The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb

In this novel of over 700 pages, Wally Lamb tells the story of Caelum Quirk. It opens with Quirk's settling in to Littleton, Colorado, with his wife, Maureen, in a kind of new start after learning she had cheated on him in their prior home back in Connecticut. Caelum had retaliated against his wife's lover and been arrested there, losing face at his job at the local high school. Shortly after the new school year had begun and they'd both started their work at Columbine High (she as one of the school nurses), Caelum's aunt back in Connecticut (who had raised him after his mother's death) has a stroke and he is called back home. It's while he is there that two young men in trench coats open fire on their school (leaving Maureen cowering in a cupboard off the library) and life changes forever.

The first half of this novel is gripping as it centers around the shootings and the chaos that is caused by them. And then it takes this meandering turn into the past. The way back past. And like many of my fellow reviewers, I agree that Mr. Lamb could have used some serious editing of this section and taken it down a couple hundred pages and still maintained the integrity of the story. I'm pretty sure that I could have read this novel with a few less grumbles (Oh how I wanted to skim skim skim through some of the history of his family as we read the dairy entries and letters of his ancestors and listened to his interviews of people who refused to stay on subject in an attempt to glean the truth about his parents and two mysterious babies!) had he done so.

******spoiler ahead*******

In the end he tied everything together. Finally. Loose ends are pulled in and all of the story lines are bundled up into a neat package. I couldn't give more than a three star rating because of how long I had to slog through all of this confusing and, quite frankly, uninteresting mud to get to the rest. And because Caelum and Maureen were going through hell throughout this book. Of course they were. They were part of the (fictitious) aftermath of the nightmare that was Columbine. But I still wanted them to come through it alright. I wanted them to have a happy ending for all of their suffering. So after fighting through all of that history and tangential stories that I didn't care about to get to the neat little tie ups in the final quarter of the book, to not get to at least something of a happy ending, I have to say that was some damned depressing 700 plus pages.

3/5 stars on LibraryThing

Truly, Madly ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Truly, Madly is a fast and fun novel that I would recommend to anyone who is looking for a little mystery, a little paranormal (nothing too over the top if you can deal with a family, the Valentine family, who does match-making by reading auras!) and a little romance, too. The characters are likable and with one notable exception (for me) the plot moves along very smoothly. The writing is witty and sharp and I found it extremely hard to put down and read it in a day.

I look forward to the sequel, Deeply, Desperately! Truly, Madly by Heather Webber will be available on Valentine's Day, 2010.

4.5/5 stars on LibraryThing

The Apple - ARC, (Sunday Salon), 12/13/2009

I read The Apple a couple of weeks ago as part of LibraryThing's ARC program. My summation of the premise: Herman Rosenblat and his brothers were in concentration camps (several) during the holocaust over six years. They survived because they had each other. Herman probably only survived because of his brothers being there to watch over him. After the war he met a very beautiful girl who had survived the war because her family had passed as Christians.

One day she, Roma, told him a story of going to a camp near her home and tossing an apple over the barbed wire fence to a young boy there. She wanted to help him. Herman imagined the scene, she being a beautiful angel and he said, "That boy was me." He was saying (I'm paraphrasing...) that they were somehow destined to meet, that her love could now save him, that it could "stretch into the past and save the boy that eh had been, stretch into the future and save the man that he would become." p. 152 BUT, it wasn't really him. He was not that boy. From there, however, he internalized the apple story and made it his own. He imagined her saving him with her apples and it became a part of their love story, a part of their truth.

So years later, when his mother came to him in a dream and asked him to tell his story so that everyone would know about his grandfather and how he died, Herman included Roma and their love story and her apples. It became part of the overall story because he decided that the most important lesson in the holocaust story was love. And the apples were part of that tapestry of love and survival. "It began one way - a story that he told himself to feel better, but then, inch by inch, it had gotten out of hand and ended another way." p. 175

I understand the media blitz and why they went crazy about this one lie. When there is one lie among an entire story, how is it known that the entire story isn't false?

The Apple is a story of triumph. Six years of horror in the camps but those siblings were not going to let each other down. The book chronicles Mr. Rosenblat's story, but also tells about the difficulty that he faced trying to understand why everyone was so angry. He and Roma had been on Oprah as she declared theirs the "greatest love story ever told" and now she wanted him to come back and explain why he had told this lie in front of millions of viewers.

I think The Apple is worth reading and Mr. Rosenblat's story is worth hearing. It sounds as if he has, in Ms. Holt's version of the telling, cut back on some of the falsehoods I have read about that were going to be published in his memoir Angel at the Fence. 3.5/5 stars on LibraryThing.

Houri - Mehrdad Balali (arc)

For the first few weeks I read this book, every time I went to pick it up I dreaded it. I just didn’t want to face it. It wasn’t that it was poorly written, it was just a really heavy book with some dark material. It was written “based largely on the personal experiences of an Iranian-American journalist, about life in Iran; from the repressions of the Shah to the brutality of the Islamic fundamentalist government.” The main character of the book is Shahed. Much of the story takes place in Iran when Shahed is twelve years old and living under very poor circumstances because his father wastes the family money on other women and parties instead of caring for his family. Shahed is at that youthful age of hunger. He is hungry for food that is always lacking in the home. He is hungry for the shiny material goods he hears are abundant in the West. He is beginning to hunger for the beauty of women. And that is when the beautiful Houri enters their lives and Shahed turns to theft as he dreams of luring her away from her husband.

The tale continues several years later when an adult Shahed returns to Tehran from America to visit his mother after his father’s death and sees what the Revolutions has done to his homeland.

While I started this read with much trepidation because of its dark theme and depressing characters, I finished the last 200 pages finding it difficult to put it down or stop thinking about the story.

I don’t want to give any spoilers to anyone thinking of reading it, but I will say that I found the conclusion somewhat disappointing as there was a sudden revelation that occurred and then a sudden mood change and things wrapped up rather quickly. I didn’t find it believable. But, as always, it wasn’t my story, my revelation, my mood. I cannot say for certain it wasn’t possible. I’ve read several reviews that have been written about this novel and I feel people have judged it too harshly because they didn’t like any of the characters. I think that’s an unfair assessment upon which to judge a story.

Would I recommend this book to others? It is an interesting read of family life within Iran during the time of the Shah and how things have changed for the people there since.

3.5/5 stars on LibraryThing

I Love You Miss Huddleston - Philip Gulley

HBB and I loved this book. Gulley is a Quaker pastor from a small town in Indiana who tells such charming tales of small town life growing up that I felt transported right back to my own childhood. I actually read this aloud over many nights (a chapter at a time, usually, and since HBB is only home on weekends, and we usually go to bed far too late to consider reading, only a chapter every occasional weekend - but this book lends itself perfectly to that type of reading) and it is a wonderful read aloud if the reader can read clearly while simultaneously laughing, too.

His stories are filled with family and friendships and the humorous exaggerations that the young tend to give to their lives. Each chapter focuses on a different part of his youth and each of them shines for a different reason I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a terrific tale with light heartedness. Something different from the norm in today's world, in other words.

4.5/5 stars

Have a Little Faith - by Mitch Albom (arc)

In Mitch Albom's first non-fiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, he writes about the process he goes through over eight year's time of getting to know his Rabbi on a personal level, a human level, so that in the end he can fulfill the Rabbi's request of writing his eulogy. In parallel, he also writes the story of minister Henry Covington, a large black man who as a young man, lived a life of crime but now devotes his life to helping the homeless and addicted in Mitch's current home of Detroit.

As I read the book, I found myself somewhat annoyed with Albom on various occasions. My main annoyance was probably in the simplistic questions he brought to his Rabbi (who I absolutely loved, by the way) about other religions and about Heaven, etc. Was he sounding so unknowing because he really didn't know or because he wanted to make the book available to everyone? At any rate, it felt too simplistic at times.

I was also somewhat put off by an editorial decision made in the book. When Mitch is speaking to the Rabbi, asking him questions, there is no use of quotation marks. But when The Reb answers, quotes are used. Maybe this is a common technique, but it is one I've never seen before, and I found it rather confusing until I finally grew accustomed to it.

Another annoyance was his description of Henry Covington. He could have told us about his being a large man without going on and on about it. It was off-putting to me.

But those are a couple of smaller annoyances in an overall larger picture. The book as a whole? When I got to the end, I decided that overall, it was a good book. Albom had written the eulogy and given us the life of two men in parallel; two men who were larger than life and had been on two very different paths but who had set a course to work for god, whichever god they believed in.

What worked: Rabbi Albert Lewis (The Reb). What a character! He loved to sing and as a result, frequently sang responses to questions people asked him, using showtunes for the melody. He was a humorous man (6 feet tall, but I could never picture him so tall, in my mind he was a little old man) with a wonderful outlook on life throughout his final years. He was dying of untreatable cancer and could not have been always comfortable, but his mood was almost always sunny. I favored the chapters that were about him. His wisdom was immense.

The point of the book? Showing that we could all use a little more faith in our lives, especially in this day and age. Here is one man of god who has always had faith and lived faith. And here is another man of god who has lived a life of crime and only come to god in his deepest, darkest hour and has been living his faith ever since.



3.5/5 Stars

Triple 8 challenge from last year. Updates. I WILL finish. :)

The latest update - September 1, 2009

I. 8 from my To Be Read Pile (I already own them and have been meaning to read…)
1. Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar
2. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
3.Have You Found Her: A Memoir by Janice Erlbaum
4. Wear Your Life Well by Marilu Henner with Lorin Henner (from HarperCollins Publishers www.FirstLookBooks.com)
5.Organize Your Life by Ronni Eisenberg
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
7. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
8. The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett

Finally finished reading Happier! Woohoo!



II. 8 from 1001 Books to Read Before You Die
1. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
2. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
3. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
4. The Human Stain by Phillip Roth
5. A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
6. The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
8. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Read and LOVED Mistry's Family Matters. (I seriously need to get back to writing reviews...)



III. 8 Non-Fiction
1. Leap by Sara Davidson
2. Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle
3. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
4. Watchdogs of Democracy by Helen Thomas
5. Organize Your Life by Ronni Eisenberg
6. Boom: Voices of the Sixties Personal Reflections on the 60’s and Today by Tom Brokaw
7. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
8. Have You Found Her: A Memoir by Janice Erlbaum

IV. 8 Books Turned to Movies
1. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
2. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
3. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
5. A Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl
6. Cider House Rules by John Irving
7. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran
8. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Finished A Might Heart. I really thought this was an amazing piece of writing by Mariane Pearl. I have not yet seen the movie based on the book, but I intend to.



V. 8 Memoir/Autobiography
1. No More Words by Reeve Lindbergh
2. Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence by Matthew Sanford(1/15/09)
3. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
4. Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas by Sarah Brown
5. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
6. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Shirwin
7. Listening is an Act of Love by Dave Isay
8. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I finished American Prometheus and found it thoroughly fascinating. I
highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading a very well-documented biography about a man of importance to the history of this country and science.





VI. 8 Women Writers
1. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyers
2. Enlightenment for Idiots: A Novel by Anne Cushman (From LibraryThings Early Reviewers program)
3. Gods in Alabama by Joshlyn Jackson
4. The View From Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik (1/07/09)
5. The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
6. Eflatun and the Magic Mirror by Kathryn Kranzler
7. Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
8. Body Surfing by Anita Shreve



VII. 8 From Around the World
1. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
5. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
6. Saturday by Ian McEwan
7. A Room With a View by E. M. Forester
8. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson




VIII. 8 by 8 of My Favorite Writers
1. Oh My Stars: A Novel by Lorna Landvik
2. You Suck by Christopher Moore
3. Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore
4. Second Glance: A Novel by Jodi Picoult
5. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
6. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
7. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
8. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult


What I had left:

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
The Human Stain by Phillip Roth
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Cider House Rules by John Irving
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama