The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho

The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho was a huge disappointment to me, and it was a struggle to get through it. Tempted to put it down at several points during my reading of it, and I kept slugging through, hoping it would come together for me, hoping that I would feel the Coelho magic that his other novels are touched with.

Alas, for me, reading this was a waste of time.

From the back:

"In The Winner Stands Alone, Paulo Coelho has returned to the important themes of Eleven Minutes and The Zahir: love and obsession. He offers a suspenseful novel about the fascinating worlds of fortune and celebrity, where the commitment to luxury and success at any cost often prevents one from hearing what the heart actually desires.

Coelho takes us to the Cannes Film Festival, where the so-called Superclass gathers - those who have made it in the dreammaker's worlds of fashion and cinema. Some of them have even reached the very top and are afraid to lose their lofty positions. Money, power, and fame are at stake - things for which most people are prepared to do anything to keep.

At this modern vanity fair we meet Igor, a Russian millionaire; Middle Easter fashion czar Hamid, American actress Gabriela, eager to land a lead role; ambitious detective Savoy, hoping to resolve the case of his life; and Jasmine, a woman on the brink of a successful modeling career.

Who will succeed in identifying his or her own personal dream among the many prefabricated ones - and succeed in making it come true?"

The writing was disjointed, with very robotic and contrived descriptions of the celebrity lifestyle. Perhaps this was done purposefully to convey his distaste, or maybe this was his way of struggling with his own celebrity. Coelho, I felt, detached himself from his story, and I didn't feel him come in until near the very end.

I turn to Coelho's writing for inspiration, for connection, for the magical world that has the hand of some greater spirit involved. This novel was, in my eyes, the complete opposite of everything he writes about, and even believes in, and his unfamiliarity, or inexperience, with the topic was felt by me.

Thumbs down.

My First New York: a love letter to the city we love

My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City was a birthday gift from a friend of mine. It's a cute little book with cute little anecdotes of early New York memories from various actors, artists, athletes, chefs, comedians, filmmakers, mayors, models, moguls, porn stars, rockers, writers and others.

If you see it in a waiting room, or at a country inn, definitely pick it up, as it's a lovely two hour read in memories, and will definitely bring up your own first experiences in the big apple.

Cherry by Mary Karr

Ok. Just read all three. Start with The Liar's Club, then Cherry, then Lit.
A.m.a.z.i.n.g.

I don't even know how to start reviewing Cherry - Karr's style of storytelling is majestic - although some of what she shares of her life is difficult to comprehend, she makes it so compelling, and easy to read. Cherry is the sequel to The Liar's Club, and deals with her teens, and her sexual coming of age.

She is raw, open, and makes the darkest thing searingly funny.

Drama City

First off, you are making me want to read Karr's bios. We are just out of them right now although I think I can find a galley for Lit if I wade into the piles upstairs. So that's that.
On to what I am reading, and believe you me I am reading many books. I read 250 pages of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell without getting into it. I am going to finish that book, for the love of god, but it is um around 700 pages and I don't like it yet! Then I started Let the Great World Spin. Got to page 86 and was just starting to get into it when the book club loomed two days away and I decided to try to read the book Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie. So I got about 50 pages in and decided it was just not going to happen. Really not in the mood for that right now. Although I am sure it is a good read. The next day, a coworker gave me Drama City by George Pelecanos (who, among other things, was a writer for the tv show The Wire). This is the one I have actually finished. Great, atmospheric, flawed characters you really care about, vivid, hard boiled and moving. I loved it. A truly great read. The book divides its attention between two characters: a parolee who works as a
sort of an animal saver for the Humane Society (drives around answering calls and checking on the welfare of pets), and his parole officer, who herself is flawed. The two of them live their lives for us until random neighborhood violence draws them both to turning points. Really good.
Now, I am trying to decide between three books: finish Let the Great World Spin which I know will be fantastic, read A.J. Liebling's Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris (I know I am going to love this), or reread Hunger Games and then Catching Fire so that the third book in the trilogy (which just came out today!) will be fully prepared for. Argh!!!

The Liars' Club by Mary Karr

I am on a Mary Karr roll. I loved Lit, as previously noted in an earlier entry, and so I thought I'd track back and start with her first memoir, The Liars' Club.

So good. Sad. Tragic. Hilarious. Dark. Gritty. Painful. Amazing.

A must if you love memoirs as I do.
A must anyway.

SO a few months ago I read a young children's book called The Penderwicks and loved it. I finally got my hands on the sequel The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. It was good, but not as good. The four sisters were back home from their summer adventure and heading back to school. Their aunt comes for a visit and brings a letter that their mother had written to their father right before she died, telling him that he must date and must move on. So the aunt makes a deal with their father who does not want to date that he will go on three dates, and if none of them work out he can stop full stop. So of course the girls try to set him up with the worst possible women and of course he ends up with the woman neighbor that all of the girls adore. I liked it a lot but wasn't as enthralled as I was with the first one.
I love you pooky.

I read the Red Pyramid a few weeks ago. It is the first of a new series of books for Harry Potter age kids by the author of the Percy Jackson series. The story involves Egyptian mythology mixing with modern society. Sort of like the PJ books, its main characters are two young protagonists (brother and sister) with previously unsuspected magical powers. And thus they begin a glorious adventure. The background is complex and rooted in ancient mythology, and there is wry, witty twenty-first-century narration. The perspective shifts between the brother and the sister, who were raised separately and haven't really known each other, and is often mixed in with comments from the other sibling, as they are really telling the story to the reader together. As a lover of all things Egypt, I was predisposed to like this book. But I imagine no one would be too disappointed with it.

You must read this book!

I loved this book. It is in fact the first book I have read in a really long time that sang. It moved me, I cannot recommend it enough. It has become one of my top 30 books. I can't tell you how satisfying it was to finally read something that didn't disappoint me a little bit. The premise is wrapped around 9/11 - which is historically a tough event for fiction. The main character is a child who's father died in the towers - this is not giving anything away - it begins after this happened. But his father used to send him on scavenger hunts - and he finds something after the death that leads him on a scavenger type hunt throughout new york city. There is so much more, and it is heart wrenching. I cried a lot. I could have cried the whole read through. The references to heavy boots are a poignant example throughout the novel. There are also photographs in the book that are amazing - not in quality but in content. And letters and words. The final sequence of photographs is one of the most powerful endings to a book I have ever found. I know I am probably over effusing but I would really like you to read this.

lit by mary karr

I am addicted to memoirs - I don't know if you knew that - and I love, love, memoirs that center around two main themes - death and addiction. Lit by Mary Karr is "about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honestly, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up - as only Mary Karr can tell it."

This was so well written - her words, her thoughts are so fluid and crisp - I felt like I was watching a movie in my mind as my eyes consumed her words. Honest and open doesn't even begin to touch on the heart and soul that Karr bares to us in this novel.

I highly recommend this read.

the girl who kicked the hornet's nest by stieg larsson

the third in the trilogy. brilliant.