Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani

A beautiful historical novel that begins in the Italian Alps at the turn of the twentieth century. A love story that spans two continents. The Immigrant experience inspired by the author's own grandparents' love story. Enza and Ciro both grow up in difficult circumstances in their native Italy. Enza is the oldest in a close Italian family. She is mature beyond her years, worrying always about her family's future. Ciro and his brother loose their parents and live in a convent. They meet and fall in love but circumstances separate them yet carry both to New York City.  Ciro becomes an apprentice to a shoemaker while Enza builds her own career as a seamstress and finds her way to the Metropolitan Opera House serving the great Enrico Caruso. They meet several times but life keeps them away from each other. Ciro joins the military to serve in the Great War.

This story takes us back to a time when hard work really does improve one's lot in life. A craft can make one's life and help to build family, friends and a future. The story is rich with a sense of place and time. The reader follows two very good people find their way in life and finally find their way to each other.

My only is that I thought this was to be a prequel to the author's other books about shoemakers, Very Valentine and Brava, Valentine.  It is not.  I kept waiting for Enza to become a woman's shoe designer but it does not happen. That was just my expectation as a reader.  It is not enough to keep me from recommending this page turner to everyone.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Dr. Marina Singh is a research scientist working at a Minnesota based pharmaceutical company. She is sent by her company to find out what happened to a colleague who died in the Amazonian jungle at the research site.  The company hasn't heard from the research leader who happens to be Dr. Singh's former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson. Dr. Singh is moved to travel to Brazil in hopes of bringing peace of mind to her colleague's wife as well as her own peace of mind.  Her employer would like her to find Dr. Swenson and find out if this research is going as planned since the stock holders are asking. Dr. Swenson has built a whole system of barriers to keep out the prying eyes of those who might interrupt the creative flow of the scientific method from the gatekeepers in Manaus, Brazil to her harsh manner, to the evasiveness of the other scientists on the team.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

A memoir from Cheryl Strayed, a writer who lives in Portland, OR.  Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died a few weeks later. The author, who was twenty-two at the time, is devastated. Her family falls apart, she looses her relationship with her stepfather and her husband.  She reacts by doing wild things, trying heroin, becoming addicted to heroin, travelling across the United States and finally divorcing her husband.  Four years later, she feels she must do something to get back on track, the path she has strayed from.

A book caught her eye as she stood in line at a sporting goods store.  Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.  This was the mid-90's, these kinds of adventures were not as in vogue as they are now. She bought the book, read it and began her plan for hiking the trail.  Unfortunately, she did not know how to prepare for such a hike.  She bought the wrong sized hiking boot (granted that is the store's fault--they should have sold her the correct size), she packed too many things in her hiking pack, she also did not train for this hike.  Yet, she planned on hiking from Southern California to Oregon and take at least three months.

The toll on her body was severe but she did persevere. She met people who helped her on her way. She met life long friends. Most of all she healed, and by finding her way on the Pacific Crest Trail, she found herself.

A beautifully written book, a page turner, lyrical and full of beautiful images. I felt like I was with her on her adventure yet managed the trip without the hurting feet and loss of toenails.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

A teen novel by the great John Green.  This is another award winner.

Hazel has always been considered terminally ill. There was a miracle drug that shrunk her tumors but now her lungs are effected by all the treatments. Her mother wrestles her out of her room and talks her into going to Cancer Kids support group.  She hates it. Then at one meeting in walks Augustus Waters. He lost his leg to cancer and has prosthetic leg. He zeroes in on Hazel and won't let her out of his grasp.

Yes, this is a story about two kids who have lived or are living with cancer. YET, before you say...crazy, I'm not going to read such a sad sad book about kids with cancer, stay with me... This is one of the funniest book I've read in a long time. But mostly it is one of the most life affirming books I've read in a long time. But, Terri, you read books featuring Zombie Apocalypse! Yup, I gotta break that habit! The Fault in Our Stars is a love story. It is an adventure story as well as a story about how a book changed the lives of two kids. It is about how a book helped two kids grow up and see the real in life.  You'd think having cancer would have done that but no, a book did.  Finally, these kids view cancer and the life trust upon them in the world of hospitals and doctors and people who don't know how to treat them with a cynical, laugh out loud viewpoint and kid jargon.

Thank you, John Green!

Then Again by Diane Keaton

As you all know, who read this blog regularly, I do not read a lot of nonfiction books.  Reading is my recreation and escape and I love escaping into a story.  I can't even remember when or why I put this book on hold at the library.

I opened the book and began reading the first chapter, "Think" which is an introduction. It begins, "Mom loved adages, quotes, slogans. There were always little reminders pasted on the kitchen wall. For example, the word THINK. I found THINK thumbtacked on the a bulletin board in her darkroom. I saw it Scotch-taped on a pencil box she'd collaged. I even found a pamphlet titled THINK on her bedside table. Mom liked to THINK."

From that first paragraph I could not put this book down.  When I did need to put it down, I found myself thinking about Diane Keaton's words and stories. This is Diane Keaton's memoir as well as her mother, Dorothy Keaton Hall's biography.  Diane's mother kept journals...85 journals.  Her journals told the story of her life, her children as well as her parents.  Diane seamlessly weaves the story of four generations of family gleamed from her own life as well as the stories her mother told in those 85 journals.

The second thing I did with this book after reading this first chapter/introduction is look at the pictures.  The first set of photos are Dorothy's journals which many times are in the form of collages along side typed sheets of her own words.  I love collages.  It quickly becomes apparent that this was a woman who was "restless with intellectual and creative energy" (from the book jacket).

Diane Keaton is ten years older then me.  Her films are significant milestones in my generation's filmography. Her relationships are well known and point to pop culture icons. It was fun seeing behind the scenes of Annie Hall, Reds and of course, The Godfather trilogy. She writes about being a woman looking for her own family, coping with the ups and downs of a film/acting career. She writes about her own creativity.

One thing Diane shares with her mother is unending insecurity and the constant feeling of not being good enough.  The other aspect that Diane shares with Dorothy is her belief in the power of love and family. Dorothy created a traditional family in the eyes of our society. Diane created a nontraditional family late in life, saying, “I never found a home in the arms of a man."  She adopted two children starting at the age of 50 and then again at 55.  They have brought her the kind of family she has looked for all her life.

This book also chronicles Dorothy's progress into the horrors of Alzheimer’s and her family's way of helping her through her long process toward her death.

I had just seen Kate Winslet in Mildred Pierce which is about a woman who makes her own way in Depression era Los Angeles. A single working mother of two. Diane Keaton's paternal grandmother had to do the same thing. That is the other aspect I loved about this book.  It was one family's story of the 1900's.  Not an unfamiliar story and definitely easy to relate to.

Finally, I did not know how much Woody Allen took from Diane's real family in his writing and directing of Annie Hall.

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

Lucy Hull is fresh out of college when she accepts a job as a children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri.  Her boss is a forgetful probably heavy drinking head librarian. The other two librarians don't seem to be any more effective. Rocky is the only fellow librarian who Lucy can form a friendship with and she is guessing he is falling in love with her. Lucy originally hails from Chicago and is the daughter of a bombastic Russian immigrant who left the former USSR under a cloud of rebellion.  Lucy's father is disappointed that she has not reached for something greater in life than a librarian in small town Missouri.  He wants her to use his many connections for something better.

Into the library walks Ian Drake...more like storms into the library.  He is always with a babysitter who seems to direct his reading toward areas Ian continues to resist.  Then Ian's mother comes in and gives Lucy a list of what Ian should be dissuaded from reading.  The list includes Harry Potter, anything magic, with dragons, wizards or or features weaponry, the Theory of Evolution, Halloween, or is "written by Roald Dahl, Lois Lowry, Harry Potter (sic) and similar authors." 

Lucy begins to help Ian smuggle books out of the library, checking them out on her card. Ian brings Lucy a Christmas gift of a origami Baby Jesus in the Manger.  As she examines the gift further she sees that it is fashioned from a page of a testimonial written by his mother.  Ian's family is sending him to Pastor Bob's Glad Heart Ministries that is dedicated to the "rehabilitation of sexually confused brothers and sisters in Christ."  Ian, who is commonly thought of as a budding 10 year old gay boy, IS only 10 years old. Lucy cannot let this go as she continues to bring her horror of Ian's situation to her lunches with Rocky. But what can she do?

One Sunday she goes into the library early to work on a program and finds Ian hiding in the library with a back pack.  She decides to take him home but he first leads her through Hannibal and then threatens her that if she takes him home he will claim she kidnapped him.  Thus kidnapped is Lucy...a willing victim of her kidnapper and actually is really helping her kidnapper to run away from the homelife Lucy finds horrific.

Lucy and Ian begin a cross country journey together.  The book is very funny. It is written in first person as Lucy is the narrator. Ian and Lucy have much in common: especially their capacity to recreate reality via story telling (read--lying).

Through the whole book I wonder if Lucy will get arrested for kidnapping.  I wonder if Ian really has a grandmother in Vermont? Is Lucy's father part of the Russian mafia?
Does Lucy save Ian? Can a person really leave home?

V is for Vengence Sue Grafton

I think Sue Grafton has improved upon this series.  This is unusual since most mystery series loose steam after 10 books.  I think it is because she has improved in her writing skills and seems to not bow to publisher pressure to publish once a year.  She seems to come out with a new book every 24 months.  This one took 12 months only to come up with the storyline and another 10 months "of hard labor" to finish the book. 

It shows.  This book has many plot lines that come together seamlessly.  It was enjoyable to read this novel.  I missed Kinsey's neighbor who had to travel to care for  his oldest sibling, his 90 something year old sister.  His other siblings who live with her are not able to handle her care, characters that reminded me of Anne Tyler's book that was made into a movie: The Accidental Tourist.

The story begins with a young Ivy League graduate borrowing money from a loan shark to feed his gambling addiction.  Then Kinsey witnesses shoplifters in her local Macy's like mall department store.  Kinsey points the choreographed thieves' actions to her clerk acquaintance. Little did she know that she would be drawn into the case by one of the thieves' widower retired boyfriend who had no idea she had such a secret life.  There is a Hollywood wife who is about to be thrown over for a younger secretary and a mobster boss who is bucking the family business in his own way.

If you like the mystery genre, I recommend this book.  It can be read without reading the whole series.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Yes, it is a baseball book but it is so much more.  I do not ususally read sports themed novels.  This one attracted me because of an article in Vanity Fair Magazine, October 2011.  It is titled: "The Book on Publishing" by Keith Gessen.  Gessen and Harbach met at Harvard College in the late 1990's. The Vanity Fair article uses Harbach's book as an example of what the state of publishing is in here in the United States.  This article completely captivated me.

They came together because they both felt like fish out of water with all the prep school educated classmates they were surrounding them and bonded over their mutual state of shock and feeling of being terribly unsophisticated.  Harbach was from Wisconsin and Gessen from New York but went to public schools. After graduation, Gessen and Harbach went onto do other things but came back together to start a literary magazine called n + 1. Meanwhile, Harbach worked on his novel.  He worked on it for 10 years. He rewrote it three times. Then an agent read his manuscript and became very passionate about Harbach's book.  And it was published with great critical proclaim.

The book is primarily told from four characters' perspectives.  Henry Skrimshander is a baseball genius whose showstopping skill proves to be short of a miracle. He is found by a college player, Mike, who recruits Henry for his small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. The other narrators are the college's president, Guert Affenlight and his daughter, Pella, who comes home from a four year marriage that began as she graduated from high school.

Pella had a bright academic future but was attracted to a much older man who was giving a seminar at the college.  She now wants to pick up her life and go back to school.  Her father wants to rebuild his relationship with Pella.  Her father also has a secret--a crush on Henry's gay roommate who is also on the baseball team.

The story begins with Guert's life as a student at the college. He discovers speech hidden deeply in the college's archives that was written/given by Herman Melville. Thus proof that Melville had visited the small liberal arts college, Westish College of Wisconsin.  Guert returns to Westish as President from years at Harvard. 

Then the story picks up with Henry's entry into the college, jumping to Henry's third year at the college.  Henry is being watched by major league scouts, the team is on their way to their first winning season and are looking toward winning the conference and nationals. Henry's flawless throwing changes with one throw hitting his roommate in the dug out.  This throw is the act that changes all of their lives...

Henry cannot throw anymore while playing a game.  He throws the ball but it does not go the way he intends or he hesitates just that bit of time that causes an error (I think that is the technical term for an error). He is one of a hand full of players who have the baseball players' equivilant to writer's block. Meanwhile, Mike does not get into the schools he has applied to for his postsecondary education plans. Pella already has seen what it is like to start on a course as an adult and see it fail or see it change.  All three young people learn life is full of change, failure, different choices, need for try it/fix it approaches to life decisions.  These lessons are not easy but the author takes the reader on a journey that is lyrically written and fascinating to witness.

Please read this book.  I promise you will not be sorry.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Zone One is a zombie novel.  I probably shouldn't even admit this up front but I am one of those folks who cannot hide anything.  BUT, it is one of the best written zombie novels I've ever read...not that I've read that many.  Zombie novels badly written will never grab me.  This is a "literary" zombie novel. But it really is a allegory of contemporay Manhattan an America, as one reviewer pointed out.  The survivors trade "Last Night" stories and sturggle with PASD or Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder while the new central government advertises hope in the form of "America Phoenix Rising" campaign.

In an interview the author talks about having zombie dreams since he saw Dawn of the Dead in seventh grade. He had a dream one night when he had guests over that prompted the thought, "Once you put civilzation back together, what do you do with all these zombies? So the book grew from there."

The novel is about one man, whose nickname is Mark Spitz (we never learn his real name) is on a team that removes stragglers in Manhattan's Zone One, a walled off part of the city that the Marines have cleared of the active, dangerous zombies. The stragglers are the afflicted who are stuck in daily life activity...caught like stones in mundane tasks such as fry cook at a Mcdonalds.

The novel is full of dark humor and acute observations of modern life or what is left of it in the light of death and a civilization that may not make it....

It was a bit of slog in parts but the final pages are amazing.  Any more said would give too much away. Read it and we'll talk!

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson vs PBS's Case Histories

One Good Turn is the second in Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series.  PBS's Masterpiece Mystery just took a stab at the first three books of the series, the third episode my DVR unceremoniously erased before I could watch.  The series is named after the first book in the series, Case Histories. I enjoyed this first book but didn't love it.  But I have loved the title of the fourth book in the series: Started Early, Took My Dog.

I usually hate reading a book after seeing the movie/television show.  But I must say, I loved One Good Turn even after seeing the Masterpiece Mystery version of the novel.  What I like about Atkinson's writing is that it is layered with interesting character development and employs delightful humor. Case Histories was called a genre bending literary novel and I think it is a good description. The novel, One Good Turn, was a delightful page turner with wonderful characters.  Gloria was a character I wish I could have had tea with even though sharing some conversation over tea would not reveal Gloria's real thoughts as did Atkinson's writing. Gloria will be one of my favorite heroines for some time to come.  She, in her middle years, has come to some great conclusions with a sense of humor, calm resignation and pointed insight.

The book begins with Jackson living without working by the benefit of the unexpected money he inherited in the first book.  He has followed, really financed, his girl friend's theater production in Edinburgh, part of the "Fringe Festival". The girlfriend is Julia from the Case Histories.  I tried to start this book a couple times but couldn't get past the first couple of chapters with the focus on Julia who I never liked as a character...why the heck did Jackson take up with her??? I also hate the first scene but still, it does become an interesting riddle for the rest of the book. Seeing the PBS production pulled me into the rest of the story, though they took huge creative license in how the PBS structured Jackson's personal life with money (he didn't inherit in the television production), where he lives and his situation with his daughter.  In many ways the PBS show was nothing like the novel except for the central mystery.  I always love the book more as in this case...the book is much better, though the actor who plays Jackson is quite attractive.

I now have the next book in the series, When Will There Be Good News? waiting for me on my Kindle.  So many books, must go read...