Lory

This was just outstanding in its ability to describe an intolerable situation with humor, honesty and warmth, without blunting its horror. Amazing from beginning to end.

I am sure I had not read this one before, and it was diverting enough, but not particularly distinctive in any way. The inspector getting, uh, up close and personal with a suspect was a bit weird.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. Fascinating, chilling, and infuriating, Dark Money is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what is behind some of the more puzzling developments of our time, such as the sudden drop in public concern about climate change, one of the most insidious products of the Kochs' ideological mill, and the rise of the Tea Party, an ersatz grassroots movement grown in the soil of big money. Mayer methodically and convincingly traces the fingerprints of the robber barons who profit most from our oil-based economy, and provides an essential awareness of some of the hidden forces that shape our lives.

Book version of Crystal's long-running stage show. Of course it would be more dynamic in action ... but it was a pleasant read, aside from some groan-worthy off-color jokes (but I guess that was the point). Interesting story of Crystal's family background as supporters of jazz musicians and recording artists, who knew? And the comedy was mixed with the moving and tragic, with his father's early death.

This book was a somewhat uncomfortable combination of two elements: information about the emerging science on how traumatic events can actually affect our genes and thus the next generations, and anecdotes and practices coming out of Wolynn's therapeutic work with clients who appear to be repeating family traumas in their own lives and psyches. The latter is a more metaphorical / energetic kind of process than strictly biological, and although putting the genetic science first seems to be an attempt to legitimize the therapy, it actually weakens Wolynn's credibility because in many cases there is no evident link (e.g. one of the very first examples he gives involves an uncle who does not have any genetic connection with the subject). As many impatient and dismissive reviews here on GR attest, this turns off some readers immediately, and I think they have some reason. Genes affected by trauma may explain descendants having SOME kind of weakness or dysfunction, but they can't determine them to repeat in great emotional and psychological detail the SAME kind of trauma. This seems to me to require further research.

I happen to be sympathetic to the metaphorical approach, and also a student of karma (which I think is involved in such cases), so I let this disjunction slide and enjoyed the latter part of the book on its own terms. I have come to some of the same conclusions already through events in my own life, so it was very interesting to read the stories about family trauma being passed down through the generations. I wish I had had Wolynn's advice to follow much earlier; it could have saved me a good deal of pain and suffering. Even at this late date, it has helped me to clarify some of my issues and to identify some healing practices I can still try. I'm looking forward to doing more research of my own.

Kalanithi‘s story makes it clear both why medicine becomes dehumanized (it's hard to remain open in the face of suffering) and how powerful it can be when doctors retain a sense of the sacred mystery of their calling and the reality of the human core that is not only body or mechanism. This book is a record of a brave man's life and its writing an act of courage itself, the reading of which can help us face our lives more bravely too. Science and spirit are not opposites, but in their true nature belong together. It's the battle to bring them into harmony that is our true challenge today, and this book an eloquent example of that fight.

I read rave reviews about the book after watching the John Wayne movie (I've not seen the more recent remake), and I expected it to be fabulous. However, although the narration by Mattie does add something to the reading experience, aside from the ending that was softened for the movie the plot is exactly the same and so held little in the way of suspense or surprise for me. Barring that element, there was not much else to it, so I'm a little baffled by all the praise.

I'm going on a Kate Milford binge after reading The Raconteur's Commonplace Book and needing more background. TLHF was a welcome return to Lucy and Liao, although I thought it was not as successful as Bluecrowne - more muddled and unfocused. The quest for a mysterious object that nobody can really describe or define was not convincing. How on earth could the questers latch onto those particular objects from the cryptic descriptions? I know Nagspeake is not really our regular earth, but still. There were some missing steps, which is unfortunate because usually Milford is careful about making her magic systems coherent.

The romance element was also totally unnecessary and felt tacked-on. Not one of the strongest in the series, although it was fun to visit some new corners of Nagspeake.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. I opened The Bear and the Nightingale with great anticipation and not a little trepidation; since the trend for fairy-tale fiction exploded some years ago, there have been some brilliant entries in the genre and some derivative duds. Katherine Arden's debut novel looked promising, with its half-magical, half-historical Russian setting and an enticing cover, but what looks good doesn't always turn out to be so in the reading.

Fortunately, from the first pages I was entranced, as Arden quickly led me into a truly wonder-full world, in which the time-honored motif of the mistreated stepdaughter gains new strength and richness through her multi-layered telling. There's so much to discover and enjoy that I'd like to encourage you to just pick it up and explore it for yourself ... but to name a few favorite aspects, I especially appreciated how elements of folklore and myth were treated in a way that brought them to life for modern readers, while feeling genuinely atmospheric and psychologically true. At the same time, the historical setting – a medieval land of wooden huts, wandering monks and tribal machinations – is briefly but convincingly developed through details of life and language.

Toward the end, I found that Arden's storytelling weakened a bit. The villains became more one-sided and less interesting, and the battles with monsters started to feel too much like a video-game slugfest for my personal taste. I'm hoping that in the sequels (and yes! there will be sequels!) she'll carry the skill she shows so amply in the buildup of this story through to the very last pages. I will definitely be watching for her next effort with great interest, and confidence that this time my expectations will be rewarded.

This short novel is a beautifully written, dreamlike monologue, a rant by the purported brother of the “Arab” killed by Meursault in Camus's novel L'étranger. Daoud imagines the latter as a nonfiction account written by Meursault himself, who subsequently has become acclaimed for his writing and philosophy, while the Algerians of the tale sink further into degradation and anonymity following a violent war of independence. The “Investigation” author questions nearly everything about the famous book, asserting that nearly all the details are wrong even as he seems to channel Meursault-like qualities, almost in a state of possession. It's a strange, idiosyncratic narrative that left me as bemused as the narrator's bar acquaintance must have been. What really happened under the sun? What is life, what is fiction? Can we ever know?

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

Very interesting survey of a year of turmoil and conflict in English history, following the Gunpowder Plot. I found it very illuminating to place Shakespeare's plays within their social and historical context. It also gives a glimpse of how historians come up with some of their ideas based on fragmentary evidence. Though Shapiro identifies three plays, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra, as being produced in 1606, only the first is fairly certain (that's why the book is called “The Year of Lear”). He makes a good case for the others, but this and many other statements should be taken for what they are: theories. There is also a fair amount of speculation, of the “Did Shakespeare feel this or that at the time? We can't know for certain” variety. Overall, it's like a tapestry with huge holes that has been filled in – convincingly, and helping us to see the big picture that otherwise would be hard to imagine, but keep in mind that it may not fully match the original.

Love the overall theme of spiritual training in a vaguely Celtic setting. The ending was a bit rushed, as with Wise Child. From former readings, I remembered most vividly the fact that Juniper's leaving a flaw in her Doran cloak that she thought no one would notice, resulted in her being injured by her enemy - a powerful image that stuck with me.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. Finding the truth about the Soviet era is not easy, and Shostakovich's true thoughts and feelings are basically impossible to uncover, given his need to mask and conceal himself in order to survive. But Anderson brought clarity into a murky time while still allowing us to feel its painful ambiguity. I was not so enamored of the author's writing style, with its short, choppy sentences enlivened by the occasional hyperbolic statement or pop-culture reference. I'm not sure if this was meant as a gesture toward the book's intended audience, older teens and young adults, but I found it unfortunate and clumsy.

Still, I learned a tremendous amount about events of which I knew little and am even more impressed than ever by Shostakovich's ability to create under such circumstances. I also have to mention the stunning cover and excellent design overall. As with another new release from Candlewick that I enjoyed recently, The Hired Girl, the design is perfectly in tune with the contents, and I appreciate that attention to detail.

See my full review on The Emerald City Book Review.As usual in Alcott's children's books, there is an overtly didactic strain to the narrative, with small lectures about honesty, hard work, and selflessness. Although that did not bother me unduly, I found the characters to be less distinctive and nuanced than in Little Women, and Polly is a bit too much of a paragon to fully blossom into life. But there are some scenes of the type that Alcott does best, portraying the domestic details of family life with a wry sense of humor. She also gives us an unusual, sympathetic portrait of the life of a nineteenth-century working woman. I don't think Alcott was unaware of the irony embedded in her title – her “old-fashioned girl” is actually the one who is least a slave to fashion and the most in tune with what she truly wants and needs. By remaining steadfastly “old-fashioned,” Polly heralds the new, forward-looking potential of women for self-determination and independence.

My son was reading this and it made me want to re-read it too. A pleasure as always. My favorite part is when Cat takes back his magic – a recurring motif in DWJ books, in which characters are frequently being magically exploited or used. When the seemingly weaker, but actually stronger young person reclaims their power and agency, it's an immensely satisfying moment.

Reread of the classic novel of imposture and suspense. Still a great read even though I knew how it would turn out. It's always fun to be rooting for a criminal (who turns out to be the moral center of the piece).

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. I was not as enchanted by this Regency-era fantasy as many other reviewers, but I did enjoy it on the whole. It's extremely difficult to do something original in this genre by now without undue strain, but Cho's contribution does bring something new to the party with the titular sorcerer, a former slave who's been vaulted by circumstance into the highest magical post of the realm. Even more fun is the apprentice who forces himself upon him, a mixed-race orphan who's trying to escape from a life of drudgery and unfold her magical powers (which as a mere female she's supposed to keep strictly under wraps). In spite of the appealing verve and energy of the writing, there were some derivative echoes of Temeraire and Strange & Norrell, and times when the author's narrative skills didn't keep pace with her ideas. I hope that as she matures as a writer we may find the sequels an improvement.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. This is definitely a character-driven mystery, not one with an elaborate or twisty plot, and though there are lots of threats there's little on-stage violence. The pleasure is in getting to know tart-tongued Norma, flamboyant Fleurette, and especially Constance, whose search for a place and a purpose in life is tantalizingly given a direction at the very end. I've no doubt that readers will be begging for a sequel, and Stewart seems inclined to oblige us. I'll be eagerly waiting for another installment in the story of the Kopp sisters.

Full review originally posted on The Emerald City Book Review
Love them or hate them – and there are large camps on both sides – it's undeniable that CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien have had a huge impact on the imaginative landscape of the last century. Where did their tales of planetary travel, magical wardrobes, sinister rings, and elves, dwarves and hobbits come from? What were the sources of their Christian faith, and how was it expressed in their fiction and nonfiction? What do they still have to say to us in today's post-modern, highly secular world?

To understand the Tolkien/Lewis phenomenon, it's vital to see them in their context of friends, fellow academics, and colleagues, particularly the circle known as The Inklings, a semi-informal writers' group that saw the genesis of many of their most important works. Two lesser-known members of the group, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams, played crucial roles in its development, and particularly influenced Lewis as intellectual foils and sparring partners. In The Fellowship, Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski explore the extraordinary creative ferment of the Inklings with zest, lucidity, and intelligence.

For any avid reader of any of these four writers, this is an essential and highly enjoyable book. Even those who disdain Lewis's popular Christian apologetics or Tolkien's Hobbit epic may, the Zaleskis hope, “come to see that Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, Williams, and their associates, by returning to the fundamentals of story and exploring its relation to faith, transcendence, and hope, have renewed a current that runs through the heart of Western literature.” That's my hope, too, and my reason for continuing to hold these four writers as touchstones for my literary life.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. A wolf wilder is the opposite of an animal tamer: someone who takes in wolves that have been living in captivity and fits them for life in the wild again. In this brief novel set in pre-Revolutionary Russia, young Feo's world is turned upside down when angry soldiers command her mother to stop “wilding” the wolves that are hunting down the Tsar's game. I loved the parts of the book that dealt with Feo and the wolves, but was not so enamored with the rather muddled chase sequences and the improbable, violent resolution. I'll definitely be looking for more by Rundell, though; I like her way of turning a phrase and her perceptive eye on the natural world.

A Chinese children's classic finally comes to the English-speaking world with this gently absorbing tale of sorrow, friendship, and growth. Set in rural China during the Cultural Revolution, it centers on the relationship between Sunflower, a city girl who has come to the country with her artist father, and Bronze, a mute boy from the village whose family takes Sunflower in when tragedy strikes. Their immediate bond only grows stronger as it is tested by poverty, unsympathetic neighbors, and natural disasters.

With its depiction of rural life, from detailed descriptions of making shoes out of reeds to the terrible depredations of a plague of grasshoppers and the resulting famine, Bronze and Sunflower strongly reminded me of the Little House on the Prairie books, and should appeal to the same audience. Tradition and family loyalty are extremely important, foundational as they are in Chinese culture, but the love between Bronze and Sunflower goes beyond that. The mute boy and the orphaned girl show how the flower of true humanity can blossom in the unlikeliest of places, and though separation threatens at the end, what they have gained from one another cannot be destroyed.

The Communist regime is only obliquely referred to — Sunflower's father was part of the “Cadre School” program of re-education that sent city folk to do hard manual labor in the countryside. The political significance of this is not dwelt upon, nor do the characters occupy themselves much with what is happening elsewhere in China, concerned as they are with merely surviving another winter. The themes and incidents are both specific to a certain time and place, and strongly archetypal, linked to eternal natural cycles of growth, harvest, and decay. For this reason, the book could be a good starting point for a broader study of China with older children, or can be experienced on its own with no special knowledge or background necessary.

Here is an interesting interview with the translator, Helen Wang, who won a major prize for her work on this book (which was only her second translation). Wang has done an excellent job of preserving some of the special character of Wenxuan's leisurely prose while making it accessible for an English audience. I hope there will be more to come from both author and translator.

See my full review on The Emerald City Book Review.Naturally, Jo Walton doesn't do with this sequel what you might expect. Rather than starting at the point at which she left off, she skips quite a few years during which the one Just City has split into several, according to different factions' ideas of what the experiment should look like. Pytheas (who is actually the god Apollo) has sired a number of semi-divine children, including a daughter with his beloved Simmea, and as the novel opens Simmea herself has been killed in one of the art raids that have unfortunately become common between the cities. Spurred by grief at this outrage, Apollo and his daughter Arete become part of an expedition to find the exiles who fled the City on the ship called Goodness, whom they suspect might have played a role in the raid. But what they find changes everything. . .

If The Just City sought to bring a philosophical thought experiment to life, The Philosopher Kings brings us a new perspective on mythology. Apollo's children are discovering and growing into their powers, with the potential to become a whole new pantheon. There's a rather clever variant on one of the more obscure and puzzling myths of Apollo, and a rationale for Plato's myth of a golden age (from which his idea of the Republic was drawn). There's even a deus ex machina at the end in classical dramatic style, but with a decidedly modern twist.

The triple narration of the earlier book continues, with Arete taking over Simmea's part. Her sections are most numerous, and her coming of age in the new, splintered Republic is the main thread of the story. Apollo continues to learn from his experiences as a human in surprising ways, and Maia, now growing old, reflects on how the effort to make the Just City has and has not come to fruition. There are many unresolved threads from the first book to follow up on, as well as a plethora of new ideas and imaginative leaps to encompass, but Walton carries it all off with aplomb. The narrative drive is not as strong or absorbing as in that first venture, but the difference seems natural – it's the difference between the exciting stage of building things up, and the difficult but necessary stage of rebuilding after one's first ideas haven't worked out as planned.

If the series carries on, my personal wish is for more subtlety in the religion department; the demigods are too much like newly minted superheroes for my taste, and Christianity is written off as “silly” in a cavalier way that I find unworthy of a true philosopher. Still, Walton continues to entertain and enthrall us with the sheer energy of her inventiveness. I can't wait to see where she takes us next.

This was a helpful and well written guide, but I wished for a bit more nuance in some places. I would especially like to have seen more about parents who don't talk all the time about themselves or try to make themselves the center of attention, which is how Gibson generally characterizes self-absorption. There are parents who barely talk about themselves at all, and can appear extremely interested in and caring of their children, but only on a deeper look is this revealed to be interest in seeing the child not as they really are, but as who the parent wants and needs them to be. Not talking about themselves is a sort of negative self-centeredness, as harmful as the more overt kind or maybe even more so. Definitely it can be very difficult and confusing for the child whose parent appeared to be always selfless and giving, but who was really only serving their own needs for security in the guise of caring for a child.

I also thought the division of child coping strategies into “internalizing” and “externalizing” was too simplistic, and that the dismissal of externalizers was rather curt (saying they wouldn't be interested in this book anyway, and mainly talking about them in negative terms). As an extreme internalizer, I'd be interested to know what I could learn from the externalizers to become more balanced myself, and I'd like to understand them better to be able to relate to the ones in my life. I'd also be interested to know of stories where an externalizer turned around and did develop self-reflection. Surely that must happen sometimes!

Aside from the personal relevance, I was quite struck by how many political leaders these days are clearly suffering from emotional immaturity. In the US at least, it seems like there are a few grownups involved and the rest are a bunch of screaming toddlers who want to twist reality to suit their own feelings, just like the EI parents in this book. It's unfortunate that they have so much power, but some of the strategies in the book (notably detaching, exercising calm observation, and not getting pulled into their emotional contagion) may help with dealing with this mess as well as with family troubles. I'll be trying them anyway!

It's incredible how little we know about our digestive system. I think Enders is right when she says it's become associated with dirt, refuse, and unpalatable things we prefer to avoid looking at, but it's time for that to change. The young author does a great job of presenting information in a lighthearted way that is nevertheless intellectually respectable (for the nitpicky, footnotes would help). Since the book came out there has been more research and more books on the subject, but this is still a good introduction to the topic. I hope we'll be hearing a lot more about it and that it will become, as it should be, the ground of our healthy, happy existence in an interdependent world.

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. I have to admit that I had a difficult time puzzling out what was metaphor, what was delusion, and what was reality, and that this made me uncomfortable. There were some indications that what certain characters described as otherworldly creatures or phenomena (e.g. ogres) had a more mundane explanation, and that the pre-conceptions of the characters determined the world they perceived. This is an interesting philosophical point, but disorienting when applied to a story, in which generally the author is performing the magic trick of making us believe in something that doesn't exist. It matters not whether that something is a dragon or a duchess or a dachshund; within the world of a story it must gain being and presence, or why bother with it?

This dis-orientation was inconsistent. There were times when it was very hard to imagine an alternative explanation for what the characters were describing, other than that they were all completely insane. And yet, if that were the case, what could be gained from entering into their fractured minds? Are we meant to reflect on our own self-delusional versions of an impenetrable reality? That's a stage on everyone's quest, but to me it cannot be the end. I believe in meaning and wholeness, and if that betrays my lack of sophistication as a reader and human being, but so be it. I'm not interested in subversion for its own sake, only when it helps to break us through to a higher level of understanding.

Though I enjoyed parts of the journey, and grew to care for some of the characters, in the end I was left frustrated and dissatisfied. Perhaps a reread will enlighten me further as to what Ishiguro might have been trying to say, but right now I'm not at all sure.