The Conical Glass: Reading

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Reading

One of the blogs I follow, Foma*, has an annual challenge called National Just Read More Novels Month (it was created as a response to November's National Novel Writing Month). Of course, for me, every month is Just Read More Novels month -- I would estimate that 90% of the books I read are fiction -- but I do try to follow yellojkt's guidelines in January.

I am on hiatus from my book group, so I picked all of the books this time around. None of them were knock-your-socks-off, four-star reads, but they were all fairly solid nonetheless.

1. The Financial Lives of the Poets, Jess Walter: A couple of people whose taste I trust highly recommended this novel, which is, like "Up in the Air," one of those works that is very much of its (recessionary) time. Matt Prior is underwater in his mortgage, unemployed, and he suspects his wife of cheating with an old flame. His problems started when he quit his job as a journalist to found a web site called poetfolio, which blended business reporting with poetry. Not surprisingly, the web site was not successful, and while he managed to get his old job back, he landed in the midst of huge cutbacks in the newspaper biz and soon winds up without a paycheck. One night, Matt discovers a surefire way to get out of debt: become a marijuana dealer. (Shades of Weeds!) The author blends some poems into his narrative, which is not as irritating as one might imagine (Walter is an excellent writer). Perhaps because I survived the dotcom boom myself, I guess I could never be totally sympathetic to Matt's plight because his financial-poetry web site was a really stupid idea -- and it's only one of some very bad decisions he makes in the course of the book.

2. The Christmas Cookie Club, Ann Pearlman: My mom suggested I read this, and while my library copy didn't come in until after Christmas, it's not quite as seasonal a read as you might think. Cookie Club might be classified as "hen lit" -- a variation of chick lit for middle-aged women. The book tells the stories of each of the club's dozen members as they gather for their annual cookie exchange. Pearlman based the novel on her own club, and anyone who reads it will no doubt wish they could join such a group (who wouldn't want to go home with 12 different varieties of sweets?). The most noteworthy thing about the book are the interstitial chapters which examine the histories and culture impact of various ingredients, from sugar to chocolate to ginger. Cookie Club has a surprising amount of substance for a book with such a cutesy title and premise. And, oh yes, there are 12 recipes so you can try the cookies yourself.

3. The Enthusiast, Charlie Haas: This was a Chronicle Notable Book of 2009, and when I read the synopsis, I was immediately smitten: Henry Bay works as a nomadic magazine editor, toiling at a wide variety of "special interest" publications from Cozy, the Magazine of Tea to Spelunk, each headquartered in a different small town. The book captures the feeling of being an outsider in a world of hobbyists as Henry attempts to fit in with the ice climbers or crocheters, while seeming to have no passions of his own. The story meanders a bit as it veers into a plot about a Unabomber-type terrorist and Henry's brilliant scientist brother, but Haas wraps it up very cleverly.

4. The Hidden Man, David Ellis: I'm not a huge fan of legal thrillers, but I met Ellis at a mystery event and he seemed like a cool guy with a great personal story (he was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's impeachment prosecutor!). Most legal thrillers are, of course, written by lawyers, and they don't tend to be known for their elegant prose stylings. Ellis, an Edgar Award winner for his debut novel Line of Vision, is no exception, but he can spin a good yarn and once I got into the story, I was hooked. The protagonist is Jason Kolarich, a lawyer who quit his prestigious firm after a personal tragedy. He is called upon to defend a childhood friend for the murder of a pedophile who is believed to have killed the friend's sister when he and Jason were kids. The "hidden man" of the title is a mysterious figure named Smith who hires Kolarich to take the case and seems to have shadowy motives. At first, I thought The Hidden Man was guilty of one of my literary pet peeves -- the supervillain with seemingly endless resources who always seems to be one step ahead of the hero -- but Ellis smartly allows Jason to keep probing until he discovers Smith's vulnerabilities and figures out how to exploit them.

Both The Hidden Man and Financial Lives of the Poets feature heroes who manage to get by on absurdly small amounts of sleep. I run into this a lot in novels, especially mysteries and thrillers, and wonder if any of the authors have actually tried to go, say, three or four days without sleeping. The characters do sometimes comment on how tired they are, but they still manage to drive cars and work despite their lack of sleep. There are studies showing that even going a couple days without sleep can be harmful and lead to symptoms such as memory loss and lack of speech control. As an occasional insomniac, I can attest to the fact that just one lousy night means I'll be flagging by mid-afternoon.

posted by 125records @ 1:40 PM

2 Comments:

At 10:10 PM, spanghew said…

So, did this Ellis guy know Blagojevich's hairdresser? That's the real mystery of Blagojevich's career... (And I cannot believe I actually spelled his name right without checking - and I'm not even an IL resident...)
At 1:15 PM, yellojkt said…

Thanks for the plug and glad you enjoyed all your books.