summer reading, happened so fast...

wella wella wella huh!
tell me more, tell me more
did you read a good book?
tell me more tell me more
and give me a good look!

Sorry. That was lame.

I just started to read a fabulous new book by Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies, and it made me realize that there are a ton of good books out there that I'd like to recommend. So here they are. I've copied the blurb (with some editing) from Amazon because I can't be expected to remember finer plot points, and I think they're a good guide.

And I'll use a Smiley System to indicate which books are essentially for the ladies :) which ones are funny :) and which ones are for aliens :)

They're not in any particular order, and my comments (following the amazon blurb) will be in italics (apparently I can't make font color work today). Feel free, when done, to offer up recommendations of your own. I'm blazing through the Follies, and will be looking for something else next.

Life of Pi -- Yann Martel
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, the Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Read this. If you haven't read this yet, read it. It's not for everyone, but I haven't read a book this compelling and fascinating in a long time.

Middlesex -- Jeffrey Eugenides
(Also recommended: The Virgin Suicides)
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent drivers license...records my first name simply as Cal."
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

This is also a FABULOUS, complex, awesome book. I'm thinking of reading it again.

The Patron Saint of Liars -- Ann Patchett :)
(Also recommended: Bel Canto, The Magicians Assistant, Taft, Truth & Beauty)
St. Elizabeth's is a home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. Life there is not unpleasant, and for most, it is temporary. Not so for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed. She plans to give up her baby because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs. But St. Elizabeth's is near a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she cannot go through with her plans, not all of them. And she cannot remain forever untouched by what she has left behind ... and who she has become in the leaving.

Definitely one for the women, this is a beautifully crafted story, with warm, believable relationships and I-just-love-it-so-read-it. I would recommend ANYTHING by Ann Patchett.

The New York Trilogy -- Paul Auster
(Also recommended: Brooklyn Follies, Leviathan, Oracle Night, Book of Illusions, Timbuktu, Mr. Vertigo, Invention of Solitude, Music of Chance, In the Country of Last Things, Moon Palace)
Paul Austers signature work consists of three interlocking novels: City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Roomhaunting and mysterious tales that move at the breathless pace of a thriller... Geoffrey OBrien of The Village Voice wrote: "The New York Trilogy are novels of desire: the desire to write a detective novel, to read one, to -inhabit it. . . . By turning the mystery novel inside out, Auster may have -initiated a whole new round of storytelling."

This man is a genius and lives in my neighborhood. His books are eminently readable, really compelling and smarter than you are. I love them. (now I just can't wait to run into Paul Auster in Park Slope. How cool would that be??)


The Poisonwood Bible -- Barbara Kingsolver
(I'm tempted to put the :) here, but I know guys who have read and loved this book, too, so I'll only put it here parenthetically)
(Also recommended: Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, Prodigal Summer, Animal Dreams)
In 1959, Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, takes his four young daughters, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo -- a place, he is sure, where he can save needy souls. But the seeds they plant bloom in tragic ways within this complex culture. Set against one of the most dramatic political events of the twentieth century -- the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium and its devastating consequences -- here is New York Times-bestselling author Barbara Kingslover's beautiful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable epic that chronicles the disintegration of family and a nation.

Heartrending book. Somehow she makes you really feel like you're in Africa and with this family and with each chapter told from a different point of view, the experience gets fully rounded. I loved this book. I might re-read it as well.

The Time Travelers Wife -- Audrey Nieffenegger
(again tempted to go with the :) but it's JUST SO GOOD!)
This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a six-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration.

So. Damn. Good. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats.

Motherless Brooklyn -- Jonathan Lethem :)
(Also recommended: As She Climbed Across the Table, Amnesia Moon)
Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel's world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

One of the things that Lionel Essrog shouts in his turettes mode is "eat me bailey" which I considered shouting at people for weeks when I was done with this book. It's a mystery, a fast read, really compelling. I'd pick this over Fortress of Solitude, if you're looking to read some Lethem. I found FoS kind of dry and hard to pick up until the end, so start with Motherless Brooklyn. And hey, it's about Brooklyn. (sort of)

Running With Scissors -- Augusten Burroughs :)
(Also recommended: Dry)
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctors bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock- therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boys survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.

Augusten Burroughs is a client of ours at the law firm. I sometimes talk to him on the phone. I want to take him home and hang out with him. This book is so crazy, so fucked up it's almost unbelievable. Read it before the movie comes out. (I'm probably not supposed to say that)

A Natural History of the Senses -- Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. "Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in."--The New York Times.

This book is awesome if you're at all a nerd and like to know random historical things about life long ago. Not about battles or events, but the small, every-day kind of stuff that makes up life. It also really makes you value your senses and perk up to what's going on around you.

The Lovely Bones -- Alice Sebold :)
In the second sentence, Sebold's narrator, Susie Salmon, announces, "I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." Susie is taking a shortcut through a cornfield when a neighbor lures her to his hideaway. The description of the crime is chilling, but never vulgar, and Sebold maintains this delicate balance between homely and horrid as she depicts the progress of grief for Susie's family and friends. She captures the odd alliances forged and the relationships ruined: the shattered father who buries his sadness trying to gather evidence, the mother who escapes "her ruined heart, in merciful adultery." Much as this novel is about "the lovely bones" growing around Susie's absence, it is also full of suspense and written in lithe, resilient prose that by itself delights.

Lots of crying with this one. She creates such a lovable narrator that it's heartbreaking to think that she's dead. I'm considering putting this on my audiobook demo, that's how much I love it.

The Other Boleyn Girl -- Philippa Gregory :)
(Also recommended: The Queen's Fool)
Sisterly rivalry is the basis of this fresh, wonderfully vivid retelling of the story of Anne Boleyn. Anne, her sister Mary and their brother George are all brought to the king's court at a young age, as players in their uncle's plans to advance the family's fortunes. Mary, the sweet, blond sister, wins King Henry VIII's favor when she is barely 14 and already married to one of his courtiers. Their affair lasts several years, and she gives Henry a daughter and a son. But her dark, clever, scheming sister, Anne, insinuates herself into Henry's graces, styling herself as his adviser and confidant. Soon she displaces Mary as his lover and begins her machinations to rid him of his wife, Katherine of Aragon. This is only the beginning of the intrigue that Gregory so handily chronicles, capturing beautifully the mingled hate and nearly incestuous love Anne, Mary and George ("kin and enemies all at once") feel for each other and the toll their family's ambition takes on them.

If you like historical fiction at all, you'll like this one. The rivalries are so palpable, and some of the things these women do is so outrageous, I found myself gasping at the book occasionally. Which is really fun to do on the subway!

The Birth of Venus -- Sarah Dunant :)
In this arresting tale of art, love and betrayal in 15th-century Florence, the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant seeks the freedom of marriage in order to paint, but finds that she may have bought her liberty at the cost of love and true fulfillment. Alessandra, 16, is tall, sharp-tongued and dauntingly clever. At first reluctant to agree to an arranged marriage, she changes her mind when she meets elegant 48-year-old Cristoforo, who is well-versed in art and literature. He promises to give her all the freedom she wants-and she finds out why on her wedding night. Her disappointment and frustration are soon overshadowed by the growing cloud of madness and violence hanging over Florence, nourished by the sermons of the fanatically pious Savonarola. As the wealthy purge their palazzos of "low" art and luxuries, Alessandra gives in to the dangerous attraction that draws her to a tormented young artist commissioned to paint her family's chapel.

There's something of a guilty pleasure to this book -- I promise you not everyone will like it, but I loved it and ate it up like dark chocolate or CSI: Miami. It's not trashy or tawdry, but there's a quality to the writing that almost makes it too easy to swallow (like Gatorade). Solid summer reading, but better than your average beach book.

The Secret Life of Bees -- Sue Monk Kidd :)
(Also recommended: The Mermaid Chair)
In Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, 14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their Georgia peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest. When Lily's beloved nanny, Rosaleen, manages to insult a group of angry white men on her way to register to vote and has to skip town, Lily takes the opportunity to go with her, fleeing to the only place she can think of--Tiburon, South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother.

This has become a book group classic, and is well worthy of the description. Another narrator you fall in love with, another story you get tangled up in, and there's a lot of love and nostalgia all wrapped up together between two covers. Loved it!

A Delicate Balance -- Rohinton Mistry
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.

I didn't think I would like this book because the characters aren't at all like me -- or so I thought. It's a quiet book, about people and humanity and brutality, and it's really gorgeous. And it's not one of those uber-popular ones, so you'll look cool reading it.

The Namesake -- Jhumpa Lahiri
(Also recommended: Interpreter of Maladies)
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of an arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ashoke does his best to adapt while his wife pines for home. When their son, Gogol, is born, the task of naming him betrays their hope of respecting old ways in a new world. And we watch as Gogol stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.

Lahiri is an exquisite writer. She's got great insight, and the introduction of what, to me, is such a foreign culture into our familiar America is crafted so well. Also one of those books not everybody is reading.

Also recommended:
The Devil in the White City -- Eric Larson
Behind the Scenes at the Museum -- Kate Atkinson :)
The Fall --Simon Mawer
The Ha-ha-- Dave King
The Book of Ruth-- Jane Hamilton :)
As Hot as it Was, You Ought to Thank Me -- Nanci Kincaid :)
Property -- Valerie Martin :)
Tales of the City (the whole series) -- Armistead Maupin
Wicked -- Gregory Maguire
Memoirs of a Geisha -- Arthur Golden
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius -- Dave Eggers
Plainsong -- Kent Haruf
The Red Tent -- Anita Diamante :)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay -- Michael Chabon
House of Sand and Fog -- Andre Dubus III