Thanks to EDIWTB readers Rachel K. and Nancy W., who submitted reviews of recent books they’ve read. Here are a few of their reviews.
From Rachel:
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. I LOVED Reichl’s two memoirs (Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples). They were neurotic, emotionally honest, interesting and funny, and I was so looking forward to Garlic and Sapphires appearing in paperback. I didn’t love it, mostly because it’s not a continuation of her memoirs but instead it is her experience as the NYT’s restaurant critic. She intersperses recipes throughout the book (some that look great) and the actual reviews of the restaurants are fun to read, but there is no actual self introspection or insight into her life, and that I missed. So summary — a fun read if you are interested in an inside peek of the NYT and love to read restaurant reviews.
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason. I have to preface that I started this book resentful that the author graduated from Harvard in ’98 and is in medical school. I wanted it to be bad but it’s not. With that said, I skimmed a lot of it since it is detail-heavy and kind of bored me, but the story was intriguing. It’s interesting in a slow and romanticized way. The book is set in the late 1800’s when a piano tuner is asked by the military to tune a piano for an eccentric doctor who is at the same time creating peace in the region and uses music as a way to communicate with the enemy. The book is about the piano tuner’s journey to Burma and experience there. It wasn’t fabulous but it was solid and for some reason is sticking with me.
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. This is a memoir of a woman who grew up in poverty due to her parent’s neglect, self-involvement and alcoholism. It’s worth reading if you are interested in seeing how a child will go from thinking however her parents did things is "normal", to idealizing them, to seeing her parents as individuals etc. Good read.
The Virgin’s Lover by Phillipa Gregory. I will admit that I loved Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. I thought it was a great page turner and complete trash but excellent at that. So I tried this one. It was so bad and I wouldn’t waste your time (even if that time is on the beach…).
Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. Started out great but I think it just lost something 50 pages in. I thought the writing was too dramatic for my taste but finished it anyway. Have a couple of friends who disagree with me and really like this so it might just be a style thing for me.
And here are two book reviews from Nancy:
Gatsby’s Girl by Caroline Preston. Numerous biographers of F. Scott Fitzgerald have taken note of Ginevra King, a young Chicago socialite whom Fitzgerald met and became infatuated with when he was a freshman at Princeton and she was 16. Although their relationship was fleeting, she is considered to be the model for several of his female characters. Caroline Preston imagines 35 years in the life of Ginevra, from the boarding school days when she meets Fitzgerald at a holiday party through her disappointing marriage and child-rearing years as an upper-class Chicago society matron. Though spoiled and shallow as a teenager, Ginevra becomes an insightful and multifaceted adult who periodically immerses herself in Fitzgerald’s prose to search out fictionalized interpretations of herself. [Note from Gayle: I read Preston’s first novel, Jackie by Josie, many years ago. It was fun and well-written.]
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. I know Nick Hornby has received plenty of acclaim over the years for his novels, but this is the first one I have read. It starts on New Year’s Eve on a London rooftop, where four would-be suicides randomly encounter each other and make a mutual pact to postpone their plans for self-destruction. As the novel unfolds, we learn a great deal about each character and what brought him or her to the point of that New Year’s Eve suicide plan. Meanwhile, the characters form peculiar, often hostile, but always seemingly inescapable bonds with each other. Far from inspirational in tone, this novel often feels like an observation on how pathetic most people’s lives are but how they somehow manage to keep on trying to find better ways of existing with themselves and with other people.
Nancy and Rachel, thanks for sending in your reviews!