Catching Up...

 We have been away in Australia from early-January until the second half of February and during that time--although I have done a lot of reading--I have not made notes on the books and how I felt about them. I have even had to do a bit of research to get some of the titles right before sitting down to do the blog. In fact, I thought I could cut and paste a few succinct sentences from reviews and save myself the trouble of summarizing  and composing my own reviews, but this proved an unrewarding way to proceed.

Let's start with a book I can thoroughly recommend.  Hilary Mantel, of Wolf Hall fame, recently published a book of very compelling short stories, with the title "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher," and that is one of the best in the collection. The review in the New York Times was very extensive and praiseworthy, but had nothing directly apposite that I could lazily quote, so I will have to content myself with:

"Over the past decade or two, Mantel has made a name for herself — no other way to put it — as one of the indispensable writers of fiction in English...Likewise, Mantel has assumed an esteemed place in what might be called a great tradition of modern British female storytelling, an ardor-filled, bluestocking lineage..." And the reviewer goes on to a long list starting with Virginia Woolf, wandering through name after name, and ending with Ali Smith.

Another book I recommend is Jess Walter's "The Financial Lives of the Poets." The narrator is Matt, who has lost his job as a journalist, tried without success to start a blog combining poetry and financial advice, is losing his house to the finance company, concerned his wife is having an affair--and unsure of where to go until, after a chance encounter late at night at a Seven Eleven, he meets a number of kids who lead him into a drug scene and he decides to rescue his financial situation by becoming a drug dealer...

And the story is very funny, very well written, off-beat in an engaging way, and certainly worth reading. And here I will crib from a review:

  "The Financial Lives of the Poets” is less memorable for its title than for the success with which it captures fiscal panic and frustration. Matt ambles though this book delivering blistering wisecracks about the factors that contributed to his family’s fall. Mixing financial advice with poetry is a terrible idea. But combining the elements of tragedy with a sitcom sensibility is a good one. And it’s what Jess Walter continues to do best."

I have to admit that I had never heard of Ivan Doig, who apparently wrote a series of well-received novels, mostly set in Montana and the West. Joan stumbled on a review of "Last Bus to Wisdom," and I down-loaded it from the Library, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here is an excerpt from a praiseworthy review, and the first paragraph is relevant as Doig died recently:  "Circumstance led me to approach “Last Bus” with trepidation. If a recently mourned author’s final book is bad, there’s no use pretending it’s not. But spitting on a fresh-sodded grave isn’t my idea of a good time. Fortunately, “Last Bus to Wisdom” is more than not bad. It’s one of Doig’s best novels, an enchanting 1950s road-trip tale that swaps Kerouac’s Sal Paradise for a plucky 11-year-old named Donal ­Cameron. Donal, raised by his grandmother on a Montana ranch, finds himself packed off to relatives in Manitowoc, Wis., when Gram takes ill. The boy sets out the old-fashioned way: “And here I was,” he recalls, “stepping up into what I thought of as the real bus, with GREYHOUND — THE FLEET WAY TO TRAVEL in red letters on its side and, to prove it, the silver streamlined dog of the breed emblematically running flat-out as if it couldn’t wait to get there.”

Problems arise in Manitowoc, and another bus journey begins....and as a reader you will follow both journeys--and the stops in various places--with great pleasure.

If you want a biography, try Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, which I read with fascination and a deal of skipping; the book is very long. It not only deals with the career of a very peculiar (repellent almost) but enormously successful individual, but it is also a historical trip through the development of the whole range of electronic devices we all use today.

Lastly, I was introduced to another writer that I had not heard of--Colum McCaan, who has written several novels and garnished great praise. And my acquaintance with him makes it clear that he is a terrific writer. His latest book is called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel" and it has been well reviewed. When I tried to find it in the library, it was unavailable and I picked up another of his novels, set in New York in the 1970's, called "Let The Great World Spin" It introduces a large cast of characters, from a monk living in poverty and letting whores use his bathroom to the tight-rope walker 

Petit, who sets up his wire between the Twin Towers and spends half an hour performing while the crowds below hold their collective breath.

I am in two minds what to say about this book, because I gave up half way through when we shifted to the vernacular of a black prostitute describing how her daughter had grown up and started turning tricks.

But the later book, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel," was very well reviewed, and I am still trying to find it at the Library.

I have started Mary Gaitskill's "The Mare," and so far I have been impressed by it; but unfortunately my fascination with Jobs meant that the Gaitskill book was retrieved by the Library before I had got more than half-way through. So I am now number seven in a "Holds" queue to get it back and continue reading.