The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

I'll never remember the name of this book but it's the second in the series that starts with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. It's a mystery with an 11 year old girl, Flavia De Luce, as the detective. It's fun although the clues are at the heavy handed level of an 11 year old. A minor character is introduced so that they can conveniently hand Flavia a whistle that will go around unmentioned in her pocket until the very moment when she reaches a crisis and needs to blow it. Flavia is conveniently right there when anything happens every time. So the mystery is like a beginners level Soduku. Minimal strain (I speak as an expert since the only Soduku's I have ever solved are the easy ones). The characters are thankfully sophisticated though and it is a fun light read.

Reading Nabokov in Marblehead

Ah yes...reading Nabokov. As I so often do. This is a great book, very silly and playful about a Russian man, Pnin, who teaches Russian language at a New England college. His English is terrible, he is so very Russian: entitled, emotional and tender. Comic and poignant at the same time.(Pnoignant!) Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim and Mister Magoo owe him a literary debt.

It's a small quiet book. Like a Philip Larkin character but much more joyous. His writing is so fresh. Pnin's teeth are all pulled: "His tongue, a fat sleek seal, used to flop and slide so happily among the familiar rocks, checking the contours of a battered but stills secure kingdom, plunging from cave to cove, climbing this jag, nuzzling that notch, finding a shred of sweet seaweed in the same old cleft; but now not a landmark remained, and all there existed was a great dark wound, a terra icognita of gums which dread and disgust forbade one to investigate." No one else writes that well. I either have to have my teeth pulled or read Lolita finally.

I think I'll read Lolita.

The Possessed

This is one of those books I stumbled on to and really enjoyed. It's a memoir without the author really dwelling on herself or her personal story. It is what it sets out to be: a story about the authors obsession with Russian literature, not a veiled attempt to talk about herself. 

The author gets a PhD in Russian Literature. By rights, Elif Batuman, as a first generation Turkish American should be working with Turkish literature but as she points out nobody reads Turkish literature so why should she? Take that Orhan! Her research, writing, grants and conferences take her to various Russian locations and she cleverly describes the people she meets and the literature she is reading.
 
After some formative early experiences of my own  sparring over whether peanut butter counted as a protein while dealing with Russians at a Food Pantry, any remaining regrets I had about not giving them Spam were swept away by her landladies mistreatment of her and her boyfriend while Ms. Batuman was researching the Uzbek language. Their landlady gave them jam with ants and had them use an outhouse while she and her family used the indoor toilet and ate the un-infested  jam. Then she pouted and removed all the furniture from their room when an extra $100 of the grant money wasn't handed to her at the end of the trip and went to the poorly paid teachers who tried to teach Ms. Batuman Uzbek. No spam for them!
 
So my only regret is that I have not read enough Russian literature to really keep up with all her references.Other than that, quite a good book.

Girl With the Dragon Tatoo

OK. I succumbed like the rest of America and read this too. It was OK. He writes adequately but it is nothing important. Some of the characters were interesting and the disappeared girl investigation bit was exciting but it reminded me of Anna Karenina where you think once Anna throws herself under the train it's over and then it goes on for chapter after chapter about other people that you never were interested in---- before the book ends. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had a very compelling mystery and once the mystery was solved it should have been over but then he launches into quite a few more chapters about a very dull plot line that no one even cared about. Tolstoy we forgive...Stieg Larsson....maybe not?

Tamara Drewe

A very loose graphic novel retelling of Far From the Madding Crowd. Posy Simmonds is the same woman who did that graphic novel  Madame Bovary called Gemma Bovary. Tamara Drewe is not as good or clever but since it only takes a couple of hours to 'read'...why not 'read' it?

The Game Change

This was like an extended Vanity Fair article and deserved to be treated as such. Skimmed not read. Sadly I read it and the writing was horrendous. Ugh.