Becky's Books –

A Case Against Redemption
by Adam Metzner
2013 / 336 pages
Read by Kevin T. Collins 10h 50m
Rating: A-

I looked forward to this book since I heard it was coming out because I so enjoyed the author’s earlier A Conflict of Interest .  And even though I kind of have an idea of Metzner’s “method” it didn’t take a bit away –  surprised anyway.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Odds Against Tomorrow
by Nathaniel Rich
2013 / 320 pages
read by Kirby Heyborne 10h. 16m
Rating:  8

Mitchell Zucker is a financial analyst for an unusual company which protects the big corporations against worst-case scenarios – floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes … It’s very profitable.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Trust Your Eyes
by Linwood Barclay
2012 / 512 pages
read by Ken Marks, Rich Holmes 14h 2m
rating:  A-

Thomas Kilbride is what you might call an “odd duck” but he’s a bit more than that – he’s schizophrenic,  with an obsession and a talent for memorizing the details of maps.   The maps he really loves these days are the Earth maps of Google  – Whirl360 maps.  So he stays in his room and memorizes the street names and places of all the cities on earth – in preparation for the day when all the >>>MORE>>> 

The Expats
by Chris Pavone (US)
2013/336 pages
read by Mozhan Marno 12h 27m
rating:  B+

Kate Moore has quit her CIA job and is following her husband and his career in banking and investment computer security.    She tries to fit in with the wives and mothers in Luxemburg,  she and her husband make some friends (one couple in particular),   but her background is not quite the same as theirs – neither are the workings of her brain.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Before the Poison
by Peter Robinson (Canada) 
2011 / 368 pages
read by Susan Lyons, Toby Lennet Moore 13h 56m
Rating:  C-

A atmospheric murder story taking place in a really gothic-type setting is not so easy to get into in sunny California in late May.  It is just so distant!   Ah well …

Chris Lowndes, a successful Hollywood film score composer >>> MORE >>>

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
by Rachel Joyce (England)
2012/ 336 pages
Rating: 9

The premise is simple – a man gets a letter from an old female co-worker, Queenie Hennessy,  who is now dying far away. He decides to write her a letter,  or better yet,  to pay a visit.  So far, so good.  It gets more interesting when the reader finds the trip is about 500 miles (800 k) and that this is a retired and married man who decides to just walk – sans phone, >>>> MORE >>>> 

The Man of Numbers:  Fibonacci’s Arithmetic Revolution
by Keith Devlin (England)
2011 / 192 pages
rating – 7

Okay – so having a bit of time available (not really but I’m in a lot of denial).  Anyway,  I gave the Kindle sample of  The Man of Numbers a try. I got involved very quickly,  it’s a light little read – so far and at only $2.99 and 192 pages,  well,  Dear Reader,   I got it.  This is a huge and welcome change from God’s War! >>> MORE>>> 

Dry Bones
by Peter May (Scotland)
2006/336 pages
read by Simon Vance 10h 21m
rating:  C

This is the first of the Enzo Files books by May,  originally called “Extraordinary People.”   The Scottish Detective Enzo Macleod is currently living in Paris,  on leave.  He gets involved in the 10-year old disappearance >>>> MORE >>>>

Just thought of another “walking” book!   The Lighthouse by Alison Moore – read in February of this year.   Oh my –  that book has another male protagonist taking off on a foot-tour, this time in Germany.  He planned the trip,  but he’s woefully unprepared.  This one is more like “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” in that the protagonist lives in his head quite a lot of the time,  going back through his sorrowful life.  The two protagonists here had similarly unhappy childhoods.  This was not so much the case in        “Wild”  or “The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,”  and irrelevant in “The Year of the Hare.”

Moore’s book is well written,  the equal of Joyce’s, but rather over-done with the symbolism and not in the least bit funny.    The hero is not so sympathetic for some reason and the characters he meets are even less so.

Currently well involved in “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce and want to stop to reflect.

It’s another “walking wanderer” book. I’ve read several of these “trek” books lately (6 months!): “The Year of the Hare” (Arto Paasilinna) “The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window” (Jonas Jonasson) “Wild” (Cheryl Strayed) – maybe another?   This one,  “The Unlikely Pilgrimage …”,  is different –   but they all are.   And there are several similarities as well. (Just my luck to happen upon them – all reading group selections but two were my nominations.)

“The Year of the Hare” is about the protagonist’s encounters with other folks along the way and their reactions to him. “The 100-Year Old Man…” is about an old guy who remembers his wanderings through sites of the 20th century, showing up for important people and events. “Wild” is the nonfiction account (memoir) of a woman who on impulse (!) hiked the Sierra Crest Trail. And “The Unlikely Pilgrimage …” is about a man who walks through his memories as his physical journey takes him through England.

The most significant similarity is that the protagonist doesn’t really “plan” his/her trip – 3 of them just up and take off down the road, walking. And none of these is a travelogue – not basically anyway. They are all somewhat picaresque in that they are comprised of different episodes, but only to one degree or another.

Also, the protagonists are all sympathetic (or intended to be that). “TYOTH” has the most sympathetic protagonist of the bunch, in large part due to his hare, but he’s not pure. “The 100-Year Old Man…” has a sympathetic 1st person protagonist, but he’s also “remembering” much of the tale and is completely unreliable. (heh). The protagonist of the memoir “Wild” tries hard to be sympathetic, for all her stupidity. And Harold Fry (of “The Unlikely Pilgrimage…”) is sympathetic enough, but apparently has some “issues.” (We’ll see.)

Imo, “The Unlikely Pilgrimage …” is the most nicely written of the bunch but that might be in part because it was not translated. “TYotH” is perfectly well written for what it is – (Zen-like simplicity) and “The 100-Year Old Man…” is nicely written for the laughs. “Wild” is … okay … (not my cuppa).

“The Unlikely Pilgrimage…” has a nice structure and interesting metaphors. This one is different in that the story includes his wife and son back home who have to deal with his absence. None of the other “trail” books do anything like that.

More later …

Moo
by Jane Smiley
1995 / 432 pages
rating – 7

This is a hard one!  If I’d read it back in 1995 I would have laughed and laughed – thoroughly enjoyed it.   But I read it in 2013 – almost 20 years after the fact.   I must say that generally I really totally enjoy some of Smiley’s books (The Greenlanders),  while others not so >>>MORE >>>

The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu
by Michael Stanley (southern  Africa)
2009 / 496 pages
read by Simon Prebble 13h 52m
rating: B+

When two tourists and guests are viscously murdered in their tents at a Botswana remote bush camp Detective Kubu finds himself involved to assist the local police.  But there are some problems,  the local police don’t seem terribly interested in helping and one of the dead men,  Goodluck  >>>> MORE >>>> 

A Cold and Lonely Place
by Sara J. Henry
2013 – 304 pages
read by Abby Craden 8h 32m
rating A-

This is the second in a possible series featuring Troy Chance,  a freelance writer who lives in upstate New York.   The first book,  Learning To Swim was excellent so I just went right away and got this  >>>> MORE>>>> 

All That Is
by James Salter
2013 / 304 pages
rating:   6

Boring.   One Amazon reader said “Salter is often mentioned in the breath just after American masters like Philip Roth, John Updike, and Norman Mailer.”   Well no wonder – it’s all about boy meets girl,  lays girl, perhaps marries girl, divorces girl, finds another girl  –  musical relationships >>>> MORE >>>> 

God’s War: A New History of the Crusades
by Christopher Tyerman (England)
2007 / 1056 pages – Kindle (and no page numbers)
rating:

“We are still living with the images and legends of the crusades Tyerman tells us how the Church set about preaching the crusades, exploiting the perennial pessimism and guilt of the European nobility of the Middle Ages. He shows how crusading ideology penetrated the religious sensibility of the period, as well as its secular fiction and poetry Of all the modern histories of the >>>>MORE>>>>

Praxis
by Fay Weldon (England)
1978  / 256 pages
Rating: 5 – feminist

What did I not enjoy about Praxis?  Basically, it felt really dated to me.  This is a book from the “consciousness-raising” era of women’s lit.   The era in which Doris Lessing (whether she intended it or not) and Marilyn French were all the rage.  I loved some of those books – yup, my consciousness >>>MORE>>> 

Well,  I’ve been away for a week in North Dakota and although I read a bit,  it wasn’t as nearly as much as usual due to dealings with family – (a good time was had by all).   And I didn’t add anything to my blog!   I did finish Praxis by Fay Weldon and read along in God’s War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman.