These days life and a long list of to-do's encroaches on my reading time but I still try to carve out some time every day to read. Would it be better to spend that time exercising? Possibly, but I guess I will always remain a book worm. Here's a list of the books I've read lately in 2015, and my humble opinion of each in a couple of quick sentences.
2015
My Struggle: Book 1
by Karl Ove Knausgaard
A meandering view of the author's life, thoughts, desires and day-to-day minutiae fill up this book of 500 pages, and some struggle with it, but I fell right into it and swam along with Karl Ove's flowing memories. It's a mighty book in its simplicity but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a new literary genre, or "a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues--death, love, art, fear--and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature". To me it brought to mind "On The Road" by Jack Keroac and I enjoyed reading it to the bittersweet end when his struggle with his father is brought to a resolution.
My Struggle: Book 2
Again Karl Ove Knausgaard handles the big issues in his life -- this time its about love, his wife, his children and writing. Personally I connected more with this book and even quoted bits of it to hubby who hadn't taken to Knausgaards' writing. I like his crusty Norwegian take on things, for example, Mommy and Me music class, and it was interesting reading a male perspective on it. What makes these books so interesting to me is that there is a little bit of high and a little bit of low in it, such as musings on the Swedish social system to what he ate for breakfast. I felt like I lived a little bit like Knausgaard while reading his books. But for now I need to live my own life so I'm taking a break before reading books 3 - 6.
Breakfast of Champions
by Kurt Vonnegut
Huh? The book makes no sense but I keep reading it. This is what Amazon says about it, I will weigh in once I'm finished.
In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.
The Lightkeeper's Wife: A Novel
by Sarah Anne Johnson
There's a twist that makes this novel about an 1800's-light house keeper interesting - that I won't divulge - but suffice to say there are pirates involved and other stuff that's fun. It just wasn't that well written and although I read it, I wasn't super impressed.
Expiration Date
by Duane Swierczynski
Now we're talking -- a really good pulp noir with a non-linear story that really hooks you in. The writing was excellent, I really believed Mickey Wade, an unemployed journalist who finds himself down on his luck and in his grandfather's apartment in run-down Philly. I couldn't put this book down. Look forward to reading The Blonde.
Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
by Mark Adams
For a guy who says he's just a desk jockey for an adventure mag, he sure did a heck of a lot of walking in Peru - up and down, up and down and all over - looking for the sites Hiram Bingham III "discovered" in the early 1900's including Machu Picchu. Sounded exhausting and I got confused with all the names that sounded a like, or actually were alike! I wanted to do some armchair traveling but I got a bit more that I reckoned for with this book.
The Expats
by Chris Pavone
I thought I'd enjoy this spy novel set in Brussels, but to be honest not so much.
The Dovekeepers
by Alice Hoffman
Loved it. Read it in a flash. You have to get used to the swelling language where every sentence has two deeper meanings but I sank right into it. It is about Jerusalem and the Jews who were expelled from it around 70 A.C. by the Romans. Some fled to Masada (Herod's fortress) and that's where we meet the Dove keepers, four Jewish women whose lives intertwine.
H Is for Hawk
by Helen MacDonald
This was slow going for me but if you love nature, and you are interested in falconry and T.B. White then it's the book for you!
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
by Helen Simonson
A second read of a lovely book that reminds you that love is thicker than water, or family, or cultural ties. Two middle-aged people find each other in rural England and don't let go. The Major is so wry, old fashioned and endearing.
The Room
by Jonas Karlsson
The interior life versus societal norms comes under the magnifying glass in this Swedish playwright's book. A quick read but an interesting one. Who's crazy really? The autistic-seeming guy or the people who won't let him enter "the room".
Revere Beach Elegy (A Memoir of Home and Beyond)
by Roland Merullo
I like this writer. I read "Revere Beach Boulevard" too. I feel like we have similar values, and that we think a like about the importance of self-reflection, kindness, and travel. Revere Beach Elegy is a spiritual autobiography. I also like to think about the story of my life, and how to write a good one. I think that's what Roland Merullo has done in this book, even if he isn't the best technical writer.
Cambridge
Susanna Kaysen
As a mother and a daughter I found this book, in particular the relationship between Susanna and her mother, very moving. No matter how much you believe that your life is ordinary, your children see it as extraordinary. I remember that now. Kaysen does a wonderful job of bringing to life her childhood as a peripatetic person with great insight into her own life.
The Boys in the Boat:
Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown
How can a book be so exciting even when you know the outcome?! It was fascinating to read about the lives of the young men who shaped their destinies, and lived through some of the most traumatic events of our time including the Great Depression, construction of the Hoover Dam, World War 2, Nazi Germany and the Olympics held in Berlin. Highly recommend it.
The Turner House
by Angela Flournoy
Not every book I read ends up on this list but this National Book Award Finalist does for its interesting story about a black family in Detroit and the ghost that haunts them. I was a little disappointed in the ending (won't tell you why) but I loved the simple way Flournoy tells the story of the Turner family including mother, father Francis and 13 children plus reminders of the Deep South that pop up in this family saga.
Books read over the XMAS holiday include --
Badhyttan, Bossypants by Tina Fey, M Train by Patti Smith, Orphan Train by Kristina Baker Kline and now I'm reading...
2016
Girls Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
It's ok, I wouldn't go nuts trying to get this one,
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Now this one was a really fun page-turner. I didn't get into it at first but after about 50 pages I couldn't put this fairy tale about magicians and the mystical forest down! I really enjoyed the protagonist Agnieska and her earthy magic. Fun!
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