What am I Reading Now?

Check out my new blog - What's Sarah Reading Now?

Update and New Blog

What's Sarah Reading is being replaced by a new blog, What's Sarah Reading Now?, with all new, original book reviews for 2010.

In Addition

I read other things besides books. Every day I read The Ithaca Journal, The New York Times, The Utica Observer Dispatch and the Herkimer Evening Telegram. I also subscribe to many magazines – Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Every Day Food, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Allure, Real Simple, British Country Living, Olive (a British cooking magazine), and Red (a British women’s magazine similar to Vogue). I am also addicted to British tabloids and read at least 2 or 3 a day online.

Since I promised to write reviews of only items our library system owned during this past year, I didn’t include reviews of two books I read in addition. One was the fascinating book, Among the Thugs by Bill Buford which details soccer hooligans in England during the 1980s before I went on a trip to Manchester, UK. It also happens to have in my opinion one of the best book covers ever. I also read the British mystery Strange Blood by Lindsay Ashford during my trip, which is coming out now in the US. I also read The Pickup, our Community Read book for 2007 5 times but thought it would be boring to readers to include reviews each time I read it.

It was hard yet rewarding work to read 100 novels this past year. My favorites included The Exception by Christian Jungersen, Consequences by Penelope Lively, My French Whore by Gene Wilder, and In the Woods by Tana French. I can’t wait to see what 2008 has in store for my reading!

100. The Exception by Christian Jungersen

Office politics run amok in this brilliant novel by Danish author Jungersen. Iben and Malene have been best friends for years, and also happen to work together in the Danish Center for Information on Genocide. The two women are also friendly with their office secretary, Camilla, but none of the three women get along with the Center’s librarian, emotional and paranoid Anne-Lise. When Iben and Malene receive death threats by email that have distinctive Nazi overtones to them, the Center thinks that Serbian war criminal Mirko Zigic could be behind them. However, as the women question each other and work more closely together in an emotionally heated environment, the women slowly begin to believe Anne-Lise sent the threats. Tensions quickly escalate and soon the women who study and report on the world’s most evil crimes turn into paranoid, plotting bullies who will stop at nothing to find out who the email sender is.

What impressed me the most about this ambitious novel is the depth of research that Jungersen put into this novel about genocide. From the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, to the killings in Bosnia and the rampant genocide in Africa, facts are interspersed throughout the novel. This is a complex novel that uses tension and growing paranoia to show how easy it is for everyday people to commit acts of evil. A best-seller in Europe, I hope more people find out about this fantastic novel.

99. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Llewelyn Moss is out hunting antelope one morning when he stumbles across a drug deal gone bad. Several men are dead, and there is a stash of heroin and more than 2 million dollars in cash. Although he realizes that he will be hunted down if he takes the money, the temptation is too great for Llewelyn. Soon, a drug cartel hires an ex-Special Forces agent, Wells, to track him down, and the psychotic killer Anton Chigurh gets involved in the hunt. An aging sheriff, Sheriff Bell, may be Llewelyn’s only hope for survival in the bloody chase.

A true modern-day Western, this cat and mouse hunt is full of danger and is powerfully written. McCarthy’s dialogue is stripped down to a minimum and is extremely effective at building tension. I listened to it on audio and loved the narration by Tom Stechschulte, who also gave the excellent narration for McCarthy’s The Road.

98. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

The past and the present collide in this beautiful novel by Norwegian author Petterson. 67-year-old Trond Sander is living in self-imposed exile in a small, rustic cabin near the Swedish border. After his wife and sister died three years ago, he has yearned for silence and solitude. When he meets his only nearby neighbor, he slowly realizes that he knew Lars from his boyhood summers spent in the area. Lars was the brother of Trond’s best friend during the summer of 1948 – a summer that changed many lives in that wooded area. Lars accidentally shot his twin brother to death when his brother Jon left his loaded gun out within reach. It was also during this fateful summer that Trond’s father abandons his family and ends up leaving with Jon’s mother after the death of her son.

Named a New York Times Notable Book of Fiction, this is a haunting look at childhood memories. Petterson gives excellent descriptions of Norway’s forest areas and of the summers and winters in that country. A novel of isolation, loss, and abandonment, it is a truly stunning work of fiction that deserves to be read.

97. The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky by Ken Dornstein

On December 21, 1998, the author’s brother, David Dornstein, was killed during the Pan Am Flight 103 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland. A college sophomore home for winter break during the time, Ken copes with his brother’s death by denial for years. It is only with gradually accepting his death that he begins to feel ready to tell David’s story and carry on his writing dreams. David was only 25 when he died, and was an impassioned aspiring writer. He left behind many journals and letters, which Dornstein uses in his memoir to show readers what his brother was like.

Although dealing with a horrible tragedy, this book is also a sensitive look at the life of David Dornstein. By his own brother’s account, David was a difficult, conflicted person who may have struggled with mental illness. He also had been molested as a child and often felt despondent over his inability to become a famous writer. Dornstein visits the crash site in Lockerbie, and strangely enough, ends up marrying David’s old girlfriend and has a child with her. Full of excellent facts about the bombing and its aftermath, this is a beautiful and graceful look at bereavement.

96. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Richard Papen arrives at Hampden College in Vermont ready to reinvent himself. He is quickly drawn into a group of five eccentric students who are studying Greek with the influential Julian Morrow. Julian urges his students to become completely immersed in their Classics studies, and when the students take up his offer and take part in a wild bacchanalian frenzy and end up killing a local farmer, the group dynamics change. One of the group members can’t stop talking about the death, and the group must decide how far they will go to keep their secret safe.

As I wrote in my blog introduction, this book is one of my favorite books and one that I read every year. I love the small campus and Vermont setting, and the autumn atmosphere that the novel starts out in. Part gothic, part psychological thriller, it is a disturbing look at group dynamics and how far ordinary people will go to keep a secret.

95. First Aid by Janet Davey

Single mother Jo has decided to leave her abusive boyfriend and go back to her family's house in London. While on the train, with all of their belonging packed in plastic bags, Jo’s teenage daughter Ella jumps off the train and disappears. Instead of looking for her, Jo continues her journey on with her two other children, and lies to her grandparents and tells them Ella is staying with her father. In reality, Ella is wandering around Brighton by herself, squatting in an antique store that her mother works in and trying to connect with her father and his new family.

Told in alternate chapters with Jo and Ella narrating and telling their side of the story, this quiet novel focuses on domestic violence and a family trying to pull itself together after a heartbreaking divorce. It also focuses on the reality of failed relationships, including mother and daughter relationships. Ella is a very realistic teen suffering from living with a clinically depressed mother and who has seen her normal family life disappear. For readers of Penelope Lively and Maggie O’Farrell.

94. Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Tallis family is gathering on a warm summer day in 1935 to have a dinner party celebrating the return of their son, Leon, for a family visit. When 13-year-old Briony opens a letter meant for her sister from a family friend, her overactive imagination causes a catastrophic chain of events that evening. Soon Robbie, the childhood friend and the son of the Tallis’s housemaid, is accused of raping a cousin who happens to be staying at the estate. Cecilia, Briony’s sister, cannot believe that he could have raped anyone, and leaves her family to become a nurse in London.

The second part of the book focuses on the British retreat to Dunkirk, with Robbie in the British army after his release from prison. Cecilia’s love and her letters keeps Robbie trying to survive, with the hope that he will make it back to England to meet her again. Meanwhile, Briony is a nurse herself, and decided that after five years of living with guilt, she must atone for her actions on that fateful day in 1935. Now a movie, this is a sweeping book that looks at innocence, desire, and guilt. In 2006, some readers questioned McEwan’s historical details of wartime nursing, which seemed similar to the writings of romance writer Lucilla Andrews. Check out this link for more information: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-2473382,00.html

93. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

The cover of this cute, quirky autobiographical book sums it up: “I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. This is my story.” Rosenthal is a writer who at one time wrote for Might magazine and has contributed to NPR. She reflects back on her life, from small details of her favorite childhood foods, to what it has taken to get her latest book published. Her family is written about heavily, along with childhood memories.

Full of short entries arranged alphabetically from A – Z, readers can jump into Amy’s life at any point. Entries are also cross-referenced and there are many illustrations and charts throughout. Rosenthal originally got the idea for this book because she liked the arrangement of a book called The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. I remember reading an article she wrote in the magazine Real Simple, so I decided to check this book out. Fun and different, it truly is full of small accounts from an ordinary woman’s life. For fans of Dave Eggers and David Sedaris.

92. The Night Climbers by Ivo Stourton

Arriving at Tudor College, Cambridge, James Walker feels that he doesn’t fit in with the rest of the college students. He spends most of his time in his room, alone, until one night someone knocks on his window and wants to be let in. The college student outside is Michael and he is part of a secretive group at Cambridge called the Night Climbers. The Climbers are a small circle of wealthy students who climb college towers and gargoyles during the night for thrills. James soon becomes part of the Night Climbers and starts traveling in their luxurious circles. When the group’s leader, Francis, is cut off from his wealthy father, Francis makes the group commit a crime to obtain money so he can keep his wealthy lifestyle. This crime and its aftermath continues to haunt the group years after they commit it.

It is hard to believe from the excellent plotting and writing style that this is a debut novel from Stourton. This will inevitably be compared to Donna Tartt’s first novel, which I did find similar in that they both deal with a small group of wealthy college students caught up in a crime. With lots of adventure, elegant writing, and a complex plot, this is a terrific first novelist to watch.

91. The Best American Short Stories 2007 by Stephen King

As a huge fan of short stories, I always anticipate the new addition to this wonderful series. I am not however a fan of Stephen King, so I was a little leery about his selections. On a whole, they are very strong, emotionally powerful stories. Writers such as T.C. Boyle, Mary Gordon, Richard Russo, and Alice Munro are included in this year’s edition. King writes a funny introduction about going to a big bookstore to find literary magazines and how they are always on the bottom shelf of the magazine racks, which is absolutely true.

For this anthology, King chose 20 short stories that were originally published between January 2006 and January 2007 in an American or Canadian periodical. All writers have to be either American or Canadian also, or writers who have made the US their home. For me, the strongest stories were T.C. Boyle’s “Balto” about a young girl who is dealing with the aftermath of a car accident due to her alcoholic father and the mesmerizing “Dimension” by Alice Munro about a battered woman visiting her husband who has killed their children in prison.

90. Be Near Me by Andrew O'Hagan

David Anderton is a Catholic priest who although Scottish born, was educated at Oxford and is now viewed as more English than Scottish to his parishioners. With his mother aging, he requests a transfer to a Scottish parish and ends up in rural Dalgarnock. There he is seen as being different than the other priests they have had, and he freely admits that he enjoys the finer things in life such as wine and good food. He also befriends two young troublemakers, Mark and Lisa, who steal, drink, and do drugs. After a night of drinking and taking drugs with Mark, Father David leans over and kisses Mark, who then turns the priest in to authorities. As the town and the Catholic Church turns against David, he must decide if he should admit to falling in love with the young boy or retire and let the Church handle the matter in court.

Although this deals with a priest kissing a teenage boy, this is not a book about pedophile priests. Instead, it is about a man who must struggle with his religion and his desires as a man. Full of beautiful language and descriptions of the small Protestant town angry with their Catholic priest, this is a surprising sleeper of a book. It also deals with current issues such as how the British view their involvement in the Iraq War, and what it means to be Scottish or English these days. O’Hagan ultimately writes about a person’s desire to love and be loved, whether it be physically or in a religious sense.

89. Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark

A patient arrives at the office of Hildegard Wolff, a German psychoanalyst who lives and practices in Paris. He claims to be the missing Lord Lucan, who caused a scandal in Britain in 1974 when he killed his children’s nanny and attempted to kill his wife. The only problem is that Dr. Wolff already has a patient claiming to be the missing Lord Lucan. Wolff herself is running from a previous life – she used to be Beate Pappenheim, the famous stigmatic from Munich. She used her menstrual blood to fake the stigmata and had to flee when she was exposed as a fake. Which of her patients is the real Lord Lucan?

Written when Spark was 82, this novel was based on the real Lord Lucan case that filled British tabloids for years. Many assumed that Lucan was still alive and was aided by aristocratic friends who helped him hide around the world and supplied him with money and avenues for plastic surgery. He was declared legally dead in 1999, and much was written about the case again. Not as good as some of her other works, this novel is unpredictable, at times funny, and at times absurd. I listened to it on audiobook and enjoyed the narration of it quite a bit.

88. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Edna Pontellier seems to have an idyllic life. She is the wife of a successful New Orleans businessman and is raising her two sons in a comfortable, carefree lifestyle. While on vacation to Grand Isle, Louisiana, Edna meets Robert Lebrun, a young bachelor who she soon falls in love with. Back in New Orleans, she feels she can not go on with her life as it has been, and moves out of her husband’s home and into a small cottage. When Robert Lebrun returns to Edna, it does not go as well as she hoped, and he does not understand her need for freedom.

Published in 1899, this short novel by Chopin was dismissed by critics, especially because of the sexual affairs that Edna has throughout the story. Rediscovered in the 1970’s, it is now thought of as one of the first feminist pieces of fiction and is a classic. In addition to women’s issues, the novel also explores race, class distinctions, and rich versus poor in the terrific New Orleans setting.

87. Don't I Know You by Karen Shepard

Set in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1976, this mystery follows what happens when 12-year-old Steven Engel finds his mother stabbed to death in their apartment. Coming home from being with friends, Steven catches a glimpse of a man leaving their apartment through a window after murdering his mother, Gina Engel. The first section of the book is young Steven’s reaction to the murder, especially since now he has to make the decision if he should live with his father, who has not been in his life much. The second section of the book focuses on schoolteacher Lily Chin, who is engaged to be married to a rich Russian man. When a woman shows up and tells Lily that Nickolai may have been involved with Gina Engel, and he has Gina’s missing journal hidden, Lily is drawn into the mystery. The third section of the book tells the story of Louise Carpanetti, who received a phone call from the dying Gina. Dying of cancer, she is worried that her 55-year-old son, Michael, may have had something to do with the murder of Gina years ago.

Having the story told in the three different parts is very effective and pulls readers into the mystery surround Gina’s death. It is also realistic in the way that her death is never solved. The Manhattan setting in the 1970’s adds to the development of the story, and the second section is set a year later, with the final section takes place over ten years after the crime. While it may not be clear at first how everyone is connected to the story, everything fits nicely together by the end of this psychological thriller from Shepard.

86. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome lives in Starkfield, Massachusetts, a bleak town in Western New England. Ethan himself is bleak and unapproachable and lives in a loveless marriage taking care of his sick wife. When his wife’s cousin, the young and beautiful Mattie comes to take care of sick Zeena, Ethan’s life changes. Life suddenly seems more fun and hopeful, until a tragic accident and a desperate decision changes the lives of all three family members.

In her autobiography, Wharton wrote that before she wrote Ethan Frome, she had wanted to explore what life was like in the villages of New England. To her “the snow-bound villages of Western Massachusetts were grim places, morally and physically: insanity, incest and slow mental and moral starvation were hidden away behind the paintless wooden house fronts of the long village streets.” Wharton is one of my favorite female writers and I have read Ethan Frome many times. I am always drawn to the great descriptions of the time period and the bleak New England winter. In my opinion, it is one of the most tragic love stories gone wrong.

85. No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

Imagine waking up one morning and discovering your family has disappeared without a trace. That is exactly what happened to 14-year-old Cynthia Bigge when she wakes up to go to school one morning and finds her mother, father, and brother missing. Twenty-five years later, and now married and a mother herself, Cynthia has always wondered what happened to her family. She turns to the television show Deadline and agrees to do a reenactment of the disappearance, hoping someone will contact her with information. When her family starts receiving mysterious phone calls, emails, and apparent break-ins, Cynthia begins to believe her father is still alive. Or is Cynthia herself manipulating the mysterious clues?

Short chapters and lots of mystery and tension propel this thriller along. The twist that Cynthia could be imagining all of this or sending herself clues adds to the drama. While a tad over the top, this is a great, quick, mindless read for those looking for a thrilling suspense book. Barclay is a perfect author for those who like Harlan Coben and James Siegel books.

84. The Barracks by John McGahern

Marrying a widower with three young children was not what Elizabeth Reegan thought she would do with her life. Working as a nurse in London after World War II, she thought she would live her life alone and without love. After marrying her husband, she moves to Ireland to live with her new family in the 1950’s. A frustrated policeman, her husband wants to turn to peat farming and seems emotionally removed from not only Elizabeth, but also his three children. When Elizabeth learns that she has breast cancer, the family’s life changes forever.

Although usually very reserved in her life, Elizabeth confronts her impending death with bravery and determination. Beautifully written, this novel originally written by Irish author McGahern in 1963 just had a U.S. publication a few years ago. The bleakness of the Irish bogs and the hard life of the Reegan family shortly after the War adds to the melancholy of the novel, as does Elizabeth’s lack of bonding with her stepchildren. Her death scene is one of the most strongly written ones I have read in awhile and was extremely effective and emotional. Author McGahern died in 2006 and was known for his detached writing style depicting rural Irish life.

83. Every Secret Thing by Ann Tatlock

Prep school Seaton Hall has always been a special place for Beth Gunnar. She was a student there thirty years ago and jumped at the chance to teach at Seaton when an English teaching position opened. While she was a student at Seaton, her favorite English teacher, Theodore Dutton, mysteriously disappeared from the campus. Beth was part of a group that hung out with Mr. Dutton, and the students all saw him collapsed in his cabin after slitting his wrists. However, the school insisted that he had a heart attack and had to leave campus. Back at Seaton as an adult, the mystery of what happened to her favorite teacher continues to haunt Beth.

I kept waiting for some mystery or thickening plot to occur, but it never materialized in this novel. It could have been a great story, and reviews have likened it to one of my favorite books, The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I had no idea that this was a Christian fiction book either until religious references popped up toward the end. This could have been a better book, but it wasn’t entirely bad. Women readers might connect to Beth’s growing attachment to fellow student Satchell Queen, and her failed attempt at romance with an old fellow student.

82. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

When sex education teacher Ruth Ramsay tells her high school class that some people enjoy oral sex, a local church called the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth launches a campaign against her teaching style. Stonewood Heights school district soon begins teaching an abstinence curriculum, much to the dismay of liberal minded Ruth. Her interactions with the church reach a boiling point when she catches her daughter’s soccer coach praying with the soccer team after a winning game. Tim Mason is a former drug addict and musician, and has turned his life over to the Tabernacle church. Although he admits guilt in leading the team in prayer, Tim begins to doubt his newly religious life, especially when he begins to talk to Ruth.

Perrotta is one of my favorite authors and I love his writing because of his use of humor and realistic characters. Tim’s struggle with trying to lead a better, more holy life is real and the role of rising Christian fundamentalism is very topical. Ruth struggles with her feelings for Tim, even though his religious beliefs clash strongly with her beliefs. This is a great, humorous look at attraction, religion, politics, and life in general.

81. Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson

Billy Tyler is a low level police officer who has never wanted to advance his career. He leads a simple life with his wife Sue and their daughter, Emma, who has Down syndrome. When a famous murderer dies in prison, one that has gripped England for over thirty years, Billy is assigned the role of a lifetime. For twelve hours, he must guard the woman’s body before it is taken in the morning to the crematorium. During those twelve long hours, Billy reflects on his life, his marriage, his complicated role as a father to a special needs child, the murderer he is watching, and what constitutes evil.

Thomson based his character on the real life child killer Myra Hindley, who in the 1960’s terrorized England with a series of murders (known as the Moors murders) with her partner. There are some supernatural elements to the book, especially when the ghost of Myra visits with Billy towards the end of his shift, but it does not distract from the novel. More of a reflection on Billy and a marriage growing tired, it explores love, family, and how the choices people make over their lives influence their future.

80. Damage by Josephine Hart

Told by a nameless narrator, Hart’s debut novel from 1991 is a strong, haunting tale of obsessive love. The narrator is a 50-year old physician and member of Parliament who leads a quiet life with his wife Ingrid and their two children. When his son Martyn introduces him to his new girlfriend, Anna Barton, the chemistry is immediate. Knowing that this will ruin his family and career, he is overcome with desire for Anna and risks everything by having an affair with her. Anna has damaged men in the past – including having an incestuous relationship with her brother, Aston, who ended up killing himself. When the family finds out about the affair, many lives end up damaged beyond repair.

This novel spent many weeks on the bestseller charts and was also made into a movie. Hart’s spare, short chapters effectively show the narrator’s obsession and torment, including his detachment from right and wrong. Anna’s family secrets and her role in the horrible ending of Martyn’s family add to the tragedy. Hart went on to write other novels, including Sin and Oblivion.

79. The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz

Waking up in the hospital, crime writer Drew Danner has no idea what has happened to him. When police inform him that he was found having a grand mal seizure over the body of his now-dead ex-fiancé, and that he had her blood on his hands and the murder weapon, Drew has no memory of that night. He is soon tried for Genevieve’s murder, but is found not guilty due to temporary insanity. Once home, Drew tries to find out who the real killer is, and when mysterious break-ins occur and people start following him, Drew is in a race to prove his innocence.

Set in the twisty streets of Mulholland Drive, this mystery starts out with a great concept that soon grows convoluted. Drew is a sympathetic character, and the idea of Drew being set up and the real killer out to get him works well to build tension. The shallow L.A. lifestyle description brings humor to this thriller as well, but the far fetched ending is a little over the top. For readers of Harlan Coben and Peter Abrahams.