Tuesday Intro: Beginning a "Slow but Steady" Read

Chapter One

ATHENA

Encountering the Mind of a Mollusk

On a rare, warm day in mid-March, when the snow was melting into mud in New Hampshire, I travelled to Boston, where everyone was strolling along the harbor or sitting on benches licking ice cream cones. But I quit the blessed sunlight for the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium. I had a date with a giant Pacific octopus.

 

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

I tend to read one book at a time, but this week I'm going to try something different. Since finishing Remarkably Bright Creatures  a few days ago, I really want to learn more about octopuses. (I even had to look up the correct plural!) This book should help me do just that. The engaging writing style makes it even more interesting... and possibly even entertaining.

The author is a naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and author.  I enjoy her voice already and think this will be a book I can pick up and read a chapter every few days, while still concentrating on my main read. If you listen to the Currently Reading podcast, they refer to this as a "slow but steady" read. We'll see how it goes.

What do you think of that opening? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Yvonne @ Socrates Book Reviews

This Week's Read: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Emmett

June 12, 1954 - The drive from Saline to Morgan was three hours, and for much of it, Emmett hadn't said a word. For the first sixty miles or so, Warden Williams had made an effort at friendly conversation.He told a few stories about his childhood back East and asked a few questions about Emmett's on the farm. But this was the last they'd be together, and Emmett didn't see much sense in going into all of that now. So when they crossed the border from Kansas into Nebraska and the warden turned on the radio, Emmett stared out the window at the prairie, keeping his thoughts to himself.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Narrated by  Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham 

And so begins my first book of the year... 

This is my third novel by Amor Towles. After loving Rules of Civility  and A Gentleman in Moscow, my expectations are high. I have the audiobook and my daughter left her print copy here after Christmas, so this will be another read/listen combination. I'm just over 100 pages in and enjoying it  so far. 

Have you read Amor Towles?

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Yvonne at Socrates Book Reviews.

This Week's Read: Passing by Nella Larsen

It was the last letter in Irene Redfield's little pile of  morning mail. After her other ordinary and clearly directed letters the long envelope of thin Italian paper with its almost illegible scrawl seemed out of place and alien. And there was, too, something mysterious and slightly furtive about it. A thin sly thing which bore no return address to betray the sender. Not that she hadn't immediately known who its sender was. Some two years ago she had one very like it in outward appearance. Furtive, but in some peculiar, determined way a little flaunting. Purple ink. Foreign paper of extraordinary size.

Passing
by Nella Larsen

Here's another book that's been on my wish list for years. My reason for picking it up now? The podcast Novel Pairings  - a podcast dedicated to "making the classics readable, relevant, and fun" - will discuss it on their next episode. An interesting feature of each podcast episode is the pairing of a classic with contemporary novels with similar themes. I have a feeling they'll be pairing Passing  with Britt Bennett's new novel The Vanishing Half... which I plan to read shortly.

This classic from the Harlem Renaissance is described as "an electrifying story of two women who cross the color line in 1920s New York." I'm halfway through this short novel and wondering why I've waited so long.


What do you think? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro  is hosted by Yvonne at Socrates' Book Reviews.

This Week's Read: You Think It, I'll Say It

Gender Studies

Nell and Henry always said that they would wait until marriage was legal for everyone in America, and now this is the case - it's August 2015 - but earlier in the week Henry eloped with his graduate student Bridget. Bridget is twenty-three, moderately but not dramatically attractive (one of the few non stereotypical aspects of the situation, Nell thinks, is Bridget's lack of dramatic attractiveness), and Henry and Bridget had been dating for six months. They began having an affair last winter when Henry and Nell were still together; then in April, Henry moved out of the house he and Nell own and into Bridget's apartment. Nell and Henry had been a couple for eleven years.

You Think It, I'll Say It

by Curtis Sittenfeld

I haven't read many short stories in recent years, so this collection of ten is a welcome change of pace. After reading the first three, I'm impressed! A couple of Sittenfeld's novels are on my wish list... If the writing and characters are as good as they are in these stories, it won't be long before I finally pick them up.

Here's a portion of the goodreads summary:

Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her “astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers’ heads” (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.

Do you read short stories? 

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Yvonne at Socrates' Book Reviews

This Week's Read: Save Me the Plums

1 

MAGIC DOOR

I was eight years old when I first found the magazine, sitting on the dusty wooden floor of a used-book store. My father was a book designer who enjoyed the company of ancient volumes, and he often took me on book-hunting expeditions around New York, leaving me with a pile of vintage magazines while he went off to prowl among the dark and crowded shelves. That day I picked up a tattered old issue of Gourmet, enchanted by the cover drawing of a majestic swordfish leaping joyfully from the water. This looked nothing like the ladies' magazines my mother favored, with their recipes for turkey divan made with cans of mushroom soup, or pot roast topped with ketchup, and I opened it to find the pages filled with tales of food in faraway places. A story called "Night of Lobster" caught my eye, and as I began to read, the walls faded, the shop around me vanishing until I was sprawled on the sands of a small island off the coast of Maine. It was deep night, the sky like velvet, spangled with stars.

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
by Ruth Reichl

This week's read is actually an audiobook. Ruth Reichl narrates her own story and I am enthralled! Save Me the Plums  is unlike other food memoirs I've read. The magazine/publishing angle is unusual and so interesting. I started listening on Sunday and am halfway through already.

Here is a portion of the goodreads summary:

Trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl took the risk (and the job) of a lifetime when she entered the glamorous, high-stakes world of magazine publishing. Now, for the first time, she chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of Gourmet, during which she spearheaded a revolution in the way we think about food.
When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America's oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone's boss. And yet . . . Reichl had been reading Gourmet  since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

What do you think? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

This Weeks Read: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

New York City, April 2010 

I received a letter from his daughter the other day.
Angela.
I'd thought about Angela many times over the years, but this was only our third interaction.
The first was when I'd made her wedding dress, back in 1971.
The second was when she'd written to tell me her father had died. That was 1977.
Now she was writing to let me know that her mother had just passed away. I'm not sure how Angela expected me to receive this news. She might have guessed it would throw me for a loop. That said, I don't suspect malice on her part. Angela is not constructed that way. She's a good person. More important, an interesting one.
I was awfully surprised, though, to hear that Angela's mother had lasted this long. I'd assumed the woman had died ages ago. God knows everyone else has. (But why should anyone's longevity surprise me, when I myself have clung to existence like a barnacle to a boat bottom? I can't be the only ancient woman tottering around New York City, absolutely refusing to abandon either her life or her real estate.)
It was the last line of Angela's letter, though, that impacted me the most.
"Vivian," Angela wrote, "given that my mother has passed away, I wonder if you might now feel comfortable telling me what you were to my father?"
Well, then.
What was I to her father?
Only he could have answered that question. And since he never chose to discuss me with his daughter, it's not my place to tell Angela what I was to him.
I can, however, tell her what he was to me.

City of Girls
by Elizabeth Gilbert

I've only read the first three chapters of Elizabeth Gilbert's new novel, but have already fallen in love with Vivian's voice. That quip about NYC real estate had me laughing out loud! There's quite a bit of buzz and hype surrounding City of Girls, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check. So far, it's a lot of fun and the pages are turning quickly.

Here is a portion of the goodreads summary:

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.  

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other. 

What do you think? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

This Week's Read: Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Prologue

July 1973

Francis Gleeson, tall and thin in his powder blue policeman's uniform, stepped out of the sun and into the shadow of the stocky stone building that was the station house of the Forty-First Precinct. A pair of pantyhose had been hung to dry on a fourth floor fire escape near 167th, and while he waited for another rookie, a cop named Stanhope, Francis noted the perfect stillness of the gossamer legs, the delicate curve where the heel was meant to be. Another building had burned the night before and Francis figured it was now like so many others in the Forty-One: nothing left but a hollowed-out shell and a blackened staircase within. The neighborhood kids had all watched it burn from the roofs and fire escapes where they'd dragged their mattresses on that first truly hot day in June. Now, from a block away, Francis could hear them begging the firemen to leave just one hydrant open. He could imagine them hopping back and forth as the pavement grew hot again under their feet.

Ask Again, Yes
by Mary Beth Keane

June has been an unusually good reading month for me and it looks like it might end it on a high note. I started reading Ask Again, Yes  Saturday evening, am about a third of the way through now, and it's excellent! Within just a few pages, I was fully invested in this story of two rookie NYC policemen and their families.

Here's the goodreads summary:

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis's wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian's wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come. 

Ask Again, Yes  is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes  reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

This Week's Read: Devotion by Dani Shapiro

A woman named Sandra was cradling my head in her hands. We were in a small room - just the two of us - and it was so quiet I could hear the ticking of her watch. The air smelled faintly of eucalyptus. A high window overlooked a parking lot, and beyond the parking lot, mountains. I tried to relax - that was the point, wasn't it? - but I wasn't relaxed at all. I had signed up for something called Master Level Energy Work, thinking it would be like a massage. But this was no massage. For one thing, she was sighing a lot.

Devotion: A Memoir
by Dani Shapiro, narrated by the author

Here I am reading my third Dani Shapiro memoir in as many weeks... I'm officially a fan! It seems like I'm making my way through her life backwards, reading her books in reverse order, but that's fine. Yesterday I had a couple of hours alone in the car and began listening to Shapiro narrate her memoir about faith. So far it's another winner.

According to goodreads, Devotion is:

... a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion is sure to appeal to all those dealing with the trials and tribulations of what Carl Jung called “the afternoon of life.” 

What do you think? Would you continue reading?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

This Week's Read: Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Prologue 

All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota. His name was Bobby Cole. He was a sweet-looking kid and by that I mean he had eyes that seemed full of dreaming and he wore a half smile as if he was just about to understand something you'd spent an hour trying to explain. I should have known him better, been a better friend. He lived not far from my house and we were the same age. But he was two years behind me in school and might have been held back even more except for the kindness of certain teachers. He was a small kid, a simple child, no match at all for the diesel-fed drive of a Union Pacific locomotive.

Ordinary Grace
by William Kent Krueger

I added this title to my goodreads list in 2014 on the recommendation of several trusted blogging friends. Five years later I'm finally  going to read it, thanks to my book club. I borrowed the ebook from the library, but also seem to remember praise for the audio version. If that's the case, I may see if that's available, too. Either way, I'm looking forward to starting this book!

Here is the goodreads summary:

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.  

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family— which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother— he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.

What do you think? Would you continue reading? Have you already read this book?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

Current Reading: Where the Crawdads Sing

Prologue

1969

Marsh is not a swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace - as though not built to fly - against the roar of a thousand snow geese.

Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens, narrated by Cassandra Campbell

I wasn't planning to read this book. At least, not yet. It's almost too popular and there's so much hype... but my book club in NY will discuss it in early June. The meeting is just days after we get back. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again, so I started listening last night.

As you can tell from the quote above, the writing is lyrical, evocative of place, and quite beautiful. It almost feels like I'm missing some of that by listening. I'm wondering about downloading the ebook as well...


Here's the goodreads summary:

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens. 

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

What do you think? Would you continue reading? Or have you already read this one?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

Current Reading: My Sister, the Serial Killer

WORDS

Ayoola summons me with these words - Korede, I killed him.
I had hoped I would never hear those words again.

My Sister, the Serial Killer
by Oyinkan Braithwaite

That is the entire first chapter of this novel. The book is unusual, to say the least, and I was surprised to find myself drawn into the story so quickly. The audio version is narrated by Adepero Oduye... I'm loving her Nigerian accent! Hope to finish later today or tomorrow.


Here is the goodreads summary:

When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other... 

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

Current reading: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Prologue

They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life away from me in a gray wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves. Where will I be then?

Burial Rites 
by Hannah Kent

This novel was very popular in the book blogging community a few years ago, but as often happens, I never got around to reading it. Thanks to a kindle daily deal last year and a recent audible daily deal, I am now midway through a read/listen combination. Despite the disconnect of listening to a novel set in 19th century Iceland as I walk along the beach, it's shaping up to be an excellent read!

Here is a portion of the goodreads summary:

Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.  

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. 

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

Current Reading: Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood

Introduction

I grew up eating. A lot. As the great food writer M.F.K. Fisher said, "First we eat, then we do everything else." That describes my childhood home. In my mind, my Italian grandmother, Mama Rose, was always cooking. We lived with her in the house she moved to with her parents when they came from Conca Della Compania, a small, mountainous town an hour and a world away from Naples, Italy, to West Warwick, Rhode Island. When I was young, Mama Rose and her mother Nonna, kept an enormous garden in the backyard, and they would sit on summer afternoons and snap the ends off string beans (served cold with garlic and mint), press tomatoes into sauce, pickle red and green peppers for the Christmas antipasto. We had fruit trees - Seckel pear, cherry, apple, fig - and blueberry and raspberry bushes.  They raised rabbits and chickens too. More than once a beloved white bunny - Snowball, Snowflake, Snowy - disappeared from its cage only for us to have funny-tasting "chicken" that night at dinner.

Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food
by Ann Hood

After discovering Ann Hood earlier this winter through her nonfiction book, Morningstar: Growing Up With Books, I couldn't wait to read her newest title... especially after several blogging friends rated it highly. My library hold finally arrived and I started reading last night. This is already shaping up to be another winner.

Here's the goodreads summary:

From her Italian American childhood through singlehood, raising and feeding a growing family, divorce, and a new marriage to food writer Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a good meal. Growing up, she tasted love in her grandmother’s tomato sauce and dreamed of her mother’s special-occasion Fancy Lady Sandwiches. Later, the kitchen became the heart of Hood’s own home. She cooked pork roast to warm her first apartment, used two cups of dried basil for her first attempt at making pesto, taught her children how to make their favorite potatoes, found hope in her daughter’s omelet after a divorce, and fell in love again—with both her husband and his foolproof chicken stock. 

Hood tracks her lifelong journey in the kitchen with twenty-seven heartfelt essays, each accompanied by a recipe (or a few). In “Carbonara Quest,” searching for the perfect spaghetti helped her cope with lonely nights as a flight attendant. In the award-winning essay The Golden Silver Palate, she recounts the history of her fail-safe dinner party recipe for Chicken Marbella—and how it did fail her when she was falling in love. Hood’s simple, comforting recipes also include her mother’s famous meatballs, hearty Italian Beef Stew, classic Indiana Fried Chicken, the perfect grilled cheese, and a deliciously summery peach pie. 

With Hood’s signature humor and tenderness, Kitchen Yarns spills tales of loss and starting from scratch, family love and feasts with friends, and how the perfect meal is one that tastes like home.

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

Current Reading: Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman

The Grateful Class of '68

For a few weeks after my mother's death, I was in possession of the painstakingly annotated high school yearbook that had been dedicated to her by the grateful class of 1968. 

Yes, she'd been their English teacher and yearbook advisor, but that didn't explain her obsessive collecting of signatures and tributes next to every senior's photo. I could picture her - age twenty-three, her first job after college, roaming the corridors of Pickering High School, pen and book in hand, coaxing the shyest, least engaged boy or girl to sign - Write anything. I want to remember every one of you. Could you personalize it, just a few words?

Good Riddance
by Elinor Lipman

Part of my plan to ward off an impending reading slump included borrowing a stack of books from the library and sampling them until one "stuck." The first one I picked up was Elinor Lipman's latest novel, Good Riddance ... and I haven't put it down yet. A few reviews suggest this may not be one of her best, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Here is a portion of the goodreads summary:

Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '68 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion, scribbling notes and observations after each one—not always charitably—and noting who overstepped boundaries of many kinds. 

In a fit of decluttering (the yearbook did not, Daphne concluded, "spark joy"), she discards it when she moves to a small New York City apartment. But when it's found in the recycling bin by a busybody neighbor/documentary filmmaker, the yearbook's mysteries—not to mention her own family's—take on a whole new urgency, and Daphne finds herself entangled in a series of events both poignant and absurd. 

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

The Week's Read: Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

1

OPTIONS 

Competence can be a curse.
As a capable young woman, Casey Hahn felt compelled to choose respectability and success. But it was glamour and insight that she craved. A Korean immigrant who'd grown up in a dim, blue-collar neighborhood in Queens, she'd hoped for a bright, glittering life beyond the workhorse struggles of her parents, who managed a Manhattan dry cleaner. 

Free Food for Millionaires
by Min Jin Lee

This author's latest novel, Pachinko (my review), will be one of my favorite novels this year. Last month Lee's debut novel, published ten years ago, was offered as a kindle daily deal. How could I pass it up? The book is long and there's a lot going on but, at the halfway mark, I'm really enjoying it.

Here is a portion of the goodreads summary:

Free Food for Millionaires, the debut novel from Min Jin Lee, takes on daunting themes of love, money, race, and belief systems in this mostly satisfying tale. Casey Han is a Princeton grad, class of '93, and it is her conflicts, relationships, and temperament that inform the novel. She is the child of immigrant Korean parents who work in the same laundry in Queens where they have always worked and are trying hard to hang on to their culture. Casey has catapulted out of that life on scholarships but now that college is over, she hasn't the same opportunities as her white friends, even though she has acquired all of their expensive habits. 

The concept of free food for millionaires is the perfect irony that describes much of what Casey faces. Walter, one of her bosses, says, when a huge buffet lunch is delivered to the floor: "It's free food for millionaires... In the International Equities Department--that is, Asia, Europe, and Japan Sales--the group you're interviewing for--whichever desk that sells a deal buys lunch for everyone in the department."

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.

This Week's Read: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

Chapter One 

The moment I decided to leave him, the moment I thought, enough, we were thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean, hurtling forward but giving the illusion of stillness and tranquility. Just like our marriage, I could have said, but why ruin everything now? Here we were in first-class splendor, tentatively separated from anxiety; there was no turbulence and the sky was bright, and somewhere among us, possibly, sat an air marshall in dull traveler's disguise, perhaps picking at a little dish of oily nuts or captivated by the zombie prose of the in-flight magazine. Drinks had already been served before takeoff, and we were both frankly bombed, our mouths half open, our heads tipped back. Women in uniform carried baskets up and down the aisles like a sexualized fleet of Red Riding Hoods.

The Wife
by Meg Wolitzer

Wow. That opening stopped me dead in my tracks. This is my third Meg Wolitzer novel of the year  and my respect for her talent continues to grow. This is a short novel (224 pages) and I'm reading it now before the film, staring Glenn Close, is released next month.

After quoting the first portion of the passage above, the goodreads summary continues:

So opens Meg Wolitzer's compelling and provocative novel The Wife, as Joan Castleman sits beside her husband on their flight to Helsinki. Joan's husband, Joseph Castleman, is "one of those men who own the world...who has no idea how to take care of himself or anyone else, and who derives much of his style from the Dylan Thomas Handbook of Personal Hygiene and Etiquette." He is also one of America's preeminent novelists, about to receive a prestigious international award to honor his accomplishments, and Joan, who has spent forty years subjugating her own literary talents to fan the flames of his career, has finally decided to stop. 

From this gripping opening, Wolitzer flashes back fifty years to 1950s Smith College and Greenwich Village -- the beginning of the Castleman relationship -- and follows the course of the famous marriage that has brought them to this breaking point, culminating in a shocking ending that outs a carefully kept secret. 

Wolitzer's most important and ambitious book to date, The Wife is a wise, sharp-eyed, compulsively readable story about a woman forced to confront the sacrifices she's made in order to achieve the life she thought she wanted. But it's also an unusually candid look at the choices all men and women make for themselves, in marriage, work, and life. With her skillful storytelling and pitch-perfect observations, Wolitzer invites intriguing questions about the nature of partnership and the precarious position of an ambitious woman in a man's world.

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.
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My Current Read: Modern Lovers by Emma Straub

One 

In June, the book club was at Zoe's house, which meant that Elizabeth had to carry her heavy ceramic bowl of spinach salad with walnuts and bits of crumbled goat cheese a grand total of half a block. She didn't even have to cross a street. None of the dozen women in the group had to travel far, that was the point. It was hard enough to coordinate schedules and read a novel (though, only half the group ever finished anything) without asking people to get on the subway. Make plans with your real friends on your own time, drive your car across the borough to have dinner if you want to, but this was the neighborhood. This was easy. It was the last meeting before the annual summer hiatus. Elizabeth had sold houses to six of the twelve. She had a vested interest in keeping them happy, though, in truth, it was also good when people gave up on Brooklyn and decided to move to the suburbs or back to wherever they came from, because she got a double commission. Elizabeth liked her job.

Modern Lovers
by Emma Straub

Back in the summer of 2014, I spent a wonderfully lazy, relaxing weekend with Emma Straub's novel, The Vacationers (my review) and am hoping for much the same experience this time around. Approaching the 50% mark, it seems like another winner...

Here is the goodreads summary:

Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring. 

Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adults' lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed. 

Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us. 

What do you think? Are you tempted to continue?

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intro is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach.


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Current Reading: April 25

It's our last full week in Florida and there isn't much time for reading. My attention is instead focused on packing, end-of-season tasks, "one last time" activities, and the few things left on our to-do list. My sister assures me it's safe to head home. The snow has finally melted, but temperatures will only be in the 50s by the middle of next week. Sounds chilly to me... I was hoping for 60s.

On my kindle:

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height; bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers -  neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.

The Vegetarian
by Han Kang

How's that for an unusual opening? The Vegetarian has been on my 'to read' list for months, but Jillian's recent review pushed me to borrow the ebook from my library now. I've read about 20% of this strange, oddly compelling, short book (just under 200 pages). It feels like one that could (should?) be read in one sitting, but I haven't found a large enough block of time.  Here is the goodreads summary:

Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether. 

 A disturbing, yet beautifully composed narrative told in three parts, The Vegetarian is an allegorical novel about modern day South Korea, but also a story of obsession, choice, and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.

I can't wait to read more tonight!


On audio:

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick

With the addition of The Vegetarian, my reading has taken a all-Korean turn this week. I'm still listening to Nothing to Envy, a book which follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a period which includes Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, the rise of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastating famine. Before beginning this book, I was embarrassingly uninformed about North Korea, so am appreciating the much-needed background and history. With another three hours to go, I plan to finish before we begin the drive home. Do you have recommendations for further reading on North Korea?

What are you reading this week?

Current Reading: April 18

1

What Possessed Me?

If I hadn't been naive and recklessly trusting, would I ever have purchased number 10 Turpentine Lane, a chronic headache, masquerading as a charming bungalow? "Best value in town," said the ad, which was true, if judging by the price tag alone. I paid almost nothing by today's standards, attributing the bargain to my mother's hunch that the previous owner had succumbed while in residence. Not so off-putting, I rationalized; don't most people die at home? On moving day my next-door neighbor brought me a welcome loaf of banana bread along with the truth about my seller. A suicide attempt . . . sleeping pills . . . she'd saved them up until she had enough, poor thing. And who could blame her? "Strong as an ox," she added. "But a whole bottle?" She tapped the side of her head. 

"Brain damage?" I asked. "Brain dead?"

"Her daughter had to make the awful decision long distance."

On Turpentine Lane
by Elinor Lipman

Elinor Lipman's books are just plain fun to read. Her latest novel, On Turpentine Lane, is delivering the quirky characters and snappy dialogue. I've come to expect. I grabbed it off my library's "new fiction" shelf and started reading right away. Here's the goodreads summary:

At thirty-two, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state.) And never mind her witless boss, or a mother who lives too close, or a philandering father who thinks he's Chagall. When she finds some mysterious artifacts in the attic of her new home, she wonders whether anything in her life is as it seems. What good fortune, then, that Faith has found a friend in affable, collegial Nick Franconi, officemate par excellence .

At the 50% mark, this novel has been the perfect complement to my decidedly more serious audiobook...

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea 
by Barbara Demick, narrated by Karen White

This one has been in my audible library and on my kindle for quite some time, but seemed especially appropriate this week. Published in 2009, it's an eye-opening account of everyday life in North Korea. I'm hoping it's still current enough to provide insight as I continue to follow the news.

Here is the goodreads summary:

Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population.  

Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life.  

Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects—average North Korean citizens—fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them.   

Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance.

I've been listening on my morning walks and it's kept me going the entire hour, despite rising temperatures. I'm in Florida until early May.

What are you reading this week?

An Invitation to the #PalliserParty

Audrey and I are throwing a #PalliserParty and you're invited! We had so much fun reading Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire in 2015 that we decided to give the Pallisers a try... and Audrey even created a badge to make us official!

Like the Chronicles of Barsetshire, there are six novels in the Palliser series. Unlike the ecclesiastical leaning of the #6Barsets, the Pallisers are sometimes referred to as Trollope's Parliamentary Novels.

The common threads throughout the series are the wealthy aristocrat and politician Plantagenet Palliser, and his wife, Lady Glencora. The plots involve British and Irish politics in varying degrees, specifically in and around Parliament. The Pallisers do not always play major roles, and in The Eustace Diamonds they merely comment on the main action.

The Palliser novels include:

Can You Forgive Her? (1864)
Phineas Finn (1869)
The Eustace Diamonds (1873)
Phineas Redux (1874)
The Prime Minister (1876)
The Duke's Children (1879)

With #6Barsets we read one book every two months, but plan to keep it even more flexible with this series. There will be no formal check-ins or discussion questions. We simply chat on twitter using the hashtag #PalliserParty as we read.

As a little teaser, here is the first paragraph of Can You Forgive Her?
The goodreads summary is here.

VOLUME I.

CHAPTER I.

Mr. Vavasor and His Daughter.

 Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation. By blood she was connected with big people,—distantly connected with some very big people indeed, people who belonged to the Upper Ten Hundred if there be any such division; but of these very big relations she had known and seen little, and they had cared as little for her. Her grandfather, Squire Vavasor of Vavasor Hall, in Westmoreland, was a country gentleman, possessing some thousand a year at the outside, and he therefore never came up to London, and had no ambition to have himself numbered as one in any exclusive set. A hot-headed, ignorant, honest old gentleman, he lived ever at Vavasor Hall, declaring to any who would listen to him, that the country was going to the mischief, and congratulating himself that at any rate, in his county, parliamentary reform had been powerless to alter the old political arrangements. Alice Vavasor, whose offence against the world I am to tell you, and if possible to excuse, was the daughter of his younger son; and as her father, John Vavasor, had done nothing to raise the family name to eminence, Alice could not lay claim to any high position from her birth as a Vavasor. John Vavasor had come up to London early in life as a barrister, and had failed. He had failed at least in attaining either much wealth or much repute, though he had succeeded in earning, or perhaps I might better say, in obtaining, a livelihood. He had married a lady somewhat older than himself, who was in possession of four hundred a year, and who was related to those big people to whom I have alluded. Who these were and the special nature of the relationship, I shall be called upon to explain hereafter, but at present it will suffice to say that Alice Macleod gave great offence to all her friends by her marriage. She did not, however, give them much time for the indulgence of their anger. Having given birth to a daughter within twelve months of her marriage, she died, leaving in abeyance that question as to whether the fault of her marriage should or should not be pardoned by her family.

Would you like to attend our #PalliserParty?

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