NYT Best Seller List (2/6/2011)

This list will appear in the February 6, 2011 print edition of the New York Times Book Review. The full list can be found here.

Hardcover Fiction

1. SHADOWFEVER, by Karen Marie Moning
2. STRATEGIC MOVES, by Stuart Woods
3. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
4.THE INNER CIRCLE, by Brad Meltzer5.THE SENTRY, by Robert Crais


Hardcover Nonfiction

1. UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
2. BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER, by Amy Chua
3. DECISION POINTS, by George W. Bush
4. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOL. 1, by Mark Twain
5. CLEOPATRA, by Stacy Schiff

Paperback Trade Fiction

1. TRUE GRIT, by Charles Portis
2. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, by Sara Gruen
3. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
4. CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese

5. WINTER GARDEN, by Kristin Hannah

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction

1. DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by David Baldacci
2. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. HOW TO WOO A RELUCTANT LADY, by Sabrina Jeffries
5. LIVE TO TELL, by Lisa Gardner


Paperback Nonfiction

1. HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
2. INSIDE OF A DOG, by Alexandra Horowitz
3. JUST KIDS, by Patti Smith
4. THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls

5. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Review: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is a book that I have come across everywhere, but never took the time to read. When I worked at a library, copies of it were always coming and going across the circulation desk. I read excepts of the novel in other media sources. I even came across a piece of it used as a reading section in a standardized test (either LSAT or GRE). Despite this, I never really considered reading it. I guess I just thought it would be boring. Despite all the awards and critics' praise it received, I left it alone.

Obviously, since I am writing a review of the novel, all of that leaving it alone came to an end. The mighty random generator picked its number and we were off to the races.

Invisible Man, which was published in 1952 and received the National Book Award in 1953, is one of the most well-regarded piece of literature written by an African American. It focuses on the unnamed narrator, who recounts his life from a young, idealistic individual to the currently jaded man who lives by gaming the system. The almost six-hundred page novel follows the narrator from life as a college student at an all-black college in the deep south to his search for work in New York City. In those pages, he stumbles from one catastrophe to another before he understands society and his role in it.

On the surface, Invisible Man deals with the plight of African American during the early to mid twentieth century. The plot focuses on the narrator's experiences as a young man in the south, black nationalism, and Marxism and its relationship with African American plight. All of these themes are dealt with rather explicitly and are never analyzed with the soft touch or subtlety that such complex issues need to be approached with. I also believe that there is a good reason for this. Despite the fact that this novel, on its surface, deals primarily with the plight of African Americans, it doesn't seem like Ellison wanted this to be the main theme the reader takes away from the novel.

The much deeper, subtle theme of Invisible Man is that concerning individuality and the way one interacts and fits within society. The title, oft-confused with H.G. Wells' novel, is particularly apt. The protagonist realizes by the time he is narrating the story that he can game the system precisely because no one realizes that he exists unless he wants them to. In the toil and bustle of New York City, he is part of the mass of moving bodies, not a separate entity on his own. When someone does look at him, what they see is either absolutely nothing or a reflection of the viewer's own conceptions. Because of this, his perceived image is merely a collection of stereotypes that those who see him hold. If everyone the narrator interacts with views him in a different manner, then who really is the narrator?

I feel like this is a theme that almost anyone can identify with today. With the rise of various social media platforms, we all have different, new venues to interact with others. Because of this, it seems that one may interact with many more individuals in a much less intimate manner. How do these people view you? How does how you are perceived by individuals on these platforms affect how you behave and what your identity is? Can you identify your "true" identity or is it an amalgamation of the identities others attach to you? It is certainly self-reflecting food for thought.

The prose Ellison used in Invisible Man is beautiful, as well. He conveys the life on the street in Harlem, the electricity in the air at radical rallies, and the internal workings of the narrator equally as artistically. Despite this, the novel is extremely readable.

Anyone can and should read this book. I am extremely glad I had the opportunity to do so. It is so tremendously important not just because of its examination of African American life last century (though this is important), but more so because of its approach to the examination of one's self. This is a theme which transcends race, class, sex, or any other categorization. I could not more highly recommend this novel. It is a great, readable work. I just wish I would have read it earlier.

I give Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison four stars out of five.

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The next book for review will be Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I knew literally novel about it, but it was on the Time Magazine list and apparently was made into a movie just this year. I'm a little under halfway through it already, so there should be a review up in less than a week, time permitting.

Reading as an experience: Books vs. "E-Readers"

So, I finished Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (review coming this weekend) and left it up to the handy random number generator to pick what I would be reading next. I'll leave the next title a surprise until I review Invisible Man, but this book happened to be out of stock at the Cincinnati Public Library. Because of this, I had a choice: I could purchase the book and wait a couple days until it arrived or I could grab it off the internet and throw it on my Sony E-Reader. I settled for the latter and, after a few hours of reading, realized something.

To me, the experience of reading a physical copy of a book is entirely different than that of reading an electronic copy on a device. I realize this isn't a ground breaking realization, and I know that many, many people have discussed the merits (and drawbacks) of electronic readers before me, but I'm going to talk about it anyways. I know the world has been waiting for my late entry to the party.

I have had a Sony E-Reader for a little over a year. I probably never would have purchased it, but I received it for free, so I wasn't going to turn it down. It is a neat little device. While its functions are far inferior to more newly produced devices (including the Ipad), it does what I want, which is to reproduce a reasonable similar copy of a book's page on a screen. Same words, same graphics, etc. The thing is, I have read a total of four books on the device. Four. In that same time period, I have read probably about fifty or so physical copies of books. I will read a book on the E-Reader and then not pick it up until months later.

Why is this? Obviously, the ability to have hundreds of books on a device the size and weight of a slim hardcover novel is amazingly convenient. You can take notes on the pages, bookmark the pages, and best of all: you don't have to drive to the store or the library to get ahold of what you want to read. It is essentially books on demand. It's not that I'm a Luddite. I like to think and am on the upper half of the "early adopter" technology process. By all objective measures, I really should prefer this neat little piece of technology to the reading of actual books.

The thing is, I don't. In fact, other than the convenience factor, I overwhelmingly prefer everything about the process of obtaining and reading a physical copy of a book over that of an electronic copy. I love finding a book at the library (or more rarely, the book store). In fact, I love it so much that I prefer to find the books I need on the shelves than to put a hold on them and have them delivered to me. Perhaps it is my inner child responding to the pseudo-scavenger hunt aspect of it.

What I enjoy even more than this, though, is the experiencing of reading a physical book. I love the weight of a lengthy hardcover in my bag, I love the feeling of a book on my lap, and I particularly love when I manage to get ahold of a very well-produced printing of a book with high quality paper stock. Pushing a button or tracing your finger across a screen just doesn't equal the tactile affair of turning a page. To me, the experience of reading a book is much, much greater than the content within the covers. Just as you pay a premium for more than just the product consumed when you watch a movie at the theatre or enjoy a drink at your favorite bar, a book is more than just a product to me (and I assume many others). To me, one of the greatest experiences I can imagine is sitting outdoors on a sunny, late spring day, reading a great book that you truly enjoy.

That is not to say that e-readers do not have their place. Many types of media, including newspapers and magazines (in my opinion), are already in a format conducive to being read in an electronic format. The sentimentality I hold for books do not extend to newspapers or magazines for the most part. This may have a lot to do with the generation I'm part of and perhaps the next generation will overwhelmingly feel this way about books. Who knows? All I know is that unlike newspapers, books are not going anywhere. Sure, physical book sales may go down as e-reader technology improves and e-book sales rise. In fact, I think that will be probably, especially with the focus on ebooks projects at many libraries.

In all likelihood, there are many people just like me who in fifty (or perhaps even sixty) years from now will be sitting on their rockers on their front porch during a beautiful sunny day marvelling at how wonderful the paper feels under their fingers as one page turns to the next.

P.S. After reading the electronic copy for a bit, I went online and bought a copy of the book. It should arrive today. I suppose I can meet technology half way.

My first book recommendation!

I just wanted to thank Loki from CincyVoices.com for my first book suggestion! Traffic and feedback has been about as slow as I would expect from a new blog and in the midst of growing frustration, Loki not only graced me with this blog's first comment, but gave me a great addition to my ever growing Master List.

Zeitoun, which was written by the masterful Dave Eggers, focuses on one man's experiences in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Obviously I haven't read the novel yet, so I can't give you the nitty-gritties, but knowing Eggers, it probably deals a lot with humanity (and lack thereof). He has always been great at putting both the hilarity and tragedy of the human experience down on paper, so I'm very much looking forward to this one.

If anyone reads this blog, but not CincyVoices (yeah, I'm kidding myself), you're doing yourself a disservice. Everyone at CincyVoices are great writers, photographers, and all that good jazz. Check them out at http://cincyvoices.com/ or follow them on Twitter (CincyVoices). 

Thanks again Loki! You're the best!

NYT Best Seller List (1/30/2011)

This list will appear in the January 30, 2011 print edition of the New York Times Book Review. The full list can be found here.

Hardcover Fiction

1. THE INNER CIRCLE, by Brad Meltzer
2.THE SENTRY, by Robert Crais
3. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
4. DEAD OR ALIVE, by Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood
5. WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS, by Dean Koontz

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
2. DECISION POINTS, by George W. Bush
3. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOL. 1, by Mark Twain
4. CLEOPATRA, by Stacy Schiff
5. BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER, by Amy Chua

Paperback Trade Fiction

1. TRUE GRIT, by Charles Portis
2. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
3. CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese
4. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
5. WINTER GARDEN, by Kristin Hannah

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction

1. DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by David Baldacci
2. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. LIVE TO TELL, by Lisa Gardner
5. THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown

Paperback Nonfiction

1. HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
2. INSIDE OF A DOG, by Alexandra Horowitz
3. JUST KIDS, by Patti Smith
4. WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell
5. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert

New Review: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

There are a million reasons why I could never be a literary critic. The first, and perhaps most important, is that I don't want to be one. I love reading because it allows me to escape, to relax, and to be entertained. I don't want reading to have to be work; something I have to trudge through. When I see companion books to novels like Ulysses or To the Lighthouse, I shudder. It's not that I don't like the be challenged. Some of my favorite books, including the Modern Library 100's own The Magus, have pushed my literary comfort zone.

With that in mind, there is another very important reason I could never be a literary critic: I do not find the everyday lives of Englishmen and women interesting whatsoever. Tales of the challenging or fall of the aristocracy, of preserving one's chastity, or of summer homes in continental Europe do absolutely nothing for me. It's almost a formula for my eyes glazing over. I'll make it through ten pages and realized I retained absolutely nothing. I know it's probably heresy, but books like The Death of the Heart, Loving, Brideshead Revisited, and, yes, A Room with a View just are not enjoyable for me to read. I realize that they have merit and are appreciated by many greater minds than my own, but I think they're just not very good.

 

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, as noted above, is one of those novels which deal with the banal details of English life in the early twentieth century. It is listed number seventy-nine on the Modern Library Top 100 list.

It focuses on Lucy, a young Englishwomen who briefly falls in love with George, a young, modern, somewhat uncouth guest at the same hotel she is staying at in Florence. She is confused by her feelings, which she believes are inappropriate, particularly because the rest of the "fancy" guests find George and his father distasteful and vulgar. She leaves Florence and her love to head back to England, where she settles in and gets engaged to an acceptable, traditional member of the aristocracy. She may not be entirely happy, but she is doing what she is supposed to and her life is calm.

As fate would have it, she is reunited with George and her feelings of love for him are sparked again. She wrestles with her feelings for him and the impropriety of them while she is engaged. Eventually, she picks - HA, like I'm going to tell you which gentleman she gets with - and they settle down. Fin.

Obviously, this book is about growing up and of being in love. If a reader couldn't tell this, I would question whether he or she could actually read. The deeper themes includes the cultural clashes of this time between the conservative culture and thought represented by almost all of the characters in the novel; the newer, more radical generation, represented by George and his father; and those caught in the middle (Lucy).

Is it a bad book? Like most of the novels on this list that I haven't read, no. It's just not my thing. I'm not sure I would recommend it generally, but for those fans of Victorian and other British literature, it should suit your fancy. It's relatively short and is very readable, so you're not making a huge commitment even if you don't enjoy it.

I give A Room with a View by E.M. Forster three out of five stars.

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Once I finished this novel, I used an internet random number generator to pick what I will read next. In one of the most pleasant and timely coincidence I could possibly imagine, the number it chose was 114, which is the number associated with Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. 

You couldn't even make this up (well, I guess you could). On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the random number generator chose what very well may be the finest piece of literature by an African-American author. It is actually on the Moden Library, Radcliffe Rival, and Time Magazine best novel lists. It was published in 1952 and was the only novel Ellison had published during his lifetime. It won the National Book Award in 1953.

I've read portions of this novel, but never the whole thing, so it should be a treat. It is only fitting that on this important day, I will be lucky enough to start a novel dealing not only with the difficulties facing African-Americans, but a novel which looks at what ones place is in society as an individual. I am very much looking forward to getting a start on this and will hopefully be back with a review for you all before long.

NYT Best Seller List (1/23/2011)

This list will appear in the January 23, 2011 print edition of the New York Times Book Review. The full list can be found here.

Hardcover Fiction

1. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
2. WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS, by Dean Koontz
3. DEAD OR ALIVE, by Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood
4. THE CONFESSION, by John Grisham
5. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
2. DECISION POINTS, by George W. Bush
3. CLEOPATRA, by Stacy Schiff
4. LIFE, by Keith Richards with James Fox
5. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOL. 1, by Mark Twain

Paperback Trade Fiction

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
3. CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese
4. TRUE GRIT, by Charles Portis
5. HOUSE RULES, by Jodi Picoult

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction

1. DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by David Baldacci
2. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. LIVE TO TELL, by Lisa Gardner
5. RUTHLESS GAME, by Christine Feehan

Paperback Nonfiction

1. HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent
2. INSIDE OF A DOG, by Alexandra Horowitz
3. JUST KIDS, by Patti Smith
4. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell

Friends of the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Winter Warehouse Sale

Holy crap. I just got back from the Friends of the Library's warehouse sale. I was an am very, very impressed with the whole affair. I was going to allow myself to decompress, but since this sale will be going on for a few more days, I figured I should get this posted to try to convince as many people as possible to get over there.

The Friends of the Library Warehouse, which is north of downtown by about ten miles in Hartwell, houses a great deal of the material donated to them. They are open periodically for regular sales, but they are hosting their winter sale during this long weekend. As a member of Friends of the Library, I had been waiting for this sale for some time. I headed over there this morning to see what I could get my hands on. Oh man, did I ever find some stuff to buy.

Above: Storefront and the front room of the warehouse

I was over my head almost from the get-go. Between the hustle and bustle of the customers and the amount of material available for sale, it was very overwhelming (but in a good way). At first I was trying to look at everything, but had to scale it down. I decided to head over to the paperback literature section and see what I could find from my list for $.50 apiece.

Above: The paperback literature section

I finally had to stop myself. When the smoke cleared, what did I end up with?

Dubliners by James Joyce

Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque

Cannery Row by Steinbeck

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Howards End by EM Forster

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner

Henderson the Rain King by Bellow

The Idiot by Dostoevsky

The Scarlett Letter by Hawthorne

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Kim by Kipling

Herzog by Bellow

Babbit by Sinclair Lewis

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce

Absalom, Absalom! by Faulkner

Women in Love by DH Lawrence

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway

How much do you think the twenty-three books cost? Fifty bucks? Sixty? Nope. For twenty-three of the best books ever written, I paid a whopping seventeen dollars. Yes, under a buck a book. You can't beat that with a stick. With all of the mass market paperbacks being priced at fifty cents, you can get a year's worth of reading for less than the price of a new hardcover book at Borders. 

The volunteers at the sale were also tremendous. They were extremely helpful. I was approached by at least five people asking if I needed help finding anything in particular. The checkout line was quick moving, regardless of the crowd all ready to get home and get reading their new books. 

What I'm going to say is this: if you can read (and if you can't, it's odd that you're on this site since my photography sucks), get over to the book sale this weekend. It runs until Monday and you're bound to find something you're like. The not only have books of every genre imaginable, but also have movies, books on tape, graphic novels, and other various media. I couldn't recommend this highly enough. 

Everything you need to know about this the Friends of the Library and their current and future sales can be found at their website.

NYT Best Seller List (1/16/2011)

This list will appear in the January 16, 2011 print edition of the New York Times Book Review. The full list can be found here.

Hardcover Fiction

1. WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS, by Dean Koontz
2. DEAD OR ALIVE, by Tom Clancy with Grant Blackwood
3. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
4. THE OUTLAWS, by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV
5. THE CONFESSION, by John Grisham

Hardcover Nonfiction

1. UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand
2. DECISION POINTS, by George W. Bush
3. LIFE, by Keith Richards with James Fox
4. CLEOPATRA, by Stacy Schiff
5. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN, VOL. 1, by Mark Twain

Paperback Trade Fiction

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
3. HOUSE RULES, by Jodi Picoult
4. CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese
5. LITTLE BEE, by Chris Cleave

Paperback Mass-Market Fiction

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. RUTHLESS GAME, by Christine Feehan
3. DELIVER US FROM EVIL, by David Baldacci
4. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
5. THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown

Paperback Nonfiction

1. JUST KIDS, by Patti Smith
2. INSIDE OF A DOG, by Alexandra Horowitz
3. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. WHAT THE DOG SAW, by Malcolm Gladwell
5. ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT'S ME, CHELSEA, by Chelsea Handler

Reminder! Friends of the Library sale this weekend!

This is just a reminder that this coming up weekend (1/14-1/17) will be the Friends of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County's Winter Warehouse Sale. The warehouse is located at 8456 Vine Street in Hartwell.

You will be able to find books (of course), cds, dvds, and books on tape for sale at great prices. I went to the summer sale at the main library location and it was excellent. If you've made a resolution to read more books this year or just like to read regardless of resolutions, this is a can't miss event.

Also, just as an FYI, if you are a current member of Friends of the Library, there will be an exclusive chance for you to grab all the good material up for sale before anyone else does on January 13 from 5-8PM. If I wasn't out of town, I would be there in a heartbeat.

So go forth, readers, and kill two birds with one stone: find some great reading material and support a heck of an organization. While you're there, sign up as a member. It's cheap, serves a good cause, and comes with great benefits. I'll post with pictures of the event and  my loot next weekend.

More information about the Friends of the Library and their book sales and programs can be found at http://friends.cincinnatilibrary.org/.

Changing things up!

So, as new as this blog is, I've already decided to retrofit the whole thing. This blog was created to be about whatever I felt like posting about on a given day. I probably should have seen it coming, but since books are such a large part of my life, that topic has sort of taken over the content. Seeing the reality of the situation, I've changed the title and url of this blog and it will be more pointedly book-focused going forward. I will still be posting about other, random things, but they will be in the background.

The other large change is that I will be taking on books other than those found in the Modern Library Top 100 novels list. As I noted in the original post covering the list, it leans heavily towards novels written by White, Western males. To help diversify the books I'll be reading and reviewing (and to preserve my sanity), I've added all of the books from Radcliffe's Rival 100 Best Novels, a companion list to the Modern Library one. It contains many of the books I felt were unjustifiably left off the ML list and includes many more women authors. I'm also going to be adding books that I would like to read just for the fun of it to the master list, so if you can think of anything that impressed you, please email it to me or leave a comment here. If it sounds interesting and I haven't read it yet, I'll add it to the list. The master list will be added next to the Modern Library list above, so keep an eye out.

How this will work now: I'm going to create the master list and add each book to a box (or hat, or whatever) and once I finish a novel I will draw another one at random. This will be a departure from the ordered method I used before, but it seems more fun and less of a homework assignment. Like I said, if you have recommendation, please send them! Keep an eye out for the changes and happy reading!

Modern Library Challenge: #80 - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

One thing I have noticed about the Modern Library 100 list so far is that the folks who put it together seem to like British life. If a book portrays a particular view of British life that features aristocracy and/or drunkenness, even better. I'm sure much to the extreme satisfaction of the tweed-wearing men on the Modern Library board Brideshead Revisited is full up of both of these themes.

The opening of Brideshead Revisited finds Charles Ryder, an middle-aged officer in the British army during WWII, moving out from a camp and settling down in a new one. Something about this new camp seems familiar to Ryder and, after inquiring as to where they had stopped, a subordinate states "Brideshead".

With this response, the memories come flooding into Ryder, and with it, the main narrative of the story. The huge, run down estate requisitioned and currently occupied by the British army, twenty years earlier was the setting for a tale of friendship, love, piety, and social change.

The main narrative follows the young Charles Ryder, who has just enrolled at Oxford for schooling. After floundering socially for a bit, he meats the lovable, peculiar Sebastian Flyte. The two hit it off immediately and are essentially inseparable. The two have drunken shenanigans at Oxford, with a little less focus on the schooling. After a time, Sebastian invites Charles to see his home, the beautiful, extraordinary Marchmain located where else, but Brideshead.

The visit exposes a number of things, including the Flytes' dysfunctional nature, including Sebastian's disdain for almost his entire family. Despite this disdain, Charles Ryder becomes a regular feature in the household and almost an honorary member of the family. As Ryder grows closer to the rest of the Flytes, he begins falling away from Sebastian, who descends into drunkenness and self-inflicted exile abroad. From here follows love affairs, family crisis, and war. I won't explain more of the plot so as to not ruin it for anyone.

The themes of this novel are legion and interconnected. This relatively modest-sized novel examines the loss of innocence and youth, the fall of aristocracy, and the impact of religiosity on the characters' views and behavior. The religious element is ever-present in the story, from Charles Ryder's lack of one, to the five Flyte's varying degrees of it.

While this books is touching and thematically brilliant, the writing and prose gets slightly cumbersome at time. Waugh admits this himself in the introduction to the novel.

I will hesitantly give Brideshead Revisited  three out of five stars. I say hesitantly because, when writing this review and examining its themes, the book seems more powerful than when I read it and may warrant an additional star. Despite this, I am going to stick with my initial decision I came to after I finished the novel. The themes are brilliant, but their vehicle was at times heavy and awkward. I still believe I would recommend it, though. I just wouldn't put it in the top one hundred books written in the twentieth century.

The book can be purchased here and checked out of your local branch of the Cincinnati Public Library here.

Next up is A Room with a View by E.M. Forster. This is a short one, so it should only be a couple of days until I'm ready for another review.

Speaking of the Cincinnati Public Library, don't forget that from January 14th to the 17th, the Friends of the Library are holding a book sale at their warehouse at 8456 Vine Street. If you're a current Friend of the Library, you can come for a preview sale on the 13th and get at all the good stuff before the general public does.

More information can be found at: http://friends.cincinnatilibrary.org/.

Modern Library Challenge: #81 - The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

[Happy New Year to anyone reading this! I hope 2011 is a prosperous, fulfilling, and healthy year to you all!] /Back to regularly scheduled material

One thing I have noticed since I started working through this list is that my idea of what one of the best books published in the past one-hundred years is much, much different than the idea held by whoever put the Modern Library list together.

Is The Adventures of Augie March a bad book? No, not at all. The writing is tremendous, Augie is a very likable character, and the settings all felt authentic. Could the book have been two-hundred pages shorter? Yep. Could Bellow have done without all of the esoteric references to works of random antiquities? I say yes, but then again I am not a literary critic or a publisher.

Anyways, this novel is essentially about a Jewish kid (named Augie March, as you may have guessed) who grows up in Chicago and goes on wacky adventures. The just of the story is that Augie has an extremely difficult time telling people no, so he gets roped into all sorts of silly shenanigans. Even though the first one-hundred or so pages are spent explaining the characters in the Windy City who will appear and reappear through the novel, Augie finds the time to fall in love a handful of time (each with disastrous results), work countless menial jobs, work smuggling people over the Canadian border, become rich, then poor, then rich again, travel to Mexico as a bald eagle trainer, join the military, and become a well-off business man. All of this, I believe, before he is even thirty.

The problem is not the whirlwind of activity, but Bellow's ability to make none of it seem like it matters. Bellow's prose is just as grand for the passing of an uneventful day as it is for sinking of a military troop ship. There is just no differentiation, which is relatively frustrating. It becomes hard to sympathize with March when (another) awful thing happens to him, not just because he keeps asking for it, but because it almost seems Bellow doesn't care very much what happens to his lead, either.

It was slow reading, but it wasn't the best book I've ever read. Probably not in the top one-hundred either, which makes this another one of the disappointing reads I've made my way through so far. It was interesting at times and the writing is brilliant, so I can't completely dismiss it, but I probably not return to it ever.

I give The Adventures of Augie March three out of five stars.

Next up: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (I'm already one-hundred or so pages into this one, so I should be finished with it within the week)