I was up a little late last night at an excellent chamber music concert at the Knoxville Museum of Art, and so am a little pressed for time this morning. This works well because I have finished very few books so far this year. In fact there are more books that I have read once and want to go back to for one reason or another than there are books in the "completed" pile.
Most of them are fairly light reading
1. Scott Turow, Identical. OK. Not Turow's best. I kept getting a sense the author was trying for some overarching statement about twins that he wasn't quite able to pull off.
2. Jacques Vandroux, Heart Collector. A Kindle First choice. Fast paced and entertaining enough, but a little to fantastical for my taste. It somehow bothered me that French Detectives spoke as if they were characters in a spaghetti western. Perhaps that is a trend.
3. M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans. I enjoyed reading this. The were a few beautifully descriptive passages, and the struggles of the characters were moving and thought provoking, although often frustrating as well.
4. Teri Agins, Hijacking the Runway. Well written and easy to read. I found it less satisfying than her previous book, but that may be that I am less interested in the subject matter.
5. Simon Wood, The One that Got Away. Another Kindle First. A fast read. I think it is a pretty good portrayal of a character suffering from PTSD. Some of the other characters needed work.
6. D. M. Pulley, The Dead Key. Kindle First. Flowery prose. Unbelievable characters. Some good sections.
7. Daniel Kehlmann, F: A novel. This was the best book of the batch, and considering how long it has stayed with me, and how often I have dipped back into it, I would say it is brilliant, although it is not a novel for the general reader. It is not a book for a reader who wants a traditional story line, but if you are willing to engage with the book it is grippingly thought-provoking. F is a novel about Arthur Friedland and his three sons. Arthur is a Failed writer who takes his sons to see a hypnotist, after which he abandons his Family to pursue his craft. The story resumes many years later when the sons are grown and Arthur has achieved Fame. The eldest son, Martin has become a priest (Faith) although he is a Fake as he does not believe in God. Eric is in Finance and also Fraud. Ivan is an artist, but also a Forger. Family, Fathers, Fame, Faith, Fakery, Fraud, Forgery, Fear. These are the subjects of this book and it is in many ways a very astute and unsettling study of modern life, especially the fear that each of these characters struggles with: the fear of being found out, the fear of not being good enough, the fear that they are each and every one a fraud, not in the external worldly sense, in which they most certainly are frauds, but deep in their inner selves. And so each character builds a life that is a Façade designed to hide their Fear that the world will discover the emptiness they each feel.
