Terrific page-turner: 11/22/63

11/22/63, Stephen King

Fast Facts

• 849 pages - perfect summer read (on Kindle - less heavy!)
• One of New York Times' 10 best books of 2011
• Book website is pretty cool, but inaccurate - the diner doesn't exist in 1958, where Jake lands, or in 1963
• Not always a fan of Stephen King, ages ago I'd enjoyed The Stand and Thinner and The Long Walk, although I just couldn't get through It and a number of his others - but I unequivocally loved 11/22/63
• Hulu tells me that you can watch James Franco in the lead role in its recent adaptation, which would be worth watching if it's half as good as the book
• Premise: a high school English teacher discovers a portal to the past, and time travels with the goal (among others) of saving JFK and changing the course of American history

A Reminder that Stephen King isn't Just a Commercial Success

With an author as prolific as Stephen King, readers might be dismissive on the grounds that high productivity can't possibly mean truly high quality.  It had been so long since I'd read any Stephen King, after abandoning It partway through, that I was ready to put him in a James Patterson category of writers whose success was impressive, but whose work didn't really appeal to me.

After seeing 11/22/63 on the New York Times list, and reading Sarah Hepola's memoir, where she writes about King as the author who inspired her to become a writer, I decided to give it a shot.  After the heaviness of When Breath Becomes Air, Blackout, and My Name is Lucy Barton, I was ready for something lighter.

What an incredible storyteller.  High brow or not, this is such an entertaining novel - you'll be hooked immediately.

Tiny Plot Teaser

King's narrator is Jake Epping, an English teacher with an alcoholic ex-wife who frequents a suspect diner in his Texas hometown.  Opportunity presents itself in the form of the diner's owner, Al, who contracts a mortal condition seemingly overnight, and urgently convinces Jake to use a portal in the diner pantry which will transport him to 1958.

Jake is convinced to spend significant time in the past in small part by loneliness and in large part by a desire for adventure and heroism.

Twin goals beckon: the chance to stop a heinous crime committed against one of Jake's students, and the chance to prevent the assassination of JFK and change the course of history.

Take Me Back!

The time travel - marked by the butterfly effect (of course) and King's rule that all of Jake's acts committed in the past are entirely erased with each new trip down the pantry - is a delight.  And it's also a terror - particularly the section in the fictional town of Derry, Maine (it IS Stephen King, after all).  I can't imagine a scarier place.

I certainly wished that, like protagonist Jake, I could go back in time and taste root beer the way it was meant to taste, buy quality merchandise for pennies, and drive Jake's beloved 1950's car.  The nostalgia is so strong and colorfully evoked that even though I finished the book a few months ago, I still smile when I think about Jake's librarian romance, swing dancing, and school plays in small-town Jodie, Texas.

King revels, as you will, in the alternate history and imagining what Lee Harvey Oswald and his family would have been like, and how he could have been stopped.  A historic episode that could feel tired from cultural saturation really feels bright, new, and exciting - highly recommended.

Three Good Cries: When Breath Becomes Air; Blackout; My Name is Lucy Barton

Each of these relatively short books is a tear-jerker in its own very different way.  I hope to have some more upbeat options to recommend soon, but there is value in each of the choices below that shouldn't be ignored just because they might make you sad.

In order of importance:

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalinithi

(with a beautiful epilogue by Lucy Kalinithi)

256 pages

Kalanithi's memoir, written as he is finishing his residency in neurosurgery and undergoing treatment for terminal lung cancer, is absolutely brilliant. I'm certainly not the first to recommend it to everyone with blood running through their veins - I've seen the book recommended in every publication I read (it was even in People!), and it has been touted by Ann Patchett and likened to Oliver Sachs' and Atul Gawande's work.

This is not "just" a book about cancer.  Kalinithi was an English major and a doctor - a likely unique, and necessary combination of interests and talents.  He writes poetically and simply about his love of literature, and his desire to connect medicine to an understanding of humanity, in all its complexity.  No easy task, while also finishing training as a highly sought-after brain surgeon.

One of Kalinithi's goals was to write a book, which he hadn't had time for as a neurosurgical resident who had also completed a fellowship in neuroscience.  After his shocking diagnosis - he was only 36 years old - the impetus to put what he had learned about life on paper became more urgent.  The result is a thoughtful consideration on caring for patients and the meaning of life, and a testament of love to his wife and baby daughter.  (The couple's decision to visit a fertility clinic to conceive after Paul's diagnosis, but before the ravages of chemotherapy, is so hopeful and hits like a sucker punch).

This memoir highlights how brutally unfair the world can be, while making you grateful that Kalinithi was not only able to accomplish incredible feats as a doctor in the time he was alive, but was also able to give readers the precious gift of his reflections and honesty.

I can't eloquently put into words how close this memoir, and his wife's gorgeous writing, made me feel to Kalinithi and his family, who are strangers.  Suffice it to say that When Breath Becomes Air is very powerful, hard-to-forget, poignant, and devastatingly important.

Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget, Sarah Hepola

240 pages

I heard Sarah Hepola's interview on Fresh Air and read her article on online dating before deciding to try a Kindle sample of Blackout.  A memoir about a woman overcoming alcoholism doesn't sound like entertainment, but like the interview and article, I found the sample to be so unexpectedly engaging and, in a perverse way, amusing, that I had to buy it.

Hepola is a witty, funny writer who you will immediately want to be friends with.  The ability to make someone laugh while writing about difficult and embarrassing episodes is a great talent, and Hepola is terrifically interesting.  She's a writer and editor for Salon!  She is best friends with Bobby Flay's ex-wife, one of a seemingly unlimited number of friends!  She spent years as a journalist in Texas and New York City and, in a particularly memorable vignette, Paris!  How could this woman ever think that she wanted or needed alcohol to be the life of the party?  

It is an achievement that Hepola makes her story and her disease so accessible and relatable, and that she has exposed many painful secrets in a glaring light.  What's more, she has written a narrative that has (we hope) an obvious ending, and somehow made it into a page-turner that defies cliché.

My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout
209 pages

This was another book that I caught wind of by listening to Strout's interview on Fresh Air.  What I enjoyed even more than the book was the revelation that Strout didn't become a full-time published novelist until she was 43, while teaching at a Manhattan community college after having graduated from law school, practicing law for 6 months, hating it, and quitting.  As she shares in the interview, she had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and had miniseries rights purchased by HBO for her novels Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, by the time she was 58.

Of the three books I've reviewed in this post, My Name is Lucy Barton is probably the least entertaining or essential.  I didn't find it nearly as engrossing as Olive Kitteridge (both the book and the excellent miniseries).

But that's not to say that I didn't appreciate the book, and how fully enveloped I became in Lucy's story and her fully-realized character.  Much of the book takes place when Lucy is at a Manhattan hospital for an extended period, seriously ill, when her husband won't visit (hating hospitals - don't we all?), and she is terribly lonely and misses her two small girls.  

The heart of the novel is Lucy's unexpected, multi-day visit from her estranged mother.  The reasons for her familial estrangement, the details of her impoverished and possibly abusive childhood and her later success as a writer, and her experience navigating her new family and new city in adulthood, all feel like interesting, but ultimately unnecessary, background.

The book comes most alive when Lucy and her mother re-hash stories of neighborhood acquaintances.  Strout cuts to the quick of a universal mother-daughter relationship, in all its emotional highs and lows, so well that the truth of the relationship brought me to tears.

For starved Serial Season 2 fans: The Yellow Birds

The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers

Fast Facts

• If Kevin Powers had written a book about his favorite breakfast cereal, I would buy it
• Powers served in Iraq and spent four years writing this incredible, poetic novel about Private John Bartle, a twenty-one-year-old soldier's experience in Iraq and the aftermath stemming from his complex relationship with fellow Private Daniel Murphy and Sergeant Sterling
• 241 pages
• National Book Award Finalist
• Winner of the Guardian First Book Award
• Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction
• Michiko Kakutani called it one of her top ten books of 2012
• I am still picking my jaw up off the floor after finishing this masterpiece - not light reading, not for the faint of heart, but breathtaking and worth every minute

Serial Has Gone Bi-Weekly - Read This While You Wait

This season's Serial podcast on runaway soldier and Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl is engrossing and requires every ounce of a listener's attention - otherwise, prepare to be utterly lost and have to rewind.  With a little more intellectual and emotional energy, I would re-listen to all of the episodes uploaded so far.

While Sarah, Julie and co. are busy flexing their journalistic muscles, use your (long) time between episodes to get a flavor from Powers of what it is like to be a soldier in a Middle Eastern battlefield.

The story flows backwards and forwards in time, beginning in fall of 2004 in Al Tafar, Nineveh Province, Iraq (perhaps a stand-in for Tal Afar, a stronghold currently held by ISIS); flashing back to training in Fort Dix, New Jersey; jumping forward to an air base and nearby town in Germany and then to Bartle's home in Richmond, Virginia after his tour of duty; and finally finding Bartle, all grown up and reflective, in 2009 Kentucky.

There is a deep and ominous connection foreshadowed between Bartle, Murph (the fellow soldier and friend that Bartle has promised to protect,) and their Sergeant Sterling.  "What happened over there?" Bartle's mother asks pointedly when Bartle returns, and her voice echoes the reader's on this major source of suspense pushing the story forward.  (I'm wondering the same thing about Bowe.)

Staggering Subject Matter, Gorgeous Writing

This is some of the most magnificent writing I have ever read.  I haven't spent much time reading poetry since 10th grade English class (too much work, too boring, no clear answers, not enough story - lots of excuses).  I didn't fully realize how poetic narrative fiction could be until I began reading Powers.  This is how he starts:

The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. It made love and gave birth and spread through fire. 

Every paragraph of this novel was filled with Powers' masterful command of language and often beautiful imagery, despite (and often enhancing) the stark subject matter.  I am not typically drawn to books or films about war, finding it difficult to relate to experiences so uniquely traumatic and geographically distant.  This book, however, is worth the special effort and discomfort.

Another poignant example describes the futility Bartle feels before a battle in an orchard:

We'd go back into a city that had fought this battle yearly; a slow, bloody parade in fall to mark the change of season.  We'd drive them out.  We always had.  We'd kill them.  They'd shoot us and blow off our limbs and run into the hills and wadis, back into the alleys and dusty villages.  Then they'd come back, and we'd start over by waving to them as they leaned against lampposts and unfurled green awnings while drinking tea in front of their shops.  While we patrolled the streets, we'd throw candy to their children with whom we'd fight in the fall a few more years from now.

There are too many other examples to share and spoilers to be avoided, but suffice it to say that I am in awe of Powers' hard work and talent.

Stay Tuned for the Movie

When I started reading articles after finishing the book, I learned that Jennifer Aniston will play a supporting role in the movie version of The Yellow Birds coming out this year.  I felt some snobby disappointment for about 30 seconds, but overall, I'm glad that this will bring more attention to an excellent novel.  (How I wish Justin Theroux played a soldier or something - anything!)

The role of John Bartle is an incredible one, as his mental anguish is painted in such detail throughout the book.  I'm interested to see whether Murph and Sterling, characters that felt a bit like cardboard symbol markers by comparison in the book, are fleshed out more on-screen.

While I wait for the big screen version, I'm going to pray that Powers writes another novel immediately, shamelessly push The Yellow Birds on everyone I know, and refresh my Serial feed in vain.

Spend time with a wonderful, dysfunctional family that isn't yours: A Spool of Blue Thread

A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler

Fast Facts

• An immediately engrossing, wonderful portrait of the Whitshank family and their patriarch's dream home in a suburb of Baltimore
• This is Anne Tyler's 20th novel, but the first I've read, and surely not the last
• A perfect book to read after you've recovered from family time over the holidays
• 370 pages
• Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker
• Sweet and highly recommended - you'll recognize some of your own family members in the Whitshanks, and feel as close to the characters as though you were a member of their salt-of-the-earth clan

Family Stories that Become Folklore

Tyler's lovely book is solidly founded on family folklore - the anecdotes you tell and re-tell one another at every Thanksgiving, and the examples you use to define and explain your family members to an interested friend or acquaintance.  The one about the sibling who ate all the Christmas cookies and hid the crumbs under his pillow, the one about the drunken uncle's hilarious wedding speech, etc.

The novel opens with ageing married couple Red and Abby Whitshank, lying in bed waiting for their estranged son Denny to call them back after he has called to say that he's gay and then immediately hung up, never to mention the topic again.

This is the first of many Whitshank anecdotes that feel familiar and real without being stereotypical.  Within paragraphs, you are enveloped in the comforting habits and quirks of Red and Abby's decades-long marriage, and you've begun to understand Denny's moody tendency to bolt at the first sign of conflict.

The House that Junior Built

The book revolves around the home Junior, Red's father, built for another family but eventually moved into himself.  The house becomes a character in its own right, its merits and flaws both a setting and a metaphor for the little family dramas it hosts.

Each question posed by the family home opens the door to a story that is ordinary in its subject matter and extraordinary in its compassionate, lovely, raw telling.  How did Red's parents end up in the home that raised four generations?  How do adult siblings deal with one another and with parents growing older, with bodies and minds beginning to fray?  What was on Abby's mind the day she and Red fell in love?  What is it like to be on the Whitshanks' annual beach vacation?  What does it mean to join and truly be part of a family?

Tyler has built her novel with as much care as Junior built the Whitshank home.  Every time a story had reached the end of its narrative (blue) thread, the scope or generation of focus would seamlessly shift, and Tyler would fill in a detail previously only hinted at that would feel crucial and satisfying.

I enjoyed every moment I spent with the Whitshanks - if you're looking for something to fill the hole in your time and heart after the Neapolitan novels, this is the book to start with.

Read if you enjoy anything Italian, friendship, or Fight Club: Elena Ferrante's gorgeous Neopolitan Novels

The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante

Part One, My Brilliant Friend, 331 pages

Part Two, The Story of New Name, 471 pages

Part Three, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, 400 pages

Part Four, The Story of the Lost Child, 480 pages

Fast Facts

• This series is dazzling, brilliant, gorgeous, stunning, addictive, thrilling - fill in your chosen adjective for what you ideally want fiction to be
• I read these novels, ~1700 pages in total, in 6 weeks (vacation helped) - I couldn't put them down, but I wish they would have lasted forever
• The author uses a pseudonym and little-to-nothing is known about her because she apparently prefers to let her incredible writing speak for itself
• The overall thread throughout the books follows the friendship of the narrator and her rebellious, unpredictable counterpart, mainly in the poor neighborhood in Naples where they grow up
• Exquisite, a "must" for anyone who has experienced friendship, or who likes Italy and/or Italian food (i.e., everyone)

Female Friendship, or Fight Club?  Both, and More.

It is far too simplistic to say that these books are about the complicated friendship between Elena and Lila (whom only Elena calls Lina) as they grow up through girlhood and become wives and mothers. 

It is hard to tell even after finishing the books where Elena's story, thoughts, and passions end and Lina's begin.  Is this quartet an Italian, feminist Tyler Durden story?  If so, can Brad Pitt convince Angelina to play Lina in the movies they are sure to make out of these fascinating books?

With this bit of postmodern mystery, mix in social class struggle, as Elena claws her way from an impoverished childhood to money and fame as a novelist.  Add the violence of true mobsters and loan sharks, who you'll also get to know from childhood.  Learn about politics in Italy, alongside colorful Communists and Fascists and Socialists, and watch Lina work in a sausage factory and incite protests.  Try to keep pace with all the violence, physical and emotional and sexual, and with love affairs and marriages and partners and who has fathered whose children.

Female friendship and blurred lines between characters may be at the foundation of these novels, but Ferrante's work is so multi-layered and packed with rich plot and varied themes that a facile summary of the books as a chronicle of Elena and Lina's friendship doesn't do Ferrante any justice.

Authorial Mystique

Part of the intrigue surrounding these books is related to their virtually unknown author.  Elena Ferrante is not her real name.  We don't know her name, what she looks like, how old she is, or even definitively whether she is female (although she has referred to herself in a written interview as a mother).  She has a one-country, one-interview policy, never in person, and while she does respond to written questions through her publisher, she seems to discuss next to nothing about her personal life, and not a whole lot about the books themselves.

This anonymity or absence seems to have fueled the fire of American interest - Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, linked above, and the New York Times have all written about the brilliance of the books and author, in the same breath as a discussion of her refusal to stand in the spotlight.  Most recently, the Times' T Magazine did a piece titled: Who is Elena Ferrante?

Ferrante seems to want her character Elena to do all the talking and self-reflection for her, and the imagined Elena does such a successful job that Ferrante's choice must have been a wise one.

Picking a Favorite Child

It took me a little while to get past some of the bluntness of language, which may have just been culture shock or related to the translation, in the first book.  At first it was hard to become engaged with a long list of Neapolitan characters: "the grocer", "the pastry maker", "the shoe maker", "the 32 children", and then to become deeply involved with Lila, who acts like a brat and throws their toy dolls into a sewer.

It wasn't long, however, before I was utterly engrossed in these books.  The first covers their childhood, Lenu's first love and struggles to study, and Lina's many suitors and eventual engagement.  By the end of "My Brilliant Friend", with the last line in particular, I could appreciate that I was reading a modern classic, and each subsequent book lived up to the last.

If there was any lagging, it was related to the Italian-specific political wranglings and academic debate that Ferrante is clearly very passionate about.  My struggle with these sections may have been due to my lack of familiarity with the subject matter.

Regardless, the characters and their stories grew and changed and burned with such fierce brightness that I wasn't bored for longer than 30 seconds.

And as much as I loved their childhood, I also loved Elena's and Lina's adolescence, days of early marriage, their moves and changes of heart, raising children, navigating their lives' highs and lows.  This is why I can't pick a favorite of the four, and recommend that if you start this quartet, be prepared to commit to all of them and enjoy every morsel, particularly the satisfying end.  They are well worth the time investment.

My New Favorite Author?: Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life" and "A God in Ruins"

Life After Life and A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson

Fast Facts

• Kate Atkinson is a gorgeous writer.  I read Life After Life so voraciously and loved it so much that I bought A God in Ruins, its "companion novel", immediately.
• Life After Life: 560 pages
• A God in Ruins: 480 pages
• And it turns out that 1,040 pages to spend with Ursula and Teddy Todd are not nearly enough
• Life After Life chronicles many iterations of the life of Ursula Todd, as the conceit of the novel is that Ursula is born in the British countryside in 1910, and then dies, and is born again.
• A God in Ruins follows the singular life of Ursula's younger brother Teddy, a fighter pilot war hero, and his family, in a series of chronological jumps with Teddy's war at their center.
• For anyone who loves brilliantly written fiction that manages to be beautiful and literary without being intimidating, with creative storytelling and vibrant characters who end up feeling like family members you can't bear to part with by the end, then you will find a new favorite author in Kate Atkinson.

Life After Life

You can care deeply about a person, and her family, and her story, even if you know that nothing matters and anyone in that story can die or have something horrible happen to them or can live and have something wonderful happen to them at any moment.  Whether Ursula jumps out a window or is drowned on a day at the beach or tries to prevent the nanny from going to a celebration where she'll catch the deadly measles by throwing her down the stairs, there is a magical reset button on her life.

The first thing our immortal hero Ursula does when the book begins?  Well, what anyone with a seemingly unlimited number of lives would do, of course.  She walks into a German cafe and shoots Hitler while he's eating a plum streusel.  Following Ursula through her childhood at her family estate, and her relationships with her siblings, and her love life and challenges and experiences throughout Europe and throughout World War II, is a fascinating adventure.

People who love novels (or great television, for that matter), will willingly suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves in a world and in people that are not real for the sake of entertainment. The characters don't frequently yell out to the audience: "Hey!  None of this is real, and none of this matters!"

Kate Atkinson, on the other hand, constantly reminds you that none of the actions in Ursula's world have lasting consequences, and even though this is a truth of any fictitious universe, she proves that awareness that "none of this is real" doesn't necessarily detract from a book's merits or its joys. Perhaps there's no greater existential meaning to this authorial choice, but that didn't matter to me - I loved the book.

A God in Ruins

Finishing Life After Life, I did wonder whether I would still be curious about other elements of the Todd family members' lives.  Certain phrases and characteristics of Ursula's mother Sylvie, father Hugh, sister Pamela, brother Maurice, and Aunt Izzie, for example, were repeated so often that they could feel caricature-like at times.  But Atkinson wasn't nearly finished with sharing her vision for these family members, and Teddy Todd in particular.

A God in Ruins follows a more traditional format in the sense that Teddy doesn't die every several pages.  Sometimes the point of view would switch to Teddy's horrible daughter Violet, to his grandchildren, and for fleeting moments (treasures, to readers of Life After Life) to Teddy's parents or aunt. 

Mainly, though, the story follows Teddy, jumping from Teddy as a youth to Teddy as a young married man to Teddy at a nursing home to Teddy's turning point as a World War II pilot.  The book revolves around Teddy and watching his growth and development at various stages feels so fulfilling in Atkinson's skilled hands.  Time was passing and I hardly realized it as I was reading - ironic given the important role time plays as a theme throughout both novels.

Buy These For Yourself for the Holidays, Please

If I wasn't so absorbed in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet (which took me a little while to get into, but ultimately is irresistible) - I would buy the rest of Kate Atkinson's books and binge them immediately, and then I'd likely be upset that there weren't any more.  She is a treasure, and these books are wonderful - buy them for yourself or someone you love!

Love the book, not the man behind it: Purity

Purity, Jonathan Franzen

Fast Facts

• An engrossing, literary, suspenseful novel by an acclaimed author that many love to hate
• Purity "Pip" Tyler's search to find her father, crossed with an Assange/Snowden composite, mixed with an international murder mystery, with scenes reminiscent of Dexter and The Secret History and Crime and Punishment 
• 576 pages
• Hard to say whether I loved Purity as much as Freedom or The Corrections, but I pre-ordered this and based on how quickly I burned through it and enjoyed it, I will continue to pre-order whatever novel Franzen comes out with next
• Fast page-turner with great, complex, screwed-up, "real" characters and a well-paced plot
• Too much ridiculous sex and masturbation - one of my only critiques
• Worth the hype and the time investment 

Love the Book, Not the Man Behind It

I am a Franzen novel fan. That's not to say I am a Franzen fan, because from any interview I've read or listened to with him, he sounds boring, snobby or egotistical, and unlike many novelists, I don't think I'd want to sit down with him for a cup of coffee.  Nor do I think I would want to sit down with many of his screwed up characters for a cup of coffee, because he often makes them blatantly unlikeable.

But I have to give the devil his due - Jonathan Franzen know how to tell a great, captivating story. Say what you will about the man or his chosen subjects, about his weird birding obsession or his preoccupation with sex, Franzen is a terrific writer.  The kind of writer who makes you miss your train stop on multiple occasions because you were just so riveted.

I loved Purity, and am left with a similar feeling to the one I had about Freedom, where I'm just so glad that Franzen and his skill for weaving a narrative exists, despite how unpleasant his characters can be at times.  I vaguely recall loving The Corrections this much, too, though enough years have passed since I read it that I can barely remember the plot points.

Some Plot, Without Giving Too Much Away 

Heroine Pip, an early-twenty-something raised by a single mother, living in a hipster share house in Oakland, and working at a soulless company that uses fear of climate change to capitalize on taxpayer credits, is looking for love and becoming a grownup and searching for her unidentified father.  Opportunity presents itself to Pip in the form of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic German who uses Snowden-Assange-type Internet leaks and investigations to rise to prominent celebrity.

To share more would take away some of the fun of diving into this book.  Suffice it to say that the paternal search is peppered with intrigue, sex, murder, and tales from California, East Germany, Bolivia, Denver, and Texas that are all deliciously connected.

Far-Fetched Elements, Anchored by Real Relationships

Terry Gross asked Franzen about the way he tackles relationships in his novels, and some of the realities of the human condition that he expresses so well, despite never having experienced them personally.

For example, the conversations between Pip and her mother felt so true and so raw that I kept getting a lump in my throat.  How does this middle-aged, childless male bird watcher seem know or feel all the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship?  How did Clelia's escape from East Germany and ultimate disappointment with her American savior feel so striking?  The electricity and toxicity of Anabel and Tom felt particularly bitter and charged - Franzen, apparently a divorcee, had personal material to draw on for at least this relationship, and also for the healthier partnership that followed.

These relationships and emotions keep a grounded feeling of reality, even when other elements stretch the bounds of imagination.  Slate did a funny spoiler recap ranking some of the sex scenes in the novel by their plausibility.  These scenes are only the tip of the iceberg on plot points that are fantastical, related to the Bolivian Sunlight Project, to stealing files from the Stasi and keeping a murder file under wraps, to the billion dollar disappeared heiress, to a suicide that looks like murder, to identities hidden for decades, to stolen fake nuclear weapons, and more.

Caveat 

Aside from some of the more off-the-wall, unbelievable parts of the story, I have one more caveat - while I enjoyed almost all of the latest Franzen tome, I have to say that this author really is a dirty old man.  I have never read a book so obsessed with masturbation.  One character can only orgasm during the full moon.  Another character's self-pleasuring seems to take up 50 pages, culminating in that character jumping off a low bridge in order to break an ankle so as to - yes - open up even more time for masturbation.  That's pretty funny, but at a certain point, enough is enough.  The fixation detracted from an otherwise high-brow, intellectual, interesting and fun book not just by getting too smutty and uncomfortable, but by being repetitive and boring.

A Definite Recommendation

What I want from a novel is an enthralling story with extraordinary elements, but with characters who feel like real, empathetic, and at times likable people who you can root for on their paths to achieving their hopes and goals.  I rooted for Pip and Leila and Tom, and was fascinated by the chance to be in Andreas' brain, uncomfortable though that was. 

There was enough mystery to keep me hooked, and Franzen's mastery of language and narrative are fairly unparalleled.  My complaints were minor given that overall, this is a novel that is truly entertaining, with just the right amount of challenge and emotional heft.

Must read, despite the title: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Jeff Hobbs

Fast Facts

• My Newark reading streak continues in a fast-forward from World War II-era, polio stricken Philip Roth to the gang and drug-infested, struggling, impoverished Newark of the 1980's, 90's and 2000's, scene of post-race riot political corruption
• 432 pages
• Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant
• One of the most memorable, haunting, educational, and impressive books I've read in ages
• The cover is a spoiler - a young man who left Newark for the Ivy League, but died too soon - but the story of community and self-realization and exploration is much greater and more humanizing than the pithy title would suggest
• The rare book you'll read with the power to change your perception of the world
• Please overlook the irritating title (and sometimes irritating author) and buy two copies immediately - one for yourself, and one for someone compassionate and intelligent that you respect

The Joy of Getting to Know Rob Peace

I can't emphasize enough how much I wish the title and marketing of this book were different.  The story is about a man growing up in impossible circumstances, achieving remarkable feats, and ultimately being felled by his own talents and environment and deep-rooted connections.  Bringing the ending to the forefront does the author's work in telling this complex story a disservice.

Yes, Rob Peace smoked and sold and eventually manufactured his own marijuana product as a means of relaxation and dissociation and in order to seek financial stability mobility for himself and his loved ones.  Yes, he died as a result of his decision to do these things, and also because of where he was born and raised and lived.  But these facts do not tell the whole story.

This man had been a boy who worked tremendously hard as he attended schools that his mother could only afford with backbreaking work in food services at hospitals.  He ate ketchup packets for sustenance, and took care of his ailing grandmother, and excelled at water polo.  He was a genius and had natural curiosity about the world and all the people he came across, people from varied backgrounds who became his close friends.  He scored incredibly high on tests and majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale, and joined one of its prestigious secret societies.  He essentially served as his father's appellate legal counsel following a double murder trial.  He was a world traveler, a ladies' man, a science teacher, a baggage handler at Newark International Airport, and a devoted friend and family member.  Who wouldn't want to know this man?

Jeff Hobbs, Nerdy Yale Roommate

I couldn't help but feel jealous of the author for his relationship with Rob, and also a bit confused by their friendship.  You have to watch this video of Jeff Hobbs speaking at Politics and Prose.  He just looks like someone who doesn't get much sunlight, whereas Rob walked with ease through so many worlds.

How were these two such close friends?  A testament to Rob's ability to befriend anyone, from any background, surely, and also Hobbs' open-mindedness.  Hobbs' regret for being so removed from the last several years of his friend's life, essentially from Yale graduation until his death, is palpable - they seem to have only seen one another a couple of times in 8 years, after spending countless hours in dorm rooms.

But as sheltered and self-consumed as Hobbs comes across in the book, he also has extraordinary self-awareness.  He knows that he is telling Rob's story from a privileged vantage point, and works doubly hard to avoid stereotypes and delve into the truth of Rob's background, surroundings, and motivations.  The story is meticulously researched, and it is clear that Hobbs' hard work has paid off in a remarkable end product.

So Powerful It Won't Wear Off

It has taken me weeks to sit down and write about this book.  It isn't just the sprint to squeeze the most out of dwindling summer that has kept me from writing this post - I've been waiting to finish processing Rob Peace, waiting for some of the potency and sting of this story to subside.  I can safely say that the aftertaste of this book just isn't going away any time soon.

A short life and a tragic ending don't define a person, and it's clear that Rob Peace was a fascinating, warm, and complicated person who was raised and lived in a difficult place.  As much as any reader knows about him after finishing the book, there is a strong sense that there is so much more to Rob, and so much more you wish you could know.  His death was a terrible loss for society, and the ability to read his story a regrettable gain.

There's never enough Newark: Nemesis

Nemesis, Philip Roth

The only way this photo of Philip Roth could be better is if it were in Newark (which I originally thought it was.  It's very easy to confuse Newark and New York City.)

Fast Facts

• 304 pages
• Roth claims he is now retired, and this is his last book (out of around 30)
• A deeply engaging and quick read that transports you to Newark in the heat of summer, World War II, and a polio epidemic - admittedly, not somewhere you necessarily want to be, but still an enjoyable read
• Not my favorite Philip Roth of those I've read - that distinction goes to The Human Stain - but certainly an example of why Roth is one of America's most iconic writers
• It's hard not to root for playground director/hero Bucky Cantor, even though you know Roth's plans for him can't be good
• Despite the ominous overtones, there's a surprising amount of nostalgia and rosiness to the Newark and Catskills scenes that make the book worth recommending

Sweet, Sweet Newark

I left my job in the city and started working in Newark at the beginning of the year, and - despite the out-sized reaction of some loved ones (i.e. dispensing advice like: "walk in the above-ground tunnels connecting the train station to office buildings so that you never have to set foot on the pavement") - I've been very curious about the city.  Some of that curiosity stems from reading Philip Roth.  For example, in his Pulitzer Prize winning American Pastoral, the main character owns a family-run glove factory in Newark, and descriptions of the neighborhoods and industry stuck with me.

I haven't gone so far as to read all of Roth's books, or to take a Philip Roth-themed bus tour of Newark (yet!  Maybe I can convince some of my co-workers to come?)  Those items are on my to-do list, and I've made some steps towards acclimation by reading Nemesis, learning a little about Roth's childhood in the predominantly Jewish Weequahic neighborhood, and eating at Hobby's Deli (apparently an institution since the 1960's - I think Roth probably left Newark by then, but it feels like a place where he'd order an over-stuffed sandwich.)

Best Gym Teacher Award

From the moment Nemesis starts, you become engrossed in the world of Bucky Cantor.  The story is essentially told from Bucky's perspective, though the actual narrator, one of Bucky's young wards on the playground, is more of a narrative construct than a character.  Bucky is an athletically-built, javelin-throwing Jewish playground director with terrible eyesight that has kept him out of fighting in World War II with his friends.  Devastated by his inability to serve his country, and as a young man who takes himself incredibly seriously (like Roth), Bucky is determined to be a champion playground director.

Unfortunately, Bucky is beginning his teaching career at Weequahic a terrifying time.  In 1944, Newark is on the brink a polio outbreak, about a decade before Jonas Salk developed the vaccine that has eradicated the disease (in the United States, at least - Africa has only been polio-free for a year.)  The young are particularly vulnerable, and because no one knows what causes the disease, finger-pointing and fear and racial prejudice run as rampant as germs.

Bucky struggles to protect the children he works with and to calm the fears of their families, but of course, he is helpless, and within days he is attending funerals.

Hamstrung by a God Complex

Polio and war are not ultimately Bucky Cantor's worst nemeses.  Instead, the protagonist and the book both suffer from Bucky's constant wrestling with religion.  Bucky understandably begins to rage against God when he sees the random and terrible damage that polio has wrought on his students.  But Bucky can barely have a conversation with his girlfriend without turning it into a debate about faith, and there were portions of the book that began to drag on this topic.  If not for Bucky's hatred of God, combined with a very unfortunate God complex, Nemesis would have been a sweeter pill to swallow.

A Period Piece

Though the subject matter is heavy, there is some fun in following Bucky's wanderings around a neighborhood where people are engaged with one another rather than their electronics.  You truly get a taste for life in the 1940's, and Roth evinces a wistful affection for bygone times despite the tragedy.  Bucky's days are filled with organizing baseball games, writing love notes and making long-distance phone calls, visiting students' homes, going to the hot dog shop, and caring for the grandmother who raised him (and who spends her evenings chatting on the stoop with the neighbors).

Then there is Bucky's trip to the Catskills to be with his new fiancé, Marcia.  The hero guiltily flees to a bustling site of summer camp fun filled with Indian powwows and romantic trysts on islands and endless diving into lakes.  Though no one and nowhere is safe from peril, Roth captures the flavor of summer and youth, a much-needed but brief respite after the oppressive heat and disease in Newark.

Up Next...

Though the ending of Nemesis was frustrating and the book generally upsetting, the novel was still a fast, immersive, and often enjoyable read.  And of course, I haven't had my fill of Roth - or Newark.  On a recommendation from my cool publisher friend Molly, I've started The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.  Stay tuned for a review, with some lighter Kate Atkinson novels waiting in the wings.

If it's good enough for Mark Zuckerberg: On Immunity

On Immunity: An Innoculation, Eula Biss

Fast Facts

• I found this book through Mark Zuckerberg's New Years Resolution project, A Year of Books. Zuckerberg chooses a new book every two weeks and hosts related online discussions, with some of the selections picked from relative obscurity (quite a windfall for the authors.) I figured, if it's good enough for Mark Zuckerberg...
• On the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2014
• 216 pages
• An exploration of vaccination - where our cultural attitudes about it come from, how vaccines are regulated and created, refutation of that horrible and unfounded article on a link to autism, how Biss approached vaccination as a new mother, and more
• Beautiful writing on an important subject, made as interesting to the masses as possible
• I'll admit, it felt like a bit of a slog at times (particularly when she went on and on about vampires), until suddenly the book ended when Kindle said it was 75% complete - a full quarter of On Immunity devoted to endnotes I will never read!

You Can't Live in a Bubble

There is great appeal to believing that, through your life choices, your body or family or community can be natural and pure and protected from malicious outside forces.  But this belief can be dangerous and often selfish - especially when coupled with possessing a tiny bit of unverified information.

We want to live in a closed system, but Biss' main message is that we are all connected, despite the illusion of isolationism.  As Biss' father, a physician, tells her, vaccination works by enlisting a majority in the protection of a minority.  The choices you make impact your fellow human beings, and vice versa.

One of Biss' most powerful anecdotes is about the birth of her son.  After giving birth without any medical intervention or painkillers or an IV, her uterus inverted and she needed an emergency blood transfusion.  We are part of one another's lives through our blood transfusions, our shared environment, our countless interactions, and the herd immunity our community members' vaccinations provide for us.  The boundaries we work hard to create in our minds are, in reality, permeable.

A few memorable facts:

• Part of the controversy surrounding vaccination is a product of luxury.  Unvaccinated children are more likely to be white, have an older married mother with a college education, and to live in a household with an income of $75,000 or more.  Wealthier countries have the luxury of entertaining fears the rest of the world cannot afford.
• Environmentalist manifesto Silent Spring warned that the pesticide DDT was a widespread cause of cancer, a hypothesis that was not supported by decades of research that followed its publication.  But, because DDT became a pariah in the public mind, its use was widely banned, leading to a resurgence of mosquitos, malaria, and the deaths of one child in twenty in Africa.
• The public harbors similar fears about formaldehyde, though it is in automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke and paper bags and paper towels and gas stoves and fireplaces, and though it is a product of our bodies, essential to our metabolism, and in higher concentration in our systems than in the amount we receive through vaccination.
• Breast milk has paint thinner, dry-cleaning fluid, flame retardants, pesticides, and rocket fuel - most in microscopic amounts.  If it were sold at the convenience store, some stock would exceed federal food-safety levels for DDT residue and PCBs.
• The chicken pox can lead to infection with staph and Group A strep (flesh-eating bacteria), as well as pneumonia and encephalitis.  Once you are infected with chicken pox, the varicella virus never leaves your body and can return as painful shingles, and can cause strokes and paralysis.  Parents hold chicken pox parties for their children and pass out lollipops licked by sick children because experiencing the "real" or "natural" version feels comforting and safe on a basic level, despite the greater actual safety of the chicken pox vaccine.

Read It Because It's Good for You

I seem to have been reading a lot of thrillers and essay collections and yes, some junk food lately, and wanted to educate (punish?) myself with more non-fiction.  I bought On Immunity first, and read it (from a distance) with my brilliant pharmacist friend (though I think we've spent more time re-hashing Game of Thrones.  Can't blame us.)

I've also put H is for Hawk on the Kindle shelf, after reading an insanely glowing New Yorker review, and This Changes Everything, a book on climate change (which I feel even more morally obligated to read as an environmental lawyer.)  Suddenly it seems like I need a good fiction recommendation, or this is going to feel too much like work!

I would definitely recommend On Immunity, particularly to new parents and people who aren't necessarily science-minded but who would like an easy-to-approach, interesting primer.  Biss approaches the subject of immunity from so many different vantage points, sociological and scientific and cultural and literary and personal, so that you never nod off the way you otherwise might.  It's certainly good fodder for the playground, when a "protective" mother tells you she doesn't want to give Little Timmy his flu vaccine.

Like John Grisham, Only Better: A Good Killing

A Good Killing, Allison Leotta

Fast Facts

• A Good Killing is the fourth installment in an insanely addictive series
• Law of Attraction is the debut Anna Curtis novel, is a riveting introduction to Anna and her job as a domestic violence and sex crimes prosecutor
• Discretion, probably tied with A Good Killing for my favorite, involving politicians, murder and a high-end prostitution ring - who can resist?
• Speak of the Devil, in which Anna hangs out with cool FBI agents and both humanizes and takes down the scary MS-13 gang
• You don't have to have read the first three books to get started on this one, but you do have to read the first three books, because they're fantastic
• Anna Curtis takes a leave of absence from her prosecutor job in DC to defend her younger sister from a murder charge in her Michigan hometown
• Put on Chicago's Cell Block Tango "He Had it Comin'" as your accompanying reading soundtrack

Background

Christmas only comes once a year - and for the past four years, my personal Christmas has come when Allison Leotta's new book is finally published and hits my Kindle shelf.  I interned for Ali at the U.S. Attorney's Office sex crimes and domestic violence unit - it was my first legal job, when I was in college.  She was a terrific attorney to watch in action - when she spoke, you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom - just a really compassionate, effective advocate.  And now, she's also the bestselling author of a series of awesome legal crime thrillers.  (If only being your personal superhero's intern could be a permanent job - I would wheel around her lit bag for eternity!)

The protagonist in this series is Anna Curtis, a sex crimes prosecutor in DC who's terrific at her job, blond and beautiful, and in the business of having adventures and misadventures as she takes on big cases and has sexy affairs.  

Murder in Detroit and Michigan's Unhealthy Obsession with Football

(Yes, I know - it sounds like nonfiction to me, too.)

In this installment, after some heartbreak and in response to a well-timed phone call, Anna returns from DC to her Michigan hometown to defend her sister against a charge that she's murdered the town's beloved high school football coach.  

The novel is driven forward like a high-speed train by terrific pacing; a point-of-view shift between Anna and her sister Jody; the overarching mystery of whether Jody did it, and if so, will she get away with it; and the ever-important question - is Anna going to hook up with the sexiest war veteran-turned-urban farmer in literature?

As a Midwesterner who moved to the big city, I can relate to some of the attitude Anna gets when she comes home; her fleeting feeling of not quite belonging in either place; and her nostalgia and hope for a down-and-out community, rebuilding itself Brooklyn-style.

I was also engaged by Anna as she first seems to truly question the establishment and the judicial system in perhaps a surprising way, given her chosen life's work.  Part of working within the system means inherently believing that the system is fundamentally good, fundamentally helpful, fundamentally protective of those in the right and punishing of those in the wrong.  

But of course, human beings, their actions and their bureaucracies are often not so easily categorized, and some flexibility is both necessary and idealistic.  It would be nice to see that kind of flexibility exist more frequently in reality, and not just in highly entertaining fiction.

So Good, I Wish She'd Write Even Faster!!

As with the first three books, I was completely hooked within the first few pages - wishing my commute was longer, wishing I'd taken a sick day from work to book-binge, and completely ignoring my husband and abdicating all household chores till I was done. ("Why don't you savor it?" Ronny asked. A thinly-veiled and ultimately futile plea to do the dishes.)

I've wondered after each book - am I going to get tired of Anna? Given some unfinished business in A Good Killing, and my (typical) eagerness to get the new installment immediately, the answer is decidedly no.

I wish people talked like this a lot more: The Unspeakable

The Unspeakable: and Other Subjects of Discussion, Meghan Daum

Fast Facts

• 10 absorbing essays on a range of subjects
• Brutally and bravely honest, Daum's essays lay bare some of her most personal experiences, and her real reactions to them, in her effort to avoid platitudes and preassigned emotional responses
• Topics include "death, dogs, romance, children, lack of children, Joni Mitchell, and cream-of-mushroom-soup casserole, to name a few"
• Daum also edited a collection of essays by other writers, titled "Shallow, Selfish and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids"
• The author has been called the Joan Didion of her generation - hard to get higher praise than that
• Worth a read, and then a second read (well - maybe not the Joni Mitchell essay, unless you're a fan)
• 256 pages

The Biggest Cry Comes First

The essay in Daum's courageous collection The Unspeakable that affected me the most was the very first one, "Matricide", in which she recounts her mother's death from cancer.  I read and watched Cheryl Strayed's autobiographical book and movie Wild in the past couple months, and this was another book that begins with a young woman experiencing her mother's cancer death.  

While I sob-cried my way through both essays, Daum's was the real sucker punch.  Strayed's mother is portrayed in glowing Laura Dern-perfection, bathed in light, singing songs, whispering to horses, escaping and elevating herself above hardships with a smile.  Meghan Daum's relationship with her mother, and her mother's relationship with Daum's grandmother, and Daum's reaction to her mother's illness and death, certainly did not get the same rose-colored treatment.  

Instead, Daum tells you right away that when her mother slipped from unconsciousness to death, Daum was reading a Vanity Fair article while her brother checked Facebook at their mother's bedside.  And, as her mother lay unconscious for days and weeks in what would be her deathbed, Daum describes unpacking her Manhattan apartment around her, unplugging and bubble-wrapping the lamps, so as to avoid a high and unnecessary month's rent after the end.

It's shocking to read such an account, including an examination of all the things about her mother's pre-illness behavior that drove her crazy, and I give Daum a lot of credit here.  This must be the experience of so many people, both with fraught mother-daughter relationships, and dealing with end-of-life care for loved ones.  It makes it even worse, I'm sure, that the societal expectation is that you'll cry at all the right times, and that you'll talk about death as transcendent and full of meaning.  

Having a different, less palatable experience in the face of that expectation must be very difficult.  It takes real courage to put those feelings on paper, and Daum may be offering more comfort than she knows.

Living a Full Life: Kids or No Kids?

When no one at your book club wants to talk about dying mothers (understandably!), this is the essay that will probably garner the most discussion.  Though for the record, I'll admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed by the topic, given that babies seem to be everywhere, and some people have upcoming birthdays, and there is an inundation of articles on careers and parenthood decisions on Facebook and elsewhere.  (Yes, I know, I'm not helping by telling the algorithm that I'm interested!)

For anyone who is unsure about whether to become a parent, here too Daum provides a real comfort and service.  She met her husband in her mid-thirties, and loves her relationship and her career and her life.  She volunteers with children in the foster care system, for crying out loud (another topic that she writes about in the book, with the same refreshing lack of sugar-coating).  So why does she call her decision, or nature's decision, not to become a parent "The Central Sadness"?

Daum has also edited an essay collection called "Shallow, Selfish and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids", and I may seek it out for some additional perspective.  Though, as a non-parent adult, I've always found some parents' "My Kid Comes Before Anything/Anyone Else" attitude to be pretty selfish, so I feel somewhat prickly that the new collection is titled so defensively.

The Other, Lighter Stuff

I haven't yet given Daum kudos for how funny she is, and how much of this collection - the majority of it, in fact! - is devoted to funny stuff.  Maybe that's because the deeply unfunny stuff (see above) stuck with me more potently - but in any event, this book can be hilarious.

One essay is devoted to how Daum tried to become a lesbian in grad school - she calls herself "Honorary Dyke", and has a hilarious bit about scented candles and wanting to belong to a community that feels more interesting than her own.  Another essay is about not being a foodie, and hating to cook, and only appreciating processed foods in a world that glares at you every time you consume something that hasn't been labeled "organic".  One chapter focuses on her devotion to dogs and the Rainbow Bridge.  One chapter tells the story of her near-death experience shortly after her mother's death, when a completely random, flea-borne illness causes organ failure and puts her in a coma.

And of course, one (obnoxious) chapter is devoted to Daum's status as one of Nora Ephron's chosen proteges (cue deep jealousy here), which involved being invited to Ephron's house for a complicated game of charades with Nicole Kidman, Steve Martin, Meg Ryan, Larry David, and other celebs.

Final Thoughts

The richness of the first essay about her mother, stemming from Daum's raw honesty and fluidity with language, kept me engaged through the remainder of the book, even the chapters that felt less powerful or were more difficult for me to relate to.  Daum's talent, honesty and humor make the whole collection a great read.

Daum writes that anything she will do in the future, other than dying, will be something she does "middle-aged." (Meghan Daum, you are only 15 years older than I am!  Therefore, you are forever young!)  Middle-aged or not, all of the experience she's packed into so few years is incredible, and the ability with which she retells those experiences and really makes you feel them is even more impressive.

Junk Food Binge: Big Little Lies, The Rosie Project, and The Girl on the Train

Big Little Lies, The Rosie Project, and The Girl on the Train

(For those days when you don't want your brain to work too hard)

Sometimes we read books that are bad for us - sugary sweet, designed for addiction, filled with additives devoid of nutritional content, and leaving a chemically aftertaste.  I'm coming off just such a binge, and while none of these books really deserves its own post, I did spend some time reading them and ignoring my husband (sorry!)  So, without further ado, a quick blurb on why you should/should not read each.

Good/decent junk food binge - Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty 

Has a book ever been so geared toward a book club of thirty-and-forty-somethings with small children at home and a hankering for a bottle of wine and some drama?  Although I'm not in that particular category of readers, I couldn't help but find Moriarty's story of drama mamas at kindergarten in an Australian beach town entertaining.  

Part of the hook is the structure - the story is told chronologically from the point of view of several characters in the beach-side community, but the narrative is interspersed with what might be police interviews revolving around a school fundraiser that ended in murder.  There are three mysteries at play here: who is the victim? Who is the murderer?  How did parenting five-year-olds in such a picturesque town turn deadly?

I'll admit that this intro (and the awful title!) might induce some eye rolls, and so will this book - but like I said, this is the Junk Food Binge edition.  And, of the three books in the binge, Big Little Lies might actually be the best.  It's well-paced, it's entertaining even when it's being ridiculous, its characters are more well-rounded than you might expect at first glance, and with a light touch, it tackles some more serious issues: bullying, marriage and parenting challenges, domestic violence, sexual abuse, child slavery... I suppose that makes it sound like a deeper and more depressing book than it really is.  It's not as heavy as all that.  It's just a good page-turner and often, surprisingly funny.  And I only half-guessed the ending.  Call it, Cheetos, made with Real Cheese!

Cotton candy junk food binge - The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

This book is really just delightful.  Read it in 24 hours, giggle to yourself (or out loud), sigh or groan a little, and then go give someone a kiss.  I read it by a fireplace in Vermont and then on the long drive home, and that might be why I just glow when I write about it.  It's nothing special, but it definitely delivers that cotton candy sparkle on your tongue - highly enjoyable for just a moment, and ultimately forgettable.

The protagonist and narrator is an Australian professor who must be on the autism spectrum, who embarks on a hunt for a wife the way you would construct an anthropology experiment.  (Is it just me, or - including The Slap, both the worthwhile book and now a TV series, The Rosie Project, and Big Little Lies - aren't we getting much more Australian literature on this side of the world than we used to?)

Don the hapless professor is a great combination of hilarious, (cotton candy) sweet, and infuriating.  He's an unlikely hero that you just want to root for, as he shifts his focus from trying to find the perfect mate or companion, to helping his new friend Rosie in her quest to find her biological father.

The whole story is a bit ridiculous, especially some of the travel anecdotes and the completely unrealistic ending.  But goodness, did I smile the entire time I was reading - this is as romantic comedy as it gets.  (Just wait, because I'm fairly sure a movie and a sequel are in the works.)

"Can I get a time refund" junk food binge - Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

Pretty please, can I find whichever publishing/marketing maven called this "The New Gone Girl!" and give them a well-deserved smack?  I may be in the minority here, given how many people I see reading this (yes, on the train) and its spot on bestseller lists.  But I HATED almost every minute of this book.

One of the narrators is a drunk, overweight woman named Rachel, whose marriage has collapsed, who has lost her job, and who rides the train to and from London on a daily basis, pretending that she's a commuter, and stalking her ex in the house where she used to live.  To say that she is an unlikable narrator, however pitiable, is an understatement.  Who wants to spend precious junk food calories on this person?

Another narrator is a beautiful blond woman with secrets, who - you guessed it! - has disappeared.  Is she dead?  Did her husband do it?  If you're Gillian Flynn, you're feeling pretty happy because Paula Hawkins tried to cheaply rip off some of your gimmicks, and made you look fantastic by comparison.  (If you're Gillian Flynn, you're also pretty happy because you're talented, beautiful, and swimming in money.)

One more detestable narrator here - the woman who slept with, and then married, Rachel's husband.  Ugh.

I would be afraid of giving away too much of the ending by going on, but suffice it to say that I NEVER guess the twist, but this one became pretty obvious to me as I went on.  I will admit that the book does become addictive.  But - an obvious public service announcement here - just because something is addictive does not mean that it has any redeeming qualities.  SKIP!

P.S. - I just bought 3 very educational-sounding, non-fiction books.  Maybe this will make up for my junk food diet!