Slacks for Ella Funt

I wasn’t a big fan of the early books of the series. I read the first three because I was working in bookstores at the time and needed to know what this Harry Potter was about. Someone gave me a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but I never got around to reading it and finally read it right before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out. I liked Goblet of Fire much better and went ahead and read Order of the Phoenix, which then became my favorite book of the series. So for me, it was less a good series of 7 books than a good series of 4 books.
In Deathly Hallows, Rowling finally departs from the school year structure that structures the rest of the books in the series, with the trip to school at the beginning, Christmas in the middle, and the end of term at the end of the book. Harry, Hermione, and Ron have dropped out of school on the run, looking for the horcruxes which hold fragments of Voldemorts soul. The middle of the book is mostly them apparating from one camping spot to the next, arguing with each other and hiding from Voldemort. I think I might be the only person who liked this part—lots of Hermione and Ron, both of whom I like. At the end of the book, they return to Hogwarts (yea!) for a final showdown with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. This is when things got less interesting, I thought. Obviously, all our favorite supporting characters were there and fighting, and we occasionally get snippets of them. But mostly we’re stuck with Harry, as he inexplicably spends a good chunk of the battle with his head in the pensieve and then heads out to face down Voldemort.
I’ve always found Harry to be the least interesting character in the whole series and the end of book showdowns with Voldemort to be pretty anticlimactic. Rowling doesn’t handle the epic struggle between the hero and his evil opponent as well as Pullman or Alexander. And in this book, I couldn’t follow the magic-logic that allowed Harry to destroy Voldemort at all.
Hurray that Neville got to kill the snake and that Molly Weasley took out Bellatrix Lestrange, but all in all, I would have liked to see more of the supporting characters and less of Harry/Voldemort.
Worst of all, the book ends with an epilogue set some years in the future. Apparently, Rowling wrote it very early on in the writing of the series, and it shows. All it really tells us is that everyone now has kids who are going to Hogwarts, and they all seem pretty dull. Nothing about their careers, or what the wizarding world is like without Voldemort.
So all in all, not a bad end to the series. Far from my favorite installment (which is the darkly political Order of the Phoenix), it’s still an improvement over the earliest books in the series.

Ruth Gilmartin finds out unexpectedly that her mother, Sally, is not the person she had always taken her to be. Sally is formerly a British spy, who worked in America during the beginning of World War II to try to convince America to join the war. Sally’s story is told in flashbacks: her recruitment, her training, her love affair with another spy, and her defection after being betrayed. Sally’s story is riveting, a great spy thriller and an interesting look at a part of World War II that I had never heard about before. Unfortunately, the flashback chapters alternate with Ruth’s life in the present day, which is tedious and irritating.

I had been looking forward to this book for years. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is one of my favorite books, and I couldn’t wait to see what Chabon would do next. It would have been hard, though, for this new book to not be somewhat of a dissappointment in comparison with Kavalier & Clay. It’s a great book, and he’s a talented writer, but I didn’t fall in love with his world or his story.
Though there are definitely tragedies in Kavalier & Clay, what I think about when I remember it is a feeling of brash, youthful optimism. And for years, I’ve been thinking about that book of an example of a book where the author loved his characters so much that you couldn’t help but love them too.
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is a different kind of story—there’s no optimism. The characters are just waiting for their world to end, and all hope is pretty much behind them. The plot line is essentially a noir mystery, which wouldn’t have been out of place in an Ian Rankin book. The alcoholic older detective, shunned by the system, goes renegade to solves a crime that obsesses him. Chabon’s Meyer Landsman didn’t seem that different from Rankin’s John Rebus. Not to say that I’m not a fan of Ian Rankin’s books, but I expect a little more from Michael Chabon.
Some of the supporting characters have the same feeling of being loved by the author, particularly Landsman’s ex-wife Bina and his partner Berko. And the minor characters are great, particularly the midget wilderness policeman.
But in the end, I’m a sucker for plot, and this one didn’t have the same hold on me that Kavalier & Clay did. But my expectations were probably higher than any book would be likely to fulfill.

The past two summers, we’ve gone to a few Cyclones games. They’re the minor league baseball team that plays at Coney Island. It’s a lot of fun to go out to Coney Island and watch baseball overlooking the ocean and the lights of the boardwalk. They have a couple of mascots and do a lot of goofy games with kids on the field between innings, as well as a race of people dressed as hot dogs. I always like mascot races. This year, the Cyclones are even good, leading their entire league. We had a big group with us this weekend and everyone had a great time cheering on the Cyclones.
Whenever we go, we get hot dogs at Nathan’s before the game. They’re much better than the hot dogs inside the stadium, and they come with sauerkraut or sauteed onions. Also, I have a fondness for their cheese fries, despite them being kind of mushy and the “cheese” not really resembling actual cheese. Of course, we don’t order 66 dogs like the hot dog eating champion. I wouldn’t want to have a “reversal of fortune.”
After the game, Alex wanted a snack, but the hot dog line at Nathan’s was really long. So he got in the seafood line and ended up with frog legs. We were all pretty grossed out because they looked just like frog legs, but they tasted pretty much like chicken.

In the summer, we like to make jars of pickled green beans. We’ve tried to make other kinds of pickles, including cucumbers, but the green beans always come out the best, so now we just do those. They’re pretty good after a few hours, but they get better after a few days in the fridge.

As in his previous novels, Perrotta writes about the battles an insecurities of the suburban world. Ruth is a high school sex-ed teacher, determined to be honest with her students, who is forced into an abstinence-only curriculum by right wing Christian forces in the community. Tim is a reformed addict who has found an uneasy peace in the church. Perrotta succeeds in being fair to Tim’s faith and position, showing the feelings experiences that got him where he is, with the unfortunate side effect that Tim ends up being a much more rounded and developed character than Ruth.
I enjoyed reading this—Perrotta had a sly wit that’s always entertaining. However, from reading other books of his, it all seemed pretty familiar and obvious where the plot was going to go.

I hadn’t picked this up, despite great reviews, because I was afraid that it was going to turn out to be religious at the end, messages from God or something. As soon as I started it, however, I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be the case. This is one of those gritty realism types of YA books, the kind I’m sure schools and parents try to ban. The characters are 18-19 years old, and they smoke, drink, and have sex.
The plot line is a little gimmicky. The main character gets messages. He’s not sure where they come from, but they instruct him to help people, generally in unclear and difficult ways. In obeying the messages, he frequently gets hurt and has to make morally ambiguous decisions. The grittiness makes the gimmick feel more realistic, though the ending felt a little too pat.

According to the marketing information, they’re trying to sell this as a turn of the century Gossip Girl. At first I noticed that the rampant, shallow consumerism of the Gossip Girl characters isn’t here. Then I realized that the characters here are just as greedy and shallow as the Gossip Girl characters, it just isn’t as obnoxious when it’s historical. No brand names to drop, etc.
This is a pretty standard girl must marry rich man to save her family, but she loves another type story. Not the most original, but it was entertaining enough.

I know a lot of people liked Gabrielle Zevin’s last book, Elsewhere. But I thought it felt a lot like The Lovely Bones, but not as good. This one, on the other hand, I really liked. It had more of a Laurie Halse Anderson feel, and that’s generally a good thing in YA fiction. The characters were interesting and likable, and the plot line managed not to be too angsty or too sappy.
The only problem I had with the book was that my copy, which I picked up at BEA, ended at page 214. The book did not. The last section of my book was pages from a completely different book. I guess they picked up the wrong stack at the bindery. I was extremely annoyed that I was going to have to wait until the book actually comes out in September to read the ending. Luckily, someone in my book group had a better copy. One with an ending. So I borrowed hers and got to finish the book.

Every other year, Book Expo America is in New York and for some reason, my company gives us lowly production people passes to go wander around. We get to scoop up bound galleys from the competition and generally meet an author or two. I like it because I get to read some of the major books for the upcoming fall early and for free. This year, we were exhausted, loaded down with heavy bags of books, and about to head home when one of my coworkers saw a sign in the Random House booth that Ian McEwan was going to be signing his new book.
I love Ian McEwan and was planning on buying On Chesil Beach the next week when it came out. So we waited in line and when I got in front of him to have my book signed, I did what I always do when I meet an author I really admire: “um . . . uh . . . I really like your books . . .” and more stammering like a complete idiot. Never mind that I deal with authors all the time at work, I’m always completely tongue-tied when I meet one of my favorite authors.

As for the book, it’s kind of a slight piece. 200 small pages, only 2-3 hours worth of reading. But McEwan manages to write books that simultaneously make you want to rush through the pages and slow down and savor every sentence and paragraph. Not much actually happens here, the entire narrative fits within the span of one evening, Florence and Edward’s wedding night, as both hope that the other knows what to do. The thoroughness with which McEwan illuminates both character’s inner thoughts only emphasizes their inability to communicate them with each other.