The Pile Next to the Bed

Before I fall asleep, I have to read, even if only for ten minutes. It’s how I turn off the machine of the day and clear my head of logistics. Next to the bed is a pile of New Yorkers, Harper’s, and stacks of books that don’t quite fit into the shelves; mixed into this pile of grown-up reading are kids’ books, because Caleb naps in our room on the weekends and likes to have a story before snoozle, and because sometimes Liam takes refuge there to read, when Caleb won’t stop bothering him.

Some of the things in this pile aren’t worth a second glance (Scooby-Doo books, anyone?) but because none of us has time to waste with bad books, the list that follows is my two cents about things to read – call it sleepy-headed reviews, maybe?

I’d would love to hear from any of you about what you’re reading or what you think about my reviews. And if you’d like to order any of these books, you might want to use the Amazon link on my Mannahattamamma home page…

December 2010…

• David Mitchell. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and  Cloud Atlas (and probably anything else he’s written, too).  Cloud Atlas is about six novels in one novel – a sci-fi thriller, detective noir, 18th century travelogue, postcolonial adventure–each completely distinct from the others, each a compelling story in its own right. The stories overlap and bump into each other in unexpected ways (nothing so simple as such-and-such is so-and-sos grandfather), and the final paragraphs of the book are brilliantly beautiful. Thousand Autums is about Dutch traders in 1799 Japan, which I know may not sound like the world’s most scintillating subject but…it’s a doomed love story, a political intrigue, a fascinating portrait of a world that frankly I didn’t even know existed–the Dutch did business with the Japanese? Who knew?
• Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett. My friend Alfie suggested this to me, which surprised me, because I always thought this novel was some kind of evangelical type book, like the Rapture series, or something. It’s a medieval beach read, as my friend Jeanellen described it.  Great detailed history–you know you’ve always wanted to know about life in England before Henry II came to the throne–but also a total page-turner, a great romance, and an amazing description of the construction of a cathedral.
• Freedom, Jonathan Franzen. I tried, really, I tried. More than a hundred pages, I tried. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you’ll love it, as did most of the people I know. Me? I wasn’t that hot about The Corrections and unlike Time magazine, I don’t think Franzen is the new Great American Author. Sure parts of it were funny, but I just don’t need another novel about depressed white people and their Stuff.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot. I don’t read much non-fiction, which I am sure signifies my lack of moral fiber and fortitude. BUT this book, about the African American woman whose cells became–without her consent or her knowledge–the basis for modern cell based research, blew me away.
• The Passage, Justin Cronin. An English professor hits the big time – Cronin’s book about vampires was the beach read of the summer…and it’s great! Creepy as hell–even downright scary. These are not your Edward Cullen/”True Blood” vampires, no sire. These are evil, powerful, viral vampires hunting humanity through an already post-apocalyptic landscape–the entire state of Texas has become a hazardous waste dump, there are references to “President Jenna Bush,” and other terrifying futuristic references. It’s great – but make sure you’ve got a nightlight handy, because there are some genuinely scary moments.
• As part of YA reading group that I did with some students, I re-read Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s book The Egypt Game, about a group of kids who set up an elaborate pretend world based on ancient Egypt. When a girl is murdered in their neighborhood, however, things become complicated. This book was written in 1967 but the students in my book group agreed that it stood the test of time; they liked it a lot, as did Liam, when he read it two years ago (as a 3rd grader).  On my own YA time, I zipped through the Hunger Games trilogy, which started strong – the first book is great. Katniss Everdeen’s adventures in the arena, fighting for her life in a show televised for the entire country, hooked me and kept me up late flipping the pages. What I didn’t like is the love story that gets sort of tacked on, as if some editor said to the author “in order to appeal to the teen set, you need some kissing…”  Unfortunately, the love story becomes ever more central in the second and third books, which get progressively less interesting. The third book felt exhausted, as if Collins was dragging herself to the finish line.

• The Immortals, a trilogy by Michael Scott, in which Nicodemus, Machiavelli, Nicholas Flamel, and others appear in modern-day San Francisco, battling over a variety of magical texts in order to preserve their secrets.
• Bartimeus, also a trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud. I have no idea what these are about, but Liam can’t put them down; he’s used his Barnes & Noble birthday gift card to buy books 3 & 4. More fantasy, more swashing and buckling, more arcana.
• Johnny Tremain – remember Johnny Tremain? Revolutionary War, Paul Revere, silversmithing? I loved this book when I was a kid, read it probably three times, and now Liam loves it too.
• Danny, Champion of the World, Roald Dahl. I just finished reading this book to Caleb, who thought it was a little bit scary (pheasant hunting in the woods in the dark) and really funny (the pheasants have a jolly series of poops all over a rich man’s car).

Newer recommendations (Spring 2010)

The Attolia series (The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia) by Megan Whalen Turner: Technically, these are YA books, but that category is, increasingly, just a catch-all for all kinds of great writing. These novels are set in some distant past – a cross between ancient Greece and Byzantium – and tell the story of Eugenides, a thief, whose habit of getting into very sticky situations makes him an utterly engaging hero: his failures make his eventual triumphs all the more surprising – and the books did surprise me, frequently, with their plot twists and character reversals – and I’m not often surprised.

My Dream of You by Nuala O’Faolain: I’m not a big fan of British writers, actually – the Amis family leaves me cold; I’ve never figured out why I’m supposed to adore Iris Murdoch (I’m sure the fault is mine); AS Byatt and Margaret Drabble leave me similarly untouched. I had a fling with Jeannette Winterson in grad school (all that fun gender-bending word-play stuff), but generally speaking, I’m kind of a literary nationalist. Except I loved this book, set in Ireland and England, in both the 21st and 19th centuries. It’s a bit like Byatt’s Possession, in which the contemporary characters are seized by a 19th century event, but in this instance, the 21st century character isn’t a pretty young thing but a middle-aged single woman wondering what her life has amounted to, in the aftermath of a dear friend’s sudden death. This woman, Kathleen de Burca, an Irish woman living in London, travels back to Ireland after twenty years, intent on finding out the truth about a 19th century divorce: an English landlord in Ireland who divorced his wife when he discovered she was having an affair with the stableman (a bit of legal history that is, according to the author, true).  The book moves back and forth to Ireland in the aftermath of the Famine and a cholera outbreak, and contemporary Ireland, in the small towns more-or-less untouched by Ireland’s economic successes. Kathleen’s thoughts about middle-age, about making peace with her family’s history, sound true – almost as if she’s been eavesdropping on conversations I’ve had with friends. Her obsession with finding out about the 19th century divorce (she travels to the town where they lived and where the ruins of their castle still stand), reminds me that it’s frequently easier to think about other people’s lives than our own.

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys: This classic “feminist” novel, written in the mid 1960s, is also a touchstone of postcolonial studies – but that’s not why it’s good. It’s a fabulously imaginative re-telling, a kind of “prequel,” to Jane Eyre, in which Jean Rhys imagines how Bertha Mason came to be the madwoman in the attic.  Rhys’s story, which starts in the English colony of Dominica, not only explains how Antoinette Cosway comes to be Bertha Mason, but also provides a chilling illustration of how imperialism and patriarchy can combine to destroy a life…You’ll never read Jane Eyre the same way again (and of course, if you haven’t read Jane Eyre yet, you really owe it to yourself. I swear to god it’s a page-turner. Seriously. The original tall, dark, handsome stranger story…the mother of all Harlequin romances).

Older recommendations:

Greta the Strong – Donald Sobol.  I read this aloud to Liam a year or so ago, and I keep it out so that he will maybe pick it up again on his own. Greta is chosen for a quest to find Excalibur, in the years after Arthur’s death, but her jealous brothers interfere. Eventually, however, she finds her way to the Lady in the Lake, but even then her problems aren’t over. The pictures are by Trina Schart Hyman, who has illustrated versions of Rapunzel, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty that Liam and Caleb like a lot – in her version of Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red-hot shoes until she falls down dead. Not so much the Disney version, eh?

Princess Furball – another fairy tale, but in this one, the princess rescues herself, using her brains, beauty – and a pheneomenal soup recipe, which ensures that she lives happily ever after with the Prince.

Donna Leon mysteries – I used to have a tall stack of these but I keep lending them out, so the pile is getting smaller. Sean gets credit for turning me onto these books, which are set in Venice and feature Commissario Brunetti, an incredibly humane detective and life-long Venetian. Brunettis is married to Paola, an English literature professor at the University and they have two children; Brunetti’s investigations lead him to the dark corners of human nature (and frequently bloody crimes – like the one where someone gets too close to the glass-blowing kilns at Murano), but his detecting is set against the beauty of Venice and the comfort of his family life, complete with detailed descriptions of their meals…Satisfying on every level.

Acts of Faith – Philip Caputo – a novel set in a fictional country somewhere in Africa. A do-gooder missionary comes together with a mercenary bush pilot, an African war-lord, various European and US diplomats, drug money, gun running..I started this book once and couldn’t stand it, but then picked it up again when I was desperate for something to read…The second time, I couldn’t put it down. And when I emerged, finally, I felt as if I’d spent a year in Africa; I was exhilarated the way you can be after a great read, but also incredibly depressed at the intricate tangle of problems confronting African countries.

I Lost My Bear – Jules Feiffer.  Given that Caleb loses his nookie at least twice a day, usually right before bed-time, this tale of a girl who can’t find her bearsy strikes a real chord. Feiffer’s drawings crack me up – at one point, when the little girl thinks her bear is gone forever, we see her crawling across a completely grey page, utterly adrift and full of despair. Caleb never understands why I laugh at that part.

Twilight (all four books) – well, everyone has an addiction. These are mine. Eventually, I hope, these books will be relegated to a shelf somewhere, or maybe The Pile Under My Desk, but at the moment…there they are. I re-finish one and start another…Husband thinks mine is a dire case.  To which I simply point to his pile of Star Wars novels. Aren’t we a literary pair?