Book Report #225 Circe

Circe by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles blew me away, and now I've had the chance to drink up Circe, Miller's other epic novel that is an absolute masterpiece.

Spanning eons, Circe tells her life story as a god. I could tell you the particulars of the plot, but while it's completely engrossing, it's not where the novel shines the brightest. The writing is glorious, true art in itself. And the story weaves together so much Greek mythology that we are treated to a different glimpse of these characters we've heard about over the years--what fuels them, the relationships they had amongst themselves, their pettiness. I never imagined I could feel ambivalent toward Athena.

The courage of Circe, her life as a witch, and her compassion toward mortals enveloped me for days. I feared the end of the novel because I didn't want to leave the space the novel created in my life. We have so much to see in ourselves by reading about these gods and the mortals they interacted with. Greek mythology has been presented to me as somewhat silly, something that ignorant people clung to when they didn't know better. Now I see that we aren't that different with our beliefs today, or in how we respond to our lives.

General consensus: This is a voyage into another realm that forces us to expand our sense of reality.

Book Report #222 The Remains of the Day

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Stevens is a dignified butler in the great house of Darlington Hall of England. He served Lord Darlington for many years, but since his passing is employed by Mr. Farraday of America.

Mr. Farraday allows the house to be closed for some days, so the staff is able to take time off away from the house. He encourages Stevens to go on a motor trip of the English countryside in his nice Ford car. Stevens accepts, and makes it a point to include a visit to Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Benn) who was formerly the housekeeper at Darlington Hall. From her latest letter, it seems to him that she may be interested in returning to Darlington Hall, and that could potentially solve a staffing problem for him.

Stevens takes his leisurely days to reflect on moments that have stuck with him throughout his career. This is how we learn more about his relationship with Lord Darlington and Miss Kenton.

This story is not fraught with tension or filled with adventure. Like Stevens, it slowly and thoughtfully reveals itself.

While Stevens explains events through the eyes of reason and professionalism, it seems that there could potentially be more at play. In the end, it's clear what has been going on under the surface, and Stevens' humanity is revealed in a tender moment. What he chooses to do with the information he gathers has to be what earned this book the Booker Prize.

General consensus: A relaxed character study that moved me to tears in the end. Beautiful.

Book Report #221 Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb

This is the true story of therapist Lori who has a practice in LA. She has a unique story of how she became a later in life therapist where she first was a writer in Hollywood on popular shows, and then went to medical school. But the most interesting thing about her is how willing she is to bare her soul in this book, and not bullshit her readers or herself. As she relates her time with her own therapist, her courage in vulnerability is stunning.

We become immersed in the lives of some of her clients-- Charlotte, Julie, Rita, and John. It feels like if we met them in real life, we'd instantly be frustrated with them (actually, not Julie). Their behavior can be so annoying, and they're dead wrong in how they see things. But that's not how Lori interacts with them. She gives them space without judgment. She can be still through their nonsense and slowly pick out what's bothering them, and then discover how she can be a mirror so they can recognize what they need to on their own and do their inner work.

This is also the case for how her own therapist helps her. She has to accept that he will see through her to her core, and will have to suffer through the embarrassment that comes with that kind of nakedness to get to the other side.

The intimacy that comes from this kind of work between therapist and patient is wonderfully touching. Lori's explanations of how therapy works and the theories behind it gave me clarity I'd been looking for.

Lori is a gifted writer, so the story read beautifully, and moves with elegance and grace. There was so much that she covered but it felt like I could have sat with her for eons and been riveted. I felt like I was growing right along with her and her patients.

General consensus: If you only read one book this year, make it this one.

Book Report #220 Machines Like Me

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

I borrowed this from the library almost out of a sense of duty. We're supposed to read books by McEwan, aren't we? And even if I didn't particularly enjoy Atonement, that was probably due to my personal shortcomings, especially my most glaring error of not being British. Atonement won all the awards, so case closed, and maybe I should try again with another one of McEwan's books in order to redeem myself. (I have a similar issue going on with Murakami, but that's a story for another day.)

I'm really glad I gave his stuff another go because Machines Like Me is an instant classic, and I'm going to go so far as to call it genius.

I would never have the gall to write technological advances that I reserve for the future into the past, but thankfully McEwan isn't bound in the same way. Machines Like Me takes place in the 20th century when technological advances are one hundred years past where we are in present day, while Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister, and throws in that Alan Turing never died.

And! It centers around thirty-year old wash-up Charlie Friend's relationship with his very human robot, Adam.

We see Adam arrive in his box, and animate slowly over many hours. His pulse registers, his eyes open, and he begins to master blinking. Eventually his consciousness kicks in and he realizes his nakedness. Sensibly, he asks for some clothes.

The writing is on the wall. Adam will sow the seeds of destruction, just like his Biblical namesake. But how will this happen? Adam's programmers are the first mover. When Adam is released into society, they do not have control over each scenario he will encounter. Adam will respond based on his experiences and what he has learned. This will grow increasingly complicated and difficult to predict.

As the political climate of England is thrown into greater and greater chaos, and Charlie's relationship with his neighbor spins out into a web of love and confusion, Adam is growing up, learning, and living a rich inner life. He loves Shakespeare, and writes endless haikus. He is enthused about current events, history, and literature to a point of annoyance for Charlie.

He experiences love and sex. Yet the other robots like him aren't thriving in the same way. Some experience the world through sadness and despair. So what will happen to them all? And what kind of choices will they make to be autonomous in their own lives?

As Turing eventually asks, at what point can they actually be considered conscious and even sentient?

General consensus: An intellectual read that's smart and tight, and poses many important questions that we cannot yet answer. In short: brilliant.

Book Report #219 Where'd You Go, Benadette

Where'd You Go, Benadette by Maria Semple

When I started this, I wasn't sure I'd finish it. Bernadette struck me as a bland, pathetic nutcase so I wasn't sure we could go anywhere interesting. The lack of her backstory for the first part of the book made it hard to sympathize with her.

Also, I wasn't sure about the format. It isn't a regular narrative. There are emails, articles, text conversations and all kinds of things thrown in, and initially I wasn't sure why.

But once those hurdles were overcome, we were flying. I love getting a front seat to watching entitled rich people get spectacularly foiled. Since Bernadette was a standoffish mother at an almost top tier school in Seattle, the scene was perfectly set. Throw in some drama at Microsoft and a pending trip to Antarctica, and it's delicious, smart insanity.

Genereal consensus: It has the tempo of a smart heist movie but it's about a family finding their way back to each other. Genius.

I just found out the movie is in theaters right now!!

Book Report #218 - Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant had a childhood that she doesn't completely remember, but one thing is certain: her mom was a real bitch.

Now Eleanor is thirty years old, single, friendless, and working in an office doing accounts receivable. Her life is unremarkable and she's completely fine with that. Sometimes she aches out of loneliness but it's nothing vodka can't drown out.

She's simultaneously completely lovable and incapable of normal conversation because she can't pick up on nuance. All conversation for her is literal. It makes for constant chuckles for the reader but also tenderness for Eleanor. She tries to communicate but it goes south on her every time so she can't hook into regular life.

As we get to know her, we see her open up to an opportunity here, and one there. Pretty soon, she has an actual friend and people who appreciate her. It's a big change in her adult life. If she keeps opening up, she'll start to undo all the things that make her shut herself away into a box, and rid herself of the demons that plague her.

This is skilled writing with momentum. I read the entire book in two days and feel changed as a person. It had real depth and a power to heal.

General consensus: Beautifully done. Balances humor and depth perfectly.

Book Report #217 Nine Strangers

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

The author of Big Little Lies brings us the story of nine people at a luxury wellness retreat in rural Australia during a hot summer. We get insight into each guest's experience, and it's the literary gossip we've come to love from Moriarty.

There's something not quite right simmering under the surface which eventually explodes into delightful insanity. The book was totally unhinged, and everyone let their freak flags fly. I had so much fun reading it, I think my face probably looked like a dog with its head out of a car window.

General consensus: Big, crazy, well-written fun.

Book Report #214 Heroes of the Frontier

Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers

Josie is a dentist in small Ohio town. She has two small children, and is happily absent one man-child.

We meet Josie as she's careening around Alaska in an RV, children in tow, trying to outrun her fears and bad memories. In the beginning, their adventures had me crying laughing. But as time went on, things took a more dangerous turn. Her adventures became increasingly risky and desperate, and there was no end goal in sight.

We learn about how she's broken, how her parents were broken, and that this legacy may persist for generations. We hope she'll get it together, and be strong for her children. But as the summer fires roar through Alaska, we're not sure they won't be consumed--if not by the flames, then perhaps by Josie's madness.

General consensus: A crazy story that's somewhat like his other work, A Hologram For A King yet instead of a man in Saudi Arabia trying to sort out his life that's spinning out of control, we have a mom in Alaska going through a crisis while trying not to let her children know.

Book Report #213 A Hologram For A King

A Hologram For A King by Dave Eggers

An American man in his mid-fifties named Alan Clay goes to Saudi Arabia to sell IT services to the King for the new city he is building. It's a place likened to Dubai--a sprawling metropolis on the edge of the desert.

It's essential that Alan make this sale because he has to dig himself out of owing money to people and paying for his daughter's next year of college. He has to get his life back on track. There's simply no other option.

The problem is that Alan sees himself as a failure, and expects other people to do the same. Going to Saudi Arabia for weeks on end means he's in a relentlessly boring place where inspiration lurks nowhere, and there is nothing to do as he and his team wait for the king's arrival.

I was surprised to find the novel compelling because I never grew sympathy for Alan. I just wanted to know what the hell was going to happen next in this mess that was his life. I didn't expect things to turn around for him but I was curious to see if he might somehow stumble into success.

I admire Eggers for weaving the history of the Schwinn bicycle company into this story. Fascinating stuff.

General consensus: I'm not sure what I just read. It could have been quite deep or a complete waste of time...but I'm suspecting it was the former because there was this odd melding of the environment and who Alan was. In a lot of ways, Alan was the desert that was being described in the book by the Saudis. Alan was the city the king was building. I have a feeling this was a profound read. The only metric in which to know it is to see over time how it affects me.

Book Report #200 The Stars Are Fire

The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve is a brilliant writer, who has never wavered in her ability to create breathtaking masterpieces that take the shape of novels. They leave the reader tender and changed. One does not put down an Anita Shreve novel and just carry on with her day. Time must be set aside to sit and fully be rocked.

In The Stars Are Fire, Grace lives with her husband Gene and two children, Claire and Tom, in a beachfront town in Maine in the 1940s. Her marriage is strained and the two barely talk. Sometimes Grace counts the words Gene says to her in a day, and sometimes the number is two. There's an awful evening where he abuses her sexually, and she becomes pregnant.

A serious drought sets in, and Maine becomes a tinder box, waiting to ignite. When it inevitably does, the fire rips through the state, pushing people toward the ocean. It comes to Grace's house when Gene is trying to make a firebreak to save the town. She has to flee to the ocean with her two children.

After the harrowing night, they are saved, and their lives are forever altered. Gene does not come back, and Grace wonders if he's taken this as his opportunity to escape. She must step up and take care of her children. Once she has healed from hypothermia and losing her baby, she takes her children and her mother to her late mother-in-law's mansion for refuge. She gets a job as a receptionist at a doctor's office. She takes on a boarder and enjoys his company. Grace's life is pretty good for once. She begins to understand happiness.

But a burned up and angry Gene returns, and it's all smashed to bits. Grace must dig into her reserves yet again and find the strength to be the heroine her children need.

General consensus: I was hooked in and then gutted. I had to tell my family what was going on in the story because it felt so real. Classic Shreve. Gorgeous, moving, and haunting.

Book Report #199 White Houses

White Houses by Amy Bloom

I'm still scratching my head about this book. I picked it up because I saw everyone was reading it and I have to do what everyone is doing. I quickly discovered I was reading historical fiction narrated by Eleanor Roosevelt's lesbian lover, Alice Hickok, who was known as the First Friend of The White House.

Their relationship is no secret now, although it was at the time. FDR had his affair(s) and Eleanor had hers. They had a country to run and a nation to inspire so they managed to largely keep their personal lives out of the spotlight.

The story is told out of order. There's a lot of jumping around to different times and places, with the main thread being in a New York apartment where they are holed up in a lovers nest as old ladies. Alice was a strong, opinionated woman and some of the things she had to say about famous people somewhat shocked me, like that she thought Charles Lindbergh killed his own baby and blamed someone else.

She thought of The White House as a dorm, and stayed there frequently. She knew FDR pretty well, as well as a good part of the Roosevelt family. She also grew up poor and abused in the Midwest, so we learn a lot about that and how it was such a different world than the one she later lived in as an accomplished journalist.


General consensus: I couldn't put it down but it felt a bit like salacious gossip dressed as fine literature.

Book Report #197 - The Radium Girls

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

In the Roaring Twenties, there were lucky girls who were paid handsomely to paint radium onto watch dials. They were called the dial-painters. They went to work in the beautiful dresses they bought with their generous wages. They dipped their brushes in radium paint, put the brushes in their mouths to make the bristles into a point, and then painted carefully. They were paid per watch and each one was examined thoroughly so they wanted to work quickly but accurately.

It took a few years before the first dial-painter watched her tooth fall out and the wound never heal. How quickly it went: the girls started experiencing terrible pain all over their bodies, and helplessly watched their teeth fall out. Some even had their jawbones come out in their hands.

It was the radium. The radium that everyone was so convinced was healthy. These girls were lucky to work with it, and they were beautiful as their dresses and hair shone in the dark while they walked home from work. At least, that's what their company would have them believe.

The way they could suffer was horrific; their bones decaying right in their bodies. I can barely even bring myself to think about it. It took some time before doctors could put together that it was radium poisoning because there had never been radium poisoning before! But the radium companies fought these girls tooth and nail, insisting they were wrong. They insisted that the girls didn't get sick because of anything work-related. The way they could lie and cheat was hard to stomach. It became clear they were essentially getting away with murder.

I was surprised at how glued to the book I was when it was so sad, and on the surface, could seem repetitive. Every new piece of information was a revelation. Every girl I read about was a separate and important case. I cared about them so much, and I think I always will. What they managed to accomplish in court helps protect us today. We owe them so much gratitude.

General consensus: Shocking, and left me emotionally gutted. But such an important read!

Book Report #186 - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Rose's mom celebrates her daughter's birthday by baking her a lemon chocolate cake and that's when Rose's life changes forever. She unlocks her gift: that she can taste people's feelings through the food they make. It's pretty inconvenient for a kid to have this ability. She doesn't want to know the things she knows, and she doesn't want food to taste so bad.

What's most amazing about this book is the writing itself. It's a magical journey, and it's captivating. There's no way to put down the plot here and not have it come off sounding ridiculous. You have to let go of how you believe the world should operate, and go on the ride. In that way, the book is liberating, even transcendent.

General consensus: I loved it and I also felt like I lived it. And then I baked a lemon chocolate cake.

Book Report #185 - Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

This book is fantastic literature, plus a history lesson, plus a rollercoaster of emotions. Lisa See, I bow down to you. You are my co-queen along with Beyonce.

There were two sisters, May and Pearl, living in Shanghai in 1937. They were beautiful girls and modeled for ads and magazines. Their conservative parents did not approve, but they were modern and didn't care. But then their dad gambled all their money away and sold them as brides, and Japan started bombing China. From then on, it's omg after omg.

Their father sold them to brothers who lived in Los Angeles, so they had to make their way out there. I do not want to give any spoilers because it was each surprise in the plot that added to my awe of the writing. And then the end. Holy crap. It's just unbelievable all the way through, and See maintains such mastery and control over the whole thing.

General consensus: I can't even. It's among the greatest books I've ever read.

Book Report #182 - Fall of Giants

Fall of Giants (Book One of The Century Trilogy) by Ken Follett

This is a mammoth book about World War One. It's the first installment of The Century Trilogy that goes through the 20th Century (the next book will be about World War Two).

We follow the lives of various people around Europe, America, and Russia as we witness the war unfold. We see it through the eyes of English, German, Russian, Welsh, and American people, some well-off and some poor, some for the war and some against it. It's the same kind of set-up as Pillars of the Earth: specific characters are followed to give a full picture of what's going on.

I was more interested in the relationships in the book than I was in the particulars of the war. But history buffs will probably be intrigued by the details around war tactics and the specific battles.

The book got me thinking that if this is how the kids were taught about history--through interesting stories and characters--they'd probably remember a decent amount of it.

General consensus: It wasn't my favorite Follett book, but it kept my attention.

Book Report #181 - The Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

This book was the simple stories of a handful of unrelated people who lived through the war in Sarajevo during the 1990s. One is a sniper, one has a family who escaped to Italy, another is a father who has to provide for his family. They're all rocked from being forced to watch their beautiful city be destroyed while they dodge bullets and bombs.

There's no escape. It's just about how to make it through each day, if you don't get killed. And how to not let your thoughts destroy you before the bullets from the snipers on the hills do.

Oh! But there's a cellist. And he plays for 22 days--one day for each person who was killed by a bomb. His music is the link to the past, to a place beyond the war, to the memories of the Sarajevans before their city was a hellscape.

General consensus: So realistic it broke my heart.

Book Report #180 - Commonwealth

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

I love Ann Patchett's stuff so I was psyched to get my hands on her latest book. Unfortunately, this isn't one of my favorites. It's with regret that I say, I'm not even sure what the point of it was.

I know her father was a cop in LA, so that explains why there's so much going on with the LAPD in the book. But it wasn't exactly interesting. And following two families being thrown together because a guy couldn't keep his hands off a beautiful married woman didn't captivate me. They came off as selfish people that I couldn't have sympathy for.

I suppose I should have had sympathy for the kids, but even that was hard to drum up. These were well-off, privileged people who acted like assholes. I was surprised that I wanted to keep reading, even though I didn't like anything that was going on. I think this was due to the suspense of not knowing what she was talking about sometimes, like how did the son Cal die? And it further surprised me that Patchett kept trying to use little moments to show profundity. There was nothing profound here--except maybe in the daughter that ended up at the Zen center in Switzerland? Basically, they were all jerks.

General consensus: Not for me but I'd love to hear if it was for you. I must have missed something.

Book Report #173 The Kitchen House

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Set in southern Virginia in the late 1700s and early 1800s, this is the story of a tobacco plantation largely from the point of view of the servants in the kitchen house.

The Captain and Miss Martha own the plantation. In 1793, the Captain brings little Lavinia from his ship and gives her to the kitchen house. She's Irish and can't remember anything, not what happened on the boat or even her name. She's clearly traumatized, and can't stop throwing up and crying. Slowly it comes out that her parents died on the ship and she had a brother who she was separated from. The slaves in the kitchen house take her on as part of their family, and there is deep love between them, which made me cry more than once.

There is so much to this amazing story, and it's absolutely riveting. Drama around every corner and so many characters to care about. A few things will stick with me for a long time: how deeply people can love each other, how much suffering people can endure while staying strong and not compromising their principles, and how little power anyone who was not a white man had at that time. Even white women were under the control of their husbands.

General consensus: Mind blowing historical fiction. I wouldn't be surprised if it became required reading in schools and/or a successful film.

Book Report #171 The Girls

The Girls by Lori Lansens

Rose and Ruby are sisters living in the country out in the province of Ontario not too far a drive from Detroit. They're also conjoined twins; joined at the head so that they look out at the world together, which means that they can't look each other in the eyes without the help of a mirror.

It's Rose's autobiography but Ruby gets to write some chapters about her life. Their life? In a way theirs but purely because they move together. They are two individuals bound together at the head. We learn about their birth and childhoods, how people respond to them, and how they respond to that.

Much of what we read is about their beautiful parents who took them in when their birthmother fled the hospital. They are such rich characters that we feel like we can drop in for dinner unannounced and they'd be happy to host us.

This a story full of deep love but it's not devoid of shock. You never saw this story coming and I'm not about to spoil it.

General consensus: Blew me away. As good as writing gets.

Book Report #166 - A Doubter's Almanac

A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin

Milo Andret is a sorry human being. He didn't start out that way, growing up in the woods of Michigan with his quietly intelligent parents. But once he hit Berkeley and fell in love, his unraveling unfolded like a cat playing with the first loose fiber of a commercial carpet.

Milo did have success in mathematics (he can't bring himself to say math). But he could never fool himself into believing it was enough. He railed on about how important his work was, but he never felt it had intrinsic value aside from the flow he could find himself in while he was doing it. And even that he would spit on. He was tortured and miserable, and he used his work as an excuse for his poor behavior. He drowned himself in alcohol. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't drag people into his wreckage, but of course he couldn't help himself. Women provided an escape, and they flattered his ego. His two children were a byproduct of his failed attempt to save himself.

I read over five hundred pages about this guy in the course of a week. Why? Because Ethan Canin still bothers to write compelling literature in an age where people are obsessed with reality shows and the Kardashians. He also took on a wildly complicated academic endeavor that featured an allegedly brilliant man, and rather than sit by in awe of his character's intelligence, he dove in and gave a view from the inside of what it is to be that way.

I am deeply appreciative of this book because it felt like coming home. It's a culmination of things that I do not often get to share with another: a complex family life, an unfounded worship of education, and a wide-eyed curiosity about the world that clashes with the egotistical need for academic success.

The life of Milo Andret spanned the US, and both the city and the country. He was everywhere and nowhere; a horrible sack of shit whose legacy will somehow be bright. Who can make sense of life?

General consensus: If you are a longtime fan of literature, you cannot miss this.