The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling ✔✔✔✔✔

There's nothing like ending the year with a great book!  This has been on my Kindle for a while, I was in need of a good read, and started reading this with some trepidation because the reviews have been rather dismissive.  I read the first three Harry Potter books and knew Rowling could tell a good story, so I settled down with this over Christmas in Fort Myers, and found I couldn't put it down.

One reviwer said the characters were rather one-dimensional, but I enjoyed them all the more for that, and besides the time frame of the novel is rather limited.  Another said it was predictable, and to a certain extent it was, but both reviewers - and others- all seemed to agree that, even with these criticisms, the book was highly readable.  That's enough for me, said I, and so it was.

Rowling really likes to appeal to the sense of sight, so her descriptions were quite colorful.  A description of a desk, for example, is done by listing the various ways in which that desk was used. The language of Terri Wheedon and her daughter Krystal was well-done,too - you could just hear them talking that way.

There's a political conflict going on, several parent-teenager conflicts, marriage and relationship problems, jealousy, grief - it's all here, well-constructed, and well-written.

Here's a brief summary from Book Browse:

When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. 

And the empty seat left by Barry on the town's council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults.

FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2012

Two of my favorites this year were re-reads from previous years, and are here listed as #1 and #2.  The list is in no particular order.  If I were to choose the BEST book I read this year, I would choose The Secret Piano, listed as #3.

1.  Master Butcher's Singing Club -- Louise Erdrich - a wonderful storyteller, a small-town family saga

2.  Life of Pi  - Yann Martel - A metaphor for life, spirituality and humanity

3.  The Secret Piano - Zhu Xiao-Mei - strength, courage and fortitude in a Chinese prison

4. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce - beautiful story of healing and loss

5.  An Unquenchable Thirst - Mary Johnson - a former nun in Mother Theresa's order

6. The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling - politics in a small English town.

7. Behind The Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo - life in the slums of Mumbai

8.  Sixty-Five Roses - Elizabeth Summerhayes Cariou - a sister tells the family story of life with cystic fibrosis/

9.  The O'Briens - Peter Behrens - a family saga set in Montreal and the CP Railway

10.Elizabeth the Queen - Sally Bedell Smith - a wonderful bio of a wonderful woman

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman ✔✔✔

Deborah Feldman was born into the Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism - the child of a mentally disabled father and a mother who abandoned the community while her daughter was still a toddler.  Deborah was raised by her strictly religious grandparents, was married off at age 17 by a matchmaker, gave borth to a son, and finally at age 24 left the sect with her son.  For many years, especially after her marriage, she struggled to make a way of life for herself with freedom, knowing that she was meant for far more.

These are some of the interesting things I learned from reading this story:

Zeidy ( her grandfather) reminds her that when he is giving her a harsh lecture, it is out of a sense of obligation. "In this family, we do not hug and kiss.  We do not compliment each other.  Instead, we watch each other closely, ever ready to point out someone's spiritual or physical failing. This, says Chaya ( her aunt, truly a mean-spirited person) is compassion - compassion for one's spiritual welfare."

"God lives in my soul, and I must spend my life scrubbing my soul clean of any trace of sin so that it deserves to host his presence".

At school, there is a daily modesty lecture. "Ervah refers to any part of a woman's body that must be covered, starting from the collarbone and ending at the wrists and knees. When "ervah" is exposed, men are commanded to leave its presence....Every time a man catches a glimpse of any part of your body that the Torah says should be covered, he is sinning.  But worse you have caused him to sin.  It is you who will bear the responsibility of his sin on Judgment Day"

Zeidy comes from a long line of oppression; his ancestors endured pogroms not unlike Hitler's presecution of Jews.  "I can't comprehend how a person who comes from so much pain and loss can perpetuate his own oppression.  In small ways Zeidy cages himself, depriving himself of harmless joys and yet it seems the very deprivation fulfills him."

On every Israeli Independence Day, the Satmar Hasids make the trip from their various communities to demonstrate their opposition to the State of Israel.  "The Satmar Rebbe insisted that we had to take it upon ourselves  to fight for the destruction of Israel......Faithful Jews wait for the Messiah; they don't take up guns and swords and do the work themselves."

" A woman becomes 'niddah' or cast aside as soon as one drop of blood exits her womb.  When a woman is niddah, her husband cannot touch her, not even to hand her a pate of food....She is forbidden to him.  After a woman stops menstruating, she must count seven days doing twice-daily inspections with cotton cloths to make sure there is no sign of blood."  Then she immerses in the ritual bath and becomes pure again.  Before marriage and after childbirth, she must be carefully inspected by women attendants at the baths to ensure that her body is "clean".  If you miss one of these twice-daily inspections, you must contact a rabbi for further instructions!

The consummation of a marriage - or the news of it at least - is a very public thing - the whole family knew that Deborah and her husband were not able to consummate their marriage for some time because she had a particularly tough maidenhead something called vaginamus - (Sounds made up to me!)

Deborah remains a Jew, proud of her heritage, and she believes in God :"God is no longer a prescription for paradise but an ally in my heart"

22 Brittania Road by Amanda Hodgkinson ✔✔✔

This is a title that's been on my list for some time, and I picked it up at PCB Library to have something to read before all my requested books came in.
It's a story of a Polish soldier, his wife and their child during WW II, and how the couple was separated for seven years before finally getting together in England at 22 Brittania Road.  But the two have changed so much with their experiences during the war that it's difficult to put their marriage back together.
It was a good enough read - I've read better war stories, but it is a good illustration of human survival and adjustment to catastrophoic changes.

The Master Butcher's Singing Club by Louise Erdrich ✔✔✔✔✔

I own this book, and read it some years ago on recommendation by Sylvia Kennedy, and it is on my list of all-time favorites.  Somewhere along the way, I lost track of it, and could never find it in bookstores, so when I spotted it on Kindle lists, I downloaded it - just had to read it again!

For our trip down to Florida, I had downloaded Fall of Giants by Ken Follett - I started reading Sandra's copy last spring and just couldn't get into it, and thought I'd give it another try - only got about 50 pages further this time, yawning all the time... So I switched to Master Butcher's for the remainder of the trip and soon lost myself again in the wonderful story of family, loss, grief, friendship in a small town in North Dakota in the early thirites. And Erdrich, who is native herself, is a wonderful story teller and uses such beautiful language - I found myself re-reading passages just for the sheer beauty of her writing.  She is also able to write love scenes with such tenderness and understatement that your heart just aches for these people. I also re-read the ending - there is a surprise connection in this story which is revealed with such sensitivity at the end.  Don't miss reading this book!!

I love - love- love - this book - now I'm on the list to read her latest - The Round House.