People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Reading this novel makes me want to go take a book-binding class. It's the story of a Hebrew prayer book that survives through the centuries, and the people who created it and helped to preserve it. The book travels from Moorish Spain to Italy to Sarajevo. The narrative alternates between a modern archivist, which is told in first person, and historical sections told in third person omniscient.

I'm a big fan of Brooks. I loved March and her plague novel. This one is not quite as engaging. It's a little slow to develop - give it time. The omniscient sections were a little distant and sometimes hard to follow. Some details of the story toward the end seemed a little contrived - it might have been better to gloss over a lot of the details throughout the book. Readers are so willing to suspend disbelief as long as writers don't be obvious in explaining things.

But I loved it. Highly recommended.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

An interesting novel, part polemical, pointing out the abuses of the Chancery Court, part first person narrative of a young woman whose life is caught up in a famous suit before the court. Sections from the omniscient viewpoint alternate with first person.

Dickens is a master at painting the culture and times, from the lowest classes to the highest. His characters are excellent and memorable. The fog of the Chancery Court does not really detract from the enjoyment of the novel.

And there are a couple of mysteries hidden in the massive text. Who is Esther's mother and who committed the murder? Both serve to move the novel forward.

My only complaint with Dickens, and it is pretty obvious in this novel, is that his female characters are sometimes difficult to believe - their actions seem so unnatural. Perhaps it is a difference of the times, but the author seems to have less insight into the motivations of his female characters like Esther.

Geraldine Brooks talk at Margaret Mitchell House

Laurie and I went to hear Geraldine Brooks talk about her new novel last night. She is one of my favorite authors. I just loved March and The Year of the Plague. She is an outstanding speaker, so clear and focussed, much like her writing. Very intelligent, and passionate about her book and her writing. Quite an inspiring talk, maybe the best author talk I have ever heard.

2007 Reading - Year End Wrap-up

I read ninety books last year - seems incredible. How did I find the time to do anything else? I read at night before bed, and at lunch. In fact, when the weather is good I walk and read at lunch, between the downtown connector and Peachtree Street, from North Avenue to 10th street. I'm sure people look at me like I'm nuts.

Here is the list of what I read in 2007, courtesy of librarything and published with Google documents.

FIrst draft of "Life Portraits" is done

Sixty-two days. 116,599 words. The first draft of the novel code named "Life Portraits" is done.

Here are some stats:

• 116,599 words


• 62 days


• average 1881 words a day


• twelve "zero" days - no writing


• 38 chapters


• 96 "scenes"


• shortest scene: 131 words


• longest scene: 4219 words

Of course, these boring stats tell you nothing about whether the novel is any good or not. I don't know - it's too soon to tell, and I am too close to it at the moment. Now I need to let it sit for awhile before reading it to see what kind of a mess it really is. But I have high hopes for it - I think it may be my best yet.

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

An intriguing book, written from the viewpoint of a ten-year-old girl who has been abandoned, orphaned, and abused. She seems to be the only one in her family with any morals, the clear knowledge of a child of what is right and what is wrong. The novel follows her as she stays with various relatives and finally ends up in a foster home.

One intriguing characteristic of the narrator is the way she misuses words and figures of speech. For instance, when she is talking about her mother, why she married her father, and how sick she is, she says, "You see when she was my size she had romantic fever I think it is called and since then she has not had a good heart." Excellent writing...

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

A rambling re-telling of the Eastern band of the Cherokee's efforts to remain in Western North Carolina, as told by the fictional Will Cooper, who is a stand-in for the real Will Thomas. Anyone who has read the history of Tsali (called Charley in the novel) and the Cherokee removal will be familiar with this story. And Frazier has probably written the first fictional account of it, and has come as close as anyone could to capturing the feel of the times and the people.

It does ramble, though. The love story is opaque and hard to get excited about, as opaque as the female character in the tale. We never find out what she is thinking, and why she seems to come and go without much emotion for Will. In a sense the novel reminded me a lot of David Copperfield, in that it was a coming of age novel, but it is also comic in parts and just plain nostalgic in others.