2011 Reading Recap

Not long ago, my friend, Nyla asked what my non-fiction to fiction ratio was.  I really didn’t know, because I enjoy both, so she put me in the 50/50 category.  Not this year:

24 non-fiction to 40 fiction

My favorite fiction reads were The Help and The Book Thief, followed by Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.  Favorite non-fiction was My Life in France and Mornings on Horseback.

The most important thing I read was Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which introduced me to many non-profits doing great work across the globe including Women for Women International.  I am now an active sponsor.

New for me this year was diving into the audio books.  I am going through books much more quickly when I can sit and work on a Project Linus blanket at the same time.  I wonder if that isn’t why I read fewer non-fiction – there are definitely fewer non-fiction books on audio in the library.

I still buy books faster than I read them.  And I don’t do as much on the Kindle as many people.  Here was the final tally (the links are to the appropriate page on Librarything.  If you are interested in my "reviews" you might find the "50 Book Challenge 2011" tag down the right-hand side of the page and scroll through):

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944

Stanley Weintraub

Santa Clawed: A Novel (Mrs. Murphy Mysteries)

Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown

Autobiography of Santa Claus, The

Jeff Guinn

In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story

David McCullough

A Week in December

Sebastian Faulks

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

Lisa Kleypas

The Christmas Train

David Baldacci

The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir

Ken Harmon

The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

Home for Christmas

Andrew M. Greeley

A Christmas Secret

Anne Perry

Everyman

Philip Roth

Dr. Zhivago

Boris Pasternak

Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

Christopher Buckley

The Lake of Dreams: A Novel

Kim Edwards

Travels with My Aunt (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Graham Greene

Homer & Langley

E.L. Doctorow

The Tortilla Curtain: A Novel (Penguin Ink)

T.C. Boyle

The Castle in the Forest: A Novel

Norman Mailer

Harp

John Gregory Dunne

The Last Dickens: A Novel

Matthew Pearl

What If?: Short Stories to Spark Diversity Dialogue

Steve L. Robbins

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Jamie Ford

True Compass: A Memoir

Edward M. Kennedy

Working for Peanuts: The Project Linus Story

Karen Loucks Rinedollar

Changing the World on a Tuesday Night

Tammi DeVille

The Flanders Panel

Arturo Perez-Reverte

Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam

Zainab Salbi

Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989

Michael Beschloss

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal (P.S.)

Lily Koppel

I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel

Tom Wolfe

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer

Thunderstruck

Erik Larson

Neverwhere: A Novel

Neil Gaiman

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Walter Isaacson

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Seth Grahame-Smith

Exiles in the Garden

Ward Just

Run

Ann Patchett

A Spot of Bother (Vintage)

Mark Haddon

Son of a Witch: Volume Two in the Wicked Years

Gregory Maguire

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt

David McCullough

The Shack (Special Hardcover Edition)

William P. Young

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic

Joseph J. Ellis

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

John Steinbeck

White Jazz: A Novel

James Ellroy

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy

Frances Mayes

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A Book by Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt

My Life in France

Julia Child

Unaccustomed Earth: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

Jhumpa Lahiri

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

Alan Alda

The Help

Kathryn Stockett

Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow

Tom Brokaw

Suite Francaise

Irene Nemirovsky

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Vintage)

Nicholas Kristof

The Poe Shadow: A Novel

Matthew Pearl

THE SECRET ADVERSARY

Agatha Christie

A Separate Country

Robert Hicks

The Child in Time

Ian McEwan

1776

David McCullough

Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse

James L. Swanson

The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession (P.S.)

Paul Coelho

THE EDIBLE WOMAN by Margaret Atwood (Paperback - Jan 1969)

Margaret Atwood

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Mary Roach

The Witches of Eastwick

John Updike

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944, by Stanley Weintraub

Book 64 of 50 Book Challenge and Book 9 of Holiday Reading Challenges


Closing out the year with a quick audio book.  Weintraub wrote another Christmas book that I read awhile ago, about George Washington.  So when I saw this at the library's holiday display I picked it up.  

I thought I was done with the holiday thing.

The jacket description lays this out with the old story of General Patton trying to get off an air campaign, being held off by weather and asking God whose side he was on.  The book spends almost no time on that subject.

There was a lot of politicking among the generals in December 1944.  Normally, I like to read about the politicking.  But this was more about who was endorsing whom for more stars and who thought whom wasn't agressive enough in the campaigns.  I didn't need to hear about how Churchill didn't like Ike.  I was really hoping for a book about the guys in the field that Christmas - like that part of Band of Brothers (who made an appearance in this book).

There were a couple of very worthy anecdotes.  American soldiers end up at a lady's farmhouse on Christmas and she is sharing the little she has when the German soldiers show up and they all manage a peaceful holiday together.  The one where the mail had been held up, but Christmas arrives and Dick Byers receives two boxes of treats from his fiancee in the States.  I wish there had been more of those.

And that just about does it for the year.  I will work on a 2011 book recap soon.

The Autobiography of Santa Claus, as told to Jeff Guinn

Book 63 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 8 of the Holiday Reading Challenges

I am pretty sure I found this at the Library's Used Book Store, and it received an enthusiastic thumbs up from one of the Holiday Challenge Readers.

Loved it.  In fact, I daresay this was the best of all the holiday books I read this year.

This book is Santa Claus explaining himself.  Laying out the historical truth and the evolution of the myth, beginning with his childhood in modern day Turkey.  Nicholas was an orphan with a trust fund who was uncomfortable with his wealth in the face of so many in need.  As an adult, he became a priest. His good works continued and he became a bishop.  As rumors of "miracles" spread, so did his fame and he felt the need to abandon his life to continue his mission of giving gifts to those in need.

The book goes on to explain the sainthood of St. Nicholas (which embarrasses him) and frequently returns to a theme of Magic vs. Illusion.  Travels begin (dude was on the damn Mayflower) and assistants are recruited - many historical figures - and they are all unnaturally long-lived.

My suspension of disbelief held pretty well.  Although Santa kinda skipped over the part wherein he broke his eternal vow of celibacy in order to marry Mrs. Claus.  (Even if you are a couple hundred years old, an eternal vow is an eternal vow.)  I even got a little misty hearing Santa describe his reading of the "Yes, Virginia" column - reprinted in its entirety.

I can't say this is an Every Year classic.  But I am pretty certain it will be a repeater in my house.

Santa Clawed, by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown

Book 62 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 7 of Holiday Reading Challenges

"Sneaky Pie Brown" being the author's cat.  My mother used to read these novels - small town Virginia farm lady solves mysteries with the help of her dog and two cats.  The animals can talk to each other but not to the humans, similar to Bunnicula.  So this was the holiday-themed one.

The novel did start with the heart-warming country Christmas stuff, but it didn't last very long.  The ladies decorating the church for the Christmas social or whatever.  Gossiping about a guy with whom they attended high school who grew up to be convicted of securities fraud and joined the local monastery upon being released from prison.  Our heroine meets him again at the monks' Christmas tree farm,  Later that night, when she brings her husband and the pets (really?!) to pick up the tree, the dog finds the monk with his throat slit.

I found it very interesting that such a cutsie concept could be wrapped around what came to be a rather sordid tale.  I'm not sure it was necessary.  The mystery was doing just fine without the dog and cat quibbling over...whatever.  When I asked my mother about it, she said that she liked when the horses got to talking, but that didn't happen very often.

Having said that, this was a lot of fun.  I liked the main character and I liked the small town cops.  I'm not planning to seek out more of these books, but it is nice to know they are readable in a pinch.

A Week in December, by Sebastian Faulks

Book 62 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 6 of the Holiday Reading Challenges

I found this at the library in a display of holiday-themed audio books.  It sounded really good, so I picked it up.

It is not a holiday book.

It is one of those books about various different strangers with nothing in common whose lives intersect over a big event.  As I read through the book..and it is a very slow burn..I came to understand the event was going to be a terrorist bombing.  And I hung around trying to figure out who would live and who would die.

The other thing this novel has is the point of view of one of the big shot hedge fund guys right before the financial collapse.  The setting is London, but the feel of the super-wealthy getting super-wealthier and the impending doom for everyone else is there.

There is also some commentary of what I think of as evidence that we are descending into the next Dark Age.  In fact, one of the characters lays it out that there was a "Golden Age" of education from about 1925 to 1975 when education was relatively universal and teachers would teach.  After that, we as a society decided that we didn't want to leave anyone behind so we taught less to everyone.   The theory posited is that the coming generation (I couldn't quite pinpoint which that was) would know less than the one before it and that is when society is officially backsliding.

(Side Note to my 8th grade civ teacher, Mr Pielin:  It is absolutely your fault that I obsess over this concept.)

Faulks also takes a shot at Reality TV by having a character rant that it is the product of bad people taking advantage of stupid people.  So true.

So.  There was no warm and fuzzy holiday anything, and I think I will have to have a talk with the librarian.

The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir, by Ken Harmon

Book 61 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 5 of the Holiday Book Challenges

I found piles of this one at Half Price Books, all with remainder marks as thought it was the title that didn't fly last season.

It was awesome.

Gumdrop the Elf leads the Coal Brigade until Santa fires him.  Then a guy is murdered using Ralphie's Red Ryder BB gun and Gumdrop is the prime suspect.

You don't get to be the leader of the Coal Brigade by being the shiny happy elf, so you can guess how this goes.

Pretty much every pop-culture Christmas reference is made at some point in this one, and it is kinda dark for awhile.  For example, Kringle Town has a shadow land called Pottersville.  Tiny Tim drives the ferry between the two.  The Misfit Toys live on their island and there are rumors that a Misfit Mafia is stealing the "good" toys.

Not to go all SPOILER but the end is rather warm and fuzzy and true-meaning-of-Christmas-y.

This book is the most fun I have had in this challenge.

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, by Lisa Kleypas

Book 60 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 4 of the Holiday Book Challenges

I accidentally read a romance novel.  I don't know how it happened.  I thought it was about a little girl that lost her mother and found her voice and her joy again at Christmas.  It was really about an uncle/guardian and the new lady in town who happens to be a young widow that has opened a new toy shop on one of those islands off the coast of Seattle.  Next time, I must really read more  than two lines of the jacket summary.

It wasn't a bodice ripper by any stretch, and for most of the novel it was pristine near to Jane Austen.  And then it wasn't.  And I found myself thinking, "Really?  You knew that dude was a player and didn't even consider the birth control?"

It has been a really long time since I read a romance novel.

All of the characters were perfectly pleasant - even the girlfriend that was ditched.  There wasn't very much conflict, which was fine, too.  The "Christmas" connection was pretty weak, but that was ok.  But I think I gotta go back to the Christmas murder mysteries now.

The Christmas Train, by David Baldacci

Book 59 of 50 Book Challenge, Book 3 of the Holiday Reading Challenges 

I had never read Baldacci before, but understand he writes crime/thriller type books.  So I was interested to see what he did with a Christmas theme.

Not a thriller.

The concept is interesting enough...man of a certain age takes a cross-country train to meet his girlfriend for a holiday in Lake Tahoe.  He meets all sorts of people going to meet family, or not.  The Amtrak staff made for awesome characters, and if someone will tell me right now that the cross country trains really have staff like that I will book my ticket right now.  Then things start to disappear and the weather turns.  All good stuff.

Except that I didn't find our hero to be all that likable and the plot really seemed to be about The One That Got Away.

(sigh)

The climax of the tale is our hero lying in the blizzard with his love waiting to die.  Seriously.  And I wouldn't want to spoil the punchline for you.

The Book Thief, by Mark Zusak

Book 58

This has been on my shelf for awhile.  I think my book club read it back when I was in school and I interrupted the Holiday Reading challenges for it because I spotted an audio version at the library that I know had never been there before.

For a YA novel, this was intense.  And long, now that I'm thinking about it.  Illiterate German girl is sent by her mother to live with a foster family in 1939.  Younger brother dies on the journey.  Gravedigger drops his handbook or something on the ground and the girl picks it up and puts it in her pocket.  And so we have a Book Thief.

Oh, and the novel is narrated by Death.  How could this not be awesome?

Well, for one thing, it is Germany in 1939.  If the author can't make us sympathize with our core family right away, the game is over.  So we discover that the girl was sent away because her parents were arrested by the Nazis for being Communists.  Then, we learn that in the last war, the foster-father's life is saved by a Jewish friend who didn't make it home.  Son of rescuer/friend needs a place to hide, so now our German family is hiding a Jew in the basement.

The friendship that develops between the young girl and the young Jewish man - two rather broken people -  illustrates the power of stories.  Books and music and the outside world and living in your own head.

As you can imagine, a whole lot of bad stuff happens.  Even with my prejudice against "you know this is going to end badly", I loved every minute of it.

Home for Christmas, by Andrew M. Greeley

Book 57 of 50 Book Challenge and Book 2 of the Holiday Reading Challenges  

Greeley is a famous novelist/priest that I thought I might try to read someday.  Then I saw he had a Christmas book and it wasn't too long and it fit nicely in my carry on..

And it was very good.  Three-tour Iraq war veteran has a near death experience in which God tells him to go home and fix things, particularly with the childhood sweetheart.  His first communion priest is also back in town, now the monsignor of the parish.  Redemption, forgiveness and the true meaning of Christmas.  Fa la la la la.

The cheese factor was tolerable, as was the politics.  The preaching was surprisingly low, considering it is the life's work of the author.

I liked it.  I could read this guy again.

A Christmas Secret, by Anne Perry

Book 56 of 50 Book Challenge; Book 1 of 2011 Holiday Challenges

I've never read Anne Perry before, but it looked like a perfectly reasonable holiday murder mystery to me.

New pastor and wife go to small town to sub for the local vicar over the holidays.  They settle in with your usual small town quirky characters when one day the wife goes to the cellar for some coal and finds the dead vicar. 

I am happy to say that I found the characters to be very pleasant on the whole.  This is important because there is not one single surprising detail in the whole of the novel.  Except, perhaps, how quickly our heroes solve the mystery. 

I did enjoy the pastor and wife telling each other, "We won't trust anyone while we do our investigating" and they both go out and spill their guts to different people.  That was fun.

Also, there were a dog and cat that were very important to the discovery of the body that barely set foot on the canvas again for the rest of the story.  Even during the high tension of unveiling the killer, they are nowhere to be found.  That's just not fair.

I have long said that I am not a big mystery reader.  So if I can guess the killer, something is wrong.  I totally guessed the killer.  And I guessed it early.  So I guess this was my warm-up book.

Travels with My Aunt, by Graham Greene

Book 55


Last year, Writers' Theatre did a play based on Travels with My Aunt.  It was awesome, so I kept an eye out for the book.

Also awesome.  The premise is a retired bank manager - dullest man ever - meets his aunt for the first time and she pulls him into her crazy, crazy world.  It is one of those stories where the straight man is dragged into some goofy action and only realizes later that he had a really good time.

The play does a good job of keeping the action lively, but what the novel brings out is how quickly our hero, Henry, realizes that he hasn't really lived.  It comes out subtly, a line or two at a time.  One example is when Aunt Augusta has gone abroad without him and he says:

"Perhaps it was to prove the reality of my existence that I began a letter to Miss Keane."

The lady that he has tiptoed around for years.

Sometimes the plot gets a bit contrived, but it is a whole lot of fun.  I want to be Aunt Augusta when I grow up.

Everyman, by Philip Roth

Book 54


I read about one Philip Roth novel a year.  Unfortunately, two years in a row I have picked the ones about men whose lives are entirely defined by sexual relationships.

That isn't entirely fair.  But dude was married three times and cheated on each wife.  So the novel starts with his funeral, then tells the short story of his long life and the meditations that he did on death and dying and dying alone.

There were a couple of pretty poignant things:  one was that our Everyman (I don't recall whether he had a name) had given up having a relationship with his two grown sons.  They never forgave him for leaving their mother when they were children.  He says something like: I am not able to apologize and explain myself any more.  There is truth in that.  When you have wronged someone, you apologize and attempt to make up for the wrong (assuming you want to continue the relationship).  If they won't let it happen, if they just keep hammering at you, it isn't healthy for anyone.

Because of a couple of childhood illnesses, our hero had a long-standing relationship with Death.  It isn't exactly "another character", but it is sort of the cloud that hangs over the novel.  I am glad it was a quick read, because however profound, this isn't a place one wants to dwell.

Going to read some Christmas books now.

Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak

Book 53

Dr. Zhivago had been sitting on my shelf for about ever until..I..cheated on my library.  I went to Northbrook to look at the audiobooks and there it was.

People.  Audio is totally the way to go with the Russian epics.

This was like War and Peace, set during a century later.  One of the reviews on LibraryThing said that the film was actually better, because the screenwriters were forced to condense the points of view to Zhivago's and Lara's which made it easier to follow.  I haven't seen the film, but I can see the point.  It is easy to lose focus.

As great love stories go, I wasn't terribly impressed.  As a narrative of the Russian Revolution, it was fabulous.  Zhivago is an educated working man with affluent roots, so either side could potentially make a friend or enemy of him.  And this was this first story I have read - fiction or non - of the Revolution that was not focused (in fact, it didn't go near) the center of power.  Parts were set in Moscow, but we never see the leaders of the nation and the name Rasputin is never spoken.

I might have to read this again sometime, because I know there are things that I missed.  And I suppose I will have to see the film.  This was worth the time.

Losing Mum and Pup, by Christopher Buckley

Book 52

I haven't read any of Christopher Buckley's fiction, but I read great things about this memoir when it was released.  His story is that of a middle aged only child who lost both parents in the span of a year.  Add on that his parents were William F. and Patricia Buckley and there was no way this book wouldn't be good.

I was right.  It was great.

He won me over right away by saying that he never meant to write a book about his parents, but that "when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it seems either a waste or a conscious act of evasion".  He apologizes nearly every time he name drops.

But here is an example:

St. Patrick's Cathedral limits each funeral to two eulogies.  For his father's funeral, he was doing one and Henry Kissinger was doing the other.  Then the White House called.  Dick Cheney would like to attend, and to speak.  So Christopher had to decide - drop his own eulogy, boot Kissinger (a great friend of his father) or decline Cheney. 'Cause there is no arguing with St. Pat's.

Cheney was out.

I particular liked the stories of Patricia Buckley.  Apparently, she was a storyteller in the sense that you could never quite tell if her stories were true.  Put that on top of the ability to throw a helluva party and I would've loved to be her friend.  Seriously, look at that cover photo.  She was clearly fabulous.

Finally, I listened to the audiobook, which Buckley narrated himself.  Listening to a guy quote his own parents is pretty cool.

I am not rushing out to pick up any Buckley fiction - Boomsday just sounded morbid - but I will probably stop and look the next time I see his name.

The Lake of Dreams, by Kim Edwards

Book 51

I have said before that nothing is more boring than listening to people talk about their dreams.  I have found one.  It is listening to fictional characters talk about their dreams.

This is a chick book.  And I had just about given up on it by the third CD, but there was one plot thread that kept me interested.  Mostly, I found the main character boring.

Prodigal daughter comes home during a crossroads in her life and confronts family drama centering on her father's death 10 years before.  Insert 100-year old family letters illuminating a mysterious aunt no one had ever heard of before whose life must have something to teach our lost little heroine.

Ooooooohh.

The supporting characters are, thankfully, more interesting.  But the thing is, the twists and turns weren't terribly surprising.  The only really shocking moment was when Lucy went "nightswimming" by herself and.....didn't get caught.  I guess I have seen too many soap operas.

  

Homer and Langley, by E.L. Doctorow

Book 50


Doctorow's latest novel made a big splash last year partly because it is (very loosely) based on the lives of a pair of eccentric, reclusive brothers that lived on 5th Avenue.  Basically, Doctorow took a couple of facts - the brothers lived alone in a huge, inherited townhouse, they retreated from the world and hoarded stuff until  they were old men.  Finally, they were found dead: one was crushed by stuff and the other, who was disabled, starved to death.

Doctorow imagined how they might have lived in their own heads as the world continue to turn around them.  Awesome premise.

I mostly bought it.  The perspective was a first person narrative of Homer, the physically disabled brother.  Langley is the brother that came home from the (frist World) War badly damaged.  As Langley's mental health slowly deteriorates, Homer just kind of goes along with all the weirdness.  Buying and reading every city paper - morning and evening - and keeping them, was the very first.  There were several times when I found myself saying to Homer, "Dude....stop him now!"  But I guess when you are caught up in the madness every single day, it is easy to lose the big picture of the situation.

This book was sad and now that I am thinking about it, the other Doctorow novels I have read are infused with sadness.  He must be really good to keep me coming back.

The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle

Book 49


We generally have multiple copies of The Tortilla Curtain at the Used Book Store.  I figured that GBS must be teaching it in English class.  I figured that it was kinda like a One Book, One Chicago pick, where we all come to a greater cultural understanding at the end.  So I picked it up when I saw the audio book, read by the author.

Then I looked it up on LibraryThing, where the reviews suggested that it was more like The Grapes of Wrath.  Not possible, I thought.  The Grapes of Wrath was a million pages and this was a little trade paperback.

Southern California.  Two families: one prosperous white family in a gated community that is getting even more gated and one undocumented Mexican couple camping in the canyon with a baby on the way.

Yeah.  It was rather Steinbeck-of-the-modern-era.  Where stuff is bad at the beginning and it keeps finding a way to get worse until you can't think of how it could get worse and then someone is cooking a Siamese cat in a stew to feed his family.  And it gets worse.

There was a rather profound moral to the story with that motif of the fences both literal and figurative.  We love nature until it hunts our little dogs.  We love our fellow man until there are just so many of them and they are threatening our property values.

As the story built to the climax, I found it very cinematic.  However, the ending was very abrupt and with little resolution.  I wonder how Hollywood is going to deal with that.

Harp, by John Gregory Dunne

Book 48

John Gregory Dunne was a writer.  He was also the husband of Joan Didion and the brother of Dominick Dunne.  Harp was a memoir that he wrote after two big, bad things happened in the late 1980's.  First, his younger brother killed himself.  And he was diagnosed with the heart trouble that would later kill him.

Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking was about the year after Dunne's death.  I loved it and I love her.  One of the striking things she remembered was Dunne saying, right around the time that he wrote this book I imagine, that it was a really strange thing to know how you are going to die.  She denied his statement.  He wasn't going to die from that episode.  But he knew that someday, it would come back and get him.

That's the guy I was looking for in this book.  And while he didn't speak so directly about his feelings - he isn't the type - I am happy to say that I found him.

He spoke a bit about the falling he and Dominick had at the time of Stephen's suicide.  John was an ass and then Nick was a big drama queen and it sounds like the kind of thing that happens in every family and you just want to smack them both.  Then he went on a bit of a European tour to find himself or whatever.

He started in Germany, where he served in the army post-WWII.  He went on to Ireland to find his roots or something.  He writes about it all in a very detached way.  "Observational" is the way he writes it.  He went so far as to say he was watching himself experience it.

There are a couple of times when he challenges the veracity of something just written.  He takes an "it is all true, in a way" attitude that bothers me.  I can certainly accept that "truth" is a matter of perception and he gets to remember and present his own experience as he chooses.  The self-consciousness, however, annoys me.  I guess it was a self-conscious time.

This was the first of Dunne's books that I have read.  I think the rest are fiction.   I can manage that.

The Castle on the Forest, by Norman Mailer

Book 47

Norman Mailer was the kind of writer that liked to mess with your head and in his final novel, he outdid himself.  This is the most disturbing thing I have read all year.

Well, duh.  The premise is that minions of the devil watched and guided the Hitler family from even before the time when Adolf was born.  The narrator was assigned to the infant and tells the family story.

It is demented, as one would expect.  Although I wouldn't have thought as far as two generations of inbreeding.  Really close inbreeding.

Also, I don't know how I picked up a novel about Hitler being guided by the Devil's Minions without understanding that at some point, something terrible was going to happen to a dog.

Mailer pulled a pretty cool stunt in there, too.  He left the Hitler action to cover the coronation of Czar Nicholas II.  Because the minion was assigned to that, too.  What is even cooler is that the narrator said if the reader wasn't interested, he or she could pick up the Hitler action again on page 261.  I sure wanted to hear about Russia.  A shorter detour was later taken to the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria.  The point is that Evil weaves it Evil Web at different times and places.  And it is patient.

I began losing some interest after the death of Alois Hitler, the father.  But the chilling epilogue said that after 1945, the Devil's Minions set up shop in the U.S. and began "investing" in both Israel and the Arabs.

It would not surprise me if that was what Mailer intended to write next.