I’ve been remiss in mention the various books I’ve read over the past week or so. Here’s a sentence or two about each:

• The Patterns of Paper Monsters by Emma Rathbone: A really strong debut novel written from the perspective of a 17 year old in a juvenile detention center. Jacob narrates his romance with Andrea; their romance is conducted through eye rolls, and stolen moments in a place with no privacy. She’s certainly a writer to watch.
• Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik: The 6th book in the Temeraire series finds Laurence and Temeraire exiled in Australia. One of my favorite series, it’s Patrick O’Brian with dragons. The historical details make the exploration of Australia all the more interesting. I wish I had read it slower, now that I have to wait a year for another!
• Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky: Dermansky excels at writing those characters whom if you met in real life, you might find exasperating at first but you find yourself liking the  more you know them. Marie is just out of prison, a live-in babysitter for a childhood friend–only they’re not really friends as it turns out–and she makes some odd choices.
• West of Here by Jonathan Evison: Okay, I really  really really liked this book, but wasn’t sure how to review it. I loved his previous novel All About Lulu and was not disappointed with this book. I won’t explain the complicated plot here. Just go read it when it comes out. I promise you’ll love it.

One of my first jobs in high school was working at the gift shop in the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville AL. I hated my uniform but I loved learning about space travel, especially the daily lives of the astronauts. In the early days of the Gemini project, you would be stuck in what amounts to the front seat of the car for several days. In the shuttle, you at least had some room to maneuver, but what did you do all day when you weren’t doing science stuff? And what if we ever send people to Mars? That’s a three year trip in a cramped cabin. Sure, lots of people think about the bravery and heroism of astronauts. But I wanted to know how bad they smelled after a week wearing the same space suit. And how did they go to the bathroom in space? Or wash their hair? And why was their food so gross?

Mary Roach knows. In Packing for Mars, she goes on board with space monkeys, watches video of austronaut auditions, reads archives of isolation experiments and studies of what happens when you put three people in a small room for a week and don’t let them change their clothes. She eats meals designed by veterinarians for minimal excretory output. And yes, she visits the center where astronauts train to use the space-commode.

As with Stiff and Bonk, her earlier books about death and sex, Roach answers questions most of us aren’t quite brave enough to ask. The story is a combination of amazing, hilarious, and amazingly hilarious. The chapter on space bathroom technology alone is worth the price of admission.

Mr. Bookdwarf reads almost as much as I do and wanted me to share some short reviews:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender: I loved Bender’s previous novel An Invisible Sign of My Own but in this one, she’s really come into her own. It’s an absolutely compelling story of a girl growing into an upsetting and uncanny talent of tasting the emotions of the people preparing the food she eats. Her mother’s unfulfilled and lonely; her brother is furious; her friend’s mom really is as enviably good as she seems. How she eventually learns to deal with her abilities, and the way in which the rest of her family fails to manage their own oddities, is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

How Did You Get This Number? by Sloane Crosley: Sloane Crosley is the nonfiction essayist for the Tina Fey generation. Smart? Very. But also so severely dyslexic she can’t read a clock even in her twenties, and willing to document in self-deprecating detail how far she’ll go to hide it from everyone else. Canny? Of course. But not so wise that she doesn’t believe every lie she tells herself, at least for awhile. The sharp edges of her humor seem to suggest that laughter is really more of a coping mechanism, just barely preferable to binge drinking, pilates, and serial homicide.

Great title for the post, eh? I couldn’t think of anything more clever. I’ve been reading a lot, but nothing that has made me run to the computer to write about. The following books all were good in different ways.

• Whispering in the Giant’s Ear by William Powers: I mentioned in a previous post how much I ended up enjoying his forthcoming book Twelve by Twelve. Sometimes I like to read an authors previous works so I grabbed this one. I learned a great deal about Bolivian politics, which is to say that they’re are extremely complicated and nothing is black and white. I ended up with lots of questions too. Powers is an earnest writer. He truly wants to make a difference in the world and in the end, I find that admirable.
• When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale by Matthew Davis: I decided to follow up with more Peace Corps travel type stuff. Mr. Bookdwarf asked if everyone who joined Peace Corp had to write a book. Maybe it’s true. When Things Get Dark chronicles Davis’s two years in Mongolia and his gradual self-destruction as the cold, dark winters take their toll. If you like stories about drinking that make your jaw drop, than this is for you.
• By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan: During the Spanish Inquisition, Luis de Santangel, chancellor to the court and also from a converso family, tires of witnessing the brutality of the church. He’s implicated in the murder of a priest and his loved ones come under attack. He begins to reconnect with his Jewish roots and a finds himself falling in love with Judith Migdal, a beautiful and clever Jewish woman trying to navigate a tough world. And Christoper Columbus plays a role. It’s a nice portrait of a dramatic period in history.
• Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor: A mystery set in post World War I London, we meet Lydia Langstone who has just escaped her abusive husband to her estranged father’s house in Bleeding Heart Square. Each chapter begins with a section of a diary written by a murdered woman. It’s hard to connect all the dots at first, but as the story comes together things become more clear. You know who the murderer is from the getgo, but there’s still a surprise ending.
• Chef by Jaspreet Singh: A widely praised debut novel narrated by Kirpal Singh, called Kip, as he travels by train to Kashmir. He was twenty on his first trip to General Kumar’s camp, in the shadow of the Siachen glacier, where he apprenticed under the camp’s chef Kishen. He learns to create wonderful dishes from around the world. His life is thrown into chaos on the day he meets a supposed terrorist woman being held in the camp. Lots of lovely descriptions and it’s nice to read a novel set in India not in the warm regions.

I’m what you might call a cynic–not shocking news if you’ve read this blog long enough–which is why I was surprised that I liked William Powers’ Twelve by Twelve so much. I’ve long admired his writing (Blue Clay People on Liberia and Whispering in the Giant’s Ear on Bolivia). His new book, about to be published by New World Library, the folks behind Ekhart Tolle, sounded quite different.

While visiting his mother in North Carolina, she mentions knowing a doctor who only makes eleven thousand dollars a year and lives in a twelve foot by twelve foot house with no electricity. Intrigued, Powers tries to get in contact with this doctor, named Jackie Benton. Months later, she responds to his messages and invites him for a visit. Powers finds himself mesmerized by her permaculture lifestyle. He was back from a decade spent doing international work in Africa and South America and finding it difficult getting back into the swing of things now back in the US. He accepts an offer from Benton to stay at the cabin for a stay, while she travels out West. This isn’t a gimmicky plot though, which is what I initially thought. This book chronicles Powers’ struggle to find a meaningful life again.

Well, what does that mean? He spends a lot of time outdoors, walking in the woods, befriending his neighbors, generally observing the world around him. His description of his life, and his dislike of contemporary American consumer culture however felt increasingly like a criticism of my own lifestyle. It was hard not to be resentful. Why do I feel that way when reading these books about people making radical changes in their lives?
Then I came to the chapter titled “Humility”. In it, Powers describes how his ego got bigger as he reduced his carbon footprint and became “more enlightened”. He finally realized the trap:”the fiction of the ego is replaced by an even heavier fiction; that of being a Jedi, a spiritual warrior, an enlightened being–and therefore better than those miserable people who are not.” People can build egos while conquering them. It was this chapter that made me realize why I felt so resentful. Yet, he recognized that he was falling into the trap and this saved the book for me.

Powers was able to reach even someone as cynical as me. It’s a thought-provoking book for sure, one I hope many will read and find themselves wondering about their own motives on a daily basis.

Adam Ross’ Mr. Peanut might be the best book I’ve read so far in 2010. In fact, it might be one of the best books of the year.

I don’t say this lightly. I’ve already heard a number of other titles declared “Best of 2010,” and it’s absurd to make that kind of call as early as March, especially since the book doesn’t even hit stores until June. Nonetheless, this book blew me away.

David Pepin has often imagined and fantasized about his wife’s death, and when she dies, it’s more than a little suspicious. He rapidly becomes a murder suspect, and the detectives on the case each have their own back-stories winding around different combinations of marriage and violence.

It’s engaging and gripping like a good murder mystery, but more richly layered and intellectually engaging than a beach read. When I was looking through it to get quotes for this post, I kept getting sucked back into the story again, even though I’d just read it. I’m likening it to a great meal at a restaurant–the appetizer gains your trust, the first course provides some revelations, the second demonstrates the chef’s skills, and the dessert just blows you away. Ross is truly a great wordsmith.

I know it’s far too early to call “Best of 2010,” but this is a strong, strong contender.

I’ve been reading faster than I can post! Here are a few quick reviews of things I highly recommend:

• Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steve Amsterdam
  Amsterdam’s debut features nine stories linked by a single narrator, related over several increasingly difficult decades of post-apocalyptic life. But instead of focusing on the pain and awfulness of the situation, Amsterdam has produced a series of original, dense stories about the canniness it takes to overcome adversity.
• Country Driving by Peter Hessler
  China now buys more cars, builds more highways, and emits more carbon dioxide than any other country in the world. What does that mean for the average Chinese person? What does that mean for you? In Country Driving (as in his previous two books) Hessler provides a clear-eyed, unbiased, on-the-ground look at China’s changing relationship with itself and with the west. He visits bra factories, highway security checkpoints, farming villages and urban factories in his journeys around the country and comes away with a fascinating and informative portrait of a nation undergoing rapid and hugely influential changes.

  PS You should also read Hessler’s previous books River Town and Oracle Bones! I’ve long been a fan of Hessler. You don’t have to read these in any particular order. They’re all fantastic.

• Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
  You probably know that the telephone changed the world. But did you know that telephone poles were the primary instrument of lynching? Eula Biss will make you think twice about everything you’ve ever known. Growing up as a white girl in a mixed-race household, teaching in poor urban elementary schools, and working as a journalist for an African-American newspaper in Los Angeles, Eula Biss has the perspective and experience to make you doubt, and doubt again, and change the way you look at everything from apartment rentals to educational policy.

One of the books getting the most buzz at the Winter Institute last week (basically camp for booksellers) was Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, a novel about Vietnam. Morgan Entrekin, founder of Grove Atlantic, loved it so much that he struck a deal with Marlantes’ current publisher to put out a  more widely distributed edition.

I finished Matterhorn last night. Vietnam was fucked up. I doubt any movie or book can really make me understand quite what it was like to fight on the front lines of Vietnam. This book got me one step closer. It’s gritty, dirty, perhaps overwritten in a few places, but overall a scary claustrophobic book on a nasty war.