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interpreter of maladies
jhumpa lahiri
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I had read a few stories by Lahiri in The New Yorker and just thought them dazzling. her stories are bold and alive and I love reading about India and Indian culture. It came as no surprise that this collection of short stories was just as dazzling and wonderful. Complex characters and sad little lives make them not happy-ending stories but content all the same. One story tells of a couple having marital problems that is plunged into darkness for a few nights due to electrical work on their street and the dark hours allow them to be honest and tender with one another with brutal results. Another great story is about an Indian couple that moves into a new house and proceeds to find Christian relics hidden all over the place which disgusts the husband and charms the wife.
I could easily buy this book and re-read the stories from time to time. Lahiri just shines. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
August 2006 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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the namesake
jhumpa lahiri
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The Namesake is a wonderful story about an Indian family, the Gangulis, making their way in the United States - from the early years of Ashima and Ashoke's marriage, through the birth of their children - Gogol and Sonia - through deaths and grief and happiness - a 25 year journey. It centers a lot around Gogol - named for a Russian author (which is very not done in Bengali culture) who hates his name and changes it before he goes to college. Subsequently, as he gets older he learns the true meaning of his name and as hard as he tries to forget it, it always follows him.
Lahiri shares Indian culture and customs which is one reason her books are so lovely. Her characters are so real one would expect to find their email addresses at the end just so you could drop a line and see what they're up to.
The saddest thing for me was to finish this novel and know that so far, Lahiri only has a book of short stories out there in addition to this novel. Her writing is so comfy and simple that I could continually read her forever and I can only hope that she is hard at work on more more more. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
September 2006 [link] |
recommend
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unaccustomed earth
jhumpa lahiri
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| Another glorious set of stories from Lahiri, depicting lives of Indians living in the United States. What I love about her stories is that they're so quiet and unassuming but so full of life. Also, I just love reading about Indian customs and food – she could probably just write out a restaurant menu and I would read it. A few of the stories are chronological and follow a boy and a girl from two families as they grow and make their way through American life. A handful have appeared in the New Yorker - "Hell-Heaven" and "Once in a Lifetime" are two you can – and should - read online. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
June 2008 [link] |
recommend
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she's come undone
wally lamb
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| I hated this book and felt dirty after I read it. Maybe you would like it, but it was toooooo sad and depressing for me with a layer of frustration. I kept thinking the character should just explode (thanks TV for your influence). This was sorrow and valiant suffering WITHOUT the mitigating wryness that I like. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend
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plan b: further thoughts on faith
anne lamott
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This is sort of a follow-up book to Lamott's 2000 published book "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith" which was wonderful and this new book is equally wonderful. Her thoughts on religion, parenting, politics and everthing in between are funny and insightful and refreshing. What's great about Lamott is that she can hardly believe she's such a Jesus freak and therefore, is more marveling at her spiritual discoveries rather than shoving them down your throat. Many of the essays in the book (most - if not all - have appeared on Salon.com) deal with the Lamott's disbelief that Jesus teaches that we should love everyone - even George Bush. That's something she has a hang up with.
My favorite essay is about David Roche and The Church of 80% Sincerity (you can read the essay from Salon here). Roche had a tumor removed from his face at a young age and it left him disfigured but full of faith. His "church" idea is that 80 percent sincerity, compassion, etc. is as good as it's going to get - the other 20 percent of the time you just get to be yourself and I love it. Lamott's words on faith and spirituality even impress an old hardened Catholic like me (or as a friend of Lamott's puts it, an "incense survivor"). |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
December 2005 [link] |
recommend
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the devil in the white city
erik larson
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| This gripping true story successfully blends both the challenge of creating a temporary dream city at the turn of the nineteenth century and the horror and discovery of the US's first serial killer. The construction of Chicago's White City is anxiety inducing and kept me reading long past bedtime. Interesting portraits of influential architects abound (Daniel Burnham who designed the Flatiron bldg in NYC among many others, Olmstead who designed Central Park in NYC and the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, and Mr. Ferris of the famed Wheel) and Larson is able to recreate the exchanges between parties effectively and with sensitivity. He did a LOT of research, and without the internet. Can you believe that even the Titanic and Frank Loyd Wright are in here too? The portrait of the killer is almost secondary to the work of the White City but it provides a nice relief when the talk of meetings and budgets becomes too much. |
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reviewed by: Eve |
July 2004 [link] |
recommend 3 thumbs up
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complicated women: a look at pre-code hollywood
mick lasalle
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Ahhhhhh. I’m such a nostalgia buff. AND I love free women. This book was most excellent. I had seen a movie called “The Women” which is a great movie in that the entire cast is women, but I felt that although the characters were very well acted, women sort of got the shaft in a back-handed way. This book pronounces that movie as the deceptive nadir of women in film. I feel like I’m slowly awakening into realizing that I’m a dolphin trapped in a big, beautiful net and that I’ve been so since birth. I remember my teacher telling me how the more learned you get, the more you realize it’s all connected. This book reminded me both of Brave New World and that biography I read on the Prussian woman who married a Swedish playwright. That Prussian biography revealed a world in the 30's that I never knew existed: the one of freedom, debauchery, questing, ennui, etceteras so similar to what we’re living now but with a sense of hopefulness, joie de vivre, and innocence mixed in.
This book showed a time from 1910ish-1930ish when there was a freedom for women and artists and humanity that got stamped out by powerful sanctimonious conservatives.
This book reveals that women were indeed were the huge draw to movies and were BY FAR more successful, complicated, bad, and popular in movies than men. We read about all the stars of the “pre-code” day. Did you know that Cary Grant was in a movie about abortion (as the token boyfriend of course)? It seemed that moviemakers were responding and making movies about the reality of the human experience. When men cheated on women and wanted to come back, this era has the women showing their hurt and then telling the man to hit the road. Then the Hays Code eliminated all things real. (The only exception was film noir where everyone who was bad got punished and that was OK). The reason that all those happy endings and loving-at-all-costs-women were in the movies (and thus forming our thoughts for us of what is happiness) is that the Hays Code dictated it. Gone were affairs by women, pre-marital sex, lesbianism, etc. In their place was the sugar-coated dreamy Catholic values (Hays was one of those Catholics unlike JFK). It’s an interesting look at a short window of time. I’m valiantly looking for “The Divorcee” to rent. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
May 2001 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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lady chatterly's lover
d. h. lawrence
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| I read this because it had "lover" title and was famous for being a story about a woman who is trapped in her marriage. Oh yes, I've been trapped in a loveless relationship and only stayed together for the friends. I quite liked the book. It was banned in its day, and I can see why. It got me very steamed up (sexually oh yes). Not all consuming masterpiece, but a good, three-week book (as in you can easily put it down to pick it up later). |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend
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how to be a domestic goddess
nigella lawson
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Now, I don't know nothing about being no domestic goddess (said in my best fake Brooklyn accent) but I will tell you that this book is food porn. Just the photographs alone made me want to lick each and every page.
Nigella cooks up lots of yummy recipes like baby bundts flavored with lemon and yogurt, chocolate pound cakes and savory pies like the supper onion pie that calls for a bazillion onions. Yum! Also included is a recipe for a cake that takes an entire jar of Nutella. Now, I pretty much would call anyone a goddess that served THAT to me.
I've gotten this out of the library so much that it's time I just got my own copy (or at least put it on my amazon list for future book binges). |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
July 2004 [link] |
recommend
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uncle silas
joseph sheridan le fanu
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| A creepy Victorian suspense/thriller. It is a bit difficult to read in parts--the first 200 pages were occasionally difficult to slog through--but the language is so elaborate and fascinating that it conjures up a spooky atmosphere almost instantly. The ending is a fantastic surprise ...I really don't want to spoil it, but it certainly shocked me. First written around 1864, it has truly stood the test of time. |
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reviewed by: victoria |
June 2005 [link] |
recommend
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can't take my eyes off of you
jack lechner
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I hate TV. I hate it because I’m addicted to it, and I feel worse
after watching it. Many times, I’ll suddenly get up like my
pants are on fire and turn off the tv and sigh. I don’t even
have anything but basic cable and the sci-fi channel. Oh
TV. You’re horrible. Anyway, I always feel a kinship with
anyone else who may feel that television is a soul-sucking
thing that makes you feel like a cheap advertising patron. I
mean, this is what we’ve come to? Bread and circuses? But
then again, I can’t help myself. I get sucked in. Anyway, this
book is about a man who watched 12 tv’s for six days seven
nights and what he sees. I greatly enjoyed the first half of
the book. It was almost like watching TV with a funny, New
York, clever friend. Some of my favorite parts of the book
are the asides that don’t involve tv. I mean, the author has
the New York life everyone I know that lives in New York
would like to have. And he lets nuggets of his life show
through. He comes off a bit full of himself, but with reason. I
get the impression that he was a rich kid who made the right
friends, and if only he’d acknowledge that privilege, I’d like
him better. There were many clever things he said as social
commentary and such. I was engrossed in the book for two
days, and I’m going to suggest that Mark read it. In the end, it
was just a slice of our life as mirrored and implemented by
television. I’ll not stay home sick and flip through the
channels the same way again. I recommend this to anyone
who is going to Europe, camping, or the beach and needs a
good book for when they’re away from tv.
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reviewed by: kristen |
May 2001 [link] |
recommend
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disquiet
julia leigh
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| Disquiet is a funky, disturbing little book, but it's perversely hard not to finish in one sitting. Olivia arrives at her mother's French château with her two children after a 12 year absence, now on the lam from her abusive husband. Her brother and wife arrive soon after from the hospital after giving birth to a stillborn daughter and the wife has insisted the baby be brought home with the. Throughout the story, she carries the baby around as if it's still alive and can't be persuaded to have a burial. It's an eerie, spooky story of a seriously mucked-up family and the vivid imagery lasts long after the book has ended. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
February 2009 [link] |
recommend
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men and cartoons: stories
jonathan lethem
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| Occasionally enjoyable and very slight, I suspect the latest release from Lethem has been timed to ride on the paperback release of the brilliant Fortress of Solitude. Still there are some stories that are worth checking out here. “The Vision” is an eerie funny story about a man reuniting with a childhood acquaintance for the strangest “game night” ever. “Super Goat Man” follows the misadventures of a failed superhero with a really unfortunate name. “Vivian Relf” is my favorite in this slim collection. A man and a woman meet at a party, convinced that they have met somewhere before (they haven’t). As the story progresses they continue to randomly encounter one another throughout the years. Beautifully written and eerily sad, this is the standout in a volume of stories that vary between so-so science fiction and sad tales that will be overly familiar to Lethem fans. A pretty decent read for a one-hour train ride. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
November 2004 [link] |
recommend
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the fortress of solitude
jonathan lethem
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| Jonathan Lethem abandons the taut structure of 1999’s brilliant Motherless Brooklyn with a sprawling novel that’s all over the map. I must admit part of the rush of reading this book is the feeling the reader gets that at any moment this could all derail and turn into an enormous train wreck. To Lethem’s credit he manages to hold the whole thing together. The book covers, graffiti artists, the crack epidemic, punk rock, gentrification, and of course super powers all in less than 600 pages (with numerous shifting narrative perspectives) and none of it ever really seems forced. I found the protagonist to be slightly off and hard to connect with, but overall I found this a very compelling book, one that managed to surprise from page to page. A fine tale of loss and constant change. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
October 2003 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game
michael lewis
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Let me just say this. Only in the past two years have I really begun to give a shit about baseball. I guess when you move to Boston, it's impossible to avoid. However, once I became enamored with baseball I began to thirst for good writing on baseball -- a book that would give me insight into how a baseball team comes together, about the moving and the shaking that goes on behind the scenes. Being a fan of fiction, I didn't think that sports writing could be as entertaining as good fiction (I got a glimpse of great sports writing with Seabiscuit). So I reluctantly picked up Moneyball. It's a wonderful book, really. It concerns the Oakland A's under the managment of Billy Beane. Now, Billy Beane has been heading up a new movement in baseball team management that has begun to rely less and less on old school scouting and more and more on statistics and new formulas for winning, mostly using computers and nerds from places like Harvard and MIT. So, the question is asked, in Moneyball, "How can a team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball actually compete with the likes of the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, who have astronomical payrolls?" Well, you learn, by reading Moneyball that it's about reinventing, about forgetting everything you knew to be true, and sticking your neck out.
The book is not only informative and enlightning, but also contains enough goofballs and neurotics and assholes to compete with the cast of Bull Durham and the Bad News Bears combined. It's a pleasure to see how Billy Bean molds this group of outasts and misfits and no-names into a team with one of the winningest records in all of baseball.
You don't have to be a baseball fanatic to enjoy this. In fact, it's a great primer for getting into the sport for the first time. It's also a fantastic read even if you don't give a rats ass about baseball. I mean, I didn't give a rat's ass about horseracing and I loved Seabiscuit. |
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reviewed by: ericS |
January 2004 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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stranger things happen
kelly link
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| Love love love Kelly Link! Kelly Link's stories are like sweet campfire tales that always take a creepy turn. In this collection of tales (classified as "young adult" like her most recent collection "Pretty Monsters"), prepared to be dazzled and confused but absorbed into stories like "The Specialist's Hat" about two lonely twins dealing with their mother's death and their babysitter who is most likely a ghost. "Travels with the Snow Queen" minces fairy tales with the modern as a princess searches for her philandering beloved while pointing out that a fairy tale life isn't all it's cracked up to be. "The Girl Detective" is a throw back to Nancy Drew (kudos to the Nancy Drew-ish cover art!) but as every bit as deliciously freaky as the rest of the book. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
October 2010 [link] |
recommend
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what the dead know
laura lippman
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| I love discovering "new" authors and Laura Lippman has a whole slew of books that play to my mysterious thriller side. "What the Dead Know" is her most recent and it's awesomely creepy. In 1975, two sisters disappear from a mall and are presumed dead. Thirty years later a woman is hospitalized after an accident and she is claiming to be one of the sisters and has a whopper of a tale to tell. Good detective work and the reappearance of the mother culminate in an even better tale. Several times in this book I find myself saying "Wow, I did not see that coming!"; the unpredictable ending was a satisfying surprise. Good beach/vacation read. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
June 2008 [link] |
recommend
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selling women short: the landmark battle for workers' rights at wal-mart
featherstone liza
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| Absolutely brilliant. I sincerely believe that everyone in America should read this book about the largest civil rights class-action suit in history: Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. And should you shop at the Wal-Mart, you should read the life stories of women who have worked there for 10, 15 years and who have been passed by endlessly for promotions which were given to men who had worked there for weeks, months or hardly at all; or women whose jobs are conveniently "eliminated" and then automatically reinstated, except with a male worker instead; or the vicious pay gap, in which any male working for Wal-Mart is guaranteed to be paid more at the "good ol' boy's club" than any woman... The worst is the vicious cycle that Wal-Mart is creating: it pays its employees so little that they can't afford to shop anywhere else. Wal-Mart targets poverty and has made millions, BILLIONS out of perpetuating it and exploiting it. An absolutely fascinating read, highly recommended. |
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reviewed by: victoria |
July 2005 [link] |
recommend
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gentleman prefer blondes
anita loos
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| Yes, the Marilyn Monroe movie was based on this "diary of a professional lady" set in the 20s and the diary was originally published in installments in Harper's Bazaar. The author, Anita Loos, began to notice the different lives blondes and brunettes had so she started this spoofy diary of the life of a blonde in NYC and it's such good fun, politically incorrect and witty. Lorelei is the main blonde who goes about with rich men wanting to "educate" her. All she does is spend their money and try to reform her ignorant friend Dorothy. They manage to have one of their suitors pay for a trip abroad where they meet the Prince of Wales and get analyzed by "Dr. Froyd". For these girls, the idea of roughing it is not getting to stay at the Ritz and having to order room service instead of going out each night. A great book for getting a feel of the roaring 20s and the humor of the time. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
May 2004 [link] |
recommend
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the spellman files
lisa lutz
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| This novel is so wacky and funny and hip that I'm hooked for life and can't wait until the next installment comes out. In it we meet the Spellmans, a family of private investigators that could use some serious therapy. Main character Izzy has dating problems (as evidenced by her wonderful lists of what was wrong with everyone she's dated); there's her younger sister Rae who has too much time on her hands and is just too smart for her own good; and there's Mr. and Mrs. Spellman who think it's perfectly fine that their children go on stakeouts. Finally, Uncle Ray - drunk, crazy Uncle Ray - rounds out the cast of nutty players. The Spellmans are great investigators but when one of their own goes missing, the tables are turned and they get a taste of their own medicine. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
May 2007 [link] |
recommend
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