December Selection

We have selected The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard as our December selection. Discussion will begin on January 3, giving you New Years Eve to read! Have a happy holiday.

Next Book Choices

Darlene is the "host" for this next book club. Her book offerings are: The Knitting Circle, by Ann Hood; I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman; Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls; and The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard. For your information, I'd Know You Anywhere and The Good Dauthers are only available in hardback.

Please vote by emailing Kris (kzmclain@comcast.net) by Sunday night, November 21.

Juliet: A Novel

Who knew Juliet Capulet had a sister??? Anne Fortier has a lot of fun in this novel, showing off her ability to write complicated plots and her intimate familiarity with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I’m not sure this is as much fun for the reader, however.

I did enjoy the novel. While not great literature, it entertained me. I loved the Siena backdrop. Having visited Siena several times during a recent trip to Italy, and having had the Palio explained to me by my sister and brother-in-law, I could easily picture the scenes as Fortier described them. According to the author’s notes at the end, originally this legend was placed in Siena, which interested me.

While I was happy just to go along for the ride, there was little about the plot that seemed realistic. I found it hard to believe that sisters with so much baggage between them would work together as Juliet and Janice did. Certainly they were placed in a situation that called for teamwork, but old feelings die hard. Same with Umberto. Oh, oops, he’s really their father and a gangster! They didn’t seem nearly as upset at learning this as I would expect in real life.

And then, the characters… Usually, what engages me (or not) about a book is its characters. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like these characters as that I didn’t believe them. The relationship between Juliet and Janice didn’t ring true for me. Alessandro confused me throughout the book: bad guy or good guy? At the end, good guy, but there are some unexplained actions along the way. Same for Umberto, and even Aunt Rose. Fortier leaves a few too many loose ends, character-wise, for my taste.

Ultimately, what entertained me about the book was the connection to Shakespeare’s play. I liked knowing where the quotes at the beginning of chapters came from in the play. It was a hint about what would happen in that chapter. I liked some of the questions asked about the original plot, especially the one around Friar Lawrence/Lorenzo. In the play, no one pays much attention to him after the deaths of the young lovers. In the novel, Juliet discovers that the Friar was in big trouble with the families, which seems likely to me. Because I’ve taught and seen the play many times, the obvious connections to Romeo and Juliet made the novel a worthwhile read.

So, my big question is this: If you’re not as familiar with Shakespeare’s play, did the novel work for you? Were the quotes and references interesting, helpful, or just confusing? And, if you do know the play well, did you enjoy the connections or were they a distraction?

October Book Choice

The book we selected is Juliet by Anne Fortier. We will begin discussion of this book Friday, November 5. Enjoy this book. We all need a little more romance in our life!

Next Book Club Choices

I think we had a great discussion about Diamond Ruby. If anyone has more comments, feel free to continue discussion via the comment section.

In the meantime, Beckie is hosting the next Ethereal Reader book club. Here are her book choices:

Juliet: A Novel -- Anne Fortier
The Sculptor -- Gregory Funaro
The Queen of the Big Time -- Adriana Trigiani
Whistling in the Dark -- Lesley Kagen

Please vote via an email to Kris (kzmclain@comcast.net) by next Saturday, September 25.

Diamond Ruby

I’m not a huge baseball fan, but I am a fan of historical novels that provide a good sense of time and place – particularly if I am interested in the place.

Diamond Ruby provided both of those, and it made me enjoy the book more than I perhaps would have otherwise. The 1920s have always interested me because so much was going on at the time. The world was between wars, Prohibition was wreaking havoc nationwide, and then, of course, there was the suffragette movement -- women were fighting for the right to vote. (Doesn’t it seem absolutely astounding that women couldn’t vote yet in the 20s?)

New York City was sort of the poster child for all that was happening during this time, and Ruby, the main character of the novel, it seems, was impacted by most of the things that were happening. Her mother was a suffragette, her brother was involved in bootlegging, much of her family died from the Spanish influenza, brought back from World War I.

Question 1: In Diamond Ruby, we read about the opening of the Coney Island Boardwalk, Yankee Stadium, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Prohibition, the influenza epidemic and women's rights, to name a few things. Was there something regarding the time frame or Brooklyn setting that most interested you?

I thought most of the characters in the novel were interesting, though sometimes seemed to be caricatures. And frequently I thought the dialogue was unrealistic. I would think, “That’s not what a real person would say; that’s what someone in a cartoon would say.”

Having said all of this, I thought that the story told by Joseph Wallace was extremely interesting and fun to read. I often had a difficult time putting the book down. I thought it was so much fun to meet some of the real-life characters, and see how they were laced in and out of the book’s story. It led me to look many of them up in Wikipedia to find out their real story.

Question 2: It seemed like all of the characters epitomized either good or evil – there weren’t really any in-between sorts of characters. Who was your favorite character, and why? Did you find the “bad guys” to be realistic?

My favorite character, besides Ruby, was her niece Amanda. She seemed so solemn, strong-willed, and loyal. Her instincts seemed true, and her undying love and devotion to Ruby touched my heart.

While the “bad guys” were a bit predictable, I still found them to be fairly compelling – perhaps that degree of evilness is just interesting. In the back of the book, the author notes that he sort of liked Chase, which I really couldn’t quite understand. While he did seem to have a soft side for Ruby, he still didn’t hesitate to do what he had to do, even if it hurt her. To me, David Wilcox was the most despicable character.

Question 3. The author is currently working on a follow-up novel to Diamond Ruby that takes place in 1926, three years after the time period of this novel. As you finished reading Diamond Ruby, what did you envision her life being like three years later?

I love to envision what happens to characters after the book ends. In my mind, Ruby doesn’t continue playing professional baseball, because I know that the baseball commissioner, in real life, eventually prohibited women from playing. But I think she plays baseball in some capacity, and is able to provide a living for her nieces through her skills. She gets married, maybe to that FBI guy, and they all continue to live in Helen’s house – one big happy family.

Lots more to say about this book but I’m going to let you all tell me what you think.

August/September book club

And the winner (by a significant margin) was Diamond Ruby, by Joseph Wallace. Discussion will begin September 12. That gives us 5-1/2 weeks. If anyone thinks that isn't enough time, please comment and we will refigure a deadline.

Enjoy the book!

August/September Book Club Choices

I am hosting this month's book club. Here are the books from which you will choose: The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton; Joy in the Morning, by Betty Smith (who wrote one of my favorite books of all time, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn); Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks (nothing says summer reading like a book about the plague); Brooklyn Follies, by Paul Auster; and Diamond Ruby, by Joseph Wallace (based on the true story of Jackie Mitchell, a woman pitcher who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a single game, and was promptly prohibited from playing baseball by the baseball commissioner (isn't that a surprise?).

Email your vote to me at kzmclain@comcast.net by Tuesday, August 3.

Let the Great World Spin

Everyone has a story. I believe one could pull aside any checker at Walmart, for example, talk to them for a bit, and find that there is something remarkably interesting about their life.

This book seems to indicate the author agrees with me. However, I have mixed feelings about the way he presents his characters and their lives to his readers. Sometimes I literally couldn’t put the book down; other times I would toss the book on the bed and think, “What in the hell is he talking about?” Overall, I found Let the Great World Spin to be a good read.

One of my favorite things about the book was the way he presented the characters one at a time, and then eventually weaved them all together in the courtroom. For the most part, I found his characters interesting. The author, however, only gave a one-dimensional blip about each character – just enough to grab my interest. I would have loved to know the characters better. For example, we learn that Lara and Ciaran end up together, but how did that come about? What did Lara ever see in her weird and self-centered boyfriend ? What made her suggest they leave the scene of the accident, and then be so unable to forgive herself?

In an interview in the back of the copy of the book I read, the author says that the book became more about ordinary people on the street walking a tightrope just one inch off the ground. Which character and situation touched you the most as an ordinary person walking a tightrope one inch off the ground? The character for whom I had the most sympathy was Claire, whose loss of her son broke my heart. But my favorite character was Gloria, whose ability to love was endless.

Tying all of these stories to the tightrope walker in 1974 was creative, I thought. It seemed significant that the author used this particular true-life incident as his central theme because the World Trade Centers have become so symbolic to us of how we are all tied together as Americans. In the same interview, the author says he was very affected by 9/11. He stated that the only way to shake the dust off from that day was to go backwards to different points of innocence. He went back to 1974 to explore war (Claire/Joshua) and art (Lara), liberation theology (Corrigan), and issues of technology (phone phreakers – and goodness gracious, what was up with them?). McCann says that for him, the towers got built back up when the two little girls got rescued by strangers. Using that same imagery, the towers got rebuilt up for me when, following her mugging, Gloria took the cab back to Claire, who so desperately needed her friendship. Was there a time or story in the book when the towers got built back up for you?

McCann says that Corrigan is the first character who came to him when writing this book and that he is the one who introduced him to all of the other characters. He says that he was sad when Corrigan died and there were times when he wanted to roll back the stone and apologize to him. I really liked Corrigan as a character, but he was a puzzle to me. While he clearly used his role as a priest, or a brother, or a monk, or whatever he was, to help those who really needed his help, I never understood why he became a member of a religious order. I didn’t ever get a sense that he became a priest (or whatever he was) because he had an extraordinary love of God. His need to care for those around him almost seemed painful. And his death so early in the book really took me by surprise. Could you tell that Corrigan played an important role in the novel for the author by the way he presented him?

Finally, can someone (perhaps an English teacher?) explain to me why the author chose to use dashes instead of quotation marks, ala Cry, the Beloved Country? And even more confusing, why did he do that for most of the book, but in a couple of instances, use quotation marks? Yikes. That made my head explode.

Overall, I would give the book a 7 or 8 out of 10, for the interesting characters, the strong sense of place (the Bronx in the 70s) and the interesting way in which the author tied it all together in the end.

Our July Book Selection

The book receiving the most votes was Let the Great World Spin: A Novel, by Colum McCann. Discussion will begin in five weeks -- July 23, 2010. Enjoy reading.

Book Club Selections for June/July

Maggie is hosting the next Ethereal Reader book club. Her book selections are: Queen of Palmyra, by Minrose Gwin; A Long Time Ago and Essentially True, by Brigid Pasulka; The Last Child, by John Hart; and Let the Great World Spin: A Novel, by Colum McCann.

You have until Friday, June 18, to cast your vote. Please email Kris at kzmclain@comcast.net to let me know your book choice. Ethereal Reader will announce the book Friday.

The Reliable Wife

Once I came to grips with the fact that I would never remember the name of this book -- I called it The Reluctant Wife, The Realistic Wife, The Rambunctious Wife (well, that last one's not actually true; I never called it that) -- I enjoyed this deeply disturbing but quite thought-provoking novel.

At first look, the characters seemed to be one dimensional. Clearly Catherine was evil; after all, she was out to kill Mr. Truitt for money. As for Mr. Truitt, he was simply a sexual pervert, wasn't he? But as I read on, I found the two main characters to actually be very complex and interesting, if not exactly likeable.

As I read a book, especially for book club, I try to decide which character I like the best, or that at least I find the most interesting. About halfway through the book, I was thinking to myself that I detested all of the characters and found none to be compelling. By the end, however, I found myself drawn to Catherine. It's true she had done some terrible things, and was about to do the most terrible thing of all. But as I learned about her past, I was able to see why she did the things she did. Furthermore (and more importantly), I realized that she had a conscience and even a bit of a moral compass.

Give me some of your thoughts about the characters -- who did you find most interesting or who did you like the best?

I think the thing I liked most about this book, the thing that kept me turning the pages, was the author's writing style. I found the cadence to be almost poetic. He would write the most disturbing words but I found it to be beautifully written. It was the kind of book that I would get to the end of a chapter and want to keep reading, even if I was tired. It wasn't because I couldn't wait to find out what happened next; it really was just the writing style. And I LOVED the ending.

What did you like best about the book? You must answer this question even if you disliked the book.

I found Mr. Truitt's obsession with sex (and the author's choice of discriptives) to be one of the things that I found most uncomfortable about the book. As I learned of his past, however, I decided he really was obsessed with sex because that was the only way in which he found closeness and what he considered to be love. It was a bit over the top, however. Sleeping with his finger in her sex? Really?

I also didn't quite get the random references to people cutting off their hands or hanging themswelves. I found that to be quite weird.

What did you like least about the book?

My rating is 8 out of 10.

May Book Choice

The votes are in, and the book we will be reading for May is A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. Let's begin discussion on June 1. Happy reading!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – some lighthearted springtime reading! If you like commitment-free sex and violence (in your reading, not your personal life), this book’s for you.

Seriously, I was warned that the book would take some time to get into, and I found that to be true. Once I got into the flow of the book, however, I found it to be a gripping mystery with a snazzy surprise ending.

I say ending, but I’m really talking about the ending of the murder mystery part. I felt that the book went on too long once the mystery was solved. It gave me closure and pleased me that Wennerstrom got “his” in the end (or did he since he actually escaped incarceration), but my feeling is that the settling of the Wennerstrom matter went on a bit too long.

Some questions I want to pose for my fellow readers:

Did the conclusion surprise you? From the get-go, I felt that it was possible that Harriet wasn’t dead. I’ve read enough murder mysteries to know that if you don’t find a body, stay tuned. But I have to admit, I had been lulled into believing she was dead, and when Martin said he didn’t do it, I was astounded. I immediately suspected Cecelia, because she was so elusive and weird throughout the book. So when he went to Australia, found the woman, and said “Hello Harriet,” I was totally taken by surprise.

Give me your thoughts about our friend Lisbeth Salander. I’m going to withhold my thoughts because I want to hear all of yours first.

What do you think we would learn about Salander if we were to read the next book? Larsson wrote a follow-up, “The Girl Who Played With Fire” which supposedly tells us more about her. What are your predictions?

Were any of you bothered by the aforementioned sex and violence? The book really was one of the more graphic murder mysteries I’ve ever read. While they didn’t describe the murders detail-by-detail, Martin and his father were two of the sickest characters I ever came across in any book. And, being old and prudish, I was somewhat troubled by Mikael’s tendency to jump into bed with anyone interested. I, for one, wish he had not succumbed to Lisbeth.

Favorite characters? Kind of a hard one when you’re dealing with a despicable family like the Vangers. I guess I liked Henrik, though I distrusted him throughout the book. I was fearful he was going to be revealed to be the murderer, though I couldn’t begin to think why he would have hired Mikael. Speaking of Mikael, I liked his journalistic ethics. But what was up with Cecelia?

Talk to me about your reactions to how Lisbeth handled her guardian, the extraordinarily despicable Bjurman. Wasn’t he one of the most horrific characters in any book you’ve ever read?

Did any of you think the book was too long? As I mentioned, I felt the wrapping up of the Wennerstrom stuff went on too long.

Any other thoughts?

Our next book choices

From Josey:

Ok, here are my picks...very random as most came recommended by friends...

The Glass Castle: A Memoir (Alex Awards (Awards)) by Jeannette Walls
The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss
These is my Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 (P.S.) by Nancy E. Turner
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

These are quite varied, as I was trying to find selections that would appeal to everyone...do we dare take a risk? I dunno...

Vote by Sunday, February 7. Enjoy!

The Art of Racing in the Rain

A book using auto racing as a metaphor for life, narrated by a dog, might not seem too promising. But, I really enjoyed this book, and I hope everyone else did, too. It was a fast read because of its simplicity, but I thought there were some grains of truth that bore thinking about. It seemed a good choice to read during the busy holiday season and then those first dreary days of January.

We know from the beginning that Enzo is old, ill, and at the end of his life. But as this faithful dog looks back over his life, he recalls that it was rich and full. Anyone who knows and loves dogs understands that they are unbelievably loyal and, they always seem to know what you're thinking. Of course, Enzo almost always did understand even the nuances of the lives being lived around him. But, oh, how he longed for opposable thumbs!

Enzo is a great chracter. Somehow, the author managed to capture both his "dogness" and his ability to think and especially feel like a human. Enzo makes the case that the highest form of animal, the animal most like humans, is the dog. As he watched over Denny, then Eve, then Zoe, I believed that to be true. He knew what they needed, and he gave it to them.

I also enjoyed Denny's character. As Enzo was living out his last life as a dog before becoming human, Denny was a wonderful role model for him. Denny went through a long and very dark time, but he didn't give into it. He nearly always took the high road. Although he made mistakes, he never compounded them, which is where the racing metaphors come in, of course.

"That which you manifest is before you." "Your car goes where your eyes go." "You are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there." I can't help but think these are words to live by...or at least to consider. Attitude is all. Denny and Enzo (and apparently all good racers) understand that when we look ahead, we are, in a way, determining what will happen. If we see good things happening, that's more likely to be the case than if we forecast the worst case scenario. Granted, that's a little simplistic. There is always the possibility of the Evil Demon Zebra! However, Enzo eventually concludes that "The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-t0-face with our worst times. The demon is us."

I don't believe that we always make our own troubles. Some things are truly out of our control. But, like Enzo, I do think that how we react to those troubles -- whether it's taking a turn too fast or an oil-slick on the track -- often determines how things will turn out. There are Evil Twins out there, and we just have to deal with them. I'd like to think that we will all have happy endings, like Denny and Enzo.

Enough philosophy! My favorite chapter was the one in which Enzo gets his ride on the race track. Enzo had a zest for life; he always barked twice. May we all bark twice in our race through the rainy tracks of our lives! - Beckie