Books I’ve Read in 2013

People often ask me what I'm reading and I try to keep that current list on this blog. I have fallen behind recently because of an extended trip I took to Australia.  I read at least eight books on that trip and wasn't able to post on this blog. Today when I tried to update my book list, it wouldn't load. So the solution is this blog post which simply lists the books I've read this year. Please send me a message to ask about any of these which I haven't reviewed. But stay tuned for more thoughts on books and their authors. Next - Khaled Hosseini...

When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Bend Not Break by Ping Fu

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Into the Free by Julie Cantrell

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith

The Book of Secrets by Elizabeth Joy Arnold

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

Run Brother Run by David Berg

Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Tapestry of Fortune by Elizabeth Berg

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarity

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Dear Life by Alice Munro

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

Canada by Richard Ford

Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Me Before You by JoJo Mayes

NW by Zadie Smith

The Gardens of Kyoto by Kate Walbert

Stories Coming Alive

If you like fantasy, fairy tales and quest stories, The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly is for you. Even if you don’t think you like this type of book, you might still be absorbed by the themes of loss and grief in children. The book was nominated for the 2007 Irish Novel of the Year and received a 2007 Alex Award, which honors adult books that appeal to teen readers.

I honestly cannot remember exactly who recommended this book to me. It must have been one of the geeky-cute twenty-somethings working in the auditorium desk at Montreat. We had a long discussion about fantasy novels one night this summer. All I know is a week later I was at Malaprops in Asheville, North Carolina (another one of my favorite bookstores) and I found this book title written in my notes in my iPhone. I looked for it and decided I needed a fantasy novel this summer. The Book of Lost Things did not disappoint.

As soon as twelve-year-old David loses his mother at the start of the novel, I realized I was entering the realm of fairy tales and Disney movies. This was not going to be the typical fantasy novel. Connelly manages to weave in many well-known fairy tales throughout the novel. The familiar tales are told with unfamiliar twists. This is definitely an adult novel. The malevolent Crooked Man is hideously evil and the child David witnesses horrifying sights in the strange world he enters in search of his mother.  Yes, we have portals, woods, even a Woodsman, dwarfs, trolls, wolves, evil princesses, and much more. I am a sucker for books like this one.

And the best part of all, David’s mother taught him to love books, especially fiction. She “would often tell him that stories were alive.” She told her son that stories could “take root in the imagination and transform the reader. ‘Stories wanted to be alive,’ she would whisper in his ear.”

So, of course, after her death, David’s beloved books did begin to talk to him and he was transported into another world where, indeed, his familiar fairy tales came to life and not usually with a happily-ever-after.  In the course of this amazing journey, we see the often-petulant child David mature into a wise young man who develops empathy and understanding. He learns that everything one could want to know about life is found in books. Don’t you agree?

John Connolly ends the novel with a 120 page section subtitled, “Some Notes on The Book of Lost Things.” This is a scholarly treatise on the fairy tales mentioned in the book and each one’s origins. Each story is re-told in its original or most popular form. These are stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Billy Goats Gruff, Beauty and the Beast and more.  To me, this made the book even more interesting. Check it out and see for yourself. 

Obsessed with Jackson Brodie

I've been on vacation for the last month. Actually I've been on vacation with Jackson Brodie the last month. Forget my family trip to the beach and my dear friends I see annually at Montreat; I've been in England and Scotland with Jackson Brodie, the "hero" in Kate Atkinson's "detective" novels. As you read in my last post, I discovered Kate Atkinson in her latest book, Life After Life. That award-winning novel was part romance, part historical fiction, part mystery and prompted me to find Atkinson's earlier books and devour them! I think many others have had the same urge -- I visited one of my favorite bookstores, Sun Dog Books, in Seaside, Florida and most of her books were sold out. I did manage to find Case Histories and One Good Turn which started my affair with Jackson Brodie, the brooding, imperfect star of the four books Atkinson has published since 2004.

I think I fell in love with Brodie when I learned of his taste in music -- Lucinda Williams, Nancy Griffith, Iris Dement -- all my favorite melancholy country/folk singers. Brodie's a type of anti-hero, with many faults and negative feelings, but he always manages to do the right thing, in spite of himself.  He's a tough, brooding guy on the outside, with a tender heart on the inside. I'm currently on my last of Aktinson's four Brodie novels, Started Early, Took My Dog, and I'm going to be bereft when I finish this book.  But researching my man Brodie for this post, I discovered there is a BBC series based on the novels. The only thing is I don't really want to see a flesh and blood Brodie, I prefer the man in my imagination. Atkinson cleverly gives no physical descriptions of her characters, she prefers to describe them by characteristics. Her characters come to vivid life without physical descriptions. Atkinson is a clever writer using plot twists and turns and humor to create an unforgettable story. You can bet that I will stay on vacation with Jackson Brodie as long as I can!

Getting a Re-do in Life

I completed the novel Life After Life by Kate Atkinson last night and I can’t stop thinking about it. The world the author creates is a dangerous place. The seemingly comfortable middle class life in the English countryside in the first half of the twentieth century is deceptive. A life can quickly and unexpectedly end by umbilical cord, beating, bombing, drowning, falling, and more. Death is ever present in life.

Although the story of Ursula Todd begins with her birth in 1910, the book is not chronological, and does not follow a sequence of events. It jumps from 1930 to 1910 to 1914, back to 1910, 1947, 1910, 1945, 1926, 1940 and so on. The author’s narrative device is telling and re-telling Ursula’s story through multiple outcomes to her life changing choices. The book is almost like one of those children’s chapter books where the reader chooses an ending from a number of choices. But it’s not exactly like that because Ursula has fragments of memories from other outcomes (or other lives?) in the same life. So the different outcomes and lives feel connected. The characters remain the same, but the endings change.

At one point in the book, Ursula’s beloved brother Teddy says, “What if we had a chance to do it [live our lives] again and again until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“I think it would be exhausting,” replies Ursula.

This book may sound exhausting with the repeated events, but that’s not all there is to the story.  The characterization of Ursula and her parents, brothers and sister really hold the book together, in my opinion. Their personalities remain the same through the different parts of the book. 

The book also mesmerizes because of the vividly drawn story of the London Blitz. The descriptions of life during the constant bombing of civilians were so real and horrifying that I felt like I lived through the Blitz myself.  

I can’t give away the “end” of the book, but Ursula attempts to change major events of the twentieth century for a better outcome for not just herself, but for her loved ones and society. This may sound kooky, but the book is deftly written and cleverly controlled. The story holds your attention even though the author goes back and tells the story of Ursula’s birth and other major events in her life over and over with different results. The effect is strongly compelling. As a reader, you are pulling for Ursula to get it right. I guarantee you will not want to put down this amazing book.  I will definitely read more by Kate Atkinson. She is a genius.