After the Quake - Haruki Murakami

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780375713279-2 - A collection of six short stories by the author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. These all take place shortly after the 1995 Kobe earthquake and feature characters all in search of something - their fathers, meaning of life, sanity... I read them all in a two hour long sitting, but mostly because I couldn't put it down. I kept telling myself I'd stop after the next one. The stories are all a little creepy/scary, and one is completely outrageous, but they're all beautifully written and the characters strangely intriguing. I love everything I've ever read by Murakami, and I can't wait until his latest After Dark arrives for me at the library!

Postscript: I just learned that the Berkeley Rep Theater is doing a production based on After the Quake this October. I will have to check it out!

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780060590277-1: This is the predecessor tale to You Suck (see below). Second-hand store owner Charlie Asher is madly in love with his beautiful wife, Rachel. But, on the day she gives birth to their daughter Sophie, Rachel dies and suddenly Charlie finds that he himself is a "Death Merchant" charged with collecting soul objects from individuals dying in San Francisco. As Charlie endeavors to understand his new powers and mission, the city seems to be taken over by sewer harpies, and his daughter is suddenly being protected by two over-eager Hellhounds. Charlie must join forces with Minty Fresh, another Death Merchant to save the city, and the people he loves. Obviously, this story is not grounded in reality - but for those who like to venture over into the world of science-fiction every once in awhile, this is a fun read. It is more complex and better written than You Suck and a fun break from the types of books I normally read.

Straight Man - Richard Russo

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780375701900-4: By the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls, Straight Man is the story of William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the son of two academics, and the current chair of the English Department at a fictional state university facing severe budget cuts. While the professors in his department fight amongst themselves to overthrow Devereaux as chair, decide who should make tenure and who shouldn't be named as the new chair, Devereaux sits back and laughs at it all. In general I tend to like books in university settings (Jane Smiley's Moo, for example), and this one is written with incredible humor that I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions. At times Russo is a bit too clever - and then over does the joke by telling it several times in one chapter. The plot twists and turns in the book are based on the principle of Occam's Razor - the idea that, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one" - I like this idea, but again Russo throws it in the reader's face at every possible opportunity and the idea becomes old. But, other than that occasional annoyance (and the irritating character of Devereaux's self-centered and oblivious mother), I found this book hilarious - I'd recommend it to anyone with a relatively cynical outlook on life, who doesn't care to take anything too seriously.

Tar Baby - Toni Morrison

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780394423296-0: I took three classes in college that assigned this book: The Novel, African-American Litarature, and Feminist Literature. I vaguely recalled certain passages from the book and the characters names, but I was struck in re-reading it this time (as part of the Stanford on-line book club) as to how complex it is in terms of race, class and gender relations. Pretty much any stereotypical interaction between blacks and whites, rich and poor, man and woman, is played out in this novel - there are no real resolutions and some of the relationships are wildly overplayed, but overall this is an incredible piece of literature that I could see spending an entire semester on in college. It is basically the story of the rich white Valerian who retires to the Caribbean where his much younger wife broods over the absence of her college-aged son who is racked by white-guilt. Valerian employs a black butler and cook, as well as a yardman and washer - all of whom are uneducated, but still separated by class more than unified by race. The biracial niece of the butler and cook becomes a model and is educated at the Sorbonne through Valerian's money - and falls helpless in love with a shipwrecked illiterate from the South. The novel works through their complicated relationships - and at times tries to do a little too much. I always find Morrison's descriptive writing poetic - but in this one, I felt she captured the often awkward dialogue among the characters perfectly. For a thought-provoking work on race, class, and gender relations, it would be hard to go wrong with Tar Baby.

All the Pretty Horses* - Cormac McCarthy

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780679744399-12 - The first book in McCarthy's Border Trilogy, this is the story of 16 year old John Grady Cole who heads to Mexico on horseback with his best friend Lacey Rawlins. Along the way, they encounter Jimmy Belvins who gets them all in unspeakable trouble with the law, and Cole falls in love with the daughter of an aristocrat. While Cole seems unbelievably advanced for his age, I did find the narrative interesting - mostly because of the intereactions with the Blevins character. I am not, in general, interested in stories having to do with animals, and there was a little too much going on with Cole and other men in the story being obsessed with the spiritual connections they had with their horses. I've heard about McCarthy for some time, and this was my first experience reading him - it took a little concentration to get into the writing, but once I was in, I found it difficult to put the book down. I am interested in checking out The Road, which just recently won the Pulitzer.

(* - Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction)

A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines

http://www.powells.com/biblio/63-9781852427238-0 - A black man (Jefferson) is wrongly sentenced to death in Lousiana in the 1940s for the murder of a white shopekeeper. The man's godmother asks her nephew, Grant - a teacher and the narrator of the novel -to meet with Jefferson - to make him a man before the state takes his life. Grant struggles with the concept - how to save a man's soul when he doesn't believe in an after-life, how to be an educated man in a world that degrades him. His meetings with Jefferson unfold slowly as Grant and Jefferson begin to communicate and attempt to understand the worlds in which the two of them live. I really enjoyed the writing in this book - it made me think of To Kill A Mockingbird, if that book had been written from the perspective of Tom Robinson's family. It is filled with the frustration and anger underlying racial politics in our criminal justice system, and literally brought tears to my eyes in the final pages. Well worth reading.

The Weight of Water - Anita Shreve

http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780316789974-1 - A photographer, Jean, researching the century-old murder of two women travels by boat with her husband, daughter, brother-in-law, and brother-in-law's girlfriend. Jean discovers the long-lost diary of the sole survivor of the brutal crime. As she delves into the narrative, she finds herself engrossed in a tale of jealousy and betrayal - while struggling to keep her own marriage and family together. I enjoy Shreve's books (I recommend The Pilot's Wife) - they are always quick reads with interesting female main characters - great for a long plane ride, or relaxing on a summer afternoon.