KOTV Book ReviewsMonday, 17 August 2009The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, annotated and edited by David M. Shapard – What fun. The first ever annotated edition of one of the world’s best loved novels. It adds such enjoyment to discover such things as the social distinction of driving a coach or a hack or a chaise. To learn the social etiquette of the day. (Who should call her Miss Elizabeth Barrett and who can call her Miss Eliza?) A great book for fans of Jane Austin. People of the Book by Pulitzer-Prize winning Geraldine Brooks. And a New York Times best seller. Forget it. I found it tedious, too crammed with painfully researched facts, and a wannabe The Da Vinci Code. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, subtitled “A Plant’s Eye View of the World.” Have we domesticated plants—or do they rule us? That’s the premise of this delightful from 2001 and the author relates the history of the potato, apple, tulip and marijuana. But I wanted to take an editor’s pencil to his prose and mark out his love of parenthetical expressions. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I'm still reading this best-selling Swedish mystery and loving it. It's dense, rich, riveting and suspenseful. The characters are complex and fascinating. The plot involves a family saga, a 40-year-old mystery, a love story, a financial intrigue. I'm gulping it down. The first 32 pages include the background of the financial bit, but don't despair. This is background. Keep going and soon you'll meet one of the most interesting protagonists in modern literature—Lisbeth Salander. The second book is out now, "The Girl Who Played wiith Fire." I can't wait to finish this one and jump into it.
Monday, 20 November 2008Society’s Child – autobiography by Janis Ian. Drama in my life is, “Oh no! I’m out of cat food again.” Small potatoes compared to Janis Ian’s life. Famous as a songwriter and singer since age 14, she’s been wealthy, broke, married to a man, married to a woman, in the international spotlight, rebuilding her career. Up, down and all around. One reason we read about lives like this, I believe, is so we don’t have to live them ourselves. Not the End of the World – short fiction by Kate Atkinson. More sincere praise from me for this Scottish writer who is so intellectual, witty and imaginative. Not every day you find all of those characteristics in one person. The Chicago Tribune described this collection as “A great escape from the duller world of everyday life.”
Monday, 20 October 2008Two absolutely great novels, a gripping mystery novel, and one trashy autobiography.
Monday, 18 August 2008Do you know a boy who doesn’t like to read? Help may be on the way. The most highly recommended in the article was the Wicked History series (ask for them that way at the book store.) None was available at my local Barnes and Noble and Borders. They are “library bindings,” whatever that is—for schools, I guess—and $30 each. But both book stores offered to order them for me. They are written for middle schoolers and subjects include Vlad the Impaler and “Bloody Mary” Tudor. Blood and gore flow in these books. The books I did read, for slightly younger audiences (I would say 4th and 6th graders) include:
Monday, 28 July 2008Five Sisters: The Langhornes of Virginia by James Fox – a portrait of a faded society, the South from the Civil War to World War II and five sisters in Virginia known as the most beautiful in the world. One was the prototype of the Gibson Girl. One married Waldorf Astor, the richest man in the world and became Britain’s first Minister of Parliament. Most, beautiful, powerful and self absorbed, were rotten mothers and made their families miserable. Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser, the very detailed biography of France’s tragic queen who was a German by birth and married into French royalty at age fourteen. Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself by Salomon Grimbert, from interviews the Mexican artist and cult heroine gave to a friend and psychologist. Described as “startling autobiographical.” Books by Larry McMurtry. His newest book is more about his work as a book scout, book collector and dealer of antiquarian books. Too detailed for most of us. Most of us don’t care that much about bindings, type, points, cancels and colophons. Most of us, like me, don’t know what many of those things are. Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy: 100 Sophisticated but Simple Recipes. Britain’s superchef walks us through shopping and cooking recipes we could really cook. He focuses on food he cooks at home with his wife and daughters.
Monday, 21 July 2008The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life – Pat Conroy with Suzanne Williamson Pollak. This book has been described as an Ode to Joy. The engaging Southern storyteller and novelist (“Prince of Tide,” “The Great Santini” and others) writes with passion about people, places and great meals and recipes of his life. Very engaging. Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond – Larry McMurtry. Who would have thought that this is an autobiography. Or, folks say, as close to one to be written by Western author McMurtry (“Terms of Endearment,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Hud” (the movie—the book was titled “Horseman, Pass By,” and “Lonesome Dove” and others.) Not as jolly as Conroy’s, but then this is a different kind of book. It is a thoughtful and moving book of the disappearing West, the cow and cowboy culture, and his enduring love of reading and books. He loves reading more than he loves writing. Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara & Gerald Murphy – edited by Deborah Rothschild with an introductory essay by Calvin Tomkins. Paris and the French Riviera in the 1920s, where the Murphys were hosts for aspiring young writers and artists: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, the Ballet Russe. They were the models for Fitzgerald’s novel “Tender is the Night.”
Monday, 9 June 2008Some of the most fascinating stories are true.
Another fascinating book is a true family portrait from an earlier era, “Five Sisters: The Langhornes of Virginia” by James Fox. These famously beautiful and powerful women include Irene, the model for the Gibson Girl and Nancy, who became Lady Astor, married to the richest man in the world and the first elected woman British Minister of Parliament. Their story begins in ante-bellum South and they are the epitome of Southern Belles, beautiful, spoiled, rich and for the most part horrifically bad mothers. Monday, 15 April 2008Three diverse, highly praised books:
Monday, 10 March 2008Memoirs of two fascinating men:
Monday, 18 February 2008Books women will love—because they are by and about women. Novels and non fiction.
Thursday, 3 January 2008Short stories – rediscovering them I used to love short stories. Read a lot of them—Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Ring Lardner, Hemingway. I guess I liked the funny ones best. Then, somewhere along the line, short stories lost their charm for me. They seemed dark and incomplete. All too often I found myself asking, “Huh?” I didn’t get them. Then I discovered the late British author Elizabeth Taylor and since fall I have read all of her novels I could find. I learned that she is also acclaimed as a short story writer, so I scrounged up some copies of her short stories: “The Devastating Boys,” “The Blush,” “Hester Lily.” These are so wonderful, I went on to read a collection of stories by Canadian writer Alice Monro, “Runaway.” Wonderful. I moved smartly to a praised volume by American writer Amy Hempel, “The Collected Stories.” A “New York Times” Ten Best Books of the Year. I stopped reading half way through it, back to thinking, “Huh?” Back to finding short stories unsatisfying. Maybe it’s American short stories I don’t like. Maybe stories that have appeared in the “The New Yorker.” But I’m giving it another chance with a collection by Canadian writers, “The Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women.” Loving it. My hopes are up again. 26 November 2007Two books for animal lovers and a National Book Award winner:
14 October 2007The other Elizabeth Taylor - In the September issue of The Atlantic magazine, I read about the British author Elizabeth Taylor who was described as one of the best writers in the English language of our time. I had never heard of her. I scrambled to find some of her books. It is not easy to do, but easier now that it has been. Ms. Taylor died in 1975 and does not have a U.S. publisher. Some of her twelve novels are being reissued by Virago press and a recent movie has been made of one of them, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont starring Joan Plowright. All of this makes Ms. Taylor’s work more accessible. I found a couple of her books, Blaming and Mrs. Palfreyat the public library. I was able to buy a few on line—Angel, The Soul of Kindness, Angel(her most famous book.) I have not yet read any of her acclaimed short stories in her four collections. Ms. Taylor is often described as a contemporary Jane Austen. Much like the books of by another admired English author, Barbara Pym, her books are deft portraits of character. I think her novels have more action than Ms. Pym’s, where a high light might be the vicar’s coming to tea, but action is not the draw of these works. The portraits in prose are what makes them extraordinary. Mostly, she writes about women. Elizabeth Taylor creates characters with behavior and dialogue, and usually—especially in her later books—with a spare style. She portrays the human heart with the precision of a pen and ink drawing. Blaming, her last book, which was finished while she was dying and published posthumously, took my breath away. 24 September 2007Indian Summer, The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann – This book, described repeatedly as a tour de force, is history told at its best—in a sassy, informative style and with a cast of characters that come alive with all their eccentricities, frailties and, despite their humanness, their heroic vision. It’s the fascinating story of the England’s imperialism, the clash between the Muslims and the Hindus and the struggle for India’s independence and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. Across the Nightingale Floor – Tales of the Otori, Book One by Lian Hearn. This was chosen for my book club and I thought, “I don’t want to read a book of adventures set in an imaginary feudal Japan with characters who have mystical powers.” I was so wrong. No wonder the series is an international best seller and a New York Times Notable Book. Beautiful images of Japan, vivid characters, so dramatic I raced through it as fast as I could and now look forward to reading the second and third books of the series. It’s the story of warlords, warriors, beautiful ladies, young men on a mission, and the famous nightingale floor—skillfully crafted so no assassin could tread across it without warnings being sounded. Training People, How to Bring Out the Best in Your Human by Tess of Helena is very funny. Told from a dog’s perspective, it is a guidebook to training humans. How to choose the right human for you? If it is a female, pick one who is wearing stockings on her hind legs and jump up on her, gently scratching the stockings with your paws. Her reaction will tell you a lot about how trainable she is and how suitable for you. Monday, 17 September 2007Once I was sitting next to a woman on a plane who was absorbed in reading a biography of John F. Kennedy. The only time she spoke was to raise her head, look at me and say incredulously, “I must have been raised with my head in a bucket.” That’s how I have felt recently when I began reading about the lives of women and children in the Middle East and in China. What an isolated—and privileged—life I have lived. And what an ignorant one. First I read the riveting Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad, Both fascinated and appalled by this world unknown to me, I continued to read about women around the world: Iran Awakening, One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country by 2003 Nobel Peace Prize-winning Shirin Ebadi,is probably the most important of the books I read. It is a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Ebadi was a young successful female jurist in Tehran until the 1979 Islamic Revolution reversed the rights of women and children to the 7th century. Under the Ayatollah Khomeini she and other women, now forced to wear veils and policed by religious authorities, lost their rights to work, education and property. Still a devout Muslim and a traditional wife and mother, Ebadi created a new life for herself as a lawyer defending women and children in Iran. Imprisoned, harassed, and threatened with assassination, she has become a national hero. Her memoir is unforgettable. The Good Women of China by Xiran tells the story of a female journalist—still under the rigid authority of the Communist government—who was allowed to have the first call-in radio show for women in 1989. It was the first time women could speak out and tell the stories of their lives during the Cultural Revolution. Haunting. Especially the last chapter, “The Women of Shouting Hill,” a region so remote the women are scarcely more than cattle. Persian Girls, A Memoir by Nahid Rachlinis the story of the lives of women of a family—sisters, mother, aunts—in Iran. And their struggles for education and some freedom of life (as opposed to arranged marriages) under the Muslim mores and strict male-dominated culture. Rachlin was finally permitted to come to the United States to study and her memoir of a foreign student in America during the Iranian hostage incident is fascinating. By this time, I was ready to get back on American soil. It is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. I have never had any interest in reading this book. The passages I have read strike me as babbling and often drunken babbling at that. But I am interested in the period and the place, especially the 1950s in New York. So the book I read was Joyce Johnson’s Minor Characters, A Beat Memoir. In the 1950s I was fascinated with Beatniks, wanted to be one, dressed like when I could, especially for school plays and special occasions. Johnson was 21 when Alan Ginsberg arranged a blind date for her with Kerouac. She became his girlfriend for a couple of years and hers is the story of Beat Generation, the Village and the artists of the time. Especially fascinating are the women on the fringes of that culture. Her award-winning memoir is especially well written.
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