Nutshell by Ian McEwan

Not all novels we read are required to “Suspend Disbelief” to be successful.

Maybe it’s not so much the belief that is important, but rather that disbelief has a broad range including talking animals (kid’s books) and alien beings (SciFi).

At least, in our case with “Nutshell”, the protagonist baby is Homo sapiens, in the truest sense, since he is wise. 

We learn, from this very communicative prenatal being that he is a bon vivant extraordinaire with a strong influence from southern France (he enjoys a Meursault rather than Champagne).  His knowledge of literature and the arts is due to listening to podcasts.  This is also how he has developed reasonable psychological and analytical skills, allowing our inside (double entendre [pardon]) observation of an A-to-Z homicide: plan, execution, and wrap-up.

There are probably crimes committed somewhere on this Earth every minute.  The motives behind the plan are fully transparent: greed and lust.  Our author does not attempt to imitate either A.C. Doyle or A. Christie with execution details of the crime.

The delicious joy of the read lies in the unfolding of the story, comically, step-by-step through the detective work of our raconteur narrator.

è     Not advisable if pregnant.

The Little French Bistro by Nina George

I’ll stay with the Comic Sans type font; it is appropriate for this delightful story. This book is only recently out in translation, summer 2017, although first published in Germany in 2010.  The 7-year gap to English reflects last year’s popularity of a translation of “The Little Paris Bookshop” first published in 2013 as “Das Lavendelzimmer”.

This is an enjoyable read.  The plotline is simple and her characters are big and bold.  This was the lead in book to -Paris Bookshop-.  She has developed her writing talents noticibly between the two books.

The author of this Bistro book has incorporated throughout a strong feminist viewpoint: self-actualization, powerful roles, gender co-support.  She goes as far as the lady of the lake and mystical/spiritual powers.

There are many plot lines: the protagonist’s coming of age (60), many love relationships, food, art, the sea, and love 'toujours l'amour'.

This book has interesting take-aways: knowledge of the Breton coastline of Brittany, its Welsh-type language, its Celtic history and links to Merlin and King Arthur, lots of cooking tips and recipes.

A book that makes the reader laugh and cry.

Brain Rules by John Medina

If I were still reviewing books with Pat Nolan, he would have been into this book with double-energy.  Not only is it non-fiction, it’s about the brain and how the brain functions, written by a molecular biologist.

Professor Medina hits exactly the right note for my liking.  I don’t think there is anything new here, but for me, he reinforces all those ingrained homilies about a good night’s sleep, balanced diet, and a reasonable amount of exercise.  It also helps, we all know, to never cease to push oneself into social, physical, and intellectual activities.

Here’s a sample of why I like his writing.

On the next page, I’ll show a reprint of his Contents page

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

An interesting and significant short 5000 word story hits your desk.
On its own with no context, the reading public will never recognize it for what it is.
So you dress it up with 20,000 words of Q and A interrogative dialogue to explain the context.  You add in:
-     An Afterword
-     A Few Illustrations
-     A Note from the Illustrators
-     A Postscript
-     A Conversation between … ..
-     Questions for Discussion
-     A Bio
-     An About the Translations
-     An About the Illustrators
-     A Preface
-     An Introduction
-     A few “Praise For” Pages
-     Massive white space, fewer than 200 words per page
And it still only weighs in at 160 small pages.
However, I’m happy they got it out there! !! !!!
It’s a great short story.  Not a new plot theme, but well done.
A story we will all remember.  The Q and A will serve as a good reference guide.

Can't we talk about something more PLEASANT?

GOOD CHOICE this month ! !

I liked this book so much, I bought a copy to share with:

 

my kid sister, with whom I shared death duties;

my ex-wife, who also played a role;
& my daughter, whose turn will soon come.

I have read a few graphic novels.  This one was especially good because:

-  I’ve been there, done that, forgotten memories;
-  Ros Chast is an accomplished author
    {many books, professional cartoonist);
-     It’s the answer to dyslexia (heard on NPR).

-    Graphic books level the playing field for reading.

-    Dyslexia or not, reading is an elite class distinction.
-    Movies were the first leveler, bringing stories to billions rather than millions.
-    We have moved into the age of podcast, utube, & graphic novel.
-    Next is 140 second downloaded multimedia – binge-watched or one segment at a time.
-    Trump would love this media if only he had an art director.

  

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

I’m in the final quarter of the Gamache book now, and having recently listened to the NPR Terry Gross interview of Le Carré, I must comment on the similarity of the situations upon which both authors wanted their central characters to expound.

The Sûreté calls back Chief Superintendent Gamache from retirement to solve one final, world-level problem, just as George Smiley was so many times.  Le Carré could not call Smiley back yet again, so he has resurrected young Peter Guillam, now decades into retirement.

The consideration for both authors, through both their alter egos, is guilt – conscience – responsibility to governments versus God, or just the fellowship of humankind.

Le Carré is 85 and was a bit doddering and self-engrossed on the Terry Gross interview.  He feels the world is going to hell in a hand-basket.  Europe, and Democracy was the focus of his life, and it’s all falling apart.

Penny is struggling with her demons as well.  She’s looking at 60 next year; she’s had now two successful careers.  Her Chief man of Justice, like Smiley, is a learned man, revered by his compatriots, poking around the Sûreté hallways, studies old manuscripts in ancient languages.

Any renaissance man, however, can become an anachronism, one that needs a slight shove.  A few decades later, only the questions remain: “Was it all worth the man’s efforts?”  “Did I do right or wrong?”  “Was my life worthwhile?”  “How will I be remembered?”  “Did I make a difference?”

I was living in England in 1982, when “Smiley’s People” came out as a BBC production: 6 parts, an hour each, starring Alec Guinness, who had starred in “Tinker, Tailor” in 1979.  I have the videos for both of these productions and watch them at least once a year.  They renew my Englishness.

Eeny-Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

Let me get the synopsis over quickly.  In the end, it sucked.  The author gets points for edginess and points for an audacious psychological plotline.  As a first novel, he over-extends his welcome, blows his wad on a first attempt by running out of steam, and then forcing the last half of the story into illogical and unbelievable situations.

The conversation with MJ [at the end] bears ignoring.

The Discussion Questions are easily dismissed: (1) Biblically, murder is wrong, no two ways about it; (2) Helen is classically flawed – should have died in the end; (3) Gender is not a factor [ERA] in career suitability; (4) Freedom of the press is the law of the land; (5) a contrived choice about Mark; (6) a contrived Point-In-Time analysis; (7) Text never gets into “the divide” between public and private; (8) It’s a Bell curve on criticism, 50-50 self-others; (9) meaningless to analyze an anthropomorphic fictional character (10) Not a real twist. We never knew of a sister at the beginning!  (11) It’s meaningless to analyze an anthromorphic fictional character; (12) meaningless to analyze an anthromorphic fictional character.

Southampton is a small city of 250,000 – half the size of Santa Rosa.  It’s unbelievable that a murderer could get away with the same MO for so long in a small town.  It’s never explained how the sister continued to get so much personal information about Helen and the investigation.  Whittaker was the mole, but he should have known far less than the sister found out; Helen wasn’t close to him and the top dog is often kept out of the loop.

Initially I thought this was edgy writing and thought it was nice for a change to get away from the conservative Bostonian critics’ circle.  I soon realized it was merely salacious garbage thrown in for the movie scriptwriters to play with.  Charlie is beautiful so we can see her stripped naked at the tail end, this was not a story about women getting ahead in the world.  Helen so we can watch her stunt-double get whipped in the X-rated version, not exactly a reprise role for Helen Mirren.

The instances of eeny-meeny were way too numerous.  The author must have tired of so many as well and he shortened their period of captivity as the story went on.  The Donner Party went months: these guys caved within days, the last pair – trained police officers.  Pi lasted all the way across the Pacific Ocean.  Why did no pair decide to draw straws on day one or two?  Why did Charlie not shoot off the rat’s head?

The U.K.’s Scotland Yard or Special Branch would have been called in almost immediately – no one would have left things go on that long.  In any reputable police organization, they would sack Helen straightaway for taking things into her own hands.

No Good Deed by Allison Brennan

The question is, “Why is this book a Sonoma County Library Selection of the Month?”. It clearly is a terrible selection for a sophisticated and learned group of readers like ours at the local Guerneville library.

In street parlance, “This book sucks!”

There are two stylistic reasons for my denigration of this book and its author. But, before I get into those, let me clarify a minor effrontery to our readership group.

Periodically Lucy, the alter ego of the author let’s go with a salvo of thoughts that she has (or she thinks the readership should have), killing any suspense in the plot line progression. The author over-clarifies what is happening.

My minor set of problems with this book is clarity of purpose – what is this book about? It has excessively many issues: drugs, cartels, money, scams, FBI, DEA, politicians, perverts, marines. … .. The writing’s Point Of View passes from one to another across more than a dozen people. Was this a draft, tossing the spaghetti on the wall to see what stuck? It has some of the makings of a good guy - bad guy story, but everyone has so many flaws, I can’t get behind any of them. Maybe Mary, the kid in the bus in the opening, who hugged Isaac Harris; she was transparent.

My major problem with the book is the plethora of characters introduced. And they are only introduced. 44 of the 85 characters introduced in the first third (12 of 38 chapters) of the book only appear in their introductory chapter. This appears to be a consistent pattern. Interestingly, 6-7 characters appear consistently in over half the chapters, as one might expect in a normal novel. I am suspicious that this trend will continue throughout the book. She’s introducing 5-6 characters a chapter consistently, without let-up. It appears to me as stylistic, possibly cultural, almost as if necessary to identify, in detail, every child, aunt and/or uncle connected to the main characters, no matter how inconsequential.

It crosses my mind that the author owes friends, family, and neighbor’s mentions in their books in order to maintain their good standing as an author, or a friend. The 44 characters with a single line in a single chapter place an undue burden of the readership. Do these characters matter? Will they come back in later? Is there a clue here that I am missing? The rate of character introduction is so consistent and predictable that we will have over two hundred characters by book’s end; a hundred of them passing fancies.