Need a Good Book to Read?

The month of November, for me, was comprised entirely by my move from California to Texas. Busy packing boxes, and selling everything from furniture to knick-knacks, the only time my fingers touched a book was to put it in a brown U-HAUL box. However on the good advice of a friend, I stalked up on audio books for my partially cross-country trek. I had never listened to audio books before and wasn't sure how I'd like them. But a couple of chapters into my first audio book and I was hooked. I even slowed down and took detours so that I could finish al the books I had brought. Below are the five I got through, most of which I enjoyed.

* WRITER'S PICK:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
ISBN 0060878770
Harper Collins

The Bell Jar has been one of those books that I know I should have read. I had never been assigned it in school and just never seemed to gravitate to it on my own. But now having read this novel, I only regret not having done so sooner.

Regarded to be a roman à clef, The Bell Jar is chronicles the main character, Esther, and her downward spiral into insanity. It is thought to parallel Sylvia Plath's own mental breakdown.

Ester is a talented young writer in the 1950's. Her talent has won her a position as a guest editor for a New York City magazine. It is here that the reader finds her at the beginning of the novel. Like any NYC newcomer, Esther becomes overwhelmed by the possibilities and experiences the city has to offer. And she is experiencing this eye-opening world at a time when she is trying to decide what it is she is meant to do with her life. That nauseating question that plagues all twenty-somethings. Should she marry and live the life of a conventional housewife or follow her passions and write poetry?

Through several encounters and disappointments Esther grows more and more depressed; her mental health becoming les and less unstable. She goes through a series of shock treatments that due more harm than good. Finally she is placed in a private healthcare facility and is treated with insulin and talk therapy. She slowly begins to improve, but knows that her grasp on sanity could loosen at anytime.

The Bell Jar was originally published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, and it was only after her suicide that the novel was published under Plath's true name. The Bell Jar is equal in both genius and controversy. Many lawsuits were filed against the novel, citing a poor or erroneous portrayal of a character/ true human being. In fact Plath's own mother tried to prevent the book's publication.

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
ISBN 0739317733
Random House

This was the first book I listened to; the book that made be addicted to audio books. The Nanny Diaries was a fun and engaging story that held my attention from beginning to end. Julia Roberts was the reader and she did a superb job. She embodied Nanny, the book's narrator, capturing the character's goals, frustrations, and joys. Roberts also did a fantastic job with the various other voices of dialogue throughout the book. When I had at first seen that Roberts was narrating, I was concerned that she would be a distraction. That I would be so familiar with her voice that I would be unable to focus on the book. A problem that presents itself more often with movies and television rather than text. I was pleasantly surprised, however.

McLaughlin and Kraus's story is, on the surface, not too different from books such as The Devil Wears Prada, or The Second Assistant ; which I recently reviewed. All are about disgruntled, overworked assistants who have a revelation in the end as a direct result of their suffering. Other than the specifics of their situations, this revelation is what separates each book from the other. In some, the main character quits their job, in others they get promoted.

In The Nanny Diaries, the lead character, ironically named Nanny, gets employed by what appears to be a lovely family from Manhattan's Upper East Side. She is hired to be the Nanny to their four-year-old son Grayer. But nothing is as it seems, and Nanny soon finds herself working for less than genuine parents and a more snobbish than youthful child. The duties piled on top of Nanny get more and more ridiculous. And her reactions to them grow more and more amusing. The Nanny Diaries is a fun frolic into a life few people live or know of. It is story that grabs you from the first sentence and holds you captive till the last word.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
ISBN 0864923414
BTC Audio Books

The Handmaid's Tale is one of Atwood's most known and celebrated novels. It is a portrayal of the future; Orwellian in its tone and its affect on the reader. This particular audio book was more like an old radio program. Each character is read or played rather by a different person, and any narration was red by the woman playing Offred, the main character.

Offred is a handmaid in Gilead, a theocratic totalitarian state that has replaced the United States of America. In this prison of a nation, women have no rights. And handmaids especially are stripped of any freedoms. Their duty, their entire purpose of being is to breed. In this new world reproduction rates are dangerously low. Handmaid's are purchased to live with an infertile couple in order to breed a child for them. Each month when the Handmaid is in the proper physical state, she is taken to the husband and forced to silently copulate with him with the wife, at least in Offred's case, watches.

As Offred tells her story, she also recounts memories of the past- before Gilead and its early rise to power. It is from these visions of the past that the reader pieces together how this once strong and independent woman became a sex slave.

The Handmaid's Tale is both beautiful and frightful. Like Orwell's 1984 it offers a glimpse into a future world that convinces the reader is more possible than one would originally think. This book, like any good novel or play in its genre, is both satirical and full of warning.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
ISBN 0739325353
Random House

I realize that I am probably committing some literary sacrilege when confessing that I hated this book. Granted it is known to be one of the more difficult novels in literature; so perhaps had I been reading text and not listening to a voice I would have had more luck. That said, I was just proud I finished it.

The novel tells of the three Compson brothers and their sister Caddy, with whom they are each obsessed. The novel is divided into four chapters, and each is told by a different character. Additionally the chapters are not in chronological order. Normally this would not bother me in the least, as in The Handmaid's Tale for example. However with The Sound and the Fury, it just added more difficulty to an already less than captivating story.

Benjy, Quentin, and Jason are the Compson brothers and each narrates the book's first three chapters. The fourth chapter is told by Faulkner himself, however it's focus is almost solely on Dilsey, the Compson's "Negro" cook. Dilsey has been a part of the Compton house since the birth of the children, if not beforehand. And she has had a large hand in raising each Compton child; thus the basis of her devotion.

Faulkner's novel tells not only of the brothers' obsession with their provocative and promiscuous sister but of the family's fall from prominence in the post-Civil War South.

Faulkner's novel is written in the stream of consciousness technique. This challenging approach to narrative began in Europe with authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and is used to this day. The success of such narratives, more so than any other, rests on a well conceived story. Without a strong backbone, the stream of though becomes a stream of rambles. And the audience is lost.

The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwall
ISBN 0743537491
Simon & Schuster

Lastly, I indulged in a thrilling crime novel. Patricia Cornwell's The Body Farm is just one book in a fictional series that follows the heroine Dr. Kay Scarpetta; a medical examiner with the FBI.

In The Body Farm, Scarpatta is brought on to investigate the murder of Emily Steiner, an eleven-year-old girl in North Carolina. The details of the homicide shockingly resemble the M.O. of a killer who has eluded the FBI for many years. As Scarpatta and her team attempt to solve the Steiner case, Scarpatta's young and eager niece begins to get in the way.

Lucy, Scarpatta's niece, is a technology wizard and a current intern with the FBI. Her promising future with the Bureau is cut short, however when she is accused of a security violation, and immediately discharged. Scarpatta believes in her niece's innocence and begins to investigate this more personal case in addition to the Steiner murder. These two cases slowly become one however as drama and action unfold the surprising details.

If you like the fictional shows "CSI", and "Cold Case"; and the non-fictional "Cold Case Squad" and "Forensic Files", you will not only love The Body Farm, but will enjoy any of Cornwell's books.

Happy reading,
And stay tuned for next month's reviews.