Taking a break from coming-of-age stories

Ever since Holden Caulfield first decried the phonies surrounding him, the lives of prep school and Ivy League students and the experiences that lead to their eventual coming of age have fascinated authors and readers...except me.  Given the critical and popular support for these titles, I sometimes wonder if I'm missing something. Maybe it's because as a middle-class Midwesterner who attended the local public high school I just don't understand the lifestyle enough to appreciate it. Maybe it's because I'm from the wrong generation, as this New York Times article from few years ago suggests. Maybe I'm just old and cranky. Whatever it is that makes one appreciate stories about prematurely world-weary teens and new adults feeling rudderless and disaffected has skipped right over me. 

I've tried and tried to like them. After the obligatory high school read of The Catcher in the Rye, I moved on to Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons, which remains memorable only in its cartoonish depictions of college life. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt that it was because I'm not a big Tom Wolfe fan in general (I find his characters' frequent disdain of women more than a bit off-putting), so I moved on to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep. Prep was so popular among some of my friends that I thought it would surely be the one to break through my block against this type of book. It wasn't. It read like the younger sister of Charlotte Simmons. This year alone, I tried some of the year's most popular titles, The Marriage Plot and The Art of Fielding along with less well-known books like The Starboard Sea and How to Buy a Love of Reading. Still, no matter how good the writing, it felt like I was reading the same book over and over.  And let me clarify, in some cases the writing was very good(Jeffery Eugenides and Chad Harbach, I am looking at you). Lest you think I'm just biased against books set in schools, The Adults and The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac stepped in with their disaffected 20-somethings who were no longer in school but experienced the same kind of ennui and lack of direction as the kids in the ivy-covered halls and provoked the same lack of empathy in me.

Ultimately, I think it's time coming-of-age stories and I take a little break from each other. We need to give each other some space, and I need to take the advice I give others: there's no right or wrong thing to like when you read.  If you like it, read it; if you don't like it, don't. Even when you're swimming against the tide (oh, how I wanted to like The Art of Fielding more than I did), there are too many good books out there to waste time reading ones that just make you feel old and cranky. 

Centuries of June

Have you ever noticed that after a while, books start to all seem the same?  There are frameworks that are used, to varying degrees of effectiveness, over and over.  It could be the person who has to confront and reevaluate her life due to a case of amnesia (see: What Alice Forgot, The Last Letter from Your Lover,  or Man Walks into a Room), or the scholar who stumbles into a centuries-old conspiracy that he has to solve before being killed by a secret cult that was long thought dormant (see: The DaVinci Code, The Rule of Four, or The Mozart Conspiracy), or even the couple destined to be together who are kept apart for years due to a family conflict or a terrible misunderstanding before finally realizing their mutual love and affection (see: ...oh, I can't even start to narrow down that one).  Regardless of how good they are (and some of the titles I just mentioned -- though not all -- are very good) it sometimes feels like there are a finite number of structures into which a story can fit and that the book's merit is based solely on how the author operates within that structure.  

And then...something different comes along that is so unique that it has the effect of being refreshing.  Enter Keith Donohue's new book, Centuries of June.   It begins with a late night trip to the bathroom that goes bad when the narrator falls and injures his head.  From there, the early hours unfold as he is visited by an old man and eight unique women, each of whom had been wronged by a man in another time, and who form a unique community in his bathroom as they listen to each other's tales.  The vagaries of time, space, and a talking cat only add to the narrator's confusion, but as he begins to understand the women and their place in his bathroom, his role becomes clear.  The blending of different times, situations, and dialects ultimately comes together to a cohesive conclusion that is satisfying without answering every question. 

One the most laudable aspects of this book -- its unique style that sets it apart from other stories -- also makes it somewhat difficult to write about, since there is no natural comparison.  I can't say, "well, if you liked X book, you'll definitely like this."  (The closest I can come if you're really looking for a comparison is Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle, which I consider high praise.)  Kirkus calls Centuries of June "[p]eculiar and quirky and sure to appeal to offbeat tastes."  I say if you're looking for something a little different, give it a try. 

The power of a blurb

For a word that sounds so nonsensical, "blurb" can be very powerful force.  The few simple words written by others can compel readers to pick up a book they otherwise might not have.  Just a few months ago, I picked up book based on the glowing blurb by Katie FForde and found the book (which shall remain nameless) so bad that I read only 20 pages and felt like I'd been led astray by my reliable pal Katie.  Others have missed the mark but have been inconsequential in my reading of a story.  Wench, a wonderful story about four slave women and their relationships with the men who owned them, used them, and had children with them, was blurbed to be a must-read for fans of The Help despite there being very little similarity between the two.

In some extreme cases, blurbs might cause paralyzing fear and anxiety about reading a book that's been so highly praised.  Alright, maybe not everyone would not stare down a book like a poisonous snake just because of the blurbs on it, but let me  justify myself here.  I recently checked out In the Rooms, a new book about a British literary agent living in New York who starts attending AA meetings to get to know a reclusive, Pulitzer Prize-winning author.  It was well-reviewed, but it took me days to pick it up because it was praised on its covers by Helen Fielding, author of the Bridget Jones books, and Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story (seriously, have I still not convinced you to read this?  Go put it on hold.  Really.).  Not only did these authors whom I respect have great things to say about the book, but it was also described as "part Nick Hornby, part Jay McInerney, and part vermouth."  The Library Journal review insisted it was recommended reading for Nick Hornby fans, as which I think I qualify.  So.  There it was.  The source of my anxiety: how does a book live up to that hype?  And what happens if I am expecting Fielding-meets-Shteyngart-meets-Hornby and I get...well, not that? 

Okay, okay, I know.  It's just a book.  I finally girded up my courage and read it.  And it was good.  It certainly wasn't the glory of all the cited authors combined, but it was good.  I could see where those authors were influential in Shone's witty, slightly acerbic, importance-of-everyday-life writing. But maybe the most important lesson is that, while I judge books by their titles and their covers, maybe I shouldn't judge a book by its blurbs.   

Kevin Brockmeier

I read Kevin Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead a few years ago and enjoyed it, but never picked up any of his other works until a week ago.  Brockmeier uses some fantasy elements in his book while keeping the premise believable at the same time.  For instance, in Brief History a virus spreads throughout the world, eliminating the world's population except for Laura, who is doing research in the Antarctic.  The dead still exist in "the city," which is like another dimension of our world.  They only exist their for as long as someone living (Laura) keeps them alive in her memories.  What I love about Brockmeier's writing is that I feel like I know the characters within the first few pages. 

This title came back to me when I was searching around for something different to read, so I decided to try Brockmeier again.  His book of short stories, The View From the Seventh Layer, is a wonderful read.  Some of the stories have fantasy elements and others are more traditional, but again, the characters are remarkable and the reader can identify with them.  There's a story of a woman who was "abducted" by an entity from the seventh layer of the universe.  Another story follows a philosophy major who is perplexed by the quesiton of why a few prominent philosophers suddenly stopped their practice.  There's even a Choose Your Own Adventure story! 

After reading the The View From the Seventh Layer, I found Brockmeier's newest title, The Illumination.  This book reads as a collection of short stories that are intertwined by a fantastic occurence and a book.  Each chapter deals with one of the six major characters.  Without warning the entire world is affected by the "Illumination" which causes a person's (or animal's) injuries to glow with a white light.  Everything from bumps and bruises to broken bones and cancer glow with this light.  The main characters in the story are also affected in different ways by a book containing love notes from a husband to a wife.  Each life is affected by the "Illumination" and the book of love notes in a profound way.

It's all about you

Do you ever catch yourself unintentionally reading books that fit a certain pattern?  I'm not just talking about the same style of writing or the same general authors, but patterns that you aren't consciously seeking out.  I've been through phases where, unintentionally, every book I read for several weeks involved characters who were chefs or bakers.  I've been through phases where every book took place in India.  I've read about a place I've never heard of before, and suddenly it's mentioned in the next four books I read.  And now, I'm in a phase where many of the books I've read recently have titles that really speak to the reader.  I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean that the titles are all addressed to "you."  My library basket is full of books about you.  Check them out at see if any of them are calling to you. 

You Were Wrong Karl Floor is a loser.  Not only is he not the "cool" math teacher, but he's so inept that the book begins with two of his students beating him up.  Life only gets stranger after that, when he comes home to find his house being robbed...and deciding to help.  Karl is detached in a way that reminds me of Camus' The Stranger, but with more bite. 

You Don't Love This Man Paul is having a bad day.  His 25-year-old daughter, Miranda, is scheduled to marry his best friend, but nobody can find her.  In the midst of looking for her, he gets a call informing him that the bank he manages has been robbed.  He soon discovers that the robber is the same man who robbed him 25 years earlier.  He stumbles through the day trying to resolve everything that has gone wrong and reflecting on the events and relationships that have led him to this point.  It wasn't the most satisfying book

If I Loved You I Would Tell You This  This collection of short stories is just about as melancholy as the title suggests.  From the titular story, in which a dying woman has an imaginary title with her litigious next-door neighbor, to Immortalizing John Parker, in which an artist struggling with her own loss  prepares to paint a portrait of a man with Alzheimers to preserve the memory of him, if not his memories, for his wife, it is an introspective collection of love and loss.

Next on deck are This is Just Exactly Like You, apparently a bleakly amusing dysfunctional suburban family saga and When You Were Mine, Elizabeth Noble's new book about a woman unsatisfied with her marriage who confronts old emotions when she begins meeting her former boyfriend. 

Looking over these summaries, I think it's time for a little something light and frothy to celebrate spring.  I was really drawn in by the intrigue of the titles that seemed to call out to me but, good as they were, the other pattern seems to be that they were all somewhat dark.  Have you any recommendations for books that would help me lighten the mood?  See, there's a good "you" title right there: What do you suggest I do?

Judging a book by its cover

It's entirely possible that I'm too predictable in my interests.  Take a fabulous title, mix in some clever, kitschy art on the front, and I'm in.  I consistently judge books by their covers.  Several weeks ago, a friend at work saw a new book sitting on my desk and said, "I knew you'd be reading that book!" But, really, it was called The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady -- how could I pass that by?  (Of course, if the title and cover art weren't enough, the trailer -- viewable on the book's Amazon page -- clenched the deal.)

Fifty years ago, without her knowledge or consent, Marylou Ahearn was given a radioactive cocktail while she was pregnant.  Her daughter died of cancer ten years later, presumably from the effects of radiation.  The book resolves around Marylou's resolve to kill the doctor who led the radiation study after stumbling across his name and address.  She's not quite sure how to kill him, though.  After moving from Tennessee to Florida, she starts by introducing herself as Nancy Archer (the name of main character in the cult classic Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman) and involving herself in the lives of the doctor's highly dysfunctional family.  She soon learns that the doctor has Alzheimer's disease and is unlikely to remember anything about the study, making revenge far less satisfying for Marylou.  Along the way, her growing relationship with the family further complicates her original plans.

Despite the title, Revenge of the Radioactive Lady is about much more than simply revenge.  It is a sly, darkly comedic novel that probes the dynamics of aging, family, religion, forgiveness, and, yes, even revenge.  If that doesn't make you want to check it out, have you seen the cover? 

 

Mr. Chartwell - Personalizing the Black Dog

Winston Churchill famously battled with depression and, almost as famously, referred to his depression as the "black dog."  What if, though, the black dog wasn't just a euphimistic expression, but rather a physical entity?  What if the black dog was messy, well-spoken, and nearly 7 feet tall when standing on his hind legs?  And with that, Rebecca Hunt had a unique idea for her fascinating debut novel, Mr. Chartwell.  Mr. Chartwell, or Black Pat as he prefers to be called, is the dog whose sole job is to torment Winston Churchill.  Whether it takes the form of chewing rocks within Churchill's hearing or laying bodily across Churchill to make movement difficult, Black Pat is obligated to make life difficult for the former British Prime Minister.

Of course, Churchill is not the only person with whom Black Pat interacts.  He does, after all, need a place to live.  He arrives at the home of librarian Esther Hammerhans offering to pay her handsomely in exchange for lodging for only a few days.  When Esther resignedly agrees to allow him to stay, he begins insidiously involving himself in her life, while her friends encourage her to stay positive as an important date looms.

The twists aren't necessarily unexpected, but are clever and illuminating.  Hunt has written a touching story about the nature of depression and those affected by it.  She has done so with subtle wit and a keen eye for characters. At 242 pages, it is a quick read that will stay with you for a while. 

April Fool's Day a look back...

I know that most people look forward to April Fool's Day with anticipation. I am not one of those people. My husband is particularly good at practical jokes. So while most people cannot wait for the fun to begin, I wonder, 'What's going to happen next?’  This year is going to be different. I am going to take the bull by the horns (figuratively speaking of course) and plan some good pranks of my own. I am investigating pranks a plenty and I will finally have my day! To insure my success I have studied the world wide web and found some helpful books.

While I was trying to discern how to prank someone successfully, I wondered how April Fool's Day began. It isn't a legal holiday, yet most countries celebrate it in some form. Some historians believe the celebration began back in 1582 when the Gregorian calendar changed the start of the new year from the week of April 1 to January 1. Word spread slowly and some foolish people were reluctant to accept the change. They continued celebrating the New Year on April 1st. These individuals thereby earned the title of ’Fool’. People in their wonderful prankful way decided to send these 'fools' on errands. Thus began the April Fool's Day Frivolity.

During my quest for pranks I learned that even big business enjoys jokes.  Starbucks created a Plenta size (128 fl. oz.) and Micra size (2 fl. oz.) coffees to appear on April 1st of last year.  One website even went so far as to remove all the vowels in their transmission on April 1st. I laughed myself silly over that one.  I think I recall thinking there might have been a computer glitch last year. Of course, my savvy husband was aware that this was an April Fool's Day Joke (Sigh).

Sorry I digress, You, lucky readers, (whether you are cowering in dread of the April Fool's Day antics or gleefully rubbing your hands together waiting to catch some innocents by surprise) shall benefit from my investigation. I hope these books and websites help you get the most of your holiday frolic! I am sure I will finally succeed in tricking someone this year. I know I can do it. Wishing you success and lighthearted fun this April Fool's Day!

 

 The Practical Jokers Handbook collected by Tim Nyberg

51 High Tech Practical Jokes for the Evil Genius by Brad Graham

Cubicle Warfare: 101 office traps and pranks by John Austin

Sir John Hargrave's Mischief Maker's Manual by Sir John Hargrave

http://www.practicaljokebook.com/

www.aprilfools.us

The Adults

The Adults, Alison Espach's debut novel, has left me feeling a bit discombobulated.  It is wryly, tragically humorous and the dialog between characters is so smart, it reads like an Aaron Sorkin or Amy Sherman-Palladino script.  (Nobody I know talks like this in real life, but it's fun to imagine they do.)  Still, the humor is laid like a thin veneer on top of a very troubling story.  It is the story of Emily Marie Vidal, an appropriately disaffected 15-year-old from an appropriately dysfunctional family in a wealthy neighborhood in suburban Connecticut.  It is the story of her father's infidelity with the neighbor, her parents' subsequent divorce, and the apparently-related suicide of the neighbor's husband.  It is the story of the illicit love affair between Emily and her 24-year-old English teacher that grows amidst the tragedy.  And, ultimately, it is the story of growing up, even if what that means is different than what it seemed in childhood to be. 

None of the characters escape Espach's pen in the assessment of the 21st century disaffected, ironic, suburban culture.  Each of the characters, including Emily, is portrayed with flaws.  Each seems to be striving toward something they're not: older or younger; richer or more beautiful; more intelligent or less.  The most disappointing aspect of the book is the disconnect between Emily's teen years and her young adulthood.  College is treated with a few cursory sentences in retrospect from the vantage point of her early twenties. Jumping from (chronological) immaturity to (chronological) adulthood glosses over a key time when the transition that is, or ought to be, made.  Each review of this book that I've seen is a little better than the last, but I'm not sure I came away liking the book, and I definitely didn't have much affinity for the characters.  Still, the story is interesting in its unsettling ways and offers a lot to think and talk about.

It only takes a moment

  It's funny how one moment or event can make time slow and make you look at your life.  The book written by Lisa Genova, Left Neglected takes a glimpse at life for Sarah and her family.  Sarah was independent and a work-a-holic. She enjoyed her family but making time for them was another item on her long to-do list. This to-do-list came to a crashing halt the day she was looking for her phone while driving. It changed her family's life forever.

Lisa Genova follows up her NY Times best seller, Still Alice, with another surefire hit.  Left Neglected  is another fantastic book that details the lives of those who are brain injured. Her new book focuses on Left Neglect, an unusual brain injury, that is caused by damage to the right cerebral hemisphere. This injury causes the person to visually neglect the left-hand side of space. This means that the person with this injury cannot feel, recognize or see things on their left side. It could be the left side of a room, the left side of their body or even the left side of their plate.

Genova approaches this serious subject with humor and candor. She shows us what it is like as Sarah begins to realize all the changes she needs to make in her life to cope with her disability.  I highly recommend this book and hope you will look at your own priorities.  Perhaps one of the choices you will choose to make is not texting and driving.

The False Friend

Over dinner recently, some friends and I had a conversation about the horror that was junior high.  The consensus among both the men and women of the group was that girls in junior high have a harder time, in part because the boys are very clear where they fit in the social order while girls are constantly struggling to figure out where they are relative to others.  It was a particularly interesting conversation given that I had just finished Myla Goldberg's new book The False Friend, a book less about the vagaries of daily life in junior high than about the repercussions of those interpersonal dynamics decades later. 

32-year-old Celia maintains the same detachment in her personal relationships as she does as as an auditor for the state of Illinois.  When resurfaced memories of her past begin to surround her, Celia is compelled to travel home to upstate New York to share with her reserved family the secret she has been hiding for years: she watched her best friend Djuna fall down a hole in the forest, but told everyone the friend got into a stranger's car.  This seemingly straightforward, if disturbing, plot meanders as it is uncovered that Celia and Djuna had been the "mean girl" ringleaders of a group of middle-school acolytes, who were present at the periphery on the day in question.  Nobody, from Celia's family to the other girls involved believe her new account of the events, but force her to confront her perspective on her middle-school relationships.  What's left unwritten is the impact of Celia's newfound desire for a clear conscience on the people around her. 


Goldberg's writing is elegant and evocative.  If you like books that are told linearly with a clear conclusion, this probably isn't for you.  However, the ambiguities of the characters, the events of 20 years ago, and the resolution would make this a great book for a discussion group.

The Weird Sisters

A year or two ago, I read a report on the influence of siblings.  It turns out some psychologists think that siblings have a greater impact on personality than anyone else in a person's life -- including parents.  Eleanor Brown's debut novel, The Weird Sisters, certainly offers literary support for this argument.  And really, literary credibility is far more entertaining to read than the original report probably was, so let's stick with that.   

The Andreas family is defined in many ways by the father's vocation as a Shakespearean expert and professor at a small Ohio college.  Aside from the three sisters being named after Shakespearean heroines, the family communicates their most difficult emotions, including the mother's cancer diagnosis, through the Bard's quotes.  This itself is interesting, but would falter if Brown had simply laid that quirky tendency over an otherwise bland family.  As it is, it is only one layer to the family;s captivating dynamic, which in many ways  and offers interesting insights on living life as an imagined competition with siblings.  Each sister lives her life in a silent, unacknowledged competition with her sisters.  Their mother's breast cancer diagnosis and the fates that bring them each to a crossroads force each sister to confront who they are with, without, and, ultimately, because of their sisters.  Added to that is the fascinating use of a plural first-person narrative, which serves to highlight how inexorably the sisters are connected, regardless of whether they want to be. 

Finally, how I loved reading a book that unabashedly proclaims a love for books.  Certainly, Will has a special place in the Andreas home, but all the family members are unapologetic bibliophiles.  Bianca, the flirty, troubled middle daughter summed up the family's position on reading while reflecting on the attributes of a former boyfriend.  She found she couldn't continue the relationship, "[b]ecause despite his money and his looks and all the good on paper attributes he possessed, he was not a reader, and, well, let's just say that is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put." 

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

When a book gets a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, I start to pay attention to it.  When a book gets a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and Booklist, I put it on hold.  When a book gets a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, well, I know exactly what I'll be doing the day that book comes in.  Such was the case with The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.  Walter Mosley is a name, I'm embarrassed to admit, that I had never heard until recently.  He has won a Grammy, an O. Henry Award, and a PEN America Lifetieme Achievement Award.  He wrote Devil in a Blue Dress, on which the popular movie of the same name was based.  After reading his latest work, I understand the good reviews, but am baffled about how I've missed him before.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is literary, but manages to simultaneously be cinematic.  I will not be surprised if this is turned into a movie at some point.  It tells the story of Ptolemy Grey, a 91-year-old man suffering from dementia.  His grasp on reality is fading fast when a 17-year-old orphan comes into his life.  She cleans his squallid apartment and, eventually, helps him find a doctor who gives him an experimental drug that cleans his mind.  The cleaned apartment and cleared mind together help Ptolemy work through unresolved matters from the past. 

Many have referenced this as a Faustian morality tale, for Ptolemey knows that taking the medicine from the doctor he calls "The Devil" is likely to kill him.  But to leave it at that is overly simplistic.  It is a morality tale, but it also addresses mortality, the role of family and community, changing societal roles and civil rights over time, and the life one lives inside the mind.  It was a lovely book and I hereby name it a Fine Print starred review.  Doesn't that make you want to check it out?

Life is good, but is that all there is?

There are so many self help books out there. A complete plethora of how tos. How to get rich, how to be happy, how to find a man/woman, how to fix my husband or wife.  There are books on how to find yourself and get what has always been right there at your finger tips, fame, fortune and happiness.  All you have to do is ask for it and you'll receive it. Simply believe and it's yours. In James Rubart's novel, Rooms he shows an entirely different take on getting what you want.

There are so many paths we can choose. Each one leads to a different place. In Rooms, Micah Taylor has worked hard to be a success and has everything he could possibly want.  He owns his own company, has loads of money, a great girlfriend and then he receives an ominous note from his deceased Uncle. His Uncle gives him a unique home on the Oregon coast. It's worth a fortune. Micah has no desire to go, but is intrigued by his Uncle's comment that states 'the home is all you.' He feels called to go. Once he arrives he realizes this is where he belongs, but can he stay if it means his entire life will change?

Rooms is a novel that is creative, powerful and has stayed in my mind since I finished it.  It's an exquisite mystery that will keep you riveted to your seat and then make you think about the choices you've made in your life and where those choices led you. If you look back are there things you would do differently? If you could go back in time would you? Rooms will leave you taking a closer look at your faith and the life choices you've made. It is definitely a novel worth reading.

The Silent Land

I just finished reading Graham Joyce's latest novel, The Silent Land., which is slated for a March release.  The novel starts in with a young couple being buried in an avalanche while on a skiing vacation in the French Pyranees.  They amazingly escape from this situation only to find themselves in a more unsettling position.  Upon returning to the ski lodge, they quickly realize that there is nobody else around.

Jake and Zoe begin looking around the small ski town and are bewildered by the absence of life.  It seems unlikely that everyone was caught in the avalanche.  And if the town was evacuated, why wouldn't any rescue teams come around to see if anyone is still out there?  Why are they the only two signs of life in sight?  And, perhaps even stranger, why can't they feel?  Neither one feels the cold outside.  They have to remind themselves what food and drink taste like.  Memories fade away.  Despite all that is happening to them, Jake and Zoe remind themselves that they are happy because they are together.

It is very difficult for me to classify this novel.  There are some supernatural/fantasy elements to it.  But the main focus that keeps coming through is the relationship between Jake and Zoe.  No matter the decision they make in trying to figure their fate in this ski town, they always make it with one thing in mind: stay together.

While you wait for this offering, try some of Joyce's other novels.  Dark Sister, The Tooth Fairy, The Exchange, and Requiem are all available at the library!

A March madness bracket I have a clue about



image © Jim Trelease 2006

 Growing up a Hoosier, I was a basketball girl.  My first crush was not on a movie star, but on an IU basketball star.  But when I was 11, I moved out of Indiana, and the state kept my interest in basketball in that split.  It's probably been at least 10 years since I've watched an NCAA or NBA game.  When the annual brackets come out, I make my selections based entirely on school name (it makes me very happy that Gonzaga has done so well the last few years).  This year, though, I have found a March madness bracket that is more than a random collection of names to me.  The Morning News' Seventh Annual Tournament of Books pits sixteen great books of 2010 against each other. 


These are not necessarily the books The Morning News deems to be the "best" books of the year; rather, as they wrote, "Each of these books was chosen because it was hyped. Or celebrated. Or not celebrated or hyped enough. Or because it won an award. Or because an individual (or individuals) we admire lobbied passionately for its inclusion."  In addition to bragging rights to rival Duke's, the winner of the bracket will get a rooster (which offers serious contention to the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse award for the best literary prize involving livestock).  There is also a "Zombie" round, in which the two books that received the highest number of fan votes before the bracket began can be brought back in to the mix, despite having been voted out of the head-to-head competition. 


I've read six of the books in the Sweet 16 of this contest, and several more from the original long list, and I'm very eager to see what makes the cut.  While I'll still be judging basketball teams by their names, I'm feeling pretty good about my chances in The Morning News pool. 

In case your plans to win the lottery don't pan out

Have you ever wondered what life would be like after winning the lottery?  I know I enjoy a good game of wishful thinking... I've probably played the "What if I win the lottery?" game at least a hundred times more than I've played the actual lottery.  Apparently I'm not alone in my fascination with how sudden wealth would change a life.  It's a topic that's ripe for writers...and they've noticed.

A few months ago, I read Lottery by Patricia Wood. It tells the story of Perry L. Crandall, who is (as he repeatedly asserts) not retarded.  His IQ is 76, one point higher than that cut-off.  He reads like the Forrest Gump of the Pacific Northwest, but with a bit more nuance.  Perry's family largely ignores him after cheating him of his inheritance from his caretaker-grandmother -- until he wins $12 million in the Washington State Lottery, that is.  Lottery is an interesting look at the impact of a lottery win on the people around the winner and their relationship with the winner as well as the improbable fortune of Perry.   

A few days ago, I picked up the book Molly's Millions, a chick lit story in which broke British florist Molly Bailey wins £4.2 million the first time she ever buys a lottery ticket.  She soon realizes that she must give away the money quickly before the cheapskate men in her family take control.  As she drives around the country secretly sharing her newfound wealth, a down-on-his-luck journalist tries to track her down.  It's a fun, light book that put a smile on my face. 

If neither of these titles grabs your interest, but you like the idea of reading about winning the lottery, there are plenty of others.  Check out these novels about lottery winners -- they range from the suspenseful (Linda Howard's Burn, for example) to the funny (Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You) to the frothy (Good Luck by Whitney Gaskill), with many in between.  So, in case your plans to win the lottery don't pan out, you can at least read about the lives of those who do.  (And if they do pan out, well...have I mentioned how nice you look today?)

I now pronounce you husband and wife...and wife...and wife...and wife

I can say with a lot of certainty that until a few weeks ago, I knew nothing about the polygamist lifestyle beyond the salacious details reported with arrests of characters such as Warren Jeffs.  I have enough trouble managing my own small family of four that I can't comprehend the complexities involved with dozens of children and multiple spouses (my mind recoils at the idea of trying to make a meal that would please everyone...).  My library basket was so full that I couldn't handle another book, let alone another spouse.  But, I'd read such good reviews of The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall that I decided that if the main character could handle another wife, I could handle another book.

This book was so comprehensive, multi-faceted, and multi-layered in its treatment of a polygamist family that I made the reader's attribution error: It was so engrossing that began to wonder if Udall had a history of ties to a polygamist sect himself (turns out his great-great-grandfather was, in fact, polygamist, and Udall is around because of that).  Rather than treating the characters as one-dimensional caricatures, Udall presents a complex, nuanced set of characters in the patriarch of this family, Golden; his fourth wife, Trisha; and Rusty, one of his 28 children.

This is an interesting novel of a desperate search for human connection, affection, and attention, even and especially amidst many, many family members.  It's definitely a recommended read. 

A book worth a cup of coffee

If you're a regular reader, you might have caught my cantankerous rant slightly contrarian post a few weeks ago, in which I listed a few of the heralded books of the year that I had no interest in reading.  Miss Betty here at the library noticed and challenged me to overcome my apathy about Tom Rachman's debut novel, The Imperfectionists.  We have often discussed books and have had similar reactions to many books, so Betty's recommendation alone would've had me rethinking my aversion to the book.  But then she took it a step further: she was so sure I would like the book that she bet me a cup of coffee I would like it.  This was serious -- I do not mess around when it comes to coffee, which Betty everyone who's known me for ten minutes knows, so I accepted the caffeine-infused gauntlet that had just been thrown. 

Well, dear reader, I now know what Betty takes in her coffee.  I'll admit: for the first chapter, I thought that I was surely going to be sipping on my brew from atop my high horse.  After a slow start, though, I started to understand the story and before I knew it, I was nearly finished.  The Imperfectionists is about the people who comprise the staff (and one reader) of an English-language newspaper in Italy.  Just as the paper struggles to maintain its relevance in the 24-hour-news-cycle 21st century, each of the individuals profiled is struggling to maintain relevance in his or her own personal life.  Some were more likable than others, but each struggled with this sense of relevancy.  Intertwined between the chapters, Rachman tells the story of the newspaper's creation and its successes and failures over the subsequent years.

The Imperfectionists reads a bit more like a collection of short stories connected by an inky thread.  The book reminds me of the idea that we are all extras in the movie of someone else's life.  The short story feel serves to strengthen, rather than diminish, the book's message of discovering the personalities that lie behind the surface of the extras who surround us.  It's a great book, and I now publicly, gladly, concede it merits the buzz surrounding it.  It also goes great with a cup of coffee.   

The Top 100 Books according to...somebody

For the last couple of years, every so often I get a note from friends on Facebook asking which of the BBC's Top 100 books I've read, plan to read, liked, loved, and so on.  It purports to be the classics, as defined by the BBC, and notes that the BBC estimates suggest that most people have read only six of the titles.  I've shared this note myself, and tallied up how many I've read (52, in case you're curious).  It turns out that the list that's been circulating isn't really from the BBC at all, nor has the BBC ever estimated how many of these books most people have read.  What they did do was commission a survey of the British public in 2003 to find what their favorite novels are.  That list totalled 200 titles and can be found here.  They had no estimate of how many of these most people had read. 

Whether it's the list circulating on Facebook or the original BBC list, or a different one altogether, like the Radcliffe Publishing Course's 100 Best Novels, I think the idea of using a list like this is fascinating.  I so often get caught up in what's new that I lose sight of the old classics, especially those I wouldn't normally even consider reading.  Added to this, I recently re-read Nick Hornby's complete Polysyllabic Spree collection (which also includes Housekeeping vs. The Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money) in which he writes about the books he reads.  His apparent love of Charles Dickens and other classic authors has inspired me to delve into the past a bit more.

In the spirit of the new year, I resolve to read at least ten books from one of these lists.  In the meantime, I welcome your suggestions of how I should do this: Which list should I use?  Should I work my way through the list in order (1 - 100) or should I start with the books that sound most interesting to me?  However I end up choosing titles, it's likely to be the only resolution I keep this year, so I'll let you know how it goes.