The Measures Between Us

The Measures Between Us (2013) by Ethan Hauser. This novel has a rather large cast of characters, and their stories are interlocking. Hauser abandons one plot-line and switches to another seemingly at random, though I'm sure he had his reasons for structuring the book the way he did. I found it a less-than-satisfying read, with meaningless symbology permeating the novel so that I was sometimes engaged, at other times bored. There is a senseless death of a main character near the end, and it is introduced awkwardly, in my opinion. I wish it had been done with more skill and grace. Grade: B

The Humans

The Humans (2013) by Matt Haig. Fascinating novel about an extraterrestrial who comes to Earth in human form with a mission to destroy a piece of knowledge that a human has come into possession of. The alien takes the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a math professor who has solved the Riemann Hypothesis, one of the Great Problems of math. But by solving this equation, he has made possible great leaps forward in human technology -- leaps which, the alien race is convinced, will be catastrophic for the Universe. The alien who has taken human form is assigned to kill everyone who might have been exposed to the knowledge that the Riemann Hypothesis has been solved, but he finds himself becoming more and more sympathetic to humans. It's a compelling book, even though it kind of runs out of gas towards the end. I read it eagerly and couldn't put it down. Grade: B+ 

1776

1776 (2005) by David McCullough. This book is about the first full year of the American Revolutionary War, about how George Washington struggled with his leadership role, and how the British nearly won several times. McCullough has done extensive research into the events of the year and the people, both American and British, involved in the war. Most of all, he tells the story of the American Continental Army -- how, miraculously, it held off the greatest power in the world at the time and set the stage for the extended war to come. Luckily, 1776 ended with a triumph for the Americans, so the book ends on an up note and with hope for the future. Grade: A

Still Points North

Still Points North (2013) by Leigh Newman. When she was a young girl, Newman's parents divorced. Her father stayed in Alaska, where he was a doctor and hunter and fisherman, and her mother moved to Baltimore, where she was from. Newman was forced by the divorce agreement to divide her time between the two parents, and the whole experience left her a seriously confused girl. The times she seems to remember most vividly, though, are the times she spent with her father, fishing for salmon and hunting elk in Alaska. The subtitle of the book is "One Alaskan childhood, one grown-up world, one long journey home." Newman does eventually find peace, and even gets married and has children, but she never forgets her crazy mixed-up childhood, and who could? She is now deputy editor and head of books coverage for Oprah.com, so she's come up out of her experiences in OK shape, but her description of childhood experiences is truly harrowing. Grade: B+

What the Family Needed

What the Family Needed (2013) by Steven Amsterdam. What the family needed, apparently, was superpowers. In this imaginative novel, each member of the family finds, in turn, that they have an ability that transcends that of normal people. One has invisibility, one can fly, one can swim with supernatural swiftness, one can read minds. It's an interesting book, one that spans decades, and draws the reader in to its compelling story line. I found it compulsively readable, and plowed through it in about a single day. Recommended. Grade: B+

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (2013) by Edward Kelsey Moore. The Supremes are a group of three African-American girls/women who meet at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat restaurant through the years and are inextricably bound up in each other's lives. Clarice struggles to keep up appearances as she deals with her husband's serial infidelities. Beautiful Barbara Jean tries to deal with a long-ago love affair with a white boy whom she cannot forget. And Odette engages in the toughest battle, with cancer. Through it all, Moore brings a raucous sense of humor to all of their adventures, keeping the reader amused as well as involved. This is a most enjoyable book to read and I recommend it highly. Grade: B+

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012) by Ben Fountain. This book has been called "The Catch-22 of the Iraq War," and that's not a bad summation. Billy Lynn is a 19-year-old Army grunt who happened to be caught on film performing some "heroic" actions, and the Bush administration is sending him and his fellow Bravo Company soldiers on a publicity tour of the United States. It climaxes at a Dallas Cowboys football game on Thanksgiving day, and negotiations to make a movie about the Al-Ansakar Canal, where the firefight took place, are under way. The surreal nature of the festivities, given that the Bravos will be going back to Iraq in two days, borders on the insane. I found the book to be compulsively readable and I was only disappointed when it ended. Grade: A-  

Mumbai New York Scranton

Mumbai New York Scranton (2013) by Tamara Shopsin. A memoir in which Shopsin remembers her trip to India and then back to the United States, during which she was showing increasingly alarming symptoms of the tumor that was growing in her skull. Mostly she was vomiting a lot and getting killer headaches. The book alternates between travelogue and sickness descriptions, until it climaxes in a hospital in New York, where she undergoes three surgeries to control and remove the tumor. Through it all Shopsin is good-humored and insightful, and it makes for a riveting, quick read that I couldn't put down. (It is also made brief by the use of a lot of white space dispersed throughout the 276-page book.) I enjoyed the book. Grade: B+ 

A Week in Winter

A Week in Winter (2012) by Maeve Binchy. This is Binchy's last book, and she died shortly after writing it and before it was published. Her writing powers are still at full force, however, and this book illustrates why she was so popular for so long. In this book, she follows the fortunes of Chicky Starr, an Irish woman who left with her American lover, against advice of family, and found herself adrift in America for 20 years. When she finally returns to Ireland, it is to buy and refurbish a large house called Stone House, which she turns into a prosperous vacation hotel. The reader is treated to the stories of the visitors to Stone House, and most of them benefit by  their sojourns in the Irish countryside. Binchy is a master storyteller, and all the separate stories of the guests at Stone House are told with grace and wit. This is a fine and entertaining novel. Grade: B+

What Alice Forgot

What Alice Forgot (2009) by Liane Moriarty. This book is a totally absorbing, compulsively readable story about what happens to a woman named Alice when she falls in an exercise class, bumping her head and losing 10 years of memory. Suddenly, to her, it is not 2008 but 1998. All her memories of the past ten years are gone, including the births of her three children and the disintegration of her marriage. She is living in a wonderland where she is still in love with her husband and can't imagine why they are getting a divorce. The book is extremely well written, and when she finally gets her memory back it all makes sense. This is one of the best novels I have read, and I recommend it highly. Grade: A

Give Me Everything You Have

Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked (2013) by James Lasdun. Lasdun teaches writing, and one of his students (he calls her Nasreen) becomes obsessed with him and starts an email correspondence which evolves into a full-scale Internet assault. In this book, Lasdun meditates on his status as a stalkee, and he obviously goes through a lot of stress and anxiety as a result of her actions. I found his meditations a bit too esoteric, and would have appreciated a bit more detail about the actual stalking. I think. Anyway, this book was good, but I found it less than fully satisfying. Grade: B 

Savage Continent

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II (2012) by Keith Lowe. A sweeping look at Europe after the Second World War illustrates how the atrocities continued in the years after the fighting supposedly ended, with the legacy of war leaving physical destruction, displacement, famine, moral destruction and a landscape of chaos. At the same time, wronged parties seek vengeance, nations try for ethnic cleansing, and many nations sink into civil war. It's a sometimes-shocking story of how the legacy of World War II left many people in deep suffering, and of how the Western Allies failed to come to their aid. This is a deeply researched book which tries for fairness in examining a disturbing subject. Grade: A-

Middle Men

Middle Men (2013) by Jim Gavin. This collection of short stories kept me interested, and every story was a little gem that I would gladly reread someday. Gavin has an intimate knowledge of the SoCal locations in which his stories are set, and it lend authenticity to his writing. I usually don't enjoy collections of short stories, because I usually have to put the book down in the middle of a story, and I have trouble picking up the book again and getting back into the story I was reading. With this book, I had no such problems. Every story was memorable, and every one was easy to stay involved in. As collections of short stories go, I give this one top marks. Grade: B+

With or Without You

With or Without You (2013) by Domenica Ruta. A sparkling memoir about growing up with a crazy mother near Boston in the 1980s. Ruta's mother Kathi was a screamer, and a drug addict, and their house was piled high with trash that accumulated because it was too much trouble to take it out. But her mother was also indulgent, sometimes keeping Domenica home from school to watch movies on TV. Ruta has written a memoir that somehow manages to mix love with revulsion, telling the true story as she remembers it but yet somehow having a reserve of affection for her mother. It's an entertaining book, but somehow Ruta seems to have abbreviated the story, to have left important details out. This is a good memoir, but compared to others I've read it doesn't quite stack up. Grade: B