Review: Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padma

Animal lovers know that animals can sometimes, inexplicably, instantly, sense a need in us that we may not even be aware of and can place themselves inside that hole in our lives, saving us, comforting us, and loving us.  Comet's Tale is the story of one such special dog, a greyhound rescue who offered love and trust and that undefinable everything that make our animals truly angels on earth and prove the cliche that they save us more than we ever save them.

Steven Wolf was a successful and driven attorney in a happy marriage who had a good relationship with his daughters when the debilitating and degenerative spinal condition that he had been diagnosed with decades prior finally drove him into early retirement, forced him to move from Nebraska to Arizona for the climate, strained his marriage almost to the breaking point, alienated his daughters, and crippled not only his body but his spirit.  The only thing that got him through the darkest days was the love of a dog who had herself almost been broken by cruelty and neglect.  Wolf was lucky enough to have been chosen by Comet, a rescued greyhound who maintained a steady presence and radiated love and care for him no matter how low he got.

The story opens with Wolf meeting Comet for the first time and the two of them choosing each other beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Then it goes back in time to tell the tale of how Wolf ended up at the ranch with the rescued greyhouds, proceeding through Wolf's gentle teaching and socialization of Comet, their relationship together, Comet learning to be a service dog for Wolf, and eventually to her happy, spoiled retirement.  Wolf educates the reader on the historical background of the greyhound breed, the terrible and inhumane reality of current day dog racing conditions, and the great need for rescues for these gentle dogs.  He also pulls no punches when discussing the reality of living in chronic pain and the emotional toll it takes not only on the person suffering but all those who love him as well.  He chronicles the cost of his move from Nebraska to Arizona in terms of his relationship with his wife and his almost grown daughters and he shares the depths of his own depression and anger at his body and the situation.

Wolf's love for Comet shines through their story and there are many memorable moments between man and dog that exemplify why so many of us in the world would think our families incomplete without a dog or two.  There are also some wonderfully humorous moments captured here.  And Comet's unique personality is shown beautifully.  The stress and uncertainty of living with a progressive disability and the ignorance and prejudice shown towards those with disabilities is also well handled.  There is a bit of repetition in the book, perhaps caused by the non-linearity and final construction of the text but in general, this is an inspiring and special tale that dog lovers will enjoy.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Memoir of a Sunday Brunch by Julia Pandl. The book is being released by Algonquin on Nov. 13, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: For Julia Pandl, the rite of passage into young-adulthood included mandatory service at her family’s restaurant, where she watched as her father—who was also the chef—ruled with the strictness of a drill sergeant.

At age twelve, Julie was initiated into the rite of the Sunday brunch, a weekly madhouse at her father’s Milwaukee-based restaurant, where she and her eight older siblings before her did service in a situation of controlled chaos, learning the ropes of the family business and, more important, learning life lessons that would shape them for all the years to come. In her wry memoir, she looks back on those formative years, a time not just of growing up but, ultimately, of becoming a source of strength and support as the world her father knew began to change into a tougher, less welcoming place.

Part coming-of-age story a` la The Tender Bar, part win- dow into the mysteries of the restaurant business a` la Kitchen Confidential, Julie Pandl provides tender wisdom about the bonds between fathers and daughters and about the simple pleasures that lie in the daily ritual of breaking bread. This honest and exuberant memoir marks the debut of a writer who discovers that humor exists in even the smallest details of our lives and that the biggest moments we ever experience can happen behind the pancake station at the Sunday brunch.

Review: My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley

What happens when a devilishly good-looking spy masquerading as a womanizing rakehell of very little conscience and a "lady of information" aka gossip find themselves attracted to each other, in a compromising situation, and obligated to marry?  You end up with a Regency-set historical romance about some seriously nosy people getting into difficulties, using intelligence, learning to trust each other, and realizing that their obligation to marry landed them each with the perfect mate like in My Scandalous Viscount, Gaelen Foley's fifth installment of her Inferno Club series.

Carissa Portland is attracted to Sebastian, Viscount Beauchamp against her better judgement.  She knows that he has few, if any, morals and yet she cannot stop the frisson of excitement she feels for him.  One night at the opera, she spies him exchanging notes to arrange an assignation but she also witnesses another man tamper with the Beau's reply to his paramour.  Thinking to warn him out of danger, she tries to intervene for his protection but she's injured in the process.  Beau wants to keep a distance between himself and the enticingly nosy lady of information for many reasons, not least of which is that he's a member of the notorious Inferno Club, which is the cover for a clandestine spy agency in the service of the crown.  But when Carissa is injured, he unthinkingly takes her to the club to tend to her wounds, leaving her alone long enough for her to snoop her way into possession of very classified information.  Both her newfound knowledge and her presence at the club make it imperative that Beau marry Carissa, protecting her good name and his secrets in one fell swoop.

Carissa's stumbling into the secret of the Inferno Club would be bad enough on its own but the club is also under investigation by the government, an investigation led by a hostile man with Jacobite ties.  Foley has done a very good job incorporating greater history into this romance through this situation.  The book, although mid-series, stands on its own quite well with just enough of the backstory mentioned to connect it to previous books but also to explain what led up to the events here without baffling newer readers or boring established readers.  Carissa and Beau and their growing relationship are interesting and fully described without resorting to stock characters or scenes.  There is an immediate sexual spark between them and they do not spend pages denying their attraction even once their marriage is inevitable.  The secrets they conceal from the other are substantial but their reluctance to trust and share these secrets is understandable and realistic.  All in all, a romance that sucks the reader in, presents them with an enticing mystery, and then makes the uncovering of the truth tense and unexpected as the main characters must learn to work in tandem on the way to their happily ever after.

For more information about Gaelen Foley and the book visit her web page or Facebook page. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Review: All Gone by Alex Witchel

You count on your mom to always be there for you.  Even when you're an adult, you count on her remaining the person who once upon a time tucked you in at night, kissed away boo-boos, made your favorite dinner for your birthday, and celebrated all your accomplishments small or large.  But when that mom starts to disappear into the smothering fog of dementia, you have to mourn the loss of the bed-tucking, boo-boo-kissing, dinner-cooking, celebratory mom long before she is actually gone.  Alex Witchel's brief memoir All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia, With Refreshments chronicles the painful way in which an adult child has to say goodbye to the mom of memory long before time and the way in which, even though that mom is trapped inside the malfunctioning synapses of her own brain, Witchel can still keep her close in her heart and in her kitchen.

 

Written non-linearly, this memoir deals with the present day tasks of taking care of an aging and ill parent, memories of Witchel's childhood, and a few recipes that she remembers her mother cooking.  While the three are connected, they are not necessarily integrated together well.  Witchel's initial denial, sorrowful acceptance, and frustration with the disease claiming her mother's past, present, and even her very personality is presented honestly and bare of embellishment.  The portion of the memoir dealing with the slow slide of her mother's disappearance into dementia is the most poignant, best written of the memoir.  The portions of Witchel's childhood are occasionally instructive of her relationship with her mother but often that connection is hard to make and so the bouncing between childhood and the present can feel disjointed. 

 

The third bit of the book, and one that I expected, given the subtitle, to take more precedence deals with Witchel cooking the recipes she remembers her mother making, finding comfort in the comfort food of their family.  While we all have a visceral connection to the food of our childhood, it seemed an odd way for her to conjure up the mother of her youth given that her mother seemingly didn't like to cook.  Her recipes feel as if they were all culled from newspaper columns or magazine aimed at the "new working woman" and the convenience that she would desire in facing dinnertime after putting in a full day at the office, not as if they were treasured family recipes.  And often the recipes are plunked at the end of the chapters with little or no tie to the content of the chapter.  As a concept, the connection of food with memories of childhood and the present reality of a mother shrouded in dementia is a natural one and there are moments when Witchel gets it right.  Unfortunately, there were more moments for me where she doesn't quite get there.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for sending me a copy of the book to review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Another dismal reviewing week (a mere trio of reviews) and an equally dismal reading week with one a pair of books completed.  At least I'm almost completely officially finished helping the 5th grader with the hideous Heritage Project that requires much more mom homework than I think is acceptable.  (OK, truth telling here: I think *any* mom homework is too much so this project goes beyond the pale.)  After all, I've been through 5th grade before and did very well at it thank-you very much.  I don't need to prove that I am smarter than a 5th grader.  I know I am.  This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch
The Summer Before the Storm by Gabriele Wills

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
The Blue Notebook by James Levine

Reviews posted this week:

Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

All Gone by Alex Witchel
Abdication by Juliet Nicolson
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
How to Capture a Countess by Karen Hawkins
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott
Jane's Fame by Claire Harman
Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padwa
What You Wish For by Kerry Reichs
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
Losing My Sister by Judy Goldman
Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes by Betsy Woodman
My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Forgotten by Catherine McKenzie
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch
The Summer Before the Storm by Gabriele Wills

Monday Mailbox

I can't even begin to tell you how giddy I am by the treasures that magically appeared at my house this past week.  Per usual, they run a very wide gamut of types of writing but they should all bring me hours of happy immersion between their covers.  This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Turning Pages by Tristi Pinkston came from the author.
A YA take on Pride and Prejudice set in a library, how could this not be appealing?
The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye came from Unbridled Books.
I completely and totally adored Geye's first novel Safe From the Sea so much that I have not yet stopped trying to foist it on every reader I can find even two years later so I have been eagerly anticipating this newest novel set outside Duluth about both a single young immigrant woman in the 1890's and her son in the early 1920's.
Parlor Games by Maryka Biaggio came from Doubleday.
A novel loosely based on a real life con artist who insinuates her way into high society and who travels the globe closely trailed by a Pinkerton detective, this sounds like it will be a marvelous ride through impressive schemes and capers.

Moranthology by Caitlin Moran came from Harper Perennial.
A collection of columns from Moran, who is billed as an hilarious comic writer, I'm looking forward to some good laughs.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Monday Mailbox as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees

In the aftermath of the Civil War, marriageable women far outnumbered men.  Add to that number the still young women who were tragically widowed and it is easy to see that in a time and a society where one of women's only options is to marry, many, many women were facing uncertain and impoverished futures.  Clara Bixby is one such woman.  Her life has not been an easy one.  Her debt-encumbered father is long dead.  Her husband walked out on her for another woman not long after their infant son died.  The tavern where she has worked as a barmaid and cook trying to make ends meet can no longer afford to keep her on.  She is in rather desperate straits but she is determined to succeed and make a life for herself.  When she reads a newspaper account of a town of bachelors in Destination, Nebraska, she hatches the plan to provide mail-order brides for the men.  She writes to the mayor of the town with her intent and many of the men agree to pay Clara to broker marriages for them.  Next she goes about finding women willing to leave New York for the rough and remote West to become wives to men they have never met.  Carefully vetting the women, she pairs them with the men and starts to prepare for the long journey west as her selected brides correspond with their intended husbands.

 

The letters from the men to their prospective brides are wonderful, offering small clues into the dispositions of the men since they are not physically present for the first part of the novel.  Each of the women selected for the journey west is described but two women in particular become representative of the whole: Elsa, an immigrant looking for a better life than as one laundress among many in a wealthy and controlling woman's home, and Rowena, a bitter and unhappy widow whose fortune has crumbled and whose father has been committed to an expensive asylum with a disease resembling Alzheimer's.  Both women have very complicated reasons for wishing to go to Nebraska with Clara Bixby, not that they have divulged everything to Clara, who forms her own not entirely informed opinions of the women and assigns them specific men accordingly.

 

Even with careful vetting of the women, Clara cannot control all aspects of her marriage brokering business and as the women gather and travel west, unexpected and unavoidable calamities occur, leaving Clara in a difficult position with her only option continuing on to Nebraska and explaining the situation to the waiting men.  Her original intent had been to see the women settled and then to go further onward herself to find her imagined cottage and slip into a new life.  But circumstances dictate otherwise and she must stay in Destination both because her honor requires it and because she is legally bound to do so until everything surrounding the promised brides is resolved.

 

Focused primarily on Clara, Elsa, and Rowena, this is an engaging tale about the lengths that some women were driven to in order to move on in their lives, to rebuild and find a future they could look squarely in the eye, even if it meant taking a chance and relying on complete strangers and unknowable circumstances.  The men of Destination equally gambled to find a piece of what was missing in their lives, hoping that wives willing to be subjected to the hardships of the new West and homesteading would fill that void. 

 

Surprisingly, the story took longer to move from New York to Nebraska than might have been expected allowing the reader to come to know Clara, Elsa, and Rowena far better than the men, to understand and sympathize with their individual plights, and to uncover the secrets and heartaches in their pasts.  So the women are much less stock characters than many of the men of Destination end up being.  The plot rolls along with consistent pacing and although much of the end of the novel is predictable, this is still an interesting look at a time, place, and practice that is not often mentioned in conventional history.  In addition to the fascinating look at what mail order brides and other women left in reduced or impoverished states after the Civil War could have experienced, this is also a novel about trust, secrets, friendship, love, and what a little enterprise and determination can yield.  It's a quick and engaging read that will appeal to lovers of historical fiction, especially those with a fascination for the grit and determination shown by those who ultimately settled the West.

 

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Buddy by Brian McGrory. The book is being released by Crown on November 6, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: Brian McGrory's life changed drastically after the death of his beloved dog, Harry: he fell in love with Pam, Harry's veterinarian. Though Brian’s only responsibility used to be his adored Harry, Pam came with accessories that could not have been more exotic to the city-loving bachelor: a home in suburbia, two young daughters, two dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and a portly, snow white, red-crowned-and-wattled step-rooster named Buddy. While Buddy loves the women of the house, he takes Brian's presence as an affront, doing everything he can to drive out his rival. Initially resistant to elements of his new life and to the loud, aggressive rooster (who stares menacingly, pecks threateningly, and is constantly poised to attack), Brian eventually sees that Buddy shares the kind of extraordinary relationship with Pam and her two girls that he wants for himself. The rooster is what Brian needs to be – strong and content, devoted to what he has rather than what might be missing. As he learns how to live by living with animals, Buddy, Brian’s nemesis, becomes Buddy, Brian’s inspiration, in this inherently human story of love, acceptance, and change.

In the tradition of bestsellers like Marley and Me, Dewey, and The Tender Bar comes a heartwarming and wise tale of finding love in life’s second chapter - and how it means all the more when you have to fight for it.

Review: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

Hoffman is a favorite author of many, many readers and in reading about her previous books, it seems as if she has a varied and unusual repertoire in her many novels.  YA fiction, magical realism, lighter women's fiction, and, of course, historical fiction like this one.  The Dovekeepers has been lauded as a magnificent novel, called mesmerizing, and overwhelmingly praised far and wide.  The Women's National Book Association has named it one of their Great Group Reads for 2012's National Reading Group month.  Despite all the raves, I found myself struggling to pick this one back up after putting it down, trying to claw my way into a narrative that sadly only struck me as tedious and boring, desperately trying to care about characters who had suffered terribly and yet who were dull enough to evoke no sympathy.  This is not an easy thing to do, let me tell you.  Inch by inch and page by page, I pulled myself along and finally did achieve enough of a mild interest to continue with the story and finish the book without hating it and the time I spent between its covers.  But I, unlike so many others, cannot offer adjectives like haunting, beautiful, or mesmerizing about it.  Instead I can say adequate, fine, okay.

 

Set in 70 C.E. when the Jews were being butchered by the Romans, driven out of Jerusalem, their temple destroyed, massacred in their villages, and hiding out in small pockets to try and survive the slaughter, Hoffman has taken the historical fact of the destruction of Masada, a mountaintop stonghold that held out against the Romans for months before succumbing and used the ultimate survival of only two women and five children from there to craft her story.  Narrated in turn by four different women whose lives have been hard and filled with tragedy, the story of the fortress on the mountain and life within its walls is a complex one wiht many starting points and only one end.  Starting with Yael, whose mother died giving birth to her and to whose assassin father she therefore becomes anathema, having cost his beloved wife her life, the novel opens with the Siege of Jerusalem, Yael and her father's escape, wandering in the wilderness, and subsequent arrival in Masada.  She is put to work in the dovecotes with the other three women on whom the story centers. 

 

Revka next takes up the tale.  She is the wife of a baker who with her beautiful daughter, devout and scholarly son-in-law, and their two young boys flees their village after a terrible massacre.  But at an oasis during their travels, they are set upon by Roman deserters and Revka's daughter is raped and murdered under the gaze of her small sons, stricken mute by the horror.  When Revka and her surviving family finally make it to the sanctuary of Masada, the light has gone out of their world and they have been irrevocably changed. 

 

Third narrator Aziza is just coming into the first flush of young womanhood and still mourning the loss of the freedom she experienced living as a boy with her mother and her siblings' warrior father before arriving at Masada and having to take up her feminine role again.  She is an illegitimate child who rebels against the life that her mother has carefully charted for her, hungering to join in the battle against their Roman enemy but who cannot completely disavow her womanly nature.  Aziza's mother Shirah runs the dovecotes and is called a witch by many having been dedicated to the goddess Ashtoreth as a child.  She is both feared and sought out by the other inhabitants at Masada, her kinship to the leader keeping her safe from all but rumors, as she astutely interprets the signs, sees and knows the coming calamity.  The ending of the tale is never in doubt, based as it is on Josephus' historical account.

 

But the inevitablility of the ending was not my biggest problem with the novel.  Instead there were various other things that contributed to my disappointment.  To start, the book is overlong.  In fact, the journey Yael took to find Masada almost did me in and left me wishing it had done her in early on so the story could move forward.  This glacial pacing continued throughout the bulk of the novel, only changing at all in the very end.  Perhaps the effect was intended to replicate the long and tedious journeys that the characters took to reach Masada, in which case it was successful, but it's a dangerous potentially reader-alienating tactic if so.  Each of the characters narrates her own section, sharing her own tragic story before Masada and slowly advancing the plot through the months of resistence on the almost impregnable mountain but the voices of the different women are not well enough differentiated from each other.  While their pasts remain distinct, with interchangeable voices, their stories once they've all come to Masada blur together.  But as they each tell a section of the story, there's a lot of overlap and unnecessary repetition.  The tale of Masada as the lone holdout against the onslaught of the Romans is phenomenal and certainly begs for the story to be told but there's too much writing here and it overshadows the amazing historical bones that form the frame of the novel.

 

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney

84 year old Lola Quinlan is keeping a secret from her family and she's going to great lengths for it.  She wants her family to go away for the holidays recognizing that each of them need time away to recharge.  Plus she needs a break herself.  To that end, she's told everyone that she will close the small family owned motel in Australia's Clare Valley and be happy as can be alone with herself this record hot Christmas.  But in reality this vibrant octogenarian who freely dispenses wisdom, common sense, and rationality to her grandchildren has planned to gather a group of unknown people around her at the motel, perhaps to delve into their lives and problems much the same as she has for her own family for years.  She's designed an internet campaign to make her plan work, offering free lodging to the first seven people who respond to her marketing.  Her intended guests all have varying reasons for going to a small motel for Christmas but they are united by the fact that life has beaten them down and the holidays are just one more reminder of all the ways in which their lives are off-course, imperfect, and sad.  There's a young man who has not only lost his job but been dumped by his girlfriend and sees no point in going on.  There's a 17 year old girl who wants to take her younger sisters away from the toxic, constant fighting between their parents.  There's an intense and unbending businesswoman who is estranged from her family.  And there's a couple who have been sinking under grief and despair in the aftermath of a tragic workplace accident.  All of them are the sort people who could use the sort of perfect Christmas Lola is dreaming up.  But of course nothing is going to go as planned.

 

The novel's perspective jumps from Lola and her family's story to her upcoming guests' stories and back again as they all get closer to the holidays.  This is a sequel novel to McInerney's The Alphabet Sisters so there's some past history for new readers to figure out but clues are peppered throughout the narrative to make it easier.  Lola is still having to referee and act as go-between for her two granddaughters, Carrie and Bett, who find themselves in a ridiculous competition over who has a better life, more supportive spouse, and is a better parent.  Meanwhile, Lola herself is still negotiating a very frosty relationship with daughter-in-law Geraldine, with whom she has never gelled, only existing in an uneasy state of detente because of their shared love for Jim, Lola's only son and Geraldine's husband.  In addition to family, Lola also works at the local charity resale store and she finds herself in direct conflict with a new volunteer who is full of ideas, bulldozes the long-time workers, and doesn't do a shred of work herself.

 

Lola is a pistol and manages to keep a level head for those around her.  She has so many balls in the air that a Christmas surrounded by strangers would be a relief.  And while it's fun to ride along in Lola's slipstream, there are just a few too many plot lines running through the novel, with many of them never being fully developed to the reader's satisfaction.  The family relationships seem genuine although the forty some year chill between Lola and Geraldine that culminates in some hurtful words followed by some soul searching on Lola's part seems a bit too simplistic for something that has festered for so long.  The people immediately surrounding Lola in her life were fairly well developed but the secret guests Lola has coming to the motel are much more caricature-like and their stories far more superficial than the family drama that is really the center of the book.  Overall, this is a sweet novel that attempts to include just a shade too much but for a quick and easy read, it will fit the bill.

 

For more information about Monica McInerney and the book visit her web page or Facebook page. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book. Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Holy moly did I do a terrible job with reviewing.  Somehow I just wasn't in the proper frame of mind and the list of books needing reviews written has mushroomed out of control!  But I did get a lot of reading in despite a week plagued by migraines and other assorted yucky feeling days.  This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

Losing My Sister by Judy Goldman
Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes by Betsy Woodman
My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Forgotten by Catherine McKenzie
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
The Blue Notebook by James Levine

Reviews posted this week:

I Will Not Leave You Comfortless by Jeremy Jackson

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees
All Gone by Alex Witchel
Abdication by Juliet Nicolson
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
How to Capture a Countess by Karen Hawkins
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott
Jane's Fame by Claire Harman
Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padwa
What You Wish For by Kerry Reichs
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
Losing My Sister by Judy Goldman
Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes by Betsy Woodman
My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Forgotten by Catherine McKenzie
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

Monday Mailbox

A trio of fun looking books this week, all  generally lighthearted and as appealing as can be. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

You Tell Your Dog First by Alison Pace came from Berkley.
With this set of tales (tails?) about her dog as her confidante, Pace has branched out from her sweet, dog-centric fiction and I'm really looking forward to it.
Happily Ever Madder by Stephanie McAfee came from New American Library.
The sequel to Diary of a Mad Fat Girl, the further adventures of the outspoken and entertaining Ace Jones should be more fun and another great romp.
Sad Desk Salad by Jessica Grose came from William Morrow.
With a bitchy columnist who exposes her biggest discoveries mid-day when more women are surfing around to read about celebrity scandals finding out some salacious news about a politician's daughter and deciding what to do with the information, this just sounds yummy.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Monday Mailbox as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: Marketing books

It's hard to sell books.  Well, not to someone like me who buys with gleeful abandon but it can be hard to pique the interest of the general public, those people who can actually practice self-restraint in a bookstore or ::gasp:: walk past one entirely without making a detour inside.  So one of the common defaults in marketing a book is to compare it to other very successful books in the past.  And this can be very effective.  How many times have you picked up a book because the cover promises it to be "the next (your favorite NYTimes best seller here)?"  I certainly have looked at books I might not have picked up otherwise (ok, given my bookstore history I would have picked them up anyway but imagine I'm more normal around books than I am).  By the time I read the book though, I'm likely to have forgotten the comparison that drove the purchase, which is an exceedingly good thing as books billed as "the next" anything rarely possess more than a passing resemblance to the book with which they are being compared.  But it's an easy marketing strategy and one that is often successful so it continues at all levels of publishing.

The other day, however, I found an email in my in box offering me a chance to review a book that was a cross between three different books, one of which is by a huge and wildly successful name in women's fiction.  Unfortunately, this biggest and potentially best comparison made me gag and race to turn down the offer.  You see, I happen to find this particular author saccharine and emotionally manipulative despite the length of time his books remain on the best seller list or how many of them are made into movies.  I just couldn't stomach reading anything that was billed as similar in any way to one of his books.  And I've run from other books similarly marketed.  Driving away an almost guaranteed reader?  Well, that's just not good.  I suspect that marketing departments aren't going to lose a lot of sleep over my own personal head for the hills attitude over this particular author though as the strategy is likely to be at least moderately successful with that harder nut to crack: the general public.  And I know how silly my reaction was given my previous acknowledgment that the book was unlikely to contain much, indeed if any, resemblance to the author who shall not be named's books.  I ran anyway.  Am I alone?  Are there author or book comparisons that make you put a book down as if it's burned your fingers?

My reading week was pretty productive and wide ranging.  I mined the memories of a younger sister looking back on her relationship with the older sister she lost to cancer.  I traveled to India and helped save a small hill town with the help of some wonderful and eccentric inhabitants.  I, as an inveterate gossip, was forced to marry the man who turned out to be my perfect match.  I moved to the bohemian, art and music scene of New York in the late 60's and 70's.  And finally I came back to the US from Africa after 6 unexpected months trapped there only to find everyone thought me dead.  Where did your week's reading take you this past week?

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro. The book is being released by Algonquin on Oct. 23, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

Claire makes her living reproducing famous works of art for a popular online retailer. Desperate to improve her situation, she lets herself be lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—one of the Degas masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when the long-missing Degas painting—the one that had been hanging for one hundred years at the Gardner—is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.

Claire’s search for the truth about the painting’s origins leads her into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life. B. A. Shapiro’s razor-sharp writing and rich plot twists make The Art Forger an absorbing literary thriller that treats us to three centuries of forgers, art thieves, and obsessive collectors. it’s a dazzling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.

Review: I Will Not Leave You Comfortless by Jeremy Jackson

So many childhood memoirs seem to focus on either a dreadful, deprived childhood or a single terrible defining moment after which the author passes into adulthood.  But what about those of us who had an average childhood, running free, playing with friends, and yes, having big things happen in our lives but perhaps not entirely understanding their import at the time?  Jeremy Jackson has written a lovely, evocative, lyrical, and nostalgic memoir of his own regular childhood during the year he turned eleven.  He captures the midwestern 1980's beautifully, bringing that era and the children who lived and played through it back to life.  Because it is his tale, it is specific to the time and the boy he was but the memoir also offers a fairly universal tale of growing up that all readers should be able to appreciate and relate to regardless of what era they lived through.

 

Jeremy Jackson spent his childhood on a farm in Missouri although it was not the main source of income for his family, his parents holding non-farming jobs.  The year that he tells of in these pages is the year that he was ten turning eleven, his grandmother was sick and his oldest sister was getting ready to leave for college.  It was really the last year his family was one inseperable unit and as such is a touchstone for him.  In many ways, each short chapter is its own self-contained snapshot from his childhood but strung together as they are here, they form a larger picture of a boy heading into adolescence, still young but growing and maturing, developing a different, less child-like and innocently uninformed mindset.  He talks of the long, slow, heady days of summer play; his budding recognition of romance; his grandmother's decline; tight, cold school days in winter; and the way that he participates in his family's life as well as the ways in which they all swirl around him.

 

Jackson has mined his own memories and those of his family in writing this beautifully evocative memoir.  He has also used bits from his grandmother's own journal to help reconstruct her thoughts and feelings for the pieces of the narrative in which he writes in her voice.  The shift in focus from pre-adolescent boy to stoic grandmother could feel out of place but I appreciate his attempt to add to the depth of his own experiences by using hers as a parallel.  The inexorable march of time as Jackson's family moves towards the loss of his grandmother and his oldest sister's leaving for college is remarkably well-done, neither coming event dominating the memoir but always hovering silently just beyond the periphery of Jackson's and the reader's consciousness.  His remembrance of a ten, almost eleven, year old midwestern boy's life over the span of a year in the early 1980's is detailed, real, and wonderfully, remarkably ordinary.  It is only toward the end that Jackson, as author, admits that he has included some things that his younger self could not have known or fully understood and left out other bits, allowing the reader to be complicit with him in the warm, serene glow of his backwards glance.  This is a quietly satisfying memoir, a quick read, and a snapshot caught in time of an innocence and universality that will leave readers looking at their own long past childhoods and remembering as well.

 

And on a purely personal note, I found I had many unexpected degrees of connection with this memoir.  First, a friend of mine who had been Jackson's editor on his first book loaned me the copy I read and asked me to review it.  Second, when I read the back page of the book recognizing people who have donated generously to the non-profit publisher of the book, Milkweed Editions, there were quite a few people listed with whom I went to high school.  (Good for all of you who support the art of publishing and books!  I wish I'd known you better in school because it seems as if you have priorities like mine.)  And finally, Jackson's father briefly taught at my alma mater albeit long before my time and after my parents' time.  None of this influenced the review in any way other than eliciting a "Hey, how neat!" sort of reaction from me.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I broke even this week, reading four and posting four reviews.  At least the list didn't grow on me any!  This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann
The Blue Notebook by James Levine

Reviews posted this week:

Enriched Air Nitrox by Scuba Schools International
The Fine Color of Rust by P.A. O'Reilly
Lost Antarctica by James McClintock
What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees
All Gone by Alex Witchel
Abdication by Juliet Nicolson
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
How to Capture a Countess by Karen Hawkins
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott
Jane's Fame by Claire Harman
Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padwa
What You Wish For by Kerry Reichs
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White

Monday Mailbox

Sometimes I look at the books I have and have to chuckle. Anyone trying to predict anything based on what the eclectic assortment I read means would be hard pressed to come to any sort of reasonable conclusion, other than perhaps I am completely scattered and unclassifiable. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace came from William Morrow and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
A bit of a loser guy does something out of character, helping a girl on the street, and is rewarded with a dazzling smile before she disappears. Tracking her down via the pictures on the disposable camera he's been left holding sounds like a good idea to him. And it sounds like a fun read to me, provided it doesn't turn into a stalking of some sort!
My Scandalous Viscount by Gaelen Foley came from Avon and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.
Thank heavens we are no longer honor bound to marry those we are caught kissing! But that doesn't mean that this as a plot driver in Regency-set romances isn't still wildly appealing as this novel about a rakehell and a busybody proves.
And Now We Shall Do Manly Things by Craig Heimbuch came from William Morrow and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.
An author committed to investigating the hunting life and what it means to be "manly" as he grows closer to his father, this memoir completely and totally intrigues me.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Monday Mailbox as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang

 

Children always seem to see and hear more than we give them credit for.  When we were fighting a bug infestation, the bug guy wanted to talk to the kids to see where the ants were coming from, telling us, "Kids always know where the colony lives."  And he was right.  They immediately took him to the spot and we got rid of our problem.  But it's not just things like this that adults might miss, kids absorb so much more than we suspect (or sometimes want).  Perhaps because they are small and not in our line of sight, they catch nuances and make simple connections that we adults might be too busy or preoccupied or too certain of more complex reasons behind something to make.  Clifford Garstang understands this beautifully in this linked short story collection.

Set on the edges of an artsy neighborhood close to Washington DC's Chinatown and in transition from questionable to gentrified, the stories focus on the inhabitants of a renovated condominium building called Nanking Mansion.  The common thread running through the stories is the quiet, observing presence of the young Zhang boys.  Zhang Feng-qi is a widower whose beautiful American wife Maddie and the mother of their two small boys was killed in a car accident recently.  Feng-qi is struggling with taking care of Simon and Wesley in the wake of this sudden and inexplicable loss.  He brings his aging father over from China to help him with child care and he starts seeing a woman who could be an acceptable replacement wife and mother to the boys.

Each of the eleven stories following Feng-qi's story introduces another inhabitant of Nanking Mansion: the young lawyer whose marriage has failed, the newly pregnant woman with the abusive boyfriend, one half of a gay couple who seem to have settled for each other, a womanizing artist haunted by his past, the building's developer whose health is failing as surely as his interpersonal relationships, the famous writer mourning the end of a Woody Allen-esque relationship with his step-daughter, the woman who is slowly selling off all her possessions just to try and live, the sculptor whose son suddenly appears and accuses him of abandonment.  Each of the inhabitants' stories develops their characters fully and expounds on their life and how they ended up living in this building.  They are all, in their own way, like Zhang Feng-qi, searching for love and learning to overcome the disappointments, tragedies, and unhappiness in their pasts.  Every one of them, whether they know it or not, is looking for connection in this fragmented, lonely world.  The small Zhang brothers dart in and out of each of the narratives, taking in the truth of the other inhabitants of their building, quietly noticing the tenuous, fragile bonds of the others, silent figures on the fringes of everyone's stories.  They do not pass judgment on anyone, observing only, innocent in their childhood and still hoping for the reappearance of their dead mother.

The first and last stories in the book focus on the Zhang family, bringing this unusual novel full circle.  Some of the stories feel as if they were written to stand-alone so there is a bit of repetition in character exposition that would not have been an issue if each story hadn't followed closely on the heels of the one before it.  But this is a minor quibble with this quiet, spare, insightful, and well-written novel in stories.  Garstang touches gently on the landscape of the human heart and the reality of connection in all its permutations.  His characters are full and richly detailed.  Their lives are ones of sadness and desperation but they still reach hopefully toward a better, more fulfilling day.  The tone of the book is a bit melancholic and the snapshots of urban life poetic and sorrowful.  This was truly a wonderful read, tightly packed, reflective, and insightful.  Fans of both novels and short stories will appreciate the depth of writing and characterization here.

For more information about Clifford Garstang and the book visit his web page. Follow the rest of the blog tour or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to Lisa from TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Review: Lost Antarctica by James McClintock

Antarctica is often cited when people are trying to make a point about global warming and the impact that we humans are having on our planet.  But often the person pointing to Antarctica is using an example so large or inconceivable that it loses its impact almost entirely.  James McClintock, in his non-fiction book about the Antarctica that our careless environmental habits are destroying, makes the evidence much smaller and easier to grasp for the lay person.  From the decline in certain penguin populations because of the change in weather in their breeding grounds to the appearance of voracious, omnivorous, predatory crabs at closer to sea level than ever before to the change in microscopic algae populations at the very bottom of the food ladder which negatively effect all of the flora and fauna of the area to the uncovering of heretofore unseen land due to enormous glaciers calving at record high intervals to the acidification of entire oceans, McClintock discusses, in accessible terms, the impact of each and every small link in the chain of climate change on this vast, mostly untouched continent.

 

As a scientist who has long studied Antarctica and what it can teach us, not only in terms of global warming but also in the biomedical ways the flora could teach us ways to combat epidemics and deadly diseases like cancer, McClintock weaves irreproachable science from years of data with personal observation and entertaining stories from his many times on the continent at the bottom of the world.  The chapters are occasionally repetitive as much of the research about each different organism from largest animal to the smallest plant compliments each other but it does drive home the precariousness of situation we find ourselves in and the dire need to change our habits and to arrest what we can.  The narrative is readable, compelling, and hard to gainsay and serves as a good first foray into the science of climate change. 

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye. The book is being released by Unbridled Books on Oct. 16, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: Against the wilds of sea and wood, a young immigrant woman settles into life outside Duluth in the 1890s, still shocked at finding herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift; in the early 1920s, her orphan son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn’t and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. But their pasts travel with them, threatening to capsize even their fragile hope. In this triumphant new novel, Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape in which they live--often at the mercy of wildlife and weather--and by the rough edges of their own breaking hearts.

Review: The Fine Color of Rust by P.A. O'Reilly

I've long thought that if I was to move out of this country, Australia would be an appealing place to go.  This is based on zero actual knowledge whatsoever but because it has so long been true (I first fell in love with the country long distance at the ripe old age of nine via my long-time Aussie penpal), I have always gravitated to books set in Australia or that sought to explain that sunburned country to me.  And so I have read both Australian fiction and non-fiction extensively despite the logistical difficulty and prohibitive cost of getting my hands on some of these books.  So when I saw that The Fine Color of Rust, published here in the US, was set in a small, dusty, Australian country town, peopled with typically Australian characters, and being called very Australian in outlook and humor, I knew I would have to read it.

Loretta Boskovic is a single mother living in the sun-baked, hardscrabble small town of Gunapan. Still married, her good-for-nothing ex rode off into the sunset long ago leaving her with their two kids in this struggling provincial town, not a place she ever envisioned ending up.  Loretta has gotten involved in the life of the community, made-up of many single women like herself by starting the Save Our School committee in an effort to forestall their tiny school's threatened closure.  As she seeks to help the town, both through her efforts on behalf of the school and eventually through her uncovering of a secretively planned resort development that would not in fact bring any tourism to the town but would cut off access to the only local spring around, Loretta learns a lot about herself and about living a happy and fulfilled life.

Loretta has an active imaginary life, coming up with scenario after scenario where she is swept away from her restricted life in Gunapan by a knight in shining armor (or just a hot guy on a Harley).  Her kids Melissa and Jake are stroppy and waiting for their deadbeat father to return.  Her closest friend is crusty local junkman Norm who brings her a pair of goats, Terror and Panic, when Loretta is in desperate need of a lawnmower.  She's a self-deprecating, self-described "old scrag" with a dry wit and a strong sense of right and wrong.  There are some wonderfully humorous scenes in the book crowned by the taking of the Education Minister to the local abattoir to watch their speediest butcher deconstruct a cow where the shell-shocked politician comes away from the "amusement" rather speckled with raw meat.  But there are some poignant scenes too where it is clear that the town and, in some ways, Loretta too, is really only held together with a wing and a prayer and probably some baling wire too.

O'Reilly has created an authentic and warmly entertaining story about a woman learning to bloom where she's planted.  The characters are quirky and delightful and the sorts of people you'd want in your own corner as friends.  The pace of the novel is consistently steady as Loretta slowly uncovers the things she needs to know to have a chance at saving Gunapan and her outrage that so many other people in this small town already knew what she was searching for is perfectly presented.  The fact of her accidental activism; the demands of her family, especially once ex Tony reappears; and trying to balance a semblence of a personal life for herself always rings true.  A delightful, very Australian David and Goliath story, this novel will keep the reader turning pages, chuckling wryly, and recognizing and appreciating the universality behind its themes of reliance on friendship and dedication to community.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Review: Enriched Air Nitrox by Scuba Schools International



It's probably not entirely fair to review a technical manual designed to teach people very specific, specialized skills and of no interest to a general population but a well-written manual will cause far less boredom than a repetitive and tediously written manual and one like this that enables people to participate in a potentially dangerous sport should be held to a high standard.

While the manual presents information in a clear and simple manner, it is still mind numbingly boring.  Its cutesy illustrations intended to highlight important or related information are distracting and the overuse of intertextual and sidelight boxes chops the text up and interrupts the easy flow of information.  SSI does do a good job of integrating the research behind the information into the book a a whole but sometimes this research is repeated in several places in case the reader wasn't astute enough to recall it from a previous chapter (this particular reader is astute enough, thank-you very much).  And the bulk of the slim book is not about the practical application of actually using nitrox but instead reiterates the fact that it is in fact advantageous to use this gas over oxygen which the reader should ostensibly know if he or she has paid for the course that provides this manual.  Maybe I'm unusual in my preference but I'd have been much happier with a booklet that cut to the chase instead.  Of course, if you want to be certified through SSI to dive using nitrox, this is the only option.  Just be ready to forcibly prop your eyelids open as you read along.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Loads of reading accomplished this past week.  A few reviews but they seem to be stacking up faster than I am getting to them somehow.  This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Books I completed this past week are:

A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott
Jane's Fame by Claire Harman
What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang
Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padwa
What You Wish For by Kerry Reichs

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Let the Great World Spin by Colm McCann

Reviews posted this week:

The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam
The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway
The Receptionist by Janet Groth
More Baths Less Talking by Nick Hornby

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Fine Color of Rust by P.A. O'Reilly
Lost Antarctica by James McClintock
I Will Not Leave You Comfortless by Jeremy Jackson
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
In Need of a Good Wife by Kelly O'Connor McNees
All Gone by Alex Witchel
Abdication by Juliet Nicolson
Triangles by Ellen Hopkins
How to Capture a Countess by Karen Hawkins
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam
A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott
Jane's Fame by Claire Harman
What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang
Comet's Tale by Steven Wolf with Lynette Padwa
What You Wish For by Kerry Reichs

Monday Mailbox

Just one book in the mailbox this week but it made my husband raise his eyebrows. ;-) This past week's mailbox arrival:

Reflected in You by Sylvia Day came from Penguin.
The second in an erotic series, this has been called passionate and sizzling. I've not read the first about Eva and Gideon but it should prove interesting to read this even without the first book behind me.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Monday Mailbox as she is hosting this month's Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: More Baths, Less Talking by Nick Hornby

In my always expensive meanderings through the bookstore not so long ago, I was delighted to find a fourth book of Nick Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading" columns from the Believer magazine.  His previous book of columns announced his retirement from writing these and I was sad to let these appealing delights go.  It turns out I don't have to.  Like many a professional athlete who has announced his retirement only to stage a return to the game, Hornby is back writing his column.  And unlike many of the athletes, Hornby remains wonderful.  His columns collected here are from May 2010 to November/December 2011 and they retain the casual, accessible, personal feel that characterized his earlier columns as well.

 

Starting with his list of books bought versus books read each month, Hornby gives the reader an inside glimpse at his reading life, the connections he makes between books and his outside interests, and the vagaries of a reading mind which starts confidently down one path only to happily divert to another.  Regardless of whether his readers tend to gravitate to the same sorts of books he does, every dedicated bibliophile the world over should be able to relate to the ways in which one book leads to another and another and another, no matter how tangential the connection might seem to the outsider.

 

As is policy at the Believer, Hornby only discusses those books that he can positively endorse, leaving the snarky reviews to others.  But like any reader who reads extensively, this leaves him no dearth of subject matter.  His choices seems slightly different than in the past books as he's discussing far more back list books and on the whole fewer recent releases.  He does discuss topical non-fiction though and includes the impact of the non-bookish life going on around him as he reads any of his books, fiction or not, recently published or not.  Reading his essays is a delight and feels just like listening to one of my book-loving friends discuss her recent reading, roaming far and wide, recommending and relating.  And just like when I have these types of discussions in real life, Hornby has once again left me with a list of books to investigate.  Whether I acquire them or not and if once acquired, I neglect to read them, as Hornby's essays reinforce, I'll be in good company.  I do know, though that if Hornby writes another of these wonderful paeans to reading and books, I will most certainly acquire it as I have the previous four.

Review: The Receptionist by Janet Groth

There's a certain cache to the New Yorker magazine in the literary world.  I remember thinking I was all that and a bag of chips in high school when I first subscribed.  I was pretty sure that simply having a subscription to the magazine validated my literary taste.  And I know I'm not the only one who has attached such a value to it over the years.  Janet Groth, in her new memoir, The Receptionist, takes readers inside the offices of the venerable publication through her own experiences as a receptionist for twenty-one years on the writers' floor from 1957 to 1978.

Groth first took the job as a way to break into the publishing business, taking the receptionist role so that she wouldn't be consigned to the typing pool and so that she could eventually become the writer she wanted to be.  Strangely enough, she never did leave the receptionist's desk over that twenty-one years, aside from one brief stint elsewhere in the magazine, and she didn't exactly leave to write either, going back to graduate school after her stint at The New Yorker had run its course.  In very brief chapters, Groth talks about the well-known personalities at the magazine starting with her initial interview with E.B. White and intersperses the small scenes amongst the writers on the eighteenth floor with tales of her own personal life and growth in the city.

Somehow given the title of the memoir, I expected more stories from Groth's tenure at the magazine.  Whats she does offer up is actually fairly superficial and scant and often feels more like name dropping than substantive and interesting work tales.  The lunches and other encounters she details bleed the personalities out of the folks she includes whether out of a desire to be circumspect or respectful to them or something else entirely.  There's just something dry here and while I wouldn't have wanted salacious gossip, breathing life into some of the personalities at the magazine would have added immeasurably to the book.  As for Groth's personal life, it never did grab me.  And certainly she was searching for the life and the person she wanted to be but there were overly contemplative bits that didn't seem to fit the tone of the rest of the narrative.  Ultimately this one didn't work for me, which probably negates any early literary validation my magazine subscription might have afforded me, especially given that so many others seem to be raving about it around the internet.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book for review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Comet's Tale by Steven D. Wolf. The book is being released by Algonquin on Oct. 9, 2012.

Amazon says this about the book: Forced into early retirement by a spinal condition, Steven Wolf reluctantly left his family and moved to Arizona for its warm winter climate. A lifelong dog lover, the former hard-driving attorney is drawn to a local group that rescues retired racing greyhounds. When Comet, a once-abused cinnamon-striped racer, chooses to “adopt” Wolf, he has no idea that a life-altering relationship has begun—for both of them.

Racers, cruelly treated and exposed only to the track and cage, have no inkling of the most basic skills—walking on tile floors, climbing stairs, even playing with toys or children—so Wolf must show the mistrustful greyhound how to thrive in the real world. Gradually, a confident but mysterious spirit emerges from the stunning animal. And when Wolf’s health starts to worsen, the tables turn and Comet must now help Wolf with the most basic skills.

Wolf teaches her to be a service dog, and soon enough she’s hauling his wheelchair at top speed through airport terminals, towing his cart through the grocery store, helping him get out of bed, and attracting friends to Wolf’s isolated world. She plays a crucial role in restoring his health and even saving his marriage. Their unshakable faith in each other makes them winners once again.

Review: The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns by Margaret Dalloway

Galilee Garner, called Gal by her few friends, lives a strict and very precisely regimented life.  Part of this is out of necessity as she has a chronic kidney disease that has had her on thrice weekly dialysis for almost 10 years after her previous transplants eventually failed.  But part of it is who she has become in her life: a bitter, prickly, inflexible, exacting biology teacher at the local Catholic high school who holds her students to impossible standards and who has lost all sense of the social niceties.  She is firm and rude and clipped with others believing that she alone is cutting through the BS and being honest and truthful, uncaring of her effect on others.  In reality, she has encased herself in a thorny covering to protect herself, to avoid the unwanted pity or the falsely sympathetic.  It is only when Gal gets home from her days at school and moves into the solitude and sanctuary of her greenhouses to work with her beloved Hulthemia roses that she blossoms.  She is not simply a rose grower, she is a rose breeder, determined to cultivate a rose worthy of being called Queen of Show, to bring the elusive fragrance back to her favorite type of cultivar.

 

When Gal's niece Riley, her estranged addict sister Becky's teenaged daughter, shows up unannounced and unexpected at her school, Gal's carefully guarded life is thrown into turmoil.  Riley's mother has sent her to stay while she pursues a job across the globe, neither asking her sister's permission to send her daughter nor preparing her daughter emotionally for the massive changes both of them will have to make to accomodate the other.  Riley is fragile after her mother's abandonment, academically behind, emotionally mercurial, and she is slow to fit in with her classmates at the school where Gal teaches.  She does try to fit into this aunt she hadn't seen in years' world but she is every bit as damaged a child as Gal is an adult and there are frequent episodes of drama or tantrums from her.  Riley's very presence challenges Gal and her notion of refusing to compromise as she tries to suddenly parent a three quarters grown child and comes to realize that the first and most important key to parenting is flexibility, completely counter to the mantra of her life thus far.

 

Gal very definitely starts off as an unlikable character and since she is the first person narrator, this presents a hurdle to the reader.  But anyone who stays with the novel will be rewarded by watching Gal slowly change.  The changes are neither easy nor absolute but they are honest and presented (complete with backsliding) in the way that real life works.  Her tentative opening up of her heart to Riley and the other secondary characters and an eventual serious, close and unflinching examination of herself and her effect on others is well-done and believable.  The abrasive Gal of the beginning of the book is kinder and gentler, less judgmental but with her firm moral core still intact, making her more likable over all.  The insights into growing roses and the painstaking care with which their breeding occurs is interesting as is the glimpse into the competitive world of showing roses although the breadth of information could overwhelm some readers uninterested in the mechanics of gardening.  Life with a chronic disease and the impact that the disease has on every aspect of a person, including personality and varying perceptions of those not suffering such a fate, is fascinating and well-integrated into the story thanks to Gal's self-referential musings.  A touching look at the way we live in the world, compassion, how we treat others, and the love we carry for family, this is a quick and rewarding read.