Link to 2016 Reading Journal

http://myreadingjournal2016.blogspot.com/

"The Power and The Glory" by Graham Greene. ****

● Audiobook
●  US author
●  Originally published in 1940
●  Review:  A lovely subtle novel, set in communist Mexico.  A renegade priest eludes the law for years and the reader comes to understand the meaning of humility and holiness.  Thought provoking!

"Go Tell It On The Mountain" by James Baldwin *****

• Audiobook
• US author
• Originally published in 1953
• Review:  James Baldwin......I know...what more is there to say about this powerful, profound writer.  This story of spiritual journey is eloquent, moving and engaging.  How did John come to his commitment to the Lord?  Read and you will know.  This novel is about individual and collective faith and identity.  It is about the humanity of the devout.  It is about leaps of faith and deep wisdom.  And, it is about family.

"The True Deceiver" by Tove Jansson *****

• Summer Sub Club with Beth
• Swedish author
• Originally published in 1982, translation published in 2009 
• Introduction:
• "Anna Aemilin, has no foothold on winter and is a being particularly associated with spring."
• "How does deception relate to truth?"
• Quotes:
• p.12..."Anna Aemilin had the great persuasive power of monomania, of being able to see and embrace a single idea, of being interested in one thing only."...the ground, the promise of what's to come in spring?  
• p.23..."But you never know, you can never really be sure, never completely certain that you haven't tried to ingratiate yourself in some hateful way-- flattery, empty adjectives, the whole sloppy, disgusting machinery that people engage in with impunity all the time everywhere to help them get what they want...".
• p.50..."And politeness can sometimes be almost a kind of deceit, can it not?"
• p.128..."...I would much rather be cheated than go around distrusting everyone."...Anna to Katri....me too, maybe
• p.171..."What's happened to me is that I can no longer see the ground."...Anna
• Review:  When I finished this novel from Finnish author, Tove Jansson, I sat quietly, feeling deeply moved, a little sad, even almost teary.  Set in a stark, isolated Finnish town in the dead of winter, the author draws the reader into an understanding of the role illusion plays in our lives, and what some of the consequences are when those illusions are stripped away. Using the metaphors of a trained dog losing its purpose, we are witness to the discovery that the real "true deceiver" is ourselves.  I strongly urge you to come visit the child's author at the rabbit house, the boat builder in town, the mailman on skis, the shopkeepers, and the two protagonists, Anna and Katri.  Beware of your heartstrings, for they will be tugged by the beautiful, profound tale and the poignant characters!

"The Starling Project" by Jeffrey Deaver ***

• Audio performance
• US author
• Originally published in 2014
• Review:  Not much to write home about here.  The plot was run of the mill.  The interesting part was that this is an audiobook which is an actual audio performance which made listening to it a bit like listening to the golden oldie radio shows of yesteryear. An interesting experience versus an interesting read.

H is For Hawk" by Helen MacDonald *****

• Book Club Selection for November 2015
• English author
• Originally published in 2014
• Vocabulary:
• pickelhaube: Prussian spiked helmet
• louche:  dubious, shady
• accipitrine:  raptorial, related to hawks
• coracle:  a small, round, or very broad boat made of wickerwork or interwoven laths covered with a waterproof layer of animal skin, canvas, oiled cloth, or the like: used in Wales, Ireland, and parts of western England.
• brumous:  misty, foggy
• Quotes:
• p.22..."It seemed that the hawks couldn't see us at all, that they'd slipped out of our world entirely and moved into another, wilder world from which humans had been utterly erased."
• p.27..."When I was six I tried to sleep every night with my arms folded behind my back like wings."
• p.39..."The safest way to avoid trouble if one may not be going to fit is to take as great a part as possible in what is going on." ...T.H.White, about his efforts to hide his homosexuality and sadistic tendencies
• p.58..."What happens to the mind after bereavement makes no sense until later."
• p.60..."What we see in the lives of animals are lessons we've learned from the world."
• p.65..."The hawk had filled the house with wildness as a bowl of lilies fills a house with scent."
• p.86..."The hawk's apprehension becomes your own.  You are exercising what the poet Keats called your chameleon quality, the ability to 'tolerate a loss of self and a loss of rationality by trusting in the capacity to recreate oneself in another character or another environment'.
• p.171..."You see that life will become a thing made of holes.  Absences.  Losses.  Things were there and are no longer.  And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are."
• p.199..."he archaeology of grief is not ordered.  It is more like earth under s spade, turning up things you had forgotten.  Surprising things come to light...".
• p.275..."In my time with Mabel I've learned how you feel more human once you have known, even in your imagination, what it is like to be not.  And I have learned, too, the danger that comes in mistaking wildness we give a thing for the wildness that animates it."
• Notes:
• chalk cult
• Review:  Imagine a combination of a journal of grief, a biography and autobiography, and a journey through time.  Helen McDonald provides all of this in her memoir.  In the midst of great loss, she turns to what she knows, falconry.  She takes the reader on her journey of grief, immersion in nature, and training of her goshawk, Mabel, all in eloquent prose.  She lets go of her sense of self and regains it during this intimate time with Mabel, while getting perspective throughout by juxtaposing her experience with that of renowned author, T.H. White. Falconry ties it all together, prose brings it alive.  Absolutely lovely! 

"24 Hours" by Greg Iles **

• Audiobook
• German author
• Originally published in 2000
• Mystery/Suspense
• Review: Very disappointing!   Usually, Greg Iles' books are engaging  and multi-layered.   Definitely not true in this suspense novel.  The story is straightforward and simple, a tale of kidnapping.  Nothing about it stands out. Too bad!

This House of Sky: Landscape of a Western Mind" by Ivan Doig *****

• Audiobook 
• US author 
• Autobiography 
• Originally published in 1980

Review:  My maternal grandmother grew up on a Montana ranch.  Her best friend was the daughter of Judge Rankin, whose name was apparently a curse word amongst other ranchers and ranch hands. Jeannette Rankin became my mother's godmother, and the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives, so I felt a special kinship.

My, oh my!  Ivan Doig, always a master of lovely prose, applies his gift to his autobiography.  The reader is immersed in the landscape of Montana and it's reflection in the Doig family's life.  It is noble, human, gritty, grueling, and full of deep love.  A treasure!

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"The Silkworm" by Robert Galbraith. ****

●  Audiobook
●  English author,  aka J.K. Rowling
●  Originally published in 2014
●  Review:  Cormoran Strike is now firmly established as one of my favorite P.I.s in literature.   Something about his combination of strength, intellect,  sensitivity and humility is quite engaging.   The plot is engrossing, the characters are engaging,  and, of course, there is the ongoing development of Strike's relationship with his assistant, Robin.  Excellent read!

"Dreaming Spies" by Laurie R. King. ****

●  #13 in the Mary Russell series
●  Originally published in 2015
●  Early Reviewer book for.   LibraryThing.com
●  US author
●  Review:  This installment of the Mary Russell series was very satisfying.  The humor, engaging plot, and intriguing narrative of the earlier installments were all present again.  Very good story with world travels, international intrigue, and even female ninjas!

"The Blind Owl" by Sadegh Hedayat *****

• Summer Sub Club with Beth
• Iranian author, born 1903, committed suicide in 1951
• Originally published in 1932
• Introduction by Porochista Khakpour:  fascinating story of her childhood with this novella being a forbidden book
• Hedayat was 33 when it was published
• 50 handwritten copies comprised the initial publication
• Censored and banned, yet no "circulation hiatus" amongst the people
• "Given the usefulness of his (her father's) tactics with respect to that, I'll then pass on what got me to these pages:  refrain, reader, from reading this book, whatever you do. ....You've been warned."
• Vocabulary:
• mandrake:  a narcotic, short stemmed European plant, Mandragora officinarum,of the nightshade family, having a fleshy, often forked root somewhat resembling a human form.
• Quotes:
• p.17..."There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker."...opening line
• p.18..."My one fear is that tomorrow I may die without having come to know myself."
• p.19..."I am writing only for my shadow, which is now stretched across the wall in the light of the lamp.  I must make myself known to him."......Jung anyone?
• p.67...."Within the four walls that form my room, this fortress which I have erected around my life and thoughts, my life has been slowly wasting away like a candle.  No, I am wrong.  It is like a green log which has rolled to one side of the fireplace and which has been scorched and charred by  the flames from the other logs; it has neither burnt away nor remained fresh and green; it has been choked by the smoke and steam from others."
• p.84..."Is not life from beginning to end a ludicrous story, an improbable, stupid yarn?  Am I not now writing my own personal piece of fiction?   A story is only an outlet for frustrated aspirations, for aspiration which the storyteller conceives an accordance with a limited stock of spiritual resources inherited from previous generations."
• p.140..."I had become like a screech owl, but my cries caught in my throat and I spat them out in the form of clots of blood.  Perhaps screech owls are subject to a disease which makes them think as I think.  My shadow on the wall had become exactly like an owl and, leaning forward, read intently every word I wrote.  Without doubt he understood perfectly.  Only he was capable of understanding.  When I looked out o the corner of my eye at my shadow on the wall I felt afraid."...of understanding?
• Notes: 
• recurrent image....old man with scarf by stream with young girl in black, along with blue morning glories
• recurrent....biting nail of index finger of left hand, the old man and his wife
• narrative of killing a woman, chopping the body, putting it in a suitcase, hiring the hearse with the old man
• significant symbols:
• old man
• girl in black
• stream
• blue morning glories
• wife/bitch/unborn child
• nanny
• trip to bury dead woman
• Review:  Enter, if you dare, into the landscape of madness, the delirium of opium, the fever dream of a genius.  This novella is exquisitely painful to read, and I would not have missed the experience for anything.  The author, Iranian born Sadegh Hedayat, who committed suicide upon finishing this novel, offers this oh so generous and passionately painful glimpse into the existential madness of his mind.  Determined to know himself fully, the narrator shares a  nightmare compilation of childhood and adult fantasies, passions, and despair. To top the experience off of reading this masterpiece, the introduction is magnificent in and of itself.  Not for the fainthearted, this mesmerizing work of art!

"Appointment in Samarra" by John O'Hara. ****

• Summer read with Beth
• Originally published in 1934
• US author
• Review: This is a fairly depressing tale of the dissolute upper middle class in the United States in the late 1920s.  Alcoholism, social hypocrisy,  and dishonesty seem to be the predominant traits of the country club set of characters.  Not a pretty picture!  Well written, but depressing. 

"Hard Eight" by Janet Evanovich ****

●  8th in Stephanie Plum series
●  Mystery /Suspense
●  Originally published in 2003
●  Review:  I laughed out loud all the way through this installment of the Stephanie Plum series.  New characters like a lawyer named Kloughn (pronounced clown) and others are a delight.  As always Stephanie has a couple of cars blow up, continues sexual jousting with Ranger, and debates the pros and cons of her love for Morelli.  Great fun!

"Skipping Christmas" by John Grisham ***

• Stewart Place Book Club 
• Originally published in 2001
• US author
• Review: A sweet, simple story about the meaning of Christmas, with a sidenote theme of what happens when someone decides not to follow the herd.  That's about it.  

"Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters" by Hubert Haddad **

• Open Letter Series
• Based on true story of the founders of the Spiritualist religious movement
• Originally published in 2015
• Tunisian author
• Review:  I read this book for two reasons.  First, I read and love all Open Letter publications to date.  Secondly,I plan on attending a release party for this book in a couple of days and received a complimentary copy prior to the event which will include a reading by the translator and other activities with the spiritualist theme.  Yikes!  Imagine my surprise when I encountered this poorly written novel.  The story is based on fact, the Fox sisters from Rochester and their being the impetus for the Spiritualist Movement. I do not know whether the problem is with the author's writing or the translation.  However, the choppy, awkward narrative was very  difficult to read.  I am disappointed in this, the first publication which elicits only frustration.

"Mr. Mercedes" by Stephen King ****

• First book in Bill Hodges Trilogy
• Originally published in 2015
• US author
• Mystery/Suspense
• Review: This Stephen King novel might be his oddest yet.  Why, you ask? There were no supernatural plot twisters.  Disappointing?  Not at all.  Welcome to the plain old mystery/suspense genre, Mr.King!  This was an excellent, suspense filled thriller.  Great characters abound, mostly misfits who become heros while helping Bill Hodges, retired detective, break lots of rules in order to save the day. I couldn't be happier that this is the first installment of a trilogy! 

"The Physics of Sorrow" by Georgi Gospodinov *****

• Summer Sub Club with Beth
• Bulgarian author
• An Open Letter Publication
• Originally published in 2011, translation published in 2015
• Link to article in "The New Yorker":  http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-bulgarian-sadness-of-georgi-gospodinov
• Epigraphy:
• "Myth is the nothing that is everything" - F. Pessoa, Mesagem
• There is only childhood and death.  And nothing in between..." - Gaustine, Selected Autobiographies
• "The world is no longer magical.  You have been abandoned.." - Borges, 1964
• "...And I enter the fields and spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures the countless images..." - Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book X
• "Only the fleeting and ephemeral are worth recording." - Gaustine, "The Forsaken Ones"
• "I feel a longing to fly,to swim, to bark, to bellow, to howl.  I would like to have wings, a tortoise-shell, a rind, to blow out smoke, to wear a trunk, to twit my body, to spread myself everywhere, to be in everything, to emanate with odors, to grow like plants, to flow like water...to penetrate every atom t descend to the very depths of matter--to be matter." - Gustave Flaubert, "The Temptations of St. Anthony"
• "...missing...memory and desire..." - T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"
• "Purebred genres don't interest me much.  The novel is no Aryan." - Gaustine, "Novel and Nothingness"
• "If the reader prefers, this book may be taken as fiction..." - Ernest Hemingway, "A Moveable Feast"
• Quotes:
• p.21..."The tears stream down his face, down my face, they mix with the flour dust on the face, water, salt , and flour, and knead he first bread of grief.  The bread that never runs out.  The bread of sorrow, which will feed us through all the coming years.  Its salty taste n the lips.  My grandfather swallows.  I swallow too.  We are three years old."....gf's memory of being accidentally left behind at a mill
• "the wicked man flees though no one pursues"
• p.39..."His reappearance, like all resurrections, only upset the normal course of life."
• p.43..."I can't offer a linear story, because no story, and no labyrinth is ever linear."
• p.52..."I did not know so much death dozed beneath language."
• p.53..."The absence of children in greek mythology is striking."
• p.74..."...a man who finds himself in hell is freed from the fear that something worse could befall him."
• p.82...."A History  of Boredom in the 1980s needs to be written.  This is the decade that produced the most boredom.  The afternoon of the century."
• p.102..."In December we heard about  AIDs for the first time.  Which, in 1981, put an end to the '60s.  All sexual revolutions were called off for health reasons.  Since they had never really started here in Bulgaria, we didn't take their end as anything particularly tragic."
• p.105..."Yes, unlike the '60s, which were truly sexy, colorful, they knew how to dress, the '80s, like communism as a whole, came to an ugly end.
• p.108..."Empathy predisposes you to closeness to people, but not in my case, when the weight of others' sorrows pressed down on me like a sickness."
• p.110..."I know that the past is as as fruitless as a barren mare. But that makes it all the more dear to me."
• p.119..."The aging of an empath is a strange and painful process.  The corridors toward others  and their stories, which once were open, now turn out to be walled up.  House arrest in your own body."
• p.138..."Every cliche (and a cliche is nothing more than an abstraction that has swallowed its own tail) becomes dangerous when it is made literal."
• p.143..."A whole life can be told in a catalog of moves."
• p.155..."The basic question, the litmus test, the divider between good and evil--could what I've thought up be done by an animal?"
• p.201..."Meaninglessness has entered the uncertain Troy of the body via a wooden horse
• p.211..."The saddest place in the world, as the Economist called it in 2010, as if there is truly a geography of happiness."
• p.225..."The labyrinth is someone's fossilized hesitation."
• p.225..."The most oppressive thing about the labyrinth is that you are constantly being forced to choose.  It isn't the lack of an exit, but the abundance of 'exits' that is so disorienting
• Notes:
• Life for a Bulgarian is akin to that lived by the Minotaur in the labyrinth
• Ability to live another's life via his/her memory: Pathological empathy, or Obsessive-Empathic Somatic Disorder
• 80% of Bulgarians never left the country prior to 1989
• Life pre-1989 was like having lived in a basement
• "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"
• p.55...invisible fruit ink
• p.56..."I am books."'...
• p.66..."Come see what mythology has become.
• Labyrinths:
• inner ear
• life
• life in Bulgaria
• stories
• Blind Man's Bluff
• the internet, we are "Min-avatars" on Facebook
• an amphitheater, concentric circles...story of bull recognizing it
• Sheherazad's 1001 Arabian tales
• Colony Collapse Disorder...apian, humans
• Death has lost its face.....now it is from a distance
• Retell "The Old Man and The Sea" from the point of view of the fish
• Phobia of  being asked "How are you?"...triviality
• Review:  Brilliant!  Before reading this brilliant piece of literature, I recommend pondering the notion that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", and familiarizing yourself with the legend of the Minotaur.  Both are central to this collection/series/story.  Can you fathom being able to enter someone else's memory and then experiencing the memory as if it is yours? The experience of reading this literary wonder was akin to being in an intellectual and emotional labyrinth.  And lest you be misled, this is also a tribute to Bulgarian life, pre-1989, which is likened to living in a basement for almost an entire lifetime.  I laughed out loud and cringed with sadness because of this wonderful writer's use of language.  If it is this powerful in a translation,  I  am envious of those who are priveleged to read it in the original.

"The Son" by Jo Nesbo. *****

●  Audiobook
●  Norwegian author
●  Originally published in 2014
●  Mystery/Suspense
●  Review:  The perfect suspense novel in my opinion.  Good guys & bad guys, moral ambiguity, surprises, the power of love, loyalty, & forgiveness, even the eyes of an innocent witness to it all.  What more could anyone ask for?  Memorable characters, you say?  It has those too!  Read it!

"Take Me With You" by Catherine Ryan Hyde **

US author
Stewart Place Book Club
Originally published in 2014

Review:  Simplistic.  Dull.  Yuck!

"The Girl in the Spider's Web" by David Lagercrantz. ***

●  4th book in the Elizabeth Salander series
●  Swedish author
●  Originally published in 2015

● Review:   I was very disappointed in this book.  Stieg Larsson developed characters and drew the reader in from the very start. I was so annoyed with the techno-babble that I lost interest. Darn!