My favorite books of 2012

We've sort of fallen out of the habit of writing book reviews on here in favor of going the easy route and using Goodreads. I thought I'd share my favorites from the last year with you, though, in case anyone is still out here reading.

-- Jon

 #10 Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew Blechman (not in the library system).

Family and friends had to deal with a good stretch of time this year when I was fascinated by pigeons. My fancy was initially struck when I read a pretty mediocre novel, A Pigeon and a Boy that was about carrier pigeons. I enjoyed reading about the use of pigeons in World War II, part of the time period of that novel, and that led me to look for non-fiction books about pigeons. This one stood out.

Blechman looks at many different aspects of the history of pigeons, their use by humans, and how the perception of the bird has changed over the years. My only problem with this book were that the chapters were too short. I would have been happy to see every chapter turned into a book. This book did get me learning more about pigeons and also led to me reading an unusual book, Spirit Gun of the West: The Story of Doc W.F. Carver, which was about a legendary pigeon shooter of the nineteenth century. It is only through tremendous self-control that I am not joining Mike Tyson in owning pigeons.

 #9 Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia edited by Jeff Parker (not in the library system).

I started the year reading a lot of Eastern Europe/Russian literature. I have also grown to appreciate the short story much more than I used to. As a matter of fact, I am a big fan of a new magazine (a magazine is a collection of pages of paper with a theme that are bundled and published on a regular basis. In case you didn't know.), The Coffin Factory, which publishes really awesome short stories. Rasskazy is a collection of modern short stories from Russia. Published by the wonderful Tin House Books, I thought this book was an absolute treat. 22 stories from Russia's top literary magazines, gathered into one place and translated into English. The stories are distinctly Russian but refreshingly different from the more recognized late 19th century, early 20th century Russian authors (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoeyevsky, etc.). As with any collection of stories, some are better than others but all in all, it was a great compilation and one I heartily recommend.

 #8 Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon.

My favorite author released a new book. Chabon's stature has wavered with me over the last decade as his efforts have been good but not great. Telegraph Avenue is probably the best book he's written since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, one of my all-time favorite books.

The novel is about two men - one white, one black, who run a record store in San Francisco (a record is a circular piece of vinyl used to play music. In case you didn't know). A "big box" music store is coming into town, owned by a former NFL quarterback, which threatens the livelihood of the two men. Race issues, family issues, relationship issues. Typical Chabon writing with lots of descriptions and 37-cent words. Semi-typical Chabon delving into homosexuality. Interesting characters with no real good guys. I might have it overrated because it is Chabon (the two library patrons to whom I recommended it did not like it) but we're talking about my favorites. So there.

#7 Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction by Stephen Pyne

One of our patrons has been working on a master's thesis on histiography and so some good books on writing about history have come through my hands. This one was excellent, possibly the best book on writing non-fiction I've read.

Most of the books I've read on writing are by writers who, while perhaps dabbling in non-fiction, tend to be novelists at heart. It was refreshing to see a book completely focused on writing non-fiction.

Not surprisingly, given the title, the book is very much about finding the right voice for a given writing. Pyne takes examples of different books (which is nice, too. It would be very easy to use articles for examples but Pyne sticks entirely to books), many of which he wrote, to explore how important it is to find the right way to identify the message you want to convey and the best way to convey that message.

#6 I am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett.

My favorite piece of metafiction from this year. Everett appears in this novel as himself (or at least there is a character with similarities to Percival Everett who is named Percival Everett) but the story focuses on the main character, the unfortunately named Not Sidney Poitier (which should really be written Notsidney Poitier given how he is known to people but it's not near as humorous that way, who, in addition to being named Not Sidney Poitier, looks amazingly like Sidney Poitier.

There are a number of other amazing not similarities. Ted Turner is Not Sidney's adoptive father and he happens to be married to Jane Fonda, but these are just characters named Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, and not the actual Ted Turner and Jane Fonda even though Ted is a billionaire media mogul and Jane is a babe.

The book is very funny and has great dialogue. But beyond the humor, there is also a level of seriousness as Not Sidney tries to find his way through a south that, while modern in era, is less so in tone (read: racist).

It is my understanding that if you're a fan of Sidney Poitier movies, there is yet another layer to this book of which I am ignorant as the only movie of his I've seen is Sneakers. All in all an entertaining story, this one from the excellent Graywolf Press.

#5 The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin

Part of my early year run of Russian novels. It was a surprise to me that fiction topped my reading lists for the year. Even more surprising to me, of my top five, four were first-time novels by their respective authors. It just shows to go you that open-mindedness to new experiences can be a rewarding thing.

The Dream Life of Sukhanov is one of those first novels. Grushin was born in Russia (the same year as I was born which will be brought up again in this post) and moved to the United States in her late teens. The title character is a former artist who abandoned his art for an opportunity to work for the Soviet government editing a journal on world art. In that position he became a spokesperson for the Communist party, and was called upon to belittle and criticize art and artists that he had once loved.

The book bounces between the present and the past until the two are blended. Sukhanov is called upon to write a critique of the artist Marc Chagall, a task Sukhanov believes is a test of his loyalty to the party. Sukhanov initially is an unlikable fellow but as we learn more about his past and the choices he has had to face, it becomes a question over whether he had choices and if so, whether he made the right ones.

For a novel, it is important on many levels. One, it is a look at those who "sell out", sacrificing their talents or passions for money, their families, their government, what have you. Two, like Rasskazy, it is a great look at modern Russia while still tying the present to the past. Three, it makes you think about how much choice we actually have in life.

#4 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One is another first novel written by someone about my age (Cline is a year younger). The story is set in 2044 where people, in response to a horrible economy, have turned to virtual reality experiences in the form of an online simulation game. When one of the game's creators dies, he leaves a video with clues on how to solve a puzzle. The person who solves the puzzle will receive part ownership of the company as well as the remainder of the game creator's fortune.

The game creator grew up in the 1980's and the puzzle, as well as the novel, is rife with eighties music and games. Those trying to solve the puzzle immerse themselves in eighties culture in an effort to try and understand the game creator and the references.

Because the quest takes place online, the characters in the novel are represented in the game world as their avatars. Their representations in the game are nothing like the real people behind them. A group of young gamers bands together, there's some love interest involved, and eventually the chase for the final solution comes down to this small group against the corporate-backed internet service provider who is also trying to claim victory.

I question how enjoyable this book would be to someone who is not a male in their late thirties, early forties. Or males in that age group who weren't geeks, nerds, dorks, etc. during their teens. The title, Ready Player One, references the announcement that prefaced the game play on many early video games. There are references to many video and arcade games as well as Dungeons and Dragons. Movie references and song references galore, too. It references Real Genius, for crying out loud, so you know I liked it.

If you're not in what I deem the target audience for this one, beware. If you grew up when and as I did, I think you'll like it.

#3 Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (not in the library system)

My dream is to one day be able to play Krzhizhanovsky across two triple word scores in Scrabble.

I think you can figure from the name that this is yet another book by a Russian author. Unlike the other two in my top ten list, which are modern works, this is a collection of older short stories but reads like something that has been written during my lifetime. Siggie (as I will call him) was born in the 1880's and worked as an editor of an encyclopedia in Russia. Siggie's stories were ahead of their time and some had a little bit of a subversive tone to them. He would show them to friends but never had them published, being fearful of either rejection or repercussion. When he died, his wife gave his works to the state archive where they sat for decades until they were discovered by a scholar then eventually compiled, translated and published.

What a boon for us. For someone who didn't like short stories here I am with two books of them in my top ten. Unlike Rasskazy, this is solid from beginning to end with no disappointments (of course, it's a smaller number of stories (7 versus 22) and by one author as opposed to 22).

It's almost like this book combines the best parts of Rasskazy and the Dream Life of Sukhanov. The writing has a very dreamlike quality to it and there is much blurring between past and present as well as, sometimes, life and death. All the stories have a dark quality to them but not morbidly or even depressingly so. There's actually a bit of lightness and humor to all of them. It's a neat trick to be darkly entertaining. Tim Burton in book form perhaps. There are the necessary political elements but not overly so, nothing so symbolic as say, it's near peer Master and Margarita (another favorite). Just strong, entertaining stories.

#2 The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka

Technically, this is a second novel written but the first published by Karunatilaka (who while possessing a long name does not have the Scrabble potential of Siggie). Shehan is also a near peer (four years younger than me) which is making me think that there is something about being the age I am and being able to relate to the writings of my peers, even in novel form. I may be crazy, I don't know. Just seems a little too coincidental.

One of the reasons I love this novel is because I can absolutely see myself in the shoes of the main character, WG Karunasena or Wije. Wije is a longtime Sri Lankan sportswriter who has developed a type of writer's block. He believes he can only write when intoxicated. That's not the particular pair of shoes I see myself in. At a party, Wije gets into a discussion of the greatest cricketers of all time. Wije brings up Pradeep Mathew,  who seems to be a legendary bowler yet no one has heard from him (an interesting conundrum) and Mathew has long since disappeared from the face of the earth.

Wije and his neighbor Ari decide to rekindle awareness of the greatness of Mathew as well as determine what happened to him. As Wije digs, he discovers talk of match-fixing, cricket politics, and love all being behind Mathew's vanishing after his brief domination of the cricket pitch.

I came into this book with no knowledge of cricket and none is really needed. I did want to learn more afterwards and I have to say that I enjoyed watching highlights on YouTube, especially those of Brett Lee. I can't say I have any desire to watch an entire match. Seems a little endless but as a fan of the pitcher/batter matchup in baseball, it is just about as much fun watching the bowler/striker conflict in cricket.

Beyond the cricket, this is just a fun book. As the tale progresses, the legitimacy of Wije as a narrator comes into question and the end of the book brings an interesting twist to that particular question. Just a great book. As for the similarities between myself and Wije, I tend to have my interest captured by topics (see pigeons this year) and will delve into them with great fervor. Wanting to bring attention to and/or passionately following an overlooked athlete, I can see myself doing that.

 #1 Banned for Life by D.J. "Duke" Haney (not in the library system)

The book that helped me stop blogging. I won this book in a contest on The Next Best Book Club where a condition of winning was taking part in a book discussion with the author. The book was fantastic but the discussion was even better. I enjoyed learning about Duke's adventures in the publishing world (this is one of two books published by the defunct And/Or Press and it took him nine years to get this published) but enjoyed even more getting to know him better and reading his writings. I had hoped to write a review that would be remotely close in caliber to the book but that just isn't going to happen.

This is Duke's first novel and he is the least close in age to me of the other novelists in my top five (he's eight years older than me). So maybe I am in the trees with my theory.

In Haney's tale, musician turned filmmaker Jason Maddox begins a search for the vanished punk singer Jim Cassady, a vocalist that Maddox enjoyed in his youth but has become a matter of speculation since the suicide of girlfriend. Maddox manages to track down Cassady on the other side of the country, morbidly overweight and living with his mother. Maddox falls in love with a married Yugoslavian actress and struggles to maintain his relationship with her as he tries to revive Cassady's life and career and deal with the memories of Jason's deceased friend and former bandmate Peewee.

Like Legend of Pandeep Mathew, an appreciation of the general theme, in this case punk rock, isn't necessary for appreciation of the book. You also have the quest by the main character to find a lost individual who had special meaning to him. The vast difference between the two books is the writing. Whereas Wije is questionable as a narrator, the biggest question about Maddox is whether he is fictional. Haney's writing is so emotional and detailed and filled with people who seem real that the story comes across as being almost autobiographical which it is not. It is a rare novel that is able to capture characters so well. Haney writes about people. You and me people. People who love and hate and laugh and cry and shout and whisper and live ordinary lives. Just a fabulous book.

Haney has a collection of non-fiction out called Subversia, the first book published by The Nervous Breakdown, a great website that Haney writes for.

ZEITOUN by Dave Eggers

Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers

It’s not about a hurricane, but it is about a storm.

I just finished reading Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers. It is this year’s One Book, One Community selection otherwise; I never would have picked it up. I don’t read many biographies because the ones I have read were more like lists of names to drop in-between anecdotes and daily schedules. Some are not even authorized by person who the book is about!  We already know what happened during Hurricane Katrina anyway, right?

This book totally caught me off guard. I had no idea that the government had a secondary mission while sending emergency aid to New Orleans. The fact that ordinary citizens were pre-selected to be rounded up and treated as hostiles, while other survivors remained trapped without clean water and food is appalling.

As the saga unfolded, I connected to Kathy Zeitoun early on. She has a career-driven husband, children and pets. She’s a business partner and works hard to keep it all balanced.  Yet when the storm it, life as she knew it collapsed. She was haunted by a sense of terror overcoming her while doing the most mundane house chores. Feelings of isolation while being in a house full of people, the recurring thoughts and scenarios that seemed so far-fetched during waking hours - kept her mind in turmoil through the nights. I experienced this during my husband’s two deployments to Iraq in 2004 and 2008. If Eggers had interviewed spouses of soldiers who had been deployed to a war zone, he would have gotten similar descriptions.

 And this is where the irony lies. We really need to take a good look at ourselves as Americans and how our actions are perceived around the world. As a country proud to be born of a melting pot of cultures, Americans are perceived as not to accept foreign cultural traditions, religious differences, or respect values different to our own.  It is so sad that so many Americans are missing out by not embracing their own countrymen rich with the world’s diversity. Americans are branded in Europe for creating loud storms of uneducated opinions and flooding the media with them. Is this who we really are?

Zeitoun is not to be missed.

--Kristin

LEVERAGE by Joshua C. Cohen

Wow. Wow! The young adult book Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen was one of the most disturbing books I’ve read, yet also one of the most captivating.

The boys on the football team are gods at Oregrove High School and the coaches enhance their idol-like status by providing them with steroids. An unhealthy rivalry begins when the gymnastics coach sets out to prove to the football establishment that his boys are just as strong if not stronger than the football players.

After a one-on-one challenge in which a gymnast wins in a leg lift competition, the humiliated football captains set out to prove their strength by bullying the smaller gymnasts. The brutish football players, who can do no wrong in anyone’s eyes, cruelly attack one of the smaller gymnasts, which results in a horrifying turn of events. And here is where the book gets disturbing, so much so that I don’t know if I would even recommend it to a teen. It is hard to read and takes some strong emotions to plow through a few of the scenes. There is plenty of cursing, sex, and demented characters, so consider yourself warned!

I won’t spoil the story, but I will say, amid the pain there is a beautiful, deep, loyal friendship that develops between a talented gymnast who is a witness to his teammate's abuse and a stuttering football player, who is in foster care after a rocky and troubling past, trying to find his way at a new school and on a football team full of egomaniacs.

It’s not until the last few pages of the book when you finally learn if evil or good prevails. And, I say again, wow – I loved this ferocious, gritty story.

JJ

MATCHED by Ally Condie

Matched, a young adult novel by Ally Condie, takes place in a dystopian society where the government has total control over the lives of the people, down to the moment of death – before midnight on someone’s 80^th birthday. The Society monitors sleep and exercise patterns of its subjects and even distributes meals based on the specific dietary needs of a person.

Cassia, content with her place in society, attends her matching ceremony on her 17^th birthday and finds out she is to marry her best friend Xander. No doubt exists in her mind that Xander is her perfect match. However, when she sees another boy’s face flash across the screen – a mistake – a seed of doubt about her match is planted in her mind.

Thus begins Cassia’s journey to discovering some of the darker aspects of the perfect world in which she lives. The hundred songs and hundred poems that Society has preserved are not enough. Surely, there must be more to the world and life than what the Officials have been teaching her. Obedience to the Society becomes difficult for Cassia as she uncovers more about her own free thought and will.

Torn between two loves, Cassia is not only dealing with the pressures of the Society, but also of young love. Hints of societal rebellion exist in this book, which makes me eager to read the next two books of this trilogy.

If you like The Hunger Games, this book may appeal to you, though the story is quite different – no kids killing each other. It also reminded me of The Giver by Lois Lowry, which is a comparison others have made, even to some criticism – saying that Ally Condie took too much from The Giver when creating her dystopia.

Matched was a quick and fun read for me as an adult. I handed it over to my fifth grade daughter as soon as I finished and she is now devouring it. It is captivating enough for mature readers yet clean enough for young ones.


JJ

A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson

You know how it is. You come home after a long day of work, throw yourself down in a chair and look for something to entertain you. Some options are too serious, some you've come across a zillion times before. You just don't know what you want. Finally something captures your eye (or you're just too tired to care) and you say, "Fine, I'll read that" and reach over and open the bookcase (you thought I was talking about channel surfing, didn't you?) and pull it out.

You might not know this about me, but I love to read. It's a shocker, I know. I take great pride in the fact that every room of my house except the basement (because of mold issues, most likely) has books in it. I've got bathroom reading, cookbooks in the kitchen. I even have home repair books in my mud room.

The majority of my books, close to 1600 of them, can be found in my library. That makes sense. When you have a lot of books, a library is a good place for them. Those are just baseball books, though. I keep my non-baseball books, of which there are probably only about two hundred, in a barrister bookcase which is where I found myself sitting in front of in the opening paragraph. I rarely acquire books that aren't baseball and so most of the books in the case are ones I've bought and read and felt the need to keep.

I mention this bookcase because it is a treasured possession. It belonged to Judge Jonathan Langham, who was a neighbor of my grandparents. When he passed away, my grandfather purchased the bookcase and it has been passed down to me. I like the idea that a piece of furniture I own has some history. I digress. Back to the book.

I don't remember when I first read A Walk in the Woods or even how I came to have a copy of it. It was probably around the time I was really into hiking. That would make sense given that this is about Bryson's attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen.

Bryson and Stephen discover it isn't all they expected. They begin at the southern end of the trail, in Georgia, and make their way north. They hike for several weeks and come across a rest area in Tennessee that has a map of the trail. When they discover that for all the effort they have put in - through all the difficult terrain and bad weather and poor eating and sleeping - they haven't hardly begun, they decide to give up on hiking the whole thing. They leave the trail and find their way to Roanoke, Virginia. Having decided they aren't going to do the whole thing, when the Virginia portion of the trail is lackluster, they halt their tandem efforts.

Bryson makes road trips into Pennsylvania to hike short sections of the trail but discovers the Pennsylvania portions of the trail are perhaps the most lacking in scenery. He does parts of the trail in New England (where Bryson lives) and he reunites with Stephen to do a portion of Maine at which point they are so sick of hiking you wonder if they'll ever do so again.

If you're looking for a book to inspire you to hike, this probably isn't it. If you're looking for something that is a pretty accurate description on what it's like to hike for weeks on end, it's a good book. Bryson is funny, likes to delve into the history of things, and doesn't pull punches when he encounters things that bother him. Sometimes he has a holier than thou attitude about him which rubs me the wrong way.

While I claim this isn't a book to inspire one to hike, it actually made me realize that I miss hiking. My oldest son and I have been talking about some hiking achievements we would like to accomplish (coincidentally, he recently wrote a paper for school about our attempts to hike the Maryland portion of the Appalachian Trail back in 2006) and we've decided we're going to do some hiking in 2012. I'm looking forward to that and who knows, maybe I'll find something to write about that will be as entertaining as Bryson.

--Jon

BLOOD HORSES by John Jeremiah Sullivan

I read various things online about books. I'm always on the lookout for something new and interesting to read, something out of the ordinary, or just plain old good writing. When everyone was doing their end of the year reviews, time after time I came across the name of John Jeremiah Sullivan. I don't think I read a single negative thing on his newest book, Pulphead, which is his second book. Blood Horses is his first and given my love for the horsies, I thought I would read it first.

If you couldn't care less about horsies, you'd still love this book. I've been trying to communicate my feelings about this book to a few people and I haven't been able to adequately express it. Reading this book made me feel smarter. This is different, I think, than what you think. There are many books that I read where I learn something. That makes me more knowledgeable. Sullivan makes me feel smarter. It's as if he found a way to ignite my brain cells to understand and explore things in ways I never have.

I think a lot of this comes from Sullivan's style. While this book is about horses, it's really about everything. Sullivan grew up in Kentucky and his father was a sportswriter so he has had a lot of personal connection with the sport of horse racing. He weaves his own personal history into his own personal present and ties it in with historical and current equestrian issues. He'll be talking about his Dad and next thing you know he's talking about Hitler. And even though you're suddenly reading about something you don't think you were reading about a page or two ago, you really are. Sullivan entwines everything marvelously. The changes aren't jolting. There are no non sequiturs. The transitions are smooth.

Sullivan does fantastic research and tells great stories. He has a gift for detail which is just amazing. After finishing the book, I found that I had made note of four books he referenced in the text that I wanted to read some more. Those who know me know that one of the things I look for in good non-fiction is how much it makes me want to learn more about whatever it is the author covered.

The book itself is really comprised of a lot of different essays of various length. They work so well together, you don't even realize that these are all separate components. It reads like a book, not a collection of essays, if that makes sense.

The only downside of the book were the illustrations. There are a large number of them but they are all in black and white and very little, if anything, was done to them to enhance the image quality. Some are so dark as to be undefinable. There are some neat photos and some interesting pieces of equine art pictured and it would have been nice if more effort had been made by the publisher to showcase them rather than make them seem like filler.

 This was a truly amazing book and I will definitely be looking to read Pulphead sometime this year.

--Jon

WHAT'S GOTTEN INTO US by McKay Jenkins

What's Gotten Into Us was a book I had meant to read for some time and didn't until it came time to remove it from the new book shelf at the library. I know the author in passing from my time as a Public Administration student at the University of Delaware. My specialization was watershed management and I did some volunteer work with the Water Resources Agency on campus that brought me in contact with Jenkins a couple of times. My first encounter with him was when he was the keynote speaker at the Drinking Water 2001 conference. His talk was incredible and I thought that anyone who speaks as well he does, has to be a good writer, too.

I had read one of his books, The White Death, previously, and it was fantastic (unfortunately, it is not in the library system). My ex bought it for her Dad for Christmas and he, too, liked it. She bought him two other books of Jenkins' which also were appreciated. So needless to say, I had an expectation of this being a good book.

I don't feel it was. I felt like a good portion of it was a bit of shock journalism. Jenkins explores how things we encounter in our every day life are causing illnesses and disease. Not things like Jenny McCarthy's accusation that vaccines cause autism but more stuff like lawn care chemicals causing health problems.

Jenkins' biggest issue seems to be with phthalates. These are substances added to plastics to make them more flexible and durable. They are found just about everywhere and they presumably cause health problems.

I say presumably because, really, what doesn't? I have read several times this past year that 1 in 2 people will develop cancer during their lifetimes. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that much of the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the things we use, cause illness. And it doesn't take much to figure out that there is little reason for the companies that provide us with this stuff to change. We can get in an uproar over lead paint in toys from China while we inhale chemicals from our carpets or phthalates that come from our electronic devices aging and decaying.

Jenkins cites some studies of people living in rural areas, presumably away from a lot of these contaminants, whose bodies are loaded with toxins. You can't escape it. And the world grows and gets more congested and more contaminated and eventually we'll hit a breaking point and the apocalypse will arrive. That last bit is from me, not Jenkins.

Jenkins is a little more optimistic. He thinks we can make changes to personal lifestyles that will enable us to avoid some of the detrimental junk. Eat organically, for instance. Use cleaners made only of natural substances. An assortment of other options available primarily to those with money, not poor public librarians.

I'm letting my personal feelings get too entwined in this review so let me focus more on the straight content. Jenkins' viewpoint is very one-sided. He looks for things to support his case but doesn't really explore the possibility that stuff might not be as bad as he is making it out to be. Like I said, it felt like shock journalism. There isn't a wealth of scientific evidence cited. What there is tends to be limited in scope and not entirely conclusive.

It didn't surprise me either that I thought the best chapter in the book was about water and it relied heavily on the work of Jerry Kauffman, who heads the Water Resources Agency. That chapter just felt like it was the most grounded in actual science.

Although I didn't care for the book, it might make a good primer if you aren't as naturally cynical as myself and it hadn't occurred to you that your environment is killing you. You might get something out of it. For a McKay Jenkins fix, though, you ought to track down The White Death. Awesome book.

--Jon

I AM THE MESSENGER by Markus Zusak

After reading The Book Thief, I wanted to read the book Markus Zusak had written immediately before, I am the Messenger. It took me a while but I finally got around to it.

I am the Messenger is about a group of people in their late teens - early 20's who live in Australia. There are four friends, all of them sort of struggling to find their way through life. The main character, Ed Kennedy, is a taxi driver whose most notable characteristic is that he is in love with his best friend, Audrey. Audrey appreciates Ed's friendship but never wants to let their relationship evolve into more. In the meantime, she sleeps around, driving Ed nuts.

The story begins with Ed standing in line at the bank with his friend Marv, whose defining feature is that he hoards all his money while driving what is arguably the worst functioning automobile on the planet. While the pair are in line, the bank is robbed. The robbery does not go smoothly and the robber's getaway vehicle takes off without the robber. The robber grabs Marv's keys, drops his gun and tries to escape. The car, naturally, doesn't start, and Ed retrieves the gun and holds it on the robber until the police come to apprehend him.

Ed becomes a minor hero in the papers. He is surprised one day to find a playing card of the Ace of Diamonds with three addresses on it. Ed comes to the realization that he is to provide a message to the people living at these addresses. What the messages are and how he is to deliver them is uncertain.

Ed eventually figures out a way to accomplish his task which then leads to another card with another cryptic assignment. All four aces arrive in Ed's hands, the last one relating to his three friends.

Upon completion of the tasks, the reason behind Ed being chosen for these messages is made clear but the ending takes on a bit of a meta-fiction feel which I didn't much care for.

All in all, I did like the book, even with an ending that was a little empty. The characters are different. There's a level of shallowness in them but enough depth to keep them interesting. The book is intended for a young adult audience and so Zusak's language and writing are appropriately basic. Even so, although the language isn't special, Zusak's a good storyteller. If anything, it made me appreciate The Book Thief all the more. I feel like the shortcomings in I am the Messenger were eliminated in The Book Thief. It definitely feels like Zusak grew as a writer between the two stories.

Can't go wrong with either but The Book Thief is considerably better.

--Jon

THE VISIBLE MAN by Chuck Klosterman

I liked Chuck Klosterman's The Visible Man but was disappointed by it. I had a lot of hope for it and was motivated to read it after watching the book trailer.



The story involves two characters. A psychologist by the name of Victoria Vick and a patient of hers known as Y. The book begins as if Vick is in the process of writing the book you're reading and she is writing the publisher concerning events in the story. The story is told as if this is the draft of the publication she is submitting.

Vick's contact begins with a phone call from Y. He is trying to understand more about what he does and is seeking psychological/moral guidance. After a few phone calls, Y comes in to the office and their sessions continue. It turns out that Y is a scientist but has been bothered by the question of the true natures of people. He sets out to see if he can understand better by observing them when they are alone.

As the pair continue to meet, their relationship evolves into something more than your standard patient/therapist situation.

I apologize in advance for the crummy review of this book but to say more reveals the story and it is one that shouldn't be spoiled. My disappointment came from the direction the book went. This had a lot of potential, at various times through the book, to be more dark and gripping. It never went that direction. It felt like getting into a Ferrari and finding it had a spoiler that prevented you from driving above 50 mph. Yeah, you're driving a Ferrari but what's the point? I felt the same with the book. It should have been creepy. Don't you think the trailer is creepy? That's what I was expecting. Never got there.

I liked it. It just didn't meet expectations.

--Jon

My favorite books of 2011

Admittedly belated, here are my favorite books from 2011:

1. Running the Books by Avi Steinberg
2. Eleven by Mark Watson
3. Blood Horses by John Jeremiah Sullivan
4. Ghosted by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
5. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
6. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
7. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
8. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
9. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
10. Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

I disqualified A Barn in New England and Art of Possibility because I've read them both before. THey'd make the list if I hadn't, though.

If there's no link, it's because I haven't written the review yet because I'm running behind. I'll add a link once I write the review.

--Jon

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN by Frank Abagnale

I grabbed this as part of a mixup at the library. A patron had requested Catch Me If You Can, the book, came in to pick it up, and it turned out he wanted the movie. I'm a fan of con men stories, so I grabbed the book. I know I have seen the movie but I remember nothing about it outside of the great saxophone part in the theme song.

Having read the book, it's no wonder I don't remember the movie. I don't know how exactly you make a movie out of this without taking a lot of liberties. Abagnale was a con man but not a very interesting one. He was handsome, apparently looked a lot older than he actually was, and was able to dupe people, largely by producing fake documents. Most of his cons involved flying for free and writing bad checks with an occasional getting to play grown up here and there.

Writing bad checks and making fake checks was his primary con. Get rid of that and you have a guy who pretended to be a pilot so that he could travel for free ("deadheading"), taking advantage of airlines perks for flight personnel. Once he got busted for that, he pretended to have gone to law school to land a job as an attorney. He eventually passed the bar and practiced law briefly which says more about the profession, I think, than Abagnale. He also pretended to be a doctor but worked off hours and let residents handle any actual medical work.

He eventually got caught and spent some time in prison in a few countries. When he finally was turned over to the U.S., he negotiated a lighter sentence in exchange for helping government agencies fight against the same practices he had done.

I just couldn't appreciate his cleverness if there was any. Abagnale is very egotistical in the book. He repeatedly talks about how he would never hurt individuals, even as he often did. I didn't find him interesting at all. As I said, I don't remember enough about the movie to say anything about it but don't recommend the book at all.

--Jon

THE SISTERS BROTHERS by Patrick DeWitt

The Sisters Brothers was a fun twist on your typical Western. The brothers Sisters, Charlie and Eli, are hired guns. They work for a fellow known as The Commodore and The Commodore has asked them to go to California to track down and kill a man by the name of Hermann Kermit Warm.

The book is narrated by Eli, the younger brother, and the more thoughtful of the pair. Eli is overweight and sometimes seems like he may be viewed as the lesser intellect of the brothers. Eli is clearly the conscience of the twain and wants nothing more than to return home to his mother and open up a hardware store. Charlie, though, wants to be rich and powerful. He dreams of one day supplanting The Commodore. He also enjoys killing because he's mighty good at it (and drinking).

As the duo make their trek towards Sacramento where they are to meet an associate who is watching Warm, they have numerous encounters with an interesting cast of characters. The reactions to these encounters, especially those of Eli, are what make the book so good.

Perhaps some of what makes Eli seem a little light on the intellect side is the writing style of the book. It is very simple. DeWitt finds a good balance between making Eli seem uneducated (and hired guns during the Gold Rush Era aren't going to have degrees from St. Olaf's College) but doesn't try and over do it and make him a caricature. But his apparent lack of intellect may also be due to a bit of naivete. At one point he falls for an innkeeper, giving her a good deal of money and dreaming of one day returning to her and making her his wife. Meanwhile, Charlie took the easy route and paid her for sex along with his bath.

Upon finding the associate and Warm, the brothers are faced with a conflict that involves them going against The Commodore which results in a bit of an unexpected ending.

The contrast between the two brothers is nice even if they are a little too polar opposite for my liking. The story being told exclusively by Eli also makes things a little too limited. I liked how pretty much every scenario the brothers face results in some sort of moral and ethical analysis. Deep thinking by hired killers....whoda thunk it?

It was a really fun book and one I recommend but it falls just short of the top echelon of books for the year.

--Jon

TIMBUKTU by Paul Auster

I had somehow almost made it through the year without even thinking about reading something by Paul Auster and then a patron returned Timbuktu.

Timbuktu is told from the perspective of a dog, Mr. Bones. Mr. Bones lives with Willy, a down on his luck man who spends most of his time homeless. Willy has suffered from a terrible cough that is only worsening and the two make their way to Baltimore in an effort to find an old English teacher of Willy's.

Willy knows his life will be ending soon and tries to prepare Mr. Bones for his departure. He calls the afterlife Timbuktu. Mr. Bones is worried about whether or not he'll get to see Willy again in Timbuktu.

Willy passes on and Mr. Bones is left to fend for himself. He strikes up a friendship with an Asian boy but has to leave him once school starts. Mr. Bones is then adopted by a family in Virginia where he spends the rest of his days until he is reunited with Willy.

Typical solid effort by Auster. The story being told from the dog's point of view is really interesting, especially dealing with things like the afterlife. Never mind the idea of smells, the vet, getting fixed, and a host of other concepts. Definitely a fun book and far less bizarre than most of Auster's works.

--Jon

IN THE KING'S ARMS by Sonia Taitz

One of my favorite places to read about reading and small presses is The Next Best Book Blog. Lori, who runs the blog, had a contest in October to give away copies of In the King's Arms. A condition of winning was to take part in a book discussion on Goodreads involving the author. I entered, won, and read it.

I really didn't like it. Every time I picked it up, I found myself groaning within a few paragraphs. The story is about an American girl, the daughter of Holocaust survivors (and when I noticed a new novel in our small press collection also was about a Holocaust survivor, I commented to a co-worker that there seems to be more novels about Holocaust survivors than there were Holocaust survivors), who goes to Oxford for graduate school, and I don't mean Ole Miss. She falls in love with a shallow, good-looking guy who happens to be the brother of a friend of hers. The family of the brothers are anti-Semitic, apparently for no other reason than as a plot device. The heroine gets impregnated, the lover flees, they find themselves back together for some reason. The end.

It's supposed to be a tale about love conquering all but it was just so bad. The dialogue is brutal. The heroine is fanatical about being the daughter of Holocaust survivors and the injustices done to her parents, but her Judaism seems to be important to her simply as a point of contention, just as the anti-Semitism by the boyfriend's parents lacks grounding in anything. The characters are downright insipid. They're empty husks whose sole purpose is spouting the awful dialogue.

Part of the reason I wanted to win a copy of the book was to put it in the small press collection. The publisher, McWitty, is new on the scene, having only put out five books of which this is one. They didn't help matters. The covers of the book (it's paperback) mysteriously curled. I've never had that happen to a book before. There were a couple of typos I noticed and several spots in the dialogue where it was difficult to determine whether they were typos or the character was supposed to be stammering and it just wasn't printed in a clear fashion.

Something I found strange, too, is the author wrote this book 25 years ago. In the discussion I asked why she waited so long to try and find a publisher and I also wondered whether she had made any changes when she submitted it to McWitty. The answers were she knew the publisher was the right fit for the book and no.

I really wish that someone had opted to make some changes with the book. I feel that the quality of the book, both the content and the physical manifestation of the book itself, doesn't help promote small presses.

Others have rated the book on Goodreads and given it decent marks. I couldn't get into it. On the other hand, Ms. Taitz was very entertaining and engaging. She realizes that her writing isn't for everybody and is cool about that. She has a wonderful optimism about herself and her writing that I appreciated a lot.

Nice author, but the book wasn't for me.

--Jon

FANTASTIC WOMEN by Rob Spillman (ed.)

Fantastic Women is a collection of short stories edited by Rob Spillman and published by Tin House Press. There are eighteen stories, each written by a different female author and each being quite odd.

I've mentioned recently how the short story has been growing on me and how I've been learning to appreciate them more. This book was a mixed bag for me. Some of the stories were done very well. Some I thought did not make use of the short story mode adequately, being too abrupt. Some of the stories I just didn't like.

The stories are presented in alphabetical order by author and the first one was the one I enjoyed most. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was by Aimee Bender, my second favorite female author. Her story, all of six pages long and titled Americca, involves a ghost who leaves gifts for the narrator's family.

Then came four stories I didn't like, followed by a bizarre "story" by Lydia Davis called Five Fictions from the Middle of the Night which seem to be ideas for stories. Each is one or two paragraphs in length. By this time I was starting to weary of the book but then Rikki Ducornet, author of Netsuke, revived my interest with a dandy of a story called The Dickmare. It is also very short (six pages) and was about the relationship of a couple of oysters.

After a couple of odd, well-written stories that I didn't particularly like, Miranda July put forth an awful one. I have never understood Miranda July's appeal. I don't get her as an actress. I don't get her as a filmmaker. I don't get her as an artist. I don't get her as a writer. I didn't get her story Oranges. I don't understand why people are gushing about her new project, It Chooses You other than it's Miranda July. Ooh, ah, ooh. If Mike Caldwell or Jenny Hohensee did this, no one would care. If I ranked all eighteen stories in this book, July's would be 18th, even behind Davis' lame effort.

The last half of the book is strong. Kelly Link writes the longest of the stories, Light, which is a strange sci-fi feeling piece. I will definitely look for more by her to read. Plus, she and her husband operate Small Beer Press, a well-regarded indy publishing house.

Three other writers in the latter half of the book - Lydia Millet, Gina Oschner and Karen Russell - also wrote stories so good and so well done that I'll be looking for more to read by them. Millet had a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the Pulitzer. Karen Russell has written two novels that have received a lot of attention. A former volunteer at the library had read both and thought they were mediocre and so I held off on them. No longer.

I liked this book as a sampler of authors. I found some unfamiliar names that I'd like to explore further. I reaffirmed my likings and of Ms. Bender and Ms. Ducornet and my dislike of Ms. July. And I read some folks I'll probably never read again. All in all a solid book and one I'd recommend, despite it's unevenness.

--Jon

SWITCH by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

About six weeks ago I came across a video by a nutritionist, Dr. John Berardi, where he talked about the differences in knowing what to do and doing the right thing. He was inspired by change psychology and discussed some really simple things people can do to lose weight. The first thing was to eat slowly. I have always been a very fast eater and I've known that that is a problem with my eating habits. I once tried eating with chopsticks as a way for me to slow down my eating and instead I just got really good at eating quickly with chopsticks.

Nonetheless, after watching the video, I really tried to focus on slowing down my eating and being aware of my actual hunger levels. I'll eat because there's something tasty around, even if I'm not hungry. This is especially true at my parents where they always seem to have delicious junk food that I don't normally buy.

The result has been a loss of almost ten pounds. I haven't really been paying attention to the numbers, just to what I'm eating, when I'm eating it, and how fast I'm eating. So that's been going well.

Dr. Berardi recommended some books on change psychology, one of which was this book, Switch by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. They also wrote Made to Stick which I seem to recall reading but was either unimpressed with it or I actually didn't read it (I'm 75/25 sure it's the former).

I really liked Switch. Although it related more to businesses, there is some individual application to be found. The essence of the book is that changes rely on three things which they label The Elephant, The Rider and The Path.

The Elephant is your emotional side. It's the part that craves the junk food or the Coach purse or says that we've always done it this way so we'll keep doing it this way. The Rider is the rational side of you. It wants the healthy body to live longer. It wants to innovate. It sees the long-term picture.

The Heaths use the two terms because the rational side is in charge of the emotional side, as best as a person riding an elephant can be. It's hard. One of the reasons why it's hard is that there is often little concern about external influences or The Path. Say I crave food. My mind is trying to control my belly but my belly wants to be satiated. How can I change my path? Maybe not visiting my parents would be an example. Or for most people, staying away from buffets. I go to buffets and I always joke that I have yet to see a supermodel at one of them. Coincidence? Or, a scientifically proven example, use a smaller plate at meal time. With a small plate, you don't put as much food on it and you tend to eat less.

Fooling with the path is also good because it lets your Rider use its wits to affect the Elephant with its own emotions. The Heaths use an example of getting a business to change their habits in filing expense reports by appealing to workers on an emotional level to make things easier for the well-liked HR person.

There are a lot of good tips, many of them common sense, like shrinking the change. Instead of focusing on losing fifty pounds, focus on losing five. Then once you hit that, go for five more. Etcetera.

Despite my examples, the book has very little to do with individual change. It is definitely a book geared to businesses and one I think should be essential reading for any business. It is a lot of case studies and not a whole lot of "how-to". If you're feeling the need to change something on a personal level, though, you could do a lot worse than this book.

--Jon

THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT by Joseph Monninger

I had concerns about reading Joseph Monninger's The World As We Know It. His book A Barn in New England is one of my all-time favorite books and one of my most read books. It is one of those few that I will go back and re-read. I really doubted Monninger could write two books that I thought were awesome. Plus, The World... is a novel while A Barn... is non-fiction. I had a degree of skepticism.

I shouldn't have. It was really good. The World... is about two brothers living in the little town of Warren, New Hampshire (where Monninger lives). The story begins with the two brothers in their early teens. It is winter and they are trying to ice skate up a river to Canada. They round a bend and find a young girl and her dog have fallen through the ice. The two rescue her and the girl, who is the youngest brothers age, and the younger brother fall in love.

The book goes on and details the very idyllic life of the trio and their families. The girl, Sarah, has recently moved to Warren because her father won the lottery and they were looking to "get away from it all". The brothers, Ed and Allard (Allard being the youngest), have dreamed of starting their own film company, making nature documentaries. Sarah helps them and the three grow up in a wilderness filled with love for nature, their families and each other.

Once they reach college age, Ed goes out west for college and meets up with a noted nature cinematographer and begins working for him. Allard goes to school and gets an internship with Ken Burns. Sarah pursues journalism at an Ivy League school. Even being apart from one another can't break apart the bonds of the trio. Sarah and Allard decide to get married.

By this time I'm more than halfway through this book. I'm really enjoying it but I'm bothered by a few things. First, the absolute perfection of these folks' lives. It's like they grew up in the Garden of Eden, pre-apple. Even the spat Sarah and Allard get into is resolved quite quickly and painlessly. Which leads to the second point that bothers me. Uh, Mr. Monninger....novels are supposed to have conflicts. And choosing which Ivy League school a character goes to is not a conflict (why doesn't anyone ever send their characters to St. Olaf College? Some smart college PR person needs to pay filmmakers or authors to insert their liberal arts school into their work. I'm tired of fictional characters going to Yale and Harvard and Stanford. I digress.).

It takes a long time - just after the point when I started wondering where it was and yes, more than halfway through the book - but Monninger gets his conflict in with a doozy. Everything is shaken up. The marriage does not go off. Tragedy strikes. Allard vanishes. Sarah finds another. But then it all works out in the end. Love conquers all.

I did enjoy the book. Monninger is a great writer, especially when it comes to writing about the outdoors. I was reminded a lot of another great nature writer, David James Duncan, as I read it. But Monninger also does a nice job with character development and dialogue. The story is what prevents me from regarding this book more so. It's a little trite and sappy. The conflict takes way too long to appear and given how long it takes to get there, it doesn't leave a lot of time for the resolution. Also, the lives of the characters are just way too perfect. Ken Burns? Ivy League schools? Lottery winners? Oh, and Sarah just happens to work for National Geographic upon graduation. Not the Frog Blog or the Montpelier Times or something. Just one of the premiere magazines in existence. Why not?

I can understand wanting to provide contrast for when the conflict occurs but a great life is fine for that. You don't need perfect. So that rubbed me the wrong way. Still, Monninger's writing is wonderful. It has a masculine feel to it but he yanks on your emotions, too. It's like coming across a group of flannel-clad lumberjacks crying. Not easy to do, I don't think.

So check it out. I think you'll like it.

--Jon

HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu

I'm often torn when it comes to meta-fiction. Is it clever or is it gimmicky? I think it can be a fine line and Charles Yu's How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is right on that line.

The main character in Yu's book is fictional Charles Yu. He's a time machine repairman and is a lonely fellow. As a child, his father was passionate about time travel and he recruited young Charles to help him in his pursuit of a working time machine. One day his father disappears and story Yu longs to find his father and learn why (and where or when) he vanished.

Story Yu suffers from a general ennui. He puts his time machine in a sort of neutral, keeping himself from moving through time except for the occasional call to help others with their machines. His only companions are his female computer system, Tammy, and a non-existent but existent dog named Ed.

When Yu is called in to have his own machine serviced, he is stunned to discover his future self appear. Despite having been trained to run from one's future self, Yu instead draws a gun and shoots his future self then escapes in his time machine into the future. He discovers that his future self has left him a book that he will write in the future called How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. As he reads the book, he sets out to write it knowing, however, that he will eventually go back in time and be killed by himself.

See what I mean? Clever or gimmicky? I think it's clever in that usually when you have a story about time travel, the future person goes back to change the past. It's sort of novel to have the present change the future while the future is on it's way back to the present.

While in this loop, he discovers a little more about his father and seems to be making headway right about the time he goes back to the point where he shoots himself.

Despite the meta-fiction aspect, it's a nice story about father-son relationships with a special guest appearance by one L. Skywalker. Well, of course, you may say. Is there a more notable science fictional father-son relationship than Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker? Well, it turns out the L. Skywalker is Linus Skywalker, Luke's son, who has really had a tough time coping with his father's fame. Funny little twist but really the only external reference to science fiction.

There's quirks like that. The number 31 plays an important part although I don't know why. Yu's time machine model is a TM-31 and he travels through Minor Universe 31. The book How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (the one I read, or the one Yu wrote or both?) has 31 chapters. Nice number, 31, but I must have missed the significance.

Then there's all the book references to itself. He mentions something happening on a page in the book which is the same page that it appears on in the book you're reading. Stuff like that.

It's a cute book. Very brief. I'd put it at like a 55/45 clever/gimmicky split which makes it enough to recommend.

--Jon

HORSE, FLOWER, BIRD by Kate Bernheimer

Here’s a collection of strange very short stories that may be fantastic images of dreams, delirium, madness, or hallucinations.  It’s hard to know what to think about them.  They are bizarre.

One story starts with a musician who met his wife at a wedding, where he was playing.  But the story is about the sister of the bride and groom.  No connection between the musician and the sister that I can see.

The last story, “Whitework,” seems to be a fairy tale within the delirium of a sick woman, who may be insane.  But her prognosis is good.  “You have the key to the Library,“ the doctor says.  “Only be careful what you read.“    Anyone can follow his advice.  This may be one book you should be careful of.

-Sue

DEAD BOYS by Richard Lange

Another Goodreads recommendation I enjoyed. Dead Boys, a collection of short stories by Richard Lange, was a fantastic read. I'm finding myself getting into short stories more after a lifetime of not really understanding or appreciating them (outside of those by T.C. Boyle). I have two other collections of short stories signed out from the library right now. And speaking of Boyle, Lange thanks him in the acknowledgments. I had to think that was a pretty good sign.

All of the twelve stories take place in Los Angeles and focus on men, all who are facing demons of some sort or another. There's a house painter who has been robbing banks on the side with some buddies in an effort to save enough money to move his family out of their seedy neighborhood. In another story, the main character discovers he has an ex-con half-brother when the brother comes and visits the narrator and his wife. The visit exposes the narrator's insecurities about his job and marriage. Another story involves a guy on a bender largely because he believes he is haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife.

Lange is an excellent writer. I love some of the phrases he uses in his stories. The stories were all really good. There weren't any clunkers and while there was a lot of similarity in the stories, they weren't formulaic by any means. His characters have a hard reality about them, different from say, Donald Ray Pollock's characters which are just creepy and far-fetched.

My only problem was that they were short stories. Nothing stood out about any of them individually. None of them made a lasting impression. It's not because they weren't any good - they were fantastic. There just was not enough there for me to look back and say, "Wow, that story about x was just awesome". The similarities of the stories don't help in that regard either.

I definitely liked it. In another year, I could see this book cracking my top ten. Once again, though, I have to put in the next tier down.

--Jon

BAD MARIE by Marcy Dermansky

You to have love a writer who can get you rooting for her "protagonist", a woman who just got out of prison after serving a sentence for accessory to murder. The same woman who is now trying to steal the husband of her lifelong best friend. That's not an easy task but Marcy Dermansky pulls it off in her novel, Bad Marie.

Marie works as a nanny for her friend. The friend, Ellen, gave her the job to help Marie get back on her feet. Marie fell in love with Ellen's husband, the French novelist Benoit Doniel, whose book Marie read and re-read then re-read a few gazillion more times while she was in the pokey. Marie also falls in love with Ellen and Benoit's toddler, Caitlin.

The first line of this book is right up there with Don Winslow's Savages. "Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work". The story begins with Marie and Caitlin in the bathtub, Marie falling asleep from a little too much booze. Benoit and Ellen return home to find the pair naked and that is enough to get Benoit interested as Marie is a tall, voluptuous babe. Marie also is supposedly a dead ringer for Benoit's sister, who killed herself years before.

Marie convinces Benoit to take Caitlin and the three of them flee to France. On the plane ride over, Benoit encounters an old flame of his and he dumps Marie for her. Marie takes Caitlin on the lam and travels throughout France before fleeing to Mexico.

The thing about this book is that while there are lots of proclamations of love, the only people anyone in this book truly loves are themselves. They love how other people make them feel but really, there isn't a whole lot of caring going on. Benoit is fickle enough to switch from his wife to Marie to his ex in less than 24 hours. Ellen is more concerned with Marie not getting Benoit than she is about her own relationship with Benoit and Caitlin is an afterthought to both parents. Marie is looking to fill holes in her life brought about by an uncaring mother. And when the truth about Benoit's novel comes out, Marie is over Benoit almost as fast as Benoit was over her.

Needless to say, the characters of this book aren't traveling the moral high ground. Even so, like I said, you find yourself rooting for Marie. And the book moves. I couldn't put it down. I recommended it to JJ and she, too, could not put it down.

While I did find it gripping and a really enjoyable read, the ending was a bit abrupt and while I rooted for Marie, I don't know that I ever really liked her. As a result, I'm keeping it out of thetop tier of my recommendations but I definitely recommend it.

--Jon

Body Language

I mentioned last month how I've become enamored with Derren Brown. Well, I thought I would read some stuff on body language to see what I could learn. I read Janine Driver's You Say More Than You Think and Allan Pease's The Definitive Book of Body Language and watched a DVD called Secrets of Body Language. I also thumbed through Joe Navarro's What Every Body is Saying, which my son recommended as he read it a year or two ago, but it seemed to be the same content as the other materials. None of them were of much use. Pease's book and the DVD spent a good deal of time using retroactive looks at celebrities and politicians and pointing out poses/stances/actions that potentially indicated one thing or another.

Potentially is the key word here. You really have to have an understanding of an individual's "baseline" before you read anything into their body language. If you know someone regularly does A and then they do B, you probably know they're mad/lying/want to have sex with you/whatever. But if you don't know what A is and you try to interpret B, well good luck. Is that person fidgeting because they are lying or because they are nervous or because they downed a few Red Bulls? Who knows? The folks behind these materials seemed to think they know. Amazingly, with hindsight and body language analysis, they were able to tell that Richard Nixon was often times lying. Astounding.

Driver's book had the benefit of being a seven day program to learn about body language. There were exercises at the end of each chapter, several of which required a camera to videotape yourself so you could see how you look to others. Not exactly convenient. But the exercises promote observational skills which are always a good thing. If someone were looking to check out one of these items, Driver's book would be the one I'd recommend.

--Jon

NETSUKE by Rikki Ducornet

Wow. I had been really looking forward to Netsuke, another member of our small press collection at the library. Coffee House Press put this one out and also recently donated books to the small press collection. They do awesome stuff.

I had not read Rikki Ducornet that I was aware of but I knew she was a contributor to another of our small press books, Fantastic Women, that Tin House Books put out which I am reading right now.

Having read Ducornet....wow. This is probably the most artistic writing I've read since Vendela Vida's Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name. Let me explain what I mean by that. You have your great writers: T.C. Boyle and Michael Chabon, for example. They have a mastery of the language that is just amazing. They leave me running for the dictionary some times because they have such a vast vocabulary and can find the word they want every time. There's a sort of precision to it. If they were painters, they would be Rembrandt. Highly detailed, every shadow and edge of lighting just right. They are artists in their own way. But although I can appreciate Rembrandt's skill, I don't like his paintings. I like Chabon and Boyle. It's not a direct comparison, OK?

In terms of art, I love Impressionism. My favorite painter is Camille Pissarro. I like Impressionistic paintings for their lack of detail. There's still tons of skill involved, perhaps even more so than someone like Rembrandt in that the image and purpose of the painting have to come through but without making sure every detail is captured. And that is what Netsuke felt like to me.

It surprised me to feel that way because there is a lot crudity in Netsuke. The book is 120 odd pages of sex. The main character is an older psychiatrist, on his third marriage, who abuses his role as a therapist to have sex with his patients. He also has sex with women he encounters when he's out jogging. He has sex with his male patients. He has sex with patients who are confused about their own gender. He doesn't care. He cares about his wife, to an extent. He worries about how being discovered would pain her. Yet he drops clues all the time. He's not a very likable fellow.

It's a short novel and a very quick read. The chapters are a couple of pages long each. The writing is such that it's a one-sit read. Once you start you won't want to put it down.

However, unlike Boyle and Chabon, who are also great storytellers in addition to being wordsmiths, I thought Netsuke was lacking in substance. There's not a lot of plot. The characters aren't particularly developed. It has flaws. Still well worth reading and I'm looking forward to reading more by Duchornet.

--Jon