Review of The Handmaid and the Carpenter, by Elizabeth Berg

Christian, Christmas, Fiction Review, Historical 0

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The Handmaid and the Carpenter

by Elizabeth Berg

Random House, New York, 2006.  153 pages.

I’ve been reading Christmas novels, so here’s a novel about the original Christmas.

There was a time when I couldn’t really enjoy novelizations of Bible stories — I would get upset over quibbles where they didn’t quite line it up with the Bible text, or the characters would not act as I had imagined them to act.  But perhaps I’ve outgrown that.  I’m quite sure this is not how I would imagine Mary and Joseph, but I did enjoy these characters.

What would it have been like to give birth to the Son of God?  And how would your betrothed react?  Elizabeth Berg does pull us into the story, in all its wonder, yet with a nod to the reality of dirty straw and a long journey and a village reacting to the story of an angel announcement.

This isn’t a dramatically in-depth novelization, but it gives you a taste of what that first Christmas might have been like.  Definitely good holiday reading.

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Review of Santa Cruise, by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Christmas, Fiction Review, Mystery 0

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Santa Cruise

A Holiday Mystery at Sea

by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark

Simon & Schuster/ Scribner, 2006.  261 pages.

I have enjoyed some of Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark’s earlier Christmas mysteries.  So I picked up this Holiday Mystery for some fun Christmas reading.

To start up his new cruise ship, Commodore Randolph Weed launches the “Santa Cruise” — a free trip for people who have done good in the world.  He even includes ten department-store Santas to cheer the crowd while enjoying the cruise.  Alvirah Meehan and her husband Willy are among the honorees, and Alvirah invites her friend, private detective Regan Reilly and her husband Jack, as well as Regan’s parents, Nora and Luke.

What the Commodore doesn’t know is that his nephew Eric is using the cruise to make some money on the side.  Eric has agreed to take two convicted felons on board and drop them off on an island in the Caribbean without an extradition treaty.

Right from the start, Eric’s plans get thrown off.  He has to give his large room to Alvirah and her husband, so the felons don’t have a convenient place to hide.  Good thing there are lots of Santa suits available.

Santa Cruise has lots of coincidences and never really works up to much feeling of suspense, but it does provide some light-hearted fun in a holiday setting.

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Review of A Christmas Grace, by Anne Perry

Christmas, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

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A Christmas Grace

by Anne Perry

Ballantine Books, New York, 2008.  210 pages.

Starred review.

Ah, there’s nothing like a nice cozy Christmas murder mystery by Anne Perry!  It’s getting to be a tradition for me that I especially enjoy.

Emily Radley gets a message that her estranged Aunt Susannah is dying.  Aunt Susannah was cut off from the family years ago for marrying a Catholic.  She lives in a remote part of Ireland, and now she wants to have family near her at Christmas, so she does not die alone.

Emily comes and gets a feel for the coastal village.  Then an enormous storm hits, with a shipwreck offshore and a stranger stranded on their beach.  Emily learns that the town is haunted by the memory of a similar event.  Only that earlier stranger was murdered.  Did he ask questions too uncomfortable to answer?  What did he know that he was killed for?

I’m not quite sure how Anne Perry manages to make murder mysteries so beautifully communicate a cozy and warm spirit of Christmas.  But her Christmas stories leave me feeling uplifted and remind me of what Christmas is all about.  Lovely.

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Review of A War of Gifts, by Orson Scott Card

Christmas, Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

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A War of Gifts,

An Ender Story,

by Orson Scott Card

Tor, Tom Doherty Associates, New York, 2007.  126 pages.

Here’s a Christmas story that takes you into Ender’s world.  We follow the story of Zeck, who’s been brought up to believe that Santa is a form of Satan.  When Zeck is sent to Battle School, he refuses to participate or ever fire a weapon, because he also believes that War is not a valid field of study.

Then a Dutch boy puts out his shoe for Sinterklaas, and gets a Sinterklaas poem.  This starts a trend of the students, where religion is forbidden, finding subversive ways to celebrate Christmas, claiming it’s a national observance, not a religious one.

As the “war of gifts” escalates, Zeck’s life is touched in a way that he doesn’t expect.

A nice Christmas story, quite different from typical ones.  Ender fans will especially enjoy it.

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Review of The Host, by Stephenie Meyer

Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

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The Host

by Stephenie Meyer

Little, Brown, and Company, 2008.  619 pages.

Starred Review.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Host, liking it even better than Stephenie Meyer’s more famous Twilight series.  This one was written for adults, so that may be some of why I liked it.  But I also thought it was well-written.  She didn’t have the whole traditional spectrum of vampire stories to contend with.

Of course, she did have the noble tradition of body-snatcher stories up against her!  But I haven’t read or watched very many of those at all.  Her description of what it would be like if mind-stealing aliens tried to take over earth seemed right.  Of course!  That is what would happen.

Wanderer is an alien who has lived on seven different planets.  But when she is put into the body of a human on earth, it doesn’t go as smoothly as with any other host.  The host begins by hiding things from Wanderer.  Names of people she loves, and where they might be hiding.  She doesn’t want Wanderer to tell a Seeker.  However, this host, named Melanie, should not still be there at all.

Melanie’s voice gets stronger.  Wanderer is ready to give up, to find a new host and let a Seeker be put into Melanie’s body.  But somehow, she can’t bring herself to give up Jared and Jamie.  Instead, she goes to find them.

Can Wanderer, nicknamed Wanda, keep from betraying the humans she now loves as much as Melanie does?  Will those humans even give her a chance, since they think of her as the monstrous mind-thief alien who stole Melanie’s body?

I found myself believing that indeed humans would not just disappear if powerful aliens invaded our planet.  Indeed, the aliens might find more than they bargained for.

The Host is a wonderful exploration of life and love and what it means to be human.

I knew the human exaggeration for sorrow — a broken heart.  Melanie remembered speaking the phrase herself.  But I’d always thought of it as hyperbole, a traditional description for something that had no real physiological link, like a green thumb.  So I wasn’t expecting the pain in my chest.  The nausea, yes, the swelling in my throat, yes, and, yes, the tears burning in my eyes.  But what was the ripping sensation just under my rib cage?  It made no logical sense.

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Review of Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

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Stardust

by Neil Gaiman

Harper Perennial, New York, 2006.  First published in 1999.  250 pages.

Starred review.  (Stardusted review?)

My son was right.  I should have read the book before I saw the movie.

The fact is, I loved the movie.  One of my favorite movies ever.  A delightful experience to watch.

Yes, the book is wonderful.  A fairy tale story that’s truly diverting.  But can it be?  I liked the movie better.

Tristan Thorn grew up in the village of Wall, on the border of Faerie.  There’s a story about his birth that some of the older folks in Wall know about.

Tristan is trying to win the heart of his true love, when they see a star fall over in Faerie.  Tristan promises to get it for her, not realizing that in Faerie, stars are beautiful women, daughters of the Moon.  When Tristan finds the Star, she’s not happy about Tristan dragging her off to show his girl.

Other, more sinister forces, are also after the Star, whose name is Yvaine.  Tristan and Yvaine end up traveling a journey together with many perils.

I’m afraid I found the original story less satisfying than the story in the movie.  For the movie, there was a big climactic scene with a big showdown with everyone who is after Yvaine, and Tristan must defeat them.  In the book, they seem to escape from most perils by virtue of simple luck.

But the movie does show the same story — cleaned up a little.  (The book is for adults, and contains a few “mature” details, which are cleaned up in the movie along with the more unified plot.)  That story is truly delightful, in both its forms.

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Review of A Death in Vienna, by Frank Tallis

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery 0

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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!

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Review of The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Humorous, Light Reading 0

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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!

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

Fiction Review, General 0

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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.

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Review of Mozart’s Ghost, by Julia Cameron

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Romance, Starred Review 0

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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.

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