More Books.

"After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.” 
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Little French Girl by Anne Douglas Sedgwick - (bookclub) This was my 3rd time reading LFG.  It remains one of my favorite books.  

Howards End by E.M. Forster (Close Reads bookclub) - I quite enjoyed portions of this novel and I quite snoozed through portions of this novel.  It is rumored that the Schlegel Sisters are based upon the true-life Stephen Sisters (Virginia Woolf...), though Forster claims, unconvincingly, that they're not.  Virginia Woolf has intriguing critique on Forster's works - she and he were contemporaries (both part of Bloomsbury Literary Group) and acquaintances/friends - and she co-opted Howards End into her own novel, To the Lighthouse.  So I think my biggest appreciation of Howards End is going to be as a door into Woolf's story.

The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay - (library) this book was filled with cardboard characters, simplistic verbiage and all kinds of necessary (for me) suspension-of-disbelief.  T'was “meh”.  But I finished it in 2 days.  So, take that as you will.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - The reluctant hero, the cantankerous neighbor, the man with a "heart too big."  Britt-Marie remains my favorite Backman book, but Ove is a close second.  

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - just delightful.  Gentleman, indeed.  Probably end up being my favorite from this year.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen – (bookclub)  I've now officially read the complete oeuvre of Jane Austen.  Mansfield Park is my last and latest.  Here's how I personally rank them:  Pride & Prejudice>Emma>Lady Susan=Sense & Sensibility>all the rest.  P&P is one of my top-5-forever-favorites.  I have a love-dislike relationship with Jane Austen.  Mansfield Park seemed to me to be a wordy version of Cinderella filled with characters that were all not-quite-likeable, and just glimpses here and there of Austen's fierce wit.  Reading it was just a slog.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle - I must have read this as a child, but I don't remember it at all.  It must not have resonated with me then, just as it didn't resonate with me now.  I know L'Engle is highly regarded, but it's hard for me to fathom that all that acclaim comes from this book.  Maybe the series ...?  I'll never know, because I don't intend to read more.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng - I read thru the first 77 pages before deciding I didn't really care about any of the characters. I skimmed/skipped til the end. This book just wasn't my cuppa. 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (library) - similar to The Rosie Project and Britt-Marie Was Here, you the reader are in the head of an unreliable narrator whose account of events is filtered thru un-self-aware eyes. I liberally skimmed Eleanor, as it lacked the charm of Rosie and Britt-Marie. It was just an ok pageturner for me.

True Grit by Charles Portis - (Close Reads bookclub/podcast) a reread.  Just as good the second time through.

Bear Town by Fredrik Backman – (library)  Fredrik Backman wrings your heart.  That’s what he does in his writing.  That said, in Bear Town, he’s trying to wring my heart against the backdrop of the “needs” of a sports team (and by extension, the hoped-for revived economy of a town) vs the cries for justice from a raped 15yo.  He exposes the varying motivations of his 385 broken characters (I exaggerate. but not by much.) as they choose “sides”.  In a couple different places, one of the voices of reason claims that “This town doesn’t always know the difference between right and wrong … But we know the difference between good and evil.”  And see, as an Enneagram One-er, I personally don’t see shades of gray between wrong & evil and right & good; my heart could not be wrung effectively in this book.  Because a girl was raped.  And it doesn’t matter what one’s motivation is; in my humble opinion, it will never be ok to turn a blind eye to what you know is true of evil perpetrated.  So this book was just a huge exercise in frustration for me.  My ranking of Backman’s novels:  Britt-Marie>Ove>Grandma>Bear Town. 

A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - (bookclub)  Dorian is Wilde's homage to aestheticism; he even has an entire "introduction" dedicated to explaining to the reader "art for art's sake."  But goshdarnit, if I don't think he failed in his expressed goal.  I think it's quite impossible to read his story as anything BUT a moralistic warning against the excesses of unfettered hedonism.  Books reveal much about their authors, and Dorian, I think, reveals much of Wilde's self-loathing due to his own struggles with sin. Pair this story with Wilde's short story The Selfish Giant, and consider a fuller picture of the oft stereotyped Oscar Wilde.

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut - Big Dude loved this book.  So I read it, too.  It's Vonnegut, so of course, it's all kinds of weird and quirky and darkly witty and brilliantly written and just a wee bit confusing at times - it's a sort of modern Noah's Ark narrative written from a million years in the future, flashing back to the events and characters of the apocalypse.  I tend to miss the "big picture" in pursuit of the small puzzle pieces; so I got kinda hung up on not knowing who the narrator was for the first 220 pages.  Turns out it totally didn't matter to the story. (Ghost Leon Trout, son of Kilgore Trout, just in case you wondered).  Big Dude, on the other hand, *is* a "big picture" kind of guy, so he totally picked up on this being Vonnegut thumbing his nose at Darwin.  Now that I think about it, the way Big Dude and I differed in our approach to this book is much like how we approach life at large.  I'm glad I have him to supply me with the simple summaries of "big picture".  :-)

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"One of the things that’s interested me always is how we live in small worlds and big worlds at the same time: that we have a personal arena in which we have to try and find fulfilment and love, but that inevitably intersects with a larger world, where politics, or even dystopian universes, can prevail. So I think I’ve always been interested in that. We live in small worlds and big worlds at the same time and we can’t … forget one or the other."  ~Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - You know how some authors emotionally manipulate you, the reader, and steamroll you with their intended message/moral/purpose?  Kazuo Ishiguro is not that author.  He's asking super huge questions in this book:  What does it mean to be Human?  What is the purpose of Art and Education?  What gives Life Meaning?  But he's subtly asking all these questions thru the easy-breazy, emotively dead-pan, chatty reminiscences of his first-person narrator, Kathy.  And she doesn't tell you what to think.  She just tells you what she remembers happened.  Kazuo Ishiguro lets the shear horror of the inhumanity itself steamroll you.  Good book, thoughtful book.  Thoroughly Modern in writing style.  Dystopian, yes.  Interesting to read this after so recently viewing Remains of the Day (movie) and see KI style similarities (slow pace, emotionally repressive narration, big questions, memories, perceptions ..)

Purgatorio by Dante Aliguieri (bookclub) - ok, so poetry continues not to be my love language, Dante is still name-dropping in Purgatorio, and I'm still feeling over-my-head and lacking understanding.  But I can tell that if I were in the tutelage of someone who knew and understood the depths of Dante, I would probably quite appreciate his trilogy a great deal more.  As it is, I get small tastes of his brilliance ... like how Inferno and Purgatorio fit together and provide at times the "flip side of the coin" to each other ... in the Inferno sinners are punished by repeating endlessly the sin they gave themselves over to in life; in Purgatorio, sinners are punished with an equal-and-opposite act to their sin committed in life.  Anywhoo, on to Paradise...


Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite contemporary writers.  I first read this novel when it was published nearly two decades ago.  I liked it then, and I like it now; which is saying a lot, because the subject matter is messy, sad, devastating:  a zealous missionary pastor moving to the Congo, dragging his family along, and doing every thing that he does with little (or none) love and a whole lot of misapplied scripture.  The story is told thru the first person narratives of the five women in his family.  Each voice is fabulously individual.  I couldn't stop turning pages, til I got nearly to the end, when the adult voices of the grown daughters became more philosophical and less story-driven.  The end fizzles for me.  But the rest?  Sooo good.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill - (library ebook)  I quite enjoyed this fairytale/magic story.  I neglected more pressing matters to page-turn to the end.

My Mother’s Shadow by Nikola Scott – (pre-publishing-date Kindle book) interesting story that kept my attention.  The writing/style/theme seemed to me reminiscent of Kate Morton’s storytelling, only better.

One Summer by David Baldacci – (library ebook) I was browsing OC’s e-library for available titles (pickings were slim) when I came across this Baldacci book.  I haven’t read one of his novels since Wish You Well (which I remember quite liking).  I skimmed my way quickly thru this ridiculous, trite-cliche,  story.  I don’t recommend you do the same.  Time is precious, yo.

The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill – (library ebook)  the elements that made The Girl Who Drank the Moon good are all present in this story, also.  That said, this story seemed just a little too similar to the other; I preferred the former.  And a nit-picky criticism: this book was nonstop peril from nearly the first page to the last (irritating to me).

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman - (library)  Equal parts heart-rendingly precious and totally annoying.  Strange 1st/3rd person [7yo girl] narrator effect.  All things considered, glad i read til the end.  It's kind of a Marvel comics mashup with "it takes a village" philosophy.  It's a book that begs you to *see* people.

The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion - (library)  Same author as The Rosie Project, a book I loved so much that I talked 3 Keller dudes into reading it. They loved it (Rosie) too. This book had none of the Rosie books' charms.  I gave it 50pp, quit, and promptly returned it to the library.  Blech, phtooey.

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan - (library ebook)  YA fiction. Fairly engaging; I finished it in a day.  Three loosely overlapping WWII narratives that each end abruptly and collide at end of book.  The last narrative had me running to the internets to research education segregation in Southern California in the 1930s & 40s.  Turns out the 3rd narrative is prettily heavily based on the Mendez family and their participation in a class action suit against the public schools.  Fascinating.

Britt-Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman - (library)  I LOVE THIS BOOK TO THE MOON AND BACK. Amen. It reminds me in many ways of The Rosie Project.  The narration is genius. And soooo funny. And so heart-full.  I almost didn't read this, because Britt-Marie was a bit character in My Grandmother - an annoying "nag-bag" busybody who pushed everybody's buttons.  At the end of My Grandmother, she has a discussion with Elsa who asks about some poem about "an old man who says he can’t be loved, so he doesn’t mind, sort of, being disliked instead. As long as someone sees him.”  Britt-Marie replies that “We want to be loved. Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact. [adding quietly]  I want someone to remember I existed. I want someone to know I was here.”  Britt-Marie is all about Britt-Marie finally *seeing* and being *seen* by others.  It's a book that shows that a little bit of kindness is HUGE. This book makes ME want to *see* others better.  Truly, I laughed and cried my way through this book. I was sad when it ended.  Hands down, my favorite book this year.

O Pioneers by Willa Cather (bookclub) - A re-read for me.  Still great.  I think I want to work my way through all of Willa Cather's books...

We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - (library ebook) While The Language of Flowers is on my favorites list, this novel was just ok for me.  

The Latest Book List ...

"In almost every major literature there are works that make you love being human, and make you love and revere the humanity of other people. That is the great potential of any art."  ~Marilynne Robinson

Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne’s House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery – continuing my escape-from-the-world fluffy reading … sooooo, none of these is the classic that the first in the series is, and I don’t think I’m likely to reread these (for me, for the “fun of it”).  I found myself skimming liberally, because LMM creates tons of characters and tells oodles of vignettes - many of which aren’t necessarily part of the main storyline, but are more like short stories tacked on.  Others of the characters continue through the whole novel, and are developed with great pathos, never to be revisited in a meaningful way down the road.  

Gilead (Close Reads bookclub) and Home and Lila by Marilynne Robinson - I've read Gilead twice in the last several years. Despite the exquisite writing, neither time have I been enthralled by it. Gilead reads more like personal memoirs and less like story (and I’m a girl who appreciates plot).  Plus, I just simply believe that this isn’t my “season” to totally understand the depths of Gilead.  This week I went ahead and got Home & Lila from the library. I could barely put Home down. *I LOVE IT.* I love [the character] Glory. Home throws into stark relief for me everything that kind of bothered me about Gilead. John Ames' first person letters were so veiled, so limited/narrow in detail. Everything was foggy/unclear to me and I felt remote from all the other characters. There were too many "mysteries". Ames himself had loftier thoughts than I could often wrap my shallow-er brain around, so he felt remote to me, too. But reading Home was revelatory, like the blinds were thrown wide open and the veils were torn. Glory's rendering is approachably intimate. Jack is so dear, even in all his messy-ness. And I love being back in the presence of an [almost] omniscient narrator (which is funny for me, because usually I'm super content with first person narrative). Lila was equally wonderful.  All three novels “puzzle-piece” together (Gilead & Home cover the same sequence of events, but from different voices/lenses.  Lila is [the character] Lila’s backstory and serves as a prequel to the other novels.  Marilynne Robinson is a masterful writer. Her books bleed HUMANITY and EMPATHY and HOPE. I often wonder of the books I read, which will stand the test of time?  Which will be future “classics.”  I feel definitively that Robinson’s trilogy will be a future classic.

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee (children's lit) - the writing in this is simple and beautiful; the opening chapter fully engrossed and enchanted me.  But, in the end, I kind of feel like this story was a junior version of Narnia, without the "oomph."

The Divine Comedy: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - (bookclub)  I'm reading the Everyman's Library edition translated by Allen Mandelbaum and supplementing with Dorothy Sayers' notes from the Penguin Classics edition.  My local bookclub is a "classics" bookclub, and this is a classic, and we are, therefore, reading it, so we’ll all be better, more informed, well-read readers.  I’ve read this once before.  Didn’t like it, don’t remember it.  Reading it this time (and after prepping by reading The Aeneid, because, yo, Virgil), I still don’t much like it, and I often don’t remember the contents of a canto even after just completing it.  Poetry, quite simply, is not my love language.  Additionally, The Inferno does a lot of name dropping of real people hundreds (and thousands!) of years dead.  I just feel a little bit (a lotta bit) lost (thus, using Dorothy Sayers' notes for quickie summary of person/circumstances/sin).   I occasionally read a section and thought “that’s beautiful!”  And I sometimes read a section and nearly snorted coffee out my nose, a la this morning:  “That is Thais, the harlot who returned/ her lover’s question, ‘Are you very grateful/ to me?’ by saying, ‘Yes, enormously.’” (Canto 18, 8^th Circle, 2^nd Pouch, Flatterers immersed in excrement … so beware your words!!)  Dorothy Sayers’ notes about the flatterers included this brilliant aside:  “these, too, exploit others by playing upon their desires and fears; their especial weapon is that abuse and corruption of language which destroys communication between mind and mind … Dante did not live to see the full development of political propaganda, commercial advertisement, and sensational journalism, but he has prepared a place for them.”  

On the mystery genre of literature … “As we read, we are desperate to see Truth revealed and we demand to see Justice enacted.  We need to see good guys rewarded and bad guys punished.  Our souls cry out for Justice.  And if the book fails to deliver, readers rebel.  This desire awakens the deepest longings of our souls – for Order, for Justice, for Truth, for Goodness, for Meaning.  In a very real way, reading mystery novels rightly orders our affections.  They cause our souls to long for all the right things.”  ~Angelina Stanford

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie – (Close Reads bookclub) Reading this whodunit directly after finishing Marilynne Robinson’s exquisitely worded trilogy was jarring, to say the least.  The verbiage in this story (which, by the way, is ALL PLOT ALL THE TIME) is minimal.  It almost reads as if it’s a screenplay and not a novel.  You can’t possibly solve it on your own (til Hercule Poirot fills you in on his exclusive insider insight), so sit back and enjoy the ride.  Fun page-turner.  Looking forward to seeing how the new movie “translates” it.

Murder in Retrospect (aka Five Little Pigs) by Agatha Christie – fun, easy-reading, escapist, murder mystery.

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Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - YA fantasy/fairytale, light, fun, quirky, witty.  Just what I needed after a bunch of "darker"/heavier/depressing-er stories.  And then I followed up with Diana Wynne Jones' sequel House of Many Ways, which was all kinds of Meh.  I'll skip the 3rd in the series, Castle in the Air.  (ps. Little Dude liked Howl's quite a lot, also. Neither of us much enjoyed the animated movie version.)

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry - exquisite writing and character development, but I had a hard time getting thru this book - picked it up and put it down several times over the span of several months, which likely spoiled my enjoyment/understanding of it.  I like my fiction to read like fiction.  Jayber Crow is fiction, but it reads like non-fiction with a huge dollop of philosophy (traditional agrarianism, encroaching industrialism, pacifism, theology & ecology) and historical documentary (rural life in Kentucky, 1920s-80s).

Flannery O'Connor just keeps getting better every time I read/re-read her.
A View of the Woods - short story by Flannery O'Connor (Close Reads bookclub)

https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/close-reads-43-view-woods

The Enduring Chill - short story by Flanenry O'Connor (Close Reads bookclub)
https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/close-reads-45-enduring-chill

The Comforts of Home - short story by Flannery O'Connor (Close Reads bookclub)
http://sittingbee.com/the-comforts-of-home-flannery-oconnor/


Belles on Their Toes by  Frank B. Gilbreth and  Ernestine Gilbreth Carey - the continuing story of Cheaper by the Dozen.  Delightful, enjoyable, funny, poignant ... just like the first book.

Adam Bede by George Eliot (bookclub) - ugh.  I've written my thoughts on this on two separate occasions, neither of which have saved for whatever reason.  I give.  Simple conclusion: not as good (even remotely) as Middlemarch.  If you've never read Eliot, skip this and go straight to Middlemarch.


The Busman's Holiday by Dorothy Sayers -
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers -
Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers -
Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers - (all free library e-book downloads)  whodunnit mysteries. Sayer's method includes all the pertinent details, so you too may solve the mystery alongside Peter Wimsey (and Harriet Vane), be you so inclined.  Fun fluffy reads.

The Aeneid by Virgil (bookclub) - read this to flesh out my "big-3" epics of Western Civ.  I enjoyed Homer more.  Not that Virgil is bad (duh).  Just not my cuppa (my bad).

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place:
The Mysterious Howling
The Hidden Gallery
The Unseen Guest, all by Maryrose Wood - quirky, fun, well-written, slightly snarky, totally humorous young person stories.  Reminds me of Lois Lowry's The Willoughby's (which I highly recommend!)  Plays with words, history, classic literature & language.  Silly.  Escapist.  Fluff.  Minor fault-finding: I don't quite like how long the main "mystery" story-line plays out - 3 books in, no resolution.  I know the eventual big reveal will be anti-climatic and not based in reality, and not that bid a deal; nonetheless, I get a little frustrated with books that don't resolve at book's end.

Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin (trans. by Lisa Hayden) - I have a hard time describing this book.  It's quite good, excellent even ... perhaps even a future classic.  It's epic for sure. Russian Orthodox in its Christianity.  Medieval.  Yet quirky modern at the same time.  At the risk of over simplifying, it's a story of one man's lifetime ... a man with four different names at four different times in his life ...  a child apprenticing the healing arts from his grandfather, a rural healer himself, a holy fool of sorts, a pilgrim, and eventually a monk.  At its heart [I think] the story is about Redemption.  Nearing the end of the novel: "This was inquired of Aristides the righteous: how many yeares is it good for a man to live? And Aristides answerd: untill he does understonde death is better than lyfe. People leave without reading the conversations with Aristides.  They bow to Laurus and wish him many more yeares.  God forbid, Laurus answers them soundlessly."

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo - lovely illustrations, precious story. So good.

Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo – this one is a little “heavier” than DiCamillo’s usual fare.  Still lovely writing.  Still full of heart.  But these characters are broken and damaged by big loss.  And the ending is sad and full of hope, all at the same time.  Probably not a good book for younger readers/listeners.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (bookclub) - this is a big long book; as such, I'm not going to try to put my thoughts in any kind of order, but instead, here are my stream of consciousness responses ... firstly, foremostly:
      1.  it's one thing to be in the head of a character who may be racist (one can even argue for the importance of having such characters), but it is an altogether separate thing to be in the head of a narrator/author who is completely Racist and Pro-Slavery.  In fact, for me, it’s an odious thing.  GWtW is a hard slog from the perspective of being in the head of someone who so strongly sympathizes with the “glories” of the pre-Civil-war Southern Way of Life. 

2.  Mitchell uses the word “florid” altogether too often.  

3.  The narrative of a way of life that’s gone with the wind is tremendously well documented.  

4.  The romances are slightly elevated above hokey Harlequin levels. 

5.  The bildungsroman (novel of formation, education, culture, aka a “coming-of-age story”, the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood) of Scarlett is top notch.  Also, Scarlett is far from your “traditional” protagonist.  She’s dark and messy.  She’s not sweet.  When she acts unselfishly (I counted 3x this happened), it’s almost entirely unconsciously.  Flannery O’Connor also creates dark & messy characters; but, it’s always clear that FOC *loves* her characters.  I can’t figure out if Mitchell actually likes Scarlett.  If I knew more about Mitchell herself, perhaps I could answer this question?

6.  GWtW is a soap opera.  
7.  Mitchell is not subtle – if she wants you to really understand what she’s saying, she’ll reiterate herself a dozen+ times.  She will not take the chance that you (the reader) might incorrectly interpret what she’s saying in between the lines.  No need to infer or extrapolate meaning.  She spells it all out.  Specifically. Ad nauseum.  See? 
8.  In a recent-ish Close Reads podcast, Angelina Stanford solidly grouped Mitchell with the other “Lost Generation” post-WWI writers (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Eliot, Faulkner, et al) and suggested that Mitchell wrote a solidly Lost Generation book that’s placed in the context of the American Civil War instead of WWI.  Some of the prominent themes the Lost Generation writers addressed included the over-the-top decadence and frivolity of the lifestyle of the rich, the death of the “American Dream” (and the idealization of the past, mourning its passing), the disillusionment & disorientation felt by those who survived the war, a chipping away at the understanding of traditional gender roles. GWtW certainly has all these themes. 

The Alchemist  by Paulo Coelho - this is a quick read. More an allegory/fable/novelette than a full novel. [I have since discovered that the story has its origination in one of the stories in the 1001 Arabian Nights.]  It’s a simply told story, and there is certainly an elegance in the simplicity and in the “parable” nature of the narrative.  Coelho cleverly overlaid elements of traditional Biblical stories, Koran instruction, and New Agey “Control-the-Universe-with-your-mind”  mythology.  So, I liked The Alchemist from the perspective of a story well-told and from its emphasis on being aware and “alive” in each moment .  But the non-subtle, new-age, self-helpy theology made me all kinds of itchy-scratchy.  Bottom line: I both liked and disliked this book.  I confess I'm a bit befuddled as to why it’s one of the best-selling books of all time.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - when I need something totally not depressing, or when I need something that restores my faith in mankind, Anne is my go-to.  So I've gone to her again.  I think I may read thru the whole series again.  I can't read this first book without picturing the entirety of the first movie, which was perfection.  (I'm referring to the 1985 film, NOT the 2016 PBS film, which I did NOT like at all.  Don't mess with perfection.)

The Latest Batch of Books...

Lady Susan by Jane Austen - enjoyed this novelette (told cleverly thru a series of letters) and loved the movie adaptation, Love & Friendship, which brilliantly captured the snarky wit of Austen in this story.  Kate Beckinsale was perfection as Lady Susan.

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey  - true story (usually I'm not enamored by non-fiction, but ...), delightful portrayal of what-life-looks-like in this large family.  Funny, insightful, and full of grace and love and quirky shenanigans.

Beloved by Toni Morrison - all the time and narratorial shapeshifting genius of Virginia Woolf, all the creepy hauntingness of Henry James' Turn of the Screw, and one thousand layers of devastation.

A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay - this was my point-counterpoint book to Beloved.  I would read Beloved til the heaviness overwhelmed me and then I would pick up this piece of fluffy lightness.  Then another chapter or two of Beloved.  Rinse repeat til both books finished.  In terms of Reay books, Bronte Plot > Emily Price > Dear Mr. Knightley> Lizzie & Jane, in my humble opinion, of course.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin - this book is almost the polar opposite of a Hallmark Christmas RomCom movie.  This is the book that would happen if Sinatra's song "I Did it My Way", feminism, and the late 1800s collided.  Only sophisticated.  And no happily ever after (duh).

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne duMaurier - (bookclub) reread.  This book is totally, completely, ideal for lively bookclub discussion!!

The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante: (for the record, and just my opinion, the titles all brilliantly capture the essence of the individual books, and the cover art bears NO RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER to the stories unfolding in the books)

My Brilliant Friend  - slow paced, violent childhood, poverty, teenage angst, "gang" warfare in the 'hood, multi-layered-complex-friendship, this intro novel frames the entire series, and the jarringly brief ending shows a marriage (that likely lasts a lifetime) over before it begins (slight spoiler: setting the "flavor" for the rest of the story, endless disappointments over and over again).  The trend of Elena being a user and Lila being a giver begins in this first novel.

The Story of a New Name  - ummm, women making bad decisions.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay  - ach. gah. bang-my-head-against-a-wall.  this volume is mostly Elena.  And Elena is narcissistic, arrogant, painfully unaware of her true self, constantly misunderstanding the motivations of her "best friend", and a completely unreliable narrator.  In short, Elena is a selfish woman with a hot temper who continues to make terrible decisions; it's painful to be in her brain.  When Lila is missing from the story, the story is not worth following.

The Story of the Lost Child  - Lila is back.  So, of course, is Elena.  Their lives and families overlap again.  Our narrator continues to see herself and others (especially Lila) wrongly til the very end (with a few worthwhile moments when she properly sees herself/Lila and honestly see/acknowledges her own jealousy & feelings of inferiority).  Quite honestly, this was a painful slog thru nearly 1800 pages.  Very little happy.  Very little closure.  Very little likeability.  Thus not surprising at nearly the end to read the punchline: "Only in bad novels people always think the right thing, always say the right thing, every effect has its cause, there are the likable ones and the unlikable, the good and the bad, everything in the end consoles you."  If indeed that is Ferrante's philosophy of what a "bad novel" is, and her belief is that a "good novel" is the opposite, then The Neapolitan Novels are indeed "good" by her definition.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - (bookclub)  Confession: Dickens is not my favorite author.  He's not even close.  That confessed, I quite liked Christmas Carol; I quite despised Oliver Twist.  A Tale of Two Cities falls somewhere in the middle for me.  Its first sentence/paragraph - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ..." - and its last sentence/paragraph - "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." - are amongst the best in literature.  But I had to suspend my disbelief so many times - on par with The Count of Monte Cristo - for all the overlapping "circumstances."  Dickens' style in this book seems much less extraneously "wordy" than his others works, more "action-packed", more simple and elegant (which I quite appreciated in several sections), less snarky, but every bit as filled with thinly-developed "stereotype" characters.  I'm glad I read it, but I won't be sad if I never read it again.  This Schmoop youtube summary is Funny.


The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman - I very much liked parts of this book; and I very much disliked some parts of this book.  But first the likes ... in my personal literary universe, this is an engaging page-turner.  The writing is good.  In many ways the narrative reminded me of a book I read long ago, A Simple Plan by Scott Smith.  Both books are about the fragility of morality, but from different angles.  A Simple Plan shows the domino-effect of one seemingly "unharmful" lie steam-rolling into a lifestyle of ever greater sin and immorality.  The Light Between Oceans, however, shows how one [large, egregious] lie can eat away at an otherwise honorable man ... "You could kill a bloke with rules, Tom knew that. And yet sometimes they were what stood between man and savagery, between man and monsters..."  Soon after the lie is enacted, I "screamed" in a text to a friend (who had demanded I read this book): "Too high a price to pay.  TOO HIGH A PRICE.  I'm getting all itchy scratchy. She asked her husband to die to his honor. To be who is isn't. To lie. Forevermore.  Everything's going to break.  This cannot end well."    So, anywhoo, all of that is very good.  The only thing that I didn't like about the book is the same thing that I don't really like about Charles Dickens or Alexandre Dumas: the unbearably unlikely piling on of circumstances, the need to suspend disbelief due to the unrealistic, never-would-happen-in-real-life circumstances, the need to release myself from the aggravations of "drama porn" to enjoy the story regardless.  And so I did, and I did.


The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - (bookclub) You know how you can read the same book at different times in your life and think/feel differently about it?  I did not like The Great Gatsby the first time I read it (high school? college?).  Now that I'm older and more widely read and have lived some life ... I still don't like it.  It *is* beautifully written.  It *is* layered and complex and ironic and insightful.  But I feel the same way at the end of Gatsby as I do at the end of any Hemingway book:  EMPTY, disheartened, cynical.  And truly, I don't need even one more thing to make me feel cynical (hello, current state of the nation and politics).   This line (even coming from a not-necessarily-reliable-narrator) pretty much sums up a bunch of the book for me:  "It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

Reading along with Circe Institute's Close Reads podcast/bookclub...
Everything that Rises Must Converge - short story by Flannery O'Connor
Close Reads podcast:  https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcasts/close-reads
Close Reads Facebook discussion group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1692179291092203/

Greenleaf - short story by Flannery O'Connor
Close Reads podcast:  https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/close-reads-42-greenleaf
Awesome blog posts unpacking the "layers" of Greenleaf ...
http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/2014/09/short-story-analysis-greenleaf-by.html
http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/2014/10/short-story-analysis-greenleaf-by.html

The latest installment of books ...

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut - So, Vonnegut is pretty much the poster child for postmodernism (literature).  And his books can be pretty dang weird.  Mother Night is probably his most "normal", least "weird", book.  And still, it is wholly original, completely quirky, clever, dark, satiric, deeply thoughtful, questioning, and even funny, while being very, very serious. Hi ho.  It begins thusly:  "This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."  And from there, he dances his way through man's inhumanity to man (WWII, Holocaust) and the lies we tell ourselves to make it all ok.  Just a couple tidbits ...

1.  Lead character (Howard W. Campbell, Jr.) is a writer employed by German military to create & broadcast Nazi propaganda. At the same time, the U.S. is employing him to insert non-verbal spy code into his speeches.  Thus, to the world, he is a Nazi, and to a tiny number of higher-ups in the American Intelligence, he is an American patriot and intelligence agent.

2.  "Mother Night" concept comes from  Geothe's Faust's Mephistopheles' speech ...[Vonnegut quoting MacIntyre translating Goethe]  "I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet can not succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful; solids can check its path, so I hope it won't be long till light and the world's stuff are destroyed together."

3.  Howard Campbell, in editor's note, describes himself as "a man who served evil too openly and good too secretly, the crime of his times."

And so it goes.  A fascinating little book.

ps.  in my last book post, I quoted John Irving talking about Thomas Hardy and his concept that "a novel had to be a better story than something you might happen upon in a newspaper.  He meant 'better' in every way: bigger, more complex, more connected, and also having a kind of symmetry or closure -- even achieving a kind of justice, or at least an inevitability, in the end."  This Vonnegut novel is all this (which is ironic, because ... postmodern).  And, oh yeah, Vonnegut was Irving's mentor.  

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - Barbara Kingsolver has written two of my favorite-est books (The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven), but I don't equally enjoy all of her works.  The Lacuna was a "miss", not a "hit", for me.  She layers a fictional narrator & diary "frame" over a factual  WWII & post-WWII historical period (in US & Mexico), including as main characters Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, & Leon/Lev Trotsky.  I enjoyed some of the fictional elements, snoozed/skimmed thru the non-fictional, and appreciated Kingsolver's appraisal of the role that media plays in the molding of people's perceptions of "truth".  I do appreciate The Lacuna for giving me the ability to understand the [sadly] silly socks (pictured below) I saw at this summer's Festival of Arts.  And I also appreciated the serendipity of watching Barton Fink while nearing the end of this book. 

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (bookclub) - I first read and wrote about BR last fall, and reread it this summer for bookclub.  This time through I was more carefully paying attention to the themes of grace, salvation, and the question of whether or not Christianity is truth or nonsense.  This book, its story, the way it unfolds, its characters ... seems to me almost as if it's a marriage of Ernest Hemingway style/content (the bleakness of modernity, how hopeless, meaningless, empty, alcohol-filled) and Flannery O'Connor style/content (the "violence" of the intrusion of grace,  "All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.") C.S. Lewis has said, "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."  This book is essentially that quote fleshed out.

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver - this was my Lacuna rebound book.  I needed to remind myself why I love Barbaraq Kingsolver's writing.  This book did that.  Such lovely turns of phrase, peopled with humorous realistic characters, such humanity, two protagonists - at opposing odds - so deeply & realistically drawn - making you desire equally for both sides to win.  I still love this book to the moon and back.


Building Stories by Chris Ware - (graphic novel book club).  Ugh.  That's all.  Just ugh.  The good: the "gimic" of presenting the story in 14 separate pieces (experimental, tho perhaps indulgent), thus allowing infinitely many unique reader experiences.  The bad: telling the story in 14 separate pieces. The relentlessly depressive overbearing mood. The female "protagonist" who mostly felt like a mishmash of female stereotypes splayed out in a disjointed storyline, as perceived by a male author - to me, rightly or wrongly, this did not feel like a female voice as developed by a female.  The crassness.  The ittybitty teenie-tiny narration/dialog - nearly impossible to decipher without magnifying reading glasses.  The horribly unwieldy size of the bigger pieces of the story (newspaper size?). The utter lack of hope.  The bleakness.  Ugh.  Just ugh.  Rumor has it, I can sell it back to Amazon ...

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - this book is ... interesting.  My reception of it is mixed. In simplest terms, it is Jean Rhys' extrapolation of the backstory of the mad, attic-imprisoned, Creole [first] wife of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre.  Rhys herself was Creole, and the madwoman's marginalization in the great classic had always bothered her.  Wide Sargasso Sea was her response.  Her writing tone and themes are thoroughly modern.  The narrative at times is thoroughly (and I think intentionally) messy, confusing, garbled, unclear. The reader is whisked into the world of the narrators (both Antoinette & Mr. Rochester), where one questions what is real, what is true, what is a lie, what is paranoia, who is to be believed?  Messy, confusing writing.  Which is completely the opposite of the very Victorian, very complex (interwoven phrases & clauses) sentences, very exact, very CLEAR verbiage of Charlotte Bronte.  The landscape (which is practically a character unto itself) is vibrant, warm-hot-steamy, colorful, wild, forested -- very much a "foil" to the dark, gray, foggy, cold moors of England in Jane Eyre.  Jane Eyre & Antoinette Cosway are foils - one reviewer put it this way:  [Antoinette's] "psychological disintegration and descent towards madness is a journey which ultimately becomes the mirror opposite to that of the wholesome goodness of the innocent Jane Eyre, as depicted by Bronte."  Mr. Rochester, the only main character who is largely fleshed out in both works, is largely (in my humble opinion) unrecognizable to be the same man (with the exception of his self-interest/selfishness).  Which all leads to my mixed opinions regarding this book:  I like it as a companion "puzzle piece" to Jane Eyre, but the puzzle piece doesn't fit perfectly;  and I don't believe WSS would have stand alone appeal without the "hook" of the beloved JE wraparound story.



The Iliad by Homer (bookclub plus school with Little Dude) - super glad I finally got around to reading and studying this.  super glad I have a bookclub willing to jump into "the deep" with me.  Two thumbs up for Robert Fagles' translation (I tried Lattimore's first, but couldn't get into it; cut myself some slack and switched to Fagles).  I was greatly amused by this 11-minute youtube summary ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSrRHw6eZ8

Blind Sight by Carol O'Connell - C O'C is the only author I pre-purchase, no questions asked.  Her books are my "candy".  I waited three long years for this latest one to be published.  It wasn't her best; it wasn't her worst.  It was somewhat formulaic, but since I love her formula, I don't much care.  I enjoyed every minute reading it.

The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken - the title page says The Giant's House (A Romance), but this book is a romance only in the sense that any truly southern gothic genre story can be: uniquely and quirkily and strangely.  It's a novel full of eccentricity, dry wit, pathos, absurdity, beautiful writing, and brilliant similes, metaphors and analogies.  Elizabeth McCracken can write.  The story may revolve around the life of a giant (McCracken modeled much of her book character after the real-life details of the tallest man on record, Robert Wadlow, pictured/modeled below), but the thrust of the story and the main character revealed to the reader is the librarian-1st-person narrator.  This review from The Guardian unpacks some great quotes from the book and gives one a good foretaste of the book.  If the review piques your interest, the book will not disappoint.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers - this book and review were linked on the same page with The Giant's House (both were categorized as "overlooked classics").  It's a relatively short little book, and I was reading it concurrently with several other books, so I maybe I didn't give it its proper due attention, but ... I never got into it.  I lacked sympathy for the main character.  I finally returned it to the library after running out of renewals and without finishing the last section.  Needless to say, next time I'm feeling a Southern Gothic twitch, I'll grab more Flannery O'C and skip Carson McC.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Little Dude was reading this for his literature class, so I read it, too.  I remember really liking it the first time I read it.  This time through, I thought Frankenstein was a total blowhard narcissist egomaniac.  Much of the book is narrated through his voice.  I hated those parts this time.  The only parts I found engaging and interesting were the chapters narrated through the voice of Frankenstein's monster.  This time around, I was more intrigued by the parallels of the biblical creation account and this one, and agree heartily with Benedict Cumberbatch's (he acted in the play) indictment: "what really goes wrong in this experiment is that Victor doesn't care for what he's created.  I suppose you could say it's ultimately a novel about bad parenting."  A couple articles that discuss this idea at more length ...
at The Imaginative Conservative
at Interesting Literature

Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell - just wanted to lose myself in something fun.  Loved this.  Again (3rd time thru - I can't remember books' contents to save my life).  And I know Carol O'Connell isn't remotely Southern Gothic (most of her books are placed in New York, and this one is Northern CA coast), but her books *feel* Southern Gothic to me:  cynical, "grotesque" (as in larger-than-life, exaggerated) characters, damaged/broken people, dark humor ... anywhooo, this was a fun way to fritter away a couple of days.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (book club) - what a treat this book is!!!  I think this was my 3rd (?) time reading it.  I see new stuff each time.  My younger self felt much kinship with Elizabeth.  My nearly 50-yr-old self wants to shake sense into her in half her scenes.  Mr. Darcy improves upon each reading.  And my appreciation for Austen's wit is renewed yet again.  This is far and away my favorite of her books.  Close Reads over at Circe Institute has been doing an ongoing podcast discussing P&P that I've much enjoyed.

Summer Books**

Taken from an interview between John Irving and his editor Harvey Ginsberg, included in the Reader's Guide for A Widow for One Year ...

"HG: You are known as a great defender of the nineteenth-century, particularly the words of Dickens and Thomas Hardy.  What virtues do you find there that you feel are missing in contemporary fiction, and which contemporary novelists do you think fulfill -- or come closest to fulling -- these virtues?

JI:  Thomas Hardy insisted that a novel had to be a better story than something you might happen upon in a newspaper.  He meant "better" in every way: bigger, more complex, more connected, and also having a kind of symmetry or closure -- even achieving a kind of justice, or at least an inevitability, in the end.

George Eliot, too -- and of course Dickens. Their novels were *designed*.  David Copperfield once remarked that he found real life a whole lot messier than he expected to find it.  Modernism in literature upholds the theory that a novel can be a patternless mess (without a plot) because real life is like that.  Well, good novels, in my view, are better made than real life. 

If I like Dickens better than Hardy or Eliot, it is chiefly because Dickens is also comic.  Even the contemporary novelists I most admire are nineteenth-century storytellers: Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robertson Davies.  They all love plot, developed characters with interconnected stories, and the passage of time and its effects; not surprisingly, given my taste, they are all comic novelists, too.

I think the most modern novelist I admire is Graham Greene – “modern” in the sense that his emotions are inscrutable and, at least compared to the abovementioned four, he is very spare.  But Greene was also a good storyteller, and he sought a symmetry or closure to his novels; the architecture mattered to him."

The architecture matters to me, too.  Irving put into words so well those elements from 19th century literature that I so appreciate in any work of fiction, 19th-century or modern or otherwise.

The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay - utterly delightful, beginning to end.  I just added all of this author's books to my wishlist :-).  [Note: I ended up reading Reay's other two books, also.  Bronte Plot remains my favorite-I-will-enthusiastically-lend-to-everyone-who-hasn't-yet-read-it.  Dear Mr. Knightley was a fun, fluffy read.  Lizzie & Jane was just ok.]

Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel book club selection) - Empathy is the goal here, methinks, as this two-volume book recounts the history of the Boxer Rebellion - in one book from the perspective of the Boxers and in one book from the perspective of the Saints (thus, the titles).  The author is himself a Chinese American Catholic and he discusses how his identity influences his stories in this Wired interview.  Super well done.  Super meticulous, tight artistry and dialogue and story narration.  That said, not totally my preferred genre ... because ... [at the risk of sounding silly & cliche & not "real life"] ... I like happily-ever-after, and this was, well, MacBeth-y.  For a much more fleshed-out review, please check out Seth Hahne's excellent review at Good Ok Bad.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel) - this is the book I wrongly received when I ordered the Boxers and Saints book set.  So I decided the "perk" for my inconvenience was to read this book before returning it.  I read it, loved it, returned it, and promptly ordered it [at the correct price].  Because a copy needs to reside on my bookshelves and all my dudes need to read it.  It's clever, thoughtful, funny, deeply insightful, winsome, full of heart and truth.  It deals with what it's like to be "different" and how one straddles the continuum of retaining one's culture/identity versus "blending in".

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L'Amour -  I took this book on vacation with me last week (mid June). It was a perfect story to have with me in the midst of mega-distractions (airports, airplanes, car rides, family-watching-tv-shows-not-interesting-to-me) ... because super simple sentences and each idea that LL wanted me not to miss repeated *at least* three times :-}. I enjoyed it for all the detail regarding my beloved CA/AZ desert landscape. I also liked this novel for all the reasons Heidi poignantly pointed out in her review. I also-- perhaps surprisingly-- in equal parts, disliked it - mostly because the writing style itself drove me nutso. It became [unintendedly] comic to me as I repeated to Big Dude at various intervals that the desert was still dangerous, water was vitally important, Johannes' grandfather was still a very scary man, it's important to keep thinking and learning and reading and bettering oneself, change is coming change is coming change is coming, and Indians are very complex. It's not that those things aren't true in the book; it's just that I fully knew it by the first couple dozen times L'Amour told me... Nonetheless, a pretty good, easy-read, vacay book (Vanity Fair stayed at home - grin).   Simple story, simply told, with everything simply ending with the good guys winning and the bad guys all dead.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner - a quiet, eloquent, character-driven story exploring friendship, marriage (for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do them part), hopes dashed, hopes fulfilled, deep sorrow, exquisite happiness, questions of "what if", commitment's costs and rewards, enduring, accepting... this story felt ... real.   First person narrative, taking place over the course of one day and remembering decades of life overlapping between two couples.  "Drama," Stegner writes in Crossing to Safety, "demand the reversal of expectation, but in such a way that the first surprise is followed by an immediate recognition of inevitability.  And inevitability takes careful pin-setting. Since this story is about a friendship, drama expects friendship to be overturned. Something, the novelist in me whispers, is going to break up our cozy foursome ... Well, too bad for drama.  Nothing of the sort is going to happen. Something less orthodoxly dramatic is ..."

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier - oh my.  This has hooked me in the very first chapter.  Can we say Haunting, Foreboding, Boldly Foreshadowing?!???  Daphne du Maurier is best-known for her gothic Cornish novel, Rebecca; and I dare to suggest that My Cousin Rachel is every bit as good as, and perhaps the superior to, Rebecca.  The toxicity of jealousy, the power of love to blind (for "the heart controls the body. and the mind."), the lies we tell ourselves to justify our beliefs/actions, the arrogance of youth ... it's all here.  And it's sooooo good.

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma - I'm not a non-fiction reader.  It's just not my preferred genre. Like John Irving brilliantly put-words-to (top of this post), I like my stories to be better than newspaper accounts; I like a book to be bigger, better, more complex, with symmetry and closure ... architecture!  But, if you don't have this hang-up like I do, and you like sweet, well-told memoirs written by someone with whom you have no acquaintance (but feel like you "know" by the end of the book), then The Reading Promise may totally delight you.  As a bonus, the battle cry of this book is:  "... a promise to remember the power of the printed word, to take time to cherish it, to protect it at all costs ... the life-changing ability literature can have ..."

A Widow for One Year by John Irving - It used to be that I always gave a book the benefit of doubt and read to the end even if it started kinda "icky".  As I've gotten older, I have less patience (and more discernment, I like to think) with books.  I will often abandon a book 50-100 pages in (if not poorly written), or even just a mere chapter in (if poorly written).  Then there's this book and this conundrum: it definitely starts icky and quickly gets ickier. As a reader, I hope that the "icky" is merely the background against which the narrative will play.  But, no; the icky remains.  And the whole atmosphere feels so completely morally bankrupt.  But.  John Irving is a fantastic writer. In some ways, he seems to me like a modern-day "classic novelist" akin to Dickens or Eliot or Hardy.  He can definitely vividly develop a story and a place and people it with non-cardboard characters. Which leaves me wanting to know where he's taking the icky and whether there's going to be anything redeemable about the lives of his book's people or the story. I didn't quit this one.  But I probably should have.  Despite the last 6-ish lines being genius, I really kind of felt like I needed to wash my brain out from the rest.

.

**nota bene:  I'm sort of a huge proponent of reading the "great books". My dudes will all graduate high school having had a hefty dose of great books. My monthly book club hones in to great books; and yes, we grumble about them, and occasionally don't like them, and find them to be hard slogging, and we even have to fortify ourselves to the eventuality of sometime in the near future finally tackling ... [sigh] ... Moby Dick. The process is hard. The process often sends me personally running in search of light fluffy FUN books to mix things up (my "candy"). The process is ultimately REWARDING and FULFILLING.

I was much encouraged by this talk that Eva Brann, a great books tutor at St. John’s College, recently gave at the Torrey Honors Institute regarding “Why We Should Read”. Sooo much good stuff to ponder in this essay of sorts, but here's one portion I appreciated (especially the delineation of books we "scarf up in a state of pleasant relaxation" vs. the demanding ones - I often find myself running hard between these two!) ...

"There’s reading and then there’s reading. There’s the kind called texting, done on a minuscule tablet with a limit to the ciphers used, which has, in effect, given up the ghost of significance. Then there’s the kind of easy feed, the best-seller, which we scarf up in a state of pleasant relaxation. Then there’s the instruction booklet, infinitely annoying because widget A never does fit into aperture B. I won’t attempt to list all the types of reading we do, but instead, I’ll leap to the list of books to which your program of learning is in fact devoted. These books all share one characteristic: They are demanding. They’re not taken up lightly, nor do they go down easily, nor are they irritatingly inscrutable. They are, instead, difficult. Some, like Hume’s great Treatise, are lucid on the surface and more and more complex as you penetrate it; others, like Kant’s Critiques, are obscure when you first open them but become quite intelligible as you go. All require your undivided attention and repay it with insights that are at once new to you and also welcome to your intellect. They deliver adventitious, that is, novel, matter which nevertheless immediately sits well in your intellect—or rouses energizing opposition. The fictions among these works also require alert being-there. You can’t scan or abstract a great novel: The plot is an extrusion of the characters’ being, not their prop, as in a routine romance. …

April & May's Books

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate - oh goodness, this book is all kinds of sweet, sad, delightful, quirky, poignant, clever, artful.  A quick, wonderful read.

Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (cheap Kindle upload) - I was all itchy-scratchy a couple days before bookclub without a book. I mean, I have a whole stack of books. But I only had 3 days before next book club, and I just wanted something not too long and not too "heavy" or "dark". And none of my stack fit those parameters. So I swung by the library after church to find something. Apparently not open on Sundays anymore. :-/ And then I read Heidi's blog with her latest book list. And then Greensleeves hopped onto my Kindle. You know I'm desperate when I buy the Kindle version instead of opting for the two day wait for the book :-}.  And it was the perfect piece of cotton candy to fill the days before I had to jump into Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.


Red-Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes by Matt Kindt (for graphic novel bookclub) - Just finished my first reading/viewing of this book.  Methinks I'll probably read it at least once more to weave together all the pieces and see the stuff I missed first time through.  My first impression: Count of Monte Cristo mashed up with Virginia Woolf's stream of consciousness and Kurt Vonnegut's time coming unstuck - the modern, artsty-illustrated version.

The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie King - there are only two authors whose books I regularly prowl for throughout the year and pre-order indiscriminately.  Laurie King is one of those.  I adore her Mary Russell series.  And when I get a new book in my hands, I become completely negligent in all my daily areas of "to-do" from page one til page last.  This particular narrative creates the whole backstory of Mrs. Hudson and one of the Irregulars, and how their lives initially intersected with that of Sherlock Holmes, and how their past explosively collides with their present.  Sooooooo good.  Soooooo enjoyable.  Now I have to start prowling again...

The Marriage of Mary Russell by Laurie King - (short story, cheap Kindle upload)  I prowled, I found.  I stayed happily negligent for another afternoon.  :-)

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (bookclub selection) - oh my.  Dense.  SO DENSE.  And a bit tricky to read.  I'm aware that my mind sometimes wanders as I read, and I occasionally skim slow or boring or tedious parts of books.  Woolf's writing style allows no such dereliction of attention.  Her "stream of consciousness" form means that I am constantly trying to figure out whose head (narratively speaking) I'm in, where I am, and is the time past, present, or possibly future?  Woolf will blithely and liberally change all these elements, even mid-sentence.  There are no "breaks", no chapters, no cues that a change is coming.  Anywhoo, I'm glad I read this (it *IS* good - the writing alone - the way the words were meticulously strung together - is MASTERFUL), but I won't be hurrying read anything else by Virginia Woolf anytime soon.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (library) - this was my point-counterpoint book, my knee-jerk book, my I-just-read-something-classic-and-dense-and-difficult and now I-need-something-light-and-fluffy-and-EASY book.  So in the midst of Virginia Woolf density, I ran to the library and grabbed a bunch of fluff, including a couple Jennifer Smith books, The Jane Austen Book Club, and a couple Kate Mortons.  The Smith stories were skimmable and "meh".  I discarded the Jane Austen 30 pages in (blech), and then dug into The Secret Keeper with expectation of something better (after all, I've read and not-loved-but-LIKED her first three books).  I gave The Secret Keeper a 300 page chance before abandoning it.  Flat, boring, unbelievable characters.  Wordy, plodding, unbelievable storyline.  Her liberal and ineffective use of figures of speech after Virginia Woolf's genius use of the same was simply unpalatable.  Phtooey.  So, welcome to my merry-go-round:  I work hard to get thru a classic, then crave something simple, and then have a tremendously difficult time finding something that's both simple and GOOD.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson - I'd seen the movie and a friend read & loved the book and passed it along to me.  Bill Bryson is indeed an amusing writer.  And I enjoyed the same parts in the book that I enjoyed in the movie (all the Bill & Katz parts), but I skimmed liberally over the more non-fiction-y parts.  Yes, I *get* that the whole book is non-fiction.  But, you know, some parts read more like story (Bill & Katz adventures), and some parts read more like ... non-fiction/history/ecology/documentary/blahblahblah.  I skipped those parts :-}.


Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (bookclub selection) - "Vanity Fair is the work of a mind, at once accomplished and subtle, which has enjoyed opportunities of observing many and varied circles of society. . . his genteel characters... have a reality about them... They are drawn from actual life, not from books and fancy; and they are presented by means of brief, decisive yet always most discriminative touches" ... so says one of my fav authors, Charlotte Bronte, whose admiration for his genius was boundless; she called Thackeray "the legitimate high priest of Truth".  George Eliot, another of my favs, and apparently another who held Thackeray in high regard, said "I am not conscious of being in any way a disciple of his, unless it constitute discipleship to think him, as I suppose the majority of people with any intellect do, on the whole, the most powerful of living novelists".   I'm only 200 pages in, but I'm very much enjoying this novel and Thackeray's very snarky, very present & personal, all-knowing, comment-on-everything, narratorial voice.  

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery - Sweet, old-fashioned, charming ... and yes, totally overwrought with drama/emotion as typical of Lucy Montgomery & her delightful character Anne of Green Gables ... and happily-ever-after.  Sometimes that's just the very perfect book equation.