Book Review: Sing You Home

This was my first Jodi Picoult novel. I recently watched a segment of an Ellen DeGeneres show where she interviewed Ms. Picoult and discussed this book.  The subject matter is dear to my heart so I took the bait.  I’m glad I did.  This was a thoroughly enjoyable read (and at times it provided a compelling excuse to avoid my translation work).

Picoult has a beautiful use of language and I enjoyed the rather female point of view she put on the page.

Rather than try and write my own review let me just say I recommend this book and have included below paraphrased excerpts of a March 15, 2011 review by Susan Salter Reynolds published in the Los Angeles Times.  I will also include it in my list of books available for lending at the Expat Lending Library.

Oh, and I should mention that the book comes with a CD that includes original tracks that reflect the mood and emotion of Zoe, the main character (and music therapist), as she winds her way through the story.  Cute touch. Music by Ellen Wilber; lyrics by Jodi Picoult; all songs are performed by Ellen Wilber.

Here are bits from the review:

Picoult is known for her ability to shed light on the issues affecting domestic life in America. She picks an issue — in the case of Sing You Home, same-sex couples and the emotional and legal issues surrounding fertility procedures — and explores it from several perspectives, including legal, medical, religious, political. She complicates already complicated dilemmas in her plots.

Picoult works hard to keep her characters from being straw men and women. The closer she gets to real life, real people, real problems, the better the novel. In a country as polarized as ours, for a Democrat as active as Picoult (who gives a lot of money to various causes and institutions) it's not always easy to make, say, the anti-abortion activist, the anti-gay-marriage minister or the school board bureaucrat banning books into sympathetic characters. But the writer must try. For without the insight into the motives and convictions of characters on both sides of an issue, the novel will fall flat.

When the novel opens, Zoe and Max have just had yet another miscarriage. The cost of in vitro fertilization has used up their savings (they are not wealthy), and the emotional strain of Zoe's determination and desire to force her body into motherhood has finally overwhelmed Max, who struggles with alcoholism and low self-esteem.

They divorce. Max goes to live with his wealthy brother Reid and sister-in-law Liddy, devout Christians and members of an evangelical church who are struggling with their inability to conceive. Max has a revelation one drunken night and joins the church. Zoe, a music therapist in schools and hospitals, falls in love with a guidance counselor at one of the schools — a woman named Vanessa.

Vanessa has been in the open about her sexuality since high school; Zoe has never had a sexual relationship with a woman. She just loves Vanessa. They marry but have to cross state lines (from Rhode Island to Massachusetts) to do so. When the subject of children comes up, Zoe remembers that there are three frozen embryos unspoken for in the wake of the divorce. She asks Max for permission to use them, but he's persuaded by his church's pastor (who, with his congregation, believes homosexuality to be a depraved lifestyle choice) to deny her request and offer the embryos to Reid and Liddy.

What a plot! Zoe, Max and Vanessa are thrown into decisions and situations for which they are utterly unprepared. Picoult's supporting characters — Zoe's New Age mother, a suicidal teenager Zoe treats each week, the church pastor and the lawyer who represents Zoe and Vanessa in the courtroom drama at the novel's end — are equally unforgettable, though we do not travel as far into their psyches as the author takes us into her main characters.

It's not the happy endings that keep her readers coming back, for she does not always provide them; it's the possibility that humans can be kind, even when they don't get exactly what they want.

I’m looking forward to reading Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper.

Book Review: Unbroken

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

This sort of book is not typically my cup of tea: lengthy (400 pages of text, 75 pages of notes), detailed and graphically horrifying biography of a WWII war hero. But I heard an interview with the author, perhaps on Fresh Air, and clicked over to Amazon.com and ordered a used copy from an associate seller.  I was not disappointed.

The story is of Louie Zamperini, a southern California juvenile delinquent turned track star that participated in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He was then later a member of the US air force in WWII, and subsequently shot down over the Pacific. He then survived adrift for over a month with a couple buddies in a rubber raft (complete with shark attacks) until he was caught by the Japanese forces and held as a POW.  After surviving more than two years of severe brutality in several POW camps Japan surrendered and Zamperini was freed.

Zamperini returns to California for the next chapter of his life, trying to emerge from the psychological wreckage created by his war experience.  He embarks on a long and heartbreaking journey to the bottom of the proverbial barrel, but then has a life changing experience that helps him climb back out.

Remarkably, later in life he manages to forgive his captors, including the one Japanese official who relentlessly targeted him with unspeakable and inhuman brutality.

Zamperini’s life, experiences, endurance, resilience and heroism is almost too incredible to be believed. This is a tale unlike most others.  It is well written and enthralling.

I will add it to my list of books at the Expat Lending Library online.  If you would like to check it out, just let me know.

Getting to Know Brazil - A Reading Tour

Regina over at Deep Brazil (“Way Beyond Carnival”) offered me an opportunity to guest post about books I’ve read that have helped me understand Brazil, its history, its people, culture and politics.

It was fun to sum up my reading experiences.  In the process I discovered I can be a bit heavy in my choices of reading materials. LOL! I admit I read some of those books before my current fiction binge began.

One of the books: “Dance Lest We All Fall Down” was sent to me a couple months ago by Danielle, via Fiona (when she still lived in Brazil). Very nice.

Go take a look at the post – and be sure to add your suggestions for what people should read before they come for a visit or decide to take the big plunge.

If you see a title you like, check and see if it is available for lending at our Expat Lending Library online (come join us and share your English language books!), or you can click on the book cover image to buy a copy from Amazon.com.

Happy reading.

Book review: World Without End

Few books make me pine for a Kindle or other e-reader.  I like the feel of a book in my hand and, frankly, the smell of print on the page.  But at 1,113 pages my hardcover edition of Ken Follett’s World Without End made my wrists tired just trying to hold it up.

World Without End is the sequel to Follett’s best selling The Pillars of the Earth.

It’s an easy read. I enjoyed revisiting the town of Kingsbridge (two hundred years later) and following the adventures of the descendents of the original characters.

Here are a couple paragraphs from a review originally published in The Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1327, in a forest outside the cathedral city of Kingsbridge, two men are killed and a potentially devastating letter is hidden. Its contents would turn England upside down.

In World Without End, Ken Follett makes us wait for more than 1000 pages before the letter's secret is confided. This is historical fiction-making in the grand manner, although the novel is composed in an essentially conventional mode. Follett's book begins two centuries after The Pillars of the Earth (in which the building of the cathedral was related). Since this chronicle of the later Middle Ages encompasses the most terrible European century before the 20th - with strife, dearth, pestilence, the Hundred Years War and the Black Death - a very large cast of characters is assembled, for their attrition rate is bound to be high.

I enjoyed it very much and recommend it.  I’ll put it on my list at the Virtual Expat Lending Library.  Let me know if you would like to read it.  

I’m looking forward to reading a thinner, lighter title in the weeks to come.

Expat lending library online – come join us

When I previously asked if folks were into trading books in English with each other I got a number of positive responses from bloggers in various parts of Brazil.

Danielle had the great idea to open a shared Google Doc where we could each contribute a list of the books we have to lend/give away so that we maintain a current list without having to mess with group emails, etc.  She has generously created a spreadsheet with some guidelines for listing your books.

You must be invited to view the Books for Expats! document, which is easy.  Just send me your email and I will add you.  Then you can go to the virtual lending library, enter your books and perhaps request a book or books from others.  Some book owners may want the book returned when you are finished with it, others may not.

You will also see an instructions document to get you started.

This is a work in progress so any and all ideas to improve it are welcome.

To visit the library – just send me your email.

Happy reading!

Books in English – let’s trade!

All this talk on others’ blogs about fancy schmancy Kindles and other e-readers has me coveting your plain old-fashion (and perhaps now-abandoned) paperbacks (or sweet hardcover) books!

Plus I know that obtaining good reading in English can be a pricey enterprise here in Brazil.  Planning ahead, I brought well over a hundred titles with me when we moved.  In the final weeks before we shipped our things I remember browsing independent bookstores for the THICKEST books, and then deciding if they sounded interesting to me.  Lots of books on my shelf have more than 800 pages to them.

I’m currently reading “World Without End” by Ken Follett; follow up to his “The Pillars of the Earth” Oprah selection success.  It weighs in at 1,113 pages in hardcover.  My wrists hurt!  It’s an easy read, but the volume itself makes it attractive.

So what do you think?  Want to trade books?

Tastes vary.  I have a lot of non-fiction, political stuff e.g. “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” – which is excellent, BTW. And some sociological takes on Brazil or historical fiction or biographies.  I also like human dramas, true adventure tales and many classics.

Others expats I have traded with enjoy murder mysteries, crime or courtroom novels, popular fiction and always a few classics.

If we were to trade I propose people post a list of what you have available and that those seeking to receive the books understand that they will pay for all shipping costs.

Before I comb through my shelves and type up a list, I thought I would send up a trial balloon and see if there is any interest in this idea.

Sound good?  Would you participate?  For logistical reasons I’m pretty much talking to folks who currently reside in Brazil.  Others could probably get the books locally for less than the shipping costs if we were to mail to the US or Europe, for example… right?  But books in English (beyond a few “airport novels”) are hard to come by and stupid expensive here (said airport novels can sell for R$22).

Let me hear from you all and we will take it from there.

And a special shout out to Musings’ Reader and GingerV at Flowers and More for your generosity sharing your books with me already.

What say ye expat bloggers?  Wanna trade? Whaddaya got?

Book Review: Every Man Dies Alone

It’s not exactly light summer reading, but for readers in the northern hemisphere, where you are moving into winter, you may want to curl up in a chair by the fireplace with this book.

Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada (2009, Melville House Publishing), is a recently published, never before translated work by a long-deceased successful German author who lived through the Nazi regime – even spending time in a Nazi insane asylum.

This is not a joyful book, but it is a terrific read. One blurb on the cover, written by holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi, reads: “The greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis.”

The publisher’s synopsis: “In a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis, the book tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple’s decision to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Third Reich, Otto and Anna Quangel launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has the Gestapo on their trail, and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in.

“In the end, Every Man Dies Alone is more than an edge-of-you-seat thriller, more than a moving romance, even more than literature of the highest order – it’s a deeply stirring story of two people standing up for what’s right, and for each other.”

I loved it. Let me know if you would like to borrow it.

Reading about Brazil and some good fiction

I typically read books in pairs. There is usually a nonfiction book on the table by my bed and during the time it takes me to read that one I zip through a couple of fiction books, some serious, some frivolous.

By coincidence I just finished both current titles this week. They are both worth mentioning.

The nonfiction work was “The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir,” by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The preface is written by his good friend President Bill Clinton.

This biography, published in 2006, was a candid and very enjoyable telling of not just President Cardoso’s political career but (more interesting to me) the historical transformations within Brazil over the past 30 years.

Quoting a flyleaf blurb: “In this most engaging and very personal history of twentieth-century Brazil, a genuine philosopher-king recounts how he combined principle and pragmatism to transform a harsh military dictatorship into a hopeful modern democracy. Readers with only a passing curiosity about Brazil will enjoy this rare ‘lessons learned’ memoir by one of the foremost statesmen of our times.”

I really liked it and would recommend it to others seeking to understand Brazil's history, political culture and social transformation.

The fiction title was “Snow Falling on Cedars,” by David Guterson. This 1994 novel, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, is written in a soft, ambient style while also laying out a detailed murder mystery in the context of a rural community steeped in cultural divides and prejudice.

The story takes place on the isolated island of San Piedro in north Puget Sound in the 1950s. A local white fisherman is found dead on his boat. A resident Japanese-American man is accused of the crime.

Storylines of childhood friendships, a close yet strained bi-racial community and harbored prejudice are illuminated by the impact of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of San Piedro’s residents of Japanese decent.

Some wounds don’t heal well. The novel explores if it is possible for the people of a place like San Piedro to overcome their history together, and if so, how.

It was a very dreamy, yet engaging read. 

If you would like to borrow either book, let me know.

More about the rain

There is a blog I enjoy, Murder Is Everywhere, put togther by a team of crime writers. Most of the blog posts make good reading, but I am especially drawn to those posted by itinerant author Leighton Gage, whose wife is Brazilian.

He recently posted a good description of Brazil's annual struggle with rain. Follow this link to see the photos and learn more.

I should add: the rains have, for the most part, ceased in our area.  We are back to mid-nineties temps!

Book Review

Among my favorite books are historical novels or histories set in Brazil. There are a few great ones out there, including “The War of the End of the World,” by Mario Vargas Llosa (a Peruvian writer who tells a riveting tale of a very famous standoff in the backlands of Brazil at the beginning of the Republic) and “Brazil,” by Errol Lincoln Uys which romps through more than 500 years of Brazil’s history in fluid storytelling fashion.



I just finished a terrific book that tells the tale of US President Theodore Roosevelt’s journey down an uncharted river in the Amazon in 1914: “The River of Doubt” by Candice Millard. It was published in 2005.



In this historical recounting Candice Millard, a former writer for the National Geographic Society, follows President Roosevelt from just after his failed run for the presidency as head of the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party), through his decision to explore a river in Brazil, and then most engrossingly along that harrowing and nearly fatal journey.



As reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle: “[Millard] writes with precision and perfect pacing, enriching her narrative with just the right amount of historical back-story and scientific content.”

I loved it and was sorry to finish it in just three days.

If there are any ex-pats here in Brazil who would like to trade/lend a book or two from your shelf for any of the titles I’ve mentioned, give me a shout. We could take our chances with the Brazilian postal service…