Becky's Books –

Dear Life: Stories
By Alice Munro
2012 / 336 pages
rating: 8.5 / short stories

Alice Munro is Alice Munro – her stories speak eloquently to the human condition and there are very, very few writers in the history of world literature who have done it better than she does. Munro gets to the heart of the matter, she nails it – surprising and familiar at the same time – almost but not quite grotesque – never over that line.  >>>>MORE>>>>

A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon
by Anthony Marra
2013/ 397 pages
rating – 9 / contemp fiction

I generally hate war books but this is really different.  That said,  what IS this book  with a title which comes from a medical dictionary as being the definition of “life”  about?

Well – I didn’t know for awhile getting into it,  but about 50 pages into it I knew – it’s  about love, loyalty and trust in a time of bitter warfare – 2 wars, actually. The wars involved are the Chechen War of Independence (1994-1996) and the 2nd Chechen War – when Russia took Chechnya back – >>>>MORE>>>>

The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe
by Peter Godwin
2010 / 384 pages
rating 7.5 –  memoir/political

Peter Godwin was born to English parents in Rhodesia part of which became Zimbabwe under Robert Mugawe.  He’s written about this experience and much more in two other memoirs which might be considered a trilogy,  “Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa,” and “When a Crocodile Eats the Sun.”   I read the latter and thoroughly enjoyed and I’ve been wondering about Mugabe and company ever since. I really feel I should read the first one, too – for interest. >>>>MORE>>>>

The Infatuations
by Javier Marias
2013 – 352 pages
rating 8.75 / lit-crime  – Spain

I just didn’t care much for this book at all until the plot got going, about half way through, and then I definitely took to it.  A woman named Maria watches a happy couple,  she leaves on vacation and when she returns the husband has been savagely murdered by a street bum.  The widow is now alone and the woman who watches her imagines how she must feel,  she imagines how the victim felt as he was being stabbed,  she imagines what life will be like.  The book should have been called “The Imaginings.” >>>>MORE>>>> 

Scenes From a Provincial Life (in one ebook)
by J.M. Coetzee
rating 9.5 / fictionalized memoir –
a trilogy consisting of “Boyhood,” “Youth,” and “Summertime”

This is a beautifully written fictionalized memoir (mostly) of the life of the author. The first two books use the the third person point of view “he” distancing the reader as well as the author from the tale. This distancing is a crucial theme. >>>>MORE>>>>

The Bully Pulpit:
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
2013/ 928 pages
rating:  9 / US history – 19th/20th century

By the end of this remarkable book Goodwin had drawn me so close to the major subjects it felt like I was saying goodbye to a group of dear friends. In a work of nonfiction this is truly smazing.

I’ve come to understand through reading and reading that one should pay careful attention to the titles and introductory material of non-fiction because that’s where the authors *usually* state somewhat more explicitly what the book is going to be about than in the actual first section of the title.   This is exactly the case with The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism in which Kearns sets out to explore, NOT   >>>>MORE>>>> 

The Good Lord Bird
by James McBride
2013/419 pages
rating: 8 / historical fiction

There are widely varying opinions about the sanity, mission and effects of John Brown who escalated the pre-war tensions of the Civil War to the point there was really no avoiding it.  Some say he was mad,  others say he was a visionary – there is a considerable amount known about his life outside his head but inside? Well,  that may always be a puzzle.  >>>> MORE >>>> 

Chess Story (also – The Royal Game)
by Stefan Zweig – tr. from German by Joel Rothenberg
1941 / 109 pages (NY Review of Books
rating 9 / classic

This is a very short work – a novella really, but it’s totally riveting and quite powerful – truly a classic and one I want to reread before too long.

Zweig’s unnamed first person is on a cruise when he hears that a fellow passenger is the famous Mirko Czentovic,  an international chess champion.  The  narrator then relates Czentovic’s background >>>>MORE>>>> 

Sister Carrie
by Theodore Dreiser
1900 / 352 pages (Kindle)
rating 8.75 / classic US fiction

Sometimes I’m just ready for a good old-fashioned classic and fortunately for me one of my reading groups has a goodie isted.  I’m a bit behind in my reading schedule already because I got confused but …  Dreiser is not difficult reading and I’m primed.

We Need New Names
by NoViolet Bulawayo
2013/ 294 pages (Kindle)
rating 9 / contemp fiction Africa

This is another coming of age book about young adults and immigration.  This time the tragedies of African life and the difficulties of emotional adjustment in the US are well explored.   I can’t say I appreciated this one as much as I did the very similar (in ways)  Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie which was in my top 10 last year and there have been other hugely successful immigrant novels lately – Juno Diaz, Ali Smith, Anita Desai, Zadie Smith, and many more. >>>>MORE>>>>

The Queen of the Tambourine
by Jane Gardham
1991/227 pages
rating: 8 / 20th cent. fiction

I’ve had this on my TBR list for way too long and finally and for reals I needed a break from all the depressing fiction I’ve been reading and remembered it was also recommended by a friend.   And I love Gardham whose final book in the Old Filth trilogy,  Last Friends,  has just been shortlisted for the Folio Prize 2014.

Eliza Peabody, a middle-age childless but married woman living somewhere near London is rather adrift in many ways.  Joan, her neighbor, >>>>MORE>>>>

From the Mouth of the Whale
by Sjon
2008 / 232 pages
rating 8.5 /historical fiction (mythical?)

Very unusual story of an Icelandic man, Jonas Palmeson (Jonas the Learned),  in the years 1635-1639 who along with his wife and children has been exiled to Gullbjorn’s Island for sorcery.  He communes with the birds and nature and thinks about a lot of Biblical/superstition stuff as he also relates to the reader what brought him here.  >>>>>MORE>>>>> 

The Colour of Milk
by Nell Leyshon
2014/ 176 pages
rating 8.5 / historical fiction

At only 176 pages, this is a novella, really, but those are often the best size for a deceptively simple story, well told, where every word counts. I often enjoy short stories and novellas for this very reason.

Mary, the crippled and basically illiterate 1st person narrator, is writing this account in 1831 of her life in 1830-31 when she was 14 and 15 years old. As the tale starts, Mary, is living with her poverty-stricken parents and three older sisters on their farm somewhere in England. Mary’s life consists of work and avoiding her father’s wrath. But summer comes and Mary is hired out by her father to the local vicar to help in his house and with his ailing wife. This is a whole different world from what Mary has ever known, but certain foreshadowing makes the reader understand it will not necessarily be entirely for the better.

The language is very simple using country-girl words and phrases in short sentences with no capitalization. This was a bother to me until about page 50 when I realized that no matter how it seemed kind of gimmicky on the surface, it did set off Mary’s ignorance (NOT stupidity!), naiveté and simplicity as well as, perhaps, the times. The chapters, named for the seasons, and the tropes are also completely in keeping with the 19th century agricultural nature of the tale.

The Bookman’s Tale
by Charlie Lovett
2013/353 pages
rating B / historical crime

Amanda is dead, but her husband, Peter Byerly, hasn’t quite come to grips with that even after two years. Peter is a book collector and antiquarian, Amanda was heir to a fortune and a scholar of Victorian paintings. One day as Peter is looking through an old tome dealing with document forgeries a painting of his wife falls out. This watercolor painting sets him off on a hunt for its origin.

Peter’s hunt involves the signatures (forged and authentic) of William Shakespeare and the origin of his play, The Winter’s Tale.  There has been much speculation about the inspiration (if not actual authorship) of that drama. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandosto

Lovett’s tale involves three plot threads. First there’s Peter as a grieving widower in the present day. He starts out seeking information about a painting, but finds himself caught up in a very suspenseful story of possible/probable forgery and murder. The second plot thread goes back to 1985 and outlines the romance of Peter and Amanda. The third thread traces the history of certain documents and a book from Shakespeare’s time. The second plot line is rather fluffy and boring, but being book-ended by two very active stories, it lends a kind of aesthetic balance as well as fleshing out the character, with all its idiosyncrasies, of Peter.

author interview
http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/the_bookmans_tale.html

Shakespeare’s forgers
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/shakespeare/index.html

Cold Comfort Farm

by Stella Gibbons
1932 / 260 pages
Rating: 9 / satire- classic

“But there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm,” screeches the aged and reclusive Aunt Ada Doom, who long, long ago saw something nasty in the woodshed.

That’s okay, young Miss Flora Poste, a suddenly poor and orphaned, but socially upper middle class ingenue has arrived at the farm and she has plans to tidy them up, civilize them all – And there are many people and situations which need tidying.

I really enjoyed this book. I suppose it’s the language which stands out, Gibbons has created a unique (to me) blend of city and country dialects and rural-sounding nonsense words. A lot of this may be parody or satire going over my head.

The setting is futuristic, 1946 or later, and for the most part, rural England, Sussex County. Gibbons created a marvelous parody which would likely have been funny even had I not been familiar with Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence. She’s marked the parodic lines with asterisks so her readers will know – lol.

The farm characters, the Starkadders, seem to this Californian, like they are out of the hills of North Carolina where some cousins are true hillbillies, but others have managed to fit into city social life.

I’ve wanted to read this for a long time – finally got to it and yes, it was worth it.

Nice photos:
http://www.bookdrum.com/books/cold-comfort-farm/9780140274141/setting.html

Good review:
http://the-toast.net/2013/07/30/slightly-less-beloved-classics-nightingale-wood/

Glossary:
http://www.bookdrum.com/books/cold-comfort-farm/9780140274141/glossary.html

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire
by Jack Weatherford
2010 / 336 p.
rating: 8.5 / non-fiction / Asia history

Thanks to viscous vandalizing of the documents over the centuries, precious little is known about the daughters of Genghis Khan. We know his sons were lazy, brutal drunks (for the most part), but his daughters were different. Genghis left each of the four of them territories over which to rule and many did well, but we’d never know that from the censored records.

Weatherford, author of a highly acclaimed biography of Ghengis Khan, researched a wide variety of sources to put this book together. Much of it is “life on the steppes” as the women knew it and quite a lot deals with the squabbling warfare of the menfolk, but there is an astonishing amount of material related to each of the four original queens as well as their descendants. Some women are very clearly drawn, others much less so. Weatherford has a smooth and enjoyable style and the maps and his source notes are quite helpful.<

Morality Play
by Barry Unsworth
1995 / 207 pages
rating – 8.75 / historical fiction -crime

Unsworth is a master of historical fiction and Morality Ply is likely one of his best. Taking place in northern England of the 14th century, the story is told in 1st person by a runaway monk, Nicholas Barber. Barber is taken in by a group of traveling “players” who perform morality plays throughout the area. They need him because one of their members has suddenly died of the plague and he needs to be replaced. The 6 men and a woman then find themselves virtually destitute in a town where a murder has just been committed and a young woman set to hang for it. The players decide to perform a play about the murder which leads to all sorts of complex philosophical issues as well as a considerable amount of detective work.

I really enjoyed this one, the plot is kind of grim and the themes are serious, but the tone of the book certainly didn’t strike me as depressing. The setting was outstandinig, I was transported to a time when folks believed different things than we do today, much of their world was governed by power, corruption and superstition and Unsworth developed that very effectively. The characters in the group of players were fun, likeable, while the others were nicely drawn.