Review 442: Cloud Cuckoo Land

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have discovered I’m not a fan of multi-character multi-timeline books. They feel disconnected until the end when it all wraps up neatly, and yet gives away parts of the story earlier than it should. The spoilers come first, then find out how that fits in for the ah-ha moment. Just not my favorite way to read a story.

That said, I did like this book.

Review 385: Purity

Purity by Jonathan Franzen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first novel of Franzen's I read and while much of the content was not to my liking, there was something there with his writing style and ability. I was pulled into this story, a young girl who knows her mother is hiding something as she absolutely won't tell her who her father is.

We get to know intimately several other characters, mostly her real father and this other guy, an East German man who turned into a Snowden/Assange type person. Incidentally they are mentioned as well, and Wolfe is considered the guy that looks great to the media. Unfortunately, it isn't true, he has many skeletons in his closet. From the start this was not a favorable character and he took over the book. In fact the book was more about him than the young girl the book is titled after.

After reading the book I glanced at some reviews, and it seems Franzen has much better books out there, so I should try one of his other novels. I did rate this higher than the content should allow, due to how well his writing struck me.

Review 356: The Ecopoetry Anthology

The Ecopoetry Anthology by Ann Fisher-wirth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading this book was my year-long project, although I finished a bit quicker than expected, reading it over just under ten months. I’m happy there is a book like this, yet I didn’t love it as much I hoped. 

It was nice to have a large selection of poets, and limiting the more well-known poets to a few, when their works could take much more space. Coming across a name of someone I’ve read and enjoyed before was like finding a friend in a crowded room with strangers, a moment to feel comfortable before heading off to meet new people.

I do wish the editors included dates the poems were written or published, as these poems span over decades and a date would help place the moment in which they were conceived. Breaking the book into two parts – historical and modern, was a good way in, but each section was organized differently; historical was chronological while the modern was alphabetical by last name. My preference would be for both sections to be organized the same, actually - chronologically.

A few of my favorites, but by no means all that spoke to me:

Stephen Vincent Benét : Metropolitan Nightmare 

Julianna Baggott : Living Where They Raised Me  

Peter Gizzi : Human Memory is Organic 

Louise Glück : Witchgrass 

Mary Oliver : Wild Geese  (a longtime favorite)

Ed Roberson : To See the Earth before the End of the World 

Ira Sadoff : I’ve Always Despised the Wetlands 

Gary Snyder : Riprap 

Historical section:

Stephen Vincent Benét : Metropolitan Nightmare – long but amazing!

Modern section:

Julianna Baggott : Living Where They Raised Me  (this poem spoke to me as it mentioned a film she saw as a child that affected her, and me as well…about a woman with no arms and making do, going to the grocery store, writing checks, etc. In the poem the author says she tried to do the same “practiced the barefoot art/of turning pages, scrawling my name.”  And yes, me as well, in only that I used to try to write with my feet.)

Peter Gizzi : Human Memory is Organic (maybe) doesn’t speak to me strongly today, but I do like it. Likely it stood out among the other poems before.

Then – Louise Glück : Scilla – on the opposite page of Gizzi, and okay, the next one that scrolls over to the following page – Witchgrass is good too.

Mary Oliver : Wild Geese – ah, homecoming. This poem I should memorize. I have read it many times and enjoy it every time. I feel at home with this one. A friend in the weeds of strangers.  (her other poems are good too!)

Ed Roberson : To See the Earth before the End of the World – now this is sad, and quite modern (where is the date??) and I really connected with this poem. “people chasing glaciers” and “watched ice was speed made invisible, / now –  it’s days, and a few feet further away,”  Sad! On many levels.

Ira Sadoff : I’ve Always Despised the Wetlands – funny one

Gary Snyder : Riprap – well, I’m not completely on the Snyder team…his poems are somewhat revolutionary for the time, being so placed in nature and the environment, and he has such specificity of place names and names of nature, but he has a side that I don’t like much. The selections here are good, this one I enjoyed the most of the group.

Review 292: The Contemporary American Essay

The Contemporary American Essay by Phillip Lopate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one volume of three of collected American essays all edited by Philip Lopate, the other two books being: The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present and The Golden Age of the American Essay: 1945-1970.

This book includes 49 essays and an introduction by Lopate. All were published in the last two-decades, with the oldest being published in 1999.

While most follow the traditional form of an essay, several do not. It is the exploration of the form as well as subject matter that makes up this volume, being quite diverse. Two of the inclusions were excerpts from larger works, and many, if not most, are pulled from a book of essays (according to the copyright permissions listed in the back.) I did wish that information was included with the title, year and where the work first appeared, instead of relying on flipping back to the end with each entry.

As with most anthologies there are some entries that speak to the reader more than others. The essays were also of varying lengths, with some being just a few pages and others reaching over twenty. Generally the average was closer to fourteen pages, which was long enough to dive deeply into a topic for a moment. Some are striking and will stay with you for a while.

I look forward to reading the other two volumes in the series.

Review 197: Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do

Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do by Studs Terkel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I could write a very long review for this book, but I’ll leave that for my notes. Going in I expected this would be a tad boring at times, and would take me a while (months) to read this. Instead I was quite fascinated by all of the different stories and found myself not wanting to put it down.

Despite the age, this book is still timely and worth reading. A few entries show their age, such as jobs that no longer exist (see: Harold Patrick - elevator operator), or talk about their pay in 1970s value. Some entries show the age as a surprising statement at how things have changed in the workplace, particularly for women. Attitudes towards people of color have also advanced, but not quite as noticeably. A couple of jaw dropping entries will prove things do change (see: Barbara Herrick – writer/producer in advertising). There's also one or two I never heard of before (see: Richard Mann - Installment Dealer). And then there's the entries reminding me of jobs I had and why I didn’t like them (see: Nancy Rogers - Bank Teller).

There is a lot of craft in this book as well, that may not seem obvious. The entries are not directly from the people’s mouth, but edited down. You still get their words and personality, but it is modified. Also the placement of the entries, they could lead you towards a certain emotional response, which could be different if read in a different order.

I’ve known about this book since college, read a few of the passages back then for a class I ended up not taking. I’ve always wanted to go back and read the entirety and glad I finally did. This is a book that could spark a lot of book discussions about life and especially about work.

I’d love to see an updated version of this book, as it’s been 50 years now. There is this book: Gig: Americans Talk about Their Jobs. Sounds so similar, like an update, and already 10 years old. Moving it up the reading list.

Brief Review 153: The Toll

The Toll by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good third book, and satisfying conclusion to the series.

Previous books in Series: Arc of a Scythe:

• Book 1: Scythe - 4 stars
• Read June 18-20, 2018

• Book 2: Thunderhead - 5 stars
• Read February 27-March 03, 2020

Read all books in series via audio

Review 6: Lucifer's Hammer

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

I was disappointed in this, expected some great classic apocalyptic book. Instead it was meh. None of the characters really stuck with me, none whom I cared what happened to them. And the sexism, oh geeeze. I know it's old, written a while ago, but 1977 not the 40's or 50's. There was even this line: "...the only good thing about Hammerfall was women's lib was dead milliseconds after Hammer strike." Hammerfall was the comet that crashed into earth ending civilization, well they called it Hamner-Brown.

There were some good parts, and occasionally it got interesting. And all the focus on sex too...I mean really? Yes, this was seriously dated. It was also long, too long. I've read other books from this era, and I can accept that things were different, but this one seemed out of touch. Maybe it's the sci-fi aspect? Or the writers really didn't like women on equal footing with men, I don't know.

There was also a major aspect of the black power. This one main character was very anti-white, used honkey as a pejorative. This part seemed very fitting for the 70s. I kept with the book, hoping there was something post comet smash, something with the rebuilding of society. I will leave that for anyone who wants to find out, but in the end there was a little there, but not enough to redeem the book for me.

Book rating: 2.5

Note on Audio book narration: This was the first book I listened to that was narrated by Marc Vietor. At first I did not like his narration style at all. It seemed like there was no differiantion between characters. As the book progressed I got used to his narrating style and there were some characters that had a different sounding voice. Still throughout some of the main characters seemed to sound the same and it did cause me to have some trouble to remember which character was whom, for a couple of them. By no means does my impression of writing style and my overall rating of the book was not affected by the narration. I separate those out in rating.

Narration rating: 3 out of 5 stars