the rating game

I have wanted to attach a rating to books for some time.  Now that there are a dozen of unreviewed books on the shelf, I think they provide a perfect opportunity to do this.  It seems easier to do the rating with the books all laid out together for comparison purposes rather than rate each book in isolation.

So here goes; scale of five with five stars as the perfect score.

Drum roll please….

  

    

      1. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (2009)

4.5 stars

1.       State of Wonder by Ann Patchet (2011)

4 stars

 

Anders Eckman was reported dead after being sent by Vogel, his employer pharmaceutical company, to follow up on the progress of Dr. Annick Swanson.  Nothing has been heard from Swanson for more than two years while working on a valuable drug. Dr. Marina Singh, co-worker of Eckman and former student of Dr. Swanson, was thereafter sent by Vogel with the hope that she’ll succeed where Eckman has failed.   

The book raises a lot of ethical considerations on drug research, development, and marketing. 

This is my fourth book by Patchet [Bel Canto (2001); The Magician’s Assistant (1997); and Patron Saint of Liars (1992)] and it did not disappoint.  Patchet, as usual, is able to weave a mesmerizing story that is able to transport the reader right into where the heart of the action is.  

     

      3. The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier (2004)

4 stars

Chevalier, author of the Girl with a Peal Earing, comes up with the story behind the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries which Chevalier dates to have been made in 1490. The book is told from the point of view of the different characters – Nicolas des Innocentes, who conceptualized the theme of the tapestries; the Le Viste family (Claude Le Viste and Genevieve De Nanterre) who commissioned the work; and the weavers from Brussels who executed the design (Georges de la Chapelle, Christine du Sablon, Philippine de la Tour, Alienor de la Chapelle). Interestingly, we don’t hear the first person point of view of Jean Le Viste, master of the Le Viste household.

Beautiful book which aside from spinning a colorful tale, gives insights on the mores of 15h century Paris and Brussels.

4.       The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte (1998)

4 stars

Lucas Corso, a person one might call a book detective, has been given the assignment of authenticating a fragment of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. Little does he know that this seemingly simple assignment would turn out to be related to a highly complex plot involving murders and characters thrown in his way such that he starts feeling he has been drawn in right into the heart of the Three Musketeers story.

I think this is how a spy/adventure/thriller should be written. Highly intelligent, replete with historical and literary trivia, and full of witty conversations throughout.

5.       Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (2007)

4 stars

Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, comes up again with a riveting saga, this time, involving three children, Ann, Claire, and Coop in Northern California in the 1970s. The book follows what happens to all three children when they got separated after Ann and Claire’s father finds out about Ann and Coop’s teenage affair.

Ondaatje has to take care that he does not keep repeating himself in his future books. Several characters In Divisadero sounded very similar to those from The English Patient. All in all though, Divisadero is a good follow-up work to The English Patient and does not disappoint.

6.       The Piano by Jane Campion and Kate Pullinger (1994) 

3.75 stars

No, I have not watched the movie and I was surprised at how dark and violent this book was that it gave me a whole sleepless night.

Allow me to quote from the dust cover: “Ada McGrath, her nine-year old daughter, and her piano arrive to an arranged marriage in the remote bush of 19^th century New Zealand.  Stewart, her husband, refuses to transport the piano, and it is left behind on the beach.  Unable to bear its destruction, Ada strikes a bargain with Baines, an illiterate tattooed neighbor.  She may earn her piano back if she allows him to do certain things while she plays; one black key for every lesson.”

The Piano has the texture of Bronte and D.H. Lawrence and I was torn whether to give this book 4 stars. But the graphic horror of Stewart axing Ada’s finger and sending Ada’s daughter to Baines (with the axed finger!) to tell him that if he does not keep away from his wife, there will be more fingers coming, just left a bad taste in my mouth.

 7.       Life Studies by Susan Vreeland (2005)

3.5 stars

The book is a compilation of short stories which can be divided into two main parts.  The first part is composed of stories of people who had brushes with Renoir, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Modigliani, and Morisot. The second part is a compilation of contemporary stories of how art has seeped into the lives of people.

I think Life Studies would have been much better if it were actually two books instead of the two parts squeezed in one work. It gives the feeling that the author rushed the publication of the book.

8.       With Violets by Elizabeth Robards (1964)

3 stars

"With Violets" is a historical fiction set in the 1860s involving Berthe Morisot, one of the movers of Impressionism, and Edouard  Manet.

My main gripe with this book: Morisot is a highly intelligent and accomplished artist and she was reduced into a one-dimensional simpering love-sick fool in “With Violets”. I think Robarbs did her a big injustice.

      9.       I Don’t Know How She Does  It by Allison Pearson (2002)

3 stars

Kate Reddy is a British hedge-fund manager, wife, and the mother of two toddlers. She is on the verge of a nervous breakdown trying to be the perfect career woman and the perfect mother.

This one of those hysterical books which do not help in clearing age-old issues; rather, it just manages to add kindle to the bonfire. My two-cents worth: Family life is team work. If Reddy wants to become superwoman by sidelining her spouse and pretending at work that having two toddlers has not changed her life a bit, fine. But please, no more books on this addled concept. There are those out there trying to improve legislation on working conditions of working mothers and giving equal opportunities  to both genders.

And making a movie of this book with Sarah Jessica Parker on the lead role just aggravated the matter.

10.   The Reluctant Queen by Joan Wolf (2011)

2.5 stars

Story based on the biblical Esther. While interesting how Wolf filled out the details, overall, the book is one sappy read.

      11. The Weekend by Bernard Schlink (2010)

2 stars

Schlink, writer of “The Reader” sets again this story in post-war Germany.  Jorg, imprisoned for 24 years has been pardoned.  His sister has asked close friends for the weekend to welcome him home.

I don’t know about you. But this weekend with Jorge did not feel like two days but closer to the 24 years he spent in prison.  The story just dragged on and on and I, together with his guests, heaved a sigh of relief when the weekend was over.

12.   Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin (2011)

1 star

So-Nyo, wife and mother of five-grown up children, got lost en-route from her small town to Seoul with her husband. What follows is a series of finger-pointing and guilt-tripping among the children while they search for their mother. While I get the point of the unacknowledged and taken for granted mother, I don’t get the point of the tedious story all throughout told from the perspective of So-Nyo and the children.  Kyung-Sook Shin was not able to give a distinct voice to the characters and the technique has fallen flat.

The cover of this book says that Please Look After Mother purportedly sold a million copy. Did I miss anything here?

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (2009)

Ariely discusses the systematic (as opposed to random) irrational behavior of people and how they tend to repeat them. He draws deeply from the field of Behavioral Economics, an amalgamation of both Psychology and Economics.

 Here are the interesting topics Ariely tackled in the book:

1.  Truth About Relativity (why everything is relative; even when it shouldn’t be)

2. The Fallacy of Supply and Demand (why the price of pearls – and everything else – is up in the air

3. The Cost of Zero Cost (why we often pay too much when we pay nothing)

4. The Cost of Social Norms (why we are happy to do things, but not when we are paid to do them)

5. The Power of a Free Cookie (how free can make us less selfish)

6. The Influence of Arousal (why hot is much hotter than we realize)

7. The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control (why we can’t make ourselves do what we want to do)

8. The High Price of Ownership (why we overvalue what we have)

9. Keeping Doors Open (why options distract us from our main objective)

10. The Effect of Expectations (why the mind gets what it expects)

11. The Power of Price (why a 50-cent aspirin can do what a penny aspirin can’t)

12. The Cycle of Distrust (why we don’t believe what marketers tell us)

13. The Context of our Character (why we are dishonest and what we can do about it; why dealing with cash makes us more honest)

14. Beer and Free Lunches (what is Behavioral Economics and where are the free lunches)

As opposed to Malcolm Gladwell who presents research to back up his hypothesis, Ariely conducts experiments to prove a point.  Ariely writes, “If the lessons learned in any experiment were limited to the exact environment of the experiment, their value would be limited.  Instead, I would like you to think about experiments as an illustration of a general principle, providing insight into how we think and how we make decisions – not only in the context of a particular experiment but, by extrapolation, in many contexts of life.”

Which brings me to my perceived weakness of this book. The experiments were generally conducted in specific environments, i.e., ivy league universities, which make extrapolation highly suspect. I would have liked Ariely to conduct the same experiment with people of different cultural backgrounds, age groups, and income brackets before pronouncing his conclusions. But of course if Ariely did this, he would have ended up with a technical paper and not a reader-friendly 348-page work.

The value of this book is essentially that it points out the irrational and costly decisions people make and what they can do about this. Ariely and Behavior Economics notwithstanding, I don’t think I will be boycotting Starbucks anytime soon though.

The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

I first read this book in January 2009 en route to Adelaide. I decided to read it again recently to refresh my memory on Gladwell’s theory of why certain individuals stand out from the crowd. His hypothesis?

“People don’t rise from nothing.  We do owe something to parentage and patronage.  The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves.  But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.  It makes a difference where and when we grew up.  The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It’s not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words.  It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.”

The first part of the book tries to show that success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: when and where you were born, what your parents did for a living, and that the circumstances of your upbringing make a significant difference in how well you do in the world.  The second part discusses that the traditions and attitudes we inherit from our forebears play the same role. 

Interesting insights from the book:

1. 10,000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert – in anything.
2. Success is the result of what sociologists call “accumulative advantage”.
3. The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents.  It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our particular place in history presents us with.
4. What truly distinguishes the histories of outliers is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities.
5. Intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated. Intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things (things that have nothing to do with intelligence) must start to matter more.
6. Concerted cultivation has enormous advantages. Heavily scheduled middle-class children are exposed to constantly shifting experiences and learn a sense of “entitlement”.
7. All of the advantages that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in the way privileged kids learn while they are not in school.
8. Most people agree that autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward are three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.
9. If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and your imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.
10. No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.

Gladwell concludes with this statement: To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success – the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history – with a society that provides opportunities for all.

While I highly recommend this book, I still think that one must take it with a grain of salt.  I am sure that one can cite at least 10 cases to disprove Gladwell’s theory about Bill Gates, the Beatles, or Christopher Langan.  Gladwell builds a good case though and it will take one really good researcher/highly entertaining writer to convince me otherwise.

Especially that part on the 10,000 hours of practice to build a world-class level of expertise (the Little Pebble just gave me a good kick. I think the poor dear is starting to realize the enormity of 10,000 hours).

Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman (1997)

The plot of “Here on Earth” closely follows that of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”:  Boy with a dark, mysterious past is adopted by the Man-of-the-House; Daughter of the Man-of-the House and the Dark Boy get into some cosmic-defying relations; Son of the Man-of-the House hates the Dark Boy with venom that consumes him; Man-of-the-House dies leaving his progeny scattered to the winds to fend for themselves; the characters all meet again sometime in the future to torture each other once again; and these characters have brought forth sons and daughters fated to replicate their parents’ dark stories.

The main problem with “Here on Earth” is that one cannot avoid comparing it to Wuthering Heights. Hoffman’s Hollis manages to merely look like a deranged, cruel man who physically and psychologically abuses women and children as opposed to Bronte’s Heathcliff who somehow is able to elicit sympathy notwithstanding all the darkness surrounding him.  Hoffman’s March feels inconsequential and flimsy compared to Bronte’s fiery Catherine who was a force to reckon with. Hoffman was not able to fully develop certain of her characters and to explain their purpose in the story (What was that triangulation of Mr. and Mrs. Justice and the deceased Judith Dale all about?). Whereas Bronte was able to elevate the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine to something almost spiritual, Hollis and March are nothing more than irresponsible, selfish, unthinking individuals.

“Here on Earth” is much more graphic, especially the sex and violence scenes, but is still unable to reach that level of pathos, darkness, and malignancy that “Wuthering Heights” was able to achieve.

Or perhaps this is none of Hoffman’s fault. As Wuthering Heights has always been one of my favorites, any writer who attempts to scale the heights reached by Bronte’s opus will feebly fall short of my estimation.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)

“He’s a wallflower.”

“You see things.  You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”

Stephen Chbosky’s first novel is able to credibly give voice to a 15-year old, precocious, socially awkward young boy named Charlie that you’d start thinking that Chbosky himself invented letter-writing in novels to tell a story.

“The Perks of Being A Wallflower” is a series of letters written by Charlie in an attempt to explain and figure things for himself.  The recipient of these letters is unaware as to who Charlie is as there is no return address indicated. Charlie just “needs to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have”. 

You will want to hug this boy and tell him everything will be all right as he pours his heart out letter after letter recounting his first year in high school.  He grapples with issues of girls, dating, friendships, family life, honesty/dishonesty, smoking, teenage sex, and drugs.  He probably thinks at some point that it is easier to get straight As compared to putting himself out there to “participate”.

Charlie’s teachers know that the boy is special.  In fact, Bill, one of his teachers, has been giving him extra reading assignments on top of his regular work load (On the Road, Naked Lunch, The Stranger, This Side of Paradise, Peter Pan, A Separate Peace, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, Walden, and The Fountainhead).

“The Perks of Being A Wallflower” is not only about teenage angst but also touches upon seriously sensitive issues of teenage suicide and child abuse without turning the book into one big horror show.

The book, painfully poignant in some parts and funny in others, manages to convey the message that notwithstanding teenage turbulent years, young people will be able to come out of this tunnel with the guidance of family, help from persons in authority, company of good friends, and even look back at those years and say, “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

POSTSCRIPT: A movie of the book is in the making. While I adored Emma Watson in the Harry Potter series, I think she's miscast as Sam in “The Perks of Being A Wallflower”.

a kindle is making my heart go tingle...

I have capitulated.

I have decided to give e-books a chance for several reasons:

1. I have been moving again and packing up more than two decades of accumulated books is no joke (ask the haulers).

2. I have tried out a colleague's Kindle and I was amazed at how light it was, how similar in size to a regular pocketbook, and how its resolution is so close to that of a paper-printed page.

3. (I think) it could cut down my book expense. Most classics are now downloadable and new writers are striking it out in the web waiting for publishers to get to them.

4. I don't need to wait for the local bookstores to come out with the works of my favorite authors (I never  attempted to take that marshmallow test; I already know the result).

5. I can still read in bed.

6. My entire library can fit in my purse.

7. I need to be prepared for the Little Pebble. I have observed that more and more schools are now  using tablets in lieu of textbooks. I wouldn't want my child to classify me together with the dinosaurs nor include me in discussions of Darwin's survival of the species or the Big Bang theory.

The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt (2008)

Is it not amazing how certain writers are able to come up with a believable and vastly entertaining story involving persons who have actually lived (Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse), much-retold sci-fi and still manage to give these a fresh spin (time travel and Martians!), a talking animal (a certain pigeon at the Bryant Park), a sappy love story (Louisa from the present and Arthur from the future), an undying declaration of love (Walter and his affection for his wife Freddie who has passed away more than two decades ago), and a long-standing friendship (Walter and Azor)?

The book opens with introspections of Tesla in his old age. Gradually, Hunt introduces her other characters one at a time and they at some point, manage to connect their personal histories with that of Tesla’s.

We get to know Tesla better – his childhood in Serbia, his eccentricities, his aversion to company, the myriad inventions in his head, his frustrations at how several of his ideas failed to come to pass for lack of financial support, his antipathy toward Edison and Marconi who he believed stole his ideas, and his decline towards senility when in his eighties he has started talking to pigeons and to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) who has long been dead. In his old age, Tesla would also suffer from his dire financial position and political persecution.

Hunt is an absolutely clever novelist who can teach writers like Audrey Niffenegger a thing or two on how to come up a tale wherein readers tacitly agree to suspend their disbelief instead of sniggering over the sheer ridiculousness of the tall tale.

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (2003)

The memoir, set in Tehran in the mid-1990s, manages to achieve several things: narrate Nafisi’s personal story in the turbulent years when the Iranian government stepped up its censorship in the universities; depict life in Tehran with the stricter imposition of Islamic laws, particularly on women; discuss the value of literature in people’s lives; and analyze specific works, e.g. Nabokov’s Lolita, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, James’ Daisy Miller, and Austen’s Mansfield Park.

The book is split into four chapters under the headings, Lolita, Gatsby, James, and Austen. Nafisi cleverly interweaves her story and that of her students while discussing the various points of books she has chosen for her classes. The book feels like a class lecture in literature (a very good one!) in some parts that one is enticed to read more of Nabokov’s books, go through Fitzgerald again with a fine tooth comb, and re-read James no matter how tedious and belabored he sounded in one’s first reading of him.

One also can’t help thinking while “Reading Lolita in Tehran” how we take for granted certain simple pleasures like reading. While we give no second thought to picking up a book from the shelf, whether it be Wuthering Heights or Fifty Shades of Grey; in certain places, even in this day and age, a person’s choice in a reading material could land him in jail.

This is how much I loved “Reading Lolita in Tehran”: If I see Nafisi’s name in any class lecture, I will be one of the first to sign up.

great weekend reads!

I am looking forward telling you all about these wonderful books I've read the past weekends (in between those Steve Berrys haha).

The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry (2009)

I’ve got to hand it to Steve Berry. Just when I had his formula for his books down pat, he comes up with something totally unexpected in The Paris Vendetta.

Granted, the usual elements are there: (1) a search for a lost treasure (Napoleon Bonaparte’s cache of wealth which he purportedly hid for his son); (2) a group of greedy wealthy financiers with little qualms as to the consequences of their actions (The Paris Club); (3) a highly skilled agent who executes a series of dastardly acts for said group of financiers (Peter Lyon, an international terrorist); (4) the US Government not far behind (once again, Stephanie Nelle of the US Justice Department is assigned to monitor the conspiracy; (5) Cotton Malone, retired agent of the US Justice Department turned Copenhagen bookseller, finds himself in the middle of the search for a lost treasure and battling wits with the wealthy financiers and their hired gun; and (6) friends who come to Malone’s aid (Sam Collins, a dismissed American Secret Service Agent and Meagan Morrison, publisher of a website known for financial conspiracies). Berry however, manages in this book to show that he is capable of springing a surprise.

There’s one thing I appreciate with Steve Berry’s books which I’ve failed to mention in my previous reviews. At the end of each of his books, Berry explains the research he’s done on his opus and separates fact from fiction. If there’s one thing which annoys me no end, it is people who swallow hook, line, and sinker, the (tall) tale that’s been sprung on them and go around telling whomsoever cares to listen that such and such thing has indeed happened.

The Paris Vendetta also showed a good point of Berry: He knows where to tread lightly. Berry, in this book where he tackled financial conspiracies, chose to discuss the same through Sam Collins and Meagan Morrison, who he painted as earnest young guns but may be a bit addled in the head. So if any economist or financial analyst points out the absurdity of some of the points raised in The Paris Vendetta, Berry can easily say, “Hey, don’t point that finger at me; that was Collin/Morrison speaking.”

I have a feeling The Paris Vendetta won’t be the last Steve Berry book I’ll be reading. Not because of superb writing or extraordinary plots but because of the guy’s ability to give his readers a pleasant enough diversion from the everyday vagaries of living.

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott (2007)

I spent a good deal of this past Friday and Saturday nights sweeping through The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. I just could not put the book down. The feeling was akin to the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings marathons I used to have which resulted in my reporting to school/work reeling from lack of sleep.

I am a big fan of the Tudor dynasty so Dr. John Dee’s appearance in the series was a major come on. Mix in Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle, equally mysterious and exciting characters from the 1300s, add on lots of magic, and I was transported.

The book excitingly opens with the forcible abstraction of the Codex/Book of Abraham the Mage and the abduction of Perenelle. Fifteen-year old twins Sophie and Newman, innocently working in Nicholas and Perenelle’s bookshop and coffee/tea shop, respectively, were quickly swept into the adventure. They’d find out later that their involvement appears to have been foretold in the Codex and that they were going to play major roles to save the world.

Nicholas and the twins need to recover the Codex from Dr. Dee in order to save the world from the Dark Elders with their plot to subjugate humankind and/or reduce them to food. Nicholas and the twins, however, need help. They enlist Scathach, an ancient warrior next generation Elder who physically does not look any older than the twins; Hekate, an Elder who can awaken the twins magical powers; and the Witch of Endor/The Mistress of Air who taught Sophie not only skills to protect herself but more importantly transferred to her magical powers.

There is a more urgent reason why Nicholas and Perenelle must quickly get hold of the Codex: They are ageing rapidly and without the book, they will be dead in a month’s time.

The book has a cliffhanger ending. I read a preview of the next installment and the Florentine philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli is in it. Since I am also a big fan of the Italian renaissance period, it looks like I will have several more reading marathon weekends (The Alchemyst is the first of a six-book series).

I am highly recommending this book for young adults. I believe that the introduction of historical personalities in the series will encourage readers to either brush up on their history or undertake in-depth research work on the interesting life and works of these characters.

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry (2007)

This time, it is Cassiopeia Vitt who is messed up and who does not want Cotton Malone’s help. Of course, this would not be a Steve Berry book if Malone remained a bystander.

The Venetian Betrayal is an exhilarating story of the search for the tomb of Alexander the Great; a despot’s dream to conquer Asia and the Middle East with the use of biological weapons; an American’s grandiose plan to bring to the international market the solution to the HIV virus; the US meddling in the affairs of Central Asia; and the discovery of a person dear to Henrik Thorvaldsen and Cassiopeia Vitt. The Venetian Betrayal also bears witness to the blossoming of (much!) friendlier relations between Vitt and Malone (uh oh…. Berry is getting sappy…)

This is my 6th Steve Berry book and I cannot be sure if I am honestly enthralled with Malone’s adventures or my captivation at the moment is due to the hormonal changes brought about by this little pebble I am carrying due in seven weeks. I remember when I was reviewing for the bar exam, how I was transfixed every 6pm with a certain Spanish soap opera which I found absolutely unendurable after I completed the four-Sunday bar exams.

Guess I’ll know after seven weeks if I still find Berry’s predictable plots and mishmash of history and futuristic what-ifs as mesmerizing as I find them today while my little one is doing cartwheels in my tummy. That’s not too long now.

The Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry (2008)

Cotton Malone’s retirement from the US Justice Department, a job where he was chased and shot at a lot, has so far been unsuccessful.

In The Templar Legacy, he was forced out of his peaceful existence as a bookseller in Copenhagen when his ex-boss Stephanie Nelle got into trouble. Next, his son Gary, in The Alexandria Link, was kidnapped. Now in the Charlemagne Pursuit, he finds out that his father, Forrest Malone, who he thought died in a submarine accident in the North Atlantic, was actually aboard a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica.

Steve Berry manages to weave a complex plot in this book. Parallel with Cotton Malone’s adventure with the wealthy (and shapely!) blonde twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk in search of the missing nuclear vessel, Stephanie Nelle has her hands full contending with the US President, the two Deputy National Security Advisers Edwin Davis and Diane McKoy, and the ambitious naval commanding officer Admiral Langford Ramsey.

The Charlemagne Pursuit has the characters being “played” against one another. This is perhaps Berry’s determined effort to keep an element of suspense throughout the book unlike in his previous works where he laid all his cards on the table all at once.

Berry has enjoyed himself so much in this episode with Cotton Malone that he has indulged him with an affair with one of the twins. He has also made his usual bad/executioner guy not so elegant this time. Charlie Smith is a far cry from the suave Christian Knoll in The Amber Room but has more in common with the Russian police bad guys in The Romanov Prophecy.

Berry is definitely on a roll in this book. He has managed to seamlessly interconnect the stories from the time of Charlemagne, to Hitler’s predisposition for the Aryan race, and the US’s top secret mission to Antarctica culminating in Cotton Malone’s finding the body of his father frozen in time and the lost city somewhere in Antarctica which Charlemagne, the Nazis, and the Americans have been long looking for.

The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry (2007)

Harold Earl Malone, a.k.a. Cotton Malone is back!

In The Templar Legacy, it was Stephanie Nelle, Malone’s former boss at the Justice Department, who needed help in solving the puzzle of her dead son and husband. In The Alexandria Link, Malone needs Nelle’s help this time when his 16-year old son Gary is kidnapped.

Two of Malone’s pals from The Templar Legacy also show up to lend their assistance - Henrik Thorvaldsen, a rich, eccentric Danish and Cassiopeia Vitt, a wealthy, intelligent, highly skilled female Moorish engineer whose specialty is Middle Ages architecture.

Malone this time is up against the Der Orden des Goldenene Vliesses (The Order of the Golden Fleece) a European economic cartel composed of 71 members governed by a Circle of five Chairs. The Blue Chair, who is elected for life, heads both the Order and the Circle. The Blue Chair is presently the billionaire Alfred Hermann, owner of European steel factories, African mines, Far Eastern rubber plantations, and banking concerns worldwide. Malone is also up against some powerful people in the White House.

The Order has tasked Dominic Sabre, known as die Klauen der Adler (the Talons of the Eagle), to use Gary as bait so that Malone can be led to reveal the whereabouts of George Haddad, a Palestinian biblical scholar, referred to as the Alexandrian Link. It is believed that the Alexandrian Link has been able to find out the location of the lost library of Alexandria which had the greatest concentration of knowledge on the planet and which stood for 600 years until the middle of the 7th century when the Muslims finally took control of Alexandria and purged everything contrary to Islam. Copies of half a million scrolls, codices, maps, were purportedly stored in the library of Alexandria.

Berry has definitely improved in the Alexandrian Link. He was able now to build a semblance of suspense and almost right to the end, has managed to keep readers guessing who between O. Brent Green, US Attorney General and Larry Daley, Deputy National Security Adviser, was in cahoots with the US Vice President in the plot to assassinate the US President while on a trip to Afghanistan. He also did a clever trick with the disappearance of the Alexandrian Link.

We also get to meet in Alexandrian Link, Pam Malone, Cotton’s ex-wife lawyer (she has decided to keep the name Malone after the divorce so she shares the same name as her son). We sympathize with Mrs. Malone here a bit. While Cotton has repeatedly berated the shortcomings of his ex-wife, it has come up in the search for the lost library of Alexandria that Cotton has not been only an absentee husband and father but has had affairs in the past which led to the breakdown of the marriage. At least Berry has given the poor woman a break in this book.

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord (2002)

Hector is a young psychiatrist who is not very satisfied with himself because he couldn’t make his patients happy. He thus decided to go on a long trip in search of the formula for happiness.

Hector’s trip takes him to different places (while these are not specifically mentioned, one can surmise that these are Hong Kong, a country in Africa, and the US). He meets old friends in these trips and makes new ones. He has all sorts of adventures ranging from a flirtation with the “prettiest Chinese girl he’d ever seen in his life” to being kidnapped by goons, talking to a monk, attending to a sick woman in a plane, and discussing the theory of happiness with a professor who was a world expert on happiness.

In these travels, Hector made the following observations on Happiness:

1. Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.
2. Happiness often comes when least expected.
3. Many people see happiness only in their future
4. Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or money.
5. Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
6. Happiness is a long walk in beautiful, unfamiliar mountains.
7. It’s a mistake to think that happiness is a goal.
8. Happiness is being with the people you love.
9. Happiness is knowing your family lacks for nothing.
10. Happiness is doing a job you love.
11. Happiness is having a home and a garden of your own.
12. It’s harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.
13. Happiness is feeling useful to others.
14. Happiness is to be loved for exactly who you are.
15. Happiness comes when you truly feel alive.
16. Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.
17. Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.
18. Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.
19. The sun and the sea make everybody happy.
20. Happiness is a certain way of seeing things.
21. Rivalry poisons happiness
22. Women care more than men about making others happy
23. Happiness means making sure that those around you are happy.

(Hector crossed out #18 for fear that such will upset Clara, his special friend, if she happens to see his notes.)

The professor said that Happiness can be measured as follows:
Average = (What We Have – What We’d Like to Have) + (What We Have Now - The Best of What We’ve Had In the Past) + (What We Have – What Other People Have)

The professor explained that the average of the differences is closely related to happiness and the smaller the difference, the happier we are.

The monk’s formula, however, is different. He said that Happiness is as follows:
Happiness = Certain way of seeing things + feeling useful to others + doing a job you love

“Hector and His Search for Happiness” is a delightful book written with child-like simplicity but replete with age-old wisdom. Hector’s trip gives us the realization that people have different concepts of what happiness is and as such it is difficult to arrive at a universal formula for achieving happiness. The beauty of this book is that while it does not tell us how to attain that elusive elixir, it gives powerful insights on how we can be less grumpy and less satisfied in our lifetimes.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (2011)

Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment.  By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

   - Amy Chua

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a biographical book which will surely raise a lot of debates on child-rearing. Chua labels her parenting style as Chinese which means that: (1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be 2 years ahead of their classmates in math; (4) you must never compliment your children in public; (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; (6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.

The book proposes a simple (but extremely difficult to implement) formula for raising successful children: Kids CAN NOT:
1. Attend a sleepover
2. Have a playdate
3. Be in a school play
4. Complain about not being in a school play
5. Watch TV or play computer games
6. Choose their own extracurricular activities
7. Get any grade less than A
8. Not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
9. Play any instrument other than the piano or the violin
10. Not play the piano or the violin

Amy and Jed, her husband, are Yale law professors. Their daughters Sophia and Louisa are straight A students who were hailed as piano and violin prodigies (at least until Louisa changed courses, but that’s getting ahead of the story.). Amy is the daughter of Chinese migrants and Jed is Jewish.

The Rubenfeld family is run with the precision of a military camp. The home is devoted to principles of tough love, high discipline, concerted effort (even if Jed disagrees with Amy, they present a united front before the children), and an attitude of failure not being an option. This is a home where a spade is called a spade, where Amy has no qualms resorting to hysterics, verbal abuse, or even bribery to get the children to practice 5 hours a day, if need be. Weekends are not for lolling but for more studying and practice.

Amy’s child-rearing principles can be implemented by only one as highly disciplined and as self-motivated as Amy herself. It is no small feat to shuttle children form one class to another, be present in their lessons so she can later on supervise the extra work at home, and cajoling and yelling at them so they do what they must do. It will also take a strong heart not to give in when the kids crumble and the fat tears start to roll. If there’s one thing Amy does not believe in, it is that she is inflicting psychological damage on her children by driving them too hard. She thinks it is 10 hours facebook and junk food which cause psychological damage.

It is hard to argue with Amy’s formula when you see her bright-eyed children who love her despite what she makes them undergo. In this day and age when children can easily dial 911 for either real or perceived parental brutalities, we ask if these children are much better off now and more psychologically prepared as adults compared to their counterparts a generation ago.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a book which dishes its philosophy straight out without making apologies. It manages to combine irony and humor in one blow. The book feels to end with the taunt: “This is how I brought up my succesful kids, so sue me.”

Rescue by Anita Shreve (2010)

I am what one might call a loyal writer follower. Once a writer hits me with his/her best shot, I feel compelled to backtrack and buy the writer’s earlier books and support his/her future works. This is why my shelves are littered with all these Paulo Coelhos, Richard Bachs, Mitch Alboms, Susan Vreelands, Tracy Chevaliers, Malcolm Gladwells, Philippa Gregorys, ad infinitum.

The good thing about following a writer is that one gets to see the evolution of his/her body of work. One sees how the writer is able to polish his/her craft from one book to another. The not-so-good thing with respect this habit is one also sees how a writer can fall into a pattern, relying on previous successes and unwilling to chart new paths. These writers soon tend to repeat themselves from one book to another until their readers give a sigh of bored exhaustion.

Anita Shreve is one of the writers, who I have followed through the years. Except for Sea Glass, I have all of her books:

A Change in Altitude (2009)
Testimony (2008)
Body Surfing (2007)
A Wedding in December (2005)
Light on Snow (2004)
All He Ever Wanted (2003)
The Last Time They Met (2001)
Fortune’s Rocks (1999)
The Pilot’s Wife (1998)
The Weight of Water (1997)
Resistance (1995)
Strange Fits of Passion (1991)
Eden Close (1989)

Shreve’s books shift from exceptionally good to acceptable.

Rescue is Anita Shreve’s latest work and as in her other books probes closely into the decisions people take in their relationships and how these decisions impact on the lives of the book’s characters.

Rescue tells the story of Peter Webster and Sheila Arsenault who met in their early twenties when Webster, an EMT, rescued Arsenault from a vehicular accident. The two embarked on a whirlwind romance and not long after, Arsenault found herself pregnant. Arsenault, however, had a closet-full of skeletons bursting at the seams. She was battered as a child, gotten herself involved with a married policeman, and was alcoholic. Despite the red flags, Webster decided to marry her.

A few years later, Arsenault figured in another accident while drunk driving. This time, Webster took a different course in rescuing the damsel in distress. He told her to leave Vermont promptly and leave their daughter behind who almost got killed in the accident (she was in the backseat). Arsenault did not have much choice as she would have faced jail time if she stayed in Vermont. She did not only hurt her own child but managed to injure the passenger of another vehicle during the collision.

Eighteen years later, Webster found himself looking for Arsenault. He was having problems dealing with Rowan, their daughter. Mother and daughter would reunite when Rowan had an accident which resulted in her falling into a four-day comma.

Rescue is not Shreve’s best work. It was not able to develop that spine-tingling suspense where the reader can almost hear a pin drop (The Pilot’s Wife). There was none of the history and vivid backdrop story-telling which has captivated me in the first place (Fortune’s Rocks). There is just the constant dreariness and tiredness  throughout and characters have given up and settled for much less far too early. Even how Shreve builds the climax is a cliché. (Rowan falling into a comma; Arsenault and her daughter captivated by each other at the hospital; Rowan making it in time for her graduation despite the few days she needed to recover, undergo therapy, and take her exams.)

Shreve is also repeating herself. When Webster says to Rowan, “That’s your given. You didn’t have a mother most of your life. That’s another given. You’ve been dealt that hand, and that’s what you play with. You can wish you had a different given but it won’t do you any good. People start feeling sorry for themselves, that’s pretty much the end of them.”, she has stuck to her theme in almost all of her books: “You’ve made a choice/This is what’s been handed to you. Bear your cross.”

It would be interesting to find out if Shreve can make out a character in her future books who as Dylan Thomas put it, would “rage, rage, against the dying of the light.” Shreve might also consider leaving the past buried in history. Sometimes, there really are no resolutions to a story. Characters will just need to come up with their own answers to long-standing questions. Or leave the questions unanswered and move on with life.

Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James (2011)

When Time Magazine in its 30 April 2012 issue named E.L. (that’s Erika Leonard) James as one of the 100 most influential people in the world (erotica’s new heroine), of course I had to get a copy of her books.

Time’s commendation hinges on James’ trilogy – Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed. The first volume, Fifty Shades of Grey, was out of stock so I promptly picked up the second volume, Fifty Shades Darker. I figured that the plot should be easy enough to follow and there shouldn’t be any problem moving from Volume II to Volume I and then to Volume III. After going through Fifty Shades Darker, there’s definitely no Volume I much more Volume III for me.

Fifty Shades Darker starts on the third day after Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey broke up. Steele is a recent college graduate and Grey is some hotshot rich business magnate. Apparently, Steele found Grey too hot to handle and they parted ways.

Only to hook up again (did I say after 3 days?). Steele moves in with Grey. Steele gets to know Grey better. Steele is stalked by Grey’s exes. Steele is harassed by her new boss. Grey gets protective. Grey proposes to Steel. All through these, they have a lot of sex (for a book hyped on BDSM, this is actually a yawner), a lot of ridiculous email messages (how do these people manage to get work done at all?) and a battery of inane conversations (vocabulary here is sorely limited; can somebody give these guys a thesaurus?)

Sorry, just don’t find Fifty Shades sexy. It is flat, repetitive, unimaginative, and… well, grey.