Completed: Shadow Tag

Kelly,

As you know, I consider Louise Erdrich to be one of my favorite authors. Despite her recent (and infuriating) foray into quotation-mark-less prose, I still love her work. It's sharp and insightful, but also heartfelt and warm. She manages to perfectly understand and describe the human condition.

This is a short book, one that tells the story of a marriage on the rocks. Gil is a well known artist, but he's most well known for the long series of paintings he's completed over many years of his wife, Irene. Gil and Irene have three kids, and this portrait of their broken marriage is strangely compelling with just the right hint of emotional distance. The narration is split between Gil, Irene, and the kids. In this way, there's no one character pulling us too deeply into the narrative. Their motives are sometimes crystal clear, and other times veiled in levels of obscurity. It's an interesting trick, and so different from her earlier novels, that I found myself wondering what was going on.

One of the things that's interesting about having a beloved author is that you have a tendency to see their style grow and change, but there's also those authors that get stuck in a rut. Every single one of Erdrich's previous novels have been generational family sagas of Ojibwa Indians, almost always with strong ties to the reservation. I enjoyed those stories, I loved them! But this book and her most recent, The Round House, have been very different. The focus is on a single family in a single generation, and The Round House has a single narrator rather than many. In this case, the tight focus on Gil and Irene makes for a claustrophobic and intense read: these are unhappy and troubled people, and being privy to their split is wrenching.


I did like this book, though. One thing that I was struggling with was that the characters felt emotionally distant in a weird way, or maybe I should say weird for Erdrich. Of course, there was the annoying lack of quotation marks. But even more than that, it just felt like I wasn't quite in their heads the way I was with previous characters. Lo and behold, it turns out that the story is being written by their daughter many years later. Of course, this conveniently explains the lack of quotation marks because the daughter is remembering or imagining what they might have said to each other. But is also explains the distance, in some ways the daughter is unable to imagine what her parents must have been thinking. She's guessing, hoping, or assuming.

All in all, this was a satisfying read. I left the book at home, but I might go back and add some to this later. There were lots of lines I marked to share with you!

Jenny

Completed: Grand River and Joy

Dear Jenny,

I finished this book back in April and I'm finally getting around to writing about it. Ugh! It's kind of been swirling around in my head now with all of the other books about Detroit I have been reading this year, I must admit. But let's see if I can pick my brain and recall what we had here...

The book begins in 1967 in Detroit, so you know early on that we're going to hit on the riots before it's over. The central characters are a Jewish man, Harry, who lives in Detroit with his family and owns a shoe distributor (located at Grand River and Joy -- hence, the book title) and a black man, Curtis, who works for him and rents the apartment upstairs from the shoe warehouse with his son. This book did a nice job of juxtaposing the development of the personal relationships between the two men against the racial tensions going on in the city of Detroit at large.

The story itself isn't that original -- Harry's family facing the topic addressed by Harry's wife's Women's Club: "Detroit's Changing Neighborhoods: Stay or Go?" (Ugh. This is a Kindle book that doesn't have page numbers -- I'll use "Location numbers" for references in this write up...) [593] But it's handled pretty well and there is growth and discovery on both sides of the fence (in the end, of course, Harry's family "goes" -- not really a spoiler there. It's all in the history books.) Of course, Curtis has his own struggles as he tries to survive in Detroit while his son is toying with joining the Black Panthers.

Random Quotes

In writing this up, I looked at the book again and found that I had highlighted a lot of text -- way more than I usually do. I really enjoyed the actual writing in this book. So let's take a journey through my notes here...

This line made me smile -- I'm not sure if it was intended to be "funny," but it struck me:

Harry remembered what Ruth, his wife, said: that the word Jew, by itself could sound ugly, spit out. It was better when softened with the ish ending, as in short-ish or small-ish, suggesting not exactly short or small but somewhat. [98]

When someone has spray painted an anti-Semitic comment on Harry's business, he hears two cops talking. I thought this passage was really poignant:

This string of words that they were using with each other, "women," "tenant," "teenager," was getting to Harry -- as if one word was all you needed to know, as if it telegraphed everything, funneled whole populations down to a label, like the label on the window, like the y in boy with its narrow throat in which a whole huge history of meanings and individual variations could disappear. Women: foolish. Tenants: losers. Teenagers: delinquents. [314]

This sentence succinctly sums up that time of "Stay or Go?":

No one wanted to be the last to go, but it was also hard to be the first. [542]

The author reflects on the evolution of moving days -- from excitement about new neighbors to trepidation over neighbors moving. I thought some of this writing was really evocative (and echoes the stories I've heard from locals in the same situation...):

In those days, a moving van was not a welcome sight. Not the kind of event, like once upon a time, that brought the children running, to sit near the curb and watch the strong men carry refrigerators, bureaus and beds...[2886]

(Although, I must say this bit might have been a tad overwritten, as we have this passage shortly thereafter...)

In the old days, when a moving van pulled up, it was like a holiday, like the circus coming to town. It could have been prancing ponies with feather crowns, descending from the ramps. Or a line of elephants, trunks swaying like some ungodly extensor hand. [2899]

Gotta love this observation of a picky eater at the dinner table:

Today, she had the peas to contend with. It was one disturbing pile of vegetables after another. [2994]

(Ha!)

This line applies to many people and their life's work:

All these years, he thought, the business has been good to him and his family. But now, he saw, it wasn't good for him." [3910]

Snapshot of the pre-internet world... as the riots rage on downtown, Harry and his family, just a few blocks away, rely on the television for coverage:

By now, they'd heard some sketchy news that the crowds and looters and fires had spread somewhere near the Riviera and the Grande.

 "We don't know for sure," he said when Ruth gave him a look. "No reason to talk about it." It was maddening that with all the news, none of it zeroed in on a the particular block of interest to him. [3435]

I'm not sure if that's much of a "review" (and I actually highlighted even more text than that!) but it gives you an idea -- there's a lot of great imagery in this book and I think the author does a nice job of capturing a specific point in time.

Detroit

Of course when reading books about where you live, it's fun to say "Hey -- I know that place!" There was a lot of that in this book. A few things that really stood out to me ...

Detroit Industry

As a kid, Harry witnesses Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as Rivera is painting Detroit Industry, an enormous mural at the DIA [3736]. Have you ever seen it? It's truly amazing. They have this really cool iPad app (and iPads to borrow while you're there) that gives you a complete tour of the mural. The thing is huge, so it's a really neat way to experience/learn about it while you're in there. (Or at home -- you can check it out here online or download the iPad app here. )

The Birwood Wall

Before reading this book, I had never heard of the Birwood Wall in Detroit, and it seems like a lot of Detroiters are unaware of it as well. In a nutshell, the FHA refused to fund housing that were near "certain" neighborhoods (read: black [and to a lesser extent, Jewish]) so a developer built a 1/2 mile long, 6 foot tall wall between the "black" neighborhoods and the newer "white" ones. The FHA then granted funding to the white developments on the "right" side of the wall. (Blech. Makes me sick to even write this...)

I've lived in both the North and the South and northerners really seem to pride themselves on not being segregated, but come on -- it's a damned *wall* dividing black and white neighborhoods. So fucked.

In related news, my procrastination in writing this post paid off, because when I first read this book and looked up the Birwood Wall, I didn't find too much (the most information found in this article from 2011). Lo and behold, on May 1, there was an article in HuffPo about this very topic. So weird, right?

Detroit: City on the Move

The mayor at the time of the riots was Jerome Cavenaugh and his mention in the book reminded me of this awesome video produced in 1965, when Detroit was bidding for the 1968 Olympics. The first two minutes are kind of boring (just the mayor, talking about the history of Detroit) but skip ahead to 2:06 and just watch for a few minutes (the whole thing is pretty long) -- the 60s production values, the music, the narration... it's pretty good stuff (especially considering Detroit today -- oh, the high hopes!)

In Conclusion

Well, I got sidetracked a lot there, reporting on all of my recently acquired Detroit knowledge (there's way more -- believe it or not, I'm trying to reign this in). I guess I am technically "from" here, but I don't feel that connection -- learning about this place feels all new to me (I left when I was 9, sooo...)

Back to the book! It was good. I don't think this write up gave it full justice, but I've talked enough. Some of the prose was a little long winded, but as "historical fiction" goes, it was a good story. As I said, not too surprising, but heartfelt. Of course, I think it would be a very different story as told from Curtis's viewpoint, but that's probably true of all stories, right?

Whew! I'm done!
love,
kelly

Completed: Cloud Atlas

Kelly,

Boy, you were right about this one. What a great book. I have your copy, and it's in good shape since I read this one on my Kindle (thank you, school library overdrive!).

I know it's been a while since you read this, so I'll briefly recap. The structure of this book is fairly amazing: 6 stories, organized like a set of nesting dolls. I read the first section and when it stopped in what felt like mid-sentence, I actually looked up the book on Wikipedia. I was sure that the Kindle version had somehow gone kablooey. It was then that I discovered what I thought would be a major spoiler, but turned out to be okay, which is that as the stories move through time, it is revealed that the current character is reading, watching, or experiencing the previous story in the chain.

Hmm. Hard to know how to talk about this book.

I guess I'll start off by saying that I definitely enjoyed some sections more than others. I don't think it's because of their gender, but I would say that my two favorite sections were those that focused on Louisa Rey and Somni. Although, if I remember correctly, you don't like Hawaii all that much, so maybe that's not too hard for you!).

One of the most impressive things about this novel, I think, was the control the author was able to maintain over the voice of each section. I almost felt a sense of whiplash at the beginning of each new section: who is this person? When is this? What in the hell is going on here? So often, a book contains multiple characters and points of view, and yet it all sounds exactly the same. I thought I would find the structure of the novel annoying, but instead I found myself enjoying the puzzle of the story and wondering how it would all come together in the end.

I'm fairly certain that this book would hold up incredibly well under repeated reading. As it is, I'm sure that I missed some salient details and plot points. And there must be tons of foreshadowing in each section, pointing to what's coming next.

At some point last year, they made a movie of the book! I've heard it's not too great (It's almost impossible for me to imagine how you could even make a movie out of this book!), but I'm still curious to see it. Have you seen the movie?

I feel like this review doesn't quite do the book justice, but it's so complex and layered. What a daunting task.

Jenny

Libraries!

Dear Jenny,

This post is basically a distraction from the fact that I haven't written about my April book. Or kept up-to-date with my TBP list. It'll happen. Just... in a bit.

Instead, look at these lovely photos of libraries from around the world, as seen on the Instagram blog last month (warning: clicking that link will take you down a rabbit hole of clicking to see more photos of beautiful libraries!)

The libraries pictured above are:

• Stuttgart City Library, Stuttgart, Germany 
• Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland 
• Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt 
• Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Rio de Janiero, Brazil 
• The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen, Denmark 
• George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 
• Kanazawa Umimirai Library, Kanazawa City, Japan 
• New York Public Library, New York City, NY

I have been using my own local library quite a bit recently (it's a nice walk from my house and it's got a really good selection) but I am remembering what I have had a problem with in the past with libraries: I end up getting out *too many* books when I go! I really have to remind myself to only get the books I can read in the next three weeks.

(Remember when we were kids and used to max out the library limit... I think it was 30! Ah... so much more free time for reading before we had bills to pay and chores to do...)

The other problem I have been having is that I have been trying out Overdrive by putting my name on waiting lists for books. But once my name comes up, I only have two weeks to read it! Which means that, when it's my turn, I need to suddenly re-arrange my reading queue to jam it in there. (Last week, I had two books come up, three days apart -- there's no way I was going to finish those, so I threw 'em back.)

So I've been having a bit of a "Lucy and the Chocolate Factory" time here with books recently (which may also explain my lack of writing on the blog! A-haaa!)

Oh... "Wah wah wah! Free books are haaaaard!" HA! It's not that! It's just been a bit of a learning curve to get back into the library swing of things. Basically, I don't read fast enough to polish off a book that comes in for me on Overdrive when I don't expect it, so I probably ought to just stay away from that service altogether (kind of a bummer, but not finishing books I've started is also a bummer!) *And* if I go to the library and see books I'm interested in, I just need to write them down for later. (So many books, so little time!)

One thing my library is particularly great for is craft books, cookbooks (I never even *thought* to get cookbooks at the library -- brilliant!), DIY books, and graphic novels. Basically, inspiration, reference, and/or quick-reading. This is the *best* library I've ever been to for these types of books (well, Berkeley had a great graphic novel section, but it was a little far for me -- I like an easily accessible library) so that's been great. As for novels... I just gotta remind myself not to bring home a big pile. (My back will thank me too...)

love,
kelly

PS -  I just watched that "I Love Lucy" video -- it's still funny and one thing I never noticed before was that the actor playing the supervisor is trying not to laugh when she comes back into the room to see how they're doing! Hilarious!

Completed: Await Your Reply

Kelly,

I picked up this book after The Making of the Atomic Bomb thinking it would be a pretty fast read and would get me back on track for May. How gratifying to be right!

My old neighbor Laura let me borrow this book. This confession leaves me feeling slightly guilty because it's been *years* since we moved. On the other hand, at this point in my life, pretty much any book I lend to people I assume I won't get back. If it's a book I want to keep, I simply won't let anyone borrow it. Let's hope Laura is operating on the same idea!

This is one of those novels I pretty much read cold, so not a whole lot of expectations going in...just hoping for a good read. I've gotta tell you, this book starts off with a doozy of a scene: a young man named Ryan is in a car, traveling to the hospital at top speed. His father is driving. Ryan's severed hand is in the ice chest on the back seat. Ryan and his father have gotten tangled up with some gangsters and one of them has chopped off Ryan's hand. Ew.

However, the next chapter switches to a new character, a young girl named Lucy who has just graduated from high school. She and her teacher have run away together, agreeing that the townspeople would never understand their love. Double Ew.

The next chapter introduces yet another main character, this one a man in his 30s named Miles. Miles lives a pretty sad, lonely life in Cleveland. His identical twin brother, Hayden, has been missing for at least ten years. Miles thinks he's on the trail of his brother and takes off for Northern Canada. (Finally, a plot line that doesn't gross me out!)

The book continues to alternate chapters of the three main sets of characters, following them on their misadventures. And I've got to tell you, there are some rather fabulous and far-fetched adventures. The writing was sharp and the whole thing was tightly plotted. I wouldn't say the characters are totally believable. Lucy, for example, is a total nitwit. She was annoying. Miles was determined but dull. Sad to say, this book suffered a bit from the Paradise Lost problem: the thieves, hooligans, and bad guys were definitely the most compelling characters. But it moved along at a good clip and I definitely enjoyed reading it.

Will you ever read this book? Can I spoil the hell out of it?

SPOILER ALERT

Something that becomes immediately pretty clear is the strong possibility, eventually a certainty that Miles is searching in the wrong place for Hayden, because obviously he's going by the name of George Orson and living in Nebraska with Lucy. I assumed for most of the book that Ryan's father Jay was simply an accomplice of George/Hayden. However, as the book ends, we understand that the three plots are not happening concurrently, and that Hayden was Jay first, and then took on the George persona. So, the whole thing definitely has a "what the fuck!" type of ending. I will admit that I didn't really see that coming; even after it was revealed, it took me a few minutes to put it all back together in my head and recognize the author's slights of hand.

I guess the thing that was sort of strange for me is that the novel's theme is clearly about the question of identity: is there any such thing? Can one slough off an old life at the drop of a hat? What kind of person leaves it all behind, and what kind of people are left behind after them? Honestly, it was sort of a head scratcher for me. I'm used to books about the theme of identity--I'm a middle school teacher! But this is about adult identity being as changeable as a pair of pants. I just kept finding myself thinking: do people really think like this? I mean, sure, I've had pleasant daydreams where I've imagined an alternate life. But to actually act it out? To just pick up and leave it all behind? I can sort of get the appeal for Ryan and Lucy, who are just starting out their lives. But it doesn't help to know, according to the narrative arc of his brother, that Hayden/George/Jay is a paranoid schizophrenic. Sure, you could up and leave your whole life behind and dedicate yourself to crime: IF YOU'RE CRAZY. It's sort of weird way to explore the notion of identity, and to be honest I'm not sure it works.

It was a good book. I liked it, But it just felt like one of those "in and out" reads. I'm not sure how much of this will stick with me.

Jenny

Completed: The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Kelly,

Terrifying photos of the Trinity test of the first nuclear bomb.

Whew. That was a big book. I'll try to organize myself, because otherwise it will be a totally random and scatter shot list of thoughts.

The Structure
The book is divided into three parts. The first part is all about the history of atomic science, going back all the way to the 1800s. One of the things I enjoyed about this first part was the personal histories of the many scientists involved in this story. This part of the book is like a who's who of physics. We learned all these names back in high school, such as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and this book explains who these dudes were and how they uncovered the mysteries of the atom. The second part tells the story of the massive endeavor of the Manhattan Project and the building of the first bombs. Again, lots of big personalities in both science and politics in this section. Also, it is shocking that the military was able to undertake a task of such magnitude in such a remarkably short period of time. This was the part of the book where it was interesting to read about the sheer scientific genius that was put to the making of the bomb. The last part describes the political atmosphere surrounding the use of the bomb and the impact on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Obviously, this was nothing short of horrifying. As you read the first sections, it's easy to be swept up in the "science for the sake of science" narrative. But then, it all turns as the author displays the completely terrifying consequences of the bomb.

The Science
 I think the biggest obstacle for me in reading this book was the meticulously detailed description of the science behind nuclear physics. The fact of the matter is, I spent a lot of this book "reading" long descriptions of scientific experiments and discoveries, but I'd say 90% of it went right over my head. I was talking to the science teacher in my office, and he pointed out that it's pretty hard to take in material like that if you're not responsible for it. He may be on to something. It's not like there's a burning necessity for me to really know all this stuff. So it was pretty easy to just skim right through a lot of the pure science and not worry too much about it.

However, there were times I stopped because it was pretty interesting. For example, the first nuclear reactor (although it wasn't called that at the time) was called Chicago Pile #1. It was built a block away from my husband's office on campus. The description of this experiment, where Enrico Fermi was calculating what he thought would happen with a freaking slide rule was pretty awesome. I mean, had he been wrong, the entire city of Chicago would probably be some sort of Chernobyl like exclusion zone!

I would say the most mesmerizing description in the book, for me, was the description of the Trinity tests of the first bomb out in the New Mexico desert. Even though I knew, obviously, that the test was successful, it's still strangely terrifying to read about it. Basically, they made the bomb and were pretty sure it would work, but they had NO IDEA of it's actual payload or explosive capacity. At one point, Rhodes explains how Enrico Fermi (him again!) devised a simple test with blowing paper to give an instantaneous, rough estimate of the actual strength of the bomb. The Trinity tests were completed on July 16, 1945. It was only weeks later that they dropped the bomb in Japan. The entire description of the pressure was intense and had me on the edge of my seat. It's skillful writing. Like the scientists, I found myself wondering if it would work and hoping it would. Of course, as soon as the test is successful, they must face the fact that they were now the creators of the most destructive weapon known to mankind.

The Politics
I'd say this was the biggest success of the book for me. Looking back now, it feels like the decision to drop the bomb was the most epic and awful decision ever made. How on Earth did the US justify using such a bomb? But the author does an excellent job of describing the American mindset at the close of World War II. Basically, the war in Europe was over but Japan was showing no signs of surrender. The Americans were demanding total surrender and Japan would not consider it. Furthermore, the Japanese military seemed frightening to Americans: how could so many Japanese choose death over surrender? At that time, a full scale invasion of the Japanese homeland was predicted to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. By using the bomb, Americans were hoping to force Japan to surrender without the human cost of a full-scale invasion. Let me rephrase: without Americans having to pay a human cost. The loss of life at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was catastrophic.

The Random Stuff
One of the things that I liked best about the book were the random digressions to explain background or backstory. I read quite a few Amazon reviews of the book where people mentioned their dislike of these tidbits. However, I found them pretty interesting. One of the most amazing stories in the book relates to a question that comes up in my class every year. We study the Holocaust & Anne Frank, and there's this one map that I show them that shows the number of Jewish victims by country. For example, three million of Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Poland. But on the map, the number for Denmark is *super low*, like 22 or something like that. And every year, they want to know why: why is the number so low? What happened? And I never knew the answer until reading this book! As it turns out, one of the most heroic figures in the entire narrative is the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Bohr was a Nobel Laureate and a well known figure in Denmark and he was able to use his considerable influence to protect many of the Jews in his country.

Another awesome tidbit: when the Nazis invaded Denmark, several Jewish scientists did not want their solid gold Nobel prize medals to fall into Nazi hands. Bohr came up with the idea of dissolving the medals in acid and storing the innocuous looking jars on a shelf. After the War was over, the Nobel Foundation recast the medals using the original gold.

pBook good, eBook bad!
I owned the pBook but once I was ready to read this, I realized an eBook was really the way to go. I mean, it's BIG, almost 800 pages of the narrative followed by 200 pages of footnotes, bibliography, and index. This morning, I read to the end of the book on my Kindle and thought that was that. However, I went to the pBook to look at the photographs in more detail, only to discover that the Kindle version of The Making of the Atomic Bomb does not contain the epilogue. Kelly, the epilogue is FORTY PAGES LONG! It's not just a throwaway. The book ends in August 1945 with the dropping of the two bombs on Japan and the immediate aftermath. The epilogue covers the reaction of the scientists, a brief overview of the politics behind the end of World War II, and a description of how nuclear weapons effected the Cold War. Now, the discrepency *could be* due to the fact that my pBook is a few years old, while the eBook is the new 25th anniversary edition. However, given the content in the epilogue, I have a hard time believing that it was completely omitted in the new version. This would be a real bummer for someone reading the book and having no way of knowing that the entire ending is missing. I emailed Amazon about it. I read the whole thing, so I don't want my money back, but you'd think they would want to know, right?


In Conclusion
Overall, this was a pretty amazing book. I can't say that I got it all, but I do remain amazed at the construction of the narrative. I would have loved to see the notes on this thing. I mean, how it is even possible to keep all the hundreds of characters, places, experiments, etc straight? What an amazing story!

I might need to read a couple of frothy, light things though to even it out. The new Sookie Stackhouse is on deck in the Reading Circle!

Jenny

Overdrive, baby!

Kelly,

I just wanted you to know that I haven't entirely fallen off the reading wagon. In fact, I'm making pretty good progress with The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but since it's 800 pages...well. That's taking a while. I'm at about page 500, so I'm thinking I will get through it in the next few weeks.

I know we're both big readers, and I'm wondering if you have a library card? I don't use the Chicago Public Library much, which is an embarrassing thing to admit. However, I use my school library all the time. After all, they know me personally, they'll buy books for the library if I request them, I have unlimited borrowing privileges, and I don't have due dates. It's basically the best thing ever! Last week, they had a workshop about how to use Overdrive, a platform for their electronic library.

Kelly, I shit you not, it is the most amazing thing ever. You can CHECK KINDLE BOOKS OUT FROM THE LIBRARY.  Basically, you select them from the library homepage, and then it takes you straight to Amazon to download the books to your Kindle.

This week, I read Richard Ford's novel Canada. On my Kindle. For free! /fans self.

This is a dangerous and awesome new development in my life. Get thee to your local library and set yourself up!

Jenny