Bad Little Falls by Paul Doiron

I enjoyed the plot of this mystery, but I found the narrator/protagonist extremely frustrating. I understand why the flawed, noirish detective exists, but you have to have sympathy with the detective on some level, and in this book, I really found Mike's stupid behavior (in relation to how he related to one of the accused criminal's family members) frustrating. Not only should he know better, but he was mucking up the potential for good police work. The insights he brought to the cases as a detective weren't things that would cancel out such bad behavior.

Kept by D.J. Taylor

This book models the novels of Dickens and Collins that it reads like; there are a lot of intertwining plots and characters. We also get to see early police in action (towards the end of the book). None of the main characters are entirely sympathetic, but Taylor has a good sense of the Victorian worlds. I loved the literary allusions. It covers a number of themes that play out in the period: criminality, interest in science, insanity, the role of women. It wasn't quite as good as a genuine Victorian novel, but it was a decent imitation of that kind of plot, and very well written.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

In this book Roy's luminous language tells the story of tragedy coming to an Indian family with the visit of their cousin, Sophie Mol. While we know from the very first pages that the stories of the twins Rahel and Estha, their mother Ammu, and their cousin Sophie Mol cannot come to a conventionally happy ending, the book works against convention in its structure, its language, and its plot. If not happy through and through, or entirely hopeful, it does offer a visionary path towards a better life--both through a trans-human ecology and through a commitment to storytelling as a way of reordering and giving meaning to a harsh life. Although the boundaries some of the characters cross in this book may be hard for readers to swallow, the book affirms boundary-crossing as an important activity, and reminds us that these boundaries are only human constructions that get in the way of our full potential. Booker award winner, 1997

The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop

This collection of poetry gives you everything Bishop ever published and more. My main complaint about the edition itself (not the poetry) is that it doesn't provide line numbers. That quibble aside, this collection is fantastic. I particularly enjoyed "Insomnia," "One Art," "Sestina," and "In the Waiting Room" this time around. The beauty of this poetry rests as much in what it doesn't say, and in the task of digging out the pieces. I'm also interested in the way this poetry blurs the line between the surreal and the real and the way in which it portrays nature. Several of these poems definitely make my essential list.

The Half-Finished Heaven by Tomas Tranströmer

This collection of poetry is full of beautiful images. I particularly liked the blend between appreciation for the natural world and awareness of and engagement with urban spaces. I also found a lot of the poet's interest in music very revealing. An enjoyable collection that spans a venerable career.

Trespasser by Paul Doiron

In this mystery Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch finds himself drawn into a case out of his purview when a woman goes missing from the scene of a car hitting a deer. The case was excellently plotted, and I enjoy the main character, who's a detective out of a noir past--despite his ability to find solutions to others' mysteries, his own life spirals dangerously out of control. However, the surrounding characters/subplots weren't quite as well developed as the main plot. All in all, I enjoyed this mystery.

Converging Stories: Race, Ecology, and Environmental Justice in American Literature by Jeffrey Myers

This book contends that we ought to understand racial injustice and environmental degradation as coming out of similar Euroamerican attitudes toward the other. It marshals Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Thoreau's nature writings, Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman, Zitkala-Ša's Old Indian Legends, and Eddy L. Harris's Mississippi Solo to show both how racist attitudes can reinforce an inability to live with or understand nature and how antiracism and ecology can work hand in hand to move toward a more egalitarian society. I found the book reasonably convincing in its arguments (the environmental claims get a bit radical for my tastes at some points) and altogether an enjoyable and quick read.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

This book has been receiving a ton of hype and attention: Jonathan Franzen's face graced the cover of Time magazine; Oprah selected the book for her book club; Jodi Picoult claims that the difference between the critical reception of her work and the critical reception of Freedom (both she and Franzen, she contends, deal with similar themes) is driven by the fact that he's a white male, so might be expected to produce Literature or The Great American Novel, whereas she's a woman who writes chicklit; pranksters stole the very glasses off Franzen's face at a reception in London; Freedom was snubbed when the National Book Awards finalist list came out; and the UK first printing had to be pulped and reprinted when the wrong draft of the book went to the printers!

After all this hype, Freedom delivers (at least) on its promise of telling a good story. While both the Berglunds struck me as overdone in their unfortunate antecedents (although part of that, I think, was that Patty narrated large chunks of her own story in a third-person memoir that both constitutes part of the text and drives a lot of the plot as an object), I found their story (with Richard Katz, Walter's college roommate)--set up in the book as the story of a typical, urban, yuppie family gone horribly wrong--was great to read. Franzen's prose works, his plot is engaging, the characters are mostly realistic (if reprehensible and hard to like at times), and the use of the memoir works surprisingly well in a formal sense. I wasn't quite sure how to read Walter's environmentalism. It reminded me a bit of Ian McEwan's most recent book, Solar, in that aspect--the environmentalism is an important plot engine, and the author takes the environmental positions of the characters seriously, but shows the characters' environmental attitudes leading them to take CRAZY and untenable actions. Surprisingly, for an American novel, there was much more concern about class (for example, in Joey's friendship with his roommate at UVa, Jonathan, the class power (or lack thereof) and class status of poor people being moved from their land in Appalachia to make the land available for mountain top removal, or in the class implications that Free Space's messages would have) than about race (although Walter does briefly engage in an interracial relationship with Lalitha, which is only commented upon by some ignorant folks in West Virginia, if I'm remembering correctly).

This novel dealt with 9/11 in mostly tangential ways. It was really most important to Joey, who was in his first year at UVa when it happened. Perhaps the local connection was what made this portrayal most acceptable to me: I have a lot of friends who were at UVa in the fall of 2001, and Joey's experience as far as school goes pretty neatly matches what they've told me, so it feels real. It also wasn't fetishized in the text. It happened, it changed some characters (particularly Joey, but it also gave some political tangles and consequences to Walter's work in Washington), and people moved on rather than dwelling (which is not to say that dwelling is bad, but rather that I've yet to see a book that dwells on 9/11 (except possibly Netherland) that hits the right emotional tone for me, and even in some books with passing references to it, I finish the book with my hackles up--for example, The Stars in the Bright Sky).

The references to UVa were meticulously correct insofar as place and experience goes (did Jonathan Franzen visit UVa to research? Undercover?), but they struck me at times as less than generous to unfair. Dressing up for football games is what makes us great (it's certainly not the football team, and definitely not after their disgusting performance last night)!

Is this book worth reading, thinking about, discussing? Without reservation, yes. Is it the next (or the) Great American Novel? If we ignore the fact that the Great American Novel is a construct, I'd still say probably not. It's one of the great novels of the year, but I think to pretend that it's somehow sui generis or unique or so far ahead of other novels that it's somehow in its own class is to do a disservice both to all the other great American fictions (and great novels generally) that are still being written and that have been written and to Freedom itself, which I think is strongest when you consider it among and in conversation with other novels (for example, there are a lot of explicit references to War and Peace running through the text).

Kraken by China Miéville

This book at first seems to be set in our world, but as the story of the giant squid that impossibly disappears continues, it becomes clear that the world is a very different one indeed. I enjoyed both piecing together what was possible in this world and following the plot through its multiple twists and turns. The richness of the world and the dexterity of the plot are this book's real assets--the characters are interesting, but not quite as important somehow. I look forward to reading more of Miéville's writing.

A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Houseman

This collection of poetry is mostly written in a pastoral mode. The verse itself is not bad, but sort of what I would expect for Victorian poetry. Mostly it's short and lyric, and has to do with people courting, dying young, and serving in war. I particularly like the penultimate poem, which I have come across before, whose first line is "Terrence, this is stupid stuff." There are intriguing contrasts between the Shropshire countryside and urban London, and between nature, which will continue to exist, and people, who die quickly.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

This book chronicles Bryson's experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1996. In addition to his personal experiences, there's a lot of information about the history of the trail, and the nature and other things one encounters along the way. He's willing to push beyond the appearance of things (for example, what do the National Park Service and National Forest Service actual do with the land and resources they're protecting), and he serves it all up in an entertaining and humorous style. This book prompts some great reflection about our relationship to the natural world and to our own bodies and their capabilities. A great read.

Mortal Beauty, God's Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins by Gerard Manley Hopkins

This collection includes not only Hopkins's magnificent poetry, but also many of his writing about poetry and religion. The writings show the depths of his thinking and his clear sense of vocation, but the poetry is truly what makes this volume shine. I love the way he plays with sound and meter as well as his commitment to the beauty of the natural world, especially as a demonstration of God's love for us.

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Don't let this book's slim size fool you: it contains an artful meditation on life, loss, and love. I really enjoyed this book. I really liked the attention to detail in the clockmaking sections, and the parts about dealing with Howard's epilepsy and his father's dementia were heartbreaking. This book is of the type that repays the time you invest in kind.

A briefe Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England by Sir Ferdinando Gorges

In this account Sir Ferdinando Gorges offers three types of observations about the settlement of New England. He starts with a history of settlement (which actually reads a lot like the sixth part of John Smith's Generall Historie) and then gives a part on the natural resources of the land (to encourage further settlement), and unique to a lot of the early English accounts of the settlement of North America, a theoretical explanation of the government practiced in the colony.

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron

I received this book through the Barnes and Noble First Look program. As we have not yet begun our discussion online, I'm putting the rest of my review behind a cut.

A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia by Thomas Harriot

This book, which reprints the 1589 edition, is a fascinating account of early colonial history in the Americas. It contains descriptions of the products that might be exported, the food that could sustain colonists, and ethnographic reports of the indigenous peoples. In addition to the first part of the book, which must be read partially as propaganda convincing people to come to the area, there are illustrations of the native people, done by John White (whose granddaughter Virginia Dare disappeared with the Roanoke colonists), and also some drawings of Picts (to show the savage roots from which British civilization had risen). All in all a lovely book. A bit difficult because it exactly reproduces typeface and spellings used in the original.

Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monninger

I received this book for free courtesy of the Barnes and Noble First Look program. As we're still discussing the book on the boards, the rest of my review is posted beneath the cut.