The Luminaries

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I wish I could sugarcoat this to make myself sound faster or smarter, but it's impossible: this book took me over two months to finish.  Granted, Eleanor Catton's novel is over 800 pages and there is a small child taking up a lot of my time, but that seems like a really long time to get through a novel.  

It should give you a taste of how much/little I enjoyed it. 

The short story is that The Luminaries is about Walter Moody, an Englishman who has sailed to New Zealand in the 1860s to partake in their gold rush.  On the night he arrives, he stumbles upon a gathering in the lobby of a hotel; twelve men are discussing their involvement in the disappearance of a young entrepreneur, the overdose of a prostitute, and the sudden discovery of a rather large fortune at the house of a dead alcoholic.  This sounds like an interesting read right off the bat. 

And I really wanted to enjoy this tome.  It's the most recent Man Booker Prize recipient, the author is a young woman (always exciting to see the award go to the unexpected!), and I truly think it is a well-written story.  It just wasn't interesting to me.  It took a few chapters to get into the language Catton uses, as it is (evidently) a parody of a 19th-century novel and the characters speak as such.  Even taking that into consideration, something about the convoluted story arc and main characters didn't do it for me.  

Does that happen to you?  I'm not sure if it was overrated or just not suited for me.  

State of Wonder

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It happened!  I finished a book over the holidays!  I won't confess how long it's taken me to read Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, but I will tell you that I loved it.
Decades ago, Dr. Marina Singh was a budding obstetrician studying under a well-respected but incredibly demanding gynecologist and teacher, Annick Swenson.  Now, Marina works for Vogel, a pharmaceutical company, where she is partner to the kind and family-centered Anders Eckman.  When Anders dies under mysterious circumstances in the Amazon jungle while researching a new miracle drug, Marina is sent off to find out more from his team, including the elusive Dr. Swenson.
It may not sound like much, but it's such an intriguing start to a book.  Patchett is detailed without being overly verbose with her characters, so you'll be sucked in from the get-go.  Much happens within the nearly 400 pages, including an encounter with a cannibalistic Amazon tribe, interactions with 70-year-old pregnant women, and an attachment to an astute and gentle deaf/mute adolescent.  State of Wonder is definitely a book you could read in a weekend; if you're stuck inside with dreary weather, this is sure to transport you.

Letters From Skye

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Jessica Brockmole's debut novel is an absolute pleasure to read.  My mom brought an advanced reader's copy from the American Library Association conference (so I wouldn't have to worry about returning it to the library; she's a smart lady who knows that new moms are not punctual in the least), and I casually read it during August's night feedings.  As if seeing that cute baby boy's eager face during our midnight meetings wasn't enough, this book helped me stay awake in the wee small hours of the morning.
This epistolary novel takes place during World Wars I and II, and tells the story of two pen pals from different sides of 'the pond'.  Elsbeth is a poet in Scotland, specifically the Isle of Skye, whose words entrance American David Graham.  He writes to her on a whim, and she responds; thus, a years-long correspondence begins.  Their romance is sweet, but won't give you a toothache; I found it charming.
Brockmole weaves in vivid imagery of Europe during WWI.  David signs up to be an ambulance driver in Europe, which isn't something I think about when war comes to mind.  It's also easy for civilians to gloss over the agony of being out of touch with their loved ones who are fighting, and this book taps into the worry of waiting for a letter.  One review I read compares this to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a very fitting statement, and one that might help you picture the feel for Skye.  I thoroughly enjoyed both!

Labor Day

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Months ago, my grandmother sent me a recommendation for this book, with a note that it was the first good book she'd read in a while.  Feeling in a bit of a book rut myself, I picked it up from my local bookstore (couldn't even wait to get it from the library!), and dug in.  

Maynard's sixth book follows the story of a young man, Henry, who runs into a stranger while running errands, and inexplicably invites him to go home with him and his mother.  Henry and his mother generally lead a solitary life; she has become somewhat of a hermit, and Henry is picked on at school.  The stranger gives their Labor Day weekend a dash of the extraordinary, although it is said that all good things must end.  

This novel is a wonderful read, quick but soulful.  Maynard imbues her characters with heart and they pop right off the page.  As the holiday is quickly approaching, I definitely recommend picking this book up to read by the pool! 

My Name is Memory

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Ann Brashares may be best known for a little series she wrote for young adults about a pair of jeans (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, anyone?), but she has also written two novels that steer toward a more adult audience.  The more recent publication, My Name is Memory, caught my eye while I was shelving books at my local library.  A Florida girl cannot say no to a book cover that features water like that.
The gist of Memory is that Daniel and Lucy are meant to be together.  Daniel was born with the ability to remember his past lives, back to around 500ish AD, which is the first time he recalls laying eyes on the soul of Lucy.  The novel is told by both characters: Lucy in the present day, figuring out the attraction she feels to this mystery man she first encounters in high school, and Daniel recounting his past, including his many families and lives that have led him back to Lucy.  The idea itself is intrinsically intriguing; who hasn't tried to fall for the concept of love at first sight?
The problem is the story's execution.  Daniel's history is based solely on his connections with Lucy, so don't expect any social commentary or big moments being documented here.  Lucy is written so flatly and with little personality that it's difficult to believe that a man would spend centuries trying to work his way into her life; honestly, is there no other woman he's had intense feelings for over 1600 years?  Daniel's ability is interesting enough, to the point where I wish he had been the sole narrator.
Don't even get me started on the ending.  Ugh.  Can I just say a lot of this book reminded me of Twilight, and leave it at that?  From the author trying to make romance out of thin air, to the descriptions of intimacy, I felt so underwhelmed by the love story.  It was a bummer.  I'd pass on this one.

An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England

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Whew, what a mouthful of a title!  I'm about 6 years late to the party for Brock Clarke's novel (it came out in 2007), but, after plodding my way through it, don't really feel as though I missed out on much.
The story follows Sam Pulsifer, a somewhat clueless and hapless 30-something man who accidentally burnt down Emily Dickinson's house during his teenage years.  Oh, and there was a couple inside the house at the time who didn't make it out.  He's done his 10 years in prison, and the plot picks up about 10 years after his release, when he is the married father of two.  At this point, someone has started setting fire to other notable author's houses in New England, and all signs point to Sam.  This time, though, he has nothing to do with it.
Who's framing him?  Why didn't he tell his wife or children about his past, and why did he lie to them about his parents being dead?  What's going on with his alcoholic father and enabling mother?
For me, the biggest question of the novel is, "Why am I supposed to care?"  I had higher hopes for this book, which was compared to The World According to Garp and Catch-22 in a few reviews I checked out.  Perhaps if I'd read this at a different point in my life (maybe when I was in high school and neck-deep in my Chuck Palahniuk phase), I would have enjoyed Sam's story.  However, my interest waned after realizing that he doesn't take responsibility for any of his actions, and does absolutely nothing to help himself.  He's one of those guys who thinks things just keep happening to him without any provocation, when he really could stop the build-up of blame by being a grown-up.  I won't be picking up any of Clarke's other novels; this one totally turned me off.

How to Buy A Love of Reading

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Tanya Egan Gibson's debut novel is a bit...challenging at first.  I picked it up because, honestly, how great is that title?  I did end up reading the whole thing, but it took a good two weeks; something about the characters took a while to resonate with me, and the plot is such that I just stopped explaining it to people when they asked what I was reading.  BUT I did finish it, so don't be completely deterred!
The main gist is that Carley's parents have decided that their 16th birthday present to their daughter is a novel commissioned especially for her to foster a love of the written word.  They will be modern-day Medicis, and bring the meta-fiction author Bree McEnroy to live with them for a month while the novel is being completed.  Slowly, throughout the writing process, secrets are uncovered, harsh truths faced, and a world-famous author is brought back to the public eye.
There are a lot of people to keep track of here: Hunter, the alcoholic, pill-popping heartthrob of Fox Glen; Gretchen, Carley's weight-obsessed mother; Suzanne, Hunter's mother who has been carrying on a decades-long affair with Carley's father, Francis; Amber, Carley's best friend and Hunter's sometimes-booty call; the list continues.  The setting, Fox Glen, is like something out of Great Gatsby, which is somewhat paralleled in How to Buy...The parties are grand, and the story becomes less about the crazy lifestyle and more about the people in the second act.
If you are feeling up to engaging in this story, you'll need to just grit your teeth and power through the first section.  It's a challenge, but I did find myself staying up late the last couple of nights to finish this book.  I can't recommend it to everyone, but there are definitely worse ways to spend your evenings!

11.22.63

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This book was recommended to me by my wonderfully prolific reader cousin Summer.  It's not my first Stephen King read (my dad used to loan me copies of his short stories and novellas, which are mind-boggling and bizarre), but it's been a while since I picked up one of his works; man, he is just a good writer.  King might be the only author who can make a story about the story of a man who travels back in time to stop the JFK assassination believable.
11.22.63 begins in 2011, when Jake Epping is summoned by the guy who owns a local diner.  It turns out that, in the back room of the establishment, there is a portal into September 1958.   Jake can step back into mid-century America and change history.  Al tried to go back to stop the assassination, but became ill while he waited for 1963 to roll around; he thinks Jake is the guy for the job.  A lot of things contribute to Jake deciding to accept the assignment (his recovering alcoholic wife has recently left him, things around town are kind of slow, he doesn't have a ton of connections to keep track of), but chief among them is a writing assignment he graded for his GED English class about a man whose life was changed on the night that his father murdered his family.  Jake decides to go back in time and try to stop this event first, then stays on in the past as George Amberson, a nomad who travels from Maine to Florida to Texas.  His journey finally leads to Lee Harvey Oswald and that fateful day in November.  Will he have the conviction to stop Oswald's gun from firing?
Let's start with the fact that this novel is a hulking, very King-esque 849 pages.  It's taken me 3 weeks to complete, not because it wasn't riveting and well-paced, but because it's so thick.  Jake travels back in time more than once, so there are a couple of time lines to keep straight, in addition to the issue of him having a life from 1958-1963.
As I was navigating the plot, John Paul asked, "So has the woman come in yet?"  He didn't know anything about the story, but was totally correct in intuiting that there was a love story connected in some way.  Jake/George does indeed cross paths with a woman while in Texas, and their match imbues the novel with much-needed emotional resonance and gives him a sense of responsibility in the past toward someone other than himself.
In the end, yes, the story has a lot of information about a truly watershed moment in American history (keep in mind, though, that this is fiction), but is more about how a man from today's world can develop a life in a completely new time and place.  I totally recommend it.  Just make sure you have the time!

The Giver

I feel like everyone my age has read this book in school, and elementary school at that.  Somehow, though, it was never assigned reading for me, and I didn't pick it up until Mommi and I were browsing the children's department at my library and, at 192 pages, went by way too quickly!

The story follows a a boy named Jonas through his 12th year, in a society where everything is carefully regulated: food is delivered to and picked up from every home for every meal, husbands and wives are assigned to each other, children's jobs are assigned in their twelfth year.  When Jonas has a dream about his yearning for a female friend, he is assigned to start taking pills to stop "the stirrings".  You later find out that these societies decided to go to "sameness"; geneticists and scientists have worked to make everything and everyone the same.  The same toneless, emotionless, shallow existence. 

 Everyone lives this way, because they don't know any better.  But when Jonas is chosen in his twelfth year to be the Receiver of Memory, he discovers that his life could be so much more happy, sad, desperate, calming, exciting than it has been engineered to be.  The question is: what will he do about it?

(Also, I hear that a movie adaptation has just recently been green-lighted, to star Jeff Bridges.  Once you've read this book, you will understand how incredibly perfect Jeff Bridges is for his role in this film.)

My Life and Hard Times

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In the midst of packing, I came across this 1933 James Thurber autobiography, which I read for high school English Lit.  Have you read it?  Seriously, it is an absolutely wonderful misanthropic humorous book.  Even better, every event he wrote about took place before he was 25 years old.  Hey, your own 20s could be worth a book!
Thurber grew up in Columbus, Ohio, with his mom, dad, senile grandfather, two brothers, and a cousin who sleeps with camphor next to his bed in case he needs to be revived in the middle of the night.  He includes stories of the night a bed fell on his father in the attic (note: it didn't really), the family dog who bit everyone except his mother, the day the dam in the city broke (note: it didn't really), and his time at Ohio State University.  He's absurd, but incredibly earnest; the stories are short and giggle-worthy; and Thurber's illustrations are charming.  You know he used to be a humorist for The New Yorker?

Beautiful Ruins

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Jess Walter's latest novel is part homage to grand films of the past, and part coming of age for adults.  Two main plotlines and times tell the story of a rising star of the 1960s and her time spent in a small port city in Italy; interwoven is the modern tale of a woman who has her dream job in film development, but has to work for a man who makes truly awful movies.  One day, a man shows up in the movie studio she works in, asking for her boss and dredging up memories of a past that will teach everyone the importance of making the right choices and second chances. 

The amazing part of this novel is that both stories are equally compelling: Pasquel, an Italian 20-something who has moved back to his small hometown to care for his mother after his father passes away, is enthralled by the visiting beauty, Dee, on respite from her filming obligations for Cleopatra; in the current day, Claire, who works for legendary producer Michael Deane, longs to find that one project she can truly believe in, and meets Pasqual by happenstance on a day when her boss is out of the office.  Pasqual spends his life in a state of penance for missing his father's death, leaving behind his love in Florence, not doing enough to help the ailing Dee when she comes to his small hotel.  He's a wonderful character, and your heart will just ache for him as he matures throughout the novel.  Claire's faith in creativity and even romance is fading at the beginning of her story, and she needs to actually see something work out for the best to maintain her happiness.  Michael Deane is a less likable character, but necessary and the most stereotypical of the novel. 

This isn't a book that will change your life, but it is interesting to read the non-fiction woven into the novel (Richard Burton and Liz Taylor make appearances) and Walter keeps the pace brisk.  Would be a great summer read!

The Sleep Hollow Family Almanac

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In all honesty, I feel like I should like this book more than I actually did.  It's received pretty decent reviews from NPR and was a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, but I couldn't get behind it 100%. 
Calvin Moretti is a 24-year-old living at home after his plans to be a great...something with film doesn't work out.  He is aimless, awful with his finances, has warped priorities, and can't seem to really grow up, but we're supposed to connect with his innate humanity.  (None of us is perfect, Calvin is willing to admit his own flaws, etc.)  His successful older brother lives at home to help take care of his recuperating-from-cancer father, and his teenage sister has recently admitted that she is pregnant.  You can imagine what this has done to his mother.
Calvin spends his days working with autistic children, getting stoned with his high school friends, and trying to figure out what to do with his life.  I can see how other people in their mid-20s are supposed to find a kindred spirit in him: I have spent a lot of time wondering why I paid a not insignificant amount of money for a post-graduate degree when I can't find a job outside of administrative work.  At 26 years old, I don't feel like a grown-up. 
BUT Kris D'Agostino's novel seems to think that the the modicum of growing up that Calvin does throughout the story is equal to climbing Mt. Everest.  Calvin quitting his job when he has no back-up isn't helping anyone.  His inability to save money because he 'deserves' weed, vinyl, and prescription painkillers isn't indicative of a man who knows how to grow up; it's indicative of a man who won't  grow up.  By the time the book was over, I was ready to be done with the Moretti family. 
On the upside, this book did make me feel as though  my life is a bit more together than I think at times.  I'll take these small victories where I can!

The Graveyard Book

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What a fun audiobook!  JP and I listened to this juvenile/YA fiction story on our way to Illinois from Georgia, and it was more than entertaining while driving through a snowstorm.  Bonus: Neil Gaiman narrates for the audio version, and he has a great British accent. 

Nobody ('Bod' for short) is orphaned one night as a 18-month-old toddler.  A mysterious man sneaks into his house and kills the other three members of his family; Bod makes it out of the house by climbing out of his crib and crawling to a nearby graveyard, where he is taken in by a ghostly couple who never managed to have children in their lives.  Bod is given the 'Freedom of the Graveyard,' and can see its inhabitants and pass through crypts supernaturally.  That being said, he is not immune to needs like food, water, and clothing; for that, his guardian, Silas, goes into the human world and brings back what Bod needs to survive.  Each chapter in the novel describes encounters in Bod's life: the day of the 'Danse Macabre' (one of my favorite chapters of the story), his discovery of the centuries-old Sleer that guards a treasure hidden deep in a hill, his young friendship with another human girl named Scarlett.  Gaiman does a great job of imbuing the stories with a sense of the supernatural that never feels over-the-top, but rather humane and just out of our reach of understanding and reality. 

The man who murdered Bod's family is still searching for the toddler who escaped him, and this story line threads throughout the novel.  The man, named Jack, will not stop until the body has been discovered and 'taken care of.'  Keep your guard up toward the end of the book, as not everything is as it appears...

Now, I can't comment on the illustrations, as we only listened to the book.  I can reassure you that this is an excellent audiobook for a long roadtrip, or even broken up into chapters during long walks or runs with an iPod or the like.  It feels more wintery than anything, so you may want to check it out before the days get longer and hot!

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

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If this book were a movie, it would be a mad-cap, slightly screwball comedy with a large cast of well-known actors circulating around one main woman: Bernadette.  Maria Semple's novel is told through a series of notes, e-mails, fictitious news articles, and journal entries, making it feel incredibly personal and as though the reader is privy to everyone's dirty secrets and thoughts. 

As the story opens, Bernadette's daughter, Bee, is telling her family that she has received straight As on her report card and would like to be rewarded with a trip to Antarctica.  Bernadette and her husband, Elgin, completely agree that they should take a family trip, and plan the vacation.  Things go downhill from there; Bernadette's allergy to Seattle (where they live) and her neighbors (she calls them 'the gnats') intensifies to a point where she cannot be bothered to leave the house to buy groceries or even call restaurants to make Thanksgiving reservations.  She leaves everything up to an online assistant, who does everything from call in prescriptions for anti-psychotic medications to taking care of passport issues (from 'India').  Bernadette's issues with her neighbors, husband, and even Bee become more and more problematic until one day when she just disappears. 
Where did she go?  And more importantly, who is she really?  Bernadette is a mother and best friend to Bee, an opinionated and slightly damaged partner to her husband, an anxiety-ridden mess to her neighbors, and a design genius to architecture nerds.  Each chapter reveals secrets and clues to the real Bernadette, and the relaxed tone and flexible structure of the book makes the pages fly by. 
I can't recommend thi book enough for a dead-of-winter escape.  I tore through the novel with reckless abandon.

Seating Arrangements

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(I have a killer cake recipe- it involves 17 layers- coming up for you on Wednesday, but just couldn't get it together quickly enough for a Monday morning post!  A little switching up of the schedule, just for the holidays.)

As you may recall, I was very excited to read this debut novel from Maggie Shipstead; just look at that adorable cover!  It's received pretty decent reviews- maybe a 77% positive rating for most of the articles I read about it.  Perhaps I am just not in the right state of mind to enjoy this summer wisp of a novel, but consider this a case of overhype and just plain unlikable characters.  

The narrator jumps around to a few different characters, though mainly rests squarely on Winn, an upper-class banker marrying off his older, pregnant daughter in a destination wedding in New England.    Throughout the three-day affair, he lusts after one of the bridesmaids, considers why he hasbeen languishing on the waitlist for an exclusive 'club' on the wedding island, makes sure his younger daughter knows he disapproves of her life choices, and gives the world's worst wedding toast.  He's also hellbent on belittling his imagined nemesis by doing everything from threatening to sue his club to sawing off the weather vane on his newly-built mansion. 

We also get peeks into the thought process of Dominique, a bridesmaid who happens to be an outsider to this lifestyle; Biddy, Winn's tolerant and patient wife; Livia, the younger daughter who is getting over her own social embarrassment; and Agatha, the temptress bridesmaid.  A few of these characters are more relatable than Winn, though, honestly, not by much. 

My biggest issue with the book, other than the fact that I was hoping for so much more, is that there seems to be no point within its pages.  The plot is easy enough to follow (get a lot of WASPs together on an island with whale shorts and liquor, add a wedding and a father-of-the-bridezilla), but the ending is practically non-existent and there is virtually no character arc to Winn.  The guy who dominates the book just goes further and further into his warped idea of what life should be like, without coming to any actual conclusions about his lifestyle and ideals.  

One reviewer said it perfectly with this quote, "The whitest book I read all year, and I read The Marriage Plot."  I couldn't have said it better.  This book has no dark meat, nothing to really sink your teeth into or add flavor.  Pass.

The Twelve

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If I seemed a little out-of-touch over the past two weeks, it's because I was thoroughly entrenched in Justin Cronin's The Twelve, the sequel to his incredibly popular thriller, The Passage.  Summer pre-ordered the follow-up as a birthday present back in August (it was released in October) and I'm just getting to it (the stack of books on my bedside table has been insane). 
To begin my opinion, I'd like to say that I was initially a bit underwhelmed by this sequel.  Perhaps my standards were set too high after The Passage, and I certainly don't want to sound like a reader who can't be satisfied, but something about this story left me a bit wanting. 
The Twelve begins much in the same way that the first novel did: roughly 10 years in the future, in the days when the virals were first being found in the mainstream.  A young, pregnant doctor, Lila, is being questioned by the police and it is obvious that she has been incredibly traumatized by what she saw in the hospital on the day in question.  Horace Guilder is a high-ranking military official with ties to Lila and the viral who picks her up, Lawrence Grey.  We'll read about these three throughout the novel.
Flash forward to 97 A.V. (after virus) and we're following a couple of story lines involving a strict work camp in Iowa, as well as a couple of characters from the first novel (Peter Jaxon, Lish, Sarah, Hollis, etc.) as they seek a way to restore humanity and hope to mankind. 
My mind was all over the place while reading this book, mostly because it jumps back and forth between story lines, characters, and even time periods.  This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it; I did the whole "I'm into it, so I'm reading quickly...oh no, it's going by too fast, slow down..." dance.  Whereas Passage focuses on human survival and their inherent goodness, Twelve is written more from the point-of-view of certain virals, and has some semblance of government and society rules within.  Stronger themes of parental attachment and lineage, the reasons for survival, and motivations of a governing party abound in this novel, giving more meat to the already bulky Twelve.  After dwelling on the ideas and characters, I can't help but feel like this novel is actually even more epic than its predecessor. 
Pardon me while I geek out, but I'll compare it to the 5th Harry Potter novel, in which sheer character development and escapades don't create the emotional heft of the story; that's left to the battle between what's right, what's accepted, and how to enact change.  The Twelve addresses revolution and change, both individually and as a society, in a way that The Passage doesn't need to.  I'm so psyched for the last installment in this trilogy; 2014, get here quickly!

Confessions of an Uncertain Reader

I have a terrible confession to make:
In the past 4 weeks, I have read the first 75 pages of 2 books without finishing them.  I'm sure these novels are works of art- in fact, I know they're on the list of Notable Books of 2012 for The New York Times, and all came highly recommended from Amazon, which has to count for something.  However, they just could not hold my interest, or I wasn't in the right mindframe, or there was a nagging feeling that the main character was just overly difficult for me to connect with.  I'm going to list them below; have you read them?  Did you like them?  Was I missing something?  What's going on with me lately?

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I generally love Zadie Smith's works, but just couldn't get into the format of NW.  It's told from several perspectives, and the first one was off-putting.  The storyline follows four people in a NW suburb of London, and each character has his or her own section of the novel.  The first character, Leah, did not sit well with me; her trail of thought was difficult to follow, and she's just so unhappy.  I'm all for working through a book and earning the ending, but I couldn't do it.  Not this time.

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The opening section of this book is masterful: a young man, Billy, is trying to figure out his sexuality in a small Maine town.  His grandfather always plays a female role in the local community theater, he is obsessed with his best girl friend's bra but not the breasts inside, and both of them are crushing on the school's big man on campus.  He's in love with the town librarian, who is hiding her own secret.  

Irving did a great job with the first third of the book, but once Billy moves away from home and tries to figure out his life in Europe, it drags and dies out.  Meh. 

Are you guilty of reading half a book and then giving up?  Anything lately that just didn't grab you?  Things happen- let's drop the shame of the uncertain reader!  Unite for books worth our time!

Joseph Anton

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Salman Rushdie's latest book is a memoir of his time living under a fatwa, which Ayotollah Kohmeini announced in 1989.  Can you imagine waking up each day for 9 years and knowing there is a multi-million dollar price on your head?  If you can't (and, honestly, very few of us can), you'll need to read through the 600+ pages of Joseph Anton.
For anyone who lived under a rock for the past 20 years, Rushdie is pretty much the bane of the Islamic world, or at least was, after the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988.  While much-loved by the literary community, Verses was seen as blasphemous by most practicing Muslims.  Rushdie answered a phone call on Valentine's Day, 1989 and asked what it felt like to have a price on his head.  From them through 2000, he hopped from safe house to safe house under the protection of the British Secret Service, paid for by the British government.  For safety reasons, he had to choose a new name; thus, Joseph Anton was born from the first names of the great novelists Conrad and Chekhov. 
As many other reviewers noted, the first half of this memoir is gripping.  Rushdie discusses his childhood spent in boarding schools in England, his tormented relationship with his father, his first jobs out of college, and the birth of his novels.  It goes about at a clipped pace, and is full of juicy details of literary giants (he was the best man at Bill Buford's wedding, and attended a tea at Buckingham Palace while Diana lived there).  Rushdie writes in the third person, which helps it read a bit more novel-y. 
Perhaps in direct correlation to his own sense of tedium at living each day under some form of house arrest, the second half plods along and goes into much detail about each weekend trip spent with friends and takeout meal.  Each passage that involves interaction with his children picks up a bit, though, as he quite clearly adores his sons.  The same cannot be said of all of his romantic entanglements, and he does not pause to breathe during attacks on his second and fourth wives. 
Why wouldn't he just apologize to the hoards of people he offended with his novel?  Free speech.  People should be able to express their opinions without fear for their personal safety, and without fear of crazed public backlash.  It would be nice if he could have said that a bit more succinctly; after page 400, my interest waned a bit.

Sidenote: Growing up, I had heard of Verses, but had not seen it or knew what it was about.  I truly thought it was a series of poems that praised the devil or perhaps encouraged readers to commit unthinkable acts.  How odd to learn, during my teenage years, that it was an allegorical tale of two men from India who crash into England.  A bit disappointing.

On Abbi's To Read List

Today, JP and I are completing the pilgrimage to South Florida for Thanksgiving.  You'll have to excuse me for a brief pseudo-post today; rather than a full on book review, how about a list of books I'm looking forward to picking up in the next few months?

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The Twelve, Justin Cronin's follow-up to my beloved The Passage, follows a different set of characters from the coming of the 'jumpers.'  Summer ordered a copy for my birthday, and I've just got to get to this one!  It promises a whole new perspective survival instincts and how man can get by when he's desperate.

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Maggie Shiphead's debut novel, The Seating Arrangements, sounds like an updated Jane Austen novel.  I'm not a huge Austen fan, but am curious to see how this story of a long wedding weekend ends.  Somewhat sophisticated chick lit.

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Quirky family dynamics are one of my favorite literary plotlines, and Kris D'Agostino's The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac, seems like it could fulfill that need for me.  Almost like a book version of The Royal Tenanbaums, perhaps?

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IQ84, by Haruki Murakami, came out last year, and I'm dying just over the cover.  Described as a love story mystery, it's also supposed to be incredibly well-paced.  Not an easy task for a novel that tops 900-pages.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

The Fault in Our Stars

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Be sure to have tissues close by for John Green's latest offering, The Fault in Our Stars. 
Hazel is 16 years old, and has terminal cancer.  Yes, she is currently on a miracle drug that has added some years to her brief life, but everyone around her knows that she will not make it to the quarter-century mark by a long shot.  She meets Augustus in a support group for other teens with life-threatening (or life-ending) diseases, and is intrigued by the young man with one fake leg and a penchant for video games where he can play the hero. 
Even though there is no hope for a truly long-term relationship between them, Hazel and Gus set out on a journey of young love.  Along the way, they try to find out the end of Hazel's favorite book (the author has left it purposefully ambiguous) by traveling to Amsterdam, watch a friend lose his sight and girlfriend in nearly the same day, and try to maintain some semblance of normalcy in the midst of oxygen tanks and doctors that surround them. 

I know, I know, no one wants to read a book about cancer.  It's almost like reading a book about a dog: someone's going to die or they're going to get through it and come out stronger on the other side, leaving the rest of us to feel as though we're just meandering our way through healthy lives.  I wouldn't recommend this book based on the fact that it's about teens with cancer falling for each other, but I would recommend it based on the superb characters Green has crafted from thin air.  Hazel is gloriously witty and composed, Gus is a bundle of yearning for greatness, and even their parents are sweet and realistic.  The Fault in Our Stars never feels cloying or overly sentimental, although it does feel like a young adult book.  It's not a perfect book, but it's a perfect way to wile away a few hours on a couch when you need a good tearjerker.