Echo Park ***

After I read Wolves Eat Dogs, I polished off Michael Connelly's Echo Park. (It takes a long time to get from Paris to Raleigh and I am a very fast reader.) I like the Harry Bosch novels, although I don't find them as literarily stellar as do many reviewers. Harry is a bit too macho for my taste--his need to be tough makes him occasionally stupid and that always irks me.

Echo Park is a good Harry Bosch novel, but not the best. (My favorite is The Closers.) The suspense in this book is great--it is truly a page turner--and plot is twisty in a great way. It is the sort of story one stays up way past bedtime to see how it is resolved. It's a great summer read, or a great airline read, and there's nothing wrong with that!

Wolves Eat Dogs***

Flying over the Atlantic, while returning from a family trip to France, I read Martin Cruz Smith's novel, Wolves Eat Dogs. I am a fan of the Arkady Renko novels and am, in fact, not quite sure why I haven't already read this one, given that it was published in 2004.

I owe to Smith much of my sense of Russia over the past 26 years--tracing its progress--perhaps--from Communist cold war big brother (detailed in 1981's Gorky Park)to Mafia ridden nightmare (in Red Square, 1992) to capitalistic free-for-all in Wolves Eat Dogs. At each stage Arkady, hampered by his sadistic and stupid bosses, has teased the truth out of Russia's corrupt intrigues. In each book, he is so saddened by his past and present, his future seems almost untenable. I find Smith a wonderful writer--his language is sharp and distinct, his scenes starkly readable.

In Wolves Eat Dogs, Arkady travels to the heart of darkness--the Zone of Exclusion which rings the dead zone of Chernobyl. Smith spins the story of what happened and still happens there. His descriptions of the towns, decreed to be empty, yet housing those who couldn't or wouldn't leave, are marvelous. Arkady's stoic heart is pulled by a woman and a child, the former a doctor in the Zone, the latter a silent orphan in Moscow. Some of my favorite dialog happens as Arkady, banished to the Zone to find who slit the throat of the senior vice-president of NoviRus, a huge New Russia corporation, spins the story of where he is to the eleven year old he feels somehow responsible for. The boy, silent on the phone in Moscow, impels Arkady to meld the dark fairy tales of Baba Yaga with the damaged world he finds in Chernobyl.

Like many books, Wolves Eat Dogs stumbles at bit at its conclusion. The story of who the killer is seems a bit oddly resolved and the last chapter is a bit too tidily woven. I forgive Smith these weaknesses, however. As I sat on my plane, the hours flew by and, at the end of the book, as I have in all of Smith's Renko series, I felt I understood a bit better the complex vastness that is Mother Russia.

Good reads about depressed Swedish policemen

Last summer, I worked my way through a mystery series by a Swede named Henning Mankel. Here's a review I wrote then. In retrospect, I like these books even more, although I can't say I enjoyed them more. But I think they offer a stellar reading experience.

This book, Sidetracked, is the fourth in the series and I can't quite figure out why I keep reading them. Mankel's vision of Sweden is a downer--a bland, faceless culture filled with bureaucracy and bad weather. His protagonist, Kurt Wallender, is glum, often drunk, completely unable to connect with others and a bit of a prick. The tone of the books is dark and virtually without redemption. And yet...

The plot lines are global and give a world perspective vastly different from America's self-absorbed view. The way the strands and stories in the novel come together is always unclear until the end and it's interesting the way the characters and storylines evolve. The books are set in a real world context--in the third one, Mandela and DeKlerk are characters, one of whom is an intended murder victim. I do keep hoping Kurt will get his life together and find some happiness--although I have no reason, based on the first three books, to expect that will be true.

I have thought, as I read each book, this one will be the last one I'll read--there's got to be cheerier entertainment on my bookshelves (I've been ignoring the call of the new translation of Anna Karenina.) I'm a third of the way into this one and maybe, after I'm done I'll quit. But probably not--there's something compelling about being depressed by the details of another culture. I've come to believe I'd much rather live in North Carolina than in Sweden--even though there appears to be no rabid religious right in rural Sweden. There's also no Deadwood.

The Shadow of the Wind***

Thinking of summer reading made me recall the halcyon days of last summer where, for one glorious week, I immersed myself in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This book is an international best seller and was on the bestseller list in Spain for over two years.

The Shadow of the Wind is a novel that’s a thriller, a tale of historical fiction, a mystery and a passionate love story. As I read it I was reminded of other grand tales I have loved, A.S. Byatt’s Possession, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, even, Ian McEwan’s Atonement. But mostly I didn’t think about anything but Zafon’s story, which is big, bold, funny, well written and shameless.

I will confess that I have begun to avoid difficult books. I just plowed my way through A Very Long Engagement and I was annoyed at myself first for not having a great enough attention span and then for sticking with a book I didn’t enjoy. Life is often hard and then you do, sooner or later, die. I have a certain quota for suffering caused by art and, I am not ashamed to say, it grows smaller by the year. Reading is for me, after the joys of mothering, marriage and my friends, my favorite source of pleasure.

I love to read, to talk about reading and to remember reading. I use reading to make sense of reality. I love the lenses reading affords—reading The Lovely Bones showed me a vision of being dead I could maybe accept and certainly found wildly interesting.

I recommend The Shadow of the Wind to anyone who wants to be seduced by a story. It’s not perfect and not all the metaphors hold together. And it is, upon reflection, a trfle melodramatic. But, God, was it a fun read.

The Myth of You and Me*** and Snowflower and the Secret Fan***1/2

Here's another realeve post proffering some good "chick lit" for summer reading:

I have just finished two books about "best friends," each told from the perspective of one of the women in the friendship.

The first, The Myth of You and Me by by Lisa Stewart, is so evocative of the last true best friendship I had and lost, that I had a hard time separating Cameron's and Sonia's friendship from the one I had in college. While The Myth of You and Me wobbles a bit in its writing and cliches, it is a wonderful read.

The second, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, is beautifully written and completely lacking in cliches. It is a tale set in--I think--late 19th/early 20th century China and is full of often horrifying information about that country's wildly foreign customs: footbinding, social caste and Confucius's rules for marital life. I couldn't put it down--Lily's story of her life with her laotong (pledged life-long friend) Snow Flower is so compelling and believable.

Friendship between women, especially those we think of as our best, is its own sort of great love affair. It often strikes me that we outgrow the idea of best friends as we age--the demands of such an intense relationship are had to meet as we marry, work, raise children and strive to be so many things to so many.

I recommend both books highly.

Keturah and Lord Death***1/2

I am in the midst--I hope--of a life long love affair with what bookies call YA (young adult) novels. Since childhood, I have loved books written--supposedly--for kids ages 10 to 16. Lloyd Alexander's masterful Prydain chronicles, Cynthia Voight's tales of the Tillermans, and, more recently, Shannon Hale's superb Bayern trilogy, are all books I have read over and over and shared with those I love.

Martine Leavitt's “Keturah and Lord Death,” which was a finalist last fall for a National Book Award, is a good addition to my catalog of excellent YA books. Ms. Leavitt is a strong writer and her depictions of the lives of her medieval small town characters seem real and are engaging. Our heroine, Keturah, needs to find her one true love and save her village from the Plague while playing Scheherazade to Death himself. The book ends satisfyingly, its plot resolved in believable yet surprising ways.

I loved the underlying premise of the story--we humans value what we love only because we know death could snatch our hearts away from us at any moment. As Keturah points out to Death, "It was Death who sweetened the apples.... He made her see how much she loved her friends, for all their trouble, and how much her grandmother loved her, and oh, he made her love the breath in her lungs."

So many great books, so little time.

A Good House****

My friend Pam just returned to me my oft loaned copy of Bonnie Burnard's A Good House. Pam, like all with whom I've shared this book, thanked me and said "I really enjoyed it." Every one enjoys this book--many, like my sister, my next-door neighbor and I, love it.

A Good House, written in 1999, was awarded Canada's Giller Prize (best novel published in English by a Canadian author). Written from various points of view, A Good House tells the tale of the Chambers family of Stonebrook, Ontario, from 1949 to 1997. Like the work of fellow Canadian Alice Munroe, the power here is in the details and in the beauty and sadness in every day life. By the end of the book, the reader knows the Chambers, even loves them, and feels richer for the experience.

I recommend it highly--at the very least, you'll enjoy it.

Salon.com recommends hardback thrillers for summer reading

What the Dead Know ***1/2

Laura Lippman's slow turning mystery/psychological thriller What the Dead Know so evoked my early teen years in the mid-70's I kept humming "All the Girls Love Alice" (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John, released in 1973)while I was reading it. This novel does a terrific job of plunking the reader smack dab in that long ago time. The story, which weaves the past and present together, waits until its end to reveal the fates of Heather and Sunny Bethany, two sisters, 11 and 15, who vanished in suburban Baltimore in 1975. Is the woman picked up by the police for leaving the scene of an accident Heather, as she claims? And if she isn't, why does she say she is and how does she know so much about the Bethany family's 1970's life?

In our world, we worry all the time about snatched away children and malevolent strangers, but in 1973, the mall seemed a safe place for two sisters to shop on a Saturday. One of the pleasures of this book is the lens it gives the reader on life in America three decades ago--it's impossible not to constantly stop and compare then to now as one reads. By the end of the book, not only has the sad fate of the Bethany sisters been revealed, an earlier era has been marvelously excavated: Jethro Tull, Bonnie Bell, Dr. Scholl's sandals, macrame purses and all.

The Janissary Tree**1/2

This historical mystery is set in 19th-century Istanbul--the protagonist and sleuth is a eunuch named Yashim Togalu. The author, Jason Goodwin, has previously written the acclaimed history of the Ottoman Empire, Lords of the Horizons (1999). The Janissary Tree is his first book of fiction and won the 2007 Edgar Award for best mystery.

I haven't read it, but my husband just did and he, like Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times, was bugged by the anachronistic slang . It's hard, said Greg (my husband), to believe all the historical details this book flourishes so richly when the characters sound as though they could be walking the streets of modern day America. (On page 114, our hero yells, "Get your tools, people! We've got to take down this house!") It may be that Greg, having just read the Hannah Trevor series, is momentarily spoiled and thus might have liked Mr. Goodwin's book better had he read it another time.

If I read it, I'll let you know what I think.

the Hannah Trevor series***1/2

Margaret Lawrence wrote four historical mysteries about Hannah Trevor, a midwife struggling in 18th century America.: Hearts and Bones, Blood Red Roses, The Burning Bride and The Iceweaver. These books, published in the 1990's, are set in post-Revolutionary War Maine, a world that I, who majored in US history, knew very little about.

The first book, Hearts and Bones, was described by Booklist as:

A murder mystery, a powerful historical novel of war and its aftermath, and a vivid love story: Lawrence combines all these elements into a seamless, striking first novel. Her setting is post-Revolutionary War Maine, where families still mourn their dead brothers and husbands, and men still cry out at night in the grip of battle nightmares. Hannah Trevor is the town's midwife, a widow respected for her skill but held at arm's length by many because of her independence. Her deaf daughter, eight-year-old Jennet, is rumored to be the love child of wealthy, married Daniel Josselyn, though Jennet was born just nine months after Hannah's Loyalist husband fled to Canada. In the middle of a harsh Maine winter, Hannah notices that the fire has gone out at Althea Emory's cottage, and on entering the cold, dark home, she finds Althea beaten, raped, and murdered. On her table is a note blaming three men for this horrific crime, and one of them is Hannah's former lover, Major Josselyn. Through a combination of diary entries, trial records, autopsy reports, and engrossing narrative, Lawrence reveals the story of a witness and a participant in a brutal war crime and their decade-long silence.

I have read these books several times and have enjoyed them immensely each reading. My husband is now reading them and is utterly engrossed--the picture Ms. Lawrence paints of early America is riveting and her characters work their way into a reader's thoughts for they are men and women with whom time is well spent.

Summer books for kids of all ages

Here's a post I wrote several years ago on therealeve.com. I thought it was timely given that school is out as of next week!

OK, so, school is out and, at 7:30 in the morning, you hear, “But Mom, can’t I turn on the Playstation. I’m sooo bored and, there’s like, nothing to do.” There are several response to this. You can offer to let them clean out the garage—I find that one works well. You can offer to take them to the pool—this means you must have a good book to read—check back tomorrow. You can get into a screaming match about how when you were a kid you played outside all day long and never ever ever whined. (Yeah, right.)

Or, you can tell your child to read a good book. Now this suggestion is trickier than it sounds. There are lots and lots of books that really are just dreadful. Any books involving characters from the Cartoon Network should be avoided at all costs. The same goes for books that involve obvious product placement—if you have a Cheerios counting book, throw it away now!

But there are many great kids books, some of which are long enough to keep your children busy for at least an hour or two. Here’s are some my children and I have read and loved:

The Bayern trilogy by Shannon Hale--The Goose Girl, Enna Burning and River Secrets--is superb. Booklist reviews wrote: "The expertly chosen, often poetic details set and pace the story, and the fully drawn characters, whose dialogue crackles with wit, will point readers to the underlying themes of cultural prejudice and the corruption of power that touch on contemporary political debates. Suspenseful, magical, and heartfelt, this is a story that will wholly envelop its readers."

My daughter and I have read each of these books several times and, while the first is our favorite, we love them all! Grades 3-up.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Ms. Funke is the third best selling children’s author in Germany (after Rowling and Stine). Her first book, The Thief Lord, was a success but I found it a little off-putting. Her second, however, is fabulous. Meggie, its heroine, must face villains so evil they could only have come from a novel… which they did. Her father has the power to read characters right out of books. Inkheart, which is a genuine page-turner, is a paean to booklovers everywhere. Its sequel--there are to be three--Inkspell is also wonderful. Grades 4-up or as a read aloud for grades 1-3.

Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism by Georgia Byng. My eight year old daughter read herself this book and liked it so much she talked me into reading it as well. Molly Moon, the hapless heroine, is wonderfully flawed and funny. She discovers a book on hypnotism and becomes the ruler of all she sees and wants. And, being a middle school girl, want she wants is candy, stardom, and cool clothes. Oh, and a best friend. There are several sequels. The second in the series, Molly Moon Stops the World, my daughter says is “almost as good as the first.” Grades 2-7.

Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris. I loved this book. One of the great failures in my life has been my performance as the Tooth Fairy. I have lain awake at night worried what my children must think about the erratic performance of the TF. This book explains it perfectly. It turns out Mab, the TF, is past her prime by a good hundred years but refuses to let the job go! See, I’m off the hook. This book isn’t about the TF—she is just one of many ancillary characters that are wonderfully written. The protagonist is Christian who has been raised in the forest by a troll named Edric. Christian is ready to leave home however and pursue his destiny which he hopes entails landing the love of the very intelligent Princess Marigold. His quest is both funny and sweet and Ms. Ferris follows in the footsteps of the classic fairy tellers in the way she skewers the castle culture. Grades 4-up or as a read aloud for grades 1-3.

Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread (NEWBERY MEDAL BOOK) by Kate Dicamillo. This book, narrated in a Dear-Reader style, tells the story of mice and men. The main mouse in question, Despereaux is cast out from the world of mice and banished, by his own father, to the genuinely scary and evil rat-run dungeon. But Despereaux burns with love for the human Princess Pea and thus has no intention of becoming rat food. Loves, forgiveness, and frustrating families are all dealt with deftly in this book that cries out for a sequel. Grades 3-up.

I also recommend:

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, a terrific trilogy by the great Phillip Pullman. These are my favorite young adult books ever written and amongst my favorite books ever written. Grades 6-up.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Grades 6-up.

A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels by Libba Bray (a third is to be published this winter). A perfect book for girls looking for a feminine answer to all those books about boys on quests. Grades 7-up.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. Mr. Hiaasen, who spends much of his time writing bitingly funny mysteries set in South Florida, has written the perfect modern mystery for kids. It involves alligators in toilets, bad guys who want to destroy the environment to build a chain of pancake stores and completely believable kids. It made me and my children laugh aloud! Grades 5-up.

D’Aulaires’ Norse Gods and Giants and D’Aulaires’ Book Greek Myths. These books, though first published in the ‘60’s, are great storytelling books and can keep younger children occupied for hours. Older kids will enjoy reading the stories they’ve seen butchered in Disney movies. Grades K-up.

If none of these suggestions appeal to you, check out Chinaberry.com.
This has been my hands-down best source for discovering new childrens books for over ten years now. If Chinaberry says it's a great book, believe them!

So, the next time you hear the chain-saw whine of boredom coming from your children’s lips, just tell them you know of a good book…

The First Desire ***

I was thinking tonight about a book I read earlier this year, a novel by Nancy Reisman, The First Desire. While I read, I felt I was living the lives of others, a part of a family, albeit a family vastly different from my own.

The family followed in this book, the Cohens, predominately experience life through the lens of each other. The book follows them, episodically, from the 1920's to 1950. Wars happen, parents die, siblings' identities thread through each other's lives. At the end, when I closed the bindings of the book, I imagined the Cohens living on, through the '60's and onward. My sense of them was palpable.

There is little plot in this book--and plot is usually a requirement for my literary enjoyment--and yet, the sense of lives lived is so strong that plot seems unnecessary. The First Desire is fiction that feels like life and reads like a gift. I must add, however, it is not the right present for everyone. I have given it to several other women and one liked it tremendously and the other two said, "eh, it's OK."

King Dork***1/2

King Dork, by Frank Portman, is the funniest book I have read in ages. It's a YA book for older kids--14 and up--and for anyone who loves bands, hated parts of high school or has a sense of humor. Here's an excerpt from the first page:

There's always a bit of suspense about the particular way in which a given school year will get off to a bad start.

This year, it was an evil omen, like when druids observe an owl against the moon in the first hour of Samhain and conclude that a grim doom awaits the harvest. That kind of thing can set the tone for the rest of the year. What I'm getting at is, the first living creature Sam Hellerman and I encountered when we penetrated the school grounds on the first day of school was none other than Mr. Teone.

The sky seemed suddenly to darken.

We were walking past the faculty parking, and he was seated in his beat-up '93 Geo Prizm, struggling to force his supersized body through the open car door. We hurried past, but he noticed us just as he finally squeezed through. He stood by the car, panting heavily from the effort and trying to tuck his shirt into his pants so that it would stay in for longer than a few seconds.

"Good morning, Peggy," he said to Sam Hellerman. "So you decided to risk another year." He turned to me and bellowed: "Henderson!" Then he did this big theatrical salute and waddled away, laughing to himself.

He always calls me by my last name and he always salutes. Clearly, mocking me and Sam Hellerman is more important than the preservation of his own dignity. He seems to consider it to be part of his job. Which tells you just about everything you need to know about Hillmont High School society.

It could be worse. Mr. Donnelly, PE teacher and sadist supreme, along with his jabbering horde of young sports troglodytes-in-training, never bother with Moe or Peggy, and they don't salute. They prefer to say "pussy" and hit you on the ear with a cupped palm. According to an article called "Physical Interrogation Techniques" in one of my magazines (Today's Mercenary), this can cause damage to the eardrum and even death when applied accurately. But Mr. Donnelly and his minions are not in it for the accuracy. They operate on pure, mean-spirited, status-conscious instinct, which usually isn't very well thought out. Lucky for me they're so poorly trained, or I'd be in big trouble.

Ghostwalk****

Sometimes the perfect use of the comma can lure one into wonderful prose. The first sentence of Rebecca Stott's Ghostwalk seduced me and, for that, I am grateful. Ms. Stott writes:

"Unrepaired and swollen with rain, the gate in the orchard wall refused to move until Cameron put his full weight against it and pushed, hard."

Cameron Brown, "fellow of Trinity College, neuroscientist", is the son of Elizabeth Vogelsang, a scholar obsessed with the 17th century. After Elizabeth is found drowned (on page 4--no spoilers here!), Cameron enlists Lydia Brooke, his former lover, to finish his mother's book on Isaac Newton and his profound interest in alchemy. Much of Ghostwalk, is narrated by Lydia as she works to come to terms with Newton's past, Cameron's present and the ex-lovers' future.

The writing is stellar, evocative of another classic British historical mystery, A. S. Byatt's Possession, and, as in Possession, the past shapes the future in ways unshown to the reader until the end of this compelling book. And, as in Byatt's book, the love affairs it chronicles are sexy and believable.

I loved it. The book is crammed full of history--who knew Newton was obsessed with alchemy--replete with authentic footnotes and historical timelines. Even the slightly crazed ghosts who haunt Lydia and who may or may not have killed Elizabeth worked for me--I have always loved magical realism and it makes complete sense to me that British scholars would be haunted by long gone intellectuals still angered by the lack of respect paid them by their Cambridge peers.

The Passionate Reader

Welcome to The Passionate Reader. I am, as all who know me know, a passionate reader and recommender of books. I am regularly asked for book recommendations for adults, teens and kids. I plan to use this blog to post both my own reveiws and recommendations as well as those sent to me by others. If you would like to write a reveiw, please email me at loudab@nc.rr.com.

Happy reading!