Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024--San Antonio

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner is one of the most in-demand books this year (I waited for about 9 weeks on hold to get it on my Kindle from my library) and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award.  It is also the most complex story I have read recently.  The central character is a former U.S. government operative who is now doing private contract undercover work around the world.  During the time covered by the book, she is in France.  She is infiltrating a cult-like commune by becoming the lover of the childhood best friend of the leader of the group. While her lover, a film producer, is in southern France on his latest project, she volunteers to go to his family's unoccupied estate near the commune and, while there, to assist the best friend and other members of the commune in translating their writings about how life should be organized and lived.  (She is fluent in several languages.)  But it is all a plan by her employers for her to determine whether this is a group intending to lead insurrection against the government.  And eventually, with the approval of a great increase in pay, the plan involves her being expected to arrange an attempt to assassinate a government official whose planned projects for the area are of concern to local citizens because they will promote huge agricultural farming (putting the local small farmers out of business) and have the potential for creating a water crisis.  Tied in with all of this is the background story of a writer/insurrectionist whose writings and counselings have led to the establishment of this particular commune she is infiltrating.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Saturday, Sept. 29, 2024--San Antonio

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston was recommended in a TIME feature recently explaining the new popularity of romance novels and the improved quality of such stories.  I previously read the author's Red, White, and Royal Blue after noting the popularity of the TV series made from it (on a streaming service to which I do not subscribe).  This latest book by her was a bit confusing to me at first.  It's a history of the relationship between Theo and Kit who became childhood friends in elementary school, eventually became lovers, and, at the time the book starts, have been apart a few years due to a breakup.  The first half of the book is told by Theo.  The second half is told by Kit.  The reader slowly learns their entire story.  It's told in a way that there are strange nuggets dropped that could be easily passed over, but that, if noticed, somewhat boggle the reader's mind--raising questions such as: Does that really make sense?  Why that?  Is ___ going to happen?   Later, something is told in the story that answers those questions and makes sense out of the things that seemed strange.  Because of the interests of the two main characters, there are lots of details related to art history, food, and wine.  As I understand is common and expected in most romance novels, there are also a LOT of detailed sex scenes; as far as I was concerned, there were too many that lasted for too long.  But the general story is a good one.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2024--San Antonio

Bel Cando by Ann Patchett was named by TIME as one of the Top 100 books of the 2000s.  It was a book I never wanted to put down.  The story of a situation in an unnamed South American country involving a group of guerrilla fighters and a group of hostages, it follows the months after a failed attempt to capture the president of the country at a birthday party arranged for a Japanese industrialist who is a fan of the top female opera performer in the world.  In a desperate attempt to get a new factory, the country, which has been unsuccessful in getting the industrialist to come there previously, throws the birthday party with the opera singer as the entertainment and an enticement.  The result is a comedy of errors.  The industrialist comes only because of the opera singer and still has no interest at all in building a factory there.  The opera singer comes only because she has an upcoming concert in Buenos Aries and is curious about this Japanese industrialist who is aware of her and has traveled around the world to hear her perform several times.  The birth date of the industrialist is on a Tuesday, but the President is a fan of a very popular soap opera that is on TV on Tuesday nights and never allows anything on his calendar to conflict with staying home and watching the show.  The president agrees to the party because of the need for the hoped-for factory, but secretly plans to back out of attending at the last minute.  The party is to be held at the home of the vice-president, and the guerrillas have an elaborate plan of entering the home in advance through the vents for the air conditioning system and coming out as a surprise at the end of the opera singer's performance to capture the president and whisk him away quickly during all the confusion.  Trying to find the absent president among the crowd eats up so much time that word of what is happening gets out via phone calls, and the military and police arrive to surround the house.  The stand-off begins and lasts for months with the guerrillas trying to make unreasonable and often changing demands and the government never making offers of anything but surrender by the guerrillas and release of the captives.  The real story is what happens during the first weeks and eventually months of captivity within the compound.  Relationships begin to develop.  Guerrillas begin to care for their captives and vice versa.  Strict enforcement of rules by the guerrillas slowly falls to the wayside.  Daily life under the circumstances is better for the guerrillas than it has ever been for them in the jungles.  And the captives also come to realize that life without the responsibilities of their professional lives has its advantages for them.  The reader will learn to care for many among both the guerrillas and the captives and to wish that everything could be resolved with everyone going free.  Is there any chance for that?  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

 Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024--San Antonio

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald is considered to be a great novel, and it was listed by TIME as one of the top 100 books of the 2000s.  It is well written and includes lots of interesting observations about life, about architecture, about history, etc.  But it is a SLOW read with page-after-page consisting of one paragraph.  I found myself leaving the book after reading fewer than 20 pages at a time.  After 5-6 days of reading, I was only 40% of the way through the book and having to push myself to go back to it.  Finally, at 42% of the way through it, I decided to quit it.  At times the story had turned interesting, but that would last a while and then go back to observations.  Maybe I should have kept reading, but I wanted something more consistently interesting to read.  I haven't rated the book.  And I may go back to it at some point in time.  But I have probably left it behind permanently since I read mostly for pleasure.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Sunday, Sept. 15, 2025--San Antonio 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune is the second and final book in a science fiction series.  I read the first in the series, The House in the Cerulean Sea, in March of this year.  This is the continuation of the story of the discrimination against magical people and the efforts of a magical man who is a phoenix to work to create a chosen family of magical children who have especially strong powers and as a result have been abused in foster homes and orphanages and are feared by the government for their power.  However, in this book, one of the children, Lucifer, the son of the Devil, is not only feared by the government but is the target of a plan to capture him and force him to evil deeds at their command to make it the most powerful country in the world.  Why would he do this?  Because he and the other children living together have come to think of themselves as brothers and sisters--as a part of a family--and that Lucifer's concern for his family members would be the motivation to obey the evil demands the government makes of him.  It's an interesting story, but the two books together are more pages to read that I would have preferred.  I never got past the first book in the Harry Potter series as my interested dropped.  Science fiction isn't my favorite category of literature.  So I found myself wanting to get through this second book in the series to go on to others on my list to read.  I gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024--San Antonio

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Critics Circle Award and was named the #1 Fiction Book of the Year by TIME in 2007.  In general, I have never been greatly impressed by the Pulitzer winners, but this is the best of the lot I have read.  It has fascinating characters, hilarious moments, and so many references to popular culture that it boggles the mind to think that the author knows and retains all of this information in his mind.  The title character is an overweight, sad sack nerd supreme!  He looks like a nerd, talks like a nerd, acts like a nerd, and enters adulthood still a nerd and also a virgin who hasn't even been kissed.  And the result provides all of the many laughable moments in the book.  But the book is really about the history of the Dominican Republic in modern times as seen through the history of Oscar's family for multiple generations--before the 31-year dictatorship of Trujillo, during that dictatorship, and afterwards.  It's about the hard life that many of the people there have faced, the power and corruption of the government no matter who the ruler, and the reasons why many have left the island for a better life in the U.S., Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and elsewhere.  This novel provides far more details about the history of the DR than, in the words of the narrator, "the 2 minutes worth" that we learned in schools in the U.S.  The central family, back 3 and 4 generations ago, was among the elites of society.  One of the sons 3 generations back manages to become a doctor and to own a number of businesses although he didn't get the high society marriage he had hoped to have and eventually married his mulatto nurse. Their children, turned out to be intelligent and beautiful.  But there were beginnings of a slow downfall even though the doctor tried to avoid problems by supporting Trujillo and ignoring his strong-armed tactics.  Trujillo must have been among the worst dictators in the history of the world.  No woman was safe from being raped by him, even the wives of his government officials, and he took special pleasure in raping new brides the night of their wedding (before being bedded by the new husband).  It's fear of Trujillo's interest in one of the daughters that precipitates the greatest economic downfall of the family.  But other events lead to a belief that there is a sort of curse against the family which leads to more and more tragic events.  The book introduces Oscar and his sister Lola who are members of the latest generation living in Patterson, NJ, with a mother working two jobs to support them, then it gives the back stories for all the other characters before returning to current times.  Beyond the history lesson, however, it is the wonderfully bewildering Oscar you will love.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett

Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024--San Antonio

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett is a character study set in Ireland that has been longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  By "character study" I mean that we are given background information about the main characters in the story followed by the story of the events during several days involving all of these characters.  There is no real plot.  For a reader who is absorbing all of the information, it is a fascinating story that raises concerns and questions.  Is this 17-year-old teenager who has been successfully managing her own life since her parents died--doing well in school with a chance at going to university, working part-time in a bar, dating a nice boy whose brother is a worthless soul and criminal--going to continue making a success of her life or are circumstances going to hold her back?  Is the very large guy--a bullied loner in school who has been treated for mental problems with symptoms similar to panic attacks and whose estranged father is famous in town for having kidnapped a woman and ending up living in a sanatorium with similar mental symptoms--going to survive on his own after his mother's death occurs and two criminals start bullying their way into his life for the advantages they need for their crime sprees?  Is the school charmer--who bullied for fun and committed petty crimes in school without facing consequences and who is, a few years after school, still a petty criminal taking advantage of others without being able to use his charm to get away with things anymore--going to grow up or waste his whole life?  Is the quiet and sensitive brother of the school charmer/bully--who has a chance to go to university and lead a different life from his brother--going to escape the pull of events that could lead him other directions?  Are the worst of the criminals going to ever be caught and punished?  The book provides all the information needed to set these questions in motion and then leaves it to the reader to think about them and decide for himself what is going to happen to each.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.