The Paris Wife is the story of Hadley Richardson Hemmingway and is told as a first-person narrative of her meeting, falling in love with, marrying and sharing her life with Ernest Hemmingway. She is 29 years old when they meet and has led a very sheltered life. She and Hemmingway get married and live of a small sum in Chicago while saving money to move to Rome where he believes he’ll begin to make his mark on the world of literature. Instead, they are convinced by a friend (Sherwood Anderson) to move to Paris. Moving to Paris changes everything. They are still short on money, but are spending time with literary greats (if you’ve read A Moveable Feast, this will be familiar).

Without giving up much of the plot development, I’d recommend this book. It’s a fairly quick read, but gives one reason to pause and think about the things that make marriage and relationships lasting. It also makes me kind of glad we haven’t had to move to another country.

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

The arrival of every major technological innovation has been surrounded with the cries of those who think it’s going to Ruin Everything. And so a book that announces right on the cover that it’s going to shoot disapproving glares at the Internet is perhaps judged subconsciously and immediately as the railings of yet another old coot who thinks that technology is going to drag society down the drain, but for reals this time!

Thankfully, it’s anything but. Carr isn’t sitting in a cabin in the woods; he’s one of us–checking email every thirty seconds, constantly jacked into Twitter and Facebook and RSS feeds. Fortunately, he’s also a lot smarter than most of us and so when he noticed a change in the way he thought about and experienced the world, he took a step back from his digital life and started doing a little research.

The book starts with a review of how people have used tools, from the very first tools to more advanced technology like books, and how those tools have changed us individually and as a group. This “introduction” to the topic actually consumes at least a third of the book, so expect to read a lot about wax tablets and hammers when you were expecting to read about the Internets. Carr has a point, however, and by the time you’re near the middle of the volume it becomes hard to argue that the things we use have some impact on us, and perhaps a deeper and more physical impact than we might have thought.

The remainder of the book talks about how the Internet specifically rewires our brain. His approach is even-handed and generally supported by research, and the research is really quite surprising. It was long thought that being able to leap between pages using hypertext, having unprecedented access to torrents of instantly searchable data, and having user-friendly computers that are trying to outdo themselves in their ability to help us and guess our next move would augment our intelligence and make us smarter than ever before. It turns out that this is in fact partially true, but that our newfound skill in skipping along the surface of the information streams, multitasking and responding and searching, comes at the expense of deeper thought. Studies show that information consumed with multimedia and linked-bedecked “comprehension aids” is actually less thoroughly comprehended than information consumed in the more traditional linear reading method.

Carr doesn’t suggest that we turn off the spigot and return to longhand correspondance, but he does help us understand why it feels like our synapses are crying out for stimulation every thirty seconds when we used to be able to enjoy the quiet, and why we have access to so much more information and yet deeply understand things so much less. It’s a great read for anyone who spends a lot of time online and is interested in understanding (and perhaps reducing) the effect it has on them.

Blindness by José Saramago

It’s not spoiling much to say that this is, on the surface, a book about an epidemic of a “white blindness”, a mysterious disease whose cause and method of rampant contagion is never explained.

But you don’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature for writing just any post-apocalyptic novel.

The book is written in claustrophobic run-on sentences that mash dialog together with commas and have sparingly few visual descriptions. Characters have no names. Stripped of some of …moreIt’s not spoiling much to say that this is, on the surface, a book about an epidemic of a “white blindness”, a mysterious disease whose cause and method of rampant contagion is never explained.

But you don’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature for writing just any post-apocalyptic novel.

The book is written in claustrophobic run-on sentences that mash dialog together with commas and have sparingly few visual descriptions. Characters have no names. Stripped of some of these conveniences that are ordinarily provided to the reader, you feel a little blind yourself, bumping into the next thought and feeling around for the speaker of the words you’re reading.

Like many award-winners, this book is a Commentary on the Human Condition. It’s probably also not much of a spoiler to say that some of the blind people form groups and begin acting almost exactly like animals. The text is gut-wrenchingly explicit on this point, and occasionally downright hard to read. Several dozen pages could be trimmed from the book if all of the references to excrement were deleted.

Throughout the miseries and injustices and tragedies, blindness is explored as a metaphor for many things. Fighting is a form of blindness; sight is a form of blindness; you get the idea. By my estimation, the author was in his 70′s when he wrote this book, and perhaps the single best thing about it is that he really understands people. The picture he paints is grotesque and bleak, but every stroke feels sickeningly accurate. The book is full of insightful one-liners, bits of wisdom spoken by the characters or the narrator (who occasionally speaks to the reader) that make it well worth wading through the hard parts.

I often read right before I go to sleep, and no book has made me feel quite the same way when I shut it and close my eyes. It’s funny to think about what a gift sight is. I’ve never been more grateful for mine.

Room by Emma Donoghue

This book’s premise is as disturbing as it is compelling. It’s written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy named Jack who has lived his entire life in a single room with his mother. “Room” is a garden shed, their abusive captor a figure known only as Old Nick.

Because the book is written from the perspective of a boy who has never seen the world, the truly gut-wrenching parts of the story are communicated with almost heartbreaking innocence. Jack spends a lot of time…moreThis book’s premise is as disturbing as it is compelling. It’s written from the perspective of a five-year-old boy named Jack who has lived his entire life in a single room with his mother. “Room” is a garden shed, their abusive captor a figure known only as Old Nick.

Because the book is written from the perspective of a boy who has never seen the world, the truly gut-wrenching parts of the story are communicated with almost heartbreaking innocence. Jack spends a lot of time describing day-to-day life in Room. Some of these descriptions will make you smile and some will make you very upset. Jack doesn’t know the difference. He doesn’t feel confined by Room because Room is all he’s known. He doesn’t really understand what his mother has gone through or is going through. There is a place called Outside, but to him it is indistinguishable from outer space.

Writing from a child’s perspective is tough to pull off, and writing from the perspective of a confined child is really tough to pull off; the critical reader will be scouring the text for points where the narrator reveals a little too much knowledge. This happens a few times but on the whole Jack’s voice is believable and practically melts into the narrative. (And if you’re going to read a book like this with the intention of checking facts, save your time and look elsewhere. You’re really missing the point.)

The thing that moves this book from the realm of good storytelling to literature is its ability not only to grip the reader during the actual reading itself, but to create a world so compelling and resonant that you find yourself thinking about it all the time until you’re finished with it. I read before I go to sleep, and almost every night Room crept into my dreams. A cynic might say this story is engineered to play upon the emotions and draw upon the endless human appetite to watch in fascinated horror at another’s misfortune. I’d say it’s a masterful work by an imaginative storyteller with a keen understanding of the Human Condition. Either way, it’s a darned fine piece of writing.

Shortcomings? Jack’s naivety is overused as a device for getting a chuckle from the reader, and by the end of the book this wears a little thin. Some of the facts that are uncovered throughout the story are awful or disgusting or just heart-renderingly sad, so if books make you cry, pack tissues. Sometimes the plot idles for pages and sometimes it lurches forward in a breathless sprint. You won’t mind, though. Time flows a little differently in Room.

And because our little girl is finally napping and our house is reasonably tidy right now, I thought I’d write up a review of a book I finished last night: The Happiness Project.  I can’t remember how I heard about the book, but I’ve started a habit of reading about something and then placing a hold online while I’m thinking of it/near a computer. This has worked out marvelously, except for the fact that I am often overwhelmed with the task of reading 6 books at once. At any rate, I did manage to finish The Happiness Project before it was due back! Hooray!

The book is based on Gretchen Rubin’s own happiness project in which she spent one year focusing on well, being happier. She had different goals for each month and then kept track of whether these goals were worthwhile to her, if she found they impacted her happiness and how others responded to the changes. Some of the goals were related to physical health (more sleep!) and others were challenges she wanted to try and just made the time for (start a blog, have a hobby). In general, I found the book to be an enjoying read and more of a conversation with a friend than a stuffy self-help book. In fact, if anything, I didn’t feel I needed help at all after reading her account. It made me take inventory of and contemplate more of the things in my life for which I am truly grateful (amazing husband, adorable baby, gracious God). All in all, it’s a nice quick read and an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon.

If you’re interested in more about Ms. Rubin’s project, or starting one of your own, she does have her own website and blog, complete with a toolbox to get you started.

Speaking of happiness, this photo makes me REALLY happy:

My two sweeties at the American History Museum

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

Nicholson Baker is a wonderfully talented writer. When I was in the shower the other day, I suddenly thought of a splendid metaphor for how great he was, but it has since slipped my grasp. His greatest gift is his ability to write the way people think–not the way people write people thinking, if you know what I mean. You get great little moments of recognition when you see the character having the same thought you’ve had: only when you have the thought it flits away before you can even look at it, whereas Baker manages to capture it, soak it in formaldehyde, and allow you to slowly walk up to it and admire its glittering wings.

Baker’s characters are often found practically swimming in introspection and nostalgia. This one is no exception. Paul is working on an introduction to an anthology of poetry. His girlfriend left him. You get to climb into his head as he figures out how to stack boxes in his room and works out his relationship and gets all fired up about poetry and iambic pentameter. I guarantee you’ll learn something about iambic pentameter if you read this book. I did. Paul’s excitement is infectious and if you don’t want to jump into some poetry right after reading this book, there might be something wrong with you.

As an aside, I was surprised at how hip to the times this book was. Ray LaMontagne gets name-dropped, as do USB ports and other modern conveniences. After reading The Mezzanine and a few of Baker’s essays in The Size of Thoughts, I sort of assumed he was a Luddite, writing his books on Moleskine notebooks and harumphing about the television. This does not appear to actually be the case.

This is a good book to read. It’s a breeze, it’s funny, it’s insightful, and you’ll learn lots of things about poetry and meter and rhyme. I recommend it

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction, but even for post-apocalyptic fiction, this book is incredibly addictive. I stayed up when I should have been asleep. My wife ribbed me for reading a children’s book. The call of everyday life sounded like it was coming from underwater somewhere. I had to know what happened next.

The premise, as proudly illustrated on the cover, is that the moon gets knocked too close to Earth, and starts messing with the climate in a very bad way. This alone is not particularly promising; what makes this book genius is the choice of narrative voices. Instead of attempting to fit together all the complex, global outcomes such a catastrophe would actually cause, the author chooses to write from the perspective of a teenaged girl. The book is composed entirely of entries from her diary. Miranda doesn’t have to know any of those details. But she is a very authentic voice: funny, insightful, in turns childish and mature.

One of the reasons it’s so hard to put this book down is that awful, awful things keep happening. It’s like that old cliche, the train wreck: you cannot bear to look away. There are precious few moments of redemption among the tragedy, and so this book winds up being not about everything working out okay for everyone but about what difficult situations bring out in people, who’s really important to us, and what we care to remember and think about. The book is not complicated or contrived and it’s a refreshingly easy read. Very recommended.

Radical by David Platt

When I read about this book, it made me afraid to read it. I didn’t want to read a book that made me feel guilty about my lifestyle, and I really didn’t want to read a book that suggested I do something crazy like sell everything I have and give it to the poor. And that’s what this book looks like it’s going to be, down to the upside-down house on the cover. “Sell your house,” it implies, “because Jesus didn’t have one.”

Thankfully, Platt makes few imperative statements. Instead, this book is mostly about reminding the American Christian just how far we’ve come from the discipleship demonstrated among Christ’s followers in the Bible and the early church. They devoted their time and money to going and telling and to supporting each other. Today’s church budget is spent on multimillion dollar buildings, while its members spend their budgets on the lifestyle they believe is their right as Americans. Anyone who does things differently is… you guessed it. Radical.

Platt’s strongest point is that there’s a huge disconnect between our lifestyles and our supposed beliefs. There are billions of people who have never heard of Jesus. There are billions of people who are starving to death or dying of preventable diseases. They’re rarely in the news, and we can’t see them, so it’s easy not to think about them. And thus we chase after the American dream–the nicer house, the bigger car, the promotion–instead of pursuing things that really matter, things that we even say really matter.

There’s a verse in the Bible that says that you shouldn’t announce your giving with trumpets, and that those who do have already received their reward in full. Platt’s book has allowed a lot of people to receive their reward in full, as it is peppered with tales of many folks who have sacrificed much. I found it hard to read these stories, because while part of me was cringing at what occasionally felt like syrupy self-righteousness, another part was saying that they had more guts than I ever will.

It’s a good book, and it’s based on logic that is solid and simple. It’s refreshing to hear a well-known pastor say somethign that makes people feel uncomfortable, because you know what? That’s what Jesus did. I hope more people read this book–its message is incredibly timely.

The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony

This book is published by McSweeney’s, a publisher known for their ability to find quirky talent and fearlessly publish even the truly bizarre. This book falls squarely in their fold: a sprawling, surreal Hungarian history mixed with the minutiae of the life of a hairy little man selling meat out of a bus. It’s not the sort of premise that makes the average reader think “Heavens, how fascinating!” However, I am a sucker for quirky stories and this one quickly drew me in.

Anthony’s writing is peppered with wonderful details and the prose–most of it written from the perspective of Rovar, the main character–is delightful and occasionally funny. We get to see his tiny little world repeatedly contrasted with the thousands of years of epic history that lead to his presence. About halfway through, we get very tired of him talking about the ailments and ugliness and malaise that plauge the Pfleigmans, but we will have no relief from this tirade.

The story holds a lot of promise, and Anthony is very good at creating awkwardly hilarious situations. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that you will learn some Sad Facts while reading this book, melancholy nuggets that the author tosses out casually that will make you think about things that have already happened much differently. Sometimes you will feel sorry for Rovar, and sometimes you won’t like him very much. He’s such an interesting character that he makes up for many of the book’s shortcomings despite his whining.

I can’t say that this book exceeded my expectations, but it met them solidly. Anthony is a talent and I bet she’s got some great stuff coming.

What have you been reading lately?

Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of Everything is Illuminated, which sold a bazillion copies and which I read and enjoyed but did not remember very well. He is also the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I read and loved; it is a beautiful and vastly underrated book. So when this book arrived, I checked it out on the strength of the author’s name alone, although I’m also a sucker for food-issues books, having recently devoured The Omnivore’s Dilemma and several related tomes.

I expected the book to be thoughtful and artful, like Foer’s fiction; instead, it is a book largely based on research. I also expected it to present an argument for vegetarianism; Foer promises that it won’t, however, and he almost delivers.

This book is about factory farms. It’s a little bit about what eating animals means in terms of our society, and a little bit about what animals we should feel good eating, and a little bit about Foer’s own family traditions, but the vast majority of this book is about where today’s meat comes from, and he pulls out all the stops. The writing starts out sounding objective but Foer’s disgust for the horrors of the factory farm are obvious and it’s soon clear that he’s deeply emotional about the issue–and he should be. If you don’t have much idea what goes on inside a factory farm (i.e. you’ve never watched Food Inc. or read The Omnivore’s Dilemma), you’re going to be shocked. If you do have some idea, reading this book is something like experiencing those works in slow motion. The abject brutality, waste, calculation, and hellish suffering are dissected thoroughly. It’s revolting, and it’s convicting.

The research is thorough but it isn’t the best aspect of the book; that spot is reserved for Foer’s remarkably clear thinking and ability to see the issue from several perspectives, often using letters from people inside and outside the industry that go on for pages. He notes that the primary arguments for and against eating animals are the same: we are not them. And he’s right. His best observation is that–if you know where your meat comes from–eating it is an act of consciously choosing to forget its origin. There are positions of honest ignorance and of honest acceptance of the system, but most of us have a position of dishonesty–of knowing what’s happening and consciously choosing to ignore it, because it is uncomfortable to think about.

I was afraid to start reading this book after hearing reports of people that had become vegetarians after reading it. Kelly and I are already mostly vegetarian–we eat meat perhaps once or twice a week, and Kelly (who does all the shopping) is very careful about selecting the meat. This trend can continue at home, but I will never be able to look at meat of indeterminate origin the same way again. If you don’t know much about where meat comes from or you think labels like “natural” mean something on the meat package, I highly recommend this excellent book. However, if you’re looking for a broader view of the food industry, read The Omnivore’s Dilemma instead.

This is the story of a man who is trying to figure out what’s up with the weird crap that keeps happening to him. There’s this hotel that keeps turning up in his dreams, somehow connected to someone who works there, somehow connected to something darker, to a man who wears a sheepskin, to a 13-year-old child of an absent-minded photographer, to all kinds of other things. The poor narrator spends most of his time killing time, trying to see what’s going to happen next and hoping for a clue that will unravel the tangled little ball of circumstances. Everything seems connected, somehow. If only he could figure out how.

There’s something compelling about Murakami’s pacing and prose, and I wound up finishing this fairly lengthy book in just a couple of nights. I won’t ruin the ending for you but I will say this: I found it rather unsatisfying. In many of Murakami’s later works, either all is made clear in the end or you’re so hypnotized by the surreal interweavings of the plot that it hardly matters which ends are tied; in this story, I felt that the possibility of a satisfying explanation was dangled (carrot-like) at the end of every chapter and never fully realized.

Still, the book goes unexpected places and does so with Murakami’s trademark storytelling genius. I couldn’t put it down any more than I could The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Recommended if you like Murakami, but if you’ve never read him before, do yourself a favor and start with that book–not this one.

Chances are good that you’ve heard some worn motivational speech about what a unique and special little snowflake you are. This is what I was expecting from Linchpin, but there’s actually some good information in here. The book rests on two main premises.

The first is that if you do a job that can be performed by following a procedure, you are the new factory worker, and you’re basically replaceable by anyone else who can also follow a procedure. This is most people, because people find comfort in being told what to do.

The second is that you can become a “linchpin”, an irreplacable person, by doing the hard work of connection, creativity, and art (Seth’s definition of “art” is very loose), things that are human and personal and can never be automated. Linchpins have a vision and they help connect and move people.

It’s not hard to argue that the white-collar worker is no longer safe from having his or her job automated away or outsourced, and it’s also not hard to argue that thinking and navigating without a map will make you stand out from the crowd. Thus a lot of Seth’s statements seem a little obvious, and he certainly doesn’t mind repeating them: this book, while encouraging, has a bit of filler. Seth writes exactly the way he speaks: the chapters are full of short little sections, half a page to a couple of pages in length. These sections are full of stubby little sentences and don’t even try to connect to each other.

The best part of the book (and by “best” I mean “the part that made me think about something in a new way”) is a chapter entitled The Resistance, which argues that the reason we don’t take risks and make art and do our real best is, at its root, biological. Chances are you’ve felt like you were pushing against a wall when you thought about stepping out or up and this mysterious force is analyzed in some depth.

This book falls squarely into the “motivational reading” category. It probably won’t tell you something you’ve never heard before, but it may scare and/or cajole you into becoming more than just another head for the headcount. Godin is funny and insightful and the book’s a quick read–I recommend it.

Ok. I was really intrigued, but didn’t really feel it necessary to purchase the book since our bookshelves had only recently been cleaned out during a bit of prebaby panic on my part. I looked for the book at the library and it was in circulation, but not on the shelf. I placed a hold and waited for two months for a copy to arrive. Once I started reading, I almost wished I hadn’t, but I’m glad I finished and it has made me think.

I won’t go into specifics of the plot because the author has requested as much (though you can probably read more about that on amazon or goodreads), but I will say this is a well written, cleverly told story of two women whose lives are impossibly intertwined. It was hard to pick up and continue reading after the first few pages and even more difficult to put down as I both hated knowing the story and needed to know what would happen to the main characters.

In short, I recommend this book. While it is an easy read, it isn’t the usual fluff I go for at this time of year. Also, if you happen to be pregnant, nursing or just someone who cries easily, this might be a difficult book to read. It will challenge you to think of what you might do in a similar situation and perhaps consider how your own life choices affect others you’ve never met. It might also make you cry.

There aren’t many “productive” things I’m able to accomplish these days (outside of nurturing and caring for a baby around the clock); however, I have managed to read one book since Beatrice’s birthday: Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. I didn’t have any expectations when I began reading this book, the story just seemed to be interesting and since I was number 300 something on the library holds list, I knew it was popular.

The Help is the type of book I categorize as “television that you read” in that it is not challenging to comprehend, I did not encounter any words that I’d never before seen, the character development ranges from very good to non-existent and the story moves along quickly. These are the BEST type of books to read while nursing!

The Help is set in 1962 and the main character, Skeeter Phelan, has just graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in English. Unlike most of her peers, Skeeter did not get married while in college and has obtained a degree, only to find herself living back at home on her parents’ cotton farm. She finds herself writing a household hints column for the newspaper in which she responds to readers’ requests for tips on how to remove bathtub rings, the best way to remove stains from clothing and other questions that she is completely unprepared to answer as she has never had to do housework. She is able to use the help of her good friend’s maid, Abileen, who has spent a lifetime raising other peoples’ children, cleaning their houses and quietly slipping home at night without much recognition.

Through their time together, Abileen and Skeeter develop a relationship that would not be defined as a friendship, but more of a mutual respect. While the Civil Rights Movement is in the news, Jackson seems unchanged by the events sweeping the rest of the country. Skeeter is in communication with a publishing house in New York and comes up with a book proposal that includes the personal stories of several housekeepers in Jackson. She hasn’t gotten anyone to agree to tell their stories, but it’s the best idea she’s got. The Help is a story of two sides of a social divide trying to decide if they trust each other during a tumultuous time in American history. It is also an endearing story of families, love and deep friendship.

If you’re looking for a good read this summer that is thought-provoking, I recommend The Help. And if you ever find yourself in Jackson, Mississippi, please take your photo with the giant bust of Andrew Jackson!

I picked up this book because it had so many literary accolades, and because I am an absolute sucker for post-apocalyptic stories.

I had a hard time with the first ten pages. Cormac’s writing style can be hard to get past; it feels like something that should have received a C- in a high school creative writing class. The book is written in choppy, stream-of-consciousness sentences that are often fragments or run-ons, and the author gleefully omits punctuation and jams words together in a way that makes you sure he’s trying to increase your sense of unease just by making the words look wrong on the page. 

But then I got sucked in. The storyline is very simple, so simple that I didn’t believe it when I read it on the back cover. It is the story of a man and his son–both unnamed–walking through a barren, desolate, and cold America, just trying to stay alive and reach their destination. The terrors they encounter along the way are nightmarishly surreal–bands of starving people, unrelenting cold, forests of trees just falling down. The constant danger left me jittery and completely unable to put the book down; I finished it in a couple of nights.

The professional literary types say that this book is about hope, and three-quarters of the way through the book you’ll be wondering if there’s a shred of it anywhere in the bleak text. But there is: the father and his son exemplify a kind of transcendental hope that is completely separated from reason and circumstance. You could say that it’s hope in its most pure form or hope in its most foolish form, but it’s unquestionably hope, and an examination of what it means when it is, literally, all you’ve got.

There’s also a good dose of morality here, not in the preachy sense, but in the sense that makes you feel a little twinge in your gut at some of the hard choices faced by the protagonists. The right thing to do isn’t always obvious, and sometimes they don’t do it.

In the end I liked this book, but I can’t recommend it to you unless you have a high tolerance for sorrow, horribly disturbing images, and selfless love.