In the Garden of Beasts

Author: Erik Larson

This was the first time I got to experience the wonder of Kindle Whispersync technology when I ordered this book. I had a couple of days left on my vacation and had run out of reading material. It took way more time to select the book than it did to transfer the pages to the kindle sitting on my lap in Great Exuma, a remote island in the Bahamas. Within minutes I could continue what I liked to do best; curled up on a chair with a nice novel, enjoying the view of the turquoise ocean with the sound of waves lapping at my feet.

This book is about the US Ambassador Dodd and his family's tumultuous four years in Berlin from 1933 to 1937.  The author does a great job in getting you immersed in the environment and events that lead to the start of the Second World War. Dodd's daughter Martha and her host of lovers from all over the continent, provide an excellent set of sub-plots that Larson faithfully chronicles. The book is a compelling read as one is eager to find out who survives and who doesn't and there is a sense of foreboding the atrocities that abounded in Nazi Germany.  If you are squeamish and/or have read one too many stories of the horrors in Germany, don't worry; this book does not go into any detail of the concentration camps or various other painful memories of pre-WW2 Germany.

It is clear that this is a well researched book with every page laced with several quotes. If you had any doubts while reading the book about the authors diligence in tracking his sources, just wait till you get to the end where you will find 60 pages of Notes and Bibliography.  I am not a big fan of seeing quotes gratuitously sprinkled in novels as I find them to be be a speedbump on my road to the end. However, after reading this book I got to marvel at Larson's ability to throw quotes into a paragraph without causing any kind of hiccup in the narrative. I was also very impressed by how he must have had to comb through several different diaries and historical documents and piece the story and timeline together to get all the background details and make it simple for us to consume in the form of a novel.

Overall, the book is well written, although at times I had to re-read sections to keep up with the many different characters that popped up in almost every chapter.  In keeping true to the events and personalities, Larson is unable to make any strong impression in this book. If you have time to kill, this is a good filler.

The Sense of an Ending

Author: Julian Barnes

I was looking for a couple of books to read on a long flight to the Bahamas and this one was high on the list. It was recently published (Oct. 15, 2011), promised some insightful writing with some suspense thrown in, had racked up great reviews on Amazon, and had won the Booker Prize for 2011. There was only one problem - it was a measly 176 pages short and hence would not serve to occupy and distract me from the tedium of the journey. Nevertheless, I was swayed by the resounding applause from the many critics who had reviewed this book and in retrospect, I am very thankful to them for convincing me to read this book.

The book is narrated in the first person with Tony Webster reminiscing about his youth and his recollection of his close friends in high-school and then his first girlfriend and the rest of his social struggles. The author mixes up the narrative with some interesting observations on how we remember things, history and the always interesting human behavior. The prose is simply perfect and the ending is a guaranteed surprise. Nice work, Julian and definitely well deserving of the Booker Prize.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Author: Michael Lewis

I have been a late bloomer in discovering Michael Lewis and his repertoire of books ranging from "Moneyball" which is about the Oakland A's, to more recent books like "The Big Short" which is about the sub-prime-loan-led financial meltdown. Boomerang is his most recent addition and chronicles the financial collapse of Iceland, Ireland and Greece and their largest creditor Germany.

Michael's writing is incisive and he pulls no punches in describing the cultural peculiarities of the countries with an eye to drawing connections to the financial crises.  Michael is a self described, financial disaster tourist and he travels to each of the countries that he has written about, and seeks out folks that had a key role to play in the financial crisis. He does his research well and writes with the authenticity of someone who has conducted it himself.   He chronicles these interviews with a keen observation and wit that had me chuckling with laughter as I read through his very interesting travelogue.

Michael has a knack for taking a problem, identifying the cause for it and then putting it in a form that relates to a common behavior that we can all relate to. For instance he describes the American appetite for buying more than they can afford as  "Even a person on a diet who sensibly avoids coming face-to-face with a piece of chocolate cake will find it hard to control himself if the chocolate cake somehow finds him".

Michael truly has a way with words and is able to drop quotes mid-paragraph that just flow with the narrative.  Here's one that had me admiring how accurately it described Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure as Governor of California, "He tried every different way of dealing with the crisis in services. He tried to act like a Republican. He tried to act like a Democrat. He tried making nice with the legislature. When that didn't work, he called them girlie men. When that didn't work he went directly to the people. And the people voted against his proposals".

This is easily one of the most entertaining financial books that I have read, and will definitely be in my top 10 list of books for 2011.

The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was looking for some light reading, both in terms of content as well as the weight of the book, for I wanted to finish this in a few days before I embarked on a vacation where a few long plane rides would enable me to read longer and denser material without distraction.  This book fit the bill perfectly and was readily available at my local library so I made a quick trip to the Los Altos Woodland Library and picked up a copy.

I had recently read Hemingway's "The Sun also Rises" and the more recent retelling of his life in Paris with first wife Hadley Richardson in Paul McLain's "The Paris Wife: A Novel". The latter described the bohemian lifestyle of the many American literary expats in Paris and Scott Fitzgerald was one of the prominent ones. So not only did I start this book with high expectations, since it is one of the all-time American Classics, but I also had a view of the colorful life of the author Scott Fitzgerald at the time of the writing of this book and so was expecting some inspired writing.

As is often the case, the higher your expectations about a book or a movie, the more likely you are to be disappointed, and this book did not provide the exception to this rule.  It described the lavish lifestyle of the super-rich Gatsby in Long Island in the 1920s.  Reading this around the time of the depression, might have had quite a different impact on folks, however, I was not particularly drawn into the descriptions of the fancy parties that Gatsby threw at his mansion in Long Island.  The book describes Gatsby's attempt to woo Daisy Buchanan, a rich young married lady who lived across the Long Island Sound. The story is told by Nick Carraway who provides the perfect foil to the rest of the characters and it is definitely well written and a quick read. However, I really could not identify with any of the other characters and read the book more as an observer and didn't really get immersed in it. Overall, I was disappointed with the book and it didn't live up to the hype for me.

The Marriage Plot

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

This was a much anticipated book from Jeffrey Eugenides after his long hiatus since he published the Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex in 2002. Even before it was released to the general public, it had garnered a whole bunch of accolades and bookstores and large retailers like Costco were hawking this as a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Not to be left behind in all this hype and having really liked Middlesex, I put myself on the wait-list for this book at my local library. The local Santa Clara library, was also not impervious to the hype and had ordered 61 copies of this book, so it was not long after it was released that I got my hands on a copy.

The premise is a love-story of sorts with many angles. It is set in Brown University in the 80s and since Jeffrey went to Brown as well, I am sure it is pretty accurate on the details. The main character is Madeline Hanna and the men in her life - the two main ones are Leonard Bankhead and Mitchell Grammaticus. Jeffrey has not lost his touch to spin a good yarn and the book meanders along with lots of literary quotes and explanations thrown in for good measure. I am not sure whether the objective was to appeal to a more literary audience or are they just fillers so they heighten the suspense and pleasure ? To me, the quotes and literary discourse added no-value whatsoever, and might have liked the book more without them. In any case, it was a rather ho-hum book and one that I would not recommend unless, you ran out of all other options.