richardrbecker's reviews
497 reviews

Hemingway's ability to capture the psychologically and morally lost generation as it aimlessly wanders what it perceives to be a meaningless world is almost uncanny. This work exemplifies his obsession with direct, honest prose from a collection of characters who attempt to mask their empty lives by keeping their glasses filled with alcohol.

But that is not to say their lives are without challenge. Jake, the protagonist, carries the burden of a war injury that rendered him impotent. The problem of it is only compounded by the fact Brett, the love of his life, is one of his traveling companions. She is a strong independent women whose love for him is equally strong but she is unwilling to sacrifice herself to a celibate existence.

The destructiveness of sex isn’t lost on Jake alone. With Brett at the center, jealousy abounds among his friends. As a liberated woman, Brett makes Jake, Mike, and Robert miserable with sometimes disastrous consequences. Even less involved Bill is not immune to the petty cruelty that erupts between this oddly bound circle of friends as they try to cope with the aftermath of World War 1.

Brilliant in its telling, The Sun Also Rises is one of Hemingway’s finest. Set in Europe (and mostly Spain) after the bunch of them seek out to loose themselves during fiesta, Hemingway expertly tells his story twice — first in the behavior of the bulls they have all some to watch and then in their own actions that appear no better then the beasts who are compelled to play out their lives as written.

Fredrik Backman does a dazzling job tying together how the big dreams of individual hockey players and the community in which they live are deeply and desperately entwined, until one day when someone pulls the wrong string and unravels everything — first the life of a young girl, then the junior team bound for a national championship, and then the entire hockey town that stands to gain or lose everything. Beartown is the story of a moral failure and how people are forced to choose sides not based on right or wrong but based the relationships they have made and knowing the fate of one could be inexplicably tied to all the others. It is a story that is riveting in its conviction to demonstrate that an act against one person has the potential to produce has many victims, especially those who have the courage to step forward.

Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future America until a series of perfectly orchestrated accidents land him on the front lines of an interplanetary war between Mars and Earth, marooned on Mercury, and exiled to the Saturn moon Titan. The conductor of his fate is Winston Niles Rumfoord, an early space traveler who entered the chrono-synclastic infundibulum and now possesses the knowledge of mankind's past and future — up until the time he departs the galaxy and somewhat excluding his Salo, a Tralfamadorian robot explorer who had been built a millennia earlier to carry a message to a distant galaxy until he was marooned on Titan.

The novel largely deals with the question of free will. Many of the characters are stripped of it and even humankind is suspected to have been secretly manipulated for millennia for one specific purpose. The subject matter isn't new to Vonnegut, who also tackled it with more elegance in later novels. For all its clunkiness, what really works here is the inventiveness of this whimsical and poignant story. As unlikeable as Constant is, it's hard not to become found of him as Rumfoord needles him at every opportunity during his transformation from mindless playboy to an intelligent and disobedient solider and later to thoughtful and resourceful man in exile.

A thinking person's ghost story, the novel Ghosts is almost more mystery than it is spooky (and it’s never frightening). It could have been scary, but the author tends to tell readers what is happening in those tense moments without ever letting them feel it.

Some might find this aspect of the story annoying, and it isn't the only annoying aspect of the story. Some characters, including the malevolent spirit, can be a but much at times (especially when he is mostly in detective Tim Brooks' head). The Lutheran minister and spiritualist George Osaro waffles too much on his willingness to help. The actress Annette Carlson drifts between having depth and coming across a bit shallow. And Tim Brooks breaks character on more than one occasion. There is also some inconsistent "refreshing" to make it a 2014 edition and the handling of character names is bothersome. Count them all among the many distractions.

At the same time, the bulk of the book outshines these inconsistencies and annoyances. Hynd makes the story interesting, giving a ghost hunter like flavor and some interesting insights into apparitions, haunts, ghosts, and poltergeists. It’s refreshing to see characters run to confront their fears rather than simply run away from them.

For people who truly enjoy a classic ghost story with the twist (Hynd proposes that is our very minds that can provide the conduit for spiritual encounters), Ghosts delivers on its ability to open up a convincing take on supernatural encounters. It’s a compelling read that makes more headway when it teeters toward a somber tone than a playful one.

There is a reason that many authors consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever written. Tolstoy captures so much in this remarkably complex novel with more than a dozen major characters, one could fill volumes with what could be gleaned from it — gender, society, social change, family life, economics, death, literary technique, agriculture, adultery, forgiveness, marriage, nationalism, imperialism, and so on. And Tolstoy does so in such a way that every one of his characters are remarkably real, honest, and surprisingly modern despite taking place in the 1870s.

At the heart of the novel, Anna Karenina and Konstantin Levin are at the heart of the novel. Anna struggles between her passion for a wealthy and dashing military officer, her desire for independence, and her marital duty tied to both social convention and maternal love. Levin, on the other hand, struggles with defining his own identity in an increasingly alien and confusing world as the novel takes place against the transformation of Russia during a period of liberal reforms.

Chiefly for me, I was mesmerized by the Tolstoy's attention to perception and perspective. His characters feel real because they continually see the world through a micro lens (personal observations), a marco lens (societal and worldly ideas), and many other lens in-between them — all the while trying to understand their place in various settings, one-to-one (marriage), one-to-some (family), and one-t0-many (society). This effort to understand purpose can arguably called the fuel that fires most of our lives as much as the pages of this 800-page book. You never really tire with it.

At the same time, it clearly paints why Russia was more receptive to communism as a means forward over other conventions that were embraced by Europe. The historical aspects of this novel are just as important as the intimate nature of the work. The changing of the guard during this time period — a changing of the guard from old patriarchal values to free-thinking Western values — set the stage for the Russian Revolution that would take place 50 years later. Tolstoy was right in seeing Western convention didn't fit as well with Russian tradition as it might have across the rest of Europe.

Of course, knowing what Tolstoy would never know, makes Konstantin Levin even more heroic as a figure. Rather than choose sides, Levin straddles the tug of war between liberals and traditionalists, recognizing the need for the utility of western technology and agricultural science but not the analytical and abstract approach that others attempt to subject the country too. His approach is different as he would rather roll up his sleeves and overcome the mistrust of peasants with tangible results. He is an ordinary man, one of the Russian people, despite his aristocratic lineage — a quality that liken to Tolstoy himself.

In contrast, Anna Karenina struggles in a very different world as a woman searching for autonomy and passion in a male-dominated society. While beautiful, passionate, and educated, she is also a feminist heroine who places love over everything. She insists on following her heart alone, rejecting the social conventions that others cling. She does this despite the pain of exile. And while Anna seems much more self-centered in her journey compared to Levin, it could be that she has no other recourse in the world she in which she was born.

Liesel Meminger is an 'ideal' foster child in war-torn Molching (outside Munich), with perhaps exception to her predilection to steal books (and the occasional apple). She is adopted on the verge of adolescence during World War II, shortly after he father is taken away for being a Communist and her brother dies in her arms on a train.

Her first theft takes place shortly after her brother's death — a copy of The Gravedigger's Handbook that is accidentally left behind at his grave. She can't read the book, but the words inside are enough to capture her interest. She sees, even before she can read, that there is a mystery and power to words.

Her poor foster parents are Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Hans is a World War I veteran who is sympathetic to the plight and unfair treatment of Jews. He hides the son, Max, of his best friend in the basement of their house. Max's father scarified himself to save Hans in the first war. Rosa is a sharp-tongued and often abrasive foster mother.

The novel is reads a historical coming of age story set in Nazi Germany and invests considerable time exploring what can or cannot be done — painting some Germans as fanatics but others as victims along with the rest of the world. But what makes it stand out are author Zusak exploration of the power of words, the love and relationship people forge in dire circumstances, and the ever-present probability of mortality. After all, the narrator of this story is Death and the machine make him busy.

This is one of those books that everyone should read. It's often unsettling and life-affirming at the same time, both a triumph and tragedy as the characters in The Book Thief find personal redemption while marching toward fate — which is almost always into the waiting arms of the narrator. The writing of the book was inspired by two real-life events shared with him by his parents. One was the bombing of Munich. The other was a boy who was whipped for giving a Jewish prisoner bread. While both inspirations are dramatic, it's the daily life of Germans trying to get by in their occupied country that really resonates as it challenges us to imagine what we might do.

This was my second reading of the book. This time I read it with my daughter who is about the same age as Liesel Meminger. I also gave her the context of one of her own grandmothers trying to survive Hitler's war. May we never face such a thing again.

After hearing good things about The Fated Sky, I decided to start from the beginning of Mary Robinette Kowal's alternate history and happily landed in 1952. I wasn't the only one landing there. At the onset, a huge meteorite hits the earth and obliterates the east coast, nearly killing protagonist Elma York and her husband.

Although often seen as hard science fictions, Kowal tends to get most right but not all right. For me, however, the details missed do not detract from the overall story — humankind finding an accelerated purpose for getting off the planet. The story centers on the protagonist and her husband, two of a small cast of characters that operate not in the aftermath of a devasted world facing rapid climate change but rather an isolated tech bubble created by those focused on heading into space.

Elma's real crisis has very little to do with the meteorite and very much to do about the era's rampant inequality. Elma is a highly intelligent female pilot and "computer" in the 1950s, who is set on breaking new ground to become an astronaut or "astronette." Sometimes this creates a paradox that is both interesting and annoying. On the one hand, it feels plausible because sexism, racism, and anti-Semitism did exist in the 1950s. On the other hand, everyone concedes that colonies require men and women, but then still need to be convinced that women need to go for whatever reason. Yes, fools. Babies.

Elma's persona is one park perky Ms. Maisel and one part Taraji P. Henson playing Katherine Johnson. She is hardworking, human, witty, and talented at finding new ways to navigate a man's world. Sometimes this makes the story feel lighter than needs to be, but I suppose one could argue that it makes it more real. What can't be argued is that Kowal is a talented writer and that the first book is an excellent otherworldly read, worthy of the many accolades it has received.

Supermarket, written by Bobby Hall aka Grammy-nominated rapper Logic, is entertaining enough despite having only the thinnest for ingredients. It's an "easy read" story which will keep some readers going, but the going doesn't include much plot depth, character development, or real originality. Crossover fans have inflated the ratings, and that's all right.

Supermarket is Clerks meet Fightclub, except it's not as nearly funny or hard-edged. Instead of a depressed Edward Norton, we get a depressed kid named Flynn. Instead of Tyler Durden, we get libido-driven Frank. Instead of an underground fight club, we get flirtations between the aisles of a supermarket. Instead of Project Mayhem, we get a guy named Red who aims to break Flynn out of a psychiatric ward so he can face his demon head on.

Ironically, it's his creative overextension that makes it uniquely terrible. Much of the story is borrowed right out of his life, with enough Easter eggs to entertain his fans for months. That's not to say this is an autobiography. He inserted snippets of life into the story, a bit haphazardly. The name drops in the book, for instance, line up nicely with his body art.

In sum, it's not so much that the book was so bad I had to slog through it or toss it in the trash. It's more accurate to say it's like eating crackers as an appetizer and skipping the meal. There isn't anything to it, making it better read by young non-readers starving for some kind of storytelling. But hey, what do you expect for a book with its own mediocre soundtrack to boot?

After what seemed to be a bit of a misfire start, my daughter later found our footing The Cruel Prince and feel in love with it. As protagonist Jude transforms herself from near helpless victim to proactive hopeful victor, we began to realize what a dark gem of a book this really is and now have plans to read the trilogy.

What makes this middle-of-the-game twisty tale so ferociously delightful is Holly Black's regard for unpredictable payoffs, admittedly some more than others. That's not to say the opening is dull. On the contrary, The Cruel Prince opens with the murder of Jude's parents. Jude and her sisters, with one being a twin and the other sired by the murderer who abducts them, are then whisked away to the land of Faerie — and not the one inhabited by Tinkerbell but rather the rough-and-tumble Celtic kind. After the opener, Black invests in mapping out the expected a few years after the abduction.

The real joy within this work isn't so much what Black constructs on the front end as much as its deconstruction along the way. Expectations are shattered. Alliances forged and broken. Closely kept secrets revealed. Hates take time out. Crowns are lost and won and lost again. At its center is Jude, a mere mortal trying to make her way among the Faerie. At first blush, it's all she so to stay away from the youngest, and seemingly cruelest, prince of the land.

But there is much more to her than meets the eye — especially after her dream to be knighted is turned in for something far more sinister. You see, humans, unlike fairies, can lie. And it is in this simple fact that Jude quickly learns she might be more dangerous than anyone ever expected.