Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is an excellent book of short stories; nevertheless, it reminds me why I don’t like short stories — I always want more!  This one is unique, though, as (SPOILER ALERT:) there ultimately is a connecting thread to the stories at the end, which satisfied my “need to know!”

And as usual, Lahiri’s writing is beautiful.  Her stories are a window into American-Indian culture, with the recurrent themes of traditional vs. modern, Indian vs. American, and arranged marriages vs. marriages for love.  The writing is very descriptive and one can easily picture each scene as it plays out.  Each character is built so lovingly that the reader has to know what happens and is personally affected by each outcome.

This is a great collection of stories — she could develop a whole book from each one…  I wish she would!

Joy Comes in the Morning by Jonathan Rosen

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Thumbs down for this book by Jonathan Rosen.  The character development at the outset of this book was encouraging.    An elderly man, seeing that he was likely to have another stroke that might dampen his quality of life seeks to end it with dignity. A Reform Rabbi who happens to be a woman feels great reward from visiting the sick and meets this man in the hospital when his attempted suicide has failed.  With this beginning, the reader expects that it might lead to an interesting adventure in literature.  The reader is sorely disappointed…

The writing is frighteningly weak.  For example, as opposed to having the story told from one voice, or even from alternating voices in each chapter, this author volleys from character to character every few paragraphs. Very confusing!  There is little dialogue and much too much detail about what the character is thinking.   Better to leave some of this to the imagination of the reader, with more subtle suggestion from dialogue.   (The author should give the reader more credit for figuring some of this out!)  And unfortunately, even the plot gets a little ridiculous (the boyfriend poses as a rabbi and conducts an entire funeral??  Really??).

It was a struggle to finish reading this, so my advice is not to even start!

The House Girl by Tara Conklin (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This very complex story intertwines 2 stories: one story of a slave, Josephine (the “house girl”), who is seeking escape in the years just before the Civil War, and the second the story of Carolina, a young lawyer in NYC today who is working on a case seeking restitution for slavery.  They come together because Josephine was also an artist, who assisted her owner in paintings that would later be acknowledged as sophisticated works of art for which only her owner received credit.  As Carolina uncovers Josephine’s story, she also learns a great deal about herself and her own history.

While this story is engaging and important in its details, it is somewhat lacking in depth and character development.  The reader definitely feels a sympathy for both of them, but there is a lack of real personality to both of the main characters.  They each have little to say in spite of the complexity of their respective situations.  (The one character that really has “heart” is one who is revealed late in the book via a letter he writes telling the final story.  This is, in my opinion, the best part of the book!)  I think it is here where this book falls slightly short.

It is a worthwhile read, though, for the historical perspective and for the questions of right and wrong which this story raises.  I’d love to hear what others think…!

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

If you’re looking for a vacation/beach book, this is it.  It’s not fine literature but it’s a fun, suspenseful read.  Kate, the single, hard-working lawyer mom of Amelia, a sophomore at an elite Brooklyn high school, gets a call to come to school immediately because her daughter is in trouble.  In fact, her daughter is dead.  As Kate recovers from the shock of losing her daughter to what has been deemed a suicide, the suspicion that her daughter was not suicidal grows in Kate’s mind.  Triggered by an anonymous text, she is spurred on to discover an intricate cover-up of sorority-like hazing/bullying in which both she and her daughter have been victims.

Again, this is not high literature.  There is not exactly deep character development. There are some cheesy scenes and some dead-end story lines.  But you are still taken in by the plot and through the whole story you are itching to know what happens.

Definitely pack this is in your suitcase next to your toiletry bag!

City of Thieves by David Benioff (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is one of those great books that keep you up reading into the wee hours, while that little voice in your head keeps telling you that you will regret it in the morning.  But you won’t regret any minute of this book no matter when you read it.

In this book, Benioff tells the story of Lev (Benioff’s grandfather) and Kolya, an unlikely pair who are set upon a mission by a Russian colonel to find a dozen eggs in a city where none can be found — in Leningrad during its siege in the second World War.  The characters are beautifully developed; as they divulge their talents and passions to each other, they become more and more human and endearing to the reader as well.  The reader feels their hunger and the cold along with them and endures the horrors of their journey as they do.  But the reader also laughs along with their jokes and their sarcasm as they themselves see the insanity and inhumanity of their quest.

The reader even grows as they do, being enriched by the beautiful language and quotable wisdom on every page of this story.

Definitely one of the best books I’ve read so far!

 

Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon (partially migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is the ultimate anti-diet book.  I started this book with a cynical eye and was surprised to find it pretty interesting.  The premise is that diets have been shown by research not to work.  Almost every weight loss diet involves restricting one’s intake and this sets off the body’s reaction to restriction which is to reset the “set point” even higher.  This evidently results in one gaining back whatever is lost and then some.  The yoyo dieting that so many Americans practice actually, then, creates more obesity.

The answer, then, according to Bacon, is to give up on dieting and to regain and respect the internal signals that we all have to eat when we’re hungry and stop when we’re full.  She explains further how our brains are less sensitive to the signals triggered by processed foods than those triggered by whole foods and how the food industry cashes in on this difference.  Since we don’t get sated by the processed foods, we crave more and more.  This results in big bucks for the junk food industry and for big numbers on the scales of many Americans.

There is some discussion about the lack of evidence that obesity alone is responsible for certain health  problems, such as diabetes and hypertension.  This is the part where her theories are extremely questionable.  There is an abundance of evidence to connect overweight/obesity with diabetes and hypertension.  There is an abundance of evidence to connect obesity to a whole host of medical problems.  The author really is inconsistent in her research (her references are largely outdated and limited to very few actual studies) and the opinions are extraordinarily biased.

What is good about the later chapters is that the author does not instruct those who are overweight to just give up on being healthy.  She does promote eating healthy, whole foods.  She promotes a more active lifestyle.  And she also promotes being happy with oneself at any weight and trying to bolster weighing one’s own self esteem NOT by the scale.  This part I agree with wholeheartedly.

It’s a pretty radical perspective proposed here and I appreciate the value of self esteem and comfort in one’s body.  But there is incontrovertible evidence that being obese does lead to medical problems.  So it may be that her suggestions about healthful eating and an active lifestyle can lead to a healthy means of losing weight and then to better overall health.

A compromise?

 

 

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

If you’re in need of a sardonic, comedic reality break from the Thanksgiving-till-Christmas holiday glitter and forced cheer, this little book by David Sedaris is the perfect antidote.  In this book are 6 vignettes/short stories set at Thanksgiving/Christmastime which all start as familiar scenes and generally progress to the outrageous.   I have to confess that as someone who is usually not happy with “outrageous,” I did laugh (and sometimes groan) out loud at some of the lines in this book.

There is no character development and probably all-too-blatant moral lessons, but it s a delightful, indulgent respite from making latkes or stuffing stockings!

 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

It is great, once in awhile, to return to the classics.  There is definitely a reason why a book becomes a “classic” and this book is the perfect example of this.  It is actually tragic that Harper Lee never wrote any other book — although I guess when you win the Pulitzer, there’s too much expectation and therefore pressure to write anything further.  I’d certainly be intimidated…

But back to this book.  Bottom line…  if you’ve never read this book (and even if you’ve seen the movie), this is an absolutely must-read.  It is a simply-told, but deeply emotional story of Scout, a young girl growing up in a small town in Alabama in the 1930’s, who watches her father get involved in defending a black man accused of raping a white girl.  Her father, Atticus, one of the most understated, yet bravest fictional characters of all time, in my opinion.  He is both gently honest and honorable, and in a time when black and white were hideously divided, he was ethically colorblind.  Furthermore, Atticus showed his children (both Scout and her older brother, Jem) not only that anyone of any color mattered, but also those who were outcasts but did no one else any wrong, also mattered.  And his children learned by his example, as seen in particular, by the subtle development of Jem.

This book is sheer excellence.  I am so glad I read it again.  Do yourself a favor and do the same!

Easter Island by Jennifer Venderbes (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is a very intricately woven book with essentially 2 story lines that ultimately converge.  One is the story of Elsa, trapped by the circumstance of her father’s death in 1912 and her need to care for her developmentally odd sister and finding herself ultimately married to her father’s research disciple.  Her new husband takes Elsa and her sister on a journey to Easter Island, a remote, tiny island east of the coast of Chile, to study the history and culture of the people there.  The second story is the modern day tale of Greer, a botany researcher whose husband has recently died under unusual circumstances, who in search of a way to cope and to move on with her own life and her own project, comes also to Easter Island.  As both women study the unusual island and its people, they both stumble upon similar findings, even as they both learn a lot about themselves.

Both stories are well-told and build in momentum as the stories unfold.  The history that is knitted into the stories ultimately bind the two together, as does the science that is studied.  There are a lot of scientific details that are described — perhaps even too much even for me — although it is an essential part of the plot.  But I actually do like how the science is so closely tied to what is learned by both women and how science actually illuminates the history of the island.  It brings the laboratory to the real world, so to speak.

This is a very different book, at least for me, and I enjoyed all that I learned from it.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Ursula, the main character in this novel, gets what many of us would love — a chance to live her life over.  It is a very interesting premise, getting to start over and reaching different junctures in your life and then either dying or reliving your life again from those junctures. She has a vague feeling of deja vu during some of her life but she is generally not aware of having lived before.  No one around her, save a singular psychiatrist whom she consults has an inkling of what is taking place in her mind.

More interestingly, Ursula lives through both World Wars.  Born in England, she lives through the eye of the storm of the wars and is very personally involved, whether herself or her family members.  As she sees the mistakes made by the various players, she contemplates often what would have happened had Hitler, for example, not been born or not have arisen to power or had been stopped in his pursuit of power earlier.  This is the bane of her existence and she fights it and fights it throughout her life/lives.

The book is extremely well-written and the idea is creative and bold.  Unfortunately, it does become repetitive.  That’s the point, of course, but for the reader, it borders on tedious, even though many of the lives are quite divergent.  It does bring home the idea, though, that a single event in one’s life can impact not only the trajectory of that life but that of many, many others as well.

Much to think about!