It has been nearly a month since my last book post and until I took the time to sit down and actually update my list I would have said that I really hadn't read that much anyway. But truthfully, that is all a matter of perspective. It is true I did not read as much as when I was confined to bed, and there is no surprise in that since there wasn't much else I could do during that period. Still I was surprised that I had read as many books as I have, too many books to adequately review. Some were very good, some not so much; it is not that my memory of the books has faded, but that my energy exhausted, and so, for now, settle I must.
I had high hopes for How Children Succeed by Paul Tough and it proved to be thought-provoking, especially in the first half of the book. Tough challenges the assumption that success is highly correlated with acquired knowledge and IQ, pointing out, in a very measured way, that character is far more important than IQ even though character strengths such as perserverance, grit, determination and curiosity are both harder to teach and to measure. The author also scored points for pointing out that although poor students from troubled homes experience severe setbacks to building resiliance, and most of his emphasis is rightly on lasting effects of childhood insecurity, he also points out that this problem affects the affluent as well, accurately pointing out that many afffluent young people in private schools are succesfully sheltered from failure, the result being that many are afraid to take risks. The second half of the book does not live up to the premise of the opening chapters though, The young people he profiles are fascinating, but in the end the book is far better at telling us why children fail than it is at offering suggestions for helping them to succeed.
Dragon's Triangle by Christine Kling was my Kindle First choice for May. It was fast paced but the plot was cliched and convoluted and the character development distinctly lacking.
Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George was both fascinating and at times painful to read. It could easily have been subtitled "The unravelling of Barbara Havers" and unravel she does. A tightly wound bundle of denial, anger, fear, loss and recklessness, Havers comes dangerously close to losing everything and completely antagonizing the few friends who have stood by her. And yet I found a certain amount of resolution in this novel, at least in the end. Nothing was completely new here; both Lynley and Havers have been through tough times and Barbara, rather rightly or wrongly has felt betrayed by Lynley for a long while, although this betrayal was unintentional and probably not even reognized by Lynley or acknowledged by Havers. In fact there have been signs throughout the last few novels that Havers was spiralling out of control and it is a sign of George's mastery to have managed this long, convoluted saga with Haddiyah and Azarh so well. In the end I'd like to hope that Havers and Lynley are both beginning to heal now, although I'll also admit I wouldn't mind seeing Salvatore lo Bianco again either.
The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones was a wonderful novel about culture and relationship and food and how they all can be woven together. I loved the book and found it almost poetically beautiful. I would read it again.
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass was a book that was given to me while I was in bed. The book is well written, and Glass is an astute observer of the intricacies and inconsistencies of relationships. The book was tender and thought provoking, but I found the characters difficult and unappealing and I couldn't really understand the decisions they made. I suppose it was just not my cup of tea.
Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer was the first novel by Heyer I have read, and I can hope that it was not one of her best, given her reputation. It wasn't bad, and the writing was, in fact, rather clever, but the characters were not particularly likeable or well developed and once again the characters' actions often seemed inexplicable.
Lastly, I found Zealot by Resa Aslan simultaneously fascinating and problematic. It is fascinating because Aslan does a fabulous job of portraying the political milieu and social unreast that existed in Israel and its relations with Rome during the time of Jesus and the first century CE. It is excellent at addressesing the confusion of the time, and through that the confusion and unsettledness of human interpretation of ideas and events. The book is problematic because Aslan's biases are exceedingly obvious. This doesn't entirely detract from the book and I do think that Aslan makes his point that Jesus of Nazareth was a fascinating figure from a completely historical perspective, whatever one makes of Jesus Christ. However, the book is riddled with antagonism and cynicism and rather blinkered and unreasoned opinions, and is best suited to a reader who is willing to read the book as a conversation, although granted rather one-sided.
