Audio Epiphany

Okay, this is turning into "You Learn Something New Every Day" every day. Did you know that Yellowstone National Park--the ENTIRE park--is one giant volcano? I can't believe this is not public information. The last time it blew, 75,000 years ago, it covered 16 states (almost everything west of the Missississippi) with four inches of ash. WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED? It doesn't look like a volcano for two reasons--1) it's a caldera instead of a cone, meaning it's sunken instead of a peak (different ways of forming), and 2) it's so incredibly BIG that there's nowhere on the ground from which you can observe its shape.

I'm finding this book fascinating. It's called A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, and I don't think I would have liked it at all if I'd picked it up in print. I saw it in the bookstore the other day--it's long, and if you flip open to a page, you'll often find the author describing someone's quest for some esoteric piece of scientific knowledge. I think it would not hold my attention as a print book.

But as an audio book, it's delightful. The narrator's British accent is kind of swoony, to start with. Also, the narrator clearly sees a lot of humor in facts that I might not necessarily have found funny. I think Bill Bryson's intent is, in part, the same as Sarah Vowell's--where she rummages through history for the juicy, human, funny bits, he does the same with the history of science. At the same time, though, he's giving you an overall science lesson, plus fascinating tidbits like this week's You Learn Something New fact.

So what makes a good audiobook? It's tricky. I tried to listen to The Time Traveller's Wife a few weeks ago. I've heard it's a marvellous book, and I believe it, but I ended up buying it, because I couldn't bear to listen. This is because it started, early on, with a pretty randy sex scene between the two main characters on their first date. Now, at that point the narrator has let you know that they're going to end up married, but this early in my acquaintance with the characters, the sex squicked me out a little. But I feel confident that won't happen in the book.

Why? Because in print, the reader as a voyeur is tucked away in a corner, quiet, unobtrusive, unobserved. I'm watching these people live their lives, but they are alone together. The voice of the narrator adds another person to this equation (even though, in this case, the narrator is one of the characters). It's me and this guy watching these people have sex, and that's weird. Alternatively, it's this guy telling me about having sex with his wife. Again, weird. Reading is solitary; listening to a book on tape is slightly less so.

Also, it's harder to zip back and forth in an audio file than on paper. If your mind wanders, you can't stop reading--the machine is running. You can't slow down to savor, or rush to find out what happens (though in the latter case, I love the suspense). So I feel that a good choice in an audiobook is a story less densely packed than others. It's a little loose, with enough room for you to miss a sentence or two during the slow parts and not lose track of what's going on, or miss out on sumptuous prose that you'll regret for the rest of your life.

Narrator is a HUGE deal. Never get an audiobook you haven't heard a sample of. I really want to listen to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, but the guy who reads the unabridged version available on Audible is just so EXCITED to be reading it, I couldn't stand it. You want someone who can do different people's voices without sounding like he's faking--someone who uses rhythms of speech and gentle cadance instead of falsetto and lisping to capture different characters. I sometimes find it a little distracting when they have multiple narrators for different characters, but when well executed, that can be the perfect solution. Memoirs can be great, if read by a good author.

Audiobooks I've enjoyed: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent.

So, there's my buyer's guide, for whatever it's worth.

Concurrence Redux

Again with the coincidence that two books I'm reading fall together. It's like the universe is a grand tapestry revealing itself to me through books. How spiritual, how kabbalah.

Anyway. I was reading a book about recovered memory, Suggestions of Abuse, by a Dr. Yapko (Richard, maybe? With a last name like that, I've forgotten his first name). I reserved this ages ago, after listening to an episode of This American Life about recovered memory syndrome.

Simultaneously and unexpectedly, Michelle thrust Vanishing Acts upon me. I have been barrelling through the work of Jodi Picoult--too fast, in my own opinion.

To end my anecdote anticlimacticly, I don't want to give away the book. Suffice to say that the topic of what a person might accurately remember from when they are 4 years old is quite relevant to both volumes.

Speaking of Jodi Picoult, I'm going to have to take a break from her, just because so many of her books are so very similar. They're all family dramas based around a court case. I think the structure of the legal system is a useful one in narrative--it allows information to be parcelled out in certain ways, and for people to tell their stories and argue about different angles on the same factual information. But I think she overuses it in some ways. The lawyer is always a player in the case, even in cases where it's a very bad idea, even when they're acting extremely unprofessionally as a lawyer.

It's a strength that there's always a certain amount of obscurity to what's going on--either the facts of the case are obscure, or (as in My Sister's Keeper, her strongest), there really is no right or wrong answer--everyone is right, and everyone suffers for it. But there's the added obscurity of people who withhold information--not just key information for good reasons, or painful information for emotionally understandable if not "good" reasons, but useful information for NO reason. Seriously. It really seemed like the lawyer didn't interview the father at all in Vanishing Acts, and the father kept saying things that summed everything up instead of explaining "I had to take her because her mother was a drunk. Ask anyone." It took like four interviews to get to that.

Okay, I'm done about Jodi. It's really a good book--if I hadn't just finished The Pact a week ago, I would have liked it even more than I did. Next up: well, I haven't decided yet. I'll let you know.

Bookend: You Learn Something New Every Day

So much to relate of my vacation reading, my library trip once back home, the conclusion of this PLR. But to get myself started, to prevent the enormity of the task from overwhelming me, I present you with the tidbits I've gleaned so far today from Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks. This book about the lives of Islamic women does not appear to be related with the play of the same name, except to the extent that they address the same topic and share a title drawn from Islamic texts.

First, and on a pleasingly practical basis, I finally learned the basic difference between Sunnis and Shiites. I still don't know what I should about what the two groups are doing right now in Iraq, but I know that that Sunni is from a word meaning "tradition," and after Muhammad's death they advocated the traditional method of the elders electing a new leader, while Shiite comes from the word for partisans, for the partisans of Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, and the idea of a blood lineage. Shiites like revolution and fighting the power, historically. Whaddaya know?

But the best thing I've learned already from the beginning of this book is that Islam looks remarkably and eerily like Mormonism when you look at the history. Muhammad was married to a slightly older and very successful businesswoman for many years. After her death, he started having revelations that men shoudl take many wives. As his wives, being young and caught up in his power, began exciting scandal, he started having revelations about cloistering women. When he desired the wife of his adopted son, but couldn't have her (even after said son divorced her out of respect for his adopted father) due to previous revelations categorizing this as incest, he had new revelations declaring all adoptions invalid, so that he could marry this woman.

It looks JUST LIKE MORMONISM. It's like when Joseph Smith had a revelation that directed his wife by name to stick by her husband and stop complaining about the other marriages he kept having.

Creepy old men have really messed the world up, huh?

Welcome back from vacation.

Hiatus Entry

Okay, I won't be around for a little bit, due to various obligations that pretty much everyone reading this will already know about and have gotten drunk at and/or be expecting to see photos of.

But before I go, let me tell you something I learned last week, just because don't we all love to learn?

It is this: Sherpa is not a job description. It's a cultural and racial affiliation. There are about 20,000 Sherpas living in Asia, and about 75% of them live in the Himalayas. So, though a lot of them climb mountains for a living, you can be a Sherpa who's never been above, say 10,000 feet above sea level.

They say you learn something new every day. I know I do, but I started out pretty ignorant.

Sweetness and innocence

I'm all syrupy. Tammy and the Bachelor, starring Debbie Reynolds and (in my favorite Hollywood WTH moment) Leslie Nielsen as the romantic lead, is one of my most beloved and heartwarming movies. If you've seen the movie, you know the book. It's pretty much exactly the same--sweet and all about the wisdom of the naive. Tammy Out of Time, it's called, by Cid Ricketts Sumner. Ricketts! Cid Ricketts! I love it!

The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery. You all know her Anne of Green Gables, of course. This isn't an Anne book, but it's so good. The main character, Valancy, has been ordered around by her stuffy mother and relatives all her life. When she learns that she has only a year to live, she suddenly starts living life the way she wants to. And the book has all the visceral satisfaction that you'd expect in that synopsis. And I don't think I'll really be surprising anyone or giving anything mysterious away when I say that in the end, she's not really dying and she lives happily, ever so happily ever after, in her rustic cabin with the reclusive millionaire love of her life.

When it comes to books to read in the week leading up to your wedding, both of these are much more uplifting than The Year of Magical Thinking, which I finished last week. That book, while beautifully written and moving, had my trying to love Mike less so I won't miss him so much when he passes away many, many decades from now. Eventually I came to my senses and realized that we'll all die anyway, and it's a waste not to love passionately until then. Still, it was tough for a while there.

So this might be my hiatus announcement. I read 11 books last month, and 2 so far this month. This month will also include the honeymoon, so I hope to have a high count then. God, I'm shallow. Wish me luck!

Why China is Communist

From chapter 77 of Lao Tsu:

The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough to give to those who already have too much.
What man has more thanenough and gives it to the world?
Only the man of the Tao.

Robin Hood was a Taoist!

I formally don't get it. I read the words, and some make sense and some don't, but I don't think I have any kind of impression of what the Way actually is. When I head over to Confucius, I think I'm going to read an analysis, instead of just a translation.

Lao Tsu Was a Crazy Person

What is up, I ask you, with the Tao Te Ching? Have you ever read this stuff? I understand the generic idea of Taoism, which is going with the flow, not resisting the nature of things. Like Pooh. But as you delve into it with the guy who invented it, you realize that maybe he was a little bit on crack.

First, look at the little introductory blurb. This explains that Lao Tsu was the imperial archivist in the time of Confucius (they were contemporaries, but Lao Tsu was older). He was a teacher all his life. The book, though, was written because "as he was riding off into the desert to die--sick at heart at the ways of men--he was persuaded bya gatekeeper in northwestern China to write down his teaching for posterity."

Now, I don't know how he was planning to die in the wilderness--wild boar, maybe, or just good old fashioned exposure--but that makes this book pretty much a suicide note. Which kind of explains some of this stuff. Like "Everyone else is busy,/ But I alone am aimless and depressed," in chapter 20. Or, more universal, "Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles."

Really, the whole book is full of stuff that makes sense as philosophy but is lousy advice. Like, "Is there a difference between yes and no?" Um, yeah. I can see the argument that saying yes to one thing is saying no to another, and it's good philosophy. But as advice for living in the real world, where you're trying to get things done, it's kind of tricky. Do I have leprosy? There's a difference between yes and no, my friend. A big one.

I also think he has a weird relationship with the word "wisdom." This could be a translation thing, I'm not sure. In chapter 19 he says "Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,/ And it will be a hundred times better for everyone." Here, wisdom seems to mean learning, the idea being that the accumulation of knowledge gives the illusion of wisdom, which gets in the way of attaining an understanding of the holistic nature of the Tao. But then in chapter 22, we learn that "wise men embrace the one/And set an example to all," followed by a long list of good, Taoist things that wise men do. So is wisdom the opposite of good Tao, or the key to it? Hm?

I'm only in chapter 30 right now (there are 80, I think), so there's a way to go. Only just now, though, in chapter 30, has he dealt with the fact that most of life consists of bending the world to your needs. If everyone was a Taoist, nothing would get done. It seemed for the first 29 chapters that the Taoists survive because they're fed by the people who, instead of taking the world as it comes, plough up the field and plant something to eat there. But here in chapter 30, we are repeatedly instructed to "achieve results." We must not "glory in them," "boast," or "be proud," but we should definitely "achieve results,/ because this is the natural way."

I don't know, maybe it's starting to come together. Maybe Lao Tsu, Nut, will do for me & Taoism what C.S. Lewis, apologist, couldn't do for me & Jesus.

Speaking of Jesus, I'm so glad this guy is handling the Bible for me, so I don't have to read it. At least these 80 chapters are each one page long.

Driving Home

I'm working hard at a lot of books right now. The Vagabond, by Colette, for book club. It's not a hard read, actually--it's very good, though I wouldn't have picked it up. It's slim, and poses a lot of interesting questions, though I don't know that it answers them very well. What's the difference between love and lust? How does a truly broken heart affect later love? What does "lasting love" look like, and what is the price of tying yourself to one person? Would being rich and having no responsibility really make you happy? As someone who's getting married soon, a lot of these questions touch quite close to home (maybe not the last one). And the book gives you a lot of room to think about them, without really answering them, which makes for very interesting thinking, but also makes me somewhat dissatisfied with the author. And then you get to filter it through the fact that it was written about 50 years ago--are the answers to these questions different now?

Envy, by Kathryn Harrison. Ugh. This is such a study in psychoanalysis. This is an author reading about analysis (not just "therapy," but analysis--constant, overbearing overanalysis). This book is the friend who won't break up with her boyfriend but really kind of hates him and can't figure out why he's such a jerk and yet is surprised every time he does something jerky. Almost nothing even happens for the first 200 of the total 300 pages. The main character is an analyst. His son died a couple of years ago. He and his twin brother are estranged. He may have fathered a child when he was in college. He's recently become overwhelmed by his sexual fantasies. And for 200 pages he thinks about sex, and his brother, and then thinks about why he's thinking about them and tries to figure out why his wife is so low key, and talks to his analyst. And he's clearly pretty wrong about his brother, and his wife is supposed to be cool and annoyed with his hyperanalysis, but I'm just frustrated with both of them that they can't have a conversation that involves one person saying "I'm upset" and then trying to fix the problem. It's just a hot mess, this book. And I have a great deal of respect for the woman who wrote Poison. Read that book. Please don't read this one; my only reward for finishing it will be sparing you the trouble.

Also finished listening to The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves to the Rescue today, which involved ever so many delightful romantic misunderstandings, and also blackmail and a policeman's helmet. There's no point in talking about a Jeeves & Wooster book. Unless Bertie Wooster is actually speaking, there's no point in the thing at all.

I'm starting to focus on what to bring on the honeymoon. No library books--I don't want to risk losing them. Also, this is a great opportunity for a PLR. So: The Remains of the Day, which I've been saving for this occasion. A Wizard of Earthsea, which why haven't I read this book yet? March, because I bought it, didn't I? Into Thin Air, because I'm never going to sit down to it, otherwise.

This almost covers the range of lengths and tones I need to have with me. Maybe something else. What kind of reading do you bring on your honeymoon? It seems to trivial to bring light beachy fare, but I like to think I'm going to be concentrating on You Know Who more than on my books, so no tomes. What does that leave us? Picture books? It's a really complicated question.

Outing!

So we had to go to the doctor last night, and as a little recompense for the hour-long wait, we decided to stop off at the Malden Public Library. It was even Mike's idea, God bless'im.

Here's the thing; quite a few books on my list are only available at Malden. Nowhere else in the BPL system can you get a copy of Look a Lion in the Eye, by the author of The Nun's Story. I think it's the only copy available of Tammy Out of Time, which is the basis of the movie Tammy and the Bachelor, which , if you've never seen Leslie Neilsen of Naked Gun fame as a romantic leading man, you should watch this movie. Where else would I find The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables fame?

Of course, I could order these things through the system. But it's also just a nice building, with the peaceful, open space of a nice library. It's busy but quiet, but not too quiet. They use the Dewey decimal system, for crying out loud. I love it. So we stopped by, so Mike could pick up his book (about fish that are partially evolved to live on land), and I could scour the place for some of my own books.

So, we walked away with the books I mentioned above. Plus the translation I wanted of the Tao Te Ching. Which is MESSED UP. Get this: "When the great Tao is forgotten, kindness and morality arise. When wisdom and intelligence are born, the great pretense begins." What does that mean? Anyone?

I now have an even dozen library books out. Two of them are Mike's. One I already finished. That's still....a lot of books. Yay!

Duh

Okay, if I had started reading that book I mentioned in the last entry, I would seriously have notice that wow, this is nothing at all like a book that would be written by a novelist of any sort. Aside from being without style or grace, its grammar is quite damaged.

But my favorite recent piece of evidence is from the novel by the "real" Kathryn Harrison that I picked up today. As follows:

From the inside cover copy of Kathy Harrison's Another Place at the Table: A story of shattered childhoods redeemed by love: "Teaching a Head Start program for at-risk four-year-olds, Kathy Harrison became increasingly concerned about one student, Angie, who had been abandoned by a mother who would never be able to care for her. "Could we take her in?" Harrison and her husband asked themselves--a question that quickly changed to "How could we not?" After Angie came Madeline, and Gabrielle, and Tyrone, and all with horrifying pasts and needs as small and as large as a hot bath, clean sheets, and unconditional love."

From the inside cover copy of Kathryn Harrison's Envy: "Will has a good sex life--with the woman he married. So why then is he increasingly plagued by violent erotic fantasies..."

I don't really think I need to go on.

Misdirection

Well, I've been tricked, and I can't quite figure out how it happed, but I suspect it was my own dopiness that tricked me.

So I was looking at books by Kathryn Harrison, who wrote Poison and The Binding Chair. She has a new (or newish) novel called, I believe, Envy, which looks kind of creepy but which I've decided to read. Partly because I was drunk when I saw it at the bookstore and once it's on my mental list it's hard to get off, and partly because of The Kiss, her memoir, which looked really creepy and was, but not in the off-putting way I was expecting.

So anyway, in looking up Envy on the library website, I came across another book by Kathryn Harrison, about being a foster parent. It looked very sweet and interesting--it's called Another Place at the Table. I thought it was interesting that someone with such a damaged past was a foster parent, and I wanted to read more about it--I know something about her life from her memoir, and something about her, if only from her novels, and I thought it would be an interesting story. So I checked it out.

I just pulled it out to look at. I noticed that the name on the cover was Kathy Harrison, and I thought that was interesting; her novels and somewhat disturbing memoir cite her as Kathryn, but this heartwarming story, perhaps inteded for a more touchy-feely audience, has her name listed differently. Huh. And then I read the acknowledgements, which include the line "My mother, Jean Scott, always knew I could." Um....I read about your mother. I think the word I'd use for her is "narcissistic." Is this some sort of healing thing, that you're thanking her for making you a good mother?

I finally figured out that it's a different Kathryn Harrison when I realized that she lives in Western Massachusetts--the novelist, I know, lives in a big city, I think New York. I feel like a really impressive detective to have figured it out, though!

I also just finished How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff. A great, fast book, about war in modern England. I didn't love the ending, but most of it kept me reading, and I finished it in a day.

So long, so long!

No, I mean it's BEEN so long. I'm so sorry, dear reader. Can I call you D.R.?

I could explain my busyness, but that's irrelevant (as I impressed upon Rebecca this weekend, this blog is ONLY about books). But I can give another, more relevant excuse; I've been reading a lot of YA material that wasn't so great as to merit discussion. When I try to think back on what I've read this month, what stands out is the Lois Lowry, which ranged from okay to very disappointing. Seriously, don't read Messenger. It's a great setup, and then a sudden, pointless, deus ex machina ending. Not at all.

But what was great, what surprised and impressed the heck out of me, was Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. This was a wonderful, delightful book, and I would recommend it to almost anyone, which is saying something. It proves that something really literary doesn't have to skimp on storytelling. It makes use of the shape of the story in unconventional ways, both to make its thematic points, and to build tension and anticipation in lives of the characters.

The only potential drawback is something that I actually believe to be a strength--the styles. The structure of the novel is in six stories, each in a different setting and somewhat different style. It ranges from a published journal in the South Seas in the mid-1800s, to a future dystopian interview, and further. Some of the stories take getting used to (spelling, syntax, etc), and each one relies heavily on its own style. I can't wait to hear what book clubbers are going to say about that chapter, which was very well executed.

I'm also reading Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. It's so good, well-written, friendly and comfortable. I just wish it was more convincing. Well, I don't necessarily mind that it wasn't convincing, I suppose, it's just that it feels full of holes to me. My English teacher used to ask us who, living or dead, real or fictional, we'd like to invite to a dinner party. I think I'm adding C.S. Lewis to my list, which included, so far, Oscar Wilde, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Shirley, and John Watson, M.D. (you need listeners at a party like that).

Way Behind

And believe it or not, I'm not way behind on books. Just on everything. This has been a heck of a day, and I sort of feel everything creeping up on me. The stuff that urgently needs to be done right NOW is getting in the way of all the things that really need to be planned ahead. Like, say, the ENTIRE FALL. Ugh.

Bookwise, I'm not in a much better headspace. I'm reading two very dense, difficult books, and one quickly read but somewhat personally challenging book. And I'm feeling the temptation of something delicious that's been offered.

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, is the current book club pick. Did I mention this? How the first sentence on the back cover is about his postmodern brilliance? And how the blurbs compare the author to Phil Dick, Nabokov, and I think Kurt Vonnegut? Isn't that a bit much? Anyway, there's nothing wrong with it, per se, but it's not exactly engaging. So far it reads like short stories--the sections are far apart in time, character, and intent. But if they were short stories, they would either be more subtle, or have more of a point. So I assume this is all going to come together somehow. Not sure I care.

Then there's Emergence, can't remember the author, too lazy to look. This is a YA sci fi book about a girl who's part of the next generation of humans, who are all supergeniuses and were immune to the bioterrorist attacks that wiped out the human race. It would actually be just pretty enjoyable, except that it's in the form of a journal written by someone who believes that almost all articles and pronouns are extraneous to language. It's readable, but slow, slow. It's good, the plot is driving me along, but really driving me--it's a carrot and whip situation, with her adventures being the carrot and the thought of spending all this time on a book I don't even finish being the whip. I know, I know, good time after bad. Still.

Then there's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, by Ann Lamott. I don't like it as much as I liked her Travelling Mercies, and I think it's because the latter was, though essays, a coherent narrative about her discovery of her own spirituality. This is just sort of a jumble of essays about trying to be a good person and mostly being a touchy, cranky person who I probably wouldn't get along with, and hating George Bush. She's very sensitive. Still, she seems to know some things. This reminds me of Girl Meets God in some ways--in that she admits to being flawed and forgives herself immediately. But somehow it's not as offensive as that book was.

And now Michelle has lent me Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult, which I'd love to just read. And I have Messanger by Lois Lowry, which is YA and Lois Lowry and will be short and easy and pleasing. And it's hard not to turn away from these challenges, after a day like this. But I will persevere. I will finish Plan B, and then make Cloud Atlas my bedside book. And I'll find time for all these things, and not let my life beat me down. Fiction is good for that.

Who brought the cat? Would....

So, how do you feel about Margaret Atwood? I've never quite been sure. I read The Handmaid's Tale in high school, and I thought I enjoyed it, though I was bewildered and somewhat turned off by the views it had on sex. I thin I was too young to quite get which bits were shocking and which merely disquieting. (For the record--intercourse with your owner while holding his wife's hand--shocking. Prostitution as an escape from this lifestyle--disquieting.)

Anyway, then I read The Robber Bride in college, and I really enjoyed it. I think the guidance of a professor helped--the characters and relationships are never quite tidy in her work, and it's taken me a long time to get comfortable with untidiness in novels. But I knew which characters I liked and didn't like, even while they were being complicated, so that was great.

Then I read Alias Grace. I actually listened to it on tape, and though it was an abridged version, it was excellent. The narrator did a marvellous job moving back and forth between the first and third person parts of the book. I'll admit that my opinion of the book was biased by the narrator; when I read it recently for book club, I found that I was far more sympathetic to Grace than others. The sweet, hypnotic voice, complete with Irish lilt, that the narrator had put on for Grace's first person sections had convinced me of her innocence more than anything--I couldn't argue when others brought up doubts inherent in her story. But I couldn't buy them, either.

So, we're 3 for 3 at the time of reading, maybe more like 2 out of 3 in retrospect--I don't think I'd enjoy rereading The Handmaid's Tale. So why do I think of her as a writer I'm not sure of?

Well, there are her stories. I've officially decided that liking someone's novels is no indicator of whether I'm going to like their stories, and vice versa. (Barbara Kingsolver is another example of this.) I tried to read Wilderness Tips, and though I couldn't name anything wrong with it, I didn't enjoy it and didn't finish it. I know the one about the cyst in the candy box just kicked me right over the edge.

Then there's The Blind Assassin. You can't even say I didn't like that, because I didn't make it past page five. It's far too conceptual for me--the story within a story within a story, and I'm pretty sure, that's all within a story and told through newspaper clippings. It's just too much, trying too hard, too proud of itself. I really do intend to try someday, but I would not be terribly surprised or disappointed if that day never came.

So why do I doubt her? I just read Lady Oracle, expecting it to be something I wouldn't enjoy or want to read. And in truth, there were tough moments. The narrator had some opinions that I had trouble separating from those of the author for a while. But the story was solid, good, grounded, which is not really what I would have expected from her. And I'm not sure why--the ones I've liked have had very grounded stories--Alias Grace, The Robber Bride, both well plotted, though I think of her writing as being thick with symbolism, literary flourish, words that don't do much.

It's not. Lady Oracle was really good. I wish I had gone into it with a better attitude. I have to admit, I'm really only beginning to appreciate and understand stories that are full of messiness, emotionally sloppy characters. The metaphor in my head is of people whose emotional furniture is straight out of the early 70s--avocado appliances that don't work very well, nubby brown couches and orange shag carpets. And maybe they have ants. These people make the most interesting characters, most of the time, but I've only recently come to terms with them. So I guess now I can call myself a Margaret Atwood fan.

Drunken Blogging!

I really must have had a post by this name before, but darn if it isn't accurate! It's 7:45 on a Thursday night, and I've had half a bottle of wine with dinner and I'm 30 now, THIRTY!, so why shouldn't I share my burbling with you, my adoring public?

You should read some Lord Peter Whimsey, and maybe some Story of the Trapp Family Singers. If you loved The Sound of Music, and you have a tolerance for saccharine, you will love the latter. The first half is the movie, and the second half is the charming story of the family learning English in America and owning a farm and singing singing singing. Yay Trapps! No "von" though, which is sad.

Lord Peter Whimsey! I'm reading Strong Poison, which is the premier of his lady friend. It's funny, though half of the dialogue consists of quotes from classic lit-rit-chaw. Like Jeeves and Wooster, only less antic-y and more plotty. Good stuff!

Went to the library today with Sheila, who has been indoctrinated by me (yay Sheila!) and will be reserving her first book online shortly. Welcome to my world. Anne Lamott (whose name I always spell wrong when I don't look it up, so sorry Anne!) and Lois Lowry and Madeline L'Engle. I want to read also Kazuo Ishiguro and also Ursula LeGuin. I have those books. Let's go Sharon! Yay!

Busy Bees

Work is cuckoobananas insane, so I've been away from the blog, and I apologize.

I also realized the other day that I was reading a lot of books at once, even by my standards. It's pretty typical for me to have three going at once--one for the train, one for the bedside, and an audiobook. But this past week, I've actually had a train book, two bedside books, a living room book and two audio books. I think that's it, though I could even be underestimating.

Brenda tells me to give up on Cell, which is one of the audiobooks. It came in two parts, and I finished the first part. It's mediocre and creeping slightly downward as the zombies start getting smart and you realize that there's some sort of diabolical plan behind what had seemed to be a zombie-themed disaster novel. It would have been better that way. I've already given you the "King needs an editor" rant, so I'll spare you that one, but I've been advised to stop reading before the characters reach Maine (they appear to be in Exeter, NH right now). Being more than halfway done, I don't know if I have a choice. The other audiobook, to which I switch when the pantomiming sentient zombies get to be too much for my delicate constitution, is The Code of the Woosters, in which occur such delightful antics as the pinching of a cow-creamer. I will leave it at that.

Trans-Sister Radio, by Chris Bohjalian, which I finished not half an hour ago, was very good--Bohjalian sometimes ends up being lighter than he means to be (not humorous, but not weighty), but his tendency to concentrate on the personal even when his plots are sociological and political has served him well. My only quibble with this book is with the awfulness of that title--I really was hoping that it would justify its corniness, but though it's a book about a transsexual and those hwo love her, and NPR plays a role, I just can't let that title slide.

Let's see, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers is getting dryer by the moment, but it's fast, too, so I'm letting it go. Everything that happens in The Sound of Music is over halfway through, and the rest is about being a bunch of Austrian singers in America during the war--learning the langugage, complaining about Americans, admiring Americans, etc. Harry Potter's been on the back burner since I put it down just before what I could tell was going to be a frustrating scene--Hermione is either going to be preachy, right, or both, and I couldn't bear any of those things right now.

Oh, and A Girl of the Limberlost was just lovely. Not as funny as Anne of Green Gables, but as sweet and charming as Little Women. God, there are so many good books in the world. I spent a few weeks intimidated by my pile, but I'm right back in the game.

Which is lucky, because the next book club pick (the name of which escapes me at the moment), is described on its back cover as "post-modern." Angels and ministers of grace defend us.

Uh oh, I'm THAT GUY

If you had heard the rant about overdue library books that I used to give. I had a really good plan to create a crack team of elite due date enforcers--this team would appear at your home in their long black coats, wearing black leather gloves, and very politely and slightly ominously request that you return your overdue books. Certain readers might recognize the KAOS Death Squad led by Dewitt Clinton (yeah, you read that right) from back in the day.

I imagined the embarassment of having this three-person squad in their special black van show up to demand their library books of all things would encourage prompt returns and/or renewals.

And now, dear readers, I am that person! Part of my soul awaits the appearance of the Squad on my doorstep. Yes, I have to admit it: I've had two overdue books in the past three weeks.

I have no defense. I tried to renew but couldn't, I didn't notice how fast the date had advanced. There's no excuse; I was late. I work two blocks from the library and couldn't return them. I manage my account online and couldn't renew them. I am, in fact, That Guy.

I would like to apologize to the public, the library system, and the world at large. And to Brenda, because I teased her so mercilessly about her overdue books. There too go I.

Back in the Saddle

Okay, I'm getting back in the swing. I'd like to thank the Most Fun Book Ever, Shining Through by Susan Isaacs. I usually reread it about once a year, but it's been more than a year at this point. When I started, I was worried it wouldn't hold up--Susan Isaacs has, more recently, joined the club of Talented Writers Who Need Editors to Stop Them from Overdoing Their Best Schtick (founder and chairman: Stephen King). When I started Shining Through, I started to see some of the overkill I've noticed in her previous books. But I was overreacting--it's just a very casual conversational style, and it's a lot of fun.

I also finished The History of Love for book club, which I admired. I enjoyed some of it very much, though I'm not 100% sure what it's about (love, maybe? It's in the title, after all). And The Brief History of the Dead, which I was listening to as an audiobook. I enjoyed that very much, though the ending was one of the most WTF? moments I've had in a long time. I blame the audiobook format, especially on mp3--you don't know the ending is coming till it comes. So I'm listening along, waiting for some upshot--and it ends. Again, I think its depiction of heaven is kind of corny. Also, there is a LONG dream-like sequence near the end that was as boring as listening to someone else's dream. But I did enjoy it, very much.

And now, the line-up! From the library: Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers (recommended as a good place to begin the Lord Peter Wimsy series, though I have mixed luck with mysteries); The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (I suspect this is going to be hard to read, sad and personal. But I've read about the author and she seems like an amazing woman); Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian (his books are very thoughtful, but a little much; I think I'll be okay if I keep that in mind going in). From the shelves: The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (how long have I been planning to read that?), The Five Fists of Science, Matt Fraction (it's a comic, but I'm excited). Then maybe something else--I've got a lot to choose from.

And away we go!

Off My Books

I'm off books. It's so weird. I don't know what to do with myself. I'll sit in my living room, flip channels on the TV, read the catalogs from Crate & Barrel. I'll wander around. I made some horrid tzatziki (hint: don't use nonfat yogurt). I can't pick anything up.

The History of Love, for book club, is going all right. I read it on the train, and while I don't get it at all, it's pleasingly written and not entirely nonsensical. I'm not really into it, though--I don't quite get the point.

I put down Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince mostly because I started reading it immediately after finishing The Order of the Phoenix, and I don't think that was the best idea. They're very different books, and I found the change in tone dissatisfying. Also the sense of starting at the same old place was frustrating.

1776 is promising, but it's so much like schoolwork. I read a page and realize I didn't take in any of the information on it.

A Brief History of the Dead, the audiobook, is still going well. I'm still enjoying it, and I'm curious about how it's going to end. Although the majority of the story, in the city of the dead, is kind of hard to pin down, as it doesn't have a whole lot of tension. The tension of the Antarctica scenes, though, is plenty.

I tried to pick up The Remains of the Day, and that might work. I have the new book Ruth lent me, whose name I forget. I went to reread the good parts of By the Sword, but I think I've outgrown Mercedes Lackey. I think I need a ripping adventure story. I need Pirates of the Carribean, the novel (that's a metaphor--I don't want a novelization!).

Sigh.

Luffly

I've been meaning to write about Uglies for a while. This weekend I finished Pretties, the sequel, and I'm actually somewhat less interested in talking about it. I might not even read the final one, Specials, when it comes out. Pretties was weaker, the structure that worked as a surprised in Uglies feels awkward when you see it coming. Things get more dangerous, which is something that makes me uncomfortable in the middle of a series.

Well, maybe not. That was never what bothered me about Harry Potter. But I guess there's no feel from Uglies that the characters feel the change, feel things mounting.

But what I thought was interesting about Uglies was the premise. In the future, at the age of 16 everyone is given surgery to make them pretty. The idea is that there is a biological imperative to be drawn to beauty. Beauty is clear skin, large eyes, full lips, symmetrical features. These are things that indicate good health to us on an instinctive level, and they are evocative of small children, inspiring protectiveness. So the point of this surgery is to equalize people, to eliminate subtle but irrelevant psychological predispositions as a factor in life. It also makes you healthier, stronger.

The story is, not unexpectedly, about people who have fled this life to maintain their natural individuality. They live in the woods, eat meat, their hoverboards run on solar power. One girl is torn between worlds. The usual. But the main character, Tally, who wants to be pretty, has a number of arguments with her friend Shay (in favor of staying ugly) that are really interesting. Of course, I'm supposed to automatically understand that staying unique is better, but Tally/prevailing wisdom has some really interesting arguments. And beauty and society are very fully realized themes here. Tally falls in love with someone who never had the operation, and has to learn that he's not ugly. She develops a role in a new community and has to reexamine her role in her old community.

I could be giving it too much credit, but I thought it was really thoughtful for what it was--YA action story.

But I probably won't read the third one. It'll be called Specials. Specials file their teeth; I just can't go there.

No Time!

Can't blog now! Harry's in trouble! He's been caught with his head in Umbridge's fireplace, but Hermione seems to have a plan. The illustration at the top of the chapter appears to have given it away!

ps. The Minuteman system won the Battle of the Library Reserve Systems. Also thank you, biology M.A.A.M.N. (Master of Arts Any Minute Now) krm for confirming that you can't kill the entire population with a 24-hour virus.

The Sweet Hereafter

Many folks have read The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, which was an excellent book (her memoir Lucky is great, too). But there's something that I had a problem with, which comes back to me now that I'm listening to A Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier.

First, other triva about this book. The reader is the same guy who played the lawyer in My Sister's Keeper. I'm now deep enough into this audiobook thing that I know voices. He wasn't my favorite, but he's doing a pretty good job here, I must say. Also, I'd like to complain about the idea of the entire population of the Earth being killed off by a virus that kills you within 24 hours of contracting it. There are people in Darkest Africa or the Amazon basin who would never get this virus. I cannot accept this; I could have it was addressed more directly, but it was brushed over. If 28 Days Later taught me anything, it's that a fast-acting virus might not even make it across the channel.

But the main point: how do you feel about heaven? I can get along with the idea of the book taking place of heaven, but I don't feel comfortable with the idea of the afterlife being a city. Where people from all over the world, those who lived on islands, in Mongolia and Tibet, everyone ends up in this city. It shifts shape and size to accomodate, but it's all city. Also, people who live there have jobs. They cook and eat food, run restaurants or print local newspapers. They have apartments and buy shoes for fun. It's a very material life, and there is neither an explanation of things like "who's manufacturing these shoes?" nor a dreamy mystery about these issues. I'd accept the latter. But it's not even a question--the afterlife is much like life.

(As Mike says, "If I get to heaven and find out I have to get a job....eugh.")

Now, of course this is only the first stage of death. You live in this city until the last person who remembers you dies, and then you vanish--move on to The Next Big Thing, I presume. I can't quite tell if I'm not supposed to have figured this out, but I hope I am, because I have. The epigraph completely gives it away; it's about the African distinction between the dead who reside within living memory, and the honored dead who are considered "ancestors."

I just can't get in line with the metaphysical being brought so closely in line with the physical. It's acutally kind of boring to me. It makes things smaller than I believe them to be.

But to tell you the truth, what really bothers me is the idea that a bunch of guys on an Arctic outpost died of a virus that kills you within 24 hours. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

Two Libraries Enter...

So I've pitted the BPL against the Minuteman Library Network. I've been waiting for Pretties for almost a week now from the BPL; I'm at the top of the list, but there are only three copies in the system. There are about ten copies "On Order," but that doesn't mean much. It can take up to a month to go from "On Order" to "Received--In Processing," and then it can take over a week to finish the "processing" part and get the darned book.

Ah, but Minuteman put it in the mail for me on Saturday, the day after I requested it. The only problem with that is that Minuteman has a slow transit system--once something's in Transit in the Boston network, it rarely takes more than two days to get to you. Minuteman can take a week, though this could be due to the branch I use. It's closed on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I suspect, though I'm not sure, that the Somerville West requests actually go through the Somerville Main branch, adding at least a day to the process.

We'll see which library blinks first.

Hiatusing

Well, I'm enjoying this break. I'm limping along through three or four books right now, and, while I wouldn't call it blissful, it's definitely fun.

Let's see. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm on page 150. Another book would be winding up right now, and he hasn't even gotten to school yet. He just got off the hook at his hearing. A lot of people in Harry Potter's world seem to act like idiots mostly because if they didn't, there wouldn't be enough conflict. This is just one of the many ways in which His Dark Materials is superior to Harry Potter, with apologies to the Potter fans out there. And wouldn't you rather have a daemon than an owl?

Another way Pullman is better than Rowling is one of the chief things I notice, for good or ill, in fantasy novels: do I really belive and feel deep down that this world you're building runs smoothly when you're not there to manipulate it? Harry Potter isn't as bad as a lot of other books--some Neil Gaiman, for example (I'm looking in your direction, Neverwhere), is bad like that. But the way that the muggle world and the wizard world overlap, sometimes clashing and sometimes slipping by each other, seems a little inconsistant. Everything has a clever name, but not because they're charmed by clever names; rather, because Rowling is making them up. You can't actually image a factory that produces the crazy candies, or an artisan brewing butterbeer. What are really the rules and limitations of the portraits that move? I guess you could just plant all that under the label of Too Fantastic. But angels and witches and armored bears are fantastic. And I believed that those witches and bears lived in the arctic and flew on cloud pine branches (the witches) and hunted seals and fought Tartars (the bears).

Also, it's fun to say panserbjorn.

That's all I have to say about that.

It turns out The Kalahari Typing School for Men could arguably be the place where the Mma Ramotswe books jump the shark. The repetition of things you know from the rest of the series is getting boring. The respect paid to the polite and methodical mannerisms of the characters is wearing thin (they refer to Mma Makutsi's score at Botswana Secretarial College as her "97 percent or whatever it was." Where's the respect?) . The financial hardships seem a bit feigned, and it's taking longer with each book to get into the plot. The first three books were wonderful, though, and I highly recommend them.

Still reading Girl Meets God, and starting to enjoy it in between bouts of loathing. There's a real vibe of "look at me and my delightful HUMILITY," and I just don't like or respect the writer or (and here's the key problem) her faith. I guess there's something about writing a book about your faith that is innately braggardly, but I didn't feel this way about Ann Lamott.

There are two others that deserve their own entries, so a teaser: A Brief History of the Dead (on audiobook) by Kevin Brockmeier, and Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

TTFN!

I Cried and Cried

I'm setting myself free. I'm still reading Girl Meets God, though I've taken a few days off. It's so painful. I'm finishing The Amber Spyglass, and it's so good, and I haven't cried yet, but that's only because I can only read three pages at a time before the T stops, or there's a staircase to climb, and it breaks the flow of my inevitable weeping.

So while I'm muddling my way to the end of G vs. G, I've decided not to challenge myself much for the next month or so. This means: the two Harry Potters that I'm behind on, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, Uglies (hopefully before it's due on Monday), maybe a reread of Shining Through. There's a weird chance that this list might include a book I've been avoiding, The Kiss, which I expect to be bizarre, but which I've had on and off my list so many times I just want to get it over with. Oh, and also The Remains of the Day. And, if you want to count comics, rereading the Hellboy I'll get back from my brother this weekend, plus Barry Ween Boy Genius. I think I might need to wait a while before I can get into From Hell, though I might try.

By the way, for the record: we're back at a count of 57, and that in no way includes the books Ruth's about to lend me, or a number of other upcoming possibilities.

Pukey

I'm not not not enjoying this book, but I expected that. I'm reading it for the express purpose of commiserating with someone who read it and hated it and needed to complain.

This is going to be one of those reviews that make me hope the author doesn't google herself very often. The book is called Girl Meets God and the author is named Lauren F. Winner. It's about a girl who was raised Jewish, converted to Orthodox Judaism early in college, and then converted to Christianity, I think, at the beginning of grad school. This sounds interesting. This is a promising book.

I almost can't believe how non-spiritual this book feels. There's a great deal of detail about how one celebrates Judaism and what it feels like to be "courted by a very determined carpenter from Nazareth." There's a lot about learning, reading, converting, praying, choosing a house of worship--both for Judaism and for Christianity. The girl is clearly an overachiever. She spent high school reading about Judaism--all the time. She converted. When she felt Jesus in her heart, she got rid of everything relating to Judaism that she'd ever owned, like breaking up with a high school boyfriend. But there's no feeling there--there are the details of doing, but there's no feeling. There's no sense that having this religion changes the way she interacts with the world, except to talk to others about religion. Or to decide how they fit with her, or to, at least subtly, judge them. There's nothing about her personal relationship with God and the world, except that she believes in Christ.

She reminds me of Wendy Shalit--VERY much. Remember Wendy? She "came out" as a conservative during Coming Out Week in college. She believes in Modesty and Women Empowered through Subordination. I hear Wendy in Lauren. It's exhausting.

Also, she got an Anne of Green Gables reference wrong, referring to "Gilbert and Annie." It might be a typo, but dude, you just don't go there.

There's more, but it's so bad you almost can't wrestle with it. It's self-righteous, superficial, and intensely NOT touching.

And I'm still reading! I LOVE to whine.

My Own Personal Life Coach

On the topic of Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck, I can say many things. I could wonder over the idea that everyone will be rich if they find what they were meant to do (the way I figure it, in her ideal world there are a lot of people who get real personal satisfaction and pleasure from janitorial work), but I'll move beyond that.

I'll point out the most interesting bit, which is the last five chapters, where she describes the process of going through a major life change. It starts with a catalytic event, good or bad, possibly something that happens to you (e.g. your spouse dies) or something you do (like deciding to move for a year to a foriegn country). This destroys your sense of identity, on some level, and you begin to proceed through her little diagram. Square one: mourning the old you and making through one day at a time. Square two: dreaming and idealizing whatever your new life is going to look like. Square three: the long hard climb of turning your new circumstances into a life--learning to do and be what you need in your new life. And finally Square four: your new and happy life is settled and yours to live. What I like about this is not that it's profound, but that it allows you to look at those feelings and realize that they're normal--when you have big dreams that don't materialize into anything, that's because you're in stage 2, which is not the right place for that.

Before you think I've gone all self-helpy, I'd like to point out that the whole reason for the preceding thumbs-up type analysis is because I'm about to get to the Crazy, and I don't want you to think this was an awful book. It was amusingly written and had some useful bits. It wasn't for me, because it really wasn't for someone whose only problem in reaching her goals is laziness and/or procrastination. But I know people this book is written for.

Except, of course, for the Crazy. Martha Beck is a Believer. She's not Christian (anymore--try Leaving the Saints for accounts of her being Touched by an Angel and falling out with the Mormons), but she Belives in a Higher Power that Speaks to her through her Intuition and also Fortuitous Circumstances. She belives, for example, that generosity is important in a happy life, and that good things come to people who are generous. I agree with this. I believe that generosity connects you to the world around you in positive ways, and that those connections are likely to yield good things. But what Martha Beck believes goes along with her list of anecdotes: after giving money to a good cause, a large and unexpected check will ARRIVE IN YOUR MAIL. Seriously. A paycheck for a job you don't remember doing. An inheritance from someone you don't know and won't miss. A lottery you didn't know you entered. Something.

I can't go on. Just, be aware that this book is not terribly practical. It's very much for people who don't feel happy feeling happy, or who can't get in touch with their feelings. I am very much in touch with my inner child. She spent a lot of time trying to convince me to be more open about my emotions. I think I speak for all my coworkers when I say: that would be a very, very bad idea.

Take a Memo

To: Stephen King
Re: Cell, etc.

Action items:
1) Get editor. During action scenes, the multitude of tiny details that you insert for the purpose of verisimillitude are more problematic than anything else. Case in point: during zombie-driven riots, a man runs past our hero carrying "a brown cardboard carton with the word "Panasonic" stencilled in blue on the side." It's exhausting.

2) I know your life was changed by your first book sale, Stevie, but it's not quite the same for comic book writers. I am not knowledgeable about this subject, but I can tell you this. First of all, you don't generally sell "your first graphic novel." Most comics are serialized. And if you did sell a graphic novel instead of a concept for serialization, it would probably not be for a life-changing amount of money. Neil Gaimon is rich, your hero is not.

3) I'm never READ The Dark Tower, and even I can tell that your hero's great masterpiece is based very closely on The Dark Tower. Dude, it's not cute when you pay homage to yourself, it's just weird.

I whine because I love. Seriously, you're like the Steven Spielberg of horror--even when I know what you're doing, you can make me feel exactly what you want me to. (Your fantasy, on the other hand, is generally craptastic.) Still, please use your powers for good, not for pointing out DURING A ZOMBIE-DRIVEN BUS CRASH that the Red Sox toured Boston in duckboats after they won the World Series. You're weakening your own case. I'm losin' the love, I really am.

We'll discuss these points at the status meeting. Thanks!

A Perfect Storm of Zombies

I don't know what possessed me to pick Stephen King's Cell for my audiobook this month, and then to start it two days after The Worst Zombie Dream Ever. I'm not really afraid of zombies during the daylight, when I'm an adult and I know there's no such thing. But it has been my fear since childhood that while I'm sleeping everyone in the world but me will turn into a dangerous beast (before zombies it was dobermans) while I sleep and I'll have no one to turn to.

So I'm walking across the Public Garden listening to the opening paragraph of the book, which takes place in Boston. And the main character is walking down Boyleston Street. Hey, I'm almost right there! And he's carrying a bag from the store Small Treasures. Hey, that's probably based on Small Pleasures, where I got my engagement ring! Cool, even a little spooky. And the gift in his bag is for Sharon.

I stopped the book. It was just too much--the zombie dream, the imaginary guy right up the block from me with a gift for me from a store that I shop at ONLY THERE WILL BE ZOMBIES!!! This is really very not cool.

I'll listen to it. I'm a grown-up. But oh, I'll be really scared.

Self Help Makes Me Proud

Among other things, I've been reading a self-help book called Finding Your Own North Star: Reclaiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. The author, Martha Beck, is the same woman who wrote Leaving the Saints and Expecting Adam, both of which were very interesting and really engaging. They also wreaked a little havok on whatever passes as my spirituality. So I'm reading about how to find what my Essential Self really wants to do in life.

Seemed like a good idea. I have a good job, but I wouldn't call it a calling. I don't know that I have a calling, though I think it might just be to hang out with Mike, have a bunch of fun friends, and rear some cool kids. The book does not seem to help me; it's really meant for tense workaholics who can't listen to their inner child and stop to smell the roses. The idea is that you'll be more successful and happy doing something you love, even if it's not the world's definition of "success." By that definition of success, I'm doing pretty well. Mostly (according to these quizzes) I'm a pretty happy person.

Also still reading Postville, which is interesting but too long and too personal. His research is really interesting and he recounts a lot of great experiences and meeting interesting people. But he doesn't really clarify "the connection" he seems to want to draw between the Iowans in this tiny town and the Hasidic Jews who have moved in and opened a successful kosher butchery. It's really more about the author's relationship with his Jewish heritage. And even that is mostly a lament about how he's not really Jewish enough if he lives in Iowa.

And I'm almost done with Self Made Man, as well. I think one of the flaws of the book is that a lot of her observations are snide observations of an elite liberal-arts educated New Yorker hanging out with people who take their bowling league seriously, or people who sell coupon booklets door-to-door. She learns more about being working class than she does about being male, through most of the book, and even then, there's a lot more pity than you'd see from someone who really learned something. But she sort of redeems herself by having a nervous breakdown after the whole experiment. And there are some really interesting observations about dating--I think that chapter was by far the strongest, at least in part because she was interacting with other New Yorkers (or at least urbanites) in that chapter.

Upcoming: Girl Meets God (after which a hiatus on religious books, but someone I know from a message board wants someone to argue with about it, so I offered to give it a shot), Mission to America (okay, after THAT a religion hiatus, but at least it's a novel), and, after Easter, a couple of Harry Potters. Stay tuned!

Surrender

Well, it's been the literary equivalent of a cloudy, drizzly, cold and damp week or so. Not a dry spell--that's different. This has just been the kind of stretch that makes you think God has a head cold and is taking it out on you. Metaphorically.

First, I have to admit that I gave in to an inexplicable urge to read a book by a woman named Lurlene. Perhaps I shouldn't judge, but that doesn't seem to be stopping me. In a search for fiction about Amish people, I wound up with a young adult romance novel called Angels Watching Over Me, by Lurlene McDaniel. I did not realize how awful it would be; I would have stopped reading it but the whole thing took about two hours, so by the time I realized how bad it was, it was too late to stop. Embarassingly, I realized when I read the blurbs in the back of the book, she also wrote a number of books I recall fondly from my youth, including Too Young to Die, I Want to Live, and Six Months to Live. Do we see a common theme?

For my future Amish literature needs, instead of reading the rest of this trilogy (Lifted Up by Angels and Until Angels Close My Eyes, and aren't you glad I read these books so you don't have to?), I'm going to go with Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth. I think that'll fill my Amish needs.

In other sadly abortive attempts at bettering myself, I had to surrender The Diary of a Country Priest, as well. With this one, I can't be fully sure it wasn't that I just wasn't in the mood to work that hard. It's a sad book, first of all, about a priest who finds his small country parish to be uninspiring, and who doesn't manage money well and seems a little less than admirable himself. But the problem with the book, really, was the long, uninterrupted paragraphs of description and characters with long monologues about the nature of the priesthood, etc.

It's hard for me, but I think I might as well just let it go. I have to remember that if I die not having read every book that ever crossed my path, it will not be the end of the world. It's all about mortality, you know?

And finally, I also gave up on The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No-Horse. This book might have been good, actually, but it was really very much not up my alley. I'm always suspicious of a book with a geneology chart in the front. And long paragraphs rhapsodizing about music don't usually win me either. It doesn't actually have any magical realism in it (not in the first 36 pages, which was the 10% test I gave it), but it came very close--they removed the wall of the house to get the piano in, and the woman plays the piano nude in the middle of the night, with the whole world flowing around her. Then there's a flood and she dresses as a man and becomes a priest.

I don't know. I feel like maybe I should try--the story had promising things in it. It was very much my kind of book in many ways. But I just wasn't enjoying it.

Well, what're you gonna do? I'm reading other books now, and enjoying them. I went to the library and have 12 items checked out now (according to my account). There will be others.

In Absentia

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Don't I know how you worry? Don't I care that you've been pacing the floor wondering if I'm okay, or if I'm dead in a ditch? You don't think I care at all about your feelings.

Well, I'm very sorry. I was away for a weekend, and then I was pushing a major course live, which I'm proud to say was pulled off by various magical tricks and diverting slight of hand techniques.

So there's what I've been reading, and my (for me) exciting upcoming experience. Regarding the first, I'll just say that I've been testing a number of books only to discover that I don't actually want to take them on. More on this later, and possibly a little cosmetic update to the klog (as Mike calls it--for booklog).

But the upcoming event--never let it be said that you haven't seen karma in action--I'm going to the Public Library Association National Conference at the Hynes this week! Though I have rather given up on my little dream of being a librarian (seriously, I've not even organized enough to be a project manager--if I'm going to jump careers, I'll really need to do something LESS rigorous, not more), I'm so thrilled to get to wander their exhibition halls and see what happens. I understand there are a lot of publishers there with books--and maybe swag! I'm all tingly.

And this wonderful thing came into my life because I volunteered to do a favor for an internet stranger. I almost didn't, either, because it seemed presumptuous to answer a request for help that was tossed out into the blogosphere intended for actual librarians. But I live in Boston and have a car, so I'm delivering boxes for Bill Barnes of Overdue Media, creators of the excellent webcomic Unshelved. I understand I'm going to walk away with a T-shirt, and I hope, a really great glimpse inside the world that brings me all the things I treasure--BPL, Minuteman Library Network, my beloved Malden Public Library, etc.

On, to glory!

Done and Done

So what have I finished? I reread Ender's Game last week--excellent stuff. Orson Scott Card may be a bigot and a crackpot fundamentalist and may have a really hard time figuring out how to end a book, but darn if he isn't a gifted storyteller. Like his super-genius characters, the secret to his gift is great empathy. You know the character as he knows himself, and therefore can love and despise him all at once.

Our Man in Panama, by Graham Greene (or was it The Tailor of Havana? No, I remember--Our Man in Havana, an Entertainment. But I've said too much already). Seriously, John Le Carre totally stole from Green, but Greene is better. Well, I've never read Le Carre....but Greene is so funny! I like the subtitle, too: An Entertainment. A comedy of errors, really.

My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult. The romatic subplot was thin (you really need a better reason than that to keep people apart for 15 years), and the reader of Julia's character being horrible didn't help. (You know how on SNL you can tell they're reading off cue cards? Like that, only in audiobook form. LONG pauses at weird moments.) The core conflict and story, the family's story, were good. There were parts where I wanted more meat, but I will say formally that I enjoyed this book a lot and would recommend it.

Am I going to get into trouble if I admit that I just finished Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, which is designed to help you decide whether to break up with your significant other? I'm not considering anything like that, as I warned Mike. But how does the book tell you what to do? Turns out, with a series of "diagnostic questions." And it was an interesting view into the mind of someone who's staying in a miserable relationship, or who thinks of leaving every time a problem comes up. I think I would recommend it to someone who was looking for advice on this subject. But again (DISCLAIMER), this is not me.

So now I'm reading Crossin Over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish Life. First of all, it's accurate in that it's really just the one woman's story--it's barely about the Amish, it's barely about anything except this twenty year old girl falling in love with a fifty year old, thrice divorced man with gout. Also, I'll tell you--she hates the Amish. Loves her family, hates Amishness. Sounds like her dad was verbally abusive. I don't know if you can blame all the Amish for that, but you can barely tell from this amateurish book.

I'll finish it though. It's shorter than this blog entry.

WTF!!!???!!!

What. The. Heck??? I can't go into this without spoilers, but I will try by not telling you what book. But WHY did you end the book like that? Why? Why did I read about all those things, all these people, why did they go through all these specific trials and torments to end up like that? Unlikely! Even perverse fate is not so perverse.

Did you ever see City of Angels? At least when they used that ending, it made a certain thematic sense. That movie was requesting that I think about certain things, and that ending made me think about those things in a different way, more complex. The issues this book was asking me to consider were THROWN OUT THE WINDOW with this ending.

If you know what I'm talking about and have read this book (hint: I've mentioned it here before), and you get why it ended like this, please let me know.

I've actually finished a bunch of books in the past few days, but that will come later, so I don't give away what book makes me want shake the author.

Edited to add: You know what it's like? It's like on TV whenever someone gets pregnant and they're thinking about getting an abortion, and then before they can go to the clinic they have a miscarriage. So you don't have to deal with the fallout of a real, difficult choice with no easy right answer. It's a cop out, I tell you. Grr.

Them Wacky Amish

I'm not worried about insulting the Amish in my post, because they don't use the internet or read blogs.

I'm on about page 2 (literally it's page 10, but the text started one page ago) of Crossing Over: One Woman's Exodus from Amish Life, and I can tell that this is not a book about someone who loves the Amish. I don't know what else I would expect from these leaving religion books that I'm getting into now, but I was a little surprised.

But what I've learned already! Apparently the Amish were founded in 1693 by someone who left the Mennonite church because he felt they "did not carry shunning far enough." Hear that Amish? Be more shunny!

But the best part is that this guy who founded the Amish later excommunicated himself from the Amish.

This is already fun.

ps. Can one woman have an exodus? In a related grammatical nitpick, can you really have a "mass exodus," or is that redundant, like (nod to Becky) "very unique?"

Drunken Librarying

At the work party on Wednesday, I did a little too much open barring, if you know what I mean. I always assume wine isn't going to do anything, but it hits me much harder than I expect. Anyway, after the party, I went to the library to return some stuff. Then...I went a little nutty. I was clutching the bannister to keep from spinning down the stairs. But the wonderful thing about being drunk at the BPL--you're never the only one. There's always a hobo.

So when I go to the library but am not in complete control of my faculties, it turns out (surprise, surprise) that I check out a buttload of books. Like ALL the books. And the really horrible part is that, counting them in the sober light of day, even after ready all 8 of the book I checked out, I won't bring my list below 50. I used to have a goal of staying below 30. I am really not being good with goals this year.

I went nutty on the "religious subculture" books--several on the Amish and the Hisidic Jews. Also, a relationship book that has nothing to do with my life but that I was really curious about (it's called Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay). Not because I have that question, but because I see people online recommending it all the time, and I'm curious--how does a pop psych writer answer that question? So far, she's said that you should leave if you've been physically assualted more than once or if you can't ever remember a time when your relationship was good. And the funny thing is, I can imagine people who need that advice, and I'm glad this lady is there to give it.

Also: rereading Ender's Game. Closing in on the end of My Sister's Keeper (I find the lawyer/guardian ad litem (sp?) romance subplot to be a) poorly read and b) totally useless; otherwise, a very lovely and emotionally thoughtful book). Setting aside The Subtle Knife for a couple of days anyway, because you want to spread those things out. And Our Man in Havana is desperate and hilarious.

I keep myself busy. And tipsy. Good combo!

Error in Judgement

Yeah, so I finished Morality for Beautiful Girls (Alexander McCall Smith, another Mma Ramotswe novel, excellent) and started Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene. First of all, he's very sly and brilliant and jaded, this Graham Greene person. "Isn't it lovely how you always get what you pray for?" I had to read that sentence twice before I spotted the "r," and then I laughed out loud on the train.

But I did make a mistake that screwed up my initial understanding of the book. When Wormold tells his friend that they're going out to buy a bottle to celebrate Milly's 17th birthday, I was a little grossed out that his wife was so young. It didn't really surprise me that much, though. But then he starts talking about her at the age of 13, and I'm so skeeved out! Yes, skeeved! And then he tells the guy she's his daughter so he doesn't look like the gross old letch he is...

No wait. I flip back through the first 23 pages of the book. Nowhere does it say he's married to Milly. She is his daughter. That's why he's known her since she was 4 (and, presumably, before). So when he refers to her mother, it's not about him buying her off some poor woman when she was 12, it's that he was married to her mother, and fathered a child with her.

I am DISGUSTING.

Giving Up My Indie Cred

I just don't like David Sedaris.

Admittedly, this is more based on his readings on the radio, and he does have the most annoying voice in the world, so there's that. But I think it's less his voice than his tone--irony drips from every word, there's just no sincerity whatsoever in there, no emotion that he isn't mocking even as he claims it. And as we all know, I'm a huge proponent of the New Sincerity.

This brings me to the book I finished this weekend, The Age of Innocence. That is sincerity taken to the most poignant, rending conclusions possible. To give up your life, your chances of joy in life, for the sake of "what people would think." It's so hard for me to imagine how it would feel to be constrained by everyone around you from something that might seem innocuous.

And the insanity is that, after being denied the ability to make the reasonable change--breaking off an engagment--he's almost driven to something that even today would be tragic--running away and leaving all his life behind for his true love.

An excellent, sad, poignant book.

Ode to Book Club

You know, despite my mezze mezze feelings about book club, I have to admit, I've been introduced to some good writers through it. Richard Yates and Graham Greene come to mind as two people I would never have read (in the case of Richard Yates, possibly never even heard of) if they hadn't been book club picks. And now I've got one of each on my Borrowed shelf.

So thank you, book club. You done good.

Mixed Blessings

Well, it's always very sad when this happens, but it also makes my life a little easier. I just started to read Bookends, by Jane Green, which I selected because a friend likes the author. I have to say, I just can't get into it. There's a weakness to the storytelling--I keep losing track of how much time has passed--that I just can't get past. I'm sorry, Tracy. I do love trash, you know that. I guess this just isn't for me.

Let me give an example, though, because, well, because I critiquing fiction last night and I'm in the zone. So, the main character is at work and on the phone with her best friend, Simon. She says she has an appointment and needs to go, so they hang up. Then the book segues into her thinking about her friends and introducing them to me. So far so good--I don't need to go with her to her business meeting. But when it segues back into the "now," to what's going on around her, it's because the phone rings and it's her friend Simon who wants to tell her about something. So there's no indication at all of whether her appointment already happened or if he's calling her back five minutes later. They have a leisurely conversation. I read the passage twice trying to figure it out. If it was Joyce, or Toni Morrison, even, it would be compelling to be drawn back to reread and figure out what's going on. Not what I was looking for though. (Again, Tracy, I'm so sorry!)

But, I do get to cross it off my list, bringing that down to 54 again. And I think I might have discovered a useful new standard. When I realized I wasn't getting into it right away, I checked how many pages in the book (350) and decided to read 35 pages before giving up. Ten percent; that seems fair, right?

So: one down, 54 to go.

Brokenest of Hearts

Sorry for the long delay in posting--Blogger's been a pain this week, and work has been (gasp!) busy. But let me tell you of yesterday's tragedy.

A few weeks ago, I bought a boxed set of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I've been so excited to start it, but busy. Finally, for the past week, I've made it my before bed book. Such fun! And Saturday morning, just at the part where Lyra has been caught in Bolvangar and is going to be severed from Pantalaimon, I discover...missing pages!

Yes, the signature containing chapters 15 and 16 appears twice, while the sig containing chapters 17 and 18 is entirely missing.

Do you UNDERSTAND my AGONY???

Tomorrow I'm going to head back to Barnes and Nobel to see if I can get a replacement that doesn't have the problem. I hope! Thank heaven we live in our own filth, and I hadn't thrown away the bag with the receipt in it.

In other news, I finished listening to Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd recommend it. The shape of the story was just kind of strange. I wouldn't say I'd have liked it better if I'd been reading it (Blair Brown's reading was excellent), but I think that not knowing how far along in the story I was really affected my understanding of what was going to happen. There was a chunk in the middle where I thought I was approaching the end, but was actually approaching the halfway point. I guess the middle lags, is the problem. The crisis/semi-mystery is set up at the beginning, and then the middle is spent establishing a life for these people. The events of that life come to a head fifteen years later, but going from Ruth's five-year-old life to her eighteen-year-old life is a little choppy. At the point where her father ceases to be useful, he conveniently becomes a merchant marine. Well handled, but, again, convenient.

I think it was a middle-of-the road, reasonably good book.

The Age of Innocence is quite good. I'm curious about a lot of the euphemisms and generalizations that Newland uses--what "life experiences" is he missing, what "dangerous knowledge" is kept from his naive fiancee? I'm not even sure he knows. But I think that if I were to actually see the society he lives in, I would be startled by the restraint and boredom. I think Wharton does an excellent job, in his character, of examining his world as both an insider and an outsider. He loves it, but can see its flaws, and feels constrained by it and supported by it at the same time.

I need a copy of The Golden Compass right now!

Moving On

Why do they close at 5 today? Why? I was going to go at lunch but I got distracted and then was working and then it's too late and when I get out of work the library will be closed and I can't go to the library. It makes me so sad.

I finished The Tiger in the Well, which I really enjoyed by the end, but I have to say, Philip Pullman has ruined it for himself with His Dark Materials. He can't top that. What's he going to do? His only choice is to go on hiatus for ten years and then have his next novel come out in fifteen. By then everyone will be salivating and no one will care if it's good.

I'm reading The Age of Innocense now, which I might have to set aside for more pressing tasks and unpublished works, but which will carry me through the commute nicely. I'm really enjoying it--Wharton is very funny, and she does a good job of critiquing the upper class and their propriety subtly while writing from the point of view of someone who completely buys the whole worldview completely, and yet without being derisive. I think it might run into trouble with a modern reader, though, because her aloof criticism, mild as it is, might not seem scathing enough for a modern reader.

I remember reading Emma with Book Club Incarnation 1. It was one of the first ones we read. A lot of people didn't like it--not because of the old fashioned writing, but because of the ideas about class. The idea that there is someone who is beneath someone else--that Emma's friend (I can't remember the names in the real book, so we'll use Clueless)--that Ty acutally isn't good enough for Josh. It's funny, and I should have brought this up at book club, darn it!--because when you translate it into modern times, you see that Ty isn't clever enough or deep enough for Josh--even though she's a lovely person. They don't have common interests. That's exactly how it was back then, only they had this shorthand called class. And yes, that would have been used to keep a clever Ty down, but face it, that girl (Harriet, I think was her name) was not clever.

I think it's interesting how hard it can be to read a novel from another era through the lens of that era, and combine that with your own views, and still enjoy it on all levels. That's what makes classics "classic" I guess.

NOT GOING TO THE LIBRARY

But it's so hard.

Martha Beck, who wrote Expecting Adam and Leaving the Saints, two books that I enjoyed very much and which really affected me, wrote another book called Finding Your Own North Star. She's what she calls a Life Coach, and I'd really like to look at what she has to say about finding your calling and your place in life. From her column in O, I suspect that she's kind of touchy-feely and much more about giving you permission to feel things you're resistant to than she is constructive in suggesting a life-goal to a mediocre project manager, but I want to hear what she has to say.

But. When have I ever checked out one book? Mhm. You see? So if I did that, I'd end up getting the Hasidic exiles book, and the next Mma Ramotswe book, and that Groucho Marx autobiography, and, and, and.

I resist. I'm reading The Tiger in the Well, which, I'm terribly sorry Katie, is no His Dark Materials. (If he knows all those details about Sally's life, of COURSE he'll recognize her assistant when she comes to spy on him.) I'm rereading The Lark and the Wren, which I might quit in a chapter or two because the last third has little to do with the very enjoyable first third. It's good, but a different book. I'm going to read The Age of Innocense before anything next. Plus Erin's novel for writer's group, and soon Katie's novel...and...and....

If someone would pay me for all this, I could live a long, happy, wealthy life.

Who's Afraid of Blair Brown?

Drowning Ruth, my current book on tape (well, mp3, we are in the 21st century here, people) is read excellently by Blair Brown. I chose it based on her sample reading of a book I really wasn't interested in--she's very good. It's kind of a harsh book, about crazy people. It's interesting that I thought I must be coming close to the end and am only halfway through. There's no way for me to tell how far along I am unless I plug my mp3 player into my computer.

My misjudgment was not based on boredom but on the arc of the story. The child is growing up, years are passing. I'm starting to realize in a way I hadn't before that the story is full of crazy people.

Change of topic: Kathy was telling me about a book called, I believe, The Last Record of the Miracles at Little No-Horse. This reminded me of the story of Pope Joan, which I read about in a novel by Donna Cross (I believe), but which may or may not be a true story. Apparently Pope John VIII reigned for two years and then surprised everyone by giving birth on the side of the road (in the novel, she actually just starts to hemorrhage, if I recall correctly). Anyway, if it's a true story, all documentation of it was destroyed/suppressed for about three centuries, and she was only mentioned in the 1500s, 350 years after she supposedly reigned. So who knows?

But it's an interesting story--there's a lot of fiction (esp. YA, I think) about girls who disguise themselves as boys and beat the system; I'm about to reread The Lark and the Wren by Mercedes Lackey, one of my favorite such stories. But such a true-life scandal! It's very exciting to think that the world can be so unpredictable, the system so beaten.

Sorry; this is a little stream-of-consciousness. I'm a little edgy today. Monday's going to be a rough day at work; wish me luck.

She's Back!

Vacation is so wonderful, but it drifts away so fast when you settle back into your day-to-day. Which day-to-day has been seeming particularly overloaded lately, but who's surprised by that? No one.

Anyway, there's of course book club drama--I'm very sensitive to the unpopular feeling of people not being able to come to MY meeting. I do understand that I didn't remind anyone till yesterday, and I'm aware that I'm being unreasonable. Still. Anyway, rescheduled (Monday, everyone!) and I'll have more time to gather resources for the meeting. Mmmm....resources.

But I'm reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith, at Mike's suggestion. I appreciated White Teeth and saw how good it was, but I'm really happy to say that I'm both appreciating and enjoying this book. It might be that the setting is American (Boston, in fact), or that I'm familiar with the nature of the elite liberal arts institution, or that I've been waiting for ten years for an educated insider to tell me how silly deconstructionism can be. (I also love that she never calls it that.)

But she does so many interesting things. Though race is clearly present in the story (and it's by Zadie Smith), it's a little while before I realized that it would be a major theme. Though the title is On Beauty, it was a while before I realized how it would shape the story. She lifts chunks of the plot directly from Howard's End, characterization and all (even sneaking in a walk-on character named Wilcox). She cuts away at the beginning of a major climax, to resume the story months later when all the characters have gotten used to the aftermath of the incident. It's really excellent.

Highly recommended. I'm resisting the library, though perhaps not for long, having just bought Collapse by Jared Diamond and the His Dark Materials trilogy. I have so many books I must read at home, but I've been seized, after seeing a bit on CNN at the airport, with a need to read books about people who are leaving isolated religious communities. For this, I need the library.

I could really stand to be under house arrest for a few months. Or bedridden (God forbid).

Slacker

Working ten hour days not only cut into reading time, I don't post as often, either. It's been just over a week of working till 6:30 or 7:30 or 9 every night. I know some of you do that every day, but a) I don't know how, and b) you're lawyers; you knew what you were getting into.

This bonanza of productivity included Sunday (8 to 5, baby!), which means I've been reading the same two books for about two weeks; I don't know if I've finished a single book this year! The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, a classic of sci-fi that mostly takes place in the middle ages (time travel, don't you know) and Four Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula LeGuin, who I like but don't have a real handle on yet, I think. I haven't read any of her classics (Earthsea), but I read Gifts, which was a small, sweet book.

Forgiveness is actually a series of interlinked novellas. It's pretty good, though I don't think I'm much of a fan of novellas. I think Katie had the best definition; a novel is about something that happens, a novella is usually about the time leading up to something happening. The real meat begins as the story ends. I don't know if this is a universal definition, but it definitely relates to how I feel about them.

Anyway, I'm stealing time and have to get back to work. Maybe one more entry before vacation next week; if I have something new to mention!

Personal Library Renaissance

We've been here before. I certainly know I've been here before, and I think I've dragged you with me. I have shelves groaning with books I haven't ready yet, a gift card burning a hole in my pocket (my half of the card, anyway), and I need to STOP CHECKING THINGS OUT.

So when I finish what I have now, no more libraries till at least after vacation. I have a short list of books from the shelves at home that I want to read before I check out again. It's time to rediscover my collection. Also, to finish reading all those books I've borrowed! So: The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton. The Tiger in the Well, Phillip Pullman (at Katie's suggestion). Crispin, by Avi (Christmas present). Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman: Volume 1 (Christmas gift). And a collection of Richard Yates' short stories that Brenda lent me. All these and much much more (I hope) before I lunge into my next library collection.

I just finished rereading Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro) for book club, and I really hope everyone's willing to get on board with the discussion. A lot of people might not be able to come to the meeting, to the point where I'm thinking of rescheduling. But I think this book is deceptively simple, and I really hope there's a lot of good discussion.

And now I'm reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, a classic sci-fi novel, to be followed by My Last Library Book for a While, Four Ways to Forgiveness, by Ursula LeGuin.

I fell down the stairs this morning and my back hurts. Wish me luck.