An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

In the end this was a pretty good historical mystery, but it was a challenge to get there. An Instance of the Fingerpost  is a recounting of a murder told from four different perspectives. In Oxford, 1663, Dr. Grove is found dead from what looks like poisoning, but did the person convicted really commit the crime? To get to the bottom of this crime, readers are presented with four different character testimonies, each of which has a unique perspective on the events preceding the murder. This aspect of the book is intriguing, showing how people who participate in or witness the same event can end up with such contrasting impressions.
Pears does a great job distinguishing the contradictory points of view and providing distinctive voices for each of the testimonies. And each of them brings in a specific aspect of the time period and culture in keeping with their own prejudices and stations in life. While this is interesting, it also provides some challenges in reading, which part way through became confusing and tedious.
I thought the first and last character statements were far better and easier to read than the middle two.  Those guys went off on political and religious tangents that distracted from the story. I even thought it may have helped me to take some notes along the way just to keep track of all the people and their relationships to the characters (there are a LOT of them). For me it kinda got overwhelming.  However, if you are an Anglophile you'd probably love those sections. Either way this book is not a fast read.

Julius Ceasar

by William Shakespeare

For a while now I've pondered reading some Shakespeare, but whenever I'd have a look, I'd pass because it really was Greek to me. And my only previous experience with him was the nightmare of Hamlet in high school. I've mentioned before that I like to listen to audiobooks when I'm exercising. I have an audible.com account and receive their daily deals email and a few weeks ago Julius Caesar was listed for $2.95 so I decided to give it a try. The version that I heard was narrated by several people, each taking a role in the play, which for me was the way to go! Despite the antiquated language, I really did understand them and the story, and I liked it.

Julius Caesar is a pretty short play and a good way to wet your toe without diving all in. Another benefit is that the story and the characters are familiar. Caesar triumphs over a Roman enemy, he is offered the crown, he is betrayed and killed by his friends Brutus and Cassius, Marc Antony gives his famous speech, Octavius comes to take the throne and seek vengeance for his father's murder.

Here are some of the famous lines from this play:
Et tu, Brute?
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
It was Greek to me
Beware the ides of March

I now see more Shakespeare in my future.

Horns

by Joe Hill

When I first read the plot summary of this novel I passed over it, but my sister in law kept talking it up, so I finally succumbed. Shoulda stuck to my gut. I will give credit to Hill, Horns is a well written and engaging book, I just did not like it. I didn't like the idea, I didn't like what happened in the story and I didn't like any of the characters, even though the idea is unique, the story is solid and the characters are believable. But for me there was too much focus on evil and too much trash.

Here's a quick run down. Ig Perrish wakes up one morning with a hangover and with horns growing from his head. The horns allow him to hear the inner most evil thoughts and actions of the people he is talking to. He has been accused of killing his girlfriend and been under the suspicion of the whole town for more than a year, and he is resentful. He did not kill her and needs to find out who did, but to do so he has to get ugly. And the uglier he gets, the better the horns work.

Not my cup of tea.

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

Even though I had never read Frankenstein, I thought I knew the story. After all, I had seen Young Frankenstein. Boy was I mistaken! My first misconception was that the green monster with the bolts in his neck was called Frankenstein, when actually the monster in the book has no name, its creator however is a young man named Victor Frankenstein. Then I thought the story was about this crazed monster who goes through towns trying to kill people, which also doesn't happen, instead the monster is actually trying to find friends, he is lonely and alone. My biggest misunderstanding was thinking it was a horror story, but it is actually more of a tragedy, and I loved it!

It's amazing how much substance Mary Shelley crams into this short novel. Here are a few of the themes: creation, relationships, love, loneliness, hate, guilt, remorse, regret, beauty, enemies, revenge. Some thoughts to ponder: what is the responsibility of a creator to its creation, is beauty really skin deep, can revenge satisfy the offense, should man be alone?

If you liked Dracula and haven't read Frankenstein I recommend it, you're in for a pleasant surprise. 

HHhH

by Laurent Binet

The book jacket description says this is the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (The Hangman of Prague) and the two men who succeeded in that mission. I'm not convinced the person who wrote the description actually read the book. HHhH is more accurately described as a bit of a history of Heydrich, some speculation on the guys who executed him, mixed together with many musings of the author who wants to be writing history but doesn't really have enough facts to do so. It's not for lack of trying, it's just that so little is actually known about those two men and their commission that he doesn't have much to draw from.

The good: this book is full of interesting information on the life of Reinhard Heydrich, from early childhood through his succession to Hitler's "protector" of Prague. For Hitler, Heydrich represented the perfect Aryan, the blonde hair, blue eyes, slender nose and build. And Heydrich also had a mind toward evil, which apparently instigated much that went on within the concentration camps. The title of the book, HHhH, which in German stands for "Himmler's Hirn heisst Heydrich" translates to "Himmler's brain is Heydrich" and supports the idea of Heydrich's evilness.

The bad: very little of the book actually dealt with Operation Anthropoid and too much of the book dealt with the author/narrator, who vacillated from whining to bragging to fantasizing. 

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants

by Malcolm Gladwell

A few years ago I read Gladwell's book Outliers, which seems to attribute success to exceptionality and practicing 10,000 hours. In this novel he is back to examining successful people, but this time it is those who beat the odds. David and Goliath examines people who have the deck stacked against them, but come out on top. His claim is that their success is not in spite of their challenges, as tradition dictates, but because of those trials in their lives.

Gladwell begins this book by taking a fresh look at the Biblical story of David and Goliath. Rather than accepting convention, that David's size and lack of battle skill was a tremendous handicap, Gladwell suggests that his experience with the sling allowed him to confront the giant in an unconventional manner thus providing his victory. While his theory has some validity, he does a great deal to discredit Goliath by making him out to be somewhat incapacitated. The stories that follow look at individuals and groups of people who seem weak physically or emotionally, yet they use those handicaps to adapt, which in turn leads to their triumph. There is a fun story of a championship basketball team that consisted of a bunch of nerdy preteen girls, numerous CEO's who struggled with dyslexia and people in war zones.

Don't expect you'll learn any secrets to success in this book. While it is chock full of underdogs it is lacking in explanation. The conclusion is that you simply can't determine who will adapt to overcome their giant and who will be swallowed up. If you liked Gladwell's other books you'd like this one too. It is a fast, fun and uplifting read.

The People of the Book

by Geraldine Brooks

In all my years involved in book club, The People of the Book was the only selection I failed to read. My lame excuse is that I was too cheap to purchase it and my library reserve did not come up before our meeting. When it was finally my turn to check it out, I was on to other things and passed, always intending to read it. I think my book club disbanded in 2010.

The "book" is the Sarajevo Haggadah, which is an illustrated manuscript of the Jewish Passover ceremony containing significant pictures from creation through the death of Moses. Brooks takes us on a reverse journey of the tome as Hannah Heath, a chemist and fine arts conservator goes through the restoration process. In this version, the book is discovered in a library in Sarajevo, having arrived there from Venice, Vienna, Tarragona and Seville. In each location the book is protected from destruction by sometimes surprising individuals whose stories are told alongside the book's.

The story alternates between the life and research of Dr. Heath with the stories of the book's journey and rescuers. Personally, I didn't care at all for the Heath character and wished for a lot less of her, but I did enjoy the imagined expedition of the Haggadah.

I've been informed by a follower that I seem to be stuck on the historical fiction & mystery genre's lately. I'll take that into consideration for my next choices. But, I'm still behind on posting!