WHAT ARE YOU READING?

By Nora Levine
Nora Levine can be reached at .

GIRLS LIKE US: CAROLE KING, JONI MITCHELL, CARLY SIMON. Sheila Weller
Well, maybe not just like us, these three brilliant women broke some barriers, had lots of ups and downs personally and professionally, and wrote some pretty good music along the way.

Girls Like Us interweaves the lives of these individual women and their times, including the early feminist movement. Carole King’s “Will you still love me tomorrow?” recorded by the Shirelles in 1961 became a smash hit but scandalized some radio stations with its female clear-eyed contemplation of pre-marital sex. To set it in context of the times, according to Wikipedia, it was preceded on the “Billboard Hot 100 Number One Single” list by “Wonderland by Night”, artist Berk Kaempfert (where is Berk now?) and was itself bumped off the list by “Calcutta” by Lawrence Welk. Women artists who spoke their minds had a long way to go, baby! (Ironically, the proto-feminist lyrics to “Will you still love me tomorrow?” were written by her songwriting partner and husband, Gerry Goffin.)

Carole had a knack for choosing the wrong men, including Goffin, most of whom did not want to give her credit for her incredible talent. She was so anxious and nervous in performance she stayed in the background as a singer-songwriter far longer than she wanted. In her later years, she became an extremely vocal and contentious environmentalist and survived two weirdly bad marriages to wild west outdoorsmen.

Joni Mitchell had her own style, to say the least, and was never as popular on the charts as she was critically. She advanced a very personal vision of femininity and a unique take on how to live as a woman. Her songs and her life were never very far apart. She suffered her whole life from an act in her younger days which she regretted and which was only somewhat rectified in her later years.

The youngest, Carly Simon showed that women from all backgrounds were looking for new ways of living and loving. She was the upper-crust society girl of the three, Carole King being from a modest background in Sheepshead Bay in New York, and Joni Mitchell a descendant of Canadian farmers. Carly was known as the daughter of Mr. Simon of Simon & Schuster publishers. Mr. Simon was a distant father and for most of her youth she was out shadowed by far more “talented” sisters. Add to the mix a household which included live-in lovers of both her parents and we can start to see where Carly got her ideas of freewheeling sex and, and at the same time, her desire for a family that was not like her own.

There is plenty of gossip in the book from who never got over her affair with Jackson Browne to who had relationships with James Taylor. James Taylor Answer: all three, although Carole King’s relationship was strictly platonic and musical. But the emphasis here is mostly on the music and I have found myself going to iTunes to record and remember some of those special times.
Claudia Cook
Heller Ehrman

THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES. Jennifer 8. Lee
This is an excellent book, written by a journalist, who used to cover the crime beat for the New York Times, and who is not actually a food critic. The book kept my interest because it both answers light-hearted questions like, "Where and when was the fortune cookie invented" (hint: closer to San Francisco's Chinatown than China), but also provides a fascinating history of the proliferation of Chinese restaurants in the United States and the immigration odyssey of today's Chinese restaurant workers. There is a lot in here that was eye-opening for me and the others in my book group. It's a fast and enjoyable read, and surprisingly informative. (Warning: reading this book will make you hungry for Chinese food. Read and eat with caution!)
Sara F. Dudley
Severson & Werson, PC

HISTORY LESSONS: HOW TEXTBOOKS FROM AROUND THE WORLD PORTRAY U.S. HISTORY. Dana Lindaman and Hyle Ward
The authors have chosen excerpts from non-U.S. textbooks to show the perspectives of other countries on events in U.S. history. I haven't yet finished the book (it is my "BART book"), but it has been fascinating to read what Zimbabwe and Portugal teach their students about the slave trade, and what Canada and Mexico teach about "Manifest Destiny." This book has been a good refresher course for me on U.S. history, and I'm eager to read the sections on WWI and II and the Cold War.

THE LOST SUTRAS OF JESUS: UNLOCKING THE ANCIENT WISDOM OF THE XIAN MONKS. Ray Riegert & Thomas Moore, eds.
Who knew? Well, I didn't, anyway. In the 7th century a small group of Christian monks traveled the Silk Road from Persia to China to preach the gospel. They were received into the ancient city of Xian and allowed to build a monastery nearby, and then disappeared from history. Hidden for almost 1000 years, a cache of their scrolls was discovered at the turn of the 20th century and recently have gotten the attention they deserve. "The Lost Sutras of Jesus" reflect the changes the monks experienced as they lived in a Buddhist land and adapted their Christian teachings to include Zen wisdom. I found the sutras presented in this small volume beautiful and deeply moving. "...Contemplate the world as a place where the wealthy exhaust both their body and spirit accumulating treasure that cannot help them at the end. They are like small jars that cannot hold the rivers, lakes and seas they covet." Reading this small introduction makes me eager to study this bit of history further.
Janet Fischer
Golden Gate University Law Library

GREENFIRE; THE DEEP SACRED MYSTERY, AN INTUITIVE HISTORY OF THE FIFTH CENTURY IN CELTIC COUNTRY. Pamela Coy
The author tells a fascinating tale of a young woman, Seabhac, and her journeys through space and time as she matures into a leader of her Celtic tribe. Coy considers herself an intuitive historian, i.e. she travels to a location and "soaks in the clues" of historical events that occurred. The book is historical fiction and takes the reader into Celtic mythology. As a previous reviewer has written, the book is "...filled with details which enable the reader to picture the place, the people, and the happenings in one's mind and heart." Coy also includes chapters describing her travels to obtain the story. In one instance she arrives in London without further plans or reservations. On her arrival she takes the bus that is leaving for Reading, as she steps off the bus a train conductor yells that the train to Taunton is just leaving, so she continues on to that town. At the next stop, she needs to decide on whether to take a bus to Lynmouth or Minehead. The driver of a commuter bus has room for her and offers to aid her in her decision by polling the riders on his bus. They unanimously agree that she should go to Lynmouth.

I enjoyed following the author's adventures and misadventures in her travels and also being immersed in the story of Seabhac and her life in the Fifth century.
Lauri Flynn
Gunderson Dettmer

A PIECE OF CAKE. Cupcake Brown
An 11-year old girl who found her mother dead one morning was forced into the foster home care system in California. What an oxymoron – there was no “care” and it sure wasn’t a “home.” The abuse in the foster homes where she was placed was sickening. She ran away repeatedly and became addicted to drugs and alcohol, anything to mask the pain on those nights when the fridge was chained and locked and she didn’t have enough to eat.

From her gangster life in Los Angeles to her drug dealing in San Diego, I watched her spiraling downward. But there was hope between the lines of the pages. How she overcame her addictions, turned her life in a new direction and later went on to attend the University of San Francisco School of Law is an amazing and inspiring story.
Julie Horst
USF Law Library

THE EYRE AFFAIR. Jasper Fforde
I just listened to The Eyre Affair, published in 2001, which is the first novel by Jasper Fforde. It is the story of literary detective Thursday Next's pursuit of a master criminal through an alternative 1984 and through the pages of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. This is such an unlikely book for me as I don't care for fantasy/science fiction. But it was funny with puns and plays on words and literary references. I found out about it through Nancy Pearl's books, Book Lust and More Book Lust. I love lists of recommended books. And her books opened my eyes to lots of books I had never heard of.

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY. Winifred Watson
I also just read Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. I had seen the movie and was intrigued to discover the differences. The movie added a bit more plot and reassigned some of the characters, but all in all both the book and the movie are a great depiction of the day in the life of a down-and-out governess/gentlewoman. It is funny and sweet and hard-edged all at the same time. A lovely "coming into oneself" book from the 1930's.

I am a knitter and read various knitting blogs. One of my favorites is www.yarnstorm.blogs.com. The author of this blog wrote about Persephone Books which reprints forgotten classics by twentieth-century (mostly women) writers. If you love English novels, this is the place to find all these books from between the Wars. They arrive in dove grey covers. Delicious.
Peg LaFrance
Orrick

THE AGE OF DREAMING. Nina Revoyr
It's 1964 and a reporter comes to interview Jun Nakayama about his career in the early days of Hollywood. Although he was once a star in the silent film era, he hasn't discussed his exciting past - or thought much about it himself - in the decades since he stopped acting. The young journalist's visits bring up many memories for Jun about that era in movie making, especially the sense of exuberance one had of being part of a new medium. I learned about silent films (there are more subtle differences that just the fact that there is no sound) as the author mixes real silent film actors and directors into her cast of characters. In addition to her fascinating recreation of filmmaking in Los Angeles in the early 20th century, Revoyr also looks at the more personal secrets and mysteries of why this elegant gentleman left his craft, about anti-Japanese racism in the United States and about his lingering sadness and loneliness. (I know he's the wrong race, but I kind of picture an older Richard Chamberlain as the 1960's Jun.)

It reminded me of another really good novel, William Mann's The Biograph Girl, at least in the sense of being a fictionalized account of a reporter interviewing a silent film star about her career, many decades later, and the mixture of real people and fictionalized ones.

THE COMMISSION: THE UNCENSORED HISTORY OF THE 9/11 INVESTIGATION. Philip Shenon
Shenon, a New York Times reporter, takes us on a behind the scenes look at the making of the 9/11 report and shows that compromises were made that in the long run prevented the Commission from producing a report that got at the whole truth. He shows us the Commission's often difficult task of examining government archives and files, their interviews with officials involved in anti-terrorism efforts and the specific events of 9/11, and the resistance of government officials to those inquiries. Were the commissioners, especially the co-chairs, in trying so hard to be bipartisan and please both Democrats and Republicans, resistant to pointing the finger at individuals in the Bush or Clinton administrations? Would a nonpartisan commission have prepared a less politicized and more informative report? Probably, but they wouldn't have had access to as many officials and files as this one did. Did the powerful Executive Director, with his ties to the Bush Administration, protect Bush officials and prevent staff from delving too deeply into certain areas? (The E.D. was a former State Department employee who authored a strategy paper justifying preemptive war, who co-wrote a book with Condoleezza Rice and who made many questionable phone calls to the office of Karl Rove.)

Just like the commissioners and staff, the reader will probably bring his or her political leanings to the book, but this shouldn't keep partisans of either party from enjoying a look at the research that went into preparing the report. How did they get access to classified documents or find documents that they hadn't even known existed? What political maneuvering did they go through to get Bush and Rice to testify? There are some wonderful scenes in the National Archives as the archivists realize a former high Clinton official has been removing documents from the reading room. How should they handle this delicate situation? Readers are there at the meeting between Henry Kissinger, Bush's initial chair of the Commission, and a delegation of 9/11 widows who ask him if he has any clients named Bin Laden. Kissinger resigned the next day.

Like All the President's Men, this is a newspaper reporter's look at the story behind the story and a good read.
Paula Lichtenberg
Keker & Van Nest

BRIDGE OF SIGHS. Richard Russo
This is his first book since the Pulitzer winning Empire Falls and it is a worthy follow up. Russo tells the story of the Lynch Family, particularly Lou C. (Lucy) Lynch, denizens of the small town of Thomaston, New York. Although it is a small town story (like most of Russo's books), it has universal themes of family, childhood, love, loss, and changing times that are quite moving and engrossing. Russo is one of those writers who make the craft look effortless and his comfortable style lends itself to screenplay adaptation. It's no wonder that most of his novels have been made into successful films; at times I felt like there was a movie going on in my head while I was reading the book. Highly recommended.
Anthony McGrath
O'Melveny & Myers

THE ALGEBRAIST. Iain M. Banks
As noted by Amazon: Banks pulls out all the stops in this gloriously over-the-top, state-of-the-art space opera, a Hugo nominee in its British edition. This is an enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.
Eric Montes
Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP

TROY: LORD OF THE SILVER BOW
TROY: SHIELD OF THUNDER
TROY: FALL of KINGS. David Gemmell
I am not a big fan of fantasy that is about other worlds, but I do enjoy reading novels that present other versions of familiar stories and myths. I just finished the third novel in the series on Troy, by David Gemmell, a noted fantasy writer. The events in the novel occur before and during a war with Troy that spans about three fighting seasons. All the usual suspects are there: Hector, Achilles, Priam, Agamemnon, Cassandra and Odysseus. The gods are invoked often, but are not involved in events as they are in the Iliad. Odysseus is as smart as we would wish and a great storyteller. He cleverly intersperses easily recognized episodes from the Odyssey into the tales of his adventures before and during the events of the Trojan War.

The two main characters are Helikaon, a Dardanian prince known to us as Aeneas, and Andromache. If you took four years of Latin in high school like I did, you know that Aeneas is the only major character in Troy who escaped to even greater glory in the Aeneid, but Andromache was a surprise. The author cleverly finessed the tradition of her marriage to Hector and her fate after the fall of Troy into how she ended up with Helikaon at the Seven Hills, a small settlement he founded west of the Greek city states.

Gemmell died before the completion of the third novel, and his wife finished it based on his sketches and outlines. It was the least interesting of the three, missing the master’s touch. Maybe I was just sorry to reach an end that I knew was coming.
Mary Ann Parker
CA Dep’t of Water Resources

ORACLE BONES. Peter Hessler
Oracle Bones is written by a journalist who has moved beyond reporting to a novel that mesmerized me with its the insights into China of today. Peter Hessler observes China as it is transforming itself into one of the most dynamic countries on Earth. Reading this book made me understand the Chinese political problems with the West, as well as with their own government. Now I can understand all the deaths from the recent tragic earthquake (rapidly built buildings with shoddy materials), as well as everyday life in China. If you have any interest in China, this book will hold you captive with a story about the ancient oracles and today's world.
Karen Trauthen
Seyfarth Shaw LLP