Because many of us are in the
hunt for good reads, I’m offering mini-reviews for your consideration. While
not listed in any particular order, these are books that I recommend. Shelter in place with books!
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Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Science Fiction 368 pages. Short
stories of varying length. Intelligent, original considerations of time travel,
free will, and fate. The stories are nearly devoid of rising action but are
thoughtfully developed, nuanced, and offer depths of thinking that, for me, break
new ground. One story, “The Great Silence,” posits that Puerto Rican parrots
offer us a beautiful opportunity for interspecies communication. Exhalation recalls works by Borges and
Calvino.
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A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende.
Historical Fiction 289 pages. Begins in Spain, 1938, with the horrors of the
Spanish Civil War, prison camps, and follows refugees who flee to France and
evacuate to Chile. The book brings us into contact with Pinochet, Salvador
Allende, the poet Neruda, and provides the epic story of a long life. It offers
treatises on growing old, being in love, political intrigue, and personal
sacrifice. While slightly facile –as a Kirkus Review says—it offers a
historical study that is informative, engaging, and solid.
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The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali.
Historical Fiction 265 pages. This is a romantic story and so much more. Within
this small book, the reader experiences the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s popular
Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the U.S. backed Shah while following the
lives of two star crossed lovers. The story contrasts American culture with
Persian and centers on the depth of one’s culture and how impermanent it can
be. This too is a story of how America’s cinematic image is largely a thin
facade over a more facile reality. The
narration telegraphs what is coming without giving too much away and offers an
artful dance as it curls back onto itself to bring past events forward. The
only flaw, for my taste, is an overarching romantic sentimentality that
simultaneously rings true for any reader who has experienced a lost love and is
slightly too saccharine for any reader who appreciates the depth of an enduring
relationship. This is also a book that demonstrates how political passions can
overwhelm reason and be co-opted by manipulative powerbrokers. The setting of a
stationary shop at the center of the novel is a synecdoche for a resilient love
of reading, writing, and culture – as well as a frame for a human frailty that,
to borrow from Dylan Thomas, is like “the force that through the green fuse
drives the flower.”
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A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson.
Historical Fiction 409 pages. This book is framed by the bombing of London and
the RAF bombing raids on one end and the ultimate tale of one long life. The narrative
moves forward and backward in time, says what will happen while referencing the
past, so that the complexity of this retrospective is as interwoven as life
itself. This is a unique plot device in the hands of a master. Characters are
complex and thoroughly revealed through their actions. There is minimal plot in
terms of mystery and resolution but lives are lived, particularly the central
character, Teddy. One is content to follow the in’s and out’s of authentically
drawn individuals. I read everything by Atkinson. She is a writer’s writer.
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The Face: A Time Code by Ruth Ozeki. Zen
meditation 86 pages. Ozeki provides an intimate three hour meditation while
viewing herself in a mirror. Her features are described in terms of
physicality, personal history, cultural considerations, ancestry, fears and
vanities, and accented by lessons on Zen, Noh acting, mask making, the three
marks of existence found in Wabi-sabi (suffering, impermanence, and no-self)
and the bringing of life to the mask, yūgen. Ozeki’s work is personal and
describes her exploration of self and no-self. While her writing is not
didactic or vain, it provides an example of a very human quest for
enlightenment that uses the mask of self as a means of seeing beyond the mask.
This is a beautiful little book. Her fictions rank among my favorite novels.
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An additional recommendation not reviewed here is Hilary Mantel’s
trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. The third installment, The Mirror & the Light (784 pages)
just came out, and I am devouring it, as I did the first two. It is no
exaggeration to say that Mantel is a brilliant writer. LA Times book reviewer Mary
Ann Gwinn writes that this installment is as good as the first two and is “a
masterpiece.” The other books in this trilogy are Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies.
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Greg Gilbert is the author of Afflatus.
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