I'm Down

I'm Down (2009) by Mishna Wolff. By turns funny and sad, this is the memoir of a girl (now a woman) who was raised in the ghetto by a father who thought he was black. The truth is, her father and mother were both white, and she is white, but she was raised in a black milieu. It's an extraordinary story, and one of the best books I've read this year. My only complaint: It ended too soon. Grade: A

The White Tiger

The White Tiger (2008) by Aravind Adiga. The narrator of this book, named Balram Halwai, comes from a small village in India, and seems destined for a life of poverty and desperation. But he sees his opportunity and takes it -- with murderous consequences. More germane to the gist of the book, however, is his detailed and authentic-sounding description of life in India today -- of how the caste system persists, of how the poor live in filth and despair, of how the rich get and stay that way through an elaborate system of bribes and brute force. This is fiction, of course, but it rings true, and makes for a quick and entertaining read. Grade: A-

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (2009) by Giulia Melucci. This charming, appetite-stimulating memoir made for some entertaining reading, and made me hungry at the same time. Melucci has come up with a seemingly original idea for a book -- she tells about the men in her life, and with each man comes a batch of recipes, denoting food that she cooked for him, or food that she learned to cook from him. She starts each chapter with a description of the man, and then when it comes time to cook, she gives us the recipe for what she fixed. The recipes sound delicious, by the way, and her tales of failed romance are sharply and amusingly observed. The only disappointment: no happy ending. Grade: A

The Great Man

The Great Man (2007) by Kate Christensen. A novel about a 20th-century artist (fictional) named Oscar Feldman, and the women he loved. At the beginning of the book, Feldman is dead, and the focus of the narrative is on the women who were involved with him -- his wife, Abigail, his mistress, Teddy, and his sister, Maxine, with whom he had a healthy sibling rivalry. Their stories are all intertwined, and the plot hinges on a bet between Oscar and Maxine, over who could most successfully paint a canvas in imitation of the other's style. It's an interesting story, and well told, but it's mostly about the inner lives of old women, which I found hard to relate to. Grade: B

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2008) by Stieg Larsson. Swedish mystery involving the disappearance of a member of a powerful industrial family 40 years ago, and how a journalist gets roped into trying to solve the old crime. This book is very skillfully written, and has all the elements you could look for -- family drama, intrigue, sex, even a serial killer. The translation from the Swedish into English is a bit problematic, but I found it tolerable. It was a good read from beginning to end. Grade: B+