Berty Reads Books

2010 Reading List

I Really Loved These

Cutting for Stone

Abraham Verghese

From the back cover: “Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother's death and their father's disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connections and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.”

This is a long beautiful story with intricate detail. I felt like I lived in Ethiopia after reading this.

I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in the culture of another land.

I pushed out the wooden shutters of my bedroom window and climbed onto the ledge. Sunshine flooded the room. By noon the temperature would reach seventy-five degrees, but for the moment I shivered in my bare feet. From my perch, I could see beyond Missing's east wall onto a quiet meandering road which descended and then disappeared, the hills rising just beyond, as if the road had gone underground before it emerged in the distance as a mere thread. It wasn't a road we traveled or even one that I knew how to get to, and yet it was a view I felt I owned. On the left side a fortresslike wall flanked the road, receding with it, struggling to stay vertical. Giant clusters of purple bougainvillea spilled over, brushing the white shamas of the few pedestrians. There was a quality to this pellucid first light and the vivid colors that made it impossible to imagine trouble.


April 1865: The Month That Saved America

Jay Winik

A lot of shit happened in this month.

From the back cover: “One month in 1865 witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond, a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerilla warfare, Lee's harrowing retreat, and then, Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation.”

Fan of history? Go buy it and read it.

Not a fan of history? You will most probably still enjoy it. Borrow it from the library and skip to the section where Winik wonderfully writes about Lee's surrender to Grant.

Lee rose to his feet. The two men shook hands, and then they took their respective seats, eight feet apart. About a dozen of Grant's staff officers positioned themselves quietly around the parlor, a room that now pulsed with hidden excitement, awaiting the dazzling piece of theater about to be played out, even as it was suffused with Lee's private anguish. For his part, Lee's face revealed nothing. “What General Lee's feelings, I do not know,” Grant would later write. “As he was a man of such dignity, with an impassible face…his feelings…were entirely concealed from my observation.”


A Devil to Play: One Man's Year-Long Quest to Master the Orchestra's Most Difficult Instrument

Jasper Rees

Bravo.

I loved this book, as well.

But that's probably because I also played the very same instrument, and identified with all of the humorous things that can happen to anyone who attempts to master the French horn.

At close to forty years of age, Rees goes through a mid-life crisis and decides to attempt to get reacquainted with the instrument he played in high school, and then forgot about for over 20 years.

It's a great narrative consisting of three stories that are nicely woven together; Rees' childhood and growing up in England, the history of the horn, and Rees' learning to play a Mozart horn concerto in a year with the hopes of playing it in front of a gathering of horn aficionados at the annual festival of the British Horn Society.

Anyone who ever tried to play a horn will love it. Anyone who played a horn for any significant amount of time will really appreciate it.

It's a thing to behold, a massed horn ensemble. Horn players don't grow on trees, not like pianists or violinists or choristers. So assembling an ensemble is not like mobilizing a small volunteer army to sing the Messiah, the way they do each year at the Royal Albert Hall. Anyone can turn up and sing. Not anyone can play the horn. It pretty much says so in The Guinness Book of Records. The horn, it says, is the joint hardest instrument to learn. Or it certainly did when I last looked, in 1977. (The other is the oboe, though who knows how they measure these things?) All we initiates know is that it takes strapping lungs to play the horn, and muscle-bound lips. More than these, it takes nerves of reinforced tungsten, because the horn is treacherous. Mistakes, in the form of cracked notes—or clams, as they say in America—are not hard to come by.


A Walk in the Woods

Bill Bryson

From the back cover: “Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes—and to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings.”

I was reading this while flying as a passenger on a plane and it was all I could do to not bust out laughing. Seriously funny stuff that made me laugh incredibly hard.

Bryson does a fabulous job of describing his hiking buddy (the out-of-shape Stephen Katz) and all of the characters they meet while on the trail. Additionally, he provides a little history of the AT.

It was hard to get the full story out of him in a coherent flow, because he was so furious, but I gathered he had thrown many items from his pack over a cliff in a temper. None of the things that had been dangling from the outside were there any longer.

“What did you get rid of?” I asked, trying not to betray too much alarm.

“Heavy fucking shit, that's what. The pepperoni, the rice, the brown sugar, the Spam, I don't know what all. Lots. Fuck.” Katz was almost cataleptic with displeasure. He acted as if he had been deeply betrayed by the trail. It wasn't, I guess, what he had expected.


Replay

Ken Grimwood

Loved it.

From the back cover: “Trapped in a tepid marriage and a dead-end job, Jeff Winston dies in 1988 and wakes up to find himself in 1963, at the age of 18, staring at his dorm room walls at Emory University. It's all the same…but different: Jeff knows what the future holds. He knows who will win every World Series…every Kentucky Derby…even how to win on Wall Street. The one thing he doesn't know is: Why has he been chosen to replay his life?”

Good stuff. Go buy it.

His face dropped to the desk, right cheek pressing flat against the file folder he'd been about to study when Linda called. The crack in the paperweight was cavernous before his one open eye: a split in the world itself, a jagged mirror of the ripping agony inside him. Through the broken glass he could see the glowing red numerals on the digital clock atop his bookshelf: 1:06 PM OCT 18 88.

And then there was nothing more to avoid thinking about, because the process of thought had ceased.


The Scarecrow

Michael Connelly

I have no knowledge of FBI procedures or of what it's like to work as a journalist for a major newspaper.

So I loved the book.

After what I felt were a few less than stellar works, Connelly is back with a thriller that kept my attention.

He resurrects two of his former characters, FBI agent Rachel Walling, and newspaper reporter Jack McEvoy. Together again, they solve the murder of a young woman and uncover the horrendous acts of a serial killer.

Light and easy reading that was a fun ride.

It was always amazing to Carver how trusting or naive young people were. They didn't believe that anybody could connect the dots. They believed that they could bare their souls on the Internet, post photos and information at will, and not expect any consequences. From her blog he was able to glean all the information he needed about Angela Cook. Her hometown, her college sorority, even her dog's name. He knew Death Cab for Cutie was her favorite band and pizza at a place called Mozza was her favorite food. In between the meaningless data, he learned her birthday and that she only had to walk two blocks from her apartment to get her favorite pizza at her favorite restaurant. He was circling her and she didn't even know it. But each time around he got closer.


I Liked These A Lot

Let the Great World Spin

Colum McCann

On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit walked on a high-wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Let the Great World Spin is Colum McCann's portrait of New York City and the people of that time.

At first appearing to be a novel about three or four different stories and several more characters, Spin tells the story of “ordinary” people and how they touch one another during this event.

I liked it.

It was falling, falling, falling, yes, a sweatshirt, fluttering, and then their eyes left the clothing in midair, because high above the man had unfolded upward from his crouch, and a new hush settled over the cops above and the watchers below, a rush of emotion rippling among them, because the man had arisen from the bend holding a long thin bar in his hands, jiggling it, testing its weight, bobbing it up and down in the air, a long black bar, so pliable that the ends swayed, and his gaze was fixed on the far tower, still wrapped in scaffolding, like a wounded thing waiting to be reached, and now the cable at his feet made sense to everyone, and whatever else it was there would be no chance they would pull away now, no morning coffee, no conference room cigarette, no nonchalant carpet shuffle; the waiting had been made magical, and they watched as he lifted one dark-slippered foot, like a man about to enter warm gray water.


The Long Fall: The First Leonid McGill Mystery

Walter Mosley

From the back cover: “Leonid McGill is an ex-boxer, a hard drinker, and not one to turn down a shady job for a quick buck. He's and old-school PI working a New York City that's gotten fancy all around him. Meanwhile, he's just trying to get by—at least for his wife and kids. Maybe it's time for McGill to turn over a new leaf. Or at least go from crooked to slightly bent.”

McGill, a bad man trying to do good, is tested when four men he was hired to find are killed. His teenage son's attempt to help a suicidal friend might send the boy to jail. And a mobster for whom McGill used to work has a job for him.

I liked the characters, the settings, and the writing.

Gazing at the gap in the skyline left by the World Trade Center, I thought about Twill. Not of my blood, he was tall and lithe, handsome and quick to smile. The only thing we had somewhat in common was our dark coloring but even there our skins were different hues. I had more brown to my blackness.

But blood relations are overrated. Twill had a way of making you feel good. His greeting—morning or night, being picked up at the police station or after a school function—was always friendly and sincere. His head was cool and his heart warm. Twilliam was one of the finest people I had ever met. And so it was my self-appointed duty to make sure that he wasn't pulled down in the wake of his own superiority.


First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

James R. Hansen

Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first person to step on the surface of the moon. It's amazing what he accomplished up until that point.

Being the authorized biography of Armstrong, the book contains everything you could want to know about him; his childhood, life as a fighter pilot, work as a test pilot, and his role in the space program. For a man who was the most reluctant to talk about his life and least likely to give public appearances, Armstrong allowed plenty of access to Hansen to provide for a thorough book.

One things definite…NASA picked the perfect guy to be the first on the moon.

Eventually the X-15 fell back into the atmosphere where Armstrong was able to start making a turn. But by that time, Neil recalls, the airplane had gone “sailing merrily by the field”—at a speed of Mach 3! By the time he rolled into a bank, pulled up the angle of attack, and started to turn back in a northeasterly direction toward Edwards, Armstrong found himself approaching Pasadena. Neil was forty-five miles south of Edwards and still above 100,000 feet.


The Great Escape

Paul Brickhill

My favorite movie.

If you love the movie, you'll love the book.

It is what it is, and the things the prisoners accomplished were amazing.


Child 44

Tom Rob Smith

Good stuff.

I will be seeing what this guy's second novel looks like.

If you visit Smith's site, and close your eyes while you suffer through the flash navigation, you might be able to find this description; “A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated. Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal-a murderer-is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he's ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover this criminal.”

Go and buy it…you'll like it if your into this kind of “New York Times Bestseller” kind of stuff.


The Girl Who Played with Fire

Stieg Larsson

Been under a rock?

Have you not seen these books everywhere?

Good story. You know what it's about.

I liked it enough to go out and buy the third book to complete the story.


The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Stieg Larsson

The end.

It's a shame that Larsson didn't live longer to write more novels.


These Were Okay

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

John le Carré

Reading reviews online I thought this would be the best spy story ever.

I was a little disappointed.

British Secret Intelligence Service West Berlin office Station Head Alec Leamas (how's that for a title!) has been performing poorly. His best double agent is shot dead at the last moment while defecting to West Berlin.

Leamas is recalled to the “Circus” in London by “Control,” chief of the Circus. There, Control asks Leamas to stay “in the cold” for one last mission: to turn (defect) and provide false information to the East German Communists that would implicate a high ranking German official (Mundt) as a British double agent—what his second-in-command, Fiedler (a Jew), already suspects—to result in Mundt being executed by his own people.

There's deception, a girl, double agents, power struggles, interrogations, trials, and people getting shot.

All that and I still wasn't thrilled about it. It might have been too cerebral for me.


Bad Things Happen

Harry Dolan

From Publishers Weekly: “The story takes place in Ann Arbor, Mich., where David Loogan has just accepted a position at Gray Streets mystery magazine—and embarked on an affair with his new boss's wife. It's not long before bodies begin turning up left and right, and a young investigator is involved.”

Twists and turns, the story changes with each new chapter.

Quick read. Good story. Could have been meatier.


Flying Drunk: The True Story of a Northwest Airlines Flight, Three Drunk Pilots, and One Man's Fight for Redemption

Joseph Balzer

On March 8, 1990, three pilots flew a Boeing 727 from Fargo, North Dakota, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. All three were intoxicated by legal definition. Joe Balzer was the Flight Engineer on that flight.

Flying Drunk is Joe's version of what happened the night before and the day of that flight. It's also the story of Joe Balzer's fight with alcoholism, his struggle to overcome it, and his long journey to return back to the cockpit.

Joe isn't a professional writer, but he is a great storyteller and a helluva nice guy. He wears his heart on his sleeve and bares all in this book.


Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant

Daniel Tammet

From the back cover: “He sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him the most unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.

And he wrote a book about his life up until now, and how he deals with his syndrome.

Pretty amazing stuff. I found the early years of his life fascinating.

See him on the Late Show with David Letterman.

I was born on January 31, 1979—a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number 9 or the sound of loud voices arguing. I like my birth date, because of the way I'm able to visualize most of the numbers in it as smooth and round shapes, similar to pebbles on a beach. That's because they are prime numbers: 31, 19, 197, 97, 79, and 1979 are all divisible by themselves and 1. I can recognize every prime up to 9,973 by their “pebble-like” quality. It's just the way my brain works.


Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit

Matt McCarthy

It's the story of Matt McCarthy's life as a minor leaguer with the 2002 Los Angeles Angels Class A farm team in Provo, Utah.

McCarthy washed out after only one season and then went on to better things.

A good story if you want to learn about what it's like inside the clubhouse of a farm team. McCarthy tells most of the stories you would expect; the long travels by bus to the games, the discrimination against the latino and hispanic players (all labeled as Dominicans no matter where they came from), and the hospitality and the feelings toward the Mormons that hosted players and the team.

Don't expect writing that will have you crying and grabbing for tissues.

When I was twenty-one I could throw a baseball 92 miles an hour. This led to a strange courtship between my left arm and a series of pencil-mustached, overweight middle-aged men. I eventually gave up the game and later found myself as far away from the baseball diamond as one could possibly be—living in rural villages in Cameroon and later Malaysia, colorful places that still somehow paled in comparison to the alien environment of my first home in professional baseball: Provo, Utah.


Sh*t My Dad Says

Justin Halpern

I liked it.

Respect to Halpern for coming up with the idea to tweet out all the funny things that come out of his dad's mouth.

A light read that intersperses the dad's “wisdom” with Halpern's years growing up.


Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am

Robert Gandt

Gandt, a Pan Am pilot for twenty-six years, gives the first inside account of Pan Am's unprecedented demise.

There are first person views of what its like to be a pilot during Pan Am's downfall, as well as a look inside the CEO's office as the title was handed from one person to the next.


Devil in a Blue Dress

Walter Mosley

The first of the Easy Rawlins mysteries.

Set in Los Angeles in 1948, Rawlins is a black war veteran who is approached by a white man offering tons of cash for Easy to locate a beautiful woman who frequents jazz clubs.

I didn't enjoy it enough to want to read more Rawlins stories, but I did like it enough to consider reading more of Mosley's books.


The Bridges at Toko-Ri

James A. Michener

This isn't really a book, as much as it's a novella.

Incredibly short (just barely making it over 100 pages) it tells the story of the eccentric characters aboard an aircraft carrier and their mission to destroy the dreaded Bridges of Toko-Ri during the Korean War.

Written in 1953, it has all of the stereotypes that you would see in a movie of that era.

A quick glimpse into America's “forgotten war.”


These Were Not My Thing

The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Everyone else loved it, but I didn't really care for it.

I read it over a period of several weeks, only getting to sit down with it for a chapter at a time. Probably why I didn't really get into it.

There are great characters, wonderful descriptions, and—set in Barcelona in 1945—historical settings and places.

Pick it up and flip through a few pages to see if it's your cup of tea. I'd recommend setting aside good chunks of time to be able to read it to keep up with the plot for better continuity.


Daemon

Daniel Suarez

Daemon – a computer program that runs continuously in the background and performs specified operations at predefined times or in response to certain events. Condensed from “Disk and Execution MONitor.”

Brilliant computer programmer, Matthew Sobol, dies. His death sets into motion a bunch of computer scripts and actions that he wrote in preparation for his death.

The dude was a millionaire, and then wanted to mess with people after he died. So he goes to the trouble of making all these incredible plans, and has an amazing amount of events mapped out ready to go for the day he kicks the bucket. Including the building of these automated death machines (via cars and motorcycles) that do his bidding. Or the evil bidding of people that take his place.

I don't buy it.

It was a neat concept but needed a little more focus. The ending was lousy and pretty much amounted to a big fat “To be continued…”

“Detective Sebeck. I was Matthew Sobol. Chief technology officer of CyberStorm Entertainment. I am dead.”

Sebeck leaned forward—his eyes fixed on the monitor.

“I see you have been assigned to the Joseph Pavlos and Chopra Singh murder cases. Let me save you some time; I killed both men. Soon you'll know why. But you have a problem: Because I'm dead, you can't arrest me. More importantly: You can't stop me.”


Blackout

Connie Willis

Connie Willis's editor should be shot.

The Random House Publishing Group should close up Spectra (the division that put this out).

Willis had a fabulous premise and a wonderful story. It's the year 2060 and time-traveling historians go back in time to see what it was really like in the past.

Three historians get sent back to England during World War II, and things start to go wrong. The time-travel lab is having problems getting people where they need to go. Drops aren't opening up like they should be.

We learn a great deal about what life is like in war-torn England. And with 20 pages left to go in the 490 page book, you start thinking, “Hey…there's not much left to this book but the story is only halfway through…”

And then you flip to the back of the book and see, “For the riveting conclusion to Blackout, be sure not to miss Connie Willis's All Clear. Coming from Spectra in Fall 2010.”

Screw you Spectra! You third-rate, piece of crap publishing house!

If you're going to pull shit like that, put somewhere on the cover that this is part 1 of 2.

Don't buy this book unless you want to buy the conclusion as well.


The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

A.J. Jacobs

I read Jacob's first book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, and laughed pretty hard at his account of completely reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

For this book, he decides to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year.

From the back cover, “It is part CliffsNotes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable.”

I chuckled every now and then, but didn't think it was as funny as his first one.