Totally Booked: Threes and Fours

I've been racking up some frequent flier miles and burning through my reading list this month. Wahoo! Here are a few more:

Wahine Take on:
The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

Straight from the fan club of Dan Brown, we've got another cult meets academia suspense book. I know it was a Da Vinci Code knock off but I couldn't resist a thriller where historical research plays as much a role in the plot as the characters.  "The delicious futility of impossible tasks is the catnip of overachievers," the author quips. How much fun is that!

Rule of Four follows four Princeton undergrads wrapping up their college career as they try to crack a 500 year old puzzle: The Hypnerotomachia, a book published during the Renaissance (in real life), that holds an ancient secret. All this Sherlock Holmes-ian drama sparked by an on-campus murder.

I wouldn't mark it as the next classic but it's deliciously rich with riddles and twists making it a fun summer read, especially for the nerd crew.

Wahine Take on:
Three Cups Of Tea
And of course it couldn't be helped...a nonfiction had to be thrown into the mix. This book came highly recommended to me by at least three different people, ahem, Adam, so I borrowed (stole) it from my sister.

You don't have to be an international affairs guru to appreciate this story (but it certainly tickles those of us who do). Greg Mortenson may have failed at climbing K2 (the second tallest mountain in the world) but it wouldn't shock me if he took home a Nobel Peace Prize in the next decade. An admirer of his organization likened his efforts to the firefighters of 9/11. He says, "This guy Greg quietly, doggedly heading back into a war zone to do battle with the real causes of terror is every bit as heroic as those firemen running up the stairs of the burning towers while everyone else was frantically trying to get out."

After nearly killing himself on his mission to climb to the summit, he was stumbled into a rural village in Pakistan ten years ago. The locals adopted the infidel, nursing him back to health. To repay them, he promised to build them the school they so desperately needed. Eighty schools, two countries, a war, and a decade later, Mortenson is still on his mission to bring education to the farthest, most war torn parts of the globe. But it all comes down to building relationships long before breaking ground, relationships based on trust, established over many cups of tea.

The lessons he shares, I believe, hold the key to solving the War on Terror. We have the most sophisticated tools, the strongest and brightest (I know, my brother is one of them) fighting tirelessly. But he says, "I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to live." We are going to have to help make that future - and it's going to have to be in the form of education.

His story is inspiring, a few times I caught myself figuring out how I swing a trip out to help him - only to remind myself I'd be more of a liability than an asset. (SHOCKER). If don't have this book in your collection...buy it! 7% of the proceeds go to his effort. And if you're in the DC area - he will be visiting promoting the sequel in September!

Totally Booked: Sarah's Key and The Help

Last night we rallied for our "book" club, meeting at Palena in Cleveland Park. I put book in quotes because we really meet for dinner but carve out about 5 minutes to talk about the month's selection - and then it's back to girl talk.

What's neat about Palena is that they've divided the menu up into their pre-fix dinner menu or their a la carte cafe menu for whatever your spending bracket is. Very cool. And although I was craving my Italian go-to gnocchi - I wasn't hungry enough for three courses, so I went with the hand cut Pece with bolognese - a little salty but delicious. Just as good as the food what the atmosphere. Sitting across from the bar in cozy little booths we chatted about Sarah's Key, but ultimately the conversation came back to The Help.

Wahine Take On:
Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay
Although a powerful plot, the writing itself left something to be desired. The book is a compilation of two totally different stories, set sixty years apart that chapter by chapter become related. The first is a story of a little Parisian girl and her family who suffer horrible atrocities during the round up by the French police during the occupation named the Vel d'Hif after the stadium the innocents were locked in before being shipped to Auschwitz . During the police sweep, Sarah, a ten-year-old Jewish girl, hides her baby brother inside a locked cupboard to protect him from the sweeps, not realizing the family would never return.

Fast forward 60 years, we follow an American journalist living in Paris with her husband and daughter, who is assigned to cover the Vel d'Hif anniversary. But her investigations lead her to discover Sarah's story, and just how close to home her story hits. Her discovery changes her completely, and ultimatly becomes a wedge between her and her husband.

I loved Sarah's story, and I thought it was strong enough to stand on it's own as a short story. My major issue was with the second half about Julia. In taking the voice of Julia, the author seems to have completely lost her ability to write. There is nothing more condescending then having a writer try to tell you how you're supposed to feel about conflict. Just tell me what happened and if you've done your job - I will organically feel the same way about it as you do. She waists paragraphs on useless angst and unfortunately that was a deal breaker for me.

Wahine Take on:
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Now here is some superior writing. I would let you borrow, but I think you need a copy for yourself. This book is going in the Wahine library.

Like Sarah's Key, it is several narratives woven together, only in this case they are contemporary. Set in Mississippi against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, two maids and one young privileged debutant share a common mission - to secretly gather and publish the testimonials of the help. But the larger story here is how life on both sides of the racial divide in Jackson is intertwine.

"Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not much that separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought, " author Kathryn Stockett asks in her acknowledgments.

Unlike Sarah's Key, the words don't get in the way of this powerful story and if you read only one bestseller this year - this should be it.  It lives up to the hype.

There's Only Room For...

Sean Hannity and Mark Levin sign their new books at Tyson's Corner.

Becoming Jane

Talk about a motivational video. Stick six girls in front of a tivo and next thing you know they’re starting a Jane Austin Book Club.

Well that’s what’s happened to the ladies of Chez Copa. Following the order of the film, we will be kicking off the first discussion with Emma. Plus its not a bad way to get us all together for wine and cheese! Stay tuned!

Presidential Reading

It may have been a muddy mess, but the 8th Annual National Book Festival went without a hitch this year, unless you count the raging blisters I procured care of the driving mocks I stupidly decided to break in! Note to self – muggy weather and leather do not mix. Wear Socks!

So aside from the wardrobe malfunction, I was set to start my book tour with none other than the hostesses of the event themselves, Laura and Jenna Bush. Their new children's book, Read All About It, was the kick off reading.

Following in her mother’s footstep as a teacher, Jenna co-authored this tale about a former student of Laura’s. Tyrone is your typical ADHD second grader who refuses to focus in class. Rather than dope the kid up with Ritalin, the main characters transcend the disability and capture his youthful enthusiasm for recess and channel it into reading…..a likely story. Author's note: FICTION.

Jenna said about working with her mother on the book, "if you're wondering if working with your parent, they still boss you around, the answer is yes."

An interesting side note, the illustrator was able to sneak a few shout outs to the current president by converting his birthday into the elementary school’s gym number. Throw that one out at your next cocktail party!

While the mother daughter team read aloud to the eager tots, I couldn’t take my eyes off the first daughter’s huge rock! I’m sure if every teacher married comfortably, we would have a much stronger education system. In the meantime, let’s give them a raise!

After the meet and greet, I had to return home, to attend to my developing wounds.

Special Topics: Calamity Physics

WOW! I am not a huge fiction fan...can you blame me...I work in news. But this was by far one of the most fun novels I have come across. Marisha Pessl takes you on an ironic roller coaster ride from page one. Written like the hybrid of Catcher in the Rye loose stream of conciousness (which I hated) and a well reasearched modern textbook, it's style itself is an ironic contridiction.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her.
Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), Pessl's debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl's own.

The good stuff:
Here are a couple of excerpts I had to highlight.

"But most critically, sweet, never try to change the narrative structure of someone else's story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better. Increasing the scale, the depth of content, the universal themes. And I don’t care what those themes are – they’re yours to uncover and stand behind – so long as, at the very least, there is courage. Guts. Mut, in German. Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.” (p.72)

 “It was October. Dad was dating a woman named Kitty (whom I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of swatting away form our screen” (p.106) HILARIOUS

 “Layer. Shakespeare personage. Contrary to popular belief, person needs heartbreak an’ betrayal. Else you got no stayin’ power. Can’t play a lead for five whole acts. Can’t play two performances inna day. Can’t fashion a character arch from point a ta point g. Can’t get through the denewment, create a a convincin’ through line – all that stuff. See whut I’m sayin’? Person’s gotta get banged up. Gotta get jerked around, lived in. So he’s got somethin’ to use, see. Hurts like hell. Sure. Feels bad. Not sure you wanna go on. But that gives way to twhat thye commonly clall emotive re-zon-ance. An emotive resonance makes it impossible fer people to take their eyes offa you, when yer onstage. Ever turned round in a good movie and seen the faces? Pretty intense. (p.241) 

Know Your Power..

Know Your Power is the title of Nancy Pelosi's new book. She may be an incredible woman with a remarkable career, but after reading her "Message to America's Daughters" I have to say, please keep your day job. Her power is NOT in writing.

Although written with co writer Amy Hill Hearth, the narrative is strained. From the introduction to the epilogue, the tone is of obligation to women everywhere was to write all 170 pages of how she made it to the top. Well Nancy - this is not required reading.

She starts the tale with "notes, notes, take notes," advice she clearly forgot to take to heart. This warm and fuzzy diatribe lacks any significant substance. It glazes over the juicy details, like a poorly written boilerplate.

I cracked the book hoping to read her side of House battles, particularly as trail blazing female and her struggles within the minority party for so long. Instead I was given repeat anecdotes I heard when we met her at her book signing. There she told us "self promotion is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it."

If I had to sum this one up in a single word - Disappointing. The one quote I walked away with was not even hers, it was a quote she used from Thomas Jefferson. A nice reminder, particularly in this election that , "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle."

It's Like Christmas

This just couldn't get any better. So the Dems have their flawless convention last week, where both the anticipated Clinton bashing and Mother Nature seemed to keep their wits about them.

Obama not only steels a kiss from Jill Biden but steels Oprah's hearts all over

again. And it seems even John McCain had a touch of Obama-Mania (see The English language Barackafied.) as he felt compelled to stick a little promo in between the speeches Thursday.

His speech was one for the ages: cool, calm, and colloquial, but most importantly confident... I'd even say presidential. Both Carly and I have seen his oratory skills live, she in Hawaii and I in Virginia.

But then McCain threw us a doosy. Not only did he pick a dark horse, Sarah Palin, (don't worry we've never heard of her either) from the overpopulated (683,478 to be exact: 1/2 of the city of San Diego) and surely diverse state of Alaska, but she has Executive Experience (as Miss Alaska and all of her two years as the 11th gov of the state).

As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population 5,469 roughly twice the size of my high school) she worked to ban books and fired the non-supportive police chief. She surely knows how to get things done!

But her real strength to this campaign is, aside from her squeaky voice and ability to stand on the shoulders of women after scrambling all over them to shotgun her way through the glass ceiling, her core family values.

Thanks Sarah - it looks like those conservatives wont be attending your convention (thanks mother nature) nor the polls (thank you baby's mama).

And if that doesn't send you running to the polls, she's just a heart beat away from the Presidency. Watch your back Johnny.

Romancing the Stone

In town to release her new book, Send Yourself Roses, Bill Thompson and I made an impromptu visit to the screen siren Kathleen Turner at Border's Books last May. Bill even got an interview for his website!

She is incredibly self-assured, flamboyant and gracious! I can only hope to have such a hold over the crowd as she has when I am fifty!

Hail to the Buff and Blue

Having graduated from GW, any mention of said hallowed ground sends my heart a fluttering! So when I was tipped off to a recent book our former president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg published I jumped at the chance to read it. We have a word for those types... TOOLS.

I was a bit skeptical, I'll admit. As president he was not the class favorite. But then again, few undergraduates openly professed their love for the university anyway. (Even though secretly they worshiped their Alma matter as much if not more than I did.)

GW has a few urban legends of its own, as the university that ate Foggy Bottom. But here SJT openly addresses all of them candidly... right down to the hippo myth. He explained with great comical detail and heartfelt justification many of the controversial decisions he made as an administrator. This is not only a must read for any GW alum, but should be assigned reading!