The Engagements

The Engagements (2013) by J. Courtney Sullivan. This book is concerned with diamonds and people's reasons for getting into relationships and the conduct of those relationships. It jumps around among the years, from 1947 to 1972 to 1983 to 2012, first telling about a woman who works in advertising, then about a man who works as an EMT, then about a Parisian who leaves her husband for an attractive young American and lives to regret it. The structure of the book was a puzzle to me, as I couldn't see a good reason for all the leaping from year to year, and I didn't see why it was necessary to break up all these different stories into different eras and present them out of order. I'm sure the author had a good reason for structuring the book as she did, I just couldn't see it. I found the book a little depressing, but that's just me. Grade: B+

My Mistake

My Mistake (2013) by Daniel Menaker. This memoir is concerned with Menaker's life from the age of three months to the age of 71, which encompassed 26 years working as an editor at The New Yorker. I found his prose clipped and a little hard to follow, though this is not necessarily his fault. He has had some interesting experiences, to be sure, including an out-of-body experience as a teenager. He is also a lung cancer survivor. If you're interested in learning more about the inner workings of The New Yorker, this is the book for you. The main body of the book is focused on his years working there. I had expected this to be a humorous book, but as it turned out I didn't laugh or even chuckle much. This is a good book, to be sure, but I couldn't quite engage with it. Grade: B 

The Great Man

The Great Man (2007) by Kate Christensen. Much to my surprise, when I got well into this book I realized that I had read it before. This time, I liked it better. It's about a man named Oscar Feldman, who was a famous painter who had died five years before the novel takes place. He is survived by, among others, four women who have played major roles in his life. His widow, Abigail, his mistress, Teddy, his sister, Maxine (also an artist), and a family friend, Lila. All the women are mature, if not elderly, and Christensen has pulled off the feat of telling the story from the points of view of these four older women, each with her own tale to tell. To complicate matters, two men are independently working on biographies of Oscar, and they enter into the mix of personalities that goes to make the book up. To add spice to the mix, Oscar had a bet with Maxine, that each would attempt to create a painting in the other's style, and see if it would be accepted by the art world. To her relish, Maxine won the bet; but to her chagrin, she can't bring herself to reveal the results to the public. She had promised Oscar to keep it secret. All the separate strands of the story come together nicely in the end, and it makes for a very entertaining and involving book. Grade: B+  

The Silver Star

The Silver Star (2013) by Jeannette Walls. Walls, author of the memoir The Glass Castle, has here written a fictional tale that holds echoes of the earlier book. In this case, two young girls are separated from their neglectful mother when she leaves them to try and further her career and is late coming back. The two girls decide to take a cross-country bus trip to visit their relatives in Virginia, and the results are very interesting to read. Bean, 12, and Liz, 15, settle in with their Uncle Tinsley, who is at first not glad to see them but later warms to them. He tells them not to seek jobs in town, but they are desperate for cash and get hired by Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town and a notorious bully. Maddox gets fresh with Bean and Liz, and when he tries to have sex with Liz, she goes to the authorities. The ensuing trial and its results form the nut of the book, and then it kind of loses focus after that. But it is always an engaging read, and I definitely recommend it to fans of The Glass Castle. Grade: B+ 

Blue Plate Special

Blue Plate Special (2013) by Kate Christensen. This book is a gourmand's delight, as Christensen frequently goes into detail about the meals she has eaten, the preparation of the food, and what it meant to her at a particular time in her life. The memoir is subtitled, An Autobiography of My Appetites, and that's a pretty good description. Although she downplays sex, she gives full-on narratives about her history with food, how she learned to love food, and how she has enjoyed eating in her past. Surprisingly, she is not fat. She periodically goes on strict diets, which are effective in controlling her weight. Other than that, her relationships are often defined by how the man she is dating relates to food, and whether she and he like the same foods. Christensen also gives recipes at the end of every section of the book, and she clearly knows what she's doing in the kitchen. This book made me hungry. Grade: B+ 

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending (2011) by Julian Barnes. Maybe it's because it's a British book, but I just don't quite "get" this novel. The protagonist, Tony, has an entire life by the time you get to the end of the book. An old love, Veronica, comes back to haunt him when an old friend, Adrian, commits suicide. The big reveal comes about when you find out that Veronica's mother had a child by Adrian, and that Veronica still has a relationship with the (now adult) child. But I still can't quite figure out why Veronica is so furious with Tony. What did he do that was so wrong? He sent her and Adrian a rather nasty letter sometime in the past, but would she attach so much importance to it? I don't get it. I'm sure it makes sense to some people, but I can't figure out this book, and this is the third time I've read it. It's definitely a good book, but it's ultimate meaning eludes me. I will look forward to discussing it in the book group that I plan to attend. Grade: B

The Shining Girls

The Shining Girls (2013) by Lauren Beukes. A serial killer named Harper happens on a house in Chicago which opens onto other times -- in other words, he's a serial killer who can travel through time. The House has a will of its own, however, and chooses his victims for him. The chosen victims are known to Harper as the Shining Girls. He can pick them out of a crowd because they "shine." One intended victim, named Kirby, survives the attack because her dog intervenes. Kirby, choosing not to be just a victim, starts hunting down her attacker. She pursues Harper by getting an internship at a newspaper and using the newspaper's resources to track homicides of women through time. It's a rather interesting book, with thriller elements thrown in along with the murder. Kirby is an engaging character, and so is Harper, in a terrible way. Some elements of the plot don't make sense, but then what would you expect from a time-traveling serial killer? Grade: B

The Buddha in the Attic

The Buddha in the Attic (2011) by Julie Otsuka. The Buddha in the Attic tells the story of Japanese immigrants to the U.S., starting in the early 20th century and following their story up through the early years of World War II. Otsuka has adopted a unique story-telling style, which uses lists of different people, telling the tale of each in succession on the page as if they were not unique but were part of a large group of like-minded people. It's a technique which works extraordinarily well, and one finishes this book feeling as if one has some concept of what it must have been like to be a Japanese immigrant to the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. Otsuka is a very good writer who has produced an excellent book. Grade: A   

The Cooked Seed

The Cooked Seed (2013) by Anchee Min. Min's story is improbable but apparently true. In 1984, she managed to emigrate from Red China to the United States, and hanging on by her fingernails, succeeds in learning English and becoming a best-selling author. She is constantly in fear of being deported back to China because she doesn't speak English well enough, and she really has no plan except to stay in the United States and somehow make a life for herself. Conditions in China are revealed to be surprisingly bad, and she makes us understand her desperation to escape. This is a well written book, which constantly surprises the reader with its honesty and insights. I read it compulsively and didn't want it to end, although I did want to see her attain her objectives, which eventually she does. It's quite an inspiring book. Grade: B+ 

She Left Me the Gun

She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me (2013) by Emma Brockes. Brockes explores her mother's mysterious previous life by going to South Africa and talking to her relatives there. Why did her mother immigrate from South Africa to London? Why did she never go back to visit her many siblings? Brockes finds out that her mother Paula had a horrendous childhood, with an abusive father, and even went so far as to shoot her father before leaving South Africa for England. Brockes teases the story out of Paula's siblings in South Africa and gradually the horrifying truth comes out. It's an interesting tale, well told. Grade: B+ 

The Joker

The Joker (2013) by Andrew Hudgins. This is a memoir, and Hudgins is the joker of the title. He loves to tell jokes, and he loves to analyze jokes to see why they are funny. Many of the jokes he tells in this book are racist, sexist, or just plain dirty. That doesn't stop him from enjoying them (for the most part), and it doesn't stop the reader from (occasionally) laughing out loud. This book did, in fact, cause me to laugh out loud more than once, and that is a great accomplishment. I enjoyed the heck out of reading it, and my only complaint was that it came to an end. I recommend it highly. Grade: B+

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls (2013) by Anton Disclafani. It is 1930, the beginning of the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy, 15-year-old Thea Atwell has been cast out of the family home in Florida, sent to spend a year at the Yonahlossee Riding Camp. She is an expert rider, so sending her to the camp is not such a bad punishment, but she misses her twin brother, Sam. This is a coming-of-age book, and also a sexual-awakening book, and the story is told in a very sexy, entertaining way. Thea's life will never be the same, and slowly, in flashbacks, her previous life and the family tragedy that has caused her to be exiled come into focus. The book is quite a good read, and has a satisfying ending -- although it is not the ending you might expect, it is in retrospect inevitable. Grade: B+

The Guns at Last Light

The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (2013) by Rick Atkinson. This last book in a World War II trilogy stands very well on its own. It basically covers the  period from the Normandy invasion to the victorious end of the war. All the confusions, all the fog of war, are explored in detail, as well as the personalities of important generals, the roles they played, and how they look in hindsight. The horrible losses suffered by both sides are described in sufficient detail that you get the idea. It was a cataclysmic war filled with indescribable horrors, and this book, at 641 pages, gives the reader his (or her) fill of shootings, explodings, burnings, and other ways to die that the war offered. I found it worth reading, if for nothing else, for the triumphant ending, the defeat of the evil Nazis and the Allies forced surrender terms, the happiness of the survivors, and the poignant sadness of the families who had lost loved ones in the war. It is thoroughly researched and provides many details of things that happened which may not be found elsewhere. Grand. Grade: A