Encounter - Milan Kundera

Two fidelities shaped us: fidelity to the revolution of modern art in the twentieth century and fidelity to the novel. Two fidelities not at all convergent. For the avant-garde (the ideologized version of modern art) has always relegated the novel to a position outside modernism, considering the form to be old hat, irrevocably conventional. When, later on, in the 1950s and 1960s, the latter-day avant-gardes began to create and proclaim their own modernism for the novel, they did it in a purely negative way: a novel with no characters, no plot, no story, if possible no punctuation: a novel that came close to be called the anti-novel.

A curious thing: the people who created modern poetry did not claim to be making anti-poetry. On the contrary, from Baudelaire on, poetic modernism was seeking a radical way to get at the essence of poetry, its most profound specificity.

This book of short essays and excerpts on art and artists displays Kundera's vast knowledge and deep insights into his subject. He is perceptive and challenging with his thoughts. Often academic and intellectual, it frequently moves into intimate insights. The book wanders and might be expected with pieces written over a long period of time. Kundera, however, is such a great intellect and superb writer, that the book is a pleasure to read and is guaranteed to spur the reader's thoughts on writers, artists, and great pieces of our cultural history.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much - Allison Hoover Bartlett

This book is basically an expanded magazine story that is not worth reading. I won't bother posting an excerpt since I do not recommend spending your time on this one. It sounded like an intriguing detective story that would also shed light on the world of rare book collectors. Unfortunately, the central character is an identity thief who uses others credit card to steal books. He has no redeeming qualities and not someone I can imagine anyone wanting to learn about. The author's ethics are as questionable as the thief's as she allows the crimes to continue with the justification that she has no legal duty to report the thief.

Long for this World - Sonya Chung

I was eleven, I think. The world had begun to seem an unpleasant and unstable place. Magic. Magic was everything. See, click, poof! That first real camera seemed the answer to everything, a revelation--like a crime with no punishment. The world was mine for the taking. From the beginning, I somehow knew: behind the lens, I had my footing. It was a place of instant solitude, and safe.

Looking back, it was probably best that my parents refused my pleas for a complex manual-focus Pentax until I was older. Those first few years I had one variable to work with: the frame. Within such parameters, your eyes begin to work hard. You learn to tilt your head, bend your knees, step back, look away then look again. You learn to scan. Pause. Wait--for the light to shift, the subject to turn, the wind to blow, your eyes to adjust until texture and dimension come into relief. You learn to always keep your eyes working when they are open, sometimes even when they are closed.

Sonya Chung's novel tells the story of a Korean family spread over the world that finds itself coming together. The book is complex and layered with the family members and the vastly different lives they have lived. The narrator is a photojournalist daughter who brings insights from around the world, including war photography in Bagdad. The characters are distinct and offer a wide range of emotions and experiences. An ambitious first book that deserves the praise it has received. Chung is an excellent writer.

The Christmas Pig - Kinky Friedman

He was a good king but he was in a bad mood. Christmas was only a month away and he still had not commissioned an artist to paint the traditional nativity scene to be unveiled at the conclusion of the midnight mass.

"I've crushed whole armies for not celebrating Christmas," complained the king to his chief advisor, Feinberg. "Now I can't even properly celebrate it myself. Is there not an artist left in the kingdom? Have they all been burned at the stake?"

"Nay, my liege," said Feinberg. "They certainly have not all been burned at the stake. Some of them have merely starved to death."

Loads of fun! Kinky tells a laugh out loud tale about Christmas that is original and captures the spirit of the holiday. I couldn't stop reading this quirky fable that is totally enjoyable. The humor is irreverant and yet the book has very tender moments. A king, a jester, a little boy, a nativity scene, and a talking pig...what more could you want for smiles and magical feelings at Christmas time. The book jacket notes that Kinky may become the next governor of Texas, which was probably less likely than this fable becoming real. He would have had my vote.

Fludd - Hilary Mantel

At this early point, the topography of the village of Fetherhoughton may repay consideration. So may the manners, customs, and dress of its inhabitants.
The village lay in a moorland, which ringed it on three sides. The surrounding hills, from the village streets, looked like the hunched and bristling back of a sleeping dog. Let sleeping dogs lie, was the attitude of the people; for they hated nature. They turned their faces in the fourth direction, to the road and the railway that ledt them to the black heart of the industrial north: to Manchester, to Wigan, to Liverpool. They were not townspeople; they had none of their curiosity. They were not country people; they could tell a cow from a sheep, but it was not their business. Cotton was their business, and had been for nearly a century. There were three mills, but there were no cogs and shawls; there was nothing picturesque.

Fresh, original and filled with humor--what more do you need in a book? Mantel is a very gifted writer who creates a magical tale. Whimsical characters fill a small English town with a new twist on every page. An unusual new priest with a mysterious background intrigues the parishioners. The search for meaning in life is expressed in a fable-like fashion. Most fun to read.

Callings - Carl Dennis

Earth Day

"Mother Earth" is her name in fables

But now we agree that the mothering

Needs to be done by the children

Whose reckless doings have aged her,

Creasing her brow, stooping her shoulders

As she's waited for them to return

From nights of drinking, from speeding

For thrills on icy roads...

Thoughtful and well-composed poems make this a pleasant book to read. The are deep, yet gently expressed. I loved the flow of the author's lines. Each poem is like opening a lovely package. The messages are varied and read like sound advice from a wise grandfather. Beautiful simplicity make a poetry book worth reading.

Othello - William Shakespeare

I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak
Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their med'cinable gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him thus.

Othello, scene ii

It's Shakespeare's great Othello...what more need I say. I liked this version edited by Ross McDonald as it contains nice introductions to the the theater world of Shakespeare's time and the writing of Othello. The footnotes are set up in a manner that doesn't distract from reading text and give brief explanations of outdated English to assist the reader.

The Echo Maker - Richard Powers

He is awake, or someplace near it. His body drifts on and off. Possible that he himself is here straight through. Only he doesn't know it, when what his mind hooks to comes and goes.
Ideas hit him, or he hits them. A game always, scores pouring in, as standings change. Surrounded by people--seas of them--the crowd a huge changing thought. He never knew himself. Every single human a separate line in a play so large and slow no one can hear it.
Time is a yardstick for pain. And he's got all the time in the world. Sometimes he jerks up, remembering, desperate to go, fix, undo. Mostly he lies still, signals of gnats he would catch and kill. They scatter when he reaches for them.

Something wonderful: he could count to anything, even all these swarms, just by adding one. Covering debts, bets. Hovering up by the highest number. In a lookout tower on a hill. People could do anything. They don't know they're gods, that they live through even death. People might make a hospital where they could keep every possible life alive. And then someday, life might return the favor.

This is a book that challenges human identity to a level so deep it is often scary. Following a brain injury, a brother struggles to return to who he was while his sister struggles with the strangeness of losing someone who still lives. The book uses its characters to intellectually and ethically examine consciousness. It has many layers and covers a lot of ground, but held my attention throughout. It is a very emotional read that contains mysteries and poetic metaphors. I loved the authors use of migrating cranes in the Nebraska town to draw the reader into the larger question of life beyond the human mind. The author's writing is both beautiful and evocative while often reading like a poem. A greatly talented writer.

The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare - Doug Stewart

During his career as a London playwright, in fact, Shakespeare appeared not to care greatly whether his plays were printed and sold for popular consumption. The publication of plays was almost an afterthought. At a time when most people in England were barely literate, live performances were what mattered.
Nearly half of Shakespeare's plays never appeared in print until the First Folio was published in 1623, seven years after his death. The theater friends who compiled the texts sometimes had to scrounge for old prompt books--copies of play scripts made by a theater's scribe--and then piece scenes together. In many cases, passages could be reconstructed only by tracking down actors who had played a part years before and asking them to recite their lines from memory. Printers both before and after the playwright's death used their own judgement in intrepreting the handwritten pages they had to work from, giving rise to multiple versions of the plays.

This is a very enjoyable read and for lovers of Shakespeare, a must read. It tells the true story of a boy who creates a huge scandal in the 1790s with his forged documents. The book has several layers to it, including the relationship of the boy and his father and the public attitude of Shakespeare. This is not a typical forgery where money is the object. And while many forgeries are designed to appeal to art or antique experts, these forgeries were designed to fool the public. It it amazing how successful this became and the outcome. Along with the great story, the author does a very nice job of including details about Shakespeare and his times.

Human Smoke - Nicholson Baker

Stefan Zweig, a young writer from Vienna, sat in an audience at a movie theater in Tours, France, watching a newsreel. It was spring 1914.

An image of Wilhelm II, the Emperor of Germany, came on screen for a moment. At once the theater was in an uproar. "Everybody yelled and whistled, men, women, and children, as if they had been personally insulted," Zweig wrote. "The good-natured people of Tours, who knew no more about the world and politics than what they had read in their newspapers, had gone mad for an instant."

Zweig was frightened. "It had only been a second, but one that showed me how easily people anywhere could be aroused in a time of a crisis, despite all attempts at understanding."

This is one of the most moving books I have ever read. Subtitled, "The beginnings of World War, the End of Civilization", reading this will change how you feel about war and your fellow humans. Nicolson gathered small excerpts from news stories and public documents and piece them togther is a most compelling arrangement. The short exerpts tell a history of the build-up to WW II in a most fascinating way. The book reads like a novel even though it is entirely composed from other documents.

I don't have a strong interest in the history of wars, but this book shows the human story that took civilization from WW I to a more devastating war. Interspersed in the news excerpts are pacifists who tried to stop the massive annihilation. I cannot stop thinking about this book that has caused me to deeply examine the attitudes in myself and others that lead to wars. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Posthumous Papers of a Living Author - Robert Musil

Why posthumous papers? Why of a living author?

There are poetic estates that also happen to be great gifts; but as a rule, literary legacies bear a suspicious resemblance to everything-must-go clearance sales and cheap bargains. The popularity that such works nonetheless enjoys may indeed derive from the fact that the reading public has a forgivable weakness for poet who for the last time lays claim to their attention. However the case may be, and whatever questions may arise as to whether such a legacy may be truly worthwhile or merely of some worth, might lead one to suppose--I at any rate have decided to forestall publication of my own last literacy effects before the time comes when I will no longer have a say in the matter.

This collection of writings by Musil from the 1920s and 1930s provides a broad range of his style. Best known for his book, "A Man Without Qualities", he presents his own collection of favorite writings. Musil is more popular in his native Germany, but is popular with writers. This book is worth reading for Musil's insights written in a style that is both intellectual and humorous.

Liquidation - Imre Kertesz

What would a publisher's reader be with belief, an intellectual challenge, in a censored, evil, and illiterate world? No one an nothing. A paper-marking slave, a proofreader groping in the dark. But I believe in writing--nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it; Logos, the invisible spider's thread that holds our lives together.

Liquidation is a rich, dense novel from the Nobel winning author, Imre Kertesz. A short novel, it is dense with ideas and reflections on the human condition. A survivor of Auschwitz, this book includes a plot that involves other affected that death camp. Kertesz's writing style, sparse and somewhat detached, allows him to cover vast subjects and plots with ease in this short novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it.

Kiss & Tell - Alain De Botton

Mr. Rogers had escaped his wife's complexity with interest in the peripherals of existence. He could entertain a conversation of many hours' duration on the second downward clue fo the The Times crossword, the migration of African birds, the effect of carbon dioxide on the synapses of the brain, not to mention the pros and cons of buying a water purifier or the gradual supersession of the sewn bookbinding by its glued counterpart - but remained at a loss to understand the role allotted to him in the family drama.

Everything one said threw him into deep thought, whereby he would roll back his eyes, lift up his head and enter into a phrase of saying 'Yes' in rapid succession though the comment which had elicited this might have been no greater than, 'It's getting harder to find red apples these days.'

This book is original, funny, and well-written--but it doesn't add up to a good read. Dissecting the biography genre, de Botton selects an ordinary person's life to display in this book. With of interest about the person, the gist of the book becomes a dissertation on structure and style of most biographies. There are some great moments and interesting thoughts in the book, but it too often digresses into details that are modestly interesting and briefly amusing. Apparently, a lot of readers seem to like this book, but for me a short story would have been adequate.

Names - Marilyn Hacker

Letter to Mimi Khalvati

Dear, how I hate the overblown diction of

lines for occasions: festschrifts, like elegies

making a banal birthday seem to

signpost a passage to unmapped wasteland,

...

This book is very intelligent and meticulously composed, but its poetry doesn't move me. I appreciate the writer's fine skill, but the writing feels too structured and intellectual in spite of the book's themes of women in the Middle East and America's role in disrupting societies. The author chooses to write in obscure poetry forms: ghazals, gloses, sonnets; which I don't find particularly appealing nor contributory to expressing Hacker's thoughts. One of the reviews on the back cover states "Marilyn Hacker's language saves us through its brilliant riches, its coruscating threnodies of structure." Yes, there are brilliant rich lines, but I get lost in artificial structure and it feels like Hacker is trying too hard. It feels like a book more for college literary professors to dissect rather than one for the average poetry lover.

The Emigrants - W.G. Sebald

Paul's aversion to the Church of Rome was far more than a mere question of principle. though; he genuinely had a horror of God's vicars adn the mothball smell they gave off. He not only did not attend church on Sundays, but purposely left town, going as far as he could into the mountains, where he no longer heard the bells. If the weather was not good he would spend his Sunday mornings together with Colo the cobbler, who was a philosopher and a downright atheist who took the Lord's day, if he was not playing chess with Paul, as the occasion to work on pamphlets and tracts against the one True Church. Once (I now remember) I witnessed a moment when Paul's aversion to hypocrisy of any description won an incontestable victory over the forbearance with which he generally endured the intellectual infirmities of the world. In the class above me there was a pupil by the name of Ewald Riese who had fallen completely under the Catechist's influence and displayed a degree of overdone piety- it would not be unfair to say, ostentatiously- quite incredible in a ten-year-0ld. ....

Who am I to disagree with Susan Sontag who called this book a masterpiece? I concur, wholeheartedly. Like other Sebald books, this one is about places and spaces. He describes realities that are magically dreamlike. Included in this book, as in his others, are unusual photographs that seem to have come out of an old trunk. The photographs interspersed throughout the text add immensely to the journey Sebald takes us on. Reading Sebald is like wandering into a secret room that you don't want to leave.

The Emigrants covers four displaced people in its four sections. They have all fled a horrible past to live unique lives. Together the tell a compelling story of the human spirit exploring areas most often left unexplored. This may be my favorite Sebald book and I love them all.

Leavings - Wendell Berry

The Shining Ones

While the land suffers, automobiles thrive,
shining as they glide by the dying towns,
the empty fields bare in winter,
the deserted farmhouses, obstacles merely
to an ideal trajectory from everywhere to anywhere.

This is a wonderful book with a common theme for Berry- the environment. His poetry is simple, yet powerful. He connects with nature and is able to convey his love for the natural world in poems full of emotion. Many of the poems in this collection call attention to the great harm we humans are inflicting on our planet. They are both sad and disturbing while calling attention to the beauty and wonder. Worth reading and re-reading.

Questionnaire
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

Forbidden City - Trina Robbins

The 1940s was a boom time. During the war years, people thronged to the Chinese nightclubs. They came to forget the war for just a few hours, for the beautiful showgirls, for dance teams like Toy and Wing or the Tai Sings, for romantic singers like Larry King, "The Chinese Frank Sinatra" and Frances Chun "The Chinese Frances Langford." Movie stars from Hollywood like Bing Crosbie, Boris Karloff, Ronald Reagan, and Jane Wyman rode the trains up from Hollywood to participate in war bond drives, visited the nightclubs, and mingled with the entertainers. GIs on their way overseas, attracted by promises of exotic entertainment, filled the clubs. Many were from small Southern towns and had never before seen an Asian. They didn't know where they were being sent, or if they would come back, and they spent their money as if there was no tomorrow.

Asian entertainers, too, thronged to the clubs--and like Filipino Tony Wing or Japanese Dorothy Toy, born Takahashi, they were not always Chinese. Teenage girls whose traditional parents forbade them to dance, ran away from home to perform on the stage. They came from Oregon and Hawaii, from as close as Stockton, California, and as far as Hong Kong, and they converged in San Francisco's Chinatown.

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This book documents the Golden Era of Chinese nightclubs in San Francisco which existed from the 1930s into the early 1960s. The pictures, which are abundant, are great. The text, other than a short introduction, is entirely direct quotes from persons involved in this unique setting. Many of the tales are very interesting, however, it would be a much better book if the author had taken time to weave the accounts into an historical account rather than depend solely on first-person recollections. I enjoyed the book with its fascinating glimpse into a uniquely American historical anomaly.

The Stranger - Albert Camus

For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a 'fiance,' why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself - so like a brother, really - I felt that I had been happy and that I had been happy again.

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A timeless classic, this is the most well-read book of Camus. Written in 1946 it reads like a modern text. The stranger in this story is a man detached from the life around him. He lives detached in his own world, intelligent but uncaring of what surrounds him. Existential philosophy is defined by the central figure, although Camus referred to it as expousing the absurb. This short novel is extremely dense while still being easy to read and follow. It is an amazing piece of writing in that it gives the reader so much in so few pages. Classic themes that continue to resonate leave the reader thinking about this book for a long time after finishing it. I now understand why this book seems to be on everyone's must read list. Read it if you haven't already.

Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov

I am handsome. Perhaps I'm really a dog prince, living incognito, mused the dog as he watched the shaggy, coffee-coloured dog with the smug expression strolling about in the mirrored distance. I wouldn't be surprised if my grandmother didn't have an affair with a Labrador. Now that I look at my muzzle, I see there's a white patch on it. I wonder how it got there. Phillip Philipovich is a man of great taste- he wouldn't just pick up any stray mongrel.

Written in 1925, this short novel is a sharp-witted, humorous attack on Russia after the Russian revolution of 1917. A science experiment goes awry in the home lab of an educated doctor at odds with the proletarians. The author has received much posthumous acclaim. His style is creative and crisply written. He is able to create a funny book with dark themes. His political comments on totalitarianism often ring true today. A very entertaining read from another great Russian writer.

Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino

Cold has a thousand shapes and a thousand ways of moving in the world: on the sea it gallops like a troop of horses, on the countryside it falls like a swarm of locusts, in the cities like a knife-blade it slashes the streets and penetrates the chinks of unheated houses. In Marcovaldo's house that evening they had burned the last kindling, and the family, all bundled in overcoats, was watching the embers fade in the stove, and the little clouds rise from their own mouths at every breath. They had stopped talking; the little clouds spoke for them: the wife emitted great long ones like sighs, the children puffed them out like assorted soap-bubbles, and Marcovaldo blew them upwards in jerks, like flashes of genius that promptly vanish.

This is a very amusing collection of very short stories that create a short novel. The stories all involve a rural man moved into an industrial area of Italy after the second world war. He is a dreamer and finds simple pleasures in the city, mostly through fanciful dreams and poorly prepared actions. Calvino makes the tales engaging and fun as the sketches quickly become more fantasy than reality. The simple man is bewildered by his city life and longs for the simple pleasures found in nature. I can't imagine anyone not taking pleasure in reading these delightful stories. Calvino has done a great job of bringing together a cohesive group of stories that combine to tell a larger tale. The writing is wonderful as it is moves quickly and brings the reader to instant involvement in Marcovaldo's quirky life.

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea - Yukio Mishima

I could have been a man sailing away forever. He had been fed up with all of it, glutted, and yet now, slowly, he was awakening again to the immensity of what he had abandoned.

The dark passions of the tides, the shriek of a tidal wave, the avalanching break of surf upon a shoal...an unknown glory merged in death and in a woman, glory to fashion of his destiny something special, something rare. At twenty he had been passionately certain: in the depths of the world's darkness was a point of light which had provided for him alone and would draw near someday to irradiate him and no other.

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A very compact writing style allows this short novel to cover an overwhelming abundance of ideas, emotions, and themes. Mishima writes as an objective third party narrator with three main characters- a woman, her young son, and a sailor. The book centered on Japanese culture, but is universal in its themes. The sea plays an important, largely as a metaphor for a more adventurous life. The sailor must decide between life on land with a woman he loves and the sea which draws him. This book is very disturbing as it details discontent of teenage boys and the dark places that can lead. Sexy, terrifying, wistful, hopeful, intriguing, and filled with tales of adventure, relationships between lovers, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, and coming of age-- this book packs as much into a hundred plus pages as anything I have read. This book has been called a masterpiece by many and rightfully so.

Summertime - J.M. Coetzee

Mr. Vincent, to you John Coetzee is a great writer and a hero, I accept that, why else would you be here, why else would you be writing this book? To me, on the other hand - pardon me for saying this, but he is dead, so I cannot hurt his feelings - to me he is nothing. He is nothing, was nothing, just an irritation, an embarrassment. He was nothing and his words were nothing. I can see you are cross because I make him look like a fool. Nevertheless, to me he really was a fool.

As for his letters, writing letters to a woman does not prove you love her. This man was not in love with me, he was in love with some idea of me, some fantasy of a Latin mistress that he made up in his own mind. I wish, in stead of me, he had found some other writer, some other fantasist, to fall in love with. Then the two of them could have been happy, making love all day to their ideas of each other.

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This is a thoroughly enjoyable and wildly clever memoir. The story about the author assumes he is dead and has left behind some notebooks. A young author attempting to write a biography of Coetzee interviews persons found in the notebooks. Not only is the premise great, the writing is as well. The persons interviewed have differing takes on the Coetzee and present unique and largely unflattering glimpses into their interactions with the author. The interviewees are unconnected with each other, but the tales taken as a whole combine to present a more clear picture of the man. Each one left me more fascinated with the complexity and unassuming nature of the author. Without a doubt, this ranks as one of my favorite books. Clever, fun, and masterfully written.

After Dark - Haruki Murakami

After a quick survey of the interior, our eyes come to rest on a girl sitting by the front window. Why her? Why not someone else? Hard to say. But, for some reason, she attracts our attention--very naturally. She sits at a four-person table, reading a book. Hooded gray parka, blue jeans, yellow sneakers faded from repeated washing. On the back of the chair next to her hangs a varsity jacket. This, too, is far from new. She is probably college freshman age, though an air of high school still clings to her. Hair black, short, and straight. Little makeup, no jewelry. Small, slender face. Black-rimmed glasses. Every now and then, an earnest wrinkle forms between her brows.

An alienated young woman during one night in Tokyo is the basis for this interesting short novel. The writer, Murakami, is highly regarded and after my initial reading of him, I can understand this praise. His writing is fresh and engaging. There is much dialogue in this book between the young woman, a young man, and a hotel manager. It is well composed and keeps the story moving at a rapid pace. The author also creates a unique narration throughout the book. Insight is offered on modern urban life in Japan, the alienation of youth, and metaphysical concepts. Both dark and optimistic, the book is a short and worthwhile read.

Atonement - Ian McEwan

In the early evening, high-altitude clouds in the western sky formed a thin yellow wash which became richer over the hour, and then thickened until a filtered orange glow hung above the giant crests of parkland trees; the leaves became nutty brown, the branches glimpsed among the foliage oily black, and the desiccated grasses took on the colors of the sky. A Fauvist dedicated to improbable color might have imagined a landscape this way, especially once sky and ground took on a reddish bloom and the swollen trunks of elderly oaks became so black they began to look blue. Though the sun was weakening as it dropped, the temperature seemed to rise because the breeze that had brought faint relief all day had faded, and now the air was still and heavy.

I have greatly enjoyed other books by McEwan, but this one left me disappointed. I didn't see the major motion picture and am not likely to do so now. This book is much longer than other McEwan books I have read and might be improved if half of it was cut out. The author is a great writer, but seems to have spent too much time focused on writing more than the characters or the story. McEwan's books involve deep emotions, but in Atonement, these are buried under too many words and unnecessary descriptions. I debated all the way through my reading to whether to stop reading or continue. I finished the book, but am not sure I made the right decision. However, don't hesitate to read other books by McEwan which are excellent.

Vertigo - W.G. Sebald

United by the inveterate alcoholism of the Tyrol which is known for its extremism far beyond the region, these Innsbruck dossers, some of whom appeared to have only recently dropped out of ordered life, while others were already in a completely ruinous state, and every single one of whom had something of the philosopher or even of the preacher about him, were holding forth on current events as well as the most fundamental questions. It was remarkable in their disputations that those who chimed in at the top of their voices were invariably the ones who left off in mid-sentence, suddenly silenced as if by stroke. Whatever happend to be the topic, every point was underscored by highy theatrical, apodictic gestures, and even when one of their number, no longer able to put into words the thought which had just come into his head, turned away with a wave of contempt, it seemed to me as if their manner derived from a distinctive dramatic repertoire completely unknown on the stage. Possibly this was because all of them were holding their beer bottles in thier right hands, and were thus in a sense acting out one-armed, left-handed roles. And perhaps, I concluded from this observation, it might be a good ploy to tie the right hands of all drama students behind their backs for a year at the start of their training.

This is Sebald's first novel and every bit as wonderful as his others. Like Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, this is also a trance-like travelogue. The travels in Sebald's books are more about the exploration of memory and history, than details of place. In Vertigo, he weaves four stories around a theme of self-exploration. The intersections of these stories are not clearly demarked and perhaps more like electron clouds around a nucleus. I read this book not knowing where it would it would take me, nor caring as an enjoyable spell is cast taking one out of time while reading.

As intriguing as the text are the pictures Sebald inserts throughout this book. One could browse through the book looking at all the pictures and have little idea what the book is about. However, most would find themselves wanting to solve the mystery of the strange pictures. Rather than solving a mystery in his travels, Sebald seems to uncover deeper and deeper mysteries. A completely unique and fascinating book.

Buddha's Little Finger - Victor Pelevin

The bust of Aristotle was the only thing I retained in my memory when I came around, although I am far from certain that the expression 'to come round' is entirely appropriate. Ever since my childhood I have sensed in it a certain shame-faced ambiguity. Round what exactly? To where? And, most intriguing of all, from where? Nothing, in short, but a cheating sleight of hand, like the card-sharps on the Volga steamers. As I grew older, I came to understand that the words 'to come round' actually mean 'to come round to other people's point of view', because no sooner is one born than these other people begin explaining just how hard one must try to force oneself to assume a form which they find acceptable.

This is book is as strange as it title might imply. And it is strangely wonderful. Pelevin crafts a surreal book that displays the differing character of Russia through bizarre situations. Yes, Buddha's little finger does play a part in the book. The main character is thrust into wild situations where the nature of existence and reality are questioned. The writing is thought-provoking and creative. This imaginative book is full of surprises that will bring smiles along with reflections to the reader. For those who like books that challenge the reader, this book will is well worth the effort. A great book.

The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard

Our society's deep, unwavering faith in economic growth rests on the assumption that focusing on infinite growth is both possible and good. But neither is true. We can't run the expanding economic subsystem (take-make-waste) on a planet of fixed size indefinitely: on many fronts, we're perilously close to the limits of our finite planet already. Infinite economic growth, therefore, is impossible. Nor has it turned out to be, aft the point at which basic human needs are met, a strategy for increasing human well-being. After a certain point, economic growth (more money and more Stuff) ceases to make us happier. I mean, if everyone were having fun and enjoying leisure, laughter, and well-being, we might decide that the pursuit of growth was worth trashing the planet. But the majority of us are not having fun; instead we are reporting high levels of stress, depression, anxiety, and unhappiness.

Most people are aware of Annie Leonard from her immensely popular YouTube videos. She has taken that material and incorporated it into this book. It is written with the same friendly charm that she presents on video. It makes the seriousness of her cause easy to swallow without feeling like you are being lectured. She also avoids making the reader feel too guilty, which we all should for the mess we have made of the world. At times, the book gets too detailed over some issue that Leonard advocates. But the reading is fun while she presents vital information that we all need to consider and act on regarding all of our stuff. I especially liked the clarity presented about the lack of a positive relationship between stuff and happiness. Read this book--or at least watch some of her videos.

The Borgias and Their Enemies:1431-1519 - Christopher Hibbert

By now it was not just the sight of the city, little more than a decayed provincial town, that distressed visitors. Corruption was rife in the Church and shocked the pilgrims who came to Rome to receive indulgences, which were now being dispensed on an unprecedented scale. Abandoning in despair their attempts to form a strong and stable political state, the Romans allowed Urban VI's successor, the clever and avaricious Boniface IX, another Neapolitan, to assume full control of their city, to turn the Vatican as well as the enlarged Castel Sant'Angelo into fortified strongholds, and to appoint his relations and friends to positions of power and profit.

The Borgias are are an amazing family living in fascinating times. Unfortunately, this book gets bogged down in too many details, as interesting and amazing as they may be. I felt like I needed to create a chart to keep track of all the relatives and branches of the family. To gain an insight on this time period and the powerful Borgias, this book is a good resource. For enjoyable reading, I found it lacking in a narrative that made it cohesive and moving toward a natural conclusion. The majority of the book details the early years in the time period while the last twenty years are given little attention. Not badly written, just tedious to read.

ArtBook Giotto - DK Publishing

Destined to become one of the most important artists in the history of western painting, Biagio or Agnolo, known as Giotto, was born at Colle di Vespignano in the Mugello valley near Florence in what most scholars date as 1267. There is no documentary evidence to provide us with any certain information about the chronology and events of his life but literary sources and legends abound bearing witness to the fame he enjoyed from the beginning of his artistic career. Until his death in Florence in 1337, his life was spent between the foremost centers of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, where he absorbed the cultural and artistic legacy of the age and transformed it into a highly evolved and revolutionary language with an originality that is generally regarded as marking the beginning of the history of Italian painting.

This book is part of a series put out by DK Publishing. As an illustrated guide introducing Giotto, it is a nice little book. That, however, is a large part of the problem with this book--it is simply too small and needs a larger size to display the great works of art. The text is minimal with each pages including multiple images. While the illustrated books typically leave one wanting more, they are a fine way to get a taste of an artist. I learned a few things about Giotto and gained a deeper appreciation of him from this book. If you want to enjoy Giotto's great frescoes and alter pieces you should look for a large format book. Giotto is well worth the time if you appreciate art.

Zeitoun - David Eggers

Throughout the afternoon, Kathy tried to convince her husband to come with them. When had officials suggested an all-city evacuation before? she asked. Wasn't that reason enough to go?
Zeitoun agreed that it was unusual, but he had never evacuated before and he saw no need to do so now. Their home was elevated three feet above the ground, and rose two stories on top of that, so there would be no danger of getting stuck in an attic or on a roof, even if the worst happened. Zeitoun could always retreat to the second floor. And they lived nowhere near any levees, so they wouldn't get any of the flash flooding that might hit some of the other neighborhoods. It was East New Orleans, or the Lower Ninth, with its one story houses so close to the levees, that were in gravest danger.

A wonderful story told in an engaging, easy to read, style. The book does an excellent job of bringing the Katrina disaster into the perspective of an individual family. Zeitoun, the central character in this non-fiction account, is a compelling person who makes the reader feel better about being human. At the same time, much of what happens during this historic event is an extremely disappointing comment on human behavior.

I liked very much how Eggers kept this book so personal. The Katrina disaster is told through the eyes of one family. Zeitoun, being a Syrian immigrant, is tested and tortured not only by Katrina, but also by America's inept handling of terrorism. This is an important story to be told and is a good read for all American. You will find yourself unable to stop reading once begun.