Playing for Pizza by John Grisham (2007)

I was told that the author had enjoyed traveling in Italy, so wrote a novel so he could describe Italy in detail. That part I liked, though please don't tell me all about churches and architecture without photos or illustrations - which of course is an impossibility when listening to a book, but I'm quite sure the novel wasn't illustrated. (That's why I liked that illustrated Da Vinci Code book so well.)

What surprised me was, that this was a football story. Rick Dockery, a third string quarterback makes major mistakes in a major game and escapes to play in Italy. I could really do without the play by play descriptions of the games, though I did learn something about the game - it has been just a bunch of guys bashing into each other to me. I admit to total ignorance of one of America's great pastimes.

I did like the Italians and their enthusiasm for the game without expecting any pay, and the support and friendliness they showed to Rick, the down and out quarterback. I enjoyed seeing him regain his confidence. I understood more of my uncle Frank, who married my mother's sister. I now regret that I didn't take the chance to be with him and his Italian friends more. The seemed louder than my family, and I didn't understand their joking style. This book has helped clarify that.

A major part of the Italian culture is food, and Grisham did a good job of describing eating in Italy, which just enforced what Gilbert had said in her book Eat, Pray, Love. As with the architecture, I was wishing for a visual, or actually, a taste of all he mentioned. Again, I got insight into my aunt, who was very food focused. She was a great cook and took care to feed us well, though pasta wasn't usually part of her holiday meals.

Down River by John Hart (2007)

Wasn't a favorite, so I forgot to write down, that I had listened to this book this fall. Adam Chase returns to his home town in North Carolina, which he has left as an acquitted murderer, but returns to a mystery intertwined with family secrets and mis-communication. I must just be tired of reading guy books, as I found the main character unsympathetic, though the tale was intriguing. Publisher's Weekly commented that Down River "should settle once and for all the question of whether thrillers and mysteries can also be literature." So I guess it was well written, on the bestseller list, but not for me.

What do I know, I just found out (May 2008) that this book got the Mystery Writers of America 2008 Edgar Allen Poe Award.

Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee (2007)

Another book I had missed entering into my blog. I believe it was the title that grabbed me - and it refers to the free lunches provided to wealthy at an investment bank. I liked this glimpse into the Korean American culture - the hard working parents putting their bright daughter through Princeton, but she can never find satisfaction, and is obsessed with clothes and accessories, which I just can't relate to. The high pressure business world has always repulsed me, but I understand that it is very attractive to numerous emigrant groups. Latvians went more for doctors and lawyers, though we have our share of business men. It was interesting to read about the Korean church and community - with some similarities to Latvians. Not a great read, but again I learned about one more ethnic group. I found a review on Amazon from a Korean American, who felt that too many negative stereotypes were brought out in the book, but that is the way with writers, the negative aspects of our lives are often more interesting to describe.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2006)

I had been looking at this book for a while, finally bought it in paperback. Fascinating, it seemed unlike anything I have read, but when I read the "discussion points" in the back, I realized it does have a lot of similarities with classic gothic novels, though I haven't analyzed those since high school. Jane Eyre and other classic books are mentioned and play a part in the story. Didn't I just read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict? How do Austen (1775-1817) and Bronte (1816-1855) fit together? May need to look that up.

There is a story within the story. Margaret Lea works with her father in an antique book store and is asked to write a biography of Vida Winter, who is a famous author on her deathbed, but has never revealed her own life story. The bulk of the book is Winter's strange story of growing up in a crumbling mansion, raised by the employees as the family was non-existent or mentally unstable. There are ghosts, and twin sisters, faint glimpses of romance. Interestingly, Winter became such a prolific author, because she was escaping her own memories and living in the world of her imagination and her characters. The life story of Winter is interspersed by Margaret's story. She too has a past that is unresolved, but we see her get involved in Winter's story. She goes beyond listening to Winter herself, and checks facts where she can, and goes back to the mansion that burned many years ago to unearth more of it's secrets.

The disturbing family life was exacerbated by my parallel reading. As I was reading this at home, I was listening to Virgin Suicides in the car, which parallels the dysfunctional family keeping children imprisoned in an very unhealthy home environment. Both made me very uncomfortable. There was an interesting statement in The Thirteenth Tale, which I was going to mark, but didn't, about having to wait until you get one book out of your system before starting the next. You feel attached to characters, live with them, and it takes a while to let go of them. By reading two or more books at the same time, I really confuse things, and sometimes mix them up, or as in this case, it intensified my feeling of despair.

I loved that this was again about the book world - Margaret helping her father sell old books gave me a glimpse into the rare book market. I wasn't thrilled that she limited her reading to classics, as there is so much interesting literature coming out today. Margaret had to read Winter's contemporary books before she interviewed the author, so she knew something about her subject. At one point Margaret is given Sherlock Holmes' books to read to lighten her up, though much has been published since Sherlock. Of course Winter is an author, and a lot of the stories happen in the libraries of either the mansion of the past or Winter's current residence.

Final answer? Though depressing at times, still one of the best books I've read this year.

An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco (2004)

I haven't picked up any children's books lately, and with the Christmas season I saw this book from one of my favorite children's book authors and bought it - otherwise my kid book collection is getting stagnant. This is another one of Patricia Polacco's wonderful poignant historical stories about one of her ancestors (lucky she has a huge family). Set in Michigan, the father takes the horse and buggy to Lansing to pick up oranges, while everyone else gets ready for Christmas. They live at a railroad stop, feed the hobos traveling on the train, go to the woods for the tree, and get ready for Christmas in the old fashioned big family way. I have always loved Polocco's stories and her illustrations. She pulls you into the story with her animated characters of all ages. Makes me a bit wistful...

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.

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevlier (2007)

Another wonderful period piece by Chevalier. This one is about London, and the historical figure is William Blake, but he is a peripheral character. I would say that since the main characters are children, this could be aimed at the young adult audience, but the sexual realities are too stark, so I don't think it is meant for them. Wonderful tale.

The Summer He Didn't Die by Jim Harrison (2005)

I have never read anything by Jim Harrison, one of Michigan's own, well know by my friends up north. I really enjoyed this, though it was composed of three very different pieces. "The Summer He Didn't Die" was my favorite, about a partial Indian who lives in northern Michigan and raises a couple of kids. Maybe it is not so important what this story is about, but it just gives a rich sense of this man, the people around him, and the environment. I also found it quite funny. "Republican Wives" was about sorority sisters from University of Michigan, who end up unhappy with their husbands, taking lovers, etc. Again, sometimes very good descriptions, other times it grated on me. "Tracking" is in three parts - childhood, young adulthood, and getting older - the life of a writer. Wonder how much is autobiographical? I will have to see what I can find out about him. Again Michigan figures heavily - as his home base, as the place to get away, fish, the cabin in the UP, etc. I will have to read more by Harrison.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (2007)

Totally unique kind of book. This is a children's book about a historical figure - Georges Melies, an early filmmaker. The book is very visual and meant to give you a sense of watching a movie, but not like a simple picture book. Of the 530 pages in the book, almost 300 are illustrations. The text pages alone would be a fairly short chapter book. The black and white illustrations are great, you actually feel the boy Hugo running through the train station, you see him slipping away in his hideaways by observing the sole of a shoe in a doorway. The story is again my favorite kind - historical fiction. Hugo is fictional, but Melies, is not and the elaborate wind-up toys are also real. The book is so unique it has it's own website where the author explains his process.

Thursday Next in First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (2007)

This is a book I almost gave up on, as the alternate universe was so complex and the literary references seemed too much, but out of inertia I kept putting new CD's in the player, and it grew on me. It was a pretty neat concept, that there is a whole world of characters behind the scenes waiting to be read in books. A lot of issues that are a part of my daily life in the library were brought up, like the decrease in people reading, especially young people.

Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor (2006)

Wonderful biography of Dolley Madison, wife of our 4th president, James Madison. Though raised a Quaker, she created the social world of the new capital - Washington City. I had never thought about the beginnings of Washington, with muddy streets and incomplete buildings for congress, the president, the government. The early years of American history are fascinating. What was it like to set up a new form of government, create a new country, learn to work together? Looks like the bi-partisan system has evolved over these last 200 plus years.

I was exposed to the early years of the U.S., including the War of 1812, which I have to admit I still don't understand. Amazing that it involved fighting with Canada and Michigan played a role at Macinac.

Dolley had the opportunity to meet many interesting people of those times. She knew twelve presidents in her life and people like Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun, who I vaguely remember from a history paper I wrote in high school. I was intrigued by Jefferson after visiting Monticello and the University of Virginia last year. This book offered some criticism of Jefferson, but that doesn't surprise me.

Dolley was know for her social events, where politicians and other important people would gather and exchange ideas. Since there was little else available in early Washington City, she was a pioneer, and the author believes she facilitated the workings of the early government by providing this venue for discussion.

The end of the book discussed what Dolley chose to keep for posterity. She worked hard to save the heritage of her husband, but she destroyed certain of her own letters. The first biographies were written by her relatives, based on things she had written herself. It sounds that for many years that was the "official" biography and only recently new versions have become available.

Though I feel this book could have used some more editing - same things were repeated over and over again, I still appreciate the enormity of the job. Obviously many hours were spent pouring over letters and other documents in archives (always an exciting prospect for me as librarian), and the language of the day needed to be deciphered. Though I usually prefer being fed history through novels, I enjoyed learning about this era through Allgor's book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

J.K. Rowling did not disappoint. A great finish to a great series.

Harry Potter and the Oder of the Phoenix

Just had to listen to this one, so I remembered the details before reading the last book.

London Calling by Edward Bloor (2006)

This was a wonderful surprise of a book - a young adult book I got hoping my son would be willing to listen to a book again on our last trip, but the iPod ruled. London Calling had just the right combination of today's teen angst, a well researched historical period, and a bit of magic. Martin doesn't get along with many of his classmates in a religious prep school. His grandmother leaves him an old radio, when she dies, and through the radio he connects with London of 1940. I now realize that I never did understand what the London Blitz was all about, but through Martin's time travel, I got a clear image of life in London at that time - and how brave the English really were to not give in to Hitler while being constantly bombed. Martin gets to see both his grandfather, and the grandfather of his arch enemy in their youth. These family "heroes" aren't always so heroic. I like it when a historical figure gets personalized beyond official accomplishments. Even though these are fictional historical figures, the same idea applies, since that kind of information is rarely recorded.

The thing that thrilled the librarian in me was how Martin goes about researching and verifying the things he has seen in the past. He uses the Internet, then his sister has access to in depth databases through her work at an encyclopedia publisher (how cool is that?), and he finds some primary sources - a lady with photos, and eventually letters and diaries, that change how certain people and a period in history will be recorded. Martin even tracks someone from that time period down to interview.

One more piece of my world view jig saw puzzle is in place. I've recommended this book to my children's lit. colleague.

Heckuva Job, Bushie! by G.B. Trudeau (2006)

I hadn't bought or read a Doonesbury book for ages. I have followed the comic strip since college, over 30 years. Recently it is something in my "fun"column on my computer, and I check it almost every day. I have really liked Trudeau's comments on the war and its consequences, so I thought it was important to buy this particular book, which covers the strips from 2005-2006, including Alex choosing a college. I remember Cornell getting into the spirit and sending the fictional character an application packet. I feel BD's returning home as an amputee especially moving. I have just reconnected with an old friend JB, who was the first Vietnam vet I knew. Lasting effects... And then there is Duke returning to the states - to New Orleans, to milk the post Katrina money. Or Zonker working in a restaurant, where his goal is to push calories. Trudeau has this amazing way of zoning in on the important issues of our day, and he has such a wonderful cast of characters - and now their kids - to illustrate these issues.

The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery (2006)

Wonderful, wonderful book. Historical fiction at its best. Aurelia, a young girl from New York, loses her mother and travels to Japan with her uncle. She runs away during a fire and is taken in by a Japanese family who name her Urako. We see Japan from 1866-1891, as they open their country to Western influences. The Shinn family has done tea ceremonies for generations, but even those have to change in changing times. Yukako learns the tea ceremony from behind screens while her father teaches it to young men. When financial times are hard, Yukako teaches the ceremony to other women. The story line is actually not that important, the things that drew me to this book were the descriptions of the richly textured life in Japan - the relationships, the class system, the custom, the dress, the food, the bathing, everything. For example, I had no idea that when kimonos were cleaned, they were first dismantled, then washed, then sown back together. Households actually had seamstresses just for that purpose. Unsurprisingly, the arranged marriages often were not very happy ones, but this book gave me a more in depth sense of those and the relationship between men and women. Since interaction between the sexes was so limited, it created a tight knit female community. The Western influences leads to more options for the women, not only in dress, but in schooling and work.

It was fascinating to watch this Western girl adapt, learn the language, and latch on to this family - so giving us an insider's glimpse into the Japanese world, but with Western understanding. I have to admit, I never did fully understand the importance of the tea ceremony - something you had to train for years to do correctly with subtleties that go way beyond my perceptual abilities. Maybe if I think of it as an ultimate piece of classical performance art. Otherwise it is hard to imagine the level of luxury that has to be obtained to spend that much time and focus on this choreographed social gathering. I'll have to talk to a Japanese expert to understand this more fully. But the book itself made me feel great - I learned about another piece of the world and a specific time period, I enjoyed Urako and many of the characters created by Ellis Avery, and the storyline too was fulfilling in ways I can't describe without giving too much away.

This is Ellis Avery's first novel, and as Emily Barton wrote for the LA Times: "a novel that, like the tea ceremony itself, provides true pleasure to the intellect and all the senses."

Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts (2005)

Now this is the Nora Roberts I like and respect. This was a cross between Roberts' normal romances and her J.D. Robb books with tough cop Eve. This time the heroine Reena Hale works for the arson unit and is trained as a firewoman. The setting is Baltimore, and since I was just there for a conference this spring, I had been to Little Italy and recognized some of the places mentioned in the book. We see Reena from childhood, when she is fascinated by the fire that destroys her parents' restaurant. I loved her close knit family and cozy family business. The other unusual aspect of this book was that we got a realistic view of the various semi-serious relationships Reena has throughout her life. Usually romances just have the two people meet, and it seems that there is nothing in their past, they find the one and only. Now this lady has a lot of fires in her life - not just as part of her job, but as part of her life. It takes her a while to put it all together that they are connected, but the trip through her life is worth following. I had no idea what it takes to become a specialist in arson - and it is amazing how much they can tell about the origins of a fire. It is also scary to see the other side - how an arsenist can set up a destructive blaze. I also liked Bo Goodnight - a great carpenter, who once saw Reena at a party many years ago and was smitten by her.

Zen and the Art of Motercycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (1974)

I had the urge to reread this and was glad I did. I read it soon after it came out - it was already a cult classic back then. I am amazed at how philosophical I was in my youth. I know it influenced my thinking. I learned to appreciate back roads, I know I had plans to learn to fix my own car after this book, though I only got as far as oil changes. It is the ultimate road trip book and I should have been listening to it on a long trip this time - because I would be in tune with his travel story, and I would have had more time to process his philosophy. Trying to get into the proper mood on short trips around town did not work, so I let some of the philosophy just pass me by. He discussed things like classical and romantic thinking, truth, insanity, rhetoric, aesthetics. Sometimes he equated Zen with boredom. I liked his take on "gumption", a word that also appeared in the movie The Holiday. I was riveted by his discussion of the academic world - academic freedom, the importance of reason, grading... I will just have to read or listen to it again sometime. I was uncomfortable with the author's son on the trip, who is watching his father getting so deep into thought, he is almost losing it, and the trip becomes quite boring with just day after day on the road, without interesting stops. Having traveled with a child all over the US, I know the importance of keeping him engaged.

After reading the book I was wondering what had happened to the author Robert Pirsig, and to find out if the book was really autobiographical, whether he really had gone insane. My library sources told me that he had written another book and gotten all sorts of awards, but nothing was said about what he had done for the last 20 years. A link from the Wikipedia filled in the blanks - someone had created a timeline for Persig - where he was when, including the time he was hospitalized. The timeline also followed the life of his son Chris, who traveled with him and was killed outside a Zen center in 1979. Pirsig has kept writing and living in different parts of the world. The last few years are listed as "living very privately," which I totally understand and respect.

Rebellion by Nora Roberts (1988)

I should have looked at this more closely. Roberts wrote this for Sihouette Books, so it must be one of those formulaic historical romances. Set in Scotland of 1745 with the Scottish heroine Serena MacGregor hating all the English, even her brother's friend Brigham Langston, though he helps the Scottish rebels. You know the rest - they fall in love and live happily ever after.

This would have been a wonderful opportunity to explain this historical time and the disagreement between the English and Scotts, but instead there is just the romance floating though this unexplained hatered. There were a few interesting parts for me - the herbal healer, and the way the "rebellion" was organized. They had to convince the farmers to fight, though the chances of survival and/or winning were small. I was glad to see that many were reluctant to go fight against the larger English force. The military strategy also was not well thought out. For some reason military strategy has caught my attention in a few books over the past few years - Churchill's brilliance as a tactician, Hitler's learning military strategy as a child organizing his schoolmates, good behind the scenes planning by Mary, Queen of Scotts (I think) and the poor planning of timing and supplies by one of the English kings in Philippa Gregory's book.

Magyk by Angie Sage (2005)

Now here's a wonderful fantasy book for young adults (i.e. the main characters are kids and nothing too too awful happens.) Yes we have a new world, new social structure of wizards and non-wizards, some weird creatures, but they are introduced slowly, so we can get used to them and get to like them or hate them, depending on whether they were aligned with good or bad guys. Jenna grows up in the Heap family of wizards, the only girl amongst 6 boys. Boy 412 grows up in the army. My only slight complaint was the use of two very well know terms from the Harry Potter series: Bogart and Trelawny. Otherwise, I can't wait to read the next one, and I'll have to wait for the release of the third.

Arabat by Clive Barker (2002)

Sounded interesting, but I had little tolerance for things I don't like in reading, so I quit this one after a few chapters. Clive Barker is usually a mystery writer, I think. I did not like his forray into young adult fantasy. The names all sounded too cutsy, the situations too contrived - they always are, but this one just got on my nerves.

Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer (2007)

The premise was great, and I had never read anything by Mailer, so I thought I would try this. Mailer looks at Hitler's youth and family in a fictional story, hoping to explain what made him so evil. The narrator is non other than a minion of Satan. So far so good and from a few things I mentioned to a friend who has studied Hitler and the Holocaust, looks like Mailer covered a lot of the controversies around Hitler's childhood and family - so it was probably well researched. What really got to me was Mailer's sense of the role Satan and his minions have played in historical events. He has his own elaborate definition of what is evil and how people get drawn into being Satan's pawns, and what the relationship is with God. It is not a Christian definition, but his own. I can respect that, but it made no sense to my ethical constructs and didn't further my understanding of evil - a concept I have struggled with at different times in my life. This didn't help. The historical figures got so tedious, that I lost interest in what happened to them and gave up on the book about three fourths of the way through.

I was interested in the concept of incest brought up in the very beginning. I never thought of it, but the close proximity of family members in those days, often sharing rooms and beds, could have easily have led to incestual relationships. I'm sure this is covered in sexual histories, I just haven't read any.

I was also fascinated in the beginning about the detailed descriptions of bee-keeping, one of the endeavors Hitler's dad takes on, but then it just got to be too much. Since I was listening, I couldn't flip past the pages on this.

Firebirds Rising, edited by Sharyn November (2006)

It's been a long time since I've read an anthology, especially one of fantasy and science fiction. I was lead to this by a middle school student I know, who was looking for information on Tamora Pierce and Angie Sage. Tamora had a short story in this. I found myself liking most of the stories I read, but surprisingly did not like the one about librarians - In the House of the Seven Libraryians by Ellen Klages, seven librarians stay behind when the library moves to a new, modern building. They keep up their work even without any readers, and occasional new books appear, like the Harry Potter books, but they continue living in the old library style. I still love the physical book and like to hold them and read them (and buy and keep them!) But librarianship has moved way beyond that, and this story felt to retro, mourning the passing of the old ways.

Some authors were known to me, like Sharon Shinn - in her alternative world, where they celebrate Wintermoons. I know I read a whole series by Patrica McKillip a long time agao. Tanith Lee, Alan Dean Foster, Charles de Lint, are names I recognize from years ago. But the most interesting stories came from the writers I didn't know - Tamora Pierce, Alison Goodman, Kara Dalkey.

Six Mornings on Sanibel by Charles Sobczak (1999)

Picked this up on Sanibel Island during Spring Break. Nice gentle, feel-good book on why people move to Sanibel, or spend time there, leaving their hectic lives behind.

Maggie Darling by James Howard Kunstler (2004)

This "modern romance" was given to me by my friend Sniedze - just for the fun of it. Maggie Darling (yes, that is her last name) is a Martha Stewart type, whose world starts falling apart, but whenever she needs to calm herself, she starts making lists. She has a perfect house, impeccable parties, glorious garden - it's just her relationships with people that leave a lot to be desired. It was kind of fun. I was totally bored by the details about food - none of it sounded tasty to me. She drank a lot, mostly expensive rare wines and scotch - one way to deal with problems. I never liked Martha Stewart until she went to jail - then she became more human and likable. I never really got to like Maggie Darling, but I did like the man she finally ends up with. I also liked some of the settings - the over the top 747 that used to belong to an Arab sheik, the film set in Vienna - where there is so much waiting around, that people get bored. I didn't mind her fling with the rock & movie star, and liked it when she knew when to call it quits. The calamities were definitely contrived - husband, son, best friend, etc. but it was basically a fun read. The interesting thing about the author Kunstler, is that he writes for the New York Times Sunday Magazine and op-ed page, and has written much more serious books.

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk (2001)

Well, I'm testing my limits of tolerance. This one found my limit and I just chose to not keep listening to it. Maybe I'm getting too old, maybe it is another generation's irreverence I can't take, maybe it was just too black for me, but I realized I had nothing to gain by forcing myself to read this to the end. When the character's motivating phrase is "What would Jesus NOT do" it can lead to some pretty lousy life choices. I didn't care what happened to the character - I doubt he got redeemed, so let him continue his fictitious life story without my being witness to it.

The narrator of the story is a med school drop-out who earns a living working at a historical theme park and to earn extra cash for his mother's upkeep in a home (OK, I guess that is a bit redeeming) he pretends to choke in restaurants, lets people save him, and then continues correspondence with them. Since they feel responsible for him after saving his life, they send him money. He has a loser of a friend who collects rocks. I don't know why that particular obsession really got to me. It was basically harmless, could be funny, but it drove me nuts to hear about all the parts of the house that were taken over by rocks. Plus these two are sex addicts. I don't mind occasional explicit sexual content in books, but this was just not fun or appealing, just kind of gross.

I turned to my favorite book review source - Amazon (blasphemy) and learned that this is just the way Paluhniuk writes. Publisher's Weekly commented that the audio book was read by the author himself in an off beat way, appropriate to the book. But the best reviews were from average readers. One warned to stay away from this book if you are at all squeamish. Another just said it must be a guy book, as she didn't like it. Maybe that's it. I saw this book at some friend's vacation condo. Maybe it was the guy reading it. Or maybe I wouldn't enjoy reading a drugs and sex book from my era anymore either.

Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg (2005)

This is by the author of Bee Season, an unusual book, as is this one. The setting is Boston early 20th century, centering around the flu epidemic of 1918, where more people lost their lives than in all the wars of the century. The main story line follows working class Lydia, who works in an apartment store, then marries an intellectual man Wickett, they invent Wickett's Remedy, and she ends up working on Gallops Island, helping with research on the epidemic. Her story is intertwined with various others, including Quentin Driscoll, the owner of QD Soda company. Since I was listening to the book instead of reading it, in the beginning it was disconcerting to hear different voices and lead-ins with varied sound effects. I was forced to go look at the copy in our library, so I could see the printed version. Goldberg uses alternate ways to tell the story or give various sides to the story:
1. The whole book is full of side notes - comments printed in the outside margin of the book - like notes one would write when studying a text book. These side notes are most often comments from a person mentioned in the main story. Someone's thoughts at the time, remembering Lydia or an incident a different way. Sometimes the person has already passed away, but comments on how it "really was" for them.
2. Actual articles from the newspapers of the times, mostly strange human interest stories or letters to the editor about public spitting, lack of phone service, etc., all giving a flavor of the crisis. (These were accompanied by obnoxious newsroom sounds.)
3. Articles from the QDispatch, a fictional newsletter of the QD Soda company, that give the story of Quentin Driscoll and his soda empire. (These were accompanied by a cheery jingoistic kind of music and read by a high pitched female voice.)
4. Letters (accompanied by typing sounds) from various characters, sometimes you don't know who is writing, but you figure it out in the end.

Goldberg ties everything together in the end, but not necessarily in a satisfying way. Then again, the world doesn't always work out the way we would like, and this one definitely did not, but it was still an intriging book. It appeals to me as historical fiction with wonderful insights into the life of those times (she had done her research), differences in classes, men going of to the war in Europe, medicine at that time, etc. Goldberg gets points from me for thanking reference librarians for helping her with the research.

Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther (2006)

Wonderful book!

The curious incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (2003)

I read this a few years ago, after I purchased it in London, and this year it has been chosen as the local community reading book. I wanted to reread it after reading Haddon's A Spot of Bother. Plus my son had started reading this, but hadn't finished it - so it was a good thing to have on our trip.

Again, this was an amazing trip into Christopher's mind, a young bright mind that doesn't work like most. He is austistic and hates to be touched, has a hard time interacting with people, but once he sets his mind on going to London, he is incredible brave. At time funny, at times sad, this book just makes me feel good and hopeful for humanity.

Painted House by John Grisham (2001)

I've never read anything by Grisham, but this was given to me by Sniedze, because it was about migrant workers and cotton growers in the South. I liked it, especially since it was written from the view point of seven year old Luke Chandler. His family owns a cotton farm, and they have to hire hill people and Mexicans to help pick the cotton crop in the couple months. The story is rich with details of farm life, small town life, the different groups, listening to baseball games, etc. I can't even image what it would be like to spend long hot days out in the fields picking cotton, where every hand is important, even the work of a seven year old. The "painted house" comes from one of the hill boys, who's health prevents him from working out in the field, but he starts painting Luke's house. When it seems everything is falling apart, painting the house becomes something important and hopeful.

I finished reading this book while on vacation on Sanibel Island in Florida, and the day I finished it, I took a walk and met a local woman who showed me her garden and gave me a pod and ball of wild cotton. Strange...

Irish Dreams by Nora Roberts (2007)

I was really disappointed in these two from Roberts, but when I looked more closely, they were written for Sihouette Books, so there must be some formula that the writers have to follow. These virginal stories with minimal setting or character development or realistic explanation of motivation are a bit hard to take. The women are still strong, but not great Nora Roberts.

Irish Rebel (2000)
Brian Donnelly comes over from Ireland to manage the horses for a wealthy horesefarm. He falls for the owner's daughter Keeley Grant, who he originally thinks is an ice princess. Of course she is not... There was another horse farm story by Roberts I read a while ago. The horse farm was described in detail, and the two characters were OK, but their motivations were a bit sketchy for me.
Sullivan's Woman (1984)
This was the least fun - Cassidy St. John a buddingwriter with Irish blood loses her job and takes on modeling for artist Colin Sullivan, from Ireland. I'm sorry, I just didn't get this staring at each other and falling totally in love with each other, with the usual - Oh I'm sure he doesn't care for me, but then he really does. Set in the wonderful San Francisco - so much more could be done with that, but oh well.

Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn (2005)

This audio book sat in my car for the longest time, so I had no idea why I had chosen it. I haven't read any spy thrillers in a long time, I liked them back in high school, but this must have been suggested by Allison at Audiobooks, since it was about our post 9-11 "war on terror." I have to admit I quite enjoyed it, even if most of it centered on CIA's black operations, where they take the law into their own hands, circumventing diplomacy and world court procedures. The targets seem logical for elimination in the current atmosphere, but I know the CIA has made numerous dubious choices in the past, so I had to set aside this critical thinking to enjoy the read.

We get the story from various points of view, so it isn't a simple bad-guy, good guy set-up. Our "good guy" is Mitch Rapp, a CIA operative well know as a skilled assasin, who easily slips accross borders, and does his job without collateral damage. Back home he dearly loves his wife, a White House correspondant for TV. The CIA director, a woman, supports him, as does the president, since he has averted major terrorist attacks. The newly appointed head of what we know as Homeland Security gets in the way, and is one of the most negative characters, though we have heard the arguments in real life.

The we see the different layers of "bad guys." First of all there is the Saudi who hires an ex-East German spy to orchestrate the elimination of Rapp. This guy then hires a male-female couple of very skilled assasins to do the job. We get everyone's life story and how they fell into this line of business. For the couple this will be their last job before they retire, and settle down to raise a family. Maybe not. One of the things I liked was the comparison of the couples - each wants the best for their families, and the women add an element of humanity and vulnerability to our (anti)heroes.

This reminded me of the changes in our post 9-11 world, including our relation to the Saudis. I am not sure what the role of the CIA is or should be, but as I said, I just had to put all the philosphizing aside and enjoy the story.

The Boy in Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (2006)

An intense young adult book about a young boy, who is the son of the comandant at Auschwitz. He is disappointed to leave his family home and friends to move out to this house next to a fence. As he starts to explore, he meets a boy his own age on the other side of the fence, but he never really understands what is going on. Boyne manages to treat this heavy topic with great sensitivity - balancing between the boy's naievete and the horror of the reality.

Crawling at Night by Nani Power (2001)

Don't laugh, I chose this book to see what is considered "erotic fiction" by the Library of Congress. I still don't know what they mean by that term, but I stumbled accross a very interesting book about various Asian immigrants in New York City. The format of the book is unusual, each chapter starting with a menu, where one might usually find a quote. The menu items often are from the Japanese cuisine, as is the main character chef Katsuyuki Ito, but they can range from fatty tuna, rice and sake to Froot Loops, Twinkies and beer. The "erotic" scenes were no more that what one would find in many a romance book or in many novels written for adults, where sexual relations are just part of life.

I tried to figure out what Nani Power's connection was to the Asian immigrants, as her name did not sound Asian, so I checked Contemporary Authors and found out she worked as a chef in a Japanese restaurant. This would explain why all her detailed descriptions of Japanese food and its preparation seemed so intense.

Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende

I just love Isabel Allende. Another wonderful book, this time about the founding of Chile. Allende tells the story from a woman's point of view. Inez Suarez is an actual historical character - a woman from Spain who comes looking for her husband in the new world, but finds he has been killed in battle, and then falls in love with Pedro deValdivia, becomes his mistress, and helps him found Chile. Her skills in medicine, sewing, and food preparation are vital to the founding of Santiago. History books tell us about the battles, but rarely about the day in and day out survival that has to happen for a settlement to thrive, and Allende shows that this kind of work was often done by women. Allende tells a good story, as if told by Inez Suarez at the end of her life, who is telling it to her daughter Isabel. I like the historical and geographic setting, the realities of the hardships they had to endure. I have to admit I did had trouble listening to the way the Spanish invaded Chile and the bloody battles with the Indians, who were only trying to defend their territory. Allende was able to walk the fine line - her Inez was also disgusted by unusual cruelty, but at the same time not apologetic about being there in the first place - as if it was the right of the Spanish to come in and take over the lands from the Mapuche. I found it fascinating how the races intermixed. All the Spanish men used the Indian women, and had plenty of mixed children by them. There were also black slaves and various different native South Americans including the Incas and the Mapuche. Since I was listening to this book instead of reading it, some of the terms are unclear to me. Though there have been racial mixtures throughout the Americas, the Puritan whites were probably less likely to have children from Indians, and definitely less likely to make them part of the community. Racial mixtures - another field of inquiry for me, as I now want to read more about Chile, and may reread some of Allende's other books, which talk about later years in Chile's history. Oh how we could use an author like her for Latvian history!

Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (2006)

Here is the latest from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which I picked up in London a few years ago, really enjoyed and it has now been chosen as the Reading Together selection for our town. It took me a while to get into Spot of Bother, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Haddon seems to be really able to get into people's heads. He gives you the average family - aging father George, slightly bored mother Jean who is having an affair, daughter Katy who's raising her son on her own, and gay son Jamie. All of their lives seem to be falling apart at the time Katy is planning a wedding to Ray, a steady type bloke, who isn't quite good enough for the rest of this family. The story is told in over a 100 snippets rotating between the viewpoints of these main characters. You see George getting confused and anxious, and you see people's reaction and interpretation of his confusion and anxiety. You see the dynamic between Ray and Katy. I got very early on, that Ray was the one that was going to get this family together in the end. Jamie's homosexuality was treated well, as was his relationship with Tony, his parents' attempt to accept, his own anxiousness about their acceptance, his reluctance to commit, etc. Great book!

Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd (2005)

Maureen Dowd is one of my favorite opinion columnists, along with Barbara Erehnreich, and the recently deceased Molly Ivins. I've been reading this book for a few months, as it really isn't a story, but a series of essays on gender issues. Many of her facts are quite disconcerting - the huge increase in plastic surgery in the last few years, the way the younger women seem to be going backwards on many women's rights issues. Fascinating compilation of current cultural indicators, but not in an academic sense. This kind of book cries out for footnotes and a bibliography, but it is not that kind of an academic book.

Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille (1990)

I don't remember why this book was recommended to me and, for a while, I thought that the 25 hours of listening time would never be over, but I have to say, the book grew on me. When I finished it, I went back to the introduction to again hear how DeMille was inspired by The Great Gatsby, and described his idea as "Godfather meets Great Gatsby on the Gold Coast". I have to admit, that even though I grew up in the New York City area, I had never heard of the Gold Coast - the northern shore of Long Island, where the richest of the rich used to have their mansions. DeMille himself grew up on Long Island and remembers the great construction boom, which I was aware of, as many Latvian immigrants found jobs building up Long Island in the 50's and 60's.

The story is narrated by John Whitman Sutter, a blue blood lawyer, who has married Susan Stanhope Sutter, who grew up in one of the now deserted mansions. I was interested in the history of this Gold Coast, how the rich settled out here, and how taxes and the Great Depression made these mansions impossible to maintain, so they were often deserted, bulldozed, or sold to institutions. I had a hard time listening to the idle lifestyle of the rich. John is a lawyer, and at least does some work, but still has time for long lunches at the club, and takes off weeks or months to spend in a summer home sailing. Susan rides her horse every day, does some gardening, socializing, and belongs to the Gazebo Club. I guess I need to understand that there are people that live that way, but it was a frustrating read. All people have their demons, and John Sutter's seemed to arise out of boredom, maybe some discontent of this laid back lifestyle. In the first line of the book, John meets Frank Bellarosa, the biggest Mafia don remaining in New York, who has just moved into the estate next door - Alhambra. As a straight laced lawyer, John is repelled by this man and wants nothing to do with him, but Bellarosa is engaging and definitely not boring. Susan too was drawn to this man, as was I. John keeps repeating how this man is dangerous and manipulating, but gets drawn into Bellarosa's life anyway, and watches his own crumble. I am naive in many ways and want to believe the best in people, so I was drawn to Bellarosa's humor, ties to his community, the way he bought goodies for his wife, or planted tomato and other edible plants. I was totally intrigued by the descriptions of Little Italy and the Italian immigrant community, finding some parallels with Latvians. We never had a place like Little Italy, where all could "come home." My aunt married a Sicilian, and I was vaguely aware that he had close ties with his Italian buddies and went to his club to play cards.

For a long time I thought John's problems were outgrowths of his own discontent, but slowly realized that most of them were created by Bellarosa. Since I have never read anything by DeMille, I didn't know he is a writer of thrillers, but there was a simmering thriller underneath. This is not his typical work and it was not reviewed well, but as people started reading it, it became popular among readers, and is sometimes used as a companion to The Great Gatsby in college courses.

Smoke in Mirrors by Jayne Ann Krentz (2002)

This was recommended on some library list because the main character is a librarian. Yea! A good mystery with various twists and turns. The romances all came together a bit too patly, but hey, this was just for fun. Leonora's friend Meredith dies, and Thomas Walker comes looking for her, thinking she knows about some big money Meredith scammed out of an alumni endowment fund. Thomas' brother Deke is convinced his wife was murdered a year ago, and maybe Meredith too. The alumni house is the Mirror House, as it has a collection of antique mirrors, and a library to support that collection, that Leonora comes up to catalog online. I liked the setting in the foggy sounds of the state of Washington. There are various references to academe - getting tenure and the sort, enough to make it feel comfortable. I liked Thomas with his dog Wrench - the guy is into tools, and my favorite passage is when he dresses down Leonora's ex - the academic.

Your Oasis on Flame Lake by Lorna Landvik (1997)

I picked this book up becuase I really enjoyed her Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons. I had a harder time getting into this book, but found it depicted family connections and disconnections pretty well. The story is told by various members of two families - Devera and Dick with daughter Darcy and BiDi and Sergio. Devera and BiDi are best friends from high school, and all the adults seem to be going through a mid-life crises. BiDi seems pretty shallow with ther focus on looks and totally not understanding her daughter Franny, who plays on the hockey team. Sergio really loves BiDi and is very supportive of Franny, though she is not his daughter. Devera is looking for something and ends up having an affair. Dick works on his dream of having a neighborhood nightclub in his basement. He enjoys singing and his daughter Darcy loves to MC and tell jokes. She also becomes a good friend to Franny. Her older sister goes through usual teenage angst, though Franny has the hardest time. I was amazed at the goodness of these two men, and this turned into a feel-good novel for me, even BiDi redeamed herself at the end.

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen (2006)

I saw this reviewed in a few places, so I listened to this mostly funny book set in the Everglades. It has a wide range of characters that somehow end up connected. My favorite was Sammy Tigertail, a half-seminole who is trying to get away from it all and figure out who he really is, except that these attractive, very talkative women keep offering to be his hostage. I found this very funny. More poignant is a boy, whose parents are divorced, and who would like to see them back together again, but doesn't want to be hurt again by their fighting and splitting. His mother, Honey Santana, is the "nature girl" who takes revenge on Boyd Shreve, a phone salesman, who is such a slimy and stupid guy, that I actually had a hard time listening to the sections about him. Honey cons Boyd into coming to Florida, and takes him and his girlfriend out on a kayak trip around the islands in the Everglades. All sorts of other people end out there and for a while it is like a Midsummer Night's Dream with people looking for each other, except a couple of them have guns with them. I guess it all was pretty entertaining.

Firework Maker's Daughter by Philip Pullman (1999)

I somehow was expecting a bit more from the author of the Goldan Compass trilogy, but since this was a very short - 2CD - listen, I guess it had a few interesting ideas. A girl lives with her father, who makes fireworks and teaches her to make them. Her best friend is responsible for a white elephant, who at times gets covered with graffiti and advertisements. She goes on a quest, etc., etc. Maybe I've just been spoiled by some excellent, innovative writing for young adults, so this just felt formulaic to me, but would probably just be fine for young readers.

Looks like I have to amend this. Turns out, this is probably full of Asian folklore that I did not even realize. The white elephant in the story was given to people the ruler did not like, and they were responsible for feeding it and taking care of it until they went broke - so it was an unwanted gift, that you wanted to give away. This is the actual background to "white elephant" gifts of today.

Sampinjona deriba by Laima Muktupavela (2002)

The Mushroom Covenant is a novel about Latvians going to Ireland to work. At the time the novel was written, I believe there were about 10,000 Latvians in Ireland. The number is currently more like 30,000. Muktupavela went to Ireland herself and worked, to see what it was like. She has a background in history and journalism, so she was very observant, but this is not her story, it is a woman with nothing to lose in Latvia. It is just strange to read about my own people being treated like migrant workers - which they are, though they are educated, cultured, etc., but without the knowledge of English, they appear ignorant to many of the Irish. The interactions between the Latvians living and working together are disturbingly distant. The mushrooms in the title refer to the mushrooms our main characters are picking seven days a week. Sometimes they get paid, sometimes they don't. There are good employers and not so good employers. Muktupavela looks at the various motivations of workers to go to Ireland, and what they do with the money they earn. I think this wave of migration is ripe for all sorts of research.

Alvas kliedziens by Gundega Repse (2002)

I wasn't going to list Latvian books in this blog, but I felt I had to list two that I read during Christmas break. The title of this translates as The Tin Scream - a sound made by tin when bent. I am looking for current Latvian fiction to use in teaching about life in Latvia under Soviets and in the era of new independence. I understand that Repse has based this book on her actual diaries from the time she was eleven to sixteen. Much of it reflects normal childhood ups and downs, but her story is full of small details that differ from our childhoods in the U.S. As she gets older, she has a harder time conforming to what is expected of a good soviet student, and with troubles at home, she starts acting out, which is interpreted as mental illness and she is drugged and eventually hospitalized. The normal childhood story gets quite intense. The book would have to be excerpted very selectively, but it has some important scenes like when some students decide to attend church on Christmas eve, and as they come out of the church, a teacher is writing down their names and they are later called in for interrogations. (Definitely more than just a plain discussion.) I don't think our children understand what it was like under the Soviets.

The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau (2006)

A prequel to our much enjoyed books The City of Ember and The People of Sparks. Though interesting in and of itself, it left my son and me unsatisfied as a third book to this provocative series.

Imperium by Robert Harris (2006)

I picked this up because I really like Harris' Pompeii. This was about the historical figure Cicero (106-43 BC), an orator, statesman, political theorist, lawyer and philosopher of Ancient Rome, as nicely summarized by Wikipedia. This historical novel actually gave me more than I ever wanted to know about Cicero, but since it was an audio book, I sat through it and actually was glad I did. The novel is narrated by Cicero's slave, who acts as his secretary and scribe, a man who invented shorthand, to capture almost every word Cicero said. I asked our rare books librarian how did all this text from Cicero survive the ages, as I haven't really heard of vast Roman tablet collections. She explained that the important stuff was transcribed over the ages and these transcriptions have survived.

I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of Roman life, and was fascinated by the political process. Much of our democratic process was developed way back then. Though oratory is still very important in our political process - think campaign speeches and state of the ___ addresses, but I am glad we have gotten away from speeches that last hours. (I remember suffering through some very lengthy speeches on Latvian independence days. Wonder if anyone has collected and analyzed those speeches over the years.)