Review of A Death in Vienna, by Frank Tallis

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

death_in_vienna.jpg

A Death in Vienna

by Frank Tallis

Grove Press, New York, 2005.  458 pages. 

Here’s a murder mystery with a fascinating historical setting.  The hero of the book is Max Liebermann, a doctor proficient in the new science of psychoanalysis at the turn of the twentieth century, a friend and colleague of Sigmund Freud.

Liebermann’s friend Oskar Rheinhardt, a police detective, is presented with an especially perplexing case.  A woman is found dead in a locked room, clearly dead by a bullet wound, yet there is no bullet found in her body.  The woman was a practitioner of the occult and a regular leader of seances.  Could she have offended the spirits?

Max Liebermann reads people well, understanding Freudian slips at a time before the general populace knew about them.  His perceptive analysis of people makes him an ideal assistant to his friend the detective.

This book was a perfect break for me in between volumes of the much more emotional Twilight series.  A Death in Vienna appeals on a more cerebral level, with a challenging puzzle and an intriguing historical background, when the practice of treating psychological ailments was far different than it is today.

A big thank you to the library customer who told me about this book!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/death_in_vienna.html

Review of The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Humorous, Light Reading 0

uncommon_reader.jpg

The Uncommon Reader

by Alan Bennett

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007.  120 pages.

It was the dogs’ fault.  The Queen of England’s dogs lost control of themselves and ran into the City of Westminster travelling library.  Once there, the Queen felt obligated to borrow a book.  Once she had the book, the Queen started reading it.  Once she started reading, she finished it.

“That was the way one was brought up.  Books, bread and butter, mashed potato — one finishes what’s on one’s plate.  That’s always been my philosophy.”

One book leads to another, and another. . . .  The Queen learns all kinds of places and times she can fit reading into her life.

“She’d got quite good at reading and waving, the trick being to keep the book below the level of the window and to keep focused on it and not on the crowds.  The duke didn’t like it one bit, of course, but goodness it helped.”

Unfortunately, the Queen’s new habit causes great consternation among her staff.  Then drastic changes in her habits, her conversations, and even her outlook on life.

This book was chosen as the All Fairfax Reads selection for 2008.  It celebrates the joys of reading and the way reading can change a life.  The book is short and humorous and good fun.  Some food for thought as well!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/uncommon_reader.html

Review of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke

Fiction Review, General 0

arsonists_guide.jpg

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England

by Brock Clarke

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007.  303 pages.

Sam Pulsifer is a bumbler.  He’s a lovable bumbler, but he’s undeniably a bumbler.

Sam spent ten years of his life in prison because when he was eighteen, he accidentally burned down the Emily Dickinson House and killed two people.

While he was in prison, people wrote to him, asking him to burn down other writers’ houses for them.  His father saved the letters in a shoebox.

When he gets out, he’s on his way to a happy life, with a career, a beautiful wife and two children.  But circumstances come against him, and Sam inevitably bumbles his reactions.

This book is humorous, but in a deeply sad way.  This is not the typical feel-good novel I read, and I almost didn’t finish it.  Readers with a cynical bent will find the book quite hilarious.  I found it terribly sad.  If I had known one of the issues it deals with is marital happiness and unfaithfulness, I probably never would have picked it up.  Overall, it has an exceedingly pessimistic outlook on life, and love, and literature.

In the end, I finished the book because I cared about Sam Pulsifer.  Yes, he’s a bumbler, but he has a good, noble heart.  I still find myself hoping that, after the book finishes, perhaps events in his life will, somehow, take a turn for the better.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/arsonists_guide.html

Review of Mozart’s Ghost, by Julia Cameron

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Romance, Starred Review 0

mozarts_ghost.jpg

Mozart’s Ghost

by Julia Cameron

Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2008.  278 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.theartistsway.com/

http://www.thomasdunnebooks.com/

http://www.stmartins.com/

When a writer has written fabulous books about writing (The Right to Write is one of Julia Cameron’s that I’ve read.), one always hopes that their own fiction is something you’d want to emulate.  Can they practice what they preach?

Julia Cameron can.  Mozart’s Ghost is a light and delightful love story, with quirky characters you enjoy spending your time with.

All her life, Anna has seen and talked to ghosts.  Now, as a single adult, she lives in New York City and makes her living — well, supplements her substitute teaching income — as a medium.  She lets people know what their loved ones who have gone before want to say to them.

But now a classical pianist named Edward has moved into Anna’s building.  In the first place, his constant practicing is tremendously distracting.  She can’t properly hear the ghosts.  In the second place, there’s a ghost hanging around him, trying to reach the musician through Anna.  This ghost thinks himself tremendously important and wants to help Edward so that his own music will be properly appreciated.  Anna is not impressed.

But Edward finds a place in her heart despite all her resistance.  However, she has no intention of telling him her real job, since she finds most men can’t handle dating a medium.

The course of their romance is comically beset with obstacles, like Anna’s complete lack of appreciation for Edward’s playing, her twin brother’s interference, and even the ghost’s interference.  We feel for Anna and her desire to live a normal life, which simply doesn’t seem to be in the cards for her.

This novel is tremendous fun, and peopled with quirky characters who seem like people you might just meet if you happened to knock on an apartment door in New York City.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/mozarts_ghost.html

Review of Audiobook Thank You, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Classics, Delightfully Silly, Fiction Review, Humorous, Light Reading, Starred Review 0

thank_you_jeeves.jpg

Thank You, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse, performed by Alexander Spencer

Recorded Books, 1984.  Originially published in 1934.  6 compact discs, 6 hours.

I’ve decided that the ultimate audiobook for a long drive is anything by P. G. Wodehouse, read by someone like Alexander Spencer, with an exquisite English accent.  When you’re laughing out loud, you can’t possibly fall asleep at the wheel.

I think of P. G. Wodehouse as the Seinfeld of 1930’s England.  The rich young gentlemen get into elaborately entangled comic situations, which all come together for a big laugh in the end.

In Thank You, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster actually accepts Jeeves’ resignation.  Bertie is dedicating himself to playing the banjolele, and Jeeves cannot tolerate it.  However, they both end up in Chuffnall Regis, where Bertie’s old school friend, Chuffy (Lord Chuffnall), is falling in love with Pauline Stoker, a millionaire’s daughter who was once engaged to Bertie.

In the mess that results, involving captivity on a yacht, sleeping in sheds, a chase with a chopper, a cottage on fire, black-faced minstrels, and the temptations of kippered herring, only Jeeves has the brain capable of sorting things out and orchestrating a happy ending for everyone.

While I was in the middle of listening to this book, I found myself thinking about heliotrope pajamas.  You see, Bertie finds Pauline Stoker in his bed, wearing his heliotrope pajamas, and finds her quite fetching.  Doesn’t the phrase “heliotrope pajamas” have a ring to it?  (All the more so when you’ve been listening to it rather than merely reading it.  I found myself saying the phrase over to myself.)

I mused, “I wonder what color exactly are heliotrope pajamas?”  Well, my son heard me, and looked up heliotrope on Wikipedia.   ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliotrope_%28color%29 )  He showed me exactly the shade.  (I pretty much had it right, for the record!)  But he looked at the references to “Heliotrope in popular culture” and was surprised to find exactly the scene I had mentioned:  “In Thank You, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster returns home to find Pauline Stoker in his heliotrope pajamas after swimming ashore from her father’s yacht.”

So you see, not only can you get lots of laughs, you can also learn the full story of the legendary heliotrope pajamas of Bertie Wooster.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/thank_you_jeeves.html

Review of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Humorous, Mystery, Romance, Stand-outs 0

good_husband.jpg 

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2007.  213 pages.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008.  #5 Fiction: Romance

This book, the eighth in the series about The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, is extra special, because my copy is signed by the author.  I got to hear Alexander McCall Smith speak at George Mason University.  His talk was every bit as funny and delightful as his books.  I was completely enchanted.  Of course, that didn’t surprise me at all, since his books never fail to delight me.

I continue to strongly recommend this series to library patrons.  I do urge you to begin at the beginning, with The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  I think you will probably want to read the rest, and eagerly read each next installment.

In The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, will Mma Makutsi really leave the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency?  The pleasant ups and downs of day to day life, as usual, are peppered with interesting cases.  Another delightful book.

I will give a taste of the pleasant wisdom found in these books by listing some quotations I highlighted:

“If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love.  That always works, you know.  People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself.  And what’s the point of that?”

“And that stopped the stealing.  Trust did it.  We trusted him, and he knew it.  So he stopped stealing.”

” ‘What we are trying to do with these children,’ said Mma Potokwane suddenly, ‘is to give them good things to remember.  We want to make so many good memories for them that the bad ones are pushed into a corner and forgotten.'”

“There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the healing that sometimes only tears can bring.”

” ‘That engine I’ve been working on will run so sweetly,’ he remarked as he poured his tea.

‘Like life,’ she said.”

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/good_husband.html

Review of The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Mystery 0

miracle_at_speedy_motors.jpg 

Books, New York, 2008.  214 pages.

Starred Review

I love the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency!  This is now the ninth book in the series.  I do recommend starting at the beginning.  You will grow to know and love these characters, adding to the charm of the books.  You will understand exactly why Mma Makutsi’s uncle asks a bride price of precisely 97 cows.

I dearly wish I could sit down to a cup of red bush tea with Precious Ramotswe.  (I would never admit that I like black tea better!)  She is a woman of wisdom, peace, and compassion.

Reading this book is the next best thing.

“Mma Ramotswe was right: evil repaid with retribution, with punishment, had achieved half its goal; evil repaid with kindness was shown to be what it really was, a small, petty thing, not something frightening at all, but something pitiable, a paltry affair.”

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/miracle_at_speedy_motors.html

Buy from Amazon.com

Review of Italian Lessons, by Peter Pezzelli

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General 0

 italian_lessons.jpg

Italian Lessons, by Peter Pezzelli

Kensington Books, New York, 2007.  346 pages.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

This is the second book by Peter Pezzelli that I’ve read.  I found both books warm and wonderful.  With both, I felt transported back to Italy.

In Italian Lessons, Carter Quinn, newly graduated from college, has fallen in love with a girl who lives in a village in Italy.  He can’t stop thinking about her.  So he decides to spend his summer learning Italian and then go to find her.

Carter learns that a music professor often gives private Italian lessons.  This professor, Giancarlo Rosa, has not been back to his childhood home in Italy for decades.

Italian Lessons covers the summer’s lessons together, what Carter learns about Italy and about life, and then what he finds in Italy — and how his discoveries touch Professor Rosa permanently, and allow him to finally make peace with his past.

This is a feel-good novel that is also thought-provoking, covering issues of life like forgiveness and destiny and opportunities.

I definitely need to look for more of Peter Pezzelli’s novels.  So far, they always leave me with a smile.

This review is posted on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/italian_lessons.html

Review of Madman, by Tracy Groot

Christian, Fiction Review, Historical 0
madman.jpg 
Madman
by Tracy Groot

Reviewed February 14, 2008.
2007 Christy Award Winner, Best Historical Novel
Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2006. 316 pages.

Cal, I don’t know how to say it, so I’ll say it. The League of Ten Friends is no more; the Decaphiloi have vanished, and the Academy of Socrates in Palestine is dissolved. Our little school has ceased to exist. Callimachus—it’s as if it never was….

Of the Decaphiloi, I give this present accounting—accurate or inaccurate as it may be, it is all I have, and that from the riffraff. Six members—whereabouts unknown. One member was murdered in a most horrifying manner; I shall not put it on parchment. One is allegedly a priestess in a temple of Dionysus—you read right, Dionysus. Don’t be alarmed: I’ve forsworn all things Dionysiac, you know that, Cal. Anyway, one member committed suicide.

And one . . . one is a madman.

This is what Tallis writes back from Palestine to Callimachus, his employer in Athens.

Madman is a historical novel based on an incident mentioned in three of the Gospels, where Jesus casts demons out of a man possessed by a legion of demons.

I’m not generally a fan of historical novels based on Biblical characters, but this was a perfect topic. There’s not a lot said about the demon-possessed man in the Bible, so there was plenty of room for the author to create his life story and a plausible, interesting background as to how he wound up in the tombs, out of his mind. The author worked in all the details, including explaining the second demon-possessed man of one account, the chains the man would break, and his fame throughout the region.

In all of the Gospel accounts, Jesus calmed the storm—a “furious squall”—just before healing the demon-possessed man. I thought the author was insightful in writing that squall as a demonic attack—the demons knew Jesus was coming and tried to stop him. The author helped me realize that Jesus cared enough to go across the lake to deliver that man—and indeed the whole region—from the evil that had overtaken him.

But that story is not the bulk of the book. Most of the story is about Tallis’s investigation of what became of the Socratic school his employer founded in Palestine. The answers are bound up in the horrible rituals of the Dionysian cult of the day. The author draws you in to the story about Tallis, as he discovers great evil, and tries to do his part to try to stop it.

A big thank you to Bethany for loaning this book to me.

This review is found on the main website at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/madman.html

Review of Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Romance 0
 enchantment.jpg
Enchantment
by Orson Scott Card

Reviewed January 10, 2008.
Del Rey Books (Random House), New York, 1999. 419 pages.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008: #1, Fantasy Fiction

I didn’t have to consider for a second how highly to rate this book. Enchantment was the best book I had read in a very long time.

What if Sleeping Beauty woke up today? Orson Scott Card gives a possible answer to that question. He weaves in Russian fairy tales, a Russian Jewish family coming to America, and ancient local gods of Russia. In the process, he crafts a beautiful love story which is at once thought-provoking, suspenseful, and utterly captivating.

The book opens when Ivan Smetski’s parents tell him that he is really a Jew named Itzak Shlomo. The time is right for the family to declare who they are and leave Russia. Before they leave, Ivan discovers a strange place in the woods. He thinks he sees the face of a beautiful woman, asleep, covered with leaves. Then something moves in the leaves near her and comes straight toward him. He runs in terror.

As an adult, Ivan goes back to Russia. He thinks that memory must have just been his vivid imagination. Nonetheless, he feels compelled to visit the place. When the monster moves in the leaves, this time he stands his ground.

The story that follows is as beautiful as the fairy tales it calls to mind, but gives us more details. He shows us that it’s not so easy to deal with a Princess when you’re only a common young man. He comes up against such formidable figures as Baba Yaga and the Bear god of Russia. I especially enjoy learning the reason why Baba Yaga has a house on chicken legs that can move around the country.

One reason I love this story is that I once tried to write a book based on the same idea—Sleeping Beauty waking up today. The idea seemed good, but the logistics bogged me down. How would she get papers to deal with the modern world? How would she cope with the sheer weight of all her family and friends being dead? How would she deal with modern life? How would she handle the language?

Orson Scott Card takes care of every obstacle I found and makes it look easy. Ivan is uniquely prepared to deal with a girl from old Russia. Like his father, he is a student of ancient Russian languages. Instead of treating this like a coincidence, we feel that Ivan was specially chosen for this task.

I won’t give away the other ways the author turns obstacles into features of the story. His love story is also wonderful. The two don’t like each other at first, but we can see their attitudes gradually changing, as each discovers the other’s true worth.

This is the sort of book I will want to read again every few years. A real treasure.

This review is posted on the main site at

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/enchantment.html