I spent most of the long weekend outside reading. I’ve been meaning to write something about all the books I’ve finished, but I’ve got approximately 18 hours before my plane leaves for LA and a million things to finish before then. I thought at least I can write a sentence or two or three:

• The Legal Limit by Martin Clark–I was nervous about reading this, like I was nervous about reading Mark Sarvas’s book. Clark reads this blog you see, but it turns out there is nothing to worry about. I blew through the book, enjoying every minute of it.
• All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison–Yowza, I thought, reading the back of this book. A sensitive vegetarian growing up in a family of body builders. What should have been weird book turned out to be have a wistful and insightful storyline. Really, it’s a charming book.
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow–I wish I had the guts and know-how to overthrow a crappy regime. In Doctorow’s world, San Francisco becomes a police state after a terrorist attack. Marcus and his friends decide to bring down the this Orwellian nightmare after being apprehended by Homeland Security.
• The Broken Shore by Peter Temple–The author has won a whole bunch of awards in Australia and the book was on my table. Those were my criteria this weekend. Melbourne homicide detective Joe Cashin has been temporarily assigned to his hometown, dinky Port Monro and exciting mysteries abound in this backwoods area.
• The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson–My friend Genevieve who is really into Scandinavian mysteries recommended this one to me. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but I got into it. It’s set in a small Swedish town where a priest is murdered.

Now I have to figure out what books to bring on the plane to LA!

I’m going in record saying that Sarah Hall is one of the most talented writers around today. Her first two novels, The Electric Michelangelo, shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2004, and Haweswater, were both set in her native area of Cumbria. Her third novel Daughters of the North is a bit of a departure, a dystopian novel, with echoes of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Global warming has caused massive flooding in the UK. Fuel is scarce and drug use is rampant as people try to cope with their bleak lives. Women’s reproductive rights are strictly controlled; the government fits every woman of childbearing age with a contraceptive coil. The narrator, Sister, has fled her city to a utopian all-female commune called Carhullan. Yet the farm is no paradise. The women work hard, under the tight control of the enigmatic Jackie. Sister comes to love her life after undergoing a complete transformation. But soon the outside world breaks into their scraggy Eden forcing a brutal fight. Hall’s book ask how individuals respond when things get out of control and governments overstep their bounds. What does it take to make someone react? It’s a haunting question as you read about pharmacists who won’t fill prescriptions for birth control and states trying to ban abortion. I was happy to see Hall’s lovely book win the Tiptree award this year.

Perhaps it’s the current political climate or the fact that I’m starting another whirlwind buying season (I ordered a book for January 2009 last week), but I really just want to bury my head in a book. That’s why I picked up Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson the other day. It’s the first in a trilogy about colonizing Mars. I thought it would be a fun romp on another planet but it turned out to be quite serious—in a good way. In the early 21st century, the first 100 people are sent to Mars to make way for more people to follow. Factions form as they try to figure out how to treat Mars. Things on Earth get pretty nasty and the various powers look at Mars as nothing more than a source for cash. The book begins with an assassination, then moves backward to explain the cause, and then moves past it. With good characters (well-written I mean. Some are not very nice at all), and great descriptions of the politics and environment, this is a great beginning. I already started reading the second book Green Mars on my lunch break.

Winter must have heard I was talking trash because I’ve developed a cold in the last few days. That’s okay with me because it gives me a chance to do some reading. I’ve read two interesting books that I don’t know quite what to make of yet.

The first book is The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia. The book follows several characters in 1990s Moscow as they search for missing people who might have turned into birds. There’s a secret, magic underground beneath Moscow where the old myths and archetypes live. Galina, whose sister is one of the missing, Yakov, a policeman investigating the disappearances, and Fyodor, an alcoholic street artist, make their way into this hidden area. I enjoyed reading it, but am not sure what to make of it all. It’s supposed to be a commentary of Russian society. Perhaps it’s the Dayquil that prevented me from getting to the depths of the story.

The second book is even weirder than the first. I tried describing Girl Factory to Mr. Bookdwarf last night. He definitely thought I had taken too much Dayquil. First I have to congratulate whoever designed the cover:

It’s certainly eye-catching. Here is the back of the book description: “There’s a disturbing secret in the basement of a strip mall yogurt parlor. Jonathan, the mostly clueless clerk who works there, just wants to fix things once and for all, but beginning with an encounter at an animal shelter that leaves three dead, things don’t work out quite the way Jonathan intends . . . or do they? Beneath its picaresque surface, “Girl Factory” raises unsettling questions about storytelling, the nature of freedom, and the ubiquitous objectification of women.” It’s starts out with Jonathan visiting a dog pound to break out a super intelligent dog slated to be put down. He discovers the dog playing chess, specifically Boris Spassky’s losing game against Anatoly Karpov in 1973. Yeah. He breaks the dog out, doesn’t get caught, and eventually goes back to work at Mister Twisty, a yogurt purveyor. Turns out his boss Spinner has several women in jars preserved in special yogurt concoction. I’m going to leave the plot there. Lets just say, Jonathan spends the rest of the book trying to revive the women. I’ve got no words for this book. It’s enjoyable for sure, but trying to describe or explain it? I’m going to go back to coughing and blowing my nose for now.

Want a fast-paced chilling historical thriller? Than this is your book. Tom Rob Smith has recreated the world of Stalinist Russia, right down to the smothering paranoia and hypocrisy. All of the details feel creepily real. Theoretically all of the Russian people’s needs are met; They’re fed, clothed, sheltered and employed. Under Communist logic then there is no real crime except for crimes against the state. Leo Demidov is a solid citizen, a member of the State service who ferrets out these supposed spies. Even the seemingly innocent confess to something, even if only that they had bad thoughts about Stain.

When Demidov is pulled off of a case in order to look into a child’s death, his faith in the system in shaken. There’s a serial killer murdering children on the loose. To admit that this is true is a crime against the state. Leo must solve the murders even though he’s disgraced after refusing to denounce his wife. Forced to flee, he rushes to stop the killer before more victims accumulate.

The writing feels fresh and the plot imaginative. Stalinist Russia never seemed so real.

The browns and burnt umbers on the galley cover echo the feeling of mud that spans this debut novel. Mud that slows and traps, echoing the lives of the characters in Mudbound. Jordan won the inaugural Bellwether Prize for her first novel, which depicts the Jim Crow South post World War II. That’s why the mud is apt; It describes those people stuck in this dark, dirty world. This is the story of two families, one black and one white, in the Mississippi Delta whose lives impact one another in a multitude of ways. Told in alternating chapters by Laura, her husband Henry, his brother Jamie, sharecropper Hap, his wife Florence and their son Ronsel, the story unfolds in subtle and brutal ways. Here is city bred Laura McAllan as she is trying to raise her family on her husband’s farm.

I was never so angry as those first months on the farm, watching Henry be happy. Becoming a landowner had transformed him, bringing out a childlike eagerness I’d rarely seen in him. He would come in bursting with the exciting doings of his day: his decision to plant thirty acres in soybeans, his purchase of a fine sow from a neighbor, the new week killer he’d read about in the Progressive Farmer. I listened, responding with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. I tried to shape my happiness out of the fabric of his, like a good wife ought to, but his contentment tore at me. I would see him standing at the edge of the fields with his hands in his pockets, looking out over the land with fierce pride of possession, and think, He’s never looked at me like that, not once.

Ronsel comes across as the most sympathetic character. Even as a child, Florence sees something in him. He’s smart and can go places. He joins the army and ends up a sergeant in the 761st tank battalion, one of the first all black battalions to end up on the front line of the war. In Europe, Ronsel saw a different world, meeting people who saw him as a savior, not as a black soldier. Able to leave behind the harsh realities of life in the South for a few years, he returns only to discover that he’s still a second class citizen. Though he went off to fight for his country, the bigots in Jim Crow South still consider him less than a man. He befriends Jamie, another war vet, who has returned altered from his experience as a bomber pilot. His despair makes him unconsciously selfish. Having become an alcoholic, he sees a kindred spirit in Ronsel, but doesn’t think beyond having a new drinking partner.

Everything unfurls in slow motion. That the outcome is bad is never in question. Jordan superbly depicts the savageness of racism.