BOOK REVIEW: "The Grief of Others"

The Grief of Others
By Leah Hager Cohen
Copyright 2011
Riverhead Books
Adult Fiction
5 Bookmarks

Yes! Finally a book I can wholeheartedly recommend! Love it when that happens.

It’s actually a little strange that I liked this book so much. The story is about the Ryrie family that has just suffered the loss of a baby a mere 57 hours after his birth. I usually shy away from any stories dealing with dead babies, mostly because they remind me of my own grief at losing a baby mid-pregnancy many years ago. But it was actually a little cathartic reading this book, which details the way that each member of the Ryrie family deals with the loss in their own, individual way.

The father, John, and the mother, Ricky, have their own issues as a couple that they were avoiding even prior to the pregnancy. The death of the baby brings those issues to the forefront as they try to make sense of their individual places within the relationship. John, who has been somewhat emasculated by the fact that Ricky is the main breadwinner of the family, delves deeper into his work as a set director at a local college in seeking to move past his familial struggles. Ricky holds on to deep-seeded guilt in relation to the baby’s death and reacts in an extremely understandable way to the loss.

The oldest child, Paul, flounders through his day-to-day existence and never quite seems to fit in anywhere at home or at school. The daughter, nicknamed “Biscuit”, sees herself in a much more profound role. She secretly researches death ceremonies of other civilizations as she struggles to make sense of their family’s loss.

And so, as this family drifts further and further apart, will they somehow be able to put their world back together again?

I was truly impressed with the writing style of the author. She had the amazing ability of describing emotional events with enough detachment as to make the reader feel they were outside looking in to a very private experience; like a fly on the wall. The story flowed effortlessly between each character and what was happening for them at that particular moment; what they were thinking, feeling, and acting upon.

Even though the subject matter was obviously sad, the story itself was not. I would recommend this book, even to those who normally don’t like the sad ones. This would be especially great as a book club book. Absolutely beautifully written.

BOOK REVIEW: "Someday This Will Be Funny"

Someday This Will Be Funny
By Lynne Tillman
Copyright 2011
Red Lemonade Publishing
Short Story Collection
1 Bookmark

Normally, I really enjoy short story collections. Especially ones that have a central theme running through them. I had high hopes for this one. It started out with a little vignette called “That’s How Wrong My Love Is” about a woman and her fetish for feeding the mourning doves. Shortly into the story, the reader realizes that the narrator of the story is a little more than fixated by these doves, and by the end of the story we see that that is the reason why she doesn’t have anything else of importance in her life.

Remotely clever read, that one. But the collection didn’t really improve beyond it. Little flirtations between people living a façade, little relationships that ended for no reason at all, little moments that in and of themselves were really not anything to write home about. A few bits and pieces about “the famous” (or “infamous”). Some crazy people thrown in here and there. And really just no rhyme or reason to any of it.

For a book with such a clever title, I certainly found nothing funny in it, nor anything I could imagine would be funny “someday”. Definitely don’t recommend this one.

BOOK REVIEW: "A Hive for the Honeybee"

A Hive for the Honeybee
By Soinbhe Lally
Copyright 1996
Scholastic Press
Adult Fiction
2 Bookmarks

Hummmm.......The hum of a hive of bees was easy to imagine while reading this short novel by Sionbhe Lally.  I was originally not planning to read this book.  I picked it from a 9th Grade reading list for my daughter, but some of the verbiage on the cover led me to think maybe I should read it first.  I'm thinking that was a good idea.

In A Hive for the Honeybee, we meet a couple of newly-born worker bees, Belle and Thora.  The two workers become friends, but their personalities are strongly contrasted.  Belle is a worker and can't imagine anything else other than gathering pollen and honey, and taking care of the drone bees.  Thora dreams of something outside of the hive, although she really has no comprehension of what that something might be.  At the same time, two drone bees named Alfred and Mo, struggle with their own unique roles within the turmoil in the hive after their Queen takes off to form a new hive.  When a new Queen is born, the drones go crazy with desire (stereotypical male behavior).  Many die when mating with the Queen. The remaining drones seem to take it in stride, all except Alfred and Mo who seem to have some sense of what is to come.

The new Queen decides to change things up and lays only worker bee eggs (female) and no drone bee eggs (male).  The Queen and the other worker bees are, apparently, tired of taking care of the drone bees (can you blame them?)  I won't tell you what the end result of that is. Instead, I'll go straight to my opinion:

Although there was some interesting imagery and beautiful language throughout the book, it was really quite dark and fatalistic.  Probably wouldn't recommend it to a 9th grader, and definitely won't be letting my 10-year-old read it.  On the plus side, it was super short and I was able to read the entire thing in just a couple hours.  A low "OK" read.

BOOK REVIEW: "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

How to Win Friends and Influence People
By Dale Carnegie
Copyright 1936
Simon & Schuster
Non-Fiction
5 Bookmarks

I read this classic "how to be a better person" book once when I was in high school.  Somehow it just didn't have the same effect on me back then that it does today.  I could think of a dozen different ways I could use the ideas and suggestions in the book and apply them in my own life. 

As I was reading along, I couldn't believe how many of the bits of advice in this book still apply over 75 years after it was written.  The book is divided into four, easy to understand sections. 

Section One deals with "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, and imparts advice to avoid criticizing other people, appreciate them, and arouse in them "an eager want."  There are a lot of great anecdotes throughout the book, but I appreciated them in this section because it was just getting started.  My favorite was the one about the mom would couldn't get her college student sons to respond to her letters, so the uncle wrote a letter to the boys and added a postscript that he was enclosing $5.  Only he didn't really enclose the $5.  I'm sure you can imagine what happened next.  Good chuckle. 

Section Two deals with "Six Ways to Make People Like You".  Some of the advice in this section was so simple, and yet I know I have not always followed this guidance.  Be interested, smile, remember names, listen, talk about other people's interests and help the other person feel important.  As I was reading this section I thought of numerous instances where I neglected to remember a name, or wanted to talk about something I was doing instead of listening.  Definitely some things we could all be doing better in here!

Section Three focuses on how to "Win People to Your Way of Thinking".  This section lists numerous suggestions, such as don't argue, show respect and admit when you are wrong, with some great ideas on how to avoid confrontation but still share your point of view.  This was my favorite section.  Here's a great quote: "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."  A huge part of this section is spent on explaining how to get someone to see your side of things even if they don't want to, which is absolutely something I'd like to know a little more about!

The last section shares some proven guidance for "Being a Great Leader".  Begin with praise, ask questions, use encouragement, etc.  There were a lot of areas in this section of the book that I felt I could really apply to my relationship with my daughter.  Positive reinforcement being a much better tool than yelling and nagging, apparently. 

All in all, I'm really glad I read this book again and would absolutely recommend it to anyone who is looking to improve their relationships with family members, co-workers or clients.  So many great suggestions!