Category Archives: Book reviews

Book review:Regarding Ducks and Universes

February 25, 2011 8:38 am

Neve Maslakovic. Regarding Ducks and Universes. Las Vegas: Amazon Encore, 2011. 340 pages.

I’m back with a fiction review.

REGARDING DUCKS AND UNIVERSES is a clever novel that mashes together science fiction and mystery. Some backstory: in 1986, a scientist duplicated the universe, with Earth A and Earth B gradually diverging because of random chance: in one San Francisco suffers a large earthquake and the automobile is largely a thing of the past by 2020, for example. Travel between the two universes is possible, but it’s complicated by the fact that people born before the separation have “alters,” who are biologically identical but often quite different from their opposite-universe counterpart.

The novel focuses around Felix Sayers, a writer of user guides for kitchen appliances, who discovers that he was actually born about six months earlier than he thought he was, and therefore has a double. Suddenly fearful that his alter will write and publish the mystery novel he’s been kicking around his head for years without putting pen to paper, he decides to head to San Francisco B to investigate. He becomes embroiled in a bigger mystery there, however, than he could ever have expected.

It’s a fun novel, with a universe (or, more accurately, two of them) with enough surprises to keep the reader interesting. Even before the 1986 divergence, this is clearly not the universe we live in–the Gold Rush took place in 1855, not 1849, and the Golden Gate bridge is a drawbridge.

Maslakovic has a good sense for world-building, with enough stuff going on around the boundaries of the story to give the reader a sense that she’s created a complex universe(s) with plenty of room for more adventures for Felix. I’m looking forward to reading more of them.

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Book Review: Old Town

February 18, 2011 7:50 am

Lin Zhe. George A. Fowler, trans. Old Town. Amazon Crossing, 2011. 704 pages.

A really good novel, even more than a film, can get the reader inside the minds of its characters. OLD TOWN is a novel that lets the reader vicariously experience three generations of life in China. Spanning much of the 20th century, the narrative covers the country’s most tumultuous period.

At first, adjusting to some of the conventions of Chinese nomenclature might take some getting used to. Most of the characters are referred to by their relationship titles rather than proper names: for example, Ninth Brother and Second Sister are the maternal grandparents of the narrator. Once the reader gets the hang of this, it feels quite natural and probably helps maintain the Chinese “feel” of the novel. Translator George Fowler made a good call there.

Although OLD TOWN deals with one family’s story, it’s really an epic about an entire era. We see the struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, culminating in the victory of the Communist Party, followed by the catastrophes of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” ending in a modern China where status is more closely tied to money than ideological purity.

One aspect of the book that is likely to attract little notice in China but may surprise Western readers is its presentation of China as a heterogeneous country, with divisions of old and young, rich and poor, right and left, North and South, city and country. It’s not a portrayal that usually comes through in Western novels or films. Throughout the book, almost incidentally, Zhe lets the reader see just how large and varied the country is.

Outside of educating the reader about Chinese history, geography, and literature (a helpful timeline, map, and family tree, as well as footnotes for literary and cultural references, help the reader keep up with a great deal), OLD TOWN is a wonderful story about faith, family, change, and continuity. It’s a novel that truly immerses the reader, in the best sense of the word.

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Book Review: The Silent Land

February 11, 2011 5:41 am

Graham Joyce. The Silent Land.New York:Doubleday, 2011. 240 pages.

I’m back with a review of a “suspense novel” that isn’t that suspenseful, but which has its charms.

In THE SILENT LAND, a young vacationing British couple, Jake and Zoe, find themselves trapped in an Alpine ski resort, completely alone, after an avalanche. Unable to contact the outside world, they have only each other to draw on as they try to figure out just what’s gone wrong.

It’s impossible to really discuss the book without giving major spoilers, so I’m not going to go into great detail. Suffice it to say that it’s not really “suspense” in the usual sense, that there’s a ticking bomb that the hero has to defuse. It’s really more of an inter-personal meditation. Which would be OK, but we don’t really learn a ton about the book’s two characters, Jake and Zoe. I can’t remember exactly what either of them did for a living, and I don’t think we ever learn their last name. As a result, they come across as a generic early-thirties couple, without much for the reader to really grab onto. They’re really more ideas than fully fleshed-out characters.

As the book progresses, the couple’s situation veers more and more sharply from normal, and it becomes clear that something’s going on: no matter what they do, Jake and Zoe can’t get out of the village, and they begin noticing strange things happening–and not happening. But once the narrative pulls away from reality as we know it, the reader is really at the author’s mercy: anything is possible, from “a wizard did it,” to “and then I woke up.” This undercuts the book as a “suspense” novel, since the reader can’t use what he/she knows about what’s already happened to guess what’s going to happen next: the rules just change too quickly and capriciously.

Joyce is a wonderful writer, capable of truly beautiful prose. But as a narrative, THE SILENT LAND might frustrate you.

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Book Review: Turn and Jump

February 4, 2011 8:27 am

Howard Mansfield. Turn and Jump: How Time and Place Fell Apart. Rockport, Maine: Down East Books, 2010. 195 pages.

Today we take for granted that time is rigidly (and sometimes mercilessly) segmented. But the way people think about time has changed dramatically over the last two hundred years, with local and natural time, based on sunrise, sunset, and the seasons, giving way to universal, artificial time, marked off by clocks and timetables. In TURN AND JUMP, Howard Mansfield shares a few stories that provide glimpses into times passed–and time’s past.

Its a very local history, strongly rooted in the source material. This has benefits and drawbacks for the reader. On the plus side, the reader is fully immersed in the details of what Mansfield’s describing–he faithfully relates every detail he can find. His chapter based primarily on records that document a century of Derby’s, a department store in Peterborough, New Hampshire. It’s infinitely more interested than I’ve made it sound, and it’s a piece of writing that any historian can envy and any archivist can fall in love with: Mansfield shows that, with the right documents, it’s possible to bring the past to life. The downside to this close use of source documents is that the reader is at the mercy of the author: she may not find the little details so artfully shared as interesting as the author did. It can be hard to convey with ink and paper the thrill of traveling back in time by handling primary source documents, seeing the past through its own eyes.

As fits a book about the struggles between local and national time, TURN AND JUMP alternates between “big” national history, like the railroads’ creation of time zones and B. F. Keith’s innovation of continuous vaudeville, and the minutely local history of Mansfield’s New England. It’s a good mix.

As writing, there’s little to fault with TURN and JUMP. Much of the time it’s a truly enveloping read in the way that the best narrative non-fiction should be: Mansfield shares not just a story, but a point of view. The downside that I found was his tendency to romanticize the past. It’s strongly implied that, since standard time was an invention of the railroads, and the railroads were businesses run for profit, there’s something unseemly about it. In fact, standard time is a real boon to both communication and commerce, and probably a historical inevitability: it’s an undoubtedly good thing that the 3:35 from Dubuque and the 4:15 from Platteville aren’t trying to occupy the same piece of track at the same time. Similarly, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that a route which once took cattle drovers three days to traverse on foot can now be driven in an hour–certainly good news if you’re the one who would otherwise have to slug through the mud for three days.

TURN AND JUMP is definitely a worthwhile read, with some fascinating historical elements, like the chapter on the one-time blockbuster play The Old Homestead. But don’t be surprised if the author doesn’t convince you that life was intrinsically better when it was lit by tallow and whale oil rather than fluorescent and LED.

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Book Review: The Clockwork Universe

January 30, 2011 7:44 am

Edward Dolnick. The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World. New York: Harper Collins, 2011. 400 pages.

In THE CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE, Edward Dolnick gives the reader a sense of the world that the scientific greats of the early modern period inhabited, and lets us see that there was more than dry formulae to their lives. Some of the giants Dolnick examines are household names–Galileo, Kepler, Newton. Others, like Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz, are not, so even those who have a decent understanding of where modern science came from (i.e., remember a bit from college) will learn something. Most, but not all, of those Dolnick discusses were members of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Sciences, a body that mixed sometimes-idle curiosity about the way the world worked with true scientific genius. At times almost liked an academic department, at times merely a forum for interested gentlemen to indulge in show-and-tell, the patchwork nature of the group exemplifies the dawning discipline of science.

The book alternates between describing the mental world of the “band of geniuses” who redefined reality and the physical one, which was far grimier than we can to remember. Though they pointed the way to modernity, they really inhabited a world built primarily on superstition and supposition, not all of it entirely logical. Combined with detailed but accessible to the layman descriptions of the experiments and logical constructions that helped Newton and the others unlock the mysteries of motion and gravity.

Divided into short chapters, THE CLOCKWORK UNIVERSE is a surprisingly nimble read, considering the weighty (pun intended) subjects it covers. It’s not exactly breezy–no work describing the birth of calculus could be–but it zips along pretty well. Dolnick is able to make problems that bedeviled philosophers for centuries, like Zeno’s paradox, comprehensible to the modern reader. Sprinkled with a liberal helping of detail about the everyday London of the day, it’s a great introduction-or re-introduction–to reading about scientific thought.

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Book Review: Spousonomics

January 21, 2011 4:25 pm

Paula Szyuchman and Jenny Anderson. Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes. New York: Random House, 2011. 352 pages.

Spousonomics is another addition to the growing popular economics literature that makes concepts like division of labor, comparative advantage, and information asymmetry digestible for a lay audience. As such, its publication is a good thing: after all, the more people know about how societies handle scarcity, the better. This book’s hook is that it attempts to apply economic theory to marital relations…and, as the authors repeatedly point out, that means ALL marital relations.

With ten chapters, each focused around a single idea from economics (to the three listed above, add also loss aversion, moral hazard, and several others), the authors show the reader how, by applying lessons learned from economists, they can have a better marriage–and, as they point out more than once, more sex. Each chapter has a similar format: the authors explain the concept using both textbook phraseology (although there’s blessedly little of that) and examples from real life, then present several “case studies” that show how different couples actually confront the issue the chapter illuminates.

As an introduction to economic ideas it’s not bad, and it might get you thinking about how you make decisions and relate to your spouse and children in a different way. Many of the couples profiled, however, were not easy to empathize with, to put it politely; some seemed downright annoying. Also, a lot of the spouses seemed…stereotypical, with the hubby obsessed by “the game” and loafing around, and the wife doing all the housework, or with one a workaholic and the other a free spirit. In the course of researching the book, the authors talked to more than two thousand people, so this might just be what they found. Maybe most people (or most people in their sample) really are that predictable.

But the general concepts the authors highlight are all valid, and it wouldn’t hurt to give their approach a try. Like all advice books, though, this one has its limits. It’s easy to tell people to be dispassionate when assessing their relationships; probably a lot harder to have that Vulcan reserve when you’ve just been vomited on, have heard nothing but crying for two hours, and your spouse is out doing pilates/pickup basketball/reviewing books/whatever.

Overall it’s an interesting book that has several great concepts; whether its a truly useful one is likely up to the reader….and his/her spouse.

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Book Review: Vietnamerica

December 31, 2010 10:29 am

GB Tran. Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey. New York: Villard, 2011. 192 pages.

Graphic novels can be an extremely effective medium for memoir–Art Speigelman’s Maus and Marjane Satrapi’ Persepolis have proven. GB Tran’s Vietnamerica is very much in the mold of these two classics, and it tells a story that similarly mingles memoir with history.

Tran’s family fled Vietnam with the fall of Saigon, and his parents–particularly his father–didn’t tell their son much about their homeland. Vietnamerica is the story of Tran’s return to Vietnam with his parents for the funeral of his maternal grandmother Thi Mot. The trip triggers his exploration into the history of his family, which parallels the past three generations of Vietnamese history.

It’s a vividly-detailed look at the family that doesn’t sugar-coat unpleasant aspects (of which there are a few) or simplify for the purpose of telling a more cohesive story. Tran is a courageous writer who takes some real risks here, and they pay off. It’s probably a cliche to say that Tran puts a human face on history with this graphic novel, but it’s absolutely true.

There are many powerful characters in the book; the one who dominates much of the story is Tran’s father, but both sets of grandparents have their moments, as does is mother. All in all, it’s an unflinching look at a difficult period in his family’s life, and one that sheds some light on the biographical repercussions of historical events.

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Book review: Mr. Toppit

December 17, 2010 9:39 am

Charles Elton. Mr Toppit. New York: Other Books, 2010. 400 pages.

With MR TOPPIT, Charles Elton gives the reader a look into the life, not of an author, but of his family. The Hayseed Chronicles are a mashup of A.A. Milne’s Pooh books and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, with Luke Hayward, the book’s chief protagonist, filling the role of Christopher Robin/Harry Potter. Through a series of events, the character based on his childhood becomes the hero of a beloved series of books. MR TOPPIT follows him as he copes with unwelcome fame.

There are a few other interesting characters: Martha, his eccentric mother; Lila, the ever-devoted illustrator who’s been snubbed by the current American publishers, and Lauri, a put-upon radio host whose chance encounter with author Arthur Hayman ultimately transformers her into an Oprah-like media powerhouse.

It’s a bit of an uneven book–it has a great premise, and some really clever twists. But a few of the character revelations–particularly one about a character’s father that comes late in the book–feel too cliche. Overall, though, it’s a good read that may get you thinking about the families behind the authors who create books that others find so captivating.

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Book Review: The Sherlockian

December 10, 2010 9:29 am

Graham Moore. The Sherlockian. New York: TWELVE, 2010. 350 pages.

Book Review Friday is back with a bang. After a little bit of a layoff, I’ve recharged myself with some excellent fiction. I really, really liked this book.

There’s only so many places a mystery can go. Someone has to get murdered, and someone has to solve the crime. The answer can’t be too obvious, or it wouldn’t be worth writing about, and it can’t be too outrageously obscure. You change the setting, or change the time period, to get a mystery set anywhere and anywhen from Republican Rome to the 24th century Delta quadrant, but it’s pretty much variations on a theme.

With THE SHERLOCKIAN, Graham Moore’s delivered a clever twist on the genre. His inspiration is the 2004 death of Sherlock Holmes expert Richard Lancelyn Green. David Grann produced an excellent non-fiction treatment of the mystery surrounding the case in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, and it’s fascinating to see how Moore’s story developed from the kernel of this true event. In Moore’s tale, Alex Cale, an eminent Sherlockian, is found dead in a hotel room; budding young Sherlockian Harold White, with a mysterious female Watson, sets out to solve the crime and discover the whereabouts of a legendary lost Arthur Conan Doyle journal, which Cale claimed to have found.

At the same time, back in 1900, Doyle and his friend Bram Stoker find themselves on the trail of their own mystery. It’s a wonderful portrayal of Doyle: having killed off his fictional detective in 1893, he’s still dogged by Holmes’ hold on the popular imagination. He’d like nothing more than the public to forget about the detective and start to appreciate his writing about the Boer War, but as the reader knows, that’s not in the cards. He’s drawn into a murder mystery that draws him to the underside of late Victorian London, and shows off Moore’s good eye for period detail.

There’s much to commend both stories in the SHERLOCKIAN. Moore is not overly-referential to the Sherlockians, but he doesn’t mock them. He walks a fine line, which is no mean feat, since dedicated Sherlock Holmes fans made Trekkies look well-adjusted; at one point, he mentions the rift between the Sherlockians, who “believe” that Holmes and his adventures were real and that Doyle was only Watson’s literary agent, and the Doyleans, who acknowledge Sir Arthur as the author. Harold, the protagonist, isn’t a brilliant, dashing adventurer, but he’s not a total schmuck, either. Again, it’s a balance that Moore strikes just right. Teaming up Doyle and Stoker might have been literary fan wank in the hands of a less-apt writer, but Moore was able to create in the two authors real characters whose depth goes beyond their writing. Drawing known historical figures into the novel was ambitious, but Moore really delivered.

When all is said and done, THE SHERLOCKIAN is a wonderful novel. While the contemporary story tracks as commentary on the enduring power of literary obsessions, the historical tale gives the reader a sense of the world that Doyle lived in, and in which Holmes solved his mysteries. The result is a phenomenally readable book about writing, reading, and living in the shadow of obsession–one’s own, and those of others. I’m looking forward to reading more from Graham Moore.

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Book Review: Running the Books

November 12, 2010 3:05 pm

Avi Steinberg. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian. New York: Nan Talese/Doubleday, 2010. 416 pages.

Memoirs by youngish literary types who’ve yet to find their calling are a growth industry. I recently read Beth Raymer’s Lay the Favorite, about her pre-MFA stint as a sports bettor’s assistant, and Avi Steinberg’s tale of his post-Harvard adventure as a librarian in a Boston prison seems to be in the same genre. It’s more than another slacker-exploitation memoir, even though there are elements of that. In his job, Steinberg deals with people at their most desperate, most vicious, and most vulnerable. This makes for some good observational reportage, which is occasionally woven with a deeper commentary on the history of Boston’s prisons (the former Deer Island prison is always, it seems, a shadow).

On the surface, it’s a fish-out-of-water story. Steinberg decides to get a job as a prison librarian, a big change from writing a senior thesis about Bugs Bunny at Harvard. Not part of the prison guard brotherhood, and definitely not an inmate, he occupies as precarious place in the prison hierarchy. The most interesting stuff, however, isn’t what happens to Steinberg–it’s what he observes and what he realizes. A conversation about the difference between an archivist and a librarian becomes a springboard for a deeper meditation on what we keep, and what we throw away, framed by a trip to the prison archive.

Steinberg takes us inside the prison and–no surprise–it’s not a place that most of us would want to spend much time in. It’s interesting to see him harmonize the brutal world of the prison with his Harvard-taught sensibilities. The evolution of his relationship with the pimp C.C. Too Sweet is a touchstone for the kind of re-thinking that he shares with the reader, and a really true part of the narrative.

RUNNING THE BOOKS lacks, however, a definitive ending. Some of the prisoners have a close to their arc; our narrator does not. We learn in the epilogue that one day Steinberg “left the prison for the last time,” but the reader doesn’t know where he goes–certainly something that will color how we interpret his two years of prison librarianship. Was this just a chance for him to blow off some steam before grad school? Does he decide to get a library degree, with an eye towards returning to a prison library? It would help the reader to know.

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