Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry / 158 pp.

Misty of Chincoteague is a classic children’s book that holds up well over time. I read this aloud to someone, and it was a joy to do so as the sentences flow nicely. While there is some regional dialect (e.g. horse = hoss), it’s pretty easy to read aloud.

A brother and sister save up money to buy a pony in the annual wild pony roundup. However, they want Phantom, a mare who has eluded capture every year. This year the brother will be old enough to ride along with the men. Will he capture the phantom for him and his sister? (Hint: Yes, he does.)

This is a good book for young or young-at-heart horse lovers, and is one of the rare horse stories where no horses die.

Girls at War and other stories/Chinua Achebe/120 pp.

A group of short stories by Nigerian author Achebe. The collection includes some stories that take place during the Biafran War era, and others that take place in pre-war Nigeria. Many of the stories end, not with a resolution of the problem, but rather with a situation that acts more like a moral, making them seem like a native folktale. (In fact, some of the stories include the native gods of the region.) My only caution is that it is easier to follow the stories if you know a little about Nigeria and the Igbo or Ibo ethnic group that inhabits the region. Having read a book in the past year that deals with the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria made it a bit easier for me to understand some of the unusual figures of speech and the cultural and religious differences.

Secretly Inside/Hans Warren/99 pp.

Ed, a Jew in Nazi-occupied Holland, goes into hiding at a farm in the remote province of Zeeland, and gets entangled in the intrigues of the family that hides him.
The story that is there is well-written, but I just felt like it was incomplete, like this very short novel was actually the first part - the lead-up, if you will - to a longer work. The author does such a good job of creating these in-depth characters, and then all of a sudden the climax of the story is here, and the story is over. I enjoyed what was there, and the introduction, which tells of the author's own war-time experiences, makes me want to read more of his work.

Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years / Dr. Michael J. Collins / 320 pp.

Hot Lights and Cold Steel is the story about a Chicago construction worker who decides to go back to school and become a doctor. He ultimately excels in med school, gets matched to a residency in Orthopedic Surgery at the Mayo Clinic, and becomes Chief Resident.

But the story isn’t about that.

The story is about this unconventional and bright minded doctor in the making who wrestles with all the issues that medical students face, that newly minted doctors face, and that family men face (the author supports a family of five while completing his education).

Each chapter shows more growth and maturation in this professional’s career and making sense of it. Luckily for the reader, his insight is keen and a riot to boot! You’ll laugh out loud in several chapters, and cry in several more.

There’s the chapter on how the author meekly went into his first surgery as an observer, and left the surgery cathartic about a surgeon’s ability to heal, and to make better.

There’s also the chapter on how he battled and beat himself up for removing the cancer-ridden leg of a 17 year old girl, and how profoundly it affected him when she smiled and expressed her gratitude for saving her life.

And I’ll spare you all the fun encounters he ran into with his inebriated patients!

Our orthopedic surgeon writes his story in a way that engages and compels the reader to continue on. The ending came too soon, and had the book been three times the volume with the lessons he learned along his amazing journey, I would have tuned in just as attentively. I found this book through serendipity and wish I could retrace my steps to find other jewels that I may have missed along the way.

Bossypants/Tina Fey/275 pp.

Tina Fey is one of the best writers Saturday Night Live ever had, the producer of the hit NBC show "30 Rock", a seasoned improv actor, and my friend Katie's secret lesbian crush. (OK, it's not really a secret; Katie told her husband she had a crush on Tina from the first time she saw her on SNL.) Bossypants is Fey's funny memoir of her childhood, her first forays into improv comedy, her stint in Second City and her run on SNL, how she got her own Emmy award-winning show, and (most importantly for her) the story of the birth of her daughter. She relays some of the wisdom she received from Lorne Michaels, executive producer of SNL, and answers some of the hate-mail she's received online. She explains how the whole Sarah Palin impression thing got started, and gives us behind-the-scenes glimpses into how SNL gets put together each week. All throughout, she maintains the quirky sense of humor that has made her such a success.

The Favorite Game/Leonard Cohen/245 pp.

I've always thought of Leonard Cohen as a songwriter and poet first (Every time I hear his name I get his song "Hallelujah" stuck in my head) so I was surprised to see that he'd written a novel. The Favorite Game was actually written and published clear back in the early 1960s, so it's not like Cohen just recently turned away from poetry to start writing straight prose. And, to be honest, in a lot of ways this book reads like poetry. Cohen's descriptions of scenery, a lover's body, even scenes of laborers in a brass foundry, are almost musical.
The Favorite Game is the story of Lawrence Breavman, a young Jewish-Canadian poetry writer who resembles Cohen in many ways. He avoids crowds and social situations; he wins a scholarship for his writing, but turns it down to work in the brass foundry at menial labor. He has trouble committing to one lover; when he finally finds a woman who not only arouses him physically, but also intrigues him emotionally, he leaves her to return to Canada to visit friends, and breaks up with her over the phone. Breavman's problem is that he creates ideal backgrounds for the people in his life; when the everyday or mundane intrudes on that ideal or fantasy it destroys his interest in the people and he separates himself from them. This book is partly about Breavman's struggle to realize that the ideal and mundane are both part of what makes up these people.

Want to Go Private? | Sarah Darer Littman | 336p.

This book made me understand the decision that my parents made to put monitoring software on the computers/laptops when I was in junior high and high school--something I resented at the time (and convinced my tech-saavy cousin to remove from my computer when I was a junior). When I first heard about WTGP?, I knew that it was going to be an intense read--and let me tell you, it most definitely was.

Abby is such a normal freshman high school student, from her friends to her grades to her insecurities.  But she's lonely--a feeling exacerbated by her shyness and her fear of disappointing those around her.  When she meets Luke online, he makes her feel special.  They have the same tastes in music, they share opinions, and Luke always backs up Abby when she's upset with her friends or family.  She finds herself falling for this man that she barely knows but feels this very intense connection to.  When he asks her to meet him, Abby's upset with her parents so it's an easy decision--of course she'll meet him, if only to get back at her parents.

Abby is an incredibly relateable characters, which makes this story all the more realistic and terrifying.  She's very introverted, quite unlike her best friend, Faith, and she feels like her life is changing too much and falling apart at the seams.  It's easy to see how she might fall prey to a man like "Luke."  Watching her downward spiral into what strikes me as a co-dependent relationship with this online man is heart-breaking.  She has so much going for her in real life, but she can't see it through the fog of her loneliness and (self-imposed) isolation.

This book succeeds in showing what an intense situation this can become for a girl like Abby--how quickly one can become a victim without even realizing it.  However, what it really hits home is how much a decision like the one Abby makes affects everyone else--her friends, her sister, her parents.  Their grief, despair, and anger show the reader what it's like on the "other" side--how those closest to the victim suffer right alongside her in their own way.

After Abby's return to her family, the aftermath of her decision comes to full light for her.  She sees how it affects those around her and she has to deal with the incredibly unfortunate consequences that it has on her personal life.  I appreciated that Ms. Littman doesn't let the situation fade to black but shows us all the shocking details.  This is a book that I don't think I'd recommend that most teens read alone but WITH their parents. It's a book that I would recommend that parents of teenagers, teachers, librarians--anyone who works with teens on a regular basis--read because it's message is important.

There are fabulous resources that go alongside this book that I definitely recommend checking out if you're an adult who is going  to read this and share with teens (something I HIGHLY recommend doing, in case you didn't catch it).

http://wanttogoprivate.com/
http://chezteen.com/

Personal Days/Ed Park/241 pp.

I enjoyed parts of this book, but there was a MAJOR issue I had with it. The book is divided into three parts: the first part reads like a regular story, written in 1st person plural - we did this, we saw that, etc.; the second part is written entirely in outline form - I.A.ii.b., etc. - a little annoying, but still fairly easy to follow; but the third part is written as one long, stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence. The premise (to the third part)is that a character is sending an email to another person; he's trapped in an elevator, the screen on his laptop has gone dark, and his period (full-stop) and return buttons don't work, so he's just writing everything as it comes to him, without going back and changing things. Plus he likes to go off on tangents unrelated to the action in the story. This is the kind of thing that, if it had happened toward the beginning of the novel, would have caused me to throw the book over my shoulder (figuratively, librarians! calm down!) and go read something else. But because I was already involved in the whole story, I wanted to find out what happened to everyone, so I had to struggle through to the end. As the character went off on each of his tangents, I kept thinking, "Wait! Where are you going? Come back here and tell me what happened to these guys!"
There were good parts to the story; puns and office romances and office nicknames like "Grime" and "Crease", and management doublespeak lie "There's no I in team", and other funny bits. Parts of the story reminded me of good episodes of "The Office". But the totally unnecessary changes in writing style completely threw me off, and by the end of the book I was just glad it was over.

Detective Story/Imre Kertesz/112 pp.

Antonio Martens was a member of the secret police in a dictatorship in an unspecified Latin American country. Now that the dictator has been overthrown, Martens is in prison facing trial for the torturing and killing he took part in. He asks for paper and pen to write with in his cell, and proceeds to relay the events surrounding the surveillance, torture and death of two prominent members of the nation's society - not as a means of atoning for his misdeeds, but in order to set the record straight on what actually happened and who is really to blame.
The story was difficulty to follow, due to the lack of concrete facts: we never know anything about the country or the government, aside from vague references to Latin America, "The Colonel", etc. An "atrocity" occurs, but the narrator doesn't explain what has happened. One of the torturers has, on his desk, a model of a certain "device" called the Boger swing; the description of the device, and what it is used for, is very vague, and it took me several pages before I realized they were talking about an instrument for torture. Nothing seems to be said outright; the author instead makes hints and vague statements, assuming (as he has his narrator say) that we "already know all about that".
The author, Kertesz, survived the Holocaust, having been imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a youth. There is an obvious correlation between the tactics of the secret police in the novel, and those of the SS during World War II. But there is also a less-evident correlation to the tactics used by intelligence gatherers today - the assumption of guilt followed by the gathering of "evidence" to prove that assumption; the idea that the situation we find ourselves in warrants the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to prevent an as-yet unnamed "atrocity".

The Postman (Il Postino)/Antonio Skarmeta/112 pp.

After finishing all 1000+ pages of the Robert Jordan book, I decided to make a change of pace and read a few shorter books; the Atiq Rahimi book was one, and this short novel by Skarmeta is another. Il Postino tells the story of Mario, who fell into his job as postman by sheer laziness. His main job (almost his only job) is to deliver mail to the poet, Pablo Neruda; an unexpected friendship develops between the two men, Neruda acting as matchmaker between Mario and the lovely Beatriz, and godfather at their eventual wedding.
The novel does a good job of using Neruda to connect the residents of this small village to the events happening in late-1960s/early-1970s Chile - the election of the Marxist government and the overthrow of the Allende government a short time later.
Toward the beginning of the story, Neruda explains to Mario the concept of the metaphor, and from that point on I began to notice that the book is full of metaphors, similes and the like. One of the best things about the book is its use of these words to describe the sea, the village, Mario's beloved Beatriz, etc. The language and the flow of the novel very much have the feel of poetry.
Strangely, when the novel was adapted into a movie in 1994, the setting was changed to 1950s Italy - perhaps because the writer of the screenplay and the star of the movie, Massimo Troisi was Italian. I've never seen the film, so I don't know how the political situation was adapted to that time period and location, or even if they were in the movie. But while the book does include these political elements, the story has very little to do with those events; it is more about the relationships between Mario and Beatriz, between Mario and Neruda, and between Neruda and the villagers.

First Love and Other Sorrows/Harold Brodkey/223 pp.

A MULSA book sale remainder!

Originally published in 1958, this collection of short stories was reissued in 1988, and that's the edition I read and am reviewing. A St. Louis native who attended Harvard, Brodkey writes stories that seem almost autobiographical. His description of St. Louis locations, and of growing up poor (but formerly well-off), remind me of another St. Louis resident, Tennessee Williams.
I especially enjoyed the first story, "State of Grace", and all the stories that dealt with the narrator's sister/Laurie/Laura and her attempts to find a "good man" to "settle down with". Although the people have different names in each story, you can't help feeling that these are all the same people, and that they are somehow personally known by Brodkey himself.

Earth and Ashes/Atiq Rahimi/81 pp.

A very short, but very enjoyable read. (I started it at bedtime last night, and finished it during lunch today.) An Afghani village is destroyed by the Soviet army in retaliation for the (apparent) assassination of some of their troops. Dastaguir and his grandson, Yassin, are the only survivors of his clan; they set out to find Yassin's father (Dastaguir's son), to tell him of the tragedy.
Yassin has lost his hearing from the bombing; the way in which Rahimi describes how Yassin views this is especially well-written. ("The bomb was huge. It brought silence. The tanks took away people's voices and left." Then, "What do they do with all the voices? Why did you let them take away your voice? If you hadn't would they have killed you? Grandmother didn't give them her voice and she's dead." And "Grandfather, do I have a voice? [...] So why am I alive?"
The story is told in the second person, so instead of hearing how some man named Dastaguir is dealing with events, the reader is placed into the situation himself - "you" see this, "you" hear that, "you" tell people the story of your village being destroyed, and it makes the devastation so much more personal; your grandson is deaf, and you're coming to tell his father (your son) that his wife and mother and entire family are dead. So much of what we hear about what's going on in the Middle East is impersonal, statistics about how many died, what town was taken, what new strategies our troops are using to win over the locals. Even though this book was written (in 2000) about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it personalizes the events that happened then, and what's happening now.

The Reader/Bernhard Schlink/218 pp.

Rachel already did a review of this book, so I'll try not to duplicate her efforts. A young man in 1960s Germany begins an affair with Hannah, a woman substantially older than himself. In addition to it being his first sexual relationship, the affair is significant because he spends hours reading to Hannah. One day he goes to her apartment and discovers that she has moved out and completely disappeared. Assuming she left without saying anything to him because she didn't love him anymore, the young man retreats into his studies and is unable to have any other close relationships for fear that those he becomes close to will leave him in the same way. As a college student he sees Hannah again, and discovers why she left, and what "the secret" is that caused her to leave.
The book is an easy read, well translated from the original German, with short chapters that allow you to read a few pages here and there, between other tasks. The narrator struggles with forgiving Hannah, and with his conflicting feelings for her.

The Shadow Rising/Robert Jordan/1006 pp.

Yes, you read that page total correctly; at 1006 pp., The Shadow Rising, Book Four in Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, is also easily the longest book in the series. After temporarily meeting up in the coast city of Tear, our merry band of adventurers is scattered to various destinations: some to Tanchico to find the Black Ajah (the renegade members of the Aes Sedai), some to the Aiel Wastes, and some back to the Two Rivers, to protect their home village from the dual threats of Trollocs and the Whitecloaks.
The problem with a series like the "Wheel of Time", with (so far) 14 volumes, each volume at least 600 pages (often over 800 pages)- the problem, I say, is that there are so many things going on, so many characters in so many locations, with so many new words to learn and people to remember, that it gets a bit (more than a bit) confusing. Each of the three or four divergent plot-lines in this volume alone would be enough for the average fantasy novel; trying to weave them all together into one overarching story is quite a challenge - for the author and, unfortunately, for the reader as well. Don't get me wrong - Jordan has told a very enjoyable tale here; it just becomes so... overwhelming after a while. And to know that there are still (at least) ten more books (rather large books) to go before the entire plot is resolved, makes me question my ability to finish the series.

1985/Gyorgy Dalos/120 pp.

1985: What Happens after Big Brother Dies is meant as a sort-of follow-up to George Orwell's classic 1949 novel 1984. While the original was a warning about the dangers of unchecked government control and historic revisionism, and a prescient look at the Soviet Union of the mid- to late-20th century, the sequel by Dalos, written in Hungary in 1983, is a look at what might happen when such a totalitarian regime begins to crumble. A good knowledge of Orwell's book is absolutely necessary, as Dalos makes reference to "past events" and characters from the book constantly. There is also a series of rather unfortunate footnotes that start out adding information useful to the reader, but end up becoming rants by the narrator against his superiors.

amazon.com listing
deviantART review of the book

A Tomb for Boris Davidovich/Danilo Kis/135 pp.

A collection of seven loosely-connected short stories, each of which is a brief "biography" of a fictional figure in the creation of the Soviet Union and the Comintern. The stories, all set outside Yugoslavia (most in the Soviet Union, but one in Ireland and Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and one in Inquisition-era France), on the surface appear to be a statement on the violent excesses of the Soviet leadership in the Stalinist (and pre-Stalin) era; however, the book was published in 1976, and it is easy to understand that Kis was using the historic example of the Soviets to call attention to the activities of the secret police and government in Yugoslavia in the second half of the 20th century.
As mentioned above, one (seemingly) incongruous story takes place during the Inquisition in France in 1330. In the city of Toulouse (and all across France). Jews are being killed or forcibly converted to Christianity. Kis uses the story of Baruch David Neumann to show the ways in which those in power ignored (and often conspired with) the rabble's violent attacks on Jews.

Homely Girl, A Life and Other Stories/Arthur Miller/115 pp.

This short compilation of Miller short works includes just three stories: "Homely Girl, A Life", "Fame", and Fitter's Night". The shortest of the three, "Fame", is a possibly autobiographical look at how a popular playwright deals with his new-found celebrity. Random strangers approach him on the street, offering their unsolicited opinions of his work or gushing as if they were old friends. Rich people in restaurants think nothing of interrupting his meal to make him meet their friends. The key point of the story is when an old schoolmate recognizes him in a bar. The schoolmate, unaware of the playwright's celebrity, brags about his own success in life, but when the playwright is approached by a stranger asking for his autograph, the schoolmate completely changes his behavior, becoming shy and taking back an invitation for the playwright to join him for dinner. Success changes not only the celebrity, but also his relationships with those around him.

Oddly, the story I enjoyed least was the title story. A woman, treated badly in life because of her lack of physical good looks, comes to the realization that she doesn't need affirmation from others to feel good about herself.

The third story in the volume, "Fitter's Night", was the one I found most enjoyable. A pipefitter, working in the New York shipyards during World War II, spends most of his time (at work and at home) trying to land the easy jobs and find a way to avoid responsibility. But when he's forced into a repair job on a ship heading out to war, he realizes how important it is for him (and all his coworkers) to do the best job they can, because all these sailors' lives depend on the quality of his work.

Team Totals, January-September 2011

Total Books Read:  120 
Total Pages Read:   36658
Average pages per book:  305

Nice job, everyone, and apologies for letting the prize-giving slip after my late July-early August vacation!

Prizes for July:  Book AND page totals to Kris Anstine, Random Prize to Wayne Sanders
Prizes for August:  Kris Anstine, for all three prizes
No prizes for September because no reviews submitted.

For the January-September period, Kris Anstine read the most books (32) and Jessi Menold read the most pages (8447).

I go to the MLA tomorrow and will find out there if the statewide contest is over now or if it will run through December.  There WILL be prizes for October-December at the MU Libraries, either way, and Kris and Wayne will be awarded their summertime prizes retroactively at the next opportunity!

The Reader / Bernhard Schlink / 218 p.

I didn't see the movie, but I guessed the "deep dark secret" that drives many of the otherwise mysterious actions of one of the major characters a few dozen pages into the book.  No, I won't share it here.  You will have to read the book or force yourself to stare at Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes for hours on screen...tough, I know...to find out.  Maybe author Bernhard Schlink intended the reader to guess long before the narrator does; in a way it is beside the point as he drags his narrator (the reader of the book's title) as well as the book's readers, into an emotional contemplation on relationships, individual choices, history and collective judgment and guilt.  Put that way, the book sounds terribly depressing, but believe me; it is not.  The beauty is in the details.  I read it in two sittings, and now I hope to find a copy in the original German.

The Great Hunt/Robert Jordan/705 pp.

This is the second book in Jordan's massive "Wheel of Time" series. Rand al'Thor, beset by Morgaine Sedai's claims that he is the Dragon Reborn, sets off with a group of warriors and friends on a quest to regain the Horn of Valere, which has been stolen by followers of the Dark One. The Horn has the magical quality of summoning heroes from beyond the grave to help whoever sounds the horn. In the meantime, Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne begin their training to become Aes Sedai; their training is interrupted when one of the Aes Sedai tricks them into being sold to a group of foreign warriors. Rand and the other warriors must retrieve the Horn, rescue the women, and stop the Children of the Light, a fanatical group of warriors who seek to eradicate anyone who is friendly to the Dark One (including, in their eyes, the Aes Sedai).
I enjoyed this book a lot. Jordan does seem to borrow from some of the other standards of fantasy fiction - the warriors called by the Horn are reminiscent of Tolkien's Shadow Host, and there are numerous references to the Arthurian legends. But the book is well-written and entertaining; if it weren't for information about the characters that you have to know from the previous book, this volume could stand on its own as a full fantasy tale. Jordan does a good job of drawing together parts of the story that were started earlier, helping the reader realize that all these seemingly unrelated events are all threads in the same tale's fabric.