It's Monday . . . What Are You Reading?

Another summer Monday, and another post on the bookish meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. I hope everyone is finding time for some summer relaxation with great reading material.

I will be taking the next few days off from blogging this week; it's time for some family fun. I will NOT be taking a break from reading, of course! I will post an update in about a week.

Last week on the blog, I posted reviews of these books:

You can read my review of The Vacationers by Emma Straub here. For me, it was a quick and light read, suitable for a poolside afternoon, but I had been hoping for more depth. I also reviewed Susan Coll's entertaining dark comedy The Stager, and you can read my review of that new novel here. And here you can read my review of Lily King's wonderful novel Euphoria, about a love triangle of anthropologists in the 1930s (sounds intriguing, right?).

Last week I also posted my Top Ten Favorite Classic Books. Yes, I was more than a week late on this Top Ten Tuesday list! Oh well, it's such a terrific topic that I decided to post my list anyway, under the "better late than never" theory. You can read my list here.

Here is a piece of good blogging news. I was asked to be a tour host for a blog tour for the first time. On August 13, I will be hosting a tour stop on TLC Book Tours. Here is the book I'll be reading:

Jon Enfield's The New Men, published in May of this year by Wayzgoose Press, sounds like a very interesting piece of historical fiction about a man working for the Ford Motor Company at the start of the twentieth century. I'm looking forward to diving into it, and to posting my first review as part of a blog tour. Thanks so much to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to serve as tour host.

I am currently reading ...

Chris Bohjalian's latest novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. Bohjalian is a favorite writer of mine, and I have been waiting with great anticipation for this!

I hope everyone has a terrific week of reading! As I said, I will be taking a week off from blogging, but I will be back next week.

Review of Euphoria by Lily King

Euphoria by Lily King is an intriguing and sophisticated novel about three anthropologists studying tribes in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s. Loosely based on a real-life love triangle involving Margaret Mead, this piece of literary historical fiction offers an exhilarating mix of the cerebral and the passionate. King considers love, marriage, jealousy, as well as issues of cultural relativism and cultural imperialism.

The Story: King opens the book with a married team of anthropologists beating a hasty retreat from a violent New Guinean tribe called the Mumbanyo. As the couple departs by canoe, a tribe member throws something at them. “'Another dead baby,' Fen said. He had broken her glasses by then, so she didn’t know if he was joking.”

The man and woman are Nell and Fen, clearly modeled on the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead and her second husband, Reo Fortune. Nell has recently achieved fame from her work, and Fen struggles with resentment at her sudden success. Searching for another tribe to study, Nell and Fen meet up with another anthropologist, an emotionally damaged Brit by the name of Bankson (based on Mead’s real-life third husband, Gregory Bateson). The three social scientists begin an intense intellectual collaboration and, soon, fierce desires threaten the balance between them.

My Thoughts: I found Euphoria to be an interesting and deeply satisfying read. The subject, to me, was fascinating; I’ve retained an interest in anthropology since college. King thoroughly researched the lives and work of Mead, Fortune, and Bateson, and ably represents the controversies and issues in the field of anthropology in the 1930s.

But the novel isn’t completely focused on anthropology—far from it. King includes plenty of messy human emotions and complicated relationships. I think this is why the book resonated with me so much. It isn’t often that a literary novel combines big ideas with such an engrossing plot and fascinating set of characters.

Novels based on the lives of real people can be a tricky proposition. Of late, I have found some of these sorts of novels to be disappointing because, often, the writer seems constrained by the real-life trajectory of the characters’ lives. King makes the decision here to deviate from the facts of Mead’s life and create a new ending for Nell, Fen, and Bankson. I will admit that I did not particularly LIKE the ending King chose for her characters, but regardless, I appreciated the suspense of not knowing exactly what would happen.

Euphoria has been compared to Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, Hanya Yanagihara’s The People in the Trees, and Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski, all novels in which anthropology plays a central role. Of these other works, I have only read State of Wonder, and I think that Euphoria is the better novel—it is tighter and more focused than Patchett’s book. I do want to read the novels by Yanagihara and Berlinski.

I would rate Euphoria a 4 and a half out of 5 stars. I highly recommend it to those who read literary fiction.

Top Ten Favorite Classic Books

Well, I missed this excellent Top Ten list, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish . . . yep, this was the list that ran LAST week, on Tuesday, July 1st! I actually developed this list on July 1st, but never got around to posting it. Summer--what can I say? Anyway, I decided to go ahead and post my choices for my top 10 favorite classic books because, why not? It's a great topic. Even if today is a Thursday, not a Tuesday . . . I won't be bound by artificial limitations like days of the week!

For the purposes of this list, I am choosing to define "classics" as works of literature that stand the test of time . . . that several generations of readers consider to be literary works of art. Under this definition, I would not include any books that have been written in the past few decades, because we don't yet know if those works will speak to future readers. Looking over my list, I would certainly note that it is far too centered on English-language literature; that, I suppose, is a result of my education, with its focus on English and American literature. I would like, in the future, to increase my exposure to world literature.

With those caveats, here is my list, in no particular order:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Howards End by E.M. Forster

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

What would be on your list of top ten favorite classic books? And--maybe this is a good topic for another top ten list--what recent books do you think are most likely to be considered classics in the future? Hmm, I think I may have to do a post on that at some point . . .

Review of The Stager by Susan Coll

Susan Coll’s The Stager is a wry and witty dark comedy about real estate, marriage, friendship, and modern life in upper middle class suburbia.

The Story: Coll sets her tale in affluent Bethesda, Maryland, where a professional “stager” has been hired to help prepare a house for sale. A stager depersonalizes and redecorates a house so that buyers can better imagine themselves in the home. In this case, the stager realizes that she has a tangled personal history with the owner of the house—a successful and beautiful woman named Bella. Bella, a hot shot vice president at a major investment bank, lives in the home with her husband Lars, a former tennis star turned emotional basket case, and their daughter Elsa . . . who may or may not be the biological daughter of Lars, given Bella’s rather loose definition of marital fidelity. The stager, although she knows she should refuse this particular job on the grounds of her complicated past with Bella, finds herself unable to walk away. Meanwhile, the house itself is emitting a terrible, unexplainable smell . . .

My Thoughts: The Stager is an amusing and often delicious read. I’m originally from the DC suburbs, and I appreciated the sharp satire about real estate and life in the pockets of affluence outside the city (although much of this satire could be applied just as easily to other suburban areas in the country). I loved the sections about The Unfurlings, a planned hippie community of million dollar homes, now abandoned and a place for squatters and growers of a suspiciously relaxing “compost tea.”

The novel is well-written, inventive, and clever . . . Very, very clever. In fact, in some ways, it is a touch TOO clever. Coll lost me a bit when Lars—the washed-up former tennis star--develops an omniscient point of view and then proceeds to hold long, meandering conversations with his daughter’s pet rabbit. Some of that, for me, felt a little too gimmicky. The main plot lines about Bella and her dysfunctional relationships with her husband and her former best friend would have been enough for me. In fact, I would have preferred those to be explored more deeply without all of the antics about the talking rabbit.

Nevertheless, I found The Stager to be quite an entertaining read. I would rate it about a 3.75 out of 5 stars, so we'll round that up to a 4. I haven’t read a Susan Coll novel before, and I’d like to read some of her other books; The Stager is her fifth novel. Coll is the events and programs director at DC’s famed Politics & Prose bookstore.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, in return for an honest review.

Review of The Vacationers by Emma Straub

In Emma Straub's The Vacationers, an extended family in crisis gathers for a two-week vacation on the sunny Mediterranean island of Mallorca. The summary seems to promise a juicy summer read about complicated relationships and family secrets. The novel, Straub's second, with its enticing cover of swimming pool blue, is indeed a light and quick book suitable for poolside reading. But The Vacationers ultimately disappoints with its generic plot and lack of depth.

The Story: The novel begins as the Post family is heading out on a two week sojourn to a beautiful rented home on idyllic Mallorca, but life for the Posts is not as wonderful as it would appear. The trip was booked months before Jim lost his job for sleeping with a much younger intern. Franny, the family matriarch, will decide whether or not to remain in her 35 year marriage with Jim at the end of the vacation. Joining this unhappy couple are their son Bobby, a Miami realtor who seems to have vastly exaggerated the level of his success, Bobby's girlfriend Carmen, a trainer at least a decade Bobby's senior, and Jim and Franny's daughter Sylvia, a morose 18-year-old fixated on losing her virginity before college. Oh, and don't forget Charles and Lawrence, a gay couple and close friends of Franny's, who are hoping to adopt a baby.

What I Thought: I had been anxious to read The Vacationers since its release in May; it has, of course, been popping up on many lists of the best summer books of 2014. I often enjoy novels about complicated extended families, so the premise sounded tantalizing. And of course, there is that gorgeous cover . . . I try not to let attractive cover art influence my reading decisions, but I suppose none of us are immune (and that image of a woman floating in crystal blue water . . . so peaceful, so soothing!).

There are certainly things to like about The Vacationers. The pacing is well done, and the characters are interesting and knowable, if not always likable. Straub's prose is clear and fluid, and the novel certainly kept me turning the pages to see how things worked out for the members of the Post family.

But I couldn't shake the feeling, as I read this novel, that there was something missing. The structure of the novel seemed unoriginal, and the plot lacked complexity. A light novel is fine at times, of course, but The Vacationers was, for me, too much fluff and not enough depth. Perhaps the problem is that I expected more. Others may not share my reactions. . . I'd be very interested to hear what friends and other book lovers think!

I would rate The Vacationers a 3 out of 5 stars.

It's Monday . . . What Are you Reading?

Happy Monday! I'm back again on this weekly bookish meme created by Sheila at Book Journey. The summer is in full swing . . . . and I have been working through my summer reading list. I have been happily reading away. . . but not finding as much time to write book reviews or other blog posts as I might have hoped. I'm a little behind on reviews! I blame the offspring--they're home from school, and always asking me to drive them places. My chauffeuring duties are really cutting into my blogging time. :) Ah well, it's wonderful to have more time with them, now that the hectic school year is finally completed.

In the past week, I finished these three books:

My reviews will be coming soon.

Last week on the blog, I did manage to post a review of this book:

You can read my review of Tom Rachman's The Rise and Fall of Great Powers here. It was a good read, if not as completely captivating as I'd hoped. I rated it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

On audio, I am still listening to Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I hope to wrap that up this week. As I've mentioned before, sometimes I take a quite a while to listen to an audiobook, and Americanah is a fairly lengthy one. I will say, however, that the narration is excellent, and I'm glad I choose this novel as an audiobook.

Hope everyone is having a lovely summer with lots of time for reading good books!

Review of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

Tom Rachman’s novel, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, is both funny and melancholy. Rachman, following the great acclaim of his debut, The Imperfectionists, considers the importance of human connectedness and relationships in his second novel. The Rise & Fall of Great Powers offers an intriguing puzzle for readers to piece together, as they follow the protagonist’s efforts to unravel her confusing past and make her place in the world.

The Story: The story here is . . . quite difficult to summarize! Indeed, that it is part of the point. Rachman begins the novel in a dusty used bookshop called World’s End in the tiny Welsh village of Caergenog. The shop’s thirty-something owner, Tooly Zylberberg, lives a quiet life centered on books and isolated from people, and sublimating thoughts of her unusual past. A message from Duncan, an old boyfriend in New York, however, jolts her out of her self-imposed solitude; he tells Tooly that her father is very sick and she must come to the States. “Her father?” Tooly wonders. “Whom could he mean?”

Tooly, it emerges, experienced a bizarre and peripatetic childhood, moving to different cities across globe every year. Rachman shifts the action from Tooly’s present in 2011, to Bangkok in 1988, where Tooly is a precocious ten-year-old living with a nervous man named Paul who may or may not be her father, and then to 1999 in New York City, where a twenty-ish Tooly shares living quarters with Humphrey, a charming, elderly Russian man, and seeks to meet up with a mysterious, and possibly criminal, fellow named Venn. Rachman leaps back and forth between these time periods, as both Tooly and the reader seek to fit the pieces together and understand Tooly’s identity and past.

What I Thought: The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a good read, if not as utterly captivating as I had hoped. I enjoyed trying to follow the threads of the story and unsnarl the mysteries in Tooly’s past. My attention began to flag as I reached about the three-quarters mark, however. Tooly herself never felt fully fleshed out to me, never entirely believable as a character, which made it harder to care intensely about her identity.

Nevertheless, I loved the ending, which packed an unintended and satisfying emotional punch. Rachman cleverly addresses the necessity of human relationships and interconnectedness. To put it another way, he makes the point that people DO, in fact, need people (cue the Broadway music—do you know the song “People” from the 1960s musical Funny Girl? I couldn’t help but think of Barbra Streisand belting out, “People who need people ... are the luckiest people in the world!" as I read the novel. My household includes a teen obsessed with musical theater, and we often comment that there is a Broadway song that applies to every emotion or situation; “People” certainly fits the bill here).

I would rate The Rise & Fall of Great Powers about a 3.5 out of 5 stars, and I would certainly like to read Rachman’s first novel and his future books.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Random House, through a Goodreads giveaway, in return for an honest review.