Category: Books

Books read in December 2011

I finish my ten-title Mock Printz YA reading list and find some time for other things too.

Read
The Order of the Stick: Don’t Split the Party
Rich Burlew
Read aloud.
A very long book that refuses to follow the advice of its own title. We spend a lot of time with one or another of the split party. This long book and suffered a bit at the end from the “let’s wrap this up now” syndrome, but overall it was pretty entertaining, when read aloud.
Dead end in Norvelt
Jack Gantos
Read for Mock Printz
This was book 9 of 10 read for the Mock Printz discussion and was the outlier, falling into neither the “grim” nor the “tense” category. I started out loving it, as Gantos has a way of phrasing normal observations into something rather amusing and there is a scene at the beginning involving melting gold statues, a feisty old lady and a bloody nose that is pure comedy gold. But after that, my adoration cooled, due to the main character’s father being a bit of a jerk, a mystery poorly developed and quickly solved, but not resolved, and a very ambiguous ending that left me perplexed as to just what, exactly, the message was. I wanted to like it, but I just didn’t.
Kindred
Octavia E. Butler
One of the pluses of volunteering at the library is that I find very interesting books that I wouldn’t have come across otherwise when I’m shelving. This book was shelved in science fiction though, in my opinion, it was really historical fiction in which the main character just happened to time travel to 1815.
As mentioned in my review of Jubilee, I find slavery/slave narratives interesting and out-of-fashion. Indeed, this novel was written in 1979. But experiencing slavery from the perspective of a modern-day black person was a fun narrative device that kept me reading. Recommended.
Good Masters, Sweet Ladies
Laura Amy Schlitz
This has been on my Goodreads list for years, and I finally read it because I noticed it while volunteering at the library shelving books. This is a fun series of poems/monologues of young people in a medieval village. It’s a quick read and the sidebar historical information is interesting too. I also loved the YA novel this author wrote, A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama.
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Ken Kesey
Read for Kenton Book Group
This was a hard read, not because the prose was difficult, but the subject was. I had seen the movie and so I knew where it was going (assuming the movie followed the book) so there wasn’t anything to look forward to and I kept putting off reading my daily pages. Still, it was well written, and I enjoyed the perspective of the Chief, which was not a part of the movie.
It’s So Easy and other Lies
Duff McKeagen
Duff–from Guns & Roses (and Velvet Revolver and Loaded)–describes his life as a musician, an addict, and his life of sobriety. The writing is rough and unpolished, but enthusiastic and interesting, especially the details of the early G&R days. I was particularly interested in his journey to sobriety which I can sum up in three words: become a nerd. How could I not be delighted when someone’s path to recovery includes reading, bike riding, martial arts and going to college?
My main quibble with the book was the question of who wrote it. Duff’s name is on the cover, Duff is featured as the author on the back cover. Only on the last page of the book is Duff’s collaborator listed. I felt like the book was mainly in Duff’s voice and he probably did write most of it, but if you are going to use a collaborator (and there’s nothing wrong with that if you’ve got a story to tell) the just put their darn name on the cover with yours.
Anne of Ingleside
L.M. Montgomery
Anne begins to fade into the background as her children take over more and more of the story.
Good Poems for Hard Times
Garrison Keillor, ed.
Yep. They were.
After the Golden Age
Carrie Vaughn
Okay entry into the non-comic superhero genre, though it was no “Soon I Will be Invincible.”
It Looked Different on the Model
Laurie Notaro
Some funny stories. I recommend especially the one near the end about the dog translator.
Hamlet
William Shakespeare
As I read this, I was amazed at how many turns of phrase that we use in everyday speech originate from this play.
Anya’s Ghost
Vera Brosgol
Read for Mock Printz
I’ve said before I’m not a graphic novel fan, but despite my “not” I loved this little story. Also, it was pointed out to me later that Central Library has a cameo role in the book. So exciting!
Started and did not finish
The Culture of Make Believe
Big thick book that made a lot of very good points in the first 75 pages I read. However, said points are rather depressing and sad and thus I wandered off. Would be worth tackling again in the future.

Books read in November 2011

Aside from the book group selection, I only read YA (aka “teen”) books this month. For those of you looking to boost your book-reading bragging rights, YA books are good for that. They don’t tend to take a lot of time to read, and some are very well written like this month’s selection, A Monster Calls.

Read
A Place on Earth
Wendall Berry
Read for Kenton Book Club
Ah! After slogging grumpily through last month’s selection, this was a breath of fresh air. It was hard to get into at first as I spent a lot of time thinking, “now who is this character again?” But that eventually resolved itself and the characters became known and the writing was just lovely. I hadn’t read Wendall Berry before, but I’ll seek him out again.
Anne’s House of Dreams
L.M. Montgomery
After the scattershot nature of the previous “Anne” book, this was a welcome relief. This time, there was a narrative structure which vaulted this book in to the category of “my favorite book of the series so far.” The cast of characters was varied and interesting and even characters from other books came to visit now and then. There was a very nice narrative arc, unseen in any of the other books. And I greatly enjoyed Anne and Gilbert as young marrieds, though Gilbert at times seems to just fill the “husband” character and not show much of his own character.
Jasper Jones
Craig Silvey
Read for Mock Printz
Of the grim/tense category that all these Mock Printz books seem to be, this falls into “tense.” I found the writing for this novel very uneven. For example, the story goes along and I’m populating the pictures in my head based on the book and then suddenly it seems that it’s the 1960s. Insert record needle scratching off record. What? Really? Huh. This happened several times: the mother seemed to be a normal book mother and then suddenly she wasn’t, the love interest had a too-convenient part to play. Also, this book takes place in Australia, which normally is a fun thing, but this book had a lot of Australian things that it didn’t bother to translate into American. And there was A LOT of cricket.
So I never really took to this book. But I did like the following passage:
“I take a small incendiary pull. Of course, it attacks my mouth and burns down the length of my throat. I gag immediately, wiping my lips, trying to keep my lungs at bay. I slant my head and pretend to read a label that isn’t there through my clouding eyes. This shit is poison. And I realize I’ve been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I’d adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. I can’t trust anything. If sex turns out to be this bad, I’m never reading again. At this rate, it will probably burn my dick and I’ll end up with lesions.”
Imaginary Girls
Nova Ren Suma
Read for Mock Printz
Another of the “tense” YA books for Mock Printz reading. I hope all these adolescents are learning to breathe in yoga classes, or they are going to be incredibly tightly wound. This was nicely written and I spent the book engaged with puzzling through it, trying to figure out just what was up. I think it will inspire lively discussion when we get to discuss it. But I didn’t like it. The main character’s sister was quite unlikable and she was the book, so I spent a lot of time in puzzling dislike. “What’s her deal?” I kept wondering. I’m interested to see what others think.
A Monster Calls
Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd
Read for Mock Printz.
Seemingly all ten of our mock Printz books this year are either grim or tense and this one falls into the grim category, what with a thirteen year old’s mother very sick with cancer and his father living across the Atlantic with a new family and him not getting along with his grandmother and all. But despite it being grim, it was a fabulous story and my favorite Mock Printz book so far. It’s short and there are wonderful illustrations and I highly recommend it for anyone going through a situation that involves loss. Even if loss isn’t currently a part of your life, this book is worth reading for its very moving story.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Laini Taylor
Read for Mock Printz
“This book is awesome! I’m totally giving it five stars!” was something I thought repeatedly as I gobbled up this book, right up until the last page when the author actually used the words “to be continued.” Invoking the “to be continued” phrase automatically breaks my “series rule” which is as follows: The first book in a series must be a complete story on its own; the second book should be a happy surprise, not a given.” Authors that can’t be bothered to come to a clear break in their plot are, in my opinion, lazy and should be rewriting a bit more before publishing.
So, the ending was disappointing, but until then I couldn’t get enough of this book what with the kick ass female character (“This should be a movie!” I thought several times before I remembered how well Hollywood manages to diminish strong women literary characters) wonderful fantastical elements and a very interesting puzzle to unravel. Highly recommended, even with the disappointing ending.
Shelter
Harlan Coben
Recommended by my friend Maureen with the caveat that this book breaks the “series rule” (The first book in a series must be a complete story on its own; the second book should be a happy surprise, not a given) I read this in a day. Despite my compulsitivity, this book was awful. The writing was bad (though did not approach Twilight-esqe levels) and I feel like Coben’s approach to writing a “teen” book was to read about seven of them and then take every cliche possible and shove it in his book. Let’s count them up. We have: 1)The essentially orphaned, and mostly unsupervised main character, 2)The loud, eccentric best friend who might as well be wearing a jester hat, lest you not get that he’s supposed to be the comic relief 3)The prickly fat girl who wears a defensive shell a mile thick, but is hiding a heart of gold and has a secret 4)much plot development action involving cell phones and 5)a large population of adults who “just don’t get it” 6)Teachers who are all apparently very angry former drill sargents.
You know what else this book set in the present day had? Nazis. Really? Yes really! Because there is no better antagonist than WWII era Germany. But wait, there’s more! A Strip Club. Prostitution. Mysterious White Van. Strange Tattoos. Stranger Tattoo Artists. Thinking over all of these elements put together I feel a building rage at the pure stupidity of this book. One or two of these elements in the hands of someone who can write would have resulted in something worth my time. But at this point, all I can do is warn you away. Go ask a librarian for a good YA book and leave Harlan Coben to the airport-novel-reading adults.
Also? Incredibly dumb character name. Mickey Bolitar! He was born in the mid-90s, for god’s sake, not the mid-50s. In fact, I just checked Wolfram Alpha and the graph of the Mickey distribution shows a dip down to pretty much zero in the mid-90s when this character would have been born. It’s rank is beyond 1000 currently. Mickey Boliter! Stay away! Far away.
Started and did not finish–None

Books read in October

Oh dear, 12 books read this month. With the Mock Printz, the read aloud that Matt and I are doing and the generally cold and dreary weather I have failed at my goal of reading no more than 75 books this year. Geez.

Read
Order of the Stick War & XP
Rich Berlew
Matt and I Read Aloud
Berlew leaves our Order in grave–literally, in one case–disorder by the end of this very thick book of comics.
Richard III
William Shakespeare
There are too many people! They all have the same name! I have no idea what’s going on! Richard III spends a lot of time telling people how bad he is! But he really is!
As usual, much better when the actors bring it to life.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Jacqueline Kelly
Recommended by my friend Kristen, I liked this book for a variety of reasons. It was set in 1899, rural Texas, but the main character’s family was quite well off. I feel like a lot of books set in the frontier west focus on the poor and struggling, so this was a nice change of pace. The main character was quite engaging, being the middle child with three brothers on either side. The struggles she had maturing into a new life stage were engaging, and her family was well formed for such a large bunch. Also, the writing was very good, especially for a YA novel. And it was funny in places, which always makes reading enjoyable. This would be a great book for someone who has never read–but is interested in–YA fiction.
One Day
David Nichols
Matt and I read aloud
This was a fabulous read-aloud book because the writing is quite good, the passages through life are very apt and the dialogue is a pleasure to speak. It is an even better read-aloud with your opposite sex significant other, because one of you can do the female parts and the other do the male parts. (I’m sure same sex couples would also have fun too.) Now that I’ve seen the movie I can heartily entreat you to bypass it altogether and just read the darn book.
13 Little Blue Envelopes
Maureen Johnson
I’ve been submerged in Shakespeaere, and the long slow and–frankly–very boring book One Hundred Years of Solitude for nearly a month. I’ve just received the Mock Printz list and noticed it contains 10 books all of which look to be rather tense and/or grim. There is going to be a lot of buckling down reading in the next few months. What to do? Realize that I haven’t yet read anything by Maureen Johnson, wander over to the YA stacks and grab the first book I see by her. Then: devour it in a 24 hour period.
I’ve been meaning to check out Maureen Johnson since I began watching the Vlog Brothers, and I found her just as delightful as John Green was telling me she would be. This book had a great premise: Flighty Aunt sends niece a letter and money and tells her to follow the directions of that letter and the 12 following. It was fun and funny and had a plot twist I didn’t anticipate. After clearing my head with this bit of delight I could plow through the last 40 pages of Marquez’ tome. Maureen Johnson was just what the doctor (or perhaps Youth Librarian) ordered.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Read for Kenton Book Club
The nice thing about book club is that I’m forced to think more deeply about why I don’t like books. In the normal order of things, I would have set this book down, bored and frustrated around page 50 and it would have been returned to the library eventually. Because we were discussing it for book group, I wanted to finish it, even though I didn’t like it. First off, finishing it for book group sometimes pays off as with Inez of my Soul where there was a twist at the end that (mostly) made the book worth reading. This book, alas, had no such thing. But as it was such a long book (417 pages) I spent a very long time analyzing what I didn’t like. And here is my list.
1) I think when this was written there wasn’t really magical realism in literature and so it was this new crazy thing that everyone was quite astounded by. However, now that magical realism is everywhere, this book is just a so-so entry.
2)I was not a fan of the very fluid timeline. Several times I found myself wondering how old a character was, which took me out of the book.
3)The characters having the same names? Very confusing. And not in a good way.
4)The writing style (or translation) was not something that drew me in. I found it very flat.
5)I didn’t really like any of the characters. And spending 417 pages with a bunch of people with the same name that you don’t really like is not very fun.
6)I did, however, perfect the talent of falling asleep while balancing the book on my chest while reading this book.
Interestingly, the book club members didn’t really like it either. Reactions ranged from “Well, I’m glad I have read it, though I didn’t enjoy the reading” to “I absolutely loved this 25 years ago and spent this rereading wondering what I liked so much” to “I could have done with 50 years of solitude, but one hundred years was a bit much.”
Despite our dislike, our discussion was rich and interesting.
The Order of the Stick: Start of Darkness
Rich Berlew
The book that we learn that Xykon is pure evil while Red Cloak is not actually evil, but has instead made a series of increasingly bad decisions.
(In our house this emerged as: “You know, I think Red Cloak is the George W. Bush, but Xykon is the Dick Cheney of the Order of the Stick World.”)
Anne of Windy Poplars
L.M. Montgomery
I sort of get the feeling, reading this book, that L.M. Montgomery was often trapped in rooms with eccentric women who nattered on. I get this feeling mostly because Anne keeps getting trapped in rooms with eccentric women nattering on. Character development was nil here. Anne encounters different people over three years and manages to happily change all of their lives. Except that eight year old boy the author killed off so that another character could have a happy ending. She writes letters to Gilbert narrating her life, but we never hear anything from him. This lack of development of the main character’s fiance seems like a rather large oversight. As their relationship has gotten more serious, we have heard less and less from him. And characters from the previous book are completely missing. What’s up with Priscilla? How is she adjusting to being a minister’s wife? I realize they live in different places now, but couldn’t she even write?
I still enjoyed reading this, but I think Montgomery is coasting a bit. Also, the cover of the edition I read annoyed me. Here is Anne, a B.A. and principal of the school and they’ve got her walking around in dresses the length she would have worn as a fourteen year old. Where is her mature woman dress? Where?
Chime
Franny Billingsley
Read for Mock Printz
I sort of didn’t like this book from the beginning and now I’ve read it to the end and can clearly state that I don’t feel it was a good book. Let us examine the ways.
Setting. This book was ostensibly set in early 20th century small English village, though none of the characters struck me as anything other than modern in their thoughts, actions or deeds. If one of them would have pulled out a cell phone and started texting, I don’t think it would have registered as something out of the ordinary. Also, there is a magical realism element to this novel, but it felt forced, as if everyone was trying very hard to talk about the witches, etc. but the effect was neither magical nor real to me.
Writing. The cover tells me it is a “beautifully written” book, but I found the style quite grating. The repetitive sentences were, I believe, supposed to give me insight into the tormented mind of the main character, but instead inspired a lot of tormentation of my mind. Perhaps the overwroght-ness would appeal better to a teenager. Also, I found the names of the magical elements rather immature in nature: Mucky Hand, Boggy Man. Grownups went around saying those names and I think grownups would not want to be uttering toddler-type names for long.
Characters. I got pretty clear pictures of the main ones, but things were a bit hazy with the narrative and everyone else sort of faded into the background.
Narrative. By the time the plot had wrapped itself up, nothing was a surprise to me, because so much of it had been hinted at before.
Blink & Caution
Tim Wynn-Jones
Read for Mock Printz
When I received the list of ten books to read for the Mock Printz discussion, I groaned. A cursory check revealed them to all be grim/tense. I’m a fan of grim/tense, though not for 10 books in a row. After wading through Chime, I got ready to force myself through this book. Happily, I was reminded that not all the books we read are bad.
This one fell into the “tense” category, but it was tense in a way that made me cast off my other reading and just rip through the book. The characters were great, incredibly likable, not perfect and street smart. I loved that it was set in Canada (authors live in Canada too? I had no idea!) and encompassed both city and country. This would be a great read for a reluctant boy reader and girls will like it too. There is mention of sex/amateur porn in the beginning, but it’s alluded too and not graphic. Overall, a very good read and so far my favorite of the Mock Printz books I’ve read.
King John
Wm. Shakespeare
If you could sort my Goodreads Shakespeare reviews and read them all at once you would find they all say the same thing: Bor-ing! Boring, boring, boring! This one too. However, it does help to read them before we see the play as I discovered when we abruptly moved our tickets up a week and I hadn’t read the fifth act. My mind wandered a lot more during that act then the others because I didn’t know what was coming. So I will keep reading these boring plays before seeing them brought to life by actors who know what they are doing.
The Berlin Boxing Club
Robert Sharenow
Read for Mock Printz
In my normal reading life, I’ve been avoiding books about the Holocaust. I know that this period in world history provides a lot of drama and pathos and many themes to explore, but I’m tired of reading about it. So I avoid. But my Mock Printz booklist is apparently not aware of my “No Nazis” rule and so I read this book set in 1930’s Berlin. I remarked earlier that my list of ten Mock Printz books are all either tense or depressing. This falls into the depressing category, with a bit of tension thrown in. Despite these marks against it, I liked the book. It was well written and I felt the plot brought to life the decreasing freedoms the Jewish people of Germany experienced in the 1930s. I’ve read about it in the history books, of course, but the main character’s experience made it much more real. It was especially interesting to see the difference for the main character, who did not look Jewish and found it much easier to move about the streets, with his sister, who looked very Jewish and experienced much more harassment.
The boxing sections were interesting too. I was particularly taken with the idea of “the 300.” That would be 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 50 pull ups and 50 minutes of running. In the book, Max Schmelling proscribed that daily fitness routine for aspiring boxers. Inspired, I attempted a 300 of my own, and like the main character’s experience, my first 300 lackluster, clocking in only at was 51.
I felt that there could have been more illustrations and–contrary to my usual feelings–I would have liked some sort of epilogue. But this was a good read and I finished it ahead of schedule which I take to be a good sign. This is another “good for boys” book. If they are Jewish or into boxing I suspect they would like it that much more.
Started but did not finish.
The Way
Kristen Wolf
This was a promising book. A friend recommended it most forcefully. I started it, but got bogged down in other books that come with deadlines to finish so this went back to the library. Another time.

Books read in September

Not an outstanding fiction month, but good enough.

Read
Mexican White Boy
Matt de la Pena
Recommended by Fabulous Librarian Deborah, I initially had to put down this YA novel because it was a bit too gritty for me. I get excited when I read YA literature that tells stories of other classes and cultures, yet the characters reminded me of the students I volunteered with at a middle school. Were they doing some of the things these characters were? Also, after all these years, I still feel uncomfortable with teenagers drinking. It throws me right back to my high school awkwardness around the issue. I didn’t drink and I just wished that everyone else wouldn’t either.
After a few weeks of separation, I nosed back into the pages and found that I couldn’t let go of the characters. The main character’s struggle–and his various ways of dealing with–not fitting into either world was gripping and I was incorrect in my prediction of what was up with his dad. There was one rather loose end left untied which I would have appreciated some clarity about, but otherwise, after my first reaction, I greatly enjoyed this book.
Silver Sparrow
Tayari Jones
I thought the shift in narrators mid-book was a particularly brilliant strategy. Up until the shift the book is interesting. How does it work when your dad has an entirely different “real” family and you are the secret family? But once we shift to the legitimate daughter’s point of view the tension mounts as we explore the realities of her life.
I will be investigating this author’s other work.
Fiona, Stolen Child
Gemma Whelan
Read for Kenton Library Book Club
Oh dear, this book was a steamin’ heap of first novel cliches! Dead sister inspiring guilt? Check! Sexual abuse of main character? Check! Inability to deal with various aspects of life because of it? Check! Strained relationship with remaining sibling? Check! I sighed through every page and if it wasn’t a book club book, I would have put it down. Interestingly, the author came to book group and chatted with us about the book. I enjoyed hearing about how she came to write this book. Talking with her, I could see how attached she was to her character and the novel itself, which she wrote over a period of ten years. I enjoyed her chatting, much more than I did the book. Based on this chatting when her next book appears, I’ll dip into it and see if the second novel is more to my liking.
Spooky Little Girl
Laurie Notaro
There were clunky parts to this story and details that didn’t quite match up. For instance my drug counselor boyfriend pointed out that drug tests are not like pregenancy tests. They come about in a different manner. However, I greatly enjoy reading people’s imaginings of the afterlife and Notaro’s was sparkly and interesting. It’s a fun book that one shouldn’t think too deeply about.
The Pot and How to Use It
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert is a funny man. Aside from the fact that he clearly loves movies, his writing style and general giddiness is one reason I love to read him. In this, he makes an argument for cooking with “the pot” by which he means a rice cooker. Apparently it’s a one-pot cooking wonder. There’s a line about men who cook in the introduction that slayed me and his argument was enough to convince me to buy a rice cooker, although I haven’t done so at this juncture. Perhaps when I do get one, it won’t die early on like the last one did.
Anne of the Island
L.M. Montgomery
Anne becomes a B.A. and we follow her through her college years. They go by fairly quickly in many very short chapters of three pages or so. As I was reading a chapter per day, it took forever to finish this book. Future chapter-per-day readers take note: combining several chapters together will help this seem to be shorter than four years. Though this was an enjoyable tale, I feel like Montgomery only has enough juice in her to develop one character per book. In this book it was Priscilla Grant, the somewhat spoiled, full-of-fun housemate of Anne. Everyone else remains shadows who flit through, including Roy Gardiner, whom Anne almost becomes engaged to. If there is any character I should have a good picture of it is him.
Aside from that (rather major) failing, it was still an enjoyable, entertaining book, and much more fun to read on a daily basis than Fiona, Stolen Child.
Partly Cloudy
Gary Soto
Half the poems are from teenaged girl’s points of view and half are from their teenage boy counterpart. Only one poem did I find “keepable” so this book was not for me, but I’m not really the demographic.
Started and did not finish
You Learn by Living
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt has a very chatty writing style that I found enjoyable to read. However, I wasn’t so much into self improvement when I was reading the book, and did not make much progress. I was not able to renew it, so back it went. I might pick it up again later when improvement to self is a more interesting idea.

A bag of books for $5.00

The Title Wave Bookstore, had a screaming deal: a bag of books (or other media) for $10.00. As I had a $5.00 gift certificate from volunteering for the Summer Reading program, I followed Kelly’s lead and we made our way to the bookstore on a cold and rainy day. What I discovered? A lot of cookbooks! A lot of cookbooks that cost tons of money in the stores. I brought home a bunch and I will harvest the 3-5 recepies that appeal to me and then donate the books. What a deal!

Pride and Prejudice: Worst. Cover. Ever.

When I go to Powells to purchase a classic, I’m always looking for the crappy paperback, of the $1.00 variety. Sadly, it seems that I need to employ a time machine to find that kind of book, as Powell’s current prices bottom out at about $4.00. Or $3.95, which I paid for the copy of Pride and Prejudice (pictured below) to take on the bike tour. I might have paid a little more just because the cover to this book is so incredibly lame I still giggle with delight looking at it.

I initially judged this edition to be published in the early-to-mid-80s due to the Regency Romance type cover and was surprised to find the edition to be published in 1994. Note that it assures me right on the cover that this edition is “complete and unabridged.” Um, yes, that is what I’m looking for.

It’s a tossup which is my favorite part. The tagline “Mom’s fishing for husbands–But the girls are hunting for love” is such a groaner and also not actually reflective of the story, as Matt exasperatedly pointed out before we were even halfway through our reading of the book.

Or perhaps I love most that Elizabeth Bennet, someone who in the novel does not yet have one and twenty years, is depicted as someone closer to my own current age cohort which is mid-to-late 30s. Quick, grab her Darcy, before middle age begins! Also, would Darcy have ever kissed her hand like that? I think not.

This edition, aside from meeting the high standard of delivering the complete and unabridged book, did contain an excellent introduction titled “The Life and Times of Jane Austin” which I found quite interesting and informative. So just one more reminder to never judge a book by its cover.

Subject headings

Sometimes, I amuse myself by searching the library catalogs subject headings. The minutia of these fascinate me. I first discovered their delight when reserving a season of the television show the Office, Season Two. Are you aware that one of the subject headings for the show is “Clerks–Pennsylvania–Scranton–Drama”? Another is “Office Politics–Pennsylvania–Scranton–Drama” But here’s where the electronic catalog is much more fun than the card catalog. By a single click, I can find out how many other titles have the same detailed subject matter. In the case of the above subject matters, there are five other titles–all seasons of the Office.

But let us follow a trail of subject headings and see where they lead us. I’ve just put on reserve Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1960 book You Learn by Living, which has the intriguing subject of “Conduct of life.” There are 797 other titles following in the subject heading from Las 3 preguntes: Quien soy? Adonde voy? Con quien? to Zig Zigler’s Life Lifters: Moments of Inspiration for Living Life Better. But going back to the subject heading, I see there are some other intriguing subjects nearby. First off, the catalog helpfully tells me there are 37 related subjects from “Benevolence” through “Folly” “Self-Interest” and “Reliability.” But there are also a host of different categories of “Conduct of Life” from 15 separate categories for African Americans (boys, children, teenagers, men, Mississippi, women, quotations, etc.) to “Conduct of Life, Celebrities United States” which is at the bottom of the page. Clicking to the next page would undoubtedly open up a whole world of “Conduct of Life” but we’ll continue our journey with “Conduct of Life Anecdotes” with 19 entries.

The entries in this contain a few Chicken Soup for the Soul books and two different titles about how John O’Hurley has learned about life from dogs. But we will click on the title: Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad Behavior. This gives us three other subject headings, we’ll go with “Authors–American, Anecdotes.” This gives us three other titles, two of which have to do with animals: dogs and horses. Apparently a lot of American Authors write about animals. By clicking on Cold Noses, Warm Hearts: Beloved Dog Stories by Great Authors we will then find ourselves with new subject headings. I’m going to take a more general one, to try and get us out of this dog trail and so I will choose “Authors–Anecdotes” which gives me three more books.

This time I’ll follow the trail of It Takes a Certain Type to be a Writer which only gives me one new heading, which I must follow: “Authorship–Miscellenea” which sends me only one new book, Lucky Break: How I Became a Writer. From there I can follow “Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)” which seems to be a broader category and it is, with 137 entries.

From there I can scroll and click until I find a book that interests me enough to put it on hold. The Multnomah County Library system has many small branches and one big library. Growing up, I usually found books to read at the Boise Public Library by wandering the stacks and grabbing what looked good to me. Now that the stacks at my local branch are much smaller and our library’s hold system is so awesome, I tend to take recommendations from friends, newspapers and magazine and put them on hold. Scrolling through the subject headings is a new way for me to wander the stacks, at least virtually.

Books read in July

The month in which Patricia sabotages her plan to read many fewer books than she read in 2010.

Read

The Hour I First Believed

Wally Lamb

This is a massively long book which I found to be a very, very good read. It wandered onto an additional tangent there near the end. I could have done without the Quaker/Abolitionist/Prison Reformer character/tangential side plot, but I was willing to because Wally Lamb is excellent at writing characters I want to keep reading. This novel is sweeping in that it covers, Columbine, the fallout from Hurricane Katrina and prison reform as well as family secrets large and small. Could it possibly be a bit over written? Possibly yes. Did I compulsively read until the end despite this fact? Yes indeed. In another nine years when Lamb finishes his next novel, I will happily line up to read that one too. Or wait to come across it in the library, which is what I did with this one.

The Tempest

William Shakespeare

Oh crap, we’re seeing the Tempest tonight. That means I need to start and finish reading this play today. As usual, the Bard’s words failed to move me, but the play was quite delightful.

Lost & Found

Geneen Roth

Roth uses the loss of her fortune (thanks, Bernie Madeoff!) to examine how her relationship with money is similar to her relationship with food, as well as how family experiences with money contributed to her view of, and management of her money.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bender

Aside from having the best title of the year (I sometimes randomly say it to myself for fun) this is a wonderfully written piece of magical realism. In my view, the best magical realism causes me to think, “what would my life be like if that happened to me?” and this book kept me pondering, in many different ways, after I finished it and I’m guessing I will continue to think of it on and off for years.

It’s also a my favorite kind of magical realism: somewhat impossible to make into a plausible film. That means I get to keep my own pictures in my head.

Red Hook Road

Ayelet Waldman

So Bildungsroman is a novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, but what is the term (and it must have a somewhat Germanic sounding name) for a novel that examines the thoughts and motivations of a family, or group of characters, usually after some major event has happened. English majors, help me out here.

This is my favorite kind of novel. I get to drop in on a family, see what’s going on, make judgements about their motivations, become attached to them and see how it all works out in approximately 500 pages or so. For a long time, I resisted reading Ayelet Waldmen because she’s married to my Amazing 21st Century Novelist/Essayist Boyfriend (Michael Chabon) and I was worried that reading her might mess up my relationship with him, but it turns out we can all happily exist together and I have another good author to catch up with.

The Postmistress

Sarah Blake

Sort of a second-tier, Lifetime Movie or Hallmark Channel-esque entry into WWII US based fiction. It wasn’t great, but I kept reading.

Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

Read for Kenton Library Book Group

I really hated this novel for the fact that it was too violent and there was never any explanation or explorations as to why the characters were so violent. I felt like I was trapped in a Quentin Tarantino film. I kept reading, hoping for something–anything–that would make me like this book, and also because I was reading it for book group. I never found anything to like, but in the book group discussion I learned that the premise of this book was based on a historical incident, which was interesting. Also that there is a free e-book available for those who want to delve into the nuances of the story.

While I was reading the book, I was explaining to someone that I had a bookmark advertising the movie Jayne Eyre in my copy of Blood Meridian and her comment was, “You need a bookmark for that book. Every time you open it, there’s some sort of killing going on.”

I really enjoyed “The Road” and “All the Pretty Horses” but I was not a fan of this book.

Gardening Without Water

Charlotte Greeno

I was hoping this was a comprehensive sort of book about storing a lot of water including step-by-step instructions as to how to build such a system for myself. Alas, it wasn’t. It’s an English book, so some things don’t apply. Like she cut into her pipes to divert greywater into her shrubbery and observed that most pipes in England are on the outside of the house, so this is easy to do. Not so in America.

The Eyere Affair

Jasper Fforde

A quite delightful alternate-reality-English-special-forces-in-the-literary-sense book. I particularly enjoyed the Richard III as Rocky Horror Picture Show scene.

Freedom: A Novel

Jonathan Franzen

Yeah, so, WOW. There was so much to like about this book. It was huge. There were a lot of words. Paragraphs were very long and the semicolon was used to make sentences even longer. It was very observant about the quirks of late 20th/early 21st century US lifestyle. The writing was fabulous, so much so that I added at least seven quotes to my Goodreads quotes page. It is a novel I keep thinking about. And it was so well written that it took me more than a week to realize I didn’t really like any of the characters. Really. They all were kind of icky in their own way, but so completely and competently drawn that I was so entangled with their lives and I didn’t notice that I would not have enjoyed being their friends in real life.
Also, Richard’s interview where he compares making music to manufacturing chicklets? Priceless. That along was worth the price of admission. But you also get numerous other human foibles and humerous situations included free! Read it today!

Started, did not finish

Great House
Nicole Krauss
I really tried to like this book, but the writing was spare and I couldn’t get into the related short story setup.

Books Read in June 2011

It looks like I didn’t read much this month. This was because Mary was very long, but also because I was doing that thing I said I wouldn’t do anymore where I’m reading several books at once. Most of them I finished right after the turn of the month, look for them in the July review. In the meantime, here’s how my June went.

Read
Mary
Janis Cooke Newman
Good lord, but this book was long. It was also mostly depressing, because Mary–as depicted by this author–was just never quite fulfilled. No one ever quite loved her enough and her interests did not mesh with her sphere of the time. I think today she would have been a beloved talk show host a la Rosie O’Donnell, but maybe with a bit more of an edge. The book was interesting, and full of detail, but I just didn’t enjoy it every much.

The Wilder Life
Wendy McClure
If you could rock a Laura Ingalls Wilder Pub Trivia Night (and why have I not seen one of those?) then you will love this book. Wendy McClure does what I want to do: she visits all of the LIW home sites, immerses herself in the books, reads criticism and history of Wilder’s life and stories and even makes butter. She is also quite funny. This is a humorous, breezy book for everyone who has read the books over and over. My preferred way: my mother read them to me, but once I could handle them on my own, I read the whole series every summer. Sometimes I would read them backwards and enjoy Mary’s miraculous return of sight.

The Brothers K
David James Duncan
Read for Kenton book club. (Although it was a re-read for me, I first read it in the late 90s)
“It’s got a lot of baseball, but it’s totally worth it!” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that to someone reading this book. And there is a lot of baseball. And I know that not everyone is into baseball. But if you can just get through the baseball (and there is less of it as the book goes on) you will read one of my top 30 books of all time. It’s very long, yes. It’s meanders, yes. It’s is chock full of America’s Pastime that no one I know seems to like very much, yes. But if you keep reading, I bet you will like it as much as I did.

Anne of Green Gables
L.M. Montgomery
I started this series when I was about 14 and enjoyed them, though not enough to finish all six books. I think I petered out in book five. I decided summer is a good time to see if a re-read is a good idea and the answer is, “Yes ma’am!” This book is funny, not in a slap-sticky kind of way, but because Montgomery is so good at writing her characters so vividly. Anne, though mostly “very good” in that early-20th century children’s book character way, is not sickening in her goodness, she’s funny. I couldn’t get enough and will be continuing on with the series. Also, of note: this book uses big vocabulary for something that is a children’s book. A lot of words were SAT-type words, and I’m not sure today’s 12-year-old would know them. Clearly, children reading books circa 1900 would have done much better on the SATs than today’s youth.

Order of the Stick, Book 1
Rich Burlew
As mentioned every time I review a graphic novel, said genre isn’t my thing due to my skimming technique and the not looking at the pictures that provide a good portion of the action. However, Matt and I read this aloud during our Bike Trip, with each of us taking parts. Matt helpfully put his finger on the frames of the comic that have no words, so I was forced to look at them and comprehend. This worked well and I enjoyed the humor of this Dungeons and Dragons Adventure send up.

Books read in May

So this wasn’t a super exciting reading month, but in reviewing my reviews, I see that I didn’t push Suite Fraincaise hard enough. That was a fabulous read and will remain foremost in my mind for a long time. I spent too much time finishing off the House at Riverton. Don’t repeat my mistake.

Read
Tales From Outer Suburbia
Shaun Tan
Read for sporadic book club.
I renewed this several times before I got around to reading it, and I only got around to reading it because someone had it on hold and I couldn’t renew it any more. Then, of course, I read it in no time at all and thought it fabulous, and what the heck was I thinking, not reading it before this?

You’ve probably run across that weird kid growing up. Not the creepy weird one, or the socially awkward weird one, but the one who seems to be off in his or her own world. Maybe you talked once or twice to this weird kid and thought, “That person is a bit off, but damn, are they interesting.” These stories remind me of a weird kid world. Everything was incredibly familiar and just a bit off and very enjoyable.

This Green House
Joshua Piven
By the man who brought us the Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide, you can now count on him to help green your home. This is chock full of plenty of projects ranging from easy to hard. Two of my favorite were retrofitting your toilet so you could flush with greywater, and how to make your very own washing machine. It involves a Rubbermaid container, a (new) toilet plunger, a drill to make a hole and your own muscles to get the clothing clean. It’s genius! There were all sorts of fantastic gems in this book.

Poetry Daily
Diane Boller and other editors
One poem per day of the year (even including February 29) from the people who bring you a new poem every day.

The Man from Beijing
Henning Markell
On the one hand, I tore through this novel and put off daily chores so I could read more of it. So, super awesome. On the other hand, it was slow in parts, there were some pretty amazing coincidences that were never fully explained and I found the end dissatisfying. So, not so awesome. The books strengths are in its first two sections, after that its seemed like I was just reading to find out who dunnit.

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
Pleasant & Martin
This book suffered greatly from the way in which the information was presented, which was too bad because there is a lot of good information in it. It seemed like every single page referred me to yet another page in the book. A few times of flipping from page 27 to page 188 to see what they are taking about seems acceptable, but after the first few times I think there’s an indication that your book is suffering from layout issues, or perhaps your information needs to be categorized in a different way.

Suite Francaise
Irene Nemirovsky
Read for Kenton Library book club.
I just searched for a list of titles for good books to read and rejected more than five out of hand because they were set in World War II and I’m tired of reading about Nazis. If you think the WWII novel genre has become stale and overdone, and you don’t read about Nazis either, I suggest that you make an exception for this book. Here’s why:

  • The book was written by an author in 1942 and just recently published. Why is that? That’s one of the things that makes the book great.
  • The writing in this book is superb, observing the flight of the citizens of Paris in the wake of the German invasion and also life in an occupied French village.
  • The book is unfinished, only the first two parts out of a planned five.
  • After you finish the book, you get to read notes the author made about the novel and also what happened to keep her from finishing the novel. That story, along with the unfinished story she wrote, provide a memorable one-two punch.

The 100 Thing Challenge
Dave Bruno
Dave Bruno and I got off on the wrong foot when, in his preface, he used his cat as an example of the disposable American lifestyle. It seemed that one of the family cats was killed by coyotes and when they brought home a new cat to replace the dead one, the other cat was angry for months. Bruno attributes this to the other cat realizing he was disposable, and easily replaceable.

I, however, chalk up this situation not as an indication that Americans have a over-consumption problem (we do) but to the fact that Dave Bruno is not a responsible pet owner. If he knew that coyotes were a problem (he did) and chose not to keep his cats out of harms way, I would say he is guilty of animal neglect and perhaps abuse. And I don’t blame that other cat for being mad, as clearly he was living with a family that didn’t care enough for him.

So, given that all that happened in the preface, it’s amazing I made it through any of the rest of the book. But I did, and despite Bruno’s lack of respect or responsibility for his cats, there were some good bits of knowledge to glean from this short book. He does a great job connecting things he had acquired with the fantasy future he developed in his head. Through his descriptions of the prowess of his pen collection (really!) and his master woodworker fantasy I realized that a goodly number of objects I’ve been holding on to are perhaps things that I hold on to because of who I want to be, not who I actually am, and will perhaps never be.

Also, for those of you thinking about reducing your possessions to only 100 things, but have no idea how that is even possible as just your bed has potentially 12 things (bed frame, box spring, mattress, mattress pad, fitted sheet, top sheet, blanket, comforter, pillow, pillow, pillowcase, pillowcase) know that Dave Bruno would count “bed” as one thing. In fact, “library” was one of his things, encompassing all his books. So he wasn’t super rigid. And also, because he has a wife and children and, according to his rules, shared items didn’t count, he didn’t count any plates, cups, utensils, pots, pans etc. on his list.

The House at Riverton
Kate Morton
So this is the kind of book to read when you are on a very long vacation and feeling very lazy and not really caring if what you are reading is super interesting. It’s got promise: good upstairs/downstairs scenes set in an English country house before WWI, a family tragedy, a very old narrator looking back across her life. But it is a very long book and the main character herself is a little slow to pick up on details like, for instance, who her father is.

It’s not a bad book, but its one of those that isn’t good enough to be truly enjoyable, and not bad enough to put down so I kept on grimly reading until the end.

The Ha-Ha
David Kirby
David Kirby’s poems are much too long and narrative for me to ever memorize, but I greatly enjoyed them. I enjoyed them so much that I rationed myself to one poem read per day. His form is somewhat rambling, and he manages to cleverly hit the humor and the passing pathos in nearly every one.

Started, did not finish
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
I spent the early part of my adolescence reading the kind of romance novels depicting a very Fabio-like man on the cover. The romance part of it was a draw, of course, but I also liked the historical fiction settings.

Being a learned adult with access to historical fiction novels that don’t have Fabio-like men on the cover, I sometimes worry if the historical fiction book I’m reading that includes romance does not, in fact, fall into the Fabio cover category. I had that fear with this book and it was partially that fear which caused me to discard it.

It was also slow to start. We spent an agonizingly long time establishing that the main character was a WWII combat nurse who deeply loves her husband, but hasn’t spent much of her marriage with him, due to the war. After about 25 pages of this, I got the gist and also the drift that when she was plunged back into “back in the day” Scotland, the guy she meets she would feel very romantic feelings for, but I’m guessing there would be no sex. I read to the point she was thrown back in time, a bit more and decided to end the Fabio/not-Fabio conundrum and stop reading.

Balthazar’s Odyssey.
Amin Maalouf
This had an interesting plot (merchant goes on quest for rare book he accidentally sold) and was well written, though the prose was a bit dry. I’m blaming this on the translation. However, it was kind of slow and I wasn’t very attached to the story, so I put it down. If you are interested in 17th century end-of-the-world fiction this might be for you.