Good Summer Reads

Well, my five weeks in London are over. I leave tomorrow for San Francisco. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, how much I have seen, and how little I have blogged.

But I did get a lot of reading done! And I read a lot of good books:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. I picked up an advance copy of this novel at BEA and got the chance to meet Curtis at a Random House party. She was very personable and was dressed casually – definitely not aiming for the high glamour, high gloss authoress look.

I liked Prep. I didn’t love it. I really really enjoyed An American Wife and highly recommend it. The book is based on Laura Bush, but it transcends her particular life. It is the story of an intelligent Midwestern teenager named Alice Blackwell whose life is transformed when she causes a car accident. (This happened to Bush) Alice turns from a girl who feels she has a wide-open future to one who must clamp down her feelings and desires because she doesn’t want to stick out. When she is close to 30, she meets a charismatic, blue-blooded Republican named Charlie whose politics and attitudes toward race and poverty clash strongly with hers. Yet she is drawn to his enthusiasm, his charisma, and his sexual nature. They marry, but when he is elected President, she finds she disagrees with many of his policies.

This book made empathize with Laura Bush and provided an explanation for why someone could fall in love with a man like George Bush, whom I consider a boor. It is a reminded that all of us, even the most evil men like Hitler or Stalin, have good attributes. The book shows that the good and bad can easily coexist and are not necessarily incompatible. I guess people could argue that a book that humanizes George Bush is not necessarily a good thing as we are coming up on an important election. I don’t feel this way. I read this book non-stop – at least the first two-thirds. It slowed down for me a bit after this, but I still recommend it highly.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Cindy Snow, who works at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, really liked this book so when I went to BEA I picked up a galley. The publisher has high hopes for this novel, for it has sent out 7,500 galleys to build buzz.

The book is told as a series of letters between a London writer and the residents of Guernsey, an island between Britain and France. The time is 1946, at the end of World War II, when Brits are still feeling the pinch of the war. London has been bombed to bits and there is little food or fun.

Writer Juliet Ashton has just published a book based on a humorous column she wrote during the war. She is casting about for her next book topic when she gets a letter from a man on Guernsey. He had purchased a used book that had her name in it.

The book is told as a series of letters between Juliet and the inhabitants of Guernsey. The island had been occupied by the Nazis during the war, and one night some of the residents met clandestinely to share a roasted pig. Their feasting was illegal. At the end of the evening, some of them were questioned by the Germans and they claimed they had been conducting a regular meeting of their book group, which they called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society.

Initially, I was put off by the folksy tone of the letters. I thought they were hokey. But the writing grew on me and I became as fond of the folks on Guernsey as the protagonist did.

The author of the book Mary Anne Shaffer, sold it to Random House but then became ill. She brought in her niece, the children’s author Annie Burrows, to help refine the manuscript. Sadly, Shaffer, who lived in the Bay Area, has died, and won’t get to see the success of her book. The Wall Street Journal wrote about her death and the book's unexpected success.

City of Thieves by David Benioff. Benioff, the author of The 25th Hour and the screenwriter for Troy, has written a novel ostensibly based on the story of his grandfather, who survived the siege of Leningrad during World War II. There’s been a lot of talk about whether this story is true or not, but who cares. Benioff spins a wonderful tale about Lev, whose father, a poet, was disappeared by Stalin, and whose mother and sister have fled east to escape the approaching Germans. Lev refused to leave, for at 17 he has the sense that he must prove himself to be a man. Through a series of events, Lev gets arrested for looting and is offered a reprieve from execution if he can find a dozen eggs for a colonel who wants them for his daughter’s wedding cake. He meets an Aryan-looking Army deserter in prison, and the two trudge out in the cold of the winter on an impossible search. Of course, along the way, Lev discovers who he truly is and learns the meaning of friendship. The book is a good, quick read, if slightly sentimental, but I liked it.

Here are my other reads. I would rate them as fair:

American Lightening: Terror Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum.

When I picked up this galley at Book Expo America, I swore under my breath. It’s the story of the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times Building by the McNamara Brothers. It's a great story full of drama and pathos and I had been thinking of writing something on this topic.

While the book has some gripping scenes and is based around the famed detective William Burns’ search for the bombers, it doesn’t really work. Blum has done a lot of research and has some good characters, but he is so intent on writing a narrative non-fiction work that he leaves out a lot of history and context. Consequently, the book feels false and the reader is left with big questions about the political climate in Los Angeles at the turn of the century. And the connection with the beginnings of the movie business is really tenuous.

The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown. Suffice to say it took me 8 weeks to finish this book. I learned a little about the British monarchy, which is why I bought it, but not enough to justify 500+ pages.

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly – Enjoyable, but not nearly as good as the Lincoln Lawyer.

BEA Seen Through the Experience of Ethan Canin

BEA is such a cacophony of sounds, sights, and books that I thought I would show it through the lens of one author, Ethan Canin, who grew up in San Francisco but who now teaches at the University of Iowa's writing program.

Canin's new book, America, America, which is set against the broad landscape of American politics in the Nixon era, will be released in late June, It's a big book for Random House, and one the publisher is pushing hard at BEA. Canin's last two books, The Palace Thief and Carry Me Across the Water, were highly acclaimed and did well, and there is a lot of buzz that America, America will sell even better. Random House is planning a big tour for Canin.

Thursday: Canin and his wife Barbara fly into Los Angeles from Iowa City. Random House puts them up at the Biltmore Hotel.

Friday 7:30 a.m. Canin appears at a Library Journal breakfast where he meets and greets hundreds of librarians from around the country.

10 a.m. Scheduled signing at the Random House booth on the floor of BEA. The publisher has about 250 copies of America America to give away. The line forms early and is soon zigzagging around adjoining booths. Canin takes a few seconds to talk to each of those who want a book signed, inquiring about their bookstore or the town they come from. Lots of people compliment Canin's writing and he seems genuinely pleased to hear that his books resonate with readers. As 11 a.m, approaches, the designated end time for the signing, the Random House publicist standing next to Canin starts telling people they can't talk so much.

11 a.m. The formal signing ends and Canin moves to a side table in the Random House booth. He continues to sign books for another half and hour, making him late for a meeting. A number of his former students from Iowa stop by and say hello.

Noon: Canin and his wife Barbara go to talk to a film agent from William Morris. For years, Canin had been represented by the agent Maxine Groffsky, but she is retiring. After interviewing a slew of agents, Canin selected Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of William Morris as his new agent. Rudolph Walsh also represents authors Anita Shreve and Sue Monk Kidd and was the first woman appointed to the board of William Morris.

Afternoon: Time to visit with friends and family.

4 p.m. Random House sends a Town Car to the Biltmore pick up Canin and Barbara for an evening party. Traffic is terrible on LA highways at that time, and it takes the Canins almost an hour to travel the 20 miles to La Cienega Boulevard.

5 pm. The Canins arrive at Sona, a trendy restaurant that was named the top restaurant by LA Magazine in 2005. Canin is one of the featured authors at the event. The others include Salman Rushdie, Katherine Neville, David Ebershoff, and Curtis Sittenfeld. There are a lot of booksellers at the event, and Canin spends time talking to Andy and Lilla Weinberger, the owners of Reader's Books in Sonoma, CA. The Bay Area is well represented at the Random House party. Andy Bellows of City Lights Booksellers is there, as is John Evans of Diesel Books. Evans reveals that Diesel is planning to open a bookstore in the Brentwood Country Mart in Los Angeles early September. Now that Duttons Books has closed, there is room for a new independent book store.

6 p.m. Canin chats with Curtis Sittenfeld, who once was Canin's student at Iowa. Sittenfeld married Matt Carlson, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Saint Louis University, two months ago. She said she channels Canin's advice every time she teaches a writing class. Sittenfeld's new book American Wife is based on Laura Bush. Canin's new book America America is based on Ted Kennedy's life. I suggest they go out on tour together.

6:30 p.m. The room buzzes as Markus Dohle, the newly-appointed CEO of Random House, enters the party. He has just arrived from Germany, where he headed Bertelsmann's printing unit. Since he has no direct experience as a publisher, people at Random House are somewhat wary of where he will take the company and how he will differ from Peter Olson, who has lead Random House for a decade.

7 p.m. Canin talks to Dohle, who at 39, is undeniably handsome and charming. Dohle is over 6 feet tall with auburn hair that keeps falling around his eyes. Dohl tells Canin that he has two young children under 10 and moving from a small city in Germany to New York will be a big change. Canin has three daughters under 11 and the two talk briefly about children. Dohle says he will be out on the BEA floor on Saturday, the first official day of his tenure as Random House's CEO.

7:30: Canin and his wife head off to dinner with a Random House editor. They have invitations to the New Yorker party and one given by Creative Artists, but aren't sure they will have the energy to attend.