Trains and Lovers......and Yawns

 I could never seriously dump on Alexander McCall Smith, author of  the recently released Trains and Lovers, and creator of one of the most beloved book series, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Any writer who imagines such benevolent and wise characters ( first Botswana female sleuth Precious Ramotswe, for example, and her intrepid assistant Grace Makutsi) and then inserts them into a uniquely beautiful African location can only be a man of playful good humor and tender passions. His characters' flaws are compassionately rendered, the mysteries are gentle, and the life lessons present in each novel are easy to swallow. He seems absolutely grandfatherly and adorable and until I learn otherwise that's what I'm going to believe.
   So how do you tell grandpa you're a bit disappointed with his latest gift to you? You don't.
   Instead, you offer, "How nice of you." "Thanks for thinking of me." "You're too kind."
   And all of that is appropriate commentary for Smith's last effort. The highly portable book (small enough to  carry in a coat pocket, purse or backpack) is not without its charms. I like the idea of listening in to the chatter between strangers leaving Edinburgh by train destined for London. I imagined  the rocking train car,  the green landscapes flying by their window, and Scottish, British and Australian-tinged accents going back and forth across the miles. But the events that I hoped would occur on that train never materialized. There were no love connections en route, just talk. And the stories exchanged weren't as interesting or compelling as the plot lines that Smith brought to life with his legendary detective series.
  Trains and Lovers has a simple premise. It's set in a train compartment with three men and one woman whose conversation starts as slowly as a train engine gathering steam. Once underway, however, they grow more comfortable with each other and begin to reveal tales about their lives, families and loves, all remarkably affected by trains. An art history intern spies an unlikely train in an old painting; a train carried one of the rider's parents to a new life in the desolate Australian Outback; another gets off at the wrong train stop but finds a new friend, and finally, a sighting of two friends parting while one of our passengers waits to board rekindles memories of a lost love.
  And all that was good. It just wasn't as great as usual. For a varying point of view, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTWoUjVpeVY.
  The book was a very quick read, and you could do it in one sitting, especially if you were on a train or plane and had a few hours to kill. That's if you don't strike up conversation with somebody along the way.
The Push from the Book: This time around, I'm passing. I spent one summer day on this book. It was a pleasant ride, but no lasting memories or changes of heart.

Gone Girl--A Visit to the Dark Side

   Darkness unnerves me. Whether it's rooms, basements, starless nights or stories, darkness makes me jumpy. Cowardly lion jumpy. And when surrounded by it, I want to fix it or escape it. Maybe that's why I read Gone Girl so quickly. It was a dark, deceptive and unsettling novel, and I was eager to get out of the scary shadows.
    Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, is pitch black in terms of its themes of murder, treachery, revenge and retribution. Yet, it's wickedly good, and I couldn't stop reading it. I heard about the book last year, and its advance praise was lavish. Every review was enthusiastic, full of stars. I read the gist of the story--and yes, it sounded dark--but it was a book I needed to read.
  Here's the lowdown--Nick and Amy, a perfectly beautiful couple, meet in New York City, marry and when both lose their jobs, move back to Nick's  hometown in Missouri. His mother is dying from cancer and his estranged father has Alzheimer's. Nick taps into Amy's trust fund to buy a bar, and the couple starts over. Then, on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy is gone. Vanished after an apparent scuffle in the couple's living room.
    The novel has three parts. It begins with  Boy Loses Girl and sets the pattern of alternating Nick and Amy chapters. Nick's first commentary, "The Day Of," offers a look at the couple's present life and events surrounding Amy's disappearance. Amy's chapters are in the form of diary entries that begin when the couple first met, seven years before her disappearance. Her chapters give us the background we need to understand the couple's perfect romance, courtship and decline. Nick, Amy, Nick, Amy. Back and forth, present and past. The story flies by.
  By the conclusion of Part One, seven days have passed since Amy's disappearance. Meanwhile, Amy's diary entries have moved us into 2012. Flynn started the book with the characters' voices being years apart and by the half way point the timelines converge. The big take-away here is that during their brief marriage, Nick and Amy have fallen on tough times personally and professionally and now live inside a marriage that is circling the drain. Someone has to pay.
  And while you read these early chapters you have strong hunches about the source of evil. Flynn gives the reader just enough information to form theories and make educated guesses, but then the police make discoveries or Amy reveals something new in her diary or Nick finally divulges something nasty he's been hiding.
   Gillian Flynn writes like someone who has dominated the suspense genre for decades, but judging by the book jacket photo, she's a thirty-something. Her writing is slick and clever, and she's got one very devious imagination. Gone Girl, Flynn's third book,  has catapulted her onto my must-read-author radar, and I believe I'll need to go back and catch up with Sharp Objects and Dark Places---when I'm feeling brave.
   Even Hollywood is on board with Flynn's work. Gone Girl is destined for the big screen, and recent media reports say that Ben Affleck has been cast as Nick. A-list actresses Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt are in the running for the part of Amy.
  Push From the Book:  I married after knowing my significant other for less than a year, but after reading this book, I'd advise others to invest some time and really get to know your future mate. Sometimes you have to dig deep to find the flaws. And once you find them, what are you prepared to do?

The Last Man-- Last Words from Vince Flynn

   I needed some adrenaline pumping prose to jump-start my summer reading. Which is precisely why I chose the counter-terrorism thriller, The Last Man, by Vince Flynn. CIA operations in Afghanistan with a kidnapped agent were certain to give me a jolt, and its fearless, incorruptible tough guy hero Mitch Rapp was the ideal character to keep me riveted to the page.
  Four dead men on the floor of a safe house demand your attention, and in no time I was sucked into the well-knit story of FBI/CIA investigations, torture scenes, gunfights and deceptions. Why, I thought to myself at the end of the first few chapters, had I not heard of this author before. Who is Vince Flynn anyway?
  Before I tell you more, just know that this wasn't Flynn's first outing with Mitch Rapp. The Last Man was 13th in a series. Obviously, I'm a little late to the Rapp party.
   A few days later I was half-way through the book and while watching a news program that afternoon the cover of the book suddenly appeared on the screen. One of the news panelists was talking about Flynn, whose books had become favorites of real-life intelligence officials, as well as Presidents Bush and Clinton. The 47-year-old author was dead after a two-and-half year battle with prostate cancer.
   I'm sure I wasn't the only person in American reading a Flynn novel at the time of his death, but it came as a bit of a shock anyway. Certainly this healthy looking guy on the back of the book couldn't be gone, could he? He looked rugged, capable, strong, and smart. Just like the Mitch Rapp character I envisioned while reading his stories.
  Still unbelieving--although I knew the reports were accurate--I wanted to know more. Who was this writer who churned out these heart-thumping stories?
  The more I learned, the more dejected I felt. Flynn was a huge success story and a widely popular novelist. He sold 15 million books in the US alone and had legions of fans.
  In his hometown newspaper's obituary, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Flynn was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and started writing in the 1990s to combat his disability. He self-published his first novel before Simon & Schuster picked it up. Two years later he wrote another book introducing Mitch Rapp and the series was born. He produced a new Mitch Rapp novel each year, and now it seems like I've got to back and get acquainted more formally. One book at a time.
  Here's an excerpt from the obituary:
 Former CIA official Rob Richer was chief of Middle Eastern Operations when he befriended Flynn during a 2003 research trip to Washington, D.C.
“This is a guy who wrote the books, but he also walked the talk,” said Richer. “He would vet his books to make sure he wasn’t giving away secrets while remaining true to what we did. When people were up in arms about the war on terror, he defended us. He also made sure hundreds of his books were mailed overseas to our servicemen and women. He was a guy who cared. And he was a real patriot.”
   If you'd like more information about Flynn or his series of Mitch Rapp thrillers, visit his website:
http://www.vinceflynn.com/

The Push From the Book: Flynn's book dedication on the opening pages struck me when I first read it and will stay with me for a long time: "To all of my teachers and coaches at Saint Thomas Academy who taught me that to succeed in life, you need to raise the bar, not lower it."  

Geek Reads

  I love lists. And lists with books are even better. And lists about books to read to your children are about as good as it gets. Browsing through this compilation of books every geeky parent (that's their term) should read to their children (to insure their geekiness) was tons of fun.
  See how many books you remember reading to your child, and if your kids are still at home and enjoying a quality bedtime reading habit, you might find some inspiration here:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2013/03/67-books-every-geek-should-read-to-their-kids-before-age-10/

  If the geeks who put this list together missed anything, write back so we can compare notes. One not on the list that I really loved reading with my daughter was Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos, a book about the true genius behind Franklin's inventions (it was the mouse, of course) and the beautifully illustrated tale of truth and honesty, The Empty Pot by Demi

The Perks of Being a Reader

  I subscribe to Shelf Awareness, an e-newsletter for readers and persons employed in the book business, and today's issue has an information-packed link about the benefits of reading. Not that I needed any additional proof about reading's advantages, mind you.
   Click on the link to learn more about how the brain changes and thrives while under the spell of a book. It'll make you feel less guilty while you burrow under the covers and keep turning pages when there's a sink full of dishes in the kitchen.

http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/your-brain-on-books-10-things-that-happen-to-our-minds-when-we-read

The Long and Winding Road

       The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce, is a quirky book. But's it's a quirky book with a big heart that left me mulling big thoughts about life---do I seize each day? have I wasted opportunities to live well and full? am I the best that I could be? is there something major left for me to accomplish?
  Harold Fry, a recently retired business man, lives life comfortably but without passion. He's blah. His wife Maureen is blah, and their lives together are dull, loveless, and very clean. There's lots of dusting and sterilizing going on to fill the void. Their son, moody and disconnected from his father, is out of the picture, so it's just the two of them. A story about nothing.
   But then an old friend writes to Harold. She's in hospice and wants to say goodbye. Harold sheds a tear for Queenie, a former officemate, and quickly responds with a short letter of his own. He walks to the mailbox, and then decides to keep walking. He will walk to Queenie. He will walk 600 miles, across the spring-blooming hills and dales, cities and villages of England. He's on a spur-of-the-moment odyssey, and for the first time in decades Harold is alive with purpose.
  I know what you're thinking. A book about walking? How interesting can that be?
  While he walks, Harold replays episodes from his life, and we begin to understand that in the beginning he and Maureen were madly in love. We learn about Harold's difficult childhood with an alcoholic father and runaway mom. We learn that Harold shrank away from his duties as a father, and isolated himself emotionally and physically from his son. We learn that he and Queenie met at work and formed a solid friendship. We learn that Harold's pilgrimage may be his last hurrah.
  And like any worthwhile pilgrimage, there are entertaining asides about people met along the way and others who join the long walk north. Over time and miles, Harold attracts fans of his own. Misfits, lost souls, even a stray dog, fall in line behind him.
   While England finds a new hero, back home Maureen actually dusts less and begins to miss her husband. He writes and phones, but she is at a loss. She knows he and Queenie were never lovers, but living alone has rekindled her own memories of their youth. Maureen wants Harold back home.
  Over each new hill there is a fresh challenge or another tag-along or another flashback into Harold's life as a child, husband and father. The farther north he wanders, the more we understand his life and his sorrows. And then we wonder, will he get to Queenie in time? Will she hang on until Harold gets there? What will they say to each other?
    I thought this book was going to be like a slow walk, pokey and meandering and not all that heart-thumping, but I was mistaken. This book was hard to put down. There were always questions and concerns. How far would he walk today? Would his blisters do him in? Why hasn't his son contacted him? Where will he sleep tonight? After weeks of effort, sacrifice and exhaustion, Harold's pilgrimage comes to an end. I won't say if he gets to Queenie in time, but I will report that Joyce created a tense, emotional conclusion to the book. The final 30 pages were riveting.
   I highly recommend The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Just be ready for something different. It's not your usual walk in the park.
The Push From the Book:  Live boldly, don't waste a minute, tell the special people in your life they matter.
 

Wartime London My Cup of Tea

  Anything, ANYTHING to do with WWII fiction gets my attention. So imagine my interest when I saw the cover of Mr. Churchill's Secretary, by Susan Elia Macneal. A prim, pearl-earringed woman with her hair in an elegant chignon set in profile against the London night sky, with RAF fighters soaring overhead. Wow, I said to myself, this is my kind of book.
   Which it was. Maggie Hope, an American-raised Brit, returns to her homeland to settle family business and stays on as Britain enters the war. She's a math wizard who defers her graduate education at MIT to go across the pond (really?) and finds herself adapting to the tea, the chintz and her new roommates. She's got friends in high places and by the first chapter lands a job at 10 Downing Street as one of Churchill's secretaries.
   Who cares that she's a math whiz and could do more? Chain her to a typewriter. She's a woman. I saw that old chestnut of a storyline coming and started to doubt.
   But it was early and I kept reading, or as Churchill would say, KPO. Keep Plodding On.
   Macneal did an admirable job of recreating London, life inside the PM's War Rooms and the German's daily air raids known as The Blitz. She even threw in some IRA terrorism involving a few of Maggie's coworkers and friends.
   Maggie eventually triumphs--using her math and codebreaking skills--and breaks out of the steno pool long enough to perform some heroic acts to save herself, her family, her friends and her nation. It unfolded a bit too predictably for me. I felt like I knew what was coming, but I couldn't put the book down until I knew for sure.
   This is a mixed review. I loved the setting and the historical details, but it lacked the depth and details of other WWII storytellers. I recommend the book to readers who enjoy a WWII yarn that features the best of the British, keep-a-stiff-upper-lip sensibility during their darkest hour. Those scenes were vividly recreated. If you like wartime suspense, in lighter doses, this would also satisfy.
  Just don't expect Ken Follett or Len Deighton-quality intensity.

The Push from the Book: See Above. KPO. That was a new Churchill-ism for me. Keep Plodding On. We all have our battles. Each day. Never give up. The book gave me a catchy new phrase, and I love the fact that it's Churchill's words.