The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tart
Little, Brown, 2013. 771 Pgs. Fiction


Theo Decker's semi-normal New York childhood is overturned when terrorists attack the MET. His mother is killed in the explosion, and he accidentally steals the famous Dutch painting, 'The Goldfinch'. In the following years, Theo is haunted by the death of his mother and by his choice to keep the stolen painting. Tart perfectly captures the psyche of a child with a secret: Theo worries over the morality of his decision and blames himself entirely, just as children do. Though Theo grows up and entertainingly descends into a life of drugs and crime, his childhood secret and the beauty of the painting remain at the heart of the work.

A lot has been said about the length of this work in the media, but I am of the opinion that a good story well told is worth reading whatever its length. Donna Tart is a masterful author, well able to handle multiple plots and digressions without loosing the reader's attention. She perfectly balances her work between a philosophical discussion of art and Theo's stumbling and well-intentioned attempts at crime. The philosophic hints keep the mind thinking, while Theo's activities add suspense and humor. Long-time fans of Tart will only regret that they'll likely have to wait another long decade before she publishes again.

-JM

A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being
By Ruth Ozeki
Viking, 2013. 422 pgs. Fiction

A Tale for the Time Being switches perspectives between Nao, a teenage girl living in Japan, and Ruth, a middle-aged woman living on the pacific coast of British Columbia. The connection between these two unlikely people is a diary that Nao writes and Ruth finds washed up on her beach. As Ruth reads the diary, she forms a bond with Nao and starts to feel an urgency about helping her, even though the diary is years old. Nao writes of her isolation, her father's attempted suicides, and of her grandmother, a Buddhist monk.

Ruth Ozeki writes a careful, considerate novel with beautiful prose and life-like characters. The unusual structure, switching between a book and the person reading the book, may seem modern, but it adds an incredible depth to the work. The book changes from ultra-realism, dealing with issues of bullying and dysfunctional families, one moment and an almost magical realism the next.

Recommended for people who like modern literature and reading about different cultures and issues; however, readers should be aware that this book is not for the light of heart - Nao uses her diary to describe some very disturbing scenes.


-JM

The City & the City

The City & the City
By China Mieville
Ballantine, 2009. 312 pgs. Science Fiction

The City and the City is a brilliant piece of noir crime fiction set in two cities, Ul Qoma and Besźel, whose boarders are crosshatched and intertwined in the same physical space. Since the two cities are actually in their own countries, residents of Ul Quoma cannot legally see, hear, or smell a resident of Besźel, even if they are walking side by side, or sleeping in adjacent apartments, unless they legally enter into the other city though a single boarder checkpoint. Inspector Borlú, of the extreme crime squad in Besźel, investigates Mahalia Geary, a foreign student found dead in what appears to be a Besźel street. As Borlú delves deeper into Mahalia Geary's life and studies, he uncovers unsettling truths about the two cities: what separated them in the past, and what keeps them together now.

Though the two city set-up may boggle the mind in a similar way that science fiction can, Mieville never actually steps into that genre. Instead, The City and The City is a classic murder mystery, solved by the grounded and insightful Inspector Borlú, with a setting so clearly and viscerally invoked that the reader will remember the cities as if they once lived there.

-JM

I, Claudius

I, Claudius
By Robert Graves
Vintage Books, 1961. 432 pgs. Fiction

Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, also known as poor stuttering Clau-Clau-Claudius, the fourth emperor of Rome, tells the story of his life and his relations. After the Oracle at Delphi tells him to 'speak true', Claudius decides to set down his life in plain prose, with nothing hidden from posterity. Fortunately for the reader, plain prose means charming mid-century British prose, so the book never lacks a nicely turned phrase. Claudius spends most of the story chronicling the lives, murders, and marriage of his extended relations; how they rose to power and fell from it.

I hardly know how Robert Graves managed to make an accurate portrayal of ancient Rome so interesting. The only literary trick he uses is a thin first-person perspective, yet the book never ceases for a moment to be fascinating. The reason must be that ancient Rome was run like a modern soap opera: with so many executions, lies, and affairs that even the most sophisticated person cannot fail to be entertained by them.

-JM

When She Woke

When She Woke
by Hilary Jordan
Algonquin Books, 2012. 344 pgs. Fiction

Jordan (Mudbound, 2009) continues to write socially conscious fiction, this time setting her story in a dystopian future instead of the Deep South.

Hannah Payne awakes to find her skin a bright, garish red. She’s been branded a murderess for the next sixteen years of her life, but before she can even get to that point she must survive thirty days of confinement with no entertainment but her daily shower and a bible. She reflects on her scandalous, seductive affair with Reverend Aiden Dale and the circumstances which necessitated her secretly contacting an abortionist. In Hannah’s society, women’s rights have been stripped away as a result of a sterilizing plague that swept the world, and abortion is no longer viewed as a choice, but punished as infanticide.
After her initial incarceration, Hannah is released into a halfway house for non-violent female Chromes, falling under the power of the sadistic Mr. and Mrs. Henley. The extreme measures this couple goes through to bring their charges back to the path of God helps Hannah begin to question whether she deserves such treatment. Her questioning takes her and her newfound friend, Kayla, to a sect of underground of feminists seeking to assist female chromes accused of abortion. As interesting as they may seem, the intricacies of chroming and the plague become a mere backdrop midway through the book as the story of Hannah’s journey towards empowerment takes hold. Jordan’s willingness to tackle women’s rights issues makes When She Woke an important and relevant work, but the overt way she inserts her pro-choice politics into the storyline can be distracting.

Reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Scarlet Letter, this story treads familiar ground, but Jordan’s modern take and lush prose are well worth reading.

-JM

Life After Life

Life after Life
by Kate Atkinson
Little, Brown and Company, 2013. 529 pgs. Fiction.

Ursula Todd no sooner dies than she is reborn on a snowy day in February, 1910. Sometimes she dies at birth, during the London Blitz, or by suicide, yet her life is always reset to the beginning. Apart from the fact that she (occasionally) survives two world wars, her lives are generally unremarkable: she may marry, once has a child, frequently works for the civil service, and almost always has an affair with an admiral. As she accrues more and more lifetimes of experience, Ursula gradually becomes aware of her strange, never-ending life, which adds a depth and urgency to her attempts to find purpose.

 Life After Life can feel like a writer’s experiment, a way for Atkinson to exhaust the possibilities of a character, but it is also a deeply affecting attempt to answer fundamental questions about life. If we were to live again and again, would we eventually get it right? And what does ‘right’ mean for a given individual? Atkinson doesn’t provide a straightforward answer to these problems, but her manner of fictionalizing philosophic and religious claims proves much more thought-provoking than an extracted quote or treatise ever could. Perfect for book clubs and reading groups.

-JM

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
William Morrow, 2013. 181 pgs. Fiction

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a beautiful piece of storytelling that feels as much a dream to the reader as the narrator. An unnamed man finds himself driving to the end of his childhood home’s lane and staring into a duck pond he also knows is an ocean. So he begins to remember his long-ago encounter with the Hempstock women, who have lived longer than the earth and can snip time out of reality with sewing tools.

Neil Gaiman is masterful at creating an atmosphere inside the reader’s mind by carefully manipulating every detail of language, plot, and setting. It is one of those books that you can’t even remember having read afterwards, you can only remember the feelings and images that floated through your head. The book leaves the impression of almost reachable magic and a reality old, fragile, and malleable. Highly recommended.

-JM

Wool 1-5

Wool 1-5

by Hugh Howey

Simon and Schuster, 2013. 508 pgs. Science Fiction

 

Whenever anyone talks about successful self-published books the ubiquitous Shades of Grey comes into the conversation, but its time another self-published title took over: Wool by Hugh Howey. In Wool’s post-apocalyptic world humans live in underground silos, controlled by the fear of being sent outside into the toxic air for committing minor crimes. Howey opens with the first rule of the silo: anyone who expresses a desire to go outside gets their wish. The silo’s Sheriff wakes up on the third anniversary of his wife’s death and calmly states that he’d like to leave. As he waits, he wonders whether he will clean the Silo’s only window before his oxygen runs out… but those sent outside always clean.

Wool is a dark, thought-provoking dystopia, perfect for those who loved The Giver as a kid but who’ve found new-fangled YA hits like Matched or Uglies too perky and swift. Howey creates the perfect grimy, grungy atmosphere by centering his work on the worn, winding 140-floor staircase that connects the Silo’s stratified society. There is something deeply compelling and metaphoric about how his characters trudge up and down these stairs, trying to pull together their society. A highly recommended read for adult dystopian fans.

-          JM

The Dinner

The Dinner 
by Herman Koch
Hogarth, 2012. 292 pgs. Fiction


The reader is lead through a four course meal by the decidedly unreliable narrator, Mr. Lohman, as he negotiates a ‘small’ family problem with his brother. As Mr. Lohman captures the reader’s trust with sly jabs at the upper-class and witty complaints, he slowly reveals his own history and the real trouble in his family. The narrator tries to uncover only what he wants his readers to see, but it becomes impossible to keep ignoring the strange contradictions in his story. What the reader glimpses through the cracks is both thrilling and disturbing.

 Hailed as the ‘European Gone Girl’, the Dinner doesn’t disappoint. Most thrillers capture the reader’s attention through fast-paced, action packed plotlines with young, glamorous protagonists and clearly defined villains. Not so here. The Dinner thrills because of its masterful storytelling, which slowly and creepily reveals the hero and the villain to be the same person. This is the sort of book that worms its way into your subconscious, so a small part of you will always think: people can justify anything to themselves.

 - JM

Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Jerusalem: A Cookbook

by Yotem Ottolenghi

Ten Speed Press, 2012. 318 pgs. Nonfiction.

Yotem Ottolenghi interweaves traditional recipes from all quarters of Jerusalem with personal stories and fascinating information about the city. Essential for a modern cookbook, Jerusalem includes gorgeous matte photographs of the food set in traditional cookery, and of the city itself. Readers will find familiar, yet perfected, recipes for falafel and hummus and more surprising suggestions for insane things to do with ground lamb and dried chickpeas. In fact, all of Ottolenghi’s cookbooks are wonderful, and you can always spot them by their characteristic pillowy covers. 

I am, self-admittedly, a cookbook snob. I prefer my cookbooks to be like my literature: philosophic with sparse, evocative language and thin on plot. If this doesn’t sound like any cookbook you’ve looked at, it's probably because you’ve never read one cover-to-cover: a habit I highly recommend. A cookbook with a lot of theory and back-story not only provides better reading, but also fits nicely into my daily cooking by providing ideas and structures rather than one-off gourmet recipes. Jerusalem is an excellent example of a readable, practical cookbook.

JM

2312

2312

By Kim Stanley Robinson

Orbit, 2012. 561 pgs. Science Fiction.

2312 is a science fiction epic set just before the year 2312, when all the people who could afford it have left earth and populated each planet in the solar system. Mars is a snobby upper-class planet, Mercury an artistic haven, and Venus a large work camp. Humanity travels space on beautiful asteroids hollowed out and terraformed to resemble anything at all. The plot, such as it is, centers around a small group of ‘spacers’ trying to fix earth’s environmental and political issues in the hope that it will stop holding back the human race. It is a sublimely beautiful and entirely strange work of science fiction that envisions a future where art and science are seamlessly intertwined. 

2312 is a difficult read, technically classified as ‘hard sci-fi’, so it is terribly important to evaluate how much time and effort you are willing to put into the book before picking it up. Not only is the book difficult, but it is also incredibly, almost unjustifiably, weird. Yet, for all of its faults, I finished this slow, strange, beautiful book in under a week, while I’ve left many a perfectly good, normal book unfinished or un-started. What held on to my imagination here was the complete originality of the world: you’ve never read science fiction like this before.

I’ve had a hard time figuring out who to recommend this book to, and I’ve decided I’d only do it if someone came up to me and said: “I’m sick of everything I’ve ever read or thought about, I want something new”. If that statement fits your reading state of mind, you might want to give Kim Stanley Robinson a try. 

JM