I’ve been taking a break from reading modern novels and mysteries in order to go back and enjoy some classics that I’ve missed over the years. And though I’ve never been a big fan of Rudyard Kipling, I thought I’d give Just So Stories a try, since I’ve heard that this is a terrific children’s book. Unfortunately, reading the stories in the year 2008 as an adult didn’t have nearly the same effect as the book must have had on children when it was published 100 years ago. I doubt that many of today’s kids would derive much enjoyment from Kipling’s stories now.

Plot summary Just So Stories is a collection of 12 short tales that are meant to explain the (fanciful) origination of things such as an elephant’s trunk, the alphabet, and a leopard’s spots. The tales are written for a child the author addresses as “Best Beloved”, and often carrying the tone of a parent talking to his offspring.

The 12 tales included in the collection are: How the Whale Got His Throat, How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, How the Leopard Got His Spots, The Elephant’s Child, The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, The Beginning of the Armadilloes, How the First Letter Was Written, How the Alphabet Was Made, The Crab That Played With the Sea, The Cat That Walked by Himself, and The Butterfly that Stamped. There are many illustrations throughout the book, and each tale ends with a poem that more or less summarizes the main point made in the story.

My Reaction: Frankly, I didn’t think any of the Just So Stories were particularly memorable, nor did I enjoy reading this book. I have read several children’s books as an adult (The Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, etc.) so I don’t think my dislike for these stories stems merely from the subject matter. I really think that I just don’t like Kipling’s style!

It’s only been a couple of days since I completed this book, but I’ve already forgotten most of the tales. I remember how the leopard got his spots, how the rhino’s skin became so loose, and how the elephant’s trunk became so long, but that’s about it. A twenty-give percent retention rate shows that my mind was clearly elsewhere while reading these tales, so I wasn’t invested in the stories at all.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to modern readers, as I don’t think today’s kids would find the tales entertaining. They were pretty boring on the whole, but at least they were short!

Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel The Kite Runner received a lot of attention when it was published in 2003. I listened to and read buzz about that book for a couple of years before I finally gave in and read it, but was disappointed with the actual story. So even though I heard that Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was generating even more buzz, I didn’t exactly rush out to get a copy. But A Thousand Splendid Suns received even more positive reviews from both critics and consumers than The Kite Runner, and the good word-of-mouth continues even now, so I bought a copy for my Kindle — and loved it!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): All the action of the novel takes place in Afghanistan, beginning in the early 1970′s. The first part focuses on a young five-year-old girl named Mariam. We learn that she is an illegitimate child (a harami, and that she and her mother Nana live in a hovel while her father, the wealthy Jalil Khan, comes by just once a week for a short visit. Over the years, Mariam learns more and more about Nana and Jalil’s history, but unlike Nana, she believes that Jalil is a good man — until he shows his true colors on her fifteenth birthday and proves that Nana was correct all along.

Later, after a traumatic event leaves Mariam alone in the world except for Jalil, she turns to him for help. Jalil insists that there’s no way Mariam can stay in his house with his legitimate wives and daughters, so he instead finds Mariam a husband — something Jalil considers to be quite a feat since Mariam is a harami and all. Mariam doesn’t want to marry Rasheed, mostly because he is in his late forties and she’s just 15, but she has no real choice in the matter. Once the deed is done, she moves to Kabul with her new husband and begins her new life.

Rasheed is attentive at first, and mostly kind to Mariam. He desperately wants a son, but Mariam’s pregnancies always end in miscarriage. Once Rasheed realizes that she’s essentially “good for nothing”, his abusive side comes out. He criticizes everything Mariam does and hits her with a belt or his fists when he’s particularly angry about some minor thing. Mariam can do nothing except put up with Rasheed’s behavior.

Their lives change forever about a decade later when Rasheed decides he wants another wife. This time he chooses Laila, a young 14-year-old girl from the same neighborhood. By this time, Kabul is a hotbed of war and strife, and Laila’s parents were killed when an errant rocket struck their home. Now an orphan and pregnant by her true love Tariq (whom she believes to be dead as well), Laila quickly agrees to marry Rasheed in order to avoid the scandal of being unwed and pregnant.

At first Mariam resents Laila for coming in and trying to usurp her position. But after a while, the two women grow to love each other, united by their common hatred of Rasheed. They learn to protect each other as best they can, and in the end, one of them makes the ultimate sacrifice for the other’s chance at happiness and a good life.

My Reaction: A Thousand Splendid Suns started out a bit slowly, but once I really got into the story, I couldn’t put it down. It was very engrossing for the most part, and highly emotional as well. My heart went out to Mariam and Laila for all the hardships they suffered — and was thoroughly depressed to think of how often similar scenes must have played out in real life in Afghanistan.

One of the main criticisms of this book leveled by people who don’t like it is that Mariam and Laila aren’t well developed as characters. I’ve read some reviews saying that they’re basically a “stereotype” of suffering Afghan women instead of individuals. But I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Mariam was a bit plain, it’s true, but I thought that was the author’s intent. She never was supposed to have a sparkling personality or original thoughts — that was Laila’s domain. And in that respect, Laila did come across as a distinct individual with a unique personality, so I really don’t buy this particular criticism.

I have to admit that all the political stuff was pretty boring to me, especially since I was unfamiliar with the names of the Afghani warlords and government leaders that Hosseini referred to. I ended up skimming those parts so I could get back to the main story more quickly.

There’s no question that Hosseini likes tearjerker endings, and this is true of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I don’t cry over books as readily as I do over movies, but I couldn’t help myself with this one. If you’re a softie, you better have tissues ready for the last part of the book!

Overall, I was very impressed with A Thousand Splendid Suns. It’s not a perfect novel, but it’s definitely worth a read and is a much better calling card for Hosseini than The Kite Runner. Give it a try!

Despite the fact that I’ve branched out in recent months and haven’t been reading as many mysteries as I used to, I’m still trying to get through all of Agatha Christie’s novels in chronological order. This has been an ongoing task that I’ve been plugging away at for nearly three years now, and I’ve just completed Crooked House, published in 1949 as her 39th book. After being lukewarm on most of Christie’s novels, it was nice to finally get another one that I enjoyed thoroughly from beginning to end.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The novel is narrated by Charles Hayward, an Englishman stationed in Cairo during World War II. While there, he meets fellow Brit Sophia Lenoides, a worker in the Foreign Office. The two fall in love and begin a romance, but agree to defer their engagement until they reconnect at home when the war is over.

Charles finally makes his way back to England, where he learns through a newspaper obituary that Aristide Leonides, Sophia’s grandfather, has died. Upon meeting with Sophia later, Charles is surprised to hear that Aristide was actually murdered, and that someone living in Three Gables, the family manor, must have done it. Sophia wants the matter cleared up before getting engaged, so Charles agrees to help.

It turns out that three generations of Leonides family members live in Three Gables, a large but disproportionately built house (thus the “crooked house” in the title), and as all had equal access to the poison that killed Aristide and none have solid alibis, there are many suspects to work through. The family are hoping that Brenda Leonides, Aristide’s much-younger wife, is the killer, because they would hate to have the murderer turn out to be someone in their family, as apparently that would cause a bigger scandal. Brenda seems to have motive enough: she was carrying on an illicit love affair with Laurence Brown, the live-in tutor.

The rest of the novel then deals with the Scotland Yard investigation, of which Charles is an unofficial part thanks to a family connection. Suspects are focused on, questioned, have their alibis checked, and dismissed one by one until the surprising solution is revealed at the end.

My Reaction: As I said above, I enjoyed this novel right from the beginning. The murder took place relatively early, which isn’t always the case in Christie novels, so it was easy to get involved with the story and characters right away. Moreover, I was left guessing as to who the killer was all the way to the very end — and even then I didn’t settle on the correct suspect until the tell-all journal was uncovered. Christie did a great job of misdirecting the reader’s suspicions in this one.

If there was a weakness in the book, it was the fact that I didn’t know or care about the narrator that much. I had a feeling that he was a recurring character because it seemed as though Christie expected us to know background info about him without actually spelling anything out. If that’s the case, then I’ve completely forgotten where else Hayward appeared, so I was left wondering why he was chosen as the lead detective rather than one of Christie’s old standbys like Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.

That was just a minor quibble, however, and didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of Crooked House. This was one of the better Christie books I’ve read and is highly recommended!

I’d never heard of Jodi Picoult before, but I decided to pick up her novel Nineteen Minutes after seeing it on Amazon.com’s Editor’s Picks of 2007 list. The subject matter seemed interesting, and with an average star rating of 4.5 after 448 customer reviews on the site, I figured this would be a pretty safe choice in terms of an interesting read.

What I soon discovered, however, is that Picoult is extremely long-winded, and that her writing is quite uneven. The novel was interesting at times, but positively dragged at others, making for a tiresome reading experience overall.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The quiet, peaceful town of Sterling New Hampshire is jolted awake one spring day when 17-year-old Peter Houghton goes on a Columbine-style shooting spree at the local high school. His rampage lasts 19 very long minutes, and leaves 10 dead and 18 wounded. Houghton is arrested at the scene by sheriff Patrick Ducharme.

While Peter sits in jail awaiting first his arraignment and then trial, the novel explores both the aftermath of his crime and the events leading up to that fateful day. So part of the action is told in flashbacks dating all the way back to before Peter was even born, when his mother Lacy, a midwife, befriended single mother-to-be Alex Cormier. That friendship would in turn lead to Peter and Alex’s daughter Josie being friends during early childhood, though the two would eventually drift apart as Josie became one of the cool kids while Peter remained an outcast. And part of the action covers present-day actions as Alex tries to figure out a way to help Josie deal with the trauma of losing her boyfriend in the shooting and Lacy tries to figure out where she went wrong with Peter.

By the time the novel reaches its conclusion, the reader has a far better — though not perfect — understanding of what Peter’s state of mind was at the time of the shooting and why he chose to express his rage in that manner.

My Reaction: Nineteen Minutes was a very frustrating book in many ways. First of all, as I said above, the novel was just far too long and could have really benefited from some heavy editing. There were many parts that I simply skimmed, including everything about Lewis Houghton and his happiness theories, as well as the relationship stuff between Alex and Patrick. These subplots added nothing at all to the main story, and thus felt completely out of place. Why even include this kind of filler? Peter, Josie, and Lacy were the most interesting characters and had the most interesting problems, so Picoult could very easily have made a compelling novel about these three alone.

The biggest obstacle to my enjoyment of the book, however, was Picoult’s portrayal of Peter’s bullying at the hands of the cool kids. Would fifth graders repeatedly pick on kindergarten kids to the extent of destroying three lunch boxes? I mean, we’re talking about 11-year-olds going after five-year-olds here. That does NOT happen. And as soon as property is destroyed (especially when it happens over and over again), parents and teachers do get involved.

The high school bullying was only slightly more believable. Yes, I’ve seen bigger guys shoving smaller kids into lockers or pushing them around or whatever, but again, does it happen every single day? The verbal assaults, calling Peter faggot and homo, were spot-on, and those would definitely happen on a daily basis. But the physical stuff and the blatant destruction of personal property (Peter having his glasses deliberately smashed) would not fly for very long — not in a middle-class school district like the one portrayed in this novel.

I thought the Josie “twist” was utterly ridiculous. She was having issues with her physically and verbally abusive boyfriend, but instead of breaking up with him she decided that shooting him would be a better answer? Um, okay… that’s a little extreme there, isn’t it? I at least understood how someone like Peter would reach his boiling point after all those years of bullying, but Josie had tons of other options.

And finally, the ending left a lot to be desired. Calling Matt Royston and Courtney Ignatio’s killings manslaughter was an absolute joke. I mean, what did Courtney even do to Peter besides pass that one e-mail on to Drew, who then spammed the entire student body? Are there people out there who really believe that a simple action like that would reduce her cold-blooded murder to a manslaughter charge?? Wow.

On the whole, Nineteen Minutes was very difficult to get through. There were too many boring parts, it was far longer than it needed to be, and most of the plot points were simply too unrealistic, even for fiction. I don’t understand all the praise this book has received, nor do I get why it’s on Amazon’s Editor’s Picks list. It’s not at all worth the time!

Although I’m not a huge fan of Michael Connelly, I’ve grudgingly come to accept the fact that his books are entertaining enough for my purposes — meaning that they’re easy to listen to on my iPod while I’m working out, sitting in traffic, or doing housework. They don’t require my full attention, so I can let my mind wander a bit while still being able to follow the plot. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got all of his works already loaded on my iPod, either, because that means my decision to listen to the books is already made. So when Chasing the Dime came up on my playlist, I didn’t even think twice about forging ahead with it.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Henry Pierce is a brilliant young scientist who is on the verge of perfecting a breakthrough in nanotechnology that will launch his firm, Amedeo Technologies, into the forefront of the field and make him a millionaire in the process. All he and his colleagues need to do is reel in an already interested investor named Maurice Goddard and apply for a few patents, and their futures will be set.

Everything is looking up for Henry except for his personal life. He has just split with longtime girlfriend Nicole — her idea — because he’s been spending all his time working at the lab (“chasing the dime”, going after profits) instead of working on their relationship. Henry has had to move out of the house they formerly shared, and into a new apartment, with a new phone number. Only the phone number isn’t so new. He soon learns that it used to belong to a prostitute, and since it’s still on the woman’s website, Henry’s place is inundated with calls from men hoping for a hook-up.

Henry tries to track down the woman himself in order to ask her to remove the number from her site, but he can’t find any trace of her. He does come up with a name, Lilly Quinlan, but beyond that, no one has seen or heard from her in a few weeks. This doesn’t sit well with Henry, as he feels something bad has probably happened to her. Because Henry had a sister in the same situation years ago, he can’t let go of the Lilly Quinlan mystery. He starts looking into her disappearance in earnest, and is soon caught up in a tangled web of deception and murder that eventually lead right back to Henry and his company.

My Reaction: I had mixed feelings about Chasing the Dime. I thought everything related to nanotechnology — with applications as diverse as better sunscreen or improved laptop memory — at Amedeo was very interesting, and if Connelly had made this a straight-up corporate espionage thriller, it would have have been a good book. But the way he had to tie everything in through that elaborate setup regarding Cody, Lilly Quinlan, and shady mobsters in the background made everything feel extremely contrived. Instead of saying, “Oh, that was a great plan!”, I was left thinking, “Was that really the only way to get to Henry?”

Sorry, but the sister angle didn’t seem like a strong enough motive to get Henry to abandon his patent application work in order to track down Quinlan’s whereabouts. I mean, his whole company’s future, as well as the future of all his employees (not to mention his own livelihood and career) were at stake on the project. There’s no way he would drop it all to find a missing prostitute. And the fact that Cody knew this was a sure way to throw Henry off his patent game was absolutely ridiculous. With all those millions riding on the plan, there’s no way they would go this route.

I do have to admit that I didn’t guess who the perp was until the very end. I thought it was going to be Nicole — and logically speaking, it probably should have been her. She would have been able to pull this off like ten times easier than Cody, but whatever. But that obviously wasn’t enough of a twist if I was pegging her as the suspect 50 pages in.

Anyway, Chasing the Dime was something of a disappointment. The nanotechnology angle was intriguing enough, but most of the plot was utterly preposterous, making for an unsatisfying read.