Building reading trees

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How do I decide what to read next?  Many times I’ll see a review or mention of a new-to-me book or author that sounds intriguing, and give that a try.  Bookstores are alluring places to find new and different books, and Amazon’s recommendations and special offers are almost as good - Amazon’s book prices are great too.  And it’s always a treat when a conversation or e-mail with friends and family leads to some wonderful reading.  But a lot of my reading is directed by a generating or branching effect, from something I’ve read, or from a movie or TV program.  I think of this as something similar to a family tree. 

For example, this is the Nile tree:  By chance I picked Alan Moorehead’s The White Nile out of the revolving bookcase last week, and Moorehead’s rich writing and the exciting stories of the Nile explorers quickly drew me in.  The great BBC series The Search for the Nile, broadcast in the US in 1972, first inspired me to read this book years ago.  My 1983 Penguin edition of the book is very attractive; large format, good paper and interesting pictures.  When I finished the book, I wanted to know more about European exploration and colonization of Africa in the late 19th century, and I remembered that I had a book called The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham.  I checked the table of contents, and saw the book was a comprehensive account of exactly those topics.  I’m 150 pages into the book’s 680 pages, and already there are more details and perspective on the Nile explorations and political exploitation of the region, and lots of new stuff.  I bought this book about 15 years ago because I’d read Pakenham’s The Boer War, which is excellent, and I’m glad that Moorehead’s classic book about the White Nile finally pushed me to read Pakenham’s other African history book.  The Pakenham branch of the Nile tree just reminded me of a gorgeous Pakenham book I bought last year called Remarkable Trees of the World.  Turns out Thomas Pakenham’s love of African history is matched by his love of trees and photography, and this will be the perfect book to browse when I want a break from The Scramble for Africa, which can get pretty depressing from time to time.  Also love that the Nile tree has led me to – trees.

Where else might the Nile tree take me?  Alan Moorehead loves loves loves semi-colons and colons, and uses them well.  This type of punctuation has gone out of style since The White Nile was first published in 1960 - maybe I’ll read Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss again, to enjoy the company of someone else who loves elegant punctuation.  This truly entertaining book is subtitled “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”, an unusual topic for a book that hit number one on bestseller lists in the UK.  Moorehead also wrote a companion book called The Blue Nile.  My edition is a scruffy mass market paperback with very small print, maybe I’ll treat myself to the nice-looking trade paperback Amazon is selling.  So delighted that both Nile books are still in print.

The Siege of Krishnapur tree is still pretty small, but I’m trying to grow it.  I did start watching my DVD set of The Jewel in the Crown, a BBC TV series set in India during and just after World War 2, again.  I’m so familiar with this series that it makes a great accompaniment to ironing, since I enjoy it but don’t have to give it my full attention to keep up with the story.  Not in the mood right now to read The Raj Quartet, Paul Scott’s novels that are the basis for the Jewel series.  So I bought two new Kindle books about India.  I have high hopes for a novel  called The Kashmir Shawl, by Rosie Thomas.  It’s set in India during World War 2 and in the present day and sounds mysterious and romantic.  The curious thing about this novel is that I bought it on Kindle, but the hardcover won’t be published in the US until next year.  The second book is The Indian Mutiny by Julian Spilsbury, also published only on Kindle in the US.  Spilsbury is a journalist and TV writer, these should be good qualifications for making this history book interesting as well as informative.  I’m particularly pleased with these new purchases because they are new books!  That I haven’t already read!

War Horse, the book and the movie, is still a shrub, I don’t know if this will take me any further.  I didn’t like the movie that much, not as compelling and without the internal logic of the book.

Note to self:  A very recurring British theme to this post.  Read more American books!  At least finish Midnight Rising.

A short path from silly to serious

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The short path is three books:  The Bollywood Breakup Agency, A Presumption of Death, and The Accidental Tourist.

I finished The Bollywood Breakup Agency, by Naina Gupta and it can in fairness be called a silly story, but since the setting of the novel is interesting, I prefer to call it a fluffy book.  Many of the plot developments are telegraphed many many pages in advance, but there are a couple of twists that keep things fresh enough.  The story follows Neela Solanki, who is basically a spoiled brat, as she tries to help other young Indians in her UK social circle escape undesirable arranged marriages, and keep herself out of an arranged marriage too.  By the end of the book, all the young people in unhappy arranged engagements had, as expected, been extricated and recombined into contented couples.  The fun is in who ended up with who(m).  I actually found myself thinking ’Jack shall have his Jill, nought shall go ill’, a little Midsummer Night’s Dream action in Indian traditional costumes and High Street fashion. I especially enjoyed the book’s yummy descriptions of the outfits Neela and her friends and family wore to various social occasions.  There is supposed to be a sequel, The Bollywood Wife, looking forward to it. 

I thought A Presumption of Death, by Jill Paton Walsh, would be farther from silly and closer to serious, but I was disappointed.  This is supposed to be a “new” Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novel, and I think Dorothy L. Sayers is the greatest, most serious writer of the Golden Age of mysteries, so Jill Paton Walsh should be a serious writer to take on such a potent legacy.  Well, the result is pretty pedestrian and poor Peter and Harriet would have been better left alone.  I did a little research on Jill Paton Walsh, and she is an award-winning author of children’s and Young Adult fiction, but very few of her books have been published here.  Although many characters had the same names that Dorothy Sayers had given them, they had very little depth, and the mystery plot had so many holes that it was, in a word, silly.  Not quite sure why this book got such enthusiastic reviews when it was published, people must miss Wimsey a lot to get so excited.

The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler, is a bona fide serious novel by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and it is wise, funny, tragic and deeply satisfying.  In a previous post, I was worrying that it was too dated because there were no cellphones and Internet in Macon Leary’s life.  Wrong, I was just being silly.  But the most serious thing about reading this book in Charleston SC in June 2012 is how the brutal, senseless murder of Marley Lion here is so similar to the terrible murder of Ethan Leary in the book. 

The Accidental Tourist is about Macon Leary’s constant efforts to be protective, be in control, be responsible, and avoid risk and uncertainty.  When his cherished 12 year old son Ethan dies because just one dumb prank puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time, Macon falls apart and only gets his equilibrium back by making inappropriate friends and getting into unconventional situations.  What makes the book great is that Macon keeps the best elements of his responsible nature, and discovers new strengths by going well outside his comfort zone.  I thought he honored his son’s memory by overcoming the tragedy to become a more open, less frightened version of himself.

Marley Lion was an exemplary 17 year old boy who did one dumb thing, drink at a party.  On his way home, he realized he was too drunk to drive, and parked in a deserted mall parking lot, where a thief trying to break into the car shot him five times.  The murderer still hasn’t been caught.

Old and New

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I haven’t been reading very much:  sewing cushions for my rattan chairs, gardening, planning a couple of social activities, Zumba and dithering over which pictures to put where have been taking up most of my time.  My latest project is sewing a blouse, which is not going to turn out very well but is good practice for future sewing projects.

For preparing, planting and caring for our front flower bed and container plants, The Southern Living Garden Book (my book) is a detailed, helpful reference.  I bought this book almost ten years ago, the first time we lived in Charleston, and I’m glad I kept it all these years.

I finished Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the end of the book is so perfect in an ambiguous sort of way that I got all cross again thinking about the butchered ending of this year’s movie.   I am tempted to start (re)reading The Honourable Schoolboy (my book, a UK edition), the next book in the Smiley/Karla trilogy, but I’m thinking I should try to read more books that are new to me.  After Tinker, Tailor, I re-read Enigma, by Robert Harris (my book).  This is a thriller about the British cryptologists at Bletchley Park who broke the German Enigma machine’s codes during World War 2.  Robert Harris is a terrific writer, so the book is much more gripping than it sounds.  Then I started The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (my book), another re-read.  I read this book not long after it was published in the late Eighties, and I remembered how much I liked it but not much of the novel’s details.  About halfway through, it is a wonderful story about Macon Leary, a stuffy isolated man who is mourning the murder of his son and subsequent breakup of his marriage, while trying to deal with his strange family, strange job and bad-tempered corgi Edward.  There is a nutty dog trainer named Muriel who helped Macon with Edward for a while, but, at this point in the novel, she has been banished for bad behavior of her own.  I’m enjoying the book, but it seems dated.  It’s strange to read what is essentially a contemporary popular novel without cell phones and the Internet.  This is when I started thinking that I should read more books that are not only new to me, but new in the sense of recently written.  I’m still going to finish Tourist, because it is a good book and Macon is a well-written character in spite of having no cell phone.

I have another book going which is (yes!) both new and by extension new to me:  The Bollywood Breakup Agency, by Naina Gupta.  I found this $0.99 Kindle book on Amazon yesterday while I was looking for another book and bought it through the magic of 1-click.  Amazon reviewers described it as a chick-lit book about a modern Indian girl trying to thwart her parents’ efforts to make an arranged marriage for her.  I’m about 5% into the book, just getting to the part of the story that will explain the title of the book, and so far it’s a light entertaining read.  The heroine is spoiled but cute, and her family life in the UK with her traditional family and Indian soap operas is interesting.  I think I’ll get my $0.99 worth out of this one. 

I did read and finish another book that was new to me:  The Man with a Load of Mischief, by Martha Grimes.  I bought this book after I read a positive review of Martha Grimes’ latest book in her Richard Jury mystery series.  I hadn’t read any books in this series, and decided to start with the first one, The Man with a Load of Mischief.  I found it very slow, with a lot of intricate detail about the detective, his eventual sidekick and all the murder suspects.  The motive for the murder was a very good twist, but the actual resolution of the mystery was bland.  I don’t plan to buy more of these, although I might try another one if I can find the series at the library.

In between these books, I read the anthology Malice Domestic 9, edited by Joan Hess (my book).  I thought all the stories were good and pleasant reading.  Not all the anthologies in this series are equally strong, but this is one of the better ones.  I also dipped into mysteries by one of my favorite need-to-read authors, Dick Francis.  I own a stack of his horse-racing mysteries, and I still get fun out of dipping into some of my favorites to take a break from books that need my full attention.  Dick Francis was a celebrated steeplechase jockey, so the racing details in the books are accurate and exciting, but it seems that his famous name and knowledge of racing are his main contributions to the books, with most of the writing actually done by his wife Mary, then by one of their sons after Mary’s death.  The family that wrote together made a lot of money and entertained a lot of people with the books, and it is good that Mary is getting some recognition now for her writing skill. 

Now before I pick up Robert Harris’ Fatherland to re-read it, I need to get to the library with my long booklist and find something new to read!  

 

Movies made me do it.

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I bought new books:  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John Le Carre and War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo, and it’s all because of movies. 

I first heard about War Horse because of the play based on Michael Morpurgo’s book.  It sounded fantastic, with the horses represented on stage by life-size puppets.  There was a tiny excerpt of the play on last year’s Tony Awards, and it looked fantastic too.  Then there was the heavy ad campaign during the holiday season for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse.  It looked like the kind of movie that would have me sobbing uncontrollably in the theater, so we didn’t go.  Now Netflix has the DVD, it’s on my list, I want to see it, but I want to be prepared.  I bought Scholastic Books’ attractive, well-priced paperback edition from Amazon and I’ve read about half, flipping forward a bit to check how sad the sad parts are going to be.  I think I’ll be able to handle the rest of the book, not so sure about Spielberg’s movie version.  Michael Morpurgo has written about 100 books for children, many of them about animals.  War Horse is aimed at younger readers, but it’s well-written and a good read.  For a first person horse story, I think I prefer Black Beauty.  And the movie has Sean Bean and David Thewlis.

I was really looking forward to the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie, but I thought it was awful.  They messed with the characters and important details of the story, and the 1970s were not that camp-ugly.  And they left the commas out of the title.  I needed to get the bad taste out of my eyeballs with the excellent BBC TV production, made in the real 1970s.  Unfortunately, Netflix had a very long wait for it, and I had to buy my own copy.  The BBC left the commas out of the title too, but it was so good, I wanted to read the novel again.  My paperback copy, also from the real 1970s, has been read so often it’s falling apart, and I decided it should be retired to the back of a shelf with my worn out copies of Lord of the Rings and Tales from the South Pacific.  The price on a new trade paperback from Amazon was good, so I ordered it.  What a great book, worth re-reading after many years.  I’ve read it several times, and I can take the skewed timeline in my stride and really focus on the small perfect details.  I have several of Le Carre’s post-USSR novels, but they never caught me up like his older books.  I’m hoping that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will inspire me to read more Le Carre.

Digression: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

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We went to Orlando last week, and visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.  We went on the outstanding Forbidden Journey ride three times, ate food at the Three Broomsticks and drank beer at the Hogshead twice, and saw Olivander’s wand emporium once.  Butterbeer tastes like a rootbeer float.  The a capella Hogwarts choir, with toads accompanying, were very good but their Hogwarts wool sweaters and robes looked kind of uncomfortable in the 86 degree weather.  We gave the Dragon’s Challenge roller coaster a miss, but the little Hippogriff coaster was fun.  Hogwarts Castle and Hogsmeade village look like the ones in the Harry Potter movies, only better because the construction and the details are beautiful and you get to be right there.  It’s so good that you hardly notice the hordes of tourists in scruffy holiday attire.

Finished books: Hunger Games trilogy, The Spellman Files

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I finished reading The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz, on my Kindle, and was doing so well in the eBook format, that I finished the second and third books in The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, on the Kindle too.

I decided I enjoyed The Spellman Files enough to finish it, although it’s put together in a quirky way and the mystery I expected never really happened.  By quirky I mean flash forwards that hold out tantalizing promises of suspense that pay off contrary to expectation.  Lots of details about protagonist Isabel Spellman’s strange and often unpleasant family, and her pushy relationship with a dentist.  The way Lutz uses past, present and future reminded me of Catch-22; she actually handled the time shifts pretty well and the method made all the establishing and exposition of her family history a lot more interesting.  Lisa Lutz’s Spellman series is high on my library list, I’d like to see if she can keep up the quirky.  The Kindle version of The Spellman Files is now $11.99 on Amazon, and later books in the series are $9.99.  So library list, or the used book store.

I had stalled on Catching Fire, the second book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, a couple of months ago, but gave it another try and clicked right into the story this time.  The cliffhanger ending led me right into the third book, Mockingjay.  These books repeat too many of the first book’s details and devices, but they do develop Collins’ themes of predatory political domination, violence and revenge to a satisfactory resolution.  Satisfactory only, because I felt the violence and death escalated to a horrible level, more than Collins needed to make her points about evil government and war.  The character developments were intriguing, I’m still trying to decide if they happened naturally or mainly to serve the plot.

  • I’ve never read the classic Lord of the Flies, but I want to see how its account of kids’ violence against each other compares to this contemporary popular trilogy.
  • I saw The Hunger Games movie, and thought it was very well done, largely due to Jennifer Lawrence’s excellent work in the role of Katniss.  Good job overall of showing the Capitol’s decadence and abuse of power and the tragic consequences for the tributes, without graphic violence.  I suppose the producers also want to film the rest of the trilogy; not sure how they’re going to keep up the balancing act with the rest of the material. 

Reading as of April 14

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A long time since my last post, mainly because I haven’t finished many books, and haven’t been reading much in general.  I did finish Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, by Michael Lewis, about the causes and effects of the financial breakdown in five different countries.  A fast, interesting read, I need to go back and skim through the articles again.  Cause, effect and reaction in each country are different, although there is some overlap.  Overall, the problem seems to come down to laziness, greed, selfishness, willful ignorance, lack of responsibility and overall lack of adult supervision.  Too many people were turning a blind eye on a bunch of bratty kids, or being bratty kids themselves.  There were people trying to warn of the danger – some of the ones I followed were Steven Pearlstein, economic columnist at WaPo, who wrote many columns about fiscal stupidity, Liz Weston offered prudent financial advice on MSN.com, and there was a great YouTube video called “Peter Schiff was right” about the real estate bubble.  Pearlstein did win the Pulitzer Prize for columnists, unfortunately after the fact of September 2008.

After this, it was a pleasure to read Happy All the Time, by Laurie Colwin (my book).  This one has been traveling unread between different bookshelves with me for some time.  I bought it because I really liked Colwin’s Home Cooking, a collection of columns she wrote about – cooking at home.  The novel follows four people who meet, form two couples and experience the doubts, frustrations and pleasures of intimacy with another person.  Nothing dramatic happens to any of them and nice interesting people come in and out of their lives.  There is one jerk of a supervisor who is dealt with neatly.  The story is very subtle but engaging, with deft realistic insights into human nature.  Reading time well and happily spent.  

I read all the stories in Crime through Time III, except for a couple that were just too weird and farfetched. 

I’m currently reading The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz (Kindle), first in a series about private investigator Isabel Spellman.  Sister Lynda said this was 99 cents for her Nook, and it was making her laugh.  Since it was also 99 cents from Amazon, I bought it for my Kindle – I just checked, and it’s gone back up to $7.99 now.  The later books in the series cost even more.  I’m about 25% through the book, and haven’t reached the mystery yet, it’s mostly about Isabel’s nutty family of private investigators so far.  It is funny though, I have high hopes for the rest of it. 

Haven’t been to the library since I returned Flashman on the March, mainly because there seem to be so many books in the house and on my Kindle that I’m neglecting.  I do have a list of books to look for the next time I go, and I also want to check out a used bookstore that looks interesting.

Current books, March 21, 2012

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The Siege of Krishnapur, by J.G. Farrell (my book).  I read this book about 20 years ago, and was happy to see it again.  It takes place during the Indian Mutiny in 1857.  A group of British East India Company employees, English planters and businessmen, and their families, take refuge in the Company’s compound from mutinous Indian sepoys.  They, and some Indian army pensioners, hold out during a months-long siege by endurance, courage and adaptation, and in spite of many foibles and weaknesses.  I am about halfway through this book, although I have done some of my usual forward flipping through the rest of it.  My favorite character is the Collector, the heroic head bureaucrat for the Company in Krishnapur.  He is the only person who sees trouble brewing, and tries to warn the authorities, exciting much ridicule and scoffing from the British community. The author did extensive research into the Indian Mutiny and life under the British Raj in the 19th century, and read many personal accounts of those caught up in the Mutiny.  The story’s tone and the characters’ thoughts and actions are realistic and compelling, the action and romance are thrilling, and the clashes between Church of England theology, Victorian ideals of progress, duelling medical standards and rejection of materialism make the story even better. 

A Nation Rising, by Kenneth C. Davis (my book).  I bought this in a moment of book lover’s bliss in a wonderful bookshop in Savannah.  Kenneth C. Davis wrote Don’t Know Much About History:  fast, lively chunks of history that are useful to know.  This book seems more ambitious; the author has chosen little-known but, in his opinion, significant events in American history 1800 – 1850, and tries to relate them to concepts and events in contemporary America.  I’ve read the first chapter, about Aaron Burr, and it was a very good historical account, with some important points about judicial developments in the early years of the Republic.  However, the author’s attempts to tie these events to specific current events seem forced and don’t ring true, even though I am in sympathy with many of his ideas.  I will finish the book for the history.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, by Michael Lewis (Kindle).  I saw this book in the wonderful bookshop, but decided to get some more information about it before buying.  Michael Lewis has written well-known books like Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Blind Side.  I have borrowed several of his books from the library, and could never get into them before it was time to take them back.  Boomerang is a collection of five long articles Michael Lewis wrote for Vanity Fair, and Amazon was selling the eBook for $3.99.  I decided to take a chance on it.  The articles are about the causes and effects of the economic recession in Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and California, and I’ve finished them all except California.  Lewis has the clout to get interviews with important players in the downfall and rehabilitation efforts of the world economy.  His observations about the countries and people he visited are pithy and funny, interesting and entertaining while maintaining a sense of objectivity.  Useful for people who are still interested in trying to figure out how we got into this mess, and want some ideas on how we’re going to get out of it. 

The Sheikh and the Dustbin and The Hollywood History of the World, by George McDonald Fraser (my books).  I wrote a little about these books in a post below on a book I just finished, Flashman on the March. 

Crime through Time III, edited by Sharan Newman (my book).  This is a collection of mystery stories, always a great “need to read” fallback for me.  This book was in storage; I can’t remember reading it and my copy looks pristine.  Virtually a new book, yay.

In review, I notice that only one of my current books is actually book-length, requiring sustained reading effort.  All the rest can be read in fits and starts.  My attention span doesn’t seem to be getting much better.

Finished some books

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Since I wrote my first three posts on March 1, I have finished some books, bought some books, started some books AND managed to get my blog about reading books to display on the Interwebs.  (If you want to start a blog, I have some tips.)  This post is about the books I have finished:

I finished one book that was on hiatus:  We Meant Well: How I helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, by Peter van Buren (Kindle).  This book is a personal, heartfelt account of the author’s frustrations with the prescribed methods of nation-building in Iraq, where he had a Foreign Service assignment on a Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT).  Just after I finished the book, I read a news article saying that the State Department has taken action to fire Peter van Buren from the Foreign Service.  Nearly all of the reasons cited for firing him have to do with a blog he has kept since his book was published last fall.  My take as a retired Foreign Service Officer (FSO):  the things he did on his blog were stupid and ugly and wouldn’t be acceptable from any FSO.  However, his book is important and interesting; the things he writes about might be embarrassing to State and Defense, but the wacky processes he describes for spending appropriated funds (“the taxpayers money”) ring true.

I finished current book Underfoot in Show Business, by Helene Hanff (my book), an autobiography of the author’s experiences writing for the NYC theater in the 1940s, and writing for television in the 1950s.  Funny, sweet, realistic, great storytelling.  Helene Hanff’s most famous book is 84, Charing Cross Road, about the books she ordered from a used book shop in London after WW2.  The book is short, in the form of letters between Helene and the bookshop, and has cult status with many book lovers.  84, Charing Cross Road, and Q’s Legacy, another autobiographical book, are still in print.  Ms. Hanff’s other books are available through Amazon’s used book sellers.

I also finished Flashman on the March, by George MacDonald Fraser (library book), and actually returned the book to the library before it was due.  I had put Flashman aside for many years, because the bigoted bombast from him and his curmudgeonly creator Mr. MacDonald Fraser finally got to me, but really, given the obnoxious tone of current public discourse, I’ve toughened up a lot.  In their favor, the Flashman books are intelligent, historically accurate and funny, the exact opposite of the aforementioned obnoxious current public discourse.  I got so enthusiastic about my renewed interest in the irascible George MacDonald Fraser that I ordered his book The Hollywood History of the World (from an Amazon used book seller) and started reading a book of his short stories, The Sheikh and the Dustbin (my book), based on his experiences in the British Army.  These books are interesting and clever, but just don’t have the charisma and dash of awful Harry Flashman.  I think I’ll start with Flashman, the first book in the series, and read through them again.  Yes, I still have all of them. 

Away all Boats and Midnight Rising are still in hiatus.  Still reading Ireland in fits and starts.