Synopsis:
Subtitled: How to Live a Happier, Healthier, Uncluttered Life.
Review:
The Hoarder in You is a self help book for people who struggle with clutter and hoarding. I’m a very very organized person and find hoarding fascinating, and Dr. Zasio is one of my favorite experts on A&E’s Hoarders. I actually got some good counseling tips that will help in my volunteer work!
Synopsis:
A&E’s “Extreme Cleaning Expert” Matt Paxton shares all he’s learned in the years he’s been working with hoarders.
Review:
I puffy heart Matt Paxton. Not only does he tackle cleaning jobs nobody else can handle, he genuinely cares about the people he works with. I loved The Secret Lives of Hoarders and hope he writes another one! Oh, and check out his podcast, Five Decisions Away. It’s only just started but already I love it.
Synopsis:
A look at the every day manifestations of sociopathy.
Review:
The Sociopath Next Door was informative but I wanted more case studies. The audiobook was deeply discounted and kept me mostly engaged.
Synopsis:
After the body of a badly beaten Navajo man is discovered in the snow outside his home, Ben Bailey takes the investigation into his own hands, with devastating consequences for his own disordered life.
Review:
With every book of hers I read, I become convinced that T. Greenwood is my favorite contemporary author. This Glittering World is one of her best yet, achieving the same level of intensity and feeling as her second novel (and my favorite) Nearer than the Sky.
Protagonist Ben Bailey’s life is at a crossroads. He may or may not be in love with his live-in girlfriend Sara. He teaches history at Northern Arizona University, and he’s supposed to want tenure, but prefers bartending instead. The only thing really knows for sure is that he loves the way the snowstorms cover Flagstaff in an instant, blanketing everything with the sweet, undeniable nothingness he craves for his own life.
The murder mystery at the heart of this novel is compelling for its off-screen brutality. Even while the details remain unknown, Ricky Begay’s end is heartbreakingly easy to imagine. Ben rediscovers his heart and his sense of justice trying to solve the crime–but his instant attraction to Ricky’s older sister Shadi complicates things intensely.
Greenwood brings Flagstaff to light in all its eccentricity. It reminded me of Austin, Texas, and I really want to visit there someday. Her characters are complicated times a million, and despite the sadness pervading the book’s every page, I was swept away by their story because I could connect with all of them on a deep level. In a literary culture where too many authors write to the book club, Greenwood is foisting her unique and compelling point of view on the world with no compromises. More please!
Synopsis:
The psychology of hoarding in its different manifestations.
Review:
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things is eminently readable, a prime example of the best of what popular psychology has to offer. Great case studies, analysis that goes deep but never wonky, and well-chosen anecdotes bring the multi-faceted issue of hoarding to life.
What struck me the most was the insight that hoarders are people who see more beauty and complexity in the world than most people, sort of like aesthetic savants. They can’t bear to throw things away because of the pleasure they take in looking at them. Other hoarders are extreme perfectionists, unable to start a cleaning job they will be unable to complete to their exacting standards. Still others attach memories to objects in such a way as to feel like they are losing their own lives when asked to throw something away.
I’m fascinated by hoarders because on some level, I understand the compulsion to keep things that look and seem pretty. But I also love giving stuff away and hate clutter, so I don’t think I’ll ever end up buried under a pile of objects. Recently I traded in a bunch of grad school texts through Amazon’s buyback program, so that I would have Amazon gift cards to buy some expensive textbooks for a new academic endeavor. I haven’t looked at these books in 15 years, and most of the ideas and content are outdated, not to mention useless. And I really need these new texts to study for the professional exam I plan to take in 2011 or 2012. Yet trading them in felt like giving away a piece of myself–each book kept because it shaped my thinking and was important to me at one point or another. To get rid of them meant acknowledging that I’m not that person anymore. Yet I’ll always have the education I received through those books and the classes I used them in. I don’t need the books to know who I am.
Synopsis:
Three Cambridge students working with the blind daughter of a famous novelist have their lives disrupted when one of them disappears.
Review:
In her other life, Emily Winslow is a well-respected crafter of puzzles, and that expertise shines through in the intricate plotting of The Whole World. Through the use of multiple points-of-view, Winslow creates a layered mystery where it’s nearly impossible to figure out what really happened–but when you learn the truth, it all makes perfect sense.
I loved the Cambridge setting and the way Winslow made it such a strong part of the story. Her characterizations were really well done, thoughtfully created with subtlety and depth. Psychologically the book had a lot going on, much like the works of Ruth Rendell and Tana French, though with far less forensics.
Despite the tightness of the narrative, I’m not sure I was completely satisfied at the end–but I think that’s because I was wishing that there were more book to read!
Many thanks to Hachette Book Group for the review copy.
Synopsis:
A psychiatrist takes on a recalcitrant painter who attempted to stab a painting in the National Gallery, and his fruitless attempt to get the man to talk lead the doctor to investigate the artist’s life and loves–and obsessions.
Review:
There’s a solidly compelling mystery at the heart of The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova’s latest jaunt through history and memory. Nothing supernatural here, but it still has an otherworldy air about it that makes the experience of reading the book haunting and delicious. For the most part.
Kostova excels at bringing the inner world of the artist to life. I loved reading her descriptions of the various characters getting lost while painting, and she made me understand some of how painters see the world. I also got sucked in by the mystery of artist Robert’s silence, and why he tried to stab the painting, following psychiatrist Marlow’s detective work eagerly. And I was eager to learn more about Béatrice de Clerval, the 19th century painter whose letters Robert had in his possession at the time of his attempted crime.
However, about two-thirds of the way through to book, my interest began to wane. The more the pieces of the puzzle came together, the less excited I was about the outcome. I did like it better than The Historian, which I found really boring, but it never clicked for me as an unforgettable read. Kostova is a beautiful writer and those who enjoy historical fiction more than I do are likely to appreciate it more. I’m very glad I got to read it but also glad it’s over.
Many thanks to Little, Brown for the review copy.
Synopsis:
A successful lawyer is stricken by a mysterious illness that makes him walk, walk, walk, unable to slow down or stop until his body collapses from exhaustion miles from home.
Review:
The Unnamed is soaked in misery, both the mysterious and the more pedestrian. Tim’s walking fits threaten his job, his marriage, his security, and even his physical integrity, and he’s powerless to stop.
Author Joshua Ferris wisely avoids using Tim’s condition as a literal metaphor, as easy as that might be. If anything, he yearns for stability and commitment, to be rooted instead of having liberation forced upon him. There’s no hidden midlife crisis here, only a man whose body is making him run away.
Tim’s wife Jane loves him deeply, but his latest fit of walking has sent her spiraling into alcoholism, even as their daughter Becka tries to reassure her that the walking will stop like it always has in the past. Jane is tired of picking him up in strange neighborhoods, tired of packing his go-bag so that he can take care of himself while on his walks, tired of tending to his broken body.
For me, as engaged as I was in Tim’s story, intrigued by the unique situation and impressed with the emotional depth wrought by Ferris, by the end I felt buried under the weight of all the misery. The last lines allude to a possible metaphorical interpretation that’s not at all what I expected, but I also could have been reading too much into it–wanting something to be there that wasn’t. Anyway, the glimmers of hope that shot the story through ultimately weren’t enough to outweigh the despair of Tim’s condition.
Many thanks to Hachette Book Group for the review copy.
Synopsis:
One year in the treatment of a Vicodin addict, as told by the internist who treated her with medication.
Review:
Dr. Michael Stein is an internist specializing in prescribing a drug that blocks the effect of painkillers on a patient. In The Addict, subtitled One Patient, One Doctor, One Year, Stein recounts his journey treating Lucy, a promising young woman whose life has been stunted by an addiction to prescription medication. Lucy is meant to be an Everywoman; a college graduate, she’s a far cry from the stereotypical lower-income addict–unless, of course, you watch “Intervention” on A&E. If you do, you’ll know that Lucy’s story is quite common.
As an internist, Stein uses conversation as a means of diagnosis, not treatment as he would if he were a psychologist. He prescribes a strictly managed drug regimen meant to help Lucy restore her life. In doing so, he spends time talking with her as she describes the life she’d been living and how treatment is changing her.
As a narrative, The Addict was a little thin. In many ways, it’s a suitable companion to “Intervention,” showing what happens after the addict enters treatment. Yet Lucy’s story didn’t feel completely realistic, and I questioned at many points whether or not she was a composite of several of Stein’s patients.
Of course, the story is building to the “why.” What would turn a college-educated young woman into an addict? I don’t want to give it away, but I have to say that I found the story to be perplexing, even fishy. Either someone was covering up a crime or Lucy’s memory of the events was inaccurate. It was very strange to me.
Synopsis:
A murder investigation cuts too close to the bone for a detective who was once part of a missing persons case himself.
Review:
The other Sunday, Superfast Husband had to go to Home Depot after church, and since Superfast Toddler would certainly fall asleep in the car, I needed a book to read while listening to her dulcet snores. We stopped into the murder mystery bookshop nearby, where I asked if they could request anyone who loves Barbara Vine, and likes Ruth Rendell but not as much. Something character-based, with a lot of psychology and not too heavy on the forensics. Another customer snatched In the Woods off the shelf and the premise immediately intrigued me.
When Rob Ryan was a boy, he went by the name Adam and lost his two best friends in a missing persons case that was presumed but not proved to be murder. Rob was found with his shoes full of blood and no memory of what happened in the woods. Now, he is a detective on the murder squad and no one but his partner Cassie knows that he was once Adam. When a body is discovered in the very same woods, Rob and Cassie leap at the case, with Rob swearing up and down that his role won’t be compromised by his personal history. At least, until a possible connection emerges.
Tana French is a first-rate writer, crafting gorgeous sentences and exhibiting total mastery over her storytelling. I would rank her more Rendell than Vine, but Rendell at her finest, which is a pretty fine thing. The case itself was fairly workmanlike, once the solution was revealed, but French’s acute perceptions into the pettiness of human nature made for a fascinating read. She develops a complex and emotionally charged relationship between Cassie and Rob, the outcome of which offers just as much suspense as the whodunit angle.
The story is told by Rob in the first person, and while he’s not a standard unreliable narrator, he is fond of explaining himself in a way that both seduces and highlights the flaws in his own self-examination. I was swept away by the voice French created for Rob. He’s a figure both tragic and complicit, and my heart ached for him on every page.
