Tag Archives: book review

a beautiful blue book

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when i was a kid i took this art history class, and we learned about picasso’s blue period, and ever since then i sometimes think of my life in terms of periods.

like this would definitely be my murder-mystery period. i know you must think i’m obsessed… but anyway i read the first in a new series by Charles Finch: A Beautiful Blue Death. The hero, Charles Lenox is an English gentlemen/amateur detective in the 1860s (note: is it weird to give a main character your own name? I mean really? I think that’s weird. Uncreative at the best; egotistical at the worst). Together with his friends–a cast of lovable characters that I found refreshingly far from the usual archetypes–he solves crimes. Lady Jane, his neighbor a longtime friend (a potential romantic interest one day perhaps?); his brother Edmund (Member of Parliament); (former) Dr. McConnell and his wife Toto (high-flyers in the social world); and a few other friends who drop in all make for a delightful society.

In his debut, Finch presents the story of a maid who is  found dead. At first, it appears to be suicide. Then it appears to be maybe not suicide. Then it appears–well I won’t spoil it. Suffice it to say that things aren’t quite what they seem. The suspects are intriguing without being outrageous or unrealistic, and the style is easy to read with a few nicely placed punchlines.  Finch was nominated for an award for this book, and I can see why. If it’s not quite Agatha-quality, it’s certainly a good read. My few complaints are that a few clues (even if they were trivial ones) seemed to drop a bit too obviously, and the narrative seemed to drag a leeeeetle bit at certain points. That being said, I read the whole thing in one night and I’m heading back to the library this afternoon to get the next one. :)

If you’re looking for good, clean, old-fashioned, violent crime then this is a winner!

book of the year

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i have just finished reading what i have decided should be 2010′s book of the year. it can be 2011′s, too, if it wants, because it’s been a while since i’ve read something i like this much. in fact, i’m going to have to say that the potato peel pie book was the last book i read of this amazingess.

i have a list of my top 5 favorite books (un-ranked within that list), a list i don’t lightly change, and i have to say that this new book has just made the cut.

allow me to introduce you to adam langer’s the thieves of manhattan. if i had to describe it in one sentence i would call it “The Great Gatsby meets The Great Train Robbery (with a little of __________ thrown in).” i can’t quite pinpoint what title to put in the blank, but i think you get the idea. (ironically — and yes, i think this is irony — theives has replaced the great train robbery on my top-5 list.)

the thieves of manhattan is the story of ian minot, a barista who is also a struggling writer. his stories are continually (and brutally) rejected by publishers, while a man named blake markham has just published his “memoirs” and is topping all the best-seller lists. ian knows that blake’s story is completely fabricated, and he’s infuriated by the phony’s success. enter jed roth. jed roth has written a novel that is so far-fetched the publishers said it would never get published unless it was true. and so roth has a plan — ian will publish his novel as his own, claiming that the far-fetched tale is a memoir and very true. then at the opportune time, ian will reveal that the story is false. he’ll be so famous by then, that he’ll be able to get anything he writes published. and roth will get his revenge on the publishers — by shaming them and revealing their hypocrisy. it seems straightforward enough, but there’s a series of twists along the way, delightful characters, and a quick-paced writing style that quickly charms the reader.

langer’s style has a feel that is somehow reminiscent of the great gatsby; not only in his scenes and themes (glitzy parties, what men do for love, phonies and high society), but even in his actual writing. it’s far less difficult to read than fitzgerald, however; i found myself breezing through the pages. one of langer’s best techniques is a vocabulary he creates. ian wears a pair of “franzens” (glasses like jonathan franzen) and buys a new “gatsby” (a sportscoat like gatsby would wear). there’s a glossary for all those, though context is pretty helpful too, and i wasn’t ever bewildered past understanding (even when the fine details escaped me). a slight downside is that the book starts a bit heavy on publishing-industry terms and there’s one or two blips of obscenities, but the storyline and characters more than compensate; and by the end, it makes for a clear, concise, charming read.

on the one hand, it’s an a satirical (and sometimes acidic) take on the publication industry. but there is more at work. langer is also commenting on what kinds of readers we are (have become?) today, the kinds of books and authors we revere — and support. and, to top it off, langer tackles the fine line between fact and fiction — which is one of my favorite literary topics.  in many ways it is the book i wish i had thought of first and written. for anyone who loves metatextualism, capers, and a good plot (three of my favorite things ever) — i give it 5 stars.

falling short, but finely

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gardencoverdear the forgotten garden by kate morton,

it’s not that i didn’t like you — it’s really not… you had so many of the elements i love in a good story: a well-planned and fascinating plot, deft writing, characters with great potential, and a satisfying end…

i would even say i loved your plotline – it’s always a treat (because it’s so rate) for me to find a plot that is semi-believable, thoroughly planned, and genuinely interesting. and your plot is well above average in this. it has something of a dickensian flavor, which is to be admired; that it takes your dear author a dickensian length (500+ pages) to pan out said plotline is a detail the generous reader might be willing to overlook…

except that your structure is so scattered. the going back and forth across three or four generations left me unable to get genuinely invested in you. i had little trouble following the plot through the time leaps, but i had  great trouble becoming attached to your characters (except maybe for one). which is too bad, really, because they were such finely crafted characters! and some of them seemed to have so much potential; i think i would have enjoyed getting to know them. in this respect, i wish you were more dickensian.

as it is, though, your devotion to unfolding the plot slightly robs you in some other ways. and since the plot becomes fairly predictable halfway through, it’s hard to justify the underdevelopment (i use this word for lack of a better one; but it isn’t quite underdevelopment…) of the characters.

don’t worry – i definitely enjoyed reading you; i don’t consider the hours it took a waste at all. you might be the perfect traveling book — long enough to fill long hours in an airport or on the road, and i’ll certainly consider reading other books by your skillful author (i especially look forward to seeing her development as an author, because as i understand it, this is only her second book, and i am sure more are to come).

it’s just that when i recommend you to friends (and i surely will), there will always be this small caveat: when faced with the choice between reading you and doing something else, i almost always chose the somethings else…

nicole

sweetness indeed

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book coverfor my birthday, i got two new books, the first of which i finished the other day. the sweetness at the bottom of the pie, by alan bradley, is a real winner. it’s a murder mystery, placed in 1950s england, and the sleuth is eleven-year-old chemistry prodigy flavia de luce.

first flavia and her father find a dead bird with a stamp stuck in its a beak on the doorstep. the next day, flavia finds a dead body in the garden. and the story unfolds as flavia races to solve the murder before the wrong person is arrested.

bradley does an excellent job writing as an eleven-year-old prodigy. you never forget that flavia’s a child, but you never doubt her astuteness, either; and you cannot help but love her charm. she’s a true delight: determined, indomitable and precocious — but never annoying.

the book is great fun — it’s written for adults, despite having a child as the heroine, but it’s clean (notwithstanding the fact that there’s been a murder), lively, engaging and smooth. i give it 4 stars without hesitation, though i can’t quite move it up the ladder to a coveted 5-star slot. don’t let that discourage you, though — the sweetness at the bottom of the pie should definitely be on your must-read list.

must-read

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Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society is my new favorite book.

 BN.com sums up the plot better than i can:

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Let me add this:

This book is truly well-done. One the best reads I’ve found in a while. It’s light-hearted (not a deep or terribly philosophical book), very well-written (it’s a series of letters), easy to read and hard to put down. It has just enough of all the right things (little bit of mystery, little bit of romance, little bit of tragedy, little bit of heart-warming-ness), and none of the wrong things (as best as I can remember). It’s grown-up (post-WWII so there are some war memories), and it’s genuine.  The characters are delightful, the pace is perfect, and overall it kept me happy for a few hours while I waited at Logan International Airport for my (seven-hour-) delayed flight.

the oxford project

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i just bought an interesting book a few days ago. i don’t recommend buying it — it’s pretty pricey for what it is, and its got some language and one or two dicey themes – but if you can get a copy to flip through, it’s well worth a few minutes.

it’s called The Oxford Project, by Peter Feldstein. in 1984, Feldstein decided to take a picture of all the people in his small hometown of Oxford, Iowa. All 700 of them. He took one posed shot of each person who would let him, a black and white photo in front of a plain backdrop. Then he put the photos away. For 20 years.

In 2005, he decided to go back — rephotograph the same people, see the changes that had taken place in Oxford, Iowa. The population is roughly the same, though many of his original subjects have since passed away. And this time, when Feldstein went back, he took his friend the author Stephen Bloom with him. Bloom spoke with the residents, and as Feldstein took their 2005 photographs, Bloom documented their story in their own words.

Its a fascinating approach to and picture of a midwest town. Its a hardcover, big book, full of the photographs from then and now and first-person accounts given by the townspeople to Bloom. Most of them are incredibly touching: a girl left by her circus parents in Oxford with a sign on her back; a boy who’s father is holding him as an infant in 1984 – and both his father and mother died prematurely, tragically, years ago; war veterans, pastors, mayors, farmers, parents whose children have died; children who had no parents; one or two outsiders who still struggle to be a part of the Oxford community; but most of them are the fabric of the town itself.

It’s a fairly liberal, democratic town from what I could tell — not the uneducated, backwards small town you might picture. It’s rural, its agricultural, but I get the impression its close to a university or something because it seems pretty modern in its philosophical makeup.

As intriguing as it was, I felt a little invasive as I read it. As if I shouldn’t be hearing so many voices from one town – the narrative on each person is short — 1/2 page at most — so it wasn’t like I felt like I was intruding on these people… rather, I felt somehow as if I had invaded the town’s privacy, violated the town’s perimeter or something… I can’t quite describe it.

I’m not sure if I will keep the book or return it — its not really something I would put on my coffee table — but its one of the most original and fascinating books I’ve come across in a while.

of all people…

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i’m not sure how many of you have heard of terry eagleton. he’s a literary critic, and a marxist one at that (although, i’m sure to some people he is just so much more), with a penchant for plain-speaking. which makes him popular, and as much as i both consult and disregard his writings, i have to say he is a good source for almost any research paper on a novel.

that being said, his latest masterpiece is called The Meaning of Life. No joke. It’s not often that I hear books calling out my name — occasionally, food does that; but books are generally less invasive, waiting to be invited, so to speak — but there it was: sitting on the shelf at the H– Coop, calling my name. Not, of course, because I have any lingering doubts about my purpose or that of the universe’s. I’m a Christian for a reason. But I have oh-so (so so so)-many lingering questions about Terry Eagleton’s idea about the meaning of life. What does a british, marxist, modernist theorist, sometimes called the “survivor of the theory wars” have to say about the purpose of life? One can only wonder.

Or, I suppose, one could buy the book. But I was using my H– corporate card, and (for the life of me) I couldn’t think of a way to justify buying anything by Eagleton as being for business purposes. So I have had to satiate my thirst by reading reviews of the book.

This review mentions two points that I found interesting. The second is a quote from the book: “it is even conceivable that not knowing the meaning of life is part of the meaning of life.” What a cop-out. But anyway.

The first is this: Apparently, God’s role in the meaning of life is dismissed as tautological right at the beginning – “God is the meaning of life because the meaning of life is God.” (that quote is from the review).

It’s just all so fascinating. To stumble so close, and not fall right in. I guess I probably will get that book, and I’ll try to write a coherent review myself.