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.



  

 

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.

Dracula The Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker

I'm not a vampire fan.  I hated the Twilight books, even though I read all four.  I enjoy occasional fantasy novels, so long as they don't involve vampires biting people.  Edward is creepy and the throngs of teenagers who love him scares me.  But the original Dracula has been the single exception to this rule.  Now I have another exception.  The sequel to Dracula titled Dracula The Un-Dead.


If possible this book is even better in some ways than the original.  There's been a noticeable and somewhat disturbing trend towards modern writers writing sequels to established classics.  Jane Austen must be turning in her grave with what they've done to some of her novels.  But this one stays pretty true to form and if you didn't notice the last name coincidence (Stoker) this book was written by Bram's great-grandnephew.  Long before I read this book, I read an interview with Dacre who said he spent loads of time researching the hell out of the original book, trying to find logical paths the book would have taken if the story continued.  Well done Dacre, your research is evident in your book.

The Un-Dead picks up years after Dracula ends.  It's more gory, more supernatural, more creepy than the original.  Bram himself could have written it, although the diction is slightly more up-to-date.  I think its unfair to keep doing this back and forth comparisons between the two books, but it in all honesty, I only read this because its a sequel to a classic book I love.  Had it just been yet another vampire story overpopulating book shelves, I would have passed it by.  But this one was so worth it.  It's just that good.

And how awesome of a name is Dacre?