Sheldon, Sidney. If tomorrow comes, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1985. Hardcover, pages 416. 

Rating: 6.5/10 

What is more important – credibility or readability? If credibility was the sole criterion, I should throw this book away in the first hundred pages – not only away, but in the fire. Nothing adds up. A lovely girl, engaged to a rich man and carrying his baby inside her, on death of her mother begins to engage in activities so irrational, you begin to wonder why Sidney Sheldon managed to get published, let alone his legendary bestselling numbers. The next three hundred pages tell you why Sheldon is such a successful author. If tomorrow comes is extremely readable, I read the 400 pages in half a day without leaving my chair.

Something similar between the James Bond movies and this book. You must suspend your sense of disbelief before attempting either. You know the protagonist will not die, he (she in case of this book) must emerge as the winner. All the bad guys would be killed. Viewers and readers have a feel-good emotion, with each enacted revenge.  The hero has a licence to kill. In this book, Tracy Whitney, the superwoman, has a licence to con. The James Bond movies and If tomorrow comes are fairytales for adults. If you can take it in that spirit, the book is a great entertainment. 

Some of the con tricks in the books are brazenly lifted from true stories or fiction. Anyone familiar with Russian literature may know about Ostap Bender (twelve chairs: 1927) and his playing against the grandmasters without knowing how to play chess. That story has been cleverly plagiarized here for the western world. 

Verdict: Read for readability, read only if you love watching James Bond movies.

Sheldon, Sidney. The other side of me, Warner Books, New York, 2005. Hardcover, pages 363.

Rating: 9/10 

Sometimes, from a distance, we know a person well for many years. We get an opportunity to get closer, learn more and are stunned to know how much we didn’t know about him. The memoir by Sidney Sheldon with an apt name reveals to the readers his incredible life and superhuman achievements. I want you to read this book so much that you should stop at this point and not read anything further in this review. (Warning: spoilers). 

This is a life story that even Sheldon could not have conceived in fiction. The book begins with a 17-year old Sidney attempting suicide. What Sheldon calls an elevator of his life begins its journey. In the beginning few years, it’s mostly down, with Sheldon attempting telemarketing, running a hotel switchboard, checking coats, fabricating car gears, ushering and during the war times flying planes in the army air corps. As we learn later, the ushering job is a godsend, as Sheldon is destined in later years to mix with the stars he watched on the screen in the dark. He first tries to be a songwriter. The Hollywood studio doors are closed for the likes of him. He finally manages to open a door by doing an impossible job of reading a novel of 400 pages and creating a 30 page typed synopsis of it, all within six hours. This episode shows the ambition, intelligence and resourcefulness of this young man. 

What follows is a fairytale, culminating in Sheldon getting an Oscar for the best original screenplay. He is established in Hollywood, directs Cary Grant, dines with Marilyn Monroe, befriends Groucho Marx, marries the lovely Jorja Curtright, a stage and film actress. The escalator is briefly on top before a flop “Dream Wife” makes him unemployed. At one point things become so bad, his maid lends him money. 

When he realizes Hollywood doesn’t want him, he turns over to TV, and his happy days begin once again. He creates The Patty Duke show and I dream of Jeannie, two top American TV shows, and writes a record number of episodes consecutively only because “he didn’t know that it couldn’t be done.”

Sheldon has passed fifty, achieved several prizes in film and TV industry, has an idea for a novel but drops it because he knew he is incapable of writing a novel! What can be more ironic? The book is full of drama and irony. As a young boy, the doorkeeper of the Columbia studios drives him off, not allowing him to meet anyone. Less than twenty years later, Sheldon is asked to head the Columbia Studios. 

As if being at the top of three careers was not enough for a single human life, Sheldon suffers from bipolar disorder, not widely known in his time, which causes depression when he learns about getting an Oscar and elation when he loses his job. He also has an unpredictable herniated disc. Despite, this 88-year old man sits down to write his memoir to tell us his fascinating life story.  

The memoir ends before he has written a single novel. Sheldon mentions his novels (which sold 300 million copies, he is seventh in the history in the list headed by William Shakespeare) in the afterward. Before reading this book, I knew him only as a novelist, and a young one at that. (He wrote the other side of midnight at 56, hence the confusion about his age).  

The book is full of lovely anecdotes and quotes. A review is not a place to note them all, but I will mention a few anyway.

(1)   Universal studio was noted for its thriftiness. They surprised everyone by hiring one ‘1000 dollars a day’ star for a movie about a masked bandit. The first day, the director shot endless close-ups of the star in various locations, and at the end of the day, they told him he was finished. Then they substituted a minor cheap actor who wore a mask throughout the film. (Page 88)  

(2)  Johnny Carson, on The Tonight Show started making fun of the South American accent of Fernando Lamas, a talented actor. Fernando stopped him. “When someone has an accent, “he informed Carson, “It means he knows one more language than you do.” The studio audience applauded. (pg216)

(3)  Elvis Presley was on drugs, and ruined his voice, and grew fat and unattractive. When he died, a cynic said: ‘good career move.” (pg 238)

(4)  Groucho Marx, close friend of Sheldon went to the doctor.  A beautiful young nurse came up to him and said, “The doctor will see you now. Walk this way.” Groucho looked at her swaying hips and said, “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t have to see a doctor.”  

(5)  Sammy Cahn, a famous lyricist, was once asked, “Which comes first, the music or the lyrics?” His response was,” Neither. First comes the telephone call.” (pg 312)

Verdict: One of the must-read books. Utterly inspiring, a page turner, a life story of a superman in his own words.

Fowler, Karen Joy. The Jane Austen book club, G.P.Putnam’s sons (Penguin), New York, 2004. Hardcover, 288 pages  

Rating: 7/10 

Karen Joy Fowler’s new book We are all completely beside ourselves is shortlisted for the Booker prize this month. (American authors were eligible for the first time this year). Before buying that book, I decided to test the author by reading one of her previous books my library could lend.

The first eighty pages of the book are an absolute delight to read. The quality then slumps a little, before picking up at the end again.

Three elements pertaining to the book are visible on the book cover itself. (a) Jane Austen (b) Book club and (c) a novel. Let me discuss them one after another.

My expertise of Jane Austen is limited to Pride and Prejudice and Emma which I read in my college days-about thirty years ago. I am not competent to comment on the Austen references or the parallels between this book and Austen’s books.

The book club description and atmosphere is very authentic. I am part of a book club for more than ten years, which makes me competent to review this aspect of the book.

“Besides, men don’t do book clubs,” Bernadette said. “They see reading as a solitary pleasure. When they read at all.” (Page 3)

Very true. The gender ratio in our book club is excessively skewed as well. Before discussing the book we usually discuss everything on earth, we gossip about absent members. We dine together post-discussion. Before the meeting we don’t want to prematurely discuss our views with another member. All this is captured well.

Karen Jay Fowler has some great lines, can’t resist quoting her. The beauty or wit of some of these quotes may be realized only in the flow of reading. 

Bryan went to college and worked summers as a lifeguard at the pool. He looked the way a lifeguard looks. (Page 17)

She had taken yoga for years and could put her feet into some astonishing places. (33)

Sexuality is rarely as simple as it is natural. (52)

If only she would stop speaking French. Or go to France where it would be less noticeable. (58)

Allegra (daughter) gave Sylvia (mother) the look Sylvia had been getting ever since Allegra turned ten. (162)

She hadn’t even tried to pretend this; it pretended itself. (170)

And she was not, had never been, the sort of stupid woman who suddenly liked a man simply because she didn’t like him. (174)

She’d been contemplating a birding expedition to Costa Rica. Pricey, but not if you calculated it bird by bird. (234) 

Other than the clever language, the first eighty pages stunned me by the width and depth of the author’s imagination. Almost every paragraph has new images, new feelings, new emotions, little stories. Those pages cover a wide range of subjects and smoothly and rapidly flow from one subject (or object) to another – an exercise in aesthetics for the writer and the reader.

As to whether this book can be called a novel, I would like to give the author the benefit of the doubt. The book is constructed with precise geometry. Six characters, six meeting, six Jane Austen books. Prima facie, there is no plot or a story with a beginning, middle and end. Flashbacks are common. A confusing omniscient narrator who calls herself “we” keeps appearing intermittently. There is a lengthy readers’ guide at the end of the book with description of each of Austen’s books, opinions on those books by Austen’s relatives and friends, even textbook-fashioned questions for discussion. No doubt the book is postmodern, and not a novel in the classical sense.

The clever language and an extraordinary display of imagination (first eighty pages) compensate for that shortcoming.

Verdict: Definitely a good read for those readers who can enjoy language aesthetics and for those who are part of book clubs. If short of time, read the first half and ignore the rest.

Owen Mark (with Maurer Kevin). No easy day, Dutton (Penguin), New York, 2012. Hardcover, 316 pages

Rating: 4.5/10

Anything connected to 9/11 or the killing of Osama Bin Laden is, in principle, sellable. And here you have one of the only twenty four men privileged to witness Osama’s execution offer a firsthand account of the mission. That alone is the high point of the book, the fact that the author saw Osama die, fired a few shots into Osama’s chest, cleaned his face, shared a flight with Osama’s body from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, this particular episode doesn’t have the wordcount to make it a 300 page book. The author, a former Navy Seal, decided to pad it up and make it into an autobiography. The first half of the book offers Mark Owen’s background. As a child, he wanted to be a Navy Seal, and his focus and determination were rewarded by his becoming part of the famous mission. Mark Owen has changed all names, and omitted many details he considers secret. That makes the first half of the book bland. There is not much there that is not known or can’t be imagined. The book takes a grip once the reader travels with the author to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It’s possible to relive those forty minutes in which Osama, his son, and three others were killed in a daring operation.

If I were to choose only one book on the subject, I would recommend Mark Bowden’s The Finish: Killing of Osama Bin Laden published in the same year (2012). As a matter of record, Matt Bissonnette, the real name of the Seal, on learning that Mark Bowden was going to publish his book, took a similar sounding pseudonym and managed to push his release earlier than The Finish. This somewhat unethical behavior can be condoned only because the author is an American hero.

Verdict: Read the second half of the book to relive the mission. To get an all-round view, though, read Mark Bowden’s The Finish.