kidzdoc: Destination Out! (take 3)

Currently reading:
Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox by Gareth Williams
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Completed books:

December:
162. Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli
161. Them by Nathan McCall
160. How the Two Ivans Quarrelled by Nikolai Gogol
159. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
158. Job by Joseph Roth
157. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee
156. Where We Know: New Orleans As Home by David Rutledge
155. The Translator by Leila Aboulela
154. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers
153. Désert by Jean-Marie Gustave LeClézio

November:
152. Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi
151. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
150. Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
149. Ignatz by Monica Youn
148. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
147. Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
146. My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose
145. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
144. False Friends/Faux Amis, Book 1 by Ellie Malet Spradbery
143. The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval
142. We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik
141. Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat
140. The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
139. White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliot
138. Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson
137. I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita

October:
136. The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre
135. A River Dies of Thirst: Journals by Mahmoud Darwish
134. How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrière
133. The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
132. How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
131. All That Follows by Jim Crace
130. The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett
129. Making Waves by Mario Vargas Llosa
128. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
127. A Week at the Airport by Alain de Botton
126. An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris by Georges Perec
125. The Private Life of Trees by Alejandro Zambra
124. The Sorrow Gondola: Poems by Tomas Tranströmer
123. No Surrender: Poems by Ai
122. The White Family by Maggie Gee
121. Antipoems: How to Look Better & Feel Great by Nicanor Parra
120. Pulp by Charles Bukowski
119. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

September:
118. A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
117. The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings by James Baldwin
116. The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka
115. Danton's Death by Georg Büchner
114. C by Tom McCarthy
113. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
112. My Ear at His Heart: Reading My Father by Hanif Kureishi
111. The Silent Traveller in San Francisco by Chiang Yee
110. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
109. Yesterday by Maria Dermoût
108. Closing the Chart: A Dying Physician Examines Family, Faith and Medicine by Steven D. Hsi, MD
107. Room by Emma Donoghue
106. The Elephant's Journey by José Saramago

August:
105. The Flood by Chiwan Choi
104. Trespass by Rose Tremain
103. Wonder by Hugo Claus
102. Quacks: Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine by Roy Porter
101. The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti by Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell
100. Wild Grass by Lu Xun
99. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
98. The Seine Was Red: Paris, October 1961 by Leïla Sebbar
97. The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
96. Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
95. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
94. Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan by Donald Keene
93. A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton by John McPhee
92. Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
91. Touch by Adania Shibli
90. Chef by Jaspreet Singh
89. Change by Mo Yan
88. In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
87. Street Smarts: Poems by Devorah Major
86. Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems by Natasha Trethewey
85. Bilingual: Life and Reality by François Grosjean
84. The Literary Conference by César Aira
83. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

July:
82. My Two Oxfords by Willie Morris
81. The Little Peul by Mariama Barry
80. The Water Cure by Percival Everett
79. Island by Penelope Todd
78. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
77. The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
76. The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
75. Landscape with Dog and Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos
74. Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor
73. The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis

June:
72. To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell
71. Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki
70. Troubles by J.G. Farrell
69. Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote by Ahmadou Kourouma
68. Philosophy in the Present by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek
67. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French
66. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
65. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
64. Selected Cronicas by Clarice Lispector
63. Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients by Danielle Ofri

May:
62. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
61. News from Home by Sefi Atta
60. My House by Nikki Giovanni
59. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
58. The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
57. Fear by Stefan Zweig
56. A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger
55. Five Modern Japanese Novelists by Donald Keene
54. Tranquility by Attila Bartis
53. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes
52. The Pen and the Sword: Conversations with Edward Said by David Barsamian
51. Season of Ash by Jorge Volpi
50. Letters from London by C.L.R. James
49. Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki
48. Everything In This Country Must by Colum McCann
47. Piano by Jean Echenoz
46. White Masks by Elias Khoury

April:
45. Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
44. Spain in Our Hearts by Pablo Neruda
43. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
42. Dread: Poems by Ai
41. Twilight & Moonbeam Alley by Stefan Zweig
40. Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni
39. Three Novellas by Joseph Roth
38. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
37. The Plague by Albert Camus
36. Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
35. Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez
34. The Women and the Men by Nikki Giovanni
33. An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah
32. Re: Creation by Nikki Giovanni

March:
31. Street of Lost Footsteps by Lyonel Trouillot
30. Albert Camus: A Life by Olivier Todd
29. School Days by Patrick Chamoiseau
28. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
27. Close to Jedenew by Kevin Vennemann
26. Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi
25. The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee
24. Selected Stories by Stefan Zweig
23. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
22. The Long Song by Andrea Levy
21. Nadirs by Herta Muller

February:
20. Listen! Early Poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky
19. A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee
18. Black Judgement by Nikki Giovanni
17. Things Seen by Annie Ernaux
16. Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss
15. Ashes of the Amazon by Milton Hatoum
14. Black Feeling Black Talk by Nikki Giovanni
13. The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski
12. The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care by John Dittmer
11. Wondrak and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig (Austria)

January:
10. Moscardino by Enrico Pea (Italy)
9. Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia)
8. Small Island by Andrea Levy (UK)
7. Amok and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig (Austria)
6. The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria by Randall M. Packard
5. The Word Book by Kanai Mieko (Japan)
4. Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives by Brian Dillon
3. Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya)
2. Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño (Chile)
1. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley

Categories and completed books in my 1010 challenge:

A. 2009-10 Archipelago Books
1. Moscardino by Enrico Pea (Italy)
2. Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss
3. White Masks by Elias Khoury
4. Tranquility by Attila Bartis
5. To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell
6. Wonder by Hugo Claus
7. A River Dies of Thirst: Journals by Mahmoud Darwish
8. The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval
9. My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose
10. Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli

B. 2010 Booker Prize longlist and previous winners
1. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (1973)
2. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle (1993)
3. Troubles by J.G. Farrell (Lost Man Booker Prize)
4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (2010 longlist)
5. In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut (2010 shortlist)
6. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010 winner)
7. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (2010 longlist)
8. Trespass by Rose Tremain (2010 longlist)
9. Room by Emma Donoghue (2010 shortlist)
10. C by Tom McCarthy (2010 shortlist)
11. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey (2010 shortlist)

C. 2010 Orange Prize longlist and previous longlisted books
1. Small Island by Andrea Levy
2. The Long Song by Andrea Levy
3. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey
4. Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
5. The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
6. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
7. The White Family by Maggie Gee
8. Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo
9. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
10. The Translator by Leila Aboulela

D. Medicine, public health and science
1. Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives by Brian Dillon
2. The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria by Randall M. Packard
3. The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care by John Dittmer
4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
5. A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger
6. Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients by Danielle Ofri
7. Quacks: Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine by Roy Porter
8. Closing the Chart: A Dying Physician Examines Family, Faith and Medicine by Steven D. Hsi, MD
9. Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson
10. White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliot
11. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee

E. African-American/African poetry & literature
1. Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya)
2. Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia)
3. Black Feeling Black Talk by Nikki Giovanni (US)
4. Black Judgement by Nikki Giovanni
5. Re: Creation by Nikki Giovanni
6. An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)
7. The Women and the Men by Nikki Giovanni
8. Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez
9. Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni
10. Dread: Poems by Ai
11. My House by Nikki Giovanni
12. News from Home by Sefi Atta
13. Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote by Ahmadou Kourouma
14. The Water Cure by Percival Everett
15. The Little Peul by Mariama Barry
16. Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems by Natasha Trethewey
17. Street Smarts: Poems by Devorah Major

F. 2010 Author Theme Reads
1. Amok and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig
2. Wondrak and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig
3. Selected Stories by Stefan Zweig
4. Three Novellas by Joseph Roth
5. Twilight & Moonbeam Alley by Stefan Zweig
6. Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki
7. Fear by Stefan Zweig
8. Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki
9. The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
10. Job by Joseph Roth

G. Southern US literature (William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, etc.)
1. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
2. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
3. Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers
4. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers
5. The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
6. The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor
7. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
8. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers
9. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
10. Them by Nathan McCall

H. Asian/Asian-American literature
1. The Word Book by Kanai Mieko (Japan)
2. A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee
3. The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee (South Korea)
4. Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi (Afghanistan)
5. The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (China)
6. Chef by Jaspreet Singh (India)
7. Touch by Adania Shibli (Palestine)
8. Wild Grass by Lu Xun (Japan)
9. The Flood by Chiwan Choi (Korean-American)
10. I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita (Japanese-American)

I. Biographies and Memoirs
1. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley
2. The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski
3. Albert Camus: A Life by Olivier Todd
4. Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
5. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French
6. Change by Mo Yan
7. A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton by John McPhee
8. Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan by Donald Keene
9. My Ear at His Heart: Reading My Father by Hanif Kureishi
10. The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre
11. We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik

J. Latin-American & Caribbean literature
1. Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
2. Ashes of the Amazon by Milton Hatoum (Brazil)
3. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
4. School Days by Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique)
5. Street of Lost Footsteps by Lyonel Trouillot (Haiti)
6. Season of Ash by Jorge Volpi (Mexico)
7. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
8. The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Colombia)
9. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (Brasil)
10. The Literary Conference by Cesar Aira (Mexico)
11. The Company of Heaven: Stories from Haiti by Marilene Phipps-Kettlewell (Haiti)
12. The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka (Venezuela)
13. The Private Life of Trees by Alejandro Zambra (Chile)
14. Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

Book #81: The Little Peul by Mariama Barry



My rating:

My review is in issue 7 of Belletrista:

http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue7/reviews_21.php

Book #111: The Silent Traveller in San Francisco by Chiang Yee



My rating:

Chiang Yee, a noted travel writer, met a San Franciscan during a trip from New York to England on an ocean liner in 1945. His new friend invited him to visit him in the City By the Bay on a future trip. Chiang spent six months in and around San Francisco in early 1953, and wrote this chronicle of his stay there.

This book was interesting in some sections, but was mainly a frustrating read for me, as Chiang would frequently diverge from his narrative of the places he visited, recounting meetings with friends and recalling other sites that he had seen previously. Reading this was akin to having a conversation with a demented man, whose flight of ideas prevented a true conversation or a linear narrative. This book is currently out of print, and, in my opinion, it should stay that way.

I've fallen behind on reviews lately, as I was in London for a week; I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

Yesterday I finished The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings by James Baldwin, a new collection of essays, book reviews, forewords for books, magazine articles, and a short story that haven't appeared in any of his previous books over a period of 40+ years (from 1947 to 1987, the year of his death). Many of the essays are set in the early to mid 1960s, during the height of the civil rights movement; I'll have to check to see what publications they appeared in, but many of the essays are searing and brilliant. The book reviews were mainly written in the late 1940s, and were unsparing and good. There are a a couple of transcripts of speeches or lectures that he gave, one during a protest in London in the early 1960s, and a later one at UMass, where he taught in the 1980s. I enjoyed his early and middle aged works, but the speeches and writing at the end of his career seemed unfocused and overly polemic. I would highly recommend this collection, but I'd also suggest reading it, as I did, in small segments, for fuller effect.

Last night I finished A Country Doctor's Notebook, a collection of short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov, which was based on his experiences as a newly minted doctor in a small and isolated Russian village just before the Revolution.

I'm currently reading Blindness by José Saramago for a group read, and I'll start Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire by Iain Sinclair today or tomorrow.

As you know, I just read and loved The Master and Margarita but I didn't know that Bulgakov had been a country doctor, or even a doctor of any kind, as I thought he had been a theater director as well as a writer. He must have given up being a doctor at some point. I will be interested in what you think of the stories, as I am eager to read (well, add to the TBR) other books by Bulgakov.

I stumbled upon A Country Doctor's Notebook at Book Culture this spring, as it was on sale for $4.98; it's a UK edition from The Harvill Press, though. According to the introduction Bulgakov completed his medical training at Kiev University in 1916, practiced general medicine for 18 months, and then became a venereologist in Kiev for another 18 months, before he moved to the Caucasus to escape the Civil War. He gave up the practice of medicine at that point, to concentrate on writing.

I definitely liked these stories, and read the book (about 160 pages) from beginning to end without stopping. I've ranked it 4-1/2 stars, so I'd strongly recommend it, for the medical topics, but also for Bulgakov's portrayal of village life before the Revolution.

Thanks; I'll look for it, although I may not be able to match that good price. And I also didn't know that there was such a specialty as venereology. Live and learn.

Venereology is not a widely used term anymore, nor is bacteriology or virology. One of the stories in A Country Doctor's Notebook is about the high prevalence of syphilis in the village, and the indifferent attitudes of the townspeople and his staff toward the illness. I would guess that this story was also based on his experiences in working as a country doctor, as he saw the effects of untreated syphilis (secondary and tertiary syphilis), which likely led to his decision to become a venereologist.

kd - I'm posting to help me keep track. But, also noticing...Baldwin, Bulgakov & Saramago...interesting reading you're doing.

I'll also be looking out for Bulgakov's short stories - thanks for highlighting them.

By the way, I really enjoyed Danton's Death but have spent the past few days trying to work out the mechanics of the on-stage guillotine!

Book #111... your review made me laugh. I have another book or two from the series, and I will have to pick them up soon!

#4 You've done it again, caused me to add yet another book to my library hold list, although I've got plenty to read, but I love James Baldwin, and his essays are often his strongest work. It'll be a little while though, they have 2 copies and 6 holds.

#9: Thanks, Dan. I'll definitely read more by Bulgakov, although it probably won't be before next year. The Saramago is a re-read, and I forgot to bring it with me on my latest trip, so I probably won't get to it until next year, as well.

I'm currently reading Freedom, Jonathan Franzen's new novel, which is very good so far, and Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire by Iain Sinclair, a work of "documentary fiction" about the north London borough.

#11: Right, Char! I was shocked at the first beheading, as it looked so real. I stared at the subsequent three beheadings, but was too far away from the stage (in the Circle section of the Olivier Theatre) to see how it was done. I'll ask Fliss (flissp from the 75 Books club) about this; she saw "Danton's Death" on the Sunday before last after we met for lunch, the day after I saw it, and I think that she was closer to the stage than I was.

BTW, did you see "Earthquakes in London" at the NT?

#12: Thanks, Solla; I hope that you enjoy it once you get to read it.

#13, I was only about 7 rows back in the stalls and it was still a mystery to me. I missed out on Earthquakes in London.

I'm now in San Francisco, for a combination conference and vacation, and will be here for the next two weeks. I stopped by City Lights Bookstore this morning, and bought these books:

The Sorrow Gondola by Tomas Tranströmer: The first collection of poems he has written since his debilitating stroke in 1990.

A Life Like Other People's by Alan Bennett: A 'poignant' memoir of the marriage of Bennett's parents, along with his childhood and his beloved aunts.

We Press Ourselves Plainly by Nathalie Stephens: This is an extended prose poem that was featured in the poetry section, which looked interesting.

Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988-2008 by Norma Cole: This is the first selection of City Lights' new Spotlight Poetry series.

The Rising of the Ashes by Tahar Ben Jelloun: Another book of poems published by City Lights, which consists of two epic poems about the consequences of war and violence in the Middle East.

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love and Language by Deborah Fallows: I first heard about this book from Oprah's Book Club web site, which featured interesting books for September. Several of my closest friends are Chinese; two of them speak Mandarin fluently, and the other two speak about as much as I do.

Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy: A collection of essays about the successes and failures of democracy, by this Booker Prize winning novelist.

After-Dinner Declarations by Nicanor Parra: A hefty collection of 235 poems that cover a variety of topics and issues, ranging from personal relationships and culture to politics, ecology and the future of our planet.

Antipoems: How To Look Better & Feel Great by Nicanor Parra: A collection of vital and humorous 'antipoems' from several collections.

Friday by Michel Tournier: Recommended by Kerry, a retelling of the legend of Robinson Crusoe.

So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers by Donald Keene: I accidentally passed on this book on my last SF trip in August, so I'm glad that it was still available.

The Poetry Lesson by Andrei Codrescu: A hilarious account of the first day of a creative writing course taught by a "typical fin-de-siècle salaried beatnik"; I might put everything else aside to read this!

Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat: A personal reflection of art and exile, and what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country of crisis (in this case, Haiti).

No Surrender: Poems by Ai: The final collection by the award winning poet, who died earlier this year.

Sanctificum by Chris Abani: I was unaware that Abani, a noted Nigerian novelist, was also a poet, and I picked this book among several that were on the shelf. It's a 'tour de force that {brings} together religious ritual, the Igbo language of his Nigerian homeland, and reggae rhythms in a postracial, liturgical love song.'

Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs and The Pages of Day and Night by Adonis: I haven't read anything by this Syrian poet who has been frequently mentioned as a finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature, so I thought I'd start with these two books.

Nice haul! Did you post a list of London purchases? Maybe I missed it. I managed to restrain myself and only bought 9 books during my week's holiday. I thought I'd done quite well until I saw mr charbutton's reaction!

Have you watched/heard Alan Bennett's Talking Heads? They are amazing monologues - funny but desperately sad.

You're right Char; I didn't post a list of my London purchases here, but I did post the list on the What Are You Reading Now? group. Here it is:

15 Sep: Foyles Bookshop

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire by Iain Sinclair
The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
Brodeck’s Report by Philippe Claudel
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
Burley Cross Postbox Theft by Nicola Barker
The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Staying On by Paul Scott

17 Sep: Bookcase Booksellers (Euston Street)

Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth A. Fenn

17 Sep: London Review Bookshop

We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik
The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka
Fever Chart by Bill Cotter
The White Family by Maggie Gee

18 Sep: Foyles Bookshop

Danton’s Death by George Büchner
Pulp by Charles Bukowski
Blindness by José Saramago
number9dream by David Mitchell

19 Sep: Waterloo Bridge stalls

Lady with Lapdog and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
What Is a Googly? The Mysteries of Cricket Explained by Rob Eastaway

20 Sep: Foyles Bookshop

Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson
Tokyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta
In the City By the Sea by Kamila Shamsie
Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph

21 Sep: W.H. Smith Bookshop (Gatwick Airport)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
No and Me by Delphine de Vigan

My copy of Freedom is the flawed UK paperback first release, which contained an older version of the book. More info here; ironically, this article from The Guardian also has a typo; 80,000 copies of the book were published, not 8,000. I finished it on Saturday; it was a very good book, but it certainly isn't the 'book of the century', IMO.

I haven't read or heard The Talking Heads. I see that iTunes has audiobooks of Talking Heads and Talking Heads 2, so I'll download these once I get back to Atlanta (I'm using the hotel's wireless network and don't want to divulge my credit card number).

I bought the books by the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra because of the upcoming Nobel Prize for Literature announcement on Thursday; Larry (lriley) posted in the Prizes group that The Complete Review has named Parra as the winner of this year's prize. The significance of that announcement is that The Complete Review correctly named Herta Müller as the winner of the 2009 Prize, several days before the actual announcement; I wonder if CR has inside information!

In addition to Freedom I also finished Pulp by Charles Bukowski on Saturday, his last novel, which is a spoof of pulp fiction (the main character is a private detective named Nicky Belane). I found it to be a tedious and not very amusing read, and I'll give it two stars for now. I'll review both books later this week.

I knew you would have bought loads while you were here. I'm trying to decide if Foyles are now officially a chain seeing as they are opening another branch in London. If they are a chain, maybe I need to avoid them now as I used to try and avoid Borders!

My favourite Talking Heads is the Lady of Letters. It makes me sob every time I hear it.

I'm interested to hear what you make of Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire - I live just down the road from Hackney so I'm interested to find out more about the area. I haven't read any Sinclair before but one of my friends hates his writing with a passion!

Great hauls! I'm still waiting for Dreaming in Chinese, which I tried to buy at my favorite bookstore after reading about it in the NY Times and here on LT (Suzanne?), but they were out of it. Said they'd have new copies by Friday and call me but . . . Didn't realize it was an Oprah choice, but I won't hold that against it.

I heard the Radio 4 interview where Franzen noticed the problem. How fun to have that version of the book.

After seeing the lists of your recent haul, I have to say that if I ever take up cat-burglary, your house is my first target. Please disregard the large moving van parked behind the hedge.

#18: Oops. I missed lriley's post about The Complete Review's pre-announcement of Nicanor Parra as the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. So, don't run out and scarf up Parra's books just yet (although I'm enjoying Antipoems: How to Look Better & Feel Great so far). Interestingly though, today's CR post is entitled "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 2010 Nobel laureate?" Apparently the Ladbrokes odds have shifted dramatically in Ngũgĩ's favor over the past few days, from 75/1 at the initial listing to 6/1 at the end of Sunday. It's hard to know how much stock to put into this, and he still trails Tomas Tranströmer (4/1), but I seem to remember that Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio made a similar strong push just before the Prize announcement was made. Stay tuned.

#19: Foyles is opening another bookshop? There are four already, according to the bookmark I have (Charing Cross, Southwark, St Pancras Station and Westfield London). Where will the new one be located? The Charing Cross Foyles has more in common with Borders than with the London Review Bookshop or City Lights, although I do like the cafe on the third floor.

#20: Dreaming in Chinese isn't an Oprah's Book Club choice, but her web site did highlight it as an interesting book for September:

4 Books to Watch for in September 2010

Two of the other three selections were also interesting to me: Room by Emma Donoghue, which I've already read and is currently my #1 favorite of this year's crops of Booker Prize novels; and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, which I'll purchase after I return to Atlanta. I read one or two reviews of Dreaming in Chinese on LT, but I first heard about the book from this web site.

#21: The Guardian has several articles about the snafu, and I first learned about it from a tweet from Guardian Books. The new version is supposed to be released in the UK today; from what I've read, the US initial release contains the final draft of the novel.

Uh oh; I'd better cancel my trip and call ADT to install an alarm system at home!

I bought The Warmth of Other Suns after reading a review of it, but I gave it to my sweetie, so it isn't in my LT library. I will probably read it too, someday.

Book #122: The White Family by Maggie Gee



My rating:

Shortlist, 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction
Shortlist, 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Alfred White is nearing the end of his 50 year career as a park keeper in a fictional London neighborhood in which he has lived for his entire life. He and his wife May have three children: Darren, a famed but restless journalist with a quick temper; Shirley, who has irked her parents by marrying a black African and dating a black Briton of Jamaican descent after her husband's death; and Dirk, the youngest sibling, whose small size and smaller ambitions mark him as a failure compared to his brother.

The neighborhood, once populated by white working class Britons, has now become home to immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and other parts of Europe. Alfred loathes these newcomers, even the noisy yellow "foreign" birds that have taken over the park, as they are not truly British, but he generally keeps his emotions and feelings in check. However Dirk, who worships his father and fully embraces his beliefs, views all nonwhites as threats, blames them for his personal failures, and hates them with a seething fury.

The White family is thrown into crisis when Alfred collapses while on duty. The family rallies around his sickbed, but deep wounds that have festered for years are brought into the open, which creates almost unbearable stress within each member. Dirk is the most deeply affected of all, as his grief over his father's illness is compounded by the realization that none of the rest of his family understands or cares about him. Fueled by rage, fear and hopelessness, he seeks to exact revenge on those whom he hates the most, the 'coloureds' that have made his life a living hell.

The White Family is a spectacular novel about a white working class family in a multicultural London that no longer seems to accept or appreciate them. The characters are richly portrayed, and this reader felt sympathy for even the most dislikable characters. I could hardly put this book down after the first 50 pages, and I won't soon forget these characters or Gee's wonderful narrative. Other than a slightly disappointing last few pages this book was nearly perfect, and this is easily one of my favorite novels of the year.

Book #123: No Surrender: Poems by Ai



My rating:

This is the last collection of poems by this award winning poet of mixed descent (African-American, Japanese-American, Native American), who died this spring, which consists of narrative poems about people from various backgrounds struggling to survive against difficult odds: a second generation Irish Catholic woman in post-World War II faces ostracization from her family and community after getting pregnant out of wedlock; a widow must cope with her husband's sudden death from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; a scholar from New Delhi immigrates to the U.S. illegally and scraps to make ends meet as a taxi driver. Each poem in itself is powerful, but as a whole the collection contained too much pain and despair for me to enjoy this work.

Book #124: The Sorrow Gondola: Poems by Tomas Tranströmer



My rating:

This is the first collection of poems by Tranströmer that has been published since the devastating stroke he suffered in 1990. The poems are published side by side in Swedish and English, and consist of 18 mostly light pieces, such as "Two Cities":

Two Cities

One each side of the strait, two cities
one blacked out, occupied by the enemy.
In the other the lamps are burning.
The bright shore hypnotizes the dark one.

I swim out in a trance
on the glittering dark waters.
A low tuba-blast pushes into me.
It's a friend's voice, Take your grave and go.

These poems were beautifully written, but were too light to leave a significant impression on me.

Wow, the White Family sounds really great. I'll have to add that to my wishlist. Thanks!

I agree about The White Family. Will look for it.

I've been on another book buying frenzy (imagine that!), as I'm in San Francisco on vacation. I bought these books last weekend at City Lights:

The Sorrow Gondola by Tomas Tranströmer: The first collection of poems he has written since his debilitating stroke in 1990.

A Life Like Other People's by Alan Bennett: A 'poignant' memoir of the marriage of Bennett's parents, along with his childhood and his beloved aunts.

We Press Ourselves Plainly by Nathalie Stephens: This is an extended prose poem that was featured in the poetry section, which looked interesting.

Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988-2008 by Norma Cole: This is the first selection of City Lights' new Spotlight Poetry series.

The Rising of the Ashes by Tahar Ben Jelloun: Another book of poems published by City Lights, which consists of two epic poems about the consequences of war and violence in the Middle East.

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love and Language by Deborah Fallows: I first heard about this book from Oprah's Book Club web site, which featured interesting books for September. Several of my closest friends are Chinese; two of them speak Mandarin fluently, and the other two speak about as much as I do.

Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy: A collection of essays about the successes and failures of democracy, by this Booker Prize winning novelist.

After-Dinner Declarations by Nicanor Parra: A hefty collection of 235 poems that cover a variety of topics and issues, ranging from personal relationships and culture to politics, ecology and the future of our planet.

Antipoems: How To Look Better & Feel Great by Nicanor Parra: A collection of vital and humorous 'antipoems' from several collections.

Part two of last weekend's City Lights haul:

More books:

Friday by Michel Tournier: Recommended by Kerry, a retelling of the legend of Robinson Crusoe.

So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers by Donald Keene: I accidentally passed on this book on my last SF trip in August, so I'm glad that it was still available.

The Poetry Lesson by Andrei Codrescu: A hilarious account of the first day of a creative writing course taught by a "typical fin-de-siècle salaried beatnik"; I might put everything else aside to read this!

Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat: A personal reflection of art and exile, and what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country of crisis (in this case, Haiti).

No Surrender: Poems by Ai: The final collection by the award winning poet, who died earlier this year.

Sanctificum by Chris Abani: I was unaware that Abani, a noted Nigerian novelist, was also a poet, and I picked this book among several that were on the shelf. It's a 'tour de force that {brings} together religious ritual, the Igbo language of his Nigerian homeland, and reggae rhythms in a postracial, liturgical love song.'

Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs and The Pages of Day and Night by Adonis: I haven't read anything by this Syrian poet who has been frequently mentioned as a finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature, so I thought I'd start with these two books.

Next, I bought three books at Aardvark Books, a nice used bookstore on Church St near Market:

Making Waves by Mario Vargas Llosa: A collection of essays over a 30 year period that won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1997.

On Argentina by Jorge Luis Borges: Borges writes about his homeland in a variety of essays, stories and excerpts from books.

Eleazar, Exodus to the West by Michel Tournier

Next, a second trip to City Lights on Friday:

Final Exam by Julio Cortázar: An early novel (1950), which is a "bitter and melancholy allegorical farewell to an Argentina from which he would soon be permanently self-exiled".

How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrière: A new release of this 1985 novel, which is a satirical and humorous look at the life of a Haitian immigrant to Montreal, who writes a novel about his life and loves.

Let the Wind Speak by Juan Carlos Onetti: This has been on my wish list forever, like the Laferrière novel, which was written while the author was exiled from his native Uruguay and lived in Spain. The novel is about an 'archetypal' Onetti hero, who "is at different times a {phony} doctor, a painter, a police chief" and lives in a town across from the city he wishes to enter, and then seeks to destroy.

Genesis by Eduardo Galeano: The first novel in his Memory of Fire trilogy about the Americas from their birth to the present day, which is a "giant, colorful mosaic of hundreds of stories depicting the clashes between the Old World and the New".

Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa: I wasn't expecting to find any MVL novels at City Lights, but most of his most highly regarded novels were there, including this one, which I didn't own; it's a novel about contemporary Peru, set in a remote Andean village where the Peruvian Army is battling the Shining Path guerrillas in a town that trusts neither side.

Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: This is a guide to the world of cultural studies, which begins with the British theorists of the 1970s and 1980s and examines cultural theory from Edmund Burke to Frantz Fanon to Spike Lee.

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang: A "starkly honest portrait of people caught up in the drive to write and of the personal bargains and self deceptions that such an ambition can entail." Chang, the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is in San Francisco this week, and City Lights had signed copies of her latest novel.

Monument Eternal: The Music of Alice Coltrane by Franya J. Berkman: I hadn't heard about this biography of John Coltrane's second wife until this morning, when I received an e-mail from avaland about the book. City Lights had just gotten this book in stock, so I added it to my pile.

The Giant of the French Revolution: Danton, A Life by David Lawday: I saw this amongst the new nonfiction books and had to get it, after seeing "Danton's Death" at the National Theatre last month.

And finally, a trip to Green Apple Books in SF's Richmond District (6th Ave & Clement St):

As promised, this is yesterday's haul from Green Apple Books in SF:

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris by Georges Perec: The author spends a weekend in October 1974 sitting in a Parisian café (Place Saint-Sulpice) where "nothing happens", and records all the events that he sees.

Everything and Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges: A collection of the best of Borges' stories and essays.

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley: A novella originally published in 1917, which is a romantic comedy about a female bibliophile who believes that her love of books can rescue her from a life of servitude.

The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra: A novella about a literature professor who improvises a bedtime story for his step-daughter while he anxiously awaits his wife's return from art class, who recounts their lives in detail.

A Week at the Airport by Alain de Botton: I had meant to buy this while I was in London last month; the author spends a week in Heathrow Airport, recording his observations, and lives to tell his tale.

How to Be an Existentialist: Or How to Get Real, Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses by Gary Cox: A 'concise, witty, and entertaining book about the philosophy of existentialism'; I am interested in existentialist thought, but I had to get this book after reading its subtitle.

The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett: I was stunned and thrilled to see the transcript of the play I saw at the National Theatre last month prominently displayed at Green Apple Books.

White Coat Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliot: A venture into 'the uncharted dark side of medicine', which shines 'a light on the series of social and legislative changes that have sacrificed old-style doctoring to the values of consumer capitalism'. This book was on my wish list, and I was pleased to see what looks to be a brand new copy sold for half price as a 'used' book.

This thread is more dangerous than a trip to my own favorite independent bookstore! I love the sound of The White Family, and I've been looking for a copy of Parnassus on Wheels ever since I read The Huanted Bookshop. So many other tempting things on your new acquisitions list--thanks for sharing...I think.

Wow, lots of wonderful sounding books here. As I commented on your other thread, I loved Death in the Andes.

So many other tempting titles, I hardly know where to begin! But how on earth do you plan to carry all these books back to Atlanta? I was nearly stymied by a mere six extra books to take home on the train from Boston.

Wow--and I'm with Rebecca--how are you getting all of these home? You're such a great customer at City Lights--do they give you free shipping?

Bloody hell Darryl, that's a huge amount of books!!

Thank you very much for making me feel that my book-purchasing during my short trip to NYC has been moderate! I think the count is at 8 or 9 so far, although I do have two days to go. Looking forward to the reviews, especially of the Perec and How To Make Love To A Negro Without Getting Tired which has also been featured in some of the bookshops that I have been browsing.

#34: Parnassus on Wheels was published in July by Melville House Publishing, as part of its 'The Art of the Novella' series. I've seen books from this series in Borders and independent bookstores in the US.

#35: I was just now able to fit all of the books I've bought in SF into my 'book bag', a Travelpro WalkAbout Lite 2 Deluxe Tote. If they fit in there then they'll fit into my Columbia Sportswear duffel bag, so I'm in good shape either way. The vast majority of these books are small, as I intentionally avoid buying larger books or those I can easily get in Atlanta (e.g., the new novels by David Grossman and Gish Jen). I'll try to read 1-2 of the smaller books every day, and sell them back to Green Apple Books or give them to interested LTers before I go, to lighten the load a bit.

#36: (Shhh) The two guys I know best at City Lights will give me a free item, generally a book bag or hat, every so often, particularly after a major purchase. They both know me on a first name basis (and that's before they see my name on my credit card), so I think it's far to say that I'm one of their better customers (especially one who lives over 2000 miles away!).

#37: Right, Char; this is definitely my biggest book haul since I started coming to SF on a regular basis (3-4 times per year every year since 2000, although this year I'll only make it here twice). I will make one more stop to the Annex at Green Apple Books and at least one more visit to City Lights before I leave, but I'll have to be very selective on my purchases (maybe 1-2 books from either store).

LT member Rise posted a thread which announces that Nov 7-13 will be NYRB Reading Week. Two book bloggers are hosting a week of reading books published by New York Review Books. I've accumulated a couple of dozen NYRB books over the past couple of years but have read hardly any of them, so I'll definitely participate in this challenge. I had planned to read The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig before the end of the year, so I'll at least read that book during that week.

I've read lots of NYRBs and own lots more Ihaven't read, so I'll think about doing this depending on where I am in my other reading at the time.

Wow, Darryl, that is a haul! (I'll be careful when emailing you about new books now :-) Glad to hear about the Maggie Gee. I read her My Driver last year and thought I'd like to read another of hers sometime.

Three short reviews of three short books:

Book #125: The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra (Chile): This was a conceptually interesting and enjoyable novella about a literature professor (Julián) who is writing a novel about his past life in an unhappy marriage, how he met and won the love of his current wife (Verónica), and the future life of his eight year old step-daughter (Daniela). Verónica has not yet returned home from her art class, and Julián anxiously awaits her return, while putting Daniela to bed with a story, "The Private Lives of Trees", and writing his book, which will end when Verónica returns home. This novella consists of ordinary stories about every day lives, and in Zambra's delicate hand these characters are allowed to slowly develop and mature. (4 stars)

Book #126: An Attempt at Exhausting a Life in Paris by Georges Perec (France): Perec decides to record "infraordinary" events outside of Parisian cafés during a three day weekend in October 1974, and he succinctly describes the mundanity and banality that he sees: numerous buses pass by; people engage in ordinary conversations and activities; birds fly together in nonsensical patterns and return to their previous positions. Perec does not analyze, he only observes, which made for a mildly interesting but somewhatdisappointing read. (3 stars)

Book #127: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain de Botton (UK): The author is employed by the owner of Heathrow Airport, given free reign to its new Terminal 5, and encouraged to freely record his observations. He writes about passengers he meets, and expounds upon their lives, loves and past encounters; the airport workers, from the president of British Airways to a restroom attendant; the structure and layout of Terminal 5; and the various and abstracted experiences of being in an airport and flying. Reading this book was an interesting contrast to the Perec book, and what made this a much more interesting read for me was de Botton's personal and philosophical statements and his behind-the-scenes look at the functioning of a modern airport filled with passengers and employees from various lands and different backgrounds. (4 stars)

The finalists for this year's National Book Awards have just been announced:

Fiction:

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America
Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule
Nicole Krauss, Great House
Lionel Shriver, So Much for That
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel

Nonfiction:

Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq
Patti Smith, Just Kids
Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward
Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War

Poetry:

Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City
Terrance Hayes, Lighthead
James Richardson, By the Numbers
C.D. Wright, One with Others
Monica Youn, Ignatz

Young People's Literature:

Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker
Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
Laura McNeal, Dark Water
Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown
Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer

More info: 2010 National Book Awards

Edited to correct touchstones.

Well, I've only heard of some of these, but I think I could come up with some other books I think should be finalists if I put my mind to it.

I own the Carey and the Yamashita from the fiction list, and have heard about the Shriver and the Krauss; the Gordon won't be published until next month. I'm surprised that Freedom by Jonathan Franzen didn't make this list, given all of the hoopla about it ("novel of the century", etc.). I Hotel looks interesting; it's a historical novel about an actual hotel in San Francisco, and it is about the Asian-American civil rights movement in the Bay Area. I'll read it at the end of this month.

I own Lighthead by Terrance Hayes; I bought it because I enjoyed an earlier collection of his poems, Wind in a Box. I'll look for Ignatz and check out the other poetry collections at City Lights today or tomorrow.

I haven't heard of any of the nonfiction books, and I don't read YA literature.

(I'm seriously flirting with literary prize fatigue here; however, this is my favorite new award.)

The shortlist for this year's Wellcome Trust Book Prize, which celebrates the best fiction and nonfiction books written about medicine and literature, was announced last week:

Fiction:

So Much for That by Lionel Shriver
Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson

Nonfiction:

Medic: Saving Lives - from Dunkirk to Afghanistan by John Nichol
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing by Tim Parks
Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox by Gareth Williams

The winner will be announced in early November in London, and will receive £25,000.

More info: Shortlist

Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane is the winner of this year's Royal Society Prize for Science Books. Lane is a biochemist at University College London, and in this book he "argues that there are 10 such inventions and explores the evolution of each. Not surprisingly, each of the 10—the origin of life, the creation of DNA, photosynthesis, the evolution of complex cells, sex, movement, sight, warm bloodedness, consciousness and death—is intricate, its origins swirling in significant controversy."

Nick Lane wins Royal Society science book prize for Life Ascending

I've ordered this book, along with his earlier book Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, as I'd like to get back to reading more books about science.

Book #131: All That Follows by Jim Crace



My rating:

Lennie Less is an accomplished British jazz saxophonist who is about to turn 50 in October 2024, and is reasonably happy, as he is in a comfortable marriage and his music has provided him with personal satisfaction and material comfort.

One day he watches a hostage drama taking place in a nearby town, and recognizes the intruder as Maxie Lermon, an American activist that he met years ago, as he was the lover of a Nadia Emmerson, a woman he also loved. He wants to be of some assistance, knowing that the man has a violent streak and might kill his hostages. He meets up with the teenage daughter of Maxie and Nadia; she concocts a risky plan to bring the hostage drama to an end. Lennie, who is cautious to a fault, has reservations about the plan, yet cannot completely distance himself from the woman he once loved, and the young girl he has become enamored with.

Despite an interesting story line I found this book to be quite disappointing, as I could not empathize with any of the characters, and I found Lennie, the main character, to be selfish, wishy washy and thoroughly annoying. Fortunately this was a short novel, but it's one I would not recommend.

In today's Guardian Sarah Crown, the editor of the paper's online book section, announces the creation of a new project, Fiction Uncovered, whose goal is to highlight books by the best UK writers whose work has not received much attention or recognition. The project will select and announce eight books next spring, which will all receive promotion by major booksellers and other outlets.

Help Find Fiction's Unheralded Stars

The Fiction Uncovered web site already has several books that have been listed for contention, including Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson, which I ordered from The Book Depository recently, as it was nominated for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize.

>50 kidzdoc: Interesting project. Should be entertaining to see what others consider "much attention or recognition."

Book #132: How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu



My rating:

Jonas Woldemariam, the American born son of Ethiopian immigrants, has recently lost his teaching job in Manhattan and separated from his wife. He seeks to recreate his late parents' journey from Peoria, Illinois to Nashville, Tennessee, in an effort to learn about their lives and to understand his own confused and troubled past.

Jonas was born in the Midwest, not quite American nor fully African, and he is ostracized and treated as an exotic by his classmates and neighbors. His home is not a sanctuary, due to his father's violent outbursts towards him and his mother, and he copes by internalizing his thoughts and feelings, and making himself as invisible as possible to his father. He obtains a bachelor's degree in literature, moves to New York, and takes on a series of odd jobs. While working at a center that provides legal aid to recent immigrants he meets Angela, an African-American law student, and the two eventually marry.

Angela loves Jonas, and through her connections at work she is able to get him a job teaching English literature at a private Upper East Side school. On the surface it would seem as though Jonas would be content; however, his self isolation and inability to express or articulate his feelings and his frequent tendency to lie or spout half-truths frustrate Angela, who throws herself into her work and spends less time with her husband as a result.

After the couple separate, Jonas finds himself completely alone, as he has no friends or family. He has no clear sense of who he is or what he should do now that he is completely free. He realizes that he must go back to the past, to recreate his parents' journeys and lives as best he can, in order to determine what he should do with his life.

How to Read the Air has some roots in the author's past, as he did grow up in Peoria, but it is far from an autobiographical novel. On my initial reading I was somewhat lukewarm toward this book, despite its beautiful writing and richly portrayed characters, mainly because I could not identify or understand Jonas. However, after reading several recent interviews of Mengestu and thinking about the book over the past few days, I have come to appreciate it much more, as I find that this book, and its protagonist, have a lot to say about the life of an immigrant to America, along with anyone who finds himself caught between cultures or engaged in a struggle of self discovery. The book is filled with melancholy, yet it ends on a hopeful note, as Jonas is a sympathetic character despite his many flaws and shortcomings.

Thanks for the review, Darryl. I've been looking forward to reading How to Read the Air, both because I liked his earlier novel so much and because I read a story in The New Yorker that was an excerpt from this book (I think), during the time the protagonist was a teacher. One of the things I liked so much about The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears was its depiction of immigrant life, so I'm glad that Mengetsu continues that thread in this new work.

Book #133: The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor



My rating: (3.7/5.0)

The Violent Bear it Away, O'Connor's second novel, begins with the death of Mason Tarwater, a devoutly and fiercely religious old man who lives deep in the woods outside of a moderate sized town in Tennessee in the mid 20th century. His only surviving "heir" is his great-nephew Francis, a 14 year old boy who prefers to be called Tarwater. Mason kidnapped Tarwater as an infant from his nephew Rayber, the boy's uncle and a schoolteacher who lives in town, in order to baptize and educate the boy in order to make him a prophet of God. Mason tells Tarwater that, upon the old man's death, his duty will be to baptize Rayber's mentally retarded son Bishop, so that he may be saved from his morally corrupt parents and "burn clean" Rayber's eyes into realizing the errors of his secular ways.

After the old man's death Tarwater is pleased to be released from Mason and his fanatically religious beliefs, and is eager to return to the home of his uncle Rayber, although he is angry that his uncle failed to rescue him from the old man. However, once Tarwater sees Bishop, he is both tormented and repulsed by the boy, and finds himself deeply and internally conflicted by the old man's dying wish and his own desire to escape his destiny. Compounding his torment is his uncle's fervent wish to provide Tarwater with a secular education, which causes Tarwater to angrily reject his uncle, who he sees as someone who prefers to talk than to act. The tension and strong emotions build over several days, until Tarwater finally acts on his passions.

The Violent Bear it Away is a classic Southern gothic novel, with its dark and at times disturbing narration, with its overlying theme being the conflict between religion and secularism, and the violent reaction that often results. This was a powerful book, but I found it to be more predictable and overwrought than her first novel Wise Blood, which also explored similar themes.

Book #134: How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrière



My rating:

The narrator of this novella is a young Haitian man who is living in a dodgy apartment on the rue Saint-Denis in Montreal along with his African roommate Bouba, the "Black Buddha" of the city. He spends his days in his filthy and pest-ridden flat working on his first novel, Black Cruiser's Paradise, and his nights are generally spent in the company of his girlfriend Miz Literature, a privileged and attractive white literature student at McGill University, or in a variety of bars and cafés with other black émigrés, who discuss the plight of black men in the city and their never ending pursuit of white women, and vice versa.

Despite its short length I found this book to be tiresome and less than believable, filled with trivial discussions about literature, jazz and black-white relations in Montreal and in the United States.

the title is fabulous. I bet in my local bookstore they would put it in the 'self-help' section.
;)

As I noted on your other thread, this book falls into the category of books whose titles are the best thing about them.

#56: LOL! My local Borders would probably do the same thing.

#55 - I am sneakingly (selfishly) glad this didn't turn out to be such a good read, as it was one of the books I considered, but didn't get, on my recent trip to NYC!

#56 - I once found all of Barbara Pym shelved in the 'crime' section of a small bookshop because of her autobiography, A Very Private Eye.

The winners of the 2010 American Book Awards, which "recognize outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America's diverse literary community", have been announced:

Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (University of California Press)

Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press)

Nancy Carnevale, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press)

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (McSweeney’s/Vintage)

Sesshu Foster, World Ball Notebook (City Lights)

Stephen D. Gutierrez, Live from Fresno y Los: Stories (Bear Star Press)

Victor Lavalle, Big Machine (Spiegel & Grau)

François Mandeville, This Is What They Say, translated from the Chipewyan by Ron Scollon (University of Washington Press)

Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls (Viking)

Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley, editors, Black, Brown, & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (University of Texas)

Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, editors, Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry (University of California Press)

Kathryn Waddell Takara, Pacific Raven:Hawai`i Poems (Pacific Raven Press)

Pamela Uschuk, Crazy Love: New Poems (Wings Press)

Lifetime Achievement: Quincy Troupe and Katha Politt

More info: http://bookweb.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundat..."

Book #135: A River Dies of Thirst: Journals by Mahmoud Darwish



My rating:

Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was a prominent Palestinian poet, activist, and editor who won several literary awards and international peace prizes. This collection of standard and prose poems, fragments and journal entries was written just prior to his death, and was published in English by Archipelago Books last year. The pieces in this collection are deeply personal, reflecting on his youth and the wisdom that comes with age, and include grim and sorrowful poems about the Palestinian struggle along with playful and witty takes on everyday life.

Here is a representative poem from this collection:

If we want to

We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others

We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner

We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan's gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial

We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer's belly

We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognises the importance of small details

We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: 'Our country is loftier and more beautiful!'

We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets

We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba

We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception

We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong

Fortunately Archipelago will publish at least two more of his earlier collections in the near future, including Journal of an Ordinary Grief later this year and In the Presence of Absence next spring.

Interesting list of titles and authors, most of whom I've never heard of!

Book #136: The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre



My rating:

Jean-Paul Sartre's autobiography was published in English in 1964, the year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and it focuses on his early childhood and the influences that led to his decision to become a writer.

Sartre's father died when he was an infant; as a result he and his mother Anne-Marie moved back into her parents' house on the edge of Paris. As an only child, the young Jean-Paul was nurtured and sheltered by his mother and his grandparents, and his greatest influence as a child was his grandfather Charles Schweitzer, a professor of German literature and nephew of the Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer. Sartre's initial years were spent in near complete isolation from other children, and he began to read voraciously at an early age, with his greatest influences being the adventure stories that his mother and grandmother gave to him, to the chagrin of his grandfather. He began to play act stories that he created based on his reading, and soon he began to write stories about these adventures. In his later childhood his grandfather's teaching and reading became more influential, and he supported his wife and daughter in encouraging Sartre to pursue a career as a writer.

The autobiography is divided into two long chapters, Reading and Writing. The first chapter is by far the most interesting, as Sartre introduces us to his family and the joys of his young childhood. However, the last half of the book was far too long, with an overemphasis and overanalysis of his early writing and its influences, with only minimal attention given to his outside life, his family and the few friends that he made.

Despite a promising beginning I found The Words to be a disappointing and somewhat unenjoyable read, due to its lack of balance and Sartre's choppy and disjointed narrative.

Oh dear. Been on my TBR pile for a long, long time. I love Sartre's novels. is it really as bad as all that, doc?

The Hurston/Wright Foundation Award Ceremony was held last night in Washington, DC. These awards are "presented to published writers of African descent by the national community of Black writers." There isn't an official announcement from the foundation's web site, and I can't find any news articles about the winners. However, I did find tweets about the ceremony from @feliciapride, who was in attendance. According to her, these are the winners:

Fiction: I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
Nonfiction: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin Kelley
Poetry (tie): Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove, and Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems by Haki R. Madhubuti

I've read I Am Not Sidney Poitier last year and Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original this year, and would highly recommend both books. I own Sonata Mulattica, but haven't read it yet, and I'll add Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems to my wish list.

Darryl, when I read this review of Thelonius Monk I was hoping that you might read it and then reflect on whether you found it fair.

Robert

This is from yesterday's New York Times Arts Beat section:

In another digital publishing experiment Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish 12 of José Saramago’s novels — plus a novella — in an e-book collection for $36.

“In print, it would be unwieldy and expensive, but electronically, it is affordable and convenient,” Bruce Nichols, the senior vice president and publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said. “Now readers can complement their Saramago print titles and discover some new gems they may have missed.”

Mr. Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel laureate, died in June at the age of 87. This e-book equivalent of a box set, titled “The Collected Novels of José Saramago,” will be available on Nov. 29, with novels including “Blindness,” “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” and “Baltasar and Blimunda,” along with an introductory essay by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The winners of this year's National Book Awards were announced last night:

Fiction: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Nonfiction: Just Kids by Patti Smith
Poetry: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
Young People's Literature: Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

More info: http://nationalbook.org

#66: I'll read the Monk review in detail later today, and give you my thoughts. On a cursory glance I agree with most of what he said.

Book #137: I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita



My rating:

Finalist, 2010 National Book Award for Fiction

The International Hotel (I-Hotel) was built a year after the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake in Manilatown, a community of some 20,000 Filipino immigrants on the edge of Chinatown. It was a residential hotel, which mainly housed Filipino and Chinese immigrant bachelors who worked in nearby businesses but couldn't afford homes, along with a smattering of artists and community and political activists that moved there in the 1960s. The I-Hotel sat in the shadow of the Financial District's famed Transamerica Pyramid, and as the area became more populated with gleaming office buildings the land adjacent to the hotel became more desirable while the building seemed more and more out of place. The hotel was purchased by a wealthy Chinese investor in 1968, who planned to tear down the building, evict its residents, and build a more profitable high-rise tower.

The residents of the hotel and community activists fought the developer and the city for years to prevent its demise. However, in 1977 the city's police department physically overpowered dozens of protesters and forcibly evicted its remaining residents, who were mostly elderly men who had lived there for decades, and the building was torn down immediately afterward. Ironically, the planned commercial development never took place, and a reincarnation of the I-Hotel for low- and middle-income residents was built on this site in 2005.

Karen Tei Yamashita, a professor of Literature and Creative Writing at UC Santa Cruz, uses the I-Hotel as the basis for this ambitious, sprawling, unique and successful novel about the Asian American civil rights movement, or Yellow Power movement, in San Francisco, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities in the 1960s and 1970s. The book is divided into 10 novellas, and each revolves around mostly fictional characters who are deeply involved in the burgeoning movement, including student protests at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley, the Native American takeover of Alcatraz Island, the efforts of farm workers to earn a decent wage and working conditions, and, of course, the unsuccessful efforts to save the I-Hotel. Yamashita uses a variety of tools to tell these stories, including poetry, portraits, graphic art, and government manuscripts.

Most of these novellas were very well done, and the book's ending was superb. Throughout the book I felt as if I was an observer being pulled along, sometimes breathlessly, from one story and one locale to another, in a whirlwind series of historical and personal narratives by a persistent and passionate guide. At the book's end I was somewhat fatigued, a bit overwhelmed, but ultimately grateful for the journey and what I learned along the way.

Sounds like a fascinating book and one about something I shamefully know almost nothing about.

Book #144: False Friends, Faux Amis: Book 1 by Ellie Malet Spradbery



My rating:

LibraryThing Early Reviewer selection

This is a short and humorous collection of French phrases that would easily slip up an English speaking person visiting France, and cause confusion and embarrassment in conversation. The book is divided into six sections; the first consists of French words and phrases that appear similar to their English equivalents, but have an entirely different meaning, alongside the French definition of the desired English phrase. For example, un librairie refers to a bookshop, whereas a library in French is called une bibliothèque. In the second section we learn the meaning of French expressions that would confuse the casual speaker, and the third section contains French words that have multiple meanings or are similar in spelling to another word with an entirely different meaning. Section 4 contains lists of common trees, birds, animals and produce; Section 5 consists of a short miscellaneous collection of common words or phrases (e.g. ce truc in English is 'this thingie, thingamajig, or whatchamacallit'); and Section 6 lists the French translation of common English phrases (e.g., 'my cup of tea' in French is mes choses favorites).

I found this small book to be entertaining and informative, and I will certainly bring it with me when I visit Paris next year.

Book #146: My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose



My rating::

On a cold December night four strangers, a contractor, a government official, a doctor, and a "writer", find themselves stranded in a railway station in a small mid-20th century Indian town. The men sat together in a compartment during the first portion of their journey, and decide to keep each other company for the night, while they await the morning train that will carry them to their final destinations. As they sip coffee, the door of the station opens, and a young couple, clearly in love, briefly enter, look around the room, and then exit back into the frigid air. The four middle-aged men are moved by the sight of the betrothed couple and their embodiment of pure love, while realizing that such passion is fleeting and short lived. The men decide that each should share a personal story about their own experiences, in order to make the night pass more quickly.

The narratives of these four stories comprise the remaining chapters of the book. Each story is one of unrequited or impossible love in its purest form, and through them the reader learns more about each man, the Indian middle class after independence, and the hurdles that made it difficult for young people to find true love in a society that was becoming more Westernized and modern.

My Kind of Girl is a lighthearted and beautifully written short novel, which was originally published in 1951 and reissued in English translation for the first time by Archipelago Books this month. Despite its potentially depressing topic of unrequited love it was a book filled with hope and possibility, and I look forward to upcoming translations of this famed author's works.

Book #147: Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa



My rating:

Naccos is a remote Andean town within the Ayacucho Region of Peru, which is populated by miners and construction workers from other regions along with serruchos, local Indians who maintain ancient tribal customs and beliefs. Life there is hard and often brutal, due to the lack of female companionship for the mostly single men, the difficult working conditions, the climate that fluctuates rapidly between bitter cold and intolerable heat, and the fear of huaycos, landslides from the surrounding mountains that threaten to bury houses and disrupt the road project.

The towns in the region are also menaced by Maoist guerrillas of the Shining Path movement, who live in the mountains and strike without warning, ambushing vehicles on the roads and marching into villages, as they isolate those whom they oppose and dispense justice in a most brutal fashion.

Corporal Lituma from the Peruvian Army, assigned to the region to protect the workers during the construction project, is informed of the murder of three villagers. His is accompanied by and lives with Tomás Carreño, a local young man who escaped from the Civil Guard after committing a crime of passion, who keeps Lituma entertained and on edge by telling him the story of this crime and the woman who inspired him.

As Lituma investigates the disappearances, we learn more about the missing men, the clash of cultures between the workers, serruchos, and Lituma, who comes from a modern coastal city, and the violent beauty of the region. Tensions build as Lituma and Carreño suspect that the guerrillas killed the men and will make them their next victims.

Death in the Andes is a solid work of fiction, filled with passion, intrigue and humor. The story focuses mainly on Lituma and Carreño, and the reader doesn't learn much about the Shining Path guerrillas, who are portrayed as merciless and wanton killers, or the serruchos, which would have made this a more complete and fulfilling novel for me. It is a well written, captivating and worthwhile read; I wouldn't recommend it as the first book to read by MVL, but I think that his fans will likely enjoy it.

Book #145: Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor



My rating:

This collection of nine short stories was published in 1965, the year after O'Connor died from complications of lupus at the age of 39. These stories are all set in the Deep South in the mid-20th century, and, similar to her previous works, contain a motley of disturbed and odd characters whose internal struggles with daily life threaten to tear them apart. Most of the stories deal with either racial tension or family crises in small towns; unfortunately for this reader the black characters are almost all one sided, poorly developed and stereotypical. The best stories of the collection are the title story, in which a simple racial misunderstanding and the underlying tensions in a town experiencing change are very well done, and "A View of the Woods", which is about a old property owner who seeks to build a store on his land to the dismay of his feisty niece, who he fiercely worships and adores. Several of the stories were similar in theme and construction, and I found this to be a far less satisfying read that her first novel, Wise Blood or her first collection of short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

I just finished Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi, a superb novel whose main character is a late middle-aged editor of the culture section of a Lisbon newspaper in 1938, as the Salazar regime develops closer ties with the fascist governments Germany and Spain. Dr. Pereira meets a young university graduate after reading an article of his about death, and hires him to write literary obituaries for the paper. The youth is a devout anti-fascist, and writes articles that are unpublishable in the paper, as its editor-in-chief has close ties to the regime and government censors edit all unfavorable articles and references. Tabucchi expertly maintains an increasing sense of menace and claustrophobia throughout this short novel, and at the end of it my heart was literally pounding in my chest. I'll write a proper review of this later this week, and I don't want to give too much away, but it's definitely one of the best books I've read this year, and I'll give it 5 stars for now.

good to know you've finally made your way to Pereira Declares, darryl, and that you've enjoyed it. it's also one of my best reads this year. a pity that very few of Tabucchi's books are available in English...

Well, I'm off to look for Pereira Declares. Thanks, Darryl.

This is the second review saying Pereira Declares is excellent that I've run across. I'll have to find a copy.

You got me with Pereira Maintains, drat it! I need to work on my duck-and-weave.

I ordered it from Book Depository yesterday . . . twiddling my thumbs (not really!) until it arrives.

Well, drat. It doesn't fit my system. This latest translation is not on BN.COM, but there it is at the book depository -- in hardcover. There's no way to put it on my waiting-for-the-paperback wishlist. Would somebody remind me?

Robert

Robert, if you are talking about Pereira Declares, I ordered a paperback from BD yesterday for $8.47.

Okay, I've checked both sites now. The $8.47 book is a hardcover from what I see and is the 1990's New Directions version. The 2010 version Pereira Maintains is in a Cannongate hardback for $19.01 from .com and for $21.86 from .UK. I had thought that it was the new translation under discussion. Thanks for trying, or if I am misreading things I'll be thankful for being corrected (and an appropriate season for that it is too).

Robert

I just went for the cheapest version -- didn't realize there was a new translation.

#80: The problem with the duck and weave method on LT is that you can avoid one tempter/temptress with a deft move, but you're sure to be tackled for a loss by someone else.

#81-85: I ordered my copy of Pereira Declares from Amazon this summer, a 1997 paperback edition. I also didn't realize that there is a new translation by Canongate, entitled Pereira Maintains. I hope that the new translation will be widely read, and, as deebee said, more of his novels will be translated into English. Which of his other novels, whether in Portuguese or English, do you like, deebee?

darryl, i have not read any of his other books but i sure would like to get my hands on a copy of Requiem: A Hallucination and The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro.

Thanks, deebee! I've added both books to my Amazon wish list, and hopefully I'll receive one of them as a Christmas gift. I'll also look for his books in NYC next week.

If I remember correctly Tabucchi was high on the list of possible Nobel Prize laureates created by the UK bookies for the past two years. If the rest of his books are as good as Pereira Declares then he would be a worthy choice.

"The Man Asian Literary Prize was founded in 2007. It is an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. The judges choose a longlist of 10 to 15 titles announced in December, followed by a shortlist of 5 to 6 titles announced in February, and a winner is awarded in March. The winning author is awarded USD 30,000 and the translator (if any) USD 5,000. Submissions are invited through publishers based in any country."

The longlist for this year's award was announced yesterday:

2010 Longlist

Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu
Way to Go by Upamanyu Chatterjee
Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani
Serious Men by Manu Joseph
The Thing About Thugs by Tabish Khair
Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna
The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa
Monkey-man by Usha K.R.
Below the Crying Mountain by Criselda Yabes

I haven't read any of these books, but I do own The Changeling and Three Sisters. More info:

Man Asian Literary Prize

Interesting list.

I've read books by several of the authors (Bi Feiyu, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Tabish Khair, and Yoko Ogawa), of which my favourite was definitely Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August, a very funny satire of Indian bureaucracy as well as the tale of a misfit.

Off now to check out some of the others!

I'll definitely read English, August: An Indian Story early next year for one of my 11 in 11 categories (NYRB titles that I already own) along with the two books I already own.

At the moment these are my top 10 books of 2010, listed in the order in which I read them:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berger
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
Troubles by J.G. Farrell
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Room by Emma Donoghue
The White Family by Maggie Gee
I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita
Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee

Edited to fix sleepy touchstones

I haven't read any of these authors, so this is intriguing. Thanks for posting it.

Well, I favorited 92 so that I could get back to it. I think that might be a worthwhile list to have.

Robert

Well, Darryl, another prize for you to monitor: the 2011 Tournament of Books longlist is up!

As always, Darryl, you're reading some interesting books. Glad you like I Hotel, it interested me more than the Lord of Misrule - although I did hear an interesting interview with Jaimy Gordon on NPR today: http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/12/horse-racing-lord-misrule

Book #157: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee



My rating:

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, a professor of medicine at Columbia University and a rising star in the field of cancer biology, is the author of this excellent story of cancer from antiquity to the present day, which was selected as one of The 10 Best Books of 2010 by The New York Times and is my personal selection for the best nonfiction book I have read this year.

Mukherjee begins the book with the story of Carla Reed, a young kindergarten teacher and mother, who has been ill with vague symptoms for the last month and awakens one day with an ominous sense that something serious is wrong with her. She sees her physician and requests blood work to determine the cause of her illness. The following morning her world is turned completely upside down, as she learns that the complete blood count drawn in the office is highly suggestive of acute leukemia. She is admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, as she leaves the world of the healthy and enters the realm of the SICK, as technicians, phlebotomists, nurses and doctors swarm to her bedside to ask questions and perform tests. Later that morning she meets Dr. Mukherjee, who oversees her care and shares her story throughout this book.

The story of cancer begins in ancient Egypt, as the famed physician Imhotep describes a malady that presents as "a bulging mass in the breast" amongst other medical conditions. Imhotep provides therapeutic remedies for the other illnesses, but for the breast mass he writes, "There is none." The first definitive treatment of breast cancer occurs centuries later in Persia, as Queen Atossa's cancerous breast is surgically removed by a slave in the first recorded mastectomy, performed without the benefit of anesthesia or antisepsis.

The history of cancer is intimately linked to the history of medicine, and the reader learns about the different types of solid cancers and leukemias as they are understood in the context of history, first as an imbalance in one of the body's four humors, and then as an abnormal proliferation of cells distinct in appearance from normal ones. Mukherjee skillfully portrays the important medical and scientific researchers as sleuths who independently and collaboratively attempt to track down an elusive killer, while also describing the lives of former patients including "Jimmy", the Boston youth whose story inspired millions of Americans to donate to cancer research through The Jimmy Fund, and private citizens such as Mary Lasker, a New York socialite whose tireless efforts transformed the moribund American Society for the Control of Cancer to the powerful and influential American Cancer Society.

Unfortunately, the benefits of most of these advances in medical knowledge throughout most of the 20th century are short lived in most cases, as the majority of patients suffered relapses and recurrences. Mukherjee portrays the despair felt by patients, their families and cancer researchers, contrasted with the hope that significant decreases in cancer mortality would eventually be achieved, through medical research and therapies and, more importantly, from advancements in early diagnostic techniques and in prevention of risk factors such as smoking and excess consumption of alcohol.

The last quarter of the book describes the advances in cancer biology as it is understood on the molecular level to be a disease of uncontrolled cellular growth due to the effect of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Mukherjee leaves us with hope for the future of the treatment of cancer, as it will likely be either curable or a relatively easily treatable chronic disease.

I found The Emperor of All Maladies to be as compelling as a well written mystery novel, one filled with interesting characters and unexpected plot twists, along with interesting and understandable discussions of science and medicine. Dr. Mukherjee has done a masterful job in writing this book, and I would highly recommend it to all readers.

#96: Thanks for the link to the NPR story on Jaimy Gordon, Lois; I'll listen to it later tonight. I picked up Lord of Misrule from Book Culture this week, and I'll probably read it next month.

Darryl - fantastic review!

Thanks, Dan. Unfortunately The Emperor of All Maladies will be unforgettable to me for another reason; a friend of mine, a pediatric resident that I worked with for the past couple of years, lost her battle with a rare form of liver cancer this week at the tender age of 29, which I learned about halfway through this book.

Darryl - thanks for your review of The Emperor of All Maladies. That title is on all the Best Of . . . lists lately. You almost have me convinced to read it. It sounds fascinating, but I think it might bring on a panic attack. I read Sunshine: a novel when I was about 12, and I was convinced I had bone cancer. My knees throbbed the whole time I was reading it. I don't know if I can go through another experience like that.

Book #158: Job by Joseph Roth (translated from the German by Ross Benjamin)



My rating:

This novel was written in 1930 and reissued by Archipelago Books last month. Mendel Singer is a pious and ordinary Jewish man who is barely able to provide for his wife and children as a teacher of young children in early 20th century Russia. His life has been one of struggle and misery, compounded by a loveless marriage and the birth of his last child, who is severely delayed and epileptic. His two adult sons are called into military service; Jonas joins the Russian Army willingly, but Shemariah deserts to America, leaving Singer with his wife, their promiscuous daughter and their afflicted son. A rabbi instructs Mrs Singer to never leave the young Menuchim, and predicts that his situation is not a hopeless one, but one that will take many years before he begins to improve.

Years later, as the Singers sink deeper into poverty they are encouraged to emigrate to America by their son, who has found success in New York. Torn between their responsibility to Menuchim, their familiarity with their neighbors, and the possibility of a better life in America, the Singers decide to emigrate. However, new challenges await them, and for Mendel his personal suffering is magnified, as his faith in God is severely tested.

This modernized retelling of the Biblical story of Job was very well done, with sympathetic and realistic characters, and excellent portrayals of the crushing poverty and struggles of pre-revolutionary Russia contrasted with the chaos and stresses of life in New York's Lower East Side, and is highly recommended.

On Thursday I had lunch with an old friend in NYC, and before I met her I made a quick trip to Book Culture, a wonderful independent bookstore affiliated with and close to Columbia University, to buy Above All, Don't Look Back by Maïssa Bey, a novel which was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize that I'll review for an upcoming issue of Belletrista. It's about a young woman whose home town in Algeria has been decimated by a major earthquake, who must reevaluate herself, her family and culture in the wake of this disaster.

This was my second trip to Book Culture last week; on Monday I picked up 10 more books:

Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa: A novel about a young soldier in the Nigerian Civil War that has been on my wish list for a couple of years. Saro-Wiwa may be familiar to some of you, as he was a human rights activist who was famously imprisoned and executed by the military regime of Sani Abacha in 1995.

The Tenant and The Motive by Javier Cercas: Two 'darkly humorous' novellas by a Spanish author that I had not heard of, which was on one of the sale tables.

Blind Man With a Pistol by Chester Himes: A mystery by an African-American writer that I've been meaning to read for some time, which features the irresistible pair of Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones as they attempt to solve a series of crimes in a sweltering Harlem summer. (Hmm, I need an exciting nickname like Coffin or Grave Digger; must work on this.)

The Ark Sakura by Kobo Abe: A novel about 'isolation and the threat of a nuclear holocaust', which I'll read in 2011 if Abe is chosen as a mini-author for next year's Author Theme Reads group.

A Season in the Congo by Aimé Césaire: I haven't read anything by this famed author from Martinique, and this play about the life and tragic death of Patrice Lumumba will be one of the books I'll read for the Reading Globally quarterly theme on Wars & Regions in Conflict that I and arubabookwoman will be leading.

Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa: MVL will be the main author of the 2011 Author Theme Reads group, so I'll read this sometime next year.

What Was African American Literature? by Kenneth W. Warren: When I saw this book, I (of course) said, "Was?" The author defines African American literature for the purpose of this book as works that were written 'within and against the strictures of Jim Crow America', and his focus is on what this literature meant during and after that time (the first two thirds of the 20th century), and how AfrAm literature has evolved in the post-civil rights movement era.

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon: This year's winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, which I'll read for a 11 in 11 challenge next year (classic American fiction and American literary award winners).

Friction by Eloy Urroz: A comic novel by one of the leading young Latin American novelists, which is his first novel to be translated into English by Dalkey Archive Press.

One With Others by C.D. Wright: A collection that was a finalist for this year's National Book Award for Poetry, which is based on an 'explosive incident' in Arkansas during the Civil Rights Movement.

>97 kidzdoc: Brilliant review of Mukherjee's book, doc.

Thanks, Murr!

I am glad you liked Job as much as I did.

Thanks, Rebecca. BTW, have you received Stone Upon Stone from Archipelago Books yet?

No -- have you? I still have to catch up with the last batch, except Job.

I won't know until either tomorrow or Monday. I'll fly back to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon, and I'll pick up my held mail on Monday, although it's possible that some of my mail may be put in my mailbox this afternoon.

I've read all but two of the 2010 Archipelago books I've received so far this year, Eline Vere and Journal of an Ordinary Grief. Apparently only eight titles were published this year, though.

This coming week I'll receive four books that I ranked most highly on my Amazon wish list from my best friends, so I'll probably bring at least a couple with me when I visit them after Christmas. The couple and their two kids are also voracious readers, so we'll probably have a book fest to end 2010 and start 2011.

Book #159: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole



My rating:

This winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, published posthumously after the author's suicide in 1969, is set in early 1960s New Orleans. Ignatius J. Reilly is a corpulent, vulgar and irreverent 30 year old who has two college degrees but cannot seem to last more than a month on any job, no matter how menial. He lives with his widowed mother, who drinks frequently and loves her boy despite his innumerable flaws and boorish behavior. Ignatius is both fascinated and repelled by his former Tulane classmate Myrna Minkoff, a woman from the Bronx who has moved back to NYC to engage in acts of political and sexual revolution. She frequently encourages him to join her multiple causes, but Ignatius wants nothing more than to inspire the masses to rebel against capitalist establishments or the military, in order to outdo his former colleague.

The novel is filled with characters that could have only come from New Orleans: Darlene, who sells drinks in a shady French Quarter strip club, the Night of Joy, and creates an strip tease act with her pet parakeet in order to make her first break; Mancuso, an NOPD officer who is forced to wear a series of humiliating disguises until he is able to capture a single miscreant; Gus Levy, the indifferent owner of Levy Pants, whose failing company employs Ignatius and Miss Trixie, the 80 year old senile clerk who repeatedly confuses Ignatius with a recently departed female employee; Burma Jones, the black janitor of the Night of Joy who reluctantly works there at below minimum wage salary to avoid being put back into the city jail for vagrancy; and numerous others.

When I originally read this novel 30 years ago I thought it was uproariously funny and brilliant, as it accurately portrayed a segment of the Crescent City's population that I was fairly familiar with. Unfortunately A Confederacy of Dunces was a disappointment on a second reading, as the humor quickly grew stale and the characters did not appeal to me. Readers who are familiar with mid-20th century New Orleans culture may enjoy this novel to some degree, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone else.

Book #160: How the Two Ivans Quarrelled by Nikolai Gogol



My rating:

This novella about two long time friends in early 19th century Russia was written in 1835 and recently re-released by Melville House Publishing as part of its "Art of the Novella" series. Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovitch are next door neighbors, long time friends and respected citizens in the town of Mirgorod. During one of their daily meetings a simple conversation turns ugly, as Ivan Nikiforovitch calls his neighbor a name that deeply offends him. The situtation escalates to a war of words, followed by actions by both Ivans that deepen the animosity each feels toward the other. The local authorities and townsfolk are caught up in the drama, particularly after each brings a lawsuit against the other, and a plot is hatched to bring the two old friends together before their cases come to trial.

I found How the Two Ivans Quarrelled to be a quick and enjoyable read, one filled with good humor and entertaining characters, which I think that everyone would enjoy.

It's been years since I read Gogol, and somewhere on the TBR I have a copy of The Collected Tales translated by Pevear and Volkhonsky. Maybe I will look for that in the coming year.

Yesterday I finished what will probably be my final book of 2010, "Moving Parts" by Magdalena Tulli, a mildly amusing but baffling novel about a narrator who loses control of his story and its characters, and must track them down by foot. I'll probably give it another go in the future, as I was reading it in the company of my young niece and nephew, so I'll wait to review it until then.

Assuming that I don't finish my current book, Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox, by the end of the day I'll finish the year having read 162 books, the same number that I read last year. I did complete my 1010 challenge, as I read 10 or more books in 10 different categories. I'll summarize my year of reading in my 2011 thread, and list my goals for the New Year there. Happy New Year, everyone!

Darryl - well done. I don't know how you have time to read so much between your career, your travel and your jazz. I suspect you don't sleep?

Let us know how the smallpox book goes. Sounds like an interesting one as long as it's not too academic.

Good God. I just finally caught up with your thread, and I have to second Joyce's sentiments. How you find time to not only read all these books but also write thoughtful reviews of them is beyond me.

#114: It helps that (a) I work part time (0.8 FTE, or full time equivalent), and usually work about half the days of every month, not including vacation; (b) I don't have a family or kids; and (c) I usually only sleep 6-7 hours per day.

Angel of Death is good so far, not overly academic but not overly simplistic, either. I have just over 100 pages to go, so I'll definitely finish it by tomorrow.

#115: Compared to my best friends and their 8 year old bibliomaniac daughter, I feel like a slacker. The mother and daughter probably read far more books than I do in any given year.

I'm sure not kids having definitely helps. When I think of my friends who are parents I shudder at the little time they are able to spend reading!

Happy New Year, Darryl. I'm looking forward to following your reading adventures in 2011. I can't believe you feel like a slacker though. I too am amazed at the reading you get done with everything else you do and considering some of the challenging books you tackle.

#117: I have several close friends who are avid readers, who are unable to read as much as they would like to due to their young kids. They adore their kids and donkt regret having them for a second, but they look forward to a time when they will be able to read earnestly again.

#118: I only feel like a slacker when I compare myself to this bunch. Little Mary has already read at least three of the books I bought her for Christmas, the first three books written by Pseudonymous Bosch; one of them, This Isn't What it Looks Like, is 423 pages long!