Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

Good fun. A bit of something for everyone, except for the highbrow literary crowd - they generally aren't much fun anyway; no offense intended. Close to one thousand pages, serial style middle ages adventure with a cast of characters that include an energetic and devout monk, not so savory religious and political figures, a builder, a woman who lives in the woods, a female wool merchant, a brilliant and creative architect/engineer and poet, and some historical figures like Thomas Beckett. A journey to southern Spain to visit the moors, political intrigue in Westminster, quarrels at a stone quarry, raids on towns, battles for the throne, love, sex, murder and humor. All of it swirling around the building of a cathedral in an English backwater. It will keep you turning the pages and will educate and entertain you. I've read a bunch of other Follett works - many years ago (Eye of the Needle, Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, On Wings of Eagles, Man from St. Petersburg) - this was the most entertaining and best written (Eye of the Needle is a close second). I've just started "World Without End". Enjoy, it's worth the effort.

Martin Dressler, by Steven Millhauser

This story takes place in turn of the century New York City, circa 1897. Broadway is still referred to as the Boulevard and much of the land north of Times Square is still fields, streams, valleys with occasional large buildings, hotels and mansions scattered about. Martin Dressler is a cigar-maker's son who dreams of great and wonderful things and uses his energy and vision to make them real. He starts as a bell-hop in a hotel and rises to first run hotels and then build hotels - great dream-like, unconventional hotels. He has odd relationships with women - most notably three women of the same family. One daughter he marries, the other daughter becomes his best friend (symbolically they are the same person - the one he marries for her physical attributes and the other for everything else); the mother, fleetingly a sexual object, becomes his surrogate mother. His true mother and father are peripheral characters, at best. The story reads easily, is well crafted, full of imagery and imparts a sense of what NYC was like at that time (horses in the street, motorized vehicles rare, gas lamps ubiquitous, the smell of dung, and so forth). It tells us that it is great to dream and when the dreams fail, either to materialize or when they materialize to be something other than what you expected, life is still wonderful. Martin Dressler is a model of how we should dream and strive to make them real. But he is also a lesson on damaged relations and what happens when we subordinate everything else to our dreams (see Melville's Ahab for a classic example). In the end, a wonderful story and a great read.

Play by Play, Neal Conan ( read March - April 2009)

This is a book about baseball's Independent League of baseball on the Atlantic coast - teams like the Newark Bears, Somerset Patriots, Nashua, Long Island, etc. The author is an NPR radio talk show host who decided in 1999 that he wanted to spend a season or two radio broadcasting baseball games. A Maryland team, the Aberdeen Arsenal, agreed to let him give it a go - after some training. This story is his first (only?) season of radio broadcasting. Nicely paced, light and often interesting reading. It is as much about the radio side of things as it is about the Aberdeen team - though the bulk of the book is about the players, the nuances of the league and the politics surrounding its inception and (continued) survival - of both the league and the Aberdeen Arsenal. I am a baseball fan and enjoyed the read. Though it is not the best baseball book that I have read (A False Spring, by Pat Jordan - see earlier entry), it is worth the time if you like baseball.

84 Charing Cross Rd, Helene Hanff (read January 2009)

What a treat! Accumulation of letters between screenwriter in NYC and used book purveyor in London over 20 year period late 1940's to 1960's. Simple, elegant, humorous and subtly descriptive of the times in both the U.S. and England. Can be read in one sitting. Enriched my life - how many other things can do that in such a short time?

Henderson, the Rain King, Saul Bellow (read October 2008)

Abandoned after halfway through. I don't commonly put books down without finishing them, but I grew weary of Henderson (Bellow?) languishing in Africa. The novel is briskly paced, insightful and reflective in the period before Henderson ventures to Africa. In Africa, it loses touch with this pacing and wallows in long periods of vague, clumsy descriptions of events and peoples surrounding the main character; it bored me. There probably is a thematic philosophical message underlying the text - Jewish/religious - that I am not familiar with and that I have not researched. Would knowledge of this have made the book more enjoyable? Maybe.

A False Spring, Pat Jordan (read November 2008)

The most enjoyable baseball book I have read. I made my way through this in early January 2009. Well written, atmospheric, insightful, humorous and reflective not just on the author's life and experience, but all life and, especially, the troubles we all experience during our early adult formative years - ages 18-21. Most of the account takes place over three baseball seasons in the Milwaukee Braves minor league system, in towns not recognizable by name, but probably recognizable to many by their atmosphere, residents and general description; small towns, mid-west and south. Takes place in the late 1950's to early 1960's. Story is littered with famous name ballplayers, but mostly ones you've never heard of. I've read Field of Dreams and other baseball books - this is the best, without a doubt. A must read for any baseball fan and probably enjoyable to many who have not even heard of the sport.

Snow, Orhan Pamuk (read September 2008)

I finished reading this novel near Christmas 2008. It had a profound, sad effect on me. The atmosphere of poverty, political and social disillusionment, and melancholy permeates the text at every level. Even the sequences of joy in which Ka (protagonist) is having a poetic inspiration or making love to Ipek have a tone of sadness - as if the joyful moment is real, but fleeting, unable to gain a mooring in the otherwise impoverished world of Kars. I almost couldn't finish reading the book. Not for the joylessness but, rather, for the sluggish plot through the middle - this is a personal thing for me and probably doesn't reflect poorly on the text overall. The final 100 pages, however, pick up and bring the story to an unsurprising conclusion - in fact, the tenor of the novel is like a constant, distant drum beating the demise of the characters and their relationships. In reflection, the three day story is a miniature of the social-political and philosophical tug of war that exists in the westernized Turkish Islamic world, with Kars existing as a focal point for the dialogue between the unseen, oft cited western democracies, fundamental Islam and the nationalist Turkish movement. For me, not familiar with this world and having never visited Turkey, it was a valuable learning experience.

Saturday, Ian McEwan (read July 2008)

Nice, easy read. Language not burdensome or too self-important as I've heard others say. I have not read Atonement, which may be more of a chore. I identified with the mind of the protagonist, Henry (neurosurgeon) - although I am not a surgeon, the medical mentality is familiar. Being also a father, I found his character genuine and reflective enough of fatherhood and his regular meditations on the current sociopolitical climate to be of interest to me. I will read McEwan again, but overall I am a bit let down due to the hype surrounding his writing.

Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (read April 2009)

I finally waded through this book while on vacation a few weeks ago. Disturbing but not surprising. The first third of the book details the social and business culture of the fast food industry: its roots, relationships with other industries (e.g. Disney), hiring practices, marketing strategies, business practices (e.g. anti-union) with a few individual stories sprinkled in. The latter two-thirds, however, delves into the food processing aspect - first the french fries and then the beef and poultry. The most vivid parts are the descriptions of the cow holding pens and butcher assembly lines. The most disturbing part, however, is the power of industry over the government to limit regulation (employee and food safety). The book is well written, extensively researched (and referenced) and paced well enough not to get too bogged down in any particular minutia (though I did get a bit bored with the first third of the book). This read has forced me to re-evaluate my diet. I may never eat beef again. Worth the read.

The Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (read April 2009)

I floated through both stories while on vacation a few weeks back. I have an old paperback with both short novels in it. The editor coupled the stories because of their thematic similarity - they both deal with the maturation of the self. In the first, the Secret Sharer, the new captain of a commercial ship on his first voyage as captain harbors a refugee from another ship wanted for murder. The refugee serves as the alter-identity of the captain and their relationship represents a symbolic dialogue about the captain's growth into a worthy leader aboard ship. The symbolism is obvious and the language and mood are all Conrad. The story is a good warm-up for Heart of Darkness which I have read now for the third time and first in many years. Marlow's journey up the river to find Kurtz is so full of obvious and nuanced imagery and symbolism that you will find it in nearly every paragraph. It is a story of a man's encounter with the primeval darkness that is resident in everyone and symbolized by the dark and primordia jungle and made manifest in human form by Kurtz' character. Kurtz and Marlow are employees of a European trading company that swaps trinkets for ivory with the indigenous African population. Kurtz is the manager of the inner station, a post hundreds of miles inland. Marlow is sent in to find out what has gone wrong; rumors have found their way to the outer station and Europe that Kurtz' methods may be "unsound". Indeed, Marlow replies at one point that he doesn't see any method at all - Kurtz' hut is ringed with poles decorated with human heads. The power of the story, however, is not in the plot. The language and writing are beautiful. The descriptions of the jungle and the interactions of the people on the steamer as Marlow steams inland are unmatched in their richness; the character of the Russian sailor reminds me eerily of the fool from King Lear (without the wisdom). Read this story for the beauty of the language; the philosophy and plot are mere icing.

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Recently I started writing short journal entries in MS Outlook about the books/articles that I have read. I am 41 and have read hundreds of books over the years, many of them forgotten, and I thought it a shame that there is no record for me to go back to. I am starting this blog primarily to chronicle my reading.