Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
So my sister told me I had to read this book. I knew of it already, having placed holds on it for library patrons day after day. And I was resistant. Here’s the thing: I’m freaked out by circuses, and I knew for a fact this book was set right smack dab in the middle of a circus. Plus, animal books make me cry, and I was sure there were going to be animals in this book. I was running for cover. In the face of such opposition, my sister pulled out her famous line, “Trust me.” So I placed a hold on the book for myself.
And, so, my sister was right. (Stop smirking, S.K.!)
I tend to read for characters, and this book has great characters. And they’re likeable characters (all except for a couple of truly vile villains), and that’s another prerequisite of mine. And frankly, the plot ain’t bad, either. The book alternates between the present-day—when Jacob Jankowski is a disgruntled resident of a nursing home, and the 1930s—when, as a young man, he served as the veterinarian for a two-bit circus and fell in love with the boss’s wife. A story of love in the midst of cruelty and squalor—and, doggone it, love wins.
So, the ending is a bit contrived and sentimental. But heck, it had me struggling to choke back tears. And, doggone it, the tears won.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
In honor of the inauguration this week
Washington Schlepped Here: Walking in the Nation’s Capital by Christopher Buckley
A pure delight. That’s what this book is. A delight. And if you watched the inauguration coverage this week, you saw some of the terrain it covers.
I listened to this book—it’s a little thing, only 3 CDs in length—and it’s nothing but good. I’ve actually listened to it three times now: once just for fun, once in preparation for a trip to Washington D.C., and one more time just because. Buckley confesses to being no expert on D.C., but he gathers the good stuff from the various books about the city and its history, and he wraps it up in the nicest little gift-wrapping and presents it to us. The book is set up as a guide to a few walking tours, and I found that I could “walk” along with him in my head, both before and after my recent trip to Washington. The “walking tour” format is really actually only a device that allows Buckley to string together the interesting facts and anecdotes related to various Washington sites—including some anecdotes about his days working in the OEOB, facts about the Capitol, the story of the building of the Washington Monument (and why it took so long), and the story of Pierre L’Enfant.
The only down side I found is that Buckley is, of course, a partisan, and he occasionally lapses into a brief, snarky comment about the left—which was out-of-step with the light tone of the rest of the book. It’s a minor thing, though, given his wonderful sense of humor and the joy he takes in his adopted city. He loves Washington, D.C.; I love Washington, D.C.; how can you not love Washington, D.C.?
A pure delight. That’s what this book is. A delight. And if you watched the inauguration coverage this week, you saw some of the terrain it covers.
I listened to this book—it’s a little thing, only 3 CDs in length—and it’s nothing but good. I’ve actually listened to it three times now: once just for fun, once in preparation for a trip to Washington D.C., and one more time just because. Buckley confesses to being no expert on D.C., but he gathers the good stuff from the various books about the city and its history, and he wraps it up in the nicest little gift-wrapping and presents it to us. The book is set up as a guide to a few walking tours, and I found that I could “walk” along with him in my head, both before and after my recent trip to Washington. The “walking tour” format is really actually only a device that allows Buckley to string together the interesting facts and anecdotes related to various Washington sites—including some anecdotes about his days working in the OEOB, facts about the Capitol, the story of the building of the Washington Monument (and why it took so long), and the story of Pierre L’Enfant.
The only down side I found is that Buckley is, of course, a partisan, and he occasionally lapses into a brief, snarky comment about the left—which was out-of-step with the light tone of the rest of the book. It’s a minor thing, though, given his wonderful sense of humor and the joy he takes in his adopted city. He loves Washington, D.C.; I love Washington, D.C.; how can you not love Washington, D.C.?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Farewell, Commander Dalgliesh
The Private Patient by P.D. James
As I began reading this book, I knew that it was to be P.D. James’ last Adam Dalgliesh mystery. I wondered if she would kill him off, and half expected it would happen. I’ll spoil the story for everyone—stop reading right now: spoiler alert!—by telling you Adam survives. Heck, he even gets married. (Big quarrel here with the author. I really find his romance with Emma to be contrived and unrealistic. I wonder: could the author be so in love with her detective that she cannot give him a realistic love affair? Oh, that’s mean of me to say… but there it is.) So the mystery here—which is solid as I’ve come to expect in a P.D. James novel—is well-wrought and puzzling and peopled with likely suspects. In the mystery department, James remains at the top of her game. Thank goodness for that. We know from the start that Rhoda Gradwyn , an investigative reporter who decides to have plastic surgery to repair an injury she suffered at the hand of her abusive father many years earlier, will die. Intriguingly, James brings us close to the victim only when the detectives visit her flat—so even though we’ve gotten to know her somewhat earlier, but only really get a sense of who she was as a person, when we see her through the detectives’ eyes. Kate Miskin features prominently here, as she has in the most recent Dalgliesh mysteries, and I have to say: I like her. So here we say goodbye to Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team. Baroness James has made them just real enough that I’m feeling like I miss them already.
As I began reading this book, I knew that it was to be P.D. James’ last Adam Dalgliesh mystery. I wondered if she would kill him off, and half expected it would happen. I’ll spoil the story for everyone—stop reading right now: spoiler alert!—by telling you Adam survives. Heck, he even gets married. (Big quarrel here with the author. I really find his romance with Emma to be contrived and unrealistic. I wonder: could the author be so in love with her detective that she cannot give him a realistic love affair? Oh, that’s mean of me to say… but there it is.) So the mystery here—which is solid as I’ve come to expect in a P.D. James novel—is well-wrought and puzzling and peopled with likely suspects. In the mystery department, James remains at the top of her game. Thank goodness for that. We know from the start that Rhoda Gradwyn , an investigative reporter who decides to have plastic surgery to repair an injury she suffered at the hand of her abusive father many years earlier, will die. Intriguingly, James brings us close to the victim only when the detectives visit her flat—so even though we’ve gotten to know her somewhat earlier, but only really get a sense of who she was as a person, when we see her through the detectives’ eyes. Kate Miskin features prominently here, as she has in the most recent Dalgliesh mysteries, and I have to say: I like her. So here we say goodbye to Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team. Baroness James has made them just real enough that I’m feeling like I miss them already.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Spies Like... Them
Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House by Valerie Plame Wilson
Two confessions:
Confession #1: I read the last part of this book first! I never do this. But here’s the situation: The Afterword (by Laura Rozen) provides some necessary context for Wilson’s story, because Wilson herself was prevented from sharing some key details about her experiences in the CIA. More about this later… after I reveal…
Confession #2: I got the idea to check out this book when I heard the Decemberists’ song “Valerie Plame” a couple of times on The World Café. First, let me declare that I feel bad for Ms. Wilson: she had built a career, and it was destroyed due to some nasty political wrangling that had little to do with her personally. That’s rotten. And I also feel kind of bad that I like the song, which seems to make light of her plight. (How about that rhyming there?) But here’s the thing: the song led me to the book, where she relates her own version of events, and I’m glad I read it. The prose is not stellar (neither is it flawed), but the story—yikes, what a story—carries a reader right along.
Here’s the reason to read the Afterword first: One tantalizing, frustrating, fascinating element of the book is that Wilson has left the blacked-out text in place—so the reader can see the sections (sometimes a word or two, sometimes two consecutive pages) that were disapproved for publication by the CIA. There are some surprising gaps in her story, which I imagine would have appeared in the blacked-out sections. And some of the gaps appear to be fairly innocuous information, based on their context—but truly, what do I know?
The true oddness of my reading these books about espionage is that I am truly chickenhearted and would pass out cold if I were in any situation that was even remotely as treacherous as the ones encountered by CIA case workers.
By the book’s end, I was even more fully on Wilson’s side in this whole debacle. She, her husband, and their children had moved to New Mexico by the time the book closes, and I have this sad vision of these two active, involved former Washingtonians in exile, slowly going stir crazy in the beautiful desert. Here’s hoping I’m completely wrong and that they’re living their dreams in the Southwest.
Two confessions:
Confession #1: I read the last part of this book first! I never do this. But here’s the situation: The Afterword (by Laura Rozen) provides some necessary context for Wilson’s story, because Wilson herself was prevented from sharing some key details about her experiences in the CIA. More about this later… after I reveal…
Confession #2: I got the idea to check out this book when I heard the Decemberists’ song “Valerie Plame” a couple of times on The World Café. First, let me declare that I feel bad for Ms. Wilson: she had built a career, and it was destroyed due to some nasty political wrangling that had little to do with her personally. That’s rotten. And I also feel kind of bad that I like the song, which seems to make light of her plight. (How about that rhyming there?) But here’s the thing: the song led me to the book, where she relates her own version of events, and I’m glad I read it. The prose is not stellar (neither is it flawed), but the story—yikes, what a story—carries a reader right along.
Here’s the reason to read the Afterword first: One tantalizing, frustrating, fascinating element of the book is that Wilson has left the blacked-out text in place—so the reader can see the sections (sometimes a word or two, sometimes two consecutive pages) that were disapproved for publication by the CIA. There are some surprising gaps in her story, which I imagine would have appeared in the blacked-out sections. And some of the gaps appear to be fairly innocuous information, based on their context—but truly, what do I know?
The true oddness of my reading these books about espionage is that I am truly chickenhearted and would pass out cold if I were in any situation that was even remotely as treacherous as the ones encountered by CIA case workers.
By the book’s end, I was even more fully on Wilson’s side in this whole debacle. She, her husband, and their children had moved to New Mexico by the time the book closes, and I have this sad vision of these two active, involved former Washingtonians in exile, slowly going stir crazy in the beautiful desert. Here’s hoping I’m completely wrong and that they’re living their dreams in the Southwest.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Unruly Reader, Age 1
Woo hoo! Unruly Reader reaches its first anniversary today.
Who’d’ve thunk I’d spend 2008 fixated on presidential biographies? But there it is. And frankly, 2008 was kind of a political year. Among other things.
Looking at 2009, a.k.a. Year 2, a.k.a. the Unruly Reader enters the Terrible Two’s…
Watch for a brief foray into espionage books and a one-off bibliographic essay (how librarian-ish!), and observe (and chortle, if you wish) as I endeavor to read outside my comfort zone in the name of professional development. Plus, there’ll be more general fiction, often suitable for book clubs; some crazy-good mysteries; and yes, even some books about the presidency.
Everyone ready? Here we go…
Who’d’ve thunk I’d spend 2008 fixated on presidential biographies? But there it is. And frankly, 2008 was kind of a political year. Among other things.
Looking at 2009, a.k.a. Year 2, a.k.a. the Unruly Reader enters the Terrible Two’s…
Watch for a brief foray into espionage books and a one-off bibliographic essay (how librarian-ish!), and observe (and chortle, if you wish) as I endeavor to read outside my comfort zone in the name of professional development. Plus, there’ll be more general fiction, often suitable for book clubs; some crazy-good mysteries; and yes, even some books about the presidency.
Everyone ready? Here we go…
Friday, January 2, 2009
All Too Real
November 22, 1963 by Adam Braver
An intriguing short novel, with all the action taking place on that one momentous day. We see the world from Jacqueline Kennedy’s perspective throughout much of the book, but the viewpoints of several others—the autopsy photographer, the funeral home driver in Dallas, Abraham Zapruder, and a White House usher—are interspersed. And yes, it is as voyeuristic as you would imagine. But somehow there’s also a respect for each of these historical figures, which mitigates the ickiness the almost-too-close perspective might have wrought.
The book begins with a series of facts; for example, Jacqueline Kennedy wore a size 12 when she moved into the White House and a size 8 when she moved out. There are details about the fabric of her famous pink suit and pillbox hat. Then the scene turns grim: shots are fired, the car races to the hospital, and the president dies. A moving scene takes place on the flight from Dallas to D.C., where we see Mrs. Kennedy refusing to leave the side of her husband’s casket. That day of horrors continued, and for the queasy reader, the Bethesda autopsy scenes are a bit gory. (This librarian gives you full permission to skim or skip. No guilt.)
This book covers much of the same ground as Manchester’s landmark nonfiction account of that same day, The Death of a President, but here the event is fictionalized and we’re inside the heads of the principals—so, strangely, this work of fiction makes me feel the terrible reality of the events of that day even more than Manchester’s remarkable recounting did. Never would have thought that was possible.
An intriguing short novel, with all the action taking place on that one momentous day. We see the world from Jacqueline Kennedy’s perspective throughout much of the book, but the viewpoints of several others—the autopsy photographer, the funeral home driver in Dallas, Abraham Zapruder, and a White House usher—are interspersed. And yes, it is as voyeuristic as you would imagine. But somehow there’s also a respect for each of these historical figures, which mitigates the ickiness the almost-too-close perspective might have wrought.
The book begins with a series of facts; for example, Jacqueline Kennedy wore a size 12 when she moved into the White House and a size 8 when she moved out. There are details about the fabric of her famous pink suit and pillbox hat. Then the scene turns grim: shots are fired, the car races to the hospital, and the president dies. A moving scene takes place on the flight from Dallas to D.C., where we see Mrs. Kennedy refusing to leave the side of her husband’s casket. That day of horrors continued, and for the queasy reader, the Bethesda autopsy scenes are a bit gory. (This librarian gives you full permission to skim or skip. No guilt.)
This book covers much of the same ground as Manchester’s landmark nonfiction account of that same day, The Death of a President, but here the event is fictionalized and we’re inside the heads of the principals—so, strangely, this work of fiction makes me feel the terrible reality of the events of that day even more than Manchester’s remarkable recounting did. Never would have thought that was possible.
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