2018 Books read 1-5

Man, it's been awhile!!

I did not set a quantitative goal for 2018.  My sole reading goal is to read as many books on my own bookshelves as I can.  I've had some books for at least a decade, just sitting on my bookshelves, waiting to be read.  I need to remedy this problem immediately!

This leads me to my first completed book of 2018 Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.  I've owned this book for a very long time (it's stamped from the library I used to work at from 2000-2002!   I finally read it, and really enjoyed it.  Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of murder on a Pacific Northwest island after the end of WWII.  The charge brings up issues of race and patriotism in the microcosm of the tiny island.  Opinions about the Japanese in general run strong, but no one knows how to handle the local Japanese who forcibly left the island for concentration camps and then returned, or those of Japanese descent who fought in the US military against the Japanese in the Pacific Theater.

Simplicity Parenting by Lisa Ross:  Few parenting books actually have a lot of useful, actionable advice in them, but this one sure did.  Ross explains the relationship between anxiety and stress in children with clutter and parental induced stress in the home. The only thing I didn't agree with her on was the assertion that kids can have too many books.  Otherwise a really great read and a good reminder that Stuff doesn't mean happiness and a cluttered house usually equates to a cluttered mind.

My Mother's Secret: A novel based on a true Holocaust story by J.L. Witterick:  I'm a sucker for WWII European books, and this one did not disappoint.  Helena and Franciszka are a mother/daughter duo who take in Jews, and in one case, an American soldier, to hide them from the Nazis.  Both women are kind, ordinary people who do something extraordinary because they felt it was the right thing to do.  This book is short and a very easy read.

Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton: The only Crichton books I read are those pertaining to dinosaurs, and this one is no exception. The book follows the story of competing professors from the East who attempt to dig up dinosaur bones in the Plains amid Indian wars.  The perspective of life in paleontology in the late 19th century is interesting, as well as the public's perception of the West and the relationship between elite society and science.

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nine George:  Of the first five books I read for the year, this one was my least favorite.  Monsieur Perdu is a lonely man who still regrets aspects of his only big love interest , twenty years prior.  He owns a bookstore on a floating barge on the Seine and prescribes books to others as a form of therapy.  He teams up with a few other friends in the midst of their own soul-searches, and go on an adventure through the canals of France.  I had a hard time getting into it, and found a lot of the book not relatable and unrealistic.  The vivid descriptions of France though were lovely.

So there are my first 5 of the year.  I've finished quite a few more already this year and I'll be back to update soon!

books lately 25/50

I’ve lost count on where I am with my 50 book goal. Logically, I could just count, but I kind of like not knowing where I’m at right now. Eliminates the pressure and all that.
Before I go to sleep by S.J. Watson. I read a description of this somewhere and thought I might like it. A few days later, I was perusing my own bookshelf and found this. Apparently I own it and wasn’t even aware. John keeps accusing me of owning too many books. Pssssh. Description from goodreads:
As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child, thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me…
Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love–all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
I liked this book enough. Enjoyable, easy to read, and I didn’t quite see the big surprise coming. There was a vague notion something wasn’t right pinging around my brain, but I couldn’t quite catch it to make it concrete.
*
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. I don’t know if I loved this book, as I thought a few of the characters were really frustrating. The local town doctor loses a woman who dies in childbirth birthing her fifth baby in as many years. He’s a new doctor and didn’t quite catch all the signs that she was in distress until too late. She died, the baby lived. NOBODY in town blamed him for what happened, yet he went down a path of self-destruction leading to him to travel to war torn London during the Blitzkrieg to save Londoners. What?! He left his young, new wife back in New England who eventually finds out she’s pregnant. The postmistress is kind of portrayed as a control freak who things she can organize the world by keeping her own post office running smoothly. Eventually she starts hiding mail from some town citizens to keep some bad news from trickling in, which again makes no sense. She doesn’t know anyone in town well, as she’s new, and takes her job way too seriously to begin with; its not realistic that she’d ruin her reputation by messing with mail delivery. Whatever. Another book I own[ed], which I picked up for $2 at a used book store.
What would happen if someone did the unthinkable-and didn’t deliver a letter? Filled with stunning parallels to today, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.

The casual vacancy* by JK Rowling.
No, just no. The byline for this is ‘A big novel about a small town.’ In reality its ‘A long novel about a town nobody cares about.’
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils … Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

The orchid house* by Lucinda Riley
So much love for this and I even bought an orchid after I read it.
As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park, the great house where her grandfather tended exotic orchids. Years later, while struggling with overwhelming grief over the death of her husband and young child, she returns to the tranquility of the estate. There she reunites with Kit Crawford, heir to the estate and her possible salvation.
When they discover an old diary, Julia seeks out her grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park. Their search takes them back to the 1930s when a former heir to Wharton Park married his young society bride on the eve of World War II. When the two lovers are cruelly separated, the impact will be felt on generations to come.
Lucinda Riley skillfully sweeps her readers between the magical world of Wharton Park and Thailand during World War II with irresistible and atmospheric storytelling. Filled with twists and turns, passions and lies, and ultimately redemption, The Orchid House is a romantic, poignant novel that became an instant bestseller in the UK and Germany.
Follow you home by Mark Edwards
I loved this book, probably in part because I had very little expectations for it. I noticed on Amazon that I could “borrow” it for free, so I did, and finished it in less than a day. A day that I had to work. I got sucked into it, and couldn’t put it down. From goodreads…
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down.
After a perfect start, Daniel and Laura’s travels end abruptly when they are thrown off a night train in the middle of nowhere. To find their way back to civilisation, they must hike along the tracks through a forest…a haunting journey that ends in unimaginable terror.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what they saw that night. But as they try to fit back into their old lives, it becomes clear that their nightmare is just beginning…

---

20/50 2015 reads.

Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick.  I found Chadwick when I worked in a library my first job out of high school.  Her books were an instant hit with me, and since I don't read them often, they are constant, reliable good reads that I always enjoy.  From goodreads:
Matilda, daughter of Henry I, knows that there are those who will not accept her as England's queen when her father dies. But the men who support her rival Stephen do not know the iron will that drives her.

Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, is now married to a warrior who fights to keep Matilda off the throne. But Adeliza, born with a strength that can sustain her through heartrending pain, knows that the crown belongs to a woman this time.

This doesn't really do it justice, as its very...short, and Chadwick is known for her lengthy and detailed descriptions and most of her books span the lifetime of most of her characters.  Matilda "officially" becomes queen based on English inheritance laws after her father King Henry dies in the 12th century.  Although many are loyal to their first female leader, many are not, and Matilda spends her life trying to re-obtain her crown, first for herself, and then for her sons.  


The Dinner by Herman Koch.   From goodreads...
A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened... Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified - by everyone except their parents. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.  

This book was good, I think, although not because of a stellar plot line.   The organization of the book, coinciding with the menu course they are concurrently eating, is fun and different, and it has an unreliable narrator, which isn't revealed until the end.   I think the writing is a bit choppy, but that could be due to a poor translation, as I believe it was written originally in Dutch.  

The Awakening by Kate Chopin.  Description from goodreads...
First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. This sensuous book tells of a woman's abandonment of her family, her seduction, and her awakening to desires and passions that threaten to consume her. Originally entitled A Solitary Soul, this portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier is a landmark in American fiction, rooted firmly in the romantic tradition of Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson. Here, a woman engaged in self-discovery turns away from convention and society and toward the primal, from convention and society, and toward the primal, irresistibly attracted to nature and the senses. The Awakening, Kate Chopin's last novel, has been praised by Edmund Wilson as "beautifully written." And Willa Cather described its style as "exquisite," "sensitive," and "iridescent."  

I picked this off my classics list and enjoyed it, in parts.  Kind of a parlor book; people of any age, in any time period, will fall out of love with their spouse and into love with someone new.

Girl on the train by Paula Hawkins

This might be my favorite of the 5...unreliable narrators, at least as a reader it seems its hard to know who to trust, multiple viewpoints, spotty memory recollections, and taking people watching a bit too far.  It's set in England, and is well written, a fast read, and really interesting.   From goodreads...
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

A compulsively readable, emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller that draws comparisons to Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, or Before I Go to Sleep, this is an electrifying debut embraced by readers across markets and categories.

My sister nailed me her copy with a note to "read immediately."  

At water's edge by Sarah Gruen.
I heard about this book from a book club I was supposed to attend but couldn't because of work.  I read the book anyway and loved it.  I was excited to read it for two reasons;  Sarah Gruen also wrote Water for Elephants which I loved, & the locale in the book is Loch Ness, which I have a soft spot for. I thought Maddie was a bit of whiny brat at first, but comes into her own in a Scottish inn after she realizes her husband is a good-for-nothing cad.  It's a less obvious and predictable, and more real journey of self-discovery.  From goodreads...

In her stunning new novel, Gruen returns to the kind of storytelling she excelled at in Water for Elephants: a historical timeframe in an unusual setting with a moving love story. Think Scottish Downton Abbey.

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind. To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.



  

 

5/50 books in 2015.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore: I read this off a recommendation of my friend Allison, who raved that it was one of her favorite books ever. I really wasn’t into it. I actually started it last fall, but put it down when my Kindle said I was 60% done. I finally picked it up again to finish it. I’m glad I did, but I was still left unimpressed with it. Clay, recently unemployed and desperate, applies to be the night clerk at a 24 hr bookstore in San Francisco. While the bookstore has no regular customers, it does have a string of late night people who visit the lending section of the vertical books, taking books written entirely in code. Although warned to not open these books, he does, and gets curious about the whole project. Thus begins a largely unrealistic journey in which Clay, his new girlfriend who is a hotshot at Google, and his best friend, a wealthy software developer, travel across the country to the HQ of the secret society whose members produce these coded books. The premise is interesting, books hiding the secret to immortality, but somehow it just doesn’t fit together well.

Dad is fat. I like Jim Gaffigan, the stand-up comedian, but I don’t know about Jim Gaffigan the author. The book started off slow, and then got funnier as it progressed. I’m not sure which came first, this book or some of his shows, but sections of the book I’ve seen verbatim in some of his shows. Not that it wasn’t hilarious when seen, but reading it after the fact was less entertaining. I do love his perspectives on parenting, toddlers Catholicism. Background: he’s an Irish Catholic with 5 kids (and counting), who’s raising his family in a 2 bedroom apartment in NYC. All of his kids have been born at home. He’s fantastic.

One last thing before I go. Funny funny and really easy to read. Silver gets diagnosed with a heart condition and finds out his only child, his 18 year daughter is pregnant. The whole book happens within a week. Silver can have surgery to fix his heart, which will be performed by his ex-wife’s soon to be new husband, but he chooses to wait, driving everyone crazy. Silver is a washed up former music star, deadbeat dad and ex-husband who is living in a tiny apartment in a building filled with other struggling men. It’s a cute story of how people get stuck in a pattern of life and have a hard time getting out. My single complaint is that it reads really similarly to *This is where I leave you * another funny book (and now a movie) by the same author.

Wild This was my favorite of the five; the autobiographical book of Cheryl Strayed as she traverses the Pacific Crest Trail. Cheryl lost her mom in her early twenties and really struggled to survive it. She cheated multiple times on her husband, eventually got divorced, and decided to walk to the PCT for therapy. I hope if similar events ever happen to me, I made the badass decision to walk through CA and OR to recover. The book was intriguing, interesting, and a fast read.

Where angels fear to tread I finished Room with a view by EM Forester and loved it. This is his first one, and after I found it for $2 at a used bookstore, I knew I had to read it. Naughty British woman marrying a man outside her social class in heathen filled Italy that resulted in a baby boy. Her late husband’s family is furious attempt to get the boy back. For a classic book written in the time period is was written in, it’s a bit scandalous. I didn’t enjoy it as much as Room with a view but it was still a good read.
Currently reading: Watership Down, Girl from Junchow, and a manuscript written by a coworker’s wife that she’s trying to publish.

recent reads (January 2015)!

I embarked on a more popular reading pile of books over the last couple of weeks, Gillian Flynn specifically.

Dark Places & Sharp Objects:  I liked these books, although I say that tentatively.  All of the Criminal Minds episodes I've seen didn't quite prepare me for the disturbing elements of these books.  I applaud Flynn for finding her niche.  In Dark Places, I was pretty comfortable with the material until the last few chapters.  Crystal and Deondra freaked me on many levels and I can't even imagine the therapy that Libby would need to go through to recover from that.  Good for her though, for being a homebody who escaped her comfort zone to save her brother.  Although cash exchanges were involved, I think some compassion still exists within Libby.  Sharp Objects was a better book, I think, although Camille doesn't seem functional enough to exist in society.  I think this was actually the more disturbing book, it was just spread out a little more throughout the book, not just piled on at the end.  Granted, the end wasn't full of ponies and rainbows, but was a little more predictable and therefore more settling.  What I liked about both books was their emphasis that most people are killed, hurt, raped, etc., by people they know.  The concept of Stranger Danger is only realistic to a small few. 

If I Stay:  I admit, I jumped on the bandwagon with this one, although I do have a secret penchant for YA books. It was moving and sweet I thought it too short, even for a YA book.  The crash happens very early on and when the book ends, it really just ends.  Turn the page and its done.  Otherwise I liked how realistic the characters were, especially the teen romance loosing its footing once high school ends. 

recent reads; December 2014

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield.

I received this book as a gift after talking endlessly about my love of The Thirteenth Tale by the same author.  That book, which I read years ago, has stayed with me and I still call it one of my favorites.  I was a bit nervous starting to read this potential rival to a book that will probably remain permanently on my favorites list.  However, not only did Bellman & Black not leave an impression on me, I'm still debating whether or not I'm even going to keep my beautiful hardback copy.  The book tracks William Bellman from careless adolescent through to his death.  Along the way, he establishes himself as a prominent businessman after discovering inventive new ways to dye wool.  First he loses his mother suddenly, as notices a mysterious man in black at the funeral.  Eventually he also loses his wife and all but one chil to a very contagious fever (smallpox?  TB?) and the man, "Mr. Black," reappears again.  Bellman has a single discussion with this man, and completely misinterprets the significance of Mr. Black is his life.  Because of this, he leaves his successful factory, and starting a new venture as the owner of a very successful department store selling only funerary supplies, clothes, coffins, etc.  The book is more atmospheric than plot-driven and didn't have quite the same panache as her previous book.

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold.

Everyone knows Alice Sebold from The Lovely Bones, and to a lesser extent, Lucky.   I read both at the height of their respective heydays whilst in college and then forget about Sebold.  I found The Almost Moon at a used book store and bought it immediately.  Unfortunately this didn't live up to her other two.  Helen Knightly is tired of taking care of her agoraphobic mother, and in a fit of panic, kills her mother by smothering her with a pillow.  The book really chronicles details in Helen's life, her turbulent childhood, father's suicide, life with her mother, her divorce, her two children, that all merge together to lead Helen to her moment of killing.  The book doesn't conclude well, it just sort of ends and left me with an unsatisfactory feeling.  Despite all her life challenges, none of it justified her killing her mother with a pillow.

Current reads:  Room with a view  This is on my classics list and I'm loving it!
Mr. Penumbra's 24 hour bookstore.  I heard about this book from a friend's FB post.  I liked the beginning, but now I'm in the mid-book lull and its really slowed down.  It's gotten a bit fantastical so I'm a bit eh about it, but still hopeful it's going to veer off course and surprise me.

Jane Austen Marriage Manual by Kim Izzo

Jane Austen Marriage Manual might make Jane Austen roll over in her grave. 
I received this book as a gift, but I liked the idea of it and eagerly started reading it.  It started off well enough; Kate is a freelance magazine writer, approaching forty, single, and living at home.  In a very short time span, she loses her job, the family home, and her beloved grandmother.  A lifelong Austen fan, Kate decides to make some cash writing an article about how Austen's marriage advice is still applicable in modern society.  The story drastically shifts when Kate decides to actually live it, and starts pursuing rich men to marry.
Her friends, Brandon and Marianne (Sense & Sensibility anyone?), purchase her a tiny plot of land in Scotland as part of a conservation project (what??), and thereby the plan unfolds to pass Kate off as a wealthy landowner of Scottish descent who was born and raised in New York.  To start, she travels to Florida to pursue the wealthy polo set, and befriends Fawn, a recent divorcee.  Together they meet some men, who are rich and single and therefore eligible for Kate to marry.  She returns to NY, then flits off to Switzerland (thanks to wealthy Fawn), and finally to London.  Along the way, she steals a wealthy investment banker, Scott, from his very young Slovenian girlfriend, and the two finally get engaged.

Despite Kate's insistence that she's a big Austen fan, (and carries around a dog-eared copy of Pride & Prejudice as proof), she fails to grasp the concept that Austen's heroine's may pursue a wealthy husband, but they marry for LOVE, not for money (Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightly, Mr. Bingley, Colonel Brandon). 

As Kate starts pursuing these men, she becomes a very dis-likable, self-absorbed, rather vile person who cares about no one other than herself.  Even knowing her motivations for doing it, (get the family home back, pay back her mothers gambling debts, etc), it still doesn't excuse her behavior. 

I won't read this again, and will probably donate my copy.  I think Izzo needs to re-read her Austen!