Books High and Low
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.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
The Paris Library, by Janet Skeslien Charles
I enjoyed this novel that alternated between 1940s Paris and 1980s Montana. Odile is a new librarian at the American Library in Paris. She loves her new job and her colleagues and customers, and she has fallen in love with a young policeman. However, the German occupation of Paris changes everything for her, raising tensions and increasing the danger for everyone. Lily meets Odile in the 1980s, where Odile has lived since immigrating with her new American husband after the war. As the stories go back and forth, we learn what happened to Odile in Paris and why she left everything behind to come to America. Teenage Lily has befriended Odile during a difficult time in Lily's life. Lily's mother has died, her father remarries after a while, and they have two young sons. Lily is struggling to adjust to her new family, and Odile provides another adult perspective that helps Lily navigate her way. This was an interesting read, based on some real-life characters in Paris, although Odile's and Lily's characters are fictional. Nevertheless, the book has some flaws, specifically that the ending is fairly abrupt and it is hard to believe that Odile's character would make the decisions that she did.
Friday, July 5, 2024
Paris by the book, by Liam Callanan
After Leah's writer husband, Robert, disappears, she follows clues that take her to Paris with her two teenage daughters. Once there, she decided to apply for a work visa and stay on, acquiring an interest in a bookstore. Not know whether Robert has abandoned them, is suffering from a mental illness, or is dead is torture for Leah and her daughters, Ellie and Daphne, and this is made worse by all of them thinking they either see him in a crowd or find potential clues to his presence in Paris. This book builds very slowly, but I really enjoyed it as the mystery deepens and we eventually learn what happened to Robert.