In the mood for a good book?

If you're not on GoodReads and you like to read, you should be -- it's a fun way to chronicle your reading, see what your friends are reading and get some good recommendations.

Here are just a few of mine, based on what I read in 2009:

If you want my book reviews, click here:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
 -- In 2007-2008, I read all of Jane Austen's books, bios, etc - it was a fun task and while I love JA, Jane Eyre was truly incredible. Maybe it was the gothic aspect (I kept picturing a lot of storms).  In JA's books, it's more everyday life, in Jane Eyre it's a saga, an epic, and it's wonderful. I could read it over and over again.

House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
 -- I read about 4 DuMaurier's books in 2009, all were good but this one was different. It was the present day, it wasn't "gothic" (as I felt Jamaica Inn and My Cousin Rachel were -- and to some extent Rebecca), and it involved my favorite aspect of Time Travel (though not in the normal sense). The whole book made you think and was easy to get addicted to.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
 -- I read this before seeing the movie and I thought it was a very thoughtful picture of a 1950's marriage -- one of so many, I can only imagine.  It makes you understand why the feminist movement takes place years later (although I wish we asked for important things like adequate maternity leave and women's health be taken seriously and not just, "we want to be equal to men").

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
 -- Warning: It takes about half the book to get into the story, but it's worth it.  I don't know a lot about Sweden, but it wasn't this picture. A great mystery, thriller, set on a remote and cold Swedish Island.

The Wife: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer
 -- This is what would have happened to the wife in Revolutionary Road - years later. Resentment, bitterness, and downright dis-like of your spouse... all as he's about to receive a prestigious literary award and after 30+ years of marriage.  Another look at a wife's role in the 50's-60's and it's outcome.  I really enjoyed this book.

Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle
 -- If I had read this book now (when I'm pregnant), I wouldn't have been able to stomach it. It's fiction, but you know it's based on reality and the reality is hard to swallow. The wealth of southern California juxtaposed with the poverty of day laborers -- what happens when their world meets?

2008 Reading List

I have succeeded in my quest ... which was a quest I didn't know I was set out upon, but then it became so when I realized that on December 23rd I hadn't read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and that if I do read this book before the clock strikes 2009, I will have have read all the Jane Austen I will have ever wanted to read in 2008, which is maybe the most uplifting thing that has happened to me in 2008.

So 2008 was my Jane Austen year. It started out innocently. A book here and there. Then I saw Becoming Jane Austen and got all schmaltzy-eyed with 19th century love, and so I had to read the bios, then some critiques, and then finishing her books. Of all her books, my favorites became Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion.

Not everything was Jane Austen:

Time and Again, a book by Jack Finney who also wrote Invasion of the BodySnatchers, was an enlightened look into time travel -- one of my favorite fiction topics. Written in the 1970's, the government is funding an experiment using hypnosis to allow for time travel and the main character gets chosen for the experiment and succeeds in going back to 1890.




Becoming Jane Austen, by Jon Spence -- If you loved the movie like I did, this is the book which inspired the movie. The movie is fictionalized - imagining the relationship between Austen and LeFroy -- but the book is a biography (so be prepared for long confusing family trees). But he is one of the only biographers who thinks Austen's relationship with LeFroy was more serious and may have resulted in an engagement. The movie picks up on that notion.




Company by Max Barry was a fast, but good, read for anyone who's ever worked for a company where you sat in a cubicle, rarely see HR, and constantly asked yourself "What is up here?" It has an interesting twist that makes you wonder if indeed this isn't all a big joke.







If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman, you'll like Susanna Clark's short stories in The Ladies of Grace Adieu. And if you like them a bit on the spooky, gorey, dark side, then Nocturnes by John Connolly will do (the author of my favorite book The Book of Lost Things).





Finally, the 3 Kate Atkinson books I read this year are all really good. "Museum" is her first story and I really loved it. The other two are criminal mystery types with an ex-cop at the center and a set of interesting characters.

The official 2008 Reading List

1. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
   
2. The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler
3. Time and Again -- Jack Finney
4. The Ladies of Grace Adieu -- Susanna Clark
5. Nocturnes - John Connolly
6. Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen
7. Looking for Salvation... -- Susan Greg Gilmore
8. A Walk with Jane Austen -- Lori Smith
9. Becoming Jane Austen - Jon Spence
10. A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen -- Richard Jenkins
11. Pride & Prejudice -- Jane Austen
12. Flirting with Pride & Prejudice: Fresh Perspectives on the Original Chick-Lit Masterpiece -- Jennifer Crusie ed.
13. Company -- Max Barry
14. Emma - Jane Austen
15. Jennifer Government - Max Barry
16. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
17. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
18. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
19. Persuasion - Jane Austen
20. The Kitchen Boy - Robert Alexander
21. Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
22. The Magician's Assistant - Anne Patchett

Jane Austen

If you haven’t noticed – and if you haven’t it means you take no notice that to the right I list what I’ve been reading these days, and for that I say shame on you because reading is (aside from dreaming) a perfect way to escape, relax, chill, look smart…

So if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been dousing myself in a shower of Jane Austen novels, Jane Austen bios, and Jane Austen critiques. I’m scared that if I say I like Jane Austen, I’ll get stacked into the neat little pile of other Jane-adoring women, most of whom are just 1 inch away from the Harlequins.

But alright, I admit it, I like romance, and the movies on the BBC and A&E are really romantic. There’s something about a guy in high boots and seven layers of clothing that send a flush to my cheeks. But you know, the novels are not very romantic. They don’t kiss for instance. There are descriptions of tormented passion, but nothing explicit like modern day romances. No, instead her endings are wrapped up nice and neat, a marriage and then usually a synopsis of what was to come. The passionate endings of the movies are the genius of scriptwriters, God Bless ‘em.

So for that, I like the novels even better. Intelligent novels with deep characters, living in a world that we hope the movies have portrayed accurately, one of propriety, of astute language, where money passed through men’s hand and married women end up like cattle.

Oops, did I say that? Well, I’m just finishing up the Jon Spence Jane Austen Bio Becoming Jane Austen**, and towards the end he talks a lot about marriage in the early 19th century. Mostly he speaks of the realities of marriage and that Austen’s books usually end at the wedding ceremony and not beyond. What if we were to go beyond, what would we find? Marriage meant pregnancy after pregnancy after pregnancy. That is, if you and your husband got along. If a marriage had no children, it was seen as an unhappy marriage. Ha! More like a smart marriage.

Jane Austen had several brothers; all except one had wives who died in childbirth. Two of them had more than 10 children by the time they died, in their mid thirties, having worn out their bodies to the brink of death. Spence notes that Austen witnessed all of this. She witnessed her niece becoming pregnant not two months after having given birth, and seeing her sisters-in-laws broken down by not having, in one instance, 1 year in 17 years where they are not pregnant.

The outcome of all these children meant that these were “happy” couples; couples who still enjoyed each other’s company. But the physical toll on their bodies was almost cruelty. Jon Spence says that Jane Austen's last book (uncompleted) may have indicated her own "confrontation with her own brothers... The problem she had to grapple with was, quite bluntly, why her own brothers did not respect their wives enough to restrain their sexual desires."

Someone wrote on Amazon.com, that with the risk of childbirth, it was amazing that any of the women even wanted to be married. But what was the alternative to marriage? In Jane Austen’s family, two of her brothers inherited money from childless relatives. They never would have given any of the money to the girls, so automatically Jane and her sister are not as well off as the brothers. For them to have money to live on, they need to marry – and marry as best as they could. Just like younger sons risked their lives in the military, so did all the daughters by marrying and getting pregnant.

Maybe Jane Austen didn’t have to write about what happens after marriage because her contemporaries knew what happened and probably didn’t need to be reminded when they read her novels for the same reason we do – for pleasure, for escape, for relaxation, and maybe to look smart.

** This biography was the basis for the movie Becoming Jane, which is obviously much more passionate than the bio. I suggest a rental, it's really good. There's even a blog dedicated to the movie

Book Review: Death by Suburb

I finished reading this book called Death by Suburb. I mainly wanted to read it because A) I live in the suburbs and B) the author is actually from the suburb I live in. In fact, I think he lives not too far from me (from what I can gather from the book). It's a simple non-fiction book where the type is 14pt so it can span 150+ pages. You can read it in about 2 hours.

The book is mainly divided into the 8 ways a suburban lifestyle can "kill your soul" such as being too obsessed with material possessions, not appreciating each and every day, and searching for the perfection in life. Pretty obvious stuff. Note: This book take a Christian slant.

According to the author, the lifestyle in the chicago suburbs (as contract to his upbringing in rural Nebraska/S. Dakota) can kill the spiritual christian soul if we let it. First off, I take offense to transplants to Chicago who act like they understand everything about it here. But then again, I started reading this book destined to hate it. Why? Because his first chapter is bad-mouthing the very town we live in. Even the beautiful Prairie Path gets reverted to a 2-lane mulched freeway.

The author, himself a victim to the lures of the suburbs -- the SUV, the perfect children -- explains how he traded up to the SUV. It was when a fellow church-goer said, "Oh it was you driving behind me in that grandma car." All I have to say is 1) Sign me up for that church and 2) who cares what other people say, are you not secure in yourself? I say this all, living in this same suburb driving around in a 1998 Civic with an anti-Bush sticker on my bumper. I've got to be secure!

So the author is definitely someone who has been manipulated by the idea he is judged by others. He wants to drive a car that makes others envious, he wants his kid to be reading better than the others. But as a Christian, he's in turmoil with what he was taught. It's obvious he was taught to be accepting and live life simply. As a non-religious person, I read this as the church is just yet another social sphere for judgment and condescension, as he demonstrates in his book (the cliques divided by wealth). He's just as guilty as the rest of them and that's why he's easily able to ID the problems. When I read it, I kept on thinking, why do you care what they say? Shouldn't you automatically be nice?

But in all fairness, I think the 8 "toxins" you can fall victim to can be true - if you let them.

One toxin was "I want my neighbor's life." The idea here was the immortality vs. mortality symbols. An immortality symbol, the author explains, is the SUV, the big car, the smart and athletic kids, anything that positions you as perfect, untouchable. A mortality symbol is losing your job, a special-needs kid -- all things that bring you down to earth. Those who have never experienced mortality cannot understand what it's like to have, for example, a special needs kid (and you all know I have a special needs brother, my immediate family is the poster child for mortality.) The solution was to make friends with those with no immortality symbols. In other words, when you live a mortal life and you have immortal friends, their pettiness will wear you down. Make friends with those who are also mortal - after all, we all are no matter what car we drive, there are those who just wish to hide it.

But I don't think they are "suburb-only" problems. It's an affluence thing. The higher you are up on the feed-chain the more control you want over your surroundings (i.e. perfection), and the more you are to value material possessions because you can actually get them. If you go to certain areas in the city, it's even worse.

We met a couple who told us that there are people who want to live in the up&coming areas in Chicago but drive their kids 10 miles away to the better schools. How different is that to the woman who took her kid out of the public school in the suburbs because a private education would be better?

Oh yes, this book is chock-full of little stories of how horrible people can be. How about the family that up and left in the middle of a little league game (with their kid) because she wasn't being played enough. Or the mom who demanded from the principal the scores to the kids who were above her own to "prove" they were really reading at a higher grade level.

But there are these types of crazies everywhere, and at every time in life. The important thing is to recognize them for what they are -- crazies -- and try to limit your exposure to them. For the author it's hard when you have kids and go to church -- we have neither. For now, we've always been friends with those who are kind, non-judgmental, and are true to themselves. Those who aren't seem to have an automatic aversion to us anyway, so I'm not worried. Maybe it's my car?

Book Review: Behind the Scenes at the Museum

I'm kind of a sucker for these "life" stories; you know, books that tell stories that span the characters' life --as opposed to the "snippet in time" ones. But that's not why I picked up this book. I picked it up because I was making my way through the paperback book section at the library in Alpha order and picked up A for Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum. She authored a book my mom gave me to read --which I haven't.

Anyway, this is the first book by this author, although you'd never know it because how many would start off their book like this:

I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall.

Ruby's conception in 1951 is the beginning of the book, followed by her narrative "in utero." I was immediately hooked. What follows is stories of Ruby's like in York living Above the Shop with her parents --who run a Pet Store-- and her 2 older sisters.

Peppered in between Ruby's stories are tales of her family, her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother and their children. Momentos of the family get explained in detail during these stories, as do the characters that make up Ruby's family and might explain for some of the traits that continue on.

Some of the stories are sad, they are told between the late 1800's through the 2nd WW. You understand better how these wars really ripped apart England and it's families. But through it all, the women survive telling their tales of woe and the unfortunate men they had to marry -- drunks, philanderers, bores... if it wasn't for Atkinson's heroine and her humor despite all, I would have gotten too depressed on these women's lot in life. What were they to do? Have more babies? But through it all there's a positive vibe that Ruby would be different, and make her way in life different than the others.

In one of the chapters, the narrator describes how her mother made tea while her dad watched saying "it was 1959 after all."

But I enjoyed this book, it was fun to read and makes me want to pick up other books be her -- or read the one my mom gave me!

Book Review: The Magician's Assistant

The Magician’s Assistant is my third Ann Patchett novel (previously read: Bel Canto and The Patron Saint of Liars). Anne Patchett is nothing if not an exceptional storyteller and skilful in character development. All of her stories could be called slow moving; they are real life stories with life shattering twists that come upon slow and soulfully, not with a head turning spin that makes the reader dizzy.

In the Magician’s Assistant, we discover Sabine, the Assistant and new wife of Magician Parsifal who has died of AIDS, preceding his lover Phan. Sabine was Parsifal’s assistant for 22 years before they were married. Parsifal was a gay man, with no living relatives, and a penchant for antique rugs. His death has caused Sabine’s life to stop moving, as she wanders the house where the three of them lived, the places they entertained people, and the only life, as she knew.

That is until Parsifal’s will uncovers living relatives … a mother and two sisters. Family he told Sabine he never had in a place he never mentioned, Alliance, Nebraska.

In an instant, Sabine’s world gets interrupted by a visit from these relatives who want to meet her and see Parsifal’s resting place. Sabine wants to know why Parsifal decided to shut away that part of his life, and who these people are and what they want of her.

The story starts in Los Angeles, CA and ends up in Alliance, NE where Sabine will go to learn the truth about Parsifal -- the man she thought she knew-- and finally become closer to him.

In the books I’ve read, Ann Patchett’s heroines are deep souls with no inclination for allowing anyone to help them or revealing too much. They seem to be helpless, bouncing around by life’s predicaments, but in truth are strong and willful. In the Patron Saint of Liars her main character--young married and pregnant-- leaves her husband and ends up in the Midwest at a Catholic Home for wayward girls. There she claims the father of her baby is dead and “begins” a new life. In Bel Canto, the opera singer is the lone female stuck in a mansion held by hostages. In this insane microcosm, she discovers what it is to be truly admired and loved, and what it means to lose it.

I didn’t feel as moved by The Magician’s Assistant, as I did about Bel Canto (but then again, I found Bel Canto to be heads and shoulders above any book I’ve read); but if you enjoy Ann Patchett, then you will enjoy this moving story.

Book Review: Ellington Boulevard

After all the good books I read in 2007, it was only inevitable that I should be in a reading funk in January and February. Every book I picked up felt like lead in my hands and a burden in my book bag. So it must be karma that once I find a good book, then a suite of good books follow. It's like that saying, "When it rains, it pours."

I picked up 5 books at the library recently and have been reading them in order of their size (small to large). Ellington Boulevard was my first.

This is the latest book by Chicagoan Adam Langer, who also wrote Crossing California. CC was one of the books I tried reading in January (as well as last year); it takes place in Chicago (Roger's Park) and for that reason you would think that I would plow through it, but that wasn't the case. As far as I read of this novel, it's 1979 Chicago and it chronicles the lives of some Jewish youths in Roger's Park during the span of the Iran hostage crisis. Maybe it was the characters, but I didn't like them enough to care and I didn't feel like reading it anymore.

Ellington Boulevard -- set in NYC and we know how I love NYC (read: hate NYC) books -- hit me in a completely opposite way. The characters were more caricatures, and I liked them a whole lot better. The plot is simple: Ike Morphy, a former Jazz clarinetist for the group the Funkshuns, and his dog Herbie Mann, live in a rent controlled apartment in an up-and-coming NY neighborhood. When the landlord dies and his son, Mark, inherits the building, he learns that Ike's been living there with a lease equal to a "handshake." That's when the new owner decides to sell the apartments so he start a chain of restaurants, but Ike's not making it easy for Mark or real estate broker Josh, especially when potential buyers Darrell and Rebecca come to look at it.

Rebecca is a new editor for a tanking magazine and her husband is a perpetual doctoral student and spends all day avoiding his dissertation and chasing after a pretty red-head he met in the library -- who has a story of her own. Each chapter tells a little more of each person's story and how all their lives in NYC are all intersecting through this one apartment.

The seller is a recovering addict who's trying to make over his life, but he's still pretty sleazy. The real estate broker is an aspiring actor who fell into the lucrative world of real estate. The mortgage broker opens a bottle of champagne whenever the economy reports job losses. The girlfriend is a writer who lost her creativity and now only writes stories like "This annoying guy is trying to pick me up in the library, what's up with that" -- or something like that.

The character list is unending and each is interesting - whether likable or not - in their own right. But Darrell had to be my favorite: the son of professor's in Madison, WI, he's the perpetual doctoral student who downloads music instead of writing his dissertation, bullshits his TA work, and resents his wife for having wealthy parents. He's an insecure slacker, completely annoying, and I loved him. To me, he felt like the only real character; maybe because he was the one

The style was reminiscent of the Bill Fitzhugh novels I've been reading -- where the multiple characters are all connected in ways they didn't know they were. And they effect each other's outcomes without ever even meeting each other. The novel starts of slow, describing the setting and people, then you learn how they all intersect, and finally the face-paced ending where it jumps from story to story. So it was a style I liked, and I can't say he copied it since I'm sure Fitzhugh got it from someone else ...