Book Round-Up: May 2010

Since switching over to the new blog format, I haven’t kept up with my usual book reviews.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening to audiobooks every night before bed (to the point that I can’t fall asleep without a few minutes snuggling with my iPod) and my new Kindle tempts me to blow my book budget at every turn.

Here are a few of the books I’ve completed in the last couple months, along with my quick reflections:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

From Publishers Weekly: The publishers of Chris Cleave's new novel "don't want to spoil" the story by revealing too much about it, and there's good reason not to tell too much about the plot's pivot point. All you should know going in to Little Bee is that what happens on the beach is brutal, and that it braids the fates of a 16-year-old Nigerian orphan (who calls herself Little Bee) and a well-off British couple--journalists trying to repair their strained marriage with a free holiday--who should have stayed behind their resort's walls. The tide of that event carries Little Bee back to their world, which she claims she couldn't explain to the girls from her village because they'd have no context for its abundance and calm. But she shows us the infinite rifts in a globalized world, where any distance can be crossed in a day--with the right papers--and "no one likes each other, but everyone likes U2." Where you have to give up the safety you'd assumed as your birthright if you decide to save the girl gazing at you through razor wire, left to the wolves of a failing state.

My Notes: I loved and hated this book.  I forgot where I was when I was in the middle of listening to this book and it was hard to go about my daily life while feeling ripped from this alternate universe.  I frequently wanted to scream at the characters, who made stupid decisions again and again, but I suppose that was part of what made the book compelling.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

From Publishers Weekly: This inventive fantasy from bestseller Fforde (The Eyre Affair) imagines a screwball future in which social castes and protocols are rigidly defined by acuteness of personal color perception. Centuries after the cryptically cataclysmic Something That Happened, a Colortocracy, founded on the inflexible absolutes of the chromatic scale, rules the world. Amiable Eddie Russett, a young Red, is looking forward to marrying a notch up on the palette and settling down to a complacent bourgeois life. But after meeting Jane G-23, a rebellious working-class Grey, and a discredited, invisible historian known as the Apocryphal man, Eddie finds himself questioning the hitherto sacred foundations of the status quo. En route to finding out what turned things topsy-turvy, Eddie navigates a vividly imagined landscape whose every facet is steeped in the author's remarkably detailed color scheme. Sometimes, though, it's hard to see the story for the chromotechnics.

My Notes: I really liked this book, and I think part of the pleasure is just giving up the emphasis on plot and just enjoying the wacky social dystopia.  I can see this turning into a longer series (like the Thursday Next books I so loved) and will definitely keep my eye out for a sequel.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

From Publishers Weekly: What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.

My Notes: Whew – this one was a doozy.  I had to stay up past 2am several nights in a row out of desperation to keep going to the next chapter.  It had a little bit of everything and I thought the author did a fabulous job of creating dramatic tension without ever straying from brutal realism.  I loved each and every character.

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

From Publishers Weekly: Fans of Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind and new readers alike will be delighted with this gothic semiprequel. In 1920s Barcelona, David Martin is born into poverty, but, aided by patron and friend Pedro Vidal, he rises to become a crime reporter and then a beloved pulp novelist. David's creative pace is frenetic; holed up in his dream house—a decrepit mansion with a sinister history—he produces two great novels, one for Vidal to claim as his own, and one for himself. But Vidal's book is celebrated while David's is buried, and when Vidal marries David's great love, David accepts a commission to write a story that leads him into danger. As he explores the past and his mysterious publisher, David becomes a suspect in a string of murders, and his race to uncover the truth is a delicious puzzle: is he beset by demons or a demon himself? Zafón's novel is detailed and vivid, and David's narration is charming and funny, but suspect. Villain or victim, he is the hero of and the guide to this dark labyrinth that, by masterful design, remains thrilling and bewildering.

My Notes: This book kept me up at night in wonder and terror.  I’m not a huge fan of gothic novels but this one caught me – I could easily see it being translated into a graphic novel or movie a la Sin City.  Highly recommended.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee

From Publishers Weekly: Former Elle editor Lee delivers a standout debut dealing with the rigors of love and survival during a time of war, and the consequences of choices made under duress. Claire Pendleton, newly married and arrived in Hong Kong in 1952, finds work giving piano lessons to the daughter of Melody and Victor Chen, a wealthy Chinese couple. While the girl is less than interested in music, the Chens' flinty British expat driver, Will Truesdale, is certainly interested in Claire, and vice versa. Their fast-blossoming affair is juxtaposed against a plot line beginning in 1941 when Will gets swept up by the beautiful and tempestuous Trudy Liang, and then follows through his life during the Japanese occupation. As Claire and Will's affair becomes common knowledge, so do the specifics of Will's murky past, Trudy's motivations and Victor's role in past events. The rippling of past actions through to the present lends the narrative layers of intrigue and more than a few unexpected twists. Lee covers a little-known time in Chinese history without melodrama, and deconstructs without judgment the choices people make in order to live one more day under torturous circumstances.

My Notes: I screwed up this audiobook by accidentally skipping ahead and so I knew the “big reveal” much too early.  Even so, I was totally caught up in the story and the characters, and felt like I got a surprising insight into the realities of being stuck in the middle of war. 

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

From Publishers Weekly: Set in 1910, the delightful 19th Amelia Peabody novel from bestseller Peters (after Tomb of the Golden Bird) takes Amelia and her husband, Emerson, to Palestine, where an English adventurer, George Morley, is planning to excavate Jerusalem's Temple Mount in search of the Ark of the Covenant. Gen. David Spencer, the director of Military Operations in London, suspects Morley, an amateur archeologist at best, of spying for the Germans, whose influence has been growing in the Middle East. Spencer wants Egyptologists Amelia and Emerson to stop Morley from undertaking a project sure to offend the three religious groups that consider the temple site holy. Meanwhile, son Ramses embarks on a treacherous journey to convey to his parents important information learned from two travelers he meets while on a dig in Samaria. Once again, MWA Grandmaster Peters uses vivid settings, sharp characterizations, and deft dialogue to transport the reader to another time and place.

My Notes: I’ve read all 19 of the Amelia Peabody mysteries and love them all dearly.  I expect to reread them all on a regular basis until I’m a little old lady surrounded by cats.

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian

Product Description: The opening salvo of the Aubrey-Maturin epic, in which the surgeon introduces himself to the captain by driving an elbow into his ribs during a chamber-music recital. Fortunately for millions of readers, the two quickly make up. Then they commence one of the great literary voyages of our century, set against an immaculately-detailed backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. This is the place to start--and in all likelihood, you won't be able to stop.

My Notes: I’m listening to the unabridged audiobook even as I type this entry, primarily because I enjoyed the movie and I have fond memories of an ancient whaling novel that was my dad’s when he was a boy.  I think that I should have opted for the abridged version because we’re well into the fourth hour and 3:47 of that time has been interminable descriptions of the ship and :12 of actual plot.