Finished: Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro). Haunting, heartbreaking, well-written book! What you think is going to be a story about three children growing up together at an English boarding school, turns into a horrific reality. Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, raised and educated at Hailsham all their lives, even as infants, form a friendship and bond that carries them through ups and downs in their relationships and their lives until only one of them is still surviving at the end of the story. Ruth, the more dominant of the three, attaches herself to Tommy in their teens and they become a couple, when in reality, it's clear that Kathy and Tommy have more of a connection and have "loved" each other for a long time. What they, and we, come to find out is that the three friends, and many other children like them, are clones of other human beings....clones that were created for the sole purpose of some day being organ donors for "real" people. Their reproductive organs have been altered so that they can never have children. As they reach the age of 18, they are all taught first to be "carers"...people who will actually be caregivers to the organ donors. Then, after a few  years of being carers, they become the organ donors themselves...living in centers, going through surgeries, and eventually donating so many organs (usually by the fourth donation), that they die (in their terms, they "complete"), where everything else that can possibly be harvested is then taken. It's just an awful, haunting premise...scary. And it takes place in the 1990's!  Even the guardians who are their teachers at Hailsham are reluctant to embrace them, as they can't really think of them as real human beings. However, they do require the children to show their artistic abilities through painting and poetry so they can take proof back to the scientists and the financial backers that the clones do indeed have souls, and therefore should be treated more humanely. It still doesn't cover up the fact that children are created and raised, only to be harvested until their bodies are depleted. Meanwhile, in their young lives, they fall in love, have feelings, have experiences, just like everyone else. :-(  It makes me shudder to think something like this could really happen!

Finished: Cousin Bette (de Balzac). Another interesting de Balzac book from his Le Comedie Humaine. I found this one in a tiny used book store in Canon Beach, Oregon. Sigh, another nice memory of vacation! I love how so many of de Balzac's books refer to, or even include in scenes, many of the same characters. In Cousin Bette, though, recurring characters are only referred to and the action centers around Baron Hector Hulot, his beautiful, kind and virtuous wife, Adeline, and her less beautiful, spiteful, and very vengeful cousin, Lisbeth, or Bette. Jealous of all that Adeline has, Bette encourages the roving eye of Hector. Hector, who has already spent half his fortune on one mistress, becomes enchanted by the young and beautiful Valerie Marneffe, and ends up going into debt, ruining the lives of his own wife, son and daughter, being responsible for the death of his brother and his brother-in-law, and becoming destitute...all in the name of chasing after the younger woman who just strings him along for the money. Bette, having become best friends with Valerie, schemes and plots with her, as this is the perfect revenge she can take on the family...especially since Hector and Adeline's beautiful and kind daughter, Hortense, falls in love with Wecuslus, the young, equally attractive artist that Bette has been hiding away and supporting with her own money. Bette, however, is old enough to be his mother. She can't accept it when he falls in love with Hortense and they marry. She encourages Valerie to entice Wenceslas with her charms as well, and soon both marriages are on the rocks. Throw in the creepy, but rich, Crevel who used to be friends with the Baron, until the Baron stole HIS mistress from under his nose...the woman the Baron had an affair with before Valerie. With Bette and Crevel both seeking vengeance, and Valerie seeking money, and Hector willing to throw everything away, including his family, for the "woman he loves", it doesn't take long for circumstances to become dire. As Hector sinks to his lowest lows, through it all, Adeline remains dignified, loving and respected. She refuses an offer to become the mistress of the very rich Crevel in exchange for him settling all their hundreds of thousands of francs worth of debts. She actually never gives up hope in wanting Hector to come back to the family. She never scolds him or causes any scenes. Their son, Victorin, is like his mother and sister, and is a level-headed young attorney. He takes on most of his father's debts. By the end, Valerie has strung one too many lovers along and is killed by a Brazilian who had waited for her for three years. She dies an ugly, leprosy-like death from a virus-like substance he gives her. Crevel, by that time Valerie's new husband, also dies from the contagious disease. Hector runs off with his tail between his legs to skirt his debts. He changes his name and goes into hiding, but still keeps up his womanizing ways. Cousin Bette knows where he is at all times, but never lets the searching Adeline know. Finally, goodness and family perseveres. Victorin is able to pay off his father's debts and make a decent living that he, his wife and child, his mother and his abandoned sister and her child can live on. Wenceslas comes back home with his tail between his legs and remains the lazy artist who never makes another good piece of work, now that his wife has some money left to her, ironically, by the death of Valerie. Bette, dies a death of consumption, surrounded by the family that she detested, though they never knew it.  She dies in extreme unhappiness knowing how happy they have all become. Finally, Adeline finds Hector and he comes home to the family! Everyone is happy, or so it seems for about six months...until one day Adeline hears Hector telling the kitchen maid that his wife probably won't live much longer and then he can marry her and she'll be a Baroness! Say what?? After all the forgiveness and non-judgement he received from his family, and especially Adeline? Adeline dies of a broken heart. And, sure enough, the Baron runs off and marries the kitchen maid. At least he is out of the lives of his children! As usual, the de Balzac writing is witty and great. :-) I'm sure I'll read even more of his books. It would be really nice to read the entire Le Comedie Humaine in order, but that in itself would probably take an entire year. I've got to move on to some other books!

Finished: Call For the Dead (le Carre) and Six Years (Coben). I'm off on vacation and reading books when I can. I always enjoy Harlen Coben books, so I saved his latest for the airplane. It didn't disappoint. :-) A fast-paced tale about a man, Jake, who gives up the love of his life when she marries another man and asks him never to contact her again. Six years later Jake sees the obituary for his old flame's husband and goes to seek her out, only to find out that the widow is someone completely different...his old love was never really married to the man and is nowhere to be found. Mystery and intrigue ensues. :-)

Then, sitting by the ocean breezes, I read le Carre's first book about British spy, George Smiley. Smiley is introduced, as well as Peter Guillam, his co-worker, friend, and eventual betrayer years later in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. In Call For the Dead, a man turns up dead who George has just interviewed as a possible betrayer. He is classified as a suicide, but nothing is as it seems, especially when George himself is attacked and left for dead. Again, mystery and intrigue ensues. A nice book for the beginning of a good series!

And, two good travel reading books!

Finished: Decline and Fall (Waugh) A fast-pace, farcical, rather refreshing book. :-) I had no intention of reading another entire book before we left for Oregon, but this was a quick read. I can't say that it was light-hearted, but it leaves you feeling rather light-hearted, which most of the books I've read on this journey do not. I don't think I'll go into a long explanation or recap, just a short one. Decline and Fall is definitely a satire about British society, first and foremost. It's the story of British university student Paul Pennyfeather, who gets kicked out of university, not by his own doing. And then he gets strung along into different situations and experiences by "lady fortune". From teaching at a low-tier boy's school, where he meets the headmaster, Dr. Fagan, favorite student, Peter Beste-Chetwynde, and zany characters, Grimes and Philbrick, to almost marrying Peter's mother, Margot, to being wrongly sentenced to prison, to being rescued by his friends who fake his death, and going full circle back to university to start his schooling over again, it's just a book whose underlying humor kept me turning the pages. It's my third Evelyn Waugh book....and either my 2nd or 3rd favorite....Brideshead Revisited still being #1. I may have to read more Waugh!

Going to Oregon for a couple of weeks! :-) I plan to read a few books, but might not update until I get back!

Finished: The Golden Notebook (Lessing) An intense book, on the top 100 list, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with ME that I just don't see the immeasurable greatness in some of these "top 100" books. Sigh. Anyway, The Golden Notebook is Anna Wulf's account of her life, or her grown life. She's a British author, born in the 1920's, living in the 1950's, and she belongs to the Communist Party. Much of her life revolves around being a member, or ex-member of that party. She has had writer's block since her last novel, so she takes to writing all about her life in four different notebooks: black, about her experiences in Africa before World War II with a group of young friends that shared her political ideals; red, all about her experiences as a member of the Communist Party, including clippings, world events, etc.; yellow, her attempt at another novel which closely mirrors her own unsuccessful, and heartbreaking 5-year relationship; and blue, her day to day personal journal, including bizarre dreams, failures, split personalities, you name it! In the mean time, the novel starts out to be about Anna's relationship with her best friend, Molly. Molly's got an ex-husband named Richard, and they share a 20-year old son, Tommy. In the middle of the book, Tommy, torn between being raised by his mother's socialist leanings, and his father's upper-middle class British, businessman's expectations, tries to kill himself by shooting himself in the head. He ends up living, but blind. Anna has her own 11 year old daughter, Janet, who seems to be the only person who can make Anna feel "normal" at times. Otherwise, Anna spends most of her time trying to fill the void of her failed five-year relationship with Michael by sleeping, and falling for, various men...all of whom are pretty weird. Anna's yellow diary tells more about her heartbreaking love story using characters Ella and Paul, and how the rest of her life is seemingly ruined by the very married Paul leaving her after such a long relationship. Anyway....towards the end of the book, Anna decides to face life more and ends each of her journals. However, she buys a beautiful, antique golden notebook and decides to combine all her thoughts into just that one journal. So....then she meets Saul. He comes to rent her extra room. Janet is away at girl's school. The Saul and Anna "relationship" is one of the most dysfunctional and distasteful, that I've read. It's like he's got several personalities and she seems to be able to see them all. She makes herself physically ill by falling for him, even though he can be quite abusive verbally at times. Most of the golden journal is taken up by this relationship with Saul, blech. Finally, she wises up and says he needs to go. He insists he won't go until she begins writing her next novel. He even writes the first line for her. She then writes the first line of what HIS novel will be, and they part ways. Of course, the first line that he wrote down becomes the first line of The Golden Notebook. So, the writer's block is cured? Anyway, that's about it...600 pages worth of being inside Anna's every thought, maniacal or depressed or sexual, during a few years of her life. I wanted so much to love this book, but I just didn't.