Becky's Books –

Reconstructing Amelia
by Kimberly McWreight
2013 / 382 pages
read by Khristine Hvam
rating –   B+ / crime  (YA?)

This might have been more interesting in print or ebook format because much of the narrative is told via emails and text messages and just listening the reader doesn’t get the visual impression.  But Hvam is a good narrator and the book moved along smoothly.

Amelia Baron,  the 15-year old,  very bright and creative daughter of a very hard working attorney mom, goes to an upscale private school in Brooklyn.     There she has to deal with seriously malicious clique, but does that, at least for awhile, with the help of a best friend, Sylvia who is apparently more concerned about boys more than with Amelia’s problems.

So when Amelia’s body is found dead from a fall off the top of one of the buildings,  it is assumed to be the result of suicide.  >>>> MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

The Quiet Game
by Greg Iles
1999 / 640 pages
read by Tom Stechschulte 20h
rating:  B+  / crime –
(Penn Cage series #1)

A slow start but in the last half the tension gets as thick as the Mississippi mud of the setting. I got this thinking it was your normal legal thriller  (my favorite genre) but for a long ways it’s neither much legal nor “thrilling” –  in the sense of what shares that genre’s shelves. Then it all picks up and everything fits together and the pages turn by themselves and midnight oil gets burned.

This is the second Greg Iles book I’ve read – the first was  The Devil’s Punchbowl – and this is definitely better and I’m interested in reading another one in the Penn Cage series.

Penn Cage, our 1st person narrator,  is a  former prosecuting attorney and current crime novelist, >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Submission
by Michael Houellebecq  (France)
2014 / 250 pages
rating 8.5 /  contempt lit – futurist

I finished this while I was at the coast and forgot to write up an entry for it.

It’s based on an interesting concept – what happens in the year 2022 when the Muslims have taken control of France by ballot?   The guy elected to president is a moderate kind of Muslim and Christianity and other religions are tolerated – to an extent.  But only Muslims are allowed to be in the “elite” or to be teachers and journalists, etc.  so our hero, François,  is out of a job albeit with a very good pension because the Muslim Brotherhood, with their line to Saudi Arabia,  has lots of money.

But François has no wife or life outside of academia really.  His life was chasing women students (or letting them chase him) and teaching and he’s generally bored a lot.  He’s not really Christian,  but objects to having to convert in order to continue teaching.  His regular girlfriend moves to Israel as she is Jewish and there’s no telling what will happen to her people with the Muslims now in control.  >>>>MORE>>>>

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
by Naomi Klein
2015 / 576 pages
read by Ellen Archer / 20h 43m
rating:  8.5 /  nonfiction – climate economics

I don’t quite know what to think at this point – yes, of course I believe that climate change is for reals – and it’s going to make more and more trouble over the years.  Also,  I don’t think there’s anything we can really do about it- the system is self-perpetuating and climate change is completely woven into the fabric of capitalism and that’s all based on the acquisitive nature of mankind.

Now I suppose if things got bad enough we’d change our ways but most likely it would take the power  of a dictator to get the changes needed made.

This book is page after page , and hour after hour,  of the disastrous situation we’ve got ourselves and the world into.  In her defense,  Klein doesn’t spend a lot of time on things folks who are reading this book would know.  But when even the parts of the “green movement” are collaborating with the capitalists and the  fossil fuel industry then what hope is there?  >>>>MORE>>>> 

I’ve decided to classify this book as a beautifully written and heartfelt memoir.  It’s about history and art,  but it’s more about the author’s search for the place of his physical inheritance,  the netsuke,  in his family’s history.  Furthermore,  the book does not include pictures – or it didn’t in it’s first version.

The Hare With the Amber Eyes:  A Family’s Century of Art and Loss
by Edmund de Waal
2011 / 351 pages
rating 8.75 / memoir

I first read this back in January of 2012 (see review here)  and gave it a rating of 8.5 -The lack of pictures was a deliberate and aesthetic decision made in order to emphasize the feelings over the graphic  glamor or horror.

This is first and foremost a very special memoir.  I suppose that was a good thing for a first reading because although I think the book was intended to be read for its own value alone, the draw of seeing what the author was describing so beautifully and with so much love was irresistible – and that’s why there is a second version.  lol  Anyway,  I Googled quite a lot as I read in order to view  what de Waal was writing about.  The results of that Googling are in my first review with notes (see link above).  >>>>MORE>>>> 

Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
by Svetlana Alexievich
1997 / 244 pages
rating – 9.25

Svetlana Alexievich is now a Nobel Laureate in large part because of this book which describes the horror which was (or possibly still is)  Chernobyl, the  site of the largest nuclear melt-down in history.

In April of 1986 an explosion at the plant set off a fire which produced an enormous amount of radioactive particles contaminating the entire environment including the air, land, and water.   Only two people died at the scene at the time but over the years the residents of the area became ill and died or had mutated babies –  Chernobyl babies.  The area is still not totally clean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

This is the story of the disaster from the eyes and in the words of the people who lived (and live) there,  what they saw, what they did and how they felt/ feel.  It’s also the same sorts of things from the people who were sent in to work there,  the soldiers, scientists and medical personnel. And it’s about those who covered it up, kept it secret, killing more people to protect their superiors or the government – to meet quotas,  to prevent panic,  etc.   Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or adversely affected,  millions probably,  no one really knows.   >>>>MORE >>>> 

I usually enjoy techno thrillers like those of Neil Stephenson or William Gibson, and many others,   but the emphasis here in Daemon by Daniel Suarez (2009)   was definitely on the thriller.  I did enjoy the gaming parts and the way Daemon (the bot-based program’s name)  worms itself into the whole real world with cars designed to kill,  the stock market fixed to collapse, the justice and medical systems open to rigging, even people doing the bidding of Daemon,  etc. because all of our lives these days depend on some kind of internet activity and in the wrong hands things could really run amok.

Daemon
by Daniel Suarez
2009 / 632 pages
read by Jeff Gurner 15h 57m
rating C+ / techno-thriller

Quite a lot of this book is basically good-guys chasing bad-guys (or getting away from them)  like cops and robbers with a lot of various techie ideas thrown in – still,  that doesn’t really detract – ‘t’s fascinating, realistic and well-researched.

I usually enjoy techno thrillers like those of Neil Stephenson or William Gibson, and many others,   but the emphasis here was definitely on the thriller.  I did enjoy the gaming parts and the way Daemon (the bot-based program’s name)  worms itself into the whole real world with cars designed to kill,  the stock market fixed to collapse, the justice and medical systems open to rigging, even people doing the bidding of Daemon,  etc. because all of our lives these days depend on some kind of internet activity.     But quite a lot of this book is basically good-guys chasing bad-guys (or getting away from them)  like cops and robbers with a lot of various techie ideas thrown in – still,  it’s fascinating, realistic and well-researched. >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

The Dream of the Celt
by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
2010 / 358 pages
rating:   8

Mario Vargas Llosa is another winner of the Nobel Prize for literature and considering his brilliant work,  The Feast of the Goat (2001) deservedly so.  Yes, I’ve read it –  twice.  Vargas writes top drawer historical fiction.

The Dream of the Celt is also historical fiction and very, very well researched but there were man times I felt like I was reading a fictionalized biography – just some dialogue and specific scenes added to complete the picture.  The idea of Vargas using a journalistic approach for this novel is interesting because Roger Casement was in the news quite a lot between 1903 and 1916 and continues to be of interest.
>>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

This is historical fiction about China and it’s quite well researched – as far as I can tell – and that’s what drew me to it.  Sad to say there were only parts which maintained my interest because to get to the history you have to slog through a lot of sex and violence – to the point of gratuitous and extreme – and that’s not interesting to me.

The Incarnations
by Susan Barker
2015 / 374 pages
rating – 6

Susan Barker is the daughter of a British father and a Chinese mother – she lives in London but writes tales about China.   The Incarnations is not something I’d recommend to the average reader –  it  starts slow and doesn’t pick up until toward the end of Chapter 6 when I was reminded of Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, (1990)  a novel which includes a lot of Chinese folktales.   Gao Xinjiang won the Nobel prize in lit in 2000 in large part for that amazing work.  But Barker is no Xingjian.

>>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Puke (!)  in general and as far as any redeeming literary value,  but I have to say that with some qualifiers because there are a few redeeming features to the novel – they’re just not at all literary.    Also,  and as a  disclaimer – I’m reading this for a reading group and not on my own because I had a feeling I’d react this way.

Anyway,  the pukey part:  The protagonists are two completely and 100% sympathetic young women who absolutely know “right” from “wrong” (to the thinking of 21st century US readers, anyway).   So when their grand old family home somewhere north of Paris is taken over by the occupying forces in the form of a Nazi commander in June of 1940,  they do what all good and true heroines do – they rise to the occasion in beauty, bravery and the highest moral road.

Vienne Rossignol, the elder of  two  sisters,  is a homebody,  sweetly trying to protect herself and her child for Antoine, her devoted husband, who is so bravely fighting for France and then taken captive.   If she errs it’s out of fear and in order to protect her family and friends because the  “right” thing to do is to keep her child safe and to stay pure and faithful for her husband.  >>>>MORE (no major spoilers)>>>>

I love the cover of this book!   And inside,  although it starts a bit slow, it certainly doesn’t disappoint!  This is a very engaging, funny, intelligent, heart-warming, (perhaps bitter-sweet is the word I want but don’t like)   debut novel generally about life in a  Jewish immigrant family of mathematicians.   It’s a kind of loving celebration of that life and death as they say good-bye to an outstanding woman who was a brilliant mathematician as well as a wife, mother, teacher,  mentor and activist for defectors from Russia where she had had an incredibly difficult time as a child in the gulags.

The Mathematician’s Shiva
by Stuart Rojstaczer
2014 / 384 pages
read by Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne  10h 38m
rating: 8 (for the fun)
(read and listened – both!)

The book is divided into 3 Parts but 4 time frames which overlap a bit in places due to story-telling and back-stories.   It starts out in winter of 2012,  eleven years after the basic tale the first-person narrator wants to tell which is of the death, funeral,  shiva and the aftermath of his mother.

Rachela Karnokovitch was a noted Russian defector/immigrant and mathematician as well as the mother of our narrator Alexander”Sasha” Karnokovitch.   At the book’s opening (2012)  Sasha is remembering back to the day she phoned (2001)  to tell him she was dying and wanted him there with her at her home in Wisconsin.  So Sasha, her only child and age 60, drives from Nebraska to be with her and she is then moved to the hospital.   There are others present  – Rachela’s brother Shlomo as well as her  ex-husband who is  Sasha’s father.  Uncle Shlomo brings the booze.  Sasha promises his mother that he and his father will stay connected and after she passes the two decide to have a small, simple family shiva at her house.  Bruce, Uncle Shlomo’s son,  and Anna,  a defector Rachela took in many year prior arrive a bit later.   This is the family.  >>>>MORE (No spoilers)>>>> 

I am enjoying the Poke Rafferty crime series of Timothy Hallinan more and more with each novel.  The overarching background story of Poke, his wife Rose who is an ex-bar girl,  and Miao, an adopted street child, both unfolds and progresses as that tale moves along,  and they have a continuing circle of friends.  Poke’s main business is travel writing but the streets of Bangkok are filled with crime and Poke has training and experience in that area.

For the Dead
by Timothy Hallinan
2014/ crime
read by Victor Bovine 10h 53m
rating:  A+
(#4 in the Poke Rafferty series)

I just finished The Fear Artist last month and it’s a good thing because this tale takes place only a couple months later so the final victims, Treasure and her mother Anna, are still pretty fresh in Poke’s mind along with the traumatic events of the climax of that episode.   Treasure is still in serious condition in a local institution, a hospital of sorts, and mom is still pretty disturbed emotionally.  The actual bad guy cops and their boss seem to have been taken care of,  but that may only be the surface level – there seems to be a higher level to this.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

I recently read two very different novels about young female immigrants – the books were both rereads –my latest reviews:  Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (2009) and Americana by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013).   Both authors are themselves immigrants, from Ireland and Nigeria respectively,  Adichie is young and female while Tóibín is somewhat older and male (which may make no difference).  Brooklyn takes place in Ireland and New York in the 1950s,  Americanah is set in Nigeria, Philadelphia and Baltimore plus a bit in London.
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Americana  (x3)
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria/US)
2013/ 496 pages
read by Adjoa Andoh-  17h 28m
rating: 10  / contemp.  immigrant fiction
(read and listened)

A reading group decided to read this and although I’ve read it twice (back-to-back in 2013) I decided to try the Audible version as a reminder read.   I’m glad I did – the narrator, Adjoa Andoh,  is new to me and very good.  And as with all really good books, I made several other “discoveries” on this 3rd reading.  (So I have upped my rating to a 10 – holding up for 3 readings over a span of several years is incredible.

My prior review with no spoilers is at:
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/012011-2/2014-2/072013-2/americanah-2/

And there is a “Notes” section (with spoilers) at:
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/012011-2/2014-2/072013-2/americanah-2/americanah/

>>>>MORE>>>> 

Avenue of Mysteries
by John Irving
2015 / 480 pages
read by Armando Duran  20h 50m
rating:  8.5
(second reading – read and listened)

So I decided to go ahead and read it a second time and I am so glad I did.  There is a lot of very interesting and enjoyable material here – my mind got clouded with the sex and circus tricks.

The frame story is that of the grown Juan Diego, a moderately famous writer who has lived in Iowa for forty years and his trip to Manila, a mission of sorts.  Juan Diego was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and lived there with his sister, mother, a father figure, and various other people until he was fourteen.  The children slept at the home of orphans run by the Jesuits but they spent their days in a shack at the trash dump with other “Lost Children.”
>>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Avenue of Mysteries
by John Irving
2015 / 480 pages
read by Armando Duran  20h 50m
rating: 7.5 /  general fiction – humorous

I started listening to the sample and it sounded so good – wonderful – two kids in a dump in Mexico with one teaching himself how to read and the other learning from him – one older extraordinarily intelligent, the younger strangely insightful – and the Catholic church priests take such a loving interest.   I almost bought the Kindle version to go along with the Audible,  but I fortunately scanned a brief review first and –  um … I don’t think so.  It was going to be all I could do to get through the Audible because  it’s Irving up to his usual circus tricks –  sex and love amongst the crippled or elderly, general weirdness, animals, dreams,  and some Catholic bashing. (ho-hum)  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>

The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
2016 / 498 pages  (ARC – Kindle)
rating: 9.25  /  historical fiction
(With thanks to Random House via Netgalley for the advance reader copy!)

Good read – quite enjoyable but a warning – although it is never explicit,  this book does not pull punches.   For a good chunk of the novel I wanted called it a delightful satire.  Then some real life stuff happens –  difficult situations, hard choices and tragedies.

I first encountered Helen Simonson with her first novel,  Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,  a really delicious fiction I recommended to both my mom and my daughter and probably other folks online,  so I managed to get copy of Simonson’s second novel in  advance reader copy (ARC – from Netgalley)  form.  I’ve never done ARC before – we’ll see how it goes, but at least I’ve got something I’m looking forward to as a starter.

The setting is the small town of Rye in East Sussex England,  during the summer 1914.  These are the years of rising tensions about the wars in the Balkans,  suffragettes in the streets, labor uprisings,the clash between 19th century Victorian ways and new more modern ideas as well as the normal, petty local jealousies.  It’s Imperial England just past its prime and full of ignorance, arrogance, entrenched tradition, class issues and small minds.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>