Picks by Donald Knuth

How often do you get a reading list from a certified genius?
This is from Donald Knuth's website, the page called "Retirement"

[quote]
Of course I like to read nontechnical books, although I read very slowly. Here are some that I recently read and heartily recommend:

Life A Users Manual,

by Georges Perec (perhaps the greatest 20th century novel)
Gaudy Night

by Dorothy L Sayers (captures Oxford high-table small-talk wonderfully)
An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears (also Oxford but in the 1660s)
Death of a Salesperson

by Robert Barnard (who is at his best in short stories like these)
The Haj

by Leon Uris (great to read on a trip to Israel)
Marjorie Morningstar

by Herman Wouk (in-depth characters plus a whole philosophy)
On Food and Cooking

by Harold McGee (applied biochemistry in the kitchen)
Food

by Waverley Root (his magnum opus, a wonderful history of everything delicious)
The Golden Gate

by Vikram Seth (the Great California Novel, entirely in 14-line sonnets)
The Age of Faith

by Will Durant (volume 4 of his series, covers the years 325--1300)
Efronia

by Stina Katchadourian (diaries and letters of a remarkable Armenian woman)
The Man Who Knew Infinity

by Robert Kanigel (biographies of Ramanujan and Hardy)
Hackers

by Steven Levy (incredibly well written tale of our times)
The Abominable Man

by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (one of their brilliantly Swedish detective novels)
[end quote]

I had quite forgotten Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. I just requested two of their books from the library. More on that soon, I expect.

The Laws of Our Fathers, by Scott Turow

The book moves back and forth between 1970 and 1996.

Characters

Sonny, a felony court judge in "Kindle County".
Seth, her lover in 1970, now a syndicated columnist living in Seattle. Seth writes under the name of Michael Frain, which is the name of a college friend whose whereabouts are unknown. He is last seen running from prosecution for the bombing of a research lab at "Miller Damon University."
Nikki, Sonny's 5-year-old daughter by her former husband Charlie, a poet.
Seth's father
Hobie Tuttle, Seth's lifelong friend, attorney for the defendant Nile Eddgar, son of Loyell Eddgar. Hobie in 1970 is implicated in a Black Panther bombing of a lab at "Miller Damon University" but never charged.
Loyell Eddgar, State Senator, but in 1970 a militant revolutionary working with the Black Panthers.
Nile Eddgar, in 1996 a Probation Officer responsible for Ordell (Hardcore) but involved with smuggling drugs into jail under Hardcore's direction, and in love with a 15-year-old female gang minion of Hardcore's. Nile is on trial charged with hiring Hardcore to murder his father, which murder resulted in the killing of his mother.
June Eddgar, Nile's mother, who is killed by "Gorgo" when Hardcore tries to kill Nile's father. In 1970 June is married to Eddgar, and the revolution, but it is a loveless marriage. She seeks consolation elsewhere with various men, but especially Michael Frain.
Hobie's parents, Seth's mother. Seth's deceased 5-year-old son Isaac. Seth's brother Isaac, killed in a concentration camp during WWII.
Seth's daughter Sarah
Lucy, Seth's ex-wife, Hobie's lover in 1970.
Cleveland, a black panther involved in the lab bombing who talked in jail and implicated Michael Frain.
The character list should recall enough of the plot to remind anyone who's read this long novel (534 pages). And I hope it will intrigue anyone who has not read it sufficiently to entice him or her to read it.

I love Scott Turow's books, and have read all of his novels. He is a journeyman writer, a practicing lawyer, what more can I say?

An interesting aspect of Turow's books: he writes of a fictional city and state in the Midwest. The city is located in "Kindle County."

Turow lives near Chicago.

In "Laws" there is a fictional university in California, in the bay area, known as Miller Damon University. There's a Miller Damon, MD, in the Palo Alto phone book. That 's about the most pertinent hit I got from Google just now.

My thanks to Mr. Turow for another terrific novel.

There's a new on on the way, Ordinary Heroes, just published this month. I'll read it, I hope.

The Wasp Eater, by William Lychack

The Wasp Eater, by William Lychack. Houghton Mifflin 2004.

Principal Characters:

Daniel – son

Robert “Bob” Cussler -- Dad

Anna – Mom

Joelyn – cousin

Divorce ravages the “traditional family” in our culture today. Statistics are available to bear this out.

Once the stuff of scandal and whispers-behind-hands divorce is now commonplace. We are so used to being surrounded by broken families and broken promises that we forget that these phenomena have their consequences.

“She became a widow well before his father died.” Thus begins The Wasp Eater, by William Lychack. This little novel (164 pages in a 5” x 8” format) tells the story of a broken marriage in the later 20th Century, how the couple's one child understands his parents and their problems, and how he deals with all of it.

This book was a prize won browsing the “new books” display at the library. When I noticed that the author was a contributor to This American Life (Ira Glass, Public Radio International) I had to give it a try. I'm glad I did.

Daniel's father, “Bob,” is a strong yet unstable character; he's a window washer in a New England mill town. We hear Anna's complaint on page 7: “It wasn't the waitress in bed with him; it was the shit-eating grin that made her insane, the way he couldn't seem to wipe that smirk from his face.” As the story begins, Anna has thrown Bob out of the house, scattered his belongings on the front lawn, hung his clothes from tree branches. She is through with him, but he won't go away.

Daniel, ten years old, is visited at night by his father. Bob stands outside the boy's bedroom window, smoking, talking. He leaves money, and tries to convince Daniel to let him in.

Over time an uneasy truce between the separated partners develops. Daniel spends time during the day with Bob, helping him wash windows. He is taken along to bars with his father, given quarters to play pool, and returned home late.

Some of Anna's history is revealed. She is from New York, her family once well-to-do middle-class fallen on hard times (like the New England town in which she now lives), caught up in romantic love with Bob. Now her marriage is broken by his disloyalty and she seems profoundly depressed. She can hardly maintain her daily existence and care for her young son.

In the course of the story it is revealed that there was once a fight between Anna and her niece Joelyn regarding a ring, her mother's wedding ring, which has fallen into Joelyn's possession. This ring becomes the symbol of what once was Anna and Bob's marriage, and Daniel sees in its recovery the answer to fixing the breach in his family.

The story is so extremely well-written that it makes me despair trying to describe it with my own clumsy words. Lychack has a knack for a spare and precise turn of phrase. The portrayal of young Daniel and his parents is believable and heart-breaking, but Lychack ends his book with perspective and hope.

The Broker, by John Grisham

I've finished the book. Now I find myself thinking about this project: What, exactly, am I trying to accomplish here?

One objective here is to begin a job I regret not beginning 40 years ago. I have read many books and many short stories. I've enjoyed most of them. Many have provided me with some of the greatest pleasures I've experienced in life. But I have no record of all of that reading. Here I can keep track of what I've read and enough information about it to remind me of it when I look back at this later.

Another thing I find myself thinking about is criticism. Should I include my judgement of the overall quality of the book, its strengths, shortcomings, etc.? Should I be comparing it to other works and placing it in its literary context?

I'm hardly qualified as a literary critic. I have no degree and no experience. My reading has been mostly guided by my own likes and dislikes. Sometimes I just wander the stacks of a library and pick up books that look interesting, other times I read or hear reviews of things that sound like they'd be good, so I go find them. So what' s the value of my opinion about any given work?

I'm not sure; I think I'll just hack at this for a while and see what it becomes.

So, what about The Broker?

A good entertaining read. The Last Juror was more thoughtful, had more to say about the nature of humanity. This one is mostly a thriller, sort of a Robert Ludlum book. Better than Ludlum, but that's not praise.

The main character is Joel Backman, the "Broker" of the title. He's a hotshot lobbyist in DC that's suddenly convicted of a serious crime and packed off to Federal prison. After serving 6 years, the President (President Morgan, an ineffectual moron) pardons him. He's spirited away to Italy by the CIA. The director of the CIA -- an old, unhealthy man -- orchestrates all this, including the pardon. Backman's crime is related to the attempt to sell control of a mysterious spy satellite system discovered by some Pakistani computer science students who hacked its control system. Now that Morgan's term of office is over, the CIA wants Backman pardoned among the customary pardons issued by an outgoing president. They hope to place him in a poorly hidden foreign location and watch to see who kills him. In this way, they hope to discover who is responsible for placing the satellite system in the first place, and other salient information about foreign intelligence operations around the world.

I'll try some criticism: The plot's good, I doubt I could have thought it up. The pace is uncertain, a bit slow at times. Details are a little sloppy. Character development is poor, and I had a hard time believing in most of the characters. The descriptions of Italy and its food were delightful, and made me want to go there. I read and enjoyed the whole thing, it was very entertaining. Did it change my life? I don't think so. Did I learn any basic truths about humanity or life from it? I don't think so.

The ending is disappointing; I expected more of a coup.

But I'll read the next thing John Grisham writes -- he's a dependable good writer.

Until next time. (0) Comments | Post Comment

Coming Soon: Amy Tan and John Irving

I fell for an e-mail from Amazon: Amy Tan has a new book out, it's going to be published 18 October. The title is Saving Fish From Drowning.

While I was buying that, they hooked me (sorry) with a new John Irving: Until I Find You: A Novel.

So, we'll be reading those books as soon as they arrive. These are two of my favorite authors, and have never failed to please me in the past.

The Broker, by John Grisham

In case you thought this was going to be a highbrow gig, I'll just set the tone. I just began reading The Broker, by John Grisham. This is a fairly new book, I think published this year or last. As a matter of fact, The Official John Grisham Websiteshows it as January 2005. I'm only in the first 40 or so pages but it's a good one.

Backman has been in Federal Prison on the Oklahoma prairie for 6 years, in solitary confinement, for what is at first a vaguely described crime. Once a powerful DC lawyer, Backman is now very nearly a broken man, lonely and wasting away. But the end of a weak President's term and the desires of a CIA official cause a sudden and unexpected pardon -- Backman is free, spirited away from the USA, to begin a new life in secret.

I love John Grisham. He's given me days of pleasure with his many great novels. My wife and I recently finished The Last Juror, his 2004 publication, and we both thoroughly enjoyed that novel of the South in the late 60s and 70s. I was particularly pleased with it as it reminded me of A Time to Kill, his first novel, which I often think might be his best, or one of his best.

I'll write more about The Broker,but I wanted to get this project under way.