detailmuse 2013: part 3

(Continued from part two here.)

----------

Books read during the course of this thread:

Fiction
66. The Testament of Mary (audio) by Colm Toibin (3.5)
61. Sarah's Key# by Tatiana de Rosnay (2.5)
58. The Andromeda Strain# by Michael Crichton (3)
51. Never Let Me Go# by Kazuo Ishiguro (4.5)
50. Mister Blue# by Jacques Poulin (4) (See review)

Nonfiction
73. Brain Rules# by John Medina (3.5)
72. Quiet Kids: Help Your Introverted Child Succeed in an Extroverted World by Christine Fonseca (3) (See review)
71. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl# by Anne Frank (4)
70. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants (audio) by Malcolm Gladwell (3.5)
69. The Highly Sensitive Person# by Elaine Aron (3.5)
67. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013 ed. by Siddhartha Mukherjee (4.5) (See review)
65. Five Patients# by Michael Crichton (4) (See review)
63. When We Were the Kennedys by Monica Wood (4.5) (See review)
62. Gift from the Sea# by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (3.5) (See review)
59. On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History by Nicholas Basbanes (4) (See review)
57. Earth Facts# by Cally Hall (3)
56. My Mistake by Daniel Menaker (3.5) (See review)
55. The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman (4.5) (See review)
54. Great Design by Philip Wilkinson (5) (See review)
53. Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott (3.5) (See review)
52. The Invention of Solitude# by Paul Auster (3.5)

Other
68. How to Tie a Scarf: 33 Styles by (ed.) (4)
64. Timelines of Science ed. by Smithsonian/DorlingKindersley (3.5) (See review)
60. Four Seasons of Travel ed. by National Geographic (2) (See review)

# = read from my TBRs (acquired pre-2013; my goal this year = 40 30)

Books read/reviewed year to date, with favorites noted:

* = recommended
** = highly recommended

Fiction
47. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (4) (See review)*
46. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (audio) by Stephen King (2.5)
45. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (3) (See review)
40. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (4.5) (See review)*
33. Enon by Paul Harding (3) (See review)
27. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (4) **
26. The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell (3.5) (See review)
24. Vignettes of Ystov by William Goldsmith (3) (See review)
22. Edward Adrift by Craig Lancaster (3.5) (See review)
20. Big Brother by Lionel Shriver (3.5) (See review)
13. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (4) (See review)
10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (4) (See review)
9. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout (4) (See review)
7. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (4)
2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (4) (See review) *
1. Suddenly, A Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret (4) (See review) *

Nonfiction
49. The Wordy Shipmates (audio) by Sarah Vowell (2.5)
48. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (4.5) (See review)*
43. Hidden America by Jeanne Marie Laskas (2.5) (See review)
42. Travels with Charley: In Search of America (audio) by John Steinbeck (3) (See review)
41. Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan/Eldar Shafir (3.5) (See review)*
39. The Cooked Seed by Anchee Min (4) (See review)*
38. Dad is Fat (Audio) by Jim Gaffigan (3.5) (See review)
31. Writers on Writing (3.5)
29. More Scenes from the Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg (3.5) (See review)
28. Pitch Black by Youme Landowne / Anthony Horton (4) (See review)
25. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach (4) *
23. Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts by Charles Fernyhough (3) (See review)
21. Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger / Kenneth Cukier (4.5) (See review) **
19. Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods by Christine Byl (2.5) (See review)
16. Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder/Richard Todd (4) (See review) *
15. Integrative Wellness Rules: A Simple Guide to Healthy Living by Jim Nicolai (2.5) (See review)
14. The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum by Temple Grandin / Richard Panek (4) (See review)
12. The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People by Neil Shubin (4) (See review) *
11. Washington Schlepped Here (audio) by Christopher Buckley (3)
8. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (4) (See review) **
4. Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey (3.5) (See review)

Other
44. Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins (4.5) (See review)**
37. Woolgathering by Patti Smith (4) (See review)*
36. The Pop-up Book of Phobias by Gary Greenberg/Balvis Rubess/Matthew Reinhart (re-read) (5)**
35. Popville by Anouck Boisrobert/Louis Rigaud (3) (See review)
34. Sleeping Upside Down (poems) by Kate Lynn Hibbard (3) (See review)
32. A Clown at Midnight: Poems by Andrew Hudgins (4) (See review)
30. Some Kind of Love: A Family Reunion in Poems by Traci Dant, illustrated by Eric Velasquez (3) (See review)
18. National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways, 4th Edition (3) (See review)
17. Slamming Open the Door (poems) by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (4.5) (See review) **
6. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace (commencement speech) (3) (See review)
5. The International Traveler's Guide to Avoiding Infections by Charles E. Davis (reference)**
3. New and Selected Poems: Volume One by Mary Oliver (3.5)

Mister Blue by Jacques Poulin (translated from the French by Sheila Fischman), ©1989, acquired 2012

I understood that during my whole life I’d never really been in love. I’d only looked for affection. I’d done lots of things to make people like me, but I’d never loved anybody.

No surprise then, that Jim, a solitary, middle-aged writer living outside Quebec City, develops writer’s block while drafting a love story. But how he tries to work through that writer’s- and love-block is surprising, and mysterious, and I enjoyed this short novel.

I especially liked the title -- but only after I did some research. (This might be spoilery about theme/tone.) I’d noticed that the chapter titles were surprisingly literal of the contents, whereas the book’s title didn’t seem to be (it’s the name of the narrator's cat). That disconnect bothered me. When I looked into it, I discovered the French edition is titled Le Vieux Chagrin, “the old sorrow/grief.” Aha, old mister “blue”: the aging, melancholy narrator.

Two years ago, I enjoyed another novella by Poulin, Translation Is a Love Affair, and thought often of it while reading this one. The familiarity seemed comforting at the time but, in retrospect, I’m growing disappointed by the frank similarity in characters, story, tone, style, structure and length. I’m interested (and wary) to get to his Spring Tides.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, ©2005, acquired 2009

The dystopian story of Ruth, Tommy and Kathy, friends at a late 20th-century English boarding school and afterward, narrated deliciously slowly by Kathy. I knew nothing about the novel going in, and wow! A great page-turner on one level, plus layers of social and economic parallels to history and the current day. There was an info-dump near the end that shattered my reader’s trance, but still: Must read more by Ishiguro.

and when I read the title I just heard The Fleetwoods in the background singing Mr. Blue.

Sounds interesting. I think that one quote says a lot and that too many people never have that insight.

Never Let Me Go sounds like something I might like. Think I'll check it out.

ETA: Has anyone seen the movie?

>5 mkboylan: MK I went over to iTunes and listened to Mister Blue. Quite melodious. I bet multitudes of teens played that overandoverandover after a breakup; even the snippet has become an earworm!

Here's another quote I wanted to pull, except that it related more to writing/reading than to the story:

Books contain nothing or almost nothing that's important: everything is in the mind of the person reading them.

I can't share your enthusiasm for Never let me Go The dystopian idea based on 1970's England did not ring true for me. I was encouraged to read more Ishiguro and I liked An Artist of the Floating World

I like that quote in #7! From the cover and the title, I assumed Mr. Blue was simply about the cat.

Congrats on your new thread and two nice reviews to kick things off. I liked Mister Blue but was very disappointed they changed the name. I guess they thought Americans would be more likely to buy a book about cats than about grief? Anyway, I didn't think it was quite as good as Translation is a Love Affair, but I still liked it quite a bit. Spring Tides is the only other book I've read by Poulin. I thought the writing was quite similar but the plot was quite different. I'll look forward to seeing what you think.

I read Never Let Me Go several years ago and was caught by the "trick". I haven't seen the movie. The only other Ishiguro I've read is When We Were Orphans, and I didn't care for it. I only gave it 2.5*, rare for me. Barry's suggestion of An Artist of the Floating World sounds good and reminds me of A Gesture Life. Did you read that one, Barry?

Interesting that you felt a similarity between Mister Blue and Translation Is a Love Affair. I enjoyed Translation but have been reluctant for some reason to read more by Poulin.

Interesting comments, all. I’d narrowed my next Ishiguro to either The Remains of the Day or A Pale View of Hills. But per Bas I think I will try An Artist of the Floating World, which seems to combine the two (a man reflecting on his life + post-war Japan).

Lisa I’m feeling obtuse: what was the trick in Never Let Me Go?

I liked revisiting Poulin’s world and themes, but “revisit” it was: the broad story summary from my review of Translation Is a Love Affair, applied to Mister Blue:

Moving between Quebec City and a pastoral island nearby in the Saint Lawrence River {ditto}, Translation Is a Love Affair {Mister Blue} develops a gentle mystery {ditto} involving a middle-aged writer {ditto}, a much-younger translator {pretty much ditto except for occupation}, a couple of cats {ditto}, a quirky young girl {not present} and a troubled older girl {ditto}.

>12 detailmuse: I just read my first Poulin book, Wild Cat, and it too had Quebec City, a rural location, a gentle mystery, an older writer, a cat, an odd young girl, and a trouble woman. It was a lovely book though.

The similarities you point out remind me of a critic's praise for Mordecai Richler: " I love Richler's new book. I read it every time it comes out"

Hah! On the subject of similarities in each book by an author, Haruki Murakami bingo.

14 -
Although his newest book which hasn't been translated yet has only (maybe) three of those things! I'd say two but I'm hesitating a bit since I read it when it first came out in Japan.

>13 SassyLassy:-15 Those reactions to Richler and Murakami are so funny! You changed my attitude to amused.

#12 - Very entertaining post.

Interesting about Never Let Me Go.

I'm catching up and intrigued by your review of Ann Patchett's essays. Also, I'm thinking The Wordy Shipmates would be worth a audiobook.

>Thanks Dan. But do think again about audio of The Wordy Shipmates ... meaning unless you're rabid about the topic it might be better to choose another by Vowell.

#14 - they left out Scotch.

After Kafka on the Shore I could never drink Johnnie Walker without thinking of those poor cats, so I switched to Cutty Sark after I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

I could live with Cutty Sark.

LOL Steven after your comment about your granddaughter noticing all the penguins on your book covers, I bet she'd make up some pretty good stories with an author-bingo card.

The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster, ©1982, acquired 2012

”Children have always a tendency to either depreciate or to exalt their parents, and to a good son his father is always the best of fathers, quite apart from any objective reason there may be for admiring him.” (Proust)

I realize now that I must have been a bad son.

I acquired this memoir immediately after reading last year's Winter Journal, Auster’s memoir on his mother’s death and his own aging. This much-earlier memoir on fathers and sons and memory (deemed Auster’s seminal work) is part meditation on the death of his father and discovery of a family secret that explains (but doesn’t much relieve) the distance and difficulty in their relationship; and part meditation on his own young son, particularly when divorce threatens to make Auster a distant father, too.

I’ll read every nonfiction book Paul Auster writes and look forward to trying his fiction (New York Trilogy is on my wishlist). I read this a couple months ago on vacation, which was fine for the section on his father but not so fine when the section on his son turned opaque with references to philosophy and literature. There’s definitely more here than I understood, and I think I will read some of what he references (e.g. the Book of Jonah and Collodi’s Pinocchio) and come back to this again.

Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair by Anne Lamott, Early Reviewers arc ©2013, acquired 2013

It can be too sad here. We so often lose our way.

Lamott begins this little book while reeling from the Sandy Hook school shootings and trying to find her way back to hope the same way she did while recovering from alcoholism, and after 9/11, and after other personal and public tragedies. Her way is by taking the best next step and then the next, and to do so in community with others:

{T}he secret of life is patch patch patch. Thread your needle, make a knot, find one place on the other piece of torn cloth where you can make one stitch that will hold. And do it again. And again. And again. {…} Ram Das, who described himself as a Hin-Jew, said that ultimately we’re all just walking each other home. {…} Only together do we somehow keep coming through unsurvivable loss. {…} This is all that restoration requires most of the time, that one person not give up.

In size and format and compassionate tone, this little book is very much like Lamott’s previous Help Thanks Wow. In content, it’s perhaps a prequel to that volume -- a way to awaken from trauma to the point of asking for help. It’s extremely comforting ... a book that reads and rereads like a meditation.

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman, arc ©2013, acquired 2013

{W}hat makes Homo sapiens special and why we are the only human species alive is that we evolved a few slight changes in our hardware that helped ignite a software revolution that is still ongoing at an escalating pace.

Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, develops this apt metaphor by examining the key physical transitions that separated us from apes and then the intellectual transitions that separated us from all other hominins. Life only gets better and better for us over millions of years as we become bipeds whose increased mobility allows foraging further distances for food, those better diets then leading to bigger brains and the strategic thinking necessary for hunting, tool-making, and eventually language and social cooperation.

Only better and better ... until a couple of cultural transitions have mixed results: the agricultural revolution’s huge increase of food supply and caloric density (but: sometimes famine) and population growth (but: sometimes infectious outbreaks from living densely with animals/people); the industrial revolution’s relief of brutal physical labor (but: creation of obesity and "under-use" diseases). He asks, “Has civilization led the human body astray?” and answers, in a definite affirmative, via an exploration of the mis-matches between the body we've evolved and the environment we've cultured that are responsible for the bulk of today’s healthcare spending, disabilities, and deaths.

This book is a detailed scientific exploration of how we evolved to live and how we actually do live now, connecting the dots to show why we're in epidemics of infectious disease; heart disease; autoimmune disease; obesity; type 2 diabetes; cancer; osteoporosis; and dozens more. I’m very familiar with the current situation but the evolutionary backstory here was fascinating -- logically developed, conversationally presented, extensively (and entertainingly) endnoted, and completely accessible to the non-scientist reader. Highly recommended, and even motivating toward a healthier lifestyle.

Very interesting comments on The Invention of Solitude. I'm a Paul Auster virgin and picked this one up back in the summer at a used book shop in Brighton. I'm looking forward to reading it - just hope the references aren't too opaque!

Hi Paul, I simply couldn't connect with the second half. That's a first for me with Auster, so I'll approach it a little more seriously and try again.

The only Auster that I've read is Travels in the Scriptorium which I quite enjoyed. I don't know why I haven't sought out any of his other works, there are plenty to choose from!

The Story of the Human Body sounds quite interesting and would tie in nicely to the information my daughter has been bringing home from school about early hominids.

I've disliked Paul Auster ever since reading City of Glass back in the 80s, but I probably should reconsider him based on your comments! Enjoyed your other reviews too.

Lisa there's a lot your daughter would enjoy in the book, with a little help from you. And there's good discussion about the need to "use" and "challenge" the body (e.g. bones, immune system) during childhood.

Introspective trio. I wonder if I would like Aster or just get lost. I think the Lieberman might leave me feeling guilty for not getting enough exercise.

>Rebecca, disliked Auster personally or his writing/book? My intro to him was a book about coincidences, a topic of high interest to me, so I was favorably predisposed. I do find that I read his memoirs and wonder, Well what was that and why was it published except that he’s famous, yet being entranced during the reading. I’d sworn off his just-released memoir of his childhood and yet now I think I’m going to relent.

>Dan no guilt from Lieberman, just awe and reality. Of course I’ve heard in recent years that sugar fuels inflammation in the body, but his explanation here got it through my head that it’s like kerosene.

I forgot to mention the point I found most interesting in The Story of the Human Body: the reminder that evolutionary success is reflected through propagation of the species, not necessarily health. So all of the old-age diseases that don’t affect fertility don’t factor, evolutionarily ... until now, when they’re developing in people of child-bearing age. And Lieberman suggests that culture increasingly trumps evolution -- culture values the soft life (to our detriment), and culture has devised work-arounds to evolution (infertility treatments, life-saving medications).

A confession: I just ate a handful of leftover Halloween kerosene. Yum.

It's an evolutionary imperative in that it leaves less for your kids and therefore saves the species! We must all do our part. :-P

I disliked the book, MJ, so I guess I meant I disliked him as an author.

Hoping you enjoy your inflammation...but, seriously, somehow post 31 tips toward making me really want to read the book

What Dan said. That last paragraph landed it on my TBR list.

>Lisa lol!

>Rebecca I asked with trepidation because (like others on LT) I'm conflicted about whether my personal feelings about an author should affect my response to a work. I strongly believe my response is between my brain and the words on the page, but... It also came up when I was writing my next review and felt myself liking the VW Beetle less, see below.

>Dan and MK the evolutionary history reminded me a little of Neil Shubin's works.

Great Design: The World’s Best Design Explored & Explained by Philip Wilkinson, ©2013, review copy acquired 2013

“It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.” -- Jonathan Ive (Sr. VP of Design at Apple)

In this beautiful and informative volume, writer Philip Wilkinson works with the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum to highlight ~100 outstandingly designed products that are “both completely fit for purpose and unrivaled in appearance.” From designers around the world, they’re presented chronologically from the bentwood chair in 1860 (when the Industrial Revolution’s mass-production began to require designers to draft models for manufacturers to follow) to the iPad in 2010.

There’s furniture; home accessories and decoration; cookware/tableware; graphics (wallpaper, fabric, posters, maps, books, fonts); transportation; electronics; and more, presented as lushly as you expect from Dorling Kindersley -- pleasingly laid out and printed in full color on smooth, heavy paper. It's definitely "survey" in depth, but each design is featured as a two-page (or longer) spread that includes background on the product, its designer and the time period, plus numerous photographic perspectives that describe key features. (The image chosen for the cover is odd, as it’s not a featured design but merely a sidebar to Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Barcelona chair.) A tally of my prioritized favorites comes to 27! The following group of four, surprisingly (to me) all in transportation, stays especially in mind:

• the 1938 Volkswagen Beetle (which I was shocked to learn was created pursuant to “Adolf Hitler’s demand for a cheap ‘People’s car’ that would carry two adults and three children in comfort, at a speed of 62 mph (100 kph), and at a retail cost of 1,000 Reichsmark (the price of a small motorcycle”);
• the 1946 Vespa (the Italian word for “wasp,” which it delightfully resembles); and
• the Austin Seven Mini and the Cadillac series 62 both of which are from 1959 but couldn’t be more visually different -- the former a 10-foot-long “bubble” economy car that is all passenger area, and the latter a 20-foot-long luxury model that’s everything but passenger area.

This is one of very few coffee-table books I’ve read from cover to cover (The Elements, The Oxford Project, and Off the Tourist Trail are three others that come to mind). I was so enamored with some of the designs that I shopped online for the products ... and was greeted with such sticker-shock each time that I’m glad to at least have the representations of them in this beautiful book.

I am a big Paul Auster fan and would recommend Moon Palace and The New York Trilogy

I recently had to buy another car and was tempted by the new Volkswagen Beetle, but my wife talked me out of it claiming she would never get the shopping or her suitcase in the boot.

Thinking my wife might like Great Design...

Great Design sounds so interesting. Course then I had to spend time looking for Off the Tourist Trail too.

#38 the 1938 Volkswagen Beetle (which I was shocked to learn was created pursuant to “Adolf Hitler’s demand for a cheap ‘People’s car’

I have a friend who used to call VW Beetles "Nazi-mobiles" for that very reason.

Re: VW, the directive to meet certain specs is terrific and brings out amazing innovation. But re: it being a "people's car" for families, there are no words. I had a Matchbox toy of the VW van as a child and thought of it like an early RV ... my first fascination with tiny houses, I think.

fyi: Lieberman will talk about The Story of the Human Body on tonight’s Colbert Report, archived on Colbert's website.

Detail thanks for the heads up on Colbert.

On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History by Nicholas Basbanes, arc ©2013, acquired 2013

A few years ago, the British Association of Paper Historians noted {...} that there are something on the order of twenty thousand commercial uses of paper in the world today...

That’s good news -- that this book is an exploration not of extinction but of persistence, innovation and ecology. It’s a history of how paper has been made and used since its origins ~2000 years ago in China and its spread to Japan, Korea, and then to Arabia, Europe and the United States (where the author spends the bulk of the book).

My favorite chapters were about Japanese papers (from the splendid variety of household items to the Fu-Go paper-balloon bombs of WWII); about Crane and Company (longtime supplier of cottony papers suited to making currency ... and fabulous stationary); about the historical and security value of hard-copy documents (political, scientific, social, and even personal: some years ago, I returned to using paper daily planners and am still bereft that years of my calendars went “poof” when I gave up my old Palm device and its software); and about the mass of papers adrift (and recovered, and cataloged) after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11.

My favorite single passage was revelatory about calligraphy:

Paper was introduced to the Arab world a little more than a century after the death, in 632, of the Prophet Muhammad {...A}s Islamic faith spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula, it became necessary {...} that a definitive Koran be codified in Arabic script {...} Since it was the words of the prophet, and not images, that were revered above all else, {...} calligraphy emerged as the most venerated form of Islamic art.

Basbane’s history is selective not exhaustive (not "the everything" of the subtitle); his style is mostly to travel to sites/people of interest and present his research almost as personal essays, a la Taras Grescoe’s or Mary Roach’s books or Anthony Bourdain’s TV series. He’s not funny like Roach or compelling like Bourdain; he’s more like Grescoe -- deep and thoughtful -- and this book is a good fit for a considered (vs. casual) reader.

My Mistake by Daniel Menaker, ©2013, arc acquired 2013

{Editor-in-chief William} Shawn always claims that The New Yorker does not and cannot, with integrity, try to attend to what a reader might want to read. We publish what we like, and hope that some people might want to read it too. {When a Table of Contents is finally added, the staff gasps:} “It’s none of the readers’ business what’s in the magazine.”

Daniel Menaker’s memoir begins in childhood with an intense sibling rivalry and a tragedy, and concludes in his seventies with a happy marriage and grown children and a clean CAT scan after treatment for lung cancer. (Not unduly spoilery; I wanted to test the new feature.) There are some touching passages, particularly from childhood, but it’s the middle that’s most of the book and the most interesting -- inside stories from his decades of work at The New Yorker as a fact checker, then copy editor and Fiction Editor, largely under Shawn (who told Menaker to find another place to work and he finally did, 26 years later).

There are also bits about Tina Brown and a mention of Robert Gottlieb, and some about his early career teaching English at a top private school, his own writing, and his late career in book publishing at Random House and Harper Collins. There’s a fine passage about the value of a humanities education that’s too long to quote here; but it you can “search inside” or google part or all of his conclusion (“If you are lucky enough to be educated well in an ivory tower, it will help to prepare you to descend from that tower and deal with un-ivoried reality”), you’ll get to the paragraph (the book will be published next week).

I think that some of us have more than one mother and many if not most of us, especially boys, have more than one father.

A continuing thread in the memoir is fathers -- his emotionally (and often physically) absent father, and the surrogate fathers he accumulates, one of whom is William Maxwell, a man I grew to like so much that I had to read the 1982 Paris Review interview with him. I also found Menaker quite likeable -- light, funny, quiet. He wrote what he liked and I enjoyed reading it.

On Paper sounds fascinating. I may put off the book on toothpicks to read this first.

On Paper does sound interesting, and I just looked at the Menaker book in the bookstore yesterday.

ETA It's also interesting that the first touchstone for On Paper goes to Farenheit 451!

Love the review of On Paper (and stretch's reference to the book on toothpicks!)

For wandering_star: The Toothpick: Technology and Culture by Henry Petroski

Agree: toothpicks!! I had that same excited anticipation for On Paper. In the end, my response is respect and a weird indifference.

Rebecca, it's funny (and frustrating) about how touchstones must be indexed...

My Mistake sounds interesting. I admire you for reading so many current publications. I'm always years behind playing catch up.

>Lisa your comment is good timing! I’ve been thinking about my reading for next year and sorting my older TBRs (non-classics), deciding whether to read them or just let them go. Here are three I read (with foreboding results for the others!):



Earth Facts by Cally Hall, ©1995, acquired late-1990s(?)

I acquired this when I realized many of my “I want to know more about...” topics were in the earth sciences. It’s a mini-DorlingKindersley edition, so it’s a glossy, image-heavy “outline” of facts (vs. understanding) -- a good-enough overview to draw a couple more areas of interest to mind, e.g. gemstones.

----------------



The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, ©1969, acquired 1990s

{Computer} time-sharing was a concept he understood. He knew that as many as two hundred people had been able to use the same computer at once

Two hundred! That’s a clue to how dated this tech-thriller is (except I read that passage at the time healthcare.gov was handling even fewer users, lol). It’s about an uber-pathologic extraterrestrial microbe brought back on a spacecraft, and when you subtract 40+ years of technology and 15 years of CSI, and add in the cold war, conspiracies and the US space program -- I bet it was a different (and better) experience for the 1969 reader.

--------------



Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, ©2007, acquired 2008

A fortysomething American woman, living in Paris with her French husband and 11-year-old daughter, researches the Vel’ d’Hiv -- the July 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris carried out by the French police under German orders. I was glad to see the historical event documented, but the modern-day characters were completely implausible and the writing was heavy-handed to ensure the Reader Didn’t Miss Anything.

Four Seasons of Travel ed. by National Geographic, ©2013, review copy acquired 2013

This book left me frustrated. Overall, it seems like an excuse to publish a bunch of beautiful National Geographic photographs.

It’s a collection of travel destinations organized by the seasons of the year. Worldwide, but weighted toward Europe and North America, the destinations are a mix of the familiar and an idea book of unfamiliars. In most cases, it’s obvious why the location/event is matched to the season (e.g. conditions of nature, cultural calendars, etc.) but there are a few surprises (e.g. Yosemite in winter). Each entry is accompanied by beautiful photographs -- full-color; often full-page and even two-page spreads -- plus a bit about the location/event, sources for more information (e.g. websites), and a sidebar with tips or trivia. Some of the entries prompt separate Top 10 lists (e.g. where to go for the best holiday lights, the best outdoor music venues, the best carnival-type celebrations, etc.).

But the book just didn’t inspire me. There’s not much information, and the short essays that are sprinkled throughout (“recollections” by a few celebrities and some NatGeo writers) are underwhelming and forgettable. And it’s gratuitously huge -- the pages are too thick and the book is too heavy. This is one to browse through at the library for travel ideas. Or, much better to browse (or to own) is Off the Tourist Trail.

Thank you for summing up Sarah's Key so well!

...the writing was heavy-handed to ensure the Reader Didn't Miss Anything. Love it! Glad to know too that I won't miss anything by skipping it.

Loved your tech comments on The Andromeda Strain too.

>56 RidgewayGirl: omg I have to go see if you posted a review because I bet it's fabulously snarky.

>57 SassyLassy: I wonder if The Andromeda Strain is a sci-fi classic and I wonder if it deserves to be. I don't think Crichton grounds the reader well enough in the period to make the story powerful. He spends lots of time bringing the 1969 reader up to date on technology but no time helping the 2013 reader go back there. And he doesn't bother with characterization. (I do have to add that I loved Disclosure and Jurassic Park).

I think I read The Andromeda Strain back in the early 70s, but I can't remember much about how I reacted to it at the time.

Love love love to ensure the Reader Didn’t Miss Anything -- oh how I hate books like that!

The Andromeda Strain was the last sci-fi novel I read - a long time ago. It was un-put-downable. I used to be a sci-fi fan but somehow mysteries took over around that time.

For me it was thrillers/suspense. Oh how I loved Mary Higgins Clark in her (and my) earliest years; a new one always came out around my birthday and I hung on far too long, through some terrible reads. I still feel wistful. I think I will make it a goal to search for some good thrillers.

I was glad to see the historical event documented, but the modern-day characters were completely implausible and the writing was heavy-handed to ensure the Reader Didn’t Miss Anything.

Yes, and yes!

Hi Lisa. I started off thinking the novel would be a good entree for readers new to innovative (back in 2008 at least) structures like alternating timelines/storylines, etc. And the reviews/ratings might support that. But then I got toooo frustrated.

I did have a brief email conversation with Tatiana de Rosnay and, while I didn't love that book, I'm happy she's been successful as an author as she is very nice and kind and exactly the kind of person you'd want as an author.

Catching up before things get out of hand at year-end. First, two moldy (but fairly golden) oldies:



Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, ©1955, acquired 1986

{W}oman must come of age by herself -- she must find her true center alone. The lesson seems to need re-learning about every twenty years in a woman’s life.

A Virginia Woolf-like rumination, here on the phases of women’s adult lives to early middle age. Each is explored in a short chapter that suggests a way to stay grounded in self, each made memorable through symbolism by a different seashell. Still relevant nearly 60 years after initial publication (in fact I see aspects of it in contemporary books). I wish she had updated it with passages about the losses that come to women in midlife and beyond.





Five Patients by Michael Crichton, ©1970, acquired 1990s

A forerunner to Atul Gawande-type essays, this is a collection of case studies on five patients, where each case provides a jumping-off point for Crichton to examine aspects of healthcare: its history and the general operation of hospitals and emergency rooms; healthcare costs and financing; the history of surgery; medical technology and medical research; and the hospital-based training of doctors.

Definitely dated, yet forward-thinking too (especially about technology and the expansion of patient knowledge and involvement in care), and with issues contemporary enough to recommend it for readers interested in medical history, economics and sociology. (It gets terrible ratings here because readers expect it to be fiction/thriller.)

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013 ed. by Siddhartha Mukherjee, arc ©2013, acquired 2013

The 2013 installment of the annual series, edited this year by Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee (author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer), contains 27 essays drawn heavily from Scientific American and The New Yorker plus a dozen other prominent publications. (An Appendix references another 40 “Notable” essays for further exploration.)

I dipped in and out of the anthology and, because most of the entries are short (10-12pp), I usually read two or three each time I dipped in. They’re accessibly written and smart; surprisingly (and probably due to editor Mukherjee’s influence), I’d also characterize them as gentle. Some address hard science but many have themes of psychology, sociology, philosophy and ethics. One essay that seemed barely on-topic -- Brett Forrest’s pursuit of a reclusive Russian math genius (“Shattered Genius” from Playboy) -- emerged as my favorite with its tender and compelling narrative; I want to read more by him.

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin, audio read by Meryl Streep, ©2012, acquired 2013

An intriguing novella wherein Mary, mother of Jesus, ruminates over events while guarded by two men (who hint at the gospels they’re writing) in a safe house after (long after?) Jesus’s crucifixion. This is angry-Mary, not gentle-Mary -- angry over the loss of her son, who she clearly doesn’t believe is the savior. I became aware of the novella when I heard that the reader is Meryl Streep, and she’s excellent. I need to listen again to catch things I missed; I’m eager to experience it again.

However. I was bumped out of the historical period numerous times. Early on, my mental image of Mary ruminating was inexplicably that of Norman Bates ruminating paranoidly as Mother in the interrogation room at the end of Psycho. The gathering at Pontius Pilot’s condemnation of Jesus brought to mind a modern flash-mob rather than an ancient square. And Mary’s casual reference to the circulation of blood made me wonder how she knew it 16 centuries before William Harvey.

When We Were the Kennedys by Monica Wood, ©2012, acquired 2013

A friend had been urging me to read this coming-of-age memoir and I’d resisted, having hated (and never finished) an earlier book by the author (Description, part of a how-to series for writers). I loved this memoir, and I loved it particularly for its ... wait for it ... phenomenal descriptive aspects.

It’s about the unexpected death of a 9-year-old girl’s dad, written in a close-in first-person perspective of the child (made wiser by the adult looking back). It’s a child's and her family’s year of grief, and of shame, at losing a husband/father/provider -- until, late in the year, Jackie Kennedy models to the world that it’s okay. It’s also about small-town Mexico, Maine -- heavily immigrant and heavily dependent on the local paper mill even as the economy and unions also threaten its survival as provider to the whole community.

The book reminded me of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking -- both are about the altered reality that follows the death of a man who’s everything to someone, each written from a different end of life.

Wonderful reviews that have me wanting to read them all. I have Gift from the Sea, but haven't read it since I was a teen. The Testament of Mary is probably not something I would normally pick up, but I bet Meryl Streep is great. The lack of accurate historical knowledge drives me nuts though (like in Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders). Hmm, takes place in Maine, huh? May have to keep an eye peeled for that one. The title had been a turn off for me, but your review changes my mind.

Terrific review of When We Were Kennedys. Going back a bit, I did like Andromeda Strain when I read back in...1993.

I added When We Were Kennedys to my wishlist. You also have reminded me that I have a couple of those "Best of" anthologies that I had really wanted to read. Where has this year gone? I had such great reading plans. Of course I read several books that I hadn't included in my plans, so maybe it came out even.

Hi MJ, I also loved When We Were the Kennedys when I read it earlier this year. It was so charming - I wish it had gotten more attention!

Great to catch up with your reading. I used to read some of those "Best of" books, and really should get back to getting them.

Enjoying all of your reviews. LOL at the hidden spoiler in the Mary book.

Hi everyone and welcome Joanne! Sorry for the silence ... we were on trip #2 of 3 to see family over the holiday season. I’m so glad to give When We Were the Kennedys some visibility. I want her older sister, Anne, as mine, and I loved her friend, Denise’s, dad.

>Lisa, Meryl Streep’s narration reminds me of a comment by baswood about audio narrators getting between the author and reader and that not being a good thing. Streep does that here -- she’s good, but she definitely interprets and performs the text.

As I finish 2013, herewith a brief mention of my last half-dozen reads.

     

Pursuant to my satisfying immersion last year in Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, I finally pulled The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron from my TBRs and snagged Quiet Kids by Christine Fonseca from last month’s EarlyReviewers. The former was much more self-help than science and the latter was noisy and superficial.

I should have liked Brain Rules by John Medina more but I think he wrote so conversationally that I only trusted his cognitive science because I’d read about most of the topics recently in other books. I did like David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants but it’s not Malcolm Gladwell’s best (in my opinion, The Tipping Point is); it's interesting reading and I found a few takeaways (break the rules; challenge conventional thinking; find the benefit in adversity) but am getting sensitive to his collecting a bunch of anecdotes and calling it proof.

I’m very glad to have finally read the sad but unaccountably and persistently optimistic Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. And I had so much fun with a library copy of How to Tie a Scarf: 33 Styles that I bought my own copy and gave a bunch as gifts this year.

I’ll be back to post some 2013 reading stats and then on to 2014!

I think I should check out that How To Tie a Scarf book; back in the 80s*, I had a little pamphlet with styles, but it's long lost, and recently I was given a really nice scarf that I'd like to wear but can't figure out how.

*Yes, I sometimes wore one in my hair back then; the 80s were such a fashion disaster!

I thought Susan Cain's Quiet was long overdue in a world insistent on group think and team work. Too bad Quiet Kids was a dud. I have been trying to get teachers and administrators at my daughter's school to read Quiet, but they are too busy talking about the latest education craze (design theory) to pay attention. *sigh* Maybe I should just buy a dozen copies and put them on all their desks.

Anne Frank is such a classic. One of these days, I'll need to read that one with my daughter. The Holocaust is such a hard thing for me to talk about with her. Where to even begin? Perhaps with Anne...

>Rebecca have fun with your scarf! You can find how-to’s on youtube (this one on braiding a scarf was helpful after a friend showed me how to do it while waiting in line at Starbucks and I later needed much reinforcement). But the scarf book is pretty and inspirational -- nothing for the hair :) but there is one each as camera strap and shoulder tote and sarong. It has good step-by-step instructions with color-photos though you do need to come to it with good spacial-relation skills. Lots of neck-circling styles but I've been drawn to some of the verticals:

The Hanoi, the Mayfair, the Marrakech

>Lisa I’d be happy to mail you my EarlyReviewer copy of Quiet Kids. It’s a finished paperback not an ARC and seems written for exactly the audience you describe, so has a good shot at communicating at least the basics of introversion. It has enough tips for home and school that I gave it 3 stars.

Some statistics from my 2013 Reading

Total books finished: 74
Fiction: 24
Nonfiction: 44
Poetry: 6
• I read the most books in July (8), the fewest in April (0! what was I doing then?). I also read fewer books in August, when I was on a magazine-article marathon.

Female authors: 28
Male authors: 40
Mixed: 6
• Authors new-to-me: 45 (+ many more in the anthologies, some of whom I’ll follow for more)
• Authors with more than one book in my 2013 reads: 3 (Michael Crichton; John Steinbeck; Elizabeth Strout)
• LT-“Favorited” authors whose books I read this year: 9 (Paul Auster; Joan Didion; Malcolm Gladwell; Jhumpa Lahiri; Anne Lamott; Ann Patchett; Mary Roach; Patti Smith; David Foster Wallace

Author nationality: 13 (18%) are non-USA

Original publication date:
20th century: 17 (23%)
21st century: 57 (77%)

Date acquired:
1980s: 1 (1%)
1990s: 5 (7%)
2000s: 9 (12%)
2010s: 59 (80%)

I rated 32 (43%) of the books 4 stars or above (i.e. “good” to “great”)

Favorites:
Fiction
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nonfiction
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman
Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger/Kenneth Cukier

Memoir
When We Were the Kennedys by Monica Wood

Other
Great Design (coffee-table book) by Philip Wilkinson
Aimless Love (poems) by Billy Collins
Slamming Open the Door (poems) by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno

Thanks for the photos and the link, MJ.

On to 2014 -- please join me here!