What are you reading the week of July 16, 2016?

Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.

Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Russian-born parents, Celia (Regelson) and William Ozick, proprietors of the Park View Pharmacy in the Pelham Bay neighborhood. As a girl, Ozick helped to deliver prescriptions. Growing up in the Bronx, she remembers stones thrown at her and being called a Christ-killer as she ran past the two churches in her neighborhood. In school she was publicly shamed for refusing to sing Christmas carols. She attended Hunter College High School in Manhattan. She earned her B.A. from New York University and went on to study at Ohio State University, where she completed an M.A. in English literature, focusing on the novels of Henry James.

Ozick is married to Bernard Hallote, a lawyer. Their daughter, Rachel Hallote, is an associate professor of history at SUNY Purchase and head of its Jewish studies program. Ozick is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson. She lives in Westchester County, New York.

Ozick's fiction and essays are often about Jewish American life, but she also writes about politics, history, and literary criticism. In addition, she has written and translated poetry. The Holocaust and its aftermath is also a dominant theme. Much of her work explores the disparaged self, the reconstruction of identity after immigration, trauma and movement from one class to another.

Ozick says that writing is not a choice but “a kind of hallucinatory madness. You will do it no matter what. You can’t not do it.” She sees the “freedom in the delectable sense of making things up” as coexisting with the “torment” of writing.

In 1971, Ozick received the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for her short story collection, The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories. In 1997, she received the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for Fame and Folly. Three of her stories won first prize in the O. Henry competition. In 1986, she was selected as the first winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story. In 2000, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Quarrel & Quandary. Her novel Heir to the Glimmering World (2004) (published as The Bear Boy in the United Kingdom) won high literary praise. Ozick was on the shortlist for the 2005 Man Booker International Prize, and in 2008 she was awarded the PEN/Nabokov Award and the PEN/Malamud Award, which was established by Bernard Malamud’s family to honor excellence in the art of the short story. Her novel Foreign Bodies was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (2012) and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize (2013).

The novelist David Foster Wallace called Ozick one of the greatest living American writers. She has been described as "the Athena of America’s literary pantheon," the "Emily Dickinson of the Bronx," and "one of the most accomplished and graceful literary stylists of her time."

• Trust (1966)


• The Cannibal Galaxy (1983)


• The Messiah of Stockholm (1987)


• The Puttermesser Papers (1997)


• Heir to the Glimmering World (2004) (published in the United Kingdom in 2005 as The Bear Boy)


• Foreign Bodies (2010)


• The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories (1971)


• Bloodshed and Three Novellas (1976)


• Levitation: Five Fictions (1982)


• Envy; or, Yiddish in America (1969)


• The Shawl (1989)


• Collected Stories (2007)


• Dictation: A Quartet (2008)

I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. It's not quite what I thought it was going to be. It sounded as if it was going to be a guidebook to philosophical reasoning. Instead it's more of a collection of essays about issues Daniel Dennett has worked on over his career. He does give names for the argumentation techniques he uses, but only in a cursory manner with no real guidance on when and how to use them. Nevertheless, it is an interesting book. His work has primarily focused on the problem of consciousness and free will, and that's always an interesting subject.

I finished my reread of Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday and now I'm reading Alan Furst's The Polish Officer.

Finished The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells. Mostly meh chick lit. Started Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth.

Wanted a little comedy this weekend, so I am reading They May Not Mean To, But They Do.

Reading 100 Years of Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor, 40 stories selected from annual Best American Short Stories. I read a few, read something else, then get back to it. Interesting the different styles and how they have evolved over 100 years.

I just finished Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic, a novel about Frida Kahlo's life. It was just ok. It bothered me that it was told randomly switching back and forth from third person to first person. It read a little too much like a biography, but had inaccuracies about her life.

Not sure what I'll read next...

Currently reading (Effective July 16)
IN TEXT - Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard
AUDIO in the car - The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Portable AUDIO - Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides

I'm reading Children of Earth and Sky. I'm not far into it yet, and I like the characters.

Reading Suzanne Berne's The Dogs of Littlefield.

Finished Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II by Vicki Constantine Croke. Loved this one.

Now reading The Garden of Letters, Alyson Richman, and
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, Ruth Rendell.

Finished Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth. Underwhelmed. I much prefer Agatha Christie. Started The Private Patient by P. D. James.

just finished Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith I loved it and thought it was the best of the series. Still confused by the ending, but eagerly await the next installment.

I gave up reading A God in Ruins one-third of the way in. I had quite liked the companion novel Life After Life (if overlong) but this time the same characters just got on my nerves. Now reading Fahrenheit 451 which is much more up my street.

Finished Homage to Catalonia.

I've just started Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time, my latest LTER selection. It is the author's retelling of The Winter's Tale for the Hogarth Shakespeare series and so far it is a lot more imaginative than the original.

Finished The Yoga of Max's Discontent. This got so many great reviews and yoga is a huge part of my life, but this book didn't do it for me. Way too mystical, too out-there for my taste. Too bad I spent way over a week on it.

Onto my recent ER win Valley of the Moon. I read a few pages and it seems promising so far.

Was seriously homesick so I added A Man Called Ove to my e-reader and that gave me all the comfort I needed. I love that book. It's my third reading of it, and I know there will be more.

I am reading Mildred Pierce and I think it's terrific. I read and greatly enjoyed The Postman Always Rings Twice a few years back, and have been meaning to read more of Cain's work.

Finished listening to Britt-Marie Was Here, a very good novel. Next up for listening is Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C. Morais.

I finished reading the marvelous As Good As Gone, in one rainy day read! Next up to read isSacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant.

Started Betty: The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I by Anne Wellman. Still reading The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower.

>19 JulieLill: In high school we did The Egg and I for our school play my senior year, and I played Betty. I hope you enjoy the book!

ahef1963 I just finished Ove and absolutely loved it. Such a great heartwarming but sad too story. Looking forward to Backmans other books.

Also reading A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams which I am enjoying. Next up A Casual Vacancy for book club.

Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich. A cross between The Godfather and Deliverance. Reading it for my book group.

Enjoying Valley of the Moon, a recent ER win. What a nice surprise from a book I probably would not have heard about.

#21 hi mommom. I loved A man Called Ove and recommend it to everyone. I've read his other books and they're equally wonderful

Finished Fahrenheit 451. It still packs a punch after all these years. Also reading The Man Who Was Private Widdle by Roger Lewis about the life of the 'Carry On' star Charles Hawtrey.

I finished Mildred Pierce, and am now trying to figure out what to read next. I have a Ruth Rendell novel on my reader, and there's also Canoeing the Congo by Phil Harwood that looks like an interesting read.

Thanks cdyankeefan! Looking forward to reading his other books.

# 27 hi mommom you're welcome!!

I finished the book, Delicious Foods which was a very difficult book due to the dreadful savagery portrayed but very well written and almost hopeful in the end.

Halfway through Only Time Will Tell by Jeffery Archer", the first novel of The Clifton Chronicle. I looked forward to reading this tale of an English family and so far it meets its promise.

Thank you for the start, Fred. Another author about whom I was woefully ignorant.

I'm listening to an excellent narration of A Little Life. I dithered over deciding to read it because so many people say it is depressing and filled with cruelty (and I get enough of that when I watch/read the news). And it is, unrelentingly so, but it is also a beautiful book and I'm glad I decided to take a chance.

Lunch in Paris – Elizabeth Bard
3.5***

Subtitle: A Love Story, With Recipes
When Bard was a graduate student in England (art history), she took a weekend trip to Paris, where she met and had lunch with a Frenchman. And the rest, as they say, is history.

This is a charming memoir where Bard explores the many differences between French and American culture. I did get a little tired of her whining about not knowing where she was going (career wise), but I loved her descriptions of the many meals she enjoyed – from simple brioche and coffee for breakfast to elaborate lamb dishes and the mouth-watering chocolate soufflé. As I read the recipes I found myself inspired, and thinking “I could make this.” (But I know I won’t.)

On the whole, an enjoyable, fast read.

Finished The Private Patient by P. D. James and started If at First... by Peter F. Hamilton.

I'm currently reading Independence Day by Richard Ford and I'm liking it. I read The Sportswriter last year and loved Ford's writing even though Frank Bascombe is an unlikable character. However, I believe that The Sportswriter is a tighter written novel than Independence Day. Good though. Will read The Lay of the Land.

>25 cappybear:

I read Fahrenheit 451 just after Bradbury died and liked it. I have never read a Ray Bradbury novel before then. Fahrenheit 451 is powerful and thought-provoking. Here's my review: https://kammbia1.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/book-review-21-ray-bradburys-fahrenhei...

Just finished Sound of Gravel the amazing memoir by Ruth Wariner about her life growing up in a polygamous community in Mexico. I could not put this book down. I generally avoid memoirs because they're sometimes too maudlin, but this one swept me along from page one.

Finished If at First... and started Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton.

The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith
3.5/5 stars

Robert Graysmith writes an intriguing true life story that centers around the movie Psycho, especially Marli Renfro, the body double for Janet Leigh in Psycho; Sonny Busch, the killer of elderly women in California in the 1960's and the changing morality of the country at that time including the rise of Playboy, the sex industry and gambling. This was hard to put down and my only complaint was that times he was a bit wordy but it was still worth reading.

Much Laughter, a Few Tears: Memoirs of a Woman's Friendship With Betty Macdonald and Her Family
by Blanche Caffiere
4/5 stars

I love Betty MacDonald, author of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and The Egg and I and have read a lot of her books years ago but now with the internet I have been able to find more books about her and this book was about her and her friendship with the author. I thought this book would be just so-so but I really enjoyed this book, it was well written and a fast read. This is not just about MacDonald, Caffiere talks about her life, her family and life in Washington State. It was also a peek to what life was like during and after the depression and before TVs and computers. This book was not readily available at a lot of libraries but thank goodness for inter-library loan-I got this from a state 1400 miles away but it is also available to buy online.

I finished my reread of Alan Furst's The Polish Officer -- one of my favorites by this author.

Now I'm going to begin The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

Thinking about reading The Hopefuls this weekend.

Heroines of Mercy Street by Pamela D. Toler
Companion book to the PBS series "Mercy Street" focusing on nursing during the Civil War. If you watched the show, the book provides historical background to the hospital work of the time.

A Killer Plot – Ellery Adams
3***

Oyster Bay, North Carolina used to be a well-kept secret, but since a national magazine rated it one of the best places to live / vacation, the population has swelled and economic growth has increased. Olivia Limoges has recently returned to Oyster Bay; wealthy, single and aloof, she owns a number of commercial buildings as well as her family homestead. A chance encounter with a group of writers, draws her out of her shell, but before she had establish herself with the group one of them is murdered.

This is a pretty interesting cozy mystery, featuring a group of aspiring authors who together try to solve the murder of one of their group. I like Olivia Limoges, though I was picturing her as much older (and eventually figured out she’s probably in her mid-30s, or perhaps early-40s). I like that her faithful dog – a standard poodle named Captain Haviland – is a DOG, not a character who helps solve the crime (though his ability to track does come into play). I also like that Olivia and her friends do not take unnecessary chances; they are curious and do meddle (wouldn’t be much of a cozy mystery without SOME intervention by the amateur sleuths), but they seem to know when to back away and let Police Chief Sawyer Rawlings step in.

I thought Adams did a good job of setting the scene. I really got the sense of a small sea-side community that relies on tourist trade in season, fishing year-round, and is struggling with issues of new-found wealth and investment. As is typical of most cozies, there’s a pretty large cast of supporting players, not a few of whom are pretty colorful (a roller-skating dwarf waitress, for example) I found a few of the relationships stretched credulity, but not enough to mar the fun.

Adams includes several interludes where the writers’ group members share chapters from the books they are working on. Well … I could have done without those. The reveal seemed abrupt and it happened a good 50 pages before the book ended, which made me wonder if there wasn’t another twist coming up. That kind of extra padding really isn’t necessary.

Still, it held my attention, it had a good pace and I enjoyed trying to figure out who-done-it. I’ll definitely read another in the series.

The new thread is up over here.

The Little Paris Bookshop– Nina George
Book on CD performed by Steve West and Emma Bering, with Cassandra Campbell.
3***

From the Book Jacket A warm and charming tale of love, loss, and the power of reading. Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

My Reactions
I really wanted to love this book. Several people whose opinions I trust have recommended it, even raved about it. And there’s much here to like. It’s Paris. It’s a romance. It’s about reading. There are recipes at the end. I love the idea of a “literary apothecary.” I loved the many characters (save one) and their interactions and adventures. But …

The only thing I couldn’t reconcile was Manon – Perdu’s great, lost love. And ultimately, this was a significant flaw in the novel. I never understood why she acted as she did. Never understood how she could claim to love so deeply and yet behave as she did. She is such an important part of this book, and yet I feel that I don’t really know her, and never cared about her. At one point George describes Manon as: “She drank from life as if it were champagne and faced it in the same spirit: she knew that life is special.” I’m glad she told me this, because it helps to explain why Perdu acted as he did; but I didn’t really believe it because George never SHOWED me this Manon.

Maybe it’s a French /American disconnect (or German/American disconnect, as George is German). But whatever the cause, I’m left feeling a little disappointed. Although I did appreciate the “literary prescriptions” at the end, matching a variety of book to “what ails you.”

I should also comment that the book does move back and forth in time, as experiences Perdu has throughout the course of his journey bring up various memories of his time with Manon.

Steve West and Emma Bering (or is it Cassandra Campbell – I couldn’t tell) – do a fine job performing the audio version. Having the female voice for those sections narrated by Manon provided a necessary clue to change in perspective, time and/or place. I almost felt as if I were on the barge with them, navigating the rivers and canals of Southern France. However, the audio does not include the recipes or “literary prescriptions” found at the end of the text version.