"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." – George R. R. Martin
Today I have a classic you may have read in school at some point, a feminist tale of isolation and depression.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman — 5,815 words (about 23 minutes for the average reader)
First published in 1892 in New England Magazine
A classic short story from a modern master of the art.
A Small, Good Thing by Raymond Carver (1983) — 5,000 words (about 20 minutes for the average reader)
For “Throwback Thursday” I have a less well known story by the short story master that they named the award after. This one is from his collection The Four Million, so called because it takes place in New York City, which had four million residents at that time. A young man is led by destiny to the door of a damsel in distress. It has his trademark twist at the end. Enjoy!
The Green Door by O. Henry (1906) – 2,679 words (about 11 minutes for the average reader)
I learned about this book through Locus Magazine. In February, they had their reviewers list their best books of the year. Archita Mittra included Orbital in her list. On one of my regular road trips to referee a soccer tournament, I listened to this winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.
The book covers a day in the life of four astronauts and two cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. Each chapter is titled according to each of the sixteen orbits taken in a single day. Not a lot happens in this short novel. Much of the book is given to evocative and vivid descriptions of the views from the ISS. We also learn a bit of the back story of those on board and how they are dealing with life on the station as well as how they are relating to their family left down on Earth.
Unfortunately, this book goes nowhere. Nothing interesting or exciting happens on the station. There is no inciting incident. I kept waiting for something to go wrong and for those on board to work together to overcome it. Nada. Don’t misunderstand, the writing is incredibly powerful and descriptive. You feel like you are experiencing what it must be like to be in orbit. And those on board have rich pasts and incredibly supportive relationships with each other despite the politics of their countries. But there is no plot whatsoever. This book is everything that English teachers love and their students love to hate.
My rating: 2/5
My book club’s latest genre was classics. As usual, we had a vote between three choices. As the voting deadline approached, all of our members (four) had voted but me. They had each voted for one of the three books, leaving me to break the tie. I selected this book. It is considered a classic and many of the sources I have for finding new books rated it highly as did both Good Reads and The Story Graph. I’m not sure I made the best decision.
The story is very unusual. The devil arrives in Moscow talking to an editor and a poet. They discuss whether Jesus Christ ever lived and if the devil is real. The devil then goes on to tell the tale of Pontius Pilate differently than is found in the Bible. After the editor dies in a way that the devil predicted, things get even crazier across Moscow as the devil and his retinue perform all sorts of supernatural trickery. About a third of the way through the book we meet the Master and Margarita at which point the story also becomes a love story between these two.
I am not sure why this book is so beloved and considered a classic. It’s okay, but for me it was all over the place. It didn’t seem to have much of a point, at least not one that was clear to me. Maybe this was because it was written in Soviet Russia and the writer needed to be careful to avoid being censored or rounded up and killed. In any case, I found myself forcing my way through it. If it weren’t a book club read, I likely would have not finished it.
My rating: 3/5
I have been a subscriber and reader of Locus Magazine for over a year now. It is the monthly magazine of science fiction, fantasy, and horror and includes numerous book reviews in each issue. The February issue included various reviewers’ best of 2023 books. One such favorite was this book. The book was also longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023. The premise sounded interesting, so I gave it a go.
The review that interested me in this book states in part that “it serves as a technical demonstration of how to continue asking big science-fictional questions while starting from the world as it is, rather than as we’d like it to be.” The book is told in the first person and starts with a rather lengthy description of the main character’s childhood and eventual decision to study marine biology. She eventually gets the opportunity to go on a scientific expedition to a place in the mid-Atlantic where there is a trench much deeper than ever measured in the Atlantic before. Odd things start happening that begin to move the plot forward at a less slow pace.
This book is well-written and filled with thoughtful ideas. At times it reminded me of thoughtful science fiction books like Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey. And while I enjoined both of those books and movies, I found this book to be way too much prose and not engaging enough with the story. Even the ideas are barely hinted at. I enjoyed the contemplation of the ideas raised in this book, but it was as much an exploration of childhood trauma and its affects on the main character’s future. Sometimes it felt that was the main point of the book rather than exploring the science fictional elements of the story. That may be what others want in their literary science fiction, but not me. Give me Rendezvous with Rama any day over this dry, almost pretentious, over literary book.
My rating: 2.5/5
About thirty years ago, I read The Three Musketeers and loved it. Recently, my book club decided to read The Count of Monte Cristo, so I was very much looking forward to reading it. It is the story of Edmonde Dantes. He has everything going for him until it all falls apart in one night. In prison for a crime he has not committed, he gives up on life until a fellow prisoner tunnels into his cell. The two form a friendship that motivates him to survive and find a way out of the prison to rejoin those he loves and punish those who put him there.
This book was written as a serial in the newspaper from 1844 to 1846. It shows. There is a lot of story within a story. It feels a bit like a very entertaining soap opera. However, I was not as put off by it as I was by the interminable descriptions of Dickens or the tedious histrionics of Hugo. Edmonde (the titular Count of Monte Cristo) is a very likeable person for the first half of the book. I found him and his behavior much less likeable as the story progressed.
In the end, this book was much too long. It is literally the length of three books! If not for wanting to find out how it ends and the fact that I was reading it for my book club, I am not sure I would have finished it. One thing is for sure. In the future, I have no plans to read classics originally written as serials. Even so, the story is interesting. I can definitely see why it held newspaper readers’ attention for two years. But I can’t understand why people still love it so much today.
My rating: 3/5
On September 8, I attended the final event in David Joy’s book tour for his novel Those We Thought We Knew. As he opened that discussion, he invited all of us to sit in our discomfort as we engaged in civil discourse about a difficult subject—race and its legacy in our country. While not the subject of his novel, it is the context and a large part of the conflict within it. Because the novel takes place within thirty minutes of where I live, this book and the conversation that evening really hit home.
The story is about a woman in college at Western Carolina University (WCU) in Cullowhee, NC. Her grandmother lives in Sylva where her mother was raised. However, she grew up mostly in Atlanta and came to school at WCU to confront the racism she had felt her whole life, just simmering below the surface. The personification of that is a confederate statue in a place of prominence in downtown Sylva. This statue is not made up for the story. It actually still exists. She decides to bring attention to it in a way that kicks up a hornet’s nest and sets the story going.
While the novel is primarily a mystery, it deals with the differing experience of white and black in the mountains of western North Carolina. This is seen at its most challenging in the relationship between the sheriff (white) and the young woman’s grandmother (black). They grew up together, and the sheriff and her late husband went fishing and hunting together regularly as adults. At one point, they have an uncomfortable discussion. The sheriff is confused about why everything is getting stirred up. It was never like that before. Maybe other places, but not there. The grandmother eventually feels the need to point out to him that it was always there, but because he is white he has never had to deal with it.
The mystery is gripping and the storytelling is marvelous. The author really understands how to bring out the beauty in his descriptions of the mountains. But this is not a comfortable story. It’s not meant to be. At the book talk, the author made the point that the work that needs doing on race is work for white folks. And we need to stop asking for black folks to do that work. White supremacy and racism are problems created by white people that can only be addressed by white people. The author’s hope is that this book can help bring people together to have uncomfortable conversations in safe places like around kitchen tables similar to that where the sheriff and the grandmother talked, knowing that they are safe in their love for each other.
I highly encourage you to read this book and watch the video of the book talk.
My rating: 5/5
I loved Claire Keegan’s short novel Foster that I read earlier this year. So over my recent vacation, I read her Christmas novelette Small Things Like These. In it a man in Ireland lives his life at Christmas time wondering about his own past as he decides what to do about his future.
Keegan’s prose is immersive. You can feel the cold and damp as well as all the emotions. The protagonist helps those in his community of struggling families. It being Ireland, he also helps the local convent where he unexpectedly comes across a young girl who may not be being treated properly. Whether to do something about it is a serious struggle for him. It could mean hardship for him in a profound way. I’ll leave the resolution for you to discover.
This is wonderful work by Keegan. I am now officially a fan and will be alert to anything new she writes. I have to say that it wasn’t quite as good for me as Foster was. Still, fantastic storytelling about real people that are relatable.
My rating: 4/5
For our July historical fiction book, my book club selected to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I had previously read two books by the same author—The Grapes of Wrath in high school and Of Mice and Men when my daughter was in high school. While I liked both of those books, if it wasn’t for my book club, I’m not sure I would ever have read East of Eden. I am so glad I read it as it is now one of my favorite books of all time.
The book was written by Steinbeck for his sons. He wanted them to know about his family and the Salinas valley in California where he grew up. Steinbeck’s grandfather, Samuel Hamilton, is a close friend of the main character in the novel, Adam Trask. The book tells the story of Adam and his two sons, Caleb and Aron. It is often described as a modern retelling of Cain and Abel. I think it is more accurate to say that it explores the same themes as the story of those two brothers. And those themes are universally human—good, evil, justice, family, duty, responsibility. In short, the human condition.
And that is why this book is one of my favorites. I generally read a lot of science fiction. My favorite kind of sci fi is stories that take what is happening today and push it into the near future, exploring how the changes affect people and how they deal with what it means to be human. This book does the same thing, but instead of looking forward into the future, it looks back into the past. There are a lot of really human characters with lots of flaws. The author treats them all with respect. While the first chapter or two are a little slow, it grabbed me right after that and wouldn’t let go. I can see why Steinbeck considered this his master work.
My rating: 5/5
