Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing As We Age
by Mary Pipher
Not What I Expected (6/13/2019)
As someone in her senior years, I was looking for some advice and inspiration, but I didn't find it here. Instead of practical advice and real insights, Pipher hands out typical pop psych and New Age junk. Take a bubble bath, hug a tree, play with your grandchildren (I don't have any), count your blessings. The anecdotes of aging women are more depressing than inspiring. Not everyone has family and friends to support them. Not everyone has the financial means or insurance to manage health issues or get therapy. I read the first half of the book and found it pretty useless, boring and annoying, so I skimmed the rest. It really didn't get much better.
The Winter Soldier
by Daniel Mason
WW1 from an Eastern European POV (10/17/2018)
When World War I breaks out, Lucius Krzelewski, only son of a Polish aristocrat, is a second year medical student. His father, a former cavalry man, wants to use his connections to get his son a glory-seeking position at the front, but Lucius instead enlists in the medical corps, hoping to gain some hands-on experience. He finds himself assigned to a remote village--as the only doctor on staff. The hospital is run by a young nun, Sister Margrete, whose practical education under the last doctor has taught her more than Lucius could imagine, including how to amputate limbs and drain pressure on the brain. Determined to help and protect injured men, he soon learns that his task is to heal them just enough to send them back to the front lines.
Mason does a fine job of recreating the horrors of war and the physical and mental toll it takes on the soldiers. Lucius is particularly haunted by one man, a Hungarian named Horvath who produces beautiful drawings but can't speak; instead, he produces a loud, constant hum. The characters are very well developed, including the resourceful and independent Margrete, her orderlies, and the hospital cook, as well as Lucius and his patients. I was a bit put off by the love story that dominates the second half of the book. Then again, I can imagine that in such an environment, young men were happy to cling to any hope of a better world. Like many of them, Lucius is haunted by people and events from his war experience that he just cannot shake.
Although I did enjoy this book, I feel that The Piano Tuner was better. Still, a recommended read for those interested in World War I from an Eastern European standpoint who are not too squeamish.
A Ladder to the Sky: A Novel
by John Boyne
Boyne Makes a Left Turn onto Sinister Road (10/1/2018)
I have to hand it to John Boyne for moving out of his comfort zone (fairly straightforward historical fiction) and trying something different in this book and his last, The Heart's Invisible Furies. In both, he moves into more contemporary times to give us not only in-depth character studies but also a critical view of society and its changing values. His hero (anti-hero) here is Maurice Swift, a crafty, completely amoral writer bent on doing whatever it takes to reach the top of the heap: "The Prize," presumably the Man Booker Prize. He steals shamelessly from other writers, relying on Anatole France's remark, "When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it." (It's a philosophy shared by many other writers, from Horace to Ben Jonson and beyond.) He uses and abuses just about everyone he encounters that might be useful in his quest. Yes, he's vile, but Boyne's wonderful writing keeps the reader fascinated as the plot unfolds. A marvelous send-up of the contemporary publishing world and the literati.
The Heart's Invisible Furies: A Novel
by John Boyne
Not Quite What I Expected (7/19/2017)
This is the autobiography of a fictional character, Cyril Avery. Born out of wedlock in 1945 to an Irish teenager who was drummed out of the parish by her priest, Cyril is adopted by an upper class couple who constantly remind him that he is not "a real Avery." But this is not the only thing that sets him apart from the other boys: he realizes at an early ago that he is homosexual and obsessed with Julian, the son of his father's barrister. Cyril's story becomes the struggle of so many young men forced to closet their sexual identity in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. When he leaves repressive Ireland for Amsterdam, he finds true love for the first time--but, alas, when the AIDS epidemic hits, renewed bigotry against gays disrupts his life yet again. His story manages to end end on a higher but rather contrived note with the acceptance of newly-found family.
I almost gave up on this novel about halfway through, when it seemed to lose all its humor and became a gay coming of age story, but I stuck with it. Boyne is attempting something rather epic here, letting one man's story stand in for the history of homosexuality over the last five decades and in several locations. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. He also strives to bring the characters full circle: unknowingly, Cyril keeps running across his birth mother, and the figure of Julian, his first crush, makes several reappearances. An interesting effort, if not always successful.
The Essex Serpent
by Sarah Perry
Best Reading Experience So Far This Year (3/25/2017)
What a wonderful novel! When I began it, I was afraid it was going to turn out to be some kind of fantasy or magical realism--neither of which I enjoy. But this is a novel as driven by character and ideas as by plot, and the writing is absolutely beautiful. Sarah Perry also has a gift for creating an atmosphere that totally draws the reader into a specific time and place--in this case, London and the small Essex town of Aldwinter in the 1890s.
Cora Seaborne, newly widowed, seems to have ambivalent feelings about her deceased husband, a wealthy, powerful, but cruel man. In some ways, he shaped her into a new person and a new life; but he also stifled any sense of self that she might have developed. Now on her own, she decides to follow her whims, the primary one being to study paleontology on an amateur level. With her companion Martha, an early feminist with reformist tendencies, and her odd 12-year old son Frankie (who today would likely be considered mildly autistic), Cora packs off to Lyme Regis, where Mary Anning had set off a craze for fossil hunting. But when rumors surface that a strange sea creature, last seen in 1669, may have reappeared in the waters near the small town of Aldwinter, Cora can't resist the opportunity to find something truly remarkable. Her friends Charles and Katherine Ambrose, wealthy aristocrats, provide an introduction to the local parson, Will Ransome, a married father of three with a similar interest in fossils. Will and Cora embark on an unexpected and passionate friendship that threatens to become much more. Their debates on the conflicts between science and faith shape the heart of the novel.
But this is not the only theme running through 'The Essex Serpent.' There are questions about the nature of love in its many forms: friendship, passion, loyalty, empathy, responsibility, parenthood, and more. These are fleshed out through a series of wonderfully drawn secondary characters: Will's wife Stella, an ethereal creature whose illness pulls her into a strange faith of her own making that centers on all things blue; Luke Garrett, a brilliant surgeon in love with Cora; his devoted friend George Spencer, a wealthy young physician who spends his fortune on charitable projects to impress Cora's companion Martha; Frankie, who seems incapable of loving anyone; and the quirky townsfolk of Aldwinter. Questions of class are never far from the surface; Charles Ambrose, for example, believes in a kind of simplified social Darwinism that keeps individuals in the places they are meant to be.
All these elements, characters, and ideas twist and turn and intertwine like the body of the elusive serpent while the plot carries the reader along for the ride. There's nary a dull moment here, and a good number of keen insights and startlingly beautiful passages. 'The Essex Serpent' is an all-around winner, the best reading experience I've had so far this year.
Victoria
by Daisy Goodwin
Reads like a YA Historical Romance (1/3/2017)
This is the first time I haven't finished a Book Browse review on time. Although I had looked forward to reading this book, I struggled to get through it. The writing and focus seemed more appropriate for a YA novel than a mature historical novel. Yes, I know that Victoria was only 18, and that she depended on Lord Melbourne's advice, but turning this relationship into an adolescent crush and an old man's fancy was a big mistake. It made the queen seem giddy, petulant, and self-absorbed. Yet after all this mooning over Melbourne, she falls head over heels in love with Albert in a few day, after an initial period of their hating one another. Nothing of much consequence happens in this book, and it sheds no light on how Victoria might rule for the next 50 years. This was a real disappointment. I will watch the BBC series based on this novel--but I sure hope it's better than this.
The Fair Fight
by Anna Freeman
Hard to Put Down (4/27/2016)
'The Fair Fight' is an excellent and highly original historical novel It's set in late 18th-century England, and revolves around the daughter of a madam who becomes a female boxer (she fights only men, however). There's a lot more to the story than that, however. The novel is divided into sections told by different characters. The first is Ruth, the boxer, who describes her life in "the convent," her jealousy of her beautiful sister, her entry into the ring, and her "marriage." The second narrator is George Bowden, a handsome young man with limited prospects who is in love with more than one person. He lives off Perry Sinclair, a wealthy heir and old school chum; they are friends with Granville Dryer, a gambler who is Ruth's sponsor and her sister's "fancy man." Then there is a third narrator, Charlotte Sinclair, Perry's sad, repressed sister, a former beauty who survived the pox that killed her parents, sister, and another brother, but was left horribly scarred. I love the individual voices of the characters and the way their lives keep crossing. It's a hard one to put down!
Wanting: A Novel
by Richard Flanagan
My Best Read of 2016 So Far (4/13/2016)
What a remarkable book! Flanagan mingles two stories, both based on real persons, who meet in 1854. Charles Dickens is at the center of the first. He is despondent over the recent death of his daughter Dora, and his marriage is falling apart. There seems to be no joy in his life, and he has no idea how to get it back. Dickens is contacted by Lady Jane Franklin, who wants him to write a defense of her husband, Sir John Franklin, former governor of Tasmania, who disappeared on an arctic expedition. Although 10 years have passed, she still has hopes that her husband survives, and she is outraged by a recent article claiming that he cannibalized his crew. The English, according to Lady Jane, just don't do that kind of thing, and she wants Dickens to write a piece that will restore his reputation. Inspired by the tale, Dickens also joins with his friend, Willkie Collins, to write and perform in a play, 'The Frozen Deep.'
Flanagan also takes us back in time to tell of the Franklins' time in Tasmania, where Lady Jane tries to instill English culture via imported statuary and paintings. She adopts a lively aboriginal girl, Mathinna, taking her from her family and doing her best to turn her into a proper English lady. For her, Mathinna is an experiment, but she also fulfills the "wanting" left by three miscarriages; for Sir John, she comes to represent another kind of "wanting"; and Mathinna herself is stuck between "wanting" the love of a new mother who believes that displays of affection are indecent and the freedom of the life she once knew.
A number of readers have complained that the two stories don't really connect, but I believe they do, on a number of levels. The book is, of course, in part a commentary on English colonization and its treatment of native peoples. It's also a statement on what is lost, both at home and abroad, in adhering to the rigid restrictions and morals of Victorian English society: not only Mahinna but Dickens and the Franklins suffer as well. Flanagan cleverly plays on the double meanings of the word "wanting" as both what one desires and what one lacks.
This book just shot to the top of my list of Best Books of 2016. It's brilliant, poignant, and beautifully written. I can't wait to get to the other two books I own by this author.
Fallen Land
by Taylor Brown
Wanted to Like It More, but . . . (11/24/2015)
I've read a lot of great novels set in the Civil War, and I was looking forward to this one. The basic story is a good one, but what bogged me down was the writing style. It was so stylized (read: affected) that it took forever for me to get into the book, and I felt like the author spent so much time on style that he underdeveloped his characters. It kind of felt like he was trying to compete with 'Cold Mountain'--unsuccessfully. On top of that, the pacing was very uneven.
We That Are Left
by Clare Clark
Hard to Connect (7/4/2015)
I had a very hard time getting into this book, mainly because I just didn't care about any of the hothouse characters. They were more than odd, they were all spoiled, self-centered, obsessive, and mean, whether children or adults. I know the author meant to portray an upper crust family, but I really don't want to read about people that I dislike so much. It also bothered me that they seemed to be drawn not from Downton Abbey, as one reader suggested, but from Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' (even though the latter's setting began just prior to World War II). And there was way too much detailed description of THINGS! I kept waiting for something to happen or for the characters to get more interesting. For me, neither ever happened. Very dry. If I want to get the flavor of World War I and its effect on England, I'll go back to Pat Barker's 'Regeneration' series, or even 'Mrs. Dalloway.' This was just plain boring, in my opinion.
The Book of Speculation
by Erika Swyler
Didn't Expect to Like It--SURPRISE! (5/6/2015)
Having just finished The Night Circus, which wasn't exactly my cup of tea, my first thought once I got into the first few chapters of The Book of Speculation was: "Oh, crap, another book about circus people with paranormal abilities!" Fortunately, it was a lot more and a lot better than that. The book's chapters alternate between the present day, in which the protagonist, research librarian Simon Watson, is about to be permanently laid off due to budget cuts and his house about to fall into the sea, and the late 1790s, when Peabody's Portable Magic and Miracles, a menagerie of contortionists, clairvoyants, a miniature horse, a counting pig, a wild boy, and a mermaid, travelled the eastern US states.
The story begins when Simon is sent a strange book full of odd names and sketches, by Martin Churchwarry, an antiquarian bookseller. Neither seems to know exactly what it is, but Churchwarry has noted the name "Verona Bonn" in it and tracked down Simon as one of her descendants. Indeed, this was the grandmother he never knew, a woman who at one time worked as a circus mermaid and who--oddly--drowned at a young age. Simon recalls how his mother, also an excellent swimmer, had taught he and his sister how to hold their breath underwater for up to ten minutes. But she, too, drowned young, assumedly a suicide--on the same date as her mother.
If there's an upside to getting laid off, it's that Simon has plenty of time to conduct research into his family's past and track down more information about Peabody's and the mysterious book, which seems to be a carnival record book of sorts. And if there's an upside to being an about-to-be-unemployed research librarian, it's that you have plenty of contacts and resources, as well as time. Even after his last official day of work, Simon still has that access through his longtime friend (and maybe sometime girlfriend) Alice McAvoy, who still works in the small Grainger Library.
On top of all this, Simon has two other major worries: the historic childhood home in which he still resides is crumbling, and his sister Enola, a highly strung drifter who works as a carnival tarot card reader, is coming for a visit. Not to mention that the ominous date on which his mother and grandmother both drowned is fast approaching.
So--I don't want to give any more than this--all of which you will learn in the first few chapters. There are a lot of mysteries to be sorted out, and along the way, you'll meet a number of wonderfully drawn, intriguing characters, including: Enola's boyfriend Doyle, The Electric Boy; Hermelius Peabody, carnival manager; Amos, the mute, who transforms from Wild Boy into several new incarnations; Madame Ryzkhova, the tarot reader; Benno, the contortionist; and the beautiful Evangeline, mysterious mermaid extraordinaire. Not to mention about a million horseshoe crabs.
Beautifully written and highly engaging.
Outline: A Novel
by Rachel Cusk
A Fine COllection of Interwoven Stories (2/4/2015)
Outline begins when a woman on a plane bound for Athens is prodded into conversation by the man sitting next to her, who narrates the history of his failed marriages. We learn that the never-named woman, a writer, has been invited to teach a creative writing course; her Greek students will all write their short stories in English. Each of the nine subsequent chapters is also told as a conversation, and it's a bit of fun to look for the links between them ("tension" and failed marriages being just two of them). The connections between them indeed fall into the shape of an outline, the kind you made in elementary school, where each main idea cascades into a set of subtopics which, in turn, are broken into their parts. This is a novel where the connections between parts are more significant than the chain of events (which is, in fact, simply the narrator listening to other people's narratives). It's a risky experiment, but Cusk pulls it off quite well.
All of the narrators are a bit self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing, and some are more likable than others. I found most interesting the writing students' descriptions of their stories--all of them based on =memories--written in response to an assignment to write a story with an animal in it. As we watch the visiting author listening to these almost one-sided conversations, we learn much about her as well.
Overall, Outline is a clever, inventive, and finely written novel.
The Headmaster's Wife
by Thomas Christopher Greene
Rather Depressing (1/3/2014)
What started out as a strange novel ended up also being a sad and depressing one. Arthur Winthrop, the 50-something headmaster of a Vermont prep school, has just been arrested for running naked in Central Park in the middle of a snowy winter's evening. In the police station, he begins to unravel his story. Bored with the job that he virtually inherited from his father and with his increasingly distant wife, Arthur has begun to drink heavily--and to obsess about one of his students. He confesses to having done some creepy and horrible things, putting his job on the line--and now this.
Halfway through the book, I began to wonder why it was titled The Headmaster's WIFE--and then the author drops a bomb that totally turns the plot around, devoting the second half of the book to Elizabeth Winthrop's story. I won't reveal what changes the reader's perspective, in case anyone wants to read the book, but suffice it to say that it's one of those revelations that is truly surprising and that also kind of makes you groan because you should have figured it out. Although Greene tries to conclude on a hopeful note, I found the sadness overwhelming. Perhaps that is because, as Greene notes in the afterward, he started writing it during the six months that his now-deceased daughter spent in a neo-natal ICU; he dedicates the book to her.
Written in short chapters and a relatively spare style, The Headmaster's Wife is a quick read with some compelling (if creepy) moments. It ended up being quite different from the publishers' blurb. Someone who enjoys psychological studies might enjoy it more than I did.
Songs of Willow Frost
by Jamie Ford
Disappointing (7/12/2013)
I'm sure that many readers will adore this book, and I had hoped that I would, too. The story sounded intriguing: a Chinese-American boy, orphaned at the age of seven, sets out to find a movie actress that he believes is the mother he thought was dead, accompanied by his best friend, a beautiful blind girl. Unfortunately, for me, the book was bogged down by several flaws. First, I found it overly melodramatic and unrealistic, full of annoyingly stereotypical, one-dimensional characters (the mean, tippling nun; the bully; the brutal stepfather; etc.). The setting - San Francisco in the 1930s - was intriguing, and the author clearly did a lot of research on the time period. The problem is that it stuck out like a sore thumb rather than being subtly integrated into the story. I want to be drawn into a novel's world without stopping to think, "Oh, here's another clever pop culture reference from the 1930s." In addition, I found much of the dialogue to be stilted and artificial. Perhaps I would have been more kindly inclined towards the book had I not just read a string of superb novels...but I doubt it.
The Edge of the Earth
by Christina Schwarz
Very Disappointing (11/17/2012)
I remembered liking Schwarz's Drowning Ruth when I read it years ago, so I was looking forward to The Edge of the Earth. Sadly, I was greatly disappointed. Perhaps it's that my reading tastes have changed . . . but I really just don't think this is a very good book. The characters are stereotypes and the plot is predictable; the writing itself is rather pedestrian. Frankly, I had to really push myself to plod through it.
The novel begins and ends in the present day. An elderly woman, who apparently lived in the now-famous St. Lucia lighthouse years ago, comes to visit with her grandson. As the tourists travel up the path, she prides herself on how much more she knows than their guide, and she launches into the central story. It's 1898, and young Trudy Swann travels with her new husband, Oskar, from Milwaukee to the California coast, where he has taken a job as assistant to the lighthouse keeper. Trudy is suitably naive and, of course, has a talent for science--particularly marine life identification and drawing--that no one has appreciated. As for Oskar, what is meant to be a rebellious nature comes off rather as petulant and spoiled. The family who lives at the lighthouse is, of course, made up of cranky oddballs, but, of course, their crankiness is only there to cover deep, dark family secrets--secrets that really aren't all that surprising. The Crawleys have a hoard of children who are a bit wild but sweet and eager to learn. But they know things that Trudy does not, and they have a collection of strange 'gifts' left to them by 'the mermaid.'
I won't go into this any further and spoil (if possible) the 'discoveries' for other readers. At this point, I became very irritated with the book--not just because what happens is so irritating (it is), but because it was so predictable and so obviously aimed at tugging at the reader's emotions and making a 'big statement'. (Can you feel the hammer?)
Another reviewer mentioned that those who enjoy Oprah selections would probably like this book. I'm not one to automatically pan anything Oprah recommends, as some do; in fact, I've enjoyed many of her selections, including Drowning Ruth. But not The Edge of the Earth.
I might have rated the book a little higher, but I was really irritated that so many better books were waiting while I struggled to finish it.
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel
by Margot L. Stedman
A Moving and Elegant Debut Novel (7/3/2012)
Tom Sherbourne, a decorated hero of World War I, is a haunted man: he's haunted by the men he killed, by the comrades who died alongside him; and by an unhappy childhood--none of which he is willing to talk about. In an effort to find peace, Tom takes a position as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Island, 100 miles out from the coastal city of Partageuse. No one is more surprised than Tom when he finds love with Isabel Graysmarks, a beautiful and spirited local girl who is willing to marry him and move to the isolated island. Both of them grow to love the spare landscape and the magical light itself. But if there is one thing that blights their happiness, it is Isabel's inability to bear a child. She has suffered two miscarriages and, just two weeks earlier, a stillbirth, when a boat washes ashore, inside it a dead man, a woman's cardigan--and a live infant. As always, Tom feels obligated to do the right thing ... but just what is the right thing?
Stedman has written a compelling novel, one that captivates the reader and moves him/her through a myriad of emotions, from sorrow to joy, from peacefulness to suspense, from anger to acceptance. Her characters are individual and believable (although I found the child Lucy just a bit too precious) and always deserving of empathy. Stedman's descriptions of the island and of the beloved lighthouse are so vivid that you can smell the salt sea, the polish, and the vapor. Overall, a fine novel--and an amazing debut. I look forward to her next endeavor.
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