Book Buzz

CHRIS CLEAVER

Completely sorrowful yet at times full of joy. Little Bee is a refugee in Britain from Nigeria.  In Nigeria people are killed because they witnessed the things that Little Bee saw done to her sister, her parents, her friends and her village. “All the bad stories start with, “And then the men with guns came.” The soldiers were eliminating the people in the way of an oil company.

Only when she manages to get to Britain,  she is kept in a “immigration removal centre.” For two years she is detained in this virtual prison  until she is released by accident. She has the address of a couple who she had met on a beach so she sets out to find them.

It is not an easy book. The horrors modern war are not pretty. One of the themes is the power of stories – telling the stories of people who died terrible and senseless deaths. There is power in the many. One alone is weak.

MEG WOLITZER

The Position is about family relationships and dysfunction. The parents write a Joy of Sex type book, Pleasuring: One Couples Journey to Fulfillment which included explicit drawings of them ”engaged in sexual practices both common and obscure, Western and Eastern, ancient and modern, freehand and apparatus-aided.” The book was an instant best seller. The parents were hot on talk show,  interviews and book signings. The children were horrified and felt that this would scar them for life. ”Once we’ve seen it,” Holly, the oldest, cautions, ”then we can never unsee it. It will stay in our minds.”

Most of the book takes place thirty years later. The publishing house wants to rerelease a celebratory anniversary edition. The children have matured into variously maladjusted adults. Michael, a brilliant and worry-prone do-gooder dot-commer, is on antidepressants that have made him anorgasmic, he can no longer climax during sex. His sister Holly is ”a strange hologram” of a person, out in California with her doctor husband, opting for an isolation from her parents and siblings that’s ”almost religious.” The doctor and their son have finally given her a reason to clean up and become drug free. Claudia, a film student who lives alone in the East Village, thinks her body looks ”like a garbage bag full of leaves.” Dashiell, a political speechwriter, suffers from a liberal family’s most severe pathology: gay Republicanism. Clearly, each son and daughter has a burden, and they’re certainly all victims of the once-sexy excesses of the 70’s.

A must read! I think I will seek out some of her other books.

CHRIS RUTCHER

Concept: 18 year old boy is given less than a year to live. Does he spend it puking sick taking chemo and radiation? Not Ben Wolf. He threatened his doctor with legal action if he broke confidentiality. Ben is 18 and in the last year of high school.  He wants to go out in a blaze of glory. He joined the foot ball team that his younger but bigger brother quarterbacks. And does score some winning touchdowns. The first person he tells is the coach a family friend. The book reaches far beyond the main theme into the need for  education reform, sexual abuse of children from the point of view of an abuser as well as a young person who was abused, racism and more.

DEADLINES raises many questions. Well worth the read for youth and adults. Great start for discussions.

GEORGE D SHUMAN

Blind psychic Sherry Moore   can “visualize the last memories of dead people,” is exposed to radioactive cesium 137 while trying to discern what caused an outbreak of possible hantavirus in New Mexico. Back in Philadelphia for tests and treatment, with trusted Dr. Salix, she touches the body of mental patient Thomas J. Monahan, an army private during the Korean War who was used in a government mind-control experiment in 1950. Thomas’s residual memories concern Area 17, a secret base in Mount Tamathy, N.Y., where a weapon was developed by Nobel Prize–winner Edward Case. Puzzelled, Sherry is helped in her investigations by her neighbour and good friend retired admiral Brigham. Of course not having had sight since she was five, Sherry can neither read nor drive. To be honest she would likely have had more problems adjusting to sight than the book suggests. Case’s handsome sociopath stepson, Troy Weir, sets out to dispose of Sherry and anyone else who might know anything about Area 17. While Sherry investigates Thomas’s past, she becomes attracted to Troy, much to the dismay of her Navy SEAL fiancé, Brian.

An alright thriller. After I finished reading it I found out that it is the fourth book about Sherry. The series started with Lost Girls. I won’t read any more.

SUSAN KUKLIN

Kuklin has written a well balanced look at the issues surrounding capital punishment of teens. She tells the stories of the perpetrators: one who killed someone, but another one who maintains his innocence. I was just reading a report in Macleans magazine of yet another Canadian wrongly convicted of murder. And the scary thing about that is the murderer is in a position to commit more violent crime. Wrongful convictions is the strongest argument against capital punishment for me. But back to NO CHOIRBOY. KUKLIN also looks at how the victim family is affected and the family of the perpetrator of the crime. This well balanced approach makes for a most thought-provoking read.

I did have to ask my self why did all these kids have guns? That idiotic belief that it is a right to bear arms might have been necessary in 1800 but makes no sensense today.

SUZANNE COLLINS

Arresting concept: the youth of the nation pitted against the youth of the nation for public entertainment. Each year a male and female youth are chosen from each district. A complex draft chooses the contestants. At age ten each name goes into the draw; each year after the name goes in draft an additional time. Eleven twice, twelve three times, thirteen three times.  All names are kept in the draw year after year. When the kids have been chosen, they get a bit of training and then are throwen into an arena for a fight until death, for the amusement and control of the masses.

A good book but at 350 pages it needed serious editing. Unfortunately  GAMES does not come to a complete finality. It sets the scene for a sequel. Even within a series a novel should be complete on its own.

JONATHAN HICKMAN

J M RINGUET

Best Graphic Novel I have read recently. Hickman iluustrates  genetic engineering and the creation of super-humans, from a corporate, profit point of view. The book is a documentary telling the story of two rival scientists who were both trying to bring about the next step in human evolution but solely for a profit. The rival scientists are both trying to create superhumans; one via genetic engineering and the other using technological modifications. Au cureent is the inclusion of venture capatalists who fund the research again for a profit share.

I enjoyed the way Hickman slowly revealed the consequences of this human engineering.

Art: lauralengyel.com

ARAVIND ADIGA

I discovered this book by reading this review in the New Internationalist:

Top of the swaying piles of books that pedestrian street-hawkers navigate through Mumbai’s traffic jams is Adiga’s controversial first novel. Apart from winning the prestigious Man Booker prize in Britain, The White Tiger has also taken India by storm. But in his native land, Adiga’s efforts have elicited admiration and anger in equal measure. For some, The White Tiger is a bold, honest work that unflinchingly ‘tells the truth’ about contemporary India; others have dismissed it as ‘inauthentic’ and peopled with ‘grotesque caricatures’.

The first-person narrative is dominated by the book’s hero, Balram Halwai, who is writing a letter to the Chinese Premier. The latter is about to visit India to find out about ‘entrepreneurship’ – something ‘India Rising’ has in abundance and China lacks. But what do Indian politicians and élites know about it, asks Balram? Listen to me, he says, and he starts to tell his own dark, intriguing journey to success, from low-caste village boy in ‘The Darkness’ (the northern state of Bihar) to wealthy business owner in the IT hub of Bangalore. It’s a tale of servitude, abuse, betrayal, murder, corruption, theft and ruthless cunning. The message is stark: if you start life at the bottom, this is how you escape poverty and humiliation in India’s ‘democracy’.

The wit is mordant; the politics trenchant; the vision as unforgiving as neon light. Compassion is entirely lacking in Balram’s dog-eat-dog world. There is just one perspective – the protagonist’s – and his distinctive voice, as he tells his story brilliantly, incisively and – of course – controversially.

http://www.newint.org/columns/media/books/2009/01/01/white-tiger/

Great read. Interesting picture of Indian society.

BEATRICE HOHENEGGER

Tea has had an amazing history in medicine, politics, the arts, culture, and religion. But behind tea there is treachery, violence, smuggling, drug trade, international espionage, slavery, and revolution. Western greed against Eastern spiritual ways.

China first used tea as a remedy. Taoists celebrated tea as the elixir of immortality. Buddhist Japan developed a whole body of practices around tea as a spiritual path, Zen simplicity and order. The first Westerners were merchants which led to trade wars, the emergence of the powerful English East India Company. Spies roamed China to steal the secrets of tea production. An army of smugglers made fortunes with tea deliveries in the dead of night. In the name of “free trade” the English imported opium to China in exchange for tea. China was not allowed to choose. They had to take the opium. The huge tea industry in the eighteenth century reinforced the practice of slavery in the sugar plantations as it became the norm to drink tea with sugar. And one of the reasons why tea became popular in the first place is that it helped sober up the English, who were practically drowning in alcohol. The enormous consumption of tea in England also led to the development of the large tea plantation system in colonial India — a story of success for British Empire tea and of untold misery for generations of tea workers. The British tax on tea sparked the American Revolution.

Liquid Jade is illustrated  with works of art and historical photographs.

No means a perfect book but definitely worth a skim.

Dalia Sofer

When I first started reading SHIRAZ, I thought that it wasn’t by far the best fiction about Iran. But the more I read the more I enjoyed and started to love this story and its writing. It is the story of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution.

Isaac, the father, is a successful jeweler and gem merchant.. In the opening chapters, he is arrested by two armed Revolutionary Guards, taken from his office at lunchtime on a routine workday.  ” What crime has he committed?” is frequently asked. Before the revolution he had  been patronized by many in the aristocracy, including the wife of the shah. This economic class separation between the middle class before the revolution and the revolutionary guards after, was not something that I understood before this book.

Well worth reading.

TRANSSEXUAL CEOs, CROSSDRESSING COPS, AND HERMAPHRODITES  WITH ATTIDUDE

AMY BLOOM

Understanding the complexity of the human condition is one of the reasons we read. Bloom’s book is a welcome addition to the complexity of sexuality especially the only now beginning to be explored and understood intersex condition. I am reminded of Stone Butch Blues (autobiographical fiction) by transgender activist Leslie Feinberg.  Stone Butch Blues is a must read by the way. I remember her writing that it was difficult filling out job applications when it got to Sex neither male or female were right.

Normal tells the stories of the many people that she interviewed for this book. Fascinating stories. So many sad stories of people who had surgury at the whim of a doctor. “It is easier to dig a hole than build a pole.” So many people not told the truth by their medical professionals. Hopefully that is changing in Canada as well as the United States.

Definitely read!

ANDREW X. PHAM

The subtitle is so provocative and sad, to have lived the majority of your life in a war zone. We are so blessed. I have often thought about Vietnam what a poor country. And then after all those years of war to be neglected by developed nations due to the US embargo.

Pham has these interesting ideas on memoirs as a foreword; “it seems to me as memorists, we are not historians, not even of our own lives. That is the job of biographers. Memoirs are our love letters and our letters of apologies, both. They hold our few gems, the noteworthy lessons of our journeys.

I did not set out to write my father’s biography. I have lent his life stories my words. ”

This superb book tell the author’s father’s story from 1940 when he was living in North Vietnam a rich landowner’s son, until 1976 when he is released from a communist reeducation camp. The father realizes that he still must leave his home country.

PATRICK FRENCH

TIBET is a history, commentary and, travel book all rolled into one. An refreshing combination. French details the times China’s history and Tibet’s have overlapped. He raises an interesting point: had the British arrived in Tibet early enough to colonize Tibet, quite possibly the Chinese take over would not have happened. Impossible to know. So much has been lost especially in the turbulent 60’s, the cultural revolution. French comes to the conclusion that Tibet will never be free until China is free.

Recommended for all who care for what is happening in Tibet now and what has happened in the past.

LLYOD JONES

A story about the power of storytelling. Mr Pip takes place in Bougainville (part of Melanesian) in the 1990s. Bougainville Copper Limited  was exploiting the island’s huge copper reserves. Resentment over the negative effects of the company’s activities on the area and the lack of any tangible benefit to the islanders erupted into conflict. Attempts at proclaiming the independence of Bougainville (Republic of North Solomons) have occurred twice, once in 1975 and the other in 1990. In the second case the government of Papua New Guinea moved to put down what became a secessionist movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Mr Pip was the white man living on the island, isolated from the other villagers because of his colour. When school was closed because there were no teachers he volunteered to teach the local children. His first and most important teaching technique was reading aloud from his only book Dickens’ Great Expectations. So much of what was written was foreign to the students whose only  home was on a tropical paradise that was now at war. Yet the moral truths did shine through.

A must read. Well deserved Booker Prize Nominee.

AZAR NAFISI

From the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran (which was a much better book) THINGS focuses on the relationship between the author and her distant mother. It does offer insights into Iranian culture such as why child abuse is rampant and the politic whirling behind the family stories. A good book that needs skimming.

INDRA SINHA

ANIMAL’S tells the tragic story of the Bhopal incident of 1984 and it’s people who twenty years later are still fighting for justice and reparation from the Kampani (Union Carbide). Animal has never known a world that has not been filled with poison. His parent were both killed the night of the gas leak “drowning in their own blood.” His spine was was twisted so that he is forced to walk on all fours, his ass higher than his head. He was raised by Ma Franci,a French nun, who’s mind was distorted that night of poison so she forgot all languages except her mother tongue, French. 

There are places where the book drags but it is still an excellent read with an excellent theme. A must read.

DAVID WALTNER-TOEWS

Canadian Mennonites in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In the early 80’s western governments were pouring alot of money into Indonesia trying to save it from communism even though president Suharto was violently suppressing freedom of speech and democracy. Abner Dueck is a veterinarian working on a project that is bring milk cows to Java. One asks why since drinking milk is not part of the South East Asian diet or culture. But some cows die under peculiar  circumstances. Dueck meets a seductive young Chinese woman who he thinks is looking for marriage as a way out of the country. Two friends turn up dead – murdered. He wants to find out why.

An interesting mystery. Good description of the local. 

I love reading about places I have visited. It brings back so many memories.

NADEEM ASLAM

The best fiction written about Afghanistan. Incidents from the times of the Shah to the on-going war are woven into this complex tale that centres around Marcus. Marcus is English born but has lived in Afghanistan for decades. Liberal and forthright, his Afghani wife was stoned by the Taliban. (Blood leaked out the lace eye opening of her burka.) Laura, a Russian, is searching for information about her brother who never returned from the Soviet invasion. David once a CIA agent, has been in Afghanistan for 25 years.”He knew of no other war that was fought with the help of as many spies.”  Casa, a young Afghani, has been trained as a terrorist. James is an American special forces soldier who reminds David of the black and white morality that was once his. 

A must read.

TIM WEINER

 America’s foes and rivals have long overrated the CIA. When Henry Kissinger  traveled to China in 1971, Prime Minister Chou En-lai asked about the CIA. Kissinger told Chou that he “vastly overestimates the competence of the CIA.” Chou persisted that “whenever something happens in the world they are always thought of.” Kissinger acknowledged, “That is true, and it flatters them, but they don’t deserve it.” “Legacy of Ashes” is a litany of failure. But I am not as interested in the incompetence of spying but on the havoc that was set upon the rest of the world “making it safe for democracy.” 

One director of the CIA said about overthrowing democratically elected leftist governments: “Why should we be put out because they don’t know how to vote properly.”

The CIA only began in 1945, yet their were many times that the US was involved in nefarious foreign operations: the colonization of Hawaii’s, the Spanish American war to steal the Philippines and many incidents in south and central Americas.

The USA was not the only nation interfering with foreign nations. That could be a definition of colonialism. The British were taking twice the profit from gas being drilled in Iran than Iran was left with, before WWII.

In 54 Eisenhower said one thing about Guatemala but under the table acted completely the opposite to please one of his major funders.  “Guatemala was at the beginning of forty years of military ruler, death squads, and armed repression.”

“Eisenhower wanted to promote the idea of an Islamic jihad against godless communism.”

In Indonesia, when President Sukarno allied himself with the PKI (the dreaded communists) the CIA backed General Suharto ($1/2 million). “A great wave of violence began in Indonesia. A multitude was massacred. 3-400,000 people were slain in a blood bath.” The CIA agent  who set this up (for President Johnson) later served as the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

South Africa: CIA had a role in imprisoning Nelson Mandela.

Kennedy set in motion the assassination his ally the President of South Vietnam, Diem. Johnson felt the Kennedy’s death was divine retribution for the assassination of Diem

“The war in Vietnam began with political lies based on fake intelligence.” Sound familiar?

Vietnam: “Never had so much intelligence meant so little. The conduct of the war had been set by a series of lies that the leader of the US told one another and the American people. The White House and the Pentagon kept trying to convince the people that the war was going well.

Pres. Johnson (67) feared the peace movement and believed that it was controlled and financed by Moscow and Beijing. He ordered the CIA to prove it. “In a blatant violation of his powers under law, the director of the central intelligence became a part-time secret-police chief.”

Chile: CIA had kept Allende from being elected in 64 with a Kennedy approved political-warfare program costing $3 million, about a dollar a vote. In 70 they failed to stop his election so Nixon ordered $10 million to destabilize the country after the election until Pinochet established a military Junta. His long rein of repression, death, torture and murder is called the Caravan of Death.

Both Noriega, Panama dictator and Sadam Hussein were recipients of CIA’s largess before they were considered enemies.

“Bush (the first) was the only president who knew how the CIA worked. He had daily briefings.”

 “Under Bush’s (2nd) order the CIA began to function as a global military police, throwing hundreds of suspects into secret jails in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland and Guantanamo. Discussion of implanting every American citizen with a micro chip, for security purposes took place.”

 “We know Sadam Hussein has weapons of mass destructions.”

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

YELLOW SUN is about the birth of Biafra, a short lived country in Africa late 60’s early 70’s. I remember Biafra: pictures of starving children with swollen bellies. George Harrison organized a rock concert to raise funds for relief. I had the album. I thought drought. I was wrong. War! And all of the issues that I associate with modern trouble in Africa were in this situation in the 60’s: child soldiers, tribe against tribe, rape as a weapon of war, genocide, refugees, starvation, western nations ignoring what was happening.

If I just read what I wrote I’m not sure if I would want to read this book but it isn’t all war. The book tell the story of twin sisters Olanna and Kainene and their loves and families as Nigeria ajusts to post-colonial times.

This poem is a quote from the book. Is the title not evocative?

WERE YOU SILENT WHEN WE DIED?”

Did you see photos in sixty-eight

Of children with their hair becoming rust:

Sickly patches nestled on those small heads,

Then falling off, like rotten leaves on dust?

Imagine children with arms like toothpicks,

With footballs for bellies and skin stretched thin.

It was kwashiorkor—difficult word,

A word that was not quite ugly enough, a sin.

You needn’t imagine. There were photos

Displayed in gloss-filled pages of your Life.

Did you see? Did you feel sorry briefly,

Then turn round to hold your lover or wife?

Their skin had turned the tawny of weak tea

And showed cobwebs of vein and brittle bone;

Naked children laughing, as if the man

Would not take photos and then leave, alone.

*kwashiorkor  the illness or symptom of starving children developing a swollen belly

Great read!