A Man Called Ove A Novel, by Fredrik Backman

Pictures of Fredrik Backman  & Ove's Auto preferance the Saab

Ove’s story is heartbreaking, and it is very funny. It is filled with diverse characters, including the cat. Ove is Swedish and the story takes place in Sweden. It is a book you will not want to put down and one that will make you laugh out loud.

Both growing up as a child, and then later as an adult, Ove is described as a curmudgeon. He has strict principles, fixed routines and the image of a crusty old man who is ill-tempered, but this image is only true at first glance.

With a closer look you find that he has a heart of gold. Much of what is good in Ove was brought out by his wife, Sonji, who comes into his life and balances his pessimism with her optimism and warmth. She is really the opposite of Ove in most every way, but she is as dedicated to Ove as he is to her.

Driving a Saab is a litmus test for Ove and if you do drive one your more than ok. If you drive a Volvo, BMW or foreign car, it can be a reason for not speaking.

Ove’s wife dies, and it is heartbreaking.  It takes a lot of time but it is a woman who again turns him around, for a second time.  Parvaneh moves, with her husband and children, next door.  His relationship with their children is very touching.

The book is an exploration of how one life impacts so many others and is well worth reading.

About the Author

Fredrik Backman grew up in Sweden. He has been writing for Helsingborgs Dagblad and Moore Magazine in Sweden. His first book was "A Man Called Ove" and was published in 2012. It was adapted into a film which came out in December 2015.

A Man Called Ove: A Novel

By Fredrik Backman

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Midnight At The Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

Lydia Smith really loves her job at the Bright Ideas Bookstore in Denver.  She grew up in a library-based- home in this town about 20 years ago. 

She had only two friends. Raj was a boy her age and Carol was her other friend.  At a sleep over at Carol’s house, Carol and her parents were brutally murdered by the Hammerman. Lydia hid but it seemed like she was spared? The mystery of who the Hammerman was is still not solved, but things that happen at the bookstore and in Lydia’s life take her back to that mystery. 

The bookstore is a second home to many of the area street people and Lydia feels a connection to them. She sees them as dreamers and refers to them as BookFrogs. One of the dreamers, Joey Molina, is a real mystery but it eventually becomes clear that he is part of a bigger picture that includes the mystery of her youth. Joey is in his early twenties. He loves books and he considers Lydia his only friend.  

She is disconnected from her father and their relationship is an interesting part of the plot. Her childhood friend Raj comes back into her life and they try hard to understand the events they both shared growing up and what is happening now. They both become obsessed with who Joey really is.

It is a dark story with a twisted plot. The reviews I found on this book offer a lot of details that seem to be spoilers. The twisted plot is a delightful part of this book, so I have been hesitant to mention more of the events here.  The book will pull you in and you will not want to put it down

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore: A Novel

By Matthew Sullivan

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About Matthew Sullivan

Matthew Sullivan grew up in a family of eight children in suburban Denver, Colorado. He received his B.A. from the University of San Francisco, his M.F.A. from the University of Idaho, and has been a resident writer at Yaddo, Centrum, and the Vermont Studio Center. His writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and other awards, and has won the Florida Review Editor's Prize and the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize. In addition to working for years at Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he has taught writing and literature at colleges in Boston, Idaho, and Poland, and currently teaches writing, literature, and film at Big Bend Community College in the high desert of Washington State. He is married to a librarian, Libby, and has two children and a scruffy dog named Ernie.

Sweet Promised Land, by Robert Laxalt

The question of whether you can “go home again” takes on special meaning in the book “Sweet Promised Land”, especially for all first-generation immigrants who leave their homeland to come to America.  It is one man’s experience presented as a memoir, rather than as a fictional story, more the norm for mid twentieth century writers.  

Dominique left his Basque home as a very young man. It was 47 years before his return in the 1950’s. Many will recognize that time and it will be a contrast they will feel and share. Others, who were not born until much later, will have less experience and will have to rely on the authors presentation of the contrasts. Either way it is a story of discovery.

Dominique, recalls the days of rich open ranges and dirt streets in the old country He then comes as a young sheepherder to America and the work is similar, but the land is less accommodating. America is the difference and it is indeed a land of opportunity that Dominique and his family benefit from.   

Dominique’s wife was also a Basque who immigrated. They met in Reno.  After they married she worked the sheep camps with him for a while and then she settled in Carson City running a small hotel where her focus was to get the children educated.

Late in his interesting life Dominique had a little stroke.  He hadn’t been able to stop working before. When he tried, and then saw past friends who had quit working and not too soon later died, it upset him, so he went back to work in the mountains.

Dominique could now afford to quit. He could afford to go back to the old country and he wanted to.  It took his family who loved him very much to convince him to go. The family probably didn’t realize that Dominique saw people at a much deeper level than they assumed. His youngest son was especially concerned that the trip be successful, and he went with him. They fly to New York City, Paris and then the Pyrenees where the homecoming is joyful.

A special time is spent with his sisters and extended family.  He was a returning hero and the homecoming was an emotional time filled with great happiness.  He did not know how he would feel when it was time to go, but he learned that it was no longer where he belonged.  His son learned not just about the old country, but a lot about how his father’s wisdom.

The immigrant experiences provide a “source of ethnic pride”. The book is a classic celebration of Americana and something we all should read.

Sweet Promised Land (The Basque Series)

By Robert Laxalt

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Quote

"Then I saw a cragged face that that land had filled with hope and torn with pain, had changed from young to old, and in the end had claimed. And then, I did know it.” 

Author Robert Laxalt

the Stranger a novel by Albert Camus

I first read this book 50 years ago. The book, published in 1942, was Camus’s first novel.  Jean-Paul Sartre’s initial review of the book helped it, but it was not an immediate success.

I have gone back and reread this book several times over the years and always I find that the mood of the book seems stark. The book suggests the human inability to find any meaning in life.

In collage we were asked to read this book while we studied Sartre. Camus was labeled as an “absurdist” which suggested that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe. Sartre was considered an existentialist which emphasizes the existence of the individual as a free and responsible agent, determining their own development through acts of the will.

When we studied Camus we were asked whether he wasn’t really an existentialist? Camus never did agree that he was an existentialist and didn’t like being labeled that way. He presented the book, “the Stranger”, to show an individual who was free from outside influence, emotionless, who didn’t play the game, and whose existence seemed to be purposeless.

Meursault lived in a rooming house in Algiers. His mother died, and he was called away for the funeral.  At the funeral he showed no emotion and the next day when returning home, he and his girlfriend Marie went to a comedy movie. He had a neighbor, Raymond.  They went out walking and Raymond’s enemies, who were Arabs, came after him to hurt him. Meursault tried to protect Raymond and when it looked like it would happen again he gets Raymond to give him a gun that he had and planned to carry. That threatening incident passes but later when Meursault is out walking alone one of the Arabs confronts him. He still has the gun in his pocket and in self-defense he shoots and kills the Arab.

After months of imprisonment the trial leads to the death sentence. The sentence is obvious to not be for the crime, but for his detachment and indifference to his mother's death.

In January 1955, Camus wrote: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death. I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

The well-crafted story, in my opinion, does not leave you convinced that the world is without meaning. There is much of interest in the characters whose lives were important to them. It is worth going back and reading again or just reading it if you have not done so.

Sweet Promised Land (The Basque Series)

By Robert Laxalt

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The Rooster Bar, by John Grisham

The Rooster Bar

By John Grisham

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John Grisham’s book, The Rooster Bar, is a surprise. It does have an interesting story and the plot is believable, but the characters seem to lack the depth that you expect from his stories.

He said in an author’s note at the end of the book that he got the idea for the book when he read an article in the Atlantic called “The Law-School Scam,” which was an investigation of for-profit law schools. I would have liked to have read this before I started.

The main characters, Mark, Todd, and Zola just came together in this complicated plot, and even though the death of a friend and the pressure of the debts were good reasons, it still seemed sort of weak that they would wind up in this together as deep as they did.

Grisham can make you like a character ,and even more important he can make you feel what they feel, but he didn't do it with these characters.

This is the only Grisham book I stopped and wondered whether to continue before finishing but by the second half the plot pulled me in and and I am glad I stayed with it. 

The student debt totals 1.4 Trillion

Pat Conroy, A Lowcountry Heart & Reflections on a Writing Life

This book was put together as a final collection of interviews, articles and letters from Pat Conroy's long literary life. The book attracted me because of the sub-title "Reflections on a Writing Life".

Pat is well known for the 11 books he wrote but I have not read any of them yet. The Great Santini and Prince of Tides are perhaps two of the better known books of his and were made into movies. The movies didn't make me want to find out more about Pat as finding out more his life has. I do love this quote of his: "the most powerful words in the English language are, Tell me a story."

There is much about this author that interests me, the least of which is that we are the same age and he passed away in March of 2016.

The cover page of his web site, www.patconroy.com , states that he "uses stories to explore the great themes of life". The book reveals much of his conversations over the years and it also shows how very many different authors he as read. As with so many great writers you find out they are amazing in how much they read.

He liked to portray himself as a Southern gentleman but he said of his reading that, "If I can't understand it then who the hell can? He loved to gather stories and to talk with his readers. He told them openly that he was collecting stories.  He referred to himself as one of the ones in life who was a "designated rememberer".

He was known for the way he would do book events for new books at stores across the country He would talk to each person and even listen to their stories and would go late into the night to finish all that came.

The Pat Conroy Literary Center has a web site and one of the first things you see on it is that one of it's purposes is to "honors his fierce love for the diverse voices that tell our crucial stories, the teachers who call those stories forth, and the readers who keep the stories alive." A quote on the site I really liked was:

"I was born to be in a library"

www.patconroyliterarycenter.org 

The book helped me get to know him better. I wanted to learn what made him tick and the book was useful.

Neil Gaiman, the View from the Cheap Seats

In this book, Neil Gaiman talked about fantasy and imagination.  What he learned from his trip to China is very interesting regarding this subject. 

Neil Gaiman is a fiction writer, especially for young readers, and he went to a worldwide meeting for fiction writers in China. He knew that over the years, China didn't even allow fairy tales and fiction in their schools, so he was surprised that this event had invited him to China for this event.

He asked an official of the event what had happened and why the interest now is in fantasy and fiction. He was told that top Chinese officials had toured all the big companies they did outsourcing work with within the United States and asked those they met "what they read.” They all said science fiction was a top choice, and fantasy and fiction went along with this. They were looking for why these plants excelled in creativity.  It seemed clear from their findings that creativity was sparked by imagination.  Fiction and fantasy were added to the school curriculum in Chinese schools.

The author ponders the truth of fiction and the power of the stories. The book contains speeches, articles, introductions, and essays.  His first chapter sets the tone with his focus on "Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming.” He said in the introduction that he liked fiction because he wanted to "tell the truth without ever needing to worry about the facts."

This guy might find things will clear up for him if he starts doing some regular reading.

---

Some favorite Neil Gaiman Quotes

"You can no more read the same book again than you can step into the same river.”

“Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.” 

“Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he said, “read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 

If you already know Neil Gaiman's work this book is a real treat. If you are new to him this will be a great introduction. 

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Among The Gently Mad, by Nicholas A. Basbanes

This book, Among The Gently Mad, Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the Twenty-First Century follows the authors previous books, "A Gently Madness and Patience & Fortitude".

The book is ahow-to guide for the aspiring bibliophile. It explores all sides of this hobby and obsession. Some of the authors own history comes through especially as he comments on places visited around the county.  

"Every book collection is a form of narrative. It follows a plot line that emerges as much as a reflection of personality as purpose". Basbanes adds that;

"A shelf of books bespeaks the soul whose           hands have put it there."

The insight into why this is the case is very interesting.  These thoughts are why the book was so appealing to me.

A short trip to my own library confirms the truths spoken here. You might find yourself rearranging your own library shelves in order to put the best story together, because it is indeed there on the shelf. It tells who you are.

In Chapter 4 an approach to book collecting is distilled into three words. Rarity, scarcity, and value. Each of these are discussed at length.

Basbanes says that, in his opinion, you shouldn’t seek books just because they are old or expensive. Instead he present insight into many possible reasons including focusing on authors, subject, and time periods.  He discusses the internet and offers some great suggestions but he points out that for all its help there is still no substitute for going out into the marketplace and meeting people at the book fairs, open shops, auctions, flea markets and knowing what to look for.

Moonwalking with Einstein, The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Joshua Foer, a freelance journalist, wrote the book “Moonwalking with Einstein, the Art and Science of Remembering Everything”. There has been lots of positive reviews of this book. Bill Gates said it was “absolutely phenomenal and one of the best books he had recently read”. No one seems to know what Einstein or even Moonwalking have to do with the substance of the book is but it really does open up your thinking about memory.

The author in preparing to write the book also spent a year in memory training preparing for the U.S. Memory Championship and learning about memory and its importance. He points out that we don’t need to remember as much today with all the help we have and that we only need to know where to find the answer. That may explain the books focus on remembering lists, numbers, playing card numbers and other things like that. The methods of association and the fact that mental athletes are neither geniuses or savants, but just people who have mastered techniques of understanding space and image was the books focus. 

It seemed to me that a most interesting question raised was if “experience is the sum of our memories and wisdom the sum of experience,” then as the author asks, what does it mean that “we’ve supplanted our own natural memory with a vast superstructure of technological crutches”?

There are many reviews of this book but my own experience has a component that for me is a little embarrassing. It leads me to rate the book a little lower and question the overall book perhaps more than I should. 

I found the book in my "to read" pile. The stack of books had become a little scrambled and I wasn’t positive whether I had read it. A couple of pages should answer that question but as you may have already guessed it didn’t for me. I read almost half of the book before I remembered that I had read it already? I had just finished a section explaining that if 100 pictures where held up for a few seconds each that I should be able to remember, if shown the pictures later, almost all of them. Even a year later I should be able to remember most of them. 

I can laugh at myself for not remembering having read the book right off. I didn't like discovering it while learning how powerful our brains already are. If this is going to happen to me why did it have to be with a book on memory. I can’t answer that but I rated it lower

I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

I have read this book several times and the last time was in December 2016. This is the review from that reading

Maya Angelou writes of her first 16 years of life.  She and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother in Arkansas. She said about this experience, "If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat."

She was raped at the age of eight when in St. Louis with her mother. She dealt with the trauma with a self -imposed muteness. Each day she would escape to the library where she read everything she could and where she memorized and recited great works of literature and poetry. Reciting was her way of regaining her speech. 

Discrimination was a way of life and the races didn't mix. The community lived with the fear of lynchings. Family's where she lived took care of their own.  She attended revival meetings, had a strong belief in God and felt that He had a covenant with children, and this included Negroes, and those that were crippled. She had a child at age 16.

She is best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. 

"The Caged Bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom" - Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.

Born: April 4, 1928, St. Louis, MO

Died: May 28, 2014, Winston-Salem, NC 

Favorite Quote

People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

The River of Doubt, by Candice Millard

Theordore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

After Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th U.S. president, failed his re-election effort he decided to have a great adventure. It had to be unique and something no one else had done. Exploring an uncharted river in South America fit his needs well. 

The River of Doubt is a black uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. The rain forest was anything but easy to deal with.
He took his son Kermit and they found an experienced guide, Candido Rondon, and crew. 

Candice Millard said, "When he wasn't too sick to sit up, Roosevelt sought comfort and distraction in the world that he knew best: his library. For his trip to Africa, he had spent months choosing the books that he would take with him, ordering special volumes that had been beautifully bound in pigskin, with type reduced to the smallest legible size, so that the books would be as light as possible."

Vipers, piranhas, poisonous plants, insect swarms were all serious threats as were Indians armed with poison tipped arrows. 

Roosevelt ended his journey sick with fever having lost 1/4 of his body weight. It was indeed Teddy Roosevelt’s darkest journey.

Quotes

“Theodore you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. I am giving you the tools, but it is up to you to make your body.” 

“In its intense and remorseless competition for every available nutrient, the Amazon offered little just for the taking.” 

“Rhythmic eddies in the water betrayed the passage of anacondas, which can weigh as much as five hundred pounds.” 

The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens

Joe Talbert's life is changing. He hopes going away to collage will help, but it only adds to the challenges. He has saved his own money and been the strength in his home, helping his autistic brother and covering for his alcoholic mother.  His new life at the University of Minnesota has brought him to a new apartment, a young lady friend down the hall, and a very interesting writing assignment in his English class.

For his assignment he decides to write a biography of a stranger and chooses Carl Iverson whom he finds in a nursing home. It turns out that the Carl had spent the last 30 years in prison for the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl. Carl was released from prison because he was close to death with stage 4 cancer.  

Carl is a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross. Joe’s at first figures a short biography would be an easy A for his class. When he learns that Carl could be innocent he decides to look at the crime evidence to make the biography more accurate. 

Joe's brother, Jeremy, has to move in with him because of troubles at his home are still a concern. Joe, Jeremy and his neighbor all help to resolve things as they work on the facts they find about Carl's crime. 

The books characters are interesting and the plot twists with surprises. Exploring the evidence of a long past crime and getting to know the people is interesting. 

A story well written and a book that is worth reading

.

 

 

 

Maya's Story Slipping Between Time And Space A Novel by Diana Story

This book is considered young adult fantasy and it tells the story of a girl being prepared to battle sinister forces and save the world.  

Vida in 1962 fled Russia and came to America. She was 17 years old at that time. She had descended from an ancient Sisterhood and is a Druidic High Priestesses. She is now training her granddaughter Maya, who is 15 years old, to become the next High Priestesses and to fight for our troubled planet. She will have to fight the Dark Menace.  

Maya can be helped by the Constellations who seem like Gods watching from above, including Draco (Latin for dragon) and Monoceros (Greek for unicorn).

Vida and Maya train in the nearby forest and Maya learns, among other things,to slip through time and space.  The story includes references to much of the current day world’s troubles. 

A lot of her training is mind training but she does go through extensive physical training also. When the final battle takes place it results in terrible consequences. Humanity is saved in the end but remains imperfect and will need the help of the Sisterhood going forward. A lot to think about as comparisons to the world today.

Fiction and fantasy are great escapes and this story of Maya doesn't disappoint. 

the Rosie Project

the Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Don Tillman is the narrator of this story where he thinks he has found a solution to “the wife problem”.

He is a geneticist and has developed a questionnaire to use for this project Don is challenged, almost robotic. He doesn’t understand social cues, barely feels emotion and can’t stand to be touched.  

His best, and almost only friends, are Gene and Claudia who are psychologists. Gene works at the same university, thanks to Don’s help. Claudia helps Don balance her husband Gene’s suggestions for his interest in Rosie who is a graduate student in Gene’s department. Claudia, as a joke answers Don’s questionnaire for "the wife project".

Rosie is interested and Don finds her beautiful and in many ways, they hit it off right away but then she is just unsuitable as the questionnaire clearly shows. Rosie seems to see through some of Don’s perceived weaknesses.

Rosie and Don get to know each other. He learns of her own project regarding her father.  It really is a challenging and complicated “father project” and one that Don is well qualified to help with. Don of course rules her out for the wife project but agrees to help her on the father project. We watch him fall in love with Rosie, not even knowing he is. We see much of the same happen to Rosie.

Don’s nativity serves to dissect the step by steps taken in their relationship. He does seem a little nuts, but oddly we all see some of our self in his simplistic approach. We feel bad for, and laugh, as Don tries to understand his own feelings and Rosie’s. Rosie’s father project leads the two from Australia to New York. The twists and turns of that story are funny.

Graeme Simsion is a skilled writer. His scenes make you feel that you are in the story. Don in his methodical well-reasoned approach seems to be the real Don and he seems likable and believable. He changes or at least can manage change when needed as the plot goes on and it is funny but wonderful in its own way.

Graeme Simsion Quotes

“I haven’t changed my mind. That’s the point! I want to spend my life with you even though it’s totally irrational. And you have short earlobes. Socially and genetically there’s no reason for me to be attracted to you. The only logical conclusion is that I must be in love with you.” 

“If you really love someone,' Claudia continued, 'you have to be prepared to accept them as they are. Maybe you hope that one day they get a wake-up call and make the changes for their own reasons.” 
―

String Theory by David Foster Wallace on Tennis

David Foster Wallace died September 12th, 2008. He was 46 years old

An Art Teacher once told us that the phrase he hated to hear most was “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like”. Well I didn’t know much about Tennis but David Foster Wallace pointed the way to what is really exciting about it.

Of the 5 essays, I really liked  most“How Tracy Austin Broke my Heart” and “Federer, both Flesh and Not”.   

One exposure only to this writer and his love of the sport is enough to be contagious. His skill in writing made the difference in how well these ideas could be addictive.

“The Truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."

This quote is from Foster's 1996 novel, "Infinite Jest". Time magazine included that novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. that seems to support the overall writing skill that I found in this novel. Much of what he writes in “String Theory” seems to want to look closer at the truth behind what is happening in the vairous actions and lives around tennis.

In physics “String Theory” is a term that is used to understand a theoretical framework where things described as strings interact with each other. The interaction and implication that tennis and life have was explored in an interesting way in this book.

If I finish a book and then glad that I read it, it was a success. This book was just that.