2002 Book Reviews
 Among the Best I've Ever Read |
 Very, Very Good |
 A Good Read |
 OK |
 Don't Bother |
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| The Nanny Diaries Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus | |
| First Review: |
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| Starts out fun and amusing, but ultimately becomes depressing. Hard to believe the characters aren't caricatures, but the details are all there -- maybe inflated but terribly real. | |
| Second Review: |
| This is definitely a beach book. An alleged tell-all about the foibles of rich NYC parents, it both shocks (the adults are horrid, nearly without exception) and saddens the reader (the children have all the luxury and little love). The exaggerated descriptions of self-involved parents and neglected children have more than a little truth. Thank goodness for the good nanny. |
Read an Excerpt
Oh, Baby! (BookPage) |
KJ |
| Neuromancer William Gibson |
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| This book is usually credited with launching the "cyberpunk" subgenre of science fiction. Set in a dark, gritty future, the characters in the novel inhabit a shadowy underworld of petty criminals, drug dealers, and technologically-enhanced muscle; the legitimate world is dominated by unaccountable government agencies and amoral multinational corporations. The harsh and sometimes brutal tone of the novel may put some readers off, but it is full of bizarre and brilliant imagery and unpredictable twists which reward persistence. | |
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William Gibson |
Todd Brun |
| New York September 11 Magnum Photographers |
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| Magnum Photos began in 1947 with 4 photographers. Now they are located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. They employ 62 photographers; 46 are full time. This book uses about 21 professional photographers to tell their personal points of view in those early days both in print and in pictures. It is very well done. | |
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Description with Photos
More Photos |
Lee Moody |
| The Notebook Nicholas Sparks |
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| Very romantic book set in the 1940s about Noah and Allie's amazing love. Mostly about the way they fell in love and how they found each other again after 14 years, this book's conflict is what Allie will decide to do about her fiancee, and later, how to come to terms with a life-altering situation. A good beach book or vacation read. | |
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Nicholas Sparks (Time Warner) |
Jenny Mischner |
| On the Rez Ian Frazier |
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| This book came out a while ago, but I find it just as interesting as it must have been then. The book takes a while getting started, seems to ramble, out of focus a bit, but that is part of its charm. It is half anecdote, half facts about where the Indians (Native Americans) live and what percentage does what and all kinds of interesting details. The anecdotal style is loose but it makes a reality of what the facts are saying. That is how the amount of poverty and alcholism affect the daily lives of individual Indians. One interesting detail is the number of Indians that have been in Hollywood movies. A fascinating part of the book is devoted to a young woman who before her unfortunate end was a hero in her community. | |
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From the New Yorker to the Rez (Salon) |
MG |
| The Pickup Nadine Gordimer |
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| This book tells of a South African woman who "picks up" a man who is working as a garage mechanic. He turns out to be an illegal immigrant who is discovered by the government and consequently deported. The surprising twists that this story takes make it original, but hard to explain without giving away the ending. Suffice to say that the ending gives the book a symmetry, a balance that gives beauty to the story. The description of the Middle Eastern country with its desert heat is wonderful. The pace of the book slows down just as the pace of life must seem slow in that country. The flaw for me is the style of Gordimer's writing. I find the syntax of her sentences to read like grocery lists rather than prose. | |
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The Nobel Prize in Literature, 1991 |
MG |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde |
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| Oscar Wilde was always obsessed with aging and with youth. In this, his only novel, published in 1890, a beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, has his portrait painted by an artist, Basil Hallward. It is remarkable. When Dorian sees it he says he will give his soul if he could always stay young and the painting would grow old. This, of course, is what happens and it leads to horrible and tragic consequences. A thought provoking horror mystery comparable to a Stephen King modern novel. | |
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Read it Online |
Lee Moody |
| Poems, 1968-1998 Paul Muldoon |
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| Beautifully written imagery covering an incredible span. Some more likeable than others. Especially interesting to read the work of a local poet-in-residence. [Paul Muldoon is the Howard G.B. Clark University Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University, as well as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.] | |
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"Taking the Air with James McCosh"
Writing to Make Sense of Life (Princeton Weekly Bulletin) | |
| The Princess Diaries Meg Cabot |
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| Though written for young adults, this hilarious novel -- in which an "ordinary" New York City teen discovers she is heir to the throne of a small European principality -- is very entertaining for adults as well. | |
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Meg Cabot |
Todd Brun |
| The Queen of Spades Alexander Pushkin |
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| This book is a Penguin Classic, which contains four of Pushkin's short stories. Some of them were never finished but all of them are very good with unexpected twists, characters that have depth, excitement,
adventure, comedy, tragedy, and romance. They lived in such a different time than us, and yet it is easy to see personality traits like our own. I loved the Dubrovsky story which had a touch of Robin Hood in the plot. | |
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Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
Pushkin Museum
(Russian Site) |
MG |
| The Red and the Black Stendhal |
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| This book tells of an ambitious Frenchman who grows up in a provincial town. Through luck and some natural talent he becomes progressively more successful, starting as a tutor, becoming a religious student, and then a secretary for a nobleman. The ending is tragic in a bloody way that is fitting for a post French revolution novel. There is much nationalism in this book that borders on racism from a 21st-century vantage point. However, it must have been scandalous in its time for its critical view of the religious practices by the officials of the church. What sort of book would Stendhal write if he was alive to see the current scandals of the church? | |
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Stendhal |
MG |
| Rich Dad, Poor Dad Robert T. Kiyosaki |
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| This is a "new" book and a New York Times bestseller. The author is a millionaire and gives lectures on how to make money work for you, as opposed to how to make money! It is an interesting, fascinating and funny book. The author begins his tale from when he was 9 years old and continues until the present. It is about getting control of your financial life and keeping control of your financial life through, of course, life's ups and downs. He gives a lot of tips on how to develop your own financial genius. It was written in 1997; he has written 2 follow-up books since then. | |
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Read an Excerpt
RichDad.com |
Lee Moody |
| The Saturday Morning Murder Batya Gur |
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| The first third of this was slow moving, but then the story kicked in. Nice picture of European psychoanalytic community in a more peaceful Israel. Well done characters and an interesting ending. | |
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Israeli Mysteries (G. J. Demko) |
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| September 11, 2001 The Poynter Institute |
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| This collection of front pages from around the country and around the world is fascinating to me. The preface is titled, "Moments Frozen in Time." In the acknowledgements credit is given to the "hundreds of reporters, artists, photographers, editors, and even a few bosses working for the most part in concert despite chaotic conditions." The book is dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attacks on that day. The pages speak for themselves. | |
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Table of Contents
Online Gallery (Poynter Institute) |
Lee Moody |
| Slow Food Carlo Petrini, editor |
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| A collection of essays which started out being thought-provoking re the integrity of food. Some interesting recipes are included, but the book didn't really hold up. Just wanted to finish with it. | |
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SlowFood.com |
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| Snobbery: The American Version Joseph Epstein |
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| A good, witty discussion of snobbery: its signs and symptoms, some of its history, and how it manifests itself in American society. Epstein uses incidents from his own life to illustrate his points, often playing the role of the snob in the anecdotes he relates. While I occasionally found the cynical tone of the book annoying, I enjoyed reading it. | |
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Not Your Regular Joe (The Atlantic Online) |
Todd Brun |
| A Song Flung Up to Heaven Maya Angelou |
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| Angelou's autobiographical series continues with this book which explores her life after her return from Ghana. Angelou's writing is beautiful and conscientious -- every word seems perfectly chosen to evoke senses and flow effortlessly. | |
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Maya Angelou |
Briget Sacke |
| Spies Michael Frayn |
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| If you like books about the English and especially English children who not only never say what they are feeling and frequently won't even allow themselves to think what they are feeling, you will love this book. Reading the review on Amazon.com it is clear that the world is divided into those who like these kind of books and those who do not. I am among the latter. When it takes most of the book to have the protagonist, remembering himself as a young boy in war time England, come to terms with what he felt much less what he experienced, that is too long for me. For the first few chapters I was duped into thinking that something of great significance was happening or at least was going to happen. As I dragged myself on, still optimistically thinking that it would soon happen or that all would be made clear, I forced myself to finish reading the book to ensure I had not stopped too soon. Clearly, for me, I should have stopped long before. I am sure that there are readers who will enjoy the enigmas, puzzles, diversions and lack of events in the story Michael Frayn tells about the experiences of two young boys playing games which may, or may not, be based on reality, but I am not one of them. I did play such games as a child and they were fun then. But I am now a grown man and have a clearer understanding of how the world works. I'm afraid the protagonist does not. | |
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Write the Same Thing Over and Over (The Guardian) |
Bob Levine |
| A Step from Heaven An Na |
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| A Step from Heaven is available on tape. It is the story of a family that moved from Korea to San Diego, California. It is told from the point of view of Young Ju Park, a Korean girl of four when they relocated. The tape is unabridged and is read by Jina Oh who has a soothing voice and reads both the English and Korean words beautifully. The family of mother, father, small girl and soon a baby boy grows up together in their new country. In some ways it is the story of any family growing up and in some ways it is the story of a family of traditions trying to adjust to a new culture. The father has the most difficult adjustment and takes it out on his family. "A family of dreamers...;" the rest is the story of the results of individual decisions. | |
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The 2002 Michael L. Printz Award |
Lee Moody |
| The Stones of Florence Mary McCarthy |
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| Mary McCarthy is very knowledgeable on the subject of Florence, the history, people, famous individuals, architecture and idiosyncrasies. She includes: Boccaccio, Toscanelli, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico, Benezzo Gozzoli, Piero della Francesca, Machiavelli, Giotto, Masaccio, Michelangelo, Uccello, Dante, Milton Leonardo, Ghiberti, Botticelli, Donatello, and more! She compares Florence to other Tuscan cities and to other Roman cities. She discusses the stone, marble, and metals of the statues, and paint and perspective in the paintings, in addition to olive trees, grapes and other well known products of this area of Italy. It has so much information and detail that it can be read over and over and used as a reference guide. It was enlightening and enjoyable. It was published in 1959 with this edition in 1963. | |
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Mary McCarthy (Vassar College Libraries) |
Lee Moody |
| Swift as Desire Laura Esquivel | |
| First Review: |
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| A short book, but not a quick read. The characters are two dimensional: either very good or very bad. True, the wonderful father drinks and has moments of neglect but the narration makes it sound as if he had no choice rather than that he made bad choices. There are moments of interest such as when Aztec/Native Mexican culture and superstitious beliefs are mentioned but it is brought in as filler rather than as backdrop to this uninteresting, predictable plot. | |
| MG | |
| Second Review: |
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| Intense portrait of a couple who love and part and finally come together. He's a poor telegraph operator who can read between the lines, and she's a luminous rich girl. | |
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Love and Other Illegal Acts (Salon Interview) |
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| Tepper Isn't Going Out Calvin Trillin |
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| Calvin Trillin has written for The New Yorker as well as written other books. This book is very funny. It is not laugh-a-minute funny, but subtle funny throughout the book. It is about parking a car in Manhattan. Murray Tepper parks his car legally in NYC, he pays close attention to the rules of the particular street (days, hours, amount of time allowed), he puts money in the meter, he never continues to feed the meter...he follows the laws. Then he stays in his car until the meter runs out. He reads the paper or talks to other people that come by and then sit in his car with him. "I read somewhere that the aggregate value of unexpired time left on meters people drive off from just in New York alone, is the equivalent of the gross national product of something like 38 different countries." Sometimes there are comparisons to other cities, "There's valet parking in Los Angeles. You drive up to the door of the restaurant and some kid from Honduras drives your car away for you. You don't even know where it is. You know, it's conceivable that there are people in Los Angeles who have never actually seen their car when it's parked, except when it's inside their garage. That's very strange." The story also involves Mayor Ducavelli (Mayor Rudy Guiliani) who tries to halt Tepper's activities. A few things would have been funnier if 9-11 had not happened but the irony of that is something to ponder about also. | |
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Calvin Trillin (The Nation) |
Lee Moody |
| The Theory of Everything Stephen W. Hawking |
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| Reprinted from a series of lectures Hawking gave several years ago, this book was rather disappointing. Not much new or exciting was said, and the lectures seem to have had only the most cursory editing. | |
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Author Objects to Repackaging...
Stephen Hawking |
Todd Brun |
| The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen |
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| A classic of economic and sociological literature, this book is not exactly an easy read; but it gives an interesting and influential view of the economic origins and implications of the class system. Veblen introduced the concepts of conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption which have since become rooted in the popular lexicon. Veblen's dry tone may sometimes mask a satirical intent; his discussion of higher education as conspicuous waste struck me particularly that way. Though when one thinks of the years that every member of the "educated class" used to devote to the study of dead languages, one must admit that he has a point. | |
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Read the Book
Thorstein Veblen (History of Economic Thought) |
Todd Brun |
| This Earth of Mankind Pramoedya Ananta Toer |
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| This book is the first in a quartet of books written by an Indonesian political prisoner which he recited orally to his cellmates in daily installments. It gives an idea of how pervasive the racism in that society is. How it affects the choice (or lack of choice) of school, of marriage, and of career options. It's a page turner of a story in the style of a coming of age. I found in the beginning that I liked the main characters and felt that they were unfortunately placed in this world (this earth of mankind) of racist greed, but as the novel progresses I find that all are coloered by the corruption and political repression around them so that there is no black and white characterization. On the whole it was a very good book, but very stressful, with a tragic ending. | |
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Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Quartet (PBS) |
MG |
| This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald |
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| Not quite the equivalent of The Great Gatsby, but still wonderful! The book conveys the very feeling of being young, and the descriptions of places are hauntingly beautiful. | |
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Read it Online
F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary |
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| To See You Again Betty Schimmel |
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| One woman's remembrance of survival in World War II. The picture of her mother was superb, but the author was a self-centered teenager. | |
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Read an Excerpt |
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| A Trial by Jury D. Graham Burnett |
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| Princeton historian of science Burnett writes thoughtfully about his experience serving on a jury in Manhattan. He chronicles the vagaries of the murder trial itself, and of the jury deliberations. Particularly troubling to me were the details of jurors who disregarded the rules of law in efforts to impose their own moral precepts onto the case. Burnett's style is confiding and precise (sometimes too precise, as when he details the food and drink he consumed). This book will be of interest to academic fans of Law and Order. | |
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D. Graham Burnett |
KJ |
| Troublemaker and Other Saints Christina Chiu |
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| This book is pretty good for a first time author. It is made up of short stories, seemingly not connected, but which turn out to share characters. Where in one story a person is a main character in another that same person becomes merely a background character. Another connection between the stories is that they are about Chinese Americans both in this country and in Hong Kong. The focus is on the young people: teenagers and young adults. Sex, suicide, race, violence all included! | |
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Read an Excerpt
Christina Chiu |
MG |
| Under the Tuscan Sun Frances Mayes |
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| Mayes buys a farm in Tuscany. She supervises changes to the house and property. She cooks, shops, and drinks wine. Her tone is smug and self-satisfied. Although I found the book dull and repetitive by page 60, I kept reading hoping it would get better. It didn't. | |
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Frances Mayes (Don George, Salon) |
KJ |
| An Unexpected Light Jason Elliot |
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| Advertised as an adventure in Afghanistan, but more of a war journal. Repetitive and self-absorbed though well written at times. Did offer an inside glimpse of the conflict. | |
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The Enemy We Barely Know (Laura Miller, Salon) |
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| Unless Carol Shields |
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| All of my important models have been women but, being a man with a strong sense of identity, I have continually been fascinated and puzzled about how women think and especially, work in their own world. And women’s worlds clearly operate in different ways than do men's. Carol Shields tells the story of 44 year old Reta Winters, a Canadian, bright, reasonably normal wife of a doctor and mother of three teen age daughters who seemed to be living a normal upscale life. Reta is bi-lingual having had a French speaking Mother and an English father and is an active feminist. In addition to running a busy household she is a translator for a very prominent French writer and is a published novelist. Reta, like many women I know, has a close circle of women friends who meet to drink coffee and talk -- and talk about life’s problems and to discuss their own, sometimes in ways, I think, no man would. One day her oldest daughter Norah, nineteen with a good college scholarship and a boy friend drops out of school and from life in general to be a street person, begging on the streets of Toronto with a sign around her neck saying GOODNESS and staying in a homeless shelter. The book deals with the efforts of Reta, her husband, daughters and friends to deal with Norah. Was it something Reta should have but did not do? Should she have taken more assertive stands about all the injustices she sees pertaining to women? Is there something basically wrong about the world? What is goodness and can it ever be achieved? What is Norah doing? Reta addresses these and many more subjects in her delightful, off center way, as the book races on to a somewhat surprising but very believable ending. I had trouble putting it down. | |
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Read an Excerpt
Human Shields (Barbara Ellen, Guardian Unlimited) |
Bob Levine |
| A Visit to Mark Twain's House Garrison Keillor |
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| This is a very humorous and informative audio book about the life, work, and home of the remarkable Mark Twain. It has music performed by Pamela Warrick-Smith and the Greg Smith Quartet and Roy Blount, Jr. a humorist along with Garrison Keillor, famous for his on-the-mark witty comments and observations. The website www.marktwainhouse.org has further information and a virtual tour. | |
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Garrison Keillor, Unplugged (Jonathan D. Austin)
Garrison Keillor's Baccalaureate Speech (Princeton U.) |
Lee Moody |
| Waiting for Lindsay Moira Forsyth |
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| At the beginning of this book about a 13-year-old girl who disappeared from the beach on the coast of Scotland, I was drawn into wanting to know what happened. Then, as I read about the survivors' (brothers Jamie & Tim, cousins Annie & Alistair) lives, I was confused for awhile and couldn't figure out the relevance. The book picked up and I was sad to have it end -- and my hunch about the ending was right! | |
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Jenny Mischner |
| The Wedding Imraan Coovadia |
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| A charming love story that explores issues of segregation, culturalism, feminism and many others. Coovadia's writing submerges the reader in the sights, smells and sounds of the Indian culture. | |
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Read an Excerpt |
Briget Sacke |
| The White Deborah Larsen |
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| A slight but fascinating book about a white woman captured by Indians. It's exquisitely -- often poetically -- written, but very readable. I recommend it. | |
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Read an Excerpt
A Conversation with Deborah Larsen |
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| White Teeth Zadie Smith |
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| I love this book! It is about lower class folks in a nondescript British town. The cast of characters includes a native, his young black second wife from Jamaica, and their Indian friends -- a couple. There is one section in the beginning which describes the two men meeting during WWII, working together in a tank. The dialog is so well done, so funny. Later the book focuses on the children of the two men as they grow up. There is a delicious sataric description of a middle class family that attempts to "save" the two lower class immigrant children from their background. The ending has lots of surprises with a wonderful climax. I can't wait to see what else Zadie Smith will write. | |
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Read an Excerpt
A Conversation with Zadie Smith (Random House) |
MG |
| The World Below Sue Miller | |
| First Review: |
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| This book was very engrossing. It has the same melancholy tone as all her other books, a focus on the saddest events of life. But it is the same great style of writing with those wonderful descriptive moments in the characters' lives that resonate in my own life: the main character describing her grandparents meeting when he asks her for their first date, the young chilren fighting at the twilight hour -- "the hour when chaos reigns," and so on. I especially like the metaphor that is the subject in the book's title. When a dam was built a valley of houses was flooded under the reservoir. The main character describes looking at those houses as a metaphor for the memories we have of people and events from the past. Later in the book the memory of looking into the lake and seeing those houses is questioned by another character -- just like our memories often are blurred or come to have a different perspective from other people's memories of the same thing! | MG |
| Second Review: |
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| The first half of this book built slowly with a look at life in a TB sanitarium to compare one generation to another. Moving storyline of an almost-affair and lovely imagery of a sunken city. | |
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Read an Excerpt
Sue Miller Interview (Beatrice.com) |
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| Princeton Public Library | http://www.princeton.lib.nj.us/ptonreads/2002reviewsN-Z.html | ||
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301 North Harrison Street Princeton, New Jersey 08540 609-924-9529 |
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Last revised: April 2, 2003 |