The Crimson Petal and the White - Michael Faber

Slowly but surely, I will get through the 100+ books sitting on my shelves that I have not yet read. This one has been there for years, and at about 900 pages, I consider finishing it to be a big accomplishment. I am now justified in buying three more books to replace it. The Crimson Petal and the White was written in 2002, but takes place in London in 1870, and is written like an old time Victorian novel. It is the story of Sugar, a prostitute since the age of 13, and Wiliam Rackham, the heir to a great perfume business. Rackham, stifled by his home life, seeks out the company of Sugar and finds himself obsessed with becoming her saviour. Faber's writing is heavy on the graphic/bordering on the pornographic at times, but it is still the same type of tale of the fallen woman told by Eliot in The Mill on the Floss and in Dickens's various novels featuring prostitutes (from Oliver Twist to Dombey and Son). Faber fills his novel with characters who are trying to save these women from themselves, while focusing on the hypocrisy of it all, and presenting a scathing critique of a society that confines women to maddening domesticity and patriarchal control. I think Faber probably could have benefited from a bit of editing, but all in all this was a pretty quick read that raised a number of frustrating themes still alive and well in our world today.

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in awhile - I slept in a bit, worked from home, played golf on a beautiful course, and had a fun dinner with my husband and his family. After I got home, I watched some of the Olympics, but despite my usually punctual 10 pm bedtime, I just couldn't seem to fall asleep. Perhaps, I just didn't want the good day to end. So, I picked up this little book, thinking I'd just get it started before falling asleep. Two hours and a few tears later, I finished it. Perhaps it was the great mood I was already in, but this book really accentuated the idea of focusing on the positive. Pausch, the author, was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given 3-6 months to live. He had a wife and three children under the age of 6. But, he was determined to deliver his "last lecture" at CM and focused on the topic of achieving your childhood dreams. Throughout the book, Pausch talks about the life experiences that influenced his last lecture - and his desire to focus on life and leaving behind a memory of his love for his children - rather than focusing on all the negative surrounding his illness. Pausch has some great anecdotes/one-liners. He talks about how people always ask him how he got to be so successful, and he'd respond, "Call me any Friday night at 10 pm in my office and I'll tell you all about it." And another one about how experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. This book is a mix between Mitch Albom and Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It's sentimental and cliched - and Pausch embraces this. He is a consumate optimist (he describes himself as a Tigger instead of an Eyeore and has a strange, but endearing, obsession with Disney World) - but he definitely has some great perspective on how life should be lived. Randy Pausch passed away last month, but obviously not before making a very lasting impact on those around him and anyone who reads this book.

Logan's Storm - Ken Wells

Ken Wells's gritty bayou trilogy began with Meely LeBauve, a book I randomly picked up at a used bookstore a couple years ago. Meely was a 12 year old kid who had lost his mom many years before. Meely's father Logan, unable to cope with his grief, turned to the bottle and retreated deeper into the Louisiana swamp land. Meely was mostly left to take care of himself and doing a pretty good job of it, until he got on the bad side of the town bully, Junior. It didn't help matters that Meely's saviour happened to be a black man named Chilly and that Junior had relatives in the sheriff's department. The story, all told from the perspective of Meely was a fun youthful adventure. I then skipped to the third book in the series, Logan's Storm, which focuses (as you might guess) on Meely's father Logan - now on the run helping Chilly to escape the corrupt cops and avoid Southern prosecution for the crime of saving Meely from injustice. Their adventure take them through the bayou, subsisting on possum and catfish and whatever hospitality they can muster along the way. Here and there Logan remembers a story about Meely and his deceased wife Elizabeth - and I found these stories touching and sometimes humorous. But, otherwise, the escape seemed to drag on and I tired of reading about yet another night sleeping in a hollowed out tree trying to avoid the torential rains. The biggest problem about this book for me is that it is an adventure story perfect for a kid - but all it does is focus on the boring adults. Even though it wasn't Wells's plan, I would have much preferred to read another book about Meely.

Where or When - Anita Shreve

I was in the mood for a good story and a straight-forward narrative. Recently, I've been too tired to read books where I have to work to figure out who is telling the story, what's going on, what time period we're in, etc. When I get in these moods, usually Anita Shreve is the answer. Unfortunately, I don't think this was the right book. The basic story is that 40something year old Charles sees a photograph of his childhood sweetheart, Sian, in the newspaper, after having not talked to her in roughly 25 years. He contacts her and they exchange not-so-innocent letters and try to determine whether they should meet up or stop communicating altogether. They are both married with children, though the extent of each one's happiness is questionable. The chapters are told alternating between Charles's and Sian's perspectives - as well as a third point of view, reliving the summer at camp when the two first met. The story obviously isn't anything new, and I found that both of the characters lacked depth or any meaningful reflection on their situation. I expected a good Shreve twist, or some interesting revelation about infidelity, but it never came. I think she tried to be clever with the narrative, but it didn't work for me, and I mostly found myself disliking both of the main characters and waiting for it all to be over.

Bitter is the New Black - Jen Lancaster

On a hot lazy afternoon, there is nothing better than lying on the couch with a cold drink and a chick-lit novel. My friend Raz, thankfully, has kept me well stocked with the latest books from aging sorority girls dressed in Chanel and sipping Cosmos. This one is a memoir - from Jen Lancaster - living high on the hog during the dotcom sucess day. She relishes her VP title and instead of saving for the future she can't fathom with ever come, she spends her afternoons getting manicures and telling off her minions. And then, suddenly the bubble bursts, and Jen finds herself struggling to pay her rent and wondering how she could possibly be so overqualified for so many jobs. Unlike most chick-lit, I found Lancaster's writing pretty good - she's witty and seemingly well-read, though she is so self-absorbed, I couldn't help but wonder how she had any friends, much less a boyfriend (Fletch) for 7-years who actually wants to spend the rest of his life with her. She mostly presents Fletch as an especially patient saintly individual, which given her penchance for spending the utility money on Prada shoes, I can only imagine is a colossal exaggeration intended to hide some major personality flaw on his part. Despite Jen's larger than life (read: irritating) personality, she clearly has a sense of humor about it all, and reading about her employment search and eventual decision to focus on her writing, I found myself rooting for her. I understand that since this book, she has had two more memoirs published. I look forward to reading them on a day when I want to have a couple laughs and give my brain a rest.

The Blue Star - Tony Earley

Last year, I read Earley's novel, Jim the Boy, about a 10-year boy growing up in North Carolina in the 1930s. In The Blue Star, Jim is in his senior year of high school, and the country is on the verge of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Jim finds himself struggling against what his family assumes he will do with his life - marry the school goodie two shoes and get a job nearby - and what he wants from life. He falls inexplicably in love with a mysterious half-Indian girl and learns that sometimes life does not always give you what you think you deserve. Earley's novel contains adult themes, but is written with the language and straight-forwardness of a young adult novel. This is a nice easy coming-of-age story about choices (or lack thereof), regret, and learning how to stand on your own - even after choosing the wrong path.

World Without End - Ken Follett

This long-awaited sequel, published 18 years after The Pillars of the Earth, takes place in the English town of Kingbridge, two centuries after the original. But, despite taking place at a different time, much of the basic story is the same. Instead of a church, the townspeople find themselves in need of a new bridge, and Merthin, a clever little red-headed fellow is just the one to build it for them. But, of course, nothing is that easy. There are politics involved, as well as scheming religious leaders who will do anything for a bigger chunk of power. As well as the architecture, much of this novel focuses on the medicinal landscape of the times - female herbalists labeled as witches, and the tension between common sense acquired by doctors on the battlefield and the esoteric belief in humors and bleeding subscribed to by the monks. When the bubonic plague strikes the town, Merthin's soul-mate, Caris, finds herself stuck in the middle of the debate - urging people to stay in their homes, and ordering the nursing nuns to keep their faces covered and hands clean when tending to the sick. The monks, on the other hand, believe that the plague is punishment for the sins of the people, and that the road to recovery can only be traveled by prayer and self-sacrifice. Once again Follett has created intelligent female characters thwarted by disgusting vengeful men. But, it all makes for a unputdownable knight-filled soap opera. I didn't think Follett would be able to match his original masterpiece, but I definitely was not disappointed. I can't wait for the third installment in 2026.