Wanting something a little different, I followed Ghost Train with The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir by Patrica Harman. Harman works as a nurse-midwife in a private practice with her ob-gyn husband Tom in Torrington, West Virginia. In this economically depressed area and with the rising costs of malpractice insurance, the couple is forced to provide only gynecological exams and first trimester care. The sections in the book are broken up into the stories of the women Harman treats. They run the gamut; a well to do mother who’s daughter is bulimic; a women being stalked by an ex-husband; young college women needing birth control advice; a professor who wants to make the transition from female to male. It’s an interesting book. Harman is more spiritual than I am (I’m not at all frankly) and isn’t afraid to write about it which might appeal to other people. Her heartfelt portraits of the women she tries to help definitely kept me reading the book.

On another note, I finished Come on Shore and We Will Kill You and Eat You All by Christina Thompson last week. It’s hard to categorize this book. Perhaps it doesn’t even need it except I had to figure out what was the best section for it in my store. Thompson has written a fantastic memoir/history/travel/sociology book. While studying literature in Australia, she traveled to New Zealand on break. There she met and fell in love with a Maori man. This is not the whole story. As they move about the world, Thompson writes about the cultural differences between the Europeans and the native peoples of New Zealand. Fascinating stuff.

Now I’m about two thirds of the way through Paul Theroux’s latest Ghost Train to the Eastern Star in which he revisits his 1970s trip through Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India, China, Japan, and Siberia. I love Theroux’s writing. He travels in a way that makes me jealous of all his experiences on the road. He’s in Vietnam right now in the book. He’s gotten there mostly by train with the occasional boat trip and short flight. Theroux has such a fine eye and he’s not afraid to analyze as well, looking beneath the surface for explanations. I can’t wait to get back to it.

I’ll be back posting next week.

The prize for the winning entry is $1,000, publication in VQR’s Winter 2009 issue, and a publishing contract for three additional reviews worth up to $3,000. Finalists (up to five) will receive a complimentary one-year student or associate membership in the National Book Critics Circle (http://www.bookcritics.org/), a one-year subscription to VQR, and may also be offered paid publication in VQR (in print or online).

Initial screening of entries will be by the staff of VQR. The final judges will be:
• Rebecca Skloot, assistant professor in the creative writing MFA program at the University of Memphis and a member of the National Book Critics Circle’s board of directors;
• Oscar Villalon, book editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a member of the National Book Critics Circle’s board of directors; and
• Ted Genoways, editor of VQR.

General Guidelines:
• Entrants must be under the age of thirty as of the closing date of the contest, September 30, 2008.
• Entries (one per person) should be at least 2,000 and no more than 3,500 words and should be an in-depth review of a book of fiction, poetry, or nonfiction published in the US after January 1, 2008.
• There is no entry fee for the contest.
• Entries will be accepted online at http://www.vqronline.org/young-reviewers-contest/

Each of the seven chapters is a profile of a a different aspect of the art world. The chapter on a Christie’s auction gives the reader a sense of the tightly paced and high energy of the event. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the art crit, which explores life in a legendary seminar at the California Institute of Art run by Michael Asher.  The students spend over 12 hours discussing three people’s work. Each chapter was eye opening for me. Thornton spent 5 years researching and writing this book and though it might seem slim to the casual eye, it’s erudite and well-written.

• I read both Augustus and Stoner by John E. Williams. They are very different books but both brilliant. Augustus is a masterful novel that brings Rome to life through a portrait of a legendary but lonely leader. Stoner portrays the quiet, sad life of a professor in the Midwest.
• I loved The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin. I mentioned it before, but it’s worth mentioning again. As the twentieth century began, so the life of Lily Aphrodite begins. We follow her through WWI up through the Weimar to the beginnings of WWII.
• I read The Heretic’s Daughter both because of the local setting (Salem, MA) and because this is one of Little Brown’s lead novels this Fall. Also I’m having lunch with the author Kathleen Kent tomorrow. The novel follows a young woman whose entire family gets swept up in the Salem witch hunt. Creepy stuff.
• Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner was a little fun reading for me. The war between humans and fairies brought about some sort of apocalypse. The main character Liza must find her way in a world where even trees can be bad. It’s good stuff.
• Francine Prose’s Goldengrove broke my heart a little. It’s a coming of age novel about a young girl trying to recover after her older sister drowns. It’s about identity and finding your way through a very confusing time. Curious to see how this book does when it comes out in September.
• I read The White Mary by Kira Salak over the weekend. It’s a gripping novel about a Czech journalist Marika Vecera who has spent her career on dangerous assignments in places like the Congo and Sierra Leone. Back in Boston after a harrowing experience, she learns that her hero, war correspondent Robert Lewis has disappeared. She runs off to Papua New Guinea in search of him. I still can’t pinpoint why I enjoyed this book so much. Salak wrote a book about traversing Papua New Guinea, so her coverage of trekking in the jungles seems true to life. She also wrote about Marika’s inner struggles with a sharp eye.
• Right now I’m in the middle of Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. The title says it all. Each chapter covers an area of the art world–judging the Turner Prize, a Christie’s auction, the Basel Art Fair, the editorial offices of Artforum, an art school crit, an artist’s studio, and the Venice Bienale. There’s so much I don’t know about the art world. I’m finding myself enjoying this book more than I expected with all the behind the scenes stuff.