Book Review- Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

This is a fascinating read. Krakauer has done a great job of inter-weaving the story of a murder with an exploration of the Mormon church, past and present. He's done an astounding amount of research and the writing keeps the story moving quickly. The purpose of the book is to examine the murder of a woman and her infant daughter in 1984. But to do that he's had to go back into the beginnings of the Mormon religion (which is shrouded in mystery) as well as the subsequent story of how the Mormons came to be as they are today. Along the way he reveals the seeds of Mormon fundamentalism and the tragedy of the practice of polygamy. I was familiar with some of the story from previous reading but this is in more depth. Highly recommended, particularly since we have a Mormon running for president this year.

2011 Book List

• The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
• Red Mutiny by Neal Bascomb
• The Girl In The Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason
• The Death Of An Irish Sinner by Bartholomew Gill
• Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid
• Solar by Ian McEwan
• Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner
• Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell
• The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell
• The Torment of Others by Val McDermid
• One Step Behind by Henning Mankell
• When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
• The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
• The Art Thief by Noah Charney
• the princess of burundi by Kjell Eriksson
• Falls The Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman
• Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
• Long Lost by Harlan Coben
• The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory
• Heretic by Bernard Cornwell
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Widdershins by Charles De Lint
• Over-Diagnosed Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz, and Dr Steven Woloshin
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
• In The Woods by Tana French
• The Crown of Columbus by Louise Erdrich & Michael Dorris
• Faithful Place by Tara French
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• The Axe and the Oath by Robert Fossier
• A Widow for One Year by John Irving
• Sacred Treasure The Cairo Genizah by Rabbi Mark Glickman
• Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
• Tutankhamun- The Untold Story by Thomas Hoving
• Captive Queen by Alison Weir
• The widow's tale by Margaret Frazier
• Nightshade by P.C. Doherty
• The Magician's Death by P.C. Doherty
• The demon archer by P.C. Doherty
• The Waxman Murders by P.C. Doherty
• Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• Bury Me Standing (The Gypsies and Their Journey) by Isabel Fonseca
• The Fascination of Evil by Florian Zeller
• The Darkest Red by Viviane Moore
• The Inugami Clan by Seishi Yokomizo
• Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
• Pursuit by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
• A Window in Copacabana by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
• Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings by Amy Kelly
• Mistress of the Monarchy by Alison Weir
• My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
• The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell
• Complications by Atul Gawande
• The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 James Ellroy, editor
• The Lost Dogs by Jim Gorant
• The Blindness of the Heart by Julia Franck
• The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• The Anatomy of Evil by Michael H. Stone, MD
• Total 61 Books

2010 Book List

Book List 2010
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell
Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
Someone Not Really Her Mother by Harriet Scott Chessman
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint
Call for the Dead by John LeCarre
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
Halloween Party by Agatha Christie
Columbine by Dave Cullen
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon
Germinal by Emile Zola
denial by Jessica Stern
Malinche by Laura Esquivel
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Colony by John Tayman
Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher
Letters to a Bulled Girl by Olivia Gardner with Emily and Sarah Buder
Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
A Share of the World by Andrea Newman
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline l'Engle
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collings
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
A Study in Scarlet by A.Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle
Cemetary Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Ashes by Kathryn Lasky
Talk,Talk by T.C. Boyle
Rules by Cynthia Lord
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong
The Conch Bearer by Chitra Banerjee Divadaruni
Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell (AB)
Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard (AB)
The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain by Andrew M. Greeley (AB)
The Shrouded Walls by Susan Howatch (AB)
Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Name to a Face by Robert Goddard
The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonanno
Total 52 Books

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Again, this is an author that I should have read before but have not. This is a wonderful book, surprisingly entertaining and quite tragic. It's really a study in social mores of a particular group of New York society in the 1880's or 1890's. The story revolves around a beautiful, from a "good background", but impoverished young woman named Lily Bart. She was raised in luxury and with a sense of entitlement until her father lost his money and subsequently died. She and her mother gradually decline in society until the mother dies too and Lily is taken in by her father's sister who is well off but lives in an extremely proper and parsimonious way. In other words, a very dull place for Lily Bart. To offset this drab home, Lily spends the bulk of her time as a guest in the homes of the wealthy people she recognizes as her social set. She has all the trappings of wealth but is totally dependent on others for her lifestyle. She has a bit of money of her own but she is accustomed to luxury. We come into the story when Lily is 29, she should have been married to a wealthy man long ago but for some reason she has remained single. She is friends with a pair of cousins, Lawrence Selden, a lawyer who is comfortable but far from wealthy, and Gerty Farish, a poor and plain young woman who has reconciled herself to her situation. Lily dreads ever having to "cope" like Gerty Farish does with her "good works" and her penurious existence. Lawrence Selden is an important character. He represents the one who can both move in Lily's world and yet is not truly of that world. He is critical of the shallowness, selfishness, and ignorance of that world yet he can still admire the beauty and comfort that great wealth can obtain. He both loves Lily and is a little repelled by how she lives her life. When she is with Selden, Lily can see the problems with her so-called friends and the empty pleasure-seeking lives they lead. But then, she is addicted to luxury and remains confident that she can snag a rich man. She has some opportunities, but Lily always manages to defeat her own purpose. She comes to blame Selden for making it difficult for her to prostitute herself and yet she loves him for it at the same time. Lily experiences a painful act of betrayal which has devestating consequences for her social standing and at the same time her aunt dies leaving her a relatively small amount of money instead of the bulk of the estate as she had been lead to believe. The is really the beginning of the end for Lily Bart. She sinks lower and lower in the social orders, frequenting groups and places she never would have before and realizes she has been foolish. Gerty Farish remains her friend throughout this time and Selden too but with mixed emotions. As the reader, I want Lily to marry Selden and stabilize her life because they truly care for each other but I know they're both trapped in their social roles and have not the courage to break out of them. Ultimately, Lily is destroyed and Selden is left knowing he failed her. The character of Lily Bart is complex and frustrating. I felt sympathetic towards her and at the same time annoyed. Of course, this story takes place in a particular time period and a 21st century reader must accept that. Highly recommended!

Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon

This is a new biography of Emily Dickinson that focuses on family rivalries that have affected her publication and her literary personae. It's a fascinating story that revolves on the fact that Emily Dickinson's elder brother , in his 50's, started an affair with a young married woman of the family's acquaintance. This affair was kept secret for a very long time and the papers surrounding it have come to light in more recent times. At the time Austin Dickinson started the affair he recruited his other sister, Lavinia, into helping the lovers. Plus, they met for a long period of time at the home of Emily and Lavinia Dickinson. When Austin's wife, Susan (who was Emily's good friend) confronted Austin, their two children sided with her against him and he essentially disowned them. These are the actions of a man who had been all his life extremely conservative, upright, almost puritanical and a leader of the Amherst community! The woman that Austin became involved with, Mabel Loomis Todd had an agenda of greatness for herself, and although she never actually met Emily Dickinson face to face, she gradually came to believe and to promote to others that she Emily's good friend. Meanwhile, the Dickinson family has become split into two warring camps and a little after a year of the beginning of the affair, Emily dies. She had published maybe 10 poems out of over 1700 she wrote during her lifetime and so the bulk of her work was left unorganized with both Lavinia Dickinson and Susan Dickinson. From that point on there was a vicious struggle over who would claim Emily Dickinson and her poetic legacy. Mabel Loomis Todd used her influence with Austin and Lavinia to become Emily's first editor and to smear Susan Dickinson beyond recognition. Susan Dickinson and her children struggle to keep their relationship and memory of Emily intact. Mabel Loomis Todd does not come out looking good although the author does give her credit for doing a huge amount of work on Emily's poetry and that she recognized Emily's greatness when few did. This struggle between the "two houses" is passed down to the next generation and on even to now through Dickinson scholars. There's many details I've not covered, it reads more like a gothic mystery story than anything else. Fascinating book!

Classic Challenge 2010 WrapUp

The Brothers Karamazov
Raise the Red Lantern
Bosnian Chronicle
The Hound of the Baskervilles
A Study in Scarlet
The Moonstone
Turn of the Screw
Cousin Bette
Germinal

Germianl by Emile Zola

This is my last book for the Classics Challenge. I had never read anything by this author but I was drawn to it because I'd just read a novel by Balzac and enjoyed that very much plus it deals with a coal strike in the north of France in "the black country". At the beginning of the book, our protaganist, Etienne, appears in the coal country from Paris looking for work. Etienne is part of a recurring family that Emile Zola followed in 20 novels. Etienne has previously worked for the railroads but lost his job and is now out on foot searching for work. He has some education, having worked as a mechanic. Alas, there are no mechanic jobs but he meets a mining family, the Maheus, who have a shortage on their team and take him on as a hauler. This is a bottom rung job, one normally filled by girls and boys. This whole first part of the book involves describing the workings of the mine, how the miners do their work, the home life of the miners, and the village they live in. Etienne doesn't intend to be a labor organizer but conditions are so bad and then the company demands an unacceptable concession from the miners and Etienne finds himself in a position of leadership because he has some ideas and can speak to a crowd. A bitter strike erupts and there are different people vying for leadership but Etienne wins the day by speaking about the International and a fund to help people through a long strike. He wins people over also on the vision he creates of a better world and plays upon their desire to see the tables turned. The strike continues through winter, people are starving, conditions are desperate and a mob forms and goes on a rampage through the district. This whole section culminates in the mob throwing stones at a small group of militia and the militia firing on them and killing several children and women. The people feel crushed especially the Maheus, because Maheu (the father) is shot and killed in addition to losing their young daughter to starvation. There is also a love story that revolves around Etienne, Catherine Maheu, and another miner Chaval. This takes up a lot of the story but doesn't really come to the forefront until Catherine, Etienne, and Chaval (along with others) find themselves trapped deep in the mine ,victims of an act of sabotage. The latter part of the book follows the effort to save the trapped miners and the love triangle being played out to its' ultimate conclusion when Etienne stones Chaval to death in a blind rage. In the end the miners are forced back to work, Catherine dies , Etienne barely survives, the company has taken some big losses but it is the miners who have really paid the price with their lives. I know that all of that sounds sad and it is, but I think the novel ends on a a hopeful note by saying that things cannot continue like this indefinitely and there will be change for the better in the future. I was so impressed with this book. I finished it in a week because it was hard to put down. It is a bleak story and yet it grabs you and won't let you go. There are many dimensions to the book. In Zola's mind, it was first and foremost a novel about the struggle between labor and capital. The introduction states that it was not a factual account ,especially for that time period, it may have been more reflective of an earlier time. That being said, though, it captures the extreme difficulty of people's lives and tries to grapple with the question of justice. The struggle for justice is with us now and shows no signs of going away anytime soon if ever. In that sense, it's a timeless story.