Author: bibliobloggityboo

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg

Characters: 4 Plot: 3 Writing: 3.5
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an early review copy of Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg, which will publish November 13, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.

A feel-good, women’s fiction book following further adventures of the folks in Mason, MO. Lucille Howard, the crotchety octogenarian supporting character from last year’s The Story of Arthur Truluv, is the star of this installment. She is being haunted by a fairly friendly Angel of Death while her neighbors Jason and Abby are being haunted by a terrible diagnosis and her new employee, Iris Winters, finally finds herself finally in a place that feels like home. An uplifting tale — some small town romance, great scenes between Lucille and some precocious and well described kids, and some fantastic descriptions of baking (both the physics behind and the tasting thereof). A thoroughly enjoyable read, however a little disappointing after The Story of Arthur Truluv (https://bibliobloggityboo.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/the-story-of-arthur-truluv-by-elizabeth-berg/) which I found far more beautiful, insightful, and inspiring.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Writing: 5 Topic coverage: 5
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an early review copy of The Library Book by Susan Orleans, which will publish October 16, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.

Ostensibly the story of the massive 1986 fire that brought the Los Angeles Central Library to its knees, this book is so much more. With captivating prose, Susan Orleans tells the broader story — many meticulously researched threads exploring the fire itself, the arson investigation, the mechanics of book restoration, the building architecture, and the history of the L.A. library and of libraries in general. Sprinkled throughout are biographical vignettes of the players: librarians and Library Directors, volunteers who came in droves to help with the book rescue, firefighters, arson investigators, security chiefs and the hapless man accused of setting the fire. Each chapter starts with the catalog records of three to four relevant books and proceeds to delve into one of the threads in a little more depth.

The story is a very personal one for the author as well — her love of books and libraries shines through brightly. One (short) chapter covered the emotional trials involved with her actually trying to burn a book in order to experience the physical process.

Some tidbits:

• In Senegal a polite way of saying someone has died is to say that his or her library has burned.
• The shipping department moving books between branches: “It is as if the city has a bloodstream flowing through it, oxygenated by books.”
• “A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re alone.”
• A particularly impressive map collection — “it was one more piece of the bigger puzzle the library is always seeking to assemble — the looping, unending story of who we are”

Normally not a big non-fiction reader, I was absolutely unable to set it down and polished it off in a couple of days. Great for fans of Mary Roach.

A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an early review copy of A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua, which will publish August 14, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.

Writing: 4 Plot: 4 Characters: 3.5

Heavily pregnant, Scarlett and Daisy, meet at Perfume Bay — the exclusive maternity home in Los Angeles for Chinese women who want to have their “anchor” babies in the U.S. for automatic citizenship. Neither wants to be there — teen-age Daisy has been placed there by parents anxious to separate her from an “unsuitable” boyfriend; Scarlett has been placed there by the baby’s father — also her married boss — who wants the son he believes she is carrying.

After an opportunistic escape, they make their way to San Francisco’s Chinatown where they learn about motherhood while trying to bulldoze their way to legal status and financial stability (Scarlett) and find the boyfriend (Daisy).

Woven throughout the modern day narrative are the historical stories of Scarlett’s China — highlighting the contrasts between the traditional and modern, the city and the country, and China and the U.S. There are a lot of interesting details included: Scarlett’s estranged mother was the village “family planner” — the woman charged with upholding the unpopular “one child” law (only recalled in 2013, this novel takes while the law was still in effect). Historical immigration policies in the U.S. had banned Chinese women from immigrating as families “weren’t supposed to take root here.” The backstories of other characters reveal even more detail of life in China under Communist rule.

While the end is tied up perhaps too neatly, the story is unpredictable and engaging, the characters are appealing, and I appreciated the inclusion of historical and cultural detail. It is simultaneously a novel about China and San Francisco, quirks and all. It shirks from neither!

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an early review copy of Virgil Wander by Leif Enger, which will publish October 2, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.

Writing: 5+ Story: 5 Characters: 5

A wonderful book — perfect for fans of Kent Haruf, Ivan Doig, and Wallace Stegner. I hope that it is nominated for (and wins!) the Pulitzer Prize. It is that good.

The story takes place in Greenstone, Minnesota — a fading town in the Northern wilds of Minnesota, near Lake Superior. It is the story of the fading town, the fading men in it, and the opportunity of redemption and resurrection for both. While there are strong, interesting, female characters as well, the real focus is on the men — not the stereotype of men, but real individuals at different stages of life with their own internal struggles and desires. I loved the insight into each and every one of these characters.

Virgil Wander, the eponymous protagonist, is a fading man himself. He describes himself as “a Midwestern male cruising at medium altitude, aspiring vaguely to decency, contributing to PBS, moderate in all things including romantic forays, and doing unto others more or less reciprocally.” He runs the town’s Majestic theater — badly in need of a new roof and a more significant audience. The story opens when his car takes a dive off a bridge and he sails into the frigid water. Rescued by happenstance, he is a teetering, tottering, slightly damaged version of himself. He doesn’t recognize his clothes, has trouble finding the right words, and has inexplicably lost his fear of speaking up. He has become “impervious to sarcasm.”

It is full of wonderful characters such as Rune, a kite-flying, pixie of an elderly man from Tromso, who arrives to find out more about the son he never knew he had; Tom Beaman, the Samoan journalist and owner of the local paper (and Genghis, a pet raccoon); Shad Pea, an elderly fisherman with a wife in care and a disturbed son; Nadine and her son Bjorn, the wife and son of the missing Alec Sandstrom, and Adam Leer, son of the town’s original founder who made good in Hollywood, but has somehow come to embody all that is negative in the town — a smiling predator.

The language is beautiful — the description of places, people, and the things that are important to them (fishing, kite-flying, baseball) is suffused with a kind of magic that captures their very essence in just a few choice words. Every page is delightful with both despair and hope somehow tangled together.

Great lines:

“Yet it was also true he had a headful of spiders which woke now and then and altered his personal scenery.”

“It was disconcerting to think it might’ve shown itself at last, only to be swaddled in the bubble-wrap of concussion.”

“What I suddenly missed as Bjorn talked away, was the easy arrival of interests. Of obsessions.”

“ He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry”

“His gentle baritone came at me like elbows.”

“Within weeks certain prodigal words started filtering home. They came one at a time or in shy small groups.”

“He had a hundred merry crinkles at his eyes and a long-haul sadness in his shoulders.”

“I appear briefly as a ‘sun-deprived projectionist’ with ‘a degree of forbearance approaching perpetual defeat.’ “

“It’s never been hard for me to fall in love, a quality that has yet to simplify one single day of my life.”

Shivering World by Kathy Tyers

Writing: 3 Plot: 4 Characters: 4

Fast paced sci-fi novel about the various people involved in trying to create a new viable planet (Goddard) through terraforming in the year 2134. In this universe, gene manipulation is both illegal and considered a denial of “the perfection of God’s creation” by the Universal Church. However, the Hwuite colonists have long been suspected of maintaining the technology to do just that. Women form the majority of the governing bodies as men have been deemed “too aggressive” to be fit leaders. And the Religious Liberty Act has made it illegal to proselytize any religion without a duly registered inquiry.

Graysha Brady Phillips suffers from a genetic disorder which both limits her lifespan and makes it inadvisable to have children. She goes to Goddard as a soils engineer in the hopes of unearthing illegal gene manipulation techniques that might save her — or at least enable her to have children without passing on the defect. What she discovers, however, is a viper’s nest of clashing agendas and a terraforming effort that appears to be going horribly wrong. Goddard appears to be cooling, rather than heating up.

Each character is the star of their own story, with their own goals and their own approaches toward others who don’t share those goals. No “good guys” vs “bad guys” (though some characters are a lot more irritating than others). I was originally put off by the “Christian / SF fiction” billing but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was mostly SF with a smattering of philosophical and heart felt Christianity. I loved the pioneer spirit embedded in the colonists.

A good read for fans of Kim Stanley Robinson, Tyers combines science (terraforming, gene manipulation, hostile planet survival) with political and cultural clashes to make for a compelling narrative. Plenty of surprises throughout.

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Thank you to Little, Brown and Co. and NetGalley for an early review copy of Transcription by Kate Atkinson, which will publish September 25, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.

Writing: 5 Plot: 3 Characters: 3.5

New (to me) words:
• flageolet – The flageolet is a woodwind instrument and a member of the fipple flute family.
• priapic – relating to or resembling a phallus.
• Tenebrism – from Italian tenebroso (“dark, gloomy, mysterious”), also occasionally called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using profoundly pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image.

Transcription zigzags between two important periods of Juliet Armstrong’s life — her work as a Transcription typist and sometime spy for MI5 during WWII and her work as a producer for the BBC and occasional safe house manager in the 50s. These are book-ended by brief scenes from 1981.

This is a spy story replete with layers of intrigue and confusion. The twist is that it is told from the perspective of a young and intelligent woman who doesn’t necessarily know what she is getting into and just wants to do something interesting with her life. We watch her thoughts and actions in one time period and understand the ramifications and results in another. The inspiration for the story came from the author’s perusal of recently opened archives of WWII transcripts including information about the “Right Club,” comprised of Nazi sympathizers living in Britain.

To be honest, the action is less pronounced than might be expected — probably a little more true to life than your typical spy stories. The writing is very strong, but I found it hard to care about any of the characters, the protagonist included. On the plus side, it felt quite realistic and Atkinson’s utter prowess with language makes it difficult to put down. Some favorite lines:

“The war had been a hole that had receded and now here it was lapping around her ankles again. She sighed and chastised herself for a sub-standard metaphor.”

“But isn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?”

“The war was a clumsily stitched wound and it felt as if it was being opened by something.”

“ ‘You have his curls,’ her mother said. It seems a poor legacy.”

“Radio allowed for a degree of slippage in the gender department.”

“ ‘Crumhorns and flageolets, I expect. A sackbut or two as well,’ Juliet said, pulling these words off an obscure shelf in her memory.”

I also liked the opening quote of Churchill: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

 

Stars Uncharted by S. K. Dunstall

Thank you to Berkeley Publishing Group and NetGalley for an early review copy of Stars Unchartede by S.K. Dunstall, which will publish August 14, 2018.  All thoughts are my own.
World building: 4.5 plot: 3.5 characters: 4.5 Writing: 4

Thoroughly enjoyable, action-packed, sci-fi about a motley crew of spacefarers thrown together by circumstance. In this world, body modification for health, style, or pleasure is easily available if you have the cash, and the “modders” who do those modifications are held in far greater esteem than doctors. Nika Rik Terri is the acknowledged best, but some nasty customers who prefer not to leave witnesses have her on the run; Josune Arriola was sent to spy on Captain Hammond Roystan — clearly not the simple cargo runner he appears — but remains when her own ship shows up with a full complement of dead crew members.

In a galaxy where the big 27 Combines run the legal system, justice can be difficult to procure leading to intrigue and imaginative fight and / or flight scenes. Exploration of the art and science of body modification via genetic engineering is pervasive throughout — details of design, implementation, requirements, source materials, equipment, and the challenges of difficult cases make for interesting reading. Plenty of technical detail on fixing up their (oft attacked) ship as well. In addition to the action, I found a couple of other points interesting: Nika — the top notch modder — thinks about why style and appearance are so important to her and how that may have caused her problems in the past. Also, I found the contrast between current and previous modder training interesting — the newer training taught people to rely on technicians and equipment rather than their own deep expertise; Nika prefers to be able to maintain, extend, and even create her own equipment. A good analogy for traiing in many fields today.

Great for fans of Andy Weir, Becky Chambers, CJ Cherryh, and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Writing: 5+ Plot: 5 Characters: 5

A powerful novel and I don’t use that word lightly. The language is riveting and evokes a pervasive sense of physical and emotional space in a way I haven’t felt since reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

The story takes place in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Jojo is a thirteen year-old boy learning to be a man. He lives with his grandparents (“Pop” and “Mam”), his 3 year-old sister Kayla, and his mother (whom he calls Leonie) when she bothers to show up. Mam, Leonie, and both children have the “sight” — an ability to see and hear things that others don’t — and this filters into the story in significant and lyrical ways. The action centers around a trip to Parchman prison to retrieve Michael (the children’s white father) at the end of a three year sentence. However, the real story is about how a person can grow into an honorable and ethical human being when they are in a poisoned environment.

Jojo, Leonie, and Richie — the spirit of a young boy incarcerated at Parchman with Pop when he was 15 — are alternating narrators. The stories they tell weave together haunting tales of the past with their parallels in the present. Hints of voodoo and the thin veil between this world and the next suffuse the interlocking narratives.

The book is equal parts disturbing and heart warming; the end is quite glorious.

Some good lines
“Pop says a man should look another man in the face.”

“But it follows, even as I follow the trail of tender organ blood Pop has left in the dirt, a trail that signals love as clearly as the bread crumbs Hansel spread in the wood.”

“Even now, my devotion: inconstant.”

“I wait until the nicotine laps at my insides like a placid lake.”

“I blink and I see the bullet cleaving the soft butter of him. “

As an aside, I looked up Parchman Prison because I couldn’t believe some of the things I was reading and found the truth to be even worse: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/inside-mississippis-notorious-parchman-prison. Check out the Convict Lease Program.

Review double-header…

The Ensemble by Aja Gabel

Writing: 4.5 Plot: 4 Characters: 4

A story about the Van Ness String Quartet and the individual members comprising it, both evolving from rocky beginnings to success and stability. Some very nice descriptions of music and the art of making music together. Over the roughly 15 years of the story there are romances, friendships, children, students, and always lots about the music.

At first I didn’t enjoy it as it seemed far more about individual dysfunction than music, but then I realized the author used this personal squirming to show the interplay between the growth of the entity and the growth of its constituent parts.

A compelling story for me, both in terms of the world of classical music performance and the personal motivations and challenges for each performer. I also found it interesting to see which characters I could relate to and which left me cold (I related best to Henry and Brit…). Would love to compare notes with others!

Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok

Writing: 3 Plot: 3 Characters: 4

Kind of disappointing. Pretty obvious “ugly duckling becomes beautiful dancing swan” plot and stereotype characters (simplistic Chinese immigrants, semi-slutty, neurotic, but super nice and supportive ballroom dancers). What started out as an obvious story told in a sweet way became just an obvious story told without a lot of grace. Writing was decent but the characters and story were just too simplistic for me.

There were some very nice Lao Tzu quotes, description of Tai Chi and Qigong, and descriptions of ballroom dancing in the first half. And I did enjoy the characters at the beginning when they had more individuality and less stereotype to them. Somehow it feels as though the second half was written more hurriedly and more focused on plot and less on the character and environment that made the first half so enjoyable.

 

 

A Time of Love and Tartan by Alexander McCall Smith

Writing: 5 Characters: 5 Plot: 4
New words (to me):
• perjink – precise, neat (when you google this word, Merriam Webster asks where you found it – it isn’t used much!)
• Status Guilt – Being born into the structures of oppression because of an inherent characteristic (being male or white, for example). Nothing to do with choice or how you think or feel.
• mahlstick (or maulstick) – a stick used by painters as a rest for the hand while working

I love these books. When most people hear Alexander McCall Smith, they think No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. That’s a fun series (and I’ve read them all) but my favorite McCall Smith series is this one (the 44 Scotland Street series). These are annual novels compiled from his serialized (daily) stories in The Scotsman (an Edinburgh newspaper). They are charming, funny, and full of characters with both typical and atypical problems and opinions — a social commentary full of history, culture, and personality pulled from the lives of the varied inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street. This is the 12th in the series — if you haven’t read any I would start with the first just for the sheer pleasure of it, but you could easily start anywhere and not miss a thing as the author excels at providing context without extensive rehash. A sample of characters include the Pollacks — Stuart the mild mannered statistician, his ultra feminist, Melanie Klein devotee wife Irene, and their erudite and lovable son, Bertie; the artist Angus Lordie and his gold-toothed, lager slurping, dog Cyril; Domenica MacDonald, anthropologist; and Matthew Duncan, unassuming gallery owner and new father of triplets.

McCall Smith is a beautifully fluid writer. He is able to depict an entire way of thinking or the crux of a troubling situation with a single phrase. In some cases he turns this ability towards humor, as when one person tells another that one has a “civic duty not to stink.” In other cases he turns this talent to describe the core element involved in some larger issue — in this book, extreme versions of political correctness. This includes discussions (from multiple perspectives) of the need for Safe Spaces, the freedom to both have and express a different and perhaps unpopular opinion, and the skills or attributes that should be most highly valued when assessing multiple candidates for a position.

This last was explored in more detail as Stuart Pollack, the epitome of a mild mannered, amiable, and highly competent statistician working for the government, goes up against two less qualified women for a well-deserved promotion. His wife Irene — the caricature of an uber-feminist who does not think highly of her husband or of men in general, nevertheless wants to help him attain this promotion as they need the money. She explains that his being highly qualified for the position is of no help because “You have used your inherent advantages to claim contested territory.” She further explains that “The least well-qualified person in terms of diplomas and degrees and whatever might be the best-qualified in terms of social goals — in terms of how an appointment may progress the objective of a fairer society.” In her view, the age of meritocracy is dead and not soon enough! I was so impressed with the way McCall Smith could capture the essence of a (to me) troubling viewpoint! I am completely in favor of a meritocracy with ongoing efforts aimed at establishing a fair distribution of opportunities for people to develop that merit!

Let me hasten to add that most of McCall Smith’s female characters are wonderful. He is one of the few male authors whose female characters don’t make me cringe. I admire his courage in taking on some of the more ridiculous fringes of political correctness in this book. His characteristic kindness and desire for Civility (with a capital C) comes through the pages as he tries to show multiple perspectives about the evolution of societal norms.