The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, 311 pages

Offred is the name given to the main character of this dystopian fiction. It's not her real name, of course, but when everything changed and women became little more than property to be "protected" by her society, her name became a label indicating what man she belonged to. Offred is a handmaid, which is a woman who serves as a vessel for infertile families.  She is basically no more than a sexual object, both reviled by most of society and recognized as a necessary role in an age of drastically declining birth rates.  This is a story that in its telling sounds like an impossibility, but it raises much to discuss regarding reproductive control, the dangers of being uninformed, radical and mainstream feminism, and institutional misogyny as perpetuated by both men and women. This is one of those "classics" that has earned the description.

You Don't Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out and Finding Feminism

You Don't Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out and Finding Feminism, by Alida Nugent, 218 pages

This collection of "essays" felt a little scattered and unpolished, but it did offer an interesting look at what younger feminists feel are the important issues of today. Several of her essays really rang true; including those addressing consent as a topic unaddressed in sex ed classes, and how difficult it can be for women to form meaningful friendships with other women. Nugent's heart is in the right place, even if she doesn't seem to have experience with all of the topics she discusses and sometimes lapses into contradictory statements.

This is where it ends

This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp          282 pages

In 54 minutes, terror reigns as one student takes a school auditorium hostage.  

Told from four different viewpoints, some inside the auditorium, this story focuses on a horrific school shooting.   I found this to be a pretty quick read, although it left me with mixed feelings after finishing it.   So, I went on Goodreads to see what other readers thought.   As it turns out, I wasn't the only reader left feeling a bit disappointed.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book was that the characters were diverse.  I had expected this, since the author is an executive member of We Need Diverse Books.   It was a little surprising that there would be this amount of diversity in such a small school, but I didn't have a problem believing it.  What I didn't like was that I felt like the characters were a bit flat.  I understand that in the span of 54 minutes, you can't get to know them very well, but I felt like for a few of them, I was coming in after the book had already started, like I was supposed to know things about a character already.   And, I kept mixing up a few of the characters.  Considering how much diversity there is here, it should have been easier for me to tell them apart, or at least get a clearer picture of each of them in my head.

I think the biggest disappointment for me is that you don't get anything about the kid who is the shooter, other than general impression that he is "evil."  But, I had expected more.  Maybe his perspective at some point?  But when all you have is the perspectives from other students, it's hard to get a good picture.   Issues get brought up in the story, but they are just touched on, or barely mentioned at all.   Again, I understand that this is all supposed to take place in 54 minutes, but I felt there could have been more here to offer a reader.  

Twenty Seventh City

The Twenty Seventh City by Jonathan Franzen, 517 pages

St. Louis, Missouri, is slowly falling off the map. Once hailed as the fourth largest it has fallen to twenty seventh. Crime is up, and businesses are fleeing for the county, or elsewhere. But the new police chief, named S. Jammu intends to fix all of that. But as crime figures drop a series of political terrorist attacks rock the city. Though she vows to find and stop these terrorist, people cannot help but notice the attacks seem to be helping Jammu more than hurting the city.

I read this book after hearing two coworkers talking about Franzen’s work. This piqued my interest and so I started at the beginning. At first I really liked this book. It used neighborhoods I am familiar with, and I could really picture the buildings and intersections as he mentioned them. But as the book went on, I became more and more frustrated with Franzen’s change of scenes. There was the classic blank line to let you know that he had hopped characters, but no introductory line to let you know to whom you were now reading about. Eventually this could be extrapolated from the text, but at times this took many paragraphs. I even caught myself skimming ahead to find out whose storyline I was in. If it wasn’t for this vagueness, I think the book would have been great, but as it is I can only call it good.

The Twenty Seventh City certainly merits reading, especially if you are from St. Louis or lived here long enough to know the area. It is sad to say, but I could easily see this book being played out today.

The Kate Daniels series, books 1 to 6

Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes, Magic Mourns, Magic Bleeds, and Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews, (6 books - 1669 pages)

The Kate Daniels series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world that has, and is constantly ravaged by magic. Now this isn’t the fun kind of magic that you see in books like Harry Potter, this is wild magic. Magic that washes over the world in waves without any warning. Magic that stops technology, kills electricity and erodes buildings. With this apocalyptic onslaught comes various monsters, vampires, shapeshifters, and psychotic magic users. Kate’s job is to make sure the world doesn’t spiral further down the drain.

These books and this series, have quickly become favorites of mine. Not only do they feature a lot of action, some elements of steampunk, and well developed fantasy world, they also have a completely believable lead character. One that doesn’t have to survive by luck or rely on her friends, one that is willing to get the job done, sometimes in very gruesome ways.

I would highly recommend this series to everyone that has read anything fantasy by Kenyon, and want something with more action than lust.

Grammar of Assent

An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent by Bl John Henry Newman, 492 pages

It is possible to divide this brilliant classic by Bl John Henry Newman into two intertwined halves, one philosophical, one apologetical, though in truth the two are mutually dependent.  Newman uses a proto-phenomenological approach to the key questions of epistemology, distinguishing between the calculations of deduction and the act of assent to propositions.  This latter forms the key component of every kind of belief, and its recognition serves as a defense against the acid of radical skepticism.  For Newman, truth is not understood as the result of cold calculations, but glimpsed through an "illative sense" analogous to the aesthetic sense, and then embraced by the will.  This returns the human person to the center of understanding, displacing the impersonal observer favored by modernity, and serves to reconnect Newman to the whole Western tradition going back to Athens and Jerusalem.

For most thinkers, A Grammar of Assent would be their masterpiece, but with Newman it must compete with his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Idea of a University, and the Apologia Pro Vita Sua.  His mastery of the English language makes the book surprisingly readable despite its philosophical subject matter and chronological distance.

Killer Pursuit

Killer Pursuit by Jeff Gunhus   350 pages

I discovered author Jeff Gunhus’ work in 2015 when I read his Night Chill and The Torment of Rachel Adams. Night Chill scared me so bad that I didn’t sleep for three days and still haven’t worked up the courage to read its sequel, Night Terror.

But now he’s turned to a new genre, the political thriller. In Killer Pursuit, the second in the Allison McNeil series, Gunhus takes on serial killers, FBI agents, and prostitutes in Washington, D.C.

High society call-girl, Catherine Fews, is brutally murdered in her Georgetown home. While Catherine is being dismembered, Allison is about to gun down another bad guy.

The D.C. detectives who are investigating Catherine’s death find not one, but two, cameras hidden in her bedroom walls. One is a traditional, security-like camera that has had its memory erased. The other is a highly sophisticated device that “is connected to the Internet through an encrypted connection…and no one knows who’s on the other end.” Hence the FBI’s involvement.

As the news of Catherine’s death travels through the city, many high profile politicians start to sweat, especially the man most likely to be the next President of the United States.

Because of the nature of the crime, the FBI Director asks Allison to run an off-the-record investigation. Seems this case is similar to the one in the first book, Killer Within, which justifies Allison’s probe. I haven’t read the first book. When Gunhus refers to that case, he does an excellent job in supplying the details the reader needs.

Killer Pursuit is a good read, not a great read, which is why I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It had a strong plot (the killer was a surprise). The writing was good, the pacing was excellent. The dialogue was natural and flowed well, and the characters were well-developed. However, there just wasn’t’ anything to set the novel apart from the hundreds that are already out there. 

The Testing Trilogy

The Testing, Independent Study and Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau, (3 books - 945 pages)

This series was recommended to me while I was reading similar books like Hunger Games, Affinities, and one other I cannot remember right now. It is very much in that same vain. In a dystopia future, where the world has been ravaged by war, only the best and brightest are allowed to attend college, and establish themselves in good careers or politics. When Cia Vale and Tomas are selected from Five Lakes, the first candidates in many years, they are elated. Or at least Cia is until her father warns her of a sinister aspect of the tests.

I hate to say it, but the best thing about these books were how fast they read. Meaning I did not spend much time on them, allowing me to read something better. Now my opinion might be bias because I am not a young adult, the intended audience, and have read lots of books that have portrayed this story archetype better. I am not saying that this was all bad. It just seemed flat.

The Pretty One: A novel about sisters

The Pretty One: A novel about sisters by Lucinda Rosenfeld.  305 pages.

The three Hellinger sisters, Imperia (Perri), Olympia (Pia) and Augusta (Gus) have been playing out their roles for almost 40 years.  Set in these roles by their domineering mother, they have fallen into routines, and also routinely argue with each other.   However, are starting to unravel for each of them, and when a freak accident lands their mother in the hospital, everything starts to come apart.  There's no comfort zone for any of them anymore, and the familiar roles just don't seem to fit.

I found this book to be a page turner, but mostly because I was curious about what was going to happen to the characters.  I didn't find it was heavily invested in any of them, but I was curious about them.  The dynamic between all three of them would sometimes get a little tedious, and I would start to predict what one sister would do, or how she would interact with another sister.  However, I did enjoy the sharp humor in the book, and at times, would find myself snickering to myself.

When I got to this part, near the end, I felt it summed up what I had been thinking halfway through the book.  "Olympia released a long sigh.  Then she said, 'Perri, do you ever hear yourself?  You're always competing with me over whose life is harder,  Honestly, it's really tedious."   I enjoy stories like this from time to time because they give me that voyeuristic feeling of looking into someone's house window as I drive past, a glimpse of a different life.  And, it's a bit like visiting somewhere and thinking to yourself, that was nice, but I don't want to live there.

Afterschool Charisma Volumes 1 -8 by Kumiko Suekane, 1579 pages – 8 Volumes

Afterschool Charisma is about a school named St. Kleio. But what makes St. Kleio unique is its clientele, all of the students are clones of famous historical figures, all of them except for Shirou. Shirou is just a normal kid whose father is one of the leading scientist working with the clones. Being the only “human” in the bunch causes all sorts of problems. But when recently graduated clone Kennedy gets assassinated much like his predecessor, everyone is left wondering are they destined to die the same as the originals, or can they live their own life.

I had come across this series some time ago but thought it looked too high school life for my tastes. I don’t need a book on how rough it is to fit in in high school. I have been there and done that, sure I could look back and reflect on that time, but I would rather not. I don’t think I ever would have read this series, if it had not come up as a recommendation on a book site. There I read the reviews, and what the series was about and decided is more about questioning free will vs fate, or destiny then fitting in. Having argued about free will in both high school and college, I wanted to see what argument Suekane would make.

Overall I found this series to be adequate. It never really distinguished itself in any major way, but then again never failed in any major way. You can certainly read it to pass the time, but I found it to be a book you read and forget.

Civilization of the Renaissance

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt, translated by SGC Middlemore, 394 pages

One of the classics of cultural history, Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was first published in 1860 in German.  In it, Burckhardt surveys the literature of Italy during that ill-defined period called the Renaissance, and identifies the Italian city-states, with their intellectual ferment, financial prosperity, incessant wars, political upheavals, and social mobility, as the incubators of the modern concept of individuality.

That Burckhardt forms his conclusions based upon the literature of the period inevitably causes problems - just as a history of the US in the late twentieth century that used the portrayal of life in cop shows and action movies as a major source might very well conclude that Americans lived in constant fear of attack by neo-Nazis and Russian terrorists, Burckhardt's sources sometimes lead him in the direction of overly dramatic declarations.  The author is fully aware of these problems - as shown in a section in which he compares the efficacy of actual poisons to the purported properties ascribed to poisons by Renaissance chroniclers - but he is not always able to overcome them - as when he claims the existence of a "nest of witches" near Nurcia on the evidence of a letter that itself reports claims that witches and demons congregate in a local cave as a mere rumor.  Meanwhile, in keeping with his time, Burckhardt saw nothing of value in the Counter-Reformation or the Baroque style that accompanied it.  The book is only passingly concerned with the visual arts, which will frustrate readers who expect a book on the Renaissance to focus on art history.

Burckhardt mastered a vast range and body of material, and his survey of Italian Renaissance culture is rich and compelling.  In many ways, some of the best works on the Renaissance since his time (Hiram Haydn's The Counter-Renaissance) have been explorations of features and perplexities he identified.

Recipes for Love and Murder

Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew.  378 pages (not including recipes at the end of the book).
"Isn't life funny?  You know, how one thing leads to another in a way you just don't expect."   So starts this story of Tannie Maria, a woman who likes to cook and write a bit, and who writes a column for her local newspaper.   At first, it's just an advice column but then it blossoms into a blend of the right advice and the right recipe.

However, all of the anonymous letters Tannie Maria receives are easy to answer, and when she receives one from a woman whose husband beats her, things take a serious turn.   Tannie Maria tries her best at giving the woman good advice, but when a woman turns up dead, and seems to fit the description of the woman from the letter, dispensing advice turns into solving a murder.


The back of this book has a blurb from Alexander McCall Smith, and I had read that it compared to McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.   While it's longer than McCall Smith's average book, this story had a steady pace that kept me turning the pages.   Our main character is charming and easy to relate to, and there's an interesting cast of supporting characters.   Although this is a murder mystery, there's much in the book that is lighthearted.   Touching on the issues of domestic violence and fracking, there's also advice in here about life and love.  And, plenty of writing about food.  While I was familiar with some of the ingredients and foods in the book, others were completely new to me.

Although the story was enjoyable, I often had to flip to the glossary at the back of the book.  I am not familiar with Afrikaans or Dutch and there's a lot sprinkled through the story.   I'm curious about listening to this as an audiobook, to see how some of the words are pronounced.  This is a lighter mystery than what I usually read, but it was nice to take a break from my usual dark thrillers.

I would agree that this book would probably be enjoyed by fans of Alexander McCall Smith and Andrea Camilleri, and who are looking for a story that's a combination of murder mystery, romance, and food writing.

Half of a Yellow Sun

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 433 pages

Half of a Yellow Sun is a historical fiction novel that takes place during Biafra’s attempt at independence from Nigeria in the 1960’s. We are guided through the winding narrative by the main characters, Ugwu the houseboy, Odenigbo his master and a local professor, and Olanna the professor’s mistress, also to a lesser extent Richard a write and Kainene, Olanna’s sister.

Half of a Yellow Sun is another book I read for a book group, but unlike the previous blogged about book, this one was up my alley, or at least near my ally. While it had little in common with the historic fiction by Turtledove that I do read, I found it to be at worst bearable, and at times even enjoyable.

But what I truly liked about this book was how Chimamanda choose to end the book. It is sadly too rare for a book end in such a fashion, and for that I instantly thought better of this book.

Note: This is not the cover my edition had, but this seems to be an accepted version.

Through the Dark

Through the Dark by Alexandra Bracken, 400 pages

I feel similarly about this series of three novellas (which fit after each of the books of the main trilogy, as entries 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5) to how I feel about the original three books (which began with The Darkest Minds). The first novella, "In Time," is the best of the three, and not only has the strongest message, but also the strongest emotional core. The second novella, "Sparks Rise," has at least one very peculiar plot point, and paints a picture so bleak that the tragedy almost gets repetitive. The third novella, "Beyond the Night," tries to strike a kind of balance between the two, only partially succeeds, and ends a bit too cleanly, given everything that leads up to it.

Taken as a whole, the three books and three novellas create a very well-realized world. At its best, it creates characters that you'll love and root for, and compelling (if not entirely unique) struggles for them to work through together. At its worst, it becomes predictable, dour, and almost (but not!) lifeless. In the end, though, even the weakest points kept me reading, and the best points make this a series worth recommending for those not already burnt out on YA dystopia.

In the story itself, quotes like this occasionally feel forced, but this one in particular does sum up the series as a whole:

"...we are stronger for what's happened to us... We have been given the gift of understanding that we can come through struggle and pain... We have learned that life is one journey, and the purpose is not to reach some treasure at the end of it, but to find the courage to decide which paths to take, who to travel with, and to let things fall into place as they should and will." -Beyond the Night, p.365

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon, 148 pages

This is not the type of book I normally read. There is very little action, no mythical creatures, and is certainly not steampunkish. In fact this book is so completely opposite what I normally read, I never would have even come across it, if it had not been for the book group I joined. That in its self is not a bad thing. I joined because I needed to find new books to read, and even better people to discuss them with over a couple of beers. But this book really tried my patience. In fact I will even go so far to say, that if I had not needed to read it for the group, I would not have finished it.

Through essays, letters and confessions the reader skips and jumps through the life of Kiese. Along the way you encounter various forms of racism, violence, and pop culture seen firsthand through his eyes. I would like to say that the story was motivating or inspiring, but the best I can truly say is that it left me confused. While most of my confusion was the result of pop culture references that went over my head, I had a sense of confusion about what he was trying to say. Is the message just to keep trying? I know he wasn’t trying to solve any of the problems with racism, as he says he does not have the answers. Maybe there is no message, maybe this is simply a piece of his life he felt needed shared.

I am not sure which types of readers would enjoy this book so I am not going to recommend it to anyone, but if you do happen to read it, and feel like talking about it stop on by.

 A note for the fellow bus riders out there. Reading this book on the bus, with the title plainly shown, has resulted in no one sitting near me. Results may vary.

Book of Earth

The Book of Earth by Alfred Noyes, 328 pages

The Book of Earth is the middle book in Noyes' trilogy of epic poems celebrating scientific progress - where the first, Watchers of the Sky, followed the course of astronomical discoveries, the second trips through time following the advance of knowledge about the Earth and the life that teems upon it, from Pythagoras to Darwin.  The image of the naked geological strata within the Grand Canyon symbolize the book of the world, in which the Creator's mind is revealed to the ardent seeker after truth.  Noyes himself is committed to the words he puts in the mouth of Nichomachus, speaking to his son Aristotle - "...the living truth / Is here on earth if we could only see it."

Poetically, this work may be forgettable, but the story it tells is not, and that story simply could not be told in prose.

Smoke

Smoke by Dan Vyleta        448 pages   (due out May, 2016)  

"The laws of Smoke are complex. Not every lie will trigger it. A fleeting thought of evil may pass unseen; a fib, an excuse, a piece of flattery. Next thing you know its smell is in your nose. There is no more hateful smell in the world than the smell of Smoke."

In an imagined version of England, people who are wicked in thought and deed are marked by Smoke which pours forth from their bodies.  If you are a virtuous person, or a member of the aristocracy, you never Smoke (or do you?).   Three young people at an elite boarding school soon learn that everything they have been taught is a lie, putting their lives in danger.  Pursuing the truth, they discover secrets in attic rooms, in London, and in the relationships between daughter and mother, father and son.

This is an absolutely beautifully written book.  It's intense, and imaginative, and complex.   I found I would read a paragraph and then go back and savor it, because it was so thought-provoking or written in such a way that I wanted to linger over it.   I really enjoyed this book, and found that even though there were complexities in the plot, that I became immersed in the story.   Starting off, and learning about the rules of Smoke, it's complicated.  The fact that some people can lie and not trigger it at all, while others have a single thought and give themselves away lends an interesting element to the story.  So, the rules we are given are changeable, and this becomes more evident as the story progresses.

The setting, of an alternate-feeling London, lent itself well to the story.  Anyone familiar with the great smogs of London can easily imagine the London in this story.   The one thing that I occasionally found confusing was that you get viewpoints from many characters, and I would sometimes need to go back and figure out just who someone was (and how they might relate to another character).

The writing is descriptive, and the tone is atmospheric.  Similar authors that came to my mind were Neil Gaiman (although his stories aren't always quite this dark) and China Mieville (especially in the beautiful use of the written word).   Certain phrases also made me think of Ray Bradbury, who I often felt was a real artist in how he could craft a sentence or phrase.  

Here's an example: "The laws of Smoke are complex. Not every lie will trigger it.  A fleeting thought of evil may pass unseen; a fib, an excuse, a piece of flattery.  Sometimes you can lie quite outrageously and find yourself spared...At other times, the Smoke is conjured by transgressions so trifling you are hardly aware of them at all... There is no more hateful smell in the world than the smell of Smoke."  (p. 17)

This is the kind of dark tale that I enjoy, where it sticks in my mind and I keep coming back to it (and then want to re-read it again).


Note: I read an e-galley of this book, courtesy of Edelweiss.   A copy of this book has been ordered for the Library's collection in the Center for the Reader.  

Minding the Modern

Minding the Modern: Human Agency, Intellectual Traditions, and Responsible Knowledge by Thomas Pfau, 618 pages

Minding the Modern is a monumental work tracing the development of the concept of human will from the Aristotelian-Augustinian medieval synthesis, through the voluntarism of the late scholastics, and into the mechanistic determinism of the modern era.  Following in the footsteps of contemporary thinkers including Alisdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, Pfau charts a gradual shift from a concept of human agency capable of rational deliberation and choice between ends to a model of efficient causation driven and therefore determined by either passion and appetite or by socialized behavior.  While the former is dependent upon a logos which not only orders the cosmos but makes genuine human communication and communion possible, the latter reduces all human relationships to incommensurable perspectives and power struggles; while the former is open to the gift of otherness, the latter is closed off in a buffered self of atomistic individualism.  The book finishes with an extended presentation of Coleridge's critique of Enlightenment determinism.

A professor at Duke primarily specializing in English and German romanticism, Pfau presents his thesis with remarkable thoroughness and subtlety, which makes the book as extraordinarily difficult to read as it is extraordinarily rewarding.  The end - not a conclusion - promises a sequel, which should be awaited with bated breath.

If You Were Me and Lived in...Italy: A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World

If You Were Me and Lived in...Italy: A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World by Carole P. Roman   30 pages

Author Carole P. Roman takes her 16^th book in the “A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World” to Italy. Along with illustrator Kelsa Wierenga, Roman explores what a childr’s daily life would be like if he/she lived lo Stivale or “the boot.”

Along with the mini-geography lesson, readers also receive a mini-history lesson and experience daily life, from football (do they really call it football in Italy?) to going to Nonno and Nonna’s house for Sunday dinner.

I like that Wierenga chose to illustrate the book with both a boy and a girl. I also like the pronunciation key for the unfamiliar words.

I give If You Were Me and Lived in...Italy: A Child's Introduction to Cultures Around the World 4 out of 5 stars. Why 4? The part about the football really bothered me.

Die Again Tomorrow

Die Again Tomorrow by Kira Peikoff     320 Pages

Isabel Leon, television reality star, is dead. Her body, washed up on Key West beach, is discovered by a toddler. Two ambulances arrive simultaneously, when she has been gone for seven minutes. One set of EMTs do their best to resuscitate her, but twenty-one minutes dead, they give up and call her death. The other EMTs are waiting nearby and agree to take the body to the morgue.

But once the second group has Isabel’s body in their ambulance, things begin to happen. Dr. Horatio Quinn presses a button and the doctored (no pun intended) ambulance begins to turn into a small laboratory. Using X101, an experimental drug not approved by the FDA and developed by Quinn, is administered along with a set of complicated other medical interventions.

Soon Isabel is alive. Although she suffers from fatigue, as is expected, there is no brain damage. The medical team who saved her operates outside the law. The Network, as it is called, can change the world.

But Isabel faces a major hurdle. She recently “sold” her life insurance to save her mother from breast cancer. She herself, a high risk, underwent a double mastectomy to avoid the cancer from developing in her. Now that she will probably live a long and healthy life, her broker is furious. It will take too many years for him to collect, and he wants, no needs, the money now.

The story begins at the end, with Isabel’s death and continues that way for a while. Readers get a chance to see the backstory so that when the narrative shifts from past to present, the transition is seamless. That’s tricky thing to pull off, but Piekoff does it masterfully. The story grabbed me from the first sentence (1 minute dead.). In addition to her “benefactor”, there are people who want to get their hands on the X101 and will get rid of anything and anyone who is in the way. A great thrill ride that I give 5 out of 5 stars.

Carthage

Carthage, by Joyce Carol Oates, 400 pages

Cressida Mayfield has gone missing, and all signs point to her sister's ex-fiancee, an Iraq war veteran recovering from some pretty serious physical and emotional traumas.  The story is really told through Cressida, a downright unlikable main character; her father, a man used to getting anything he wants who struggles with the realization that there are some things out of his control; and lesser amounts from Cressida's mother, sister, and the accused killer, himself.   This is one of those books you may like if you enjoy the constant rehashing and endless pages of people's thoughts, family dynamics where half of the family is detestable, or if you just really want to listen to an audiobook where when it is over, you find yourself calculating how many good movies you could have watched in that time, instead.  (Probably about 10)

Landline

Landline, by Rainbow Rowell, 310 pages

Don't get me wrong, I love alot of young adult fiction, but it frequently seems to lead you to the point where guy and girl get together, and walk into a sunset- the end.  But... what about the next morning, when the sun rises, and the days and weeks and years after?  What happens to guy and girl?  What happens when that exciting, unpredictable relationship becomes... routine?  That is the starting point for this adult novel with shadows of YA throughout- Georgie and Neal love each other very much, but after 15 or so years together, things have gotten rough.  Communication is nonexistent and they both have pretty significant issues that are threatening to end the marriage.  When Neal takes their daughters to Omaha for Christmas without Georgie, she has to do alot of reflecting and weigh out whether their relationship is one that can be saved.

Something that I felt was pretty powerful in this book was the honesty surrounding long-term relationships.  They are... hard.  Rowell pulled on all of my heart strings when she described it as such:  "It's like... you're tossing a ball between you, and you're just hoping you can keep it in the air.  And it has nothing to do with whether you love each other or not.  If you didn't love each other, you wouldn't be playing this stupid game with the ball.  You love each other- and you just hope you can keep the ball in play."

And I don't think this spoils the book/ending in any way, but... there's no perfect ending to this story. We have two people who love each other very much promising to keep trying harder.  Do we, the readers, know if they'll keep their promises the next day, or in 5 years?  No, we don't- but... isn't that what relationships and that "stupid game with the ball" is all about?  There are no guarantees, no way to know how they will end... so you just need to try to enjoy every minute that the ball is still in play.

Averroes

Averroes: A Rationalist in Islam by Roger Arnaldez, 128 pages

Ibn Rushd, known to the West as Averroes, was a Spanish Muslim of the 12th century.  Preeminent among the falasifa, Averroes, more than anyone else, was the key transmitter and interpreter of Aristotle for medieval Europe - as Aristotle became known as "The Philosopher", Averroes became "The Commentator".  His works are largely responses to Avicenna (Ibn Sina), whom he considered mistaken in his interpretation of Aristotle, and to al-Ghazali, with whom he disagreed on the relationship between faith and philosophy, but his own works were not widely read within the Islamic world.

Arnaldez denies that Averroes advanced the concept of "double truth" - that there are two truths, one of faith and another of philosophy, which are equally true but also irreconcilable - which was a central issue in controversies over his works in the West.  Rather, Arnaldez attempts to demonstrate how Averroes' career as a jurist shaped his overall attitude towards reason and revelation.  Similarly, Arnaldez demonstrates that Averroes did not hold to the other view most commonly associated with him, that of the unicity of the intellect, that all human beings share the same rational soul.

Averroes is an excellent synopsis of the work of one of the world's greatest philosophers.  It could easily have been twice as long - at times it becomes quite dense and readers might have benefited from more background on medieval Islamic philosophy and culture.  Averroes was many things - doctor, lawyer, philosopher, Muslim - and Arnaldez remarkably manages not to slight any aspect of his life and writings.

What She Knew

What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan.  467 pages.

This story opens with Rachel, reflecting on her life since her son, Ben, went missing.  "In the eyes of others, we're often not who we imagine ourselves to be . . . Should we trust or rely on somebody just because they're a figure of authority, or a family member?  Are any of our friendships and relationships really based on secure foundation?"     This book focuses on Ben's disappearance, and the search for him, but it explores not only Rachel's relationship with Ben, but with her family, her ex-husband, and even the relationship of two of the investigators to not only the search for Ben, but to each other.    As the media focuses on Rachel, sympathy quickly turns to suspicion, and Rachel soon realizes that nothing is as she thought it was.

In this book, you get a number of alternating viewpoints: Rachel and James Clemo (one of the investigators) mainly.  It's an interesting way to tell the story, because you're getting different viewpoints on the search for Ben, but you're also discovering things about the characters as you go along.   There are a lot of secrets that are revealed, and thus, a lot of suspicion back and forth between people.  So, it's hard to tell what might be the truth.  Combined with the search for the missing child, as a reader, you're kept off balance.  You don't know if you can trust what Rachel is revealing, or what's necessarily happening with the police investigation, either.   The pace is taut and steady, and I found this book to be a page-turner and difficult to put down.    And no spoilers here: I won't tell you what happens to Ben.   If you're a fan of suspense stories, this might be one to pick up (and find out what happens!).

Body, Community, Language, World

Body, Community, Language, World by Jan Patocka, translated by Erazim Kohak, 183 pages

Czech phenomenologist Patocka was banned from teaching for most of his life by the Soviet-backed Communist dictatorship that ruled his native land throughout most of his lifetime.  He continued to mentor small groups of students as part of the "Underground University", but during the Prague Spring of 1968 he was fleetingly able to lecture publicly.  Body, Community, Language, World is a reconstruction of those lectures based upon notes taken by his students.

Patocka undertakes a phenomenological analysis of corporeity, the embodiedness of the human subject.  For Patocka, it is the body which is being-here, establishing the primary orientation of the human person towards action, which is always interaction, involving the world in its assorted potentialities.  The lectures unfold as a dialectic between the ideas of Husserl and those of Heidegger, building upon both, and drawing in other thinkers from Aristotle to Bergson in a masterful synthesis.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald.  384 pages.

Broken Wheel, Iowa, isn't the kind of place most people go for a vacation.  But Sara comes all the way from Sweden to see her friend Amy, a woman she's corresponded with about books for years.  However, the day she gets there, Sara discovers it's the day of Amy's funeral.   While the residents of the town are happy to look after Sara, they don't quite understand her love of books.  And when Sara opens a bookstore on Main Street, things in town really begin to change.

This is a quick read, focusing on friendship, quirky characters, and the route to happy endings.  I thought it was a charming story, and I liked that there was a focus on books.  Some of the storyline was predictable, but I didn't mind that.  This was a good book for a cold day; it's one of those stories where you can settle in to a chair with a cup of tea and just enjoy getting to know the town and the characters.   The author does a good job of making the town and the people easy to envision and the story has a steady pace.

This book has been compared to other books:  The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer.   I think that if you enjoy those books, you'll find this an enjoyable read, as well.

If I Fall, If I Die

If I Fall, If I Die  by Michael Christie   352 pages

Eleven-year-old Will has never been Outside. Literally. Since he and his mother moved into their home, he has not been outside. His mother Diane suffers from agoraphobia, which they refer to as the Black Lagoon. She has built a world, and Will’s world, Inside. 

Thank God for technology, as they can order any and everything they need and have it delivered. Will is a small adult in this area, as he signs for all the packages and writes any and all the checks. He knows what Outside looks, feels, and smells like, but he has never, in his memory, attempted to cross the threshold. Inside, he wears a Helmet and a wet suit at all times.

Instead of calling each room by its functional name (bedroom, kitchen, Mom’s room, etc.), Diane has renamed the rooms (Cairo, San Francisco, Tokyo, etc.). It’s hard to keep them straight and figure it out. At first I thought the mother and son were world travelers.

The story open as Will decides to venture Outside. He has heard a noise and wants to explore its origins. Outside, Will discovers Marcus stealing the garden hose. Intrigued with the boy, Will wants to learn more about Outside.

This is the beginning of Will’s bildungsroman. Although his Inside life have centered around music, art, and science experiment, he has never been to school.  “Homeschooled,” is how Diane describes it when anyone tries to intervene.

He meets Jonah, a loner, who introduces him to skating boarding. Soon, he is skateboarding all over the city, had quit wearing his Helmet, and no longer sleeps with his mother.

The first third of the book is wonderful. Well written and imaginative, it’s fascinating to watch Will truly become intrigued with other people and the Outside. In the middle of the book, there is a part called “Titus.” To the savvy reader, this section gives away the rest of the story. Will’s fascination with Outside, his newly found independence, his mother’s fears, skateboarding and finding Marcus start to get a little old. All the real action takes place in the first third of the book. That’s why I give If I Fall, If I Die 3 out of 5 stars.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

The Guest Room

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian   336 pages

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Bohjalian’s since he burst onto the literary scene with his Oprah Book Selection, Midwives. The Guest Room is his 18^th book, and, I believe, his finest.  As I Facebooked to Bohjalian: Oh Wow! Oh WoW! Oh WOw! OH WOW! 

Richard Chapman, his wife, Kristin, and their young daughter, Melissa, live in Bronxville, New York, a suburb of Manhattan. Richard is an investment banker, and Kristen is a history teacher. Richard’s idiot younger brother, Phillip, is finally getting married and Richard and Kirstin agree to let the bachelor party. Kristen takes Melissa into Manhattan to spend the weekend with her mother, as the couple is sure strippers have been included in the evening’s festivities.

Phillip’s friend, Spencer, doesn’t just hire strippers; he hires call girls. The girls, Alexandra and Sonja, arrive with what the guys believe to be bodyguards. As the evening progresses, stripping turns into sex. Richard finds himself enamored with Alexandra and alone with her, both naked, in the guest room. No spoiler here, so you’ll have to read the book to find out what happens.

It’s after Alexandra and Richard return to the party that all hell breaks loose. Sonja jumps one of the bodyguards and repeatedly plunges a knife into his neck. Blood is everywhere. Everywhere. The gunshots are heard and the other bodyguard’s blood is adding to the horror. The girls throw on some clothes and escape before the guys can come to their senses enough to call 911.

The story is told in alternative chapters: Richard and Kristen’s point of view and Alexandra’s viewpoint. Readers soon learn that the girls aren’t college students trying to earn money for tuition; they are Armenian girls who have been kidnapped and used as sex slaves.

There are so many threads in this one story. How did Alexandra and Sonja get caught up in this life? Where are they now? Are their kidnappers, the Russians, looking for them? Will Richard and the guys go to jail for having hired prostitutes? Will Richard and Kristen’s marriage survive? What will Melissa think of her father? How will the family ever go back to their home and life, knowing that it had been a crime scene?

Be prepared to stay up late as Bohjalian ties all the unanswered questions together into a riveting novel that left me gasping by the end. I give The Guest Room, 6 out of 5 stars.

The Muralist

The Muralist by B. A. Shapiro  337 pages

The latest B. A. Shapiro novel, after The Art Forger, delves into the art world in two centuries and with two artists.

In 2015, Danielle Abrams (Dani) works as a cataloguer for Christies in New York. A lapsed artist, Dani receives several paintings that have been found in an attic. They could be some undiscovered works by Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, or Mark Rothko. However, Dani sees something different; the paintings remind her of her great-aunt Alizee Benoit’s work. In the world of abstract expressionism, there has always seemed to be a missing link. Dani has always thought that work could be Alizee’s.

In1939, Alizee Benoit is working for the WPA (Works Progress Adminstration under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal). Her best friends are Jackson Pollock, Leo Krasner, and Mark Rothko. They are painting murals for various buildings, but their true passion is abstract expressionism.

Alizee is a Jew from France and has left her entire family there. As Hitler’s rise to power escalates, letters from her family become more and more desperate, begging her to help them obtain visas to get out. When she’s working on her art, she wants her paintings to reflect the Jewish crisis. When she’s working for the WPA but she’s forced to paint idyllic country scenes. Alizee gets to meet Eleanor Roosevelt, who becomes a champion of her art. This seems a tad implausible, but Shapiro is so deft as a writer, that it’s interesting but not a read-breaker.

Alizee’s family (her brother, aunt, uncle, and two cousins, one with a family) manage to get aboard the MS St. Louis. The plight of the 937 Jews trying to escape persecution was mentioned, but did not delve deep enough for me. That story is all but a footnote in history now, but readers who are curious can learn more about it in: Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust by Sarah A. Ogilvie and Scott Miller.

In the meantime, Dani discovers envelopes containing pieces of canvas behind the paintings that were recently discovered.  Dani is also trying to uncover what happened to Alizee. She checked into a sanatorium in 1940 and simply disappeared.

The narrative weaves back and forth between the past and present, bring the art world of the mid-20^th century to life. I had hoped to be swept away into this world while I read, but I was not. I was intrigued, but I didn’t find myself anxiously awaiting the time I could get back to the story.  Therefore, I give The Muralist 4 out of 5 stars.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.  235 pages.

This is the first novel in the series, and centers around Precious Ramotswe, who has opened the first detective agency in the town of Gaborone.  Whether it's tracking down a husband, uncovering a con man, or finding a missing boy, Precious is up for the task.

I went into this with an assumption that it would be a mystery, focusing more on one particular case.  Instead, it is a series of things that Precious solves, as she figures out how to be a detective.  Relying mostly on her intuition and smarts, she alternates between coming off as very naive one moment, to very wise the next moment.   While I liked her, and I enjoyed the book, I'm not sure if I'll pursue more in the series.  So, an entertaining read, but not enough of a mystery for my mystery taste.

The link in the title takes you to everything in the Library's catalog.   This series of books was made into a series on HBO, which the Library has on DVD.

The Only Child

The Only Child, by Guojing, 112 pages

Okay, this is allegedly for children- an E book, at that; but that's like saying that The Little Prince is "just" a kid's book.  It grossly under-represents what is contained within.  This is a text-less graphic novel that manages to convey loneliness, fear, joy, and love- without a single word.  The art, which is simply black and white pencil, is a perfect medium, and there are a few panels throughout that actually made me "Awww" out loud.  Fawning aside, here's the basic storyline: the main character is a little girl who is clearly alone and bored and has to find ways to entertain herself.  When she gets lost in the snow, she is scared, but then distracted by a friendly deer and other creatures that she meets in what amounts to a fantastic dream scape.  Worth flipping through if you like cute things, graphic novels, and have 10 minutes to spare.

Bitch Planet vol 1: Extraordinary Machine

Bitch Planet vol 1: Extraordinary Machine, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, 156 pages

In this dystopian graphic novel, women who are deemed non-compliant (ie: "too fat, too thin, too loud, too shy, too religious, too secular, too prudish, too sexual, too queer, too black, too brown, too whatever-it-is-they'll-judge-you-for-today," according to the back of the book) are punished by being sent to what amounts to a prison planet. But the game may be changing when a deal is struck to have the a ragtag group of women from "Bitch Planet" participate in a popular but dangerous game viewed on Earth; is this their chance to break the patriarchy? Or die trying?

I really enjoyed this- there are strong female characters- of all sizes, shapes, colors and orientations; and there are these really awesome faux-back pages from magazines, with ads for things like Agreenex- the pill you take to get rid of annoying thoughts, feelings, or inconvenient opinions ("Be the you HE likes").  This was a really strong start and I'm looking forward to seeing what direction this goes. 

428 AD

428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire by Giusto Traina, translated by Allan Cameron, 132 pages

428 AD was the year the last King of Armenia was deposed and the year Nestorius was installed as Archbishop of Constantinople.  It was two years after the completion of Augustine's City of God and one year before the Vandal invasion of Africa.  It was a year when the Roman Empire seemed more united than divided, when Theodosius II ruled in the East, Aetius fought in the West, and St Simeon Stylites remained atop his pillar.  It was not a crucial year, or a historic turning point, and that is precisely the interest of Traina's portrait of an "ordinary year" in late antiquity.

This is not to say that the book is narrowly confined to a single year - past and future are shadowed everywhere as Traina methodically circles the Mediterranean, from Armenia across Europe to Britain, then east across North Africa to Persia.  At times those shadows grow a little too long, and the author allows his foreknowledge to color his interpretation of the moment.  This impinges directly upon the best effect of the book's conceit - that in the year 428, the future was not yet written.

1177 BC

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H Cline, 178 pages

During the waning of the Bronze Age, the eastern Mediterranean and Near East was the site of a cosmopolitan network of cultures and societies, intermarrying, trading, and occasionally warring with one another.  It was a time when the seeds of future cultures were planted - the age of the Trojan War and the Hebrew Exodus.  It all came to a catastrophic end in the twelfth century, when a wave of invaders known to historians as the Sea Peoples washed over the lands of Greece, Anatolia, and the Levant before breaking against Egypt.  That is, at least, the conventional account, but as Eric Cline points out in 1177 BC, it is also at best a massive oversimplification, ignoring contributing causes such as a series of particularly strong earthquakes, years of drought, and the disruption of trade in an increasingly complex, and therefore correspondingly increasingly fragile, international network.

Cline's persistent attempts to draw direct parallels between the Late Bronze Age and late modernity occasionally give rise to silliness - the Bronze Age world was in no way "global", and "while we might call" the ancient empires "nation-states in modern parlance", it would be an absurd anachronism.  This is aggravated by Cline's conclusion that we do not yet understand the causes of the 12th century collapse, which leaves any utilitarian relevance to our own times pointless.  The story of the Late Bronze Age and the modern efforts to uncover its history is fascinating on its own terms.

This Census-Taker by China Mieville

This Census-Taker by China Mieville.  206 pages (in the edition I read, which was a galley).

This is Mieville's newest book, a novella-length story about a boy who is left alone with his father, an angry (and perhaps demented) man.  The book begins, "A boy ran down a hill path screaming.  The boy was I.  He held his hands up and out in front of him as if he'd dipped them in pain and was coming to make a picture, to press them down to paper, but all there was on him was dirt.  There was no blood on his palms."   The boy has witnessed a traumatic event, but is confused about the details. Has his father killed his mother?  And when a stranger knocks on his door, is he friend of foe?

This book has been blowing up on the Internet lately, and I've been finding it everywhere from NPR to The Huffington Post, Slate, and beyond.  NPR calls it "A Quiet Book With A Murderous Heart."   Definitely read that article on NPR if you have time; it's a bit of a love letter.  

This story is like a mystery wrapped in a fairy tale wrapped in the kind of story you just can't classify.  Does that make sense?  You never get a clear sense of place, although you have bits and pieces.  There is a town.  The boy and his parents live on a hill.  Things have a post-apocalyptic tinge to them, but that's not the point of it all.  The thing is:  you are left to puzzle out if there has been a killing or a leaving, and then who it really is who knocks on the door.

Typical of this author, many things are never explained.  There are shadowy hints, and there's a bit of magic (the keys the boy's father makes, for example, which don't unlock doors, but instead make things happen).   Seeing things through the eyes of this boy, you can't always be sure of what's true, or what's real; it has to be enough that it is real and true to him.

Really, the NPR article written by Jason Sheehan puts it more beautifully than I ever could.  "This Census Taker is a small, quiet and gentle book with murder at its center. It's a beautiful chocolate that you bite into and find filled with blood. It is Miéville at his most sparse, his most controlled and restrained — giving us a world defined by a broken carburetor, the sound of a walk being swept, a pantry full of mushrooms and spiders, the distant flickering of neon. And while the blind spots of the boy at its heart — the things he does not know, the questions he does not ask — may drive you crazy, the questions that Miéville leaves itching in your brain at the turn of the final page are almost as interesting as the (few) truths that have been uncovered."

Beautifully written, this book takes the reader into a place that I found to be uncomfortable and strangely appealing.  I am a huge fan of this author, and that is what I enjoy about many of his books (the ones I have read over and over again, and savor each time).  I like that things aren't explained and the worlds aren't comfortable, and the story can be a bit sinister or unnerving, and I love how the author's writing and use of language transports me as I turn the pages.