30 Great Books in 2007?

So, as the name of this blog suggests, I'm supposed to read 30 books a year. I had a bit of a wake-up call on November 1 when I realized that I'm only on #20 with 8.5 weeks to go before the bells toll for 2008. Can I make it?

The answer is: yes. Or at least, I'm really going to try. I've got to buckle down and read a book a week, plus double up twice. Still, I think I can do it. I met my goal for week one (November 4-10) with The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (post coming next) and I've only got about 80 pages left of Atonement.

So let's start counting down to the new year. 10, 9, 8...

#20: Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

Overall, I liked this book and would recommend it. And I have to say I like it even more now that I've just looked at the writer's website. Eat, Pray, Love just sort of ended, without a real conclusion, but Gilbert is pretty forthcoming on her site, so now I don't have any remaining questions. (Basically, I was wondering what happened with her and Felipe, and wasn't so sure they'd stayed together based on how she wrote it. But it sounds like all is well.)

Despite some annoying parts -- it seriously bugged me when she writes that she won't divulge the name of the ashram, as if it ought to be all hers -- and the obvious neuroses, on the whole I felt like Elizabeth Gilbert is someone I would probably be friends with. I totally empathized with not wanting to follow the traditional path, and get married or have a baby; I understood wanting to be free and keep traveling. It's how I have lived my life. So despite the minor annoyances, I just bypassed those parts of the story as I would the slightly annoying habits of my friends -- and accepted it as just part of the package.

But mostly, it was a sad reminder that I should have gone to Bali last year when I had the chance. (I got freaked out by the State Department warning.) Oh well. Maybe next year, if I make it to Australia? It just sounds AMAZING.

So, in sum, a thumbs up to Eat, Pray, Love.

#19: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, Brock Clarke

Bleh. Despite the buzz, I just couldn't stomach this book. (I picked it up originally because of the basic premise: narrator Sam Pulsifer burns down the Emily Dickinson Home by accident. And as an Amherst grad, I wanted to see what was being done, even fictionally, to my alma mater.)

Anyway, so we (we being this book and I) started off badly. I just didn't like the narrator. He seemed so pathetic, and incapable of standing up for himself. And since the novel is first-person, it didn't bode well. (I even took this book on a week-long vacation, and had a hard time opening it.) The other problem is the writer's cleverness; once or twice is fine, but Clarke hits you over the head with it every chance he gets.

For example, courtesy of page 117:

“Forget the drinks,” Morgan said. “We want you to tell us how to burn down houses like the one you burned down. And after we do, we can write a book about it.”

"An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England," G-ooff said. "We've already come up with the title."

"Why do you even need to be an arsonist to write the book?" I asked. "You could always just pretend to have burned down the houses and write the book anyway."

The paragraph itself is funny, but page after page, the device just gets old. In the end, it's the, well, end, that just ruins the novel. Basically, once Sam gets out of the slammer, he gets married and has kids, and never mentions his crime. But then the son of one of the people killed at the Emily Dickinson House shows up and tried to destroy his life in revenge. At the same time, coincidentally (or not?) someone starts burning down other writers' homes and Sam looks like the culprit. Since he's the narrator, you know it's not him (unless Clarke had decided to pull a Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which he doesn't.)

After bumbling his way through some 260 pages, Sam eventually figures out who did what. But the logic is off. He decides that the real culprit (whose name I will omit, to avoid the spoiler) is the actual culprit because that person utters the exact same sentence as the detective. "As every detective knows, the rhetoric of crime and the rhetoric of crime solving are the very same, and if Detective Wilson were trying to solve the crimes, did that mean that [real culprit] had committed one of them?” What a cop-out.

And in the end, Sam learns nothing. The moral? "Maybe this is what is means to take responsibility for something: not to tell the truth, but to make sure you pick a lie for a good reason and then stick to it.” In the end, Sam stays pathetic and still doesn't stand up for himself. So what was the friggin' point?

Boo. Seriously.

Next up: Eat, Pray, Love

#18: Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, Jasper Fforde

Sadly, I've forgotten most of what happened in this book, despite liking it immensely. I think it may actually have been the best in the Thursday Next series since the first one. (Although I have also completely forgotten the basic plots of all of those, too. Alas.) I just looked on Wikipedia, but the plot synopsis is bare. Oh well. On a brighter note, the page says that First Among Sequels is the first in a new four-part series!

Alright, moving on: next up is An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England.

#17: This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley

It's been awhile since I've blogged; I actually finished this book at the end of September. Because of the delay, the details are wee bit fuzzy, but I'll do my best.

I picked up This Year You Write Your Novel after I read an excerpt in O -- not only did I generally like what I read, but I felt like Mosley hit upon one essential fact of novel-writing: you have to make the time for it. It may sound like a silly point, but most novel-writing books tend to gloss over this important fact with visions of unending prose and award-winning character development. Mosley, on the other hand, acknowledged how difficult it is to find the time and insisted that you have to do it anyway. I respected his no-nonsense attitude (which incidentally reminded me of his novels). So I picked up the book. Sadly, I could have just stuck with the excerpt. This Year You Write Your Novel is really short, and just sort of introduces the basic concepts of plot, pacing, etc, all of which I'm pretty sure I already knew.

But still, I suppose one lesson is better than none.

Well, lucky me, since I've read another 3 books since I last blogged, I will just move on to the next post...here comes Thursday Next: First Among Sequels.

#16: Angels, Marian Keys

I liked this book when I read it a couple of years ago, and since I have been tired of reading blah books, I decided to pick it up again. What can I say? It's a sweet novel about romance and Los Angeles, a great choice for a sunny day at the pool.

Next up? This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosely. I'm about halfway through it already.

Alarming

Last month an AP-Ipsos poll found that 1 in 4 American adults haven't read a book in the past year. That's like 7 million people. And for people that had cracked open a book, the median number was 4, while women who classified themselves as readers generally read 9. Wow. Suddenly I am feeling much, much better about my blog.

CNN link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/08/21/reading.ap/

#15: Stardust, Neil Gaiman

I have to admit, I picked this up after reading a preview of the film. And I am so glad I did -- this novel is just fantastic. I've just spent ages writing the Harry Potter review, and I'm hungry, so I'll just say that Stardust is clever and creative and well-worth the read.

Next Up? For once, I have no idea. I have more than a few books sitting on the shelf, but I'm not sure what I'll pick up next. Hmm...

#14: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

My hands are tied on this one: I raced through the final installment so quickly in the hopes that I wouldn't find out a thing from someone else first (and I didn't), so in turn, I'll try to be vague and hope that I don't ruin it for anyone else. Looking at amazon.com, I see that by an overwhelming majority, readers loved this book -- and frankly, I'm shocked. I thought it rambled on and on and on, and the ending was ultimately unsatisfying. Multiple nights I fell asleep.

The main flaw is that clearly this tome is not a book for children (both through the high and random death toll and thematically), and the book is marching along to this mature conclusion until Rowling makes a U-turn and sanitizes it. Presumably for the children, who should have stopped reading around page 5. In that respect, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was far superior; Rowling made the tough choice, but committed to it. It's the same reason why The Lord of the Rings works, and I mention it because obviously Rowling drew inspiration from Tolkien's masterpiece. The point is, in both books, good is not only a choice, it is the most difficult choice. That's why, at the end of LOTR, Frodo is broken and leaves Middle Earth; would you really believe that the battle between good and evil was so important if the main characters came out of it completely unscathed, as if it never happened?

More than anything though, I wish I could be more specific. It's a real shame that the fastest-selling book in history cannot actually be discussed.

#13: Little Pink Slips, Sally Koslow

I was going to say that this book was decent, and recommend it as a good choice for a casual summer read on the beach. It has the usual mistakes, sure, as if no one at the publishing house bothered to read it before sending it to the presses, but it's suprisingly well-written. But there's one question that automatically comes up: How much was based on Koslow's experiences with Rosie O'Donnell, who, like the book's Bebe Blake, takes a venerable woman's magazine and attempts to turn it into a star vehicle? It turns out, not much, and if you manage to google this little factoid hidden under all the hype, you the reader feel deceived.

The basic premise: Protagonist Magnolia Gold is ousted from her enviable position as editor-in-chief of the venerable women's magazine Lady when the publishing company decided that it will be a bigger moneymaker if it's handed over to brash TV talk show host Bebe Blake, and turned into Bebe. Similarly, Koslow (who I usually call "coleslaw" before catching myself and inverting the letters) was given the boot as EIC from venerable women's magazine McCalls when the title was handed over to Rosie O'Donnell and turned into Rosie. Both magazines fail. See a pattern? But it turns out, this marketed-as-a "roman a clef" is basically complete fiction. According to the New York Times, Koslow and Rosie never actually worked together. Instead, the author penned this little expose from things she'd heard. Seriously? Things she'd heard?

She's trying to sell some books, okay, and one could argue that it's a conclusion drawn from her bio, and not explicitly stated. Perhaps I can accept that. But then do a Google. Koslow tried to start a mini-duel on the Huffington Post over some dismissive comment Rosie had made. It didn't work -- and seems a cheap cry for just a little more publicity. The whole thing really changed my opinion of the book. It's like both the writer and the publishing company is content to ride on someone-way-more-famous's coattails, hoping you won't figure it out.

Next Up? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm already closing in on page 100, hoping to get to the end before I stumble across the ending somewhere else.

#12: A Mighty Heart, Mariane Pearl

This is a strange book -- and the first time I have ever been tempted to lie on a review. Why? It feels wrong to say that I thought the book had some major flaws, as if I'm tarnishing the memory of Daniel Pearl, rather than just judging the book on its literary merits.

Strangely, the biggest problem with A Mighty Heart is that it lacks emotion. It is essentially a 234-page newspaper article, filled with names, dates, and movements -- so many, in fact, that I had a hard time keeping track of who all the characters were. I didn't know that much about Daniel Pearl going in, and I don't really know anything more about him now -- he owned a mandolin, and occasionally wrote inappropriate emails to his friends. But that's not knowing a man. Perhaps that, most of all, makes me sadder than any part of the book...as a journalist, to read a book about a journalist who gave his life for this profession, and to admire that, while he still remains pretty faceless. I know that Mariane loved him, and it sounds like they had a wonderful marriage -- but her love doesn't shine through on the page, but more in the labor of love that is the book itself. (Reading other people's reviews on Amazon, I think that's where everyone gets confused.)

The most moving section of A Mighty Heart are, oddly, the letters in the back that were sent to Mariane and the unborn Adam, from people around the world. Some letters are from politicians, like President Bush and French president-at-the-time Jacques Chirac, but then others are from ordinary people. It's amazing how many people wrote to them, just to say, I'm sorry and have hope. It's the strength of that book, that ending.

But on a different track, the other bit of oddness is being plunged back in time, to 2001, but that's what resonated. Terrorism is still so real and present in our lives, but it's like we live in a completely different era, even though today it's only 6 years later. And I know that we cannot live in a perpetual state of fear and I don't want to, but there was also something beautiful about September 2001 -- it was a time when we were a united nation, and strangers actually looked at one another, and spoke to one another. Life was precious, and for a moment, everyone saw the phenomenal gift that they held in their hands. It was like we existed in this heightened state of awareness together, something that I have felt at only brief moments since.

But that's not really what A Mighty Heart was about. The book itself was a very detailed description of a search that, up until page 143, was on a wild goosechase. The grammar was bad (I know she's French, but she had co-writer), and some information was badly organized. At the same time, A Mighty Heart made me rememember, and more importantly, think. And that's it. I both liked and disliked it at the same time...and feel bad for saying so.

#11: Flower Confidential, Amy Stewart

I brought this book with me on a vacation to Hawaii last week, outwardly hopeful that it would be as great as it sounded, but inwardly nervous that it was not beach-appropriate. But I am delighted (and relieved) to report that it was fantastic, and I could barely put it down. (I went for a wedding, and I would even break it out when I had a spare five minutes.)

I was really impressed with Stewart's ability to take a complicated, international industry and reduce it to enjoyable anecdotes, from a 3rd generation violet grower in California to the early morning Dutch flower auction. Even better, I feel smarter now. (If I hadn't borrowed it from the library, I probably would have broken out my highlighter.) There's just so much information packed in there -- she clearly put a tremendous amount of hours and research into this work.

Having said that, I think you have to like flowers, at least a little bit, to really enjoy Flower Confidential. If you don't, I could see how you'd want to chuck it out the window -- for me, it would be like reading a towering stack of Car & Driver with no end in sight.

Up next for me? As I try to catch up on my reading (after all, it's July, and I'm only on book 12), I'm diving into A Mighty Heart and finishing up Don Cheadle's Darfur book.

#10: The Children of Hurin, JRR Tolkien

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Like all of Tolkien's books, it was engaging and well-written, and his son, Christopher, did a stellar job of keeping Tolkien's vision entact while (most likely) eliminating the family tree references that bog down some of the other works. On the other hand, The Children of Hurin is totally depessing, the protagonist is too arrogant to be likeable, and the novel as a whole could have been strengthened by a link to, say, The Hobbit and/or The Lord of the Rings, since it's the history of Middle Earth in an earlier period -- I didn't really see (or worse, feel) how the devastation of these earlier wars between men/elves and Morgoth led to the later, greater showdown, but that element could have givn the novel a real power.

This posthumous book clearly mimics the classic dramas of say, Sophocles and Euripides (and that may be an automatic turnoff for some), but strangely it lacks the chorus wrap-up at the end that helps the readers feel fulfilled with some sort of moral, even if everything else has gone to hell.

But still, I liked it. I looked forward to coming home and cracking it open. So go figure...

#9: The Starter Wife, Gigi Levangie Grazer

I can't believe this book was a best-seller; hopefully, like The Devil Wears Prada, the movie version (or in this case, the TV movie version) will improve this ridiculous novel. (Though judging from the reviews I've already read, it's not looking good, though anything with Debra Messing in it is inevitably fun. And I love her hair color. But I digress...) I know I only have myself to blame for hating these books, as in why do I even bother to pick them up? But you know, sometimes it's late, and a girl just wants to have a laugh, instead of a cry over Darfur (which is the subject of the other book I'm reading.)

The main flaw of The Starter Wife is that it was unbearably predictable. The wife of a studio executive gets left for a pop tart (we'll get to that later) and the wife goes through an identity crisis, emotes through a friend's suicide, and falls in love with a homeless guy. And while you could argue that the details are original (not many chick lit novels sport a sexy homeless guy), the story is delivered is the same predictable order with these random characters and their outrageous situations thrown in to make it seem original. (Are you with me?) It was also hard to root for the heroine, whose name I momentarily forgot. (Oh, Gracie.) She was sort of a wallflower-complainer (no doubt Debra Messing will improve on this, if nothing else) who willing gave up her identity to please her husband, so it was hard to sympathize with her.

But most annoying, and this is a two-way tie: the use of parentheses on EVERY single page and the fictionalization of Britney Spears and other celebrities. Let me start with the first point: (parentheses). Grazer used them on every page, for throwing in the most random asides - one or two (in the entire novel) would have been fine, but page after page, it just became distracting, and consistently interrupted the flow of the novel. I've used the same device throughout this post to make my point (and isn't it annoying?)

Onto point two (and a new paragraph, okay I'll stop now), Grazer warns us in the Author's Note that she has, "for the sake of versimilitude," peppered her book with real celebrities doing fictional things. I would have thought that passing references would be no big deal, but - and writers out there, take note - it fails as a device for anyone reading your novel outside of the season it was published. A reference to Ben Affleck as a single, datable guy wrecks that suspension of disbelief needed for all reading because everyone on the planet knows he's married and has a kid now. But the worst offense was against Britney Spears, and I know that you can fictionalize/satirize public figures without penalty, but I'm shocked that Grazer had the guts (and perhaps the arrogance) to make this girl look like a pinhead. Page 241 - "Gracie looked at Will, who widened his eyes, looking not unlike her husband's new girlfriend, Britney, when faced with a tough question like, 'Is global warming really caused by increases in carbon dioxide levels as a result of human activity?' or 'What goes in a shoe?'" I mean, Britney Spears is not my favorite celebrity, and she's been making mistake after mistake lately, but this just seems downright mean-spirited. And how hard is it to create a fictional character in a book of fiction?

So after all this, what's the four-word summary of The Starter Wife? Not worth your time. And before I go, I have to point out the best part: Grazer, who is married to uber-successful Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, is a second wife, a stereotype she basically wrote an entire book making fun of, and previously a starter wife. No judgment on her relationships, because marriage is hard (I hear), but it's funny and ironic. And how great is that?

#8: Because She Can, Bridie Clark

In some ways, this book was amusing and in some ways, I am shocked that trees were cut down for the paper. Because She Can is supposed to be another Devil Wears Prada - an inside look at the oh-so-glamorous world of publishing where the narrator works for a boss from hell and makes bad relationship choices. And I suppose the two novels are on par - despite a fantastic movie adaptation, The Devil Wears Prada was a moderately amusing but poorly written book.

I accept that chick lit is not War and Peace, I really do. The plot was totally predictable, and even cookie-cutter, but I can ignore that. The thing that bugged me about this book were the errors, like her editor ran out of red ink midway through...which is ironic in a book about a hardworking editor who slaves over her manuscripts.

For example, the dates with the college crush-cum-fiance (see, predictable) are confused. On page 61, the sentence reads, "And our third date was already in the works!" and is quickly followed by Randall asking heroine Claire to dine at Nobu. But then page 83 messes it all up. "Last weekend, we'd shared yet another amazing meal - this time at Le Cirque - followed by an even more amazing goodnight kiss. I was smitten. I'd named our kids. [New paragraph] Last night had been our fourth date." See? At first the third date is at Nobu, but then 20 pages later, it's at Le Cirque.

These sorts of errors happened two other places that I obviously noticed, and won't go into. But generally, when a book has errors like this, I lose interest quickly - I guess I feel like if the author and/or her editor can't be bothered, neither can I. So the best thing I can say about Because She Can is that it passed quickly.

Next Up? I have many books lining my shelves, but I'm thinking it's going to be Angelica by Arthur Phillips or Not On Our Watch by Don Cheadle.

#7: In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje

In the Skin of a Lion is an amazing, incredible book - though I knew this going in, as it was my second read. (I read it for the first time, circa 1999, on the urging of a boyfriend. He's long gone, but the gift of the novel has remained.) It's beautiful and strange at the same time, but not for everyone, unfortunately - in some places, Ondaatje doesn't use much detail, or explain what's going on, so you have to be willing to work it out for yourself. But I think that's the real genius of it - you have to feel it, you have to immerse youself in the language, to get it.

When I think back on the reading of it, several images linger in my mind: A nun falling off a bridge into the darkness, only to be caught by a construction worker hanging underneath; Finnish laborers ice skating at night on a pond, creating light trails with the torches they hold; a man staring out a train window, concentrating on the scenery so that grief will not destroy him.

I could never do justice to its poetry, so I'll end on one of my favorite passages instead, where Patrick is observing his actress-lover, Alice...
"His love of the theatre was that of an amateur. He picked up gossip, mementoes, handbills. He loved technique, to walk backstage and see Ophelia with her mad face half rubbed off. This was humanity in theatre, the scar - the old actor famous for playing whimsical judges, who rode the Queens streetcar east of the city and ate his dinner alone before joining his sleeping wife. Patrick liked that. He wanted to be fooled by the person he felt could not fool him, who stopped three yards past the side curtain and became somebody else."

Extra: The Tudors (Showtime original series)

Considering how many historical fiction novels I've read on the Tudors in the last few years, it should come as no surprise that I was excited about this series. My expectations were high - and perhaps that's why, after having seen the first three episodes, I feel so very low.

I read this story in the London Times discussing the show, and it basically said that the producers felt the content had to be both sexed up and dumbed down for American audiences. But has it really been that dumbed down? Ironically, by taking out all the details of why things happened, I would imagine the series is either incredibly hard to follow or too vague to get into if you don't already know the history behind it (which then makes it a series for the amateur historian, arguably someone who's more interested in American Pastoral than American Idol).

The opening credits crack me up...English hottie Jonathan Rhys-Myers intones, "You think you know a story but you only know how it ends. To get to the heart of the story you have to go back to the beginning." So why didn't they start at the beginning?!? I mean, they don't have to begin at the moment of his birth, but perhaps the beginning of Henry's reign would have been more appropriate? Why leave out the happy days of Henry and Katherine's marriage? It only adds to the pathos when he tried to disentangle himself.

Look who the dummies are now...

(Oh, and one more point, I can't resist...Natalie Dormer's eye color. She plays Anne Boleyn, who had incredibly dark eyes, but she, Natalie, has these clear blue eyes. She's an unknown actress, so I'm not sure why they didn't make her wear colored contacts, but whatever - artistic license. But then, in one of the episodes, they make a reference to her eyes, which makes this small detail stand out as a blatant error. Why ruin it?)

#6: Innocent Traitor, Alison Weir

It's been about two weeks since I finished this book, and I can barely remember what happened. I don't know, maybe I've read too much in the genre (that being Tudor era historical fiction) but I feel like each book is just a rehash of the last. Perhaps that's the problem with history in general - I guess it's hard to be creative with the truth.

Anyway, Innocent Traitor...this one was a wee bit different as the focus was on Jane Grey, a royal relation and fervent Protestant whose parents and father-in-law tried to set up as the Queen after King Edward (son of Henry VIII) dies. I wanted to like Jane, I really did - she was ill-treated by her mother and married to a brute - but she was just so damn sanctimonious. And nobody likes that.

I also hated Weir's technique of changing the narrator about every five pages - why has that become the new trend in historical fiction? It's just irritating. No need to say anything more, I'd rather just move on...

Next up? I'm reading 3 books at the moment: Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, AND Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan. I don't usually read more than one book at a time, but I have varied and not-worth-explaining-it reasons. We'll see which one hits the finish line first.

#5: From Baghdad, With Love, Jay Kopelman

Quick read, good book. I read a lot of "literary" fiction, and some classics, so it took me a couple of pages to get used to Kopelman's style--which is casual, as if he was sitting at a bar telling you the story, instead of writing it down. I picked it up not just because of the dog aspect (I was hoping it would be a bit like Marley and Me) but also because of Iraq. It gives an unusual perspective on the war, because it's not political--you see glimpses of Fallujah, Baghdad, and desert, but only in how those places affect Kopelman and his attempts to keep Lava. So, thumbs up for this one.

Up Next: ?

#4: Anybody Out There?, Marian Keyes

I had the strangest start with this book -- I thought it was going to be a continuation of The Other Side of the Story, which I read in 2004. I was a little fuzzy on the plot details, but I remembered that one of the girls lived in New York, and--more importantly--that I'd liked it. So basically, I started out confused, and it took me about 60 pages to realize this was a completely unrelated book.

I enjoyed it, though it was my least favorite of the three of Marian Keyes' that I've read (Angels was stellar). It was an interesting book, because you start out not knowing what's really happened, the same as the protagonist, Anna. By about page 130, you, the reader, have figured it out, and just as soon as you start wondering how long it's going to take Anna, boom, it's revealed and Keyes moves the plot on. That happened a couple of times.

As I said, it was entertaining, but I felt just sort of ho-hum about the ending. Not swept away by a greater understanding of anything. Yah, yah, I know, it's just chick-lit.

Before ending this post though, I do have to point out an error (one that cracks me up when I see it, especially in advertisements): Anna and her husband Aidan go to Mexico for Christmas, and take a beginner's scuba-diving course. Things go wrong with Anna's regulator, so she shoots up to the surface (major no-no). "I kicked past a surprised shoal of clown fish, praying to break the surface." (p. 130). So, what's the mistake? Anyone? Bueller?

If I could turn this text upside down I would. Alas. Answer: There are no clown fish in North America. Period. They also don't live in shoals -- they're territorial, and live with their mate. One tried to bite my camera string when I got too close in Egypt once. Aggressive little suckers, but extremely cute!

Up Next: From Baghdad, with Love, by Jay Kopelman