Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (CBR book #16)

My dryspell is over at last! After several boring, disappointing, and simply "meh" selections, I have come across a solid nominee for the year's top five. This is one of those books I couldn't stop talking about so read it already!

Shades of Grey takes place in the future society of Chromaticia, after an event referred to only as the Something That Happened. Society, or The Collective, is run according to infallible rules set by Chromaticia's founder, Munsell. Not surprisingly, the rules don't always make sense, like why spoons are no longer made, or why bottles and jars are to be manufactured in one size only. There are other mysteries in Chromaticia as well, like why noone can venture into darkness, why all living things have barcodes, and why the two biggest threats to The Collective are swans and lightning.

If I'm starting to lose you, the first thing you need to understand is that a lot of Shades of Grey is tongue in cheek. Fforde is a master of the absurd and sets up a lot of silly situations that, sadly, remind me of work first, then a lot of other things after that. There's a great scene where our narrator, Eddie, goes to a library. Most books have disappeared over time, but due to a poorly drafted directive, staffing levels at libraries will remain unchanged forever. So Eddie is followed by seven librarians who have nothing to do. One, a ninth-generation librarian, shows Eddie empty shelves and describes the books they used to hold. "Murdoch on the Orientated Ex-Best," "The Complete Sheer Luck Homes," and other titles roll from her tongue like a bad game of telephone. Sometimes it's just the titles she gets right, like Catch-22, a "hugely popular fishing book and one of a series."

And we haven't even touched on the Colortocracy. Apparently people's ability to see color is severely limited and people are divided into classes based upon their color perception. If you see mostly red, you are a red. If you see yellow and blue, you are a green. If you see little to no color at all, you are a grey, and the lowest in society. Marriages are arranged based on how one's color perception may help maintain or raise your position in society. Are you a coveted violet who sees closer to the blue range of the spectrum? If so, why not marry a red to deepen your child's violet perception uprange?

Color also plays a role in health and well-being. Depending on your ailment, visualizing a certain shade may make you better...or kill you. Perhaps you need a little pick me up? Try lime, but don't view too much, it's a gateway they say that may lead to the more powerful lincoln green and before you know it, you're chasing the frog...

And I could go on and on. Fforde injects wit, humor, and fun in this story about Eddie Russett, a Red, who travels to the town of East Carmine on an assignment to conduct a chair-census. As Eddie learns about the people of East Carmine, he develops a dangerous habit of curiosity which leads him down a path that's part Alice's trip down the rabbit hole, but more Neo swallowing the red pill, if you ask me.

In all, a slightly slow start (mainly because I had no idea what was going on for the first 30 pages), a great middle, and an end promising two more books to come. And will I read them? Absolutely. I can't wait to see what Fforde has coming out and will make it a point to check out his other books in the Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series as well.

For some fun information on Shades of Grey, click here.

Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (CBR book #15)

Superfreakonomics is the follow up to Levitt and Dubner's first book, Freakonomics, which was a great book. Basically, Levitt and Dubner use economics theories to describe things more interesting than, well, economics.

For an idea of what Superfreakonimics is about, a quick look at the cover sums everything up nicely..."Global cooling, patriotic prostitutes, and why suicide bombers should buy life insuance." And if that doesn't catch your interest, the Steve-o's also discuss the following (taken from freakonomicsbook.com)

• How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa?
• Why are doctors so bad at washing their hands?
• How much good do car seats do?
• What’s the best way to catch a terrorist?
• Did TV cause a rise in crime?
• What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common?
• Are people hardwired for altruism or selfishness?
• Can eating kangaroo save the planet?
• Who adds more value: a pimp or a realtor?

I'm a fan of these books because they're accessible and thought-provoking. They are also fairly quick and easy reads. Talk about the art of taking technical speak down to my level (Marcia Bjornerud, eat your heart out)!

So a solid recommend if you're the non-fictiony type. Enjoy!

Tinkers by Paul Harding (CBR book #13)

Just because a book wins a Pulitzer Prize doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. There. I've said it. And now I feel better. You can probably see where this is going...

I decided to read Tinkers because it won the Fiction Pulitzer Prize in 2010. I figured by reading it, I would somehow become smarter, or at least seem smarter. Things started off well. As with a fine bottle of wine, I'm a sucker for good packaging and presentation. The book is only about 200 pages and comes in a compact form, great for holding. Sometimes I feel like I'm not reading a proper book when I get a large hardcover edition and I can't fit it snugly in one hand. You know the kind; when you put the book down, that bit of muscle (fat?) between your thumb and index finger hurts. But Tinkers fits snugly in one hand, like a well worn baseball glove, or peas and carrots, or well, a nice glass of cabernet. Let's go with that.

So I liked the feel. The cover, minimalist. A white backdrop with a few trees clustered in the corner. Simple, pleasing to the eye, artistic. Hmmmm....looking good so far. And the content? Well, like a great top note, Harding grabbed me with his first line, "George Washington Crosby began to hallucinate eight days before he died."

Harding writes stories from George Crosby's childhood, stories that center on his father. Crosby's father was a tinker (or, as Lemony Snicket would say, tinkers is a fancy word for traveling salesman). The stories themselves are interesting, but there is a lot of fluff in between. Okay, okay, it's probably called something other than fluff in the literary world, like transitional prose or corollary exposition (making stuff up right now). But to me, it was fluff. He'd go on for a page or two about how a clock worked or how something looked. I guess you have to have pretty mad skills to go on so long about something so simple but it kinda bored me.

Maybe if we took that glass of Cabernet and reduced the book to it's good parts, we'd have an engaging 100 page novella (do those win Pulitzer Prizes?). So I feel a bit contrary to not think this book is the bees knees. Clearly it was well received by many. But for me it just gets a "meh."

Reading the Rocks by Marcia Bjornerud (CBR book #14)

This book came by way of a friend of mine. I didn't get much information except that he assigns it for an earth science class he teaches and hasn't had any complaints. I find pretty much anything interesting so I thought I might actually enjoy it.

Reading the Rocks is a book about the history of the earth, and in some respects, the universe. Besides geology, Bjornerud also talks about evolution and climate change. If you're bored just thinking about this, I'm not. I really thought Bjornerud had an interesting concept in her book. Concept, interesting. Execution...not so much.

I am a big fan of technical books written for the layperson, but I'm not sure that's what Bjornerud was going for. She used a lot of long, technical terms and went into details that made me wonder if she was really writing for a more niche audience. I hate to admit it because I've never done this with a book before, but I skimmed a lot of pages. I know, for shame!

I suppose for a "textbook," this book could be worse, but even with the worst textbooks, have I ever complained to a teacher?

So unfortunately, not a recommend for me, unless you're REALLY into geology. And I mean you go to conferences and think collecting miniature stuffed grand canyon's is the cat's whiskers (actually, that sounds kinda fun). On a side note, I have a stuffed HPV molecule in my office at work. Apparently my co-worker's dad is a sex therapist and that's the kind of thing they give away at THEIR conferences. I don't think people quite understood what I meant when I sent out an email saying, "okay...who gave me HPV?"

Anywho, I guess I'm not talking about the book anymore. For a good laugh, check out this website: giantmicrobes.com

The Taken (The Taking) by Dean Koontz (CBR book #12)

Not to sound like a broken record from my last review, but this is another one that literally fell in my lap. At my last book club meeting...wait, time for a detour...

I have a *thing* about book clubs. I didn't really know they existed until, well, I started reading books. Then they came out of the woodwork. Suddenly I was learning that several people I knew were in a book club of some kind. Funny, I thought. They don't seem like pretentious bores. Hmmm...maybe this book club thing can work for me. So I gave it a go and can now say I am an actual member of a book club. And by book club I mean my mother, her co-worker, and I. And by meeting I mean we were sitting around talking about inappropriate things while occasionally mentioning a recently read book.

Sooooooo...even though we had only met a couple of times, I worked early on to exert my control over the reading list. So far, the book club had only read six books, and all six books were suggested by yours truly. So when the time came for a new suggestion, I had to take deep breaths to release control of my reading future. The name Dean Koontz came up. I shuddered. Honestly, I can't tell you why except that I knew Dean Koontz wrote fiction (not my favorite genre, I must admit) and his books reminded me of the pocket paperbacks that filled the revolving tower racks you found in libraries, you know, the ones that held the books with Fabio on the cover? Gasp! I agreed to the selection but never bothered to get the book. Which brings us back full circle. My mother happened to have ascertained two copies of the book and gave me one to read. So I pawned it off on my husband while I finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

After reading Lacks, I decided to begin The Taken, motivated more by a compulsion to return something borrowed than to read the book. The first thing I will say about this book, is that it is creepy. The first couple of nights I read it, I had nightmares. I say "nightmares" for your benefit only. I regularly dream about ghosts, death, and well, just really strange things and don't personally find the dreams disturbing. But when I describe them to people, they become disturbed. So we'll call the dreams I had nightmares. And they were definitely inspired by Koontz.

The Taken is a story about Molly and her husband Neil. They live a quiet life in the San Bernadino mountains, a life that is (of course) soon turned upside down by strange phenomenon that slowly begins to take the form of a War of the Worlds drama. A strange rain falls on the land, a fog blacks out the sky, animals act strangely, the dead seem to reanimate, and the once networked and connected world goes dark. Driven by Molly's desire to rescue as many children from the unexplainable horrors occurring, Molly and Neil travel through their town looking for survivors.

The thing I like about this book is that Koontz throws in not just alien mythology, he adds supernatural touches, and a heavy dose of good 'ol fashioned horror as well. Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, leaving you wanting to continue reading. And there are no dull moments anywhere. And while I must admit, I'm pretty bad anyway at predicting how things will end, I really didn't predict this one. And I was skeptical Koontz would be able to wrap things up to my satisfaction, but he definitely did. But what I liked most was that he was able to inject a bit of world vision in his novel and give it a thought-provoking message.

So, a surprising like for me. Hopefully you'll agree.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (CBR book #11)

This book has been on the New York Times Bestseller' list and has an intriguing title...but when I heard what it was actually about...I couldn't understand why it was so popular (what does the New York Times know anyway?). Sure, my interest in biology might surpass the normal person's, but how interesting can a book about a line of cells actually BE? I'll be honest, the only reason I ended up reading this book is because someone literally laid it on my desk to read.

So here's the rundown...Henrietta Lacks was born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in February of 1951 and died less than 8 months later. Although she died young, Henrietta left behind an incredible legacy that no one could ever have imagined. A legacy whose contribution was priceless to society but devastating to the family she left behind.

I suppose to a biologist or anyone familiar with cell cultures, HeLa cells are perhaps the rock stars of their world. HeLa cells are cancer cells that have continued to grow and divide in culture, where other cells eventually die. HeLa's tencity has allowed them to be used for medical research for the past 60 years. HeLa cells have been used to test the effects of steroids, chemotherapy drugs, hormones, and vitamins; they have been been used to study polio, tuberculosis, salmonella, and hermorrhagic fever; they have been exposed to viruses; they have received harmful doses of radiation to study the effect of a nuclear bomb on cells; they have been sent into space to determine the effects of zero gravity on cells; and the list goes on and on. It is not an overstatement to say that HeLa cells have radically advanced the fields of medicine and cellular biology, yet the woman from whom these cells were taken would never know her contribution to modern medicine. That woman was Henrietta Lacks. And it would be decades before her family would know or understand how her cells were taken and how they have helped millions of people.

In her carefully researched book, which took about ten years to write, Rebecca Skloot has written a beautiful account of Henrietta Lacks and her family. She intersperses chapters about Henrietta's personal life with more technical (but accessible) chapters about how Henrietta's cells were developed in vitro and used in medicine. Her narrative covers a wide range of subjects including the racial climate of the 1950's and how differently African-Americans were treated in hopsitals. Even as she reasearched the book and first contacted the Lacks' family, Skloot writes about the family's distrust of caucasians and how she carefully had to build their trust and eventually developed a deep friendship with Deborah, Henrietta's daughter. Skloot does a great job of sharing the amazing things HeLa cells have done for society while simultaneously revealing the pain and confusion the HeLa cells have brought the Lacks' family who can't even afford to see a doctor themselves.

So this is a definite recommend for me, but the reading can get a bit academic. If you're looking for a brainless novel, this isn't the book for you. But if you want to learn something about science as well as humanity, I'd give this one a go!

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (CBR book #17)

Olive Kitteridge is the 2009 fiction Pulitzer winner. If you've been reading my posts, you may know how I feel about major award winners...

This is another one I don't really get. The story is okay, there are some interesting bits, but I really wasn't enveloped by the book.

Basically, the book is about a woman from a town in Maine called Crosby. Each chapter is a short story about a character in the town and their relation to Olive or some part of her family. There's marriage stress, death, divorce, family drama, even a hostage situation. I guess this all sounds like it could be exciting, but I found the book to be almost mundane. A lot of the "drama" was more every day, every family kind of drama and I didn't understand why I would want to invest in Olive or her family. How was she different from anyone else? (But maybe that's why the book is so special?) And the really interesting parts stopped too short - they didn't last for more than a chapter.

But as I said, this was a big winner so maybe I should provide an alternate review...here's the New York Times' take on Olive Kitteridge.