Circling the Sun by Paula McClain

This is my first choice of book for an afternoon discussion party with my daughter, Patricia, and two couples who are friends of mine; they’re a little older than my daughter, but with shared travel and readership interests. 

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McLain’s book about Beryl Markham invokes in me the spirit of adventure that pulls together the infrequent assertive and aggressive nature of my English wife, Sue, who like Beryl Markham, spent her teen years in Africa; and with Patricia’s similar youthful rebellious nature.

 

 

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Patricia’s background stands toe-to-toe with Robin and Padma, who have likewise achieved intellectual independence, albeit a generation earlier, thus all the more difficult.  From my perspective, all three cross paths on many arcs. x

I hope that this specific book, and for those with a bit more time, Beryl’s own book, “West with the Night”, will form the basis for many common talking points: Africa, flying airplanes, raising horses, African-American relationships, education & teaching, and travel.x

Of course, I assume that all conversations will roam through the gamut of this group’s experiences and thoughts.  Flying, horses, England and Africa are just starting points.x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patricia’s background stands toe-to-toe with Robin and Padma, who have likewise achieved intellectual independence, albeit a generation earlier, thus all the more difficult.  From my perspective, all three cross paths on many arcs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

This is an awesome book – very entertaining – and well-written.

It is the “Sonoma County Reads” selection for 2015.  That means it is available for free at any public Library in Sonoma County, in Spanish or English.

No credit for translation is given in the English edition, so we must assume that the author, himself, wrote in one language or the other and then translated himself.

The book works in either language and is a pleasure to read.

Wind / Pinball

I’ve only recently discovered this author, albeit famous to the rest of the world for decades.  This is such surprising, consciousness-shaking prose.  He is always an inspiration to unique thought and alternate views of the world around us.

.These are his earliest works, novellas: just now translated.

Forty years ago, but his style is recognizable and thoroughly enjoyable.

The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

I have just finished this 350-page tome, with total satisfaction from another successful Québécois (?) novel.

Chief Inspector Gamache has retired into the not so sleepy village of Three Pines, outside of Quebec.  But author Louise Penny just couldn’t let her Sûreté murder detective quietly retire.  2015 has brought us another novel in this fascinating and unique series.

I’ve lost count of the number of novels in this series, upwards of ten.  The count is important to genre lovers, who like to periodically “binge read” for weeks or months.  This is a good series for that sort of passion.

The family and friends of Three Pines are always central to the plot themes of a Chief Inspector Gamache novel.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Right off the top let me say that this is a brilliantly written book.  The author has captured the argot, if there can be one, of tween cancer kids. 

An author takes on the challenge of directing us, we the readers, into following their plot line.  Not asking too many questions; nay, manipulating us into tears and cheers and suspending disbelief in all else but their story. 

John Green, the author, has done this with “… .. Stars”.  I bought in, almost from the first chapter.  I was following with cheers and tears throughout most of the book. 

Thankfully (or unfortunately), we are not allowed to delve into word choice, sentence structure, motivations, or even characterizations, since this is, in fact, a novel intended for young teenagers.  We, Library book club readers, have long been out of touch with this demographic.  Sympathetic, yes; but unable to judge whether this book merits value to its’ supposed audience. 

I enjoyed the opportunity to read this book.  However, I can’t judge whether or not we went far afield in a domain alien to Brown-Baggers.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

It’s a series of great vignettes, written well, with wonderful and thorough research.  It documents some of the taming of the American West, which is a gaping hole in American literature.  All we have previously had is shoot-em-up Westerns.  Filling this gap is why it merited a Pulitzer Prize.

There are two thin plot-lines:

(1)  Two mismatched people, sacrificing their lives to the other’s desire for no good reason.  It reminds one of O’Henry’s, “The Gift of the Magi”, without the moral ending; a tragic ending in Stegner’s tale.

(2) The other tale, not nearly so interesting, is the ramblings of an old, lonely man.  He is trying to accommodate rationalizing his self-sorry state with family history, and the world that has passed him by.

It’s a good documentary, but no one has picked up the ideas for a dramatic movie, TV show, or documentary in over forty years now.  It’s a tragic family story, with no redemption.

 

Some of the best scene-scripting of any movie never made was captured in this book:

(a)  Susan’s descent into the New Almaden mine

(b) Susan’s ascent over Mosquito Pass getting to Leadville

(c)  The dreams of Lyman Ward

 

The early scenes of San Jose, Grass Valley and San Francisco are treasures for those of us who have grown up around the Bay Area.  Stegner’s descriptions of the sights, sounds, smells and people in those days 60-70 years before I came to California are inspirational to me.  I am also reminded that 60-70 years ago was when I did come to California.

 

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Well, this starts out being a “Walter Mitty” romp[1] around the dinner table, possibly in the fantasies of Paul Lohman. That’s the first third of the book, and the reader buys into this take.

It’s in second third of the book that we suspect that this might be a comedy of errors[2] , although we note that things have gone to the noir side of story-telling, and we hope that the author resolves some of the nagging questions sooner rather than later, and with a positive, life-embracing twist.

Unfortunately, we move into the final third of the novel, assuming the worst case.  They (this broad family clan) are all mad, psychotic sociopaths, out to whimsically murder anyone and everyone without a care in the world.

In the end, most readers will feel glad that their last family dinner party wound up with only a drunk spouse and a petulant teen; and will be glad to avoid seeing family for another year.

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[1] From Wikipedia: “in James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939.  Mitty is a meek, mild man with a vivid fantasy life: in a few dozen paragraphs he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. The character's name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries.”

[2] From Wikipedia: A comedy of errors is a narrative work (often a play) that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone, in which the action usually features a series of comic instances of mistaken identity, and which typically culminates in a happy resolution of the thematic conflict.  A slight variation of the "comedy of errors" discipline is farcical theatre, which revolves around humor caused by the foolish mistakes of unintelligent characters and the chaos that derives from it. Examples of farces include British sitcom Fawlty Towers and Men Behaving Badly, as well as films like Monty Python's Life of Brian and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

 

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[1] From Wikipedia: “in James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939.  Mitty is a meek, mild man with a vivid fantasy life: in a few dozen paragraphs he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. The character's name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries.”

[2] From Wikipedia: A comedy of errors is a narrative work (often a play) that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone, in which the action usually features a series of comic instances of mistaken identity, and which typically culminates in a happy resolution of the thematic conflict.  A slight variation of the "comedy of errors" discipline is farcical theatre, which revolves around humor caused by the foolish mistakes of unintelligent characters and the chaos that derives from it. Examples of farces include British sitcom Fawlty Towers and Men Behaving Badly, as well as films like Monty Python's Life of Brian and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.