Into the Wild by John Krakauer

I hated this book. I read it because my mom asked me to. My mom asked me to read it because it is one of the assigned books for High School AP English classes and my mom wanted to know if I thought it was a book that would "speak" to high school sophomores. Personally, I can only imagine a fringe group of high schoolers to whom this book would appeal, and very few of those would be sitting in AP English.
Into the Wild is the story of a 24 year old man, Chris McCandless, who disposes of his worldly goods and treks across the United States living on the fringes of society. Eventually he decides to go "into the wild" and heads to Alaska where he can really commune with nature and get away from society. However, he dies of starvation in a bus 15 miles from nowhere. Revealing that he dies gives away nothing of the story. After all Krakauer starts the book with McCandless' death and tells the story through a wide variety of backflashes and conversations with people who met McCandless on the road.
From the fact that the AP chose this book and the quick glance of the reviews on Amazon.com, I am apparently in the minority for disliking this book. But that won't stop me from continuing to find it pointless. Basically, I felt as though Krakauer, himself a journalist for Outdoor Magazine who has lived off the radar and found society questionable, continually tries to convince the reader that McCandless was sane, not mentally unstable, and just unlucky or unprepared to have died in the wild. The further I got the more I kept thinking, the author "doth protest too much." McCandless had no practical experience hunting - but that was okay. He did not have adequate clothing - but that was explainable. He ate questionable seeds - but that too can be explained away.
Also, reading chapters about a mountain climber, another figure who lived away from society in 1934, and the author's personal experiences as a 20-something disenchanted member of society did not convince me of the rightness of McCandless's choices.
Finally, the beginning of each chapter began with quotes from McCandless's various graffiti or lines in books that McCandless had underlined. Krakauer gave each of these quotes undue attention. For Krakauer, they were necessary to understand the protagonist's personal struggles. How many college students have underlined passages in books and made marginal notes that had nothing to do with their greater internal struggles? I would hate to think that in the future someone would dig through my trove of books and make judgments about my state of mind and my views of society based on the commentary I wrote in a book. I found it to be a real stretch.
(And one last caveat. Don't just watch the movie and assume that it is the same as the book. My mom kept warning me about the relationship between the father and son. I got to the end of the book and went, "huh?" Apparently, the director took some literary license and changed some of the facts, in my opinion to make the main character seem slightly more justified in his crazy wanderings.)

Olympos by Dan Simmons

I like to read a wide variety of genres. Most of what I read is handed to me by a few friends, my mom, or my husband. Depending on who gives me the book will determine the genre. When my husband gives me a book to read, chances are it will be Science Fiction or Fantasy. Olympos is one of those books. It is the sequel to Dan Simmon's Ilium. And at 900+ pages the two books could have easily been divided into a trilogy rather than just a two-parter.
Dan Simmons is an amazing writer. His story combines a futuristic human world, the stories of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and robots who have studied Shakespeare and Marcel Proust. The futuristic world grapples with a lot of contemporary issues - nuclear power/weapons, playing with human genes, taking technology to its logical extreme - and in some cases its very illogical extremes. Simmon's grasp of all of these different stories and his ability to combine them into one engaging futuristic/apocalyptic storyline is impressive. However, there are moments when it reads as though he consciously wants his reader to think, "Wow, Simmons is impressive!" You can only read so many two-page descriptions of minor characters from The Iliad who have no real role in the plot of Olympos before you began to yawn and skim ahead.
When I told my husband about my frustration with the drawn out lists of names and descriptions he was surprised. To him Simmons perfectly mirrored the style of the original Iliad, further demonstrating his genius as a writer. After all, Homer felt it necessary to give a person's lineage when he introduced them, so it would make sense for Dan Simmons to do the same. I personally found it pedantic and unnecessary. It didn't add to the storyline in my opinion.
The last two-hundred pages are fascinating and fast-paced. The way that Simmons ties together all of his diverse story lines and creates a world that makes sense amidst all of the chaos he has let loose is inventive and definitely the mark of a creative literary mind.
If you enjoy heavy science fiction, you have a grasp of classical literature, and are curious about how someone would weave together a coherent storyline that incorporated those two aspects, then read Ilium and Olympos. But, if you only somewhat enjoy science fiction or you are not interested in reading extremely long-winded literary descriptions, then spend your 1500 pages on something else.

Must Love Dragons by Stephanie Rowe

Sometimes you need to read something completely light and mindless. A friend sent me Must Love Dragons and while it is not the kind of book I would have probably bought myself, it was well worth my time. The book is one part Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one part Jennifer Crusie, and one part Good Omens.
Stephanie Rowe has created a hilarious world peopled by dragons, dragon slayers, Satan, the Goblet of Eternal Youth, Guardians, and the occasional average human. Her treatment of Satan, sex, and relationships is light and humorous. There is something of a mystery to keep you reading and wondering exactly what is going on.
Must Love Dragons is the second in the Immortally Sexy series which currently has four titles. Without a doubt this is worthy of a beach read if you are looking for something silly, fantastical, vaguely sensual (after all, the characters are Satan, a dragon, and a slayer. You can't expect that their sexual appetites would be staid and boring) and yet remarkably... hmm, I'm stumped for a word. It is not sweet. It is not innocent. It is definitely not wholesome. But, it is romantic in a good old-fashioned boy meets girl kind of way.
Read. Enjoy. Don't think too hard.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I have seen this book in the bookstore for a couple of years and always been intrigued by the title. Then about a year ago I discovered that it is told from the perspective of a 15-year old boy who has autism. Again, I wanted to read it, but somehow never got around to picking it up. Well, my book group is reading it for our next meeting, so I finally had the necessary excuse to read this book. I am really glad that I did.
The storyline in Curious Incident revolves around a boy, Christopher, finding a dog in his yard who has been killed. As a Sherlock Holmes fan he decides he is going to solve the mystery - hence the title of the book. However, that is the pretext for a much more engaging and fascinating story.
Mark Haddon has done an incredible job giving the average reader an insight into the mind of an autistic adolescent. The writing style, the descriptions, the sense of repetition, the graphics all work together to demonstrate how Christopher copes with the world. This is obviously an extremely smart young man; he is a virtual mathematical genius. But, he cannot separate out unnecessary "noise" in his life. When he is standing in a train station he doesn't just see the few necessary details he needs to get by, he describes every poster and every person because he does not have the ability to filter.
Throughout the story Christopher explains convincingly why he does not like the colors brown and yellow, why being at home is comfortable, and why he would like to be an astronaut.
Having finished this book, I cannot wait to discuss it with a few key individuals - namely a mom I know with autistic sons. I am curious how she views the book - is it true to her experiences? And, a friend who works with autistic children - again, does she find the story to be genuine?
Moreover, it has given me better insight into my own children. I am fortunate that neither of them suffer from spectrum disorders, but I do have a better understanding of some of their emotional outbursts. When a granola bar breaks in half and they are heartbroken and refuse to touch it I get impatient: who cares? But living in Christopher's head, I have a better understanding of how something so seemingly unimportant can take on such grandiose proportions. Maybe I can expand my own patience with my children.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has family members on the spectrum. To me this was much more engaging and much more approachable than a non-fiction description of autism disorders written by an un-empathetic doctor. I feel like I learned a lot more through the personal interaction than I could have at a distance. A quick read that is well worth the time.

Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Pardonable Lies is the third in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. This is a series that you need to read in order. So much of what Winspear writes builds on what she had already told you. So, I would strongly recommend starting with Maisie Dobbs if you want to read this series.
Each of these books gets better and better. Jacqueline Winspear has an incredible grasp on 1920/30s Europe. The dialogue, the clothing fashions, the dilemmas that people are facing between the Wars all seem remarkably accurate. She has an ability to give the reader just enough flavor to really feel the era without overwhelming with unnecessary details just to prove that she knows the time and the place that she describes.
As with every Maisie Dobbs novel, this story revolves around solving a World War I mystery. The mysteries always cause Maisie to undergo intense self-reflection about her own involvement in and response to the War. In this story Maisie has begun to deal with the guilt of surviving when so many friends had been killed. Part of the theme also revolves around the attempt of the survivors to put to rest the questions they have about men who had been killed during the War.
This book seems particularly poignant today as we deal with soldiers returning from another war. These men are dealing with psychological and physical affects that civilians cannot hope to understand. Winspear does an excellent job of helping the reader to understand how difficult it is to return to "normal" life and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Without a doubt Jacqueline Winspear is one of my favorite recent authors. I would recommend her books to most anyone. They are fascinating mysteries that make the reader want to keep going to solve the crime. They are great historical novels that really encapsulate post-War Europe. And, they are psychological stories about inner-personal turmoil and dealing with grief.

Paris Requiem by Lisa Appignanesi

This is one of the best researched books that I have read in quite a while. Lisa Appignanesi has written an interesting book about turn-of-the-century Paris which covers a lot of the main problems that existed at the time: anti-Semitism, prostitution, gender norms, and the treatment of foreigners.
The story revolves around James, Raf, and Elli Norton, three Americans in Paris in 1899. Raf's fiancee is found dead and a murder investigation ensues. The story is detailed and covers every social realm of nineteenth-century Paris. The story itself is not the most original. The murderer is not a complete and total shock. But, the research, the accuracy, and the topic are fascinating.
Appignanesi has obviously done tremendous research about the time and place where her book takes place. The story would not make sense in any other setting because of the tensions that existed in Paris in 1899.
I can't review this book without making it personal. So much of what Appignanesi writes about is exactly what I studied as a graduate student. I would guess that we read some of the same books in doing our research. Her understanding of gender - relations, problems, -bending, norms - reflects all of the contemporary research done by historians and anthropologists studying France. She also has done extensive work on the Dreyfus affair and the newspaper response to it. She accurately depicts the tension between the military and the journalists - egged on by the writings of Zola.She has managed to convincingly connect the Dreyfus Affair to medical and political beliefs of the time. Her descriptions of the mental hospital and the medical fields treatment of mentally unstable individuals - usually seen as women or Jews - also very clearly dovetails with the historical and medical texts written about the era. Finally, her use of Americans as the main characters allows her to underscore the tensions that existed in 1899 towards foreigners.
That Appignanesi could blend all of these issues into one coherent and engaging story is, to me, the sign of a great novelist. If I could figure out a way to create characters who live at the intersection of so many varied historical topics and place them accurately on the map in Paris at the time, maybe I could become a bestselling author too.

Le Divorce by Diane Johnson

I picked up Le Divorce after finishing Exodus. After seeing the ads for the movie of the same name, I expected light, entertaining, chick lit. That was not the case. The book is much heavier and deeper than I had expected. It was without a doubt an interesting read, but not one of my favorites.
The story covers half a year in the life of two sisters, Isabel and Roxeanne. Roxeanne has married a Frenchman, moved to Paris, and is pregnant with her second child. Isabel has dropped out of film school and is moving to Paris to help her sister with her children. Arriving in Paris, Isabel discovers that Roxy's husband Charles-Henri has left her unexpectedly. The story covers the period of Roxy's pregnancy and dealing with the international laws regarding divorce in France. The main character and narrator is Isabel who has relationships of her own during her time in Paris.
The book is a great examination of French-American interpersonal relations. Johnson cuts to the chase in underlining minor but irritating differences between the two cultures that often lead to misunderstandings and problems. The expatriate American community in Paris is comic in its at once hatred of the French and yet continued desire to live in the French capital. In this, I enjoyed the book because I felt like Johnson hit on some key issues in the relations between peoples of these two nations who seem so alike but end up confounded by their differences. Using divorce as the crux of the problem opened up a number of legal and social differences between Americans and Frenchmen.
However, I had no sympathy for either of the characters. They were selfish and relatively shallow. There was nothing compelling in the plot to keep me turning the pages. I did not feel like Isabel grew through her experiences in Paris. Plus the book just seemed to end. There was a definite conclusion to the divorce problem. But there was no sense of the characters having grown or changed because of their experiences.