

Book 9: The Story of Forgetting

2011-01-13T16:28:00.002-05:00

The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block

After Seth's mother is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's, the teenager, already a science nerd, becomes obsessed with the brain, reading various books on the subject. As he soon discovers, early on-set Alzheimer's is a relatively recent development, and another scientist doing research on the topic has determined that it goes back at most twelve-thirteen generations. Seth becomes obsessed with finding out his mother's own personal and genetic history, something she had never shared with her husband or son. He tracks down some of the other people with this disease in the Austin area and tries to find the familial link.

Interlaced with Seth's narrative is Abel's story, an old hunchbacked man living near Dallas. Given the subject of the novel, it is not hard to guess the relationship between Seth and Abel. Abel has many regrets regarding his past life, not least of which is the fact that he was in love with his twin brother's wife and had an affair with her. He now lives alone on a piece of land that is all that remains of his family's former holdings, waiting. Eventually he reveals what happened to his brother and Mae, his sister-in-law.

Intermixed throughout are the stories of Isidora, stories that Seth's mother used to tell him and that have been passed on with the family. Additionally, there is slightly more scientific writing tracing the origins of the disease, and its dispersion. It is very fitting that a family plagued with a disease that causes forgetting would create a fairy tale about a land without memory.

In addition to being a story about disease, Alzheimer's and family secrets, it also portrays an old misfit trying to fit in with world, or if not fit in, at least survive in it. Seth also is simply trying to survive high school not by fitting in but by not being noticed. I wasn't quite sure what to expect at first, but when I had finished the novel, I was very glad to have read it. I think I almost enjoyed the history of the disease the most as it introduced various ancestors of Abel. There were also a few lines that were a bit humorous, such as the description of the man in whom the genetic variation first must have appeared: "Given his prolific genetic output, it seems likely that A-496 was either some sort of British nobility or perhaps an extremely popular male prostitute" (53). I'd definitely recommend this. I only stumbled upon this due to a staff recommendation at Bookpeople in Austin, and am glad I did (by the way, I loved that bookstore) since I otherwise probably never would have heard of this.

Book 8: The Sea of Monsters

2011-01-13T10:03:00.002-05:00

The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2) by Rick Riordan

This is the second novel in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and begins after Percy receives a message from Grover, a satyr, asking him for help though a dream. Having read a few books in the series now, I've noticed that each one ties in a bit with an ancient hero's quest. For example, this novel contains many references to monsters and creatures that Odysseus faced. That isn't to say that the novels parallel those ancient quests as much as that they draw elements from them. In this case, Percy and his friends are actually on a quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece famous due to Jason (the tree that protects the camp has been poisoned, and the Fleece has healing powers), and since it has ended up on Polyphemeus's island, the Cyclops that Odysseus defeated, it makes sense that Percy and his friends would run into several of the same monsters as Odysseus - they live in the same neighorhood after all. Unfortunately, my memory of Greek mythology is shaky enough so that while I understood the parallels in this and the next two novels, I'm still not sure which story the first novel refers to the most.

Percy once again gets kicked out of school at the beginning, this time with his new friend Tyson, who actually turns out to be his younger Cyclops half-brother. Clarisse of the Ares cabin is granted a quest to search for the Golden Fleece; Percy and Annabeth aren't part of her quest but end up on the same trail in their search for Grover. Percy also discovers more of Luke's plan, due to both his dreams, and random luck. Luke is attempting to reassemble Kronos in a Golden Sarcophagus aboard a cruise ship, and he seems to be making quite a bit of progress.

I enjoyed the novel and am quite enjoying the series. I would say, however, that given the structure of the series this one is probably the one that feels most like filler - the first novel introduces the characters, the later novels in the series begin seriously facing the imminent danger while this one is more in the vein of "danger is rising, but we can't get too far into it." It's just like any season of Buffy or the Harry Potter series - the further you get, the more the episodes/novels focus specifically on the Big Bad rather than having loose tie-ins to the Big Bad or being side quests/side stories.

Book 7: Guns, Germs and Steel

2011-01-13T08:08:00.004-05:00

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

I remember seeing this book when it came out over thirteen years ago, and I finally decided to actually read it recently. In the book, Diamond attempts to determine why certain societies and continents ended up where they did historically. Why was it Europe that conquered the Americas and not vice versa? While the proximate reasons for this are the guns, germs and steel of the title, a more appropriate title for the book may well have been "Food Production, Animal Husbandry and Geography."

For the most part, I quite enjoyed reading the book, though it did get a little bit repetitive in the last half, repeating over and over again advantages and disadvantages different regions had. His main argument is that food production led to societies that allowed for specilialization, which led to more structured societies (from band to tribe to chiefdom to state), and allowed for more technological advances. Due to food production, a certain amount of land would yield many more calories and allow for extra food, which meant that societies could feed people that weren't involved in food production and store food for future use. In a hunter-gatherer society, in comparison, everyone is focused on hunting/gathering. However, farming is quite hard work, and isn't something that would necessarily naturally develop very quickly. It all depended on the land's ability to support or not support a hunter-gatherer life style. However, more importantly, how quickly food production arose depended very much on the local plant life: Australia was still a hunter-gatherer society when the English first landed because none of the local plants were very suitable for domestication. Even now, with current technology, Australia has only yielded one local crop: the macademia nut. America faced similar disadvantages - though they developed agriculture in areas, its crops' calorie contents weren't as high as those of the wheats and barleys from the Fertile Crescent, which also had the advantage of a high protein percentage (additionally, wheat and barley are very similar to their wild ancestors, while corn would have taken quite some time and mutations to develope from its wild relative). It didn't matter how rich the land was if the right crops weren't there.

That is where Eurasia had the advantage: between the Fertile Crescent and China, several wild plants ended up being perfect for domestication. Additionally, these areas had an advantage when it came to large animals that were appropriate for domestication. The Americas and Australia in comparison had no large mammals on their continents at this point with which to start this process; most of the large mammals in Africa are rather impossible to domesticate due to their temper and other dispositions. Not only did animals provide food, help with farming and transportation, but animals were also the origin of many of the "germs" and diseases that would decimate the original inhabitants of Australia and the Americas due to their lack of exposure. Horses of course also were an advantage in warfare as seen with the conquest of the Incan Empire.

His other argument has to do with geography, idea diffusion and isolation. For example, Australia was very isolated, the people that inhabited Australia were isolated from each other due to the continent's deserts, and as a result, they didn't necessarily see what their neighbors were doing and use those ideas. In fact, they even appear to have lost technology such as the bow and arrow. For some reason, one area decided to stop using it, and since they weren't threatened by neighbors with that technology they never picked it back up. The Americas also had a bit of a problem with isolation due to geography: information and ideas simply didn't make it past the deserts/mountains separating Mesoamerica (the Aztecs and Mayans) from southeast North America very quickly, and the Incan Empire was also separated from Mesoamerica. Mayans had a wheel, Incans had llamas (the only large domesticaed animal in the Americas) but they never met and as a result were never put together to create easier transportation. Additionally, since the continent's axis (Diamond considered North and South America as one continent) ran north-south, it also affected the transmission of ideas (this can be seen in Africa as well) and crops. There is a much larger difference in day length, climate etc. from north to south. Plants that grow in one area wouldn't grow south of it due to climate changes, so even if there is an area much further south that would support those plants, they would not have made it past the inhospitable area. By contrast, Eurasia's axis is west-east, and its geographical barriers are not as extreme as in Australia and the Americas so the crops could spread between groups, people could see their neighboring societies' farming and pick up the habit, and they would also be able to gain technology from them. Diamond mentions the importance of writing as well and for the most part, writing styles were the result of idea diffusion and not natural development: only three or four places came up with writing independently; everyone else either simply copied it or heard enough about it to develop it (knowing about something and creating it and creating it from scratch are very different).

While Diamond lays out the geographical advantages that Eurasia was lucky enough to have and makes a convincing argument, this is by no means a perfect book. As I said earlier, it has its moments of repetitiveness. While he makes a good argument for why Europe conquered the Americas instead of vice versa, he waited until the epilogue to address why Europe did this and not China - China after all had developed many technologies long before the Europeans. Some of his statements seemed a bit odd at times since he appeared to be arguing against previously held beliefs that the conquest of America and colonization of other areas had something to do with the quality of the people in those areas. I didn't feel like I had to be convinced of this . . . One other random bit that I just thought was kind of interesting: I recently read Cloud Atlas and one of the stories discusses the Moriori of Chatham Islands and how they were conquered by Maori from another island - Diamond actually spent a page or two discussing this particular example in his book. I wonder if this means Mitchell read Guns, Germs and Steel, or if he came across the Moriori independently during his research.

Book 6: The Lightning Thief

2011-01-12T07:06:00.002-05:00

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan

I've been meaning to read this novel since the movie came out. A friend of mine is also a big fan of the series, so her recommendation was yet another reason to finally read it. Unfortunately, my copy ended up in storage when I moved to Georgia along with most of the my things, and I didn't want to buy another copy so I ended up reading the entire novel at Barnes and Noble Saturday afternoon. I used a hardcover copy so I wouldn't crease it or ruin it.

The premise of the novel is rather simple: Percy Jackson, the narrator, is an eleven year old boy that has always been slightly different. He has ADHD, dyslexia, has been kicked out of several schools, and in his newest school he is attacked by his math teacher except that no one else remembers her afterwards. Percy never knew his dad, and he hates his stepfather. When he goes home for the summer, his friend Grover finds him right before he and his mom are attacked by a minotaur. Percy's mom disappears, Percy kills the minotaur and makes it to Camp Halfblood which is both a safe haven and a training camp for other kids like him: the half children of the immortal gods of Olympus. Until his father claims him, he is assigned to Hermes's cabin, the patron of travelers.

However, all is not well in Olympus, and the gods are on the brink of war due to the theft of Zeus's lightning bolt. Percy must go on a quest to recover the lightning bolt, and has only ten days to do so. Annabeth, daughter of Athena, chooses to go with him, and Grover, the satyr, also accompanies him.

Overall, I thought the novel was nicely done, and I enjoyed the ways Riordan imagined the gods in the modern day. Since I think the original Greek myths are interesting enough, I don't necessarily think these books would be a good introduction to Greek mythology but a nice supplement or sequel for children that enjoy them (then again, I also grew up with both the Disney and the Grimm version of fairy tales so I might have no idea of what's actually appropriate for children). In addition to the Greek myths, it is easy to see the influence that Harry Potter has had on the series: Percy has two friends that help him complete the quests, Annabeth and Grover; Annabeth as the daughter of Athena is smarter than any of the guys much like Hermione (considering that Athena was one of the gods that never messed around with humans, I'm curious why Riordan decided to change that aspect of her, other than simply as an excuse to create Annabeth); by the end of the novel, it is clear that there is a greater, darker power behind everything, similar to Voldemort; there is a prophecy from the Oracle, only referred to hear, but it appears to concern Percy.

Book 5: You Suck

2011-01-10T23:35:00.002-05:00

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

As the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends begins, Tommy is a little miffed with Jody for turning him into a vampire. With Tommy turned, he and Jody have to figure out a new foodsource since he was hers, and they also need a new minion. This leads to the introduction of Abby Normal who also happens to be friends with Lily from A Dirty Job (this isn't the only cross-over between the two novels).

As usual, Moore's characters end up in rather ridiculous situations - Tommy's friends from the grocery store end up blowing all their money on a prostitute in Vegas who has used the Blue Men as an inspiration. Additionally, Jody's creator does not remain quiet for long, and with all these extra characters, havoc quickly ensues. I actually preferred this novel to the previous one - Abby Normal is a ridiculous teenage girl, but I prefer the way that Jody was written - she seemed much less clingy and concerned with relationships, possibly because she was in one. I enjoyed how Abby's role in the novel is the result of Tommy feeling like he, too, could get a minion.

As I've said before, while Moore is entertaining, there are certain things he plays for humor that really are slightly disturbing when given any thought - for example, Jody refers to Tommy's habit of dressing her up as a cheerleader and having sex with her while she's unconscious (often referred to as rape in the real world), and MINOR SPOILER sixteen year old Abby ends up with a Ph.D. student for a boyfriend - yes that's not at all inappropriate END SPOILER. In Tommy's case, the audience is supposed to be laughing at him due to his weird fantasies/teenage libido, but as I said, I could have done without the joke.

Book 4: I Feel Bad About My Neck

2011-01-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

A friend of mine sent me this for Christmas because she thought it would be a light fun read. It was one of the books I brought on the plane with me, and I picked up when I couldn't get into Three Cups of Tea. I wasn't expecting too much, and the book was good for about two hours of entertainment and distraction. Some of the essays were rather good while others seemed like a short blog update or a throw-away magazine article. If I had actually paid for the book, I would definitely have been disappointed with the brevity of the book at less than 150 pages (it is literally light).

My favorite two essays were the ones were she discusses her love of books. She discusses how certain books just completely draw her in, and how she would get irritated with people at work for asking her questions when she was trying to read The Woman in White (oddly enough, I read Drood after this). The other one I quite liked was where she discusses an apartment she had lived in for quite a long time in New York. I just liked her descriptions of the neighborhood, the community, and the fact that she uses numbers of mochas as a reference for cost.

I was a little less interested in her essay on her purse (probably because I actually like my Coach bag), and the one on maintenance/grooming. Overall, not a bad collection, but it wasn't anything spectacular or something I would have picked up on my own.

Book 3: A Short History of Nearly Everything

2011-01-09T16:09:00.001-05:00

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

I have felt like I should read Bill Bryson for a while now considering how often I seem to run across his name, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover a copy of this book in a holiday package from a friend of mine.

I don't know how this compares to Bryson's other topics, but I quite enjoyed this book. In some ways, it was a nice review of forgotten knowledge from elementary and middle school, and in other ways it added more details to some of this. In some ways, it is a history of the universe, and in other ways, it is a history of the scientific progress that has allowed us to understand what little we do of the universe. The first section as a result deals with the creation of the galaxy and the universe, and then narrows in on Earth, and what made it suitable for life as we know it. This leads to discussions of physics, the atom, nuclear energy, as well as topics that are easier to grasp such as earthquakes and plate tectonics. There are sections devoted to the oceans, and the creation of life, DNA, fossil records and evolution. Peppered throughout are the names and stories of the men and women that made these discoveries, and how they were received. Some of the stories contain sad rivalries, while other brilliant scientist were ignored and many of their discoveries credited to others (who did in fact make the discoveries but at a much later time).

Through it all, Bryson shows a respect for the wonder that caused the planet to come about while also putting it into perspective - we can't truly know how unique this is given the size of the universe, but it still involved an incredible amount of factors to come together to create the world as we know it. In some ways, it is easy to think that humanity may be the worst thing that has come about on this world, interrupting the cycle of life and death. Countless species have gone extinct over the years, but humans certainly seem to be speeding things up. We may be the only species that is as aware of the wonder that surrounds us while simultaneously taking it for granted and being completely destructive of our surroundings.

Book 2: Cloud Atlas

2011-01-09T16:06:00.002-05:00

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I added this to my wishlist after reading a review somewhere last year (I just checked the blog where I thought I'd hear of it, but that wasn't it), but even with the review, I still didn't have a very clear idea of how the novel was going to resolve itself. I knew that novel consisted of six stories that were interrelated in some way, and that started and broke off in the middle, only to resume again later. The stories are ordered chronologically, and all use different genres. The first, for example, is the journal of a notary in 1849/1850 on a sea voyage. This one ends mid-sentence, and is followed by a series of letters written in 1931. Other genres include a thriller set in the '70s, a first person narrative set in the late 20th/early 21st century that reminded me of a modern day version of a Henry Fielding farce, a futuristic story told in an interview format with a clone, and finally, a post-apocalyptic narrative that reads much like an oral telling transcribed.

All the stories somehow reference the previous story with explanations of why they break off they way they did (for example, one story was a manuscript submitted to a publisher, but the publisher only received the first half etc.). My two favorite stories were the epistolary one told by a young crook/musician who writes a friend of his experiences with a famous composer and his involvement with the man's family, and the interview with Somni, a clone worker that became self-aware and published a manifesto with the potential to disrupt the current societal views and norms. Each story was interesting in its own right, but I also hurried to get through some to get back to the other stories. In some cases, the endings were not quite what I wanted or slightly unfulfilling but it all worked very well. For example, the first story took me a while to get into given the style (19th century journal) but I quite enjoyed its ending. While I know many people found the Englishman who ends up in a nursing home rather funny, that was my least favorite of all of them. I also had mixed feelings on the sixth story which was the both the last story and the first one to be concluded simply because it was written in a dialect.
The first story discusses the enslavement and annihilation of an indigenous people in New Zealand/Australia as part of its plot, and while each story has a different focus, they all show some of the darker sides of human society and human nature. By the end (or middle), the narrative is set in a post apocalyptic world after humanity has nearly destroyed itself. Even in the previous futuristic story, humanity is well on the way to self-destruction while also enjoying luxury and comfort to the extreme. Most of the narratives also refer to a cloud atlas or atlas of clouds at some point or another (the musician titles his composition Cloud Atlas Sextet, and as he explains to his friend, the piece is structured in the exact same way as this novel). Another common piece throughout the stories is a birthmark that looks like a comet.

While the structure could have easily turned gimmicky, Mitchell actually did a very good job. I wanted to know what happened with each narrative so it was hard to determine if I wanted a current piece to end so I could get closer to knowing what happened in previous pieces, or if I wanted to stay in the story.