Becky's Books –

White Dog Fell From the Sky
by Eleanor Morse
2013 / 352 pages
rating 8 / contemp Africa-US

Although this book is laden with flaws, by the time it ended I really rather liked it. I think it must have been the characters who, by the end, for all they had been through, endeared themselves.

There are two main overlapping plot threads. The first is that of Isaac Muthethe, a young, intelligent male refuge from South Africa who manages to get across the border into Botswana where he finds work as the gardner for a white woman named Alice Mendelssohn. But when he goes home for a brief visit tragedy hits and he is captured by SA police and accused of being an ANC rebel. >>>MORE>>>

Secrets of Eden
by Chris Bohjalian
2013/ 362 pages
rating 4 / contemp fiction – crime

Read for a group. Not impressed although the plot line was kind of interesting for a who-done-it. There was an awful lot of padding here. I read Buffalo Soldiers by the author years ago and was downright annoyed so maybe this is a step forward for Bohjalian.

Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City
by Russell Shorto 
2013 / 315 pages
rating – 8.5 / history-travel

Shorto’s books are geared toward the layman reader of history and they are packed with information while written in an informal, somewhat chatty and digressive style. I had no idea Amsterdam had such a fascinating history. Shorto writes well bringing to light a delightful cast of historical characters, some familiar, others not at all. I think I really want to visit now and see some of these places.

Here Shorto’s main theme is to show how Amsterdam’s history and development was based on expanding tolerance and individual freedoms in order to work together as a community more effectively. This was called liberalism for a long time but today it’s a bit more complicated – qualified in some ways. >>>>MORE>>>>

Harvest
by Jim Croce
2013/ 245 pages
rating 8 / contemp fiction

Is Croce a poet? This novel reads like poetry in terms of the sometimes archaic vocabulary and the heavy rhythm. This was to the point I was looking for distinct meter and rhyme schemes.

Long ago and far away, probably medieval England, there was a small community of inter-related people who worked the land at the edge of a forest for its owner the widowed and childless Master Kent.

Walter Thirsk, the first-person narrator is a relative newcomer to the group of workers, but his family has worked for the Kents for several generations. He is also a widower. One day in late summer as the community was harvesting, a man appeared. He made marks on paper and the group decided the owner of the land meant to sell it. They called him Mr Quill. >>>MORE>>> 

The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood
1985 / 310 pages
Rating- 7 / speculative fiction

I finally read this. I enjoy Atwood and have read maybe a half-dozen of her books but I just never got around to this one – never saw the movie either. I did have an idea what the setting and plot were about though, and that there was a strong feminist element to it.

That said, I think Atwood has done better since, but I can see why this book was a hit in certain circles at the time. I can see why it was made into a movie with stunning visual effects – at least that’s what I would do. >>>MORE>>>>

In the Light of What We Know
by Zia Haider Rahman
2014/ 499 pages
rating 9 / contemp lit

In the Light of What We Know” is a book about ideas (think Gödel and the title), mathematics, philosophy, perception, psychological and sociological, and very importantly, social class, mobility. etc. on through 9/11 and beyond. It’s a very ambitious book and it’s somewhat confusing in places but the ambiance, the tone, the style, is so incredible it works smoothly in spite of what could easily have become choppy.
****

What is this book about? Eeks! Well, on the surface, it’s about two old friends from Oxford student days, the unnamed rich protagonist from Pakistani from Princeton, and Zafar, a poor scholarship student from Bangladesh (was East Pakistan) who are reunited after many years. They first met as math students. Now they are both highly educated, well-off and probably in their mid 40s. Zafar has simply shown up on the doorstep of the protagonist after apparently dropping out of sight for awhile – a long while. Class difference, the haves vs the have-nots, is one of the major themes in the book, maybe the main interwoven theme – although reality vs perception is close – along with Gödel’s “theorem of incompleteness.”  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Ghost Map
The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic … and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World
by Steven Johnson
2013 / 307 pages
rating – 8.5

London’s Broad Street epidemic of cholera in September of 1854 was one of the worst in history of that city. But a doctor named John Snow, whose biography is fascinating, turned it around with his investigations and treatments and Johnson’s fascinating book is the story of that scientific breakthrough.

I’m not usually big on life science books (biology and medicine) although I enjoy a good read in other fields of science so I would never have picked this up had it not been the selection of one of my (too) many reading groups. I almot didn’t get it even then! But that would have been my loss because this is a fascinating book, well written in a style which flows nicely while providing a wealth of information. . Johnson managed to grab and keep my attention even while describing things I normally consider yukkie. >>>>MORE>>>>

Orphan Train
by Christina Baker Kline
2013/ 273 pages
rating 7/ YA? –  hist. fict.

I’d say this book is mostly for folks ages 16 and older because it’s not really action based (for younger people)  and it weaves a theme around the idea of “what you take and what you leave behind.”  This gets really interesting when Vivian, as an old woman, says she herself has been left behind.

Actually, I wasn’t going to bother with this book, but a group had chosen it, I was kind of out of things to read, and it was offered on sale. So I caved, and overall was glad I did because it seemed to improve quite a lot as it went on.  And I chuckled in recognition of lefse and St. Olaf >>>>MORE>>>>

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
by Michael Lewis
2013 / 274 pages
Rating 8.5 / nonfiction- business

This is a very informative book on a very confusing subject and although I think Lewis does his best, the complexities of computers and the internet in the stock market are still not completely clear to me – but I learned a lot. Part of the reason is there is no straight forward chronology.

Lewis is known for his reporting in the fields of finance and sports and I’ve now read 3 of the finance books – all very good!  >>>MORE>>>>

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspirational Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
by Ben
2014 / 266 pages
Rating 8 / non-fiction -biography

Back in 1955 a 67-year old woman from Ohio named Emma Gatewood decided to hike the Appalachian Trail on her own. Widowed with children (11 of them) who were grown and gone, Emma was strong and healthy and had been an active outdoors person all her life. She’d first read about the trail a few years prior and just got smitten with the idea of walking the whole thing. When she found out that only a very few men and no women had done it she became determined. >>>MORE>>>

The Reef
by Edith Wharton
1912/ 162 pages
rating – 8.5  classic US lit

I’ve read maybe a half dozen of Wharton’s novels and novellas and generally enjoy them – especially those with the pointed criticism of “society” in her era and the Gilded Age. The Reef was one of her earlier works, published just after the depressing Ethan Frome. I think her later works are much better, but they’re not happy books either.

The first 30 or so pages of The Reef were so completely boring with unnecessarily difficult language I almost quit, but when I got to Anna’s section, Book 2, page 36, I caught a very satisfying interest – and it seemed the reading was easier as well. Still, it took much longer than I expected a 165 page book to take, the end seemed to drag on and on, but Wharton, like her contemporaries, liked to make sure all the ends were tied.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
by Brad Stone
2013/ 373 pages
rating 9 / nonfiction – business

I would never make much of a business person, but I love the books – they’re like reading adventure tales to me. (I’d never make much of an adventuress, either.) And because I was so interested, or maybe Stone is a really good writer, it took longer to finish because I was reading, occasionally rereading, every single word, And I was sad when I finished – no more book?

Stone gives us the mesmerizing story of how the brilliant and intensely competitive Jeff Bezos created, developed and now manages Amazon.com -as in the eponymous title. Being a long time and heavy user of Amazon for books, and as a reader of good business/economics articles and books, I was understandably interested from the gate.  >>>MORE>>>

10% Happier:
How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story
by Dan Harris
2014 / 237 pages
rating 8 / nonfiction: self-help

Part memoir, part expose of self-help gurus and part genuine, personal advise, self-help book, 10% Happier is a fun read by top journalist with solid background in the field of religion reporting. I am familiar with some meditation techniques having practiced many years ago, but this book was recommended by a friend and it sounded interesting. By happenstance it also got me re-interested in meditation itself.

After an on-camera panic attack in 2004 Harris sought psychiatric help and then found himself reporting on religion for ABC News. “Your demons may have been ejected from the building, but they’re out there in the parking lot doing push-ups.” p 52. >>>>MORE>>>>

The White Hotel
by D.M. Thomas
1981/274 pages
rating 8.5 / 20th century fiction

Totally pandering and gratuitous in every sense to start out, bolstered by the inclusion of Freud – not terribly laudatory,  the narrative in general is a very stylish, literary type production and is NOT quite what it seems.  After the opening Freud letters comes an erotic poem apparently by a nymphomaniac woman.  Then, in a new section, but possibly same woman, anonymous sex on a train and a fantastical hugely symbolic excursion through a “white hotel.”   This is impossible to summarize or even give much of a review. >>>>MORE>>>>

That Deadman Dance
by Kim Scott
2010 / 355 pages
rating 9 / contemp Aust.

Thanks to the blogs of Sue Terry and Lisa Hill (see below) in which they recognized and hosted Indigenous Aussie Literature week I came up with a couple books by indigenous authors which they had reviewed and also were available on Kindle. I decided for no real good reason to read That Deadman Walk first. A winner! (And of the Miles Franklin Award no less.)

Talk about intriguing! It’s historical fiction from the era of first contact on the southwestern shores near today’s Albany between the years 1826 and 1844 or so. >>>MORE>>>

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
2013 309 pages
rating 9.5 / nonfiction

North Korea is a bad place / it’s been a bad place for some time now and it’s apparently getting worse. One of only 4 Communist countries left on earth (China, Cuba and Vietnam are the others) the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” is destitute, desolate and pretty much defunct. Ever since Russia and China discontinued their support in the 1980’s and ’90s the country has nose-dived into a completely isolated dictatorship and major blemish of abject poverty.

Escape is virtually impossible, mentally and physically, but there are some very brave and desperate folks who do. This is the story of five survivors from Chongjin who are now living in South Korea, as told to Barbara Demick who wrote a series of award-winning articles for the LA Times which she transformed into this incredible book. >>>>MORE>>>>

Devil in the Grove:
Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America
by Gilbert King
2013 / 361 pages
rating 9.5 / nonfiction- crime

In suspense driven, True Crime mode King tells the story of Thurgood Marshall’s famous legal victory in the case of 4 young black men accused of raping a young white woman in the small town of Groveland, Florida, 1949.

It’s a great story and King uses foreshadowing, dialogue, cliff-hanger section endings and other devices to turn it into a page turner. Marshall going on to become the first African-American Associate of Justice on the US Supreme Court makes it even more interesting. There are usually no spoilers in non-fiction – the tale has often been told in the media or schools – but this is one of those times when I didn’t know the details of the ending and really wanted to let them unfold in King’s capable hands. Wow!!  >>>>MORE>>>>