American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld

I truly enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld's novel Prep, so I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this one, but I was definitely missing out. American Wife is a fictionalized account of the First Lady of the United States. I don't know anything about Laura Bush, so I'm not sure how much she and Alice (the main character) have in common. But, it's quite clear that Alice's husband Charlie is patterned after George Bush in all his Ivy-League, baseball team owning, cocaine snorting, dumb as rocks glory. I'm not a huge fan of politics, so I was happy to discover that 80% of the book takes place before Alice's arrival at the White House. The story begins with Alice as a child - we learn about her first love, and the skeletons in her closet that are sure to emerge at inopportune times in her husband's political career. She is a bright and compassionate elementary school librarian who devotes her summer to making papier mache characters from popular childrens' book such as Ferdinand the Bull and the Giving Tree. She suddenly finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance with Charlie - engaged after only six weeks - and before meeting his country club family in all their summer home superiority. It doesn't take long for Charlie to emerge as a childish buffoon, and about half-way through the novel I feared that even Sittenfeld's engaging writing couldn't keep me reading about this woman who seemed too stubborn to acknowledge the train wreck she'd put herself in the middle of. I deeply despised the character of Charlie - I found him self-centered and embarrassingly ignorant. But, of course, that's the whole point because ultimately Alice must come to terms with how she allowed herself to come so far with him and question whether she ever had any control over the decisions he made and the policies he shaped. While I did not ultimately side for or against Alice, I thought Sittenfeld played out her character's position masterfully - leaving me feeling that I really could not judge her (or Laura Bush, perhaps), without ending up in a position full of countless contradictions. This novel immediately drew me in and left me with a lot to think about and discuss after I'd finished. A true sign, I believe, of a wonderful and worthwhile book.

Superfreakonomics - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner

After enjoying Freakonomics - or as I like to think of it - How to Sort-of Lie with Statistics, but Definitely Make Them More Interesting, I thought I'd pick up this sequel. I was certainly disappointed. But for the smashing success of their debut, I don't think this one would make much of a splash. But, the truth is that Levitt & Dubner are capitalizing on their popularity, and there were a few interesting tid-bits in this one. I particularly enjoyed their chapter on why the price of prostitution has fallen in the last century, and the epilogue that involved the training of monkeys to use currency. But, other than that, their ideas did not seem as cohesive or well thought out as in the original book - it's as if they just strung together interesting anecdotes and bounced around from story to study and back without much cohesion. I didn't expect the chapters to flow, since each one is clearly its own self-contained essay, but within each chapter, I expected a little more. Perhaps if I'd read this one first, I would have better appreciated the quirky viewpoints and the innovative way of approaching age-old problems. And, in terms of general enjoyment for an afternoon, this definitely satisfied. But, unlike Freakonomics, I didn't find myself wanting to read facts out loud from it to my husband (which I'm sure he appreciated), or do much more with it in terms of follow-up when I was done.

Books - Larry McMurtry

This is a funny little book by Western writer Larry McMurtry. His collection of short essays focuses on his love for books and his lifetime of scouting, saving, and collecting books for his independent bookstore and personal library. McMurtry approaches life from the viewpoint of a reader who grew up in a home without books. He talks about why he reads and his obsession with collecting. He discusses his favorite bookstore and collectors across the country, and the wonder of finding a steal, selling it for more, and then finding out it was resold again at an exponential profit. Unlike other books about books that I've loved, this one isn't filled with recommendations of books you must read of even McMurtry's favorites. It's more an adventure story of how McMurtry got from here to there and the books he's loved, captured and lost along the way. It provided interesting insight into the mind of a collector, and the excitement of one who loves something so much and can't ever seem to get enough of it.

The Wild Things - Dave Eggers

Eggers's latest quick read is based upon Maurice Sendak's childrens' book, Where the Wild Things Are and the recent movie based upon that book. I have yet to see the movie, so I am not sure how much of this is Eggers or the movie, but it is the same basic story of the out-of-control and misunderstood Max who travels to a strange world with even stranger creatures. In full novel form, however, the reader becomes more aligned with Max and his childish need to rebel in the name of fun. We also get to know each of the creatures, and their individual personalities. Though based on the childrens' book, the language and insight of this version is decidedly for a more mature audience. When I was a kid, my take-home message from the childrens' book was that even when home seems terrible and you've been sent to your room without dinner, in the end, there is no place like home and your mom who loves you no matter what. Some of that feeling is present in this version. It is clear that Max cannot remain with the creatures - not because he misses his family, but because he can't allow himself to turn into a monster. And in this realization, I felt much more of a sadness that Max's home life was unsatisfying and would ultimately put an end to his wild imagination. Perhaps, that's what growing up is all about - but luckily the whimsy that is present in this book is evidence that at least for Eggers, child-like wonder can live on through adulthood. In the end, I am definitely mixed in my review - I'm not sure childrens' classics should be redone in this way. There is something about holding on to the story as we first heard it, read it, and loved it that simply cannot be duplicated or improved upon.

Day After Night - Anita Diamant

This is the latest from the author of The Red Tent and Good Harbor. While countless books have been written about the Holocaust, people being taken to concentration camps or fighting for survival within those camps, Diamant's story takes place in an internment camp for Jewish immigrants. The people in the camp managed to escape Nazi Germany only to find themselves detained behind barbed wire by a British army refusing them entry into Palestine. In 1945, more than 200 of the detainees were rescued by a special operations unit of a Jewish underground militia organization in Palestine. With this true event as a backdrop, Diamant tells the story of four young women in the camp. Each one has a different story of survival - and the price they paid for their own lives. They each live with secrets and nightmares, unsure of who to trust, and forgetful of how to love. They carry guilt and shame with them for atrocities they themselves did not commit. But, they work together to relearn how to live their lives in a new camp and later in a new country. Like any work about this period in history, Day After Night was a difficult read for me. It is filled with so much seemingly avoidable sadness, but at the same time, is a reminder of the strength of the human spirit, and the desire to live on even when faced with the worst the world has to offer.

That Old Cape Magic - Richard Russo

When I think of Richard Russo, I think of a wonderful storyteller who creates loveable, though not always entirely likeable, protagonists. Though his Empire Falls had enough literary weight to merit a Pulitzer, I remember it for its fabulously engaging plot. The same with Bridge of Sighs. So, when my mom told me that his latest, That Old Cape Magic, was a "quick read" that I would finish in "an hour," I knew she was exaggerating, but I also knew it meant that this would not be Russo at his finest (at least where I was concerned). As in many of his other books, including the funny Straight Man, Russo sets his characters up in the world of academia. Main character, Jack Griffin, is headed to the Cape for a wedding in which his daughter is a bridesmaid. He has decided to go on ahead of his wife, who stays behind at campus to work. A little concerned about what this means for his marriage, Jack is determined to improve upon the summers he always spent on the Cape with his bickering and snobby intellectual parents. But, he finds it hard to escape his past, as he takes his father's ashes along to scatter, and his mother insists on calling him at all the wrong moments to make him feel guilty or ashamed of his actions. The book then jumps a year ahead, with Jack returning yet again to the Cape, this time for another wedding, and in quite a different position vis-a-vis his family. Throughout the novel, Jack struggles with his inner demons - the paths he should have taken, but have been long foreclosed, the things he should have said, the people he should have loved. While Jack as an individual character is classic Russo, in terms of his contradictory nature and his apparent inability to find happiness in his own skin, the story itself lacked Russo's usual complexity. The book flap warned that this book is unlike anything Russo has ever written. And it was right. The plot was vague, and the direction aimless. Sadly, it was just missing That Old Russo Magic.

Pictures at an Exhibition - Sara Houghteling

For awhile, I was reading quite a number of books about art theft, art fraud, and art stolen during the Holocaust (including Noah Charney's The Art Thief, and Edward Dolnick's books The Forger's Spell and The Rescue Artist). So, I was a little reluctant to pick this one up, even though it is written by the fiance of my friend Daniel (and author of The Piano Tuner). But, I'm glad I did. Pictures at an Exhibition takes place in Paris, and chronicles a young man's quest to recover his father's paintings which were looted by the Nazis during WWII. While the book is fiction, Houghteling's background in art history comes through in her historical detail and meticulous descriptions of the missing art. The writing is beautiful, and I often found myself so lost in passages, almost to the detriment of the overall story. I was impressed with how seamlessly the story turned from the art museums and auction houses, to the main character's world of medicine, while all the while incorporating a love story and the mystery of the lost paintings. Pictures at an Exhibition is suspenseful and filled with family secrets, while at the same time written so beautifully as to be its own work of art.