I read Moloka’i by Alan Brennert for my book club. Even though we officially discuss our books at a monthly meeting, my clubbies and I occasionally (always) chat up our current book while we’re reading it (just can’t keep our mouths closed). So I kept hearing from my friends that this book, set in Hawaii in the late 1800s–early 1900s, was beautiful. I couldn’t figure out how the word “beautiful” could be used to describe a book about lepers being banished to a rugged island. But then I read the book.
Rachel is five years old when her mother discovers a sore on her leg that won’t heal. Fearing the worst (Leprosy, now called Hansen’s disease), her mother makes Rachel wear long skirts to hide the bandages. Eventually Rachel’s ailment is discovered and she is taken away by the health inspector, as was the procedure. She was for a time at a hospital near her family but was sent to Kalaupapa on Moloka’i when she was seven, totally removed from her family and the life which she had known.
Rachel begins her life at Moloka’i with rebellion and sadness but eventually grows to accept her fate. She has a slow-growing form of leprosy and must experience the death of many friends as we watch her grow into a teen, young adult, married woman, and beyond.
She develops special bonds with different women - Sister Catherine, a nun who cares for young girls at Kalaupapa; Haleola, her uncle’s long-time girlfriend and native healer; and the very unusual, worldly woman named Leilani. The friendships inspire and force one to examine morals, beliefs, inner strength, and relationships.
The idea of banishment to an island of lepers sounds sickening, but Moloka'i is really full of love, self-discovery, growth, hope, sacrifice. It’s a very dramatic story, but also gives the reader some Hawaiian history. Because Kalaupapa was indeed a real leper colony on Moloka’i, truth touches.
So, why the word “beautiful”? Well, of course, who can argue the beauty of Hawaii… but that’s not what makes this a story of beauty. The beauty comes from the people - their resilience and hope.
(And don't stay away from this, thinking it melodramatic from my language - hope, love, resiliance, strength. It is a genuine piece of work, no sappy melodrama.)
I must come clean and admit I didn’t like the ending. I would have chosen a different path for Rachel. But when I recall the book (now a month after reading) what shows up in my memory is the beginning and middle story, not the end. Others in my club did however find the ending apt and moving. I must also admit that at least one person in the book club did not enjoy this book. But she will have to write her own review for you to find out her reasons!
Didn't intend on reading this again. I signed this out for my oldest son who has developed an interest in counting cards. It's such an easy and entertaining read, though, that I plowed through it again.
I'm a good father in that I encourage the understanding of mathematical "games of chance". Blackjack is a game in which the player can occasionally have an advantage over the house and have a positive profit expectancy (the others are poker, sports handicapping, horse racing and the stock market. Anything else is gambling and playing any of the games where you can have an edge without knowing what your edge is also is gambling). Trying to beat blackjack by counting cards solo, though, is a grind (as is trying to beat any of the above mentioned games). You have to play a lot, be patient for your edge to come, and then get your money in. Given that the edge in blackjack probably tops out at as little as two percent...ugh, just thinking about trying to make a living doing so is painful.
Bringing Down the House is a true story about a group of MIT students that formed a team of card counters in the 1990's and made a quite successful run on the casinos of the world. Ultimately, their success was their downfall as more and more casinos banned them from play when they discovered what they were doing. Casinos don't like losing and they treat card counters as cheaters even though they don't do anything to affect play. They just bet more when the likelihood of getting good hands is in their favor.
The team structure is what made the group successful. By having a handful of people counting cards at different tables and signaling a "Big Player" to join the table and place bets when the decks were advantageous, the team reduced some of the grind involved and also kept the counting hidden from the casinos.
Like many such "success stories", timing is everything. One of the reasons the group was able to pull it off was because most of the players were Asian. The casinos weren't suspicious of young Asian players because you had such folks heading up tech companies in the 1990's during the tech boom. Casinos were seeing young Asians all the time. Likewise, one of the big solo card counters cited in the book was an African American who dressed and acted like a pimp/drug dealer. The biases of casino personnel led them to believe such a person could not be a card counter.
Another interesting aspect of the era which would be extremely difficult to overcome in 2010 is the transportation of money. The team would strap wads of cash under their clothes when they flew to Vegas. Carrying large sums of cash (tens of thousands) would be highly suspicious so they tried to hide it. In this era of heightened air travel paranoia, no one's getting by with that amount of cash on their bodies.
This book was made into a horrible movie starring Kevin Spacey called 21. VERY loosely based on the book. Don't watch it. Read the book. Mezrich writes plainly, keeps it exciting and moving along, and captures the story and characters well.
I decided to review these three books at the same time because they all involve older guys lusting after younger foreign girls and all take place around present time. It wasn't my intent to read three straight books with similar characters, it just happened that way.
Super Sad True Love Story - The main character is 39 year old Lenny Abramov. He longs for the 25 year old Korean, Eunice Park.
Sunset Park - Miles Heller is 28 years old and is in love with 17 year old Cuban Pilar Sanchez.
Next - 52 year old Kevin Quinn has a 35 year old girlfriend named Stella but chases an Asian woman named Kelly around Austin, Texas. Kelly is in her mid-twenties.
I couldn't finish Next. In reviews, I read that it was slow going until the end but it just wasn't worth it to me to keep going. The book is supposed to be a satire but I found it sad and desperate. Quinn is in Austin for a job interview and sits next to Kelly on the plane. She reminds him in certain ways of an ex-girlfriend and when he stumbles across her again upon landing, he begins to chase her around town (he's really early for his interview). Along the way, he is reminded of other relationships and for eighty pages (when I finally gave up), we get a glimpse of those relationships, but it's extremely hard to care, he's so creepy.
At the other end of the spectrum, Super Sad True Love Story is a fantastic satire. I'll be posting a top ten books of 2010 list at the end of the week and this will be among them. I read Shteyngart's first book, The Russian Debutante's Handbook earlier in the year. A friend of mine and my pediatrician both read Shteyngart's second book, Absurdistan. Between us, we all felt that Shteyngart was a good, not great novelist. SSTLS may have changed my opinion.
But first, a trailer for the book. Didn't know books had trailers, did you?
The trailer really has nothing to do with the book but I did find it entertaining. I think book trailers have a way to go before they catch movie trailers in being engaging and inspiring.
The story is set primarily in New York in the not too distant future. The fact that it is not too distant is part of what makes the book dark. In Shteyngart's future, everyone is attached to their äppärät, a smartphone type device that broadcasts personal details about the user. Furthermore, people use them constantly to rate others around them on their personality and, ahem, sexworthiness (a different term is used). The most important measure of a person, though, is their credit rating. This is partly because the United States has become completely indebted to other countries. The euro and the yuan have become the world currency standards. As to what people do for a living, the predominant jobs are Media and Retail.
SSTLS alternates between being told by Lenny Abramov, a 39-year old, ugly Russian immigrant (typical of all of Shteyngart's stories) who works for a firm that is pitching immortality to High Net Worth Individuals, and Eunice Park. Lenny actually keeps a diary (people complain to Lenny on a plane about the smell of a book he pulls out on a plane. Print readers of the future are treated much like smokers are nowadays) and the diary makes up the bulk of the book.
Eunice is a smoking hot Korean woman in her early twenties who Lenny falls in love with when he is sent on sales calls in Europe. The feeling isn't exactly mutual but Eunice ends up moving in with Lenny. Her story is told through messages to her GlobalTeens account, an international online communication system which seems similar to Facebook.
All in all, it's quite the satire. The obsession with the electronic devices leads to live personal interaction with people being a novelty. Having a conversation with someone is to "verbal" them. Likewise, the detachment from live interaction has led to sex being rather emotionless. Onionskin jeans are popular clothing for women that are transparent pants, usually worn without underwear, to showcase a woman's body. This, of course, helps that sexworthiness rating.
On the political/financial front, Shteyngart's world is comprised of huge corporations formed by megamergers such as LandO’LakesGMFordCredit Bank. Many countries are owned by these companies. The U.S. has become a military state with the Secretary of State being the primary political official.
Then there is the company for which Lenny works. His boss, a 70 year old man who looks much younger through the processes his firm sells, is well-connected and when the United States collapses at the end of the story, his power (and lust for Eunice) become more apparent.
I don't know how much of a love story this is. It isn't true (yet). Not even sure it's sad. I did think the book was super, though, and definitely worth checking out.
Lastly is Sunset Park. Somehow I've become a big reader of Paul Auster. I think this is the fifth book of his I have read in two years (maybe fourth). Auster loads his fiction with a lot of fact. Sunset Park is a part of Brooklyn and is the primary setting for the story. Miles Heller leaves his father and stepmother in his early twenties after hearing a conversation between them about himself. Miles is racked with guilt because he (accidentally?) caused the death of his stepbrother years before and Miles has never been the same.
Miles wanders the country and ends up in Florida where he runs into Pilar in a park. They are both reading The Great Gatsby and the two begin a relationship. Pilar moves in with Miles but when Miles has a spat with Pilar's oldest sister, Miles returns to New York to evade possible legal difficulties.
Miles moves into an abandoned house in Sunset Park with an old friend of his and two other squatters. The novel jumps around between all the characters and the story is moved ahead with each different perspective.
All in all, there doesn't seem to be much plot. It's definitely more about the characters than any particular story. Auster's attention to factual detail is amazing. He references a movie from the 1940's and the characters in it (everything true that I can determine). He talks about ex-baseball players Herb Score, Mark Fidrych and Lucky Lohrke (all details factually correct (and who writes about Lucky Lohrke?)). It wouldn't surprise me if the house in which Heller and his friends reside actually exists. Also, despite Heller being involved with a minor, there's not the creepiness of Next.
Sunset Park is a good book but definitely not as good as other works of Auster's I've read. But it's definitely closer in quality to SSTLS than Next.
This is another book not in the library system. I thought I'd review it anyway since we're all readers here, no matter where we get our books.
If I were a web designer, instead of someone who dabbles, I'd buy this book. It's a short read, detailing about a half dozen CSS3 tricks that can really make your web design snazzy. That's it, though.
It's a bit of a question how necessary such as a book is. Much of the ideas can be done in Javascript and since Windows Explorer is lagging behind every other browser in supporting CSS3, there's no sense of urgency to utilize the techniques. The coding does seem cleaner, though, and with any luck, support for CSS3 will grow. I know I'm going to try and implement some of this stuff in a couple of personal web projects on which I'm working.
A friend of mine recommended this book to me a while back and I finally got around to reading it. It's a history of the bookshelf which isn't near as nerdy as it sounds. As a matter of fact, for someone who loves books as much as I do, it should be considered a required reading.
Petroski is an engineer who has written books on other "exciting" topics like bridges and pencils. The man knows how to research and he does a great job looking at the evolution of the storage of books and how storage is influenced by the end users, printing methodologies, and engineering. Petroski cites his book well and includes a multitude of illustrations, including many from hundreds of years ago. It is fascinating to see how books were used and stored over the years.
I found the early part of the book to be much more interesting than the latter, I guess in part because book usage was so much different pre-printing press and even into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Once the book hits modern day, I wasn't as captivated. Overall I still enjoyed it, though.
Petroski concludes his book with an amusing little appendix that details 25 different ways to sort one's library on shelves.
If you love books, definitely read this book. But even if you only have a passing interest, it's worth picking up.
I started reading Henning Mankell after PBS dramatized several of his Kurt Wallander novels on Mystery.TV shows put me to sleep and I never got to watch a complete Wallander episode.However, what I did see was enough to start me reading.
The White Lioness begins with what appears to be a routine disappearance of a Swedish housewife.As Kurt Wallander investigates, it becomes apparent that the case is more complex and dangerous.It involves a ruthless ex-KGB agent and an international assassination plot in South Africa, following Nelson Mandella’s release from prison by president F.W. deKlerk.The two investigations run simultaneously, but come together in the suspenseful conclusion.
Mankell seems to be pointing out that Sweden’s social problems are increasing and becoming more complex, as immigration of Russians and east Europeans add a new dimension to crime.Wallander questions his ability to cope the new dynamics.He ends up frustrated and angry, just as he is portrayed on PBS’s Mystery, but the book makes his feelings understandable.
It wasn't too long ago that I was struggling to find something to read. Now books are popping out of the woodwork and I have stacks that I'm trying to read. What tends to happen is that I read multiple books simultaneously. I'll have a book in the car for when I have to take my sons to rehearsals or practices, I'll have one in the bathroom for serious reading, keep one in the kitchen to read as I cook, another one downstairs for when the computers are not being used by me, one upstairs to read before bed or if I'm up early. You get the idea. When I'm not swimming in books, a single or couple of books might be read in multiple locales. Now, though.....
Thus, all the book reviews right now. I didn't even know about this book. A library patron returned it and I saw Tony Hseih's name as the author which automatically triggered as "Zappos CEO" in my brain. I like reading alternative business books and so I had to grab this as Zappos approach is definitely unusual.
Delivering Happiness is part biography, part business book, part inspirational. It is a very quick read and written in a very conversational tone. Hseih talks about his youth, how he always was an entrepreneur, and how his Asian parents and those of other kids in the neighborhood always pushed their children. Then there is Harvard, Oracle, and Hseih's first major business, LinkExchange. From there we go through the trials and tribulations of Zappos. Interspersed throughout are Hseih's thoughts on success and happiness.
Hseih refers to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, something I believe firmly in, and something which is expressed exquisitely in Chip Conley's business book, Peak. On the opposite end of my agreement with Hseih-spectrum, you have the anti-37Signals approach of running a business. Hseih is a firm believer in "it takes money to make money". I'm sure much of this stems from his success at the end of the dot-com boom where venture capitalists were throwing money at anything having to do with the internet. It was pretty clear that had Hseih not successfully cashed out LinkExchange for millions, Zappos would never have gotten off the ground. Hseih originally funded Zappos with his own venture capital firm, dumped the rest of the firms' money into Zappos when it needed it, dumped all his personal assets and money into it, and still required outside funding. This flies in the face of the 37Signals "create a business model that is profitable and don't rely on outside money" approach.
Hseih has had a good deal of luck in his life, as well as a lot of hard work. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book if you're looking for inspiration in running a business. As a fun success story or as a primer on customer service, it's a pretty good read.
There has never been a book that I anticipated more than this one. I've been waiting to read C for over two years (and don't try looking it up in the library's catalog via title). I read McCarthy's first novel, Remainder and loved, loved, loved it. It's among my twenty favorite books of all-time. From the instant I read the last page, I wanted to read more by McCarthy. There is no book quite like Remainder which probably explains why it took McCarthy seven years to find a publisher for it. When I started looking for other works of his, I found that he was in the midst of writing C and so I began waiting for it. Meanwhile, another book of his was published overseas but not here. Then, finally, C came out.
Perhaps my anticipation did me in. C pales to McCarthy's first book but is still a nice piece of writing. The story is way out there, not nearly as much as Remainder, but it's odd. As a matter of fact, I doubt it would have been published had Remainder not been published previously.
The novel details the life of Serge Carrefax, a lad from rural England. The book begins in the late nineteenth century where Serge is a child growing up in a strange household. His deaf mother runs a silk business, collecting silk from worms then dyeing and selling the output. The man of the house, thought by Serge to be his father, is an inventor who is involved with the telegraph and radio but whose primary occupation is the head of a school for the deaf.
Different portions of Serge's life are depicted in each section of the book. His childhood, which involves the suicide of his sister, makes up the first. He then goes to school, joins the military as a pilot, then post-World War I becomes involved with establishing communication lines in Egypt.
Throughout, Serge is obsessed with messages and trying to link sound and radio waves to something more spiritual. This search of meaning seems to be the focus of the book. And just like signals can be crossed, muddled, or garbled, so, too, does this book often become. Communication struggles abound.
Some of this may be due to Serge. The book is written in the third-person and Serge comes across as a bit mechanical (which makes sense for someone trying to receive signals). His sister's death barely affects him. Despite being a smart guy, he never registers that his true father is his supposed father's friend. While he frequently has sex with various women, he only is ever willing to do so in a single position, one which seems to have nothing to do with the woman or his pleasure. Mostly he waits and observes life.
Through it all, you never get a sense of what on earth the point of the story is. There's no climax to the story, no denouement. Which may be the point. I don't know.
When I read, I tend to read for entertainment and/or information. While I wasn't particularly entertained by C, it was impossible to disregard how well constructed it was, almost like drinking a high-end chardonnay when you're normally a red wine drinker. You can appreciate how good it is even if it's not your usual cup of tea wine. As a result, and maybe a little bit because of my enjoyment of Remainder, I would recommend this book.
After having a few discussions with other people about The Book Thief, I realized why it was selected as the One Book, One Community selection – it gets people talking.
I never would have selected The Book Thief to read for myself. I groaned at the thought of another book set in Germany during WWII. I’ve read quite a few historical fiction set during this era, some are worthy, some are just…bad. Yet, the war itself is not the focus. It sits looming in the background as the townspeople deal with the transfer of their lives from daily routines of work and family, to physical survival, suspicions, and paranoia.
I didn’t enjoy reading this book. I kept waiting for something significant to happen. The writer doesn’t get into the heads of the characters as much as I like. The purpose of the introduction of secondary characters never really gets through. There is not much drama or suspense. But the narrator offers an interesting twist and I’m still not sure how the colors of the sky relate to his situations. There is no explanation for why Leisel was given up by her mother in the first place. The ending is rather predictable.
I do recommend reading The Book Thief because it will leave questions in your mind, which I believe is Zusak’s intent. Let me know what you think!
KF
Review #2
"500 page book, set in Nazi Germany, the narrator's Death, and you think, "How do you recommend that to your friends?" - Markus Zusak
Let me try, Markus. This book, which has been on my "to read" list since it was published in 2006 (which says more about my adherence to reading lists than the length of my reading list), is the best book I've read in 2010.
The reason why this is the best book I've read is because Death is the narrator and Death is a poet. Or maybe an artist. You wouldn't think that an entity that extinguishes life could appreciate the beauty of what life has to offer but Zusak's Death does. Even in war-strewn Germany in the 1940's, Death is able to see that beauty can come from ugliness, good from evil.
The story is about a young girl named Leisel and begins with Leisel, her brother and mother traveling to a foster home. The mother is unable to care for her children. On the way there, however, the brother dies. While attending the burial of her brother, she picks up a book dropped by one of the gravediggers. Leisel cannot read despite being nine years old. She keeps the book as a reminder of her brother.
Upon reaching her foster parents, she discovers that her mother-to-be is a harsh acting, profanity spitting individual. The father, however, is my favorite character in the book. Hans Hubermann is a caring individual who treats everyone kindly.
Hans and his wife, Rosa, both dropped out of school at young ages and neither are good readers. Hans works to teach Leisel how to read after discovering her stolen book. Leisel continues to improve and learns the power and magic of words; an important lesson in Nazi Germany where Hitler relied greatly on his verbal strength to rally and unify the country.
Because this is Nazi Germany and because Hans is pretty close to sainthood, it isn't too surprising when Hans stashes a Jew in his basement. The Jew, Max, is the son of a man who saved Hans' life in World War I. Max and Leisel become good friends and over the course of the story, they each create a book for one another for different reasons. It is Death's encounter with Max's book which inspires him to tell this story.
There's so much that goes on in this story. Hans' son is devoted to the Nazi cause and is angry at Hans for not being supportive and joining the party. Leisel's best friend, Rudy, is inspired by Jesse Owens and becomes one of the best athletes in town as well as being a top student, a combination that is enticing to the Nazis. Leisel rescues a book from a book burning and then proceeds to swipe tomes from the mayor.
Given the book's length, it moves quickly. Zusak paints wonderful little stories that combine into an intricate masterpiece. It really is a beautiful book filled with emotion.
This is this year's book for the One Book, One Community project which is what prompted my reading this now. This was a great choice even though there is much debate over whether this is a Young Adult book or not. Too often, folks (myself included) dismiss Young Adult books as being "not adult enough". After reading The Book Thief, I'm definitely inclined to be more open-minded on such matters.
--Jon (Note: I initially wrote my review of The Book Thief back in September before we started the blog.)
This book isn't in the library system. You can't have everything, especially when budgets are tight. So if you want to see this book and others in the system, let your government officials, both state and local, know that you think providing funding for public libraries is very important. Thanks.
That's my public service message for now.
You probably wouldn't guess it by looking at me, but I work out a good bit. I have my own home gym that looks (and right about new, feels) a little like Rocky Balboa's Russian workout wonderland in Rocky IV. My own personal regime follows an affiliate of Crossfit.
My problem is that I likes me my food, particularly bad stuff in sizable quantities. Well, Robb Wolf, the author of this book, used to be the Crossfit diet guru and so I was pretty familiar with his ideas. I had to get this book because I need to make changes.
What causes people to make changes in their lives? I think for many people, and for many changes, the changes are made for them. Losing a job or suffering an illness, for example. For the most part I think people are creatures of habit and we don't like a whole lot of change.
I don't honestly know whether I like change or not. It sure feels like I go through a lot of them and I do know I need to be making some. At the end of April, I will be turning the big 4-0. Right now, I weigh about 280 pounds. My lean weight is around 205 which means I'm running around at almost thirty percent body fat. The combination of age and weight isn't exactly healthy.
I've also been stressed out because of some personal things. Stress, age and weight....not a good combination. I really need to be doing something.
Be that as it may, you have to start somewhere if you're ever going to make headway. I need to fix my diet and fro my experiences, I think Robb Wolf knows about that which he speaks. If I wasn't familiar with Robb, though, I might have chalked this book up as being something along the lines of a Kevin Trudeau book. Wolf bashes the medical community, and while he has a long list of references in the back, he doesn't footnote his research, something I think is pretty necessary when you're trying to refute "common knowledge".
What common knowledge is Wolf refuting? Well, the gist of the Paleo Solution is that our bodies have not evolved to where much of what we eat is good for it. Wolf believes that we should eat more like our early, early, early, early ancestors; nuts, berries, vegetables, meat. Grains, sugars, dairy? Out. Drinking cow milk and eating grains are relatively new concepts for our body evolutionarily speaking.
Much of what Robb espouses is what is touted for those who suffer from celiac disease. Those who suffer from that cannot break down gluten and it causes all sorts of health problems as a result. It's not a stretch to apply the same principles to a "healthy" person.
I know that when I omit grains from my diet, I feel better. The thing is, they taste pretty darn good. Pizza, cookies, all that good stuff which isn't good for you at all - it's hard to want to drop those things (which is why I weigh 280).
The book is largely about the science behind the Paleo Solution, a short chapter on working out (which is only useful for the extremely novice novice), and then it concludes with a 30 day meal plan. The thing is, it's not like eating Paleo is yucky by any means or it feels like you're lacking. As I read through the book, I experimented with the diet and it was great. I felt good, filled, and everything was tasty. But then I had Thanksgiving dinner which is loaded with grains. Then there was the siren call of pizza. It's tough to shake the cravings (and I do think there is an addictive quality to these foods).
I had toyed with the idea of trying to lose weight and getting the library community to support me. Ask folks to pledge a certain amount of money to the library for every pound I lose by the end of April. What do you think? Would you support that? Any interest in joining me? The New Year and its resolutions are forthcoming. Something to keep in mind.
As for the book, well I recommend it because I am a believer in Wolf. I look forward to putting his theories into practice and shedding the excess pounds so that I can look like I work out as much as I do and lead a long, healthy life.
One night a week I'm down in Quarryville and since I don't spend near enough time in libraries, I like to hang out there for a little while. I was browsing the fiction there a couple of weeks ago and I saw a Christmas book by Paul Auster on the shelf. "Well, that's different", I said. It is very different and is intended to be so.
In typical Auster fashion, the story is told as if it were told to Auster. We don't know how much is real, how much is fictitious. The story says that The New York Times had contacted Auster to write a Christmas story and he didn't want to write a typical sappy Christmas tale. He struggled until he started talking with his cigar vendor, Auggie Wren (whose name has been changed), who tells him his Christmas story which Auster then uses. Some of that is true. The story originally appeared on Christmas Day in The New York Times. You can read the entire story at that link.
The tale involves shoplifting, a lost wallet, a blind woman, and another theft. The story makes you think. Can lying and stealing be part of a good deed? Is giving giving if there is taking?
A very unorthodox and not really heartwarming Christmas tale, just like Auster wanted. It's so short and so typical Paul Auster that I can't help but like it, though.
