Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Post #36: MASTERMIND: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

I confess a weakness for the most brilliant person in the room. People who are great at what they do, whatever their “thing” may be, are my favorites. Excellence is dead sexy, especially when it comes to intelligence and the desire to improve. For this reason, I’m interested in the character of Sherlock Holmes.

Oh, sure, he’s maddening to deal with — abrupt, insensitive, and distant at times — but the skill with which he gathers and assesses information is why his character has endured since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created him in 1887. In Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, Maria Konnikova examines what goes into Holmes’ process, the way he can block out all other distractions in order to solve his cases, and how ordinary people can use these skills in their everyday life.

(Read the rest of my review at Glorified Love Letters. Plus enter to win a copy of the book.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #35: Proxy by R Erica Doyle

(Forgot to post this one awhile back!)

My review of R Erica Doyle’s very good poetry collection, Proxy, appeared at The Rumpus.

“A change of position, a change of time — R. Erica Doyle’s Proxy moves through the heady, consuming stages of desire, explosion, depression, and peace within the life-cycle of a relationship. Her prose poems are unafraid of the body, of queerness, and the messiness into which one can willingly dive.”

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Reviews #32-34: Ron Currie Jr., Isabel Allende, & Rayya Elias

Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.

I read Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles right after Kristopher Jansma’s The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards, and they complimented each other to the point of Miracles almost reading like a sequel to Leopards. Both deal with unreliable male protagonists speaking to the reader, men who need some enlightening on matters of women and healthy relationships.

I preferred Jansma’s book, but Miracles is still quite good. Currie’s self-named character somewhat accidentally fakes his own death in the Caribbean, and as a result, his novel becomes a bestseller. He misses the woman with whom he’d lived “pre-death,” and eventually coming “back to life” makes the public unhappy with upending their Lost Genius fiction they’d constructed in his absence. We all have stories we tell ourselves, and facing their inaccuracies is startling.

The earliest known mention of a person enhanced with a prosthesis, believe it or not, comes from the Vedas. We’re talking 1500 B.C., or thereabouts. A female warrior loses her leg, and is given a replacement. We’ve had 3,500 years to get used to the idea, yet when I talk about the Singularity, people still get an indulgent look on their faces, like they’re humoring me and my absurd notions of human beings with brain/computer interfaces and titanium exoskeletons. I mean, they’re polite about it, usually, which I appreciate. But, you know, 1500 B.C. The first time a person was joined with a machine, however primitive. Consider that, I tell them, then ask yourself: Who’s being naïve, do you think?

Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende

Also dealing with questions of identity and existing in hiding is Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende, released this past May. In it, Maya Vidal alternates between writing about living in Chile with a friend of her grandmother’s, and also the self-destructive path that brought her there. The scenery shifts between Berkeley, the Pacific Northwest, Las Vegas, and Chiloé.

Although the book is nearly 400 pages, it never feels like it goes on too long, and the diary premise never seems forced. Maya’s story hurtles along, and Allende, no matter the location, immerses you in a way where you can nearly taste the weather. And there’s a fair dose of humor too:

The cousin showed up an hour later than he said he would in a van crammed to the roof with stuff, accompanied by his wife with a baby at her breast. I thanked my benefactors, who had also lent me the cell phone to get in touch with Manual Arias, and said good-bye to the dog, but he had other plans: he sat at my feet and swept the ground with his tail, smiling like a hyena; he had done me the favor of honoring me with his attention, and now I was his lucky human. I changed tactics. “Shoo! Shoo! Fucking dog,” I shouted at him in English. He didn’t move, while the cousin observed the scene with pity. “Don’t worry, señorita, we can bring your Fahkeen,” he said at last. And in this way that ashen creature acquired his new name[.]

Both present and past storylines are riveting, and I can see this book also becoming a good movie. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rights have already been sold.

Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, From The Middle East to The Lower East Side by Rayya Elias

Yes, that title is a mouthful, but this New York memoir from Rayya Elias is an interesting portrait of redemption. At this point in my reading life, I admit to tiring of the addict memoir, but that doesn’t mean that these stories aren’t worth telling. It comes down to the surrounding environment, when I decide on giving the book my attention. It was the post-punk angle that sucked me into this one.

Elias and her family left Syria when she was young, and the rebellious teenager took to drugs in order to impress her tougher classmates:

For the first time I had earned street credibility — not because of my cool cousin, but because of what I had done. I was christened into the club of the psychos[.]

She joins a lot of bands, learns how to cut and style hair, and eventually moves to New York during the 1980s. She rises and falls multiple times, including a stint in prison. Although Elias isn’t the strongest writer, I appreciate that Harley Loco isn’t one of those “hit rock bottom/ climbed out/ everything is fine now” stories. Rayya Elias, though many years sober, shows the reality of her struggle, and how art can transcend addiction.

Full Disclosure: Viking provided me with review copies of both Harley Loco and Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles. Harper provided the review copy of Maya’s Notebook. I thank them for the gesture, and I will continue to be fair with my reviews.

(These reviews originally appeared on Glorified Love Letters.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #31: Simon’s Cat vs. The World by Simon Tofield

We’re going to do something a little different this time because, well, to be honest, the idea amuses me. While I am certainly a great lover of cats and comics/cartoons,Simon’s Cat vs. The World struck me as something my six-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter would also enjoy. Anyone who knows my son knows he operates in his own amusing, creative universe, and my daughter is a voracious reader who can’t believe I’m not blowing through the Harry Potter series just once while she’s gone through it three times. (I’m about to start Book 4, at her insistence. Yes, I’m late to the party, as usual.)

So while I can tell you that Simon Tofield’s kitty creation is both very funny and full of detail, I wanted to know what my kids had to say.

Jack: “I like the part with the couch because he’s like AAAHHH!! with his paw. And the bird box is funny because the bird pops out and the birds are just like Yeah! I like the sticker with the arrow pointing into cat’s mouth because it’s like the cat is saying,Feed me.”

Grace: “I like the drawing lessons in the back because I like drawing a lot and I like cats. The book is really funny. The Godzilla part was my favorite.”

Jack: “And how could you conquer the Godzilla?”

Grace: “I don’t know, it was the shadow of the Godzilla toy. And Simon looked fiercer the dinosaur toy’s shadow.”

Jack: “Well, I don’t really see how that’s conquering it.”

(I think the cat’s ongoing war with the hedgehogs is my favorite.)

The included stickers and drawing lessons are also a great inclusion with the full color illustrations. The way Tofield explains his relatively simple way of drawing different animals is something even a semi-inept artist such as myself could handle. My daughter, on the other hand, could practically do it in her sleep. The kids got right to work on their own Simon the Cat artwork.

(Click on through to Glorified Love Letters for both their artwork and the rest of my review.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #30: Half as Happy: Stories by Gregory Spatz

You know a book is good if you only stop reading so that you can tell the author, at 1 AM via Facebook, how much you are enjoying it. The evening I began reading it, I’d plans to watch Doctor Who, which, if you know me, is serious business. I thought I would read a little, then turn on the TV. No, I kept reading. Let it be known: Gregory Spatz’s new story collection, Half as Happy, is a wonderfully gratifying little book.

This is the passage, from the story “Happy For You,” that had me thinking, Jesus, this guy is good at opening paragraphs, and that’s when I jumped online to tell him so:

For the moment, she is asleep — an ethereal gray sleep, something like the color of brain matter or of wet cement at dawn, or of the light seeping across her ceiling. A window fan at the foot of her bed whisks air into the room — wet, early spring air — furls and unfurls it around her, keeping her aloft in her dreams.

[…]The phone rings, jerking her from this gray ethereality, aches in her joints and muscles all previously dissolved out of reason magically reasserting themselves.

(My full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #29: The Girlfriend Game by Nick Antosca

A few years ago, I read Nick Antosca’s novel, Midnight Picnic, a ghost story unlike any I’d read before (though, admittedly, that might not mean much, as my horror-swath is not so widespread). I enjoyed it immensely, so when I was able to get my mitts on his new collection of short stories, The Girlfriend Game, I had high expectations for satisfyingly surreal, dark situations.

When the stories “Predator Bait” and “Soon You Will Be Gone and Possibly Eaten” distracted me from my current Netflix obsessions, I knew I was once again in good literary hands. Yes, yes, the old guard intellectual hope is that a love of books trumps television, but television has writers too. Nick Antosca is one of them (Teen Wolf, Last Resort). Perhaps it is that innate sense of urgency, the need to fit all the necessary information into a smaller 22 or 48 minute package, that makes The Girlfriend Gameso enjoyable. These aren’t happy tales, but the confusion, loneliness, and yearning for change feels so authentic to each individual world.

(My full review can be found on Persephone Magazine.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #28: The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

Would you believe that this is only the second Neil Gaiman book that I’ve ever read? I know, I am disappointed in this reading gap too, as it has happened for no good reason. I enjoy Gaiman’s writing immensely, and his new novel, The Ocean at The End of The Lane did not disappoint.

Existing in that shadowy space between reality and dream, our unnamed narrator visits the Sussex farmland of his childhood neighbors. At seven years old, he spent a surreal series of nights with Lettie Hempstock and her mother and grandmother – a past he hasn’t given much thought to until now. From there, we are submerged in those dark times when a man committed suicide near his home, and his relationship with his family became frightening. Seeming far older than her outwardly young appearance, Lettie promises to take care of the boy, and what happens is a story that I think will require a reread to fully appreciate in detail.

(Read the rest of my review at Persephone Magazine.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Reviews #23-27: Strayed, Martin, Attenberg, Shaprio, Mignola & Golden

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

Sugar is magic. Cheryl Strayed’s online (and originally anonymous) alter-ego has a way of dispensing advice that speaks directly to one’s core. Through the questions posed to her about love, lust, and loneliness, she tells stories about her own life that are a blow to the chest. Her honesty is wrapped in gentle, hard truths that are applicable beyond the specific question-writer.

Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of many of the columns that originally appeared on The Rumpus, as well as several previously unpublished questions. Strayed also talks a bit about the how/why she decided to take on this writing gig, and also her thought process leading into shedding Sugar’s anonymity. Even though I had already read many of the columns when they first posted, going over them again felt nearly as potent. This book is a lovely addition for anyone who has ever asked, Am I okay?

Stories For Boys: A Memoir by Gregory Martin

I read this touching memoir in one sitting. Beginning with the suicide attempt of his father, Gregory Martin discovers why the man who raised him has reached this point. Not only was his father sexually abused as a child, but he has also been a closeted gay man throughout the entirety of his 39 year marriage. He has admitted to Martin’s mother that he has sought out “hundreds” of unknown partners at parks and rest stops while traveling and while the rest of the family slept at home. Because they lived in Spokane, Washington, the settings were very familiar to me, having myself lived there for several years.

Though the book focuses on Martin’s perspective and not his father’s, this isn’t a simple story of “troubled man comes out” — this is about a father and a son having to navigate an almost entirely new relationship. It’s an interesting exploration of memory, identity, and empathy, and I’m glad I read it.

(Full Disclosure: Hawthorne Books provided me with the e-book for review.)

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

I’ve followed Jami Attenberg’s work online for several years now, but I must admit that this is the first novel of hers that I’ve read (a gap I plan to remedy soon). The Middlesteins is, so far, also her most successful book, and for good reason. She has written a family saga that feels very grounded in reality, centered around matriarch Edie. Edie cannot stop eating or obsessing over food, and it is severely affecting her health. Her husband, Richard, after decades of marriage, leaves her, and now her adult children are wondering how they can care for her and process their parents’ split, all while managing their own complicated lives.

One of the things I loved about the book is that Attenberg does not write caricatures. In the hands of lesser writers, a character like Edie could have dissolved into one-dimensional stereotype, but she is a whole person full of humor and love. The other family members, with all their quirks and problems, receive the same honest treatment. Though the plot deals with serious subject matter, it’s also a very funny book.

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro

I picked up this novel on whim from the new books section at the library, and it was a lovely surprise. Using the real life art heist from the Isabella Gardner Museum in 1990, B.A. Shapiro has created a fictionalized story about a disgraced painter, Claire, who has been asked by a famous gallery owner to copy a Degás — the same Degás stolen from the museum. However, the more time Claire spends with this ill-begotten painting, the more she suspects that it may also be a forgery.

Because I’m a sucker for heist stories and because I’m quite interested in visual art, I enjoyed unraveling the mystery of what had really happened during the time of the theft and in the 19th century when the painting was originally created. There’s a whole side-plot about why Claire has a poor reputation in the art world that is also quite interesting, and though I could work out some of the twists on my own, the complete ending still held plenty of surprises.

Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

A friend recommended this novella for our book club selection, and I’m so pleased that she did because I’m not sure it would have otherwise crossed my attention. Set during WWII, Father Gaetano is assigned as the sole priest in a small Sicilian village, where not only must he conduct every mass, he must also see after the spiritual care of the many orphans who are now living at the church. To better engage the children in their catechism lessons, he brings up an old puppet set from the basement. What he doesn’t know is that the puppets believe that the stories are real, and after dark they appear without strings. What happens next is a series of disturbing events that affect everyone involved, all while subtly mirroring the national turmoil surrounding the village.

Though I am not well-versed in Catholic symbolism, I found Father Gaetano utterly compelling. Told from the points-of-view of the priest, a nun, and one sensitive boy who lives there, we are able to understand different ways how one can question their faith, and how they react when bravery is required. It’s a quick read interspersed with dark illustrations, and is yet another example of my need to occasional widen my reading repertoire.

(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #22: The Queen: A Life in Brief by Robert Lacey

With a newly arrived Royal Baby (capitalization probably required), it seems appropriate to read about the child’s great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. What got me picking up this indeed brief book, however, was The King’s Speech. I’d finished watching it on Netflix and remembered seeing screenwriter David Seidler on Charlie Rose when the film was first released. He said that he’d wanted to explore the story of King George VI’s stutter and relationship to his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, but that the Queen mother asked him to wait until she died. Then, of course, she went on to live a total 102 years. Nine years later, The King’s Speech won 4 Oscars, 7 BAFTAs, 1 Golden Globe, and 2 SAG awards. It is an outstanding film, and I wanted some additional information about the family.

I’ve never really been a royalist, but my interest stems from how odd their insular experience must be. In The King’s Speech, the Queen Mother, then the Duchess of York (played by Helena Bonham Carter), makes a joke that being royalty is like “indentured servitude,” which isn’t too far off — though it’s still a very pampered, privileged life, despite its obligations. The Queen: A Life in Brief condenses much of the information found in Robert Lacey’s other book, Monarch (also known as Royal, in the Great Britain edition), which was the basis for the Helen Mirren film, The Queen. When a family is so private, the sources all seem to feed into one another.

(See the rest of my review at Glorified Love Letters.)

Sara Habein’s #CBR5 Review #21: Supernatural Strategies for Forming a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group by Ivan F. Svenious

What a delightfully odd little book this is. Presented as an old manual mixed with a narrator that’s rather Lemony-Snicket-meets-Ted-Wilson, Supernatural Strategies For Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group manages to be just as funny as it is strange. Throughout, Ian F. Svenious injects enough knowing truth that anyone who has ever involved themselves with musicians will recognize.

The idea is this: During a séance, the ghost of The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones offered advice on forming a group, “accompanied by a vague scent of Moroccan spice and the rustling sound of suede on corduroy.” I let out an audible Ha!when I read the following:

Can we somehow become renowned without dying?
Faking one’s death is an obvious route, and is often accomplished — albeit in a metaphorical sense — in collusion with the PR Industry. First one must create a record which is sensationally acclaimed. Then one must explode at the apex of its career.
[…]The La’s, the Stone Roses, My Bloody Valentine, the Sex Pistols, and The Specials all successfully used this virtual death technique to ensure renown, as did David Bowie when he fired his group Spiders From Mars onstage while their concert was being filmed at the Hammersmith Odeon for theatrical release.

Which is, of course, completely true until festival season 25 years from that “death,” when the living members of three-quarters of those bands reunite for a bit of Rock ‘n’ Roll Church at Glastonbury or Coachella. A tidy profit and a bit of personal nostalgia — They can be loved as before.

(Lest you think I’m making fun: With Noel Gallagher as my witness, I would succumb to my own metaphorical perishing if I could see the Stone Roses live.)

(See the rest of my review at Glorified Love Letters.)