Sunday, December 4, 2016

Books to Read, or Not

This is Katherine.  Don't be confused.  I haven't written in ages.  I have been a busy girl though.  I have been knitting and drawing and reading and watching grand kids and traveling and waiting for our custom-made table to actually finally get to the "made" stage.  I have not been working.  I stopped doing that last June.  I will write about that sometime.  Not now though.

I just finished a book and I won't get through the next one before the holidays are gone, so I thought I'd write a brief post on the books I've read recently.  It helps me keep track of them in my old age.

Here we go:

1.  Galapagos Regained.  James Morrow.  Chloe Bathurst, 19th century actress, becomes Darwin's zookeeper in London after his famous Beagle voyage.  This part is okay, but the book falls apart with a farcical trip to Galapagos where Chloe attempts to prove Darwin's theories with a plan that seems more akin to Around the World in 80 Days.  * (Skip this sucker)

2.  The Painter.  Peter Heller.  Jim Stegner is an artist raging over his daughter's murder.  He erupts violently when the innocent are attacked.  A senseless beating of a roan horse moves the plot at the beginning of the book.  He kills two men in a rage over the horse and the violence and poetry in his heart battles his fears and desires about himself as his paintings emerge from dreamlike trances.  As his reputation as a person is tarnished with rumors about the killings, his paintings increase in their value and this also drives him crazy.  This book is thoughtful and suspenseful.  It says creating art is the only way you can truly be in the moment.  ***(A really good book)

3.  The Circle.  Dave Eggers.  Mae goes to work for the Circle--an exaggerated Google Corporation with it's own special GooglePlex.  Most folks know about this book already.  It targets the invasion of privacy in business and our compulsions to give up our privacy.  Very compelling.  I didn't look at my phone as often for a couple of days.  ***(A really good book)

4.  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying.  Marie Kondo.  Not much style here, but a great system for discarding and storage.  I love how my drawers look when I open them now.  I spend more time throwing stuff out and it is easier to do.  I see folding clothes in a whole new light.  **(Worth a look)

5.  Dr. Brinkley's Tower.  Robert Hough.  Wonderful book.  It is the story of a small Mexican town near the Texas border that is revived and destroyed when an American salesman (he peddles unique cures for male sexual problems) builds a radio tower there.  There is a touch of magical realism provided by a "curandera" who guards the town and deals with its salvation at the end of the novel.  The author seems to love women (refreshing) and there are several perfect stories sprinkled in between the town's cast of characters.  I loved this book.  ****(Put it on your list)

6.  The Secret Chord.  Geraldine Brooks.  This is the story of King David in the Old Testament from the prophet Nathan's point of view.  It is a study of the pain and beauty duality in King David.  David does wondrous and awful things that we all know from reading our Bibles.  Nathan sees all of it coming.  Some nice sentences.  **(Worth a look)

7.  Off the Grid.  C. J. Box.  You have to like the Joe Pickett stories to like this one.  This is the most recent in a ton of books about Joe (Wyoming Game Warden and clumsy detective type).  I like them because the books cover parts of Wyoming we drive through all the time.  I can match certain stretches of road with scenes in the novels.  Mostly I like a character named Nate Romanowski--he's the retired assassin with a pony tail who lives outside the grid.  If you have any interest, I'd start with an earlier book just because there is a whole lot of story that leads up to this one.  Not Rated--Guilty Pleasure.

8.  Breakfast With the Buddha.  I don't remember the author, but he wrote Lunch with the Buddha and Dinner with the Buddha too.  It is about a middle aged man who must return to his parents' farm after their tragic death and his wacky sister makes his take a Buddhist monk with him.  He learns he has a lot to learn.  * (Skip this sucker)

9.  America's National Parks.  Ken Burns.  This is a big coffee table book.  Jim read it last year and it was my turn.  It is an amazing story that is told with new names and places in each chapter.  In each chapter some wonderful person figures out we should save some specific land and greedy people fight against it in their states and in Congress until the good guy wins and we have a new national park.  It never ever seemed to change.  Greed is the constant evil in the book.  Most of our National Parks come down to the efforts of a very few good men.  ***(A really good book)

10.  The Throwback Special.  Chris Bacheder.   A group of middle-aged guys meet every year at a run down Ramada Inn in the midwest somewhere and spend the weekend getting ready to re-enact the play where Joe Theisman broke his leg on a Monday Night Football game.  All the guys are neurotic and worried about the weird little stuff middle aged guys worry about (I guess).  Along the way, there are lovely insights.  Marriage is about watching each other (Jim wrote a post about this).  Sidewalks tell you where to go and paths describe where you wanted to go.  A fun read.  ***(A Really good
book)

11.  The Ship of Theseus.  J. J. Abrams.  Lots of ideas here.  Man has an innate need to box in or control evil.  (We jail, we kill, we go to war, etc).  It will not work because evil is porous and will always escape.  The ONLY thing that stops evil is ART and BEAUTY.  Reading the book is a surreal experience.  There is a primary tale that reminds me what it might be like to live in a Katie Hoffman painting.  In the margins two literary scholars try to track down the "real" tale of the pretend author of The Ship of Theseus.  The scholars pass notes and photos and maps and other tidbits to each other and you find those tucked between pages.  A very real mystery the scholars are working on is juxtaposed to the magical mystery of the ship.  Everything overlaps everywhere.  This was a tough read, but I loved it.  ****(Put this on your list)

12.  The Man Who Saved Henry Morgan.  Robert Hough.  I bought this because I loved #5 on the list so much.  This one is also very good.  Benny Wand, a great chess player and conman, becomes an advisor to Henry Morgan as he reclaims the Spanish Main in the Caribbean.  The Captain recognizes the conman's strategic abilities and regains the English losses with Benny's tactical guidance.  There is lots of torture and lots of blood and guts, but the story compels you to keep going.  ***(A really good book)

13.  Trans Atlantic.  Colum McCann.  The structure of this book is interesting.  Chapters play Leap Frog.  In an early chapter, Lottie briefly meets famous aviators Alcove and Brown before they try the first flight across the English Channel.  The next chapter starts a new story, but is followed with Lottie's story as she follows her independent journalist mother from Nova Scotia to Ireland.  Frederick Douglas of historic fame shows up early and the settling of the Catholic and Protestant battles appears near the end of the book.  Historical figures show the entrenchment of the past and the huge effort any change (for freedom, for peace) takes on any individuals working for the changes.  All the characters are alone, but not lonely.  They are clearly connected for the reader and the characters seem to know or feel connected to the threads of each other's stories.  The one drawback of the book--I hated the constant use of "artistic fragments."   ***(A really good book)

That's it.   I've just started Ahab's Wife.  Good so far.


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