John Newbury Medal Winner (2009)
Hugo Award Winner (2009)
Locus Award (2009)
Carnegie Medal (2010)

FTC Disclosure: I own it baby!!

Not long ago I decided to give up on reading lists. I’d only keep up with any personal ones I had. No more feeling guilty for not keeping to an agenda.

One of my first reads, as suggested by many, many friends, was The Graveyard Book. My first Neil Gaiman novel. I’d read several of his short stories, and have liked every one.

This book was different. It was better. As in OH MY GOD WHY HAVEN’T I READ ANY OF HIS BOOKS SOONER?!

(Yes, according to interwebs etiquette putting an exclamation point after all-caps is redundant and annoying, but in this case, completely necessary.)

In addition to falling in love with the narrative, the illustrations add a great deal. I don’t see how this book could be as good, or as complete, without them. (The artwork shown here is by Dave McKean who illustrated the edition I read)

This could be considered a children’s book, but the opening scene and some themes I feel are more for a pre-teen or teenager. Of course, adults will love this book – and from what I hear, many have.

As a children’s book, there are times in the story you can determine where it is going. Even so, you enjoy the journey. Immensely. The story has a happier ending than the beginning. This is good too. We need those from time to time.

There are times in our reading life, we need to get back to basics and in a way, this book is just that. Gaiman is a storyteller of extraordinary skill.

In terms of showing and telling the story, he handles both deftly, and never loses the reader with gaps in the narration or characterizations. They all have their purpose and you always know just enough about them to develop feelings for the good as well as the bad.

For the few – very few – who may have never read Gaiman, I recommend this as your first read. He also has a couple of short story collections that I love, and recommend highly: Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things.

Hope you had a great Summer, and here’s to having a wonderful Fall!

Outlanderby Diana Gabaldon
ISBN: 9780385319959
Historical Romance, 656 pages
Dell Books

FTC Disclosure: Digital edition from KoboBooks.com

For all of you who told me this series was one of the best you’ve ever read and I’d love it, you were right!

On my e-Reader this listed at 742 pages, but it never felt like I was reading such an epic.

Historical fiction has always been my favorite genre, but historical romances have been more hits than misses. This is a definite hit – bulls-eye as a matter of fact.

If I found myself skipping anything, it was because I was trying to read faster than my eyes were able.

Immediately I was drawn in by the premise and the rendering of it. The author is a gifted storyteller who can create characters as alive as if they truly existed. It’s no wonder throngs of fans have already cast the movie. What’s even more telling, is that many agree on the actors they would choose. The character’s descriptions and personalities are so vivid.

Time travel in fiction is not new. In this novel it is handled well and if not believable, it is at least plausible if you have any imagination at all.

This is a historical romance through and through. Beginning in post World War II England, then transitioning to eighteenth century Scotland, the story follows Claire Randall as she struggles to deal with a new reality: time travel. She is trapped in a place and time she has some knowledge of, but only just enough to get by. However it is not enough to keep her out of trouble and danger.

Adding to the uncertainty is Jamie Fraser. Their attraction and subsequent relationship makes Claire re-evaluate her life and her future, which interestingly enough, depends strongly on what she has encountered in the past – namely Jamie.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the remaining books in the series.

A highly, highly recommended read!

 Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen (2008)
 Fiction, 256 pages
 First Picador Edition, May 2009
 Published by Picador

 Read for Picador Book Club:
 Picador’s Twitter Account
 The discussion of this book
 Note: Due to some technical difficulties, not all participants, including myself, were recorded by Twitter.

“Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.”

So starts the story of Dr. Leo Liebenstein and his search for his “real” wife Rema. However, it’s not that easy.  As the reader comes to discover, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Is Rema really an imposter? Or is Leo having a crisis such that he can no longer recognize what he once took for granted? That what he has known all along is no longer the same. People change. But in his eyes, she is so different, she has to be another person altogether.

This book has received mixed reviews, and I can understand why. It isn’t for everyone. But…and there’s always a “but”, the mixed reviews come from readers like me who understand many works of literary merit, but not at the level of a professor or professional critic.

In the New York Times and some Lit-Fic blogs, it was received extremely well. And let me tell you, reading those reviews intimidated me about as much as the book did.

Although she has intellectualized and mystified her subject, intentionally obscuring it in a dry-ice fog of pseudoscience, the emotional peaks beneath her cloud retain their definition. — Liesl Schillinger, New York Times

This is a first for me.  Dostoyevsky hasn’t done it. Kafka’s come close. I’m not even going to attempt Proust. I know my limits. Yet in reading the book, and some of those reviews, I felt like “I” was the problem. If I were only more educated or intelligent, I would feel the same as these learned folk.

Which is crap. No one should read a book and be left feeling inadequate.

As I’ve said before, probably more than once, the reader brings to each book their own voice, the one in their mind that reads the narrative and deciphers its meaning. It is a voice schooled by life experiences as much as academia. And mine, apparently, isn’t up to the task of having to work as hard as I did to try and get through this book.

That doesn’t mean this is a poorly written book with a dismal plot and undeveloped characters. On the contrary, this book cannot be faulted for any of those reasons.

On simple terms, this is a story about relationships: one between a husband and wife and the other, of the person we are and the person we are expected to be. It is about what happens when these relationships break down and how, if not reconciled, we deal with the resulting fall out of loving someone we thought we knew – but didn’t, not completely.

As time passes, I will begin to wonder how far my collaboration with the simulacrum might, or could, or should, or shouldn’t go. Perhaps we’ll eventually find ourselves wholly making believe as if she is the original Rema, as if nothing has happened. That is perhaps what we were meant to do. Be partners in solving a poorly defined crime. Appear normal.

Rating this book is hard because I’m unsure of it being tarnished by the fact that I’m not cerebral enough to make this book work for me as it has for others. Also, it could be, that I just don’t have the right mindset at the moment to give this book a fair shake.

But this is my blog. This is where I share with you my opinions about the books I read. Thus, according to my rating system, it is getting 2 out of 5 stars. I cannot say I “barely” finished the book – it wasn’t that much of a chore. But it was a struggle.

To be fair, I am linking below other reviews of this book that should give you more insight than I have. Please base your decision to read Galchen’s novel based on the overall impression gleaned from all of these opinions — not just mine:

By other bloggers: (2 positive, 1 negative)

Review of Atmospheric Disturbances by Michelle over at 1morechapter.com
Another review by Raych at Books I Done Read
And one more by Tim over at Baby Got Books
What’s being said over at LibraryThing about this book
(not a blog, but many bloggers and regular readers post here)

By magazines/newspapers (All positive)

As reviewed by Jonathon Gibbs at The Independent.co.uk
Who Do You Love? by Liesl Schillinger, New York Times
She’s Not Herself by James Wood, The New Yorker
A Relative Stranger by Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Rivka Galchen is a writer and physician. She is currently an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University’s School of Art.

Her essay on the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics was published in The Believer, and she is the recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Atmospheric Disturbances is her first novel.