"What the Dog Saw"

I had already read the individual essays in this book the New Yorker magazine, so they weren't new to me.  They look at topics from an unconventional point of view and that is what makes them interesting.  However, they were more interesting the first time.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

"The Good Parents"

It's obvious why older men are attracted to young women.  But why do some young women, who don't seem to have a financial motive or to be looking for a father substitute, allow themselves to get involved with controlling older men? Eighteen year old Maya de Jong has left her small town home to move to Melbourne, where she embarks upon an affair with her much older (and married) boss.  This echoes the experience of Maya's mother, many years earlier.  When Maya's parents come to visit her, she has left town on "a business trip" and in her note to them tells them she's not sure how long she'll be gone.  The frantic parents are forced to reconsider some of the decisions they themselves had made at Maya's age.

My rating:  ****

"The Cookbook Collector"

We interrupt this film festival for a quick book review.  The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman, is charming, but flawed.  It explores the relationship between Jess, a book loving environmental activist, and her sister Emily, the CEO of a startup tech company.  Each of these characters has romantic problems and each of them is exploring the issue of what is truly valuable in life.  Although the book is very enjoyable, there are several highly unlikely coincidences that get in the way of the reader accepting the book's action.

My rating:  **** (out of 5 - actually 3 1/2, but I don't know how to make half an asterisk)

By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham

What is the connection between love and beauty? Art dealer Peter Harris finds himself attracted to his wife's much younger troubled brother Mizzy (for "Mistake" - he's some 20 years younger than his youngest sibling). Is it because Mizzy looks like a younger version of his wife? Is it because the art Peter is selling is good enough, but not transcendent? And is the reason Mizzy comes on to him actually a manipulative attempt to prevent Peter from telling his wife that Mizzy is again using drugs?


My rating:  **** (out of 5)

"Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin

I expected to like this book more than I did because it was very favorably reviewed and on many best books lists for 2009.  It describes the experiences of Eilis, who immigrates from Ireland to the United States shortly after World War II.  It does a great job of describing the homesickness and alienation of immigrants, but the characters aren't particularly nuanced.  Toibin's The Master, about Henry James, was quite superior.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

"A Visit from the Goon Squad"

This book (actually a collection of inter-related short stories and one PowerPoint presentation) covers the time span from the 1980's to the near future.  The characters are involved in music and some of them go from being uninhibited amateur performers totally in love with music to selling their souls once they actually become employed in the industry.  The goon squad is, of course, time.   The author has managed to incorporate post-modern elements (the PowerPoint chapter and footnotes) without being annoying or precious.

My rating:  ***** (out of 5)

"Foreign Bodies" by Cynthia Ozick

Author Cynthia Ozick says that this book is a photographic negative of The Ambassadors by Henry James.  I've never read that book, but this one is about Bea Nightingale, who re-connects with her overbearing brother Marvin who wants her to travel to Paris and convince his son Julian to return to the United States.  She travels to Paris to find Julian married to a displaced person who Bea at first believes to be taking advantage of Julian but comes to believe is a good match for him.  Bea also re-connects with her ex-husband, a composer, who has left a grand piano in her apartment for the 20-some years they've been divorced.  She takes control of her life by getting rid of all signs of that piano.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

Remembering

Nicole Krauss' book "Great House" is about remembering.  It takes the form of 8 short stories about four people who have owned a large, multi-drawered desk at one time or another.  The desk was originally owned by a Jewish family in Hungary prior to World War II and eventually makes its way back to that same family.  I didn't like the book as much as I'd expected to.  Wish I'd had time to re-read it, but I have another book that is due back at the library in a week.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

"Just Kids" by Patti Smith

This memoir of Patti Smith's relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe recalls the 1960's and 70's in New York City.  She pursues a career in poetry, art, and finally music, while Mapplethorpe, a student at Pratt when she met him, works on his art, eventually focusing on photography.  Their lives intersected with some of the most interesting people of the 1970's, including  Jimi Hendrix, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Janis Joplin.  There's even a Bob Dylan slighting.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

"Everything" by Kevin Canty

Everything, by Kevin Canty, reminded me of Jim Harrison, one of my favorite authors.  The setting is rural Montana and the characters are physically tough but emotionally vulnerable.  June has been grieving for her dead husband, Taylor, for 11 years, and has decided that she is done with being "the widow."  R. L., Taylor's best friend, is regretting his failed marriage and offers hospitality to a former girlfriend who is dying of cancer with little support from her own husband.  Meanwhile, Layla, R. L.'s daughter, becomes involved with Edgar, a married employee of R. L., with predictable results.  All of these characters struggle to come to terms with grief and loneliness.

Others have compared Canty's writing to Hemingway's, and Richard Ford's, and I see where they're coming from.  It's very direct.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

Another American Family Saga by Jonathan Franzen

Freedom follows the Berglund family from St. Paul to Washington, D.C. and New York City.  Walter is frenquently described as "perfect."  He works for conservation organizations and is devoted to his wife Patty, despite her sometimes crippling depression.  Patty abandoned her wealthy but neglectful family years ago to go to college in Minnesota where she met Walter and his musician friend, Richard Katz.  Walter and Patty's son, Joey, is alienated from Patty when she cannot accept his relationship with a lower class girl.  Joey becomes attracted to conservative politics and is seduced into working for a sleazy military contractor.  However, Walter also succumbs to similar temptations while Patty succumbs to romantic temptations.



This book is on the same tier as The Corrections, which I loved.  I have only minor quibbles with it.

My rating:  ***** (out of 5)

"Summertime," a Post-Modern Biography

This book purports to be a biography of John Coetzee written after his death and composed of interviews with 5 people who knew him.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

"Solar"

Ian McEwan's Solar is a satire about academia, business, and self centeredness.  Michael Beard, a scientist who made a brilliant discovery early in his career, for which he won a Nobel, is incapable of faithfulness to either of his five wives and numerous mistresses.  He can't control his eating and drinking.  He steals another scientist's work, and he arranges to have his wife's lover convicted for a murder which was actually an accidental death.  He's a thoroughly unlikeable character, but in the end, of course, his crimes catch up with him.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

In Sickness and in Health

In The Unnamed, Tim Farnsworth is a wealthy, happily married, successful New York City attorney who occasionally is compelled, by an illness doctors cannot diagnose, to walk until the point of exhaustion, whereupon he falls asleep wherever he is.  At the end of these episodes, he calls his wife Jane and she always comes to get him, wherever he is.  Until the day she doesn't, when instead of saying, "Where are you?  I'll come to get you," she says merely, "Come home."  The book is about dichotomies, faith vs. nonbelief, committment vs. personal freedom, body vs. mind.  It's a peculiar but satisfying book.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

Evildoers in Scotland

Usually I save detective novels for when I'm sick and need some light reading, but I made an exception for When Will There Be Good News?  The four main characters have all been damaged by the premature loss of mothers and other family members.  When one of them is kidnapped along with her baby, all of them respond immediately with a ferocity that shows their determination to prevent an earlier tragedy from being repeated.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

"War Dances"

Sherman Alexie's War Dances is a collection of short stories and poems.  The stories tend to be about middle-aged men, some of them Indians, living in the northwest and coping with everyday crises.  I liked the short stories a lot.  The poems - not so much.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

Jane Austen in Connecticut

In The Three Weissmanns of Westport, Joseph, Betty Weissmann's husband of 48 years, has just left her for a younger co-worker.  The younger co-worker covets the Weissmann's upper west side apartment, so Joseph manipulates it so that Betty moves temporarily to a cottage in Westport.  She is joined there by her daughter Miranda, whose business as a literary agent has recently imploded due to her "Awful Authors" who have been found out writing fictitious memoirs.  Also joining them is daughter Annie, who fights an uphill battle to keep the extravagant Betty and Miranda in check.  Unlikely romantic entanglements ensue.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

Book: "The Lonely Polygamist"

Why is Golden Richards lonely with four wives and 28 children?  He has allowed himself to fall into a life dictated by his father, his church, and his wives.  The crisis in this book comes about when he falls for the common law wife of a very dangerous brothel operator and begins to recognize his dissatisfaction with his current life.   After a tragic incident, Golden does start to become  a better father and husband.  However, the book recognizes the difficulty of actually changing one's life, and the ending is by no means a happy one.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

The God of Love

Amy Bloom's Where the God of Love Hangs Out is a very satisfying short story collection about - what else? - love.  There are 2 sets of connected stories following characters through the years and lots of surprises.

My rating:  **** (out of 5)

"Juliet" Critiqued

What I liked about Juliet Naked:

The main character, a woman, was plausible.
Like life, the conclusion did not tie up all the loose ends in an emotionally satisfying way.

What I didn't like:

The factual errors.  If you're trying to go to North Berkeley via BART and you get on the Pittsburg Bay Point train in error, when you get to Rockridge, you only have to return to MacArthur, not to 19th Street to get on the Richmond train.  Also, although BART maps are color coded, I've never heard the Richmond train called the Red Line.  On the other hand, why am I being so picky about these details?  It is fiction after all.

The book should have been about 200 pages rather than 400 pages.

My rating:  *** (out of 5)

Oddly enough, I'm tempted to give more stars in case the author reads this review.  I guess that shows how much I believed the book while reading it.