‘A Disorder Peculiar to the Country’ is the story of Marshall and Joyce Harriman, a couple in the throes of a particularly nasty divorce when both are nearly killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Joyce abruptly cancels her flight on one of the hijacked planes, while Marshall, who works at the Twin Towers, is late for work and on one of the lowers floors when the planes hit. Both think the other is dead, and both are secretly and perversely pleased by the thought. Ken Kalfus deserves credit for writing one of the first novels to deal successfully with 9/11. His description of the carnage at the World Trade Centre is beautiful, harrowing and free of cant.

Kalfus views religious and cultural hatreds through the lens of the Harriman’s protracted, awful divorce. Husband and wife work to sabotage each other — bugging phones, torpedoing assets, sleeping with friends and making no effort to shield their two small children from the battle. Like other political enmities, their conflict becomes entrenched and self-perpetuating.

All in all, the book is very illuminating — not to mention daring. But a few things failed to click: we never understand how Joyce and Marshall got to hate each other so (indeed neither do they, but so what?). A chapter narrated by the Harriman’s 4-year old daughter feels false as a depiction of a child’s thinking. And the final chapter, which describes the discovery of WMD in Iraq, the spread of democracy in the Middle East and the capture of Osama bin Laden is a perplexing departure from the historical realism in the first part of the novel.

Flanagan’s controversial book is irritating mostly for its bait-and-switch argumentation. There’s also a disingenuousness to the way she includes herself in her criticism of working-moms/at-home moms. (Which is she?) Many of these “culture wars” books are disappointing for belabouring a point that’s not working of 250 pages of interest: in this case, the issue of staying at home or working outside the home. For Flanagan, the factors that mitigate the CHOICE aspect are so thoroughly glossed over that it ceases to be a serious discussion of the subject. And, again, like so many books on the “culture wars,” the goal is more glossy prose and slap dash sociology than critique. Oh well!

Seriously, the book isn’t worth the hype or the controversy.

Lipshitz Six is a postmodern tale of identity, heredity and gender in two parts. The first is the story of Hersch and Esther Lipshitz and their family. They flee Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, only to lose their youngest child at Ellis Island when they reach New York. Years later, Esther becomes convinced that Charles Lindbergh is her long lost son.

The story continues with a protagonist who shares the name of/is a version of the author, T Cooper. Cooper is the author of one well received novel, but has since taken up earning money impersonating Emimen at Bar Mitzvahs. The second half is the weaker of the two. The narrator is less well realized as a character, and has the unfortunate habit of dully taunting the reader.

The ending is interesting. [Spoiler] It turns out that the narrator is the opposite gender of what I’d assumed, which (of course) forced me to examine my own assumptions.

These Lulu Dark books are actually kind of dumb. Maybe they’re a little too young adult for me? (I can’t believe I’m saying that…) They’re really quite tame — no sex, no drugs, no swearing — and the pop culture references aren’t very intriguing. Worst of all, they’re kind of unfunny. Meh.

This is a great book written in a charming style by two bloggers living on either side of the Mason-Dixon line. It’s full of good advice, knitting inspiration and cute projects (although the applique jean jackets are pretty cringe-worthy). After reading, “In Defense of the Washrag” I’ll probably be knitting dish cloths from now til forever.

I really hated this book. It’s meandering, uninteresting, and utterly misses the point (or, alternatively, has no point). The things she says about dating don’t apply to me, or any of the women I know. I figure they must only be true for people working in media and living in NYC (isn’t it weird how often you can make this complaint?). When she talks about “science” she sometimes quotes marketing firms, and when she does quote scientists, their claims are totally unscientific. Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to know what she’s getting at, since formulating a thesis seems utterly beyond her. Yuck.

So, I’ve been reading this series ever since book one, and of course it’s bad but it’s usually kind of fun. But this book was dull. I hope that the series isn’t going to be crap now that the characters are going to college? Like the way things happened with 90210 or Saved by the Bell?

I think the best thing about this book is that it provides us with a chance to get some information about what life is like in North Korea. Of course, while Guy Delisle worked there he was kept mostly cloistered, so the book gives us very little direct information about the lives of North Koreans. Still, the enforced distance between Koreans and foreigners is very telling. Unfortunately, Delisle is sometimes contemptuous of North Koreans because they appear to accept their or even love their dictator. His smugness is a real downer, and I couldn’t help but compare him with someone like Joe Sacco, whose journalistic memoirs are much more nuanced.

Deborah Eisenberg’s stories in this collection are so amazing, I picked up another of her collections immediately. She reminds me of Joy Williams.

This book has been getting some great reviews, so I put it on hold at the library and waited and waited. When I got it I read it straight through, but I didn’t actually love it. It left too many ends loose, which is often taken as a mark of a strong work, suggesting a refusal to falsify the story or whatever. But this book wasn’t quite strong enough to be taken totally seriously, as good. It’s somewhere between a serious work of literature and an entertaining one, and I choose to accept it as the latter rather than be pissed of that it failed to be Great. Maybe I would have liked it more if the reviews were less strong?