Becky's Books –

The Rise of Silas Latham
by William D. Howells
1895 / 286 pages
read by Grover Gardner / 12h 2m
rating  / classic American – 19th century

William Dean Howells is often called  the “father of American Realism” which basically means that he tried to write about the more  common people and  break away from the sentimentalism which had prevailed.  He wrote stories about society as he saw it at the time – 1860s-1910s.  The Rise of Silas Latham was first published in 1885 – the height of the Gilded Age  but there was also an economic “depression” in the years 1882-1885.  I believe these are suggested in the narrative – in both business and social attitudes.

Setting –  business is booming,  people are busily involved in “conspicuous consumption.”    Boston had a very stratified social society at the time made up of  aristocrats from Europe and millionaires from the US many long, long term residents – old money.  This was along with a poor immigrant class but they aren’t really shown in the novel except for some hired help. >>>>MORE>>>>

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
by Salman Rushdie
2015 / 304 pages
read by Robert G. Slade 11h 26m
rating -8.25  / literary fantasy
(read and listened)

I really enjoy some of Salman Rushdie’s works,  The Satanic Verses is one of my favorite novels of all time. On the other hand I have a hard time appreciating books like Fury.  So  let’s just say his work is uneven.   But with Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights he’s upping my running  score on him in favor of more likes than dislikes.   This time the story is heavy on magical realism with emphasis on the magical –  but it displays Rushdie’s fierce sense of humor,  his usual idea that “we are all mongrels” and skillful story-telling.

This is the same Salman Rushdie who wrote Midnight’s Children, the winner of 1981 Booker Prize,  the “Booker of Bookers” (1993) and “Best of Bookers” (2008). Only with The Satanic Verses has he ever since come close to that brilliance.   >>>>MORE>>>> 

Nora Webster
by Colm Toibin
2015 / 374 pages (Kindle)
rating – 9 / contemp. fiction

Compellingly set in a rural area southwest of Dublin, Ireland between 1969 and 1972, Toibin’s novel is full of interconnected families and lives.  This is a wonderfully nuanced, character-driven story which unfolds slowly, subtly revealing a tale of courage, healing and change.  And there is considerable of change of many kinds from minor personal adjustments to large scale political upheavals.

Nora Webster’s husband, Maurice a  schoolteacher with moderately liberal politics,  has died and been buried and Nora is left to try to live her life as the sole support of their four children, two older girls and two younger sons.  She has no idea how to go about this and she is physically and emotionally exhausted having stayed with her husband at the inadequate local hospital through his last several weeks of excruciating pain.   >>>>MORE>>>>

A Brief History of the Soul
by Stewart Goetz  & Charles Taliaferro 
2011/ 248 pages
read by Michael Scherer  8h 1m
rating – 8.5 / nonfiction – philosophy
(both read and listened)

It’s been a long, long time since I read a philosophy book – decades perhaps.   That said, this is for the layman and I certainly am a layman.  This is not terribly difficult for philosophy and I was able to understand as I went along – but remembering the terminology and the authors who wrote about it is quite another matter –

This book has  not had great reviews,  I’d say that’s  probably because the authors are defending the existence of  the soul which is not a terribly popular philosophical stance these days.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Death on a High Floor
by Charles Rosenberg
2014 / 562 pages print
read by Christopher Lane  16h 25m
rating A- / legal thriller –

Robert Tarza is a very high level attorney working for the upscale firm of Marbury Marfan in Los Angeles.  On page one Tarza walks into the building and there,  in the lobby,  finds his boss, Simon Rafer,  dead,  stabbed to death with an ornate dagger still in his back blood spreading around him.

This is the first (I think) of  three novels by Rosenberg featuring Robert Tarza.  It was an impulse purchase based on the description and Audible sample.

So obviously Tarza is a “person of interest” and the reporters gather,  another attorney, the young, lovely and somewhat sassy Jennifer James, offers to help –  actually she pushes her help on him.  Seems Rafer had been a lover and Tarza had helped James in the firm.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

Raven Black
(Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet)
by Anne Cleeeves
2008/ 384 pages
read by Gordon Griffin 11h 20m
rating – A-  / contemp detective

Selected by a reading group of mystery readers – I nominated it because it sounded like a traditional detective story set in an interesting place – Sheffield Islands.

Raven Black is the first 0f 4 in a series and I think I like this one well enough to continue the series but … I’ll say that and then not get to book 2.

A little of everything here except gunplay and chases.  A girl is found murdered on New Year’s Day so an investigation begins,  The obvious suspect is the mentally deficient man who lives alone and nearby – he was the “obvious” killer when another little girl went missing eight years prior.  The town has never forgiven him for not even being tried for murder so they pretty well know who’s guilty this time.  But Detective Jimmy Perez is assigned from another island and he comes in with his own ideas.  >>>>MORE>>>>

A Head Full of Ghosts
by Paul Trembly
2015 / 304 pages
read by Joy Osmanski
rating 8.5  / literary horror (?)

Literary horror?  Oh no!  What?  – oh yeah – remember House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and We Have Always Lived in the Castle?  Those two are a couple of my favorites.  That said,  I did NOT look forward to reading this even if a reading group did choose it.  I do NOT like horror – generally – avoid it like romance.

And I really didn’t  know anything about the book when I downloaded it – I just had nothing better to put on the iPod (which I dearly love talking to me while I do chores).   So I started in on what I suspected was a bunch of crap and was almost ready to rate a “DNF – Did Not Finish” and ask for my credit back.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth
by Christopher Scotton
2015 / 480 pages
read by Robert Petcoff – 13h 32m
rating 7 / contemp fiction

A reading group buddy with very similar tastes in books enthusiastically recommended this book a few weeks ago and it went on my wishlist then.  I’m not so much although yes,  it is a a very good book.

Told in 1st person from the vantage point of many years later,  Kevin Gillooly and his mother go to spend the summer at the home of her father, Pops,  in Medgar, Kentucky.  They both need to recuperate from the sudden death of Kevin’s younger brother. Kevin was 14-years old during that summer. >>>>MORE>>>>

Well, I got 3 out of 6 and 1 of the 6 is not available here but has had a lot of good chatter elsewhere –  Maybe I got 3 out of 5?  –  Whatever.  I’ll look forward to reading The Year of the Runaways by  Sunjeev Sahota (UK) in March and there are a couple on the Long List which aren’t here either – (the US doesn’t like anything from other countries – except food the food is good – lol).

Meanwhile – I also missed numbers 2 and 5 here – I’m totally surprised about the McCarthy and the Tyler – huh??? –   But the two I picked for top are here – the James and the Yanagihara novels.  Now another month to the actual winner.

Author (nationality)                  Title (imprint)

Marlon James (Jamaica)       A Brief History of Seven Killings(Oneworld Publications)

Tom McCarthy (UK)               Satin Island (Jonathan Cape)

Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)       The Fishermen (ONE, Pushkin Press)

Sunjeev Sahota (UK)               The Year of the Runaways(Picador)

Anne Tyler (US)                       A Spool of Blue Thread (Chatto & Windus)

Hanya Yanagihara (US)            A Little Life (Picador)

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-prize-fiction-2014-shortlist-revealed

Now that I think about it my top 2 books – A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Jamaica) and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (US) made the Shortlist but those two are really exceptional books – one or the other should take the prize.

The other 4 seem to be parceled out between 3 men and 1 woman;  1 US author (Tyler),  1 Nigerian author (Obioma),  and 2 UK authors (McCarthy and Sahota)  authors; plus there is 1 experimental novel,  1 kind of “cozy novel and I have no idea about The Year of the Runaways (Sahota, UK).

Overall the arrangement is 2 UK, 2 US and 2 other along with  2 women and 4 men.  That’s pretty balanced.

Also,  kind of notable is the fact that James is listed as being from Jamaica but he lives in Minneapolis and Obioma is listed as being from Nigeria but teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  With those kinds of living arrangements it’s no wonder (one more reason) the Man Booker changed from UK only to international-English.  Heh –

The Riders
by Tim Winton
1994 / 388 pages
read by Stanley McGeagh 10h 9m
rating 8.5 / literary suspense/thriller
(read and listened)

I read this back in 2008 or something and my reaction was kind of “meh.”   So when the Booker Prize Reading Group chose it for discussion I was going to rely on memory.  But  the books are all Man Booker listers and it’s a great group of perceptive readers – maybe I’ll get more out of it the second time.

Well – my eyes just aren’t what they were so I had to order the Kindle version and then I found the Audbile version was seriously reduced in price because I had the Kindle.  So that’s what I did – I listened to the Audible and did some rereading from the Kindle plus having the Kindle to take to bed   –  a favorite thing while playing majohg on ye olde Mac (or watering the weeds or doing chores). >>>>MORE>>>>

Our Souls at Night
by Kent Haruf
2015 / 188 pages
rating –  8.5 /  contemp lit (US)

Kent Haruf has done it again – a gentle story about life in a small town in Wyoming – the same place Plainsong and his other novels are set.  But each of these  novels is a stand-alones,  no need to read a prior before this one.

One day the 70-year old Addie Moore walks down the street to visit her long-time neighbor, Louis Waters.  They are both widowed and alone so she asks him if he’d like to spend the night – just to lie next to each other and talk.  He agrees and that night he arrives and the arrangement works for them,  it sticks.   The book and their relationship is not about sex,  it’s about loneliness and companionability and a couple of the common ways in which the world can interfere.  It’s also about the general heartaches of life as they reveal their histories to their bed-partner.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Girl in the Spider’s Web
by David Lagercrantz
2015 / 416 pages
read by Simon Vance – 13h 22m
rating A   / techno-thriller

Stieg Larsson was no literary giant,  but with Lisbeth Salender in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo he created one of the most fascinating female characters in contemporary literature and his readers’  delight lasted for 3 carefully sequenced novels known as The Millennium Trilogy.   The first was a great detective story (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) – the next was  more along the lines of a straight chase-type thriller (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and the third was a legal thriller (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest).    They all involved to one degree or another the same case – that of Lisbeth Salendar – and the case had closure with the final novel.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

The Neapolitan Quartet  (4)
by Elena Ferrante
2012 – 2015 / 4 volumes
rating – 10 (overall)

From what I understand, the series of books  was  conceived and written as one book but Ferrante’s publisher advised Ferrante to divide it into three volumes.  She tried,  but they didn’t quite all fit properly so there came to be a 4th volume in the “Neapolitan Trilogy” making it the “Neapolitan Quartet.”

It’s vital these books be read in order – it’s the story of two friends from their childhood days struggling through elementary school in Naples circa 1944 through old age in 2010 or so as well as the progressive deterioration of an old Naples neighborhood during the same time frame – post WWII through post 9/11.  Many contemporary issues are covered as well but the friendship which highlights the first and last books is the central focus.

I suppose it’s a “women’s novel”  in that it explores the lives of  two women over the course of almost  60 years including their struggles for education, for economic security through careers, for love and children and recognition – for self-respect as well as respect in the eyes of their worlds.   It covers childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and maturity through grand-parenting.  It deals with the urban gangs of the fascists, commercial and political opportunities of the 1950s, struggles and realities of the 1960s and 70s,  family entrapments and estrangements, love, loyalty and betrayal through the 1980s, ’90s and ’00s.    This is in addition to the ups and downs of a friendship lasting decades.

In order the books are 1. My Brilliant Friend, 2. The Story of a New Name, 3. Those Who Stay and Those Who Leave,  and 4 The Story of the Lost Child.   My Brilliant Friendopens with the mature Elena Greco not being able to find her life-long friend Lila Cerullo and setting out to write the story of her life – the rest of the hundreds of pages are that story.

I think this may come to be a really important work,  one that will likely make its mark in the canon of women’s literature because it tells the tale of what women really went through in that place and those times and even today.

California Fire and Life
by Don Winslow
1999 / 352 pages
read by Jon Lindstrom (2015) 12h 49m
rating B+

I usually enjoy Winslow but because this is a stand-alone it’s a bit different.  The 1st person protagonist is a Jack Wade, a former fire investigator for the police,  but having got in trouble there he now works as a claims adjuster for “California Fire and Life.”  He’s very good at his job.

A seriously expensive,  incredibly beautiful and antique filled home with ocean view has burned to the ground.   A young gorgeous woman died in the fire – she had apparently been drinking and smoking in bed. But a little further investigation shows that she was divorcing her husband who had taken the kids that night,  their little dog was found outside the home,  it was insured for the max.   >>>>MORE>>>> 

Purity
by Jonathan Franzen
2015 / 576 pages
read by a cast: 25 h
rating 6.5  (that’s out of 10) /  contemp. fiction

I’m just not going to waste a lot of words here because Franzen has wasted too many already.  The main character is young woman named Pip,  but that’s the end of the Dickens connection.    The plot almost gets  lost due to lengthy and irrelevant digressions into what I suppose is intended to be clever social satire and character background re bizarre mothers (and a couple fathers), sex, media (books, film, internet), privacy, bathroom feminism, women’s bodies, money and capitalism,  etc.  ??? =  The writing is okay – the structure is rather good actually, considering what all Franzen felt he needed to drag out, the themes (except the main one) are rather overworked.

I really enjoyed Franzen’s The Corrections,  but he was already slipping with Freedom and Purity is a whole ‘nother  ballgame.  Gone is the low-key social satire based on character and social milieu,  and what we have instead is lengthy and over-the-top sex and silliness amongst the post-internet youth, aging hippies and some general creepos. >>>>MORE>>>>

So I’ve now read all the books on the Man Booker Long List which are available in the US –  there are three which, unless something changes, will not be here until after the prize is awarded –

**   Sunjeev Sahota (UK) – The Year of the Runaways (Picador)
**  Anna Smaill (New Zealand) – The Chimes (Sceptre)
**  Anuradha Roy (India) – Sleeping on Jupiter (MacLehose Press, Quercus)

That said – these are my picks: (the links go to my reviews)

1  (And Winner?) Hanya Yanagihara (US) – A Little Life (Picador) 9.5
2.  Marlon James (Jamaica)  A Brief  History  of  Seven  Killings (OneworldPubs) 9.5
3.  Marilynne Robinson (US) – Lila (Virago) 9.25
4.  Bill Clegg (US) – Did You Ever Have a Family (Jonathan Cape)  9.25
5.  Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) – The Fishermen (ONE, Pushkin Press) 9
6.  Laila Lalami (US) – The Moor’s Account (Periscope, Garnet Publishing) 9

Of the 13 Long Listed books –  (see the 4 others at the bottom of this post)
7 are by women authors
5 are by authors from the US

So if my list seems a little US-heavy – that’s maybe part of why.

And the big question –  which book will win?  –   Look at the judges –

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey  – Zimbabwe  (now London)
John Burnside – Scotland
Sam Leith – England
Frances Osborne – England
Michael Wood (Chair) – England –

I think that group might prefer a Jamaican-born over a US born –  don’t know – maybe not.  I rated my top two choices the same but I suspect I may have a small US bias (heh) –  I don’t really think so –  I’ve whole-heartedly supported the winners of the last 3 years who were from Australia, New Zealand and England.  (I wasn’t too keen on the 2011 winner – from England).

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And these are the Long List books which I don’t think will make the Short List along with the rating I gave them – all kind of the same, good but not winners.

Anne Enright (Ireland) – The Green Road (Jonathan Cape) 8
Tom McCarthy (UK) – Satin Island (Jonathan Cape)  8
Andrew O’Hagan (UK) – The Illuminations (Faber & Faber) 8
Anne Tyler (US) – A Spool of Blue Thread (Chatto & Windus) 8

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Did You Ever Have a Family
by Bill Clegg
2014/ 304 pages
rating – 9.25 /  contemp. fiction
(Booker Long List)

Well it was finally released – Sept. 1 – and I got into it asap – (had to finish The Cartel by Don Winslow first).

June Reid’s  family is killed in a house fire which only she survives – she was sitting outside.   Her boyfriend Luke,  a mixed-race man 20 years her junior with a jail record (although he could have been innocent),  and her 20-year old daughter Lolly, who was to be married the next day, were sleeping inside along with  Lolly’s fiancé Will and June’s ex-husband/Lolly’s father, Adam.  >>>>MORE>>>>