Clifford Garstang

If anything, this book delivers more than a reader can absorb. There are sooo many good stories here that it was a mistake to try to read it straight through. It is better savored. Pick it up, read one, and come back later to read another. Ironically, since I'm not a Joyce Carol Oates fan, her story in this anthology is probably my favorite - although there are many others I also enjoyed very much.

I actually listened to the audio version of this book (unabridged) on a long drive, not knowing what it was about. (I confess I didn't connect the title to Walt Whitman, which I should have.) The structure is odd: it's actually 3 novellas, each with the characters Simon, Kat and Lucas, each time a slight variation. Cunningham is using Whitman's themes, and looking closely at the relationship of nature and progress, while looking at longing for a better life. I enjoyed listening, and now may read the actual book . . .

Not satisfying. Mostly this “novel” reads like a collection of stories, which is okay. And I was engaged until the last story, which has Elizabeth (the messed up central character, who steals and lies and sleeps with her English teacher, probably because her parents do a lousy job with her) receiving a visit from Huddie, the black guy she really has loved all along, while her son–no mention of who the father might be, but he's named after the English teacher who died long before the kid was conceived–who apparently at 8 is obviously gay. Didn't buy this ending.

As the tenth anniversary of the horrific Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami approaches, I read these poems with a kind of terror. The disaster killed at least 28,000 people and continues to impact Japan and the world today. The poems are stark and often shocking, which gives them a rare kind of power.

I listened to the audio version of this book. While it dragged for me in a few spots, I came away thoroughly impressed. To me, there were no false notes–the military aspects of the story sounded credible and detailed; the Saudi and Yemeni aspects of the story likewise seemed completely plausible. The diplomat in the novel maybe didn't ring completely true, but that was forgivable. It's an exciting, fast-paced story that will keep you reading.

Such an odd little book. I was interested in the subject because my uncle, who died in the '50s, contracted polio as a child in the '20s. And although it's a dark story–finding happiness in a story about polio just wouldn't be real, I suppose–it held my attention. The narrator is a man who, as a boy, contracted polio during an epidemic in Newark New Jersey in 1944 (a fictional epidemic, I gather), but the focus of his tale is Bucky Cantor, then a 23-year-old athlete and playground director who was kept out of the Army because of his eyesight. Any more would spoil the plot, but for most of the book, I was engrossed. Up to a point, Bucky is a sympathetic character, but he makes a bad choice (possibly more than one), and that introduced too much melodrama for me.

I read an advance copy of this book and provided a blurb:

It's never too late for the truth, insists Nita, the plucky heroine at the center of Pete Fanning's novel Justice in a Bottle. An aspiring investigative journalist at the age of thirteen, Nita doggedly pursues the answers to her burning questions, despite resistance from her school principal, her classmates, her mother, and her talkative internal critic. This is an inspiring story about a young girl's passion and perseverance, beautifully told.

Described as a “soft-boiled” mystery, this book definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. Harry Stein, a former pot aficianado, gets himself involved in three mysteries at once. They're all a little far-fetched, but that's what the suspension of disbelief is all about. The point is that Stein is turning 50 and isn't really happy about where his life is at the moment. Chasing down leads and facing a little danger is just what he needs!

I'm no mystery fan, but this was a fun, quick read.

After THE IMPERSONATOR, this is the second in the Roaring Twenties series. Like most mysteries, it has its implausible elements, but it's a fun, fast read. The protagonist finds work with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, and rubs shoulders with other famous names from the silent film era. And naturally she gets involved in a murder or two.

This is a wonderful book. Each story is excellent, but together they make up a compelling novel about Janice, an American woman working in international development in Africa, and Adjoa, the woman whose life intersects with hers. There's an interesting cast of characters circulating here, and fascinating settings from around the continent (as well as a couple set in the U.S.)

Highly recommended.

Here's my review on Perpetual Folly

Things I did like about the book: the conceit (a Muslim winning an anonymous design competition for the WTC memorial is met with resistance from the families of the victims as well as others who blame all of Islam for the attacks); the tension between the architect and just about everyone else; the portrayal of American bigotry toward Muslims. Things I did not like: the multiple points of view muddle the story; a few of the characters feel flat (the reporter, the brother of the dead fireman, the female leader of the bigots); the ending (an epilogue of sorts) feels tacked on, as if an editor had told the author that more resolution was needed.