Bristol House

I really do love a good mystery tied in with history. The Historian, The Eight, Labyrinth, The Shadow of the Wind. A modern sleuth in the form of an historian! All that library research! All those mysterious people who give clues that live like hermits in their historically kept mansions! It is probably my most favorite genre (if you want to call it that) to read. Beverly Swerling, author of a book that I really loved, City of Dreams, went this route in her most recent novel, Bristol House.

Annie Kendall, rather Dr. Annie Kendall, is a recovering alcoholic in London on a mission. She is an American who is hired by the mysterious Shalom Foundation to uncover truths and valuable items from a Jew of Holborn from 1535 London. Since Tudor England was a time of heavy persecution, there were no Jews just out there decrying their faith. This is where Kendall comes in. She is to do research. Oh, here's where it should get good!

Instead, she is simply handed documents that neatly fit her needs. She -- way to conveniently -- comes across a drawing of houses on the river, noted as being the Houses of Jews. She conveniently meets Geoff Harris, a relatively public figure, who takes an interest in her and happens to know of the Shalom Foundation's leader, Philip Weinraub, and happens to have a very personal interest in Weinraub's political, suspected terrorist agenda.

I have no doubt Swerling did her research, and I commend her for that. I was very excited to read this book. Sounds interesting, right? Only, it's not. And I did not make it past 110 pages. I would have stopped earlier, except I kept hoping, hoping, hoping for it to get better. There was no intrigue. Annie is one-dimensional, though I can see the attempt to give her more dimensions, it seems false. An avid runner whose favorite run distance is 2 miles. (2 miles!?) A recovering alcoholic who thinks people just won't believe her when she says she is being haunted by a ghost monk, because of the aforementioned alcoholism.

Ghost monk? you ask? Uh yeah, did I mention there was a ghost monk? Who looks just like the aforementioned Geoff Harris? Nothing was believable to me in this novel. I am sure at the end some of these things will be tied up, but in the meantime, everything feels forced and unbelievable.

Harris is supposed to be some kind of romantic interest, but he plays flat and I get the vibe he is using her. But I actually think he really is supposed to be into her (too.) He also has a mother who survived the Holocaust and is an American-intelligence trained code-cracker. She can figure it out for Annie! There must be a code in these here documents! Why? Why would someone just assume some documents written in Old German to be written in code?

Within this novel's walls you can find: Jewish history, WWII history, Tudor history, Knights of Templar, middle east terrorism, Kaballah, code-cracking, a woman who has lost custody of her son due to her alcoholism, lost a twin brother to AIDs, and surprisingly much more. Too much was vying for my attention. LOOK . . . SQUIRREL!

There were also a few structural issues that distracted me. There are phrases used by both Annie in current times AND the monk from "the Waiting Place" (read: Purgatory, I'm guessing) who should have a sixteenth century vernacular.

On one page, Annie said she didn't even think to not put her son's father's name on the birth certificate. Pages later it was "she couldn't bear to write 'father unknown' on Ari's birth certificate." Which was it? There seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies of that ilk throughout.

Couple that with clunky sentence structure, unrealistic dialogue, lots of unnecessary filler, an over-fondness for those mid-sentence dashes-- you know the ones -- and you have yourself a lost and bored reader.

I do believe if this novel (it is true I had an "advance uncorrected proof) went through more drafts, it would be a much better read. Swerling had a fascinating idea and wonderful subjects. All of them are great characters that just needed to be better realized: Annie, Geoff, his Holocaust surviving mother, the traitor monk. If only given more time, this book could have been a book I'd have swooned over.

*This book was generously provided to me for an honest review.

da pride a flatbush

From the Brownstoner blog, this made me smile. And, of course, miss my dear NY.

if wishes were fishes (money in my pocket).

I would like these things.

1. These awesome light fixtures made right here in Seattle from Graypants.
2. Did you see the video of Kristen Bell on Ellen about the sloths? If not, your life is unfulfilled. Watch it now. Then buy me this cute sloth necklace from Etsy.
3. Harken back to my middle school days in a butterfly chair. Except now I want it in brown leather please. I know, normally we all just "hark" when the angels sing.
4. Sweet small weekend bag from Kate Spade Saturday.
5. I caught Molly Ringwald talking about her book on Radiolab. She was telling a story about a mother of a child who just couldn't get it together at school. She struggled with other kids, she lashed out, she was taunted, but then the mother finally realized that the child just wasn't in her native habitat. I made it sound lame, but it was wonderful. I may have cried in traffic on the 520. It completely resonated with me and shocked me that CLAIRE would be such a good storyteller. So I want her book. Also, "ANSWER THE QUESTION, CLAIRE!" If you don't know that reference, you are too young and I cannot help you.
6. I have a new house. It's screaming for a new giant rug.

other chapters & other verses

From Neon Fresh.You must check out this awesome blog.

Do you know about The School of Life? Not the same as The School of Hardknocks or any other amorphous vaguery. Alain deBoton has created this amazing world over there in London. This particular link will take you to their "Dear Bibliotherapist" column. Very cool.

This has so many awesome things that I love. A Brooklyn townhouse (right there on Joralemon! I've totally walked by this!) that has a mystery underground portal to the subway. It's actually the coolest subway vent out there. This story is weirdly fascinating. It takes a lot for me to read more than two paragraphs of an article. There are other similar stories in London and Paris.

Is anyone as big a nerd as I am? Does ANYONE else think this is so cool?!

North Korea. photo by Ilya Petalev. from The Atlantic

Amazing photos, like the one above, win the Sony World Photography awards. Photography like this makes me want to write.

top ten tuesday: books on tough subjects.

I love a good list. The Broke and the Bookish blog hosts these weekly and I thought I'd check in now and again. This week's subject is Top Ten Books Dealing with Tough Subjects. Here are my picks:

They Cage the Animals at Night - We had to read this in middle school and it has stayed with me this whole time. It's the story about a boy in the foster care system. It's well worth the read. I still own the original one I (most likely) filched from school. I think I'll read it again soon.

We Need to Talk About Kevin - We hear often about the victims (justified) of mass gun violence in schools. Here we learn about the parents of a troubled child.

The Kindness of Strangers -  A touching, well written story focusing on an abused boy, told in the most heartbreaking way.

The Fault in Our Stars - teenagers who have cancer. But also a hilarious and wonderful novel.

Sophie's Choice - in this story about post-WWII, we learn about many character's experiences in the war. But the focus is on Sophie and the ultimate choice forced upon her by the Nazis, and how she lives with herself after.

Go Ask Alice - Another middle school read. This one about a girl struggling with drug addiction.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - This novel, written by the amazing Jonathan Safran Foer, is about a child's relationship with the tragedy of September 11th.

My Traitor's Heart - A South African comes to terms with his family's history as perpetrators of the horrors of apartheid in this compelling memoir.

The Color Purple - more school reads! This wonderful must-read book tells of African American life in the U.S. in the 1930s.

We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families - This is another work of non-fiction telling the story behind the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. I remember being riveted and horrified reading this.

the honey thief.

This book, written by Hazara Afghan, Najaf Mazari and Australian Robert Hillman was an utterly charming book. Although, to be honest, "charming" is kind of a lame word for such a powerful tome. It is a collection of stories about and from Afghanistan. Many tales are fable like, with lessons learned by young Hazara, one of the many ethnic groups of Afghanistan.

There aren't many books out of that country that reach our shores. Two about Afghanistan that I have read, The Kite Runner and An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan, were particularly good reads. But The Honey Thief stands apart. The Hazara have historically been oppressed in their own land. But they, like many others in that beautiful, yet destroyed country, have a rich and bold history, often told via fable-like stories.

These tale-like stories are vivid (unlike tales that often have a vague quality to them), like the story of a mute boy who is taken under the wing of a local-madman/musician/outsider or the story of the intelligence of wolves and human connections with animals. Other stories/chapters tell of the political history of the country, of which, I am sad to say, I have been relatively ignorant (although perhaps slightly less so thanks to a college course nearly a decade ago.) These tales tell the history of the rulers, dictators, ethnic oppression, ethnic cleansing. A history of light, laughter, music, and love. Still more interesting were stories that, at first read seem like they take place in days very long ago, only to find that the King of America (President Kennedy) has been shot and how a certain boy came across and found mental salvation in four books (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.) These stories were heartbreaking and heartwarming to read, and more importantly, I felt they truly gave me a glimpse of a culture that I had not before now seen.

It is important to read these stories. Not only for the enjoyment, which you will encounter. With the current state of Afghanistan and the American quagmire over there, we American people should be reading these things. We should be learning. We should not be reading strictly about Muslims who are terrorists. Afghans who are ignorant. Hazara thrown in the dust. We need to take it upon ourselves to educate ourselves of the beauty in the world. This is why I love reading.

The Honey Thief was an easy read, a quick-read, and a must-read.

In the meantime, look at these photographs at The Atlantic out of Afghanistan now. They are terrific, horrible, moving, and you should see them.

*I received this book for my honest review. I appreciate getting to read such great books. I have a choice if I want to read something for review and I don't agree to read them all. I only read ones that look interesting to me.

mama said there'd be days like this.

Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers out there! This is a lesson in: the smallest things will make a difference.

I remember one of my earliest, if not my first, memory of my mother. I was in preschool or so and we were driving down the parkway. Windows open, sun in the sky, breeze in my hair, and then out flew some piece of (undoubtedly VERY good) art that I created in said preschool (or camp, or whatnot).

For those not from the east coast, parkways are our highways. There are some larger highways that go by numbers, like I-95, but mostly we trucked along the Bronx River Parkway, the Henry Hudson Parkway, the Hutch (shortened from Anne Hutchinson Parkway.)

So there I am, probably in my mom's old beachy blue 70s or 80s VW Beetle, probably crying like a Van Gogh had been ripped form my hand.

What does my mother do? She pulls over, gets out, and chases it down. Now, I'm not sure if she was able to retrieve it. She didn't go running through the busy highway. My guess is that she ran along the side of the parkway but was unsucessful. This most likely, brought about more whiny tears from me.

But, really, she was successful. Because I still remember this act of motherly courage and gall. For that, I love her.

What are your first memories of your mother?