A.J. Fikry is the owner of a small bookstore on one of the coastal islands off Massachusetts. Life has not been especially kind to A.J. recently: his wife died in a tragic accident, sales at his store are down and still falling, and his most prized possession (a rare, first-edition book, of course) has been stolen from under his nose - and then he learns his favorite publishing house agent has died and been replaced by a young flibbertygibbet who doesn't even know all the types of books he dislikes and, therefore, will not carry in his store. He is not short on self-pity.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was recommended by one of the librarians at my local library, and especially recommended for readers who enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I loved both (but read Major Pettigrew before I began this blog), and also haven't exactly been batting 1.000 selecting my own books lately.
So. The story is great. Gabrielle Zevin has created engaging characters and an interesting plot, all woven around the fabric of - what else? - other books. A.J.'s reviews of various books are highly enjoyable and add to the readability of Storied Life. My only complaint is that, in many ways, I was only beginning to truly care about the characters and be interested in what happened to them, personally, as opposed to focusing on the creative and well-written narrative, when the book ended. I realize not every book can - or should - be a tome à la Roses, but I wasn't quite ready to close the book on A.J. Fikry.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge appears to have been all things that modern presidents rarely are: unfailingly humble, forged by circumstances that can only generously be called modest, and genuinely decent. At least that is how Amity Shlaes portrays the 30th president in his aptly-named tome, Coolidge.
Unfortunately, Coolidge's rise through Massachusetts politics and to the White House is, with all due respect to Amity's research and prose, rather dull. Or at least would not seem to require 500+ pages. I read diligently, closely event, for 250 or 300 pages and then decided life is too short to become bogged down in the minutiae of, for example, the Teapot Dome Scandal. (My patience was perhaps especially short having just slogged through another too-long bio - on the life and times of Jane Franklin.)
For those who wish to become intimately acquainted with Calvin Coolidge, you could not ask for more than what Shlaes delivers here. For those interested in a snapshot of the Coolidge administration, Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927 does an excellent job of providing just that and laying the groundwork for all that was to come - namely, Hoover and the Great Depression.
Unfortunately, Coolidge's rise through Massachusetts politics and to the White House is, with all due respect to Amity's research and prose, rather dull. Or at least would not seem to require 500+ pages. I read diligently, closely event, for 250 or 300 pages and then decided life is too short to become bogged down in the minutiae of, for example, the Teapot Dome Scandal. (My patience was perhaps especially short having just slogged through another too-long bio - on the life and times of Jane Franklin.)
For those who wish to become intimately acquainted with Calvin Coolidge, you could not ask for more than what Shlaes delivers here. For those interested in a snapshot of the Coolidge administration, Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927 does an excellent job of providing just that and laying the groundwork for all that was to come - namely, Hoover and the Great Depression.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
The University of Michigan Alumni Magazine reviewed (and recommended) Book of Ages in its last issue and, having had great success with past recommendations (Edmund Love, Rich Boy, and The Blood of Free Men all come to mind), I borrowed it from the library. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan.
The truth of the matter is that Jill Lepore's Book of Ages proves her lament: histories of great men, novels of little women. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Book of Ages is the biography of Benjamin Franklin's youngest, and longest living, sister, Jane. She was the only sibling to outlive him, the one to whom he was closest, and the one with whom he shared a lifelong correspondence. This biography is constructed through the letters the Franklins exchanged, not all of which, of course, survive. Lepore fills in a bit of conjecture where necessary: did Jane, for example, read Benjamin's autobiography, published posthumously? If so, here is what she would have found... And so on. It is not a bad book, but, fair of me or no, Jane Franklin's life does not require 316 pages, and I became rather impatient.
Book of Ages essentially chronicles the lives of those to whom Franklin was related: siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, all of whom, with few exceptions, led poor, if not hard scrabble lives in colonial America. It does not help the reader that they seem to have used only about 10 surnames among 100 or so people (Jane, Benjamin, Josiah, Sarah, and Jenny being the most common), and so I was hopelessly lost remembering who was who, who begat who, and who, frankly, really mattered.
Unfortunately for Lepore ordinary lives do not make for great reading when relayed in ordinary ways. The reader only has so much interest in the making of soap or the laundering of smalls. For a more vibrant read on Revolutionary times, I recommend, alas, a novel: The Schoolmaster's Daughter.
The truth of the matter is that Jill Lepore's Book of Ages proves her lament: histories of great men, novels of little women. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Book of Ages is the biography of Benjamin Franklin's youngest, and longest living, sister, Jane. She was the only sibling to outlive him, the one to whom he was closest, and the one with whom he shared a lifelong correspondence. This biography is constructed through the letters the Franklins exchanged, not all of which, of course, survive. Lepore fills in a bit of conjecture where necessary: did Jane, for example, read Benjamin's autobiography, published posthumously? If so, here is what she would have found... And so on. It is not a bad book, but, fair of me or no, Jane Franklin's life does not require 316 pages, and I became rather impatient.
Book of Ages essentially chronicles the lives of those to whom Franklin was related: siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, all of whom, with few exceptions, led poor, if not hard scrabble lives in colonial America. It does not help the reader that they seem to have used only about 10 surnames among 100 or so people (Jane, Benjamin, Josiah, Sarah, and Jenny being the most common), and so I was hopelessly lost remembering who was who, who begat who, and who, frankly, really mattered.
Unfortunately for Lepore ordinary lives do not make for great reading when relayed in ordinary ways. The reader only has so much interest in the making of soap or the laundering of smalls. For a more vibrant read on Revolutionary times, I recommend, alas, a novel: The Schoolmaster's Daughter.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
In a Sunburned Country
I like Bill Bryson's work quite a lot. I like travel writing in general. I believe I would very much like Australia. And yet, I really did not care for In a Sunburned Country. Bryson's meanderings through the southern continent are neither hilariously recounted (as is his hike through Appalachia), nor are they especially thoughtfully and engagingly constructed (as is his latest work on the summer of 1927).
Rather, In a Sunburned Country is a rambling roll through the cities and countrysides, no different, perhaps, that if you or I were to write a book on our last vacation - assuming, that is, that we might take a months long vacation for the purpose of writing a book. And there it is: this book feels forced. Instead of undertaking something and then deciding it would make a good story, Bryson has predetermined that there will be a story here, dammit, and it just never quite takes flight. In fact, I made less than halfway before abandoning the effort altogether.
Rather, In a Sunburned Country is a rambling roll through the cities and countrysides, no different, perhaps, that if you or I were to write a book on our last vacation - assuming, that is, that we might take a months long vacation for the purpose of writing a book. And there it is: this book feels forced. Instead of undertaking something and then deciding it would make a good story, Bryson has predetermined that there will be a story here, dammit, and it just never quite takes flight. In fact, I made less than halfway before abandoning the effort altogether.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Cutting for Stone
A colleague-friend recommended Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone to me this spring - Abby, if you're reading - thank you. Cutting for Stone is an epic, sweeping novel that travels from turn of the (twentieth) century India to mid-century Ethiopia and onward to twenty-first century America. It is the story of Marion and Shiva Praise Stone, but more than that it is a story of man's unparalleled ability to make terrible, terrible decisions, most often when blinded by love.
Marion and Shiva are identical twins, bound together, yet simultaneously torn apart. They come of age at the Missing Hospital, shaped by constant presence of medicine in their lives, by the many ways the human body can fail, and death can come. As Ethiopia descends into chaos and war, Missing Hospital becomes their anchor, the place where they can find safety and shelter and home.
Until, of course, the day they can't.
Verghese's prose is beautiful and very often heart-wrenching, with a wisdom that is more than page-deep. "We come unbidden into this life," he writes early in Cutting for Stone, "and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot." He does not mince his words.
Wonderful in too many ways to count, you will most likely need more than one tissue before you finish. But you can't finish if you don't start.
Marion and Shiva are identical twins, bound together, yet simultaneously torn apart. They come of age at the Missing Hospital, shaped by constant presence of medicine in their lives, by the many ways the human body can fail, and death can come. As Ethiopia descends into chaos and war, Missing Hospital becomes their anchor, the place where they can find safety and shelter and home.
Until, of course, the day they can't.
Verghese's prose is beautiful and very often heart-wrenching, with a wisdom that is more than page-deep. "We come unbidden into this life," he writes early in Cutting for Stone, "and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot." He does not mince his words.
Wonderful in too many ways to count, you will most likely need more than one tissue before you finish. But you can't finish if you don't start.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen
Despite the obvious use of the word "mysterious" in the title, I didn't realize The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen would be a rollicking mystery, but, indeed, it was. On my reading list for years, I finally read Mysterious Death this past week and enjoyed it tremendously.
Lindsay Ashford's historical novel is based on the friendship of Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, governess to Jane's niece, Fanny. In the opening pages, the reader learns that what follows are a memoirs, of sort, written following the death of Jane as Anne struggles to understand how her friend died so suddenly. This quest is the mystery at the heart of mysterious death and it unfolds superbly. Honestly, I didn't much care for the character of Anne, although I recognize that is likely because Ashford has positioned her so successfully as a 19th century governess: her world is small, her perspective is narrow, her options are few, her choices are a product of these constraints.
Ultimately, The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen is reminiscent of the best of Agatha Christie, with a slowly burning mystery, a substantive plot, and great historical details.
Lindsay Ashford's historical novel is based on the friendship of Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, governess to Jane's niece, Fanny. In the opening pages, the reader learns that what follows are a memoirs, of sort, written following the death of Jane as Anne struggles to understand how her friend died so suddenly. This quest is the mystery at the heart of mysterious death and it unfolds superbly. Honestly, I didn't much care for the character of Anne, although I recognize that is likely because Ashford has positioned her so successfully as a 19th century governess: her world is small, her perspective is narrow, her options are few, her choices are a product of these constraints.
Ultimately, The Mysterious Death of Miss Jane Austen is reminiscent of the best of Agatha Christie, with a slowly burning mystery, a substantive plot, and great historical details.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
One Summer: America, 1927
I am finally getting around to reviewing Bill Bryson's One Summer, which I read while I was in Japan last month. I was previously familiar with Bryson only as a travel writer; I needed something to read in e-format, though (no sense carrying 40 pounds of books across the Pacific), and my library had this title available.
I loved it. Even though today is but the first of June and I have, hopefully, more than half a year of good reading ahead of me, I'm certain One Summer will make my "best of" list at the end of the year. The summer of 1927 was one heck of a summer and Bryson covers a tremendous amount of ground here. This was the summer of flight, when flyers disappeared one-by-one in their quest to cross the Atlantic and one Charles Lindbergh actually made it to Paris. This was also the summer of baseball, and specifically of the New York Yankees and the long ball - Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in fine form that summer, hitting balls out of the park with a regularity never before seen, and that would not be seen again for some decades. Prohibition was in full effect; Bryson references some of Daniel Okrent's more colorful anecdotes from Last Call: Rise and Fall of Prohibition in America, which was one of my favorite 2011 reads. And, of course, we couldn't have prohibition without Al Capone, Chicago, and the mob. (My favorite Chicago mob story actually dates to 1921: when Anthony D'Andrea died, his honorary pallbearers included 21 judges, nine lawyers, and the Illinois state prosecutor.)
Michigan (the state, as well as the university) gets a fair amount of coverage here, too: Lindbergh's parents are UM grads and his mother teaches school in Detroit. (His father is dead.) Henry Ford is going crazy preparing to build a new kind of car, hating Jews, and trying to build an empire in Brazil ("Fordlandia," and neither Bryson nor I made that up), all from the happy confines of southeastern Michigan. And, as an example of how the world has always been populated by deranged and angry folks, Bryson also writes about the school bombing in Bath, Michigan.
And so much more. Calvin Collidge chose not to run for re-election. Four bankers set the world on a path to the Great Depression. Hollywood transitioned from silent film to talkies.
Bryson does a remarkable job exploring the personalities, politics, and problems that captivated Americans that summer and that would ultimately shape the course of the country from entertainment to economics, sports, politics, and the idea of celebrity. He is, as ever, highly readable, engaging, and not a little irreverent. Come one, come all to the pages of One Summer.
I loved it. Even though today is but the first of June and I have, hopefully, more than half a year of good reading ahead of me, I'm certain One Summer will make my "best of" list at the end of the year. The summer of 1927 was one heck of a summer and Bryson covers a tremendous amount of ground here. This was the summer of flight, when flyers disappeared one-by-one in their quest to cross the Atlantic and one Charles Lindbergh actually made it to Paris. This was also the summer of baseball, and specifically of the New York Yankees and the long ball - Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in fine form that summer, hitting balls out of the park with a regularity never before seen, and that would not be seen again for some decades. Prohibition was in full effect; Bryson references some of Daniel Okrent's more colorful anecdotes from Last Call: Rise and Fall of Prohibition in America, which was one of my favorite 2011 reads. And, of course, we couldn't have prohibition without Al Capone, Chicago, and the mob. (My favorite Chicago mob story actually dates to 1921: when Anthony D'Andrea died, his honorary pallbearers included 21 judges, nine lawyers, and the Illinois state prosecutor.)
Michigan (the state, as well as the university) gets a fair amount of coverage here, too: Lindbergh's parents are UM grads and his mother teaches school in Detroit. (His father is dead.) Henry Ford is going crazy preparing to build a new kind of car, hating Jews, and trying to build an empire in Brazil ("Fordlandia," and neither Bryson nor I made that up), all from the happy confines of southeastern Michigan. And, as an example of how the world has always been populated by deranged and angry folks, Bryson also writes about the school bombing in Bath, Michigan.
And so much more. Calvin Collidge chose not to run for re-election. Four bankers set the world on a path to the Great Depression. Hollywood transitioned from silent film to talkies.
Bryson does a remarkable job exploring the personalities, politics, and problems that captivated Americans that summer and that would ultimately shape the course of the country from entertainment to economics, sports, politics, and the idea of celebrity. He is, as ever, highly readable, engaging, and not a little irreverent. Come one, come all to the pages of One Summer.
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