Katerina by James Frey
306 pages

What’s it about?
Jay drops out of college to move to Paris and become a great writer.  Along the way he drinks a lot, snorts a lot, and has a lot of sex with a lot of women.  He meets a young model named Katerina and falls madly in love.  They proceed to drink a lot, snort a lot, and have a lot of sex. The novel goes back and forth from his time in Paris in the 1990’s to present day L.A.  
​
What did it make me think about-
So, James Frey is the infamous author who wrote  “A Million Little Pieces” a few years ago.   My thought was that everyone deserves a break- maybe he just got caught up and lied about his memoir.  He might be a great guy.  This latest book is obviously autobiographical as well, but Frey at least has learned not to label it a memoir.  The main character, Jay,  just comes across as an intense, full of himself, jerk.  “ I was just starting to write, after many failed attempts and hundreds of pages of unreadable crap, the first book I would publish.  I was focused, ambitious as fuck, still believed I could burn down the world with words, fell asleep thinking about it, woke up thinking about it, spent my days trying to make it a reality.”   The truth is that my main thought while reading this book was, “ I really don’t like this guy, or this book”.

Should I read it?
From my viewpoint- James Frey seems to be trying too hard to be cool.  He swings from saying he doesn't care what people think- to writing about lighting the literary world on fire.  All in all- he just seems to take himself too seriously.  If you are in the mood for a lot of ranting and some soft porn then this is your book.  Otherwise don’t waste your time.

Quote- 
“ When I look at art I don’t have to consider whether the work is fiction or non fiction, whether it’s a genre painting or a literary painting, whether it’s serious or commercial, where the artist went to school or whether the publisher has prestige or not. It is what it is.  Something someone made because it is inside of them, because they were compelled to make it.  I want to write books in the same manner.  I have words inside of me, and I am compelled to make something with them.  They will be what they will be, on their own terms, books.  Fuck all the rest of it”

If you like this try-
​Lost Empress by Sergio De La Pava
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Open City by Teju Cole
Sweet bitter by Stephanie Danler

3 stars

Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russel Hochschild
371 pages
​
What’s it about?
 In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild explores the chasm between "Left Wing Liberal Democrats" and "Right Wing Tea Party Republicans".  Hochschild concentrates her study on one of the poorest of the Southern States, Louisiana.   She tries to understand what shapes the voters political viewpoints.  Hochschild seems to ask the question, "why do so many vote against their own self interest.?"  In her search Hochschild gets to know many people whose opinions are markedly different than her own.    With much affection and respect Hochschild shares her observations. 

What did it make me think about?
I was hoping to read a book about the political divide in this country.  This was a different book than I expected- but one that I learned from.  This book concentrates exclusively on Louisiana and looks in depth at the environmental consequences of big industry, especially oil, on the environment.    She interviews working people whose homes and livelihoods have been ruined by environmental pollution.   Hochschild then tries to understand how these same people can align themselves politically with the big businesses who are destroying their land.
  
Should I read it?
Strangers in Their Own Land was a very disturbing look at what big oil companies have done to the environment in Louisiana over the last few decades, and how little political pressure they have felt for it.  Ms. Hochschild explores the struggles in Louisiana with great depth and compassion.  Yet I do not know that we can generalize the political motivations she uncovers across the whole Tea party movement.   My largest takeaway was the idea that while many liberal voters identify with those who struggle at the bottom, many right wing tea party voters identify with those in the top 1%.  Who would have thought that?  I enjoyed this book but it was more of a look at the affects of big business on the environment, and how some voters have reacted to it, than a look at the overall political divide in this country.  

Quote-
"Look! You see people cutting in line ahead of you! You’re following the rules. They aren’t. As they cut in, it feels like you are being moved back. How can they just do that? Who are they? Some are black. Through affirmative action plans, pushed by the federal government, they are being given preference for places in colleges and universities,apprenticeships, jobs, welfare payments, and free lunches, and they hold a certain secret place in people’s minds, as we see below. Women, immigrants, refugees, public sector workers—where will it end? Your money is running through a liberal sympathy sieve you don’t control or agree with. These are opportunities you’d have loved to have had in your day—and either you should have had them when you were young or the young shouldn’t be getting them now. It’s not fair.

If you like this try-
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Educated by Tara Westover

7 stars

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
268 pages

What’s it about?
This short novel is comprised of letters back and forth between two people later in their lives.  Tina Hopgood lives on an isolated English farm with her husband and grown children.  Tina has been fascinated by the Tolland Man since her youth.  She decides to write to a well-known professor working at the museum with a question about the Tolland Man.  She comes to find that the professor she is seeking is dead, but begins an unlikely correspondence with Danish anthropologist Anders Larsen.  Through these letters both characters explore the choices made in their respective lives, and the consequences of those choices.  

What did it make me think about?
The choices we make in our youth affect the rest of our lives.  Yet, we often make them without much thought towards the future .   This novel explores the choices both Tina and Anders have made  and asks-  "Are we ever too old to begin again? ".

Should I read it?
 I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel.  The first few pages were slow but it picked right up and I was quickly engrossed in the story.  Tina and Anders are characters I will miss.  This is a thoughtful novel that may resonate more with a more mature reader.

Quote-
"Our letters have meant so much to us because we both have arrived at the same point in our lives.  More behind us than than ahead of us.  Paths chosen that define us.  Enough time to change."

If you like this try-
​Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf 
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Driftless by David Rhodes

9 stars

The Library Book by Sean Orlean
313 pages

What’s it about?
 Susan Orlean explores a fire that occurred at the Los Angeles Public  Library in the spring of 1986.  When the fire quit burning it had consumed 400,000 books and damaged another 700,000.  Orleans uses the Los Angeles fire as a jumping off point to explore arson, but she explores at greater length how libraries have evolved over the years.

What did it make me think about?
 Some of my earliest memories are of going to the library as a child- not always willingly- but we went a lot.  "Decades had passed and I was threee thousand miles away, but I was whisked back in time and place, back to the scenario of walking into the library with my mother.  Nothing had changed- there was the same soft tsk-tsk-tsk of pencil and paper, and the muffled murmuring from patrons at the tables in the center of the room, and the creak and groan of book carts, and the occasional papery clunk of a book dropped on the desk.  .....  It wasn't that time stopped in the library.  It was as if it were captured here, collected here, and in all libraries- and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well.  In the library, time is dammed up- not just stopped but saved.  The library is gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them.  It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever."  This book took me back and it also emphasized that libraries are an ever changing place. 

Should I read it?
This was a really good book about a subject that could be considered dry.  If you are looking for a crime book- then be aware that this does explore the library fire but it is about so much more. If you are looking for a book that explores where libraries have been and where they are going- then this book is a great choice.

Quote-
​"The publicness of the public library is an increasingly rare commodity.  It becomes harder all the time to think of places that welcome everyone and don't charge any money for that warm embrace.  The commitment to inclusion is so powerful that many decisions about the library hinge on whether or not a particular choice would cause a subset of the public to feel uninvited."  

"Libraries have become a defect community center for the homeless across the globe.  There is not a library in the world that hasn't grappled with the issue of how- and how much- to provide for the homeless.  Many librarians have told me that they consider this the defining question facing libraries right now."

If you like this try-
Ghettoside A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
My Brother Moochie by Issac J. Bailey
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

8 1/2 stars

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
197 pages
​
What’s it about?
This novel is dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.  The story begins in 1936 when Shostakovich’s first opera has been denounced by Stalin himself.  We follow the composer through a life and career in Soviet Russia that is infused with both fear and shame.  We come to appreciate both the composer’s brilliance and his fortitude.  His inner thoughts ( as imagined by Julian Barnes) give voice to life as an artist in Soviet Russia.

What did it make me think about?
Russia- and all other countries where people live in a perpetual state of fear.  How it must change you, your relationships, and the art that is left behind.

Should I read it?
I personally love Julian Barnes writing. Even so, I put this one off for awhile because it sounded uninteresting- a Russian composer...  I could not have been more wrong.  Who would not love sentences like these, "​Art belongs to everybody and nobody.  Art belongs to all time and no time.  Art belongs to those who create it and those who savor it.  Art no more belongs to the People and the Party than it belonged to the aristocracy and the patron.  Art is the whisper of history, heard above the noise of time."  I believe his stories have so much to say.  This novel is no exception!

Quote-
“As for love- not his own awkward stumbling, blurring, annoying expressions of it, but love in general: he had always believed that love, as a force of nature, was indestructible; and that, when threatened, it could be protected, blanketed, swaddled in irony.  Now he was less convinced.  Tyranny had become so expert at destroying that why should it not destroy love as well, intentionally or not?  Tyranny demanded that you love the party, the state, the Great Leader and Helmsman, the people.  But individual love- bourgeois and particularistic- distracted from such grand, noble, meaningless, unthinking “loves.”  And in these times, people were always in danger of becoming less than fully themselves.  If you terrorised them enough, they became something else, something diminished and reduced: mere techniques for survival.  And so, it was not just an anxiety, but often a brute fear that he experienced: the fear that love’s last days had come.”


If you like this try-
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
​Forty Autumns by Nina Willner

9 stars

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton
482 pages

What’s it about?
This story is told from many different viewpoints but remains rooted in England.  We begin in the summer of 1862 with a group of young artists who have taken up residence in Birchwood Manor.  In time, a murder is committed, jewels are stolen, and a young woman goes missing.  Over 150 years later Elodie Winslow happens upon a leather satchel containing clues to what happened. This is a story told across time about murder, art, love, and loss.

What did it make me think about?
 I have enjoyed all of the Kate Morton books I have read.  She has such a distinctive style to her writing and all her stories seem to be so very English.  I have come to the conclusion that I am a sucker for anything English.  

Should I read it?
Get yourself a cup of tea and a scone and settle in.

Quote-
“People value shiny stones and lucky charms, but they forget that the most powerful talismans of all are the stories that we tell to ourselves and to others.”

If you like this try-
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
The Heart's invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry

8 1/2 stars