{"id":3800,"date":"2014-09-03T20:53:56","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T00:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/?p=3800"},"modified":"2024-09-06T21:23:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T01:23:37","slug":"readers-notebook-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/2014\/09\/03\/readers-notebook-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader’s Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian Summer<\/em> – Aaron Mahnke
\nThis was an impulse purchase for the Kindle before my Kansas City trip in late July. I\u2019ve read another of Mahnke\u2019s books, but it was a guide to being a freelancer rather than a novel. Between that and the cheap price, my expectations were low.<\/p>\n

It ended up being pretty solid.<\/p>\n

It begins with a piece set in the 1980s. A group of pre-teen friends sneak into an abandoned factory in New England that was originally built over 100 years earlier. It\u2019s spooky, rumored to be haunted, and a perfect temptation for a pack of boys. But something goes terribly wrong and one boy does not make it out alive.<\/p>\n

The story then picks up 30 years later, the survivors all men and loosely connected but still struggling with the memories of their trip to the factory. A series of mysterious events bring them together and they must link up to defeat a supernatural being who was summoned by a surprising source.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all a little Stephen King-lite, from the setting to the reliance on childhood traumas and the connections between different worlds. It\u2019s not as good as King would have done, but it\u2019s also about 1\/3 of the length of one of his books, making for a nice, quick read. And a satisfying one at that.<\/p>\n

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close<\/em> – Jonathan Safran Foer
\nIt\u2019s funny to read a book like this nearly a decade after its release. A novel of post 9\/11 New York that was released in 2005, it came under great criticism at the time by some who felt it handled the events and aftermath of that day too casually. Thirteen years later, though, I found many of those early criticisms off the mark.<\/p>\n

The book centers on Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old who lost his father in the Twin Towers. He\u2019s an odd, but charming kid, and after he comes across a strange looking key in his dad\u2019s possessions, embarks on a journey around the city to find what it was his dad left behind, hoping it will provide some kind of closure. Weaved within Oskar\u2019s story is the story of his family, and how his grandparents fled Dresden during World War II and arrived in the States.<\/p>\n

A lot of people found using a child as the narrator of post-9\/11 New York troublesome. I loved him. He seems like your average, overly smart, socially awkward kid that is pushed just a little more into the world of the bizarre by his father\u2019s death. Poor Oskar has a lot on his shoulders, and despite his protests, is struggling to keep it together when everyone around him seems to be falling apart.<\/p>\n

There was also criticism of this book for Foer\u2019s use of various design tricks in the book. Blank pages. Pages with single words or phrases. Others that run the words together until they read as thick, black, illegible lines. Most of all, there was criticism of the final section of the book, which features shots of a man who jumped from the Towers placed in reverse, so he seems to be flying back up into the building rather than toward the ground. I found all of these a little distracting, but don\u2019t think they ruined a good story.<\/p>\n

TransAtlantic<\/em> – Colum McCann
\nI loved McCann\u2019s New York, quasi-post-9\/11 epic As The Great World Spins<\/em>, and this came with high praise from brother in books David V. So expectations were high. And it largely delivered.<\/p>\n

From a plot standpoint, it\u2019s an odd book. In its first third, it follows three historical moments: Alcock and Brown\u2019s first transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland, Frederick Douglas\u2019 mission to raise funds and awareness of American slavery in Ireland before the Civil War, and George Mitchell\u2019s efforts to forge peace in Northern Ireland in the mid 1990s. From there McCann follows a series of women who crossed paths with those men in Canada, Ireland, the US, and Northern Ireland across three centuries. There are common threads through the segments – a line of four generations of women – but each largely functions as a set piece to itself.<\/p>\n

This is a beautifully written book. I couldn\u2019t help but imagine McCann reading passages in his Irish voice as I read them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a perfect book, though. He spreads himself rather thin in trying to go so many places and introduce so many people in just 300 pages. I often wondered where it was going and how it would all come together. That never really got resolved for me. This feels like a book made for book clubs, where you can sit and discuss and argue about what it all means and how all the parts fit together. Not that that is a bad thing, or that I need books with clearly progressing plots. There\u2019s just no clear, easy resolution or feeling of closure when you reach the final page.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed this book. Even with the plot issues, it is one of my favorites I\u2019ve read this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Summer – Aaron Mahnke This was an impulse purchase for the Kindle before my Kansas City trip in late July. I\u2019ve read another of Mahnke\u2019s books, but it was a guide to being a freelancer rather than a novel. Between that and the cheap price, my expectations were low. It ended up being pretty solid. It begins with a piece set in the 1980s. A group of pre-teen friends sneak into an abandoned factory in New England that was originally built over 100 years earlier. It\u2019s spooky, rumored to be haunted, and a perfect temptation for a pack of boys. But something goes terribly wrong and one boy does not make it out alive. The story then picks up 30 years later, the survivors all men and loosely connected but still struggling with the memories of their trip to the factory. A series of mysterious events bring them together and they must link up to defeat a supernatural being who was summoned by a surprising source. It\u2019s all a little Stephen King-lite, from the setting to the reliance on childhood traumas and the connections between different worlds. It\u2019s not as good as King would have done, but it\u2019s also about 1\/3 of the length of one of his books, making for a nice, quick read. And a satisfying one at that. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer It\u2019s funny to read a book like this nearly a decade after its release. A novel of post 9\/11 New York that was released in 2005, it came under great criticism at the time by some who felt it handled the events and aftermath of that day too casually. Thirteen years later, though, I found many of those early criticisms off the mark. The book centers on Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old who lost his father in the Twin Towers. He\u2019s an odd, but charming kid, and after he comes across a strange looking key in his dad\u2019s possessions, embarks on a journey around the city to find what it was his dad left behind, hoping it will provide some kind of closure. Weaved within Oskar\u2019s story is the story of his family, and how his grandparents fled Dresden during World War II and arrived in the States. A lot of people found using a child as the narrator of post-9\/11 New York troublesome. I loved him. He seems like your average, overly smart, socially awkward kid that is pushed just a little more into the world of the bizarre by his father\u2019s death. Poor Oskar has a lot on his shoulders, and despite his protests, is struggling to keep it together when everyone around him seems to be falling apart. There was also criticism of this book for Foer\u2019s use of various design tricks in the book. Blank pages. Pages with single words or phrases. Others that run the words together until they read as thick, black, illegible lines. Most of all, there was criticism of the final section of the book, which features shots of a man who jumped from the Towers placed in reverse, so he seems to be flying back up into the building rather than toward the ground. I found all of these a little distracting, but don\u2019t think they ruined a good story. TransAtlantic – Colum McCann I loved McCann\u2019s New York, quasi-post-9\/11 epic As The Great World Spins, and this came with high praise from brother in books David V. So expectations were high. And it largely delivered. From a plot standpoint, it\u2019s an odd book. In its first third, it follows three historical moments: Alcock and Brown\u2019s first transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland, Frederick Douglas\u2019 mission to raise funds and awareness of American slavery in Ireland before the Civil War, and George Mitchell\u2019s efforts to forge peace in Northern Ireland in the mid 1990s. From there McCann follows a series of women who crossed paths with those men in Canada, Ireland, the US, and Northern Ireland across three centuries. There are common threads through the segments – a line of four generations of women – but each largely functions as a set piece to itself. This is a beautifully written book. I couldn\u2019t help but imagine McCann reading passages in his Irish voice as I read them. It\u2019s not a perfect book, though. He spreads himself rather thin in trying to go so many places and introduce so many people in just 300 pages. I often wondered where it was going and how it would all come together. That never really got resolved for me. This feels like a book made for book clubs, where you can sit and discuss and argue about what it all means and how all the parts fit together. Not that that is a bad thing, or that I need books with clearly progressing plots. There\u2019s just no clear, easy resolution or feeling of closure when you reach the final page. I really enjoyed this book. Even with the plot issues, it is one of my favorites I\u2019ve read this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14213,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions\/14213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}