Book Review: Unsheltered

Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver

A lovely book by a lovely writer.

Kingsolver melds past and present into a sentimental yet unsparing tale, exploring how our present  determines our future and influences interpretations of the past. It's based partly on a real-life place, Vineland, N.J. -- founded as a temperance town by Charles Landis -- and uses historical figures from the area along with fictional characters, to construct a tale of how the foundation of a life can collapse like the foundation of a home.

She does so by juxtaposing the lives and experiences of families living in the same houses as unknown families from 150 years ago. Both families have similar experiences -- with life, with family, with friendships, and with their homes literally falling down around them. They deal with similar political problems of the larger world: Men who want to control their thoughts and actions by stoking fear and resentment, and promising to fix their concerns by shutting out those who think and act differently.

It centers around Willa Knox, a middle-aged woman who appears to be very much like I imagine Kingsolver to be. Knox's life has not turned out as she hoped and expected. She and her husband, Iano, after chasing dream jobs their entire lives, take residence in a dilapidated home inherited from her relatives. The family includes their grown children, daughter Tig, a free-spirited millennial who dislikes and refuses to participate in the current consumer culture, and Zeke, a son who is determined to both reform and take advantage of that culture.

Meanwhile, 150 years ago, Thatcher Greenwood is trying to begin a family life under stress. He has married above himself, and even with the advantage of an inherited house, he struggles to properly provide for his wife and desired family. His life is complicated by his job as a science teacher at a nearby school, run by a man who sees Greenwood's insistence to teach about Darwin and the natural world as being unnatural and against his (and god's) wishes.

Greenwood befriends a neighbor, Mary Treat, a real-life scientist who corresponds with Darwin, and despite the prevailing culture, lives and works as a botanist. He also strikes up a friendship with Uri Carruth, who publishes a newspaper at odds with the town's benefactor and founder.

As the story develops, Knox is trying to rebuild her family's lives, and discover what, if any, connection she has with Treat, Greenwood, or Landis. In her literate prose, with a gift for the narrative of empathy and understanding, Kingsolver touches on what moves us all -- our family, our homes, our beliefs, and our hopes for the futures.

Road Trip!! For a writer?

So I have to ask: Is driving 5 1/2 to 8 1/2 hours to listen to a speech and have a new book signed by one of your favorite authors a logical thing to do?

It's not like I'm a stalker or a fan-boy. But I enjoy the work of Welsh author Jasper Fforde, and it's not like he's readily accessible here in the United States.

I look at it this way. I like to drive. The trip will give me a chance to explore a new city. Even better, I get the opportunity to visit another bookstore.


Plus, I get to hear Fforde speak -- and to buy a signed copy of his latest book, Early Riser.


Fforde writes what he calls absurdist fiction. The tagline for the new novel is, "Every winter, the human population hibernates."

I first discovered Fforde's work while perusing a going-out-of-business sale at my local Borders (remember Borders?) I don't like to take advantage of a bookseller's failure, but it was pricing items up to 75 percent off. I could not resist adding to my TBR stack, and off I went. I saw one of Fforde's books, and fell in love with the title: One of our Thursdays is Missing. I often buy books because I like the title -- an interesting color or cover also catches my eye -- and I have found a lot of favorites that way.

I did not know then that the Thursday book is the sixth in a series. Nor did I know I was reading it out of order. But I didn't care. It was funny, clever, and literate. I found the other titles in the series, and read them more-or-less in order.

The series takes place in Book World, a universe where fictional characters are real and live a regular life, only to come out and "work" when someone is reading the novel. Books have a certified copy that cannot change, because it would change the plot in every book that was printed. Indeed, the first tale in the series, The Eyre Affair, relates an illegal attempt to change the ending of Jane Eyre. Enter book detective, Thursday Next, a member of the literary police, who is assigned the task of stopping such things from happening. Thursday has a special talent -- she is one of the few people who can jump from real life to book life, and back again.

It's not only Book World that Fforde has dreamed up. He created a Nursery Crimes division of the literary police, and has its detectives investigate the death of Humpty Dumpty and look into the case of the three bears. He's also written a Young Adult series about magic -- from a golden age that has long since passed -- and dragons and quarkbeasts. "Quark," says the quarkbeast.

His books are filled with literary references, from the mundane to the obscure. Amusing, witty, sometimes laugh out loud literary references.


I know I am not smart enough to get all of them. When I do, I feel smug and brilliant. When I don't, I usually know it's there, and can guess the context.

Or  I'll look it up, as Casey once advised.

My all-time favorite? While attending a party in Book World, Thursday Next looks down to see a young fellow tuging on her skirt. He was asking her, "If you please, draw me a sheep" No. 2 on my list is when Thursday somehow leaps out of a Shakespeare play with Hamlet in tow. She asks her mother if he can stay, or if he should return to Book World. Her mother thought he should stay in the real world for a while "Then he won't need five acts to make a decision."

How many acts do I need? I really want to go.

Book Review: Milkman

Milkman, by Anna Burns

In tribute to this wonderful book, I will start this review based on a conversation middle sister had with her mother's dating the real milkman, "Yes, but..."

Yes, I really liked this book, the winner of the 2019 Man Booker Prize. But ...

Yes, I loved the story about a young woman who attempts to navigate through the sectarian and political minefields of her home by pretending to ignore them. She walks. She walks-and-reads. She jogs. She hangs out with maybe-boyfriend (whose relationship defines the word "complicated.") But ...

Life keeps interrupting middle sister's plans. Her brothers are killed or escape to avoid being shot or kneecapped. Her sister is exiled because she married into the wrong religion. Her father dies -- but because his death is from a disease, not terrorism, it doesn't count as a political loss.

All of this is told in a deadpan, humorous matter, as befitting the tale's location in a thinly-disguised Northern Ireland. All the signs are there: The casual acceptance of the daily absurdities: The sly descriptions of the participants in the unpleasantness. The knowing mocking of the religious hypocrisies. The battles over minor details of life, from the flag on your junked car to the color of the curb in front of your house.

Oh, and the fact that the the author's native city is Belfast cliches the deal.

Now, middle sister's life gets more complicated when a community leader known as Milkman (not a real milkman) comes into her life. Middle sister (yes, she is identified that way throughout the book) rejects the thought of any relationship, but the entire neighborhood thinks otherwise, and that is the thread that keeps the story going.

Yes it's well told, both funny and knowledgeable about the subject. But ...

The author does have a tendency to go off on tangents. Sheesh, even her asides have asides. Yes, they often are pointed, sad, or telling. But she does wander.

Yes, you find yourself chuckling, nodding, or lamenting during her digressions. But, you also think, "get back to the damn story. Please."

Books in 2019

I am posting this here so I will always have access to it. It's The Guardian's preview of the year in books and literature.

 It looks like a great resource.

What The Guardian recommends to read this year

Book Review: The Big Fella

The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, by Jane Leavy

One hundred years ago, Babe Ruth was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Then he was sold to the New York Yankees, and everything changed.

He moved to the outfield, became one of the most powerful hitters ever to play, and upended both the game of baseball and his place in it. Not only did Ruth lead Major League Baseball away from the dead ball era to its new-found reliance on the three-run homer, but he brought it out of the darkness of the Black Sox scandal and into the thrill of the Roaring '20s. During the decade, Ruth was baseball: its face, its star, its savior.

And according to this wonderful new biography of the Babe, he also changed the face of America. He helped bring in the celebrity-athlete culture. He was the first person to regularly lend his name and his image to endorse products. His lifestyle -- both on and off the field -- was breathlessly reported in the press. His personality helped sell newspapers -- more than a dozen dailies in New York City in those days -- and bring to life radio broadcasting, then in its infancy. His financial planner and adviser, Christy Walsh, was baseball's first agent, and he helped to make Ruth realize his enormous earning potential -- both from his play on the field, and his being the the face of baseball off the field.

Ruth also created myths about himself and his image, with equal parts truth and legend, and nobody seemed to be able to tell the difference -- or even care about it. Truthiness was born, long before Stephen Colbert thought of the word.

Leavy, who has written masterful biographies of baseball legends Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax, is at her best here. Her research is remarkable -- her appendices, notes, and sources section at the end covers more than 100 pages. She delves into some of the myths -- Ruth's early life, his marriages, his children, his racial heritage -- that have never adequately been explored before. And she tells it in an easy, readable style.

That being said, let me add a few caveats. The book's editor could have paid a bit more attention; I found a number of sloppy errors and repetitions throughout, especially in the first few chapters. And the author's writing style in this book was a bit confusing. She chose to jump around in time, writing about Ruth's barnstorming tours with Lou Gehrig, and mixing in Ruth's history, and his seasons with the Yankees. Many times, I found myself confused as to exactly where in time she was talking about.

But those are quibbles.