The Story of Forgetting

by Stefan Merrill Block

This is a story about Alzheimer's disease - or more precisely, familial early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The subject matter being very sensitive and sad, this also dictates the tone of the book.

We follow two people.

Firstly, there is Seth, whose mother becomes ill when he is 15. Knowing very little about her life before she was married he sets out to learn about the disease that inflicted her (and sharing what information he gathered along the way) and tries to find out about her family history.

Secondly, there is Abel, a hunchback living in rural Texas and waiting for the return of his daughter Jaimie, who was led to believe that her father was Paul, Abel's twin brother. She left after she learned the truth. Whereas Abel is unaflicted, Paul suffers from Alzheimer's.

These two story lines move towards each other.

Impressive and incredibly sad.

Information on the author's family's struggle with the disease can be found on his official website.

8/10

The Lost Daughter of Happiness

by Geling Yan

(I can't say that I remember much about this book other than I have read it, but I must have enjoyed this.)

I really liked the writing in this one. Especially how parts were written from the perspective of a woman - who refers to herself as a fifth-wave immigrant - addressing the book's main character, Fusang.

Fusang is kidnapped from her native China and brought to California, where she is sold into prostitution, at the beginning of the 20th century. She does not appear to be too bothered by any of is - the kidnapping, the long journey ot the US survived by only five of the women and girls, working as a prostitute, even getting raped.

The other main characters are Da Yong (he takes on several different names over the course of the story, Da Yong is the one he has for the second half of the book), who might be Fusang's husband, and Chris, who is twelve when he falls in love with Fusang in one of the Chinatown brothels that the 'little white devils' ranging in age from 8 to 12 years frequent.

Fusang herself is passive throught all of the story and barely registeres or even understands that she is the cause for a bloody street fight, murder and the boy's distress and eventual punishment of being sent to England by his father.

The book also touches on the troubles of the newly arrived cheap laborers form China and the hatred they face from the locas, political campaigns and missonaries trying to 'free' the girl prostsitutes.

Even though the topic may suggest it, it is not a sexually explicit book, but rather tries to be erotic and/or sensual.

5/10

Then We Came to the End

by Joshua Ferris

I have two major issues with this book.

Firstly, it is advertised as 'the comedy debut of the year' (Sunday times) and tagged as 'hilarious' and 'very funny'. It is not funny. At all. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad read, but the blurps on the cover are somewhat misleading.

Secondly, the constant use of 'we' drove me crazy. Same as with (recently posted) The Jane Austen Book Club, the story is told by some unknown entity that always talks in 'we' terms.

Who the hell is this person?
Why is he/she not an integral part of the story?

This is becoming a new pet peeve, I fear.

Once I got over those initial problems I started to enjoy the read. It is mostly depressing and sad. I mean, seriously, this is about lay-offs, nutcases and cancer...how is that funny?

Maybe I just don't get it.

I struggled throught he first 1/3 of the book but after letting myself into the story, I did end up liking it well enough. No revelation, mind you, but entertaining.

5/10

The End of Alice

by A. M. Homes

A word of warning: If your reason for picking this book up is because you have read and enjoyed A. M. Homes's This Book Will Save Your Life and want to read something similar...you'll not want to read this.

It is one of the sickest, most twisted books I have ever read. So obviously, this is right in my comfort zone.

(Yes, my comfort zone - bookwise - is sick/twisted).

The subject matter is extremely tough. There are two separate story lines. One revolves around a nameless girl who contacts an equally nameless prisoner and tells him of her desire to seduce a twelve year old boy. She even talk about wanting to eat him or rather, kids in general.

The other one is of a crime (ending the Alice in the title) that landed the convice in prison in the first place. It doesn't specify what actually happened until the very end of the book and I am not so sure whether or not the prisoner's version of events is true or not.

The story is spiced up with filth and some scenes that might make your stomach turn. Nevertheless, it is strangely fascinating. As I said....sick/twisted me.

7/10

American Gods

by Neil Gaiman

Yeah...

I don't know.

The writing in American Gods was good enough, I guess. I did read until the end. Not that I was so intrigued that I could not put it down, but still.

For the first two parts of the book it feels like we are stuck with someone from the supporting cast (Shadow aka Mike Ainsel) while the real action is happening elsewhere (wherever Mr. Wednesday aka the All-Father aka Odin) is.

Shadow re-enters the story in part three - after 450 pages (!) of driving across the country and lying low in a lethargic small town in the middle of nowhere.

There is a constant threat of war. After Shadow is back in the real action and after he held vigil over the presumably dead Mr. Wednesday, he dies himself, chooses to go into nothingness rather than into either heaven or hell and is brought back to life and the battlefield, where the war is finally supposed to go down.

But then it doesn't.

Shadow talks everyone (good and bad, although it is never quite clear who belongs on which side and what the hell they want to kill each other over, anyway) out of it. He doesn't even have to sacrifice his life that he lost in a game of checkers.

You know that carousel they walk through in that museum in Wisconsin? I've been there. Other than that, a bit of a let-down.

4/10

Gwyneth Paltrow and Her Crackpot Diet May Be Laughable - But It's Pure Genius

Hadley Freeman of the Guardian comments on Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook It's All Good. And a very amusing column it is.

Gwyneth Paltrow and her crackpot diet may be laughable – but it's pure genius

Pompeii

by Robert Harris

Usually, I am wary of novels set in a 'historical' context, because the association makes me expect a tedious and slow read. Not sure why that is the immediate connection I make, especially considering that on the rare occasions I did pick up a 'historical novel', I ended up greatly enjoying it - good examples would be The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (a Nobel Prize winner for literature, no less).

Of course, Pompeii proved me wrong, as well. It turned out to be a quick and engaging read.

The story mainly follows a young Aquarius in charge of the aqueduct. His main task is to find a damaged part and repair it asap - because 'water is money'. Other characters we meet are elderly, overweight Pliny, a freed slave that pretty much runs Pompeii behind the scenes with money (what else?) and his young daughter who turns out to be a little rebellious.

The fortune of the young Aquarius is gripping and he is made out to be a sympathetic character who is not only very much interested in just what exactly is going on with Mount Vesuvius, but he also has a - albeit small - heroic streak.

Side note: Robert Harris is the brother-in-law of Nick Hornby.

8/10

Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

Although the book covers the lives of the three 'Kennedy wives' and takes on a lot it is extremely interesting to read. I didn't know an aweful lot about the trio other than what you can gather from random tabloit articles about Jacqueline Kennedy. All I knew of Ethel is that she had many, many children and as for Joan, I don't think I even knew she existed since regional US politics have never really gotten that much attention abroad.

Random things that struck me as noteworthy:

Jackie Kennedy couldn't stand Frank Sinatra.

Ted Kennedy was an asshole. This pertains to his personal life and the way he treated his wife Joan and is by no means a commentary on his political achievements (see first paragraph).

Joan Kennedy had a hell of a time and I can't help but feel sorry for her. Also, I respect the choices she has made (albeit very late) and the way she has pulled herself out of her misery.

Ethel Kennedy always has an always will make me think of Brick's sister-in-law in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...constantly pregnant, annoying and jealous. I could never warm up to her.

Surprisingly entertaining.

7/10

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

by Gregory Maguire

This was the first Gregory Maguire book I read (I have since also read Wicked and Son of a Witch, which I found both underwhelming).

For some reason I expected this to be funny, though. It is really a sad story about the stepsisters that try to help Cinderella (here:Clara) whenever they can and even take her side against their mother.

The story begins long before the known fairy tale of Cinderella and goes beyond the "happily ever after" - which turns out not to be so happy after all. See, apparently, nobody lives happily ever after - not Cindarella with her prince (of course, she does get him) and not Iris, who tells most of the story (even though she does get her prince, too).

It took me a while to realize that the very beginning was being narrated by Ruth, rather than Iris. I don't remember if it actually said so or not, but for the most part of the book it was Iris telling the tale, so I just assumed that the introduction was done by her, as well.

You would not expect Ruth to give a detailed account of anything. She doesn't speak coherently but makes sounds and sings throught the book.

Was she pretending?
Was she improving/recovering?
If so, wouldn't that have been the real fairy tale?

7/10

The End of Mr. Y (Half a Review)

by Scarlett Thomas

I'm stuck. Specifically, I am on page 224 in The End of Mr. Y and I don't want to go on. Page 224 is not even the end of a chapter or anything. So I have decided to shelf it for a while and then (maybe) get back to it at a later date.

My biggest issue with the book is I don't really like the main character. Ariel is working on her PhD when part of the university she is in collapses. (And halfway through the book I still don't know what that was all about.) She is practically starving and freezing and entertains an affair with a married professor, Patrick, who likes to 'punish' her when he is upset with his wife and/or marriage.

Anyway, back to the collapsing building...on her way home she walks into a second-hand bookshop where she makes a very unlikely discovery - a copy of the extremely rare The End of Mr. Y by Thomas Lumas, who is one of the topics of her studies. She was warned off the topic by her adviser at the university, who has recently disappeared (without his employers appearing to be very disturbed by the fact).

There is a myth surrounding that particular book that says that anyone reading it dies. Ariel, of course, starts reading it immediately only to find the most important page of them all missing. The page with the recipe that takes Mr. Y into what he dubbed 'the Troposhere', which is to say in the consciousness of somebody else. Due to the collapse, Ariel has to start sharing her office (actually, her adviser's) with two people - Heather, a biologist, and Adam, a theology scholar and former priest. When she packs up books for storage to make room for the other two, she discovers the missing page.

Here now is the all important recipe for the drink that gets you into the Troposphere.

Combine one part Carbo Vegetabilis, that is, vegetable charcoal, in the 1,000th centesimal homeopathic potency, with 99 parts holy water in a glass retort or flask and succuss the mixture ten times.

Before she mixes it up, she has a dinner at Heather's with Adam (warm food FTW!). Ariel has a bit of a crush on Adam but feels bad about it because of her kinky affair with Patrick, whom she sort of kind of wants to leave but begs off some money for the ingredients for the homeopathic stuff for the recipe after another round of sex.

Anyway, her first go gets her into the consciousness of a *drumroll* mouse! And - after some "Switch! Switch!" - a cat. When she comes out of it, she has this total understanding of the mouse caught in her trap and they have a Moment! (I am rolling my eyes as I am typing.) The place in the book I am stuck in is in the middle of her second go. She is currently in the mind of her - equally starving/freezing - neighbor Wolfgang, who has apparently just discovered that he is gay and is in the middle of a conversation with the guy he was hoping would leave his girlfriend for him (yes, yes, that one has also just discovered his homosexuality. Or not.)

Now, I am not known to be prude and I am in no way bothered by swearing and/or violence, even of the sexual kind. Here, the sex feels weirdly out of place. So far, the point of the affair with this Patrick escapes me. Also, the book is rude in places it doesn't need to be. It feels like sex and rudeness for the sake of it.

And OMG the religious discussions! This Adam guy, claiming to be not the believer he used to be, actually makes the biologist doubt scientific theories because 'you can't prove the big bang'. For fuck's sake!

At this point, that's all I got.

Watching the English

by Kate Fox

Oh how I hated this book!

It could actually have been hilarious (and we are told that it is...by many, many reviews) but the author is just so full of herself, it is simply annoying.

More than once while reading (up to the point when I finally called it quits, around page 130) I wondered whether the author herself was, in fact, English. She kept repeating that boasting is very un-English, yet kept bragging about all the other oh-so-funny books and articles she wrote in the past.

And she can barely enter a pub because her adoring fans would come up to her and thank her for her contribution and amusing observations.

I can imagine her reaction, "Oh, stop now!" fanning her face with her hand, "....But have you read that article I wrote in...?"

Also, I don't care to know what one particular thing (a room, say) is called by either working, lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle, lower-upper or whatever class. This might be interesting the first or even second time around but surely there is no need to repeat that boring comparison in practically every small chapter.

Piece of crap!

1/10

Small Island

by Andrea Levy

I very much enjoyed this. What I found especially refreshing was the way the story was told by using different perspectives by making the main characters tell it, alternately.

Queenie marries into mediocrity to escape life and work at her father's slaughterhouse. After her husband goes off to join the Royal Air Force in WW II, she tries to make the best ofher situation in a bombed out London area by renting out rooms. Her choice of lodgers does not sit well with her neighbors that want the street to remain 'respectable'.

Hortense wants to escape her native Jamaica and dreams of a life in England. She jumps at the first chance she sees that might get her there - by marrying a man she believes will provide a good life for her abroad. However, England turns out not at all like she imagined. She is naive and doesn't initially understand why she should not be trated like the well-bred lady she fancies herself to be. Worse, even, when applying for a teaching position she is treated badly and practically laughed out of the office.

Gilbert, Queenie's lodger, joined the RAF to fight for his 'mother country' England, despite the fact that he is from Jamaica and as unwelcome in the military as he is in London because of the color of his skin. Failing to find housing his wife deems 'proper', as well as finding employment as something better than a driver, he is trying to keep everything together and make the best of the situation for himself and for Hortense.

Bernard, Queenie's bank clerk husband, went off to war because it is 'the right thing to do'. he cannot deal with the horrors of war and its aftermith while stationed in India. After his return to England it takes him a full two years before returning to his home only to find that his wife has rented out room to 'darkies' and prostitutes. This does not sit well with his middle-class upbringing and his firm belief that these 'darkies' are as far beneath him as the Indian 'coolies'.

The story is riddled with conflicts and disappointmens. The different perspectives move the story in the parts called '1948' along nicely, as none of the time periods told of are reapeated through the voice of another character. In the chapters entitled 'Before' we hear the individual histories of the main characters.

Also recommended: Andrea Levy's follow up to Small Island, entitled The Long Song.

9/10

We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

The stories of students going on a shooting spree in their high schools are as regular as the seasons these days. As are the books and films that have been made about the topic. Most are sensational fare, focussing on the victims' stories and society's involvement and the what-went-wrong of it all.

Lionel Shriver takes a slightly different approach but giving the stage over to the mother of the shooter, Eva. Also, this is not written in the 'regular' novel style, but rather in letters that Eva addresses to her husband, Franklin.

Eva is in no way the toting mother that adores her firstborn son. She is always aware that she is a failure as a mother. The boy was born more as a social experiment than the actual desire for children. Little Kevin is a mean and calculating child from the very beginning, pestering his mother and a string of baby sitters, while at the same time playing perfect son to his father, running to great him whenever he comes home from work.

Franklin, then, not having seen any other side to his little boy, takes Kevin's side throughout the book. Whatever he is accused of (and, more often than not, rightly so) - by Eva, by teachers, by other parents - must simply be exaggeration on Eva's side or the effect of parents being lied to by their own children or teachers on witch hunts. The possibility that Kevin did something bad simply does not compute, which makes him seem rather simple-minded.

Then little Celia, a hapless and trusting creature, comes along and she is really the only one to feel sorry for in the book. Her mother thinks of her as a 'sap'. The poor kid one day loses her eye in an incident involving liquid cleaner while being under supervision of her older brother. Franklin assures Kevin that he 'shouldn't feel bad' about what happened and how it wasn't his fault, secretly convinced that Eva must have not locked the cupboard the cleaner was in.

Throughout the letters both, Franklin and Celia, are strangely absent but it is not initially clear whether Kevin's deeds caused the family to point fingers and Franklin to remove Celia from an incompetent mother's grasp or we are in for an even wider disaster than the shooting of high school kids. (We are.)

In the end, Eva remains bound by loyalty, rather than love, to Kevin.

The book was turned into a (very, very good) film in 2011.

9/10

Is It Time to Forgive Greg Mortenson?

The Book Beast is running a story by Jon Krakauer, author of (among others) Three Cups of Deceit, which takes a look at the status quo of Greg Mortenson's charity.

Is It Time to Forgive Greg Mortenson?

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

Here is a story narrated by Death himself (yes, I will boldly assume that Death in this particular work of fiction is a he). This is really all it takes to get me interested. I had very high hopes for the story - in part due to the accolades the book received - and for once was not disappointed.

For the most part, Death stays in the background and lets the story of young Liesel, the 'book thief' in the title, unfold. But every once in a while, there are short segments of morbidity and, curiously, much regret voiced by Death.

The story it set in Germany and in 1930s, obviously covering the years leading up to WW II and all the horrors that brought forward. But other than many other stories set in that period it is not so much about the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people, even though there is an underlying hint of it. Here we get the perspective of a young German girl (strangely enough not Catholic) seperated from her family. She lives in relative safety in a Munich suburb.

The rift the war brings into her foster family, the Hubermanns, is that their son is a staunch Hitlerite, suggesting Liesel read Mein Kampf instead of the books she prefers, while the parents hide a Jew, MaxVandenburg, for as long as they can.

This is a great book. What's more, it made me look into what Markus Zusak has written beside this, which led me to also read his I Am the Messenger, which is equally good.

9/10

Quote. Scarlett Thomas

Sometimes I like to think that I live with ghosts. Not from my own past - I don't believe in those sorts of ghosts - but wispy bits of ideas and books that hang in the air like silky puppets. [...] Some of the most friendly ghosts I live with are those of my favourite nineteenth-century science writers. Most of them were wrong, of course, but who cares? It's not like this is the end of history. We're all wrong.

from The End of Mr. Y

The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

This book is about the missionary family Price that moves to the Congo in the 1960s because the family patriarch, Nathan Price, is set on converting the Congolese to Christianity and make them believe in his vengeful and testing God. His mission is (mis-?)guided by his lack of understanding of the African culture. He regards himself as being superior to the village people as well as the women in his family.

The story itself is told through said women, alternating the particular 'voice' with every chapter. Orleanna Price, the mother 'tells' the introductions to the various parts of the books.

The daughters are:
Rachel Price. Rachel is described by her sister Leah as having 'the emotional complexities of a salt shaker'. She is the oldest, 15 at the start of the book, and very much the princess of the family that expects the world to treat her as such. Disgusted by the prospect of having to live in the Congo, she never changes her opinions, even though she eventually ends up staying in Africa, running a hotel in South Africa and believing in the idea of white supremacy.

Leah Price. She is 14 years old when the story starts. Initially a devout follower of her father and his faith, she loses her belief in him and his god over time. Leah probably adapts best to the life defined by famine and floods. She stays on in the Congo, and later in Angola, despite all hardship.

Adah Price. Adah is Leah's 'crippled' (hemiplegic) twin sister. The parts told by her were to me the moste entertaining. She choses not to speak most of the time, enjoys reading books forwards and backwards and making up palindromes. She is the only one of the sisters to leave Africe for the US with their mother.

Ruth May Price. The baby of the family is mother's favorite. She arrives in Africa at age 5 and is the one that will not survive. It is her death that gives Orleanna the final push to leave her husband with her daughters.

The story is set to the backdrop of 30 years of Congo's (and, later, Zaire's) history and dictatorship. The pace is good but seems to be slacking in the part entitled 'Exodus', which drags on a bit - probably because it tries to be too informative and educational.

Very good.

8/10

Edit (May 13, 2013):
Barbara Kingsolver on The Poisonwood Bible from The Guardian Book Club

Snow Falling on Cedars

by David Guterson

When I look out the window today, this seemes like the perfect book to review (with the "Snow Falling..." and everything...ugh).

...

I read it a few years back and this is part of my 'saving reviews from goodreads.com' project. I don't normally care much for mysteries. Thankfully, this is not your run-of-the-mill 'whodunit' because it is clear right from the start who is accused and about to stand trial for what crime. It is rather about how it could come to this.

The central problem is the post WW II world and dealing with the realization that not everyone who looks like an enemy is one. With this being set in the Pacific Northwest, that group that 'looks like' enemies is the Japanese population of the small Puget Sound town.

The tragedy is embedded in the forces of nature clashing in the area (the sea, the cold, the snow...). The landscape of Washington State sounds very impressive in the capable hands of David Guterson.

I know this was made into a film (with Ethan Hawke, no less) that I have not seen and I'm not sure I want to 'spoil' my impression of the book with it, anyway.

7/10