Paul Kingsnorth, The Wake *****

"A post-apocalyptic novel set one thousand years in the past," The Wake takes place in England at the time of the Norman Invasion (1066). The narrator Buccmaster is a landowner from the fens who loses his sons, his wife, and his home, and seeks to wreak havoc on the invading French. He straps on his grandfather's sword and takes to the forest with a motley crew of followers.

Buccmaster is a fascinating, fierce, and increasingly unpleasant character. He is sensitive to slights from the start and never lets anyone forget that he's a important landowner. He believes that the old gods of England have chosen him as their vessel to free England from the French and from Christianity. His very particular views about what's right bring him into conflict with his men.

The most notable and noticeable aspect of The Wake is that it's written in a pseudo-Old English. It sounds like a gimmick, but it works. It enhances the authenticity of the period drama, and keeps the reader's attention focused on the lovely natural setting. 

Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes ****

Whatever It Takes is an account of "Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America." Canada is the founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, which is a linked collection of social services aimed at lifting the children of Harlem out of poverty by transforming the neighborhood. The group runs two schools (kindergarten and middle school), parenting classes, afterschool programs, and more.

I read a very positive review of this book when it was published in 2008, and kept an eye out for it ever since. I finally came across a copy at Powell's Books.

The author does an excellent job of balancing high-level discussions of pedagogy with specific incidents to illustrate the challenges. The second chapter nicely summarizes the history of anti-poverty programs and the changing assumptions that underlie them. The scenes in the classrooms feel real and not cleaned up in the interest of making a point.

The book is honest about Canada's mixed results and the difficulty of accessing success. I felt a little uncomfortable about how the parenting classes promoted American middle-class practices as the "right" ones, but the author ultimately addresses this discomfort. Overall, the book is thought-provoking and doesn't claim to have all of the answers to the issues it raises.

Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things ****

I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a deliciously creepy book. Reid's prose is flat but he sure knows how to set an uncomfortable scene. 

An unnamed woman is driving through the countryside with her boyfriend, going to meet his parents. She is thinking of ending things, and her thought processes are off-kilter enough that you have to wonder what things she is thinking of ending. Should she tell Jake about the Caller who keeps leaving her cryptic phone messages that Caller ID says are from her own phone? I worried about poor Jake and what might happen to him.

Once they get to Jake's parents house, though, you have to start worrying for the girlfriend. Jake shows her dead lambs in the barn, the parents act strangely, as does Jake, and she finds primitive paintings in the dank basement. The story started out a little creepy, but kept upping the ante.

Inevitably, though, the resolution is not as satisfying as the journey.

Donald Hall, Essays After Eighty *** 1/2

Not all of the personal essays in this collection from (former) poet Donald Hall are about aging. There are pieces about eating, exercising, facial hair, New Hampshire, and being a poet. The title essay is about the joys of writing, especially rewriting, and about how "poetry abandoned me" around the time he turned eighty. (He is now 88.) 

As befits a book from a poet, Essays After Eighty is lyrical, intimate, and brief. The first essay, "Out the Window," sets the stage well. It is about aging, and about melancholy joy of watching the world recur and change from the window of his New Hampshire farmhouse. I also enjoyed "Three Beards":

My present hairiness is monumental, and I intend to carry it into the grave. (I must avoid chemotherapy.) ... During the Civil War, beards were as common as sepsis.

Jim Crace, Quarantine **** 1/2

Around this time last year, I read my first Jim Crace novel, Being Dead, and I loved it. Quarantine is the book he wrote just before Being Dead, and it shares many of the same virtues. I'll quote my earlier review, substituting the title:

What I really like about Quarantine is how Crace manages to emphasize the physical (and aggressively non-spirtitual) details while also showing how human thoughts and feelings bring meaning to them. His prose is poetic and naturalistic at the same time.

 Quarantine takes place in the Judean desert and features Jesus as a character, so the emergence of spirituality through an emphasis on the physical is part of its theme. There's something unique and satisfying about the way Crace puts together a sentence or description.

Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to be Wrong *** 1/2

Jordan Ellenberg is a mathematics professor who writes on mathematical subjects in the popular press. The subtitle of the book is "The Power of Mathematical Thinking."

Ellenberg has a clear, relaxed writing style and a talent for choosing clear examples of real-world situations where mathematical thinking comes in to play. I found the book both entertaining and informative. The only reason I haven't given it a higher rating is that its scope is mostly limited to probability and statistics, with only small forays into the more certain areas of math. (Admittedly, the study of uncertainty applies more commonly to everyday issues.) The discussion also wandered a bit.

His examples drive home the point that small sample sizes show greater variance, and that studies often focus on the outliers so that regression to the mean is a likely explanation for changes. I also learned about the asymmetric domination effect.

Elizabeth McKenzie, The Portable Veblen **** 1/2

In this low-key and quirky novel, Paul and Veblen get engaged then start wondering whether they are doing the right thing. They are both young enough to still have doubts about their own value and about whether their idiosyncrasies are compatible. Veblen is a freelance translator who talks to squirrels and worries about her passive-aggressive mother; Paul is a doctor who has invented a tool for treating traumatic brain injuries and resents his parents' coddling of his mentally challenged brother. Can they and their families overcome their differences and live happily ever after?

McKenzie's prose reminds me of Lorrie Moore's with its light insightful touch regarding family relationships and off-kilter observations that make perfect sense. (Moore: "She was trying to tease him, but it came out wrong, like a lizard with a little hat on." McKenzie: "In it gleamed a diamond so large it would be a pill to avoid for those who easily gag.") I especially enjoyed her character-establishing anecdotes.