So maybe because I've been wanting to escape all that, I've been reading a lot lately. I read four books in January alone.
The first one I finished was Maureen Sherry's "Opening Belle". I had picked it up because of interest in the financial industry setting, and the struggle of women in the highly sexist trading environment. The story takes place around the time of the subprime crisis 2007-2008. Sadly, it's not hard to believe some of the most blatant stories of the book, although I've never had to experience anything like it myself, given my corner of the financial industry. But I do remember the environment being extremely uncomfortable for a woman when I temped at a Morgan Stanley trading floor about twenty years ago. It was a good experience then to have to know what I did not want, and I was lucky that my eventual career happened in a different setting. Sherry's book is not the greatest, and I would not recommend it unless you had some sort of interest in the financial industry and women's role in it. It's not that she's a bad writer, but unfortunately the book just doesn't have that special something.
The second one I read was a different story altogether. J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" is a great book because it grabs you emotionally. My reason for reading it was to understand why Trump got elected - what is going on in the minds of the poor underemployed white Americans. The book does a good job describing the blight of the hillbillies, the poverty, drug abuse, moral breakdown, lack of opportunity, erosion of the family structure, role of religion, etc. And then goes to show how it is possible to rise above, with the right support, the right decisions, with hard work and determination. The book does not offer solutions, but it did help me understand that population a little better. In addition, it is an excellently written book, and is a quick read because it's so hard to put down.
The third book I read this month was pure escapism. Unfortunately it did not offer the escape I was looking for, because it was not a very good book. I expected so much better from Wilbur Smith, having read his great book "River God" a long time ago. "Pharaoh" had all the right ingredients, but for some reason it just fell short. It felt very formulaic, too long, and was not able to suck me in into its world. However, the book would probably make a great movie. Maybe it can still redeem itself if it's made into a movie. We shall see.
The final book I just finished day before yesterday, was Saroo Brierley's "Lion". The original name of the book was "Long Way Home" but it was renamed to Lion because of the recent movie of that name. What an extraordinary true story. A real tearjerker. I started crying literally on the first or second page of the book. (I'm a crier, which results in some awkward moments in the commuter train where I do most of my reading.) Anyway, the book tells Saroo's story; how he got lost from his brother at age five in India, and after a long train ride ended up alone and lost living on the streets of Calcutta. He was eventually adopted to a family in Australia, and from there as an adult, he painstakingly used Google maps (the search took years) to determine where he was from in India. Amazingly, after being lost for 25 years, he found his mother, brother and sister. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm definitely keen to see how it lives up to the book and the story. It doesn't hurt that Nicole Kidman plays the Australian mother, and Rav Patel plays Saroo.
And now I'm looking for a good book to sink into as I travel across the country next week. Any recommendations?
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