Some good reads and some thoughts about Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Three books, three topics, each worth the time to read. Although each author's last name begins with a "B" (O'Brien - disregarding the O, Berendt, and Berlinski), these authors each receive an A++ from me.

But first, because I purchased two of these books from Barnes & Noble and one from Amazon, a few comments about these booksellers:

- Amazon: I purchase most of my books at Amazon because Amazon nearly always offers a bigger discount than I can receive at Barnes & Noble, and I love being able to look back in my history to see what I've purchased and when. I use that feature all the time.

However, I wish Amazon had a handy way for me to note that I own a book that I didn't purchase from them. I know Amazon could do this because when they make recommendations for me, I can check a box that I already own the book. But I can't find any way to mark a book on purpose. If Amazon doesn't recommend it, I don't have the option to say I already own it.
Update on 3/21/08: Wow! I just found the feature I wanted on Amazon. It's called Your Media Library. For those who knit, having this feature is like having a membership to Ralvelry!!! Boy, am I going to use this!!!

- Barnes & Noble: Unlike Amazon, I can purchase books from Barnes & Noble in a retail store or online. That's kind of nice, but here's the beef:

Even though I use the same member's discount number to get a bit more discount on my purchases both in the store and online, that's the end of the connection between these two ways of purchasing books from BN. I wish BN online kept a record of my store purchases in my online account. What a boon that would be!! It might even encourage me to purchase more books from BN, whether in the store or online, in spite of the fact that BN is slightly more expensive, because I would be willing to pay that little bit more for the nifty record keeping. There are some definite advantages in being able to go into a retail store and leafing through a book before you purchase it.

That said, here's a little bit about these three books.

Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried

War books aren't my thing, as a rule, but this book caught my eye when I was browsing at our local Barnes & Noble before I left for the Philippines. The things that attracted my interest:

-The book is described as literature on the back cover. For a reader like me, this means that it's probably not just a (fictionalized) historical account (which wouldn't interest me, though it probably should).

-This book a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This isn't a strong selling point by itself because I don't "get" all Pulitzer-Prize books, but it is a fact that gets my attention.

-The notes on the back of the book indicated this story was about the people in the Vietnam war, and the title - The Things They Carried - is provocative.

I wasn't disappointed in my choice. The writing is fluid and carried me along with it; the characters have depth and unexpected (very human) traits and they captured my thoughts; the truths about life, as described by Tim O'Brien, resonated within me and are memorable. Here's a passage from the book:

You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. ..."Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer... You'd feel cheated if it never happened... Yet even if it did happen--and maybe it did, anything's possible--even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth...

And that, to me, was the theme of the whole story. You can't tell a whole truth, because truth is illusive. You can only draw a picture and then extract the truth from it. The truth is in what you can't tell. O'Brien made me feel what it might be like to have been in Vietnam - for a second or two at a time, because the truth just doesn't stay with you. But his stories do stick to you, and they change you.

Can a war story be beautiful? This one was. It will both haunt me and please me for time to come.

If you search Amazon for "things they carried," you'll see that the book has spawned reader's guides from a number of sources - it's that good!

John Berendt - The City of Falling Angels

This book is nothing like O'Brien's book - it's obvious I'm not reading on a theme.

Berendt is a journalist, and this is his account of the people and culture in Venice when the Fenice opera house burned in 1997. His stories about the events and people there are totally engaging - rising to the level of thoroughly readable great gossip.

I learned a lot about Venice from reading the book, and the learning was all pleasure!

I am not usually a person who goes out of her way to learn about the lives of famous or great people of the world - or the rich and the famous (although I do peek at the entertainment rags while I'm waiting in line in the grocery store), but this book was a delicious account of not only Venetians and Europeans, but of very well-known Americans - artists, socialites, and those who hang around them. The name dropping kept me giddy with pleasure.

What a great read! Now I will have to go back and find my copy of Midnight in the Garden..., also by Berendt, and read it. Berendt is a very, very good writer!

Mischa Berlinski - Fieldwork

I'm about half way through this book, and it's really difficult to believe this is a first novel. This fellow can write, and I hope we will be seeing many more of his works in the future.

This story is about American missionaries and anthropologists in Thailand, but it's not so much about their work as it is about how they go about their work, why they do their work, and how their lives are shaped by their long-term experiences in this foreign land. Added to that, we have the lives of the narrator, a young journalist, and his girlfriend, a teacher, who have moved to Thailand so she can work.

Although the plot is multi-faceted and follows the lives of six principal characters, the narration seamlessly transports you from character to character, from life situation to life situation, from yesterday to today. There are no messy transitions where you feel you have to go back several chapters and see where you left off with a particular character.

Berlinski's conversations are as easy as Amy Tan's - a favorite author of mine. He has a natural gift for story telling.

Read this book!