Choice by Nicholas Sparks (2007)

I was looking for a light read, and this was suggested. I had seen reviews of it, but have never read anything by Sparks. (At least I don't think so - I better keep a database of my read books, not just this blog.) The summary in our catalog doesn't say much: "Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, "The Choice" tells the story of Travis Parker, a small-town veterinarian, who avoids romantic entanglements until new neighbor Gabby Holland enters his life." Let's just say this turned into a tear jerker romance written by a guy. The "choice" of the title is a hard one, but we don't get to it until towards the end of the book. Most of the book is about the way Gabby and Travis got to know each other - and that actually made sense - the uncertainties of getting to know a new person. I just have a hard time with the - knowing this is the one and only person for you and that you can't live without them - having never experienced it myself and not seeing much of it around me. I liked the small town North Carolina setting - and since I have visited that area, know how beautiful it is. I also like Travis' group of friends. Buddies that have known each other since high school, gone off to get degrees, wives and children, and now love to do things together on a regular basis - an extended family. It was not exactly the light reading I was looking for, but at some point I might read something else from Sparks.

Power Play by Joseph Finder (2007)

Too violent for me. I guess this was suggested as a best seller thriller by the audio book people, maybe I asked for something my son would enjoy too. Not for me, and I don't know where my line is, as I do enjoy some thrillers. JD Robb is quite bloody and brutal too, but it doesn't bother me as much in her books. Or maybe it was the timing. Just after reading the very realistic brutality if Hosseini's Afghanistan, I just was too sensitive to people hitting and shooting each other.

What did I like about this book? It was an interesting insight into the power play workings of the executives of a big company - this time in the aerospace industry. I guess Finder likes to tackle different industries in his books. I liked the setting - a wilderness retreat near Vancouver. Jack Landry is a professional with an awful childhood, very similar to Eve's in JD Robb's books. This past has damaged him, but also made him strong and given him skills to help the soft executives, when they are held up for ransom. I liked the fact that the CEO was a woman, as was her assistant. The glimpse into the banking world was a bit scary. All the stories and movies with heists of actual cash will soon be an antiquated, as nowadays money can be so easily transferred electronically.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)

This is the most difficult book I have read in a long time. There were times when I had to stop listening to it, as I couldn't take hearing about one more brutal beating. But these incredible Afghani women deserved me to hear their tale to the end, so I went back to the book. I just have to count my blessings if I have such a hard time reading or listening to this, while so many women are still living this type of nightmare.

Though Hosseini's Kite Runner was also a heavy book about the realities of Afghani life, it seemed lighter. There was more pre-war joy - as in the descriptions of the kite running contest. And a good portion of the book is set in the emigrant community in the United States. Not an easy life, but nothing compared to the constant hardships and brutality experienced by Mariam and Laila in A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Hosseini starts his tale of Afghanistan in the 1950's with Mariam's childhood. She ends up married off to an older man in Kabul, who asks her to wear the burka even before the Taliban insisted all women wear them. Later we meet free spirited Laila, who is almost broken by the consequences of the war. I don't want to go into details, as I'd like to leave the brutal incidents of their lives as much of a surprise to the next reader as they were to me.

I cringed every time the burka was mentioned, though I did see the advantage of it being a certain protection against a brutal outside world. One of the non-brutal scenes that most angered me was when Laila needed help with the birth of her second child. Only one hospital would still accept women, there were no supplies - like anesthesia for the operation, and the female doctor was expected to wear a burka while operating. I don't get it. How stupid and insecure can these guys get? Don't they realize they need the women to be healthy to provide for them, to bring into the world the next generation? I am also surprised by the resilience of the human body. That these women could still walk and function after being beaten so brutally so many times.

I don't think I will be handing this out as a Christmas gift. If someone really wants to read it, let them find their own path to this book.

Rodzina by Karen Cushman (2003)

Serendipity can be amazing. I picked up this young adult book as a break from listening to Hosseini's very heavy book - Thousand Splendid Suns and the reading of Eat, Pray, Love. I had forgotten that Cushman isn't afraid of tackling hardships in history, even if they are softened for the young reader. The story of Rodzina was intensified for me by the parallels I saw between her and the two women in Hosseini's Afghanistan. Rodzina is a 12 year old Polish girl in Chicago who's parents die and she is put in an orphanage, then taken on a train west to find a home for her. The loss in her is deep, and the dangers real - of being given away into servitude, maybe even slavery, or when one nasty guy plans to make her his wife. Mariam and Laila in Hosseini's book both lost their parents and were given away to a brutal man, but the war and surrounding culture made their lives so much more horrific. In the afterward we read that there really was a movement to get orphans out of cities and sent west, so that orphan trains were a real phenomenon.

I had originally picked up this book because it was historical fiction about East Europeans. The title Rodzina is strange, but apropos. The author explains she saw this on her great grandmother's grave and only later found out it wasn't her first name, but the word "family." So no girl would ever be named Family, but since this book is so much about families and belonging, I think it makes perfect sense.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)

This book was sent to me by friend Sufi "just because." And it is wonderful, but it is in three very distinct parts, so I am going to try to write this up after each part.

I still don't know who Elizabeth Gilbert is, but obviously she is a writer, and this is a biographical retelling of a year in her own life, where she searches for herself. I am totally envious of her opportunity to travel to different parts of the world on a spiritual quest. I have a friend leaving for Nepal in a few days for a month in a monastery, so it can be done, and I hope I have a chance for something like this too.

Needing to get away from a failed marriage and unhealthy relationship, Gilbert decides to take a year off and spend four months in Italy, four in India, and the last four in Bali - the last an opportunity that arose out of a work assignment.

Gilbert loves the sound of the Italian language and has started to learn it, and decides to continue her lessons in Italy. This first stage in Italy is the start of her healing process. She takes lessons in Italian, finds partners to talk to in Italian and finds pleasure in food - wonderful Italian food, always asking locals for the best restaurants - not the tourist places, but where real Italians eat. I found a lot of good self analysis. We may have different issues, but I liked her thought process.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (2007)

I know I just read this book this summer, but I had also bought the audio version and wanted to hear Jim Dale's performance. With a couple of trips to Indiana, I had the time to listen to the whole thing. Though I knew the basic storyline, there were so many details I had forgotten, so I paid more attention to Snape and the Deathly Hallows. Dale's performance was incredible, as always. I read somewhere that he had 50 or more voices for all the characters.

Run by Ann Patchett (2007)

I was so glad to see a new book out by Ann Patchett, and it was good. The book covered an intense 24 hour period, where we meet Bernard Doyle, a former major of Boston, and his two adopted black sons Tip and Teddy, at a speech by Jesse Jackson. After the speech Tip almost gets killed by a car, but a woman pushes him out of the way and gets the brunt of the impact. The way Patchett unveils the intertwined lives of these people, Doyle's other son Sullivan and the woman's daughter Kenya is fascinating. I listened to this on audio, and there was a short interview with the author at the end. It was interesting that Patchett thought the book was about politics, as she researched the Kennedy's for Doyle, but she said others thought the story was about family. I felt it was about the intense relationships between parents and children, the dreams we have for our kids, but how they have to find their own way. I am also amazed at how easily, but realistically she portrays interracial relationships. I hope we don't need to wait that long for the next Patchett book .

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler (2007)

I am not exactly a Jane Austen fan, so I didn't get all the Austen references, but I did enjoy this book. I really like books that put someone from today's world into a historical setting. This one was a modern time-travel novel, not science fiction. Courtney from LA, who has just broken up with her fiance, wakes up as Jane Mansfield in 19th century England. I loved her descriptions of all of the sensations she feels - the smells - of unwashed folks, but also the taste and smells of great food - which she can now eat in this new body. She has to learn to use a chamber pot, and has poor servants carry water up to her room for frequent baths. Then she has to learn to talk and follow all the crazy social rules and participate in balls and other social gatherings. Jane's mother is trying to set her up with Charles Edgeworth - a rich, good looking guy. This is where it got like a romance novel and she went through the same mental machinations she was having back home, and Jane Austen women have always had. I didn't understand why Courtney didn't think about what Jane would want and I have a hard time with all the thoughts about women not being worth anything without a man. But other than that, it was great fun.

Taft by Ann Patchett (1994)

At one point I bought all of Ann Patchett's books, lent some of the out, read most of them, but this I saved for later. Well later came this summer, and as always, I enjoyed Pathcett's take on life. It's been a while now since I read the book, but there was a black bartender, who misses his kid, and who befriends a lost young white girl he hires at his bar. She looks into people in interesting ways.

The Collectors by David Baldacci (2006)

I picked this up in the grocery, because I recognized the Library of Congress main reading room on the cover - and sure enough, the first murder occurs in the library. I loved all the details about the Rare Book reading room, their vault, how they send books to be repaired, specific rare editions, the eccentric rare book dealer, etc. Plus I was looking for something entertaining to take my mind off my heavy workload at this time of year. I used to like spy thrillers and I got into this one. I like the use of all the new technology. I am wondering whether old spy thrillers would seem quaint, without the Internet, cell phones, and more. As often is the case in these thriller novels, we start out with a set of disparate characters, each in their own dramatic event - Roger Seagraves, the killer; Anabelle and her various con men, Caleb Shaw, the Library of Congress employee, who is friends with Oliver Stone the ex-spy (funny alias for a number of reasons, but I kept visualizing him as the movie director), Reuben and Milton. These four not so young gentlemen are the Camel Club, which I now understand figure in other Baldacci books. Unfortunately there are quite a few deaths along the way, but then we see it on TV too. I'll have try out a few more of Baldacci's books.