#106: The Outsourced Self

The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times, 

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012)

Summary:
"From the famed author of the bestselling The Second Shift and The Time Bind, a pathbreaking look at the transformation of private life in our for-profit world.

"The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the private, and the emotional hold sway. Yet as Arlie Russell Hochschild shows in The Outsourced Self, that is no longer the case: everything that was once part of private life—love, friendship, child rearing—is being transformed into packaged expertise to be sold back to confused, harried Americans.

"Drawing on hundreds of interviews and original research, Hochschild follows the incursions of the market into every stage of intimate life. From dating services that train you to be the CEO of your love life to wedding planners who create a couple's "personal narrative"; from nameologists (who help you name your child) to wantologists (who help you name your goals); from commercial surrogate farms in India to hired mourners who will scatter your loved one's ashes in the ocean of your choice—Hochschild reveals a world in which the most intuitive and emotional of human acts have become work for hire.

"Sharp and clear-eyed, Hochschild is full of sympathy for overstressed, outsourcing Americans, even as she warns of the market's threat to the personal realm they are striving so hard to preserve."

Table of Contents:

1. You Have Three Seconds
2. The Legend of the Lemon Tree
3. For as Long as You Both Shall Live
4. Our Baby, Her Womb
5. My Womb, Their Baby
6. It Takes a Service Mall
7. Making Five-Year-Olds Laugh Is Harder than You Think
8. A High Score in Family Memory Creation
9. Importing Family Values
10. I Was Invisible to Myself
11. Nolan Enjoys My Father for Me
12. Anything You Pay For Is Better
13. I Would Have Done It If She'd Been My Mother
14. Endings 
15. The Wantologist

My Take:
Another Second Shift or Time Bind this ain't. I suspect Hochschild's decision to write it was born of her own conflicted, guilt-spiked feelings at seeking a paid caregiver for her elderly aunt, and I think the book might have been stronger and more compelling had it focused on those intimate activities -- child and elder care, for example -- that pretty much everyone needs, and which have increasingly been moved to the market sphere and paid for. That story's been told many times, though, so what we're left with seems less like a thoughtful exposition and discussion-starter and more a voyeuristic "Wow, look at all the crazy, unnecessary stuff the 1% (or maybe just the 0.1 or 0.01%) will pay people to do for them!" Sure, it's interesting and may seem creepy or just weird that someone who's rich enough will spend beaucoup bucks on a kid's birthday party or various aspects of the wedding-industrial complex, but it's hardly a social problem on the order of the second shift.

#95: Victory

Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution, by Linda Hirshman

(New York: Harper, 2012)

Summary:
"A Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit details the enthralling and groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever.

"When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted—most notably at a bar called Stonewall in Greenwich Village—in the summer of 1969, most religious traditions condemned homosexuality; psychiatric experts labeled people who were attracted to others of the same sex 'crazy;' and forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in June 2011, New York legalized gay marriage—the most populous state in the country to do so thus far. The armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ending a law that had long discriminated against gay and lesbian members of the military. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances were something of a miracle.

"Political columnist Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, viewing the gay rights movement within the tradition of American freedom as the third great modern social-justice movement, alongside the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement. Drawing on an abundance of published and archival material, and hundreds of in-depth interviews, Hirshman shows, in this astute political analysis, how the fight for gay rights has changed the American landscape for all citizens—blurring rigid gender lines, altering the shared culture, and broadening our definitions of family.

"From the Communist cross-dresser Harry Hay in 1948 to New York's visionary senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2010, the story includes dozens of brilliant, idiosyncratic characters. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts, revealing how, in a matter of decades, while facing every social adversary—church, state, and medical establishment—a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: How an Army of Good Gays Won the West
• 1. Gays and the Cities: Community First, Politics Later
• 2. Red in Bed: It Takes a Communist to Recognize Gay Oppression
• 3. It Was the Sixties That Did It: Gays Get Radical, Radicals Get Gay
• 4. Stonewall Uprising:  Gays Finally Get Some Respect
• 5. The Good Gays Fight the Four Horsemen: Crazy, Sinful, Criminal, and Subversive
• 6. Dying for the Movement: The Terrible Political Payoff of AIDS
• 7. ACT UP: Five Years That Shook the World
• 8. Failed Marriages and Losing Battles: The Premature Campaign for Marriage and Military Service
• 9. Founding Fathers: Winning Modern Rights Before Fighting Ancient Battles
• 10. Massing the Troops for the Last Battle: The New-Media Gay Revolution
• 11. With Liberal Friends: Who Needs Enemies?
• 12. Victory: The Civil Rights March of Our Generation
• Epilogue

My Take:
I've gotten backlogged in my blogging again (backblogged?) and don't recall either any especially profound reactions to the text or vivid pictures of what else was going on while I read it, but this was a thorough, informative, and engaging history of the U.S.'s final (as of right now) civil rights frontier. Victory should be required reading not just for the LGBT community (many of whom won't require a mandate anyway) but for their mostly straight allies (even if they/ we're afraid of what someone will think if they see them/ us carrying it at work) and for anyone interested in contemporary politics, culture, and social movements.

#87: Bringing Up Bebe

Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, by Pamela Druckerman

(New York: Penguin Press, 2012)

Summary:
"When American journalist Pamela Druckerman has a baby in Paris, she doesn't aspire to become a 'French parent.' French parenting isn't a known thing, like French fashion or French cheese. Even French parents themselves insist they aren't doing anything special.

"Yet the French children Druckerman knows sleep through the night at two or three months old, while children of her American friends take a year or more. French kids eat well-rounded meals that are more likely to include braised leeks than chicken nuggets. Her American friends spend their visits resolving spats between their kids, but her French friends sip coffee while the kids play.

"Motherhood itself is a whole different experience in France. There's no role model for the harried new mom with no life of her own. French mothers assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. They have an easy, calm authority with their kids that Druckerman can only envy.

"Of course, French parenting wouldn't be worth talking about if it produced robotic, joyless children. In fact, French kids are just as boisterous, curious, and creative as Americans. They're just far better behaved and more in command of themselves. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are -- by design -- toddling around and discovering the world at their own pace.

"With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman -- a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal -- sets out to learn the secrets of raising a society of good sleepers, gourmet eaters, and reasonably relaxed parents. She discovers that French parents are extremely strict about some things, and strikingly permissive about others. And she realizes that to be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is.

"While finding her own firm non, Druckerman discovers that children -- including her own -- are capable of feats of understanding and autonomy that she'd never imagined."

Table of Contents:

• French Children Don't Throw Food
• 1. Are You Waiting for a Child?
• 2. Paris Is Burping
• 3. Doing Her Nights
• 4. Wait!
• 5. Tiny Little Humans
• 6. Day Care?
• 7. Bebe au Lait
• 8. The Perfect Mother Doesn't Exist
• 9. Caca Boudin
• 10. Double Entendre
• 11. I Adore This Baguette
• 12. You Just Have to Taste It
• 13. It's Me Who Decides
• 13. Let Him Live His Life
• The Future in French

My Take:
Maybe it's just because it provides some justification for my own parenting style (my admittedly-human and thus imperfect teenager also "did her nights" at 3 months, and has always had a remarkably broad palate), but I enjoyed this book. There's always a danger, when comparing two cultures, to fall into the "A is good, B is bad" trap, and Druckerman does some of this, but she at least acknowledges some of the ways in which American parents may be onto something (for example, the far-greater prevalence of extended breastfeeding), and those in which cultural and political differences undergird those in parenting styles (i.e., it's much easier to establish and enforce widespread norms for parent and child behavior in a country where state-supported creches are ubiquitous and high-quality).

According to Druckerman, the advantages of French parenting essentially boil down to two. First is the concept of attend, or "wait." In the glossary of French parenting that precedes the body of the book, she explains "'Wait' implies that the child doesn't require immediate gratification, and that he can entertain himself." This begins in infancy, when parents pause for a moment before responding to a noise from the baby's room (is she really hungry or wet, or just stirring in her sleep?), and continues to be a common command throughout childhood, whether prompted by kids' requests for snacks or parental attention. The second is the cadre, or framework: "setting firm limits for children, but giving them tremendous freedom within those limits." While this makes sense, I do wish Druckerman had paid more attention here to the role society as a whole plays in setting these limits. Certainly, the prevalence of creches gives the French an edge here, as does (I believe, from what I've read) the far-greater value the French place on assimilation. Nonetheless, as someone who always strove to be a minimalist parent and often felt like an ill-prepared or merely grouchy one, there's more than a little appeal to the notion that a Good Parent need not follow her child around the playground, haul a week's worth of toys around in her diaper bag, or offer a pre-prepared, processed food snack every 30 minutes. (Parisian parents, says Drucker, offer children an afternoon snack -- gouter -- at about 4:30 pm, but otherwise just feed them at mealtimes along with the rest of the family.)

An interesting and thought-provoking read, especially for anyone who's had it up to here with the One True Way/ more self-sacrificing than thou parenting ethic of certain US sub-groups.

#70: Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, 

by Jon Krakauer

(New York: Doubleday, 2003)

 Summary:
"Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under the Banner of Heaven, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by a pair of Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, and unyielding faith. In the process, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest-growing religion, analyzes the abduction of fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart (and her forced 'marriage' to her polygamous kidnapper), and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

"Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe that the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five 'plural wives,' several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamendalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers and preach that any day now this world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.

"Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fantastical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism's violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the United States' most successful homegrown faith and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior."

Opening Line:
"Almost everyone in Utah County has heard of the Lafferty boys."


My Take:
I'll give Krakauer credit, and assume that much of what he describes was more shocking when he first published his book 9 years ago, before so many similar news and fiction accounts have been aired. That said, it's a good book and I still like his work, but would have liked him to have focused more on contemporary Mormon Fundamentalism and less on the history of Mormonism. I know his point is that the faith's violent past somehow leads to the fundamentalist horrors that bubble up now and again, but he doesn't sufficiently convince the reader how Mormonism is different in this regard from, oh, Judaism or Christianity -- both of which have plenty of violence in their own histories. Is it just because Mormonism is more hierarchical and values absolute obedience more highly? Or is there something else? A decent read, but again, the history seemed a bit too Wild West for my liking without a clear explanation of how it got us (or Mormon Fundamentalists, anyway) where we (they) are now.
 

#61: Rebels in White Gloves

Rebels in White Gloves: Coming of Age 

with Hillary's Class -- Wellesley '69, by Mirian Horn 

New York: Times Books/ Random House, 1999

 Summary:

"'Freak out, Suzy Creamcheese. Drop out of school before your brain rots,' urged Frank Zappa. 'Protest boxy suits! Protest big ugly shoes!' exhorted the Wellesley News. 'Get your ring before spring,' cooed the women's magazines. Reject 'inauthentic reality' in favor of 'a more penetrating existence,' advised Hillary Rodham to her fellow graduates. Whipsawed by these conflicting mandates, the Wellesley Class of '69 were women on the cusp, feeling out the new rules. Rebels in White Gloves is their story.

"When these women entered Wellesley's ivory tower, they were initiated into a rarefied world where the infamous 'marriage lecture' and white gloves at afternoon tea were musts. Many were daughters of privilege; many were going for their 'MRS.' Four years later, by the time they graduated, they found a world turned upside down by the Pill, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Roe v. Wade, the Vietnam War, student protests, the National Organization for Women, and the battle for the Equal Rights Amendment. 'Coming of age at a rare moment in history and with the equally rare privilege of an elite college education,' writes Miriam Horn, 'the women who graduated from Wellesley in 1969 were destined to be the monkeys in the space capsule, the first to test in their own lives the consequences of the great transformations wrought by the second wave of feminism.'

"For the thirtieth anniversary of the Class of '69 -- 'Hillary's class' -- Horn has created trenchant, remarkably nuanced portraits of these women, chronicling their experiments with sex, work, family, politics, and spirituality. Horn follows them as they joined SDS, tumbled into free-love communities, prosecuted pot growers, ministered to Micronesian natives, fled trust-fund security, forged and surrendered marriages, plumbed the challenges of motherhood, and coped with the uncertainties of growing older. As Horn writes, 'The women of '69 have come out as debutantes. They have also come out as lesbians, as victims of domestic abuse, as alcoholics.' In all their guises, these are wise, well-spoken women who look back on the last thirty years with great eloquence and humor, and whose coming of age mirrors all women's struggles to define themselves.

"On Commencement Day at Wellesley thirty years ago, Hillary Rodham told her classmates, 'We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us understands and attempting to create within that an uncertainty. The only tool we have ultimately to use is our lives.' In Rebels in White Gloves, Miriam Horn has created raw and intimate portraits of women on the verge. Their tumultuous life paths -- wild, funny, heartbreaking, unforgettable -- are a primer in women's history of the past fifty years and a timely attempt to make sense of the increasingly blurred line between the personal and the political."

Table of Contents:

1. The Wellesley Years
2. Mothers and Daughters
3. Rebellions and New Solidarities
4. Reinventing Womanhood
5. Breaking the Barriers
6. Balancing Work and Family
7. Full-Time Moms
8. On Their Own
9. Spiritual Journeys
10. In Search of Self
11. Life's Afternoon

My Take:
Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed this one -- not least because it didn't purport to offer any neat, tidy answers. An intriguing read for anyone interested in latter twentieth century history, women's history, or how our paths are shaped by and diverge after our college experiences (I can check all of those boxes). Thankfully, less navel-gazing than some accounts I've read that try with less skill to extrapolate some greater significance from a small, non-representative sample of individuals' experiences.

#54: Generation Debt

Generation Debt: Why Now Is A Terrible Time to Be Young 

by Anya Kamenetz

(New York: Riverhead Books/ Penguin, 2008)

Summary:
"In this thoroughly researched and rousing manifesto, Anya Kamenetz chronicles and questions the plight of the new 'youth class': 18 — to 29-year-olds who are drowning in debt and therefore seemingly unable to 'grow up.' Many older adults perceive today's youth as immature slackers, 'twixters,' or 'boomerang kids,' who simply cannot get their act together, but Kamenetz argues that this perception is a misinformed stereotype.

"Numerous economic factors have combined to create a perfect storm for the financial and personal lives of America's youth: a college degree is essential for employment yet financially crippling to many, government grants for education are at an all-time low, Social Security and Medicare are on their deathbeds, and our parents and grandparents are retiring earlier and living longer. How will we get ourselves out of this mess? By analyzing and explaining the causes of this phenomenon, Kamenetz demonstrates the urgent need for people to begin investing in our nation's youth. Generation Debt will get you thinking in new ways about American values — and America's future."

Table of Contents:

1. Why Generation Debt?
2. College on Credit
3. Low Wage Jobs
4. Temp Gigs ...
5. ... Without Benefits
6. Federal Rip-Offs: Deficits, Social Security, Medicare
7. Family Troubles: Love and Independence
8. Waking Up and Taking Charge

My Take:
As usual, I'm going to find a cop-out:  The Frugal Law Student's blog says it better than I can (especially as it's been about a month since I read it). In a nutshell, makes some interesting points but is a bit on the whiny side in places, especially when making a crisis out of problems faced chiefly by the privileged. (The whole book isn't like this, but it gets there in places and they're the ones where I found the whining particularly grating.)

#52: When She Woke

When She Woke, by Hillary Jordan (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011)

 

Summary:

"From the author whose international bestseller, Mudbound, so hauntingly re-created America’s past comes a stunning creation of America in the near future, where faith, love, and sexuality have fallen prey to politics.

"Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, and cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for home observing new Chromes — criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime — is a new and sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father — a public figure with whom she’s shared a fierce and forbidden love.

"When She Woke is a stunning story about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are released back into the population after being 'chromed.' In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she has held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes the personal."

Opening Lines: 
"When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign."

My Take:
Spectacular, contemporary/ dystopian reimagining of The Scarlet Letter.

#50: Home Front

Home Front, by Kristin Hannah (New York:  St. Martin's Press, 2012)

Summary:
"All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost…


"In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage -- with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.


"Like many couples, Michael and Jolene have to face the pressures of everyday life — children, careers, bills, chores — even as their twelve year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a soldier she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own -- for everything that matters to his family.


"At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the price of war on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor and ultimately, hope."

Opening Line:
"On her forty-first birthday, as on every other day, Jolene Zarkades woke before the dawn."

My Take:
Chick lit that doesn't leave you feeling like you've overindulged in Haagen-Dasz when you're done. A good beach or airline read.  

#45: All Other Nights

All Other Nights, by Dara Horn (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009)

Summary:

"'How is tonight different from all other nights?' For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, it is a question his commanders have already answered for him -- on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn’t to murder the spy, but to marry her. Their marriage, with its riveting and horrifying consequences, reveals the deep divisions that still haunt American life today.

"Based on real personalities like Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy’s Jewish Secretary of State and spymaster, and on historical facts and events ranging from an African-American spy network to the dramatic self-destruction of the city of Richmond, All Other Nights is a gripping and suspenseful story of men and women driven to the extreme limits of loyalty and betrayal. It is also a brilliant parable of the rift in America that lingers a century and a half later: between those who value family and tradition first, and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

"In this eagerly-awaited third novel, award-winning author Dara Horn brings us page-turning storytelling at its best. Layered with meaning, All Other Nights presents the most American of subjects with originality and insight -- and the possibility of reconciliation that might yet await us."

Opening Line:

"Inside a barrel in the bottom of a boat, with a canteen of water wedged between his legs and a packet of poison concealed in his pocket, Jacob Rappaport felt a knot tightening in his stomach -- not because he was about to do something dangerous, but because he was about to do something wrong." 

My Take:

Here's one I wish I'd reviewed for real shortly after I finished it, because I remember really liking it but can't remember enough details to offer a useful review. If the jacket blurb above intrigues you and you're a fan of Civil War fiction that's not the same old thing, check out Wendy Smith's Washington Post review, or just check out the darned book.   

#44: Walking to Gatlinburg

Walking to Gatlinburg, by Howard Frank Mosher (New York: Shaye Areheart Books, 2010)

Summary:
"A stunning and lyrical Civil War thriller, Walking to Gatlinburg is a spellbinding story of survival, wilderness adventure, mystery, and love in the time of war.

Morgan Kinneson is both hunter and hunted.  The sharp-shooting 17-year-old from Kingdom County, Vermont, is determined to track down his brother Pilgrim, a doctor who has gone missing from the Union Army.  But first Morgan must elude a group of murderous escaped convicts in pursuit of a mysterious stone that has fallen into his possession.

"It's 1864, and the country is in the grip of the bloodiest war in American history.  Meanwhile, the Kinneson family has been quietly conducting passengers on the Underground Railroad from Vermont to the Canadian border.  One snowy afternoon Morgan leaves an elderly fugitive named Jesse Moses in a mountainside cabin for a few hours so that he can track a moose to feed his family.  In his absence, Jesse is murdered, and thus begins Morgan's unforgettable trek south through an apocalyptic landscape of war and mayhem.

"Along the way, Morgan encounters a fantastical array of characters, including a weeping elephant, a pacifist gunsmith, a woman who lives in a tree, a blind cobbler, and a beautiful and intriguing slave girl named Slidell who is the key to unlocking the mystery of the secret stone.  At the same time, he wrestles with the choices that will ultimately define him – how to reconcile the laws of nature with religious faith, how to temper justice with mercy. Magical and wonderfully strange, Walking to Gatlinburg is both a thriller of the highest order and a heartbreaking odyssey into the heart of American darkness."


Opening Line:
"Years later Morgan Kinneson would conclude that it was probably reading that had gotten him and his brother, Pilgrim, into trouble in the first place."

My Take:
I didn't hate it, but this was one of those books that I had high hopes for based on some laudatory reviews, and it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Every other reviewer, it seems, calls books "lyrical," and perhaps this one was; it's been over a month but I do recall the language being intriguing, and several of the characters and scenarios Morgan wanders into have a fascinating, almost fantastic appeal. Overall, though, I had the impression that I myself was taking a long road trip through unfamiliar country: interesting and lovely to look at in places, but rather slower than I'd like in many others.

#16: The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2011)

Summary:
"It's the early 1980s -- the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafes on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.

"As Madeleine tries to understand why 'it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France,' real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead -- charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy, suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged, erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old friend Mitchell Grammaticus -- who's been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange -- resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

"Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology laboratory on Cape Cod, but can't escape the secret responsible for Leonard's seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

"Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives."

Opening Line:
"To start with, look at all the books."

My Take:
Really enjoyed Middlesex and have heard mixed things about how this one compares. First chapter's been a bit slow to get into, but not lethally so.

(later) Better than average, but Middlesex it ain't. Fortunately, it did get a lot more engaging, at least for me, when we got past Madeleine's college days and out of the copious senior-English-major-seminar, pretentious literary jargon that seemed to take place there. Perhaps some of my more literary friends would have really enjoyed this piece, and even I admit -- I'd encountered enough of this gobbledygook peripherally, by osmosis, that I could recognize Eugenides's skill as a satirist. Even so, I'm a two-time social scientist, and as such, like both my fiction and my academics to be a bit more concrete.

I've also become a fan lately of truth in advertising when it comes to book jackets, and in all honesty -- this wasn't really a proper triangle. "Triangle," to me, implies that there's some sort of relationship among three parties that would be drastically altered if one of those parties were removed. Here that's not the case: Madeleine loves Leonard, Leonard loves her back (though perhaps not quite as much) but is really too consumed by his bipolar disorder (then known as manic depression) to be a proper partner, and Mitchell's had a long-standing unrequited crush on Madeleine. A brief flirtation or frisson between the two years earlier does not a triangle make. To some extent, this is a nitpick, but it does get at what I see as one of the book's chief weaknesses: while both the Mitchell-traveling-around-the-world storyline and the Madeleine-living-on-Cape-Cod-with-Leonard-while-figuring-out-what-to-do-with her-life one are reasonably well-done, they don't ever come together in a satisfactory fashion. We see them cross paths early in the novel (technically in flashbacks, as the story begins with Madeleine's graduation and running into Mitchell in a coffee shop), and then again, briefly and insignificantly, towards its end. Mitchell obsesses about Madeleine while backpacking around Greece and India, sure, but I don't recall her thinking much about him at all for the bulk of the book.

Again, I may be coming off a bit too harsh here; Marriage Plot certainly isn't awful. It's entirely possible that I just Didn't Get It, that I'm not sufficiently well-steeped in the Romantic novels Madeleine favors to really appreciate the whole marriage plot novel and thus, to understand the ways in which Eugenides is trying to allude to the same. If so, perhaps it's my loss. This was a decent book, and solidly written -- but not necessarily one I'll need to read again.

#15: A Nation of Moochers

A Nation of Moochers: America's Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing, by Charles J. Skyes (New York: St. Martins, 2011)

Summary:
"Have we reached a tipping point where more Americans depend on the efforts of others than on their own? Are we becoming a nation of moochers?

"In A Nation of Moochers, Charles J. Sykes argues that we are already very close that point, if we have not already crossed the line. From the corporate bailouts on Wall Street, to enormous pension, health-care, and other entitlement costs, to questionable tax exemptions for businesses and individuals, to the alarming increases in personal default and dependency, the new moocher culture cuts across lines of class, race, and private and public sectors.

"A Nation of Moochers explores the shift in America's character as well as the economy. Much of the anger of the current political climate stems from the realization by millions of Americans that they are being forced to pay for the greed-driven problems of other people and corporations; increasingly those who plan and behave sensibly are being asked to bail out the profligate. Sykes's argument is not against compassion or legitimate charity, but distinguishes between definable needs and the moocher culture, in which self-reliance and personal responsibility have given way to mass grasping after entitlements, tax breaks, benefits, bailouts, and other forms of feeding at the public trough.

"Persuasively argued and wryly entertaining, A Nation of Moochers is a rallying cry for Americans who are tired of playing against the rules and paying for those who don't."

Table of Contents:

Part One: Moocher Nation

Scenes from Moocher Nation
Chapter 1. A Nation of Moochers
A Moocher Checklist
Chapter 2: Have We Reached the Tipping Point?
Moocher's Dilemma

Part Two: The Joys of Dependency

Chapter 3. The Rise of Moocher Nation
Chapter 4. The Joys of Dependency
The Kindness of Strangers (A Moocher Manifesto)
Chapter 5. Addicted to OPM (Other People's Money)
Want --> Need --> Right
Chapter 6. Feed Me

Part Three: At the Trough

I, Piggy Bank
Chapter 7. Harvesting OPN
Moocher's Dilemma II
Chapter 8. Crony Capitalism (Big Business at the Trough)
Chapter 9. The Two Americas

Part Four: Bailout Madness

Lessons in Moral Hazard
Chapter 10. Mortgage Madness
Chapter 11. Bailouts for Idiots (How to Make Out Big by Screwing Up)
Chapter 12. Walk Away from Your Mortgage!
An Interactive Reader's Exercise
Chapter 13. No, They Didn't Learn Anything

Part Five: Middle-Class Suckers

Chapter 14. The Bank of Mom and Dad
Chapter 15. Middle-Class Suckers
Chapter 16. Why Get a Job?
Chapter 17. Mooching Off the Kids

Part Six: What's Fair?

An Abbreviated History of Mooching
Chapter 18. We're All from Starnesville Now
Chapter 19. What's Fair?
Chapter 20. Step Away from the Trough

My Take:
Really mixed feelings about this one. The author has some valid points, especially about the pre-recession craziness that was the housing bubble and the bailout mania that came afterward. Unfortunately, a lot of that was tough to see and appreciate through Sykes' sophomoric style (not sure what the reviewer or jacket blurb writer was reading when calling the style "wryly entertaining," but I found it juvenile and mean-spirited myself) and blatant partisanship. Again, the jacket says the moocher problem cuts across race and class, but a disproportionate share of Skyes' references come from the likes of The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and even Ayn Rand (who, last I checked, was a novelist with some obvious political axes to grind, and not a political scholar). And it's amazing how often President Obama and his extended family seem to get bashed, while -- even in the chapters on the housing bubble and the bank bailouts -- references to the George W. Bush administration were surprisingly scarce.

In the same vein, I always get a little grumpy when folks try to redefine middle class to include whatever they want it to; Sykes cites a 2009 Forbes magazine story about a single mother who made $120,000 a year and was considering taking a less stressful job that paid half that, because the taxes, loss of financial aid eligibility for her kids, etc. didn't make the higher salary worth the bother. Um, just checked on the Census Bureau's website (yeah, I'm nerdy like that), and median household income in 2010 was $49,445; for family households, it was $61,544. Ya have a job where you make twice that, you're not really middle class. Just sayin'.

Would be interested to read a more balanced treatment of these issues and exploration of how the complicated mess of government benefits and entitlements we have may affect our culture, but this book wasn't it.

#13: The Namesake

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri (New York: Random House Audio, 2003)

Summary:
"Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one of the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/ Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America.

"In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail -- the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase -- that opens whole worlds of emotion.

"The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.

"Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs, With penetrating insights, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as 'a writer of uncommon elegance and poise.' The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity."

Opening Line:
"On a sticky August evening two weeks before her due date, Ashima Ganguli stands in the kitchen of a Central Square apartment, combining Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl."

My Take:
Simply exquisite. Listened to this one on CD on a drive downstate and back, somewhere in between 11/22/63 and State of Wonder, and wow ... what a gorgeous book. Perhaps it's that Gogol is just 2 years older than I am and so much of his coming of age mirrors my own, maybe it's Lahiri's seemingly effortless combination of those challenges unique to the child of immigrants with those common to all American (or hyphenated American) adolescents. Or the perfection with which the novel captures tiny but telling details; if I warmed to Ashima on the first page, trying to re-create a favorite Calcutta street food in Boston circa '68 in the last few weeks of pregnancy cravings, I absolutely adored her by page 8, when she looks back on the day 2 years earlier on which she first laid eyes on Ashoke:

"Glancing at the floor where visitors customarily removed their slippers, she noticed, beside two sets of chappals, a pair of men's shoes that were not like any she'd ever seen on the streets and trams and buses of Calcutta, or even in the windows of Bata. They were brown shoes with black heels and off-white laces and stitching. There was a band of lentil-sized holes embossed on either side of each shoe, and at the tips was a pretty pattern pricked into the leather as if with a needle. Looking more closely, she saw the shoemaker's name written on the insides, in gold lettering that had all but faded: something and sons, it said, She saw the size, eight and a half, and the initials U.S.A. And as her mother continued to sing her praises, Ashima, unable to resist a sudden and overwhelming urge, stepped into the shoes at her feet. Lingering sweat from the owner's feet mingled with hers, causing her heart to race: it was the closest thing she had ever experienced to the touch of a man."

You (or at least I) can't help but feel the same tenderness for Gogol, Ashoke, and even some of the more minor characters like Ruth, Gogol's first real girlfriend, and Moushumi, who he eventually marries. (I did not, however, ever warm to his post-college love interest, the spoiled rich Manhattanite Maxine.)

I could go on, and on, and on ... but truly, this is one of those books I was sad to finish because I didn't want to let the characters go.

#11: 11/22/63

11/22/63, by the inimitable Stephen King (New York: Scribner, 2011)

Summary:
"On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas. President Kennedy died, and the world changed forever.

"If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be worth it?

"Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students -- a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning's father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

"Not much later, Jake's friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane -- and insanely possible -- mission to try and prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake's new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life -- a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time."

Opening Line:
"Harry Dunning graduated with flying colors."

My Take:
This is what I'm talking about. Not perfect -- it's a very long book, and the extended, frustratingly subtle tracking of Oswald Jake-as-George needs to do to be sure he's stopping/ killing the right man drags a bit in places -- but mostly an entertaining and provocative book. As I've had to specify for other long-term King fans, it's not gory, either; this is not Cujo, or Carrie, or even the more recent Cell (which I happened to love anyway).

The time travel aspect of the book is well done. I particularly appreciated that through Al's experience, which happens off-screen before the novel opens, King's able to set up the rules for time travel fairly quickly and painlessly: 1) the portal always leads to Lisbon Falls, ME, circa 9/9/58; 2) no matter how long you stay in the past, only two present-day minutes have elapsed when you return; and 3) every time you travel back in time, it's a reset, and anything you changed on your last visit is erased. Establishing the above from the get-go allows Jake-George, and the reader, to spend more time on the really intriguing questions: Does the butterfly effect really exist? Can time resist being changed? Can one person make a difference?

But where the story really excels is in the everyday details of the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was before my time, of course, but I'm not alone in thinking so; says Errol Morris's New York Times review, "The real events aren’t historical, they’re very small — giving advice to a football player, staging the school play, doing the Lindy Hop with Sadie. We are brought back to the weird quotidian, endlessly surrounded by the detritus of civilization: Kresge’s, Ban-Lon, Aqua Velva, Studebaker." Jake's experience of these days with the 2011 knowledge of all that's happened since is surprisingly poignant. It's not that he glosses over the darker aspects of the era; on one road trip, he muses on the "Colored" restroom he encounters (a wooden board over a creek, in the side of a hill covered with poison ivy), and evidence of the repressive, sexist mores of the day is everywhere. And then there are the moments at both so simple and so brilliant that you wonder how King comes up with this stuff. One of Sadie's first inklings that George isn't being completely honest with her comes when she hears him singing "Honky Tonk Woman" (which wouldn't be released for several more years) -- not simply because she's never heard the song, but because there's no way, no how any radio station in the country would have played those lyrics in 1961.

All in all, a darned good read.

#10: The End of Everything

The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott (New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 2011)

Summary:
"In a placid 1980s suburb in the Midwest, thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable, best friends who swap bathing suits and field hockey sticks and between whom, presumably, there are no secrets. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides them a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities on their on teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Lizzie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

"And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the balmy suburban community, everyone turns to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger? Would Evie have gotten into a car with a man?

"Compelled by curiosity and a desire to rescue the enchanted Verver household from ruin, Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth. Her days spent with a shell-shocked Mr. Verver, she devotes her nights to prowling through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power as the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secret after secret and begins to wonder if she knew anything about her best friend at all."

Opening Line:
"She, light-streaky out of the corner of my eye."

My Take:
I've sometimes said, upon finishing books by Chuck Palahniuk or even Joyce Carol Oates, that I feel like I need to take a shower afterwards. I don't know if The End of Everything is quite that bad, but I did feel just a little ... I dunno, just icky. Certainly young adolescents' burgeoning awareness of their own sexuality isn't a new theme, and Abbott's combining it with a kidnapping angle is an intriguing idea. But IMO, a little bit of the young girl/ older man thing goes a long way, and in that regard, I think Abbott way overdoes it. Having an Evie who, at some level, wanted a relationship with Mr. Shaw? A narrator who has just a bit of a crush on her best friend's dad? An older sister who's affectionate behavior with her own father is starting to look more than a little inappropriate? Any one, perhaps even two, of these threads might have worked, but all together, they're too much. I went hunting online to see if anyone else had a similar reaction, and found this review by Ana on The Book Smugglers, which captures my problems with this book far more clearly than I could have. She says, in part:

"But I think that what discomfited me the most and makes me wonder is how, because the story is narrated by a naïve, unreliable 13 year old in the 80s, certain things remain unnamed (the setting in the 80s is quite important I think, to explain the lack of awareness?) This story clearly presents a disturbing portrait of things that are not quite right, of things that people won’t talk about or even name. I have nothing against things being open for interpretation but I would argue that even despite the unreliability of this narrator, certain events such as: the culprit being driven by guilt and killing himself in the end; Lizzie’s mother cryptically saying that things are not quite healthy next door; Dusty having serious mental issues, leave no DOUBT in my mind on what we are talking about here: incest as well as paedophilia. And yet the “relationships” between the three girls and older men in this story are constantly framed with the words “love”, “pure” “falling in love or being loved by” older men.

"I keep going back and forth about this, wondering if the narrative (again, by Lizzie, a 13 year old girl) and the 80s setting (and the lack of awareness about these issues) are enough to account for how Lizzie interprets these events and therefore it is down to the reader to name things and point fingers? Not to mention that there are enough consequences to some of the people involved in these events (death, loss of innocence, etc) not to make it an issue of metatextual lack of acknowledgment of those issues. ...

Also one last question: isn’t it disturbing how basically all female characters including the teenagers in this book are either attracted to married men or to much older ones and they are all, to one extent or another, victims of/dependent on those men? Lizzie’s mother is a victim of a marriage gone bad and only starts to recover when she meets a new man (married); Lizzie is a victim of a broken home and the lack of a father and a victim of the bad influence of the next door neighbors; Evie and Dusty are victims of their father; Evie is a victim of Mr Shaw (and a willing one disturbingly so); Evie’s mother is a non-entity, a shadow of her husband and even Mrs Shaw who never shows up on page, willingly helps her husband when he is on the run because apparently she can’t control herself or pities him even though he seems to be the worst husband in the world (not to mention a sick pedophile). I mean, how messed up is that? It is worth noting though that maybe this is totally intentional and meant to be one of those searing looks at American Suburban Life in the 1980s with women in their dependent roles with the poor children in the middle of it all and I am being entirely too contemporary in my interrogation of the text.

"... It is a good book, with positive things but ultimately it is not the sort of book that I, personally, care to read."

#7: The Red Garden

The Red Garden, by Alice Hoffman (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011)

Summary:
"The Red Garden introduces us to the luminous and haunting world of Blackwell, Massachusetts, capturing the unexpected turns in history in our own lives.

"In exquisite prose, Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse of small-town America, presenting us with some three hundred years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters' lives are intertwined by fate and their own actions.

"From the town's founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City with only his dog for company, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a passionate neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.

"At the center of everyone's life is a mysterious garden where only red plants can grow, and where the truth can be found by those who dare to look."

Opening Lines:
"The town of Blackwell, Massachusetts changed its name in 1786. It had been called Bearsville when it was founded in 1750, but it quickly became apparent that a name such as that did little to encourage new settlers."

My Take:
The language Hoffman uses here really is lovely, as are some of the stories ... but that's how this book reads; more like a collection of loosely connected (by place) short stories than a coherent novel. Perhaps I'm just reading this one too closely on the heels of Last Days of Dogtown, but that novel conveyed a truer and more nuanced sense of place than The Red Garden manages to do. Then too, I'm not a huge short story fan, and don't usually care for the handful of supernatural elements the author throws in. Well done, but not an all-time favorite.

#6: The Post-American World, Release 2.0

The Post-American World, Release 2.0, by Fareed Zakaria (New York: Norton, 2011)

Summary:
"Fareed Zakaria's international bestseller The Post-American World pointed to the 'rise of the rest' -- the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, and others -- as the great story of our time, the story that will undoubtedly shape the future of global power. Since its publication, the trends he identified have proceeded faster than anyone could have anticipated. The 2008 financial crisis turned the world upside down, stalling the United States and other advanced economies. Meanwhile, emerging markets have surged ahead, coupling their economic growth with pride, nationalism, and a determination to shape their own future.

"In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of this rapidly changing landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past five hundred years -- the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States -- to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the 'rise of the rest.' The great challenge for Britain was economic decline. The challenge for America now is political decline, for as others have grown in importance, the central role of the United States -- especially in the ascendant emerging markets -- has already begun to shrink. As Zakaria eloquently argues, Washington needs to begin a serious transformation of its global strategy, moving from its traditional role of dominating hegemon to that of a more pragmatic, honest broker. It must seek to share power, create coalitions, build legitimacy, and define the global agenda -- all formidable tasks.

"None of this will be easy for the greatest power the world has ever known -- the only power that for so long has really mattered. America stands at a crossroads: In a new global era where the United States no longer dominates the worldwide economy, orchestrates geopolitics, or overwhelms cultures, can the nation continue to thrive?"

Table of Contents:

1. The Rise of the Rest
2. The Cup Runneth Over
3. A Non-Western World?
4. The Challenger
5. The Ally
6. American Power
7. American Purpose

My Take:
An enjoyable read, especially if you're interested in international relations and sick to death of all the political finger-pointing and "America in decline" frothing at the mouth we seem to hear in an election year. Not quite as detailed and substantive as Thomas Friedman's books, but not quite as dense to get through, either.

#3: The Last Days of Dogtown

The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant (New York: Scribner, 2006)

Summary:
"Set on the high ground at the heart of Cape Ann, the village of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and 'witches.' Among the inhabitants of this hamlet are Black Ruth, who dresses as a man and works as a stonemason; Mrs. Stanley, an imperious madam whose grandson, Sammy, comes of age in her brothel; Oliver Younger, who survives a miserable childhood at the hands of his aunt; and Cornelius Finson, a freed slave. At the center of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent soul, deeply lonely, who nonetheless builds a life for herself against all imaginable odds. Rendered in stunning, haunting detail, with Diamant's keen ear for language and profound compassion for her characters, The Last Days of Dogtown is an extraordinary retelling of a long-forgotten chapter of early American life."

Opening Line:
"Judy Rhines decided to take the footpath through the pasture."

My Take:
Outstanding, gentle book with memorable characters.

#1 for 2012 - Fall of Giants

Finished 2011 and started 2012 in the middle of Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (New York: Dutton, 2010).

Summary:
"Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families -- American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh -- as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits. Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House. Two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London. These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangles as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic. In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves -- and the century itself. With passion and the heart of a master, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again."

Opening Line:
"On the day King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, Billy Williams went down the pit in Aberowen, South Wales."

My Take:
I do like this sort of grand, sweeping historical saga thing, and will read the next 2 volumes when they're available -- but Fall of Giants isn't quite in the Pillars of the Earth category. Too slow and dragging in places.

#111: The Little Women Letters

The Little Women Letters, by Gabrielle Donnelly (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011)

Summary:
"With her older sister planning a wedding and her younger sister preparing to launch a career on the stage, Lulu can't help but feel like the failure of the Atwater family. Lulu loves her sisters dearly and wants nothing but the best for them, but she finds herself stuck in a rut. When her mother sends her to look for some old family recipes in the attic, she stumbles across a collection of letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. Jo writes in detail about every aspect of her life: her older sister Meg's new home and family; her younger sister Amy's many admirers; the family's shared grief over losing Beth; and her own feelings towards a handsome young German. As Lulu delves deeper into the lives of the March sisters, she finds solace and guidance, but can her great-great-grandmother help Lulu find a place in a world so different from the one Jo knew?"

Opening Lines:
"Plumfield, October 1888.

Dearest Amy,

My daughter has arrived in this world, and bless the infant, she is the reddest and the squallingest baby you ever did see!"

My Take:
Middling to above-average in the grand scheme of new takes on old, beloved stories.