What I've Been Reading

As many of you know, I am a HUGE reader. I read to relax, to avoid my own life, to live vicariously, to laugh and cry, and sometimes, when I'm very lucky I read just to let the beauty of the words wash over me. So, with some extra free time (not having to work), I've been reading a lot. Below are books that some others might be interested in reading also. Enjoy!

Ian Rankin is the UK’s number one crime author. He has written a series with Inspector Rebus whose personal demons rank close to Harry Hole (from Jo Nesbo’s series based in Oslo – found him after I became obsessed with Stieg Larsson of Girl with Dragon Tattoo fame), as in both are tortured souls. The first two novels from the series show the underbelly of Edinburgh, so after seeing the sanitized, tourist version, I enjoyed seeing the other side (vicariously of course!). The first novel, Knots and Crosses, deals mostly with Rebus’s past and is good, but I preferred the second one, Hide and Seek, which predicted a real-life Edinburgh scandal of the police protecting influential men involved with male prostitutes, proving that truth is stranger than fiction or you can’t make this s**t up. Anyway, if you like crime novels like those written by Elizabeth George and Patricia Cornwell, I think you will also like Ian Rankin.

Another famous Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith, best known for his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, also wrote a series set in Edinburgh called 44 Scotland Street. I read the first book of this series, which has the same title as the series. A fun, though light, read about post-college, flat mates who stumble along through life, generally not living up to their parents’ or own expectations. Some humorous parts help move along the plot, which included finding a lost Samuel Peploe painting (a weird connection was after reading this book, the boys and I saw a Peploe that was in storage at a museum in Glasgow).

Looking for Scottish writing closer to home led me to Denise Mina, who grew up in Glasgow and wrote a trilogy that takes place in the West End, which is our neighborhood of Glasgow. I’ve read the first book so far, Garnethill and really enjoyed the mentions of places I know now. I just started the second one Exile, which continues with the dark threads of incest, domestic abuse and murder but with a bumbling, likeable protagonist to make the seamy side of life bearable. Another fun aspect of these books is the Scottish slang, e.g. chaffing = knocking on the door (or at least that’s what I could figure out through context).

On to the Americans, I recently read two great books about immigrants in the US, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok and Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Both books are about young women trying to navigate a new culture while trying to survive the hardships of poverty and being away from home. Kwok’s book tells about a school-age girl who comes to the US from Hong Kong with her mother after her father dies. Under the supposed patronage of her aunt, who actually tries to hold them back more than help them, the protagonist and her mom try to thrive in a new world. It’s a great tale of a brilliant girl trying to help herself and her family in modern times. Toibin’s book has an older protagonist who is sent to America from Ireland to seek her fortune. There are great characters in this book showing what life was like post-WW2 both in Ireland and in New York. I loved both of these!

Run by Ann Patchett, whom I still adore for writing Bel Canto one of my all-time favorite books, is another great slice of American life. A story about a widower with one ne'er-do-well, birth son and two successful, adopted sons, this book has wonderful characters who you want to sit down and have a chat with. After an accident brings this family into contact with the adoptees’ birth mother and her daughter, you just want to know every nuance of their lives. The only downside is the ending feels a little rushed, which I find is my constant complaint about new books (do the authors get pressured by their publishers to finish or do they just get tired of writing and want it all done?). Here’s an excerpt that describes pain in such beautiful language you almost want to experience it. “She never knew pain could form a light, a bright blinding pool of light. It poured through her. It broke open in her hip and flooded thorough her gut… The pain jarred loose the very deepest part of her heart, a place so secret she never went there herself” (Patchett, Ann. Run. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.).

Just to plug another excellent book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a great read. I highly recommend it for anyone in the medical profession because it deals with the ethics of research and for everyone else because it shows the inter-twinings of family, class, medicine and race through the story of a woman whose cells have been used in medical research since the 1950s. Absolutely fascinating!