Star Island

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen  337 pp.

Not the best Hiaasen I've read but it is full of the usual quirky characters that populate his Florida based stories. Cheryl Bunterman, known by the stage name Cherry Pye, is a no-talent, much hyped singer with a penchant for drugs and booze. Her parents, manager, bodyguard, and hired double attempt to keep her career going while Cherry does everything she can to unintentionally destroy it. Also in the mix is a paparazzo who has decided to make Cherry Pie his life's work. When Cherry is "indisposed" aka in rehab, Ann DeLusia makes Cherry's public appearances to perpetrate the myth that the singer is functional. After her last bender, her bodyguard is fired and replaced by Chemo, a one-armed giant with a mutilated face and a weed whacker as a prosthetic hand. Former governor and road-kill eater, Clinton Tyree aka Skink, a favorite Hiaasen character, makes an appearance when he rescues Ann from a car accident and uniquely assaults a crooked real estate developer with a sea urchin. The plot is thin and a little predictable. The outlandish characters are the highlight.

Almayer's Folly

Almayer's Folly, by Joseph Conrad
128 pages


It took me a long time to finish this relatively short story.  It wasn't until about three quarters of the way through that I finally admitted to myself that it wasn't "off to a slow start", it simply sucked and wasn't going to get any better.  Conrad's writing is great; it's full of rich description, characterization, and provocative insights.  Nevertheless, all literary techniques are employed in service of a dull plot.  It's analogous to James Cameron shooting an IMAX film about spoons.  And the score was written by Hans Zimmer.

Almayer is the only dutch trader on a certain Malaysian island during the 19th century colonial era.  In his search for wealth he must deal with tension, mistrust, and hostility between himself, the natives, and his Malay wife who he married for material gain only.  At some point he becomes involved with a Malay prince who enlists Almayer's help in smuggling gun powder for the prince's ongoing war with the encroaching Dutch.  My description is a testament to the plot's lack of depth, as I've just given you 98% of the story, and the remaining 2% can be safely left undiscovered. 

A walk in the woods

A walk in the woods: rediscovering America on the Appalachian trail/Bill Bryson 284 pgs.

I listened to the excellent audio version of this book.  Bill Bryson and his friend Katz hope to hike the Appalachian trail so suit up and get ready with new equipment and the guts to start walking.  This book tells of their adventure and gives some background and history of the trail and the forces that affect it.  Enjoyable and fun to read/listen to, it easily convinced me this is something I should not attempt.

check our catalog

The Gods Are Broken! : the Hidden Legacy of Abraham / Jeffrey K. Salkin, 157 pp.

A neat little explication of the story of the boy Abraham breaking the idols of his father, Terah, and the ways in which this is an emblematic Jewish story.  Surprisingly readable and even cheerful in tone, this is a sophisticated work and a fascinating read for anyone interested in how people and their stories are linked. 

Unscrolled: 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle with the Torah: a Reboot Book / Roger Bennett, ed. 352 pp.

I didn't expect to enjoy this, but was pleasantly surprised.  54 passages have been taken from the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), presented in English and Hebrew, and in brief entries, placed in the wider context of the Scripture chapters in which they're found.  Then each passage is interpreted artistically by one of 54 writers, graphic artists, etc.  The results are, of course, mixed, and range in quality from so-so to dazzling.  My favorite was Jill Soloway's take on the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.

A Dual Inheritance / Joanna Hershon 476 pp.

A deceptively simple gem.  Ed Cantowitz, working-class and Jewish, meets Hugh Shipley, Boston Brahmin, at Harvard, and they form a tight bond.  Hugh's fiancee, Helen, though not a student, completes the trio.  They graduate and move apart geographically, Ed, to Wall Street and spectacular success, and Hugh, to Africa and beyond, in search of ways to use his wealth for good in remote health clinics.  Many things happen to these characters - marriage, children, divorce, money made and lost - but in some ways these are incidentals.  Hershon gives us the arc of two lives, grounds those lives in a specific time and place, and makes us care about what happens to them.  Lovely writing. 

The Ludwig Conspiracy: a Historical Thriller / Oliver Potzsch 435 p.

I've enjoyed this author's Hangman's Daughter series and expected to feel the same way about his new stand-alone.  Ludwig II, king of Bavaria, died in mysterious circumstances in 1886, and controversy rages in Germany to this day about whether this strange man, who ordered the construction of the famous castles of Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee, among others, was mad and whether he was murdered as a result.  The authentic mystery is the backdrop for our novel, which alternates between Ludwig's era and the present.  Steven Lukas, a reclusive antiquarian bookseller, unwittingly becomes the owner of an encoded text which reveals the truth about Ludwig and for which shadowy figures are willing to kill. Throw in a hot, chain-smoking art appraiser, and you have a story.  (She's quite a bit younger than Steven, but why should that be a problem?)

Disappointment.  The 19th-century chapters were effective, and Potzsch does a nice job of portraying Ludwig while keeping his edges fuzzy, just as he should be.  The contemporary chapters are dreadful, though, the dialogue clunky and many of the 'thrilling' scenarios completely implausible, particularly those which involve technology.  (Germans don't carry cellphones?) 

But Potzsch is smart and thoughtful, so I wonder if he hasn't just picked the wrong genre.  The whole story is suffused with regret - Ludwig refuses to face modernity, and worries for the direction Germany is heading. Sounds like an obvious foreshadowing, but it's done with delicacy.

World War Z/Max Brooks

World War Z:  An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (unabridged audio, c.2013).  Horror.  432 pages (12 hours on audio CD). 

Ten years after the zombie war (called World War Z by most historians), a journalist with the UN travels the world to record survival stories from those who witnessed the war first hand. 

The abridged version of this audio book has been around for a long time, but the release of the movie earlier this year prompted the publisher to (finally) put out a complete audio edition.  Each part is read by a different actor (including the likes of Nathan Fillion, Mark Hammill, and Jeri Ryan), and Brooks himself plays the role of the interviewer.  This is one of those rare books that actually works better as an audio book--the book is supposedly compiled from recorded interviews, so listening to the myriad actors makes it feel like you're experiencing the interviews first-hand.  This is especially creepy once the descriptions of the war get started (suggestion:  don't listen to this while driving alone at night, especially down a dark country road--I found that out the hard way!).  My one complaint is that, while the CD packaging listed the actors who appeared in the piece, it failed to tell me who was playing who.  As many of the roles require accents (both foreign and regional), it made it almost impossible to identify who was playing whom.  And as I was listening to this in my car, I couldn't exactly stop to ask Google.  The final credits of the recording do list who played which cast members, but by that point I'd lost track of which name went with which story.  That's a pretty minor complaint though, so otherwise I have to recommend this as one of the best audio books I've read. 

Meet me at the cupcake cafe: a novel with recipes by Jenny Colgan 978-1-4022-8180-8 410 pages

I do like novels that have recipes tucked between the pages, like bon-bons. I do often copy them, but I confess that I can't remember the last novel recipe I used.Let me say upfront that I am not even going to copy any of these recipes. Why? This is a British import and so many of the required ingredients are not sitting on my pantry shelf. That's okay. The sweet story (reminds me a bit of Bridget Jones) is a treat by itself.
 Issy Randall is booted from her job and the man mostly responsible is the man she sleeps with, an arrogant, frustrating Graeme. Unsure what to do next, she finds the opportunity of her life. It is a tiny shop off the busy streets that she thinks would be the perfect location for a cupcake bakery. Baking is her talent. Well, baking and making friends and opening a community haven. The guy who becomes her banker, well, anyone except Issy, can immediately see that he is the real deal. Austin is a  nice stand-up guy who takes care of his orphaned young brother and is just about as oblivious to the charms of shy Issy. This book is labeled Chick Lit and I guess it is.

Memories of a marriage, by Louis Begley

Perhaps I really don’t care that much about the lives of the rich and privileged – I found this book tedious and a waste of time.  The narrator, Philip, who enjoyed a long and happy marriage, runs into an old acquaintance, Lucy, at the ballet.  His beloved Bella has died, and Lucy has long since divorced her husband Thomas.  Thomas, although extremely successful in life, began as a “townie,” and married far above his station.  Lucy’s savage bitterness towards her former husband, who remarried and who has recently died, intrigues Philip.  Through a series of meetings with her and others in their overlapping social circles, Philip tries to discover what really happened between Lucy and Thomas.  Lucy is a totally repellant character and Philip is pretentious.  Ick.  188 pp.