The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

I am, for the most part, a person that looks on the bright side of things, and on a happiness scale of one to ten, a strong 8.5, maybe more. But why? How? And what is it about where I am that makes it so?

Eric Weiner attempts to answer all these questions in his book, The Geography of Bliss, a year of exploration to ten of the happiest places in the world.

He begins in Rotterdam’s World Database of Happiness. He discovers that the study of happiness, like any other scientific field of study, is not particularly warm and fuzzy, that happiness is subjective, and that some things, like happiness, are beyond measuring.

Still, from the Netherlands, a country of tolerance and freedom, Weiner visits the clean and punctual streets of Switzerland. He finds a connection between boredom and patience, patience and happiness. And that perhaps, a combination of three makes it easier ” to just be.”? He then goes to Bhutan, a real life Shangri-La, a place where other expats warn, ” If you stay here long enough, you lose touch with reality.”? But maybe warning is not the right word to describe it, for the simplicity of life in Bhutan brings him peace, as he falls deeper into the trance of a country that prioritizes Gross National Happiness. From there Weiner spends time in Qatar, Iceland, Moldova, Thailand, Great Britain, India, and wraps it all up in his home country of the United States.

In the end, he concludes that, ” Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude.”? A conclusion and yet there is not even an inkling of a definitive answer.

In the comforting words of one of the leading happiness researchers, Jon Helliwell, "It’s simple. There’s more than one path to happiness.”?

Where will it lead you?

Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman

After her father's death, Arlyn Singer follows what she believes to be her destiny and weds John Moody. Completely mismatched, they wade through marriage and early parenthood, sometimes just barely keeping it together.
A devastating disease tears the family apart, leaving John to parent his troubled son and baby girl in a literal house of glass. Life moves on with a new wife and the help of a nanny. Yes, life moves on. But it isn't easy, as three generations of this family discover.

Hoffman's generational tale follows the paths taken by Arlyn's family. Each member faces what it means to live in the "Glass Slipper" house and beyond. It follows the family's potential devolution as Sam's brilliance is sucked away through drugs and alcohol, and Blanca is driven away by forces she hardly understands. As heartbreaking as it is hopeful, many layers of depth can be found buried in these pages.

Numerous point-of-view shifts make some scenes hard to follow, but this is otherwise a very readable novel. Skylight Confessions will speak to anyone fascinated by family structure and the human spirit.

Mind Catcher by John Darnton

This is the first John Darnton book I have read but, unfortunately, I am not motivated to try his others after stumbling through this slow-moving and less than original novel. I found the book somewhat boring up until when, and I do not think I am giving anything away here, the computer sends its first message (those who have read it will understand).

The plot is quite simple: an evil doctor believes he can capture the "soul" of a person and keep it alive even if the body dies. Not overly original but if told right, it could be a really fun read. Yet the avenue to get to the substance of the story is somewhat winding and the book feels almost padded for length. I thought it could have been about 100 pages shorter.

The biggest thing that irks me is how this book seems to flip between genres. One minute it's a ghost story, then a medical thriller, then a science fiction novel, and closes out with a climax right out of the movie "Flatliners." What kept me reading was the father-son story but otherwise I barely made it through the novel. I was also disappointed the ending did not fully resolve the elongated story that preceded it.

I guess there are two types of books for someone like me who reads at night; those that keep you up at night and those that help you fall asleep. I would put "Mind Catcher" in the latter group.

Turn of the Screw by Henry James

This classic book is a ghost story of sorts. It is not the traditional kind, with chains and things, but it is more of a psychological suspence story. A young governess goes to take care of two children- Flora, age 8, and Miles, age 10. She soon learns that their old governess and her lover both mysteriously died. As the story goes on she begins to see apparitions of the two dead people, and she is convinced that the children have something to with it. During the whole story she works to save them from the ghosts. However, you are left to decide the whole time whether what she is seeing is real or if the kids are really guilty or if she is psycho or what.

I liked the way the plot went because I was left to figure out and interpret things for myself the whole way along. James did not just come out and say things but left them to be interpreted by many different ways. This may be frustrating for readers who like the story to be spelt out to them, but if you like suspense and trying to see a story from many different viewpoints, you will like the story too.

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

The Lock Artist is unique for only ONE reason: the locks, lock picking, and safe cracking. That's about it. The whole time I kept thinking I've seen this whole framework before.

Here's the breakdown:

Young boy has a tragedy, It scars him, causes him to never speak again and shapes his boyhood. Boy falls for girl. Girl in danger so boy must "protect" her by doing something he doesn't want to do. Boy goes on journey, always thinking back to girl, Boy eventually reaches end of the line, Rescued just in time, Boy finds himself, faces his demons, and owns up for his mistakes.

Done. Sadly that's about it. The best parts of the book were the discussions on lock picking and safe cracking. Steve Hamilton gets it right and makes it interesting. Unfortunately the long time line of the book, coupled with jumps back and forth, numerous characters and situations, end up being too much to keep up with. By the end of the book, which ends in a rather let down to the reader I thought, you're left with a dozen questions. Where happened to this person, that person, why did that happen, etc. Too many loose strings.

Nice attempt but needs a lot of work.

The Terror by Dan Simmons

An intriguing mash-up of a horror novel and historical fiction. Simmons starts with a real-life 19th century nautical expedition that disappeared in the arctic while searching for a northwest passage, and whose members must have perished from the elements, disease, and starvation, and adds a monster. Simmons is a master of detail and atmosphere: his writing captures the many particular realities of life on an 1840s British naval vessel, the grueling, claustrophobic experience of being stranded in arctic cold and darkness, and the gradual disintegration of human order as circumstances grow more desperate.

In a way, the monster plot is superfluous to the story, which is intense enough without it. As it is, the deliciously grim descriptions of hauling a sledge across a frozen waste or trying to sleep in fifty below zero weather while sick with scurvy, running out of food, and hundreds of miles from anywhere will make you feel grateful for being at home in a warm bed. But Simmons uses his creature as an effective background presence in the story, symbolic, in the way fictional monsters usually are, of the folly and weakness of man in the face of the wild.

The book moves at a slow pace, which had me occasionally skimming pages to the more exciting parts. And some character vantage points seemed to be there just for a sense of atmosphere, which made me wonder if I would have missed that much had I gone with the abridged audio version instead of the printed edition. Still, the oppressive grip of the story pulled me through to the end.

Social Crimes by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

Social Crimes is about a wealthy, spoiled and completely naive woman name Jo Slater. Jo marries a wealthy older man that promises nothing other than financial security. Despite the parties mingled with the elite of New York, Jo claims to be so much more grounded and humble. She is not. When her gluttonous wealth is stripped away, Jo's life becomes one pathetic attempt after another to regain the life she once possessed.

Now broke, overweight and gasp.....middle class, Jo finds herself so consumed with bitterness and anger that she begins obsessing how she can both regain her wealth and social status and quench her thirst for revenge against the woman who stole it all out from under her, the Countess. Her arch nemesis, The Countess Camille De Passy, has basically stepped into Jo's role as New York's social lioness.

This is a story that plays as the ultimate revenge, but instead it becomes so much more....or less depending on how you look at it. The story moves at a quick and interesting pace. I was never bored but I was never amused either. Even though Jo Slater is supposed to be the heroine of the story, I found her to be pathetic, naive, shallow and utterly shameful in her attempts to regain her wealth. She never aspires to be anything more, just a rich woman with a lavish lifestyle. I don't think anyone is supposed to actually feel sorry for her or like her. Good. I don't. The antagonist, Camille, becomes the more interesting and diabolical character. I like her. She may be a cold blooded creature but at least she has a plan that works...for the moment anyway.