UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand

You could quantify my interest in reading a story about a WWII POW, or really that of any war's Prisoner of War, with the number zero. Just not something that interests me. On the other hand, if you asked me my interest in reading a book about paint drying, I'd say I'm totally for reading a book about that as long as Laura Hillenbrand wrote it.

I finally got around to reading Hillenbrand's book on Seabiscuit last year and it was the best book I read in 2010. Although I had no interest in the topic matter of her second book, Unbroken, I opted to read it because she is such a fantastic writer.

A good choice it was as I expect this will fall in my top ten books of 2011 come next December.

The book follows the story of Louie Zamperini. Zamperini was an obnoxious kid until he took up running. He developed into an incredible runner and became one of the world's best, competing in the Olympics for the United States in 1936 at age 19. He went on to set the collegiate record in the mile two years later and was training for the 1940 Olympics. The host city was Tokyo and with World War II, the games were initially transferred from Tokyo to Helsinki and then canceled. Zamperini joined the U.S. war effort in 1941 and became a bombardier.

One of the more fascinating things I read in this book was the primitive state of aircraft during the war. The number of crashes and injuries during training activities was incredibly large. Zamperini ended up a victim of such a mishap. He and his crew were sent out to look for a missing plane in the Pacific, their plane suffered a malfunction and they ended up crashing. Zamperini and two other crew members survived and were afloat at sea on a life raft for 47 days during which they were shot at by a Japanese plane, attacked by sharks and suffered from starvation and dehydration. The one crew member died but the other and Louie washed ashore in Japanese occupied territory.

The two were then placed in prisoner of war camps where conditions were probably worse than they were on the raft. Zamperini was regularly abused by a camp guard, the prisoners were starved and suffered from diseases, and when the Allies appeared to be winning the war, the Japanese killed many prisoners of war rather than letting them be rescued.

Somehow Zamperini survives all his ordeals and returns home. He marries but suffers from alcoholism and is tormented by his memories. Through religion, he overcomes his hauntings and he is still alive and well today at age 93.

Insprining though this book is, I also continue to be inspired by Hillenbrand herself. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and is often bedridden. Her being able to conduct the research for this book and write this book is amazing given her condition.

As I said, I love her writing. She also does a great job with research and thoroughly cites everything. My one problem with the book is that it does rely primarily on interviews with Zamperini (over seventy of them in total, yet, amazingly, they have never met in person). Memories are tricky things and there were many times in the book where I had to question happenings as being exaggerations or faulty memories. The instances weren't too bad (Zamperini didn't invent the internet while he was a POW or anything) and primarily involved his youth. And I may be wrong and every bit of them may be true. I'm a documentation kind of guy, though, and would like to have some sort of corroborating evidence.

Nonetheless, this is an incredible book and is a definite recommendation.

VIVALDI'S RING OF MYSTERY

Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery is an audio (CD) story set to the music of Vivaldi. Not really sure what I was getting when I came upon this on the library shelf, I thought it worth a try since my ten-, seven-, and four-year olds all like audio books, and, though I am mostly ignorant about classical music, I do recognize and love Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

The music is a beautiful, goosebump-inducing backdrop for this tale, set in Vienna during Carnival, about an orphan girl. Katarina, a gifted musician, searches for her origins as she studies violin under the composer Antonio Vivaldi.

Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery is one of those rare things that parent and child can equally enjoy and appreciate.

JJ

THIS BOOK MADE ME DO IT cool things to make, do, and explore

This is the best book of children’s do-it-yourself crafts/recipes/games I have ever seen. I occasionally borrow or buy craft and recipe books for my kids, but they (we) generally find one or two things of interest in each book and then the book either goes back to the library or to the dusty, lonely world of kids' forgotten treasures.

I checked out This Book Made Me Do It  by John Woodward from the new juvenile nonfiction section of the library and now am quite conflicted. It’s a new book so I should return it for others to use, but it’s so jam-packed full of fun stuff that I (and my kids) want to keep it longer.

Published by DK Publishing, which specializes in illustrated reference books, This Book Made Me Do It is has some of the following activities:

Make an ice bowl

Make a piñata

Make a water bomb

Raise caterpillars

Dissect an owl pellet

Cook for birds

Pan for gold

Find constellations

Paddle a kayak

Jump higher

Squeak like a mouse

Avoid a shark attack

Climb Mt. Everest

And it goes on and on, with 192 pages full of intriguing ideas and neat illustrations. Even if your kids don't end up using this guide to climb a mountain (ha! I hope they don't!), they will most likely have a lot of fun exploring this book.

JJ

BLOCKADE BILLY by Stephen King

Blockade Billy kept drawing me back to it. I would see it on our new book shelf at the library, pick it up, see it's baseball theme and it's slim size, think about it, then set it back down. Stephen King has never done much for me. The only work of his I can say I enjoyed was Needful Things. I have his book on being a Red Sox fan on my shelf, Faithful (bought at the Strasburg-Heisler Library book sale before I became a resident of Strasburg!), which is co-written by Stewart O'Nan, another author of which I am not fond, and it will likely remain unread.

Getting back to Blockade Billy, I was transitioning it from the new book shelf to the general fiction shelf, changing stickers, altering the location of the book in the computer system, and I finally opted to take it home and read it.

The best thing I can say about this book is that it is a quick read. I read over half of it as I cooked dinner and knocked out the remainder soon after.

The book is perplexing. It is set during the 1957 baseball season and King mixes actual major league teams and players with fictional ones. In the opening game of the season, Ted Williams inexplicably steals a base. Williams never stole a base that season and rarely stole any over the course of his career. The timing of said stolen base is baffling and is followed up by him being removed by a pinch-runner who tries to score from second on an infield hit. Really? When does this happen? Oh, wait, in the movie Major League, the game is won in that fashion. Otherwise, I don't see it happening. It's not like the pitcher is in the on-deck circle. Even if he was, the game was in the ninth inning. Pinch-hit. You don't try to score from second on an infield hit. Ridiculous.

Needless to say, I wasn't keen on the baseball content of the story. I wasn't keen on the story in general. The book is told like one big oral history coming from the coach of the team who King has gone to interview at a retirement community, or as the coach likes to call it, a "zombie hotel". I worked for a firm that surveyed elder care communities and in thousands upon thousands of surveys, never came across anyone who called it a "zombie hotel". It almost seems like a phrase a horror movie writer might make up, doesn't it?

Since it is one big story, there are no chapters. It's 112 small pages that just run on. The story is about a catcher, Blockade Billy Blakeley, named so because of his blocking the above mentioned runner from scoring. Triple B is brought up to the big leagues from Iowa after both catchers for the New Jersey Titans are hurt at the end of spring training. Triple B is an instant star even though he's obviously not all there in the head. His dark secret is exposed which results in all the games in which he has played to be expunged from the official record (perhaps the stupidest thing I've ever heard).

You know what? I'm going to spoil it for you. If you don't want to read the big secret, just move on. I really didn't like the book and even given it's length, I don't want you bothering. Blakeley isn't Blakeley. He's a farmhand who kills the real Blakeley, his family, and their cows to take Blakeley's place and become a big leaguer.

Oh, I forgot. This book also has creepy black and white illustrations.

--Jon

THE NAMING OF TISHKIN SILK by Glenda Millard

I admit I chose The Naming of Tishkin Silk by Glenda Millard to read to my children based on the book jacket description, which says that Griffin is an uncommon boy who meets a once-in-a-lifetime friend, Princess Layla, and “just like the mythical beast whose name he bears, Griffin discovers that he has uncommon courage and the heart of a lion.” That lead me to believe the book would contain some magic and fairy-tale elements.

In that way, the book was rather disappointing, like it was oversold. BUT once I had digested three or four chapters and figured out it was a book based very much in reality, I began to be drawn in by its charmingly good writing and delicate story.

Griffin Silk is the lone boy in a family of girls. He had believed he was the last of the children until a new baby, another sister, was born. The sister and mother are gone away when the story begins and Griffin has a secret that he holds inside.

He meets a best friend who happens to be a girl named Layla. She is able to draw things out of Griffin that no one else even knows enough to care about. The innocent friendship of children is portrayed beautifully through Griffin and Layla’s frolics in nature and other antics.

Griffin’s secret as you may have guessed is about his mother and sister, but I’ll stop there so the ending won’t be revealed. This sentimental story’s end was enough to make my four-year-old cry. Bittersweet. Sad yet happy. Friendship and family give strength.

Typically, I read one chapter (out of eleven total chapters) a day to my three children. They BEGGED to hear more at each chapter’s finish, which confirms the appeal of this tale.

JJ

THE POSSESSED by Elif Batuman

If you like to read, there are few websites as wonderful to browse as The Millions. It was on there that I came across this review/interview with Elif Batuman, the author of The Possessed, that motivated me to read this book. Elif is a six foot tall Turkish woman who is a scholar of Russian literature. Her book is about her experiences as a graduate student in that particular field.

As a wee lad (OK, in high school and college), I enjoyed Russian literature. So I thought I would enjoy this book. The title comes from Dostoevsky's book of the same name (which also goes by the title The Devils or The Demons, depending on your translation) and Dostoevsky is my favorite Russian author so all the more reason to like it.

I was right. I really enjoyed it. Two thoughts kept running through my head as I read it, though. My first thought was, "How on earth did this book get published?". While it is incredibly entertaining and does not require a vast knowledge of Russian literature, I do think knowing a bit about Russian stories helps increase the enjoyment level. That being said, who would pick this up? Why would a publisher think this topic had enough appeal to be made into a book? I'm still not entirely sure but I know how it got published.

It got published because Batuman is a very talented writer who has written for a number of publications including n+1 and The New Yorker. As a matter of fact, some, if not all of this book, has been previously published in those publications. Batuman also knows how the academic system works. She seems able to finagle grants and funding for her projects and I don't think it's a stretch for her to be able to finagle a book deal as well.

Regardless, it got published and it is good. The book is part travelogue, part literary criticism, part autobiography. The stories are very entertaining, if sometimes a little self-absorbed. Batuman shares details about herself and her friends that sometimes seem a little too personal or a little too unnecessary.

I had also hoped that this would make me want to read more Russian literature. It did. Unfortunately, much of the literature unfamiliar to me that she mentions is unfamiliar because it hasn't been translated into English. That's a bit of a problem. And as usual, I'm disappointed that a non-fiction work is not cited. She lists references used at the end but I like citations, darn it.

Which brings up my second thought that plagued me during this read, "How good is this book?". I did like it a lot. It made me laugh. It made me want to learn more about the subject. It is well-written. I could, and did, put it down quite often, though, opting to move onto other books. Maybe it was the mindset I was in, maybe it was something lacking in the book. Ultimately, I think it's good, not great. But it's close. I think it's a fun read for anyone but a must read for fans of Russian literature.

Oh, and the magazine The Week, one of the few I enjoy, named it among their top-five non-fiction books of the year. So there's that, too.

--Jon

FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2010

I keep track of what I read. In 2010, I read 62 books. My ten favorite that I read this past year were:

10. Sixpence House by Paul Collins
9. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
8. Wild Child by T.C. Boyle
7. The Art Detective by Philip Mould
6. A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
5. Straight Man by Richard Russo
4. The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
3. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
1. Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand

BONUS HOLIDAY CONTENT!!!

The reason we post these reviews is to hopefully provide some suggestions as to things to read (or avoid). So here are some of my favorites from over the past couple of years. Hopefully you'll find something you like.

My Favorites from 2009:
1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer
3. Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubenstein
4. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safron Foer
5. Art of Possibility by Rosemund and Benjamin Zander
6. The Women by T.C. Boyle
7. The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
8. The Soloist by Steve Lopez
9. Provenance by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo
10. Double Fold by Nicholson Baker

My favorites from 2008:
1. Remainder by Tom McCarthy
2. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow
3. Peak by Chip Conley
4. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
6. Run by Ann Patchett
7. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
8. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead
9. The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss
10. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley

--Jon