American Dervish

American Dervish is an engrossing novel with a sympathetic narrator in Hayat.  The other characters are vivid, even the secondary ones.  I thought Akhtar did a wonderful job of giving the reader just the kind of details about a character that makes them spring to life on the page.  There are big themes in this book, but they are not forced upon the story, rather the action illuminates the issues.

As I read a book I often ask myself who I would recommend it to.  This book brought to mind readers of The Kite Runner.  Both books revolve around a boy who doesn’t fully understand the political undercurrents in his community and because of this he makes a choice he is haunted by for the rest of his life.

Unlike The Kite Runner, this novel doesn’t take place in a faraway land but in this country.  Yet, like that novel, the culture it portrays was fascinating to me because it’s one with which I am unfamiliar.

Ayad Akhtar is an American of Pakistani heritage, raised in Milwaukee.  He has written several screenplays, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for co-writing the screenplay for The War Within.  American Dervish is his first novel.  I suspect it won’t be his last.

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Here’s the deal — Adam is going to be given a resume and short term training in espionage. In exchange for this he will attempt to get a job at Trion Systems. If successful, he is supposed to find out as much as he can about a secret project named ‘Aurora’ . Wyatt knows that whatever this project is, it has the potential of knocking Wyatt Communications out of the high tech field… or at least causing severe damage.

Cassidy realizes he has no choice and he follows instructions. He lands the job and he begins his indoctrination with Trion. He must now do his assigned job at Trion while figuring out how to secure the information for Wyatt. Adam is not stupid, he just has never really been asked to apply himself. He has always enjoyed the role of ‘slacker’ . Even if he successful he could face prison as a spy for Wyatt or as an embezzler against Wyatt.  It’s not quite a ‘win-win’ situation.

Finder never lets you catch your breath. The pace is frantic and you will enjoy all the twists and turns in this great read.

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While I’ve not enjoyed Kate Morton’s sophomore and junior efforts as much, her debut novel struck a chord with me and generated the same feelings I had when watching (not reading) Remains of the Day and Gosford Park — that behind-the-scenes look into the country homes of early 19th century England, that angle you can only get from the staff’s point of view.  For me, the appeal of books set from this perspective is that, even in a novel, you get the unvarnished truth of the story, not the façade that the people who live in these grand homes present to the world.  In The House at Riverton, the story begins in the present, with the now 98-year-old Grace being asked by a film director to recall her experiences working as a maid in the 1920s, specifically about the suicide of a young poet that occurred in the very house that Grace worked in from the age of 14.

Grace decides this is her opportunity to tell the truth about that suicide and the fallout it created in the aristocratic family she worked for, for so many years.  Told in a series of flashbacks, this book will keep you turning the pages as the secrets are revealed against a beautifully descriptive backdrop that stretches from the Edwardian period to post-World War I England.

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Also see: our previous blog posts about Kate Morton’s books.

Frost’s fictionalized story follows the soldiers tasked with killing Eisenhower.  The kicker here is that one of these men, Bernie Oster, was born in the U.S. to German parents and raised in Brooklyn.  His family moved back to Germany when he was fourteen. The bleak economics of the Depression in the United States forced this move.  Bernie was eventually drafted into the Nazi army.  Bernie detests the Nazis and has tried to thwart their efforts whenever he has a chance to do so without getting caught.

When Bernie is brought into “Operation Greif” he falls under the immediate command of Erich Von Leinsdorf.  Von Leinsdorf is a member of the SS.  The son of a diplomat, he was raised in London from the age of ten until the war broke out.  His English, spoken with a British accent, is flawless.  He is very smooth and friendly on the surface, but Bernie senses that beneath this facade lurks a stone-cold killer.

As the Germans begin the invasion, Von Leinsdorf reveals his true nature by shooting two of his men after they are wounded by the Americans.  With his worst fears confirmed, Bernie is on high alert.  He suspects there is more to their mission than what they have been told and repeatedly tries to get Von Leinsdorf to reveal it to him.  In the meantime, Bernie does what he can to secretly sabotage Operation Greif’s efforts without getting himself killed by Von Leinsdorf.  He leaves subtle clues as he and Von Leinsdorf become aware that two American MP’s are tracking them down.

As the war continues around them, Bernie and Von Leinsdorf proceed on to their second objective with MP’s in hot pursuit.  The story continues at a hot pace straight through with the accelerator being mashed to the floor in the last few chapters.  If World War II historical fiction or fast-paced thrillers are your style, Frost’s novel is sure to satisfy.

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Presented as a letter to his adopted son, The Bells is the story of Moses Froben – a poor, uneducated boy born to a deaf-mute mother that lived in isolation, high in the belfry of a small-town church in the Swiss Alps and how he grows into one of the most celebrated opera singers of the time, known only as Lo Svissero.

Most of the villagers believe Moses is also deaf-mute, so after he witnesses a crime and they discover that he can in fact hear and speak, he flees for his life.  He receives help from two traveling monks, who hearing his situation, take pity on him and bring him to the Abbey of St. Gall.  Growing up in a belfry, Moses has developed a gift for music and his ears soon lead him to the boys’ choir at the Abbey.  The choirmaster, Ulrich, recognizes his gift and trains him.  Ulrich can’t bear for this gift to go away as Moses ages and has Moses castrated against his will.  At that time, the Swiss Confederation had outlawed castration and so Moses is forced, once again, to flee.  He chooses to follow a young woman of the upper class that he has fallen in love with to Vienna, where she will be married.

The rest of Moses’ journey and transformation into a father and into Lo Svissero is full of all the elements that make up a good opera – love, tragedy and passion.

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This book will challenge everything you thought you knew about raising children.  This is not a book that proposes the “right way” to raise a child, but rather presents the facts about how the current school of thought on child-rearing actually works (or doesn’t).  And just as Steven Levitt accomplishes in his book Freakonomics, which challenges commonly held beliefs on economic issues, Bronson and Merryman support their assertions with reams of research and the results of studies conducted world-wide.

Who would have thought that the more you praise a child, the lower their confidence level?  Or that an extra hour of sleep may be better for your kid’s IQ than an extra hour of studying?  And if your argumentative teen makes you want to pull your hair out, don’t—the alternative is even worse.  All this, and more, is waiting for you inside the covers of this intriguing book.

The issues covered in NurtureShock concern children at all stages of development, from infancy to the teen years, so all parents are sure to find these insights interesting.  But even non-parents will be fascinated by the science behind the information—think of all the fun you’ll have advising your parenting friends and family on what they are doing wrong!  Parents love advice from their childless friends . . . Don’t they?

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Hannah Payne is the secretly rebellious daughter in a strict, Christian family.  The book opens after her sentencing for aborting her child.  For the crime of murder, her skin has been chromed to a vivid-red color.  Because she refused to name both the father of the baby and the doctor who performed the abortion, her sentence is extended.   Once released, Hannah must endure criticism and censure from strangers, friends and family members.  She also gets caught up in an underground movement that is fighting the laws against abortion.

Hilary Jordan does a masterful job of painting a believable future, allowing you to focus on Hannah and issues that result from the politics of the day and not get bogged down in the details of advancing technology.  Regardless of your politics, this book is a wonderful conversation-starter and is sure to be a winner with book clubs.  Because the story is loosely based on The Scarlet Letter, it may also make an interesting companion read for Hawthorne’s classic.

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In London, he encounters a certain Sherlock Holmes – a deduction-thumping monster – and after making sure that the two can tolerate living together, the two bachelors share apartment at 221B Baker Street. Before long, the duo also shares adventures, even though the doctor’s role mainly is that of the observer.

A man is found dead in a house in the south of London. The man turns out to be a rich American, but he has not been robbed. The police discover a word – “Rache” – written in blood on one of the walls, and they suspect that a Rachel is involved in the misadventure. But who is this Rachel? How was the man killed? And who did it? The Scotland Yard cannot find any answers, and turn to Mr. Holmes – who brings Dr. Watson with him. Their first case is deeply tragic, and includes an unexpected American detour, but Mr. Holmes is at least as fascinating as the plot and the scenery. The relationship between Dr. Watson and the consulting detective is instantly charming, and equally irresistible in the city and the era – London, 1881.

Intrigued? Read another review of A Study in Scarlet posted on this blog in 2010.

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The American Revolution was not the first revolution with roots in the Enlightenment. In the 1760s, Denmark had gone through a revolutionary transformation, but eventually the events were reversed. In due course, the ideas would return to the Scandinavian kingdom, but by then the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers were well underway to become not only history, but also legend.

It can, for obvious reasons, be difficult for our time to view the American revolutionaries as mere humans, but that is what they were – wonderfully complex human beings with great minds and determination, frailties and massive contradictions.

Christopher Hitchens’ Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, is an essay on a man whose absence in our history “simply cannot be imagined.” The man doubled the size of the U.S through the Louisiana Purchase; he was the initiator of The Lewis and Clark Expedition – the Apollo program of its day – and he helped put an end to the enslavement of Americans and Europeans by “Muslim autocracies on the north-west coast of Africa.” (It has been calculated that between 1530 and 1780, a million and a quarter Europeans were kidnapped and enslaved because of the notions of the rulers of Algiers, Morocco, Tripoli, and Tunis, so, yes, it was a bit of a quandary.)

And these examples are, of course, just a small part of Jefferson’s immense list of life-time achievements. But Hitchen’s – known for his keen, critical eye – is not blinded by the light of Jefferson. He writes about the man, not the legend, and he covers a lot of ground in 188 pages. “[I]t would be lazy or obvious,” Hitchens states, “to say that he contained contradictions or paradoxes. This is true of everybody, and of everything. It would be infinitely more surprising to strike upon a historic figure, or indeed a nation, that was not subject to this law. Jefferson did not embody contradiction. Jefferson was a contradiction, and this will be found at every step of the narrative that goes to make up his life.”

Hitchens’ book is a sharp account of Jefferson, written in a prose that is clear and easy to grasp. Thomas Jefferson, a man who believed in the redeeming qualities of education and discovery, may have saluted it.

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Following up on yesterday’s review of The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast by Stanley Riggs, try this related title!

Pilkey, described as colorful and outspoken, provides a brief balanced overview of the urgency of sea- level rise in a global context. This important book breaks a scientifically and politically complex topic into fascinating chapters for the public, defining the scope of the enormous challenges ahead and our options.

2100 seems so far in the future to some, it breeds inertia. Photos visibly show seas already claiming coastal communities, yet it took twenty years of public debate to relocate our Cape Hatteras Lighthouse back 2000 feet in 1999.

Now, rapid response is required. Indonesian scientists believe the airport of its capital, Jakarta (population 8.5 million), will be inundated by 2035. Our Outer Banks could collapse by 2050. As many as 150 million people in the world’s major cities may need engineering structures such as dikes for survival by 2070. Countries like the UK, Netherlands and South Africa are taking positive steps to prepare for inundation of their coasts.

Instead of continually funding relief for predictable disasters after they occur, Pilkey urges government agencies to focus on prevention. He advises planning for a 7 foot rise by 2100 as a cautious approach. Instead of monstrous sea walls and dikes, wherever possible he recommends retreat for a more sustainable future: strategic relocation of roads, buildings and infrastructure. He envisions redesigning with nature to maintain a coast that future generations can enjoy.

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