Who doesn’t love a good story? whether it is a book, a movie, a song, or a real-life experience?
I have always been captivated with the aspect of the “story” – Reading stories aloud with my mother and my sisters when we were young, and now continuing that tradition with Kris (we read the last Harry Potter aloud to each other, and have also done this with a handful of other books); my love of the Story Corps* oral history project administered by the Library of Congress, and aired weekly on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition; my love for the written word; appreciation of a well-written movie or television show…. ahh, the list goes on. There are so many good stories to share – both true and fictional.
Much of my summer has been spent reading stories – with my nose in a book. Good stories left and right. Here’s some of the recent books that I picked up:
The White Mary
by Kira Salak. I was familiar with Salak’s nonfiction work [The Cruelest Journey, which I reviewed here] about her own travels and experiences, and her first novel had many of the same elements that draw readers into the story.
The White Mary
Marika Vecera is a well-known war correspondent: she takes the dangerous and scary jobs in war-torn developing countries and has had more than one near-death experience. She starts a serious relationship and soon after learns about the apparent suicide of her journalistic “idol”, Robert Lewis, and decides to begin research to write his biography. As she details his life, we see Marika learn more about her own through a series of flashbacks. Her search to learn more about Lewis leads her to the jungles of Papua New Guinea; where Lewis was spotted alive by a group of missionaries. She leaves her home and her loved one with this obsession to learn more about her subject.
Kira Salak book signing
While reading the novel, I could not truly divorce the character of Marika with Salak. Of course, I know that most novels are often autobiographical, but this one seemed particularly close to the source. Salak’s first book details her solo trek across Papua New Guinea (from north to south) and she undoubtedly pulled many of the details about her travels into the fictional account.
Stylistically, I had a few (minor) issues with the book. The character dialogue seemed contrived, particularly between Marika and her lover, Seb. I kept on thinking “do people really talk like this to each other?” At least no one I know… This lead me to think more about her style in general. She tells amazing stories – such adventure and danger! – but I find her writing to be slightly exaggerated and a little out of touch. She contributes frequently to National Geographic Adventure (that is where I first learned about her), and her shorter articles seem more palpatable than book-length descriptions… Aside from that, I did truly enjoy the story. I had a hard time putting the book down, and read it in entirety on one rainy Saturday.
I saw Kira Salak speak last Friday night at the National Geographic Society (where she is a sponsored adventurer) and was happy to learn more about her, what drives her, and to see photographs of her more recent travels through Bhutan. At the end of her lecture, I even got to ask her a question about spirituality and travel – it is often a theme in her books, so I was interested to see how her own travels have shaped her in that way. She generously shared her answers with the audience, and did a book signing after the event. {3 of 5 stars}
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Where the Wild Things Were
by William Stolzenburg. I read about this book in a great new science magazine called SEED. It was the clever title that caught my eye, but also the very interesting subtitle: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators.
Stolzenburg’s style really resonated with me. He describes large earth-shattering revelations with such eloquence. Starting with the thesis that the death/extinction of predators and “super”predators are to blame for many ecological/environmental, he delves into numerous case studies and ongoing research of many leading biologists.
Where the Wild Things Were
The first chapter’s discussion of the kelp forests along the Pacific rim was particularly interesting, and made a real case for the rest of the book: ecosystems MUST be looked at from the top-down, rather than the reverse. The scientists that Stolzenburg profiles methodically and systematically demonstrate how the top predators directly relate to such things as river ecology, plant/seed distribution, and seemingly unrelated things like Lyme disease (which hit pretty close to home…).
While so many points in this book stood out, I particularly enjoyed the one time humans got it “right”: the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in the mid-1990s. It was a success story, and I presume that it remains so this day, over ten years later.Simply put, this book was amazingly written and infinitely informative. If you care about nature, biodiversity, and the future of our planet and the creatures living on it, reading this book will help you gain insight on how setting life back into the natural balance will remedy many (unfortunately not all) of the ills we face. {5 of 5 stars}
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The Gargoyle
by Andrew Davidson. If you read book reviews, you have probably heard of this new book – just out in August and already making quite a stir… Davidson is a Canadian (he gets a bonus point for that alone!) and has got a lot of people talking about this debut novel. So, the day after I read the review in Washington Post’s Book World, I put it on hold at the library. A few weeks later, I had it in hand.
The Gargoyle
Over the period of one day, I was completely immersed in the story… so many stories within one! Beginning with the shock of a near-fatal auto accident, this book definitely starts off with a bang. The main character (who is never “named”) is severely burned, and spends months upon months in a hospital’s burn unit. I really enjoyed seeing the transformation of the main character both physically, spiritually, and emotionally throughout the 400+ pages of the novel. With the care/love of an eccentric “is she or isn’t she? mental patient” he meets in the hospital, he finds love, redemption, and ultimately a reason to live. (Before meeting Marianne, he spends his days in the hospital planning his suicide). He lives for her, just as she lives for him. Interwoven into the main story are many vignettes about love and loss that Marianne tells – spanning centuries and the globe. She tells them as if she was there, and these people were her close friends. She even weaves a story about how the two of them were lovers in sixteenth-century Germany… and it doesn’t seem to matter to the reader if it is true or not, because it is so beautiful and so pure.
Davidson put SO much work into this book. He researched everything from third-degree burn recovery to medieval manuscripts; Icelandic love ballads to Japanese language. That feat in itself is very praiseworthy! (and when you read the book, you understand how it really works together).
This one will stay with me for a long time. And imagine my excitement and surprise when the author emailed me and thanked me for my review over at GoodReads! it totally made my day! 
(You can read the first chapter and see a short film adaptation of one of the love vignettes included in the story over at Amazon!) {4 of 5 stars}
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* Story Corps has become a tradition for us: since we drive to work together each morning, we listen to the radio. Because the stories are so sweet, and often poignant or downright sad, Kris teases me about my Pavlovian response to the guitar theme music. He looks at me and just waits for my eyes to mist up each week! Oftentimes they do, but some times, the stories – usually no longer than 2 minutes – are hilariously funny. Here is a good example of one from earlier this summer [transcript and audio] enjoy!
