Total Immersion - Glenna Luschei

Cowgirl Stampede
Though I fly in from California where words crest
high as the Big Sur Coast, I want to write an epic vast
as Texas, horns grand as the long-horned cattle
that cowgirls drove across the West to Ft. Worth

I want to grapple with those poems that stampede me
all my life, heave them to the ground, bellow to our sisters
that our lives are worth the long trek across the plains
to Abilene. I want to hogtie those poems.

while the cowhands cheer and wave their Stetsons.
jump to their feet in a boot-scooting swing. I'll forge
shit-kicking poems that will fill up a ball room, make my
people dance all night, belt buckle to belt buckle.

I had the pleasure of hearing Glenna at a recent poetry event and fell in love with her poetry.   This book is an excellent collection of recent poems.  Her poetry is clean and pure as it describes both simple and complex situations.  A light-heartedness mixed with deep compassion makes the poems touch the reader in a very personal way.  Glenna has travelled widely to both exotic and seemingly ordinary places.  With the poet's mind, she is able to extract the ordinary in the exotic and the exotic in the ordinary.  These poems don't bemoan what's missing in life, but rather extol the wonders of passing through life.  The poems are like pictures of what someone may have missed--but not Glenna.

The Gathering - Anne Enright

All big families are the same. I meet them sometimes at parties or in pubs, we announce ourselves and then we grieve-Billy in Boston, and Jimmy-Joe in Jo'burg, doing well-the dead first, then the lost, and then the mad.

There is always a drunk. There is always someone who has been interfered with, as a child. There is always a colossal success, with several houses in various countries to which no one is ever invited. There is a mysterious sister. These are just trends, of course, and, late at night, everything makes sense. We pity our mothers, what they had to put up with in bed or in the kitchen, and we hate them or we worship them, but we always cry for them- at least I do. The imponderable pain of my mother, against which I have hardened my heart. Just one glass over the odds and I will thump the table, like the rest of them, and howl for her too.

This is a thought-provoking, emotional journey through a family shaken by a death. Enright, in the tradition of great Irish writers, delves into places left uncovered by most people, including most writers. This book is well-deserving of the Booker Prize which it was awarded.

I liked how Enright, focusing primarily on a female sibling in a large family, leads a surreal experience following the death. She notes inter-generational relationships and how those too are somewhat surreal. Everything is new after a death, but everything old surfaces.

In Our Hearts We Were Giants - Yehuda Koren & Eilat Negev

With our legs we measure the long and, for the Lilliputs, arduous distance from their barrack to Mengele's clinic; with our eyes we assess the height of the electrified barbed wire fence and the watchtowers. We slide into the deep, muddy ditches that were dug to separate the camp's sections. It's amazing the extent of the security precautions that were taken by the Nazis against people so helpless and feeble. We see it all, and understand nothing.

An amazing story told by two reporters who researched this most unusual family with seven dwarfs. They are all siblings who inherited a dominant gene leading to a type of dwarfism. With little else to do as a physically handicapped, they became an accomplished travelling entertainment troupe.

The authors thoroughly document the entire family's saga from thier childhood to their internment as Jews in Auschwitz as well as life after the war. The book discusses dwarfism and the unique challenges of little people. The reader learns how this one family is able to survive the unimaginable horrors of the Nazis. Much of the book covers the time period in the concentration camp under treatment with the monster, Dr. Mengele. Reading this book moved me to tears of sadness at the inhumanity and smiles of wonder at family bonds, love, and perservance.

The Coffee Trader - David Liss

"It's something extraordinary," she told him, gesturing toward his bowl. "Drink it."
"Drink it?" Miguel squinted into the blackness. "It looks like the devil's piss, which would certainly be extraordinary, but I've no desire to know what it tastes like."
Geertruid leaned toward him, almost brushing up against his arm. "Take a sip and then I'll tell you everything. This devil's piss is going to make both our fortunes."

This Liss novel, like the Paper Conspiracy, is filled with intrigue, double-crossing, unusual characters, mysterious dealings and all the ingredients for a book that keeps the reader turning pages to figure it all out. I enjoyed the book immensely. Taking place in Amsterdam in the early 1700's it captures a time of wealthy traders and international financial dealings. It also encompasses the complexities of being a Jewish merchant during this time period. Much research was obviously performed for this complex historical novel that reads like a good mystery.

While reading this book, one can't help but reflect on the current world financial crisis and how much of the financial markets, such as commodity trading, began in this time period in Amsterdam. If you have visited Amsterdam, you will also enjoy the portrayal of this time in the city's history. This is