Challenge: 50 Books discussion

On to bigger and better things in 2014?

Good luck!!

Tiffany wrote: "Good luck!!"

thank you!

1 The Fault in Our Stars by John Green



4 stars

I was looking for something different. I wanted to listen to an audiobook that I would likely not read and asked for recommendations from my YA-loving friend, who said this book would be an excellent choice.

So I started listening without having one damn idea what the book was about. This well-written book, narrated by Hazel (or Hazel Grace, as some would know her) is the heartbreaking tale of first love and young death. Hazel and her boyfriend Augustus Waters have cancer. They meet in a cancer support group for young people and despite Hazel's misgivings, they fall in love.

You'd think a book about dying cancer patients couldn't have many spoilers, but you'd be wrong. And to say much more about this book's plot would spoil the lovely surprises in store for you if you decide to read it.

Hazel and Augustus are enthralling characters. They are both wise beyond their years, funny, articulate, clever, and on and on. Many people might believe their dialogue is unrealistic or that it's because they have grown up quickly due to their illnesses. I believe that they are so brilliant because Hazel is an only child and Augustus might as well be.

The audiobook was well done. Read (or should I say 'performed') by Kate Rudd, who did an admirable job of conveying Hazel's breathlessness, Augustus's deadpan delivery, and Van Houghton's weird way of talking.

I'm sad that the book is finished and I'm going to miss listening to Hazel Grace. I'd grown to quite like her and everybody else in the book.

In the past few years, I've set goals for myself beyond just reading 50 books.

Last year, I read Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and was struck by how delicately she told the story of climate change and how it, in this case, affects one family, one mountain, one town...

I'm in a group that is now reading Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River and enjoying the reading as well as the discussion. Knowing that I'm reading Leopold's book has inspired people to recommend other nature writers: Annie Dillard, Rachel Carson, and, of course, Thoreau. So my goal this year is to read more nature writing and become more informed on a subject that I think is really important to everybody.

2 This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett



4 stars

This is a collection of essays by Ann Patchett, the writer best known for her novel Bel Canto. Ann wanted to be a writer from a very young age, which is only surprising when you discover that she had a very difficult time learning to read and write. Good thing that she encountered Sister Nena, who devoted extra hours to the third-grade Ann, drilling her with flash cards and making sure that she could read and write before she went on to fourth grade.

Sister Nena is one of the recurring people in Ann Patchett's essays. Ann writes about her grandmother, who she takes care of as she ages; her dog, whom she loves dearly; her husband, who she marries after eleven years together; her parents, her first marriage, her divorce...her life.

Several essays made quite an impression on me. Ann's father retired from the LA Police Department and she wanted to write about being a police officer. She studied and trained and finally took the necessary tests: oral, written, and physical; passing them all. I was so impressed by her tenacity. Part of the physical test included scaling a six foot wall! There were few women who were able to do it and she passed the test on her first try. Ultimately, however, she didn’t join. Her father was pleased about her joining the police force, but resisted the realization that she wanted to join only to write about the experience. Once she passed the test, he came to terms with her motivation and asked that she not take a place on the force that he felt should go to somebody who really wanted to be a cop.

Ann wrote about taking a large motor home on a trip. Her boyfriend Carl insisted on going with her, although at the time they weren’t getting along so well and she resisted somewhat. It turned out that being together on the trip was a positive experience and good for their relationship. Besides, he could turn that huge beast around in places she would never have attempted. She relates stories about the people they met and the places they went: experiences she would never have had without this particular method of travel.

She also writes so lovingly of her grandmother, who she took care of as she aged and became frail and then senile. Once her grandmother’s vision had become so poor that she couldn’t read any more, Ann read to her, including the Little House books. They were reading one of the books that went on and on about a dreary winter. Finally one day Ann arrived to find that the book had been torn into teeny tiny shreds – the size of individual words. Her grandmother was tired of hearing of that awful winter. This struck me as especially funny considering the winter we’ve been having here in Chicago. I could completely understand how her grandmother felt.

A theme throughout the book was Patchett's troubled first marriage and divorce, her fear of a second divorce (and therefore a fear of remarrying.) I started to think that the title had nothing to do with actual marriage, and everything to do with her writing. Ultimately, she tells the story of her second marriage, but it's like no story you've heard before.


I found the essays to be interesting, clever, well-written, insightful, touching, and meaningful. As read by the author (I listened to this on Audible) they were especially delightful. Patchett has a pleasant voice and you know that the emphasis was exactly where she wanted it in every story, every paragraph, every sentence.

I loved Bel Canto and have read a few of her other books, which I liked, but not as much. Having read this now, I’m interested in checking out a few of her other books that I haven’t read yet.

3 Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon



3 stars

This was a quick read -- a murder mystery set in Venice. One of the great conductors in the world is found dead in his dressing room, poisoned by cyanide and, being a very unpleasant man, there are a number of people who the detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti, considers suspect. When I reached the end of the book, tho, I thought "Damn! I should have figured that out! All the pieces were there."

Brunetti is an interesting character, who deals with a moral dilemma in solving this particular mystery. I appreciated the way that it's resolved. I liked this book enough to go on to the next in the series.

4 The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly



3-1/2 stars

This Michael Connelly book is a Mickey Haller novel. Mickey is Harry Bosch's half brother and a defense attorney in LA, known as the Lincoln Lawyer. I appreciate the way that Connelly acknowledges the movie (starring Matthew McConaughey, before he became a 'legit' actor [my impression, not Connelly's,]) which in this case, instead of taking me out of the book, actually made it more realistic. (Unless they get somebody else to play the part, I'm guessing there won't be any more Lincoln Lawyer movies. I thought McConaughey was too young and too good looking for the part anyway.)

Mickey is called upon by a 'digital pimp' accused of killing one of his hookers. He tells Mickey that he was referred by the victim. The victim, Gloria, was Mickey's client years before and Mickey thought she had left 'the life' and was living in Hawai'i. It's a great set-up and the story just gets more compelling from there.

The thing about Connelly is that there's no fancy writing, no elaborate language. Just a gripping plot and intriguing characters that keep you interested from beginning to end. I grab every Michael Connelly book as soon as it comes out (although I was delayed in reading this one) and I don't see that ending any time soon.

5 Chronicles, Vol. 1 by Bob Dylan



4 stars

This is my second read of Chronicles. This is titled "Volume One" but I fear we may never get to read Volume Two. Dylan is, after all, 72; he won't be around forever, no matter how much I wish he would be.

Dylan covers several distinct periods in his life. He starts with his early days in New York and the people he meets. Insignificant people are painted like characters in his songs. When he was playing the basket houses (where you don't get paid; you passed the basket and hoped to get paid after you played)..."There was a guy named Billy the Butcher. He looked like he came out of nightmare alley. He only played one song --"High-Heel Sneakers" and he was addicted to it like a drug...The Butcher wore an overcoat that was too small for him, buttoned tight across the chest. He was jittery and sometime in the past he'd been in a straightjacket in Bellevue, also had burned a mattress in a jail cell. All kinds of bad things had happened to Billy. There was a fire between him and everybody else. He sang that one song pretty good, though."

In the next section, Dylan continues to talk about his years in New York and includes his childhood in Minnesota. He talks about the places he played, more about the people he met, the way that he learned to write songs and lyrics. Dylan always wanted to be in a band. It seems it was the only thing he was interested in from a young age. He didn’t do well in school, but he was an autodidact. If he had an interest in something, he would learn about it on his own. He went into friend’s libraries and devour their books. “I crammed my head full of as much of this stuff as I could stand and locked it away in my mind out of sight, left it alone. Figured I could send a truck back for it later.” And he did.

In the New Morning chapter, Dylan talks about his place in the world as The Voice of a Generation, as an Icon, as a leader. He never wanted it; never sought it out, and it became a burden, something pushed on him. People protested outside his house, wanting him to ‘lead’ them. They resented that he didn’t sing ‘protest’ songs anymore. This was in 1968, during the Viet Nam War, when draft resisters and college students were protesting the war and being bludgeoned by cops. But Dylan was in a different space. “Even the horrifying news items of the day, the gunning down of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X…I didn’t see them as leaders being shot down, but rather as father whose families had been left wounded.” Dylan was concerned for his family. “People think that fame and riches translate into power, that it brings glory and honor and happiness. Maybe it does, but sometimes it doesn’t. I found myself stuck in Woodstock, vulnerable and with a family to protect.”

This is one of the reasons that Dylan didn’t appear at An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music (commonly referred to as Woodstock,) and instead performed at the Isle of Wight Festival. He went to Jerusalem and was photographed at the Wailing Wall. He made a ‘country and western’ album. He “played a part in a movie, wore cowboy duds and galloped down the road.” He was doing everything he could to escape his image as a protest singer and counter-culture leader. Dylan wanted to be a family man, not what everybody else wanted him to be.

My favorite part of the book is his telling of the recording of the album Oh Mercy. Released in 1989, this is considered by many to be a minor album by Dylan, but it’s one of my favorites. It has a moody, dreamy quality about it, and reading about its production in New Orleans, I understand how that came about. I can almost feel the heavy air of New Orleans as I read it.

There were people who read Chronicles and wondered why it wasn’t a straight-ahead autobiography; first to last, A to Z for Zimmerman…Why did he focus on Oh Mercy, which so many people consider to be a minor work? This is Dylan; which I think is explanation enough, actually. He’s not going to do something as pedestrian as starting from birth and progressing to present day. I really do hope there’s another volume because Dylan has a million stories left to tell.

6 A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River by Aldo Leopold



I read this book with a group of students and faculty at the University where I work. (I'm neither student nor faculty, but they were kind enough to invite me to join them.) I enjoyed the weekly discussions and realize that a 'book club' (for lack of a better term) is a really great way to expand your perspective on an author's work.

Leopold writes beautifully about nature; his use of metaphor is very skillful. Nowadays his writing is called "creative non-fiction." He is purported to have coined the term "wilderness." One theme in the book is the loss of the wilderness, even though the time he writes about seems quaint to us now.

Some of his views, however, are quite dated; as expected, since the essays in this book were written early in the 20th century. His view of fox hunting, in particular, is completely repugnant.

Reading this book and participating in the discussion of it has started me on a path of reading about nature. I'm lucky to be in an environment where I have plenty of guidance in selecting more books to read.

7 The Red Road by Denise Mina



4 stars

I saw Denise Mina interviewed by Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show. She was captivating and funny and interesting. I love that Ferguson had her on his show -- how often is an author on a talk show? A novelist; an author that isn't Gwyneth or some former White House insider. Thank you, Craig Ferguson, for letting me see Denise Mina as herself instead of through the brilliant characters she creates in her books.

The Red Road is another in a series of Alex Morrow books. Alex is a brilliant and difficult detective. She doesn't think of her career before she takes a step -- she wants to get the bad 'guy' and she does whatever it takes, consequences be damned. This is why nobody in the department really likes her, but she gets grudging respect.

In this case, Alex has a mystery that she would prefer to ignore, but she can't. The finger prints of a man in prison are found at a recent crime scene. It's impossible that he was there; it's impossible that he committed the crime. So how were his prints there? What happened years ago when he was first committed of murder? Was he falsely accused? Who falsified the evidence? Who was the real killer? And what happens to this horrible man, who has committed other really despicable crimes since, if he's exonerated of the first crime for which he was imprisoned? And whose toes will she step on when the truth is revealed? Alex doesn't care -- she's going to find out the truth, and that's what makes the books about Alex Morrow so much fun to read.

8 Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov



2-1/2 stars

This is one of the most bizarre books I've ever read. I'm not giving away too much by saying what's in the synopsis given by Goodreads: a famous doctor at the beginning of the Russian revolution brings home a stray dog. A dog that is sad and hungry and happy to be taken home by somebody--anybody--who won't abuse him. At the beginning of the book, the voice changes abruptly from the dog's first person to third person. This doctor has been performing "rejuvenation" operations on people and eventually performs an operation on the dog; transplanting the pituitary and testicles of a human into the dog.

Soon the dog begins to develop human characteristics, even standing on his hind legs and speaking. Unfortunately, the friendly, sweet dog who is unable to lose all his canine attributes, turns into a real problem for the doctor, his assistant, and the women in the household.

Once the dog is operated on you lose his insight, as he no longer provides any narration. He takes up with the revolutionaries in the doctor's building and the doctor is considered a counter-revolutionary because he refuses to give up any rooms in his spacious apartment, even though he uses it for consulting and surgery as well as living space.

The story reaches what I think is its inevitable end, but I really don't understand what the author was trying to say. Maybe I need to give it more thought. Or maybe not.

9 Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn



Gone Girl started out so well; a great premise, executed so well -- I couldn't put it down. Then about half way through -- the twist. I didn't think things could get more interesting, but they did. It was even harder to stop reading and go to sleep or go to work...

Then the ending. So disappointing. Such a letdown.

Two stars

10 The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman



2 stars

(I listened to this on Audible)
I had quite a bit of trouble with the character of Nate. He believes in his superior intelligence, but he's shallow, he's superficial, and he's unaware of his own feelings. He doesn't know what he wants in a woman. One of the passages that really annoyed me was when he fixated on the loose flesh under his girlfriend's arms. The same girlfriend who he earlier described as "almost too thin" is suddenly not working hard enough at Pilates and he is repulsed by her to a degree that's beyond comprehension. I'm sure my mouth hung open in disbelief while I listened to this portion of the book.

I was frustrated by Nate because I kept wondering, "do men really think this way?" Certainly his actions were familiar to those I'd encountered in my dating life. While dating one woman he became more and more critical and she tried harder and harder to please him, which resulted in him feeling contempt for her. This book may be written by a woman, but I have to believe that she has some insight into the mind of shallow, rude men. I only kept listening to see if Nate got his comeuppance.

The performance of the reader, Nick Podehl, didn't help matters. Several times the inflection he used for a character's voice didn't match the description of the tone that the character was supposed to have used. (Which made me wonder about the direction and the editing as well) Worst of all, he doesn't know how to voice female characters. All his female characters sounded like stereotypically bitchy, lisping gay men instead of women, and the voice for a particular character wasn't consistent throughout the read. I can't recommend the audio version of this book for that reason alone.

11. Night Film by Marisha Pessl

2-1/2 stars (and I think that's generous)

Night Film was suspenseful. The daughter of a reclusive director dies in a supposed suicide, soon after being spotted by the disgraced reporter who made unsubstantiated charges against the director. Scott McGrath is determined to investigate her death and soon finds a coat check girl who has the daughter, Ashley's, coat; and a young man who knew her years ago at a camp for problem teens.

The three of them follow obscure clues to piece together Ashley's history, her father's fabled movie-making, the people who worked for him that won't talk about their experiences. There's magic, there's rumour, there's mystery. There's a web site by the cult followers of the director, Cordova, that details every moment of the man's life and every second of his films, many of which would not be released by studios and therefore became "night films:" shown secretly in underground locations by the "Cordovites."

The book sustained my interest for the first two-thirds/three-quarters...but it lost its way and it was hard to finish. After at least two false endings, the actual ending was a disappointment. In addition, I had a problem with the author's inability to trust the reader to know what was important in a sentence. There was a lot of this (opening the book at random): "There was something in their expression, the way they glanced at each other." "Yet, it moved." "She was wearing that coat." I could have figured out on my own what to emphasize in reading those sentences.

12. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain



4 stars

This book was given to my husband and me by our friend Christine. She recommends really good books, and this is no exception.

Billy Lynn is home from Iraq. He is a war hero now and being shuttled around on a "victory tour." Little by little we learn of what heroics happened in Iraq, Billy's history and family, his Bravo Squad mates, and how baffling the US is to a young man who joined the Army under duress.

I appreciate the way that Ben Fountain rolled the story out. We get little hints here and there before we find out the reality of certain situations. (view spoiler)[I read "nina leven" about a half dozen time before I realized that it's not the name of a woman, but people talking to Billy about "Nine Eleven" (hide spoiler)]

13. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami



3-1/2 stars

I've long been a fan of Haruki Murakami and I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't one of his best. Tsukuru Tazaki was indeed colorless, although he improved over the duration of the book. This is the first time I've read Murakami and thought he didn't really have an idea where the book was going. Then I read a review where he pretty much said that. It's obvious, but still a decent read. I just have higher standards for Murakami.

One thing I do have to mention is the physical book itself. I loved the book design so much. Its size, its dimensions, its cover and the design that's carried inside the book. Damn! This book was a pleasure to view and to hold.

14. Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon



4-1/2 stars

I loved this book so much. I thought I could hear the jazz in the narrator's voice as I read it. (Unfortunately, I listened to a sample of the audiobook and the reader just did not capture the rhythm and blues of the book.)

15. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt



5 stars

I read this book twice this year. I read it in March in a rush. I had to know what happened to Theo. I have never in my life engaged in a book the way that I did this one. I woke up at night wondering if Theo was okay. What happened to him since I went to sleep? You may say I was obsessed, but I was immersed in his world and so concerned about his well-being that I couldn't put the book down and when I did, it haunted me.

The second reading was more leisurely. I knew what happened, so I didn't have to rush through it. The book held up -- it was still a great read.

The only thing I would say (in agreement with my mother-in-law) is that the section set in Las Vegas was a bit too long. Still, it set the stage for later events and I wouldn't discount my admiration for the total book on that count.

Ah, 2014. almost over and no more books to be finished this year. in spite of the fact that i read only 16 books (count The Goldfinch and its 771 pages twice) I had a really great year and I'm looking forward to a great 2015.