The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God

I've been a book club slacker and haven't made it to the last couple meetings. I try to read the books anyway, even if I can't make it to the meetings, but that doesn't always happen. The latest pick, which I'm still not sure if I'll be able to make it for, was Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories.

With the exception of the last piece, the stories are all very short and some are much better than others. (I probably liked "Jetlag" and "Good Intentions" the best and I wasn't wild about the longer piece, "Kneller's Happy Campers" about an afterlife for people who committed suicide.) I think there can be a nice punch packed in a short, short story, but as a whole, I think that very short stories (2-4 pages) are extremely limiting and not conducive to much depth of any kind. The cover calls them "warped and wonderful" short stories. I probably wouldn't have used the word "warped" to describe them, but also can't argue with it. It's a short book (130 pages) with a lot of blank pages, so it's a quick read. The book states that Keret is "undoubtedly the most popular writer among Israeli youth" and I can understand the large draw to his work by a younger generation as it's witty and a bit dark, interesting and creative.

Domestic Violets

A couple months ago a member of my book club was tossing around ideas for her pick, giving us a list of titles she was interested in reading. One of the books that she mentioned (but ultimately didn't pick) was Matthew Norman's Domestic Violets. I read a quick synopsis and thought it sounded like something that I'd like, but it wasn't until I came across it at the library that I decided to read it. Usually the description on the back of a book is a good indicator of what to expect, but I didn't think this was the case for Domestic Violets.

The novel is about a man named Tom Violet who finds himself at a tipping point. His marriage is troubled, he hates his job, and his strong attraction to his coworker appears to be mutual. Tom has spent years writing a novel and is full of anxiety on whether it is any good; the pressure being high as his father is a very famous writer who over the course of the novel wins the Pulitizer Prize. Besides the inept description of the plot, the back of the book also sums it up as a "brilliant and beguiling story of a man finally taking control of his own happiness--even if it means making a complete idiot of himself along the way." I disagree as I don't see him as much trying to take control of his life at all costs, but rather him fumbling his way towards realizing who he is and what he wants. Regardless it is an entertaining book that's fast and easy to read. Books like this are my ultimate guilty pleasure; I really enjoy books with humor and heart that focus largely on relationships and/or search for self. The writing is nothing grand, but is not bad either. It's a light read, which are good books for the summer.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Alan will be teaching middle school in the fall and has been reading YA and children's novels to familiarize himself with what books are out there to recommend to his future students. I went to the library for him and came home with a stack of a dozen that I had loved, including Sherman Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alan and I both had read it a couple years ago and loved it. We had agreed Isaac was too young to read it because of the content, but time made these instances in the novel fuzzy in my mind. I told Alan I'd reread it to see if it'd make the cut.

. This novel is such a great read. It's the story of Junior, an Indian boy who lives the reservation to go to school in an all-white school. Junior is the classic underdog character, but tells his tale with wit. The book is both very funny and very sad, bringing out a range of feelings, which I love in a novel. Call me strange, but I like a little melancholy sprinkled into a humorous book. I also love the way it delves into the complex race relations between whites and Indians. I walked away from the book the first time feeling like I truly learned how someone out there feels and that is a testament to the power of rich, well-written characters. It is no wonder that this novel won the National Book Award.

What-the-Dickens

When it comes to finding good children's or YA novels, my friend Carmen is a great source for recommendations. We were talking a week or so ago about our boys losing teeth and she mentioned a book she'd recently read, Gregory Maguire's What-the-Dickens: The Story of A Rogue Tooth Fairy. If she didn't offer to lend me her copy, I'd likely have waited, quite possibly for years, before picking it up. Instead, I read it fairly fast, considering I was also reading three other books and only dipping into this novel occasionally.

It's a cute story of a tale a boy tells his three cousins on a dark night to distract them from a terrible storm and their parents' disappearance. The tale is about an orphaned skibbereen, who comes to be called What-the-Dickens. As he fumbles around trying to find his place in the world, he meets an owl, a cat, a tiger, and Pepper, another skibbereen who is a tooth fairy. What-the-Dickens doesn't understand the many rules that govern the skibbereen, including that they work alone and are not to be seen by humans. Pepper belongs to a colony of skibbereen (there are other colonies with strong rivalries between the different tribes) and introduces What-the-Dickens to this world.

I'd never read anything by Gregory Maguire, the man who made his fame from writing Wicked. I did like his writing style and he did a good job letting the story unfold and bringing it back full circle. I've heard so much hype about Wicked that I may have to check it out (eventually) now that I have read something charming Maguire wrote that didn't receive as much acclaim.

The Tiger's Wife

I meant to read Téa Obreht's novel when it first came out as it received so much attention. Shortly after, my friend Lenae read it for one of her book clubs. She's very intelligent and I respect her opinion so I asked what she thought. She told me The Tiger's Wife was good, but that though she loved parts of the novel, other parts she wasn't crazy for. Basically her recommendation was to read it because it was worthwhile and a good story, but she also couldn't say rush out and do so right away. It wasn't until I read that the novel received this year's Orange Prize that I finally picked it up.

The Tiger's Wife is set in a Balkan country recovering from a war and is told from the perspective of Natalia, a young doctor. Her grandfather has recently died and she reflects on his death and the stories he told her about "the deathless man." There is another story he failed to tell her, the story of the tiger's wife. I was absolutely enthralled by the stories of the tiger's wife and deathless man, but the story of Natalia didn't as much interest me. Obreht's writing is beautiful and the intrigue for these other stories was so great that I continued to turn the pages, but I thought Natalia's story largely fell flat. Looking at the book as a whole though, it is quite extraordinary, the way the stories are woven together, all embracing themes of death, war, myth and storytelling. As I'm reflecting on it all, fumbling for my final words of recommendation or not, I can't help but think Lenae's assessment was perfect-- The Tiger's Wife is a very worthwhile novel, but not one in which I'd recommend with zeal. It's the kind of book to put on that ever-growing list of books you have to get to one of these days.

The Cider House Rules

A while back, I mentioned that I was reading a book that was too good to put down entirely, but too slow to continuously read. I was reading short books for a while and flipping back and forth, before setting it down. Eventually though, I did want to finish John Irving's novel, The Cider House Rules. I know the book was turned into a movie that received much critical acclaim, but I had never seen it. (I have it on hold at the library and will soon.) I had purchased a copy of the novel used because everything I've read by John Irving has been good (The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and A Widow for One Year). My copy doesn't have a plot description on the back, but I knew I could count on Irving to deliver a wonderful story told with complex characters, humor, and imagination. Even though it's been years since I read his other books, I can remember a surprising amount with vividness--which is why even though I finished this book weeks ago, I knew there was little risk of my not being able to remember it with clarity.

At its core, the novel is about the personal journey of Homer Wells, an orphan who is never adopted. But the power of Irving's work is its depth. I loved how even its primary setting, St. Cloud's orphanage, is almost its own character. St. Cloud's is an orphanage that also offers abortions, which are illegal at the time the novel takes place. (It begins in the 1920s and ends about 30 years later.) The doctor at St. Cloud's, Dr. Larch, becomes attached to Homer and teaches him everything he knows about delivering babies and performing abortions. When faced with disposing of an aborted fetus, Homer decides he is morally opposed to abortion and refuses to help Dr. Larch. When he has the opportunity to flee St. Cloud's, he does and that's really when his personal journey begins. I really enjoyed the beautiful novel and had the satisfaction of having it end exactly the way I wanted it to. I'm refraining from a universal recommendation, however, as I know the abortion issue is something that people can have strong, negative feelings about. I think what's remarkable though about tackling a social issue in a novel is that a true writer does not include judgment, only observation--which means Irving offers the reader a portrait of the issue in its many shades of grey.

This Is How...

I'm a fan of Augusten Burroughs and was excited to hear he had a new book out. When I heard the title--This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike--I was pretty sure it was a joke. Alan read the book first, thinking the same thing. "I'm pretty sure he's serious," he said after reading the first chapter. After he finished, I picked it up and indeed, it is actually a self help book, a perceptive and intelligent one at that.

Burroughs has been through a lot so he can empathize about many of the issues he covers in the book. Others (such as "How to Let a Child Die") he doesn't have experience in, yet still manages to offer some insightful advice. One of the most interesting is "How to End Your Life" in which he argues that suicide does not accomplish what it is meant to and that far more effective is to walk away from your life, leave and start over. He actually did this and adopted a new name, Augusten Burroughs, and freed himself from his past. Like I said, a lot of it comes from a place that he visited so it seems like he really knows what he's talking about. It is an interesting book, at times funny, and gives you alternate perspectives to consider. If you're looking for a good self help book, check it out.