Review: Honolulu by Alan Brennert

Regret is a Korean girl so named to reflect her parents' disappointment that she was not born a boy. She is also not a child who is eager to submit to the life that has been mapped out for her choosing instead to sign on as a picture bride in Hawaii, a place where girls can attend school. Embarking on a ship with other picture brides, Regret, renamed Jin, quickly realizes that she has exchanged one drudgery-filled existence for another with an abusive, alcoholic gambler of a husband.

This tale of Asian immigrants and Hawaiian history is epic in scope. The story sweeps from pineapple plantations to the city of Honolulu in all its grandeur and debauchery in the early and middle years of the twentieth century. There are prostitutes, the detective who inspired the character Charlie Chan, the origins of the Hawaiian shirt, and so much more. And Jin's entirely possible story is woven throughout these historical events as she participates in the events and meets the people involved. The book is peopled with colorful characters but it still takes on difficult topics like discrimination and abuse. Jin is a strong and vibrant character who learns to direct her own life, celebrating the good and enduring the bad.

I enjoyed this one but wasn't wowed by it. In some ways it was a bit stereotypical. I appreciated the history woven into it but the weaving was perhaps not as skillfull and seamless as it could have been or perhaps there was just a little too much of it. The plot galloped along (a good thing when a book is a bit of a chunkster as this one is) and I liked the characters well enough. Those people enchanted by the setting in Hawaii or the exotic idea, and decidedly un-exotic reality, of picture brides will enjoy the storytelling here.

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

Training Day 2

Did I say that starting to run again was hard? What I didn't realize when I wrote that was that pushing myself out the door for day 2 would be even harder. I skipped yesterday because of a torrential downpour despite knowing that my kids just *think* I am a wicked witch and that I won't actually melt. So I knew that I had to get myself out there today or call this a failed attempt at a re-start. And how weenie would that look given how much I've whined about getting back out there? So with motivation at an all-time low, I scanned the closet for a shirt that would cover the jiggly bits even while I bounced along, re-did the velcro strap on the iPod case from the strangulation setting (aka much thinner Kristen setting) that I endured on Tuesday and dragged my already aching legs out the door into a chill, grey, misting sort of day. At least the weather gave me a good excuse for the tortured expression on my face. It's always easier to explain away a scowl when it's spitting rain than when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and all is right with the world except your aching thighs and quads and groin muscles, etc.

I again chose my "regular" hill route and huffed and puffed my way through it slowly. I spent a lot of time arguing with myself how far I was going to run. I alternately gave myself permission to stop after a mile (ya big baby!) and then bullied myself into committing to going all the way back to my house (a whole mile and a half plus). Whimpering over such short distances is disheartening even if I am starting from scratch. So that's something I need to figure out how to banish from my head. Actually, if I figure out how to banish things short of knocking myself on the coconut and suffering full scale amnesia (which might be the condition I had in regards to starting exercise again come to think of it), I coud probably make a mint (and I have a long list of other things I need to permanently forget too). On the plus side, I am fairly easily distracted so almost stepping on a tiny turtle with a shell the size of a silver dollar interrupted the nattering voices. Yes, when you run as slowly as I do, you do get to see nature in all its tiny glory.

I found, as I ran and the music played along, that I don't remember the order of the songs on the marathon playlist. This is sad for two reasons. One, that means it has been incredibly long since I have had any running reason to play the playlist. Two, it shows how long it's been since I heard anything but the first four songs on the list. And no, today didn't advance me to song #5 either despite the fact that I ultimately won the mind over matter battle and ran all the way to the house and then walked another quarter mile or so for a cool down. I know there are good songs buried in there somewhere. But I suspect they don't tee up until mile 5 or 6 or so. And heaven knows that could be months before I get there!

And finally, on the run today I had a (semi)wardrobe malfunction that I had never experienced before. I chose a hair tie that was too loose and my pony tail slid out of the holder piece by annoying piece. And it isn't easy to try and grab your hair and jam it back into a band when you are running, at least not if you are the epitome of uncoordinated like I am. I probably shouldn't even have bothered trying as I looked rather like Cousin It on a bad hair day when I got home too. Do I have more hair than two years ago? Less? Why can I not make the ponytail holder work correctly? At least I've got something to ponder to keep my mind off of my aching muscles. And next time (yes, there has to be a next time) I think I'll use a different hair tie. Wonder if I can get different muscles too?

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.
For me, I can't wait to read: River House by Sarahlee Lawrence. The book is being released by Tin House Books on October 1. The amazon description reads:

River House is one young woman’s story about returning home to her family’s ranch and, with the help of her father, building a log house on the property. Sarahlee Lawrence grew up in remote central Oregon and spent her days dreaming about leaving her small town for world adventures. An avid river rafter through adolescence, by the age of twenty-one, Lawrence had rafted some of the most dangerous rivers of the world as an accomplished river guide. But living her dream as guide and advocate, riding and cleaning the arteries of the world, led her back to the place she least expected — to her dusty beginnings and her family’s home. River House is a beautiful story about a daughter’s return and her relationship with her father, whom she enlists to help brave the cold winter and build a log house by hand. Lawrence’s father, landlocked on the ranch for decades, is a surfer who longs for the sea. Lawrence, a reformed river rat, has forsaken the water for a spell, determined to build a home. Together, they work through the harsh winter, father helping daughter every step of the way to achieve her dream. The surprise comes when Lawrence sees how she has helped him live his.

Running redux

Today was Day 1 of my training for the half marathon. The fact that I am training for a half might indicate that I have been running for a long time and am just going to ramp up my mileage. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. I am basically starting from zero (unless you count actually running about once every 6 months or more frequent unfulfilled intentions). And let me tell you, starting from scratch is rough. But apparently the feeling of doing this is a little like childbirth: the pain of it eventually fades from memory and so you settle back onto the couch to turn into a slug thinking all the while that you’ll start running again soon because, after all, it wasn’t *so* bad, now was it? People, I am here to tell you that childbirth hurts and starting running again hurts even worse. But a half marathon demands training, especially one that I’ve agreed to run behind with my athletic sister. So out the door I went.

I should probably also admit that starting running again might not have hurt nearly so much if I hadn’t gained that 30 lbs. since the last time I was running comfortably. I’m now doing the equivalent of running my old 30 lb. lighter self and a large toddler all at the same time. It could only have been worse if I’d taken up smoking in the interim too, which I didn't so I’ve got that going for me. But the extra weight and the length of time since I had last run guaranteed a rather painful, jiggly-looking, very short run. It didn’t disappoint on any front.

I waited until most of the morning traffic had left the neighborhood (I can do without the public humiliation of lumbering along in front of the neighbors, shirt straining over the belly and shorts bunched up unpleasantly between wobbly thighs), snagged my iPod, and headed out. I am at least occasionally smart and I started out at a very moderate to slow pace to help me ease into the run. Sadly, this is apparently my *actual* pace now and so there was nothing easy about it. Honestly, I think if I’d gone any slower, I would have been going backwards. On reflection, I might have drifted backwards on a few of the hills. Yes, I intentionally included hills in the run, not wanting to shy away from anything. Ok, I probably only included them because they are on my old “usual” route and I was too lazy to try and find a new route that was pleasingly flat. Computer issues mean that mapmyrun.com was out and I’m not sure they have a “wuss” function where you can plug in your requirements for a run, including but not limited to a completely flat and shaded route with moving sidewalks. They should get to work on that for me. So I plugged up and down the hills following the garbage truck. I’m still not sure if the bad smell was the trash or my own morning breath blowing back into my face. I might have to time next Tuesday’s run to try and miss the truck although their frequent stopping next to me meant it was almost like running with company.

I think I only ran about a mile and a half this morning. I’m actually not sure, having left the Garmin at home, knowing full well I wouldn’t really want to know length of run or the time it took to accomplish either. This doesn’t bode well for having to run 13.1 miles in 4 months. But with luck I’ll be out there plugging away tomorrow or Thursday too. And maybe I can winnow some of that weight off before the actual race. Maybe this is not just starting running again, it’s starting to be healthier again and I can get rid of the toddler weight once and for all.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I didn't even manage to post this last week because I was so consumed by the book fair. of course, I read next to nothing and reviewed less than nothing so it's not like I missed anything! This week's post then, is a double header of sorts even if it really is mainly just from this past week. This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

Heart With Joy by Steve Cushman
Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co. by Maria Amparo Escandon
The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
The Known World by Edward Jones

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese

Reviews posted this week:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover

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

Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Rainy Lake by Mary Rockcastle
Ill-Equipped for a Life of Sex by Jennifer Lehr
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
Finding Marco by Kenneth Cancellara
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson
Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Laments by George Hagen
Smart Girls Think Twice by Cathie Linz
Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson
A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis
Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Sex, Drugs, and Gelfilte Fish edited by Shana Leibman
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson
Daughter of the Bride by Francesca Segre
Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis by Robyn Harding
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Half Empty by David Rakoff
She's Gone Country by Jane Porter
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Huck by Janet Elder
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee
Never Trust a Rogue by Olivia Drake
After the Fall by Kylie Ladd
Heart With Joy by Steve Cushman
The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
The Known World by Edward Jones

Monday Mailbox

Nothing last week (although if anything had arrived, I never would have noticed in the book fair haze within which I was existing. This week though a great looking one to make up for the empty box last week. This past week's mailbox arrival:

Running the Books by Avi Steinberg came from Doubleday.
You probably can't see it well but the man's face is made up of due date stamps. ::swoon:: And really, what's not to like about a memoir of running a prison library and the inmates who are the library patrons? Sounds fantastic to me!

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page to see this month's host of Monday Mailbox and Kristi at The Story Siren who hosts In My Mailbox and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden

I went into this novel with some trepidation because I am always leery of books with unnamed narrators, something that seems to me to be an unnecessary pretension. But I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps because the narrator, renowned stage actress Molly Fox's close friend, is telling the story of her friendship with Molly Fox as well as who both women are, in the first person, that it feels natural for the narrator to remain nameless. The narrator is staying in London at Molly's flat while Molly is off on a tour. During the course of one day, she reflects on their longstanding friendship and draws an impressively fleshed out picture of Molly just through noticing and expounding on her surroundings and Molly's belongings in the flat. Their whole history is laid out as far as the narrator understands it, even as she subtly adds to the story as she discovers things about their longstanding friendship and indeed about Molly herself that she has never known before.

There were times when the narrative became a tad overly philosophical but for the most part, I enjoyed the subtle, sideways way of getting to know both narrator and Molly Fox. Although the current day was occasionally difficult to follow amongst the musings about their shared past, I found the way in which it all came together to create a picture of their friendship and the pockets of secrecy maintained in spite of said friendship to be fascinating. There is a definite sense of the different faces or roles we put on for the world, something that Molly, as an actress, and the narrator, as a playwright, certainly understand better than most. The idea of what we show the world, what we show only a few special people, what we keep hidden, and what we keep hidden even from ourselves runs throughout the narrative. And identity, the nature of artifice and truth, is a major theme here. The narration is rather oblique and the secondary characters only briefly come onto the stage of the pages. This is very much a poetic character driven narrative so those looking for a strong plot will not find it here. Instead, it is a well done, introspective novel that examines the nature of art and acting and how the roles we all inhabit so seamlessly play into our daily lives and our friendships.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to 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.
For me, I can't wait to read: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde. The book is being released by Viking on March 8,2011. I so love Jasper Fforde's work, how will I ever wait that long? The amazon description reads:

Jasper Fforde's exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the Realworld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.

The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.

Once again New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde has a field day gleefully blending satire, romance, and thriller with literary allusions galore in a fantastic adventure through the landscape of a frisky and fertile imagination. Fans will rejoice that their favorite character in the Fforde universe is back.

Review: The Quickening by Michelle Hoover

Told mainly through letters written by Enidina Current to her unknown grandchild, this novel set on neighboring farms in early 1900's in Iowa is tactiturn and stoic and deeply complex. Enidina tells her grandchild of the sorrow and disappointment and strength and conviction that kept company every step of the way through her young married life up until her final years. She is a plain, large and sturdy woman with enormous hands when she meets and marries her farmer husband Frank. Their hardscrabble existence is tested both by Enidina's inability to carry a baby to term and by the economic hardships of the time. Interspersed with Enidina's letters is narration by Mary, Enidina's closest neighbor, giving another perspective to the events that ultimately lead to a grief-stricken brokenness reminiscent of abandoned farms during the Depression. The two women, as different as it is possible to be within the confines of the same farming community, and married to two men who are polar opposites as well, carve out lives despite their isolation, the loneliness and the hardship they must endure.

The portrayal of the difficulties people who made their living off the land faced is realistic and bleak but loaded with truth. I'm not certain I liked the characters as people but I was fascinated by the way that proximity dictated "friendship" no matter what personality might suggest. The back and forth narration made for interesting contrasts and perhaps contributed to my ambivalence about the characters themselves. Enidina is based in part on the author's great-grandmother and she is certainly the most fully fleshed out character in the book. By contrast, Mary is predictable, unlikeable, and fully self-important (a big factor in the second attribute). But both of these characters come off as real and possible historical figures. The relationship between the women builds slowly and despite the textual evidence leading toward the ultimate reactions of the women once the climax comes, the reader is still fairly surprised by the strength and venom of the situation. Appropriately set against the seemingly featureless landscape of broad, unending plains, the novel has hidden depths and core strengths just as the plains themselves do. I found this novel powerful and stunning.

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

Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

With a quirky title, a slice of cake on the cover, and a main character who can taste other people's emotions in the food they make, this is definitely a book that will intrigue a lot of people, especially those who read and enjoyed Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate so many years ago. Rose is just a child when she can suddenly taste her mother's despair in the lemon cake she has baked that day. And it's not just her mother's feelings, she can now taste the emotions of anyone who has cooked anything she eats. This is such an unsettling gift that she starts relying solely on highly processed foods. While she can pinpoint the places that all the ingredients originated and the factory in which the food was produced, there's less human contact and therefore less disappointment, sorrow, and unhappiness for her to taste. Rose's new and unusual talent highlights the dysfunction, secrets, and unhappiness surrounding her family and as she grows up, the quiet desperation continues to run through their lives singly and as a family.

This melancholic novel seems to inspire reviews from both ends of the spectrum, love it and hate it. I didn't love it but I liked it fine up until the end, at which point I wanted to throw it across the room. So I guess my reaction encompasses both reactions all in one. I guess I can only stretch credulity so far before I snap and the resolution with Rose's brother Joseph took me one step too far. The tone of the book was definitely depressing and the characters practiced avoidance far more frequently than they made any meaningful connection with each other. And only Rose, when she could bring herself to eat their food, could tell at all what was in each person's heart and head. The constant strivings of quiet desperation could be a tad overwhelming at times, the pacing of the book was uneven, and the plot was a bit thin. Overall, given my final impression, I was disappointed but there is definitely much food for thought included here amongst the dysfunction.

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.
For me, I can't wait to read: The Stray Sod Country by Patrick McCabe. This is due to be released by Bloomsbury on Sept. 28th. Amazon reads:

McCabe's enjoyable final installment to his Small-Town series (after The Holy City) is the charming and often dark ensemble story of Cullymore in 1957, a small Irish town near the U.K. border. While fending off death threats from the town outcast, local priest Father Hand announces an Easter play that is sure to be the envy of all Ireland (and, more importantly, his priestly nemesis). Fonsey O'Neill returns a changed man after 18 months in England and expects to marry his old flame, but she may have found someone new. Golly Murray, the Protestant wife of the Catholic barber, secretly yearns to see something horrible befall her condescending, well-to-do friend. And linking them all together is the omniscient and increasingly devious narrator, whose meddling and commentary inform the townspeople's feelings of being strangers in their own skin. McCabe astutely paints a portrait of life in one Irish village, where people struggle both to adapt to modernity and to keep their traditional demons at bay. Historically authentic and with a timeless resonance, this tale provides an appreciable balance of humor, poignancy, and that signature Irish warmth.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Given that this coming week is book fair week and I'm in charge, I don't anticipate getting much done in terms of reading or reviewing. Maybe some day I will manage to scale the to be read mountain and write all those outstanding reviews. Last week wasn't the week and it's not looking good for this week either. This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Huck by Janet Elder
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee
Never Trust a Rogue by Olivia Drake
After the Fall by Kylie Ladd

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
Heart With Joy by Steve Cushman
After the Fall by Kylie Ladd

Reviews posted this week:

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord

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

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Rainy Lake by Mary Rockcastle
Ill-Equipped for a Life of Sex by Jennifer Lehr
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
Finding Marco by Kenneth Cancellara
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson
Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Laments by George Hagen
Smart Girls Think Twice by Cathie Linz
Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson
A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis
Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Sex, Drugs, and Gelfilte Fish edited by Shana Leibman
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson
Daughter of the Bride by Francesca Segre
Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis by Robyn Harding
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Half Empty by David Rakoff
She's Gone Country by Jane Porter
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
Huck by Janet Elder
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
I Know I Am, But What Are You? by Samantha Bee
Never Trust a Rogue by Olivia Drake
After the Fall by Kylie Ladd

Monday Mailbox

Just two books this week means another week of getting a bit further in the stack I already have. But what wonderful looking books they are! This past week's mailbox arrival:

City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell came from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
From the time I first read Pearl S. Buck and then Michener's Hawaii, I have been fascinated by stories of missionaries so this novel about two missionaries in China in the early 20th century who fall in love is right up my alley.

Heart With Joy by Steve Cushman came from the author.
Billed as an "uplifting coming of age novel about cooking and bird watching, about writing and pottery, and about falling in love and the sacrifices we all make," this novel has a quirky combination that intrigues me.

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page to see this month's host of Monday Mailbox and Kristi at The Story Siren who hosts In My Mailbox and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Saturday Shout-Out

On my travels through the blogging world, I find many books that pique my interest. I always add them to my wish list immediately but I tend to forget who deserves the blame credit for inspiring me to add them to my list (and to whom my husband would like to send the bill when I get around to actually buying them). So each Saturday I'm going to try and keep better track, link to my fellow book ferreter-outers (I know, not a word but useful nonetheless), and hopefully add to some of your wish lists too.

Solomon's Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson was mentioned on Breaking the Spine.

Compass Rose by John Casey was mentioned on Breaking the Spine.

What goodies have you added to your wish lists recently? Make your own list and leave a comment here so we can all see who has been a terrible influence inspiring you lately.

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.
For me, I can't wait to read: Booklover by Tim Bazzett. And unlike other books I have highlighted in the past, this one is newly released so we can all get our grubby mitts on it *right now.* The publisher's site reads:

As a member of perhaps the last generation of truly devoted readers, Tim Bazzett uses a lifelong love affair with books as a springboard to recalling an eventful life marked by unexpected twists and turns that took him and his family from Michigan to California to Europe and back, during his various stints as student, teacher, and recycled soldier. He reflects thoughtfully too on his 21 years as a Russian linguist with the National Security Agency, noting the sacrifices required by a career cloaked in secrecy and the toll it can take on a marriage. In the end, however, Booklover is most of all a love story, a nakedly candid and affectionate look back by Bazzett at more than forty years of living and raising a family, all with the same brown-eyed girl he met on a Michigan college campus in 1967. If you are a booklover, you will love this book.

Review: Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord

This slight book is about a psychiatrist named Hector who travels the world trying to understand what makes people happy (and conversely what makes them unhappy). He is not entirely satisfied with life himself and so he is looking for the keys to contentment. Hector finds small bits of wisdom throughout his travels and he jots these tiny kernels of truth down in a notebook, ultimately compiling a list of universal happiness factors.

Despite a barebones frame of a plot, this is really very much a self-help book masquerading as fiction. And indeed, it turns out that the author has written successful self-help books. I am certainly not the best audience for self-help, even self-help cloaked in fictional raiment as I find too many of the revelations to be self-evident. In this case, the lessons are also simplistic and trite. The fact that these truths are coming from a character who apparently finds happiness in (literally) a woman in many of the places he goes despite his partner at home also helped make this a slightly unpleasant read. Obviously I didn't love this parable and don't see the marketing comparison to Le Petit Prince but perhaps readers who need reminding not to compare themselves to others and that "happiness is a certain way of seeing things" will find more of interest here than I did.

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

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, right? Last week I was wishing (or hoping) that back to school would mean more reading and reviewing time for me. Well, that didn't happen but at least the number of books still to be reviewed didn't get any longer! This meme is hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through a World of Books.

Books I completed this week are:

Daughter of the Bride by Francesca Segre
Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis by Robyn Harding
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Half Empty by David Rakoff
She's Gone Country by Jane Porter

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Great Lakes Nature by Mary Blocksma (this is going to take me all year as I read her year's entries on the corresponding days of this year)
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell

Reviews posted this week:

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
What We Have by Amy Boesky
The Last Rendezvous by Anne Plantagenet

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

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Quickening by Michelle Hoover
Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Safe From the Sea by Peter Geye
The Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan
Miss You Most of All by Elizabeth Bass
How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicki Leon
Room by Emma Donoghue
The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare by Arliss Ryan
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Rainy Lake by Mary Rockcastle
Ill-Equipped for a Life of Sex by Jennifer Lehr
The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow
Finding Marco by Kenneth Cancellara
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Up From the Blue by Susan Henderson
Sweet Dates in Basra by Jessica Jiji
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Laments by George Hagen
Smart Girls Think Twice by Cathie Linz
Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Georgia's Kitchen by Jenny Nelson
A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis
Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
Keeping the Feast by Paula Butturini
The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Sex, Drugs, and Gelfilte Fish edited by Shana Leibman
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson
Daughter of the Bride by Francesca Segre
Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis by Robyn Harding
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Half Empty by David Rakoff
She's Gone Country by Jane Porter

Monday Mailbox

Only one book in the mailbox but I am making some headway through the backed up stacks so that's some consolation! This past week's mailbox arrivals:

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter came from the publisher for a TLC Book Tour.
With a destitute financial poet as a main character, how can this not just be rife with entertainment?

As always, if you'd like to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Marcia at The Printed Page to see this month's host of Monday Mailbox and Kristi at The Story Siren who hosts In My Mailbox and enjoy seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: The Last Rendezvous by Anne Plantagenet

A fictionalized account of French Romantic poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore's life, this felt to me like I was reading underwater. It was muted and slow. Told in chapters alternating between the young Marceline and the older, more jaded Marceline this is very definitely a tale of an unconventional woman, the only female poet writing amongst a sea of luminaries in France at the time. The novel opens with the older Marceline having spent another afternoon with her lover, Henri, detailing the thrill and the horror of her feelings surrounding this vital affair. How she came to be so torn about this infidelity that fuels her best works of poetry unspools as the book progresses.

As a young girl, Marceline is thrust onto the stage in order to support her family, an emotionally fragile mother who leaves her father for her lover and then her alcoholic father and brother to whom Marceline's loyalty never wavers. The chapters of her early life in the theater, the death of her first child before she was more than a child herself, and her eventual meeting and marriage to her husband, fellow actor Prosper Valmore neatly develop the character of this woman who stands outside the bounds of polite society. Interleaved with these chapters are chapters telling of her adult life, the peripatetic existence she and Valmore must live because of the vagaries of the theater-going audiences in France, the financial worries attendent with this life, and the raising of children in such uncertainty. These later in life chapters also detail the ups and downs of her obsessive affair with Henri, the yearning and distance pervading her writing, earning her fame as a poet.

The novel is bursting with elaborate introspection on Marceline's part, emotional and fraught. It seemed to me to be overwrought in many places and Marceline evoked little sympathy in me as a reader, coming off as a fairly cold character despite these professed ardent feelings. In spite of my lack of engagement with the novel, I did think that the circular ending to the book was magnificent and finely wrought. As for the poetry appended to the book, I was fairly unmoved by it. I'm not certain if that is down to the translation, which makes the poetry seem simple and unpolished, or if it is because I have a long standing block against poetry. I do think that many other people will find this far more to their taste than I did. It is well-placed historically in terms of everyday life but those looking for mentions of the major upheavals in France at the time with be disappointed. Fans of poetry will probably enjoy this imagined glimpse into the not terribly easy life of a once-acclaimed French Romantic poet.

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

Review: What We Have by Amy Boesky

When you look at your parents, can you see where you got your eyes or your chin or your height? Certainly we inherit obvious physical characteristics from our families. I have my mother’s eyes and my father’s dimple. I passed both of those things on to certain of my children. But we inherit so much more than we know. Just imagine wondering if you inherited (and passed along) the potential for ovarian cancer. Author Amy Boesky has spent her entire life wondering this. None of the women in her family tree lived long lives, all felled young by virulent ovarian cancer. Her mother had a prophylactic hysterectomy to halt the grim march of cancer and Boesky herself had always known that she wanted to do the same by the time she was 35, the age doctors recommended the procedure for her. But in the meantime, she lived her life and this memoir details how she went about living to the fullest even while shadowed by this terrible menace. Taking place mainly over the four or so years in which Boesky met and married her husband and gave birth to their two children, this memoir is incredibly affecting. Love, life, and starting a new family were interrupted by sadness, loss, and enduring grief.

In her early thirties, Boesky met and married her husband at the same time she was launching her academic career. The first year of their marriage was a negotiation between very different personalities, including the negotiation of when to have a baby. Boesky felt time ticking away from her thanks to the cancer threat. Her intensive planning and his laissez-faire attitude were at odds. But Boesky knew with certainty the number of black circles, denoting female family members dead of ovarian cancer, dotted about the family tree. And so it was cause for celebration when both she and one of her three sisters fell pregnant at the same time. But the joy of this was shattered when her sister’s baby died in utero, leaving Boesky unable to break through her sister’s grief except through their mother. And when the minefield of unspoken sorrow was finally breached, it was to face an even bigger blow: their strong and loving mother, the tough teacher so beloved by her students, had metastatic breast cancer. How could she have dodged the ovarian cancer bullet only to face a recurrence of breast cancer? And what would this further threat mean to her three daughters and their daughters?

Genetic testing was in its infancy during this time in Boesky’s life and aside from doctor’s charting the linked deaths, there was little to no information as to the nature of the predisposition. There was only the knowledge that it, the cancer, could reach out and get Boesky or her sisters at any point. The sense of urgency, of having a deadline, pervaded Boesky’s life. In fact, she did much academic research on calendars and time and she weaves tidbits about the history of these concepts into her life narrative. This story of the several years so tightly packed with overwhelming joy and crushing sorrow is beautifully rendered. It is emotional and honest, reflective and searching. It is a love letter to the power of family and love and support and a raspberry in the face of the disease that claimed so many of her relatives, both those she never had the chance to meet and those she loved dearly. It is the repository of memories for her daughters, too young to remember themselves. Finally, it is the well-written chronicle of a woman not afraid to triumph over fear and her own sense of living on borrowed time.

For more on Amy Boesky and the book, visit her author website.

For other perspectives on the book, check out the other sites on the blog tour.

And if you'd like to win copies of this book for your bookclub, be certain to check out TLC Book Tours on October 1st when they'll be giving away up to ten copies of the book in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Thanks so much to Lisa at TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book for review.