kidzdoc's 11 in 11

I've been clandestinely participating in a personal 1010 challenge (hmm, is it too late to create a new thread there?), and thought I would openly post my 11 in 11 challenge here.

Here are my proposed categories, subject to change. I have hundreds of unread books at home that I'm eager to tackle, so I'll preferentially read those books first.

1. Read a book I already own by 11 different Nobel Prize laureates
2. Read a New York Review Books book that I already own
3. Read a classic American novel that I already own
4. Read a Booker Prize winner that I already own
5. Read a novel by an African-American author that I aleady own
6. Read a novel from the 2011 Booker Prize longlist (or from longlists of previous years)
7. Read a novel from the 2011 Orange Prize longlist (or from longlists of previous years)
8. Read a medicine or science book that I already own
9. Read a biography or autobiography that I already own
10. Read a book published by Archipelago Books in 2009-2011
11. Read a novel by a public intellectual that I already own

A. Read a book I already own by 11 different Nobel Prize laureates

     1. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago (review)

Possibilities:

Mario Vargas Llosa (2010):Who Killed Palomino Molero?
Herta Müller (2009): Land of Green Plums
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (2008): The Prospector; Wandering Star
Orhan Pamuk (2006): Snow; The Museum of Innocence; My Name Is Red
J.M. Coetzee (2003): Dusklands
V.S. Naipaul (2001): The Loss of El Dorado; A House for Mr Biswas (re-read); The Enigma of Arrival
Gao Xingjian (2000): Soul Mountain; One Man's Bible
Kenzaburo Oe (1994): The Changeling
Toni Morrison (1993): Jazz (I'm pretty sure I have this, although it isn't in my LT library)
Derek Walcott (1992): White Egrets
Nadine Gordimer (1991): Telling Tales; The Conservationist
Octavio Paz (1990): The Labyrinth of Solitude
Wole Soyinka (1986): Ake: The Years of Childhood
Gabriel García Márquez (1982): One Hundred Years of Solitude (I've never read this, although I've owned it for at least 20 years)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978): Collected Stories, Volume 1
Saul Bellow (1976): The Adventures of Augie March
Patrick White (1973): The Vivisector
Pablo Neruda (1971): Canto General; The Essential Neruda; The Captain's Verses
Yasunari Kawabata (1968): Beauty and Sadness
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967): The President
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964): The Words; The Aftermath of War; Nausea; Colonialism and Neocolonialism
Albert Camus (1957): The Fall; The Myth of Sisyphus; Exile and the Kingdom; Resistance, Rebellion and Death; Camus at "Combat"; etc.
Halldór Laxness (1955): Independent People
Ernest Hemingway (1954): A Moveable Feast; The Sun Also Rises; A Farewell to Arms; etc.
William Faulkner (1949): The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom!; Sartoris; etc.
Gabriela Mistral (1945): Madwomen
Knut Hamson (1920): Hunger

2. Read a New York Review Books book that I already own

Possibilities:

The Singapore Grip by J.G. Farrell
Memed, My Hawk by Yashar Kemal
They Burn the Thistles by Yashar Kemal
English, August: An Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee
Paris and Elsewhere by Richard Cobb
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Pedigree by Georges Simenon
An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
The Inferno of Dante Alighieri
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
Boredom by Alberto Moravia
Classic Crimes by William Roughead
As a Man Grows Older by Italo Svevo
Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
On the Yard by Malcolm Braly
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual by Harold Cruse
All About H. Hatterr by G.V. Desani
The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon

3. Read a classic American novel that I already own

Possibilities:

American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Light in August by William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

4. Read a Booker Prize winner that I already own

Possibilities:

Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby (1969)
The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (1970)
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (1974)
Staying On by Paul Scott (1977)
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (1978)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (1985)
The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000)
The Sea by John Banville (2005)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (2006)

5. Read a novel by an African-American author that I aleady own

A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid by Percival Everett
Wounded by Percival Everett
Them: A Novel by Nathan McCall
Three Days Before the Shooting... by Ralph Ellison
Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
The Fisher King by Paule Marshall
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead
Native Son by Richard Wright
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Some Other People, Some Other Place by J. California Cooper

6. Read a novel from the 2011 Booker Prize longlist (or from longlists of previous years that I already own)

Possibilities (previous years):

Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
Dogside Story by Patricia Grace
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
The Accidental by Ali Smith
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

7. Read a novel from the 2011 Orange Prize longlist (or from longlists of previous years)

Possibilities (previous years):

The Translator by Leila Aboulela
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Accidental by Ali Smith
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
The Outcast by Sadie Jones
The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
Intuition by Allegra Goodman
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

8. Read a medicine or science book that I already own

Possibilities:

The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-1782 by Elizabeth A. Fenn
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad Doctors and Raving Lunatics by Roy Porter
Flesh in the Age of Reason by Roy Porter
The Politics of Medicaid by Laura Katz Olson
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through Africa's AIDS Epidemic by Jonny Steinberg
When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman
The 21st Century Health Care Leader by Roderick W. Gilkey
A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care by Arnold Relman

9. Read a biography or autobiography that I already own

Possiblities:

Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
Borges: A Life by Edwin Williamson
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century by Bernard Henri-Lévy
My Life by Bill Clinton
A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Carl Bernstein
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Out of Place by Edward Said
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss
Picasso: A Biography by Patrick O'Brian

10. Read a book published by Archipelago Books in 2009-2011

Possibilities:

The Chukchi Bible by Yuri Rytkheu (Feb 2011)
In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish (May 2011)
Prose from the Observatory by Julio Cortázar (Jun 2011)
In Red by Magdalena Tulli (Jul 2011)
Selected Poems by Cyprian Norwid (Jul 2011)
Mama Leone by Miljenko Jergovic (Nov 2011)
Harlequin's Millions by Bohumil Hrabal (Dec 2011)
Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist (Dec 2009)
A Time for Everything by Karl O. Knausgaard (Nov 2009)
Intimate Stranger by Breyten Breytenbach (Aug 2009)
A River Dies of Thirst: Journals by Mahmoud Darwish (Aug 2009)
The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval (Aug 2009)
Mouroir by Breyten Breytenbach (Mar 2009)
Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish by Breyten Breytenbach (Mar 2009)
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (Jan 2009)

11. Read a novel by a public intellectual that I already own (from the 2008 Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll)

Other Colors by Orhan Pamuk
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim by Mahmood Mamdani
The Common Good by Noam Chomsky
Acts of Aggression: Policing "Rogue" States by Noam Chomsky
Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen
The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen
The Language of Passion by Mario Vargas Llosa
Wellsprings by Mario Vargas Llosa
Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt
The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West by Niall Ferguson
The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah
In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents by Ian Buruma

Awesome! It is great to see you here joining the fun! You have some great books listed so far as possibilities so be prepared for some thread stalking in 2011 ;-)

Thanks, Lori! I'm looking forward to following your thread and the others in this group.

It's always good to get a new face in the challenge. Feel free to post in the 1010 as far as I'm concerned. Everyone is welcome regardless of when they join and I think we're all pretty much a friendly bunch so doubt anyone would object.

#16: Thanks for the invitation, AHS-Wolfy; I'll create a thread there later this week.

Welcome, I can see you are really planning on reducing your TBR piles - all the more room for new books! You've got some fantastic books lined up for next year.

11 in 11 will be my first year too - you have some great books mentioned there :)

Have taken special note of An African in Greenland

Welcome! I'll be interested in lots of your choices, not least the Kleist book in category 10. I love Kleist's plays (even thuogh he is very seldom staged here in Sweden), but have never read his prose.

Edited:It's "Welcome", not "Welocm"...

#18-20: Thanks for the welcome!

I've finished entering possible books for each category; there are some duplicates, which I won't count in multiple categories, and I'm sure that there are books I own that will be added later on (and many others that will be deleted).

Welcome to the challenge. Your potential books look great! I've heard of Wounded and I may add it to one of my challenge possibilities by virtue of your reminders. ^_^ Looking forward to see what you read (and, hopefully, think of it!)

Great categories and lots of good choices.

I like your categories!! And, I too am trying to reduce my Mt. TBR, so I hope we're both successful!! :)

Hi Darryl: Glad to hear you're joining the category challenge for next year.

I don't read a lot of literary fiction but will be following along with your biographies and your medicine/science books.

Good luck and have fun with it!!

You have some great possibilities line up! Let me know if you decide to tackle 100 Years of Solitude--I may join you in a buddy read.

Thanks, Joyce; will do.

Yay! Good to see you here. I'm avoiding this forum until the new year, but I'll be eager to see what you've chosen then. The public intellectual category is intriguing.

Wow, what an amazing list of books you have for possible reads, Darryl. My 11 in 11 challenge is going to look like childs play compared to yours. If you don't mind, I'd like to join you and Joyce in 100 Years of Solitude if you decide to read it. It's been a long time tenant on my TBR shelf and I'd love to set such a wonderful author free for someone else to enjoy.

That sounds good, Lynda. Do you or Joyce have any idea when you'd like to read it?

#30 - maybe in spring? I have Nicholas Nickleby lined up for January-February, and it might even take me into March, but I should be clear after that. Summer is fine too.

Spring or summer would work best for me, too.

Marquez always seems to go well with summer, but anytime after March would work for me. Let me know what you decide.

Maybe a group read? I suspect there are several of us with it sitting unread (or unread for a long time) on our shelves.

If you do decide on a group read, I might join you: I struggled so much with Love in the Time of Cholera (I gave up but will try again at some point) that it's been putting me off taking One Hundred Years of Solitude out of the TBR; reading it in company might get me through it.

A summer group read sounds good to me; how about July?

Found One Hundred Years of Solitude on my bookshelf - Ridgeway Girl, how did you know? ;-)
A group read is a great idea. I would love to join in as well.

Wow, my TBR pilke looks really small now.

DS
(Bruce's evil twin :-))

#36 July sounds perfect to me, Darryl!

Just popping in to say I'm glad you're here! (I'm not posting much on this group yet until January.)

Hi Terri! I won't post much, if anything, here until the end of December, as I'll be busy finishing my 1010 challenge and other book projects.

I'm impressed that you plan to take the entire challenge from books you already own!

You should post about the plans to read One Hundred Years of Solitude on the group reads thread. I'll bet there are a lot of people who'd be interested in reading that book.

Oh - One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the books on my shelves that I will never get to unless motivated by a group read. If you do plan one, I will join in!

Hi Darryl - I too am planning to participate in the 11/11 challenge - after a hiatus (I think it was 08 in 08 that I tried, and failed, to do). Just looking around the threads for tips, and I really like the way you have specified 'that I already own'. I will definitely be "borrowing" that for my own thread. Good luck with your challenge!

I read 100 Years of Solitude last year and have to say it took a bit of dedication to get through.

Hm, interesting. I read it many years ago and remember it as quite breezy - once you got your head around everybody having the same names...

Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox by Gareth Williams



2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist
Challenge #8: Read a medicine or science book that I already own

My rating:

Smallpox was successfully eliminated from the human population in 1979, due to — and in spite of — the efforts of physicians, scientists, public officials and private citizens over the past four centuries to rid mankind of one of its greatest killers. The variola virus now exists only in two research centers in the United States and Russia, and it is guarded with the utmost security, as smallpox remains an untreatable and often fatal infection, ready to unleash a reign of terror if it were ever to fall into the wrong hands.

Gareth Williams, a professor of medicine at the University of Bristol, expertly and interestingly describes the history of smallpox from antiquity, when its telltale scars were found on Egyptian mummies, to the present day, where its legacy is most notable for the current anti-vaccination movement, particularly in the UK and United States.

The story of smallpox is intimately linked with the story of Western civilization and medicine. Its introduction to immunologically naïve native civilizations throughout the Americas decimated their populations and destroyed their cultures, permitting their easy conquest by colonialists. The “discovery” of vaccination by Edward Jenner — which is widely attributed to him but was practiced throughout the world for many years — saved millions of lives since its introduction, and led to the development of vaccines against other deadly pathogens. The study of smallpox was instrumental to the future understanding of microbes as the causative factor of many diseases such as tuberculosis, and the manner in which viruses infect human cells and convert them into virus making factories.

Despite his faults, Jenner, a marginally competent clinician and scientist, can rightfully be credited with introducing vaccination to Western medicine. He had many detractors, and fought throughout his life against those who insisted that vaccination was unnatural, ungodly and dangerous. His unyielding insistence that variola vaccination was safe and provided lifetime protection blinded him and his supporters from the cases of smallpox that occurred in previously vaccinated individuals. That, combined with resistance to compulsory vaccination and the draconian measures used to enforce vaccination laws, led to the birth of the anti-vaccination movement, which attracted those with concerns about the safety and efficacy of the smallpox vaccine, along with opportunistic practitioners who sought to make money on unproven methods of prevention and treatment of smallpox, religious conservatives and natural healers who believed that vaccination was immoral and in opposition to God’s laws, and civil libertarians that opposed it as a violation of their freedom and right to choose.

The main effect of the bitter war between the vaccinationists and anti-vaccinationists was opposition to vaccination, which costs the lives of thousands of children in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the perpetuation of the technique of variolation, in which pus from smallpox lesions was introduced into the skin of uninfected individuals to produce a local infection that was often less severe than the usual disease. Unfortunately many individuals did contract full blown smallpox and died as a result, and those who were not variolated and not previously infected often acquired smallpox from those who underwent this treatment. The anti-vaccination movement grew steadily from the time of Jenner, and continues to exist in the present day West, as current believers continue to use arguments from the 19th century to bolster their case.

Angel of Death is an excellent addition to the history of medicine, which is well researched and written, one that would have broad appeal to clinicians, scientists, and anyone else interested in this deadly disease and the birth of the anti-vaccination movement.

Wow. That's a great review.

kdoc, informative, interesting review. I still find Cotton Mather's role in smallpox inoculation ironic considering his father's (Increase) view that smallpox was a tool of God allowing for the settlement of America.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore



2010 Orange Prize shortlist
Challenge #7: Read a novel from the 2011 Orange Prize longlist (or from longlists of previous years)

My rating:

Tassie Keltjin is a 20 year old student at a major university in Troy, a moderately sized and liberal Midwestern city, who answers an ad placed by a couple who seeks to adopt a child. She is the half Jewish daughter of farmers in a small town, somewhat naïve and quirky, and is entranced by her employers, an owner of a French restaurant who is also half Jewish and even quirkier than Tassie, and her husband, a biomedical researcher who is not associated with the university. The couple adopt a biracial child who soon becomes the focus of a relatively benign racial attack by a local youth, which triggers a response by those in the community who are horrified that such a thing could take place in Troy, "the Athens of the Midwest".

Tassie continues her studies and her job as a part-time nanny for the child, falls in love with a mysterious student, and engages with her troubled family and even more troubled roommate. At the same time the adoptive couple faces their own issues, especially a past incident that comes to light after the adoption is approved.

I found A Gate at the Stairs to be a frustrating, maddening, and intensely distasteful novel, as Moore attempted to do too much with this novel, and I found its characters, especially the adoptive couple, to be either despicable, overly quirky, or inscrutable. Was this supposed to be a novel about post-9/11 America? One about racism, or multiculturalism, or the contrast between the rural towns and university cities in the Midwest? Maybe it's supposed to be a coming of age novel? A love story, perhaps? It was ultimately none of these things, as it handled these topics in a most superficial and demeaning manner. Avoid this book like the plague.

Your start with this challenge seems to me the very definition of "hit and miss". Great reviews, both!

Intrigued by your mention of the Wellcome Trust book prize! Just been off looking at the other shortlisted books - it's an interesting collection. Did you visit the Wellcome Foundation when you were in London? There is a very nice bookshop (run by Blackwells) next to the cafe, which has an unusual selection of books and is always worth a browse.

#52: Yes, I did go to the Wellcome Collection when I visited London in 2009, and bought two books by Roy Porter from the bookshop there, Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine, which I enjoyed, and Madmen, which I'll read later this year.

I've read two other books from last year's Wellcome Trust Book Prize shortlist, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which won the award, and Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson, a novel about a severely physically disabled but intellectually normal girl in 1950's Britain that was based on the life of the author's older sister (which I plan to review for an upcoming issue of Belletrista). I'm planning to read at least one of the remaining three books, So Much for That by Lionel Shriver. I also have several books from the 2009 shortlist on my TBR list, and I'd like to read most of them this year.

#50 Great review of A Gate at the Stairs. I can't tell you how many times I've picked that one up at a bookstore and put it down again. I've heard so many different opinions of it, but yours may have sealed it for me. I don't tend to enjoy books where the author throws everything in just to prove s/he can, and your comment that Moore tried to do too much with the book makes me think it might not be for me.

Hi, Darryl! You've started the year with two great reviews!

Oy, hit by a Book Bullet already! *grumbles while adding Angel of Death to wishlist* See you around the readathon thread in a few hours!

Book #3: The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt



My rating: (12.0/5.0)

Tony Judt (1948-2010), one of the 21st century's leading public intellectuals, was born in postwar London to Jewish parents, educated at Cambridge and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and taught at several universities, most notably Cambridge, UC Berkeley and NYU. He wrote several acclaimed books on 20th century European history, including Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century and Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956, and was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Republic and The London Review of Books.

In 2008 Judt was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disorder that progressively robs the sufferer of his bodily function while allowing his mind to remain intact. Judt first wrote about his condition in a poignant and unforgettable essay in The New York Review of Books entitled Night, which he dictated to an assistant while he was still able to speak:

In effect, ALS constitutes progressive imprisonment without parole. First you lose the use of a digit or two; then a limb; then and almost inevitably, all four. The muscles of the torso decline into near torpor, a practical problem from the digestive point of view but also life-threatening, in that breathing becomes at first difficult and eventually impossible without external assistance in the form of a tube-and-pump apparatus. In the more extreme variants of the disease, associated with dysfunction of the upper motor neurons (the rest of the body is driven by the so-called lower motor neurons), swallowing, speaking, and even controlling the jaw and head become impossible. I do not (yet) suffer from this aspect of the disease, or else I could not dictate this text.

By my present stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. With extraordinary effort I can move my right hand a little and can adduct my left arm some six inches across my chest. My legs, although they will lock when upright long enough to allow a nurse to transfer me from one chair to another, cannot bear my weight and only one of them has any autonomous movement left in it. Thus when legs or arms are set in a given position, there they remain until someone moves them for me. The same is true of my torso, with the result that backache from inertia and pressure is a chronic irritation. Having no use of my arms, I cannot scratch an itch, adjust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth, or anything else that—as a moment’s reflection will confirm—we all do dozens of times a day. To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers (and anyone else).

During the day I can at least request a scratch, an adjustment, a drink, or simply a gratuitous re-placement of my limbs—since enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically uncomfortable but psychologically close to intolerable. It is not as though you lose the desire to stretch, to bend, to stand or lie or run or even exercise. But when the urge comes over you there is nothing—nothing—that you can do except seek some tiny substitute or else find a way to suppress the thought and the accompanying muscle memory.

But then comes the night. I leave bedtime until the last possible moment compatible with my nurse’s need for sleep. Once I have been “prepared” for bed I am rolled into the bedroom in the wheelchair where I have spent the past eighteen hours. With some difficulty (despite my reduced height, mass, and bulk I am still a substantial dead weight for even a strong man to shift) I am maneuvered onto my cot. I am sat upright at an angle of some 110° and wedged into place with folded towels and pillows, my left leg in particular turned out ballet-like to compensate for its propensity to collapse inward. This process requires considerable concentration. If I allow a stray limb to be misplaced, or fail to insist on having my midriff carefully aligned with legs and head, I shall suffer the agonies of the damned later in the night.

Despite his illness, Judt continued to dictate essays for The New York Review of Books, which comprise most of The Memory Chalet. He describes his life in a touching and engaging fashion, starting with his early childhood in London; his experience living in a kibbutz in Israel and how it affected his view of Israel, Zionism and what it meant to him to be Jewish; his college years in Cambridge and Paris; and his life in the United States, including his explanation of why he preferred to teach at American universities and to live in New York City. Other essays describe his great love of travel by train, the problem of sexual harassment in the university setting, 1968 and the failure of student revolutionaries to force meaningful change in Paris and elsewhere, and Jewish identity in the 21st century.

Judt died in August 2010. However, his NYRB essays, including most of those in The Memory Chalet, are available to all without subscription on the Review's web site, at http://www.nybooks.com/search/?q=tony+judt&origin=magazine. I cannot adequately put into words how much I enjoyed this book, and, similar to an intimate conversation with a dear friend, it is one that I will revisit repeatedly over the years.

Book #4: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago



My review:

In this captivating and intriguing novel, Saramago portrays Christ as an Everyman, an imperfect but deeply sensitive man plagued by doubt, insecurity, and passionate feelings toward and opinions about others, particularly Joseph and Mary Magdalene. It begins with the story of Joseph, a loving husband and good provider, and his young wife Mary, in the days leading up to Jesus' birth in a cave at the edge of Bethlehem. Soon afterward, Joseph overhears a group of soldiers discussing King Herod's premonition about the recent birth of the future King of the Jews, and his plan to kill all male children under three years of age. Joseph chooses to flee with his wife and young son, and his failure to warn the villagers of the plan results in the Massacre of the Innocents, an event that will plague Joseph the rest of his life and have a great impact upon the young Jesus after his father's death.

After Jesus learns of his death he undertakes a journey to escape his father's crime and to determine what his legacy is meant to be. He falls under the wing of a mysterious Shepherd, who seemingly knows a lot about Christ's past and future without being a Jew or a man of God. Jesus later encounters God in the desert, and there he learns about God's plan for him.

The most surprising and controversial aspects of the novel follow, as Christ engages in a relationship with Mary Magdalene after she treats and dresses his infected foot, and becomes conflicted with God's plan to instill Christianity throughout the world, which will result in the death and suffering of millions of believers and opponents.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ left me stunned and agape at several points, and I can certainly understand why it engendered such strong opposition, particularly by the Roman Catholic Church. However, I'm glad I read it, and I did find it to be most enjoyable and unforgettable.

Book #5: The Tenant and The Motive by Javier Cercas



My rating:

The Tenant and The Motive are two light yet darkly humorous novellas by one of Spain's leading contemporary authors, who is best known for his novel Soldiers of Salamis, the winner of the 2004 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. In the first novella, a university professor of linguistics experiences a Kafkaesque turn of events after an ankle sprain, as a renowned (but unknown to him) fellow linguistics professor moves in next door to him, takes over his office and classes, and steals his girlfriend while he remains powerless to change his fate. In The Motive, a part-time lawyer and budding writer envisions a novel in which a young couple in financial straits murders an elderly man for his hidden money, but he has trouble putting voices to the characters. The writer befriends a couple and an old man who live in the same building as he, and, in a reversal of the concept of "life becomes art", he injects himself and alters their three lives, using taped conversations to write his story. These novellas were a joy to read, and I'll be looking for more of Cercas' works in the near future.

Your reading year is getting off to a great start. Not a bad one yet. If this continues, how will you narrow things down to a year's end "best of"?

I did have one bad one, A Gate at the Stairs, but you're right, it may be difficult to narrow it down to a quarterly or yearly "best of". The Memory Chalet will make the list for sure, and Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox has a good chance of making a "best of 1st quarter" list. I doubt that the others will, not because they weren't exceptional, but because I'm planning to read a lot of books that I've eager to read for a year or more, such as The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa, Invisible Man (amazingly I've never finished it!) and Lolita and/or Speak, Memory by Nabokov.

The Memory Chalet sounds fantastic. Thank you so much for your great review.

Book #6: Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa



My rating:

Palomino Molero is a young airman in the Peruvian Air Force who is found brutally murdered near his base by a goatherd. The local Guardia Civil is notified, and Lieutenant Silva and Officer Lituma undertake an investigation. The pair soon find out that Palomino left the base several days before his murder, and suspect that his killers will be found there. The commanding officer, Colonel Mindreau, a haughty white officer, condescendingly tells the pair (who are cholos, like the murdered airman) that he has investigated the case and concluded that no one on the base knows anything about the crime. The lieutenant is far from convinced, however, particularly when the colonel becomes enraged and flustered after he is questioned further. The officers are hampered by their inability to interview anyone on the base by the colonel, until an anonymous tip points them in the right direction.

Who Killed Palomino Molero? is a mystery set in mid-20th century Peru, which lightly touches on class and racial differences, corruption, and power. It does not have the complexity or power of Vargas Llosa's better known novels, such as The Time of the Hero or The Conversation in the Cathedral, but it was still an enjoyable read.

Great reviews Darryl! The Memory Chalet sounds fascinating and thank you, thank you for the review of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ - another Saramago book that I can look forward to reading!

Book #7: An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie



My rating:

This unique and highly entertaining travelogue begins in the west African country of Togo in the late 1950s, as the teenage author recuperates from a near fatal illness. Kpomassie, an avid reader, is enthralled by a book that he discovers at the town's evangelical bookshop, The Eskimos from Greenland to Alaska, with its descriptions of vast territory devoid of trees, eternal cold, hunters clothed in animal skins, and a society that valued the child above all else, which contrasted sharply with Togo's elder dominated society and its numerous tropical forests, blistering hot beaches, and dangerous snakes. He soon decides that his destiny is to travel to Greenland, instead of fulfilling his father's promise to entrust him to the healers that saved his life.

Kpomassie slowly makes his way to Greenland via the countries on the west African coast, France, Germany and Denmark, aided by relatives and benefactors who are impressed with and fond of the soft spoken but determined young man. He finally arrives in the southern Greenlandic town of Julianehåb, eight years after he left Togo, and is warmly welcomed by the town's Inuit and Danish inhabitants, who are entranced by the gentle black giant.

Kpomassie's descriptions of the different cultures in Greenland, the people he meets, and the unique if not exactly palatable cuisine are entertaining, often warm and humorous, and always evocative and pointedly descriptive. He becomes disenchanted with the culture of southern Greenland, and slowly travels to the even more isolated northern regions, in order to seek the true Inuit people that he read and dreamed about.

An African in Greenland is an improbable and unforgettable work of travel literature, which is easily my favorite in this genre. I suppose that my ultimate compliment is that it made me eager to accompany Kpomassie to Greenland, despite its brutal climate and horrid cuisine.

That's a true travelogue? That sounds like a great book. Thanks much for sharing it.

Yes, this is a true story; the book includes eight pages of photos taken in Greenland by the author, or someone else photographing him. It's a New York Review Books Classic, which was originally written in 1981 and reissued by NYRB in 2001.

Good to hear that the Greenland book is so good. It's been on my wishlist for a while but I haven't run into a copy yet.

An excellent review, Darryl! A thumb from me, and yet another addition to my enormous wishlist. :)

Book #8: The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens



My rating:

This Booker Prize winning novel about a close-knit but dysfunctional Jewish family is set in the East End of London in the 1960s. Norman Zweck, the golden son of a rabbi and his late wife, whose promising career as a barrister has been derailed by drug use and mental illness brought on by his mother's incessant demands and his personal failings, is slowly becoming unhinged — again. He spends his days in his parents' old bedroom, locked away from his father and younger sister, popping amphetamine pills in a futile attempt to keep his demons at bay. His father and younger unmarried sister Bella, who deeply love Norman but fear his ever more worrisome outbursts, work together to place him in a mental institution, in a last ditch effort to get him back to his old self.

As he recuperates in the institution, the three members of the family, and Norman's estranged sister Esther, reflect on how they reached this critical point. Past actions, indiscretions, and tragic decisions haunt each of them, but none more than Norman. The Zuckers attempt to reconcile their differences once and for all, as Norman descends further into madness and as his father's health begins to fail.

The Elected Member was a enjoyable read, filled with humor despite its tragic elements, and hope in the face of despair and crisis.

Book #10: Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Himes



My rating:

Harlem, a summer in the late 1960s: temperatures are sweltering, and its residents are becoming more agitated and tense, fueled by a series of protests and violent murders that threaten to tear the neighborhood's fragile structure apart. Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, two of NYC's finest detectives, are called upon to solve these crimes and help restore order. The two encounter a variety of odd and unsavory characters, including a preacher who claims to be 100 years old and the father of innumerable children by the "nuns" who share a squalid flat with him, and an inscrutable gay counterman at a restaurant on 125th Street who knows far more than he will admit to. Despite their efforts, the tension and violence progressively escalate, as former allies become hated enemies.

The title of this book refers to Himes' comment about unorganized violence in the black community, fueled by community leaders that urged black men to act, often recklessly. I found this novel to be disjointed and difficult to follow, which made for an unpleasant read. I understand that his earlier novels are better than this one, particularly If He Hollers Let Him Go, so I'll try Himes again in the near future.

>70 kidzdoc:: glad to see you enjoyed The Elected Member, Darryl. I was pleasantly surprised by it.

The Elected Member sounds interesting, Darryl!

Catching up on your thread! @65 I remember reading about that book a long time ago, but I had completely forgotten about it. Thank you for a great review and a great reminder!

If He Hollers Let Him Go remains on my wishlist, but I'll wait for that book rather than picking up anything by Himes.

@71 Thats a shame, I thought the 1st one in the series Cotton Comes to Harlem was alright. Although as you said If He Hollers Let Him Go was much better; a brilliant, powerful & angry novel.

I have his autobiographical Yesterday Will Make you Cry to read too, I am expecting brilliant things from it.

An African in Greenland sounds wonderful - on to the wishlist it goes. Thanks for the review.