song sung blue

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway 2008 (235 pgs)

During the siege of Sarajevo, a man watches from his window as 22 of his friends and neighbors are killed by a single shell while waiting in line for bread. He quietly puts on his tux, picks up his cello, and plays in the wreckage for 22 days. From there, the narrative shifts between three other survivors in the war zone, one of them a sniper charged with keeping the cellist alive during his “concerts.” A moving novel without veering towards maudlin or sappy. It’s a haunting look at how hope sustains people during war and how sometimes survival means creating your own hope.

even educated fleas do it

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex  by Mary Roach 2008 (319 pgs)

Roach writes the best kind of science- compulsively compelling and delightfully accessible. In her third book, she delves into the history and current state of sex research. With short sections ranging from artificial insemination of farm animals to the study of rats in polyester pants (really!). Extremely informative, occasionally shocking, often hilarious, and always entertaining, Roach knows how to present science in a way that keeps you coming back for more.

row, row, row your boat

Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff  by Rosemary Mahoney 2007 (273 pgs)

 Enjoyable travelogue of a woman’s frustrated efforts to row solo from Aswan to Luxor. She wants to experience the Nile they way ordinary people have for milennia: by self-powered rowboat. It’s an interesting shift in focus; she’s not preoccupied with the architecture and historical sites. She’s looking to connect with the everyday people who make their livings within reach of the Nile as well as make her own connection to the river. Along her journey, she ruminates on the epic force of this life-enabling river throughout history and touches on historical travellers experiences, which makes for an interesting read.

early to bedouin, early to rise

The Moonlit Cage  by Linda Holeman (487 pgs) 2006

As a strong, willful, inquisitive young woman in mid-19th century Afghanistan, Darya finds that traditional village life chafes. She has a hard time reconciling herself to such a narrow existence and feels there must be something more to life. When a tribeswoman levels a curse of barrenness on Darya that leaves her an outcast in her own village, she’s forced into marriage in a nomadic Bedouin tribe from whom she must conceal her curse. And thus begins her search for belonging.

I liked 2/3 of this book, Darya’s early life was interesting with fully described characters and the setting well captured. But when Darya heads to England, it turned odd, losing the flavor that had made it compelling.

magic carpet ride

The Blood of Flowers  by Anita Amirrezvani (377 pgs) 2007

Left destitute when her father dies suddenly, a young girl and her mother in 17th-century Persia struggle to survive without income. With no dowry, the girl has little hope of a marriage that could support them and they are forced to seek refuge with distant relatives. They journey from the rural farm town they’ve known all their lives to the bustling city of Isfahan, home to the Shah and his court.

The girl is awed by the city, its architecture, and its inhabitants. But she is most inthralled by the amazing carpets created by her uncle and others in the Shah’s employ who have elevated it to an art form. She enters a kind of sheltered apprenticeship with her uncle, devouring his teachings and spending her limited free time creating carpets of her own.

But her position is a precarious one, dependent upon her relatives’ continued goodwill. When they pressure her to accept a temporary marriage contract, she reluctantly agrees. Struggling with her conflicting emotions and the secrecy, she finds herself awakening to her own passions and her own power.

time will tell

People of the Book  by Geraldine Brooks 2008 (372 pgs)

A riveting novel that explores the way that objects connect people through time. In the wartorn mid-1990s the Sarajevo Haggadah, a precious 500-year-old religious text, has resurfaced. A restorer is rushed in to evaluate its condition and make any necessary repairs. The years of wear and the small pieces of debris she finds are clues that tell the history of the text’s survival if only she can connect them. Brooks uses these clues to jump progressively further back in time to tell the stories of various people tied to the historic text. Each vignette is so richly drawn that they could easily be stand-alone novellas; when used to tell the single tale of the life of the Haggadah itself, the novel forms an intricate latticework of history that is much more than the sum of its parts.

northward bound

The Tenderness of Wolves  by Stef Penney 2007 (371 pgs)

A murder mystery (and snowshoe-speed chase) set in the frozen landscape of 1860s fur-driven Northern Territory. When Mrs Ross finds a neighboring trapper murdered, she also discovers that her teenage son has disappeared and his running footsteps lead away to the desolate north where they seem to be following other tracks. When representatives of the Hudson Bay Company (the central authority of the area) set out to bring him back, Mrs Ross enlists an escaped murder suspect as her guide and follows them. Told in rotating perspectives of the chased and the chasing, the book weaves like the tracks they follow through the snow- the clues are faint and fleeting, buried in layers of secrets and hidden motivations.

you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here

Library books that have been living at my house for far too long:

The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen 2007 (394 pgs/read 27)

During the influenza pandemic of 1918, some small towns quarantined themselves to avoid infection. The novel is set in one such town. Fearing that influence will spell the end of their progressive timber company cooperative, the townsfolk vote to close their borders. Then the guards are forced to shoot a soldier seeking access. Definitely one for the “come back to it” list.

Open Me by Sunshine O’Donnell 2007 (230 pgs/read 24)

Didja know: throughout history, in many different cultures, people have hired professional mourners to “perform” at funerals. Mem is one such, trained from childhood in the heriditary art. Interesting concept, but a bit too much “cultish child abuse as vocational training” for me.

The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda by Sonia Rivera-Valdes 2000/2001 US (158 pgs/read 102)

Strangers confide their darkest secrets in a student’s sociology interviews. A bit like Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies by way of Anais Nin, with a Cuban twist.

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme by Chris Roberts 2005 (202 pgs/read 90ish)

A bit of a travel guide around London via nursery rhymes, and their historical basis. Somewhat interesting, but not terribly scholarly and overly slang-ladden.

make you an offering you can’t refuse

Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru  edited by Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook 2001 (211 pgs)

More accessible than you’d think, the intriguing essays by various experts focus on textile, pottery, and forensic evidence of sacrifice among the pre-Incan societies in Peru.

necessity is the mother of obsession

To Build a Ship  by Don Berry (203 pgs)  1963/2004 ed

An wryly funny, enthusiastic portrait of settlers in Tillamook Valley in the 1850s.  From word one you’ll be hooked.  Berry’s sense of humor enlivens the already interesting story.  If you can get your hands on the 2004 edition with an introduction by Jeff Baker, I highly recommend it.  His snapshot of Don Berry makes you fall in love with the man before reading a word. 

The bones of the story are this: a young man goes to seek his fortune in the remote Tillamook Bay in the 1850s.  There he meets an eclectic mix of misfits and begins to settle in.  When the only captain willing to take a ship over the treacherous bar dies, the settlers are cut off from the outside world.  So they decide to build a ship.

It’s a masterful book that revels in toungue in cheek humor.  The characters treat themselves with utter seriousness, while Berry slyly highlights their absurdity, at the same time using that to intensify the darkness of their eventual obsession.

A couple of the best bits: 

Regarding the wild reputation of folks in the nearest town: “These fellows in Yam Hill were probably all fine boys, but they were the scum of the earth.”

As he waits for spring when he can make his way to the Bay, the main character says he “…prepared my pack and unprepared it, counted my single frying pan a dozen times.  It always came out One.”