It's the middle of April. What are you reading?

It's a blustery, partly-cloudy day where I am; April weather.  In keeping with this, I'm setting aside The Dovekeepers and picking up Wild, Cheryl Strayed's memoir.  Here is a link to Dwight Garner's review of Wild in the New York Times.  It sounds great.  Can't wait to start reading.

North Korea in Books: "The Orphan Master's Son" and "Escape from Camp 14"

Although I've finished Adam Johnson's novel The Orphan Master's Son, I'm postponing publishing my review of it until I read Escape from Camp 14, Blaine Harden's nonfiction book about a man's journey out of one of North Korea's prison camps.   Here is a link to Janet Maslin's review in the New York Times of Escape from Camp 14.

Preview of my thoughts on The Orphan Master's Son:  A great read.

Vote in the Independent Book Blogger Awards Contest

Today, I am asking for a favor:  I would greatly appreciate your vote for this blog in the Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards (IBBA) contest.

To vote, just follow the IBBA link below, or over in the right column:

Vote for this blog for the Independent Book Blogger Awards!

Vote

If you are not already a member of Goodreads, you'll be asked register, which is easy to do.  Goodreads is a cool book site; you'll like it.  And, of course, voting is always fun.

Thanks a bunch!  Send me an email if you have any questions about this.

Best,

Amy

View from the beach. Kauai.

Links for Mystery Lovers: From the LA Times Magazine: The Best of 2011 and New in 2012

Keep this list handy if you are looking to assemble a stack of books for vacation or summer reading:  Otto Penzler's selection of the best mysteries of last year, and five to check out in 2012, in the LA Times Magazine.

Of the five to watch for in 2012, I am particularly looking forward to reading Steve Hamilton's Die a Stranger.  The book is a continuation of Hamilton's private eye series set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and featuring former Detroit police detective Alex McKnight.  If you haven't read the Alex McKnight series, check it out.  You are in for a treat.  There are eight other books in this entertaining series:

A Cold Day in Paradise (1998)

Winter of the Wolf Moon (2000)

The Hunting Wind (2002)

North of Nowhere (2003)

Blood is the Sky (2004)

Ice Run (2005)

A Stolen Season (2006)

Misery Bay (2011)

The Alex McKnight series is set on the shores of Lake Superior, pictured below,

the greatest of the Great Lakes.

Book Snapshots: "Truth Like the Sun" by Jim Lynch.

Helen Gulanos is an ambitious Seattle newspaper reporter.  Roger Morgan is running for mayor.  In Truth Like the Sun, Gulanos is investigating the 70-year old candidate who is famous in the city for being influential in civic matters and a leading force behind the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

The novel alternates from Roger Morgan's activities back in '62 to 2001 and his campaign and Gulanos' investigation.  The chapters set in 2001 are exciting and author Jim Lynch makes great use of his journalism background.  Helen Gulanos has caught the sent of a good story, perhaps even an award winner, in Roger Morgan's campaign.  Under the pressure of deadlines, competition and her own personal life, she works to build something while managing the expectations of her editors and colleagues.  Also well done is Roger Morgan as candidate:  Knocking on doors, holding events, appearing at candidate forums.  Roger is lively, occasionally funny, and a sympathetic character.  It seems like he might be a good mayor, and we wonder what Gulanos might turn up in her exploration of the man.

The chapters set in 1962 show Roger running the fair.  Lynch vividly invokes the period through many details about that event and world news of the time.  Roger, already an important guy in the city, starts exploring and learning more about what is really going on in Seattle.  There is vice and corruption.  Will it stick to him?

Truth Like the Sun is an interesting read about what happens at the intersection of politics, influence and journalism.

Book Snapshots: "The Snow Child" by Eowyn Ivey.

Confession:  I purchased The Snow Child
solely on the basis of its wonderful dust-jacket.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is an unusual novel, and that may make it worth reading for some folks.  Set in 1920s, it is about a couple who, at about age 50, move to Alaska to homestead.  This couple, Jack and Mable, have no children and the pain they feel over this is the book's central issue.

Amid the hardship and isolation of homesteading, Jack and Mable either see or imagine a little girl living in the wilderness.  Mable thinks the girl may be a child they created out of their love, longing for a child, and snow.  She recalls that during her own childhood, she read a Russian fable about an old couple who had done such a thing.  Eventually Jack and Mable meet the mysterious little girl, and the novel unwinds from there.  Who, or what, is the child?  and what will happen to her?

Author Eowyn Ivey, a native of Alaska, does great work showing life on the frontier, its challenges and beauties.  She uses the difficult life her characters have chosen so late (people only lived on average to their mid-50s in 1920) to further dramatizes Jack and Mable's sorrow over their childless state, which pumps up our apprehension when a 'snow' child arrives on the scene.  Although I found the last quarter of the book unsatisfying, The Snow Child is certainly a unique story.  If that is what you are looking for, then check it out and let me know what you think about this book.  I'd like to hear your views.

      



 

"The Cat's Table" by Michael Ondaatje: A beautifully written story with a splash of mystery and danger.

The Cat's Table is a wonderful novel.   It is set primarily in the early 1950s and the majority of the action takes place on a passenger ship.  Traveling alone on this ship is an eleven-year old boy named Michael.  Michael is leaving his family in Sri Lanka to join his mother in England.  For his meals, Michael is assigned a seat at a table with nine people.  "'We seem to be at the cat's table,'" quips one of the group, "'We're in the least privileged place.'"    

This cat's table includes an interesting group of hard-to-categorize adults as well as two other boys, Ramadhin and Cassius.  The story follows the boys adventures on the ship, although the word "adventures" seems too strong a word for this gentle, insightful read.

Three elements of the book stand out:  First, it is grand to see people and events through the eyes of the boys on the ship.  Second, I like the contrast between the world of an 11-year old and later chapters in The Cat's Table where Michael is older.  Childhood looks more serene and magical; adolescence and adulthood are not that way.  Third, the adults on the ship are a wonderful collection of characters.  I particularly like Miss Lasqueti, who made the quip quoted above.  A woman of many talents, she spends her days reading mysteries in a lounge chair on the ship's deck, tossing overboard books that disappoint.  A character after my own heart.

A very enjoyable book.  The Cat's Table is recommended reading.