Book Log 2015 #38: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Turns out that A Passage to India wasn't old enough to fulfill the "read a book that's over 100 years old" part of the Popsugar reading challenge. But this one, which I'd been thinking about reading, did.

The basic story: Dorian Gray is a young, handsome man just starting to make his way in London. He is having his portrait painted by Basil Hallward (who is quite taken with Gray) when he meets of friend of Hallward's, Sir Henry Hotton. Gray and Hotton develop a friendship (generally dominated by Hotton), which leads Gray toward a life of aesthetics and hedonism. As part of that life, Gray wishes that his looks would never fade, but rather that they'd be reflected in his portrait. This is exactly what happens; as Gray lives a life where he does not deny himself any sensation, regardless of the consequences, he continues to look like the unblemished youth who first sat for Hallward.

Originally published as a serial, reaction was not favorable. As tame as the book seems now, charges of immorality were bandied about quite widely, with threats of legal charges against publisher and author alike. The publisher even removed what it considered the most questionable passages, to little relief. Wilde would later rework the story, adding chapters and a preface about the philosophical nature of the work and the importance of art in society (this is the version I read).

Unlike A Passage to India, this book stands up better to the ravages of time, thanks to Wilde's prose and the familiarity of the themes. Its brevity also helps keep the book from dragging where it might if it were longer.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book more than 100 years old; a popular author's first novel)

Book Log 2015 #37: A Passage to India by E.M. Forester

We were assigned this book in a world civilizations class (either 7th or 9th grade, can't remember which), and I didn't get past the first 50 pages. I'd been told since then that the book gets much better as it goes along, so when the Popsugar reading challenge said to read something you were suppose to read in high school but didn't, this seemed like a good choice.

I believe the people who told me the book gets better were lying. Or repeating what they'd heard from others. Because even though I managed to read the whole thing, it was quite the slog. The piece I linked to above kind of hits the nail on the head - it's a dated book, certainly in style, but its observations about the various relations (east-west, racial, and religious) still resonate.

Consider the incident involving Adela Quested and Dr. Aziz, the sort of mistaken identity plot twist that even in Forster's time was a bit of chestnut. Out of it, though, we get Miss Quested's realization that her desire to see the "real" India is naive at best, and Dr. Aziz's rededication to his faith and the cause of Indian nationalism. The event is tired, but the results are the sorts of things we see today.

I don't know if there's an easy way to reconcile this problem, as it's too easy to bail on this book before you start to see how its themes are still fresh. Maybe you can't reconcile it. So if you do pick this book up (or pick it up again, as I did), be prepared to work for your insights, and mostly not in a pleasurable way.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't)

Book Log 2015 #36: World Gone By by Dennis Lehane

The final book in the Coughlin trilogy sees an older Joe trying to come to grips with the changes to the underworld brought by the end of Prohibition, World War II, and the opening up of Cuba. Joe is as comfortable as ever moving among criminals and the straight world - from high rollers to military intelligence - but there's a pall over things as events of the past start to catch up with him.

It's a fitting end to the trilogy, underscoring the brutal efficiency that maintains power for those who run criminal organizations. I'm glad that I overcame my original reluctance over reading The Given Day so that I didn't miss out on these three books.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: Read a trilogy)

Book Log 2015 #35: Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

Set 7 years after the events of The Given Day, it's an odd sort of sequel as it focuses on Joe Coughlin, the youngest brother of Danny Coughlin, the main character of the first book. He doesn't show up much in that book, so he's a bit of a blank canvas, which allows Lehane to make him the son who goes in the exact opposite direction of his police-oriented household. The book opens with Joe participating in a robbery that may be a set up, forcing him to go on the run and, eventually, to Tampa, where he quickly asserts himself as someone to be reckoned with in the local underworld.

While I was hoping that this book would continue to follow Danny, his path seems a little dull (he winds up working in Hollywood as a writer and sometimes actor in the movies).  One difference I did miss was the historical subplot, which in the first book followed Babe Ruth. I don't know if there would have been an easy way to include one, to be honest.

One interesting way that this book did have some continuity with the first one was in the way Joe is able to work with a multiethnic set of criminals, much in the way Danny cultivated friends and associates who weren't just Irish Catholics. Very forward thinking for the times.

So if you go into this book not expecting it to be a traditional sequel, you should be pretty happy with it. And even if you did, it's certainly the equal to the first book.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: Read a trilogy. Granted, I read The Given Day a few years ago, but I'm counting it.)

Book Log 2015 #34: The Death Head's Chess Club by John Donoghue

An Israeli chess grand master is in Amsterdam for a tournament that may lead to him becoming world champion. But he is approached by a retired bishop - and former Nazi officer at Auschwitz, where the chess player was imprisoned - who is seeking reconciliation for the past. The chess player, who is stridently anti-German (to the point of almost forfeiting an opening match against a German player), resists his advances, but as they talk (and include the German player in their meetings), it becomes clear that everyone has something they want to atone for, and the best way to do it may be bringing each other into their stories.

This plot line (set in the 1960s) is interspersed with a story set at Auschwitz during WW2, where the bishop - assigned to the camp as an administrator due to an injury - starts a chess club as a way to improve camp morale. And it's a success - until it's discovered that there's a prisoner who may be a better chess player than any Nazi at the camp. And perhaps better than any Nazi, period. This puts the future bishop under pressure from superiors and from those who are using the club and tournaments for their own gain.

It took me a while to warm up to this book, but once I did I really got pulled in. The Auschwitz story line is compelling even though you know that the grand master and the future bishop survive, and the "present" story leads to questions about forgiveness, both within the framework of the Holocaust and within the personal relationship between these three men who, for the most part barely know each other.

The one thing I wasn't crazy about was the title. Otherwise, a very worthy read.

Book Log 2015 #31: The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin

So the Popsugar reading challenge that I've been trying to finish includes a book from your childhood, and as I had fond memories of the book I thought I'd go back and see how it holds up.

I'm happy to say it held up pretty well, even for generally remembering how it ends. In some respects it may befuddle young readers now - why is Turtle listening to a radio to get stock quotes when she can get them on her phone? - but the core mystery will still engage.

One thing that threw me was that I thought this book was dotted with footnotes. I apparently confused this with another Rankin book, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), which I now think I have to read as well.

(Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book from your childhood)

Book Log 2015 #33: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I was ready for this book to fall into the expected path of a story where a woman disappears and her husband becomes the prime suspect. I was happily surprised when it failed to do so, and even more surprised in a couple of spots where the book completely subverted my expectations. I also liked some of the commentary on how our culture approaches these missing person cases, mostly in skewering Nancy Grace and her ilk in the televised anger factory.

What I liked most about the book, though, was they way it showed how we never really know people, even those who are closest to us. Almost none of the characters - with the exception of Nick's mom, maybe - really know their spouses, siblings or children as well as they think they do. I don't know if this  is universally true (it may just be that I have a shallow personal inner life), but it's an idea that's caused me to ponder my relationships. The book also has given me at instruction in at least one way to turn your child into a sociopath, so thanks for giving me an idea of what not to do.

It's a pager-turner for sure, and I whipped through it fast enough that I probably missed some things that  I might have complained about otherwise. Not necessarily a bad thing, I guess.

Book Log 2015 #32: The Martian by Andy Weir

A quick synopsis for the three of you who haven't seen an ad for the movie version of the book - a manned mission to Mars has to abort due to a violent storm, and accidentally leaves one member behind, thinking he was dead. That man, an engineer and botanist named Mark Watney, has to figure out a way to survive in the hope of a rescue by the next mission - four years away. Along the way he encounters a number of challenges, while NASA tries to figure out the best way to get him back without alerting Watney's crewmates that he's actually alive.

Most of the story is told through Watney's journal, and telling the story in this near past tense sort of way maintains the suspense of what happened while allowing Watney to retell the story with a good blend of humor and sarcasm. That also juxtaposes nicely with his eventual interactions with NASA, whose straightlaced culture contrasts deeply with both Watney and how his former crewmates are considered.

Weir put a lot of research into making sure the science of the book is right (with the one notable, admitted exception of the storm that sets the story in motion), giving it an added level of realism that most authors wouldn't have bothered to develop.

It's not perfect - I did find some of the NASA sections a little stilted (which may also be the result of painstaking research, for all I know). But it's more engrossing than a book based on a series of engineering challenges would normally be, and I'd certainly recommend it.

Book Log 2015 #30: Joe Steele by Harry Turtledove

This may be the first alternative history book I've read that was inspired by a Janis Ian song (though it's original version appeared in an entire anthology of stories based on her songs). Anyway, in the song "God & the FBI," Ian sings that Stalin was a Democrat, which got Turtledove thinking what would have happened had Stalin actually been an American and a Democratic politician.

In this case, Stalin's parents emigrate to the US before his birth in California. He grows up in the Fresno area, steeped in the politics of the region and it's agricultural workers. When 1932 comes around he is the only person who has a chance to win the Democratic nomination for President from FDR, a chance that he may or may not have advanced by applying rough and tumble tactics - and a liberal amount of flammable material - to take FDR out of the picture. From there on out, we see how Steele applied his personal brand of leftist, totalitarian politics to get the country through the Depression, World War II, and everything else that happened during his many terms in office.

The story is mostly told through the eyes of two journalist brothers, one who is supportive enough of Steele to start working for the administration in the White House. The other, not so much. Their relationship frames the central conflict of freedom versus security that's at the heart of the book.

I don't know if really accept that Steele would become an Americanized version of Stalin, or that there wouldn't be more resistance to a politician who took such extreme measures as depicted in the book. On the other hand, desperate people can be manipulated fairly easily, so I may just be deluding myself.

One positive is that I think this is the first Turtledove book in about a decade where no one sketched a salute at someone else. Some of his favorite terms to describe people smoking do pop up, but overall the hackneyed phrase quotient seemed to decline. The use of real life people in supporting roles - such as J. Edgar Hoover and references to Richard Nixon towards the end of the book - was also well done, and helped to set up the next book in what I assume will be a series. So overall, better than some of the recent Turtledove work, which is not necessarily a high bar to clear (looking at you, Supervolcano books).

Book Log 2015 #29: The Patriot Threat by Steven Berry

The latest Cotton Malone romp has him flitting around the Adriatic trying to prevent a rouge North Korean (modeled on the brother of the current leader, who was busted trying to enter Japan on a fake passport so he could visit the Disney park there) from using doubts about the legality of the 16th Amendment (based on missing state records and some shaky legal machinations on the federal level) and a potential multibillion dollar debt owed to the heirs of a Revolutionary War financier to bankrupt the US. Can Malone, teamed up again with the obnoxious Luke Daniels and a female Treasury agent with her own shaky past keep the US solvent?

I'm still not sure this turn to basing books on fringe theories about the US government is a great move, either from giving the theories credence or from treading on ground that other authors have covered before (William Martin used Revolutionary War financing to drive the plot of City of Dreams, while the Masonic angles have been used in pretty much any thriller involving the Founding Fathers). I suppose I'll take it if it means avoiding another book like The Paris Vendetta, which was awful.

It also allows for a guessing game of what weirdness will drive the next book. Maybe something about the supposed one day presidency of David Rice Atchison? Or something tying in the recent trend toward marijuana legalization and George Washington's documented cultivation of hemp? Nope, it's about an apparent failure of the succession law to cover what happens if the President and VP-elect die before inauguration day, and something called The Society of Cincinnati and their past plans to invade Canada. Hmm.