“Waiting On” Wednesday: Skios

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Skios by Michael Frayn

The great master of farce turns to an exclusive island retreat for a comedy of mislaid identities, unruly passions, and demented, delicious disorder.

synopsis from Goodreads:
On the private Greek island of Skios, the high-paying guests of a world-renowned foundation prepare for the annual keynote address, to be given this year by Dr. Norman Wilfred, an eminent authority on the scientific organization of science. He turns out to be surprisingly youthful, handsome, and charming—quite unlike his reputation as dry and intimidating. Everyone is soon eating out of his hands. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the foundation's attractive and efficient organizer.

Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old friend Georgie has rashly agreed to spend a furtive horizontal weekend with a notorious schemer, who has characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped there with her instead is a pompous, balding individual called Dr. Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper, and increasingly all sense of reality—indeed, everything he possesses other than the text of a well-traveled lecture on the scientific organization of science.

In a spiraling farce about upright academics, gilded captains of industry, ambitious climbers, and dotty philanthropists, Michael Frayn, the farceur "by whom all others must be measured" (CurtainUp), tells a story of personal and professional disintegration, probing his eternal theme of how we know what we know even as he delivers us to the outer limits of hilarity.

Publishing June 19, 2012 by Metropolitan Books.

Book Review: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

I loved Seabiscuit and I heard wonderful things about Unbroken but hadn't had a chance to read it until now. It's a perfect coincidence that I finished it the day before Memorial Day! I really loved it and couldn't put it down.

Louie Zamperini was a hoodlum as a kid and luckily when he got to his teen years, his older brother Pete helped him channel his energy so instead of running from the cops and the neighbors, he started running track. He won a track scholarship to college and went to the 1936 Olympics, even snapping a photo of Hitler while he was there. He was easily on the way to breaking the 4-minute mile years earlier than it actually was broken, when WWII broke out and he went to war as a bombadier. He actually had a lot of fun goofing around with the other soldiers while training and in their first bombing runs, until of course the day his plane went down. Louie was one of three survivors drifting West, into Japanese-controlled waters with no food, little water, in two small and disintegrating rafts for weeks and weeks.

One difficult thing about nonfiction is maintaining suspense when the outcome is known, but Ms. Hillenbrand mastered that in Seabiscuit and uses her skill well here too. You know that Louie survives, so that part isn't where the suspense comes in - but you don't know how bad things will get and how he will survive. So it's not a spoiler for me to tell you he survives the raft at sea - setting a new record while he was at it - but he is rescued by the Japanese at the height of the war, and things go downhill from there.

The stories are nearly unbelievable and luckily this is an example of when truth is stranger than fiction. Ms. Hillenbrand has done extensive research to back up everything with is amply evident in her endnotes, but also simply in instances where she says things like that the reports of how much weight Louie lost at sea vary in different media and gives you all 3 reported weights. It is very fortunate she found this man with such an amazing backstory, a horrific wartime experience, a wonderful memory, and a long life. At the end, I was expecting the last chapter and the Afterward to be just simple wrap-ups, but I ended up loving those chapters the most! After the war his life didn't just suddenly turn into "Leave it to Beaver" and I loved how Ms. Hillenbrand didn't just drop the story at the end of the war but went on to show the war's impact after the fact ("post-traumatic stress disorder" existed long before we'd invented the phrase) and how Louie did - and didn't - cope with it. That was almost more inspiring to me than how he survived the raft and being a POW.

Ms. Hillenbrand's writing is smooth and compelling and easy to read. She does have a perfect subject in Louie, but she brings so much to the story, in the fluidity and ease that makes reading a joy, not a chore. The opening page is so gripping, I read it aloud to my BF. The other characters were well-developed and three-dimensional (even though many of them she was unfortunately not able to meet, as they are not still alive), the how of the survival was quite tense, and you count down to the fall of 1945, knowing that this will end, even though the POWs do not share this knowledge that there will be a finite and successful end to their trauma. This brilliantly written book was likely many a Father's Day present last June and should be again (it's just recently in paperback.)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Books I gave up on:
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? by George Carlin (audio)
I know, I know, this is shocking to me too. I normally love comedians/humorists reading their own books and I normally find George Carlin quite funny - I've been quoting his routine on sports for over 25 years now! But this audiobook was just torture. The material isn't very funny - it's a lot of general old-person crankiness ("Don't put nuts in my ice cream! It's supposed to be creamy!"), bizarre complaints about changing terminology making the English language more PC (he is annoyed that waiters and waitresses are now "servers"), and occasionally offensive tirades with unnecessary profanity mixed with what must be funny mock-ads that don't translate well to audio and fall flat. It's only 7 hours but after more than a month I haven't even made it halfway through. In fact whenever I turn it on, I feel like I'm being tortured. It's time to let it go.

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
The Fatal Shore: The Epic Of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes

Up next:
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Historical Novels? The Debate!

Yesterday on my way to book club, I was listening to my favorite books podcast, Books on the Nightstand, and they were discussing Historical Novels. Normally I agree with Ann and Michael, but this time I was yelling at the radio. They both said they thought the definition of a "historical novel" included only books that spanned many decades, multiple generations, like Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I think that's completely wrong - those are called "sagas".  Sagas would include books by authors such as Edward Rutherford and James Michener. I think this definition is already pretty set, so I was baffled by their definition and their complete agreement on this matter.

At book club, we were discussing The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin which I consider a historical novel despite taking place over only 3 years, but it's set in the 1890s, so I brought up the topic.  And much to my shock, half the women in book club have a different definition of historical novels as well! The think a historical novel but involve historical figures, like The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, and Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. Much to my surprise, they didn't even consider The American Heiress or Pillars of the Earth to be historical fiction!

Personally, I have always thought that any novel set in the past is a historical novel, like The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg or Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. My only question was whether or not to classify books that were written a long time ago but were contemporaneous at the time as historical, like The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins or Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. I know I shouldn't really, after all there's a real immediacy to reading about World War I in Rilla of Ingleside when they have no idea there will be a World War II. But it's hard for me to separate books written a hundred years ago by their original pub date, particularly when you throw books like Gone With the Wind into the mix (set in the 1860s, written in the 1930s).

Also on the podcast they mentioned a book had to be set at least 60 years in the past to be "historical," and again I disagree. I think a book set in the 1970s or 1980s even can be historical, particularly if the era of the time is an important part of the story.

So, I think I need to fix my list of historical novels on Goodreads - I think I definitely need to separate out the books that weren't historical when they were written, and I like the idea of making books based on historical figures a category, but I still completely disagree with Ann and Michael's definition of a historical novel - those are sagas (and my book club agreed on this point)! I had no idea there were so many potential definitions of historical novels.  I didn't even realize there were multiple interpretations of that genre - and knowing about genres is a part of my job! What do you think of all this?

Book Beginnings: Unbroken

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme originally hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages but now hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader.

Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

"All he could see, in every direction, was water."

Ms. Hillenbrand starts off terrific with a suspenseful, ominous beginning. In fact, I read the first paragraph out loud to my boyfriend, as I thought it was just great and sets up the story so well!

“Waiting On” Wednesday: Mrs Robinson's Disgrace

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

synopsis from GoodReads:"I think people marry far too much; it is such a lottery, and for a poor woman—bodily and morally the husband’s slave—a very doubtful happiness." —Queen Victoria to her recently married daughter Vicky

Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Her first husband had died suddenly, leaving his estate to a son from a previous marriage, so she inherited nothing. A successful civil engineer, Henry moved them, by then with two sons, to Edinburgh’s elegant society in 1850. But Henry traveled often and was cold and remote when home, leaving Isabella to her fantasies.

No doubt thousands of Victorian women faced the same circumstances, but Isabella chose to record her innermost thoughts—and especially her infatuation with a married Dr. Edward Lane—in her diary. Over five years the entries mounted—passionate, sensual, suggestive. One fateful day in 1858 Henry chanced on the diary and, broaching its privacy, read Isabella's intimate entries. Aghast at his wife’s perceived infidelity, Henry petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery. Until that year, divorce had been illegal in England, the marital bond being a cornerstone of English life. Their trial would be a cause celebre, threatening the foundations of Victorian society with the specter of "a new and disturbing figure: a middle class wife who was restless, unhappy, avid for arousal." Her diary, read in court, was as explosive as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, just published in France but considered too scandalous to be translated into English until the 1880s.

As she accomplished in her award-winning and bestselling The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale brilliantly recreates the Victorian world, chronicling in exquisite and compelling detail the life of Isabella Robinson, wherein the longings of a frustrated wife collided with a society clinging to rigid ideas about sanity, the boundaries of privacy, the institution of marriage, and female sexuality.

Publishing June 19, 2012 by Walker & Company.

Teaser Tuesdays: Unbroken

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading.

Grab your current read. Open to a random page. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand p. 27

"Louie Zamperini was on his way to Germany to compete in the Olympics in an event that he had only contested four times. He was the youngest distance runner to ever make the team."

Ms. Hillenbrand certainly found an unusual and outstanding young man to write about - he went from running from the police for petty crimes, to setting national and worldwide running records. I'm also horrified and impressed to see in the photos that he appears to be running in leather dress shoes like men wear with a suit! I am not sure that athletic shoes had even been invented yet