2 Things @ Once

Review: That Old Cape Magic

Richard Russo (2009)

I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I never engaged with the story or the main character, a man named Jack Griffin who suffers much life change and is forced to examine his past.

Griffin has spent his life believing he’s outrun the legacy of his less-than-idyllic childhood. Cape Magic begins and ends with a pair of weddings, a year apart, that pull Griffin back to his old stomping grounds. And what a difference a year makes: a separation from his wife, his daughter’s wedding, and the death of his parents, whose ashes he carts around in the trunk of his car in an amusing attempt to unload the emotional baggage off the coast of New England.

Alas, Griffin’s story missed the mark for me. It wasn’t so much that I disliked the guy, I just didn’t care. While Cape Magic was well written, it didn’t have enough of the humor I’ve come to enjoy in earlier Russo novels.

Review: One Good Turn

Kate Atkinson (2006)

Jackson Brodie is back and once again mixed up in murder, only this time the ex-cop/retired private detective is on the other side of the law. Well, sort of.

Picking up about a year after we left him in Case Histories, Brodie (now a millionaire) is visiting Edinburgh where his actress girlfriend Juliet is preparing to launch a play. Left on his own to wander the city, Brodie has a knack for being in the right place at the wrong time. To start, he witnesses a brutal instance of road rage and later discovers a body floating in the sea. Each time, he falls under the scrutiny of police, initially enjoying the experience of playing the suspect. But you can’t take the detective out of the millionaire, and Brodie’s instincts soon have him crime solving from the sidelines.

As in Case Histories, author Atkinson adeptly weaves multiple viewpoints with her antihero’s—including a washed-up comedian, the potboiler author he’s leeching off of, and the wife of a crooked developer—creating a fast-moving, crime thriller that’s heavy on character. Brodie still isn’t perfect, he makes mistakes, acts on impulse, and continues to have a messy personal life, but that’s what makes him such an interesting and genuine character. Two more books follow in the Brodie series. I’ll be reading them both.

Cafe Shadows

I went all old school today when I decided to leave the iPad at home and take an actual book to the cafe with me. You know, hard covers and pages in three dimensions. And surprisingly lighter than the iPad.

Of course, it wasn't long before I was reaching for the iPhone and snapping photos. Another chance to play with my new favorite camera app, Camera⁺.

Review: About a Boy

Nick Hornby (1998)

Will Freeman thinks he's hit on the perfect way to meet hot mommies when he joins a support group for single parents. There are just a few kinks in Will's plan, starting with the fact that he doesn't have any kids. No problem, he'll just invent one. But interacting with single moms means involving yourself in real life and all the messy complications that come with it. Soon, this guy who's managed to isolate himself from any messy interpersonal relationships, is smack in the middle of a mother-son dynamic that forces him, against his nature, to grow up and be a man. Sort of.

The awkward relationship between Will and Marcus, a troubled teen who latches on to Will, is a wonderfully developed yin and yang. Will, a sort of Peter Pan on the brink of middle age, can relate to Marcus in a way the boy's even more troubled mother never can. And Marcus, wise beyond his years, learns how to act his age under Will's tutelage.

Nick Hornby writes immensely readable prose populated by real people; his characters are funny, they're flawed and you care what happens to them. If, like me, enough time has passed since you first saw the movie based on this book, reading it will be an experience filled with pleasant surprises. It doesn't even matter if you can't separate Hugh Grant from the main character in your mind’s eye. It really is perfect casting.

Review: The Nanny Diaries

Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus (2002)

This nanny's eye-view of Park Avenue parenting is a hoot from start to finish and that's not just the nanny here talking. A graduate student, only referred to as Nanny, takes a job as caregiver to four-year-old Grayer. Mr. X is barely around and Mrs. X is a real piece of work, part Leona Helmsley and part Mommie Dearest (minus the hangers) who treats her poor child like an accessory. The reader follows as Nanny navigates her way through the hazards of working in the underclass of New York's Nannydom, which makes for thoroughly entertaining reading.

This book is filled with sharp humor and hilarious attention to detail, obviously based on the authors' years of personal experience--you can't make this kind of over-the-top, Manhattan mothering up. If you're looking for enjoyable vacation reading with a good heart, I recommend you stuff this in your beach bag.

(Last) Saturday 3 p.m. ~ Baby Shower Prep

Last weekend I attended a baby shower and on Saturday afternoon I was wrapping up the gifts. Books are always my go-to gift for little people. These have been personally vetted by my favorite 3-year-old and receive high marks, meaning we've read them together at least 250 times.

Review: The Film Club

David Gilmour (2008)

Author David Gilmour made a decision concerning his son's education that would probably strike fear into the hearts of most parents. Recognizing that his son Jesse was floundering and at a cross-roads, Gilmour gave his teenager the option to drop out of school on two conditions: that he stay away from drugs and that he watch three movies a week, dad's choice. What followed was a three-year bonding experience that was as educational for father as it was for son.

I liked the premise of this memoir much more than I enjoyed the finished product. By the end, I was sick of spending time with these guys, relieved to shut the book and be done with them both. There was too little talk about movies and too much moping about girls. Gilmour might spend a few paragraphs setting up the film they're about to watch and would conclude the lesson with what seems in the retelling like a two-minute post-screening conversation. Not a whole lot of insight there.

I'm tempted to say the charm of this father-son memoir was lost on me (because I'm neither a father nor a son) but that shouldn't be the case in a well-crafted and engaging book. While I had little patience for the teenager mooning over his manipulative girlfriends, I really wanted to shout into the book at some of the stuff said and done by dad. (Giving your a sleeping pill to take the edge off his cocaine hangover, to name just one instance.)

I took a spin through some of the comments left on Amazon, wondering what I was missing about this book. (One of my favorite authors, Richard Russo, had a glowing blurb on the dust jacket.) Many people took issue with Gilmour letting his son drop out in the first place, criticizing his parenting as if that was the subject of the book. Not me. I just didn't enjoy hanging out on the couch talking film with these guys like I thought I would.

Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (2008)

Based on the title alone, I never would have picked up this book in a million years had it not been for the recommendation of two people I know and trust. I'm certainly glad I did, because it was a wonderful reading experience and just perfect for someone on the mend. This epistolatory novel is primarily set on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel in first year following the close of WWII. At the center is Juliet Ashton, an author whose search for her next subject is answered when she begins a correspondence with an islander who discovers her name on the flyleaf of a book of poetry. Soon she's trading letters with a collection of characters, all members of a literary society formed during the dark days of the war when their island under Nazi occupation.

This book shares a lot in common with another of my most favorite books about books, 84 Charring Cross Road: friendship formed over a love of books and reading, told through letters, set in an England adjusting to life after wartime. There's much more story going on in Guernsey, as Juliet becomes personally involved with her correspondents, paying an extended visit to the island, living among her new friends, and learning the fate of a particular islander who disappeared during the war.

Humorous, romantic, and tragic, full of heart and period detail, this is a compelling story that carries on strong to its satisfying conclusion.

Best Books Read in 2009

For sixteen years, I have include a list of book recommendations with my holiday cards. Last year, I never quite got around to finishing the book reviews and so I never sent out the cards. Until now...

Amazing what you can accomplish when you have a little, shall we say, free time. So, here it is--my recommended reading list for 2009.

Review: Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck (1937)

I'm reading my way through Steinbeck's canon and have finally arrived at the first of his "classics." This is the story of two drifters in California's Salinas Valley, just trying to get by while they dream of one day owning a patch of land, living quietly and raising rabbits. George is forever running interference for his simple-minded pal Lenny, a big guy who doesn't know his own strength. When the pair take a job working on a ranch, a minor calamity foreshadows tragedy, as brutal and selfish characters trip up George and Lenny on their way to realizing an impossible dream.

Of Mice and Men packs one hundred quick pages with spare, penetrating writing and dialog that reads true out of the mouths of authentic characters. At the heart of this tale is the dynamic between Lenny and his protector; their bond makes the inevitable conclusion all the more powerful. Do not be surprised if you read it in one sitting.