Reading Recommendations from the Northwoods

Here's a list of all titles reviewed

Good friends have suggested it would be nice to have a list of all the books I've talked about.  To read the whole review of any of these titles, go to "Archives" in the column to the right, and click on the month it first appeared.

Scroll down to see all new titles as they are added,  following this post.

May

• Long way down--Hornby
• Certain girls--Weiner
• Tell no one--Coben
• So brave, young, and handsome--Enger
• Talk, talk--Boyle
• Careful use of compliments--McCall Smith
• Sammy's hill--Gore

April

• Hearts of horses--Gloss
• Ten-year nap--Wolitzer
• Syringa tree--Gien
• Life and times of the thunderbolt kid--Bryson
• Whistling season--Doig
• Tenderness of wolves--Penney
• Tallgrass--Dallas

March

• Waiting for snow in Havana--Eire
• Dead heat--Francis
• Lottery--Wood
• Three-dog life--Thomas
• People of the book--Brooks
• Fieldwork--Berlinski
• Post-birthday world--Shriver
• Snow Flower and the secret fan--See
• Book thief--Zusak

February

• View from Mount Joy--Landvik
• Gardens of water--Drew
• Digging to America--Tyler
• God of animals--Kyle
• These is my words--Turner
• Pope Joan--Cross
• Madonnas of Leningrad--Dean
• Here if you need me--Braestrup
• Consequences--Lively
• Short history of tractors in Ukranian

Summer vacation

My enthusiasm for "book blogging" is flagging now in the summer, and there are lots of other things to do that sound more fun.  Plus, most the books I'm reading seem to be "ho-hum-ers" and I don't want to recommend books that I can't even get enthusiastic about.

So, I'm taking a vacation from postings on the blog for now, and will plan to be back after Labor Day.  Thanks to everyone who has sent positive comments--I've appreciated your reactions.   I'll see if I can generate more energy when the days get shorter.   Happy summer, everyone!

I wanted to like, but. . . . .

This blogging software has a new format that is giving me nothing but grief---you will see the graphics above, and I can't get them to move or get the text to wrap.  So, I'm going to quit fooling with it for now, and just have it look unattractive!  I don't think the company's changes are an improvement!

Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich was positively reviewed everywhere, as her best work.  It is definitely well-written and well-constructed, and maybe it should be read and discussed by a book group.  But, I couldn't keep track of different generations or who the narrator was or what year each section was taking place.     It just seemed like too much work to keep track of who was who, and the ending didn't seem satisfying enough to me to be a payoff for the work of reading the book.   I know Erdrich is an excellent author, but I didn't like this one.   (My favorite of hers is Painted Drum.)

In spite of the controversy over A Million Little Pieces, Frey's supposed memoir that made Oprah feel deceived, I liked it a lot and thought it was interesting to read about his battle with alcoholism.  But, Bright Shiny Morning, advertised this time to be fiction, was set in Los Angeles, and just wandered all over the place.  Several unconnected characters told different parts of the story, never intersecting with one another.  Then, they were interrupted with pages of statistics or news articles about LA and its history.  Maybe if I were a California person, I would have seen some truths about the setting, but I thought it was way too long, and I didn't see the point of it all.   I did stick with it to the end, hoping I would see the pattern, but it didn't happen. 

If you have more positive feelings about either book, I'd be very glad to have you comment below. 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle--Barbara Kingsolver

You have probably read and enjoyed Kingsolver's fiction books.  When I heard she had written this non-fiction book, about her family's attempt to live off the land and feed themselves for a year, I didn't think I was interested.  But thanks to recommendations from Sherlene and Winnie, I got my copy from the library and enjoyed it very much.

The author's writing style is comfortable to read, so the narrative part of the book is engrossing, especially for any of us who have done gardening or remember days of canning tomatoes and enviserating chickens from our childhoods.   She can transport you to a garden, a hen house, an asparagus patch, from one chapter to the next.  Plus, some parts are laugh-outloud funny---her description of turkey mating and reproduction is hilarious.

But to me, the life-changing thing about the book is the factual material about how our food has been changed by chemicals and the companies that manufacture them, and about the huge price we pay for having our food shipped across the country and the hemisphere.  Without seeming preachy, it definitely has made me think about how we buy food and what we eat.  

Little Heathens--Mildred Kalish Armstrong

You don't have to be in your 80's, as the author is, to enjoy this book, subtitled High Spirits and Hard Times on an Iowa Farm during the Great Depression.  It was selected as one of the ten best books of 2007 by the New York Times and will be enjoyed by readers of many ages.

Armstrong, a retired college English professor, has an amazing, admirable memory and a comfortable writing style.  She tells about cooking and gardening and animals and children's games and diseases and doing laundry, just the daily details of life.  Although she was raised by a single mother and demanding grandparents, a strong sense of family is apparent.  Unlike other books about the Depression, a happy and undaunted spirit comes through, and whether you lived through these times or not, you will like hearing what life was like in this earlier, difficult, but still joyful time.

Pontoon--Garrison Keillor

Nothing in Lake Woebegon has changed, and all Keillor fans know what to expect from one of his new books.  I thought this one was funnier, though, and more touching, than some of his others.

For one thing, it is summer, and the climax of the action does take place on a pontoon boat---with a parasailing funeral, an aerial wedding with Elvis in a hot-air balloon, a group of snooty visiting Danish pastors, and a smelly dog.  If all those things sound bizarre, of course they are, but they all tie together neatly. 

But, some characters are empathetic and realistic--an 80-ish woman who wants to live her life to the fullest, and her confused middle-aged daughter.  How upsetting to discover, at your mother's death, that she had a secret life you had never suspected!

It's fast and fun, a great summer book!

Long way down--Nick Hornby

If you have seen the Hugh Grant film, About a Boy, you have some idea of Nick Hornby's sense of humor.  His books always make me laugh, but I wondered how he could pull it off, in this title, when his four main characters meet on New Year's Eve on a roof-top where each is about to commit suicide.

They don't succeed, of course, and surprisingly, become awkward and unlikely friends, supports to one another.  Each narrates his own story--a humiliated TV host, a failed rock star, an older mother caring for her disabled son, and a disfunctional young woman.

The solutions don't come easily, but as the characters connect with each other, they find reasons to keep on living.  I admire Hornby's ability to be appropriately funny while dealing with a very serious subject.

Certain Girls--Jennifer Weiner

What's not to like, in a book that makes you both laugh and cry?  You probably won't choose this one for your book club, but Certain Girls kept me planted in my chair till I turned the last page.  The book has charming characters and snappy dialogue and interesting relationships.

Cannie and her pre-teen daughter Joy tell the story in alternating chapters, showing the huge gap between parents and adolescents.  Joy is mortified by her once-famous mother, in addition to facing her own hearing loss and wearing the right dress for her bat mitzvah.  Cannie realizes her daughter needs to know some old family secrets, but doesn't think the time is right for revelation, till Joy discovers most of them on her own.

I remembered Weiner's first book about Cannie well enough that I was glad to hear about Certain Girls.  I doubt it is a book that men would like, but it is a lot better than what can be dismissed as chick lit.

Jim the Boy/The Blue Star---Tony Earley

*Simple and peaceful, with strong and likable characters.

*A slice of life in the mountains of West Virginia in the '30s and '40s.

*The coming-of-age of Jim, a realistic and kind and memorable young man.

Since Jim the Boy was published in 2001, I have kept coming across glowing recommendations for it, and now the sequel The Blue Star is also getting lots of positive reviews.   

Jim, living with his widowed mother and her three bachelor brothers, experiences baseball, trains, school, and friendship.  In the second book, Jim is a high school senior, in love for the first time, and faced with the reality of WW II (thus the blue star of the title).

Either book will stand alone, so you would not have to read both, but I am glad I started with the Jim book, before I read The Blue Star, so I had a clearer picture of Jim and his family.  I don't think either book is one you will forget.   (My thanks to Ruth Senneff.)

Tell no one---Harlan Coben

 

I guess it is too early in the season for "beach reads," but if you want a page-turner, take a look at books by Harlan Coben.  Sometimes I love a thriller that keeps me guessing till the very end, and every Coben title I have read does that.

In Tell No One, David has gone ahead with his life after his wife's murder eight years ago, and has become a respected pediatrician.  But, on the anniversary of their first kiss, David receives an email that could have come only from his wife.  Could it be possible that she is still alive?   He discovers that he can no longer trust the people in whom he had the most confidence, and than nothing is as it has seemed.

The Coben books I have read have a likable and honorable protagonist, and a modern technology component that plays an important part in the mystery.   They all seem to fit a "can't put it down" description.

So brave, young, and handsome--Leif Enger

Lots of book groups enjoyed and discussed Enger's first novel, Peace like a River, and have been anticipating his next book.   I think this new one, too, will be widely read and discussed.  (It is projected to be released in paperback this summer.)

The main character Monte Becket, a discouraged author, takes up with a drifter Glendon Hale and adventures with him from Minnesota to California.  He gradually discovers that Glendon is running from the law, and much of the plot is their pursuit by an old and determined lawman, Charles Siringo.

The book is part Western, part romance, part adventure story.  In fact, as I started reading, the plot seemed to meander too much, and I had trouble figuring out what was motivating the characters to do what they did.  But, it all ties together, and the characters discover grace and peace in resolutions that I didn't anticipate.

What set it the book above others, for me, was the lovely language, with charming and fresh figures of speech that show up on almost every page. 

Let me quote one of my favorites:  "Recently it seemed as if Susannah were looking at the moon while I looked somewhere else--say, at a lake.  If I saw the moon in the lake, I believed we were looking at the same place, but let anything disturb the water and we were two people standing alone.  We needed to look at something in the same way, as we once had, or as it seemed to me we once had."  p. 254