The Village Idiots

23 comments:

1. Mitchell, 17. January 2010, 15:32
   

   
   In a way, N is for Noose doesn’t quite deliver what I expected upon completion of the excellent M is for Malice. M, which involved Kinsey Millhone in a story that developed Kinsey’s personal story far more in one installment than any since A is for Alibi, pointed her fans toward several interesting possibilities. Between the return of Dietz, the interesting dynamic between Kinsey and Guy Malek, and hints that Kinsey might be ready to become more involved in the lives of her cousins, I thought M hinted at further travel down those roads.

   Instead, Sue Grafton removes Kinsey almost entirely from Santa Teresa and puts her in the unfamiliar California mountain town of Nota Lake, a town where everyone knows everyone else’s business, where strangers who pry are not looked upon with much favor, and where Kinsey is separated from the creature comforts and routines that define her place in the world.

   It’s an interesting idea. Kinsey’s life is characterized by its almost comical simplicity. Now, in this place that is geographically located between Robert Dietz and Kinsey’s Santa Teresa home, we can see how many connections and attachments she has formed in what has been only four years in her world (according to the author’s note in O is for Outlaw). The absence of these connections provides an unsettling contrast for Kinsey and for the reader. Without Rosie, Henry, Jonah, Tasha, or any of the other regulars Kinsey frequently calls upon for help or support, she is forced to work completely alone, relying on the kindness of untrustworthy strangers.

   It adds up to a story of great tension. Neither Kinsey nor the reader of this novel knows whom to trust; every piece of information is received suspiciously; every move Kinsey makes seems fraught with peril. Kinsey is hired by the widow of a detective in Nota Lake’s sheriff’s department. The death itself doesn’t seem suspicious, but the widow wants to know what it was that had her husband behaving not like himself in the months leading up to his heart attack. Kinsey finds it difficult to get many people to talk about the deceased because he was a respected member of the community whom everyone knew; she finds it less difficult to get people to talk about his widow, an outsider who is mistrusted by almost everyone. Kinsey herself is not trusted, and she is encouraged by many people to give the case up and to go back to wherever she came from.

   It is an invitation that she longs to accept. Every description of Kinsey’s activities seems to magnify her eagerness to return home. Add to the unfriendly work environment the possible connection of two horrible murders to Kinsey’s case and the possible interference of law-enforcement personnel in Nota Lake and you get a pretty compelling story.

   I have to say that I missed a lot of the character development I was hoping for, but this little break from Kinsey’s Santa Teresa world serves the overall, serial arc well. There’s no need to hurry things along, after all: we are only on N, leaving us twelve more installments to see what really happens to Kinsey.

    
2. Mitchell, 17. January 2010, 22:12
   

   
   My only complaint about N is for Noose was that while it told a very good story, it didn’t advance Kinsey’s own story enough. Or at all, really. If I’d known where O is for Outlaw was going to go, I’d have kept my mouth shut, because there’s even more Kinsey introspection here than there was in M, and it goes someplace pretty dark.

   Until now, it’s been well-known that Kinsey is twice-divorced, and although quite a bit about her second marriage has been evaluated, her first marriage is something of a mystery. We have known that she married young and that she divorced after a very short marriage, but who her husband was and what caused the split have never even been hinted at.

   But Kinsey gets a call from one of those guys who bids on the contents of storage facility lockers whose owners have defaulted on their rents. He has sold off most of the stuff he’s purchased and tossed the rest; however, he has some personal mementos with Kinsey’s name on them: an old yearbook, an old report card, some photos. Kinsey is intrigued. The items point to a past about which she has few physical reminders, so she buys the stuff and learns that the storage locker had been rented by her first husband, who seems to have disappeared.

   As Kinsey investigates, mostly out of curiosity, she learns that things about her first husband were possibly not what she thought, and that the circumstances surrounding their divorce were not as they appeared. Kinsey is forced to rethink the ex-husband whom she has pushed into the outer edges of her consciousness and is presented with an opportunity, maybe, to make amends.

   O is for Outlaw is one of Sue Grafton’s best Kinsey stories. It is a fascinating story and compelling reading.

    
3. Mitchell, 14. February 2010, 22:48
   

   When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

   My rating: 5 of 5 stars
   Miranda is twelve. Her single mom practices every evening for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid. Her best friend Sal doesn’t speak to her anymore, so she is forced to walk home alone past the group of rowdy older boys and past the homeless man who sleeps with his head beneath the mailbox. And three mysterious notes from an unknown sender plead with her to help save an unnamed friend.

   Plot-wise, this is all you need to know about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the 2010 winner of the Newbery Medal. If this plot description isn’t enough to convince you to read it, you should also know that in a loving tribute to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, the author develops lovable characters in a series of very short chapters with a simple, readable prose that is at times astonishingly beautiful:

   Then I sat on the couch and closed my eyes. I pictured the world. I pictured the world millions of years ago, with crazy clouds of gas everywhere, and volcanoes, and the continents bumping into each other and then drifting apart. Okay. Now life begins. It starts in the water, with tiny things, microscopic, and then some get bigger. And one day something crawls out of the water onto land. There are animals, then humans, looking almost all alike. There are tiny differences in color, the shape of the face, the tone of the skin. But basically they are the same. They create shelters, grow food, experiment. They talk; they write things down.

   Now fast-forward. The earth is still making loops around the sun. There are humans all over the place, driving in cars and flying in airplanes. And then one day one human tells another human that he doesn’t want to walk to school with her anymore.

   “Does it really matter?” I ask myself.

   It did.

   The short chapters are small scenes that capture the humor, tension, and absurdity of life as a preteen, and Stead manages to weave one fantastic thread through a story that is in just about every other way a slice of believable life.

   The characters act and speak the way twelve-year-olds do. Some of them panic at the thought of having to announce to the whole class the need to use the restroom. Some of them are embarrassed about having not enough money. Some of them are embarrassed about having more than enough money. Alliances are made and broken quickly and suddenly, according to the code of the sixth-grade classroom, and Miranda, even while dealing with the scary, unsigned notes from who-knows-where, seems equally challenged by the uncertainty of having a friend sleep over for the first time.

   When You Reach Me is immediately a classic, undoubtedly destined to be a favorite of many readers for a long time.

   View all my reviews >>

    
4. pen, 19. February 2010, 14:31
   

   The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire by Matt Taibbi. Matt also writes for Rolling Stone.

   There were times I laughed out loud while reading this book, which was fine when I was at home, but while waiting at a bus stop, people can begin to give you odd looks if you laugh by yourself too much…even if you’re reading a book. Matt looks at Congress, the “left” and “right” wings and himself (he is clear about his biases and how his views were shaped) with the same ascerbic, sarcastic eye. He kind of reminds me of a political Chuck Klosterman. He manages to not get too snarky.

   Matt joins an evangelical church and the 9/11 Truthers to experience two extremes in American culture…and finds the similarities between them. Interspersed between those two tales are observations about Congress…how bills get passed and killed and about those that wield that life or death powers.

   While at times discouraging and despressing, Taibbi manages to find some sort of light (or perhaps just a spark) for we Americans by the end of his book.

    
5. pen, 8. March 2010, 16:13
   

   As per Tony’s recommendation (last year…yikes!) I just finished Friends Like These by Danny Wallace and enjoyed it a lot. I found myself laughing aloud on many occasions and even though some of the cultural references were not familiar (he’s about 7 years younger than I am and grew up in Scotland and England) it was thoroughly engaging and relatable.

   The book is about Danny’s journey to find the 12 childhood friends that meant the most to him, but has lost touch with before his 30th birthday. I’m glad I could hitch a ride on Danny’s journey to reconcile himself with his “impending” adulthood.

   Thanks, Tony!

    
6. pen, 17. March 2010, 13:20
   

   Okay, I am slowly, but surely catching up. Read Castle Freeman, Jr.’s Go With Me and enjoyed it. It is a quick read…descriptive, but quite a bit of dialog. The characters are distinctive and unique and I found myself caught up in the journey. Freeman manages to convey a lot in a few choice words.

   Different from Cormac McCarthy’s writing in The Road which I am a little over half way finished. His writing is sparse…Freeman is more succinct. If that makes any sense. McCarthy’s writing style fits perfectly with the content of his novel (post-apocalypic…very sparse, harsh and desolate. Whittled down to muscle, bone and sinew. No fat, though he has some poetic passages. But even that fits.

   I am reading some good stuff lately! (Don’t get a big head, Reid).

    
7. Reid, 17. March 2010, 14:49
   

   Pen,

   Don’t you think Go With Me would be a perfect vehicle for someone like the Coen Brothers? In any event, it feels more like a screenplay than a novel. I was thinking of someone like Zooey Deschanel for the female lead (Debra Winger if this were made twenty years ago). I’m not sure about the other characters, but I was thinking of someone like Richard Farnsworth for the older guy.

   Hope you can get caught up on Criss-Cross and Cloud Atlas. Criss is a fast read; Atlas is longer, but worth it, I think.

   I highly recommend Gilead, which is another fast read; ditto The Story of a Marriage (although it’s not as good as the former).

    
8. Reid, 18. April 2010, 1:40
   

   History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

   I first became interested in this book after reading an article comparing Herodotus’ Histories and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (HOPW) in the Atlantic Monthly. I’ve read both since then, and I preferred the latter. The former is a blend of history, travelogue and tall tales. The latter is definitely more focused and more modern. HOPW covers the twenty-eight year war between the Athenians and Spartans (Peloponnesians) in Fifth Century B.C.–both of which were empires thus making this a kind of “world” war.

   T. was an Athenian General in the war and set document the war. The book is a combination of politics, foreign policy and military activity. My favorites parts of the book involve speeches–from generals addressing their troops; envoys from different city states arguing for their interests; politicians debating various political and military decisions (to attack a certain city; to kill or not kill prisoners). There are also memorable and interesting leaders depicted in the book.

   For those interested in governance–particularly regarding international relations and foreign policies–I would think this is an essential book. Many of the circumstances in the book can be seen as object lessons for current politicians and military personnel.

   There are some difficulties with reading the book, however. For one thing, there seem to be a million different city-states involved in the war. To make matters worse, these city-states are often colonized by other city-states, making for confusing reading. In addition, T.’s writing can be confusing. The first translation was a bit difficult, but I later switched to the Penguin version which was easier to understand.

   This is a highly ambitious work, and it seems to hold up quite well. This is considered one of the classics and it deserves to be.

   Notes/Questions:

   What were the real reasons for the war?
   Were the Athenians superior to the Peloponnesians? What were the key mistakes made by either side?

    
9. Reid, 20. April 2010, 14:23
   

   (HoPW con’t)

   The one other thing I forgot to write is that the book helps one understand the emphasis and concern Socrates/Plato placed on issues like governance and virtue.

    
10. Reid, 3. June 2010, 22:53
    

    Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

    I finished this several weeks ago, and I forgot to write a review. Marc and Grace really liked this, and I thought it was pretty good. It’s a page-turning mystery–with two somewhat interesting leads: a investigative journalists (mostly focusing on corporations) and a “punk-rocker” computer hacker who works for a security firm. The mystery involves the disappearance of a man’s niece, who was like a daughter to him.

    The other thing I will say is that I didn’t care for the writing, which was just serviceable to me.

     
11. Mitchell, 8. June 2010, 9:46
    

    First Light by Rebecca Stead

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars
    I’ve read other books whose chapters took turns presenting different characters’ points of view, but until I read First Light, I never found that device distracting. It is perhaps a testimony to Rebecca Stead’s skill at pacing her story that whenever one chapter ended and the point of view shifted from Thea’s to Peter’s or back again, I was annoyed and distracted. This is my one quibble with what is otherwise a terrific book.

    Thea is a teenaged girl who lives in a matriarchal society in a world seemingly made of ice. Her people, once persecuted for their outstanding abilities, are finding it harder to maintain the society they’ve built in their icy world. As a member of the highest nobility among her people, Thea believes the burden of solving their problems falls upon her. Peter is the son of a biologist mother and geologist father. He is spending his summer vacation in Greenland while his father studies the effects of global warming on glaciers in the area. Troubled by intense, debilitating headaches that sometimes wipe him out for an entire day, he suspects his mother’s own crippling headaches are somehow related to the book she’s writing during the family’s stay in the frozen north. He is torn between wanting to help his mother with her problems, but nobody will tell him what her problems are.

    I didn’t find this setup especially compelling, but Stead does a great job of creating likable characters and thrusting them into stories that hurtle forward at increasing speeds like the characters’ sleds down frozen slopes. She reveals just enough of her mystery on each page to force the reader to continue to the next page, where still more of the mystery unfolds, while at the same time the same mystery is being pieced together.

    With its intelligent, bold characters who propel the story with their own audacity, First Light is likely to appeal to middle-schoolers and older elementary-schoolers who appreciate a well-paced mystery adventure.

    View all my reviews >>

     
12. Reid, 8. June 2010, 22:05
    

    Does anyone have a titles they plan to read during the summer?

    I haven’t chosen any books to read specifically for summer, but I’m currently reading Garry Wills’ What Paul Meant and Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety. I also picked up a book called, Patterns of Homes, which is written by some of the architects who were involved with the book, Pattern Language.

    I wish I had summer off to read, though. I love that.

     
13. Mitchell, 9. June 2010, 16:30
    

    I have an enormous stack of to-reads. Haven’t exactly listed them, but some of them are here.

     
14. Reid, 9. June 2010, 20:55
    

    Except for the Carl Hiaasen book, I never heard of the others.

     
15. Mitchell, 9. June 2010, 22:49
    

    You’re definitely familiar with some of those authors, though. I hadn’t heard of them either (except the John Fischer and Sarah Lacy books) until I saw them.

     
16. Tony, 11. June 2010, 8:25
    

    I “finalized” my summer reading list yesterday. Books to finish or start and finish:
    Life of Pi by Yann Martel- it’s taken me forever to get into this book (which I’ve owned for years);
    To Change the World by James Hunter- it’s caused a slight stir in Christian circles in terms of what it says about the failures of American Christianity to impact culture in the way that it hopes;
    Desiring the Kingdom by James Smith- Smith asserts that the primacy of teaching “worldview” at Christian schools may not be as good a thing as we think;
    Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell- one of my favorite writers musing on something that I don’t really know much about (beyond what my students have taught me);
    and then The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman and The Passage by Justin Cronin- both books have an amazing amount of buzz right now, and I thought I’d give them a try.

    We’ll see how long this takes me. Maybe it’s summer and early autumn reading. . . ?

     
17. Reid, 11. June 2010, 9:04
    

    Tony,

    I’m surprised that you’ve struggled to get into Life of Pi. It seems like a book you would like or at least not struggle to get into.

    I just heard an NPR review (which gave too much information) about The Passage, and it sounded interesting. (The other book they reviewed also sounded pretty interesting.)

    I’d be interested in hearing your comments about Desiring the Kingdom after you read it.

     
18. Mitchell, 15. June 2010, 11:49
    

    Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars
    When scientists observe the first known death of a proton, only Will Tuppence and his best friend Mi-Su seem to understand the significance of such an event. For Will it means that nothing can be counted on, and that everything is impermanent, including him and whatever he leaves behind when he’s gone. As he struggles to come to terms with this thought, his world incomprehensibly and obliviously continues to move around him in ways predictable and not-so-predictable. His bratty younger sister continues to annoy him, only now she’s finding new ways of doing so. His friends Mi-Su and BT continue to be his friends, although perhaps not in the predictable way they always had been before. They even kiss each other in a moment Mi-Su says could not be helped and which Will is sure should have been his. Will, meanwhile, continues to try and give structure to a world that steadfastly refuses it.

    Jerry Spinelli manages again to come up with something unique. The author’s voice here takes on a strange tone, one perhaps reminiscent of the writer’s voice in Eggs but without the weight that story’s narrative seemed to bear with its serious subject matter and its fragile, at-risk characters. Spinelli here sticks mostly to very short chapters, not numbered in strict sequence beginning at chapter one, but numbered according to the time that’s passed since the death of that first proton. Several chapters are not even a page in length, and a few are just one or two words. The result is a terrific, uneven pacing that seems to stop, start, glide, and turn like the skateboard Will refuses to let his sister ride. At times the reader is hurled from one episode to the next, while at others the reader seems to glide through long, smooth passages of dialogue.

    Spinelli’s main character is not as likable as in some of his other work, and this might be where young readers find some difficulty in sticking with the book. Mi-Su is the supportive friend readers will like right away, but Will’s pettiness and inability to treat his sister with any kindness at all might turn some readers away. If they can stick with the story, however, they will find a kind of depth thoughtful readers will find rewarding.

    I respected the way Spinelli handled the narrative in Eggs, a book that presents two characters in awful situations. In that story, the writer leaves it to the reader to understand what kind of changes his characters are going through. There seems to have been concern that readers might not get it, because there is an author’s Q-and-A section at the back of the book that attempts to help puzzled readers. However, in Smiles to Go, he seems to have caved in to the urge to put everything into words, letting his character summarize his feelings near the end of the story in a kind of After-School-Special, “and-this-is-what-I-learned” kind of way. One could argue that young readers need this kind of debriefing, but I am disappointed by this decision and think it cheapens what is otherwise a very well-written book.

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19. Mitchell, 16. June 2010, 23:37
    

    The Divorce Express by Paula Danziger

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars
    Paula Danziger was one of my favorite writers when I was in my early high-school years, and she had a huge influence on my own voice as a writer. Something about the casual, conversational style mixed with the silly lives of teenagers and the willingness to deal with uncomfortable issues really appealed to me.

    In this book, which I read five or six times in high school and which I re-read last week for the first time since, Phoebe has to deal with divorced parents who live in separate parts of New York. She rides with her friend Rosie from Woodstock to New York City every weekend on a bus dubbed The Divorce Express because of the number of joint-custody kids who make the commute. Phoebe adjusts to life in a new town, involving herself in a strike against the school cafeteria, a relationship with a popular boy in school, and a deepening friendship with her new best friend. Meanwhile, she has also to deal with the reality of her parents’ new dating relationships and her own shifting loyalties.

    It’s a good, quick read, and I remember being quite moved by this story that also made me laugh aloud when I was a teen. I still enjoy the novel today, ‘though now I notice what I think are some bad decisions by the writer, mostly in the way she makes her narrator sort of sum up her feelings at the end of the book. It’s sort of like the poignant, thoughtful last minute of shows like ER, just in case the narrative itself isn’t memorable enough to resonate. It is perhaps a personal quibble, and I think young readers won’t mind it too much because that’s what they sort of expect from their stories. But you see? That’s my point. Good literature doesn’t have to wrap things up in a tidy “and this is what I’m learning” message near the end, and young readers are used to being addressed that way. A good story stands up on its own and trusts itself to connect with its readers, and that’s what often separates the greats from the merely good. Maniac Magee or Holes, anyone?

    On the other hand, the character is believably introspective, so at least the introspection at the end isn’t out of character. I’m inclined to write the author a pass.

    The Divorce Express is one of those books inextricably entwined in my memories of youth, like the music of Duran Duran, like the films of Anthony Michael Hall, and like the 1980s Los Angeles Raiders. Just thinking of the novels of Paula Danziger immediately takes me back. I’m looking forward to revisiting my other Danziger favorites.

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20. Mitchell, 22. June 2010, 23:16
    

    As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars
    Ry is on a train, rolling toward summer camp somewhere near Montana. His parents are on a boat, relaxing in the Caribbean. His grandfather is in Wisconsin, taking care of the house and dogs. They are all (Ry, parents, grandfather, and dogs) this far-flung at the beginning of As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth, but a combination of bad luck, bad decision-making, bad circumstances, and even bad geology flings them further and further apart as the novel progresses. In her first novel since the Newbery-winning Criss Cross, Lynne Rae Perkins creates a wonderfully absurd story that becomes more absurd with each page in prose that is inventive, engaging, and hilarious.

    If you have read Criss Cross, you sort of know what to expect. The writing is very stream-of-consciousness in an adolescent way, but it is also extremely clever. There are times when Perkins audaciously breaks certain rules about good prose, but because she establishes early that this is the kind of story (and storytelling) where anything is likely to happen, she successfully pulls it off in ways not unlike her characters’ own daring stunts. The writer’s voice had me laughing aloud more frequently than even her own Criss Cross, as when Ry finds himself following orders aboard a small sailboat:

    Ry was giddy at their unexpected luck. He understood that they were not done sailing, but tomorrow was another day. He would have kissed the boards of the pier if he weren’t so busy doing what Del was telling him to do. He haffed the chuffs, clipped the ridings, railed the boards, highed the lows, skibed the rampets, harbed the reefs, and cleeted the forths. Which is what sailing talk sounds like if you are not a sailor.

    When they had made everything fast, which meant making sure nothing would go anywhere at all, fast or slow, Del said, “Here, grab your sweatshirt. It might cool down later.”

    There is a section, a few pages later, that had me giggling (and I don’t giggle) when Perkins alters her narrator’s voice as Ry uses his high-school Spanish to communicate with an old lighthouse keeper. I would quote it here, but to remove it from context would be a disservice to anyone who might read the novel later.

    I will agree with most reviewers who say this is not quite the novel Criss Cross is, but then I have read very few novels that are. This novel lacks the heart-breaking sympathy Perkins creates for her characters in the earlier book, but it cranks the whimsy up a few levels. Where Criss Cross is like a ride through the tunnel of love, As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth is more like a roller coaster ride, or like the wild, turbulent flight of a homemade airplane piloted by a crazy genius.

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21. mkd, 25. June 2010, 2:25
    

    Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park

    My rating: 3 of 5 stars
    I love baseball. Love it in that geeky way that even most baseball fans don’t love it. I keep score when I watch games in person or on television. When I travel to the continental United States I bring my scorebook with me in case I see a game. So when I heard that Newbery laureate Linda Sue Park wrote a book about keeping score, I knew I had to read it.

    Maggie is an elementary-schooler who, like almost everyone in her neighborhood in the early 1950s, is a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. She spends afternoons listening to games on the radio with her friends at the local fire station. A young firemen named Jim introduces Maggie to the intellectually stimulating practice of keeping score. Maggie is so hooked that she invents new notations to record game events for which no established traditional notations exist.

    It would be a shame if the baseball stuff in this book prevents readers from getting through it, because it’s not a book about baseball; it’s a book about growing up during wartime. Maggie’s friend Jim is drafted for service in the Korean war, and with fierce loyalty and determination, Maggie does what she can in her sixth-grade way to support him until he can return. Not content only to send CARE packages, she attempts to understand as much about the war as she can in search of a way to help bring him back.

    Linda Sue Park writes a touching story that should appeal to middle- and late-elementary school readers who can appreciate Maggie’s passion even if they don’t sympathize. I would encourage such readers not to focus on the baseball part of Maggie’s obsession but on the aspects of the game that appeal to her, or at the very least to endure the first half of the book until it becomes no longer a book about baseball. Unlike other Park books I’ve read, I don’t think older middle-schoolers or high-schoolers are likely to respond well to the writer’s voice in this novel, which definitely slants younger.

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22. Mitchell, 29. June 2010, 3:59
    

    A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata

    My rating: 3 of 5 stars
    I didn’t know there were tribal agrarian peoples in Vietnam who were not officially involved in the war. I don’t think I’m especially ignorant about these things, so I admit I was surprised to learn about the Rhade people, a tribe in the southern part of that country, some of whom helped American Special Forces to navigate the Vietnam jungles.

    This is the best thing Cynthia Kadohata‘s A Million Shades of Gray has going for it. The story of Y’Tin, a young elephant handler who longs to quit school so that he may pursue his dream of training other elephant handlers, is a glimpse at a culture I was completely unaware of. After the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the Americans leave a Vietnam that is divided North and South, assuring the Rhade that if the armies of the North should aggressively move into the South, they will return to help.

    Y’Tin is the youngest elephant handler his village has ever seen. Although he is a talented tracker and his father is a successful tobacco farmer, elephants are his passion and he is sure he will spend the rest of his life caring for them. But the northern armies are moving south, and the Americans don’t seem to be coming back. Y’Tin is worried about what his village will do in response as his way of life and the survival of his people are thrown into jeopardy.

    It’s an interesting story, but largely unsatisfying. Y’Tin’s character is rather shallowly defined, and although Kadohata’s descriptions of everyday life in his village are interesting, her story feels flat and it doesn’t resolve well. I am currently a few chapters into Kadohata’s Weedflower, and already it has the deep, poetic, heartbreaking beauty I remember from her Newbery-winning Kira-Kira. A Million Shades of Gray lacks that depth, and although it’s a pretty good read, it’s fair to call this one a mild disappointment.

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23. Reid, 17. August 2010, 13:14
    

    The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

    This is the new novel from David Mitchell, author of the highly creative, Cloud Atlas. Unlike the latter, this new novel is a conventional historical fiction, which involves a Dutch clerk (de Zoet) and his experiences in late 18th Century Japan. The title character falls in a love with a mid-wife with a burn on the left side of her face.

    The novel was entertaining (although I almost gave up at eighty pages, and I probably should have as there are a lot of other things on my reading list) and the writing was fine. I’m sure Penny would fine this mildly entertaining, and I could see Grace getting into this.

     

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