Searching for Stability in Alaska

My latest review for Women’s Adventure Magazine – Tide, Feather, Snow: A Life in Alaska, by Miranda Weiss.

After college, Miranda Weiss leaves the East Coast, following her boyfriend – and his dream – to Homer, Alaska. What seems like a typical girl-meets-world memoir quickly veers away from cliché. For Weiss, Alaska is a welcome change in scenery, one in which she can study her environment as a naturalist, be a part of the land, and as in any adventure, learn both independence and interdependence.

Reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, Tide, Feather, Snow: A Life in Alaska reveals Weiss as an expert at nature writing and self-reflection, as she observes the outside world, while assessing her own place in it. Read more.

Guterson: Modern Day Hemingway?

I just finished The Other, by David Guterson (author of Snow Falling on Cedars.) Is this the most underrated novel of the year, or did I just miss the reviews? I loved everything about this book: the social commentary; the pitch perfect narrator voice; the risks of the mysterious, yet believable, storyline; the literary, cultural and geographic references. This is truly a modern day classic.

Let me back up. This is the story of two friends, John William Barry and Neil Countryman, who meet as competitors at a highschool track meet in the 70s and connect through a love of wilderness and outings exploring Washington state’s remote backcountry. According to the back of the book, this is a “coming-of-age novel that presents two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life and the compromises that come with fulfillment.”

As I was reading it, I kept thinking of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Strong male perspective. Female characters in the wings. Constant inner turmoil battling everyone else’s expectations. Hermetic brooding. The cave. Survival. Compromise.

Early on in the novel, it’s all about getting high and getting lost:

“We kept spinning our map around and rereading its contours, but so what? There was no way to make its symbols correspond to the world. Always this pattern – the three of us huddled over our map and deliberating on emptiness, then coming up empty. Was there something, somewhere, we could anchor to?”

The novel goes far beyond boyhood games in the woods. It’s exploration on a much deeper level – exploring ourselves, our families, the world around us.

While I’m certainly not a backcountry expert, I love the wild realm of the outdoors: the peace, beauty and connection it offers over a cushy, material life. As Neil says, “…there was a residue of this lonely and acute perception of the organized social world as a pathetic illusion…” This pull of contrasting environments and philosophies serves as the foundation for The Other - the storyline and setting are current and relevant, yet the questions that surface are timeless.

This is not a book for a casual reader, but I’ve already recommended it to a handful of people- surprisingly, all men -who I know will appreciate it.

(As I was writing this review, Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound came on the radio. Like pairing the right wine with your meal, this is perfect soundtrack for this book… )

Book Whisperer

I’m getting a kick out of a friend’s new nickname for me: the Book Whisperer. Not only do I love reading, but maybe even moreso, I love matching people with their perfect book. Since I haven’t been working at the bookshop lately, I’m getting my fix as a personal shopper for books.

Cesar Milan & his clan (credit: NYT)

Last Tuesday morning, when I sat down to check email, one really caught my attention. The subject line was “Help!” It was  my friend Julie asking if it was OK to borrow the next in the Twilight series or if that was too decadent. I had told her it was addictive, and while somewhat trashy, impossible to put down. (Confession: I read them all back to back this winter, unable to read anything else in my pile until I devoured those!) So of course I supported her habit and dropped off the final three in the series.

Whether I’m a book whisperer, or as Julie now likes to call me, a dealer providing the emergency stash (“if yo’ure not home, I’ll leave them on your back steps in a plastic bag…” ), my goal remains the same: finding readers their perfect book.

Anyone need recommendations?

Drop me a comment with some of your favorites, and I’ll recommend others to add to your list!

At the risk of sounding like a J.Crew or Pottery Barn catalogue, here are a few recent lists…

The Mona

• The Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
• Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem
• Little Bee, Chris Cleave
• Story of a Marriage, Andrew Sean Greer
• Into the Beautiful North, Luis Urrea

The Julie

• Loving Frank, Nancy Horan
• Maynard & Jennica, Rudolph Delson
• Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer

The Richard*

• The River of Doubt, Candace Millard
• Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
• Manhunt, James Swanson
• Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

*Some excellent reads that he’s recommended for me: Personal History, Katharine Graham; The Housekeeper & The Professor, Yoko Ogawa

Brilliant Fiction by Kate Walbert

Thanks to a recommendation from Roxanne Coady, owner of R.J. Julia and reader extraordinaire, I’ve just finished A Short History of Women, by Kate Walbert. What a smart, beautiful book! Like a velvety chocolate dessert that you just want to devour, but choose to savor, this is a novel best appreciated in slow bites.

It follows five generations of women, starting in late-19th century England, and meandering – amidst historical rewinds – to current day New York.  The wonder of this novel is Walbert’s ability to subtly weave a common thread – one of desires and anxieties, questions and  decisions – that bonds the women across shifting decades and unique voices.

But Walbert doesn’t succeed only in the storytelling; the beauty is in her perfectly chosen words, her scrumptious sentences:

“I take [the note] and step into the livery, sitting back against the broad, hard seat, resting, and as the driver pulls away from the crowds on the piers the notion that I have come so far alone settles like a black crow on my shoulder and squawks.”

“…settles like a black crow on my shoulder and squawks.” Is there not a better description of the intrusion of gut-wrenching loneliness? I cannot stop thinking about this passage.

I wouldn’t call this a light read – there is just too much to absorb for it to be a throwaway beach book. Plus, it can be tricky tracking the different women and dates (but the Table of Contents and Lineage tree upfront do help the reader navigate that!)

This is a must-read for lovers of serious,  smart fiction, and one I can’t wait to pass along to my fabulous women friends!

The Indifferent Stars Above

I really enjoyed Daniel James Brown’s The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party and am recommending it to both men and women. There aren’t that many books that appeal to both, so excited to find one for both of the lovely sexes!

The life of a young bride in the nineteenth century was far from today’s extravagant weddings and cushy, exotic honeymoons. In the 1840s, “honeymoon” referred to “a period of presumed marital bliss following the nuptials.” Privileged brides often embarked on a “wedding journey” or “bridal tour” with friends and family, but it was unlikely that Sarah Graves, the young bride from Steuben Township, Illinois, would have been able to afford a celebratory tour. Instead, after her marriage to Jay Fosdick, she found herself among family and friends who had sold their farms and businesses in order to cross the Missouri River and make an epic cross-country journey to California.

For the rest of my review, check out my Women’s Adventure Magazine blog.

The Night of the Gun Now in Paperback

David Carr’s The Night of the Gun is now out in paperback. For all you fans of memoirs, this is one not to miss.

“Memories may be based on what happened to begin with, but they are reconstituted each time they are recalled — with the most-remembered events frequently the least accurate,” writes David Carr in his book, “The Night of the Gun.”

By challenging the foundation of a memoir, memory itself, The New York Times media columnist and culture reporter Carr has reinvented the genre. In “The Night of the Gun,” Carr applies investigative reporting skills to his own life, revisiting the people, places and events that comprised his time as a crack cocaine addict.

While memory tells him that the 1988 birth of his twin daughters, Erin and Meaghan, set him on a straight course to recovery and redemption, his deep dive into the past, including police records, medical reports and interviews (all of which he recorded and videotaped for accuracy) construct a different narrative.

Read the rest of my review, “The Night of the Gun Reinvents the Memoir,” here.

Little Bee

The inside jacket reads “We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it… The magic is in how the story unfolds.”

What might have been an empty marketing ploy turns out to be genuine. Little Bee is a novel to cherish; Little Bee is a character you will not forget.

Chris Cleave, a journalist for The Guardian, tells the story of two characters: Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee who has been locked up in a British detention center, and Sarah, an editor for a women’s magazine. The mystery – and beauty of this fictional tale – is in how and why they meet.

At the intersection of ethnic violence in the Niger delta and London city life, Cleave exposes some of the toughest issues, from globalization, political greed and oil wars, to the equally painful, but more personal realities of damaged relationships and family. His sharp writing and commitment to the characters’ voices provide a steady foundation on which the turbulent story develops.

The most poignant moments emerge when Little Bee contrasts her current experience with life in Nigeria. She asks “What is an adventure?” and answers her own question:

“That depends on where you are starting from. Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator. You live in a world of machines and you dream of things with beating hearts. We dream of machines because we see where beating hearts have left us.”

Little Bee’s innocent view of London is backfilled by her memories of Nigeria. She doesn’t understand horror films because for her, horror is a “film in her memory” that is always playing, and that she “cannot walk out of.” In her new environment, she wonders how to describe things to the “girls back home” – wood floors inside a house instead of piles of firewood, or the “ghosts” who don’t look at each other or touch each other as they hustle to work.

Cleave forces the reader to encounter everyday life with a new outlook and question which is more powerful: cultural difference or individual likeness. In Little Bee, worlds and perspectives merge to expose beauty beneath unattractive political and personal veneers.

(My review from Women’s Adventure Magazine.)

Great Fiction Run

Whenever I’m back east visiting family for a month at a time (usually in May and October), I seem to find consistently good books, back-to-back-to-back reads that I devour and can’t wait to recommend. Is it because I have more time to read? Or is it because I go to one of my favorite indie bookstores, R.J. Julia, at least three times a week?!

This trip east (CT, Maine, NY) doesn’t disappoint. Here are my recent reads and reccos:

Little Bee, Chris Cleave – full review coming out shortly in Women’s Adventure Magazine. I can’t recommend this book enough! Read slowly and savor the writing, the characters, the story. Mmmm…. “Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive.“

The Story of a Marriage, Andrew Sean Greer (just out in paperback) – witty, poignant, sharp and bound to be forever relevant. “How hollow, to have no secrets left; you shake yourself and nothing rattles.”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson – good beach read/mystery for more serious readers who snub mass market mysteries (guilty as charged!) 

Genesis, Bernard Beckett – wow! I need someone else to read this so we can DISCUSS!! “Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and by suspicion.”

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne – quick young adult read; creative tale, but nothing trumps The Book Thief as far as stories on WWII Germany.

Little Bee

I’m blown away by Chris Cleave’s Little Bee. One of the best novels I’ve read in a long time.

I need to simmer on this a bit before writing, but stay tuned for a review. In the meantime, fiction lovers: keep an eye out for this winner!

Mr. Cleave: Bravo.

“To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well – here is the truth – you have to talk yourself out of it.“

Lost in the Twitter Vortex

Has anyone else’s blogging suffered since they entered the world of micro-blogging?

I am shocked that I am now a regular Tweeter (@TaraDK) but quite honestly, I love the connections it breeds, from books/ authors/ publishers (a thriving community on Twitter!) to technology pundits/ reporters/ vendors. The only downside of the vortex is that it has distracted me from my original blog baby – Mingling with Words. (And alas! even as I am back here in the WordPress dashboard, I am still thinking and writing about my other love: Twitter.)

More on Twitter in future posts, but for now, let’s talk adventure reads…

For the history/biography fan, check out Linda Colley’s The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, which I reviewed for Women’s Adventure Magazine in March. (Twitterized Review Title: One Woman’s Wonderlust, 200 Years Removed.)

And, just in:  a review of A Pearl in the Storm, by Tori Murden McClure. (Keeping an Even Keel: A Solo Trip across the Ocean.)

Happy reading – and of course…

Happy tweeting!