Make the Connection, by Bob Greene and Oprah Winfrey (1996)
I didn't read the whole book. I was under the impression that it would be about making the connection between the food you put in your mouth and the condition of your body afterward. After a little reading and a lot of skimming, it became apparent that it was more about the connection between psychological stuff and eating, as if we've never heard the eating-to-fill-a-deeper-void theory. It also seemed to be about losing weight via training for marathons, something I've never been interested in doing. More determined readers might find in this book the wisdom of the ages and the motivation to change their lives. I found a lot of neat pictures of Oprah and the motivation to read a different book.
Compatibility Test: If you get through "Oprah's Story" and the Introduction by Bob Greene, and you're not annoyed.
Beautiful Girl, by Alice Adams (1978)
A collection of sixteen absorbing, slightly painful and disturbing love stories. Don't be thinking of passionate grief and star-crossed lovers; these are more along the lines of disappointing affairs and stale relationships. Many of the characters end up ultimately unhappy, so if you're a die-hard happy-ending fan, best stay away. Almost like gossip in their ability to hold your attention and interest you in other people's lives, these stories are a great way to accompany a box of chocolate creams.
Compatibility Test: If the first story, "Verlie I Say Unto You" captures you and doesn't make you too sad to continue.
Excuse Me For Asking, by Janis Arnold (1994)
Most of the characters in this story tell it from their own points of view, giving the book an appealing soap-operaish, skipping-around kind of feeling. Time also skips around: sometimes there are many entries from the same day, and then suddenly it's five or ten years later. The book is about two friends, Julia and Robin, and how their friendship lasts over the years. I can hear you loud and clear saying that that's a tired plot, so no need to shout. In this case, the book dwells more on the individual personalities of the two girls/women, their different upbringings, the events in their lives that made them who they are, and the radically different paths their lives take. You may end up wanting to use the names of the two main characters for your daughters.
Compatibility Test: I was hooked the minute I realized I was going to get to read little snippets by each person. If you prefer a consistent narrator, or if you're not hooked by the time you get to the end of the Prologue where Robin tells about the first time she clapped eyes on Julia, don't bother.
Daughters of Memory, by Janis Arnold (1991)
This is the first novel by Janis Arnold, chosen after I was thrilled with her second novel, Excuse Me For Asking (see review, above).
This book made me uncomfortable and angry, and I ended up feeling dissatisfied with the whole thing. Janis Arnold does the different-points-of-view thing in this book, too, just as she did so appealingly in Excuse Me For Asking, but this time there are only two points of view: those of two feuding sisters, Macy Rose and Claire Louise. The sisters put you in the middle of their lifetime of fighting, forcing you to decide with wearying deliberation who is the worse of the two. Not only was I uninterested in the sisters' petty bickering, but even when things got really vicious I was never angry at anything more than injustice in general---I never cared about the specific injustices done by or to either character, and as far as I was concerned the author would have done better to kill off Macy Rose and Claire Louise instead of most of their relatives.
I forced myself to read the whole book just in case there was going to be a satisfying resolution, but no. A mild, milky, superficial sort of happy ending, with no punishment for the unjust or rewards for the righteous.
Compatibility Test: If you love the parts of soap operas where someone is incessantly plotting against someone else and winning, or if you like it when a married couple bickers in your presence.
Almost Perfect, by Alice Adams (1993)
I only made it 33 pages into this book before deciding I wouldn't be able to handle it on a bright sunny day when I didn't have to go to work. The deciding factor was the mention on the book jacket of a husband who "moves slowly, inexplicably into madness," and has "a steady and frightening descent into darkness." When I was at the library on a gloomy Saturday, this seemed like it would be spell-binding, but once I started reading it I didn't think a story of an "almost perfect" marriage ruined by insanity would be anything but sad and painful. As soon as I started to get to know the husband- and wife-to-be, I couldn't bear the thought of their impending misery.
Compatibility Test: Can you bear the thought of it?
Painted Lives, by Charlotte Vale Allen (1990)
It took 19 pages for me to toss this one aside. The elderly widow of a famous painter recounts the story of her life, and as soon as the first reminiscence began I was rolling my eyes. The author seems to consider both her dialogue and her character descriptions extremely sharp and witty and almost Oscar Wildesque, but she lacks the likability and realism so essential to this style. Instead the book begins to sound like the early attempts of a slightly-better-than-average high school writer who has only recently begun reading dry English plays or perhaps cowboy novels. Classic indicators of this were immediately apparent: "'I'm beginning to like you very much, Sarah Kidd. You don't take any crap, not from anyone.'" *Yawn.*
Compatibility Test: Are you still in high school, and/or not very well-read?
Evening Class, by Maeve Binchy (1997)
I've never read a Binchy book I didn't like, but I suppose we need a scale for comparison. Let's say a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "not one of her best, still worth reading, perhaps a little disappointing," 10 being "buy it in hardcover and preserve each page in plastic." Evening Class is somewhere around a 5. Much of it is true Binchy: the amazingly realistic, lovable, fascinating characters and captivating plots I've come to expect. Parts wander into nearly Danielle-Steeleian plot lines, but we can forgive. The storyline of Connie, for example, is sensational yet dull, a la D.S., but with Fiona, we fall in love all over again. Give it a try, but don't expect it to be The Lilac Bus or Light a Penny Candle.
Compatibility Test: What, with a Maeve Binchy?
Follow-up review, September 1999: I've noticed that with Binchy books, I like them much much better when I re-read them. I re-read Evening Class this month and while I still think the Connie plotline has been done to death by schlock writers (and can we really believe that Connie's marriage is the first one ever where all the blame rests on only one spouse?), it was better the second time. I'd up to it a 7.
Sibs, by F. Paul Wilson (1991)
This was my first book by F. Paul Wilson, and a good one to start with: creepy but realistic, mystifying without being confusing. It's a horror/mystery sort of novel, not so scary that the faint-of-heart need to stay away, but don't go into it expecting a completely happy ending. Sibs is the story of twin sisters, both nice girls, one of whom is found dead and with a strangely unfitting bad-girl reputation. The other twin comes to the city to find out what happened, and from there we go to the really weird stuff. My high school English teacher used to say, "Suspend your disbelief," and you will have to if you want to swallow this story. It didn't keep me up nights wondering if it could really happen, but I enjoyed hearing the new ideas. I thought I had it figured out about halfway through, but I had barely touched on the bizarre solution.
Compatibility Test: Can you stand descriptions of explicit and not very friendly sex? Are you able to read about freaky psychological disorders without getting upset? Can you suspend your disbelief? Can you stand to read another book featuring twins?
The Touch, by F. Paul Wilson (1986)
I liked Sibs (see review, above) well enough to try another of his books. The Touch is even better. F. Paul was starting to worry me in Sibs, because it seemed as if he might be one of those male writers who has to fulfill his fantasy life via his books, but The Touch was far more tasteful. The Touch is about a doctor who suddenly receives the power to heal with his (guess what?) touch. Not surprisingly, this power has its downsides. The moral of the story is that there's no such thing as a free lunch: if miracles are performed, someone must pay for them. The story was good, although when the good doctor begins to lose his memory more and more with each use of his healing powers, the author seems to feel that we won't pick up on the significance of this, so he mentions it every few paragraphs for several chapters. I also got a little sick of hearing the main female character, Sylvia, agonize over her son's autism. We get it already.
Compatibility Test: You'll have to suspend your disbelief again, and you'll also have to resist the temptation to make too many guesses about how it's going to end. If you're not snagged by the idea of someone being able to heal on demand, and all the complications this might bring about, don't bother to try it.
The Playhouse, by Elaine Ford (1980)
Those of you who have read Jane Eyre might be reminded of it, both in style and main character, when you read The Playhouse. I had a hard time enjoying the book, mostly because you get the feeling you're skipping over huge important details. For example, why does a loving couple suddenly turn into a non-loving couple? There's no explanation; one morning they're kissy-kissy over muffins and juice, the next they just start fighting and cheating on each other.
The advantage of this kind of book is you get the feeling you're hearing a REAL story, with all the necessary gaps and unexplained events; the disadvantage is that by the end, you wouldn't mind trading a little of the realism for a few of the inside secrets a fiction book can provide. By the time I finished reading the book, I found I didn't care at all how it ended up.
Compatibility Test: Can you stand a dreamy, disconnected tale of an ugly woman who drifts through life and love?
Mrs. Mike, by Benedict and Nancy Freedman (1947)
A beautiful love story with tragedy running all the way through it, leaving love intact but hearts scarred. Yes, it's that kind of book. A young girl marries a Canadian Mounty 10 years older than she, and moves with him "up north" into the snow and Indians and bears and newspapers that arrive a month after they're published. Be prepared for horrible death after horrible death, but the author will help you to stand it. What you might not be able to stand is the feeling that all this actually happened, that this is how life actually was for a long time and for a lot of people. Flu that wiped out a third of the settlement; fire that wiped out another third. Women talking about their "first" and "second" and "third" families, meaning each batch of children who had been lost to another tragedy. But through it all, the young girl Kathy and her Mounty husband Mike have a warm, loving, funny relationship. Great dialogue, characters you can reach out and kiss on the lips, history in easy-to-swallow format you won't even realize you've absorbed until the book is back on the shelf.
Compatibility Test: I don't care who you are, I think you'll like it.
Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious (1956)
Peyton Place is your basic book about a small New England town. It pushes the popular idea that small New England towns are the kinds of places where old men with deep accents gather around the stove in the grocery store to talk about big city wickedness and things that t'ain't so. There's also the heavy implication that people who live in small New England towns are stubborn and prejudiced and backward, and say things like "But this-here's the way things have always been done" when there's any suggestion of a change such as running water. Well, whatever. The book is intoxicating, and if it wants to slander small New England towns on its way into my heart, I can accept that; the fun of uncovering one town secret after another is worth it. The worst part is that the story fizzles two-thirds of the way through; for me it was when I realized that the main character was never going to stop feeling sorry for herself. Also be prepared for a few scenes with, er, adult content.
Compatibility Test: You should read it if only so you'll catch the references frequently made to it in other books.
Interview With the Vampire, by Anne Rice (1976)
Oh, yuck. I had no idea that sucking blood was such an emotional...such an intense...oh, gross. I couldn't read this book during meals or before bed. Sometimes I had to look away and swallow hard before I could continue reading, keeping my eyes pre-winced for convenience. The book is written with a strong mid-1800s feel to it: dark, formal storytelling, the kind in which the storyteller has an uncanny recall of dialogue and seems unaware of a new invention called contractions.
A quote from the book that sums up the overriding theme is: "For vampires, physical love culminates and is satisfied in one thing, the kill." Apparently this is what is most fascinating to the author, because she comes back to it again and again and again, until the whole concept, while still horrifying, becomes also, believe it or not, banal. It became dull, and the main vampire's constant self-flagellating struggle with the subject, decade after decade, became boring as well, until I felt like saying, "Oh, get over yourself already, go suck on somebody's neck and get it over with." This is not the sort of attitude I like to cultivate in myself, and so I'll be staying away from such books in the future. I don't care if Sting thought it was "One of the most wonderful, erotic, sensual books ever written."
Compatibility Test: Is that topic as fascinating to you as it is to Anne Rice?
The India Fan, by Victoria Holt (1988)
This book begins: "I had always been fascinated by the big house of Framling. Perhaps it had begun when I was two years old and Fabian Framling had kidnapped me and kept me there for two weeks." An arresting beginning, yes, despite the odd verb tenses, but vapid, like saying, "I don't know why I've always been afraid to fly. Perhaps it has something to do with that airplane crash I was in as a toddler."
The India Fan has a predictable cast of characters: the little girl; the widowed, uninvolved, absent-minded, literary, vicar father; the devoted, uneducated, cockney nanny; the ruling family who lives in "the House." I'm not sure what it was that made me lose interest in this book, but every time I put it down it was a burden to pick it up again. There wasn't anything in particular I can pinpoint; all the things I can think of (an overuse of words like "haughty" and "tresses," an every-few-pages referral to the kidnapping incident) are minor. Still, I gave up the fight on page 50.
Brother Juniper's Bread Book: Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor, by Brother Peter Reinhart (1991)
The first thing that attracted me to this book was the title, but what made me take it home was the photo of the author: Brother Peter Reinhart looks exactly like my old boss Mike R., the baker who taught me everything I know about the intelligent and strong-handed side of baking. I found it difficult to catch my stride in the book right away, but by halfway through the "When Only White Bread Will Do" chapter I was making lists of ingredients. Not only is Brother Reinhart's writing enough to inspire almost anyone to try to bake a loaf or two, it's full of interesting bread-related trivia: did you know that the San Francisco Bay Area is famous for sourdough bread because there's a particular strain of yeast that can live only there? Brother Reinhart allows for a vast range of experience and interest, from people making their first loaf who are uninterested in leaving the house to get a different kind of flour than what they already have on hand, all the way up to bread-baking pros who need information on what kind of wheat to buy if they want to grind their own perfect flour blend. As you might expect, there's a strong religious theme (the "metaphor" mentioned in the title) running through all the pages of method; this is not a mere cookbook but a book about a baker's thoughts as he kneads the loaves. I highly recommend this book; even if you never intend to bake any bread at all, it's a good read.
A Warning: the first time I read this book, I went out and bought 10 pounds of bread flour, a pound of polenta, a large jar of yeast, etc.---then I returned the book and never made a single loaf of bread. This time I struck while the oven was hot and made three gorgeous loaves of Struan bread. If the book inspires you, I suggest you try out a recipe before you take it back to the library.
Compatibility Test: Have you ever eaten bread?