Books and Movies

Today’s teaser is from The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver.

In all, she was an efficient little mechanism, who had her own work and her own friends, and the fact that in Lawrence’s absence she was just fine, thank you very much, provided a mean satisfaction. Still, there was a thin, brittle feeling to this just-fineness, as if she’d turned into one of those dry Scandinavian crispbreads that never have enough salt.

Head over to Should Be Reading to play along.

What are you reading right now?

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver (I had no idea - Shriver is a woman!)

Why are you reading what you’re reading? Pleasure? For review? Something else?

I’m reading the Hersey for the Biblically Literate Book Club at Semicolon, though I’m a little behind and I should have finished it last week. It’s taken a while, but I’m finally “hooked.”

I picked up The Post-Birthday World last night because I needed a book that I owned to take to the pool to read in the hot tub, and the Hersey is a library copy. It’s good so far.

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski yesterday. (my review)

What do you think you’ll be reading next?

I have three books I need to get to fairly soon:

The Grift by Debra Ginsberg - publisher’s copy
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland - ARC
The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan - for a guest review on J. Kaye’s Book Blog

What was the best book you read this month? Why?

That would be a tie between Fieldwork (my review), The Heretic’s Daughter (my review), and The Penderwick’s (my review).

What was the worst book you read this month? Why?

I was lucky; I didn’t have any clunkers this month.

Click over to Should Be Reading if you decide to play along.

Mischa Berlinski is a journalist; Fieldwork is his first novel. That fact makes its beautiful prose and engrossing story all the more amazing.

Fieldwork is the story of (fictional) journalist Mischa, living in Thailand while his fiance teaches English to first graders. He is making a small livng writing restaurant reviews and summaries of business textbooks, when he hears the story of anthropologist Martiya van der Leun. Martiya has committed suicide in a Thai prison, where she was serving a life sentence for murder.

Mischa becomes intrigued by Martiya’s story, and starts digging. His curiosity turns to obsession when he learns that the victim of Martiya’s murder was the son of a prominent missionary family. Mischa meets the Walker family, second and third generation evangelical missionaries living in Thailand and ministering to the Dyalo tribal people. He is fascinated by the story of these hardy people who have chosen to forsake all Western comforts and live in harsh conditions for the purpose of spreading the Gospel. He also delves into the world of anthropologists, who immerse themselves in tribal cultures for a completey different reason. The two worlds are similar, but by definition must be opposed to each other. The anthropologist’s task is to catalog and preserve tribal culture; the missionary’s goal is to convert the tribal people.

Martiya makes the acquaintance of the Walker family, and they help her by answering her questions, translating Dyalo phrases, and explaining Dyalo customs to her. So what happened to make Martiya decide to kill David, the Walkers’ son? Mischa peels back layer by layer of the mystery, and as he does, the story gets more and more enthralling, until I couldn’t put it down until I knew.

Berlinski is an extremely talented writer; his descriptions of the Thai culture and countryside are breathtaking. Part of me was waiting for the portrayal of the Walker missionary family to descend into derisive stereotype, but Berlinski gives all of his characters a humanity and authenticity that make them seem like living, breathing people. They are flawed, fascinating humans that are, above all, real. The climax of the story shows how one simple choice can bring about the most unexpected and horrific consequences.

5 out of 5 stars.

Mischa Berlinksi’s web site

Interview about Fieldwork

Since last Sunday’s Salon post, I gave up on The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. The premise was good, and he’s a talented writer with a dry sense of humor and a knack for writing description. But. The story kept taking off on tangents, and I found myself impatient that I wasn’t getting anywhere in the story. I made it to page 100, but the book is over 500 pages long, and I figured if it hadn’t grabbed me by page 100, it probably wasn’t going to.

I’m still working on John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano. It’s good, but I haven’t made very much progress, because on Monday, I picked up this:

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinksi

I can’t put it down! I keep getting irritated with the other things I have to do with my time - like feed my family, fold laundry, etc. This is Berlinski’s first novel, and it is truly amazing. I feel like I’ve been visiting Thailand, studying anthropology, and investigating a murder, all while pondering the impact of missionaries on a native culture. So good.

I’m listening to The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: Or On the Segregation of the Queen, A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King on audiobook, and it’s fabulous, too. So all-around, it’s been a good reading week. I’m hoping to have time to finish Fieldwork tomorrow, especially since the Seahawks aren’t playing.

What are you reading this Sunday?

I know it’s not morning anymore, but I saw this meme at The Bookworm, and since I’m stumped on what to post, I decided to play along.

1. Name an author you love. Just one? Wendell Berry.

2. Name an author you dislike. I’ve tried to like Joyce Carol Oates, but so far I haven’t liked any of her stuff that I’ve read.

3. What was the last book you read? Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story by Kim Powers - I loved it, and my review will be up as part of a book tour on October 17th.

4. What genre do you read the most? Which have you never read? The genre I read the most is fiction - all types: literary, historical, classics, women’s fiction, etc. I can’t think of a genre I haven’t read, to be honest! I don’t like to read horror, but I had a boyfriend in college who got me to read Mine by Robert McCammon. I went through a true crime phase in high school, when I read lots of true crime non-fiction. In college and after college, I read a lot of romance and science fiction. Fantasy is a relatively new genre to me, and I love it. I don’t like self-help books, but I have read a couple.

5. How many hours a day do you spend reading? During the summer, I read two to three hours a day. During the school year, I’m lucky to get an hour of reading time a day.

6. What is your favorite time of day to read? In the evening, when everyone’s in bed and the house is quiet.

Now that the new television season has finally started, I’m planning a weekly post on what I watched during the week. Let’s start with Monday.

NBC’s Heroes returned for its third season. And I’m pretty lost at this point. I think I should’ve watched the recap show that aired before the premiere, because I think I missed something. And the episode itself - it was all over the place. I hope they rein it in some and focus on just a couple storylines per episode, because that was just too much jumping around.

There were a couple major revelations, though: Mrs. Petrelli told Sylar that she is his mother. Okay, that was unexpected.

Sylar stole Claire’s gift, told her that she is un-kill-able, and left her without any sensation of pain.

I do like the new super-speedy character that clashed with Hiro. But I don’t like what they’re doing to Mohinder’s character at all.

On to Tuesday night. Ah, House. I love that show. I like the direction they’re going, too, with Wilson finally getting a backbone and telling House to get along without him. Of course, I hope it doesn’t last very long, because the relationship and banter between the two of them is one of the best things about the show. I also like the addition of the private eye - he tells it like it is, which House needs.

There’s a rumor on the entertainment sites that House and Cuddy kiss in episode 6. Very interesting.

Fringe - I’m liking this show a lot. And I’m slightly worried, because Fox’s track record with sci-fi shows isn’t the best. Here’s hoping it picks up a huge audience and Fox keeps it around for a long time. As long as it keeps being as well written and cool as it has been.

As much as I love Bones, it hasn’t been clicking for me this season. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up on it - because I love the chemistry between Bones and Booth - but it has had a somewhat disapointing start. First of all, it took until episode three for them to have a mystery that I didn’t figure out before they did.

Then they had the episode about dog-fighting. And everyone in the lab seemed to be more sad and disturbed by the dog-fighting than they ever get about their human victims. I think dog-fighting is horrible, too, but the human remains they deal with and the crimes perpetrated on the victims, are much more horrific in my eyes. And yet it took dog-fighting to make Angela consider quitting her job and moving to the Bahamas? Please, people.

And then the whole “let’s bring Zack back for an episode.” I find that creepy. I loved Zack’s character, but let’s not forget that he was the apprentice to a psychotic serial killer-slash-cannibal. You can’t introduce that kind of plot device into a show, and then pretend like it didn’t happen.

And yes, he told Sweets that he didn’t really kill that guy, but he helped the Master do it, so what’s the dif? I certainly find it improbable that people whose job it is to find murderers would be so cavalier about taking Zack out for a piece of pie. I mean, I think it’s cool that they still love him, but I found that whole subplot a little sick.

I planned to watch the debate tonight, and all the networks’ web sites had it listed at 9 pm, but that must have been Eastern time, because it was over by 9 Pacific, when I turned the TV on. Oh, well.

Other than those shows, we’ve been watching episodes of Scrubs on DVD. We love Netflix!

What have you been watching lately?

Today’s teaser is from Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski:

Piers wrote to his sister that the villagers held a festival of darkness. A buffalo was slaughtered to ensure that the dead would have good eating and leave the living in peace.

I am having a hard time doing anything else while I’m in the middle of this book! Mischa Berlinski has written a fascinating tale involving murder, missionaries, and a remote tribe of natives in Thailand. Why did a seemingly rational anthropolgist shoot a missionary’s son in the back twice? Are the missionaries a positive influence in the region? What made them so successful in their mission to convert a tribe of natives ot Christianity?

Click over to Should Be Reading for info on how to join in.

Today’s Musing Monday is about book clubs: face-to-face, online, etc.

I don’t belong to any face-to-face bookclubs. I don’t even know of any in my rural town. But, I have a best friend who loves to read as much as I do, and we talk about books incessantly: what we’re reading, what we bought, what we want to read, what we read about authors on the internet, reviews we found, etc. We also share books back and forth, too. In fact, we found out the hard way to always check with each other when placing orders. When Barnes & Noble held their big after-Christmas sale, Michelle told me about it, and I ordered a bunch of books. So did she. Then we compared notes two days later and found that we duplicated three titles!

This month was my first month of being involved in an online bookclub, but I’m already behind on the book we’re supposed to have done by Friday, so we’ll see how that goes.

Click over to Should Be Reading to play along.

I’ve had some great book experiences this week. I finished Kim Powers’ Capote in Kansas, which was fantastic. A review and author interview will be coming on October 17th, as part of TLC Book Tours.

I finished listening to Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris, read by the author. I have never ready any of Sedaris’ work before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but overall I enjoyed it very much. The story “Six to Eight Black Men” in particular was absolutely hilarious, and you can read it here.

I also listened to Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor, which was wonderful (my review).

I’m now reading A Bell for Adano by John Hersey and I’m still trying to make progress in The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, but it hasn’t grabbed me - yet.

What have you been reading this week?

Addie is waiting for normal. She is twelve years old, and has spent most of her life waiting for it. She had a taste of normal when her mother, Denise, was married to Dwight and had her two baby sisters, Brenna and Katie. But Addie’s mother is bipolar, and nothing lasts long for Addie: schools, homes, friends. After Dwight and Denise divorce, Addie is left at home with her mother and little sisters, and she is the most mature, responsible person in the home. Denise leaves the girls alone for several days, which results in Dwight gaining custody of Brenna and Katie. Addie isn’t his biological daughter, though, so she ends up back with Denise.

Dwight tries to support Addie and Denise the best he can, moving them into a small trailer under a train overpass. Addie quickly makes friends with Sula and Elliott, who run the Quick-mart on the corner, and they open their hearts to her. She lives for her times with Sula and Elliott, and her visits with Dwight and her sisters, all along waiting for her normal.

Leslie Connor has written a bittersweet story about a beautiful, resilient young girl. (Dwight tells her that resilient means “bounce back-ish.”) Addie struggles with her desire to live with Dwight and the girls, and her reluctance to leave Denise alone. She feels responsible for her mother, in a way that her mother has never felt about her. I loved Addie, and I was rooting for her to get her “normal” all through this sensitive, well-written novel.

Appropriate for ages 12 and up, as it deals with some heavy issues like child abandonment.