guest review: Mother Tongue: My Family’s Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish by Christine Gilbert, from Mom

Posted on July 8, 2016 by pagesofjulia

My mother is here today to guest-review a book to which she brings special expertise. Mom has a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Houston; used to teach English as a foreign language to adults in community college settings; and now volunteers her time tutoring English language learners one-on-one. The disclosure here is that I was sent a free copy of this book in exchange for my mother‘s honest review. (It’s fun how that fact plays off this book’s title.) Thanks, Mom!

mother tongue

Christine Gilbert is quite the adventurous spirit. She tells the story in Mother Tongue about her quest to learn three languages – Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish – in less than three years, while living in three countries. This adventure includes a baby who acquires a sibling along the way. She and her husband have few ties to the U.S., and are able to work remotely. Thus they are perfectly placed for the language quest.

The quest is primarily hers, but includes her son as he grows and learns the local language effortlessly, as children do. (Her back-story includes a genetic disposition to Alzheimer’s disease, and she learns of brain research that suggests that young bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals that gives about five extra years before onset of Alzheimer’s.) She sets out to understand language learning theories, while researching all the logistics of moving house and choosing the places.

Gilbert does her homework on language acquisition theory, and she makes her case for total immersion (no hanging out with English speakers!). She works long days in language study. In the beginning – Beijing during a very cold winter with pollution too severe for the family to go out much – she chooses to hire a tutor for working at home, as well as a housekeeper who doesn’t speak English. When a crisis takes the family away suddenly, she reviews her experience and decides complete isolation within the foreign country is not the only way to absorbing language and culture. Each move and new setting will bring more lessons, and Gilbert gets quite good at her tasks.

This is not a dry tome about memorizing vocabulary for long hours. We make friends along the journey, we learn to talk and savor local food. Gilbert is a fun character, and her husband’s story is equally interesting; the book is a travel story on lots of levels. As a parenting and family dynamics study, Mother Tongue is yet another book. I’ve been involved enough in the bigger story to follow her adventures as told on her blog, and can reveal that this is an unending quest – two more countries appear there, and since I haven’t looked lately, who knows where they may be now.

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This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live by Melody Warnick

Posted on July 7, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A chronic mover seeks to settle down, and offers practical, accessible steps for readers to follow.

this is where you belong

When Melody Warnick, her husband and their two children moved for the sixth time in 13 years, from Austin, Tex. to Blacksburg, Va., she started to wonder if this new town would be a panacea, or if perhaps she was chasing an impossible dream. Had her family’s search for happiness via mobility been a form of magical thinking? So began the work of This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live.

Warnick approaches the goal of settling, or of loving where she lives, enthusiastically and broadmindedly. Research is a major component of her work, but it never feels that way. Warnick consults social sciences studies and conducts myriad interviews, and distills what she learns into conversational musings that make the reader feel a part of the process. In the opening chapter, she identifies 10 “place attachment behaviors,” which form the chapters that follow. These include walking more, volunteering, exploring nature and creating something new. For each behavior, she sets a goal and records her progress; each chapter ends with a “love your city checklist” of suggested actions. This Is Where You Belong is a carefully documented experiment, explicitly designed for readers to replicate in their own lives.

By the end, Warnick has established herself as a fallible, likable everywoman, and her struggle to love Blacksburg comes to represent a universal concern. Her journey to feeling attached to where she lives is scientific and packed with research, but also feels like an old friend’s casual banter. This practical exercise in intentional place-based happiness is for the homesick and the optimistic alike.

This review originally ran in the June 24, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 8 ticks on a list.

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guest review: Monterey Bay by Lindsay Hatton, from Sarah Appleton

Posted on July 5, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Thanks for contributing again, Sarah!

monterey bay

Lindsay Hatton’s Monterey Bay, set in the town of the same name along California’s Central Coast, tells the story of Margot Fiske and her tumultuous relationship with biologist Edward Ricketts. Margot and her father, Anders, move to Monterey Bay in 1940 following a botched business venture in the Philippines that Anders blames Margot for even though she is just 15. Their relationship functions more as a business partnership than that of a father and daughter, and in the wake of the failure, Anders gives Margot the cold shoulder, deeming her unworthy of being part of his latest business scheme involving a cannery in Monterey. Instead, he pawns Margot off on Ricketts, and what ensues changes Margot’s life forever.

Alternating between present time (1998) in Margot’s life when she’s the director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and those fateful few months in 1940, Hatton tells the coming of age story of a girl never allowed to be a child. Margot learns so much about life the hard way, and she reflects “that heartbreak, instead of drawing people together as most shared experiences did, forced them even further apart.” Heartbreak for Margot comes in the form of a mother who died in childbirth; estrangement from her father; and forbidden, unrequited love. Yet despite the bumps along the way, this story, ultimately, is a happy one because of the realization and success of a dream: the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Hatton writes with luminous language that brings Monterey Bay so vividly to life—“rusty metal that smells salty in the sun and bloody in the fog”—and peppers the story with equally vivid characters from Ricketts, whom the Aquarium was built in honor of, to John Steinbeck, a close companion of Ricketts and the writer who made the area famous through works such as Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. It’s a colorful reimagining of the Aquarium’s history, and perhaps, the ultimate beach read this summer.

–Sarah K. Appleton

Monterey Bay will be published July 19. Sarah’s galleys are provided by Bank Square Books.

If this appeals, see also Sea of Cortez by Steinbeck & Ricketts.

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White Bone by Ridley Pearson

Posted on July 4, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A prolific author of action/suspense novels turns his skills to the distressing problem of elephant poaching in Kenya.

white bone

Ridley Pearson is known for fast-paced, plot-driven series for adults as well as for children. White Bone is the fourth novel in his Risk Agent series (after The Red Room), starring John Knox and Grace Chu, whose relationship undergoes significant change in this installment.

Knox is an importer/exporter of international arts and crafts, a career that provides him good cover for his clandestine work with Rutherford Risk, an international security firm that specializes in hostage extractions. Grace Chu is a forensic accountant and hacker, and a colleague at Rutherford Risk. As White Bone opens, Knox has received a troubling text message from Grace, just before she goes radio silent. Troubled, he follows her into the field.

Grace was sent into Kenya to track a stolen shipment of donated measles vaccines. The case quickly expands to involve the widespread criminal practice of poaching elephants for their tusks and rhinoceroses for their horns, and possibly the funding of terrorism. Corruption is standard operating procedure in Kenya, so Knox must beware of governmental agents and the police as well as the criminals he is tracking. When he arrives in Nairobi, Grace has been missing for days: he fears her cover has been blown.

Pearson’s plot is complex, watertight and humming with tension. The finest details are realistic and disturbing, and often require at least a moderately strong stomach, as when Grace, stranded alone in the bush, suppresses her usual hygiene habits in favor of survival practices gleaned from a Maasai guide. While the bulk of the story follows Knox, Grace appears both directly and in others’ narratives, posing a character development challenge that Pearson handles deftly. A large cast also includes a disillusioned British journalist, a Somali poacher, a Kenyan vigilante/folk hero, a helpful police officer, an activist lawyer and a resourceful Kenyan boy insistent upon becoming Knox’s right-hand man. Knox follows disparate threads and threats; Grace defends herself against jackals, lions and organized criminals; and the novel’s pace races as her situation worsens.

White Bone is richly detailed and filled with intrigue that encompasses terrorism, corruption and lingering colonial strains. Its characters are nothing if not passionate, and these passions include the author’s obvious concern for the central problem of elephant poaching. Pearson’s writing is informative and allows his muscular story to take center stage. Series fans will remain committed, and new readers will be drawn in, with no background knowledge necessary to follow this action-packed novel combining the thriller, adventure and mystery genres.

This review originally ran in the June 24, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 6 interior struggles.

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So Much for That Winter by Dorthe Nors, trans. by Misha Hoekstra

Posted on July 1, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Experimental in form, these two novellas explore everyday frustrations in love and art.

so much for that winter

Two novellas by Dorthe Nors (Karate Chop) compose So Much for That Winter, translated by Misha Hoekstra from the Danish. They are as stark and unusual in form as they are bleak in mood. The first is “Minna Needs Rehearsal Space,” which is told entirely in declarative sentences, each on its own line. They range from the mundane to the philosophical: “People love wistful pop”; “Hope is a roe deer on a bluff.” This austere narrative style reveals a more complex story, about a woman who has suffered a breakup and seeks space–literal and figurative–for her work as an avant-garde composer. She hides away in her apartment, daydreams a relationship with Ingmar Bergman, and flees to an island she hopes will mend her.

“Days” follows, formed of numbered lists that make up the days of a woman’s life: a diary of sorts. The unnamed character is a frustrated writer, also with a relationship recently ended. Her days are inordinately filled with walks in cemeteries and lots of ice cream. Again the prosaic details blend with moments of poetry: “2. Sorted laundry, two piles, Tuesday”; “But the one who writes must dare to stand with her fledglings stuck to her fingers and surrender them in showers of spittle and roses.”

The result of these startling, experimental novellas is both somber and playful, the themes of romantic disappointment and creative blocks heightened by the minimalist style. So Much for That Winter is a compelling investigation of form and emotion.

This review originally ran in the June 21, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 7 bike rides.

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The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore

Posted on June 30, 2016 by pagesofjulia

This expanded second edition of the popular title about writing from a Buddhist perspective is a small book with big ideas.

mindful writer

Dinty W. Moore (Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy) is often asked to explain how Buddhism influences his writing practice. In struggling to answer this question articulately, he found himself shaping “The Four Noble Truths of the Writing Life.” From these musings was born 2012’s The Mindful Writer, a slim volume of very short, koan-like chapters offering writing advice and formed from quotations by other writers.

In its expanded second edition, The Mindful Writer offers a new introduction and for the first time includes writing prompts that follow the same concepts and quotations as its chapters. Words of wisdom from William Faulkner, Gustave Flaubert, Dorothy Parker, Stephen King and many more pose opportunities to ruminate on how to see and observe, how to work, how to think and live like a writer. Moore examines the sources of creativity as well as the plain hard work of writing, and “the freedom and importance of lousy first drafts.” Refreshingly, he reminds his reader that his advice “should be taken in the spirit of suggestion, not edict… it is not a good idea to cling too fiercely to the advice of others.” Moore is, as usual, funny but also takes his subject seriously. Its short chapters and encouraging prompts make this a guide to keep close at hand, for regular reference.

Its neatly packaged bits of wisdom mean that writers from beginners to experts equally will find inspiration and new perspectives in Moore’s unassuming manual of writerly mindfulness.

This review originally ran in the June 21, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 7 moments.

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Seed by Michael Edelson

Posted on June 29, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Disclosure: I received a free copy in exchange for this honest review.

seedWhat can I say? I’m impressed. Thank you, Andy, for recommending, and thank you to the author for passing this book along.

Seed stars Alex Meyers, a soldier stationed in modern-day California, where he trains the soldiers who deploy to Iraq and Afganistan. His life is routine, until the morning he wakes up in a plastic pod of sorts, stocked with clothes that fit, and surrounded by other people equally confused about how they got here. And just where is “here,” anyway? Each resident of this odd new world has been provided with the tools of his or her trade: medical tools for the doctor, and – chillingly – an armory for Alex. Obvious questions arise. Who kidnapped Alex and the others and marooned them here, and why? And is the invisible barrier there to keep them in, or to keep something else out?

Alex’s early reaction is contentment at an unexpected vacation. This place kind of resembles Hawaii, in fact. But it doesn’t take long for the sinister to creep in, at the same time that a romantic interest surfaces. Alex is a soldier, trained to obey, and not accustomed to a leadership role. But he finds that there are things, people, and values in his new environment that are worth defending.

This is a racing plot. I put the book down just once, to keep an appointment, and then raced through to the finish without coming up for air. Whatever its imperfections – and there are a few – it is a rare and special book that grabs me that irresistibly.

Seed‘s characters evoke the reader’s emotions, as Andy said in his review. But the strength of that emotional attachment comes more from the strength of plot, than any genius of characterization; characters are a little stiff, a little good-or-bad. No matter; they suffice. Dialog is likewise sort of indifferent.

But the pacing, momentum and intrigue of this plot is outrageous. I found it quite inventive and suspenseful; also as Andy noted, twists keep it from feeling formulaic. A third time like Andy, I am not normally a reader in this genre, which is, what? Military, dystopian? With a hint of romance? But any reader who enjoys plot-driven, adrenaline-filled novels should be well pleased.

Michael Edelson self-published this, his first novel, and “the industry” tends to look askance at such efforts. But this is a feat. I enjoyed every minute and was sorry when it ended. Congratulations, Mr. Edelson. If you care to revisit the world of Seed in a sequel, I’ll buy it.

Rating: 7 cups of nutrient powder.

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Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home by Malachy Tallack

Posted on June 28, 2016 by pagesofjulia

This broadly appealing travelogue combines carefully crafted writing with immersion in Northern lands and contemplation of the idea of home.

Print

Malachy Tallack comes to identify the northern Scottish archipelago of Shetland as home only after a long and troubled journey away and back again. In Sixty Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home, Tallack grapples with the concept of belonging to a place, while traveling around the world on a single parallel. “For just as we inhabit the landscape, the landscape inhabits us, in thought, in myth and in memory.” He opens with the evocatively titled chapter “Homegoing,” and wraps up, naturally, with “Homecoming.” The chapters in between might be characterized as home-seeking.

These titles serve as shorthand for a considerably more complicated story. Tallack was not born in Shetland, but a loss he suffered in his teens left him there, feeling stranded. Ever since, he has vacillated with the attraction of other places, of movement, and the comforting appeal of an idea of home. Sixty Degrees North describes his travels through Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia, which occupy the space of a year and thus document the North’s extreme seasons. This voyage is literally perambulatory, as Tallack compulsively walks, learning towns and cities by foot. In recalling an earlier time spent in Siberia, he studies his attraction to this place from a greater distance. He pursues home, even as he revolves around it.

While largely concerned with interior musings, Tallack makes a remarkable survey of cultures, climates and histories along the way. Ongoing themes include ties to nature and to community; the tension between isolation and engagement; stasis, movement and exile. His topics range over colonialism and native cultures, and the significance of peat, salmon and reindeer to indigenous peoples. He examines Scandinavia’s social and political systems, particularly in the Åland Islands, which belong officially to Finland but are politically independent and have a majority Swedish population. He touches on the science of climate change, the relative definition of “north” and the question of “denordification… as though by changing, by developing, by warming, the north can actually become less like itself.”

An introverted, quietly likable but troubled narrator, Tallack experiences no momentous events in the course of his travels, and even few conversations. His writing is thoughtfully composed, beautiful and often surprising, such as when he observes, “Loss shapes us like a sculptor, carving out our form, and we feel each nick of its blade.” Sixty Degrees North is not a book of action, but rather an extended meditation, on longing and belonging, on personal ties to place and on the particular nature of a certain band of earth and sea.

This review originally ran in the June 14, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 8 degrees (in two senses).

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Magnum Cycling by Guy Andrews

Posted on June 27, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Stunning photographs of bike racing across disciplines and decades, succinctly narrated, provide a compelling historical perspective.

magnum cycling

From Magnum Photos, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious photo agencies, comes a collection of historic and iconic images of bike racing. Arranged and with accompanying text by Guy Andrews, Magnum Cycling is visually stunning and insightful.

Chapters are organized by themes, times and places, and photographers. The photographs of Robert Capa and Harry Gruyaert each fill a whole chapter, focusing on the 1939 and 1982 Tours de France, respectively. Guy le Querrec’s work covers “winter and spring,” including cyclocross racing in Belgium and France, and the Renault-Elf pro team’s winter training program in 1985. Chapters also address the velodrome, including six-day racing and the Paralympics, and the spectacle of the spectators. Henri Cartier-Bresson and John Vink join an impressive list of featured photographers. Along the way, Andrews explores the history of the Tour de France, national differences in spectator traditions and the legacy of figures like Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon and Lance Armstrong. His tone combines awe with humor when he calls cyclocross “simply bonkers… akin, perhaps, to bull-running in Pamplona or cheese-rolling in Gloucestershire.”

The balance of text to photographs is perfect: Andrews’s narrative and captions inform and elucidate, and then get out of the way of the extraordinary images that are the heart of this beautiful book. More than 200 gorgeous, intimate photographs in black-and-white and vibrant color present a view of a sport that is adrenaline-filled, fast-paced and deeply, tenderly human. Magnum Cycling is a superior collection of art, history and emotion.

This review originally ran in the June 1, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 8 moments.

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The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard

Posted on June 23, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Careful research supports this story of a love affair between Hawthorne and Melville that birthed a classic.

the whale

In 1850, Herman Melville was in debt and struggling professionally, particularly with the novel-in-progress he was then calling The Whale. That summer, on a family trip to the Berkshires, he met the older, successful author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and began a relationship that would be passionate and painful, fraught and inspirational. Mark Beauregard explores the intimate friendship between these two literary legends in The Whale: A Love Story.

Based on primary sources including letters and journals, and meticulously researched, this novelization follows the historical record closely, as detailed in an epilogue. Hawthorne’s letters to Melville, lost to history, are re-created here using his other letters and journal entries; Melville’s letters to Hawthorne, however, are reprinted faithfully (with few, documented exceptions). Melville dives deeper into debt to move to the Berkshires and be near Hawthorne. As they discuss cerebral, spiritual and literary matters, grow close and suffer estrangements, Beauregard charts a full-blown love affair. In this telling, Moby-Dick is a labor of love and obsession directed not at a whale but at a man. Melville’s novel (which was dedicated to Hawthorne) continues to compel and confound readers today, and The Whale: A Love Story offers one possible explanation for its tortured mysteries.

In Beauregard’s fittingly emotive account, Melville is preoccupied and fervent, and Hawthorne is changeable, by turns sensitive and cool. Set against a literary community that helped define American letters of the time, this high-spirited story evokes a singular relationship and the complexity of Moby-Dick.

This review originally ran in the June 17, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish news.

Rating: 7 flashes of lightning.

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