Eleven individuals well beyond the danger zone of contracting Early Onset Alzheimer’s came together to discuss health, The Pit, Radio Controlled Boats, and Still Alice.   Would they have anything profound to say?

Ron:  My reaction is twofold:  A:  while reading I was engrossed by the book (just turn off the brain).  A good read, it told the story.  Thus A as a book – very realistic.  Not as depressing as I thought it would be.  This appears to be a Family Problem.  Writing was adequate for the story.  I give it an A.  (2^nd part: it was educational).

Tom:   I think I hate this author.  “January 19^th – Nothing good ever happens on January 19^th.”   I was born on January 19^th!   As was my daughter!  This was a documentary topic.  As a novel, not very good.  As writing literature, C.  However an engrossing story:  B

Ken:   I seem to forget what book we read.  The margins were small, fast.  Timely, shows us what the future may hold.  B+

Joel:  My wife asks me, “Why is your group always reading depressing books?”  This was not really a novel but a case history.  Extremely accurate, could be read fast.  I give it an A.  Some criticisms but I view this from a different perspective.  Another phenomenon:  “The wisdom of the staircase.”  Or “esprit de escaliere.”  Note that you can self-publish.  In this case, it worked!  Can’t say I enjoyed the wrenching turns in Alice’s life – so many of these steps I have seen, with both my Aunt and my Mom.

Rob:  Makes me think of my mother who just died from Alzheimer’s.  Was that a sign?  This was written by a scientist, reasonably effective.  The biggest drama: suicide.  Couldn’t believe that speech that Alice gave at the end.  She could not write it herself, regardless of time taken.  I give it a B+

Mike:  “Breathes there man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, ‘Where the heck are my car keys?’”  Genova presents us with what others here have described as a case history of a devastating illness, in the form of a novel.  I thought the husband John was quite self-centered – not in itself creating bad writing – and I never understood why this two income family didn’t have 24/7 caregiver or custodial care for Alice after she admitted getting lost in Harvard Square.  Kept me interested, not great writing:  B+

Keith:  one sign that you don’t have Alzheimer’s is if you can still tell a joke.  Consider the four stages of man’s aging.  [insert joke here].  Hey, whatever happened to simple senility?  How could this codification of senility happen in 10 years?  (OK, a log scale 10 years).  For the book, I had a hard time believing it was fiction.  The writing was second class:  B-

Jack:  I’d echo other comments:  As a work of literature, not great.  However, a spell-binder, i.e., scary.  Telling the story from the viewpoint of Alice was a strong point.  A-

Ed:   I thought it was a good book – I have had no personal experience with Alzheimer’s.  The author took the opportunity to communicate a compelling, challenging call to arms in her field.  To observe how her family treated her.  Probably a true picture of what goes on – I think this was a good choice, positive experience.  A-

Dick:   I knew a professor at UNLV who was investigating research on Alzheimer’s, who would state, “when we go, we go rapidly.”  He went rapidly.  This was a very powerful story.  I found that the book to be educational.  I had an Aunt in a home with a piece of wood – kept her busy every day.  I never taught at Harvard, and perhaps they are overdone.  The writing was a little weak.  A-

Ed:  I liked the book, it was a great adventure story, well written.  I didn’t like what the characters were doing.  It was like War and Peace to me, with all the characters.  I listened to it, and enjoyed it, although relatively long compared to other books we’ve read.  A-

Rob:  I enjoyed the action scenes.  There was too much description of the clothes and hair – but this bothered me less as I went on.  I felt empathy with Teresa:  she liked books and was good with figures.  I have seen a study of drug gangs in Chicago – I could see Teresa as an executive in that society.  I got turned off by the end:  having her survive a holocaust in the house.  A good thriller, I’m glad to have discovered this author.  B

Dick:  During the discussion I said the book was too long – the more I read it, the less I liked it.  I can get immersed but this one didn’t do that.  I learned more on the drug trade than I wanted to .  B-

Keith:  This was a book of twos:  too verbose, too long.  This book displayed the heroine in waves – no education, yet became a “Don.”  One line that resonated with me:  “I think there are dreams that can kill you.”  Also:  “I want my life to end as I sit over a glass of wine.”  I consider Teresa’s character as flat.  B-

Joel:  I bogged down but perhaps that was related to my furnace going out.  I enjoyed it, read most of it, I’m glad I wasn’t there when these guys were.  A-

Tom:  This book struck me like The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.  The book first appeared to be everything I hate in a book:  plot driven vice writing centered; and I like short vs. long.  The researcher character did not confuse me, nor did the characters.  I liked the obscenities in Spanish, I thought they were great and may adopt some.  I hated the ending.  The book would make a good movie, strong.  A-

Ron B:  The book was not engaging, but interesting, writing was good, the translation was very good.  The author did not emphasize with characters.  The researcher/investigator concept worked for me- this was like a Tom Clancy novel in its detail.  B   (if it had been 100 pages less, I would have awarded it an A-)

Mike:  I found the book to be rather predictable and distractingly repetitive.  Teresa Mendoza was always going up to the next level of distribution of cocaine.  She had to win over the trust of the next level of hoodlums.  Repetitive themes:  always looking at the torn photograph, banging her head on the radar cone.  I found just a few clever lines in the entire book… B

Jack:  I thought the book would make a great action movie; but to read it, it was too long.  I didn’t see the need for the researcher (removing the researcher would have saved 100 pages).  I like the hair descriptions – and I thought it was a B

Charlie:  This was fun fiction and you put up with crazy action stuff – so the main criteria here is, “Was it a page turner?”  The book was twice as long as was needed.  B

Bob W: Viewed as a work of art:  the translator was so good, it was almost a distraction.  At least two of the characters were well developed.  The Author’s description of boat chases was right on.  Most of his books are not this long.  A-

Tom (added):  If the book was 200 pages shorter, I would not have liked it as much.  To cover 12 years, you need the time.

Joel:  I thought it was a fun read.  I didn’t try to differentiate truth from fiction.  A lot of stuff happens.  Not great literature but a fun read.  A-

Keith:  I found a lack of character development with Lily.  She was devoid of emotion, e.g., when her sister Helen committed suicide.  The book reminded me of straddling a barbwire fence with one foot on fiction, one on fact – soon you skewer your cajones.  After a while, you don’t give a damn which foot is which.  B-

Rob:  I found the writing to be flat; I had to trudge through it.  Too disjointed!  The book never captivated me.  Little things bothered me, like why didn’t the parents go out during the flash flood and try to find/save the kids?  B-

Mike:  Perhaps because of the expose on 60 Minutes of “Three Cups of Tea,” I found myself questioning almost everything.  Did they really run a stagecoach to Santa Fe as late as 1912?  Was Big Jim actually dumb enough to put his cows in the barn during a blizzard … and switch them out so everyone got a chance? And I’m supposed to think, “How clever!”   And how do you save personal money on a ranch manager’s operational fee?   I have read a few entries from historical journals.  I found Lily Casey Smith’s story to be somewhat arrogant, off-putting, and unsubstantiated.   B-

Tom:  B-  I liked the first half of the book:  Life at the turn of the Century, and what Lily had to do to grow up and find her “Purpose.”  The flatness of the presentation and less interesting events in the 2nd half of the book wore on me.

Ken:  I agree with the lack of character development – I liked the description of the Southwest, and ranching in the early 1900s.  I enjoyed reading the book, but it was not a tremendous page-turner, but it went along nicely.  I think many of the stories were made up – after all, the mother was unbalanced.  An A for Glass Castle, a B for this.

Dick:  Started the book at noon, finished it by 6 pm (same day).  Lot of tricks to make this appear as a 300 page book, - NOT!  Glass Castle should have been her second book.  The voice of Lily was not authentic.  Not much depth.  There was depth in Glass Castle, no feeling here.  Good, not great, fun read.  B+

Ron:  I enjoyed reading the book.  I liked (for a change) the short chapters.  It was a little short on character development.  I have no problem with recommending this to someone else to read:  “If you’re looking for a good read, try this!”  Good read, not great.  B+

It is intriguing to me that at the turn of the century, every school child knew the story of the Essex and its misadventure with the sperm whale.  Our country has changed so quickly – today Nantucket is barely known, let alone stories of the whalers that made that town.  I felt that the author did an excellent job in his telling of the tale, providing background and context for this historic and iconic incident.  I read this book last year – Bonnie had obtained it from CostCo,  began reading it on the cruise we were on in June 2010, and felt it so captivating that she could only read a paragraph or two of the men drifting at sea and their perilous attempt at meals, without rushing up to the cruise buffet line. 

I’m sure the discussion of the Book Club did some comparisons with Endurance, as did I.  I have not yet read Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand, as I am not ready for another 47 days lost at sea even though months have transpired since I read In The Heart of the Sea.  I sent my copy to my sailing brother-in-law, and I would recommend Philbrick’s book to anyone.  Excellent job:  A-

I read this book a few years ago. Here is my review.

Nathaniel Philbrick’s "In the Heart of the Sea" is one of the most compelling stories I have ever read. I would rank it with Alfred Lansing’s “Endurance.” It is a grim but fascinating story of survival. The book is a study of human strength in desperate circumstances. Philbrick skillfully reconstructed life in 19th century Nantucket and on a whale ship. The post-disaster struggle for survival and ultimate rescue was well-told. I still marvel about the scientific information on the difficulties of starvation. The cannibalism of the survivors who drew lots to select crew members to eat defies the rules of conventional society, but demonstrated how sailors ensured survival of some. This is how history should be written.  A

Gary

Seven muddy erstwhile birds-nest builders came out of their catalectic conditions to consider a 42-year old who serendipitously joined  a writers’ workshop /creative writing course operated by Marilynn Robinson.  They had different opinions on the effort: 

Tom:  I agree with Jack’s comments [below], but also with Dick:  some passages left me cold.  I didn’t resonate on any level with those passages.  In general, however, the writing made me think of Marilynn Robinson.  Tinkers falls in between Housekeeping and Gilead.  A-

Dick:  I started to read this book at the Octopus Car Wash. I really got into it, and almost forgot where I was.  I enjoyed it a lot – I liked most of it, but some passages left me cold.  I liked the characters.  Recently I inherited my father’s pocket watch – it cost $600 to clean and repair, and they explained to me the cost of horologists.  This is not a perfect novel.  A-

Mike:  I really liked the beginning of this novel, and I’m not sure where it lost me – but in general, it was when the author tried to (unsuccessfully) go Cormac McCarthy on me. I liked the way it opened, with G.W. Crosby in the rented hospital bed in the living room.  I have experienced that, with Bonnie’s mother, just last Jan (2010).  Note that the opening sentence is a good one, “began to hallucinate eight days before he died.”  I had to read the interview with the author to realize it was eight days because that is what it takes a clock to run down.  Good!  But later:  the author starts with the 168 hours before he died, he snaked into the basement window and rang the bell.  Why 168 hours?  Why not seven days?  But the stories were good, such as here with young George stuffing the Sat Eve Post into his pants knowing he would get whipped.  I disliked some of the non-McCarthy attempts at profound thoughts and description that Tom and Dick and others referred to.  Overall:  B+

Keith:  I know it is a tough sell to say a 200 page book was too long, but this was too long.  No plot, just an old guy dying.  Maybe more appropriate to make it into a poem.  Maybe it won the Pulitzer because it left the dots for the reader to connect.  B

Bob:  I would give it a B.  Tremendous control of the English language.  This writer shows great promise, and I would like to read his works later.  B+

Charlie:  I don’t understand all his writing. I give it a B (A- except for the obscurity.)

Ron:  I enjoyed the book. Some parts I had to think about or did not get, but that’s OK. Great command of the English language.  I give it an A.

And from just outside the epileptics ward at the State Hospital:

Jack:    I found Tinkers fascinating.  The story was surreal.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)  I believe Harding is a true craftsman and artist.  His language was captivating.  Many passages read like poems.  Several single sentences covered nearly a whole page, but they were often beautiful descriptions of natural scenes which left me breathless.  Needless to say, I really enjoyed it.   A 
Rob:  Greetings from Creede, CO.  Sorry I couldn't be at the meeting.  I will be home in July to host that one.

Oh, boy.  My favorite kind of book:  Men aging.  Dying grotesquely.  Three generations.  I hesitated to read chapter 4, but I did.  I did learn something about clocks.  Very poetic - meaning lots of words and not much happening.  I've read that Pulitzer committees can be very small.  Must have been self-selected in this case.  Sorry.  B-

Dick:  I thought the book was very well written and researched.  A marvelous first effort.  I read it in Hawaii and give it an A-. 

Charlie:   This would have been a great 200 page book.   Well written – but too many words, and hypothesizing by the author.  B+  (would have been A if it had been 200 pages.)

Rob:  Some of this book irked me.  Some was just stupid.  I saw lots of adjectives –   I lost my notes, but here is an example:  “The danger grew exponentially.”  Now what the heck?  Also, it took 100 pages to get to the river.  I didn’t want to read “The Perils of Pauline” – and then the author did a chapter on bugs and trees.  I had an image:  she had these 3”x5” cards, coded, strung on a thread, and she would order them, and then merge them in.  The Roosevelt story was exciting, but still too long, overwritten.  B

Bob S:  Also a B.  I’m at a loss to compare to some of the other books you have read.  The last David McCullough I read was the Truman biography.  The author did talk about bugs for awhile. If we’re going to learn about bugs and flora and fauna, how best to do it?  I found it not engaging.  B

Mike:  We have read several historical non-fiction accounts.  Candice Millard had an interesting story to tell, but it felt like a Reader’s Digest extended article:  “I survived The River of Doubt!” rather than a compelling non-fiction book.  I felt her foreshadowing was quite heavy-handed, and her side-trips to tell about Amazonian insects, flora and fauna, and what Roncon is doing for the Indians, was quite distracting at best, and completely spell breaking, for whatever spell she had worked up. There were many parts of this book I liked.  Overall, I loved the story:  the completely carefree approach to, “Hey, let’s go down an uncharted river!”  Father Zahm was a true character, his hiring of Fiala to outfit the expedition with apparently no one overlooking or second-guessing the ridiculous provisioning, was fascinating.  So much of the American story is so close to disaster – here was a fascinating example.  B

Jack:  A good story; exciting; well-written; full of interesting detail about the region.   I enjoyed the book, and the descriptions of what lurked beneath the surface.  A-

Tom:  I have two extremes for non-fiction we have read:  Shackleton at one end, and Stephen Ambrose at the other, who was boring.  This book did not bore me.  I read it on a Kindle and I found I did not concern myself with what page I was on, how far I was, I was just bopping along, not worried as to whether I would finish.  Terrific job:  A-

Ron B:  I thought it was a good book also – more than just a river story (brought in the son, etc).  I read it like a National Geographic article.  Each portage to me seemed just like the last portage, so I did skim some of those.  I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others.  It’s between A- and B+ and I will give it an A-

Ken:  I tend to agree with the last three reviewers.  I really enjoyed the book, a real page turner.  I thought the bugs, etc., was fascinating.  I learned a lot about TR – the book is between an A and an A-; I give it an A.

Joel:  When I started reading it, I started to have misgivings – why didn’t I choose “No Country For Old Men” – but it gradually sped up – it was obvious we knew Roosevelt was going to make it.  A-

Mike:  I am glad I read this book.   In my hazy knowledge of ancient history, it helped to solidify for me where the Roman Empire stood with relation to Alexander the Great, one of my heroes.  I loved the way that Schiff used the year dates in the ‘correct’ way, not saying BC after every year.  I loved the two maps at the front. I had difficulty with the first two chapters, as they seemed to expect that we already knew a great deal about Cleopatra (even beyond Elizabeth Taylor’s portrayal).  I struggled with understanding how she ended the book:  “For her monumental loss there were no consolations, including – assuming she believed in one – a brilliant afterlife.”  Actually, Cleopatra had the greatest of afterlives, she lives on in our day-to-day conversations, our knowledge of her life – wrong though it may be.  The author’s main fault that hit me was trying to be too clever, too esoteric if you will, by half.  A- 

Ken:  My wife’s book club read Cleopatra – she stopped reading in the first two chapters after 35 pages.  Only my LTBC fortitude kept me going:  I had to slog through those two chapters.  It got better for me; I learned some history, came away with the feeling that it was a worthwhile read – except for the names – but overall it was a little long.  I enjoyed it:  B+

Rob:  Some of those sentences, those references – why would she write those?  Comparing Cleopatra’s consort to ballet, for example – I felt she was ;putting on airs, trying to be ‘cute.’  It got better – I thought the death scenes of both Antony and Cleopatra were moving, cleverly written.  But overall too much “inside baseball” cleverness.  From a C I moved it up to a B.

Ron B:  A lot of interesting information presented in an incoherent manner.  “It was a system that called out for abuse – and the call was answered.”  [page 93] is an example of the author being a little too glib, “cute” – I guess I would recommend this book with caveats – it was hard to follow paragraphs – and why did she break the chapters where she did?  Needed a lot of editorial clean-up.   B.  (writing was a C, overall story was B). 

Keith:  [9 chapters, but…] Herman Cain’s 999 program was not from this book – actually one of the 5 women who came forward was a German American.  When she was confronted, she responded, “Nein! Nein! Nein!”  As to the book:  it was built on a house of cards.  We have few facts, and most of them are underwater.  In 1606, The Bard of Avon wrote 50 scenes of Cleopatra, where (in mathematical terms), he took an integer of fact and added several decimal places.  Hollywood added more decimal places, but using random numbers.  Schiff needed 350 pages for a best seller, so she added more – thus this was historical fiction to the 3^rd power.  We only know some events, thus Schiff was not a repository but a suppository of facts.  I give it a C-

Tom:  I don’t think it is fair to compare the book to Hollywood and Mankiewicz’s 1963 production.  I’m sure the author paid no attention to the movie.  This book provided an introduction to the history of that period.  Despite my spirited defense of Schiff, it was difficult for me to go through the writing, more so than Vera, her bio of Nabokov’s wife.  I like her writing.  However, she has no sense of humor, except for the Casablanca allusion.  A-

Bob S:  I I think I am not astute enough to compare this book – as it is only my 2^nd.   It opened my eyes to one of history’s luminous figures.  I thought the author went to a wealth of related primary sources to make the story detailed, where there was very little detail directly relating to Cleopatra.  She wove it all in, created details, from first hand sources where available.  Well done research effort, but little humor.  A-

Joel:  When I started reading it, it took much longer than I expected.  I thought it was about Alexandria, Minnesota, where my mail man is dove hunting this week.  The inappropriate, snappy phrase did not offend me – I grew up with a house full of women.  From an historical perspective, she reached a reasonable compromise.  A difficult read for me, but then I may be slipping over the edge.  The backbiting that goes on now in politics, I can see is no different over the past 2000 years – it kinda debunks my image of the media.  Cleopatra was very complex, very capable – the book brought out her strengths and her weaknesses.  B+  Laborious read, but much information.  Good look at 1^st century BC.

Dick J:  A lot of information, based on secondary sources.  No indication that the author reads Greek or Latin.  This was a “Popular History.”  I am a rhetorician and she had it right about oratory training.  Overall, not sure how much is history vs. fiction.  Not an easy read.  I came away with a better sense of ancient history.  I never liked the Elizabeth Taylor movie.  I seem to recall the review in the NY Times as not favorable.  I give the book a B+ 

Jack:  I found the book interesting – it provided a perspective on a war about which I knew nothing.  The style lacked passion.  In spite of numerous unique instances, it got to be redundant.  B

Charlie:  Unusual style; as a memoir, he wove humanity.  Excellent – he took it from a pseudo-memoir to a novel.  He described the evils of humanity – but his characters were imbued with humanity.  I give it an A- for that – I was prepared not to like it.

Rob:  I give it a B, like Jack did.  Before he was captured, I found the descriptions way too detached for the folks getting wiped out [in military actions].  I found it a bit of a trudge, not enough involvement.

Dick:  Because of my uncle, I am interested in the Korean War.  I read Halberstam’s book [The Coldest Winter:  America and the Korean War].  I appreciated this book because it allowed me to view the conflict from the other side.  I didn’t want to like the book, but I learned a lot.  A-

Ken:  I tend to agree, the writing was simple.  I learned a lot about the Korean War.  I enjoyed it for that reason – I am going with an A-

Tom:  I’m in Jack and Rob’s camp – the book was presented as a novel, and as a novel it didn’t work for me.  Writing/speaking broken English (EASL) was too much for me.  I never really connected with the main character – I was flabbergasted that the book won the PEN/Faulkner award.  But any time a book encourages us to learn, that is a good thing.  B-

Keith:  As an official memoir, it did a pratfall.  Better examples are Robinson Crusoe and On the Road.   Communication is so important to the POW.  Juxtaposed with Vietnam, we recall the fighter pilots using a tapping code, quite similar yet much different.  Too tedious.  B-

Ron B:  (as an aside, we didn’t learn much about the Americans who fought in the war).  This presented a different force mix.  As to the book, I enjoyed reading it – I liked the anecdotal stories – I felt that the author was writing in character as a lower level Chinese officer, I was good to go with that.  This could have been a TV series, with each chapter/incident a separate episode like MASH.  These were stories he wanted to pass on.  The writing was in character, provided an insight into the Chinese point of view.  I was teetering between a B+ to A-; I’ll go with A-.  I enjoyed reading it.

Mike:  First, I’d like to share with you this tattoo I have following my hip surgery  – it reads FUCK JACK & ROB & TOM.  I liked Ron’s interpretation, that the writing was as if a memoir written by a low-ranking Chinese officer.  I found it fascinating, as I expected the memoir to be about, “Well, the rice had maggots in it today; the guards beat me unmercifully” and such mundane POW remembrances.  Instead, the prisoners were always working on something.  I was fascinated to find that the kidnapping of BGEN Bell was indeed based on a true situation in the POW camps in South Korea.  The writing was certainly not Joseph Conrad, and it did indeed lack passion, yet I give the book an A-

And from outside of the compound:

Dear members, I can not make it tonight, but give "War Trash" a B rating based upon my conflicting opinion that it is a well written book about a deplorable and depressing subject that did not leave me with any joy after having read it.

I can only think that the whole population of North Korea is permanently stuck in a similar situation to the Chinese prisoners of war.  I will be interested to see if its new younger, more western oriented leader will make a difference in the lives of the North Koreans in the future.  

Bob W:  This book did not impress me.  The characters seemed too modern.  A woman did not have the latitude to do those things in that time.  The author used archaic words, but the characters did not live in the time described.  B

Jack:  I really enjoyed it.  Well-written.  The use of archaic words and expressions helped to reinforce the setting for me and to keep this reader in the 17th century.   I learned a lot of the culture and the times.  A-

Mike:  Rather than Caleb’s Crossing, this book should have been titled Bethia’s Broodings from the Buttery.  Bethia means Servant and Bethia acted and reenacted this role throughout. The Cover Jacket promised a book on Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.  Yet the story provided only a distant view of Caleb, a stick-drawing colored by the narrator Bethia Mayfield, herself a fictional daughter built upon the historical Mayhew ministerial family.  In several chapters Caleb did not even make an entrance, but ol’ Bethia was there, getting into everything and everyone’s business.  As supernatural as this book makes Caleb appear (he learns all of his English … and Latin … and Hebrew … and Greek – after passing puberty, and undergoes a most unlikely transition into a smooth talking Englishman in less than three years), it makes Bethia even more remarkable, Forrest Gump-like in her ability to appear in all crucial scenes.  Bethia is everywhere, and after her father stops teaching her, keeps learning to surpass all the men with perhaps the exception of her protégé, Caleb.   She gives Caleb his name, she makes Caleb into the scholar, although she has just a bit of a translation problem starting with A is for Apple and for Adam when he has no concept – (so is she speaking English here?  Or explaining writing?).  She speaks the last words into his ear, and he is immediately receptive.  What a gal!   This is feminism revised history and imagined heroics at its peak.  And she lays on her foreshadowing with a shovel.  Who claims that this style of writing is prize worthy?  Not this thrall of Satan:   C

Ron:  I give it an A.  I liked the historical aspects; I was willing to suspend my disbelief.  Good read.

Keith:  My bugaboo was the archaic words – many did not even appear in my dictionaries.  Examples:  sennight.  This was a book of Good and Evil.  The Puritans were the Good, and Tecumseh was Evil.  The last sentence:  “So, let these last pages be my death song – even if at the end it is no paean, but as it must be:  a dissonant and tragical lament.”  Lament:  B

Ken:  I tend to agree with Jack and Ron – this was superb writing.  Some negatives:  not enough about Caleb, and I was not enchanted by the ending.  A-

Tom:  Put quote marks around Ron’s remarks, and those could be mine.  I read it as a novel, and as a novel it carried me along.  I agree that the last sentence was not the best.  Given the subsequent history of Native Americans in this country, the book really could not end on a high note.  The first two-thirds of the book recalled to mind a novel by Jane Austen:  a young woman making her way in the world through her own wits.  This made it an A

Rob:  I started off not liking it.  I felt it was an upscale Romance novel, written for her Martha’s Vineyard neighbors.  However, in Chapter 5 she caught herself, and stated:  “I must refrain from indulging in excesses of sensibility and flights of morbid imagination.”  Her writing improved after that.  One literary trick I don’t like is ending a chapter with a hint of who will die in the next chapter.  I got more emotionally involved as I got into the drama.  Strong B+

Dick:  I was scared when I started reading this book – is it a turkey?  Thank God it wasn’t!  I have always had trouble understanding the Puritan mind, how it works.  This book did that well.  I would recommend it to others.  A-

Rob:  I got a late start on this book, and only completed about 1/3 or ¼ of it.  I was intrigued by what I read:  upper crust England (preparing us for P.G. Wodehouse selection later this year).  Heavy foreboding.  I am not in a position yet to assign a grade.

Tom:   I liked this book a lot – the use of language was excellent.  I liked the structure after I got into it – “the girl” was mentioned early, as was “the Kilsyte affair” – Later I came to appreciate the structure.  A  With selections like this and Caleb’s Crossing, I think the Club is on a roll!

Ken:  I will start by saying, I blasted through the book.  I was working my taxes, and when my anger got high, I would switch over to reading the book.  Given the discussion, I may have missed some of the deepness.  I had no time to read it carefully.  So from a quick read, I found a clueless, soulless narrator; a soap opera of upper British class characters.  I came away with not a great feeling about the book.  I’d give it B-

Ron B:  I had a difficult time with this book.  The literary style was not easy for me to read.  I tried reading it slower, and then I fell asleep.  It didn’t hold my personal attention.  I did find the humor to be dry and droll.  On the whole, too difficult to read.  C

Dick J:  I found the narrator irritating, which colored my view of the book.  It seemed to get better as it went on.  The author would meander as you went, and I made a note to him:  “Get the hell to the point!”  The book is one I think a reader would either really like or dislike.  The narrator is very content with his life – then his wife kills herself, Edward kills himself.  He should be content, as he flourishes.  I found him not very interesting.  This is a view of a class at a specific time of history.  The men were pathetic; only Leonora had strength.  B.   I wasn’t excited by the book.

Mike:  I enjoyed the narrator’s semi-unpredictable, often irreverent rambling style of telling the story, actually several stories.  I had a sense of Lolita, in that the narrator took you along his own path, regardless of what ‘the truth’ might be, you journeyed with him.  I wonder if Nabokov had read this book, and took the idea of the young Nancy as a young object to be desired, one step farther.  It also made me think of The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester, which we read in 2004 and has been compared to Lolita in its rambling style by an unreliable narrator – and it had homicides at the end.   Like Lolita, this book bears reading more than once, so you can see how the author, through the narrator, obfuscated some of the truths, or provided half-truths, or just foreshadowing that is not quite obvious at first.   The Debt to Pleasure also displayed a sense of humor, which I got from John Dowell of Philadelphia, our unreliable narrator, as well.  Overall grade:  A-

Keith:  This book came out the same year as the Titanic sank.  It was verbose and rambling.  Like watching a glacier move.  Nancy was the one chance for interest, but she “lived sadly.”  One word near the end:  pococurante (indifference and nonchalance) wraps it up.  Nothing special.  C

Charlie:  There appear to be two groups about this book:  Like or Not like.  I didn’t like it.  I wasn’t working taxes, but I was on vacation.  I thought the characters were dull, uninteresting.  They had too much idle time and occasionally they would screw one another and get into trouble.  Gloomy and depressing.  C    Too many words (could have been half the pages).

Bob S.  I put this book in the category of Conrad’s Lord Jim, which I couldn’t get past the first 80 pages – yet my commitment to the Group forced me on.  It does strike me on several different levels.  To have a seemingly accurate narrator who seems to be transparent (just reporting, like a journalist).  The thought I had was that I must read The Great Gatsby – for this era, and the foibles of the rich.  I even saw Albert Camus in this.  I like books that engage me (e.g., Caleb’s Crossing) so my sense is this is a B-   I saw that from a historical perspective it had significance, but it was not engaging for me.

Bob W.:  This is probably my favorite novel.  I have read it three times or more.  Communication to me is fascinating, as people go off in different directions, all thinking they understand the others.  This book explores that a group of people can be so incommunicative.  The author’s control of English is excellent; and his control of time, going back and forth, he keeps control of everything.  A

Nine erstwhile desperados saddled up and headed toward the Loma Linda Ranchero.  They heard of the parallel of the miracles in the Gospels with those in Peace Like A River.  They brought up the origin of Sunny Sundown, as Leif’s toddler approached him and asked if he had any cowboys in that story he was writing.  They compared Swede to Scout, and Israel to Atticus.  Once past the badlands, a couple of the bueno huevos spoke up:

Mike:  I haven’t enjoyed a book this much since The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.  Clever writing, good sense of humor.  The narrator somehow had you viewing the story through Reuben’s young eyes, even though Reuben had to be past a quarter century.  I had no misgivings about plot contrivance;  he would offer up a humble self as witness, and almost shrug it off with “Make of that what you will.”  A clever phrase or twist of plot – e.g., “And the girl is Sarah,.” he added - on almost every page.  Didn’t like the wrap-up that much, but as Swede said, most authors tend to drift during the epilogue.  A

Keith:   Well told:  the lead-up to the crime, the search for Davy, the almost new-age ending.  The book had a linchpin of miracles.  How often do you encounter a linchpin of miracles?  And he did it all with no obscenities, no sex scenes.  A

Jack:  I think Enger is a great story teller.  His prose is filled with unusual metaphors and analogies, excellent use of language.  I enjoyed the story.   Only drawback:  not the miracles or the dream scenes – some of the expanded tales did not seem relevant to the main story line.  A-

Dick:   I thought I had read this book before, but when I got into, I found myself saying, "Damn!  This is good!  Really good!"  I don’t know how long before this becomes a classic.  I wanted to know:  what was Swede’s real name?  A-

Bob S:  I am not that familiar with the grading scheme and I want to leave some room for other books to be better.  A-

Charlie:   I thought it was wonderful also – he captured the Minnesota childhood – hard to remember when I’ve enjoyed a book more.  A

Ken:  I give it an A-   I didn’t like the ending, and too many miracles.  The writing was charming.  Example (from page 271, paragraph 4)  Swede telling the horrific story of some troop of outcasts driven to self cannibalism:  smacking their lips, “yet making no nutritional gain. “

Rob:  I agree that this is one of the best books we’ve read.  Captivating and charming.  I like those twists on practically every page.  One image:  “eyes were dust-bowl flat.”  Also when Walzer told Reuben, “Don’t wet your pants.” –‘up until then I hadn’t considered it as a possibility …’  A

Ron:   I picked this book because I had read it and liked it.  I thought the writing could stand on its own.  Not preachy.  Enjoyed the story-telling aspects.  Nature was a force but respected.  That time they were stuck in the house.  I liked the characters and the humorous narration.  Swede was too young for what she accomplished, but I decided to accept that.  Solid A.

... and from further out West: 

Bob S:   I thought it was great.  In Vancouver, there is deference made to “First Natives.”  I realize now that the unspoken theme was that we are all immigrants.  The book was well done.  A-

Ron B:   I have a startling and humbling admission.  I did not read the book.  However, I did read an earlier choice of Ken’s, The Poisonwood Bible, also of length > 500 pages, and that is an A book.

Joel N:   I thought it was an interesting book.  I had the feeling it was written by a journalist before I knew the background on the author.  It was written in real time.  We need to be reminded about tragic historical events such as lynchings.  B+

Mike:  Reading the first 60 to 70 to 80 pages, I was entranced with this book.  This is great!   Now I wish it were 100 pages longer!   However … as I got more into it, I felt a growing irritation as to how the author was treating me.  My primary irritation:  I thought the theme of the book was to be The Great Migration.  Yet it should be more properly subtitled:  “Three Soap Operas of Colored Folk in America.”  She covers these characters from infancy to death, and admits that the migration was only a small portion of their lives.  And away she goes, apparently with the idea that any anecdote that was orally captured deserves print ...e.g.,  the story of the watermelon flopping around inside the luggage box?  Come on!   The writing is more than adequate, and I really like the way she does the dialects, more so than Mark Twain.  However, she spent 500 pages mostly defending the lives of three minor characters.  As Charlie opined, the author massaged the facts.  I cannot recommend this book to others.  C+

Dick J:  My wife does meditation with a group, and the group is reading this book.  Her discussion was similar to ours.  I didn’t like Dr. Foster.  I got tired of reading the book at about 400 pages.  It started brilliantly.  The editors didn’t do their jobs.  I read many books on the black movement.  This book happened to come along at the perfect time.  B+

Charlie:  You mentioned that Dr. Foster’s trip was not heroic.  I would say heroic is going north in a casket. The book was way too long by at least 250 pages.  It should have been written more in a journalistic style.  The author gave her opinion, not just rigorous facts.  I wouldn’t recommend it.  B-

Tom:  I got confused and read A River Runs Through It … again.  Wilkerson's book, however, was an A- in my mind; largely if not entirely because of the information it gave me.  For me, I learned a lot about this historical period of which I knew nothing.  The writing was a strange mix of journalism and historical information.  The stories kept me interested.  However, her writing pales in comparison to Stacey Schiff’s Cleopatra.  A-

Ken:  I tend to agree with Tom.  Not coming from the South, I found the book educational and hard to put down, albeit a bit long-winded.  I found the author’s descriptions of various research studies that often contradict prevailing doctrines to be especially interesting.   A-

Tom:  I was very pleasantly surprised – the book held my interest throughout.  All the characters carried a level of interest for me.  I thought it was a little preachy at times (e.g., Marx and race), but it fit the characters she had developed.  The writing was not beautiful, but effective.  A

Dick:  Tom provided a superb analysis.  I was interested in the tension between people.  I grew up in a small town and I enjoyed the book immensely.  A-

Mike:  This book reminded me of Winesburg, Ohio but rather than a reporter’s interviewing the main characters, which created a collection of short stories, McCullers used two vehicles to intertwine her characters:  Singer, the mute who they sought out, and The New York Café, which was the second gathering place, even for the mute.  The author continued to surprise me throughout the book – I did not expect the sexual interaction between 14-year old Mick and Harry (which the author handled so adroitly), the shooting of Baby Wilson, Willie’s legs being sawed off, and the suicide of Singer.   A-

Rob:   I started out being interested in the characters and the setting and the issues, but as things got stranger and more depressing, I lost interest:  Mick's prom party, the three mutes fiasco, the shooting of Baby, the nightly parade of people to Singer's room, ..., Singer's suicide.  I felt the author overdid the misery and angst (and all those downer characteristics Keith lists) and thereby lost touch with reality, even in the South 70-some years ago.  Grapes of Wrath starkly depicts the misery of about the same time, but still leaves with me some hope for the characters.  Not here.  I don't know if the author accurately captured reality at the time, but my suspicion is that she magnified the negatives, minimized the positives.  She did a good job of establishing an atmosphere and narrative that fit her lonely-hunter theme, but I still did not find it to be a convincing or satisfying book.  B-

Keith:  The book was a tombstone:  saturnine, lugubrious, miasmic.  The author is a dim writer of despair.  None of her characters could rise above the despair.  Not a mini-scintilla of hope.  (Rob: “I wish I’d said that!").  History will relegate her to racial ruminations.  Significant by a scoche.  C-

Charlie:   Well, I enjoyed it. (laughter from troops).  What impressed me was it was written by a 23 year old.  Dark tone, but the Late Depression years were depressing!  She provided insights into Black Culture.  Very good.  A-

Ken:  I thought the book was definitely worth the read, although it was quite depressing.  She did a good job of developing the characters.  Her writing was at times sophomoric, not great writing.  I give it a B+ to A- (the latter awarded on quantity of ice cream presented.)

Bob S:  Like Charlie, I was impressed by the relationships and personalities of the characters.  She seems to have insight into Black Culture.  Only Warmth of Other Suns gave me some insight into this; yet McCullers got it in 1937 – unbelievable!   Even the countryside description was good.  A significant work of art –  I give it an A. 

“Jeeves, are we not expecting the Drones to gather here for the Quorn at Lick-Spittle Manor in Cedar Crest?”

“Indeed, sir.”

"And Profs. Ferrell, Gillen, and Nash will not be joining us?"

"Unfortunately not tonight, sir.  They are on travel, it appears."

“Yes, well...  Won’t we need the key from Seppings, or perhaps the code to get through the gate?”

“Indubitably, sir.”

“Propinquity, Jeeves.  Propinquity, in my opinion, is what will do the trick.”

“Very good, sir.”

"Right, Ho!   Well, then, let's see what the old school chaps have to say ... "

Bob S.:  I enjoyed it – I give it a B.  Clever repertoire, not much more that excited me.  Well written, not Evelyn Waugh or H.H. Monroe, but a well written set piece around which [Wodehouse] created humor.  B

Tom:  This was to be an A- as I liked it so much.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, could listen to Bertie speak all night, putting a sentence together.  The book was funny from first to last, it gets an A.

Ron B:  I enjoyed the writing and laughed out loud.  The sum, however, was not the whole of its parts.  The plot did not engage me.  B

Charlie:  I agree with Bob’s assessment.  This was not a monument to English culture, but enjoyable, not great literature.  B+

Mike:  I have often heard of “light summer reading” and I’m so glad Rob assigned us some.  I was worried when Rob announced he picked Wodehouse because he was a favorite of Christopher Hitchens, for although I think Hitch to be one of the smartest debaters of our time, his sense of humor (as displayed as a young man in his autobiography) is sophomoric at times, e.g.:  great novels that never made it:  “A Tale of Three Cities.”  Yet P.G. delighted me throughout the book, often with a unique approach to both wordplay and character degradation.  Wonderful!  Ah, but “Right Ho” did have a few plot contrivances …   A-

Bob Woods:   This has to be taken in context.  There is a whole field of British humor.  This was about a B+     A set piece.

Keith:  I found it light-hearted, titillating, and stimulating.  I appreciated the 18-mile round trip for Bertie.  Delightful – solid A.

Dick J:  This was the second Jeeves novel I’ve read.  I liked it, laughed out loud.  This was not great literature, and I put it in the B category.

Rob:  This was the first Jeeves book I read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I laughed practically on every page.  Loved it.  A-

Eleven Waiting Ones gathered in The Poets Corner to pay homage to Aimée Thanatogenos, struck down much too early in her promising field as a career crematorium cosmetologist.  We learned that Evelyn Waugh was not the nicest guy you’ve ever shared a beer with – pugnacious, a bully at school, he lost his scholarship at Oxford after joining The Hypocrites, and perhaps engaging in too much drinking and dabbling in homosexuality.  Then Evelyn married a woman by the name of Evelyn – and for a while they were known as Evelyn-he and Evelyn-she.  That marriage only lasted from 1928-1929.  Meanwhile, the Waiting Ones could wait no more:

Ron B.:  I found the book in Large Print and it was only 146 pages.  I thought the story line was interesting, clever phrases, and I like the way he wrote.  None of the characters was the least bit sympathetic, so I would infer he himself is not.  This was not constructed as a romance, as it lacked in humanity.  But it was well written, held my interest.  B+

Bob Simon:  I also give it a B+    I found it diverting and entertaining, if not great literature.  Good summer diversion.

Joel:  I agree.  I had settled on a B+ before anyone else said their grade.

Ken G:  I despised the first part of the book.  Only my assignment from the Book Club kept me going, and I’m glad I continued.  The author comically attacked American marketing.  B+  Perhaps the best part was sending the endless yearly reminder, “Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven for you today.”

Tom Genoni:  The book made me think of The Day of the Locusts, so I dug out my copy of that Book Club selection.  The author did a great job of capturing Hollywood in a short time.   A-  I found myself disappointed when it ended.

Bob Woods:   I give it a B.  Waugh was fooling around, his heart was not in it.  Brideshead Revisited is far better.

Keith:  Stygian River float through life.  But even a river has life.  I enjoyed the Black Humor.  None of the characters would get in on the perverse way.  A

Jack Ferrell.  I enjoy satire so I liked it.  The story would be a tragedy if it wasn't so funny.  But I’ve already shot my wad for A's and A-'s, so I give it a B+

Dick Jensen:  I did not particularly like the characters.  I liked the book from last month better.  B

Mike:  I did not know what to expect from Waugh, yet I was disappointed.  I thought P.G. Wodehouse was really clever, funny, laugh out loud – not here.  Perhaps I have become  jaded by so many CSI shows, medical examiners, TV news, that the book was not at all shocking to me, and didn’t appear as a classic, although I realize they made somewhat of a classic movie from the book.  B

Charlie:  I’m with the B+ crowd.  It was funny, but the book from last month was more clever.  The movie is absolutely wonderful  - more characters than in the book, just an extension of the book.

Throughout the first half of The Art of Fielding, I was haunted by the image of Jimmy Dugan, the alcoholic manager played by Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, rising up, and yelling, “Homos?  There’s no homos in baseball!”   Well, apparently there are, and they appear to dominate the schoolmaster in what started as a good sports story in The Art of Fielding. 

It starts as a homage perhaps to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with several excerpts out of the apparently 212 such aphorisms of Aparicio Rodriquez’ book.  Aparicio is not only the greatest shortstop to ever play the game, but he also wields the English language so much better than the average Puerto Rican ballplayer.  This guy was good!

Besides the Zen, I liked the short chapters which kept the story moving … however …   

I was sure each chapter would start with a quote from “The Art” - However, for whatever reason, Harbach drops the book after the first two chapters, and does not pick it up again for some 300 pages.  By then, we’re knee-deep in beer, puke, the worst of D-III athletics, and an embarrassing school president who suddenly finds a love affair with a new student even though he has lived his first 61 years as a straight and an academic.  What happened?

What happened to me as a reader is that Harbach turned me off on several levels:  I could not tolerate “freshperson” – has anyone seen that used on a campus?   Even women’s basketball has accepted “man-on-man defense” so why freshperson is introduced in the 21^st century with no rationale is beyond me.  And names like Rich O’Shea!  And Opentoe College?  And when Owen introduces himself to Henry with “Hi, I’m your gay mulatto roommate,” I knew we were in for a sodomizing social experience. 

I also cringed at the plot contrivance.  How big is a baseball?  How big is Owen’s face?  Yet on the first errant throw that Henry has ever made in his life, Object A hits Object B?   And Object B happens to be the only human not watching the game?   Too much!  (Full disclosure:  I usually read a book during the Lady Lobos basketball games … but only during the timeouts!  I haven't been hit yet - with a much larger ball ....)

And for some reason Pella comes to the dorm room and fornicates with Henry, right after he quits the team – did that play well?  Not for me … I could go on and on, but 400 pages more than captures this book.  Let’s stop with the team going to Nationals and award The Art with a solid C for Chad.  Someone should have listened to the spirit of Jimmy Dugan.

I believe Cormac McCarthy has to be America’s best writer today.  I have read six of his novels—all of them powerful and haunting.  I found No Country for Old Men, like Blood Meridian, which we read a couple years ago, disturbing and yet I could not put it down.  The force of his prose and the tempo of the story were compelling.  The rugged and at times desolate setting, the realistic and fast-paced dialog, and the repetitive structural pattern of the novel reinforced the picture of a hostile world in which the struggle against violence seems hopeless and any effort at finding meaning to it all is futile.  I want to read more of his work, but I feel I shouldn’t.  A

My review of “No Country for Old Men”: A+    I found “No Country for Old Men” to be my favorite McCarthy novel.  The suspense is relentless.  The main characters are well developed and reflect real people in the drug trade.  It did seem unlikely was that the villain would reject excess payment at the end.  It also seemed unlikely that the villain would kill the protagonist’s wife to settle a score.  Other than that, the plot made sense.

Tom:   I think we all agreed on the detail – the book seemed to get better parabolically.  It rose as it went along.  The focus was on the British involvement, including the quotes that make it more readable, more illuminating for me.  Grade:  A-

Mike:  I think Joel Nash might have summed up this book with one of his favorite quotes:  “People are no damn good!”  I thought this was a great book.  The structure worked well for me – each chapter set off with a photo and a quotation for the main character – and the author provided a list of characters (with catty descriptions) at the beginning, and a glossary (as well as an index) at the end.  And great maps!  A-

Jack:  The historical account of events in 19th century Egypt was fascinating, but Green's propensity for detail made it difficult for me to get into the flow of the story.  Initially I was delighted to see a list of the cast of characters in the front of the book and a glossary near the end of the book, but I became frustrated when I could not find a term in the glossary or a character on the list, or when the author alternated among the names and titles given to any one character from one page to the next.  A plethora of Pashas, Mohammeds, Ahmeds, Khedives, Colonels and Generals just added to the confusion of this ethnocentric Westerner.  I would have liked to have seen more "Chinese," "Monkeys" and "Pussys."  C+ 

Charlie:  What would an Egyptian Men’s Book Club say about our names – too many Bobs?  However, I think the editor was asleep at the wheel – he should have insisted from Greene, “Give us an overarching description of how it all hangs together.”  Too many details.  B-

Dick A.:  I’ve not heard much on the way it was written.  You didn’t know what was going on at the same time – here was this scene and that scene.  As a friend of mine might say, it was uneven.  Some of it really was interesting.  Just in today’s news on Morci’s power grab in Egypt, for example.  It seems as if history is cyclical.  As to a grade for the book, I sense some grade inflation here, so I would give it a B-

Ken:   I had mixed reactions.  In the positive, I learned a tremendous amount of history. A negative was that I was bored at times and fell asleep.  It could have been shorter with less detail.  I had difficulty with the British tone and vocabulary.  Overall, I give it a B.

Keith:  I’ve reiterated:  this was a vomitarium on the decimal places, but the integers were missing.  Overall message:  Fear and Greed drive the world.  The patterns are in there.  We have 200 military bases around the world, in places like Greece and Germany and South Korea.  We go on fighting, nothing changes.  The writing was pretty poor, I give it a C.

Ron:  There were good parts.  Chapter narratives were integrated.  This would make a good reference book.  It lacked overall structure.  It was well-researched (if I can assume the author was not making it up).  Not particularly well-written.  B

Keith:  My summary:  mortui vivos docebunt – “The dead shall teach the living” – the writing was good, A

Ken:  I tend to agree – it was well written.  The tennis lessons may have improved my game since my teen-age years.  I enjoyed the tennis tidbits.  David left me cold:  a womanizing drug abuser.  A-

Charlie:  I agree with Keith – the depiction of addiction as a disguise with terrible consequences.  I was bothered by the inappropriate relationship – which the author did not address.  Secondly, all that tennis!  B

Dick Arms:  The writing was excellent, the author put words together well.  I was fascinated by the medical parts.  Perhaps he was always too good, however.  I was disappointed he ended the book with a dribbling off after David’s death.  Exceptionally good writing:  A

Rob E:  I felt uneasy.  The author painted himself as a Superior Doctor, Super Tennis Player.  Maybe he did get criticized for his relationship with David, and he addressed it here in this book.  He made himself the hero of his own memoirs – was he hiding something?  B  uneasy.

Bob W:  I respectfully abstain – did not complete the book.

Jack Ferrell:  I echo that Verghese is a fine writer.  Amazing command of English.  I found the addiction very much to the point, as it relates to a disease.  Some peace of mind, but not this, left with us in the family.  A

Mike:  It is amazing to me that some of our finest English writers are not born to the language – examples are Nabokov, Joseph Conrad.  Maybe not so much with Ha Jin, but Verghese is right up there.  It never bothered me that Verghese could approach David on the tennis court as an equal, or as he explained, here David was the teacher, he was the student.  I was moved by Verghese’s criticism of himself, as when he was jealous of Gloria’s stepping back into David’s life, and when Verghese’s wife found him going through his medical and tennis journals, and he commented that she must think if he put that amount of effort into their marriage, it would have been successful.  A

   This is a profound book about friendship and the human soul.  Verghese is a perceptive physician who has studied the human body and mind and is able to share his insights in beautiful prose.  He has made many keen observations of the motivations and behavior of physicians and perhaps all professionals.   A

Email the LTBC via  Mike@Blackledge.co