December Preview and Life Drawing

Yikes winter hit hard here on Black Friday, with -6F temps and a wind chill of -27F. By the evening it was a full-on blizzard with a heavy dumping of snow. Now the storm seems to have passed, but it’s still bitter out there and best to stay inside, gazing out the window next to the fire place sipping hot cocoa. Yesterday between wearing a neck gaiter, two hats and goggles, I was able to cover my face while walking the dog in the park, which worked quite well. Only the times I had to take my gloves off for moments, did I freeze. After this, I feel like with the right equipment I could be ready for Mars.

But it’s too late now to moan, December is upon us. And pretty soon everyone will be putting their Best of Book Lists out for 2014. Already Amazon’s editors’ book picks for 2014 seem quite interesting. For the best book of the year, the editors there picked Celeste Ng’s debut novel “Everything I Never Told You,” which is about a Chinese-American family living in Ohio whose oldest daughter is found to have drowned in a nearby lake, thereby unraveling the once close-knit family in unexpected ways, according to Booklist. The novel came out this past June, and I definitely plan to pick it up in the near future. Have you read it?

Also I failed to mention last week a congrats to Phil Klay for winning this year’s National Book Award for fiction for his collection “Redeployment,” which includes twelve stories about the Iraq War and its aftermath. War novels about Iraq and Afghanistan surely have gained considerable attention the past few years with the publication of Ben Fountain’s book “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” and Kevin Powers’s “The Yellow Birds.” However after all the talk about “The Yellow Birds” in 2012, I can’t say I liked that book much, which disappointed me. And while I’m not a big reader of war writing, I’ll likely pick up “Redeployment” by Phil Klay, who served as a Marine in Iraq from 2007-2008.

As for new December releases, there’s not a lot of literary fiction coming out this month. Of those that are, perhaps “The Boston Girl” by Anita Diamant might entice me most. According to Amazon, it’s about the ties of family, friendship and feminism through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early 20th century. I quite liked Diamant’s 1997 bestselling first novel “The Red Tent” so I think this one could be interesting as well.

As for movies out this month, I plan to see “Wild” with Reese Witherspoon, which is the movie adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 book “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.” I read and reviewed that book that year, and while I liked it, I also had a good share of reservations about it, too. Still I’m curious to see what Reese will do with the role.

I also plan to see “Unbroken” towards the end of the month about Louis Zamperini’s prisoner-of-war experiences during WWII. Angelina Jolie directs this epic, which I hope will live up to some of the popularity of Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 bestselling book. But first I plan to read it before seeing the movie on the big screen.

In music this month, I’m sure I’ll be listening to a lot of Christmas songs as the month goes on. But for new releases, I’ll pick the covers album “Classics” by the duo She & Him to check out.

In other news, I finished Robin Black’s 2014 novel “Life Drawing” this week, which is about a middle-aged married couple (a painter and a writer) who move to the country to do their work and to heal after the wife’s infidelity. Yet ultimately their lives are disrupted in various ways by a British divorcee and her daughter who move in next door. At first the couple really takes to them but then things become entangled and confidences breached, causing a fall out for all.

The plot is quite interesting in its exploration of the couple’s marriage, which is weighted down by the past infidelity, and the secrets they keep and the confidences they share with others, as well as their many layers. I just wish the novel hadn’t saved much of its action till the final few pages. It seems to very subtly build and build and build and I began to wonder if anything was ever going to happen in the book, though I did keep reading to find out. But much of the book seems quite serious and grim, a chronicle of the artistic couple’s working lives together, which seems rather joyless. I couldn’t bond much with the wife who tells the story. Yet the setting of the country house and barn, the neighbor next door, and the married couple’s tension-filled lives came off quite vividly to me.

So I guess I feel half and half about “Life Drawing.” I’d say it’s a quiet book with a big ending. It explores some interesting themes. I liked it but maybe not effusively so.

What about you have you read this one and what did you think? If not, what releases are you looking forward to in December?