Life of Pi [Hardcover] Review

With over 1250 reviews already registered for LIFE OF PI, I first thought there could be nothing more to say about this marvelous novel. But after scanning the most recent 100 reviews, I began to wonder what book many of those reviewers had read. Had I relied on 98 of those reviews, I would have expected a far different book than the one I actually read.

Let's begin with what LIFE OF PI isn't. It's not a Man against Nature survival story. It's not a story about zoos or wild animals or animal husbandry. It's not ROBINSON CRUSOE or SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. It's not a literary version of CASTAWAY or OPEN WATER, and it's not a "triumph against all odds, happily ever after" rescue story. To classify it as such would be like classifying THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA as a story about a poor fisherman or MOBY DICK as a sea story. Or THE TRIAL as a courtroom drama, THE PLAGUE as a story of an epidemic, HEART OF DARKNESS as a story about slavery, or ANIMAL FARM as an animal adventure.

Martel's story line is already well-known: a fifteen-year-old boy, the son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India survives a shipwreck several days out of Manila. He is the lone human survivor, but his lifeboat is occupied by a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, an injured zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan. In relatively short order and true Darwinian fashion, their numbers are reduced to just two: the boy Piscene Molitor Patel, and the tiger, Richard Parker. By dint of his zoo exposure and a fortuitously positioned tarpaulin, Pi (as he is called) manages to establish his own territory on the lifeboat and even gains alpha dominance over Richard Parker. At various points in their 227-day ordeal, Pi and the tiger miss being rescued by an oil tanker, meet up with another shipwreck survivor, and discover an extraordinary algae island before finally reaching safety.

When Pi retells the entire story to two representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Transport searching for the cause of the sinking, they express deep disbelief, so he offers them a second, far more mundane but believable story that parallels the first one. They can choose to believe the more fantastical first one despite its seeming irrationality (Pi is, after all, an irrational number) and its necessary leap of faith, or they can accept the second, far more rational version, more heavily grounded in our everyday experiences.

LIFE OF PI is an allegory, the symbolic expression of a deeper meaning through a tale acted out by humans, animals, and in this case, even plant life. Yann Martel has crafted a magnificently unlikely tale involving zoology and botany, religious experience, and ocean survival skills to explore the meaning of stories in our lives, whether they are inspired by religion to explain the purpose of life or generated by our own psyches as a way to understand and interpret the world around us.

Martel employs a number of religious themes and devices to introduce religion as one of mankind's primary filters for interpreting reality. Pi's active adoption and participation in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity establish him as a character able to relate his story through the lens of the world's three major religions. Prayer and religious references abound, and his adventures bring to mind such Old Testament scenes as the Garden of Eden, Daniel and the lion's den, the trials of Job, and even Jonah and the whale. Accepting Pi's survival story as true, without supporting evidence, is little different than accepting New Testament stories about Jesus. They are matters of faith, not empiricism.

In the end, however, LIFE OF PI takes a broader view. All people are storytellers, casting their experiences and even their own life events in story form. Martel's message is that all humans use stories to process the reality around them, from the stories that comprise history to those that explain the actions and behaviors of our families and friends. We could never process the chaotic stream of events from everyday life without stories to help us categorize and compartmentalize them. Yet we all choose our own stories to accomplish this - some based on faith and religion, some based on empiricism and science. The approach we choose dictates our interpretation of the world around us.

LIFE OF PI bears a faint resemblance to the movie BIG FISH, also a story about storytelling and how we understand and rationalize our own lives through tales both mundane and tall.Martel's book is structured as a story within a story within a story, planned and executed in precisely 100 chapters as a mathematical counterpoint to the endlessly irrational and nonrepeating value of pi. The book is alternately harrowing and amusing, deeply rational and scientific but wildly mystical and improbable. It is also hugely entertaining and highly readable, as fluid as the water in which Pi floats. Anyone who enjoys literature as a vehicle for contemplating the human condition should find in LIFE OF PI a delicious treat.



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The Morning of the White Stone (Paperback) Review

I read this book slowly, for I'm 80 years old. The plight of the young boy raised by relatives and mistreated is a heartbreaking fact of life. I felt his rejection, for the author has a way with words, creating such a connection to her characters, I could not put it down. The end was amazing and rewarding, confirming that with God, all things are possible.I would recommend this book, for it is inspiring, touching.The beautiful poems only added to my enjoyment, for I could plainly see what it cost the author emotionally to write such words.Only someone who had been there could possibly describe such feelings of pain as Mrs. Lewis has done.I loved it!Wish she would write a sequel!

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In the 1800?s, Matthew Carlisle, his Indian mother having died shortly after his birth, is raised in a household knowing little but hard work and hard words. Striking out on his own at an early age, he meets and marries a young woman , Amelia McIlewain, reared by loving parents and adored by her siblings. The smoldering resentment and festering anger of his childhood comes to the surface, resulting in unfaithfulness and cruelty toward his wife and family. A letter from his past and three objects left him by his dying mother offer hope from an unexpected source. Only by going back into his past, searching for the meaning of the name in the white stone, can Matthew save his marriage, his family, and himself from total destruction.

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Morning, Noon, and Night (Hardcover) Review

This is simply a wonderful book!I truly enjoyed using it while tutoring a fourth grade remedial reader because it was simple, yet beautifully worded and superbly illustrated. Each illustration is a marvelous natureportrait in itself.My fourth grade student (who happens to be veryinterested in science) savored each lovely portrait, as we talked about theanimals and environments depicted in each one. Though the words are fewand simple, the book avoids being overly childish.Rather, it respectfullypresents the cycle of the day (morning, noon and night) and the beauty ofvarious animals as they act in their natural environments throughout theday.

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One Sunday Morning: A Novel [Paperback] Review

If Edith Wharton were alive and writing now, who would she be? Dominick Dunne is the first novelist who comes to mind, especially his first few novels. But Dunne's books are, more often than not, jump-started by a crime; for Wharton, a social gaffe was sufficient to fuel a plot. And Wharton's books were rich in subplots and subtext.

You could, I think, make the case that Amy Ephron is our Wharton. This seems, on the surface, improbable. Ephron lives in Los Angeles, where roots do not run deep and Society goes back only a handful of generations. She has worked --- gasp --- in the movie business, where people with a provenance rarely venture. And she writes novels that are painfully short: ONE SUNDAY MORNING runs to 214 pages only because the book is small and the margins are vast.

What Ephron shares with Wharton: Her books are not so much written as carved. Every word counts. And, like Wharton, every word is about the story --- there are no digressions, no riding of an authorial hobbyhorse. And, like Wharton, Ephron is concerned how a small event can be inflated into a large one.

In ONE SUNDAY MORNING, the event is a view from the window of a Gramercy Park townhouse: young Lizzie Carswell leaving a hotel in broad daylight with Billy Holmes, a man engaged to one of her friends. Lizzie's mother had to go abroad because of a scandal; have mom's degenerate genes been passed on? And what will Clara Hart, Billy's intended, do when she hears the news (as she most assuredly will)?

Wharton material, to be sure. But there's a tension here you wouldn't find in a Wharton novel --- the story is set in 1927, and so, very much bubbling under the Society plot, is the reckless mood of that era. Alcohol. Drugs. Homosexuality. These add a Fitzgeraldian spice to the strict moral tale that is Ephron's legacy from Wharton. And, just in case you're nostalgic for Somerset Maugham, there's a man just back from very interesting travels in Asia. Maybe he's a lost soul. Maybe he's a potential suitor.

This isn't to say that Amy Ephron has cherrypicked her influences (though if she did, she couldn't have done better). You read this book for itself, and for the precise portraits she draws. Sample: "Clara was nursing a gin and tonic. She had a Piaget watch on her right wrist that Billy had picked up for her at an antique store. It had a simple black band and a plain gold rim around its face so the numbers themselves were the set-piece, distinctly Piaget. Billy's linen suit was appropriately wrinkled. It occurred to Mary that they fit into Paris in a way that she never would."

Mary will, of course, get a big surprise. So will the other characters. It turns out that quite a lot can happen in 214 pages --- that is, when the writer is a master storyteller like Amy Ephron.

--- Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth

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Morning is a Long Time Coming (Paperback) Review

I definately consider "summer of my german soldier" to be one of my top 3 favorite books of all time, so of course I was anxious to read the sequel. After reading some disappointing reviews, I was skeptical, but decided I had to read it to find out what ends up happening in Patty's life. Actually, the first half of the book is pretty good, although her relationship with Ruth is not what I pictured it would be, the first half of the book ends well with Patty getting ready to leave for Europe. Through the first part, she goes on about how she misses Anton and what her life has been like over the past 6 yrs. Then come the second part, and let me tell you...almost anyone could have written a better conclusion. It starts out with Patty on aboat to Paris, where she meets a fairly nice guy named Michael, who likes her. They are in love for a while, and there is even the chance of them getting married. Then he makes a joke about her "reeling in a doctor" (he's an american med student at switzerland) and she gets mad at him saying this and all of a sudden realizes that she dosent want him and he is somehow just like her father(although I never understand her point on this.) Soon she is in Paris, and meets another guy named Roger, who is the biggest jerk, and who most resembles everything that is bad about her father. Somehow, she still thinks hes good looking, so she has sex with him less than a day after she meets him! He even asks if it hurt when he entered into her, so this is definately NOT a childrens book!When she finally gets the courage to tell him she's going to Germany (months after she arrived in Paris) he goes wacko and tells her he considers her dead, and dosen't blame her father for disowning her because she is ungrateful to him, etc. Basically, Roger is a younger version of her father.When Patty gets to Germany, thats when she really goes off the wall. She thinks that everybody is a Nazi, and although everyone is really nice to her, she seems to hate them all of a sudden. She goes to the home of Anton, and his father welcomes her in and is really great to her, but once she learns that Mrs.Reiker is dead, she goes without asking him about Anton. That is when Patty really goes anti-German andeven gets thrown in jail for making a big scene back at her hotel. She goes back to Paris after calming herself, and realizes that Paris and Roger and the right things for her life, and she is sooo sorry she casued Roger so much pain and she'll never think of Anton again. (At this point, I was about ready to throw up)

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Patty is now eighteen, and a high school graduate--but she cannot face her future until she comes to terms with her past. She decides to go to Germany in search of Anton's mother, desperate for a connection to the man she loved and lost. En route, she stops in Paris, where she meets Roger. And now she must think twice about her plan--not only because of what she might find, but because of what she must leave behind...

"A compelling first-person narrative about love and human relationships." --Booklist, starred review

* A Puffin Novel
* 272 pages
* Ages 14 up

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On Wings of the Morning [Paperback] Review

What a wonderful way to tell a story!We're given two main characters to follow through the years of 1933 to 1975.Each narrates his/her own story, switching back and forth from chapter to chapter.Morgan and Georgia emerged from completely different backgrounds, yet shared a single passion.The passion of flight, so exquisitely expressed by Marie, that the reader is transported to the sky.At once a heartfelt and visual experience, it is impossible to not become fully invested in the lives of these two individuals as they fledge toward a relationship.
Although the book takes place during World War II and carries with it much historical content, it is so much more than just historical fiction.Marie has developed a variety of secondary characters, with colorful personalities.In doing so, she has livened up the mix, and given us the opportunity to feel a multitude of emotions toward everyone in the story.There are those that are sadly comical, the ones you love to hate, and those that have struggled through hardship and can only be an inspiration.This book had me both crying and laughing outright.
Wings of the Morning can be read simply, as an easy-flowing love story, or as an example of patriotism and the recognition of the women of the WASPs, or if you are so inclined, delve deeply, and delight in the spiritual side of the story, consider such intriguing topics as Nature vs Nurture.But most of all, enjoy what Marie so capably brings to the mind's eye.


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Marie Bostwick delivers a captivating novel of soul mates discovering each other as the country faces its greatest challenge...
Morgan Glennon's destiny points straight up into Oklahoma's clear, blue sky. It's been that way since he was four years old, imagining the famous flier father he's never met. Morgan leaves college to enlist as a Navy pilot, and his whole world suddenly changes when America goes to war. Watching his friends fall in battle, robs Morgan of the joy he always felt in the air. It will take one very unusual woman to help him get it back...
Georgia Jean Carter learned early never to rely on a man for anything but trouble. Airplanes are different: they take a girl places most boyfriends can't. Remarkably, the war makes it possible for Georgia to do her part as a pilot. Flying with the WASPs brings a special sense of belonging--yet there's something missing that Georgia doesn't recognize until a brief encounter sets her dreaming about a young flyboy she barely knows...

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Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper (Paperback) Review

Art and life.Life and art.The lines pf demarcation aren't' visible in this richly imagined story of the relationship between Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1847 - 1926) and her older sister, Lydia, who sometimes served as Cassatt's model.Using five of the artist's paintings as springboards the author offers a moving story of courage and creativity, while she renders a fascinating study of the times in which the women lived.
Although suffering painfully, from a terminal illness, Bright's disease, Lydia continues to model for her sister, relentlessly scanning each finished portrait as if it foretold her future.Chessman conceives of Lydia as a study in patience and resignation, imagining thatpainter Edgar Degas, who often visited the sittings, said to Lydia, "You show me how to live, if only I could do it as you do."
In addition to exploring a unique sibling bond "Lydia Cassatt Reading The Morning Paper" suggests aspects of Cassatt's daring life, hints at a liaison with the dynamic Edgar Degas, and presents thumbnail sketches of her interaction with such artists as Renoir and Caillebotte.
Lydia, we learn, died in 1882 while Cassatt lived to create for over thirty more years.
Rather than a sad reflection on a too short life, Chessman, with pitch-perfect prose, has penned a celebration of family, love, and art.
- Gail Cooke

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White Doves at Morning: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback) Review

The arrival on bookshelves of anything written by James Lee Burke is a reason for celebration in my household-- as well it should be, for the man is arguably the finest living craftsman of eloquent prose in America today.At my own book signings, my oft-repeated line is that I'd read a phone book written by James Lee Burke.
But I have to confess, I hesitated before taking home a copy of WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING, Burke's most recent release.After all, it features neither Dave Robicheaux nor Billy Bob Holland; it is not a reprinting of what I consider Burke's Golden Age of fiction, the stuff he wrote in the 1960s (which still staggers, with its literary mastery) before disappearing for almost two decades.
WHITE DOVES is, rather, a Civil War novel-- not surprising, in a way, to any reader of Burke's other fiction. His fascination with both combat in general and the Civil War in particular is evident in much of his writing.Nonetheless, for the reader eagerly awaiting the next return of Streak or Billy Bob, the thought of instead plunging into a... historical novel? ...might give pause to even the most ardent James Lee Burke fan.
It shouldn't.Within a half-dozen pages, it is evident that the master is in rare form here. Burke's lyrical, evocative prosequickly sweeps the reader into a story that is impossible to put down.
It helps that much of the setting is familiar ground: Burke's beloved Louisiana bayou country, specifically the New Iberia of 1861 - 65.The smells and sounds of what will, in a century or so, be Dave Robicheaux country, will be immediately recognized by any Burke aficionado-- a timeless land of live oaks, hanging air vines and mosquitoes buzzing in the marshland shadows.
It also helps that many of the character names we've become accustomed to in the Robicheaux chronicles are also present-- this time, as living characters who flesh out the fables and anecdotes and events that later will be passed down to Dave Robicheaux and from him, to we readers. We meet the Negro freeman and slave owner Jubal Labiche, whose skin color will make no difference to the soon-to-be-invading Yankees.We meet brothel owner Carrie LaRose and her brother, the brawling, pirate-minded Jean-Jacques LaRose, both shrewd Cajun entrepreneurs who deal in contraband and live by their own rough code of ethics. We meet Ira Jamison, whose sprawling Angola Plantation will later become Angola State Penitentiary.
And while we do, we realize that we already know their descendants, themselves familiar from the Burke/Robicheaux series: the twin Labiche daughters of another generation, one of whom will be executed for the murder of her molester; the LaRose descendant, elected Louisiana governor only to die in a last effort to save his doomed wife in a pyre that was the LaRose mansion; even the Angola Prison which is so often plays a key dark role in Burke's Robicheaux tales.
It is a masterful device, this intermingling of our recollections from other novels and other storylines, that in less capable hands could have failed miserably. But Burke handles it with ease, even to the point of centering the story on his own ancestor, one Willie Burke.
If there is any flaw in WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING, it is the distinctly too-abrupt conclusion with which Burke has provided us as an epilogue. Here, in a departure from the seductive rhythms, eloquence and rich characterization which Burke uses elsewhere so well, the author merely ticks off, one by one, a digest of the ultimate fates of the characters. It is a decidedly less-than-satisfactory conclusion for the reader; worse, it does a disservice to the characters in this novel. Burke's skill has turned them into living people about whom we now care, and whom he appears now to casually discard.
And it is in this sole failing that WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING gives every James Lee Burke fan a reason for optimism.
We want more than Burke's closing has left us-- far more than the brief, tantalizing, much too incomplete information on the balance of these characters, these lives. We want the author to take us back: back to antebellum New Iberia, back to these characters, back to this compelling chronicle of a time and a place that he has drawn so well.
I don't know if WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING was intended as the first in a new, ongoing series; given the amazing talent that is James Lee Burke, I can only hope so.
Earl Merkel

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Mornings in Jenin: A Novel (Paperback) Review

What I write pales in comparison to what you will find in the writing style and story within the pages of this book. If I could adequately describe how this book made me feel, I still would not do the book justice.
Mornings in Jenin is the story of four generations of Palestinians living through the birth of Israel and the never ending war that follows. The story centers on Amal, a women who is born in a refugee camp. Her story is one of loss, love and redemption.
I asked to review this particular book because I have always questioned the war between Israel and Palestine. I am torn between understanding the need for a permanent homeland after living through the horrors of WW2 and the way in which the country of Isreal was settled. When I was younger I would ask my elders to explain the actions of the two nations but try as they might, none could truly explain both sides. The issue of the two nations within one setting is very polarizing. I would hear about the Palestine terrorist but not the people. As a result I know little about the human story of Palestinians and thought this book may offer some insight into their world.
Abulhawa's writing style is nothing short of amazing. Though this book is heartbreaking at every turn Abulhawa's words sing out. Yes, they sing out and you as a reader are caught up in her song. Never mind that at times the pain becomes unbearable, the song of her words compel you the reader to stay with her. A little past half way I wanted to give up; there was too much death and heartache, but I stuck with it as the story needed to be told. As much as it hurt to hear it, this story does need to be told. We need to hear about the aftermaths of war. Not because we need to take one side or the other, but because we should pause before we pick a side. Abulhawa shows us that war scorches the lives of those who lay in the path of triumph. No one really wins in war expect death and pain as Abulhawa so vividly tells us.
After finishing the book I sat for a moment trying to collect my thoughts. A part of me disliked having to deal with the emotions and questions that washed over me while another part was so taken by the character and lives in Mornings in Jenin I was almost sad to have come to the end of the tale. For a few moments I was not sure if I could recommend this book or not as it is so full of loss but it dawned on me that one of the reasons I kept reading was because it opened my eyes to what real sadness and pain are. Sometimes we Americans get so caught up in our daily drama we tend to forget we are blessed, even when we are struggling. Mornings in Jenin will make you think, question and maybe cry. It is a testament to a people that before now had no voice. I highly recommend this book.


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Morning Star [Paperback] Review

Rider haggard at his best. This amazing Fantasy story takes place in ancient Egypt. The hero, a prince, has to go through many extreme challenges to win the throne and the heart of his beloved women. The book gives a great insight on Egyptian religions and culture. It is a great book for Egyption culture fans, adventure and fantasy lovers, and for anyone else too...

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / General; Fiction / Fantasy / Historical; Fiction / Action

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

I read this book after reading the Pulitzer-Prize winning "The Riseof Theodore Roosevelt", another excellent biography of TR.When Istarted "Mornings On Horseback", I felt that I was armed withmore information about this President than I had going into"Rise"; however, once I completed "Mornings", Irealized that I was armed with an entirely different type of knowledge. David McCullough gets us into the Roosevelt house and makes the people inTR's life come alive."Nurture" is a vital componant of anyone'sdevelopment and in this book, one sees just how family shapes a greatpersonality such as his.To truly understand TR from a historicalperspective one must examine his roots.This book is a joy to read, veryinformative and well-paced.

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Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as "a masterpiece" (John A. Gable, Newsday), it is the winner of the Los Angeles Times 1981 Book Prize for Biography and the National Book Award for Biography. Written by David McCullough, the author of Truman, this is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and almost fatal asthma attacks, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household in which he was raised.
The father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. The mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and a celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, TR's first love. All are brought to life to make "a beautifully told story, filled with fresh detail", wrote The New York Times Book Review.
A book to be read on many levels, it is at once an enthralling story, a brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. It is a book about life intensely lived, about family love and loyalty, about grief and courage, about "blessed" mornings on horseback beneath the wide blue skies of the Badlands.

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