July 4, 2006

Virtual Book Club #6

Our summer is over in six weeks, and I haven’t provided you with any summer reading recommendations. Let me remedy that as quickly as possible! For those of you who want to look at our previous book club meetings, click here and you can read the 5th meeting. That column provides links to the previous meetings as well. Don’t forget to read the comments! Readers have given me some fabulous titles.

In fact, one author I kept hearing about ad nauseum from many of you was Jodi Picoult. I decided that not all of you could be wrong, so I went to the bookstore and stood in front of the shelf containing her many books and read one jacket after the other. It was immediately apparent that no matter which one I picked, I wasn’t going to be in for a light read, because Picoult tackles hard, up-to-date subjects.

I chose The Pact. I’m snobby about books, and the packaging of this one was downright embarrassing. Across the top the cover blared: “The Basis for the Lifetime Original Movie.” That was a definite minus, not a plus, for me. A boy and a girl were shown sitting on a wall, from the back, and beside them in ooey-gooey cursive was written “a love story.”

Readers, the fact that I bought the book at all is a testament to my devotion to you and trust in your opinions. Let me say– I could not put the book down. It involves teenage lovers, a shooting, and a trial, and it was well-written and fast-paced. I did think the premise of the couple’s longtime devotion was a bit unbelievable, but it was well-worth suspending that disbelief to enjoy the story. Those of you with teenagers may wish to choose another of her books, which is sure to tackle an equally disturbing topic.

Last summer I read a lot about the Mormons, and you can read about those books in previous book club posts. Now I’ve moved on to the Jews. Chaim Potok’s The Chosen is a story of two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940’s. Anyone who is not Jewish would think that they are both pretty hardcore Jews, but in fact one is Hasidic and one is Orthodox and the differences in their beliefs and cultures is discussed, but not in a way that is hard to digest. The focus of the book is the boys’ friendship and their relationships with their respective fathers.

It is a lovely story even if you put the religion aside. However, I learned a great deal about Jewish customs, although I did not ever find out if there is a certain tool, like a curling iron or something, that is used to make the curly earlocks worn by some Jewish men.

For those with a hankering for some historical fiction, Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders tells the story of the way the plague affected a small English village in 1666. The town chooses to quarantine itself to prevent the plague from spreading, and the novel explores the way the villagers react when faced with harsh circumstances. The book has everything– grisly deaths, moral lessons and a little romance. To be about such an unpleasant subject it was an entertaining read.

The Civil War is huge where I live, but I’ve never gotten into it too much, frankly. I know that Atlanta burned and that Robert E. Lee was the big guy for the South, but I’ve never been one to wallow in war stories about any war. In an attempt to gain a little understanding about war, I read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. The novel won a Pulitzer Prize and according to General Norman Schwarzkopf, it is “The best and most realistic historical novel about war I have ever read.”

I was underwhelmed. I had trouble keeping up with all the characters, and the main thing I learned is that these soldiers spent a lot of time sitting around waiting for things to happen. I always thought soldiers would get on opposite sides of a battlefield and start shooting, but apparently they line up and sit around and look at each other through binoculars and think about their choices and see who’s tired and who’s low on potatoes.

Don’t let me keep you from reading the book, however. Other people have raved about it, so maybe I’m just not the target audience.

Those books aren’t MINDLESS BEACH READS and I know you need some. I don’t read that many detective novels, because in general I find that they are poorly written and I get so frustrated by the split infinitives and hokey dialogue that I completely lose interest in the dead body.

Michael Connelly is a notable exception. He’s a good writer with exciting plots. I particularly like the The Harry Bosch Novels. If you’re Type A like I am, you should read them in the order they were written because there’s enough of a back story that you’ll get excited when there’s a reference to something that happened earlier in another book. Then again, it’s not that big a deal. If there’s only one book left at the library, grab it and enjoy it. He also writes thrillers with other characters that are good.

Next up on my reading list are a couple of books from the New York Times Book Review’s List of the Best Fiction of the Last 25 Years: Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. I’ve also got True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne for no good reason other than it caught my eye.

Happy reading, and let me know what you’re enjoying, or not!