The Collector's Apprentice

I'm not going to be discussing The Collector's Apprentice with my community book club for another few months. Over time, will I think about this book more favorably? Will discussing the book give it a more positive place in my mind?

You might have gathered by now that I didn't love B.A. Shapiro's historical art thriller (is that even a genre), The Collector's Apprentice. It was okay. I enjoyed learning about the artists, even if the discussions of the art movements didn't make perfect sense to me. I read this book in paper-and-ink format. As I was reading, I'd pull up whatever work of art was being discussed. Interesting that many were housed at The Barnes Foundation Collection. In the acknowledgements, where Shapiro details what parts of the book were historical and what parts were total fiction, she shared that her story is loosely based on The Barnes Foundation, Albert Barnes, and Violette de Mazia. There's so much that isn't based on historical fact. I think I'd be bothered if I was a descendant of Albert Barnes.

(I've passed by The Barnes Foundation Collection several times in the past few years. My older daughter has tried to explain the concept of The Barnes (versus the Philadelphia Museum of Art, let's say) and I never quite understood. Now I do.)

I suppose if you enjoy romance novels, you might enjoy this novel more than I did. It's not over-the-top mushy, romantic. It's not a bodice-ripper. While Paulien Mertens was easily duped by a charming man, Vivienne Gregsby was a strong, intelligent woman, not easily fooled. I found Paulien-who-becomes-Vivienne a sympathetic and admirable character until about two-thirds of the way thru the novel at which point she made a few decisions that made me completely reverse my ideas about the strength of her as a person. That was the point that I just wanted to make it through the end of the book to see how things wrapped up. I gave this one 3-stars on Goodreads.

For the Love of Libraries

I started reading The Library Book by Sudan Orlean as an e-book. I was juggling books, needed to finish reading something for a book club, put it to the side... and it expired off my iPad. And then I picked it up as a physical paper-and-ink book. If ever there was a book to read while holding it in my hand, turning the pages, breathing in the scent of the book, really feeling the book, this was this book.

The Library Book is two things. It's a love affair with libraries - and books. It's also a chronicle of the great library fire at the Los Angeles' Central Library. I really enjoyed the book because it evoked memories of times spent at the library. First at my first library, the Brooklyn Public Library, the library of my childhood, and later at other libraries where I've happened to live. I'm just not sure that the story of the unsolved mystery of the Central Library fire meshed well with that love story. It did, however, serve as a backdrop to Orlean's exploration of the Los Angeles Public Library system. So perhaps it did make sense to pair the two.

I'll be discussing this book with my community book club later in the year. I hope I can remember all I'd like to share with my fellow readers at that time.

Orleans has great memories of going to the library as a young girl with her mother. (Her mother passed away shortly before the publication of this book.) She moves to Los Angeles as a young mother and knows with certainty that she is going to share the library with her small son. Her love of the library - and of books - is so clear.

I loved the library as a young girl. As an older teen, I was reading mostly mass market paperbacks which I could easily afford on my babysitter's budget. I continued buying my books from bookstores until my tastes turned more to recent bestsellers. Although I could still afford them, I was more mature and somewhat wiser and realized that the cost per minute of enjoyment just wasn't there for most books. I became more selective in what I purchased from bookstores. Orlean must have gone through something similar.

I couldn’t walk into a bookstore without leaving with something, or several somethings. I loved the fresh alkaline tang of new ink and paper, a smell that never emanated from a broken-in library book.

The story of why Harry Peak was the prime suspect in the library fire and why he was never convicted dragged on somewhat for me. I'm not really a "true crime" kind of reader. I didn't really care about the details of his poor, sorry life. Hearing what the library fire meant to others was very powerful. Plus this was interspersed with tales of the history of public libraries in America, about how and why people became librarians and about the love of so many for libraries, their books, and what they stand for.

Orlean clearly states her purpose at the conclusion of the book.

I looked around the room at the few people scattered here and there. Some were leaning into books, and a few were just resting, having a private moment in a public place, and I felt buoyed by being here. This is why I wanted to write this book, to tell about a place I love that doesn't belong to me but feels like it is mine, and how that feels marvelous and exceptional. All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.

If her purpose resonates with you, this is probably a book you should explore. And I'd encourage you to visit your local public library, browse a little book, and then borrow this gem.

How cool is this book?

The President is Missing

As absorbed as I can be by politics, political thrillers don't thrill me. I've read enough James Patterson to know that his style is not my style. But... when I thought The President is Missing was going to be our April community book club title and it was available in the library, I picked it up to read. It's now our May selection, I probably won't be able to make it to the meeting, but I'd started the book so I finished the book.

It's hard for me to review a book in a genre that I don't like because lots of what I think is colored by the fact that I'm already predisposed to not like it. It took me more than half the book to get into the story and then I finished the second half of the book in a couple of days. Because I wanted to be finished. And I wanted to see how this duo of thriller writer and former president wrapped things up.

The novel takes place over a few short days. After a cyber-terror threat to the USA, the president goes underground with the hacker who worked on the virus to avoid the internet - and everything associated with it (is in everything - food supply, power grid, water supply, commerce, life insurance, everything) going down.

There's a lot of political talk, second thinking presidential decisions. There is one flashback to when the president met his wife. That added a bit of personal touch to the novel. I think a little bit more of that was needed. Lots of the action takes place in a communications room where techno-geeks from all over the world try to crack the code of the virus in order to destroy it. A mystery is that there is at least one treasonous party in the president's inner circle. But who is it?

I had a few general problems with the novel.

• There really was no character development. The characters (good guys, bad guys, in between) were introduced but we never really got to know what makes them tick. There's a lot of "tell" but not a whole lot of "show" when it comes to characters. 
• No one really seemed to care that the president was "missing." Was he missing? We knew exactly where he was. And even though the vice president didn't know where he was, she was in communication with him.
• The conclusion of the book reads like a campaign speech.

If I was going to be at the book club discussion, I'd have the following questions:

• When was this book written? Culturally, how current is it supposed to be?
• Is this Clinton's way of rewriting some of his own history?
• Was there a political motivation behind the writing of the book?
• Did readers find it politically motivated, no matter what the intention of the authors was.

I'm much more curious about the authors' purpose, the authors' styles than about discussing the particulars of the novel.

I am hard pressed to say whether or not I'd recommend this, because again, it's just not my type of story.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I was so excited when Books & Beer Club selected The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King for our biography/memoir month. After all, I'd fallen in love with Mister Rogers after seeing "Won't You Be My Neighbor" back in April at the Philadelphia Film Society Springfest, courtesy of my older daughter.

Fall in love, you ask? Well, yes. I was totally the wrong age for Mister Rogers when he first came on the national scene. I was already into double digits and Fred Rogers was just too weird. Whatever message he was promoting, I was already too "mature" and jaded to get it.

Since his death in 2003, though, I'd heard snippets of Fred Rogers' views, lots of his quotes. I'd seen his testimony before Congress. As an adult, I did understand him. And I liked what I was hearing. The documentary just stepped that up a notch. (I guess it's appropriate to add her that I sobbed, mostly happy tears, throughout the whole documentary. I believe there wasn't a dry eye in the house as the movie concluded. My daughter and I were sobbing together, as we clutched each other. He was reaching both of us, right where it counts.

Back to the book. I really wanted to love this book. It was just okay. I finished it early last week and then discussed it with Books & Beer on two days later.

The biography included lots of details of Fred Rogers life that I was really delighted to learn. The book had another thread, that about the development of television and even more details about the infancy of educational TV. Unlike most of the members of Books & Beer who were bored with the latter, I lapped it up. I'd taken a television class as an elective in high school and I worked for a summer of college as a typist at WNBC, the New York City NBC affiliate. I'm so grateful to folks like Fred Rogers for being so clear on what they thought educational TV should and shouldn't be.

I ended up co-leading the discussion about the book this past Wednesday evening. So I got to lead the discussion to the things I was curious about while reading the book. When did Fred Rogers first come into your life? Did it make a difference at what age that happened? (The answer to that is yes.) Is there a place for Fred Rogers in today's day and age? That inspired a passionate discussion.

Why was this very interesting book just okay? I wasn't thrilled with Maxwell King's writing. The book was tedious to read. There were lots of repetitive passages. At some points there were way too many details which slowed down the reading. And the "cast of characters" was cumbersome as well.

"Won't You Be My Neighbor" is currently being aired on HBO. I would 100% recommend the documentary. I'd only 75% recommend The Good Neighbor.