Books High and Low
Thursday, October 17, 2024
You're doing great! ... and other reasons to stay alive, by Tom Papa
My year of rest and relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
The panic zone, by Rick Mofina
This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that follows a young woman who's lost her husband and son in a car crash (although she swears she saw someone take her son), an investigative reporter (Jack Gannon), and an international conspiracy involving a deadly manufactured pathogen. This is the 2nd in the Jack Gannon series; it's fast-paced and entertaining.
Maybe you should talk to someone, by Lori Gottlieb
This was a really interesting book in which the author Lori Gottlieb, a therapist, writes about her own need for therapy when she experienced a loss. Gottlieb interweaves her own story with the experiences of a half dozen or so of her patients. Often she demonstrates that what they're experiencing is something that she also encounters in her own therapy sessions, and it's interesting to see her recognize and deal with those situations herself. It's really well written and a fast read. It also serves to take the mystery out of what therapy entails, and I would guess that a lot of people would consider therapy for themself after they read the book.
Saturday, October 5, 2024
The thread collectors, by Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman
Thursday, October 3, 2024
James, by Percival Everett
I really liked this retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved man Jim's viewpoint. I found the story to be alternately funny and devastating. Written by the author of Erasure, the novel that the film American fiction was based on, you can imagine that James will be provocative and challenge the reader's perspectives about the events that took place in Huck Finn. Everett doesn't disappoint with this book. Telling the story from an adult's perspective and leaving out the many swaths of the original book in which Jim and Huck were separated, the result is a shorter book, but one that is piercing in its insight. I found James both riveting and unforgettable; I couldn't put it down. I read this over the summer for my September book club meeting. We chose to re-read Huck Finn first, which I think was a good approach, given that I hadn't read Huck Finn in 40 years. Reading them in order (Huck Finn, then James) draws your attention even more strongly to the way the stories are told and the emphases placed on specific events by the respective authors.
Monday, September 2, 2024
Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
I have mixed feelings about this book. I like fantasy and time travel books, as well as historical fiction, so this book seemed like a promising read for me. I liked some aspects of the story, like how Claire was able to fit into 18th century life and use her medical knowledge to help people. She seemed like a real heroine at that point. Some other reviewers (on Amazon) complained about what they thought of as a boring plot. I didn't find it boring, but I disliked many of the plot points. How many times can a woman be threatened by rape or assault without it becoming dull? And, (spoiler alert), how is it that she is threatened with rape, only to be rescued at the last minute, but her husband is raped repeatedly near the end of the book by a sadistic, English military officer? I think the book would have been much better without that. And the way she helps him get over his rape is just ludicrous. I can't believe there are 10 more of these books; one was enough for me.
Saturday, August 24, 2024
The heaven and earth grocery story, by James McBride
I really loved this novel by James McBride about a diverse collection of people living in Pottstown, Pennsylvania during the 1930s and 1970s. The writing is very good, the plot is compelling, and it moves at a good pace. It starts in 1972 when a skeleton is found deep in a well, then the narrative jumps back to the 1930s to show how the skeleton came to be there. It's a lively and interesting story, so much so that by the end, I had almost forgotten the skeleton in the beginning until the plot leads the reader to see how it came to be there (and who it was). This was my Albany book club's July selection, and it led to a lively discussion.
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
I have mixed feelings about this 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a nerdy second-generation Dominican American man who is highly intelligent but finds it impossible to land a date, much less intimacy with a woman. Oscar and his sister grow up in Paterson, NJ, but their family continues to have a connection to their mother's home and relatives in the Dominican Republic (DR). Oscar loves science fiction, gaming, and writing, but just doesn't fit in. His story is only part of the narrative, which veers from Oscar's challenges to his sister Lola's escapades as a runaway, his mother's trauma as a survivor of Trujillo's political purges, and Oscar and Lola's friend Yunior's inability to remain loyal to one woman. By the end of the book, I felt invested in the characters and wanted to see how it all played out for each of them, but there was a lot about the book that irked me and made it difficult to get through it, especially in the beginning. There is a heavy use of Spanish, too much to look up every phrase, so I ended up moving forward without understanding everything that was being said or implied. There are a lot of footnotes that explain DR history. While I found these interesting, pausing reading the narrative to read the footnotes was annoying. I would have preferred to have the history worked into the main narrative instead. I didn't mind the language and profanity, but the book was also incredibly violent, with scenes and explanations of torture. While this may represent the reality of DR history and what actually happened, I would have preferred not to encounter them in my fiction. In the end, I liked the book more than I disliked it. It's worth reading just for the history alone.
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Blue: A history of postpartum depression in America, by Rachel Louise Moran
Moran’s (history and women’s studies, The Pennsylvania State University; Governing Bodies: American Politics and the Shaping of the Modern Physique) deeply-researched and well-written examination of postpartum depression in America reveals how both the medical profession and society’s understanding changed over the past century from a dismissive depiction of it as “baby blues” to the current awareness of it as a medical condition that can be treated. Moran paints a vivid picture of the reality of postpartum depression in many women’s lives, using real women’s stories that led to activism and advocacy during the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The increased recognition that depression received during the 1980s helped bring attention to postpartum depression, but media focus on postpartum psychoses that resulted in infanticide confused the issue. Grassroots organizations that advocated for education and legislation helped to raise awareness of the phenomenon and educate medical professionals about the broad range of postpartum mental health issues, including methods of treating them. Their efforts further resulted in federal and state legislation supporting education and screening options for women suffering from postpartum depression. VERDICT Moran breaks new ground with this invaluable first of its kind history.
A version of this review has been published by Library Journal here.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Famous American Poems
Monday, August 12, 2024
The crocodile bird, by Ruth Rendell
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
The burning edge, by Rick Mofina
Thursday, August 1, 2024
The night we lost him, by Laura Dave
This was an enjoyable and intriguing novel about a woman whose semi-estranged brother drags her into an investigation into their father's death, which had been ruled accidental. As they begin to look closer at the circumstances of his fall from a cliff near his home, his death begins to look more and more suspicious. While there are no big, dramatic, climaxes here, there is a slow building of an understanding of many things their father kept from them, and an ultimate discovery about what really happened on the cliff the night he died.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
I read this book decades ago and I was surprised by how much of it I had forgotten. I read it this summer for my September local book club meeting for which we are reading both Huck Finn and James, the new novel by Percival Everett. I have to admit that while I like Twain's writing, I was put off by the stupidity of so many of the characters (almost everyone other than Huck and Tom). I don't remember that grating on me as much when I read it as a teen, but I guess my perspective has changed.
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Green lands for white men, by Meredith McKittrick
In 1918, white South Africans began to raise concerns about what they perceived as the increasing aridity of the land. These ideas were promulgated by Ernest Schwarz, a South African professor of geology, who used his observations of dry lake basins and riverbeds to support his case. Schwarz’s theories claimed that Africans had squandered their land through disuse, and that allowing water to flow to the sea was wasteful. Refuted by many scientists and climatologists, Schwarz’s theories nevertheless gained currency among white farmers and politicians, many of whom supported his proposal to divert rivers to attempt to irrigate arid lands across South Africa so that white men could farm them. This plan, called the Kalahari Scheme, would theoretically result in the elimination of white poverty, which presented obstacles to the maintenance of a racial hierarchy in South Africa. Author Meredith McKittrick, professor of history at Georgetown University, presents her deeply-researched exploration of Schwarz’s misguided scheme, showing how the philosophy behind it contributed in part to the development of apartheid decades later. She also delves into some interesting parallels with current history, including climate change denialism. VERDICT This is a fascinating look at a little-known episode in South African history.
A version of this review was published by Library Journal 149:9 (2024): 97.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Wade in the water: Poems, by Tracy K. Smith
I enjoyed these poems by former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith. Her poems ruminate on topics such as Civil War-era Black soldiers and newly-freed Black families and their struggles, the impact of chemical pollution on health in nearby neighborhoods, her children, and much more. Some of them are erasure poems: historical documents or letters that have some text removed to create new works.