Turn of Mind

How do you solve a crime, when the main suspect is literally losing her mind? Alice LaPlante's book Turn of Mind does just that, in one of the most unique and intricately crafted thrillers this year.

Jennifer White is a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon who is going through a very bad patch.  She has been forced to leave her prestigious position at a hospital, she is suffering from early-onset dementia, and her best friend Amanda has been murdered.  And Jennifer herself is the prime suspect.

The clues to the crime are locked away inside Jennifer's fractured mind, where clarity comes only in bits and pieces.  Jennifer's friend Amanda has been found dead from a blow to the head, but a crucial piece of evidence points to Jennifer as the murderer: the fingers of Amanda's right hand have been removed with skillful precision.

Writing the book from the point of view of someone suffering from Alzheimers is a delicate task.  LaPlante tells the story through interactions with Jennifer's family, her caregivers, and the police.  This enables the reader to infer details about the crime, the various motives, and Jennifer's own state of mind, all through Jennifer's altered perceptions.

More than just a murder mystery, Turn of Mind provides a brilliant glimpse into the world of those suffering from Alzheimers.  Jennifer rediscovers her own divorce, her best friend's death, and her lack of career on an almost daily basis, each time with the grief as painful as it was the first time she heard it.  Mixed in with this sorrow is the brief awareness of the rapid decline of her disease, which is perhaps one of the most heartbreaking parts of the book.

Turn of Mind ties all the loose ends in a neat bow, but there is no satisfaction in it.  For someone suffering from Alzheimers, there can be no happy ending. There is only a slow descent into madness, and eventually, no memory at all.

Have Books, Will Travel

One of my great joys in life is to sit on the beach and read.  I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would rather watch paint dry than to spend the day alternating between staring at the ocean and delving into a  good book.  But for me, that is a little slice of heaven.

With vacation nearly here, I have several books waiting for their turn. I still haven't finished the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, I have a couple of chick-lit books on the Kindle, and my fingers are triple crossed that my holds will come in from the library. Alice LaPlante's Turn of Mind, J.D. Robb's futuristic thriller New York to Dallas, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor are at the top of my "To Read" list.  My bags are packed, my Kindle is charged, and I am hounding the library like a lovesick teenager. 

All  too soon, winter will be upon us, and with that comes the chance to snuggle under a blanket with a cup of coffee and a good book.  But until that point, I will be soaking up all the sunshine I can, whether it's at the beach or in my lovely red hammock!

Then Came You

I admit it - I'm a sucker for any story where it takes a village to raise a child.  Families that don't fit the mold fascinate me, and when a story combines women, pregnancy, surrogacy, and a unique family, I am hooked from the first page.

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner fits that bill perfectly.  This latest from the bestselling author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes tells the story of egg donors, surrogates, and parents desperate for a family, all mixed together with drama, personal growth, and lots of fun twists and turns in the plot.

In Weiner's latest, we meet Jules, who is the perfect candidate for egg donation.  As a college student eager to have enough money to send her father to a rehab facility, it seems a quick and relatively painless way to come up the necessary funds. Across the state, Annie is a mom of two young boys who dreams of going back to college and finding herself, and the thing she is best at is being pregnant.  And in the heart of New York City, India and her husband want a second chance at parenthood, but are unable to carry a baby to term.  These three groups of people will come together to discover heartache, love, and the true meaning of being a family.

This is a book that could be cloying and filled with stereotypes, but under Weiner's skillful writing we get glimpses of humanity and genuinely feel for the chararcters as they stumble, fall, and eventually redeem themselves.  The ethical issues surrounding both donation and surrogacy are handled gently; the pain and regret felt by both Jules and Annie is clear, but so is the knowledge that they are helping to create a family.  The ending is tidy (as Weiner's books usually are) and made me sigh as I finished the final page - particularly satisfying was the epilogue, where we get to see several years into the future at what life for this little baby holds.  This book is the ideal beach read, or (now that it's Fall) for an afternoon of relaxing on the couch.

Untold Story

For my parents' generation, their "where were you" moments include the first man on the moon and JFK being assassinated.  For our generation, it includes many landmark events, but two will be forever linked in my mind: Princess Diana of Wales on her wedding day, and again on that horrific night in Paris when she died.  She was such a beautiful, loving mother and an incredible advocate for AIDS, particularly in children, and to have that life cut short was simply devastating.

Untold Story imagines another ending to Princess Diana's life: one that involves a yaht, a lazy security staff, and a rowboat.  In Monica Ali's new novel,  she has invisioned a world where Princess Diana appears to the world as drown, but in fact, has faked her death, left everyone but her closest confidante behind, and started a new life in the United States.

As part of her new life,"Lydia" has no children, few good friends, and no meaningful relationships.  Her need to escape life under worldwide scrutiny has come at a tremendous cost - the loss of her children, her family, and everything she knows. But in return, she can shop, eat at restaurants, swim in her pool, and volunteer at an animal shelter, all without worrying about what photo or ugly comments will emerge next.  At least, until the Princess' most obsessed paparazzi stumbles upon her living in a tiny Midwest town.

Ali's book is a wonderful glimpse into the world that Princess Diana might have had, under very unusual circumstances.  Ali is very careful never to refer to the Princess by name, but her identity is obvious, from the cover of the book to the intimate details she includes of the Royal Family. Ali did a tremendous amount of research about Diana's life, and the fruits of that research makes the story even more delicious.

As a teenager, I watched in awe as Diana walked down the aisle at St. Paul's Cathedral.  Many years later, as a mother myself, I stood in shock and cried as I watched coverage of the wreckage that would end her life.  The best part of Untold Story was getting to meet Princess Diana again, even if it was only a woman created out of talented Ms. Ali's imagination.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I've had something of a reading drought this summer.  It's not that there hasn't been plenty to choose from, just that nothing is appealing.  Kind of like when you go out to eat, and nothing on the menu looks good.  Maybe it's been my mood, but with a few exceptions, nothing's really stuck with me.

So you can imagine my delight when I hit the mother lode at my public library this week.  Our library is small but mighty, and has a good selection of new titles.  I have learned over the years to make the most of the library's reservation system, but since none of my books on holds were available yet, I took a spin through the new fiction shelves.

I was like a kid in a candy store when I found not one, but four (yes, four!!) books that I had been hoping to read.  I started with Untold Story by Monica Ali, then quickly moved on to South of Superior, by Ellen Airgood.  Filling out my stack were Jennifer Haigh's newest, Faith, and the creepy Robopocolypse, by Daniel H. Wilson.

Reviews will be coming soon on Untold Story and a few others, but in the meantime, I've been reading like a woman on a mission.  It has been a true delight getting to know some new characters, a few new authors, and most of all, some stories I could really sink my teeth into. My wonderful husband purchased a lovely, bright red hammock for me this summer, but up until now, it's been too hot to use it.  Now I have both the cooler weather and a stack of delicious books.  Heaven!

A Visit From the Goon Squad

I  finished A Visit From the Goon Squad this week, and I am left with conflicting emotions.  It was my good friend's choice for our book club, and it took me by surprise, in part because I expected to love it, and I just didn't.   Goon Squad won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year and has garnered plenty of attention; I had read the first short story on my Kindle and I was excited to dive into it.  I quickly realized that A Visit From the Goon Squad is not an easy read.  In fact, it's not even a book I would recommend to many people, because it's a lot like work.   

Goon Squad inserts us into the lives of several characters, all of whom are connected, with the theme of the music industry running through the novel. The interconnected stories are told by different people, over a 50-year span of time, but none of the book is in chronological order. Fifty pages into it, I was muddling my way through the second big story, and not really enjoying it.  Thirty pages after that, I was intrigued - certainly enough to read the entire book.  The characters had not become any more likable, but I was finally getting the hang of it.  Egen's constant shifts in time and point of view made following the plot challenging.  Keep in mind that I read a lot - an average of two books a week, more during winter and vacation.  So to have a book still making me struggle after 100 pages is saying something.

My friend summarized it perfectly - she said that Goon Squad was not a book that you would enjoy while you were reading it, but that you would want to talk to someone about it after you finished.  As our book club chatted in the sultry July night, we each brought something different to the discussion.  But as we began to peel back the layers of Goon Squad, our discussion revealed far more than any of us had thought possible.

Therein lies the magic in such a unique book. I might not have enjoyed the journey, but I was very glad once I reached my destination.

Dreams of Joy

In a post from several months ago, I mentioned one of my favorite "Asian-themed" books, Lisa See's Shanghai Girls.  I enjoyed See's perspectives on World War 2 and the struggles for Asian immigrants, and like many people, I was left wanting more when the book ended.

Shanghai Girls' sequel, Dreams of Joy, picks up right where we left off, in the late 1950s.  Joy, Pearl's daughter from the first novel, has recently learned a deep, dark secret about her family.  Hurt by both her mother and her Aunt May, and still reeling from her father's suicide, Joy decides to go to China to discover her roots and to meet the man who she has learned is her biological father, Z.G. Li.  When Pearl learns where Joy has gone, she has no choice but to go to China herself to bring her daughter home.

What neither Joy nor Pearl could predict was the chaos that was beginning in China.  Under Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward program, China has undergone tremendous changes since Pearl and May fled the country years before.  The Communist regime is in full force and Joy's father, famous Chinese artist Z.G.Li, is being sent to the countryside to teach the peasants how to paint in the "Red" way.  The story follows Joy, as she moves to a commune, falls in love, and  marries, and Pearl, as she fights her way back to Joy and the family she cherishes.

Fans of Lisa See's earlier works will enjoy reading Dreams of Joy, if for no other reason than closure for Shanghai Girls.  Dreams of Joy, however, is a novel unlike those See has written before.  Her past novels, no matter what time period, show both the beauty and the less pleasant side of Chinese life.  In Dreams of Joy, See only shows the ugly side.  This is fitting, because the Great Leap Forward was one of the darkest times in Chinese history.  With individual farms turned into communes, Mao's government sought to maximize the amount of crops produced each year.  What follows is an unmitigated disaster: a combination of droughts, floods and farming requirements from city officials who had no experience with the land leaves China in a state of famine.  By some accounts, as many as 40 million people died of starvation during the three-year period before Mao admitted failure.

See portrays this famine in vivid detail, so much so that it was difficult to read at times.  While her earlier novels have had shocking and painful scenes, it cannot compare to the ravages of famine that See describes in Dreams of Joy.  Lisa See traveled with author Amy Tan to research this novel, and it is clear that her trip to China and what she learned about this time period affected See deeply.

Dreams of Joy is a worthy read, especially if you have read See's earlier works.  There is a happy ending, with a nice big bow.  But a word of warning: beware the title, for "dreams" of joy are the best you can expect this in novel.

In Search of the Perfect Summer Read

Many people believe that winter is the best time for reading.  Curling up on the couch with a blanket and spending the afternoon savoring a book is a fabulous way to spend those dark winter months.  But for me, the perfect season for reading is summer.  Memories of being stretched out on my bed as a girl, reading book after book; as a teen, discovering a new author just in time for days at the pool or a week at the beach; and long afternoons in the public library: that's what summer meant to me.

That hasn't changed.  With the slower pace of life that summer provides, my stack of books is calling to me. There is a lot on my virtual bookshelf right now, but what I want right now is not just any book - I want the elusive "perfect summer read."

There's a lot that goes into the criteria for the perfect book, and each person's list is different.  On my list of criteria is that the book must be enjoyable but not necessarily deep, preferably fiction, long enough to sink my teeth into, and most of all, "unputdownable."  You know what I mean - the kind of book where you look up and two hours have gone by, the kids are tugging at you asking "where's lunch?" and you find yourself daydreaming about it when you're NOT reading.  That kind of book.

My search continues.  There is a new Lisa See book due out (a sequel to Shanghai Girls, which I really enjoyed), a new Ann Patchett, and a few books which have just come into paperback, including The Passage by Joseph Cronin.  When I find that perfect book I will let you know, but I hope you will be looking too - because everyone has their very own summer read just waiting to be devoured.

Flavia de Luce: Nancy Drew, She's Not

Like every other girl I knew growing up, I was a huge Nancy Drew fan.  Nancy Drew seemed to have it all - spunk, loyalty, a quick mind, and above all, fearlessness.  She was everyone's favorite girl detective.  Now, some 60 years later, Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew needs to make room for a different kind of sleuth - Flavia de Luce.

Flavia de Luce is the star of Alan Bradley's mystery series, which began in 2009 with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Flavia does share many of Nancy Drew's characteristics - she's spunky, she's bright, and she doesn't mind sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong.  Most of the similarities end there.  As the youngest of three girls, Flavia spends a great deal of time tormenting her sisters, developing potions and poisons in her private laboratory and causing her sisters great discomfort.   Bradley's series is set in the English countryside in the years following World War One, but Flavia's adventures have a certain timelessness about them that could take place in any period.  With her trusty bicycle Gladys, Flavia tools around town solving mysteries and generally causing mayhem with the local police.  In the most recent novel, Flavia meets a traveling band of gypsies, and between solving old crimes and new ones, manages to outsmart the killer, the police, and her own family.

Of Bradley's series, my favorite is Flavia's first novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, but each of his  novels has their charm, and Red Herring is a highly enjoyable read. The mystery is fun, the violence is present but not gory, and Flavia's adventures never grow old.  Ideally, Flavia's books should be read in order, but each book stands alone.  I hope you will enjoy getting to know Flavia as I have, for she is one of the most charming detectives of the literary world today.

Swamplandia!, Part 2

Swamplandia! update: I finished this fabulous book earlier in the week, and it was well worth it.  I did not have to sleep with the lights on, but remember when I said it was dark?  Oh, I hadn't even gotten to the darkest part yet. Ava's journey, both metaphorical and literal, is breathtaking.  I can't reveal any more without ruining a few plot twists, but Ava's trip will leave her (and you, the reader) changed.

A word of warning - those of you who like a big, fat bow at the end will be disappointed.  The book does wrap up most of the loose ends, but questions remain unanswered.  That being said, Swamplandia! is worth every squirming moment.  Swamplandia! is an ideal candidate for me to slip into book letdown, but Kate Atkinson's newest, Started Early, Took My Dog is calling out for me to dive in!

Swamplandia! Part 1

Every year I wait with great anticipation for Steven King's "Best Books of the Year" article in Entertainment Weekly.  Karen Russell's book Swamplandia! made the cut for 2010, and since Mr. King hasn't steered me wrong yet, I was eager to read it. The advance praise on Swamplandia! described it as both quirky and dark.  The quirky part I got - Swamplandia! is about a family-run wildlife park in Florida where the main act includes wrestling alligators.  But I was about halfway through before I started to see the dark side.  And it is dark, my friends - very dark.

The Bigtree family's matriarch has died of cancer, and the surviving family - father (Chief), son Kiwi, and daughters Ossie and Ava - are left to pick up the pieces and get the park back on track.  With few visitors, the park is forced to close.  The family becomes completely unraveled when Kiwi leaves for the mainland, where he gets a job as a janitor at Swamplandia's largest and nearest competitor, the creepy "World of Darkness" park that features the rings of Hell.  Ossie begins using a Ouija board to start dating ghosts, and goes into a trance on a daily basis. Chief leaves to go find financing to help get the park out of debt. Things take an even darker turn when Ossie begins sneaking out nightly to meet her ghostly date, and 13-year-old Ava must take matters into her own hands.

You know that feeling when you are reading a book and you know whatever comes next is going to be really bad?  I have had that feeling of dread for about 30 pages now in Swamplandia!, and it's only going to get worse.   Russell's descriptions of the primordial swamp where the Bigtree family lives, the malevolent buzzards that reappear throughout  the book, and the World of Darkness park are so vivid, it makes you feel as if you are there yourself.  It all adds up to one really disturbing story.

But how can I stop?  Even though I am literally squirming with anticipation, I have to keep reading - how else will I know what happens to Ava, and the fate of Swamplandia! and the entire Bigtree family?  Stay tuned and  I'll let you know how it all turns out - and how many nights I had to sleep with the light on.  Happy reading!

Spellbound

I have been under the spell of a good book these last two weeks.  Laundry has gone undone, food has gone uncooked (until people loudly protested!) and errands have fallen to the wayside.  Much like the main protagonist in A Discovery of Witches, I have been spellbound.

A Discovery of Witches is another in a long line of books with supernatural characters, but what sets Witches apart is the storytelling.  It is part Romeo and Juliet and part Grimm's Fairy Tales, and written in such an easy, comfortable manner that you find yourself lost in the story.  Set in the current time, we meet Dr. Diana Bishop, an accomplished scientist who also happens to be a witch.  Diana's family tree includes generations of witches leading all the way back to the Salem Witch Trials, so it was expected that Diana not only accept but embrace her birthright.  Instead, Diana has turned her back on her heritage and focused her energies on the history of alchemy.  All that changes when Diana discovers a centuries' old alchemical book that contains the mystery of eternal life for supernatural creatures, all of whom wish to get their "otherworldly" hands on it.

What kind of fairy tale would this be without a prince?  Quickly after discovering the text, known as Ashmole 782, Diana meets Matthew Clairmont, an ancient and powerful vampire.  In Harkness' supernatural world, there are three types of creatures: witches, daemons, and vampires, and never shall those types intermingle.  Diana and Matthew find themselves drawn closer together as they ward off creatures willing to do whatever it takes to retrieve the book and unlock its secrets, and despite the forbidden nature of their relationship, fall in love.

The mysteries that unfold make this book worth reading, but it is Diana's magical abilities and how they are revealed that sets it apart from others in the genre.  By now you know my feelings on spoilers, so to reveal too much more would ruin the book for you.  I will say that by the final chapter, you will be turning the pages as quickly as you can, only to realize that this is just the beginning of Matthew and Diana's story, and to learn the end, you must wait for the sequel.

Now that A Discovery of Witches' spell has been broken, I will wade back through the mountains of clothes that never seem to clean themselves (if only I had a spell for that!), go back to the grocery store, and return to the land of the living. But though my life may go back to the mundane, the images of Diana and all her powers will remain.

Happy Year of the Rabbit

Today is the last day of the two-week spring festival known as Chinese New Year.  As I write this, all across China, the Lantern Festival is taking place, where millions of Chinese celebrate the first full moon of the new year, and fill the streets with a parade of light.  In honor of this auspicious day, I would like to recommend a few of my favorite books set in China, or with Asian-American characters.

The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan:  This is the grandmother of them all, the book that really opened the door to the life and history of Chinese women.  While many lovely Asian writers came before her, it was Amy Tan who made literature about China so accessible.  Tan's beautiful writing and fantastic characters make this book a must for anyone interested in China.  I have read it several times, and each time I come away with something new.  This is my favorite of Amy Tan's books, but every one is worth reading.

The Red Thread, by Ann Hood: The Red Thread follows the lives of five Chinese babies, and across the ocean, five sets of adoptive parents waiting for little girls.  The stories of how these families become united is truly heartwarming; the title is from a Chinese belief that people who are meant to be together are joined by a red thread, and no matter how long that thread is, it will never break.  This would be a great book club book, particularly for adoptive parents; there is a lot to discuss in the story.  It's also a good choice for those wanting a book with a nice big bow at the end.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and Shanghai Girls, both by Lisa See:  Both Snow Flower and Shanghai Girls are wonderful glimpses into the life of Chinese women.  Snow Flower, set in 19th century China, follows two girls bound together for life, from foot binding all the way through marriage.  Shanghai Girls is about sisters trying to make their way out of Shanghai during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s, including the immigration at Angel's Island in California. Well researched and nicely written, both books would also be good book club choices.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang: This nonfiction book follows three generations of women in China, starting in the 1920s with Chang's grandmother.  Yu-fang was among the last generation of women to have their feet bound, and she was sold as a concubine as a young woman.  Chang's mother was an active member of the Communist party until she and Chang's father fell out of favor with the Cultural Revolution and suffered the horrors of "re-education." Chang also details her time with the Red Guard, and coming of age in a turbulent, every-changing China.  This is a meaty, intense book that will haunt you, but it also serves the dual purpose of not only entertaining but educating the reader on the history of 20th century China.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of fabulous books about or set in China - I could really go on and on, but you have to draw a line somewhere.  I hope your new year is peaceful, with many chances to curl up with a good book!

Suffering Through Book Letdown

The symptoms: excessive sighing, moping, and general malaise; often accompanied by starting a book, skimming the first few pages, and putting it back down in disgust.

It's a terrible syndrome known as book letdown, and I am suffering.  You see, book letdown happens when you have finished reading something particularly moving or satisfying, and when the last page is done, you realize that at least for a little while, no other book will even come close.

Book letdown doesn't happen often.  It takes a very special book to make every other pale in comparison.  This time, the book was Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  A wonderful story, beautiful writing, and details that elevated rather than diminished the plot.  It was such a lovely book that when it was done, I felt haunted by the ghosts of the characters I had grown to know and admire.

I've tried to move on.  I picked up one book after another, but after 30 pages or so, and with resignation, I would give up.   It's not their fault.  They were all fine, well-received novels that under other circumstances, I would truly enjoy.  And I do feel bad about it - like I should tell that sad stack of books, "Really, it's not you; it's me."

In a way it is like mourning, for the characters you won't see again, their stories left untold, and all the things you will never know about them.  I believe this is the reason that trilogies and series are so wildly popular, because there is always the chance that you can meet your favorite characters again.

In the past, magazines and terribly trashy romance novels have been the cure.  This weekend, I may have found another solution: my library generously provided me with FIVE books that have been on my "waiting to read" list.  Maybe one of those gems will boost me out of my slump.  Hope springs eternal!

Vampires with a Twist

The Radleys are just like every other family in a small village outside London - a friendly mom and dad, a boy and girl in school, a lovely home and an SUV in the driveway.  But the Radleys are hiding a big, bad secret - they are vampires.

This is not your "Twilight" type of vampire story.  Matt Haig's The Radleys is a slightly campy and very funny book about the consequences of trying to be "abstainers"- vampires who choose to live their lives as normal humans, without drinking blood. And they do try, very hard, to fit in. Peter Radley is the village doctor and Helen is a typical stay-at-home mom.  Their children, 15-year-old Clara and 17-year-old Rowan, are blissfully unaware of what makes them so different until a terrible incident causes Clara's blood lust to appear.

On the surface, the Radleys are just a little quirky.  Except for Clara, they eat meat, (lots of it, and rare, please) and can't go out in the sun without wearing 60 SPF sunscreen at all times.  They have a terrible time sleeping at night and parents Peter and Helen struggle every day to follow the rules of "The Abstainer's Handbook" so that they can live their lives with humans.  But the night Clara is attacked and retaliates by devouring her classmate changes everything.  Peter calls in his brother Will, a legendary (and very active) vampire, to help them through the crisis.  Peter and Helen must reveal the truth to their children, and Will's appearance triggers a series of events that will change the Radleys forever.

Haig's sly turn of phrase and insight into the lives of a suburban family make this book all the more enjoyable.   This is a vampire story the likes of which we haven't seen - Haig focuses not just on the drama of living to drink blood, but about how this can affect a typical dysfunctional family who already has more than enough on their plates.

The Radleys is a fun and fast read, perfect for adults and teens alike.  Even if you are not a fan of vampire fiction, take a trip to the dark side with Peter and his family. You might find you like it.

The Ups and Downs of Women's Fiction

OK, let's call it what it really is - chick lit.  And just like anything else, there is good, bad and downright ugly among the many thousands of women's fiction books out there.  After a couple of intense books (including the last book of The Hunger Games, which I finally finished over the holidays), I decided it was time to try something lightweight.  Within a week, I had finished two books which definitely fall into the chick lit category:  Lisa Unger's Fragile and Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair.

At first glance, Fragile seemed to be a quick, fun read- small town mystery, girl who goes missing, families torn apart by secrets -with characters that seemed both interesting and believable.  But the fun stopped there.  The first warning sign came when I kept putting Fragile down and conveniently forgetting to pick it back up.  By the time I was halfway through, it was almost painful to try to finish it.  Not only was Fragile poorly constructed, jumping back and forth between present day and the past, but there were so many subplots and twists that by the final chapter, I had no idea who half the people were and what crimes they had committed, and nor did I care.  Unger's cringe-worthy last line  - "... how the connections between them were as terribly fragile as they were indelible."  - is the perfect example of how poorly written the book is.

Lisa Unger is a popular writer, with several bestselling books to her credit.  I went into Fragile thinking that it might not be Pulitzer prize-winning, but would certainly keep my interest.  It was nothing but a disappointment, and despite having a free, dowloaded copy of Beautiful Lies by Unger on my Kindle, I don't think I can bring myself to give her another try.

With some misgivings, I quickly moved on to Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair, a novel that was well-reviewed and sounded intriguing.  A Vintage Affair is about Phoebe, a young woman who leaves her job at Sotheby's to opens her own vintage clothing store in London.  While it is definitely "chick lit," reading this book was a completely different experience.  A Vintage Affair contains the best elements of what women's literature offers; there's a little mystery, some romance, quirky characters, and an unresolved crisis, but wrapped in a story that was just delightful.  

Wolff's well-researched and beautifully written descriptions of vintage couture, from cupcake dresses to clutch purses, made reading this book a pleasure.  It was easy to lose myself in Phoebe and her supporting cast - the mystery surrounding an elderly client with a difficult past, Phoebe's romance with a widowed father, and Phoebe's parents, who have their own challenges- and while the writing was sometimes predictable, the story never grew stale.  I finished A Vintage Affair within two days, with that satisfied feeling you get after a good meal or a nice long nap.

Not every book has to be groundbreaking, and it certainly doesn't have to be "literature" to be a good read.  But every book should in some way entertain and enrich us, the readers, no matter under what category the book falls.

To Read or To E-Read: That is the Question

2010 was the year of the e-reader.  Everywhere you turned there were ads for the newest, biggest,  and fanciest e-readers, with Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Nobles' Nook leading the charge.

I received an Amazon Kindle as a surprise birthday gift this August from my generous brother-in-law.  Mine is the Version 3 (not with the 3 G) which features built-in wi-fi and the fabulous pearl e-ink technology.  As an e-reader, it is wonderful.  It has the ability to organize books into categories (or bookshelves, if you will) and can hold thousands of titles.  Amazon's convenient access to the online store on the Kindle screen makes downloading books fast and simple,although not necessarily inexpensive. The screen is crystal clear and offers variable font sizes, making reading a pleasure.

As a true bibliophile, I have conflicting feelings about the Kindle.  First, there is the lack of tactile sensation - there's no smell of "new book," and certainly no feel of the page under your hand or the weight of the book on your chest.  It's hard to flip back to a section of the book to look for something - Kindle has a search engine but I've found it difficult to use.  When you have those "ah ha" moments in a book, you want to rush back to just the right spot when you missed a clue or critical comment.  With the Kindle, that is a challenge.  And unlike the Nook and most other e-readers, the Kindle does not have the ability to download books from your local library.  The cache of "free" books you hear about is somewhat of an urban legend; there are free books out there (particularly if they were written before the Civil War), but unless you are looking for a classic, it requires some work to find them.  Most Amazon books for Kindle fall in the $9.99 to $11.99 range - similar in price to the actual book.

But on the other hand...ahhhh, the Kindle.  It's lightweight, portable, and can hold as many books as I want and still fit in my bag.  With an e-reader, gone are the days of hauling an actual piece of luggage filled with books for a week's vacation.  One of the best features is the ability to "sample."  It's like being in a virtual bookstore.  You can browse and sample almost any book available, and try it for free...all from the comfort of your own home.  If there is one drawback to the samples, it's that my list of books to read grows longer every day.

For now, ours is a blended family of physical books and e-books. On my Christmas list was a copy of The Distant Hours by favorite author Kate Morton.  Her books are so beautifully written that I knew I wanted the lovely, dense hardback - an electronic copy simply wouldn't do.  But the Kindle is loaded with lots of new stuff too, like Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas  - because you can never, ever, have too many books.  Happy new year!