The Brief History of Death by Kevin Brockmeier

The Brief History of The Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Published 2006 by Pantheon Books
Source: this one is mine

Publisher's Summary:
The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City’s only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out.


My Thoughts:
Like Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, in The Brief History of The Dead a virus has raced around the earth, killing off its victims in just a matter of hours. And, like Mandel, Brockmeier spends very little time focusing on that. Instead we are left dealing with what happens afterward and those that are left.

In The Brief History of The Dead, this means a massive increase in the population of The City, a kind of holding place for those who have died but are still remembered by the living. But, as the virus rapidly takes its toll, the population of The City disappears as fast as it arrived. Those left begin to discover something strange - most of them knew Laura Byrd in some way. Why?

Meanwhile, when the two people Byrd was stationed with fail to return from their mission and the power fails at the station, Byrd strikes out to find a stronger radio, food, and human contact. Along her way, she has a lot of time to think. About her family, about incidents in her life both large and small, about the people who crossed her life.

It's not often you find a book with two disparate story lines that are equally strong. Laura's journey is perilous and tense but also filled with an indictment of corporate America and greed, as well as the small moments of life. Which is the real tie between the two story lines. In The City, those who are "in limbo" carry on much as they did in life but with the opportunity to ponder their choices in life and the chance to make some amends before they move on.

The final 30 pages dragged a bit for me until very near the end. Not so much Brockmeier's problem as mine. I was so hoping for a certain outcome and expected a build up to that. Brockmeier had other ideas and, with that in mind, he ties up the story just the way it should be done.

This one's going straight into The Big Guy's hands. I can't wait to hear what he thinks about it.

West With The Night by Beryl Markham

West With The Night by Beryl Markham
Originally Published 1942
Source: purchased for my Nook

Summary (Bookrags.com):
The memoir of Beryl Markham, horse trainer, bush pilot, and history making aviatrix. Beryl Markham grew up in the wilds of Africa where her father raised racehorses on their farm. Beryl followed in her father's footsteps by becoming the first woman in Africa to receive her horse-training license. Fascinated with the talents of her friend, Tom Black, Beryl learned to fly and went on to become the first person to fly east to west across the Atlantic from London to North America. Although her flight ended in Nova Scotia rather than the intended New York, Beryl will always be known for her courage and her groundbreaking talents.


My Thoughts:
Having recently read Paula McLain's fictionalized account of Markham's life (Circling The Sun - my review here), I was eager to "hear" the story in Markham's own words, particularly in light of so many critics who questioned why McLain felt the need to write her novel when Markham had already told her story.

I imagine McLain's reasons were twofold: Markham's life was exceptional and historic and Markham shared very little of her personal life in her own book. In West With The Night, Markham doesn't mention her husbands at all, rarely speaks of the father who raised her after her mother abandoned a very young Beryl, or her many lovers. Friends are only mentioned in so far as they pertain to the antidotes Markham is sharing. I missed the people that shared Markham's life in her own book.

There's been some debate as to whether or not Markham actually wrote West With The Night, particularly in light of the fact that it was written at the time she was married to a writer. I don't really care who wrote it. It is clearly Markham's story as she wanted it told and it's wonderfully written.

"Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer's paradise, a hunter's Valhalla, an escapist's Utopia. It is what you will, it it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one."

What West With The Night lacks in personal detail, it more than makes up for in atmosphere. Markham is unsentimental except when she writes about animals and Africa.

"...for Africa was the breath and life of my childhood. 

It is still the host of all my darkest fears, the cradle of mysteries always intriguing, but never wholly solved. It is the remembrance of sunlight and green hills, cool water and the yellow warmth of bright mornings. It is as ruthless as any sea, more uncompromising than its own deserts. It is without temperance in its harshness or in its favors. It yields nothing, offering much to men of all races. 

But the soul of Africa, its integrity, the slow inexorable pulse of its life, is its own and of such singular rhythm that no outsider, unless steeped from childhood in its endless, even beat, can ever hope to experience it, except only as a bystander might experience a Masai war dance knowing nothing of its music nor the meanings of its steps."

Of her unforgettable adventures Markham wrote:

"The only disadvantage in surviving a dangerous experience lies in the fact that your story of it tends to be anticlimactic. You can never carry on right through the point where whatever it is that threatens your life actually takes it - and get anybody to believe you. The world is full of sceptics."

Maybe so when telling the stories to people living on colonial Africa but for today's readers tales of surviving lion and bull elephant attacks and perilous flights over dangerous territory and oceans the stories are all the more incredible for Markham's ability to survive on her own terms.

"We are bound for a place thirty-six hundred miles from here - two thousand miles of it unbroken ocean. Most of the way it will be night. We are flying west with the night."

Life: It Goes On - June 5

It's summer now - the air-conditioner runs from early in the morning until late into the evening, my commute has gotten faster thanks to school being out, and evenings out with friends mean time on a patio. Love it!

It's been a busy week around here. My sister decided to have a garage sale and asked if I wanted to join her. You know I'm always looking for excuses to clear clutter out of my house so I was onboard. Of course, that meant spending time going through "stuff," a night of pricing and moving it over to my sister's, three days of sale followed by a couple of hours of boxing up the remains of the sale to donate to charity. We didn't have a great turnout but I got a fair amount out of my house and made a few bucks so I suppose it was worth it. Although I won't be doing it again any time soon.

Yesterday we went to a Relay for Life event to support one of Miss H's friends who has a rare combination of cancers. We got some walking in, she got to spend time with her friend, and we got to support a cause that's near and dear to our hearts.

This Week I'm:

Listening To: One more week of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. I think I've been telling you that I've been listening to The Girl Who Played With Fire still. The Big Guy is actually listening to that one now. This one has so many characters to keep track of and often wandered off into deep backstories but things are moving fast now and I'm really enjoying it.

Watching: Nothing exciting. Mostly a lot of baseball.

Reading: I'll finish Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead and then I'm back to Emma Cline's The Girls. Very much enjoying Brockmeier's book which brings to mind Station Eleven for me.

Making: We finished the buffet-into-entertainment center project today when we finally decided on hardware. It took a little longer than expected when BG realized that we would need to take out another drawer and turn it into a shelf and get that painted. Got it moved into the house today and we are loving it! I would like to move it to a different wall but that requires some speaker rewiring so I'm not going to win that argument anytime soon.

Planning: To turn Mini-him's room into a guest room this week. He still has some things to get out of it and then I can set up the bed, rearrange furniture, and decorate.  

Thinking About: Ways to find more time for reading which mostly means finding ways to make myself put down electronic devices for a couple of hours a day. I have spent way too much time sucked down the rabbit hole that is the internet lately.

Enjoying: Time with friends and family this week. No better way to recharge the batteries during a busy week.

Feeling: Tired. 

Looking forward to: A few days with nothing on the calendar and nothing that has to be done.

Asking:  We went to my favorite place to get a Cuban sandwich the other night and I'm wondering what's your favorite sandwich?

Seasons of Reading: Sci-Fi Summer Read-a-Thon

Michelle, of Seasons of Reading, is hosting the Sci-Fi Summer Readathon this week. I had planned to read The Martian during the read-a-thon but it's Mini-him's and he took it with him when he moved. Rotten kid. Instead I'm reading Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead. I'm not sure that it rightly qualifies as sci-fi because I'm not sure there's any actual science involved. Although there is a pandemic. So, science, right?

There's not a lot of time to read this week so my read-a-thon may be nothing more than the usual amount of reading, just a book out of my usual comfort zone. Which is a good thing.

What book(s) would you read if you were joining us?

The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett

The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett
Originally published July 1998
Source: bought it for my Nook

Publisher's Summary:
The Ransomes had been burgled. "Robbed," Mrs. Ransome said. "Burgled," Mr. Ransome corrected. Premises were burgled; persons were robbed. Mr. Ransome was a solicitor by profession and thought words mattered. Though "burgled" was the wrong word too. Burglars select; they pick; they remove one item and ignore others. There is a limit to what burglars can take: they seldom take easy chairs, for example, and even more seldom settees. These burglars did. They took everything.

When the sedate Ransomes return from the opera to find their Notting Hill flat stripped absolutely bare—down to the toilet paper off the roll, they face a dilemma: Who are they without the things they've spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly the world is full of unlimited and frightening possibility.

My Thoughts:
All it took for me to decide to buy this one was that name - Alan Bennett. The guy who's written screenplays I've loved, including The Madness of King George. The guy who wrote one of my favorite reads of 2009, The Uncommon Reader (my review here). I picked it to read now because at under 200 pages, I assumed it could keep my interest for that long, even if I'm suffering from the reading doldrums. And, again, Alan Bennett.

Bennett did not disappoint. The Ransomes are so set in their ways, so staid, that Mr. Ransome's first name sounds odd to Mrs. Ransome's ears. "Set in their ways" may not be the right phrase. It's more a case of set in Mr. Ransome's ways. Not until everything they had every had, right down to the casserole baking in the oven, was stolen, does Mrs. Ransome realize that "their" ways might not be her ways. In fact, she feels a certain unexpected lightness and a joy in exploring new places and meeting new people as she sets out to pick up the things they need to get by until the insurance settles up. The television they've never had until now opens her eyes to new ways to think and speak. Mr. Ransome carries on, determined to benefit from the event only financially.

When The New York Times reviewed this book, the reviewer felt it would not do as well in the U.S. as it had done in Britain because Americans would not be able to connect to Mr. Ransome's "emotional constipation" and Mrs. Ransome's "pathological diffidence." Well, perhaps those are more British traits than American but that's not to say that we don't all know people like the Ransomes. Besides, I think we can all relate to the very mixed feelings the Ransomes have about their "stuff" and, British or not, appreciate Bennett's terrific wit.

If nothing else, The Clothes They Stood Up In will make readers think about their attachment to their "things" and the weight those same things can put on us.