TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR, by Joshua Ferris

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is described by one reviewer as "the Catch-22 of dentistry". That's a pretty good one-line summary. This off-beat and very funny book, shortlisted for the 2016 Booker Prize, chronicles the life of the protagonist, Dr. Paul C. O'Rourke, a dentist with a successful NYC practice but not particularly successful life. For much of the early part of the book, Paul's personality is established in a series of hilarious rants that brought to my mind the narrator of Thomas Bernhard's Extinction, also an off-beat and very funny book. He's cynical, self-absorbed, prone to obsessive relationships with women and his beloved Boston Red Sox. The Catch-22 link comes as Paul's identity is "stolen" online, involving him in a strange journey to establish his "roots" as a member of a hidden, proscribed community called "Ulms" - a kind of foil of Jews. Issues of faith and doubt, religion and belief are explored in unpredictable ways. There are a few slow sections in the latter parts of the book as we wade through the Jewish/Ulm stuff, but overall, the book is both fun and thought-provoking. It's certainly very well written.

For a review of the book from NY Times Review of Books, click here: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/books/joshua-ferriss-to-rise-again-at-a-decent-hour.html?_r=0

MOONGLOW, by Michael Chabon

Being a big fan of Michael Chabon, I eagerly anticipated reading his latest novel, Moonglow. It's a kind of memoir in the form of a novel, with his dying grandfather as protagonist and indirect narrator. The chronology jumps around unpredictably, which turns out to be a very effective and interesting approach to dealing with the grandfather's eventful life: WWII trials and shocks, marriage to a mentally ill French war refugee, work as a model builder for NASA, late-life romance in a retirement center in Florida, etc. The direct narrator, named Michael Chabon, is ostensibly the author, who goes about researching his grandfather's story/history and piecing it together, with help from his grandfather's "loose tongue" due to pain medication for his terminal bone cancer, his mother and others who knew him. It's a rich and warmly-told story which is, as the reviewer in the Guardian article mentions, is uncharacteristically serious in tone. In my opinion, this fact does not negatively affect the book's quality or readability.


for a review of the book from The Guardian, click here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/03/moonglow-by-michael-chabon-review

ALL THAT MAN IS, by David Szalay

All That Man Is is a collection of nine thematically linked short stories that reflect on the reality, unsavoury as it might be, of masculinity, masculine desire, ageing and failure. The book was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2016. The stories, in my opinion, are uneven. Some are quite riveting and some almost banal. All-in-all, though, most are quite strong and move along in plot and style well. I'm not a huge fan of short stories as a genre, but these are well-written; some are excellent. The stories follow a kind of chronological order, with the first story tracing two 17 year-old British students on holiday in Europe and the last about a 73 year old reflecting on his failing powers. All of the protagonists are failures of a sort, which gives the collection a decidedly gloomy feel. Yet despite the "realism",  the writing is not brutal or judgemental. We do care about at least some of the protagonists and can relate to them to some extent. There is also a strong current of wasted motion, of unsettledness in most of the stories, as characters move around Europe looking for.... what? Whatever it is they're after, they generally don't find it.

For a review of the book from The New Yorker, click here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/nine-tales-of-crises-in-all-that-man-is

THE RETURN, by Hisham Matar

The Return, a recent Costa Book Award shortlist by celebrated Libyan-British author Hisham Matar is an intense and unrelenting journey of a son's search for his father (or at least closure about the often avoided certainty of his death). The context is that Matar is the son of Jaballa Matar, one of the most visible and courageous dissidents in Qaddafi's Libya from the 1970s until the time of his kidnapping by Egyptian security personnel from his home in exile in Cairo. The impact of this act on his young son, Hisham, the narrator of the story, was profound at all levels - psychological, ideological, personal. The book traces, in a complex narrative that jumps around in chronology, Hisham's search for his father (or at least the traces of the man). The anger, frustration, hope, helplessness, resolution and courage he exhibits at various times are splashed onto the pages of the book, and the result is a deeply moving and, yes, angering and frustrating narrative that grabs the reader by the throat. There is no sugar-coating of anything in the book, yet the the story is told warmly, even delicately. It's certainly not a rant, and its gentleness makes it even more moving to read, as it speaks volumes about the writer and his pain.

For a review of the book from The Guardian, Click here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/03/hisham-matar-the-return-review

THE VEGETARIAN, by Han Kang

The Vegetarian is a claustrophobic, nightmarish journey of a young woman's descent into madness. Well, maybe that's what's happening. At any rate, it can also be seen as a woman's rebellion against violations of several sorts (family abuse and domination, sexual violation, stifling conventionality), but it is not a rebellion that leads to liberation or freedom (unless you view death as freedom, which in a sense, it is). Han Kang's 2007 novella has just been translated and released in 2016 in English, and proceeded to win the Man Booker International prize. The writing is intense and dark, reminiscent of Kafka both in style and theme. It has been described as shocking and violent, which it is, but neither violence nor sex is gratuitous, as the psychological and cultural roots of the protagonist's mental and spiritual crisis are explored (or rather, suggested). In fact, motivation for her behaviour is never clear-cut. Neither is the result of her rebellion, although it clearly has effects that spill over to her husband, care-giver older sister,  brother-in-law, and parents. It's a book not for the faint at heart, but nevertheless a moving piece of writing.

For a review of the book from the NY Times, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/books/review/the-vegetarian-by-han-kang.html

BEATLES '66 by Steve Turner

Inspired by viewing Ron Howard's recently released Beatles documentary "Eight Days a Week", I picked up the book Beatles '66, published in 2016 by Steve Turner, an author who has written extensively on the group and the mid-late 1960's cultural milieu. Particularly interesting to me was the choice of 1966 as the focus, as it was the pivotal moment in the transformation of the group from lovable moptops to serious musicians. The format of the book is straightforward - it progresses month-by-month from December 1965 to January 1967, going into sometimes extreme detail about the events and non-events of the period. The discussion of the final US tour was interesting (if somewhat already well-documented); the film "Eight Days a Week" had lots of footage of that memorable tour, so it was fun to get another angle on the craziness. It was also personally interesting as I attended their concert in Cleveland as a 12-year-old kid and witnessed one of the most violent Beatlemania riots to ever occur. The discussion of the cultural and intellectual exploration of all four Beatles was informative and it did deepen my respect for their far-ranging and rather undisciplined creative process. The way that the four balanced their own personal growth and contributions to the group was also interesting, as the major fissures that broke up the group started at this time but were managed somehow. In short, for any Beatles fan, the book is a pleasant look at an amazing year in pop culture that is engagingly written.

For a review of the book by The New York Journal of Books, click here: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/beatles

MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS, by Michael Chabon

Manhood for Amateurs, published in 2009,  is  Michael Chabon's loose collection of vignettes about  himself, his family and particularly about being masculine. The unstructured pieces explore Chabon's childhood, adolescence, married life and life as a parent. He has a remarkably middle-class lifestyle, and can certainly poke fun at its conventionality. The most interesting discussions are about the differences between his own childhood, growing up in the 1970s and that of his kids. He basically asserts that kids today lack the freewheeling, unstructured room to grow an imagination and even to rebel on their own terms. It's a sad state of affairs, but one he is determined to "fight", albeit on conventional grounds (e.g., building a treehouse/clubhouse for the kids to "escape to"). The book is engaging, often funny, and provides a window on the daily life and values of a truly enjoyable writer of great creativity and imagination.

For a review of the book from NY Times, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/books/review/Kamp-t.html?_r=0