In the Woods / Tana French

4 out of 5 stars

Dublin 1984 dusk, three children vanish in the woods. One, Rob Ryan, grips a tree trunk in terror, unable to recall any detail of previous hours. Twenty years later, the detective on the Dublin Murder Squad keeps his past a secret. But when a girl 12 is killed in the same woods, Rob and Detective Cassie Maddox — partner and best pal - investigate present and past.

Not recommended for those who like a book to tie up into a nice neat parcel with a ribbon on top by the last page. This novel will leave you with questions. I liked it—but then I remember as a teen really liking an author whose books always left an ambiguous ending. Would the heroine be able to get out of the burning house? Questions like that and no sequels to answer them.

French’s writing is excellent and the story is well paced. I loved the unorthodox professional relationship between Detectives Ryan and Maddox. I think most authors would be unable to resist creating some kind of love interest between male & female partners and French resisted that urge. Instead, these two are like brother and sister, with amusing repartee and an unusually close relationship.

I also loved her occasional acerbic comments on the human race—for instance, “Humans are feral and ruthless.” That observation, early in the novel, prepares you for things to come.

In the Woods is very much an exploration of the limits of human memory. Any police officer or lawyer will be able to tell you that the human memory is incomplete at best and completely unreliable at worst. Neurologists think that all of our memories are in the brain somewhere—the problem is accessing those memories. And in the very act of accessing them, we may be altering those memories as well. Each time we recall something, when we re-store it to memory, we add bits & pieces, impressions, opinions, and down-right fabrications. This is why any case going to trial also requires firm forensic evidence and why so many people have been wrongfully convicted based strictly on eye-witness testimony. Detective Ryan is the guy with the slippery memory—what happened to him in 1984? How did he end up in blood soaked sneakers, rips in the back of his t-shirt, backed up against a tree with his fingers dug into the bark, catatonic? Why has he never been able to remember any details? And does this have any bearing on the current murder which has occurred in the same stand of woods?

The Nonborn King / Julian May

4.5 out of 5 stars

Book 3 of the Saga of Pliocene Exile.

This series would make a wonderful graphic novel—it has lots of prehistoric beasties, action-packed battle scenes, dramatic psychic powers, and lots of opinionated & quirky characters.

Humans from our future have become part of the Galactic Milieu, a kind of Federation of those races with psychic powers of various sorts. But not everyone has what it takes to fit into this system and others are unhappy with the direction that their society is moving. Some of the most disgruntled take a one-way trip through a time portal into the Pliocene era. You can imagine the sort of people who would not fit in to this future—those who really don’t care to conform. And the Milieu has made a ruling that no one with advanced psychic powers is able to take advantage of the time gate. What could possibly go wrong?

Upon arriving in the Pliocene, these non-psychic humans find themselves taken into custody by an alien race, the Tanu, who also fled their own world in order to do things their own way. By using neck-torcs of various colours they are able to wield psi powers too. The human “deliveries” from the time portal have meant that the Tanu have a distinct advantage over their traditional enemies, the Firvulag (deformed gnomish people who have similar powers without the hardware).

The political machinations are convoluted and, humans being what they are, there are many deviations from the Tanu tradition & system of honour. (As Tana French says in her novel In The Woods, “Humans are feral and ruthless.”) None demonstrate this as clearly as Aiken Drum, the self-proclaimed Nonborn King—created in a laboratory, without family, but with blinding ambition and late-developing psychic talents, Drum attempts to take over the Pliocene world. He faces opposition from all three races, none of whom fancy being ruled by a psychopathic upstart human.

As with the previous two books, female characters continue to play major roles in the action, if not in the warfare, and strong women of various races cause Aiken Drum some major headaches and sleepless nights.

Add to the mix one last group of future asylum seekers (who attempted to overthrow the Milieu and ended up retreating to the past) and the whole situation becomes precarious. There are few pauses in the action and lots of exploration of inter-race relations.

I definitely want to read the fourth book, The Adversary, and also to find May’s other books sets in this universe, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat.

The Girl on the Train / Paula Hawkins

4 out of 5 stars

Three women, three men, connected through marriage or infidelity. Each is to blame for something. But only one is a killer in this nail-biting, stealthy psychological thriller about human frailty and obsession.
      Just what goes on in the houses you pass by every day?
     Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and evening, rattling over the same junctions, flashing past the same townhouses.The train stops at the same signal every day, and she sees the same couple, breakfasting on their roof terrace. Jason and Jess, as she calls them, seem so happy. Then one day Rachel sees someone new in their garden. Soon after, Rachel sees the woman she calls Jess on the news. Jess has disappeared.
     Through the ensuing police investigation, Rachel is drawn deeper into the lives of the couple she learns are really Megan and Scott Hipwell. As she befriends Scott, Rachel pieces together what really happened the day Megan disappeared. But when Megan's body is found, Rachel finds herself the chief suspect in the case. Plunged into a world of betrayals, secrets and deceptions, Rachel must confront the facts about her own past and her own failed marriage.

Another offering in the rather new genre of Chick Noir (a.k.a. Domestic Noir or Amnesia Thrillers), in which domestic life is no longer the safe place everyone assumes it will be. Unreliable women as narrators are hot right now (think Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, The Devil You Know, as well as The Girl on the Train). Chick Noir is aimed at women (mirroring Chick Lit), but there is no happily-ever-after and husbands are not necessarily people whom women are able to trust.

The novel is told from the points of view of 3 women—Rachel (the alcoholic ex-wife), Anna (the irritated current wife), and Megan (the woman-next-door). Along with the differing interpretations of events that you would expect from three different people, we also learn that there is truth to the old saying that those outside a marriage really have no idea what is going on within that marriage—this proves true for all three women.

It’s difficult to say anything substantial about the plot without giving away the fun bits, so I will resist the temptation to say too much. This is a 4 star read instead of 5 for me because I guessed the who-dunnit about 2/3 of the way through the book—I really like to be kept guessing!

The Girl on the Train (really, couldn’t it have been The Woman on the Train? Rachel is well over 16!) puts the fun in dysfunctional.

Switch / Chip & Dan Heath

2.5 out of 5 stars

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?

The primary obstacle is a conflict that's built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind - that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

I'n giving this book 2.5 stars—absolutely average. Because I think that I have seen it all and tried it all before. And I think the book could have been cut by several chapters without being hurt at all.

I like the basic metaphor of this book: the emotions as an elephant, the intellect as mahout. The rider (as the Heaths call the mahout) has limited amounts of strength and will-power to use to direct the elephant; the elephant has to be cooperative, or the rider won’t get where she wants to go. Also discussed is the path—the environment which we can manipulate to steer ourselves into the desired habits and behaviours. [See also: Slim by Design by Brian Wansink re: changing the environment to facilitate change].

I think the examples given in Switch are much more applicable to the work place than to the individual household. I’ve been trying to get myself to do basic housework as I go each week, rather than storing up misery for myself on the weekends. But so far, I just can’t get my elephant to give a damn about the situation. The mahout tries her best, but very little housework gets done.

The authors also use an example of teaching a monkey to use a skateboard, using mango bits as rewards. They suggest that lavish use of rewards will help with eliciting the desired behaviour. I have used this strategy on myself with limited success—do X and then you can read a chapter of your book or phone someone you want to talk to. The tricky thing is then to stop at one chapter and do another chore before reading the next chapter (my elephant is a tricky one).

Another suggestion in the book is linkages of behaviours—look for a bright spot in your routine, something that you have no problem doing, then link it to another desired action. This was how I trained myself to floss my teeth EVERY evening. I slotted that task in between washing my face and brushing my teeth. After a year and a half of this, I am finally to the point that it takes a major catastrophe to prevent me from flossing. However, I’m still working on linking setting up my coffee maker in the evening to doing any dishes that won’t go in the dishwasher. That was my one New Year’s Resolution for 2015 and at the 6 month point, I still haven’t performed this task reliably. Unfortunate, as both my elephant & mahout enjoy getting up to a clean kitchen.

The Heaths also take a page out of the FlyLady’s book [Sink Reflections : FlyLady’s Babystep Guide to Overcoming Chaos] by recommending breaking tasks down into tiny sections—making the goal so small that the emotional elephant isn’t spooked by it. Marla Cilley (the FlyLady) recommends 5 minute cleaning bursts on the theory that you can force yourself to do almost anything for only 5 minutes and that a small success will almost always carry you along to do more. This works for me to some extent—some days I designate as “It bugs me so I fix it” days. If I notice a dusty window sill, I go get a cloth and clean it. Then I may go and check all the other window sills and make sure they are clean too. I notice a grimy light switch—suddenly it’s “clean all the light switches” day.

I also have experience with trying to manipulate my environment to make being tidy an easy option. [See Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern for more tips on this]. I’ve moved my filing cabinet to the dining room where I seem to like to open the mail. Sometimes the contents make it into the files, but once again, not on a reliable basis.

So, I need to find myself a reliable EMOTIONAL reason to keep up with these tasks—and I haven’t come up with one yet. My solution to the situation is usually to invite guests, spurring myself to spruce up my apartment. So far, peer pressure is the only thing that works every time for me! And the Heaths also recommend that, so I may just have to stick with it and invite folks in more often.

Wish there was a little more to the book than that—I am apparently an awfully recalcitrant housekeeper.

The Wreckage / Michael Robotham

3 out of 5 stars

Billions of dollars are missing from Iraqi banks, and journalist Luca Terracini will risk everything to discover where it is. His Iraqi-American background has made it easier for him to infiltrate the darkest corners of the war, but death of his beloved Nicola in a suicide bombing has made him reckless. He has nothing left to lose.
In pursuit of the money, he meets UN representative Daniela Garner, who seems to know more about the heist than anyone else. She's a valuable asset in Baghdad where the possibility of an explosion lurks at every checkpoint. Luca's investigation proves volatile as well, and as he gets closer to the missing money, his actions begin to reverberate around the world.
In London, Richard North, a top-tier international banker and the one person who might be able to explain where the money has gone, vanishes. The manhunt for him will get Luca evicted from Iraq, separated from Daniela, and possibly end both his investigation and his life.
As usual, it's all about the money: who has it, who's lost it, and who's ultimately going to pay, as clandestine agents emerge from the shadows and powerful nations seek to control information and bury secrets, whatever the cost.

I picked up this novel because it is the July 2015 choice of my book club. I was dreading it, having read the dust jacket and thinking that it was really not my thing. Once again, I am grateful that my book club compatriots have stretched my reading comfort zone.

Having said that, it still really wasn’t my cuppa tea, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get pulled along for the adventure. Just like the Jack Reacher novel that we read last year for book club, it’s hard to resist finishing the book. I was surprised to find that it was 5th in a series (Joseph O’Loughlin series) and that the guy named in the series doesn’t appear until about 2/3 of the way through the book.

The retired policeman, Ruiz, is the one who most reminds me of Jack Reacher—he always seems to be planning ahead in order to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and always can find something to use as a weapon at strategic moments. The journalist Luca’s sections benefit from the author’s experience in the field, as do the multiple settings (Bagdad, London, Washington). It is refreshing to read a thriller that is not set exclusively in the USA. On the other hand, it is rather depressing to get a glimpse into post-war Iraq. One wonders if there will ever be peace in that area of the world.

Men are certainly portrayed at their worst—most are on the take either monetarily or sexually. If they are half-way good, they are damaged beyond repair. I would like to believe better of the men in my life, one of the reasons why I usually avoid this hyper-masculine type of fiction. You can practically smell the testosterone emanating from the pages!


Interestingly, all three women in the book seem to have no friends.  They talk to no other women, they simply focus exclusively on the men in their lives.  I know absolutely no women who are like this.  We all have friends and we talk to them regularly.  In a book with a lot of unrealistic plot elements, I thought this was the most glaring.

Also the banking industry—please tell me it’s not really like this! Like a stately ancient tree that looks lovely and flourishing on the outside, but is rotten and hollow on the inside.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

4 out of 5 stars

Well, if one goes by the information in the sonnets, Shakespeare's Facebook relationship status would definitely read "It's complicated."
 

The Golden Torc / Julian May

4.5 out of 5 stars

By A.D. 2110 nearly 100,000 humans had fled the civilized strictures of the Galactic Milieu for the freedom they thought existed at the end of the one-way time tunnel to Earth, six million B.C.
But all of them had fallen into the hands of the Tanu, a humanoid race who'd fled their own galaxy to avoid punishment for their barbarous ways.
And now the humans had made the Tanu stronger than the Firvulag, their degenerate brethren and ritual antagonists. Soon the Tanu would reign supreme. Or so they thought . . . .

Lots of nice twists & turns in this second installment of the Saga of the Pliocene Exile. The worm turns, when humans turn out to be nastier and craftier than their Tanu overlords ever imagined. For one thing, humans are willing to fight dirty. It’s reminiscent of the British facing Native Americans, two different codes of conduct ending in unexpected victories for the less-well-armed side of the conflict. Honour means different things to different cultures and May exploits those differences masterfully.

I love May’s involvement of geology in this book, and the couple of appearances by plesiosaurs! Despite the fact that we’re pretty sure that those massive marine reptiles didn’t live in the Pliocene, but still, plesiosaurs!

We also discover that becoming psychically operant is not for the faint-hearted, there is pain involved and even necessary for that transformation. Just like childbirth, there is pain & struggle, but once the end product is achieved, there is joy. Unknowingly, the Tanu’s torment of certain humans opens the doorway for operancy.

Also an interesting revelation: Mercy (the woman who drew the anthropologist Bryan into exile) has been genetically tested and though she came from the future, she is almost full-blooded Tanu. Which begs the question of how that was possible—presumably some hints will be given in later books.

Aiken Drum continues to be a wild card—showing odd moments of compassion, but mostly looking out for number one, this psychopathic human has angered all sides of the conflict now, Tanu, Firvulag and Human. It remains to be seen if all three cultures can agree on his elimination!

A lovely balance of male and female roles, which passes the Bechdel test with flying colours. A pleasure to read.

Book 177 of my science fiction and fantasy reading project.

On the Move / Oliver Sacks

3 out of 5 stars

When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled with drug addiction and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, we see how his engagement with patients comes to define his life.

With unbridled honesty and humor, Sacks shows us that the same energy that drives his physical passions--weight lifting and swimming--also drives his cerebral passions. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists--Thom Gunn, A. R. Luria, W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick--who influenced him. On the Move is the story of a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer--and of the man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human.


This was a GoodReads first reads giveaway, which I won in April. The publisher provided an uncopy-edited proof.

I will admit that I have heard of Oliver Sacks, but have never read any of his other books and I entered this giveaway on a whim. (I did, however, see the Robin Williams film Awakenings based on Sacks’ work with postencephalitic patients.) So I have no points of comparison, to be able to judge Sacks’ writing in this book vs. his other works.

I was surprised at how little self-analysis went into this autobiography—for a man who was able to interpret the lives of people with major brain dysfunctions, he seems to be either unable or unwilling to observe his own life in the same way. For instance, he mentions repeatedly that he identifies people by their voices, rather than their faces, but he doesn’t connect this lack of facial recognition with his own fascination with neurology. It would seem to me that this would be a major motivator in his interests, to understand one of his own foibles.

Nevertheless, it is a fascinating story—Sacks’ parents were interesting people in their own right with thriving medical careers and he was obviously extremely fond of them and the rest of his family. It is a shame that he felt that his homosexuality separated him from them in important ways. The lack of acceptance of such a fundamental part of his being seems to have been the motivating force that kept him “on the move” for the majority of his life. I don’t think that it is coincidental that he has finally found a stable relationship after the death of his parents—it seems unlikely that his mother would ever have been accepting of such a situation. [This reminds me a bit of Canadian author Robertson Davies, who claimed he was unable to write novels until his parents were gone].

Sacks had adventurous interests—motorcycles and weight lifting, in addition to venturing into medical areas that others avoided. Also a swimmer and a walker, he seems to have had a very balanced life in the sense that he had a vigorous intellectual life with an equal emphasis on physical challenges. He also balanced science and the arts, with an acute appreciation of music and literature.

Although I enjoyed this memoir, I think I would probably have appreciated it more had I read some of his other books first. Still, it is an interesting life review by a man now facing his mortality due to cancer. Although he has not followed an easy path in life, he has achieved a great deal.

Under the Visible Life / Kim Eclin

5 out of 5 Stars

Fatherless Katherine carries the stigma of her mixed-race background through an era that is hostile to her and all she represents. It is only through music that she finds the freedom to temporarily escape and dream of a better life for herself, nurturing this hard-won refuge throughout the vagaries of unexpected motherhood and an absent husband, and relying on her talent to build a future for her family.

Orphaned Mahsa also grows up in the shadow of loss, sent to relatives in Pakistan after the death of her parents. Struggling to break free, she escapes to Montreal, leaving behind her first love, Kamal. But the threads of her past are not so easily severed, and she finds herself forced into an arranged marriage.
For Mahsa, too, music becomes her solace and allows her to escape from her oppressive circumstances.

When Katherine and Mahsa meet, they find in each other a kindred spirit as well as a musical equal, and their lives are changed irrevocably. Together, they inspire and support one another, fusing together their cultures, their joys, and their losses—just as they collaborate musically in the language of free-form, improvisational jazz.


This was a GoodReads first reads giveaway, which I won in March. The publisher provided an uncorrected proof, but no one has attempted to influence my opinion in any way.

Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit.

Mesmerizing. These are the struggles than women all over the planet have to deal with every day. Being taken seriously as professionals. Juggling marriages, children, housework, careers. Getting stuck doing all the stuff that no one else wants to do.

But that makes this book sound pedestrian and it is anything but boring. From the first paragraph, I was entranced and stayed that way throughout the book. I just couldn’t look away. The only way I had to make it stretch out was to read it only on my lunch hour—that slowed me down and allowed me to savour each chapter, as they alternate between Catherine and Mahsa.

It is also a book about race—Catherine’s mother is Canadian and her father is Chinese before that is socially acceptable. As if that was not enough, Catherine marries a black American man and has three children with him. Mahsa’s father is American and her mother is Afghan. Her Afghan uncles murder her parents because they do not approve of the marriage and Mahsa eventually escapes to Canada. Nevertheless, she ends up forced into an arranged marriage and becomes mother to two children.

So many of the situations that Catherine and Mahsa find themselves in are similar to events in my own life—I think that I appreciated these story lines so strongly because I haven’t followed a traditional life path either. And yet, I think these two women represent so many women’s experiences, whether traditional or not. The choices that we have to make as women—do we get married? Have children? Pursue the safe path or strike out in something more risky? Are our families helpful or disapproving? Are we strong enough to pursue our own path and hell take the hindermost?

What is absolutely heroic is the way both women hang on to their music and insist on having their own life and their own careers, despite all the societal barriers to it. They pour their hearts and souls into jazz when there is little energy leftover for anything else. They show complete dedication and determination to make it in the music scene. It makes my career look pale by comparison—I wandered into my line of work and never really had enormous struggles, just the everyday irritations that occur in almost any job. I’m not sure that I have ever had anything that I would dedicate myself to the way these two women do. [In fact I cried a couple of years ago when I got a 30 year award from my union—I felt it meant that I had no ambition].

It leaves me feeling conflicted—I have never had to worry about racial discrimination and no one has stood in my way as I’ve planned my life, so I’m very lucky. But I find myself envying these women in their drive, their commitment, and that they so clearly know their vocation and are willing to work so hard for it. Yet I know that in my own way, I have played my role in the world too.

A good book to partner with this one: Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan. Also about jazz musicians, black men playing jazz in Europe as the Second World War looms.