Warlight: A Novel

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Michael Ondaatje, narrated by Steve West, 2018, Random House Audio

This is a story about a young after World War II in England who does not know why his mother and father abandoned him during the War.  He gradually comes to understand that his mother was engaged in the intelligence service during the war and this is what took her away from her family.  She made every attempt to protect her children but she was eventually found out after the war and murdered.

The book tends to meander about but the author manages to pull the disparate parts together at the end.  It was okay to listen to but I didn’t think it was really special. 2 1/2 stars

Bear Town

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Fredrik Backman, 2016, Washington Square Press

This book is supposedly about a small hockey town in Sweden, but it’s much more than that.  It is about how groups and families interact with one another when something really bad happens.  It’s about self-interest, pride, avarice, and basically how people are.

I won’t get into what transpires in this novel, but I will focus on the construction of the story and the writing.  It’s extremely slow at the beginning as Backman introduces the characters and describes the setting.  He uses a great deal of the book to develop the characters and set the stage for what occurs later in the book.  There is a large cast of characters and he devotes quite a few pages in developing each of them.  I liked some of the characters and detested others but there were also some surprising aspects to some of them.  There were situations where some of the characters where conflicted because of the choices they were faced with

The book, fortunately, picks up the pace later in the book and takes the reader all the way to the surprise ending. I would recommend the book to everyone, but especially if you have ever lived in a small town that’s nuts about hockey. 4 stars

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Dani Shapiro, 2019, Knopf

The subject of this book is the author’s discovery, via a DNA test, that the person she thought was her father was not, in fact, her biological father. Through research she finds her real biological father who, it turns out, is a sperm donor, and that she was conceived through artificial insemination. This discovery creates a huge identity crisis for her as she was brought up as an Orthodox Jew and her biological father is not Semitic.

The subject of this book is extremely interesting to me as I know individuals who have experienced similar situations (although not exactly the same). I have a distant cousin whose father is Jewish and her mother converted to Judaism. She has a family tree that is both Jewish and non-Jewish branches. I don’t know her well but it seems she is totally comfortable with her Jewish faith and heritage as well as that of her non-Jewish relatives. I suspect that some of Dani Shapiro’s identity crisis stems from the fact that she is no longer practicing her Jewish faith, but her upbringing is strongly embedded in the traditions of that faith and culture. I plan to contact my distant cousin to see if she has any insights regarding this book and the fact that she stems from both traditions but doesn’t seem to have the same problems reconciling the two cultures. It’s obviously not the same situation, but there may be something to glean from my relation.

I have a first cousin who is not a blood relative, but is adopted. She recently discovered her biological parents through an Ancestry.com DNA test. She, like Dani Shapiro, has begun to establish a relationship with her biological family and, for the most part, it seems like a rewarding effort. I will also check in with her to see if she has read the book and can offer any insights.

Lastly, I know another person who discovered that she is the result of a relationship that her mother had with another man and that she is not the offspring of the man she thought was her father. She has expressed the same shock and feelings as the author felt upon making the discovery. Unlike Dani Shapiro, however, she has not revealed this information to her biological relatives nor has she attempted to contact them. She has also experienced some of the same feelings of not belonging to her family while growing up as well as feeling that her whole life was a lie.

While all three of the above situations are not exactly like the author’s situation, the book provided a lot of context to what an individual might feel going through this discovery. In an age of DNA technology that was never anticipated by previous generations, there are more and more similar situations that are occurring and will likely occur in the future.

I thought the book was well written, although it was very repetitious as the author came back over and over again to the same theme … primarily her struggle to determine her identity and the emotional toil it was taking. Some of her problem, I think, was her difficulty in coming to terms with her Jewishness. She was raised in this culture with a strong relationship to her Orthodox Jewish non-biological father. Her biological mother was also Jewish. Acceptance of her Jewish faith and heritage (despite having a non-Jewish biological father) would, I feel, go a long way in helping her resolve her identity. 3 stars

The Chessmen: The Lewis Trilogy

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Peter May, 2016, Quercus, Reprint Edition

This is the final novel in The Lewis Trilogy which is a series of mysteries that occur on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides.  This book is perhaps not quite as good as the other two, but it is still a good story.  May’s descriptive passages are poetic and his characters are very well developed.  This book lags a bit in places and is not as suspenseful as the other two.  It, however, seems to provide a bit more history and background of the island than the other two.  If you have read the other two, it is almost mandatory that you finish up with this one. 3.5 stars

The Witch Elm: A Novel

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Tana French, 2018, Audiobook narrated by Paul Nugent, 2018, Penguin Audio

This is a novel about a young man in Ireland who gets involved in a murder of one of his school mates.  The book starts out with a break-in to his apartment when he is severely injured.  The book seems to focus on his attempts to come to grips with what kind of person he is and has been in the past.

Unfortunately, the book is about two times as long as it needs to be.  Some of the conversations go on and on to the point where they are tedious.  One might argue that this is necessary to define and develop the characters, which it does, but at the expense of enjoying the novel.  The tone of the book is dark, and it keeps descending into that darkness right up to the end, which is horrific and totally destroyed my appreciation of the book.

The writing is decent and the narration is really good.  My advice to a reader, however, would be to put the book down and go on to something else before you get near the end. 2.0 stars

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Bill Browder, 2015, Simon & Shuster

I thought this was a very good book, well-written and informative.  There are some reviews on Amazon that fault the author for being self-absorbed.  This book is about him and his experience with Russian crooks, some of whom may have wanted to murder him.  I can easily understand why someone in his situation would be somewhat self-absorbed.

Anyway, this book confirmed my desire not to travel to or in Russia ever again.  When I made my short visit to St. Petersburg on a cruise a few years back, I observed how nobody seemed to smile or make eye contact.  Now I can understand why.  There are many other places in this world I haven’t visited yet where people are much happier.  With the time I have left, I won’t be wasting it on Russia ever again.

I thought the book was well written and well organized.  The only problem I had with it was that I sometimes had trouble keeping track of all the characters.  He might have done what Tolstoy did in  War and Peace, which was to include a cast of characters at the beginning of the book.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what goes on in Russia.4.5 stars

The Night Tiger

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Yangsze Choo, 2019, Audiobook read by the author, Macmillan Audio

This is a story that takes about a young girl in Malaysia and an even younger boy whose paths cross in a number of ways. There is also a legend about a human who changes into a tiger and comes at night to attack people.

The story didn’t seem to be very interesting at first, but the author manages to keep the story going.  The characters are done well and the writing is excellent.  I ended up liking the book more than I thought I would.

3 stars

The Undoing Project

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Michael Lewis, 2016, W. W. Norton & Company

This is the story of two Nobel-winning psychologists, Daniel (Danny) Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and their research into how humans make decisions.  It was an interesting book, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did reading Lewis’ other books.  The author didn’t, in my opinion, bring it all together to describe the impacts of their discoveries regarding human behavior.  Also, the book seemed to jump around chronologically, making it a little hard to understand.  Overall, an interesting book but not one that is outstanding.2 1/2 stars

The Lessons of History

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Will and Ariel Durant, 1968, Simon and Schuster, New York

This is a wonderful 102 page book that the Durants published in 1968 after publishing their ten volume set,  The Story of Civilization beginning in 1944.  The book attempts (and succeeds very well) to summarize their findings from the ten volumes of history that they had worked on for over two decades.  I only read a bit of the ten volumes, but this single volume brings it all together.

The chapters are short but not necessarily easy to read as they delve into just about every aspect of our history.  They are generally positive about the progress of history, even though this book was written less than a quarter century after the second devastating world war of the nineteenth century.  One would think it would be difficult to remain that positive after witnessing the atrocities committed by our adversaries in World War II but they manage it well with certain caveats.

Also, the book was written prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union which helped to discredit communism as a viable economic model (although China has managed to retain a form of communism while, at the same time, modifying it to achieve economic growth).  One wonders about whether Will and Ariel would have commented any differently in their chapter on “Socialism and History”.

One of the benefits of reading this book and thinking about the implications of the long view of history is that it provided me a bit of context to what is going on in our current political cycle.  I have been amazed to see the attraction of presidential candidates who are moving to the far left as well as their level of support they seem to have. One of their observations in the book was that the more a society is democratic and individuals are given the freedom to do whatever they please, the more the concentration of wealth will accelerate.  This tendency, in turn will eventually result in a swing back to socialism as the population becomes less enamored with the situation.  This swing can sometimes be violent as it was in Europe in 1848 and in Russia in 1917.  There have been a few occasions where land reform and other redistribution programs managed to stem the movement and any resort to violence, but, sooner or later it seems, an incompetent leader manages to wreck the process and all hell breaks loose (Nero, Caligula, etc.).  These observations go a long way toward suggesting to me why so many presidential candidates are now appearing to swing so far toward socialism at the current time.

The last chapter is titled “Is Progress Real?”  Sometimes I wonder about this as it seems that some of the progress we have made as a civilized society is now slipping away.  The Durants suggest that this may be the case, but they also cite prior times in history when this occurred and it always seems that, somehow, some way, humanity bounces back and goes on to the next era of positive accomplishments.  If that is the case, maybe my grandchildren will be still able to experience a better world than the ours.5 stars

Prince of Tides

Wilson's Weblog Posted on by

by Pat Conroy, 1986

Our men’s book club chose this book for our March selection.  We previously did Conroy’s South of Broad so obviously someone on the selection committee likes Conroy.

This is the story of Tom Wingo who grew up in an abusive household in the lowlands of South Carolina with his sister, Savannah, and brother, Luke.  It also takes us to New York City where Savannah as an adult is hospitalized as a mental patient.

I found the book to be readable but overly long.  Conroy got very long-winded in some of the passages and the book could have been considerably shorter.  The book’s treatment of the subject of Savannah’s mental illness is fairly realistic although reading it in 2019 versus 1986 when it was written made it seem somewhat less compelling.  Luke also has some mental issues attributed to the abuse by his parents that he suffered while growing up.  There was no mention of PTSD even though he served as a SEAL in Viet Nam.  Tom, himself, is alternately hostile and compassionate.

The book certainly didn’t make me want to see the movie.  I also felt that I could have spent my time more productively reading something else. 3 1/2 stars