Books Read in 2012

I started volunteering in a book store one day a week this year and decided
to read a book from the shelves every time I'm there--picking short books
that I can usually finish within the 4 hours I'm working.
This gives me the chance to read some oddball books, and this collection
should show that.  I'm marking the book store books with "LOGOS" so I can tell
which is which.

San Francisco Confidential by Ray Mungo    [LOGOS]
What a fun book!  I was going to read Henry V, which I am reviewing this week, but that plan didn't last long and soon I was up and looking through the shelves again.  This was one of the display books and I picked it up and within seconds had returned Henry V to the shelves.  Published in 1996, this is quite dated but it covers the scandalous activities in San Francisco from the time of the Gold Rush to the date of writing.  Not all of the scandals, of course, but some of the more notorious and most of them things that I remember.  It's not only scandals, but also things like the birth of the Beat era and the Hippie era (I'm amazed at how many things I lived through were "firsts" in the country).  There is the re-telling of the story of the murder of Mayor Mosconi and Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first gay supervisor).  I was quite familiar with that story, of course, but I don't think I ever heard that homophobic assassin Dan White was actually gay and having an affair with a San Francisco Fireman.  The books covers suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge, Patty Hearst, and lots and lots of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen (now deceased).  I was so tickled by the book that, of course, I bought it.   Cheap at only $5!

Divine Justice by David Baldacci
This book starts the same day that "Stone Cold" ends and continues the adventures of The Camel Club, now one member short, in its search for truth.  It also provides a complete history of Oliver Stone (aka John Carr).  By the time you finish this book, you will be ashamed to be an American, if only part of it is anywhere near the truth. As the book starts, Oliver has just assassinated two of the most powerful men in the country, who were responsible for the murder of Oliver's wife, and has decided to get outta town. He's going to go to New Orleans, where he can blend in where questions aren't asked, and work to rebuild houses after Katrina.  However, things go wrong on the train and he stands up for a kid who is getting beaten up and ends up being ejected from the train, along with the kids and the guys with whom he has fought.  With no other options, he goes home with the kid, Danny, to his tiny mining town where more things go wrong than you could imagine.  Just when it appears that Oliver can't possibly get out of his current situation, the Camel Club, like the cavalry, rides into town and takes things in hand. 

The Camel Club series is one of Baldacci's best and this is no exception.  There is one more book in the series, but it apparently has no connection to this particular book, so I'm taking a Camel Club vacation before starting it.

Stone Cold by David Baldacci
I started reading "Divine Justice" at Logos and realized it was a continuation of "Stone Cold," so stopped and read this book first.  This is another in Baldacci's Camel Club series, and ranks with one of his best.  In this book there are three plot lines which intersect -- former CIA assassin John Carr (aka Oliver Stone)'s vigilance at the White House; Anabelle Conroy's $40 million con of Atlantic City casino mogul Jerry Bagger, the man who killed her mother; and a new character, Harry Finn, a member of the Department of Homeland Security, who is secretly killing off the people who murdered his father.  All of these stories gradually merge in an ugly picture of what really goes on behind the doors of government.  This one is a gripper and thank goodness I already have "Divine Justice," the action for which begins minutes after "Stone Cold" ends, because I could start reading it immediately.

A Pygmy Perspective by Mitchell Agruss
Unfortunately for you, the reader, this is a book you can't read because it has never been publicly published.  It was written by my friend Mitchell Agrus (whom people my children's age, who grew up in the Sacramento area in the 1970s-80s may remember as TV "Capt'n Mitch.")  It is subtitled, "20 years of personal experiences with prominent figures of the American theatrical, film and television scene from 1941-61 (an exercise in truthful name-dropping)."  It is all that it is described as being, but more -- "more" being a delight to read.  I love listening to actors talking with one another and this is Mitch reminiscing about the likes of Katherine Hepburn, John Houseman, Thornton Wilder, Harpo Marx, Jack Klugman, Moss Hart, Mel Brooks, Carol Channing, Carl Reiner, Bert Lahr and scores of others.  The books includes photos of himself in performance with many of these luminaries.  I read the whole thing in one sitting and devoured every word.

I want to grow hair, I want to grow up, I want to go to Boise by Erma Bombeck    [LOGOS]
The title refers to what a child, suffering from cancer, said were his/her three wishes.   Bombeck was approached to write an upbeat book about children with cancer.   She wasn't sure she could do it until she visited a camp for children with cancer and got to know them.  What she has written reminds me of the book "When Someone You Love Has Cancer," by DanaRae Pomeroy.  You get to "know" kids with cancer, you get to know their parents, you get a sense of the joy and the tragedy, and you get a feel for how someone who cares can help -- what to do and what not to do.  Not Bombeck's usual belly laughs, but a wonderfully thought out and written  book (I would have expected nothing less of my hero).

Total Control by David Baldacci
After the disappointing "True Blue," it was nice to read another Baldacci thriller that fills the bill again.  Sidney and Jeffrey Archer are your typical upwardly mobile couple, raising their little daughter Amy.  Jason works for a technology company, Sidney (yes, she's a girl) is a corporate attorney.  Jeffrey has been doing some mysterous stuff after hours but the plane in which he is flying to LA mysterously crashes, killing nearly 200 people.  On the day of Jeffrey's memorial service, Sydney receives a phone call...from Jeffrey which sets off a non-stop thriller in motion that ultimately goes off in so many directions it's sometimes hard to keep up.  There is corporate greed, a sex scandal, double identies, sociopaths, chases, gun battles, people sneaking around in dark office buildings.  It's a thriller you can't put down.

Address Unknown by Katherine Kressman Taylor
Someone recommended this book to me.  It's very short, only 58 pages.  The novel is written in the form of correspondence between two business partners, a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco and his partner, who had returned to Germany in 1932.   According to the notes, the book is credited with exposing, early on, the dangers of Nazism to the American public.

While it has the feel of letters written by a woman, rather than two men, it still tells, very effectively the affection for the two families, the betrayal, and vengeance.  Even this many years later, it is a chilling story.

War Horse by Michael Morpugo
Morpugo is apparently Britain's best-loved children's book writers, so it's not surprising that this book, which I bought because of the hoopla about the Broadway production and the movie, seemed pretty simplistic.  It's the story of Joey, a horse born in England who gets sold to the Army during WWI and his boy's (Albert) attempts to find him.  It is told from the perspective of the horse and traces his adventures from Germany to France to how he finally reunited with Albert and the shock that threatens to remove him from Albert forever.  Really a good story, and children will enjoy it too!

True Blue by David Baldacci
Baldacci usually writes excellent books, but this is not one of his best.  However, at some point mid-way through I had the vision of this making a great "caper" movie, with whoever is the latter day equivalent of Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin.   Too many bodies discovered in too many weird places, and weird inter-weaving of plots, characters.  Is it corporate espionage? terrorism activity?  And the situation of the Chief of Police of Washington, DC being the older sister of the disgraced (framed) beat cop just made of lots of unbelievable situations.  Still, it held my interest, but I rolled my eyes a lot.

Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti    [LOGOS]
This may be one of the strangest books I have read (except for the one about Australian hats) since beginning work at Logos.  This is a true story of "a trip across America with Einstein's brain."  Albert Einstein's brain floats in a Tupperware bowl in a gray duffel bag in the trunk of a Buick Skylark barreling across America. Driving the car is journalist Michael Paterniti. Sitting next to him is an eccentric eighty-four-year-old pathologist named Thomas Harvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955 -- then simply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for over forty years.

On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave New Jersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein's perplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as the imaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself.  This book is part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, and part meditation, It is definitely unlike any other travel/adventure book you'll ever read and yet quite compelling.  It is Paterniti's skill as a writer which keep this story so fascinating.

Then Again by Diane Keaton
This is not your usual Hollywood memoir.  It is as much (if not more) a tribute to Diane's mother, Dorothy Hall, who loomed very large in her life, as it is the story about how shy, insecure Diane Hall became a celebrated movie star, lover to Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Al Pacino, and triumphed over her persistent insecurities and went on to give us memorable performances in movies such as the Godfather series, Annie Hall (which Woody Allen based on Diane's own family), First Wives Club and many others.  Dorothy Hall was a writer who kept delightfully complete journals of the ups and downs her own life, and her daughter's life and career.  Keaton quotes liberally from her mother's diaries and often compares her life to her own life.  As her mother receives the diagnosis of Alzheimers and slowly sinks into that abyss from which there is only one escape, Diane is brutally honest about what is happening and in the end, we all weep with her at her mother's death.  This really is a beautiful and beautifully written book.  Get the "real" book--I read it on my Kindle, which does not do justice to the photos.

The Journey by James Michener   [LOGOS]
Whoda thunk that a Michener book could be my choice for what to read during my day at the book store?  But this is actually only 240 pages and a bit slower going than the books I've been reading, I didn't quite finish it at the store, but did finish it here at home.  This is a story of an unlikely crew of four English gentlemen and one Irish tenant who take off for the Gold Rush.  After reading a report of a ship loaded with "gold bars" heading out of the Yukon Territory, Lord Evelyn Luton decides he wants a piece of the action and assembles a crew of four, plus someone to be their servant and he heads for Canada.  The problem is that he refuses to set foot on American soil because he wants to support the British holdings in Canada.  This decision, which makes the journey much more difficult than it should have been, proves disastrous, but the story of the travel across Canada from Quebec to Dawson City is fascinating and difficult to put down.

Travels with Alice by Calvin Trillin   [LOGOS]
Now this was more like it.  Delightful travel book by this staff writer for the New York Times is essentially a food tour through So. France, Italy, New York, Barbados and parts between.  I loved this book on so many levels, not the least of which was that most of the places he describes (in scrumptuous detail) are places where I have been.  I love reading what might have been had we not been on a tour.  Specifically, you must learn about taureaux piscine, which combines bullfighting and swimming.  Seriously.  Watch the video and read the description.  This is the kind of touring I'd like to do if (a) we were rich and (b) Walt enjoyed eating as much as I do.  (Alice, by the way, is Trillin's wife, often referred to as la principessa.)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Written by award winning physician-author Verghese, this is a book for history buffs and medicine buffs and anybody who likes a good story.  Beginning in India in 1947, the story follows the path of Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a young nun from India who ends up at a hospital in Addis Ababa, where she becomes an excellent surgical nurse, assisting the brilliant surgeon Thomas Stone.  When she goes into labor (having hid her pregnancy for 9 months from everyone including the father, Stone) things go terribly wrong.   The nun dies, Stone flees in horror and the identical twin babies boys, Marion and Shiva, rescued from almost certain death, are raised by an Indian obstetrician, Hema and her fellow doctor, Ghosh, whom she marries and who raises the boys as his own sons.

The first half of the novel concerns the boys growing up the hospital, displaying brilliant abilities to learn medicine as they are coming to maturity during the days of Emperor Haile Selasse.  The books offers an in-depth look at the practice of medicine and the revolutions taking place in Ethiopia.   A pivotal moment occurs midway through the book which causes a rift between the two brothers and ultimately ends up with Marion fleeing the country in fear of his life, his immigration to the United States, and finding his place in a poor hospital in New York.   By this point, I was so hooked, I had to take the day off to read until I'd finished the book. 

The book is alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of Ethiopia, of family, of love and betrayal, of life and death and eventual redemption under tragic circumstances.  Along the way I got a full education on the condition of women in Africa who suffer from fistula, and the relationship between high class modern hospitals and their poor counterparts in this country.  The characters are all well drawn and we know them well, even the least of them.  The writing was a delight to read.  I highly recommend this book.

Girl Cook by Hannah McCouch   [LOGOS]
I'm almost embarrassed to write a review of this book, which may have been the most lightweight of all the books I've read at Logos, but I just kind of grabbed the first right-sized book that looked llike I could finish it.  The Amazon synopsis tells it all:

Layla Mitchner is a twenty-eight-year-old Cordon Bleu graduate trying to carve out a space for herself in the fast-paced, high-pressure world of Manhattan’s top restaurant kitchens. She knows she’s got the talent to be a great chef, but there she is slaving for a misogynistic boss who’d sooner promote the dishwasher than give a woman the chance to prove her sous-chef mettle. And while Layla knows that the dwindling balance in her bank account won’t begin to cover what she owes her roommate, she’s desperate not to seek help from her self-absorbed, serially divorced, soap-opera-actress mother.

Her romantic prospects seem no brighter. She gets set up with a nice enough guy, but his tassel loafers and corporate demeanor reek of the WASP aristocracy she’s determined to leave behind. After continuously striking out, she meets a musician who appears to be the bohemian Mr. Right of her dreams, only to find he may be more deadbeat than heartthrob. But Layla refuses to settle for anything short of true love and success, and she ultimately finds both where she least expects them.

It wasn't unpleasant, it wasn't challenging.   I finished it with an hour and a half to spare.  Next time I'll choose something meatier.

Blue Nights by Joan Didion    [LOGOS]
There are two primary topics in this book--grief at the loss of her daughter (and to some extent her husband, though she covered that in her book "A Year of Magical Thinking") and as a 75 year old, awareness of her own aging/fragility and how to cope.

Midway through the book I had a mental picture of the inspiration for the writing.  I envisioned her sitting there with all of her memories of her daughter, the good, the bad, her insecurities about parenting, her daughter's long dying process, pictures of her as a child, etc. all being poured in snippets over her head in very slow motion and out of that waterfall came this book.   It is almost painfully personal and anyone who has lost a child will instantly identify.

The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
This is a departure from Baldacci's usual spy/suspense fare, though there are a few elements of suspense in it.   Tom Langdon, a former war correspondent who has tired of the danger and travel and has been spending his time writing fluff pieces for magazines like House and Garden and Ladies Home Companion.  After an altercation at an airport security line, he has been banned on all domestic flights for a year and so if he wants to see his bicoastal girlfriend in Los Angeles, he will have to take the train from DC.  In truth, he's not sure how he feels about Leila, but his distant relative Mark Twain was always going to write about his experiences riding the rails across the country and Tom long ago made a promise to his now dead father that he would do what Twain never did.

The train is peopled by unforgettable characters, starting with the big time Hollywood movie director and his entourage (which just happens to include the love of Tom's life, Eleanor Carter, whose loss he has mourned lo these many years).  There is the elderly priest, the couple running away from disapproving families to get married, the lonely woman who rides the rails all the time, especially at Christmas, because she is estranged from her daughter, the attorney who is out to sue anybody who makes him angry, and a train crew so delightful you just hope they are on your next train.

Christmas and a threatening storm are approaching, someone is pilfering things from people's compartments, and sparks fly whenever Tom and Eleanore have to be together. 

There is also a surprise ending which I did not see coming.

Dear Professor Einstein by Alice Calaprice    [LOGOS]
Fun, short read which included two brief biography of Einstein, by different authors, with different emphasis, but repeating the same information. Who knew that he had problems with math and had to ask famous mathematicians to help create the formulas for his relativity theory, or that E=mc2 was originally L=mc2 (though that is never explained). The fun part, though, is the letters to and from children, for whom the scientist obviously had a particular fondness.  Again, in the comments on the letters, Calaprice repeats, again, information.  There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the letters chosen and it was frustrating because some children's letters have responses from Einstein, others do not and there is no explanation of why or why not.  One child's letter, for example, thanks him for his previous letter, but that letter is not included.  I think a more interesting book would have been a book of replies from Einstein, and the letters that sparked them.

This book could have used an editor, but for what it was, I enjoyed it.

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
This book is in the running for worst book I've read all year--and it's only March.  Heroine Anastasia Steele has the dubious honor of being the most annoying heroine since Bella Swan.  I read this because an interview with the author made me curious about the controversy.  In truth it started out all right--for the kind of book that it is.  But it became boring, repetitive, juvenile (in a warped sort of way), whiny and completely uninteresting.  I completed it because I was wondering how it was going to end, but the longer it went on the worse it got.  I understand there is a much-needed sequel.  I shall not read it.

Simple Genius by David Baldacci
This is the third or fourth in the adventures of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, ex Secret Service Agents, now working together in their own detective agency.  I made the mistake of starting this before I had read the previous book, "Hour Game," and I didn't have a clue why Michell has a mini psychotic break at the start of the book.  I finally stopped reading it and went and read "Hour Game."   It's not that you can't understand this book without reading "Hour Game," but I kept asking myself "what the hell happened to her in that book?"   By the second of third chapter, it's not really important, but I was glad to have read "Hour Game" before I went back to "Simple Genius."

Books read in 2011
Books read in 2010
Books read in 2009
Books read in 2008
Books read in 2007
Books read in 2006