December Books

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.

I first read The Shipping News a few years ago and I remember thinking, “Huh. Pulitzer Prize? Really?” I was underwhelmed. I watched the movie mostly because I love Kevin Spacey. I had trouble staying focused on the movie rather than the magazine in my lap or laundry in the dryer. That was several years ago. Earlier this month, I took it down from the bookshelf and re-read it and oh, my. It’s so very good. It’s a quiet little story. That’s what it is – it tells a story. I liked it very much.

The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice for Writers by Betsy Lerner.
I've had this book for seven years. (For a while, I was in the habit of putting both my name and the month and year I bought a book. Which is how I know how long I’ve had this particular one.) I remember liking it okay when I got it, but I hadn’t re-read it until now. Unlike, say, Escaping Into the Open, On Writing, Making a Literary Life, Bird by Bird, or The Sound of Paper, all of which I read and re-read because they’re great and I always get something out of them.

This go around? I liked it pretty well. I’ll read it again.

The Eight by Katherine Neville.
The friend who picked this book for our book club likes math and science. I can see why. Midway through, I came across this passage:

"It was Pythagoras who discovered that the base of the Western music scale was the octave because a plucked string divided in half would give the same sound exactly eight tones higher than one twice as long. The frequency of vibration of a string is inversely proportional to its length. One of the his secrets was that a musical fifth (five diatonic notes, or the golden mean of an octave), when repeated twelve times in ascending sequence, should return to the original note eight octaves higher. But instead, when it got there it was off by an eighth of a note – so the ascending scale, too, formed a spiral."

To those of you who got this right away, YAY YOU. You’re very smart and I’m not altogether sure I can be friends with you anymore. (Joke) As for me, I was like, “Wha?” I read it again and had the same reaction, and tried one more time. Then I said, Forget it – spirals, numbers, something remarkable, blah, blah, blah. Moving on.

The plot deals with a super special chess board, given to Charlemagne by some Moors around the year 790. The board, together with its pieces and a cloth covering, are mystical and possibly cursed. In the late 1700s French nuns hide it to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. In the early 1970s, someone else finds out about it and adventure ensues. That's the short version.

I would have liked the book more had their not been all these historical figures dropping in and dropping out. Some of them were prominent - Cathering the Great, Napoleon, Robespierre. Others seemed gratuitious - Benedict Arnold, William Blake, and on and on. I don't know why that little tic bothered me.

If I knew anything at all about chess, I probably would have appreciated the book much more.

The Fire by Katherine Neville.
Even though I had a sort of lukewarm response to The Eight, I had to read the sequel for the same reason I finish any book: I want to know what happens.

I may have liked The Fire a smidge better than The Eight. The plot didn’t seem quite so convoluted. And there was much less celebrity historical figure name dropping. Just Lord Byron and Shelly. It was a fast read and I doubt anyone would mistake as high literature, but I don’t read to be reading high literature. I read for entertainment and I enjoyed it.

Still wish I knew a bit about chess, though.

Sleep No More by Greg Iles.
Page turner, which is what I’ve said every time, bar none, about Greg Iles’ books. This one was a bit of departure, in that the supernatural had more of a role in it than anything else I’ve read by him. The plot is so fantastical that if I tried to explain it, you’d shrug, roll your eyes, and never read it, which may or may not be a mistake. I liked it. It was creepy and full of tension – a compelling story. In coming up with the idea, the author must have said, “What if.. this and then what if that...and then what if...” and on and on and on.

Favorite Book: The Shipping News

Character Who I'd Most Like to Have a Drink With: I don't know. Possibly one of the old salts from The Shipping News.