Left Neglected

Author Lisa Genova holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard.  In her second book. she tells the story of Sarah, a Harvard Business School graduate with a thriving career and a neglected family.  On her way to work on a rainy day, she takes her attention away from the road to make a call on her cell phone, resulting in a tragic one-car crash and a traumatic brain injury.  Sarah wakes up eight days later in the hospital with Left Neglect, a neurological condition where the body does not recognize the existance of the left side of objects (or their own bodies).  Sarah must come to grips with her condition and her priorities in life. 

I had enjoyed Genova's first book, Still Alice, about a Harvard psychology professor who develops early onset Alzheimer's disease, so looked forward to reading her latest.  Left Neglected is the best book I've read in a while!



Time of My Life

I have been waiting to read this book for a long time - the hold list at the library was stagnant for more than six months as books were lost, rebound, and reordered.  I can't rememmber where I first read about this book - could have been the Bookpages magazine at the library, could have been recommended from another book I viewed on Amazon - but I remember being drawn to the title.  "I've had the time of my life, and I've never felt this way before..." drifted into my thoughts. 

While I was waiting for this book, I checked out the author's previous book, The One That I Want, last year.  It was one of the lowest rated books on my list.  I'm obviously not taking very good notes on my book list, because I can't remember why I didn't like it! 

However, this week my hold finally came due and I read Time of My Life over the past two days.  The book starts with Jillian having given up her job in advertising to move to the suburbs of NYC and be a full-time mom to her infant daughter.  Her marriage has become a shell, with her husband traveling and working late hours for work, and Jillian finds her life as a stay-at-home mom not as fulfilling as she had hoped.  She wonders what her life would have been like if she had not left her previous long-term boyfriend seven years prior.  When she wakes up in her life seven years ago, she has the chance to answer those questions. 

I think we all have "what ifs" in our lives.  My biggest ones - what if I had been braver and had looked at colleges outside of Kansas?  what I had been braver and had taken the job I was offered with Teach for America?  I've learned some from these decisions, because when I was braver when I changed careers, when I ran for City Commisison, and particularly when I made the terrifying decision three years ago to have a baby!  All of these paid off (and in the case of Lily, paid off big time!).  What are your "what ifs?"

What I've Been Reading

Just finished a good book today - Who Loves You Best by Tess Stimson.  It's a Target Book Club pick, and since it wasn't available at the library, my parents gave it to me for my birthday. 

Told from multiple points of view, this is the story of a working mother with twins who feels as though she must do everything perfectly or fail.  When she decides she needs help (in the form of a nanny because he husband is totally unwilling to help with the kids!), things get more complicated. 

In an interview with the author, she named Anita Shreve as one of her favorite authors.  Great segue into the next book I read recently and enjoyed, Rescue by Anita Shreve.

Anita Shreve has always been one of my favorite authors.  Like Pat Conroy, she has beautiful prose and I love to immerse myself in her language.   Rescue is the story of a seventeen-year-old girl and her single father.  Much of the story is told in flashback - how her parents met, why her mother left, her father's dreams that are put aside to raise his daughter. 

Favorite Anita Shreve books -
Fortune's Rocks - set at the turn of the last century, this is the story of a 15-year-old girl who falls in love with a writer three times her age. 

Resistance - set in Belgium during World War II, the protagonist is a resistance fighter who provides refuge for a British pilot who crashed behind enemy lines.

The Pilot's Wife - an Oprah book club book that I actually enjoyed!  When her husband, a pilot, dies in a plane crash, the protagonist attempts to clear her husband's name and discovers that she knows little about his life.

"Chick Lit"

Sometimes, I just want to read for fun!  I just finished reading The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal last night.  I chose it from the library because her current book, How to Bake a Perfect Life, is the Target Book Club pick this month, and generally I enjoy the Target suggestions. 

Elena has worked her way up from humble beginnings in New Mexico to become the Executive Chef of her own restaurant, The Orange Bear, in Aspen.  This book is worth reading just for the descriptions of Elena's food!  I couldn't wait to go back to Santa Fe and eat. 

Some other "chick lit" books I've enjoyed in the last year:

I can't read Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books without laughing out loud (and I really can't listen to the audio books without howling with laughter - I'm sure I make quite the sight while driving and laughing hysterically!).  The latest installment of Becky Bloomwood Brandon's life was simply fun!

Last summer, I was browsing the library, looking for paperbacks to pack on our trip to Colorado, and I stumbled across this book - Madam Mirabou's School of Love by Barbara Samuel.  I've since read a couple more of her books (Lady Luck's Map of Vegas and The Goddess of Kitchen Avenue) and found them all enjoyable.

Carolyn Parkhurst is best known for The Dogs of Babel, but I first discovered her with another Target Club Pick - Lost and Found, which tells the story of a mother-daughter team dealing with their own relationship issues while appearing on an Amazing Race-like reality show.  I can't recommend this one highly enough!

Gone, Baby, Gone

In 2008, I watched the movie Gone, Baby, Gone and I'm still angry about the ending!  I didn't realize until recently that this excellent movie came from a book by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River and Shutter Island). 

This movie (and the book) portray the parents we work with everyday at CASA more accurately than any other work I've seen or read.  Helene, the mother of missing 4-year-old Amanda, could be the mother from every case I've ever served.  She's not intentionally trying to hurt her child, she doesn't physicall abuse her child, but she is unable to put her child's needs before her own and because of this, she neglects all of Amanda's needs.  

I finished the book last night, and while I enjoyed it, this may be one of the rare exceptions where the movie was just as good as the book or maybe even better (others in this category for me are The Shawshank Redemption from Stephen King's novella and LA Confidential which came from the book of the same name by James Ellroy).  If you don't have time to read the book, I'd highly recommend watching the movie.  We showed it as a CASA movie night, and I think everyone there agreed that Lehane captured the essence of the neglectful parent in Helene.

In the Heart of the Canyon

Here's the first book I've really enjoyed this year (of the four I've read!) - In the Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde (author of The Abortionist's Daughter).  This book made me want to go on a rafting trip down the Colorado river (well, sort of - I don't know if I could take two weeks of sleeping outside and no bathrooms!).  The guide is taking his 125th trip down the river, but despite all of his experience, this is one of the most complicated trips of his career.  The characters were well developed, and I really enjoyed the description of the white-water rafting experience!

I liked The Abortionist's Daughter, but this book was even better!

Some of my favorite authors

I would read anything written by these authors and always look forward to the publication of their next book.  In no particular order:

• Pat Conroy - his prose is simply beautiful.  I could read his books over and over just to savor the language.  Plus, his stories are enthralling!  My favorite books of his are Price of Tides, My Losing Season (non-fiction about his high school basketball team), and Beach Music.
• Anna Quindlen - Black and Blue is the first of her books I read, and it's still my favorite.  Her books of essays are also excellent.
• Anita Shreve - I could read Fortune's Rocks again and again. 
• Stephen King - When he's on form, he's the best storyteller around!  The Stand and The Green Mile are my two favorites, but I also love books 2, 3, and 4 of The Dark Tower series.  Two of my favorite movies are adapted from King's novellas - The Shawshank Redemption (from the story Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) and Stand by Me (from the story The Body). 
• Michael Connelly - Blood Work is my favorite Connelly book, but I enjoy all of his books.
• Dean Koontz - while he's rather wordy (making his audio books rather tedious), his stories are marvelous!  I've read them all, but my favorites are From the Corner of His Eye, One Door Away from Heaven, and the Odd Thomas books.
• Adriana Trigiani - a great storyteller, my favorite of her books is Lucia, Lucia.
• Larry McMurtry - Some of his books just make me laugh out loud and many of them have made me cry.  The Evening Star did both - it's the sequel to Terms of Endearment (one of the few books where I liked the movie better).  Aurora is the classic McMurtry character.  My other favorite McMurtry book is The Desert Rose, which always makes me laugh!  Harmony, a washed up Vegas showgirl, is a fabulous main character!
• Jeffrey Archer - Kane and Able is one of my favorite books of all time - definitely in the top five!  His books are suspenseful and characters are well developed.
• David Baldacci - Wish You Well is not the traditional Baldacci thriller, but it's my favorite of his stories!
• Brad Meltzer - The Tenth Justice, his first book, is my favorite of his books.
• John Grisham - while all of his books are a good read, A Time To Kill will always be my favorite.
• Charlaine Harris - I love her Shakespeare series about a small-town amateur detective, Lily Bard, but her most famous books are the Sookie Stackhouse series which has been made into an HBO series, True Blood.

Reading this list, I realize I need to find some more female authors to follow!