The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Phillip Sendker

The Art of Heating Heartbeats is an absolutely beautiful story about a young lawyer, Julia, who takes a leave from her job to investigate her father’s disappearance.  Her father, Tin Win, had mysteriously left for a business trip and never returned and the only hint of his whereabouts was a love letter that had been found from him to a woman in Burma, in his home town.  When Julia arrives in this tiny town, she is met by a stranger who begins to tell her the story of her father and his upbringing and about the heart-wrenching love story he had been embroiled in during his youth.

The story is poetically woven, capturing the reader’s attention at the first page and never letting go.  The characters are as unique as the story itself and the reader cannot help but be drawn in to their story.  Tin Win’s teacher when he was a young boy, for example, became a tender father figure to him and was patient and kind and shared with Tin Win (and the reader) much wisdom.  Even Julia, who starts out as a daughter who feels hurt and angry and abandoned, develops a compassion for her father that she did not know she was capable of.

This is a powerful “love conquers all” story that wins your heart with every beat.

The Innocents (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Innocents by Francesca Segal

This book is one of almosts…  The main character, Adam Newman, a young lawyer in the close-knit Jewish community in London is almost happy being engaged to his long-term girlfriend, Rachel.   Unfortunately, when her cousin, a tall, beautiful but vulnerable model called Ellie, returns from America amidst scandalous circumstances, he almost falls for her instead.  Too many times, Ellie leaves just before Adam can do anything about his feelings for her.   And when he is just about to confess his feelings about Ellie to Rachel, suddenly something major happens and distracts him from the task.  Honestly, this happens just too many times to feel plausible.  The reader is waiting and waiting for something major to happen, and it sort of does but it’s anticlimactic.  Again, almost.

While there are some potentially interesting characters, the author seems to stop short just before they can become really human to the reader.  Most of the characters are unidimensional and flat.  One character almost discovers Ellie and Adam’s relationship but again it’s just almost.

This book was good, almost…

Defending Jacob (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Defending Jacob by William Landay

This book is a definite page turner!  In this book, a district attorney named Andy Barber, is shocked by the fact that his son is the one accused of murdering a fellow student and recounts the story of his trial.  Andy is persistent in proclaiming his son’s innocence and is seemingly blind to the defects in his son’s character that create the possibility of doubt.  His wife, Laurie, however, seems to be more concerned about their son’s personality issues and this difference in perspective seems to slice a wedge into the family dynamics.  As the novel progresses, it becomes evident that there are actually two criminal investigations going on and the ending is a great twist of events.

Even while a bit disturbing and depressing, the suspense is continuous and it is very hard to put this book down.  It will not go down as America’s greatest classic, but it sure is a suspenseful, fun book to read!  Enjoy!

One Last Thing Before I Go (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper

Here’s another fun read by Jonathan Tropper.  This story, which centers upon Silver, a divorced, ex-rock star,  middle aged man living in a sort of limbo of a life, who discovers that he has a potentially fatal illness for which he needs surgery and is deciding whether or not to have the operation.  That is, he is struggling over whether his life is actually worth saving.  In the meantime, his daughter presents a dilemma of her own, his ex-wife is about to remarry, and his father, a rabbi, tries to push him toward a decision, which brings him back into the lives of those he loves and has let down.

Tropper’s characters are almost always endearing.  His wit and sarcasm shine through and make the reader laugh out loud in spite of some very unhappy underlying story lines.  Even while Silver and his two close buddies are pathetic and sad, they make the reader laugh as they laugh at themselves.  And even when there is disappointment and resentment between father and daughter, Tropper enables the reader to see the underlying affection that still exists between them.  What Tropper is good at is balancing truly biting sarcasm with just enough warmth to pull the reader in to liking the characters enough to really need to know what happens to them.  And even while the characters are suffering, the reader laughs in spite of herself because they are really funny!

Thanks, once again, Mr. Tropper!

Midwives (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Midwives:  A Novel by Chris Bohjalian

This novel, which feels like an autobiography (but isn’t), is a story about a teenage girl whose mother is a midwife brought to trial, accused of killing a patient while assisting her during a home delivery.   This story articulates well the debate between delivery in the home vs. in a hospital/birthing center.  It also speaks to the lay midwives vs. nurse midwives (are there any lay midwives anymore, in our culture of lawsuits and malpractice??).

As a physician, it was interesting for me to read this book, as I am not a fan of the home delivery.  Having seen first hand devastating outcomes from this, I feel one has to be out of her mind to be that far away from potentially life-saving procedures.  In a situation, where minutes, even seconds, count, you want to have everything close by.  The perspective of the author is much more sympathetic, however.  In spite of the bad outcome, the sympathy lies with the midwife in this account (or does it?) and it is a fascinating trial that the book leads up to.

Throughout the book, the author does not give the decision of the trial until the end, which maintains the suspense during the book.  It is a very interesting read.  I’d love to hear what others, especially non-physicians, think!

Barefoot Season (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Barefoot Season, by Susan Mallery

This is an unusual story about a woman (yes, a woman) who returns home to Blackberry Island off the coast of Washington State from 10 years of army service in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  She brings home with her not only her PTSD but her previous baggage from a broken family and a broken best friendship.  She returns to an inn which she owns and has to readjust to managing and which her recently deceased mother has run down financially.  The story is an inspiring one of how she rebuilds her own personal life with the help of those around her, as she rebuilds the inn’s stability.

While the story is a bit predictable, it still has some surprises and it is written with humor and warmth.  It has many layers and the characters are lovable even while often brutally honest.  I sometimes felt that nobody really speaks quite as bluntly as these characters often do, but probably there are those who do.  (It was refreshing, actually, and sometimes I’d love to speak like that!)

A little bonus comes at the end, where the author shares recipes from the inn!

The Love Market (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Love Market by Carol Mason

Simply put, this is a fun summer read.  After the many heavy books I’ve completed this summer, this was a fun, light-hearted change.  The Love Market is a story about a woman just divorced who’s a professional British Yente (ie. runs a matchmaking service).  She rekindles an old flame of her own and it becomes a love triangle of sorts.

There is no larger meaning not did I learn about any major historical event.  But I enjoyed briefly getting to know these characters and sharing their romantic pursuits.

Sea Glass (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve

Sea Glass is a quietly powerful novel that is centered around the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the growth of unions in its aftermath.  It is also a story of honesty and trust and how the absence of both can unravel a relationship.  The tale is told from the point of view of different characters who really are the strength of this novel.  They are endearing (or not, in some cases) and it is hard not to come to love them for the quirks that make each of them so real.   There is Honora, the main character and who is as her name suggests, tragically honorable and who just gets on with whatever it is she is dealt.  There is her neighbor and friend, the loyal Vivian, who is rich but generous and kind almost in spite of herself.  There is the young Alphonse, who stole my heart just as he’d stolen McDermott’s heart and made me want to take care of him as the tender McDermott had.  As these characters are eventually brought together by circumstance, the story becomes woven more and more tightly and the suspense of what is to come rises.   Beyond the story itself, the characters’ individual situations also enable the reader to appreciate the extremes of wealth and abject poverty that people experienced during that era (which unfortunately, sound all too familiar after our more recent stock market debacle).  The reader is very subtly pulled into the story and held there with such force that you actually want to continue to hold onto the characters after it’s over.

This is a beautiful, albeit sad, story that is beautifully written.  Read it!

The Red House

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Red House, by Mark Haddon

When Mark Haddon wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he was using the voice of a character with Autism and so his flight-of-ideas writing style was fitting.  In this novel, about a family reunion of sorts, however, he has no excuse.  This book starts with a good idea, interesting characters, and important issues that arise between them.  Unfortunately, the writing is so choppy and confusing that it is a painful book to try to muddle through.  From paragraph to paragraph, the primary character changes and by the time the reader decodes whom the writer is speaking about, the character changes.   And after all this hard work, the story is largely bleak and dreary anyway.  There is no humor at all — not even the sarcasm and cynicism that would complement the pessimism of the book — but just a hopelessness that soaks through each character.

So, confusing and depressing — a pretty lousy combination!

Oxford Messed Up

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Oxford Messed Up  by Andrea Kayne Kaufman

This book was a disappointment.  It sounded like a fun love story about an American, Jewish girl, albeit one with severe OCD, who goes to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and meets an equally screwed up boy with whom she shares a bathroom.  They bond over their mutual obsession with the music of Van Morrison and their relationship becomes mutually therapeutic.  It’s a cute idea that unfortunately is poorly executed.  The writing is exhaustingly repetitive and each idea is drummed in ad nauseum.  There are no complex characters — they are all unidimensional and flat.  A number of subplots are left unfinished and there are many ignored opportunities to develop characters more deeply.  In addition, dialogue is limited and dull.

There was also a surprisingly offensive sentence in this book:  “While her family was not particularly observant, they were not among the reform and conservative Jews who celebrated Christmas.”   While some Jews may choose to celebrate Christmas, this sentence makes it sound as if anyone who is not Orthodox generally celebrates Christmas.  This is simply not true.  It’s a weird statement in a weird book.

If you are interested in knowing more about what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is like, you might find this book something of a psychology lesson.   I was just kind of hoping for a good summer read and this was not that book!