Clifford Garstang
For me, the book is a little too sweet for 5 stars, but I did enjoy the story, which I listened to on audio. I do wish the publishers of the English translation had stuck with a literal translation of the original German title, however: Der Buch Spazierer = The Book Walker, which would be a much better title, in my opinion.
This is a fascinating book, including reflections on the bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic. My one complaint, which may be a result of having listened to the audiobook, is that it was disjointed in places and it was sometimes difficult to know which plague and which time period he was talking about. I might not have had that problem if I'd had access to a printed copy.
As an adult, I'm not this book's intended audience, but I still appreciated the story and the depiction of the main characters (including the house with all of its nooks and hiding places). Lainie is a girl with spunk, and, despite her family's traumatic past, a healthy dose of optimism (tempered by standard age-appropriate angst). I think young readers will definitely enjoy going along for the ride as Lainie attempts to solve a family mystery with the help of her best friend and a crush-worthy boy.
That Pinson Girl by Gerry Wilson. Here's the blurb I gave this novel: Devastating and beautifully written, Gerry Wilson's Spirit Light is at once a heart-rending tragedy and a testament to the indomitable human spirit. In her heroine Leona, Wilson has drawn an unforgettable character buoyed by her determination to survive and to care for her child, even when confronted with violence, racial tensions, the horrors of a distant war, mounting losses from the influenza epidemic, and the lingering repercussions of murder. This historical tale about a hard-scrabble Southern farming family grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go.
I rarely finish a book and think I must reread it, but that's how I feel about this one. The basic story is about a young musician who attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge in Istanbul. He survives, but loses his memory. He grasps at the few things he does remember, but his understanding of time is out of whack. The book is political, in the sense that the entire history of Turkey is political, and while the book is short, it covers a lot of ground.
Penultimates, by Thomas Farber is a new book that came out this month. Here's the blurb I gave the book: Dwelling on endings and near-endings, as Thomas Farber does in his lyrical and reflective book Penultimates, is paradoxically uplifting. The reader is treated to a series of short, poignant essays that honor the approach and arrival of old age, without trepidation or regret. There is, perhaps, a bit of wistfulness in these pages, but also a sense of gratitude for the accomplishments and courage of many of the people the author has admired over the course of a long life. There is also an air of inevitability, although let us hope, as the title of the collection suggests, that these are not Farber's last words on the subject.
Rounded up. While the sentences were strong and the characters of the two middle sections were mostly interesting, the structure of this novel bothered me. The whole first section, which purports to be a novel itself, while compelling by itself, isn't needed for the whole. The book, IMO, would have been stronger if this “libelous” fictional biography of Andrew Bevel and his wife had simply been referred to in the middle two sections, rather than present in its entirety. Likewise, the last section feels a bit like an epilogue, where a few questions were answered, but because the style was so different from the earlier parts, it fell flat for me. Even the second section, which tells much of the story from Bevel's point of view is problematic because of the choice to present it as if it were a draft of the final piece, which markings for where additional material is needed. As a whole, though, the book does paint a portrait of the crazy financial happenings of the 1920s, so I'm glad I read it.
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.
My philosophy of book reviewing is that one doesn't have to be the ideal audience for a book in order to appreciate what the author has set out to do. Except that I have also traveled extensively and lived outside the US for long periods, I have very little in common with this writer, either professionally or personally, so it's a little hard for me to relate to some of the episodes about which she writes. We do both come from less-than-wealthy backgrounds and have worked hard to achieve our goals, but that's about it. If I can't relate, that's certainly not a flaw of the book.
Having said that, the author reminds me of a good friend I had when I lived in Asia. A smart, hard-working woman who also made it a priority to have fun. Not such a bad way to live, for her. And if I had to characterize this book, I might call it Sex in the City Goes on the Road. Funny, fast-paced, sexy, all while visiting some exotic locales (most of which I've also visited). That's what the author is going for, and she has done it well.
Silverview by John LeCarre is another—the last, apparently—spy novel from the master of the genre. Completed by his son and published after his death, the novel focuses on a figure outside the Secret Service. He is a disillusioned former trader from London who has cashed in his former lifestyle and moved to a village where he has opened a bookshop. There he becomes acquainted with a mysterious figure, Edward, who claims to have known his father at school. The two begin a venture that is tangential to the bookshop to build a library of classics. For this purpose, Edward needs a dedicated laptop in the basement room where the library will be housed. (Uh-oh, red flag!). Meanwhile, it seems that Edward, who occasionally did work for the Secret Service, is married to a woman who was formerly high-up in the service who is now dying, but he also made contacts with the Muslim world while working in Bosnia during the war there. It's an engaging book, as all of LeCarre's have been. (I listened the excellent audiobook narration but also perused a hardback copy I borrowed from the library.)
This is a heckuva novel–sprawling, engrossing, exciting, moving. It's a story of life, death, and redemption, in which past conflicts–sometimes distant past–resurface with uncertain outcomes. I think only someone like this author who has come to know the territory and the people about which she writes could have pulled this off. In the process of telling us a story about a gruff old retired Army colonel who is unhappy about his current situation, the author also lets the reader discover an incredibly complex history of the region and its inhabitants, the descendants of native and enslaved people. And then the winds of change come and stir everything up.
I admire these stories and the odd sensibility they represent. What connects them is a quirk in most of the stories that pivots on the unreal–almost but not quite magical realism. Having recently read the author's novel The Sweet Indifference of the World, I have the sense that this is something of a hallmark of his work.
Martin Ott's Shadow Dance is the perfect L.A. Noir novel for our times, with a little of everything—romance, drugs, filmmaking, PTSD, twisted families, repressed memories, and mysterious disappearances—all set in a sketchy strip club in Little Persia on L.A.'s West Side. Ott's Buddy Rivet is a deeply flawed character, a hard-luck Army vet, who readers will root for, a soulful guy who wants to save the world but isn't sure he can save himself. This book is L.A. Confidential meets The Family Fang, with all the deception and double-cross of a terrific crime story, told in breathless, blunt-force-trauma prose.
This is my book club's selection for December and I'm sure it will spark a lot of discussion about how frightening the far-right takeover of the court is. Waldman's book is excellent and I'm an admirer of the work the Brennan Center does generally. It's been a very long time since I took Constitutional Law (it's a first-year required class in law school), but this brought back memories.
As a fan of Thornton Wilder (I read a great biography of him a few years ago), I appreciated the “Our Town” thread that ran throughout TOM LAKE. Lara, the narrator, is from New Hampshire and appears in a production of the play in high school and later as a professional in summer stock at Tom Lake, an arts community in Michigan (a la Interlochen?). She falls in love (or is seduced off her feet) by the actor who plays her father, although he is only a couple of years older. The book is the story of their tortured relationship as told by her many years later to her daughters. One of the things I liked about this structure is that it is crystal clear why this narrator is telling this story and to whom it is being told. Still, I'm struggling to find depth in this story, as engaging a read as it was.
Tim O'Brien's new novel is a blast, but it reads more like Pynchon than O'Brien. It's a crazy crime story, but it's really about “mythomania,” the epidemic of lying, fake news, and conspiracy theory that has gripped America in recent years. Trump and epidemic deniers take their share of criticism here, but so do the nutty Q-anon believers and Fox News talking heads (if not by name). This will not win O'Brien fans among conservatives, but he's right on with his take. Mythomania certainly is a disease and it's contagious, but the cure is to tell the truth.
Sensational book. I suppose you have to be interested in art to really appreciate it, but even without much background I think any reader will appreciate the gripping story. And while I already knew a fair amount about Picasso and his contemporaries, the focus here on two Americans (a collector and a museum director) was especially interesting and revelatory. I listened to the audiobook version, which was narrated wonderfully.