Book of the Month - The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Reason for reading: I read lots of reviews about lots of books, but the review of Grossman’s latest book (he also wrote The Codex), intrigued me. First of all, the reviewer compared it to Harry Potter and Hogwarts and I have been looking for books that are as good and as enjoyable as J. K. Rowling. Also, it sounded like a very clever mix of science fiction, reality show and magical realism.

First line: "Quentin did a magic trick. Nobody noticed.”

Plot in a (not so short) nutshell:

A group of young people are selected to attend Brakebills, a college for young magicians. They muddle through several years of magical education, pass some unusual tests, graduate and arrive in the “real” world, with not a clue what to do with themselves. (Clearly guidance counselors were not a staple at Brakebills.)

After drifting and drinking around for a while, they decide to go on an adventure to Fillory (read Narnia) to put some meaning into their lives. In Fillory they certainly have adventures, only the adventures are very real, difficult, desperate, and lead to several casualties. Our “hero” Quentin winds up in a coma for several months, gets well, shoots a Questing Beast, gets three wishes and wishes to go home.

Once home he tries to shut off all magical impulses, as well as all emotions and ambitions. He is finally rounded up by the friends who survived the Fillory expedition and they decide to return – and do it right this time.

Quite frankly I did not know what to make of this book. It seems to be a cross between (among?) Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Dead Poets Society and the Matrix. And if that doesn’t confuse you, imagine how confused I was.

When children go through the looking glass or into a wardrobe, they bring all their innocence and child-like beliefs with them. When adults (or, as in this case, young adults) push a magic button and find themselves in another dimension they bring all their character flaws, doubts and cynicism, bad manners and bad habits.

The Magicians was slow to start (I kept waiting for something to happen); full of surprises and incongruities; peopled by characters who are not very admirable. The only thing is I couldn’t stop reading it. You decide if you want to try. Meg

Books of the Month - The Hour I First Believed and Columbine

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
Columbine by David Cullen

Mr. Lamb’s book, The Hour I First Believed, is a work of fiction whose main characters are a young couple, one a teacher and one a school nurse, who both happened to have worked at Columbine High School on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 – the day when 12 students were killed by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors, who then took their own lives.

Lamb describes well the horror of that day, but his focus is the effect of the tragedy, first on the narrator's wife, and then by extension on the narrator's own life. Worlds were changed forever that day, and Wally Lamb does a credible job of taking us inside the event and it aftermath.

David Cullen’s book, Columbine, is, in many ways, revisionist history. Reporters, law officials and the general public have, for a long time, had a certain “take” on the events at Columbine – and Cullen’s thesis is that this “take” has been incorrect. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not social outcasts on the fringe of their high school world. Klebold had been accepted at college, had recently gone to his prom with a date, and was part of a definite circle of friends. Harris was a bit more on the periphery, but was also part of that circle of friends. He had a steady job and just recently been given a promotion.

Cullen’s bottom line is that Harris was a pyschopath and Klebold suicidal and malleable. It was a deadly combination.

What struck me in both of these books was that evil – as a force? an emotion? – was also a character. And the complicated nature of that force (whatever you call it) that drove these two boys to planning and carrying out a massacre with spirit and enthusiam is chilling.
I urge you to read both. It is quite an education. Meg

Book of the Month - Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Stout, won the Pulitzer Prize award for fiction this year. Olive Kitteridge is the title character in a series of 13 stories, all taking place in a fictional Maine town, Crosby, and all focusing on Ms. Kitteridge and her interaction with family and various townsfolk. What makes this novel special is Olive herself. Olive is a retired, seventh-grade math teacher who is “quick, sharp, big, gossipy and not an easy force to reckon with.”

Along with Olive’s character, the rustic locale of small coastal town Maine becomes a character in itself. Author Stout was brought up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire and she knows whereof she speaks. The combination of town, town characters and Olive makes for a classy and captivating read.

Other Pulitzer Prize winners for 2009 are:

History – The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Biography – American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
General Non-fiction – Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon. Meg

Book of the Month - My Sister's Keeper

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I am not a big Jodi Picoult fan, but I must admit that My Sister’s Keeper kept me reading (right through breakfast, at one point) until I had finished.

The story is about a loving family torn apart by one sister’s mortal illness and her parents’ attempt to deal with that illness. Kate comes down with APL, acute promyelocytic leukemia, a particularly nasty disease with a horrible prognosis. A subtle suggestion from one of their doctors leads Sara and Brian, the parents, to deliberately have a child that will be a stem cell donor for their sick child. Anna is born and does donate her umbilical cord stem cells to Kate, and all is well for a while. Until Kate has a relapse – and Anna is once again pressed into service as a bone marrow donor; a blood donor; and so it goes, until Anna turns 13 and is asked to donate a kidney. She takes all her savings and hires an attorney to file for medical emancipation from her parents.

It is the interaction and relationships of the famiily (mother, father, Jesse the older brother, Kate and Anna, her lawyer, Campbell, and her guardian ad litem, Julia that make this book of complex medical and moral issues come alive. Picoult uses all her characters as narrators and so you get various points of view – a device I often dislike, but that works very well in this instance.

My one quibble is an ending that is a total surprise and a bit contrived. But the issues brought up by this extremely difficult and complex situation and the real attempt by all the characters involved to act in a manner they consider morally sound makes for a fascinating and thoughtful read. Meg

[Incidentally My Sister’s Keeper has been made into a movie, starring Nick Cassavetes, Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin. The movie is due out mid-June.]

Book of the Month - Out of the Deep I Cry

Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming

I published a post in February about Ms Spencer-Fleming’s series of books featuring the Reverend Clare Fergusson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. I’m back again, and calling book number three, Out of the Deep I Cry, a Book of the Month because I am so impressed by this series. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s website calls her books “novels of faith and murder for readers of literary suspense” and that is indeed a good description.

The plot of Out of the Deep takes place in two eras, and the author moves us back and forth between these time periods effortlessly. The story involves the Millers Kill free medical clinic and the disappearance of its one doctor. Dr. Rouse’s disappearance and the funding of the clinic are intwined with the history of a old-time Millers Kill farming family, their tragic loss of four children to a 1920’s diptheria epidemic, the subsequent disappearnce of the father and the widow’s decision to fund a free clinic for the town. How the current doctor’s disappearance is tied to that family’s ill-fated history forms the basis of the story.

What makes this book so special is not the plot however, but the characters Spencer-Fleming creates, and especially the developing relationship between Clare and Russ. Reverend Fergusson and Sherrif Van Alstyne, from the moment they meet, know they are soul mates. The problem is that the sherif is, if not happily married, at least well content with Linda, his wife and honorably bound to keep his wedding vows. Clare is an Episcopal priest who has not taken vows of chastity, but who is certainly expected to set a moral example for her congregation, her Bishop - to say nothing of her own moral conscience.

Their struggles with temptation and attraction are the stuff of Greek tradgedy and Spencer-Fleming handles their emotional dilemmas and the story’s detective problems admirably. Meg

Book of the Month - Sunshine

Book of the Month - Sunshine

Vampires seem to be “in” these days – beginning with the Joss Whedon television series, Buffy (and its spinoff, Angel), right down to the current explosion of vampiric romances, the legendary figure of the vampire seems to have come into his/her own.

Laurel Hamilton’s series starring Anita Blake, vampire hunter, is a sexy, violent but enthralling look at a New York City where vampires, werewolves, zombies and those who hunt them are commonplace.

Christine Feehan writes vampiric romances that originate in the Carpathian Mountains. Her “dark” series is “peopled” with strange gods and wraiths and spirits as well as vampires.

But if you would like to try a “gentle” vampire romance that is romantic, adventurous, complex and unsettling at times, try Sunshine by Robin McKinley. McKinley is an award winning children’s author (The Hero and the Crown) and also writes for teens (Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast). Sunshine is her first adult book and she succeeds beautifully at drawing us in and telling a story of tragedy and love.

Rae “Sunshine” Seddon is living in a post Voodoo-War world, earning her living making cinnamon rolls in her stepfather’s bakery. One night she is captured by rogue vampires and imprisoned, in an abandoned mansion, next to a wounded vampire, Constantine, who is also being held captive. He does not attack her, however, but convinces her to distract them both by telling stories. It is at this moment that Sunshine comes into her powers, bequeathed to her by her grandmother, but forgotten until now. She turns a pocket knife into a key and releases them both.They escape back to town, despite a dangerous dawn, and together they decide to face Constantine’s enemies, who have now sworn to destroy Sunshine as well.

Booklist calls this story “a luminous, entrancing novel with an enthralling pair of characters at its heart.” Sunshine also won the 2003 Mythopoeic Society Award for Fantasy for Adults. Meg

Book of the Month - The Knitting Circle

The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood.

This is actually the book that got me started knitting, because, in a way, I was looking for healing, too, and reading Ann’s book and actually learning how to knit as part of a knitting circle, helped in many ways.

The Knitting Circle is Ann Hood’s fictionalized account of the tragic death of her 5-year-old daughter, Grace, due to meningitis.** In The Knitting Circle, Mary Baxter has lost her small daughter, Stella, and after much doubt and reluctance, joins a knitting circle in Providence (RI) “as a way to fill the empty hours and lonely days.” The circle of friends she meets and the knitting she learns, which does soothe and calm, changes her life.

Each woman teaches Mary a new knitting technique, and, as they do, they reveal to her their own personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually, through the hours they spend knitting and talking together, Mary is finally able to tell her own story of grief, and in so doing reclaims her love for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with her mother, and finds the spark of life again.

This is a beautifully written, emotionally powerful novel.

** For a memoir that recounts the real events, read Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. For anyone who has lost someone close, this book is a gift and a burden. Publishers Weekly says Ann’s account reads “like a tightly controlled scream,” and the first chapter is as profound a description of grief as I have ever read. She does make her way through and up into healing and peace, but the journey is a difficult one. Meg