January 2019 Films and Series

I loved Isle of Dogs. I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson, and this did not disappoint. I loved the animation and the dialog.

I enjoyed Bird Box, unlike so many whose reviews I've been reading. It was entertaining and very suspenseful, especially in the first half.
















I couldn't wait to watch the third season of Travelers, and after I was finished, I went back to re-watch the first two. This is just the right length for me to watch on the treadmill in the morning.










I saw this on a "Best of Netflix" list recently and decided to re-watch it, but I realized after a while that I had never seen it. I was sure that I'd seen it when it first came out, but nothing about it was familiar to me. It was just as good as I expected!

We're flying through this series, and fact checking as we go. It's particularly fun as we just vacationed in Scotland in 2016 and visited the Royal Yacht Britannia, on which a number of the scenes are set.

What a fascinating story. This research was done in the wake of backlash against the harm caused to people from their use as human subjects. No wonder it was never published.

January 2019 Books

This is a fun and touching exploration of the author's development as a publisher's sales representative from the 1970s to the present.

I enjoyed this spare novel that reveals the troubled marriage of the main character. This was our January book club pick.

This was a wonderful history of the author's work advocating for men, women, and children on death row. Through his work, laws have been changed to keep children off of death row and prohibit their detention in solitary confinement. He has advocated for people on death row; the major case followed in this book is the subject of an upcoming film starring Michael B. Jordan.

It's been a long time since I read A Streetcar Named Desire. I enjoyed it just as much this time around. I've never seen it performed live, although I have seen the movie.

This was the first time I'd ever read this science fiction classic. I enjoyed this short novel and Wells' writing style. The only film version I've seen is the 2005 Spielberg version (which I liked). I also remember watching The Night that Panicked America, a 1975 TV film about the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

This is an intimate look at the relationships between three people after one has suffered an illness-related episode of amnesia.

















This was a fascinating story about how one doctor identified the cause of child bed fever, which caused a high mortality rate of women who had babies in hospital maternity wards. Doctors and medical students were in the habit of conducting autopsies in the morning, followed by rounds of the maternity wards, without washing their hands in between. It took decades to convince others and introduce accepted practices to avoid contaminating patients. Very well-written.

Two sisters come together to protect their son/stepson after their husband/ex husband was murdered. Fast-paced and riveting.

A detective is on the trail of a kidnapper and rapist, with help from a former victim. A page turner.

December 2018

Loved this intimate look at the author's parents and their relationship.

A fictional account of author Stephen Crane's last days as he died of tuberculosis in Europe.

Friendship between two young girls in poverty-stricken Naples post-WWII.

November 2018

A spectacular read, especially for these dark times. Well written and engaging.

A fascinating look at the foot in history, art, and science.

For all fans of Maureen Corrigan's book reviews on NPR's Fresh Air; this is an enjoyable journey through Ms. Corrigan's reading from childhood on.

An extremely dark and depressing serial killer mystery. Much too violent for my taste.

Fall non-fiction

A look at the latest technologies, their promises and perils. Very intense. One of the few books I wanted to start over as soon as I was finished so that I didn't miss anything.

















A plan for how we might fight climate change and its effects on civilization. Published in 2009, so it's more optimistic than it might be if it were published today. Hopefully we can get back on track in 2020.

This is an deep dive into how the brain handles distractions, with a specific focus on newer technologies and their impact. Very good.
















Everything you already knew about him, but more of it. 

A Collection of Novellas

I was in the mood for shorter works of fiction this past week or so, and I read a number of short novels and two children's books.

The Marriage of True Minds was one of my favorites. It's the story of Lena, a lawyer who is called on to defend her ex-husband, Nick, who has committed crimes to make a point about animal rights and environmentalism. She finds herself agreeing to supervise his counseling and community service, to the detriment of her current romantic interest. This short novel is heartwarming and funny, and will keep you guessing until the end.

Dear Committee Members is an academic satire. It consists of letters written by professor Jason Fitger, as he responds to requests from students, colleagues, and others as they try to get jobs, get into graduate school, get into writing programs, etc. All I can say about this one is that while it's amusing to a certain extent, satire just isn't my favorite genre, so I got tired of it about halfway through. I speed-read my way through the rest to get a sense of how the story developed, but I don't feel that I missed a lot. I picked this book out because it was recommended a number of times on academic blogs that I read on The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Education; many readers found it hilarious, so I suppose I'm an outlier!

According to the blurb on the back cover of this book (which I have in advanced reader's copy/uncorrected proof form), "Anna Enquist is one of Holland's best loved and celebrated writers." However, I found this grim novel hard to like. Louise is a teacher of classical languages and Nico is an administrator in a hospital. They are both suffering the pain of losing a daughter, not to death, but to the unknown: she ran away six months ago just after she turned 18. They go through their joyless days, pretending that it didn't happen and never talking about her. Nico is promoted to hospital director, then proceeds to deteriorate psychologically until he falls apart. This short novel packs a lot of sadness into its 105 pages.







The Dybbuk is a ghost story in the form of a play written by Shloyme Zanvl Rappaport, who published under the pseudonym S. Ansky. I read it first in a comparative literature class as an undergraduate, and decided to re-read it this week. The dybbuk in question is the ghost of a young man who was promised to wed the daughter of another man. When the young man's father died young, the other man reneged on his promise, setting the stage for the tragedy that follows. Ansky died before the play became a big success; it continues to be staged to this day. This edition is illustrated very nicely with black and white ink drawings or watercolors.








Flying to Nowhere is a short gothic mystery set in a monastery on a remote island. It begins with a grotesque scene of a priest insisting on taking a horse to the island on a boat; there isn't a good landing spot and the horse jumps out of the boat, breaking its legs on the rocks along the shore. That was enough to turn me off of this book (was that really necessary?), but I valiantly continued. Once on the island, the priest, Vane, interviews the Abbot and others, trying to find out what happened to the pilgrims who came to the island in recent months. The Abbot is clearly hiding something. I won't tell more about the plot, but it's not pleasant!

After reading The Dybbuk, I picked this book off of my shelves. Written for children, it's the story of a ventriloquist, Avrom Amos, who meets up with a dybbuk, who wants help getting revenge on those who were responsible for his death during the Holocaust. The dybbuk inhabits Avrom, and uses the dummy to draw attention to the war criminals still at large. I really enjoyed this book; it uses the repartee between Avrom and the dybbuk to draw attention to a very serious subject.

This is a cute graphic novel about Amelia, a girl who has had to move from the city to a small town. She hangs out with her friends, goes to a dance with a boy, finds out her mother is also going on a first date, and learns about her ancestors. The art work is very nicely done with great color. I think this would be appealing to most children; it's funny but also deals with issues that most would recognize from their own life.

Fall fiction

I got a little behind in my book reviews this fall, so here's a roundup of the fiction that I've read:

I really enjoyed The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder, about a teenager who's trying to solve the murder of the young woman who recently moved back into his neighborhood. Gifted with synesthesia, which causes him to see colors and other stimuli as colors, 13-year old Jasper doesn't have a clear recollection of the night that she died, and he has a suspicion that he's responsible. This book reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, by Mark Haddon.

No God in Sight, by Altaf Tyrewala, is a collection of short vignettes about related characters in Bombay. Some of the chapters are only a few paragraphs, while others span 10 or more pages. Each character's story leads to the next, so a chapter about a young girl seeking an abortion leads to a chapter about the abortionist, which then leads to a chapter about the abortionist's father. Several dozen chapters later, the narrative circles back to the first character's boyfriend. It's funny and sad, painting a picture of all swaths of life in modern Bombay. I read this in one morning; it was impossible to put down.

We the Animals is a novella about the childhood of three young mixed-race boys in upstate New York. With a white mother and a Puerto Rican father, who married as teenagers, the unnamed narrator's childhood was filled with joy, poverty, and violence. Lyrical and poetic, this is an emotional journey into a young boy's psyche. I loved this book.

I was a little disappointed in the latest from Karin Slaughter. I was impressed with the last book that I read by her and I had high hopes for this one, but the plot and characters just weren't convincing to me. Andrea is the main character who is thrust into a dangerous adventure when her mother is revealed to be someone other than Andrea believed. It becomes clear to the reader (but not Andrea) that her mother is a fugitive from a long-ago crime, and there are people after her to make sure the secret is kept. Even through the non-stop action, it dragged on a little too long. I would take a pass at this one.

The Ninth Wife tells the story of a woman (Bess) who falls in love with a man she meets at her birthday party. When he asks her to marry him, he comes clean and tells her that he's been married eight times before. The rest of the book consists of her trying to come to terms with his past as she drives her grandparents across the country to their new retirement home. While the writing is good, I found the premise off-putting and the agonizing over what she should do was a little too dragged out. I also had little patience with his story, which is revealed in alternating chapters with the main character's. There are a lot of additional characters and stories woven into the book, from the grandparent's long-simmering anger, Bess' neighbor, who's mourning his partner, Bess' ex-boyfriend and his fiance, and how they're all interrelated with Bess' new boyfriend. Overall, this has good writing, but it's a little too long and drawn-out.

The Collini Case is an excellent mystery by Ferdinand von Schirach, a German author and lawyer. Caspar Leinen is a newly-minted lawyer and takes as his first case the defense of a man, Fabrizio Collini, who not only murdered a wealthy industrialist, but admitted such. As Collini refuses to explain why he murdered the man, Leinen is forced to investigate Collini's past to learn his motives. At under 200 pages, it is sparely written, but compelling.

The Grimm Legacy is a YA adventure set in New York. Elizabeth is happy to take a job at the New York Circulating Repository, which lends objects rather than books. As she advances through her training, she's eventually trusted with access to the Grimm Collection, which includes magical objects mentioned in Grimm's fairy tales. As she makes friends with her fellow co-workers, she learns that some objects have been stolen and used for nefarious purposes, and she gets drawn into an adventure trying to solve the mystery and get the magical objects back. Lots of fun!

Zom-B is the story of a zombie attack that starts in Ireland and moves to B's English town. B's father is racist and doesn't mind when the zombies are attacking the Irish or immigrants, but when they attack closer to home, it calls for action. B is caught up in a zombie attack at school, and barely escapes alive. B's own racist views are challenged throughout the book. This is the first of a twelve-volume series, and the resolution to B's questions will have to be revealed in a later book. With a flawed main character, it addresses contemporary issues such as racism along with zombie blood and gore.

Home after Dark is a graphic novel about a young boy who is abandoned first by his mother and then by his father, who leaves him with a neighbor. Told mostly through the illustrations, Home after Dark shows us the perils of adolescence without a loving family. Sad, yet ultimately hopeful.

I've long been a fan of Bill Amend's Foxtrot comic strip, and this collection from 2006 doesn't disappoint. I got this at the 2006 BookExpo America convention, and one of my favorite things about this is the personalized inscription by the author (see below).

The Complete Lhasa Apso, by Norman and Carolyn Herbel

This is a good introduction to the history of the Lhasa Apso breed and its care. Published in 1979, it provides a history of the breed in the United States and England, including major breeders and specific dogs brought from Tibet. The book discusses the official standard in both the U.S. and England, and goes into great detail on all of its specific points: character, size, color, body shape, coat, mouth and muzzle, head, eyes, ears, legs, feet, tail and carriage, and movement. The authors provide instructions for grooming, showing, and training a Lhasa Apso. Other chapters address selecting a puppy, the character of the Lhasa Apso, and obedience training.

Although dated, this is a good introduction to the breed. If you're interested in specific bloodlines and pedigrees, this book provides a lot of history and background, including pedigree charts. It also includes a lot of information about specific breeders, although those might not be relevant today. There are many black and white pictures throughout, and 16 pages of color photographs. Overall, this is a good introduction to the breed, especially if you're interested in the history of Lhasa Apso breeding in the U.S. and England. There is also a bibliography for further reading.

Norman and Carolyn Herbel. The Complete Lhasa Apso. New York: Howell Book House, 1979. 302 pages. ISBN 0876052081.

New Slow City: Living Simply in the World's Fastest City, by William Powers

Author William Powers spent a year living in a twelve by twelve foot square cabin, which he documented in his book Twelve by Twelve: A One-Rom Cabin off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream. Now married and living in Queens, he and his wife decide to move to a micro apartment in Manhattan to see if they can live the slow life there. Powers is determined to downsize his work life as well, so he commits to working only two days a week so that his weekends are five days long. He writes about enjoying the parks in Manhattan, biking and hiking in nearby parks, kayaking on the Hudson, and appreciating the calmer pace of his life. He very thoughtfully explores issues related to the environment, sustainability, food, advertising, and more. He finds himself spending more than he planned, so he and his wife decide to avail themselves of all the free entertainment in the city, including free short-term memberships at gyms and yoga studios. It reminded me of the summer of 1996 when I was trying to pay off my credit card and I refused to buy myself anything (other than food and necessities) for about six months (I made an exception for a new pair of running shoes when my old ones were too worn). I took advantage of free concerts at the museum, free movies in the park, and arts festivals all summer; I never ran out of things to do. I remember telling one of my friends what I was doing, and she replied "Oh, I just couldn't live like that!"

After several months of only working two days a week, Powers agreed to teach a class on sustainable development at NYU. He and his wife are on vacation, but not too far away, when Hurricane Sandy struck, and he shares his feelings about the city and the effects of climate change. He attends a meeting in Morocco and explores slow living there. Finally, he and his wife visit his daughter in Bolivia, and they decide to buy some property to build a home in a small village. She's pregnant, and the book closes with the birth of their child and the move to Bolivia.

Overall, this is a heartfelt and sincere exploration of how Powers attempted to live life at a slower pace in the middle of Manhattan. His meditations and explorations about a different approach to life are inspiring and thought-provoking.

William Powers. New Slow City: Living Simply in the World's Fastest City. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2014. 255 pages. ISBN 9781608682393.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles

I loved this novel about a middle-aged man who was sentenced to house arrest in a hotel in Moscow not long after the Russian Revolution. He was considered part of the aristocracy, but had written a famous revolutionary poem, so he was allowed to live. Rather than being sentenced to Siberia or elsewhere, he was punished with house arrest and forced to move from his suite to an attic room. The novel details his life as he makes friends with other house guests, young and old, and eventually asks to be taken on as head waiter in the hotel restaurant. He eventually adopts a young girl whose mother disappeared after leaving the girl in his care. He befriends people of all walks of life, from famous actresses to bureaucrats, writers, and spies. This book is funny and touching, and it's extremely well-written. Just writing about it makes me want to read it again! I highly recommend this book.

Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow. New York: Viking, 2016. 462 pages. ISBN 9780670026197. (Advance uncorrected proofs, signed by author.)

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg

I know I'm late to the game reading The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, which came out in 2012. I've read so many references to it that I finally broke down and got a copy out of the library. This is an easy and fun book to read; however, it reminds me of so many other books that I was a little disappointed.

The first section is about the habits of individuals. This was the most interesting part for me. I wanted to read about people and how we can break bad habits, instill good habits, or use our habits to improve ourselves. This section addresses these issues, but spends a little too much time on football anecdotes (how the Indianapolis Colts changed their habits on the field to be more successful and win more games).

The second section is about the habits of organizations. Duhigg tells anecdotes about Alcoa, Starbucks, and others to show how workplace habits can help companies succeed. This didn't work as well for me. By habits, Duhigg seems to mean policies and procedures. Basically, he's saying that if you change workplace policies and procedures, and provide better training to your employees, you will instill these as habits that will result in better outcomes. This section felt like many other popular management books that tell anecdotes about a few companies to illustrate some principles. It's entertaining, and even a little inspirational, but didn't really seem to be about habits, except in a very broad sense. The third section discusses the habits of societies, and focuses on the Civil Rights Movement and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Again, the author is trying to say that we react to situations based on our habits (e.g., accepting poor treatment on the bus), and that if we change that habit, and encourage others to do so as well, we can make societal changes.

Overall, this is an entertaining and fast read, much like many other popular business books available. It will make you think and it is definitely inspiring. But framing all of these management approaches with the concept of "habits" is a bit of a stretch. I would have preferred a book that was focused more on the personal approach to breaking bad habits and instilling good ones, but that's not this book.

Charles Duhigg. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2012. 371 pages. ISBN 9781400069286.

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, by Francine Prose

Like most of us, I read Anne Frank's diary while in school, either 7th or 8th grade. It wasn't assigned, but was recommended by a fellow student (thank you Lauren Murphy!). While I haven't picked it up since, the book made a strong impression that has lasted many years. When I visited Amsterdam in 2009 I was able to visit the Anne Frank Museum, and it brought the diary to life for me in a way that just reading it could not.

With this book, author Francine Prose has described the history of the diary's publication as well as the plays and film based on it. I learned that Anne began to revise her diary herself in response to a news broadcast that said that such records of events would be worthy of publication after the war. In less than four months' time, she rewrote much of the diary. When her father returned to the annex after the war, he was given both of these versions. He edited them, sometimes keeping the original, sometimes keeping the revised version, for publication.

Originally, Otto Frank found it difficult to find a publisher for the diary and enjoyed lackluster sales. He was helped in the U.S. by a positive review by Meyer Levin in the New York Times. Levin also came to an informal agreement with Otto Frank to be allowed to write a play based on the diary. However, producers didn't like Levin's approach, leading to years of strife and lawsuits. Eventually other writers were identified and the play became a success, followed by the film.

I wasn't aware that there were different versions of the diary. They include Anne's original, Anne's revised version, and Otto's edited version. A later edition presents all three of these versions together in columns so that readers can compare them with each other. Prose includes excerpts from both the original and the revised to show how Anne's writing matured in the two years that she was in the annex. I was also not aware of the controversies surrounding the play and film (and have seen neither). Prose has drawn a picture of the diary that reveals not just the impact that it's had on society but also the high emotions that it arouses in readers. She also touches on detractors and Holocaust deniers and how they've misrepresented and misinterpreted the diary to try to make their (non-existent) case.

I found this book fascinating. Francine Prose is an excellent writer and has created a thoughtful and interesting work with Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife.

Francine Prose. Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. 304 pages. ISBN 9780061430794. (My copy is an uncorrected proof, signed by the author.)