Category: Books

The book club book this month was Saturday by Ian McEwan. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve only read one other Ian McEwan book, Atonement, but I enjoyed that too.

Saturday is about a brain surgeon, Henry Perowne. Perowne and his family live in London.  Saturday follows him through one Saturday of his life. I couldn’t help liking Perowne and in a way I think I identified with him. McEwan is able to capture how nothing in life is black and white, whether it be the war in Iraq or the man with whom Perowne has a minor car accident.

McEwan’s ability to make you see and feel the place and the people is another reason that I enjoyed Saturday so much. I liked his descriptions of London, of his house, of the music his son plays, of his wife, of his daughter’s poetry and especially of his visit to his mother who no longer knows him. They were all astoundingly real to me.

I understand that McEwan’s early books where very macabre. I doubt that I would like them.  Saturday and Atonement are, on the other hand, warm and loving. They are the kind of books that stay with you and make an impression on your life.

Duke is much better at sleeping in than I am. I love to read in bed next to him on Sunday mornings. The sun shines in through our blinds and all is right with the world. What makes Sunday morning perfect is just the right book. I’ve said before that books have a big impact on my mood. So a Sunday morning reading in bed book needs to be a book I can connect with. It needs to be a book with the right attitude. The book I just finished was perfect.

Garlic and Sapphires is subtitled "The secret life of a critic in disguise". It is written by Ruth Reichel and tells about her experiences as the restaurant critic for the New York Times. Reichel is a wonderful story teller. Her ability to capture the essence of an experience makes it very easy to like her and identify with her. Reading this book just made me feel good.

It is fascinating how the disguises she uses  change how she acts and how the alternative personalities start to seep into her personal life. I love how Reichel begins to realize how her life is being impacted and how she decides what to do about it.

I love how Reichel refuses to take herself seriously. She totally gets that it is her job that makes restaurants treat her like royalty. That is why her disguises are so great. The difference between how she is treated when she is the New York Times food critic and when she is one of her characters is not really surprising. It is just nice to see it acknowledged.

After being treated very poorly at  what is supposed to be one of New York’s finest restaurants Molly (Ruth in disguise) says to her dinner companion, an acting coach, "You, of all people, should understand the importance of theater. The food may be good, but the service has been so bad that the evening is destroyed…… I did not come here simply to eat, I came here for glamour. I am willing to pay for the privilege of feeling rich and important for a few small hours. Is that too much to ask?" She is so right!

Garlic and Sapphires is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it.

 

I just finished reading Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham.It is a fascinating, moving, enthralling read. The book was thought provoking on lots of different levels. Pham and his family arrived in the US from Vietnam in 1977 when he was 10. Catfish and Mandala is the story of his family and of his life both in Vietnam and as an American immigrant.  It is also the story of his return to Vietnam and of his journey by bicycle through Vietnam. Although  the book is about his travels it is much more an exploration of Pham’s Vietnamese American  experience. It is really hard to describe this book because it delves into so much. But I couldn’t help feeling a connection to Pham  even though so much  of what he experienced is so alien to anything I have every experienced. Pham is an extraordinarily talented writer. I highly recommend the book.

I went to book club last Tuesday night. The book was Being Dead by Jim Crace. This will be  a short post. Following the principal of if you haven’t got something nice to say don’t say anything,  I haven’t got much to say about this book. It is the story of how a couple in the their mid 50s are murdered on the beach, how their bodies decay over the days until they are found and how their lives led up to the point of their murder. There is no doubt in my mind that Crace is an amazing,  poetic and lyrical writer. But even if he writes beautifully, when he is writing about what happens to the body after death I just don’t need it. Yuck! I must say though that I finished the book. I have a personal rule about not finishing books that I don’t  like but in this case I really wanted to finish the book even though I hated it. I attribute this to morbid curiosity much like how you can’t stop staring at an accident when you drive past it even though you know you shouldn’t be interested in someone else’s misfortune.