Six feet of books

In this part of the blog, I will periodically post about books I have enjoyed recently. At some point, I may go back over the reads of the last few years if I found a book particularly compelling. The title is a slightly exaggerated description of the pile of books I have waiting to be read, a pile that only seems to grow no matter how much I read. I am not a professional reviewer, just a reader. I don’t have a methodology, an approach, or a philosophy.  But, I do want to share the books I find interesting or engaging. So, just to get started, in no particular order:

The Wine Lover’s Daughter—A Memoir—Anne Fadiman’s lovely, beautifully written memoir of her father, Clifton Fadiman, using the device of his love of fine wine, and her indifference to that same wine, notwithstanding her efforts to the contrary.  But it is about so much more—Clifton’s striving to escape from his lower-middle-class Brooklyn Jewish upbringing, their father-daughter relationship, and more.  Sharing a similar background—my father, both my parents, found education a path and even a calling, their version of the American dream, even though I don’t think of them as feeling compelled to “escape” anything—I loved this book.  Her writing is engaging, elegant and precise.  I so enjoyed it, I was moved to write her a note (by email), something I almost never do.

Coming to My Senses—another memoir, this one by the chef and food pioneer, Alice Waters.  Again, some commonality with my own background, she being just a few years older than I and living through the 1960s in a hotbed of counterculture—hers in California, mine in New York.  And of course sharing a love of food.  But she is a true pioneer—Chez Panisse has been the epicenter of American cooking and food culture for decades, and her work with schools and gardens, personally and through the Chez Panisse Foundation, has been transformative.  Very amusing and engaging—a good read.

The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon. I will ‘fess up—I read this last year, so “recent” is a rather loose term, but it is a compelling read for anyone interested in the art and craft of writing and the life and growth of a writer.  Angela Carter was an English novelist and poet, I think a contemporary or perhaps half a generation ahead of her more commercially successful countrymen like Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis, among others. The book describes her life and evolution as or into a writer, seeming to balance biography with literary analysis and criticism, providing just enough forward motion—life force– to wade through some of the denser literary analysis and the unfortunate, for an American, use of English turns of phrase.  One particularly fascinating story, which I have thought about a lot since beginning my own writing program, is her recounting of the writing of a novel she deemed unsuccessful.  So, what she did was to pull it apart—literally and figuratively—breaking it down into stand-alone shorter pieces which she revised and published individually.  My retelling does not do it justice but it was an eye-opening look into her creative process.  Brilliant.

The Shadow of the Wind.  I am mildly embarrassed to admit I just read this book by the acclaimed Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon, years after its publication in translation.  Zafon has been compared to Marquez, with elements of Borges, Umberto Eco, and many other giants of world literature, not to mention his contemporary, the wonderful Spanish novelist Arturo Perez Reverte, one of my favorite writers of books of historical fiction and literary intrigue.  Perhaps it is the translation, but while I ultimately become engrossed in the ingeniously told story, the writing did not seem to me to on a par with those superb stylists.  The opening line intrigued me “I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time”, a great line, echoing, intentionally or not, in tribute or not, the memorable opening line of One Hundred Years of Solitude “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice“. (All I can say, almost fifty years after reading that for the first time is, “wow”.)  Marquez, in addition to being a singular writer, had the benefit of the brilliant translation by Gregory Rabassa.  Zafon’s story is gripping, an intriguing tale with the narrator’s story eerily echoing that of his subject.  Definitely worth a read, but I wish I found the writing as brilliant as the story.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widowsby Balli Kaur Jaswal.   This is one of those books that catch you with the title—I saw it on a table of new fiction at a Toronto bookstore and felt compelled to buy it.  It is a fun read, with a really amusing premise (which I will not reveal, notwithstanding the book’s title), but with serious themes, and some dark elements, underlying the story.  It is set in the Sikh community in London, and is interesting for that alone.  There are also elements of the traditional versus the modern, men and women (told from the woman’s point of view) and a look at some individual as well as broader social issues.  A good, complex story, reflecting some universal themes, very well-told.  As an aside, choosing a book by its catchy title does not always work out; witness The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, which has one of the great titles, tells a compelling story, but is just not a great read.

The Only Café by Linden Macintyre.  Despite strong ties to Canada—my wife is Canadian, my kids are dual citizens and the eldest went to university and now lives in Montreal, and half my family originally entered North America through Montreal–like many Americans, my knowledge of Canadian writers is shockingly limited. Margaret Atwood, of course, Robertson Davies, Michael Ondaatje, but I have read more writing from non-English speaking countries than from Canada.  That did start changing as my in-laws tend to give me books by Canadian authors, but I have barely reached the tip of the iceberg.  So I was delighted when my Christmas presents last year included this great read from the Canadian broadcast journalist and writer Linden Macintyre, who coincidentally was a guest speaker at my program’s Toronto residency in January.  An engrossing story, with the narrator unpacking the life of his missing father, weaving the personal with larger political events involving his father’s life in Lebanon as well as corporate intrigue later in his life.  I cannot say I recall stopping at any of the sentences in the book to marvel at the glittering prose, but perhaps that is because I did not stop while reading the book at all—the writing pulls you forward and offers a lively, and complex, story.

The Wolf Borderby Sarah Hall.  The heroine of this story and its narrator is Rachel Caine, an English zoologist working, as the story opens, on a wolf recovery project in Idaho.  After years away, she is brought back to England, in fact close to the village where she was raised, by a wealthy Earl with a plan to reintroduce the grey wolf to England. The book follows her as she struggles with the somewhat solitary and difficult life she has chosen, her relationship with her mother and her family, and men she is involved with, as well as locals on both sides of the debate over the Earl’s plan, all set in the fascinating world of the grey wolf project.  The book is masterfully written, Rachel’s prickly character and her struggles with her own demons fully realized.  A wonderful read.

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan.  A family saga set over several generations of a Palestinian family, starting with their home in Nablus, then driven by war to Kuwait, then scattered to Beirut, Paris, Boston and elsewhere.  It is an engaging read, offering a deep, intimate and often heartbreaking view into lives of people whose lives are often the faceless and nameless stories we read about in newspapers and magazines.  But not sensationalized at all.  A wonderfully written first novel by Hala Alyan, who is a psychologist as well as a poet, and now, novelist.