I have a bushel of books, but I had a run of finishes this week, which is making me feel better about January. Jenny McCarthy's autism memoir was a quick read, and not bad (though not spectacular). Then there was Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days, and I think she's officially one of my new favorite authors. It was a young adult book, on the younger teen end of the range, in that it not only has a fairy tale plot, but a fairy tale structure. But I just loved it--I loved Dashti's experience working in the kitchen and fighting off rats and her cat, and just everything. The best stories are the one that make mundanities seem fascinating.
This is what appeals about Megan McCafferty's books, and Fourth Comings, while more serious and somewhat grimmer than the others, is just as satisfying. Her fast-talking, painfully young teen angst is exactly right, and so satisfying in a deeply horrible way.
The schoolwork will start rolling in this weekend and my real reading time will be harshly cut into. But for now, I'm going to blow through what I can in time. I'm on my way out the door, with Goose Girl by Shannon Hale in my bag and Maisie Dobbs waiting for the finish on my bedside table. Life, for this moment, is pretty sweet.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
And Me Without My Lunch Box
So school started today. Perhaps not many of you know (though I'm sure all of you can imagine) how poorly I handle new situations. I think Linden might be the only one our there reading this who understands just how much I cried during my first week at college. And any number of people will remember my ongoing delusion for my first two years at the office that every staff meeting that was called was expressly for the purpose of firing me publicly. I do understand that I overreact to these things. For the past few weeks, any hint that school was coming has caused me to come very close to wetting myself. There was much gnashing of teeth (which I have documented from my dentist--she made me buy a mouthguard, but I haven't worn it yet), and a good deal of weeping and wailing.
And then today I had class. And it was, unsurprisingly, fine. Everyone's been telling me it would be fine. And I mean, I've been to school, and I did fine, and I'm a relatively intelligent person, and seriously, how unfine can it be? Answer; not at all unfine. Inasmuch as it was fine. The material is not at all over my head; it's actually about designing empirical studies to assess how well library services are doing what they're trying to do. It makes sense; a library doesn't have sales figures to figure out whether they're successful.
So this is a good first step. The other class, meeting Thursday, will be a lot more work, but whatever happens...well, I'm in it for real now. We'll have to see what happens.
More on books tomorrow; I read a ton this weekend.
And then today I had class. And it was, unsurprisingly, fine. Everyone's been telling me it would be fine. And I mean, I've been to school, and I did fine, and I'm a relatively intelligent person, and seriously, how unfine can it be? Answer; not at all unfine. Inasmuch as it was fine. The material is not at all over my head; it's actually about designing empirical studies to assess how well library services are doing what they're trying to do. It makes sense; a library doesn't have sales figures to figure out whether they're successful.
So this is a good first step. The other class, meeting Thursday, will be a lot more work, but whatever happens...well, I'm in it for real now. We'll have to see what happens.
More on books tomorrow; I read a ton this weekend.
Friday, January 25, 2008
She Wrote the Doorbell
It's been a quiet week around here, partially because I was working on the same little pile of books all week and embarrassed to keep talking about them, partially because I was having the nervous fits before, during, and after grad school orientation on Wednesday, and partially because I am a lazy schlub.
I finished 1 Dead in Attic and Charmed Thirds, both of which were excellent in very different ways. And today I went to the library and picked up (deep breath) FIVE new books. I'm proud, though, because I had at least three more pulled off the shelf, but returned them because that would be excessive.
Among my new acquisitions is Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism. I enjoy autism memoirs, partially because they bring me back to my experiences working with those kids, partially because it's reassuring to see these writers finding the strength to do something that I don't know if I would have the strength for. Having an autistic kid is one of my biggest fears, because it's such an ill-defined disease with such a cobbled-together, only-partly-proven course of treatment.
This is mostly beside the point, because while this is an interesting account of autism (so few of them begin with a hospital trip or medical crisis), the really engrossing part is that the author is Jenny McCarthy. You remember Jenny, I'm sure, because who didn't waste at least one high school afternoon watching Singled Out on MTV? She was the belching, bodacious bleached-blonde babe who waggled her tongue at the camera in the dirty Vanna White role on the show. Yes, that Jenny McCarthy. And honey, I'll tell you, this book ain't ghost written.
She's written two others, Belly Laughs, a memoir of pregnancy, and Baby Laughs, about caring for her infant son. Those are humor books, and while this one isn't without laughs, it's a more serious story she's telling. Let me tell you, this woman writes like she talks, and she talks like a crazy person. She uses a lot of exclamation points, and talks to God, prays, and follows her immediate gut instincts all over the place (Jenny McCarthy is VERY religious, raised Catholic but now just good pals with God. Go figure.). She asks me to "guess what?" several times in the course of ten pages near the beginning.
But my favorite part is when she calls the Morman Tabernacle in Salt Lake City and asks them to send someone to do a healing prayer over her son. The anecdote is pretty funny, including a joke about the word balls that I'm sure went over GREAT with the two 19-year-old missionaries the church sent her, but the best part is the beginning, when the two young men arrive at her door. "DING DONG." Yes, like a good old fashioned episode of Batman, the sound effects are written into the text.
I tease, but that's not fair. The truth is, it reads very much like an excellent raconteur (raconteuse?) telling an interesting story, and the only reason that doesn't work perfectly is because when you actually transcribe the way most people talk, it sounds, well, somewhat off. I have to say, though, that even when she's not finding out that her son has a devastating diagnosis, she sounds like someone who's so full of energy that she'd be tiring to be around. And her husband's a dink.
That's all the news from here. I might update later this weekend with more info about Wednesday's info session at school, but I'm still digesting it and trying to pretend that classes don't start soon (Monday! I have a class on Monday! I'm DYING!), so I need to process things before I can really dig in. Suffice it to say, I'm not too intimidated by the classes, but I'm a little beaten down by the amount of career planning they expect from you before day 1.
Happy weekend, one and all.
I finished 1 Dead in Attic and Charmed Thirds, both of which were excellent in very different ways. And today I went to the library and picked up (deep breath) FIVE new books. I'm proud, though, because I had at least three more pulled off the shelf, but returned them because that would be excessive.
Among my new acquisitions is Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism. I enjoy autism memoirs, partially because they bring me back to my experiences working with those kids, partially because it's reassuring to see these writers finding the strength to do something that I don't know if I would have the strength for. Having an autistic kid is one of my biggest fears, because it's such an ill-defined disease with such a cobbled-together, only-partly-proven course of treatment.
This is mostly beside the point, because while this is an interesting account of autism (so few of them begin with a hospital trip or medical crisis), the really engrossing part is that the author is Jenny McCarthy. You remember Jenny, I'm sure, because who didn't waste at least one high school afternoon watching Singled Out on MTV? She was the belching, bodacious bleached-blonde babe who waggled her tongue at the camera in the dirty Vanna White role on the show. Yes, that Jenny McCarthy. And honey, I'll tell you, this book ain't ghost written.
She's written two others, Belly Laughs, a memoir of pregnancy, and Baby Laughs, about caring for her infant son. Those are humor books, and while this one isn't without laughs, it's a more serious story she's telling. Let me tell you, this woman writes like she talks, and she talks like a crazy person. She uses a lot of exclamation points, and talks to God, prays, and follows her immediate gut instincts all over the place (Jenny McCarthy is VERY religious, raised Catholic but now just good pals with God. Go figure.). She asks me to "guess what?" several times in the course of ten pages near the beginning.
But my favorite part is when she calls the Morman Tabernacle in Salt Lake City and asks them to send someone to do a healing prayer over her son. The anecdote is pretty funny, including a joke about the word balls that I'm sure went over GREAT with the two 19-year-old missionaries the church sent her, but the best part is the beginning, when the two young men arrive at her door. "DING DONG." Yes, like a good old fashioned episode of Batman, the sound effects are written into the text.
I tease, but that's not fair. The truth is, it reads very much like an excellent raconteur (raconteuse?) telling an interesting story, and the only reason that doesn't work perfectly is because when you actually transcribe the way most people talk, it sounds, well, somewhat off. I have to say, though, that even when she's not finding out that her son has a devastating diagnosis, she sounds like someone who's so full of energy that she'd be tiring to be around. And her husband's a dink.
That's all the news from here. I might update later this weekend with more info about Wednesday's info session at school, but I'm still digesting it and trying to pretend that classes don't start soon (Monday! I have a class on Monday! I'm DYING!), so I need to process things before I can really dig in. Suffice it to say, I'm not too intimidated by the classes, but I'm a little beaten down by the amount of career planning they expect from you before day 1.
Happy weekend, one and all.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Jazztown
I've never been to New Orleans, nor ever wanted to go--I'm not into music or seafood (I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me to eat a crawfish), I don't like partying or crowds, and I hate hot weather. So The Big Easy was never someplace I dreamed of going, though I guess I always imagined that I might end up there for some reason, someday.
I'm about halfway through 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. It's sweet and sad and poignant, and while a lot of the "spirit of the city" stories are really about human resilience, with a New Orleans flavor, there is a great deal of the idea of New Orleans here, a lot about what makes it a special, strange, glamorous, wild place. Aside from the loss of life and property, it's clear that Rose is really traumatized by the loss of place, by the fact that something that existed as such a solid and real thing--the very world--can cease to exist as we know it, can become something entirely different, less hospitable, unreal. It reminds me forcibly how much of human history is a string of events like this, and how insulated from the reality of nature we generally are. I believe that my house will be standing tomorrow, but in so many ways, anything can happen.
No matter how grim the material, though, for the first third of the book, the predominant tone is one of bewilderment, confusion, and pleading. The last few essays, though, have taken on a stronger tone of anger and impotent rage, with an overtone of growing hysteria. It's getting strange, more disconcerting, and more difficult to read. Which is funny because, as a commenter noted the other day, the columns are not in chronological order. I think I'm doing all right with that, though, because, although they don't tell a direct narrative, they do have a steadily developing tone.
Unfortunately, it's developing in an emotionally tricky direction. If I could renew the book, I'd probably put it on the back burner for a few days, because I have a hard time keeping the desperate emotions in the books I'm reading from taking me over. But the library waitlist is going to keep me going, and I think, while it'll be hard, it'll be closer to the emotional experience that something like this ought to be--immersive, hard, but true.
I'm about halfway through 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. It's sweet and sad and poignant, and while a lot of the "spirit of the city" stories are really about human resilience, with a New Orleans flavor, there is a great deal of the idea of New Orleans here, a lot about what makes it a special, strange, glamorous, wild place. Aside from the loss of life and property, it's clear that Rose is really traumatized by the loss of place, by the fact that something that existed as such a solid and real thing--the very world--can cease to exist as we know it, can become something entirely different, less hospitable, unreal. It reminds me forcibly how much of human history is a string of events like this, and how insulated from the reality of nature we generally are. I believe that my house will be standing tomorrow, but in so many ways, anything can happen.
No matter how grim the material, though, for the first third of the book, the predominant tone is one of bewilderment, confusion, and pleading. The last few essays, though, have taken on a stronger tone of anger and impotent rage, with an overtone of growing hysteria. It's getting strange, more disconcerting, and more difficult to read. Which is funny because, as a commenter noted the other day, the columns are not in chronological order. I think I'm doing all right with that, though, because, although they don't tell a direct narrative, they do have a steadily developing tone.
Unfortunately, it's developing in an emotionally tricky direction. If I could renew the book, I'd probably put it on the back burner for a few days, because I have a hard time keeping the desperate emotions in the books I'm reading from taking me over. But the library waitlist is going to keep me going, and I think, while it'll be hard, it'll be closer to the emotional experience that something like this ought to be--immersive, hard, but true.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Wading Around
This is going to be one of those months when I go weeks without finishing a book and then finish five of them in three days. I'm dancing back and forth between Charmed Thirds and Maisie Dobbs, and I'm enjoying both so much I can barely decide which one to read from minute to minute. I have this feeling that someday I'm going to come down to the point where both books are open in front of me and I'm switching off page by page. It speaks well of what I'm reading, but I don't think that would be healthy.
I'm worried that I won't have as much time to read when school starts. It seems obvious that I won't be able to keep up the pace I've been keeping--though is it? I read the same number of books while working a full time job. I know school is a big commitment, but we're talking about 6 hours per week of classes. Could that really be much more than 35 hours a week of work?
You may have noticed me worrying about school.
I was reading a conversation online this morning about gender identity and books for kids. It was a bunch of parents discussing good books about or containing gay or bisexual characters. People were posting lists of books introducing the idea of straight, gay, and bisexual to toddlers and little kids, and dealing with those issues more thoroughly for older kids and teens. One thing they were lamenting, though, is the lack of books for little kids that have these ideas in the background, without being all about them. So you can buy a book to introduce the idea of having two mommies to a little kid, but you can't find a book that's about something else in which the character just happens to have two mommies. This is also true of other nontraditional family constructions, like families with different racial makeups, adoptions, or multiple parent constructs; it's possible to find a book to help you teach kids about these ideas, but not a book about, say a little girl having a fight with her friend (or a lost baby polar bear, or whatever) in which the nontraditional family is just there and taken as a matter of course.
This is a shame. My someday-kids are going to be raised to a white mom and dad, and I hate the idea that, while I can explain all I want that not everyone is like that, the fact of white hetero families will be the default of the world they live in, both in real life and in the media.
This isn't something I lament every day, because I have the luxury of not having to think about it. But right now I have a real itch to go out and write a kids book about an adopted black kid with two white moms and a biodad. Or something. I don't know enough to address this intelligently, but it's out there, in my head, floating around. I'll have to think more about this somewhere up the line, I suppose, when someday-kids appear on the horizon.
I'm worried that I won't have as much time to read when school starts. It seems obvious that I won't be able to keep up the pace I've been keeping--though is it? I read the same number of books while working a full time job. I know school is a big commitment, but we're talking about 6 hours per week of classes. Could that really be much more than 35 hours a week of work?
You may have noticed me worrying about school.
I was reading a conversation online this morning about gender identity and books for kids. It was a bunch of parents discussing good books about or containing gay or bisexual characters. People were posting lists of books introducing the idea of straight, gay, and bisexual to toddlers and little kids, and dealing with those issues more thoroughly for older kids and teens. One thing they were lamenting, though, is the lack of books for little kids that have these ideas in the background, without being all about them. So you can buy a book to introduce the idea of having two mommies to a little kid, but you can't find a book that's about something else in which the character just happens to have two mommies. This is also true of other nontraditional family constructions, like families with different racial makeups, adoptions, or multiple parent constructs; it's possible to find a book to help you teach kids about these ideas, but not a book about, say a little girl having a fight with her friend (or a lost baby polar bear, or whatever) in which the nontraditional family is just there and taken as a matter of course.
This is a shame. My someday-kids are going to be raised to a white mom and dad, and I hate the idea that, while I can explain all I want that not everyone is like that, the fact of white hetero families will be the default of the world they live in, both in real life and in the media.
This isn't something I lament every day, because I have the luxury of not having to think about it. But right now I have a real itch to go out and write a kids book about an adopted black kid with two white moms and a biodad. Or something. I don't know enough to address this intelligently, but it's out there, in my head, floating around. I'll have to think more about this somewhere up the line, I suppose, when someday-kids appear on the horizon.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Throw Open the Windows
It's not like I finished any books or anything, but I started a few new ones last night, and it was pretty exciting. I am so easily pleased by new things--shiny! covered with glitter!--that it's a little embarrassing how bad I am at finishing the old ones. Around my house it's common knowledge that I'm great at the first 90% of a task, and really, really, REALLY awful at the last 10%.
So here I am, poking around in Maisie Dobbs by, I believe, Jacqueline Winspear (Mike wasn't sure that was the author's name since it's much less believable as a person's name than Maisie Dobbs. This is a 1920s lady detective story, and the five pages I've read are awesome. Thanks to Becky for that recommendation.
1 Dead in Attic is a collection of essays written by New Orleans journalist Chris Rose after Hurricane Katrina. I'm guessing he was a columnist, because he seems to have written the essays weekly. I read about the book online somewhere, but I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it wasn't for Dooce linking to his column describing the depression he suffered in the aftermath of all the suffering he witnessed. I was really impressed by the article--he does an excellent job of writing about depression from both sides, both as someone who has and is suffering from it, but also as someone who never really understood it until it happened to him. Even the most sensitive of us can have trouble understanding a mood disorder until we've experienced it--and sometimes not even then. (Like Laurie in my college psych class who raised her hand to contribute, "I don't understand why depressed people don't just decide to get happy." Sadly, she was a psych major.)
So far, I've only read about three of the columns, but they're really beautiful, full of pain and guilt (his house was barely damaged) and bewilderment. My only wish is that there was a map in the book; I don't know enough about New Orleans to have a clear picture of all the geographical background he gives, and I think a little help might be useful.
I haven't finished anything, though, so I need to get back on task for that last 10% (though it's really more than half of the two books I'm in the middle of that need to be finished. And I really want to read Caddie Woodlawn soon. So much to do! Burdensome!)
So here I am, poking around in Maisie Dobbs by, I believe, Jacqueline Winspear (Mike wasn't sure that was the author's name since it's much less believable as a person's name than Maisie Dobbs. This is a 1920s lady detective story, and the five pages I've read are awesome. Thanks to Becky for that recommendation.
1 Dead in Attic is a collection of essays written by New Orleans journalist Chris Rose after Hurricane Katrina. I'm guessing he was a columnist, because he seems to have written the essays weekly. I read about the book online somewhere, but I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it wasn't for Dooce linking to his column describing the depression he suffered in the aftermath of all the suffering he witnessed. I was really impressed by the article--he does an excellent job of writing about depression from both sides, both as someone who has and is suffering from it, but also as someone who never really understood it until it happened to him. Even the most sensitive of us can have trouble understanding a mood disorder until we've experienced it--and sometimes not even then. (Like Laurie in my college psych class who raised her hand to contribute, "I don't understand why depressed people don't just decide to get happy." Sadly, she was a psych major.)
So far, I've only read about three of the columns, but they're really beautiful, full of pain and guilt (his house was barely damaged) and bewilderment. My only wish is that there was a map in the book; I don't know enough about New Orleans to have a clear picture of all the geographical background he gives, and I think a little help might be useful.
I haven't finished anything, though, so I need to get back on task for that last 10% (though it's really more than half of the two books I'm in the middle of that need to be finished. And I really want to read Caddie Woodlawn soon. So much to do! Burdensome!)
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Not About Books
My classes could start at absolutely any minute; I haven't been paying much attention. I'm pretty sure I have another week or so, though. I'm freaking out.
I'm going to be studying library science starting in two weeks. I'm not convinced this is a good idea; I have historically been fairly good at going to school, but I have a high baseline level of anxiety, and the rolling nature of schoolwork (that is, the fact that the obligation to do work does not end at 5pm or on Friday afternoon) has never been good for my brain.
So you'll have to forgive me if I'm finding this distracting. I'm not going very far or very fast in anything that I'm reading, and I have a tendency to flinch at random moments during the day when I think about the fact that I have to start going to school soon. I will, however, keep the world posted as I learn library-y things--it'll be like a free education!
I'm going to be studying library science starting in two weeks. I'm not convinced this is a good idea; I have historically been fairly good at going to school, but I have a high baseline level of anxiety, and the rolling nature of schoolwork (that is, the fact that the obligation to do work does not end at 5pm or on Friday afternoon) has never been good for my brain.
So you'll have to forgive me if I'm finding this distracting. I'm not going very far or very fast in anything that I'm reading, and I have a tendency to flinch at random moments during the day when I think about the fact that I have to start going to school soon. I will, however, keep the world posted as I learn library-y things--it'll be like a free education!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Like a Thrifty Man's Butter
Which is to say, spread a little thin. I don't have much to report from the wide world of literature and libraries, because when you're reading four books, you're barely reading at all. I'm almost done with Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear (which everyone should read, by the way, because it's an excellent guide to how to think about personal safety by a very smart guy who does this for a living). It's a reread, and a fast book anyway, so that'll be done tonight, I'm sure.
I've started Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon, which is not horrible, but not great. I've already cleared the 20% mark, so I'll probably finish it (it'll probably take another three hours, so it's not that much of an investment). It's promising me a murder mystery, but so far it's mostly about an outsider of a little girl observing another child's hardscrabble life with horrified fascination, which I'm feeling, too. Then there are the modern-day bits, in which the grown-up girl is dealing with her mother's growing dementia. Really, what I've read so far sounds like a bit of an Oprah book (which would be fine; I like a lot of Oprah books), but it's kind of dry, and I think someone's going to get murdered.
Oh, also the main character's name is Kate Cypher. I certainly hope they explain that in a way that makes it okay that her name is so on the nose.
Charmed Thirds, Megan McCafferty. Not quite as densely smart and angsty as and Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings (why is high school angst so much less annoying than college angst?), but still smart and angsty, and I'm loving it. (Aside: why does blogger say I'm spelling "angsty" wrong two of these times, but not the first one? Is it accusing me of overusing a word that quite possibly doesn't legitimately exist? Guilty as charged.)
To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'm really enjoying this, but I have to force myself not to rush it, because it's not that kind of book.
Library school starts in just a couple of weeks, and I've managed to convince myself that I'm not going to be scared out of my mind until the week after next. Really I'm scared out of my mind right now, but I'm letting all those feelings float away....like a leaf in a stream....a very, very anxious leaf....
I've started Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon, which is not horrible, but not great. I've already cleared the 20% mark, so I'll probably finish it (it'll probably take another three hours, so it's not that much of an investment). It's promising me a murder mystery, but so far it's mostly about an outsider of a little girl observing another child's hardscrabble life with horrified fascination, which I'm feeling, too. Then there are the modern-day bits, in which the grown-up girl is dealing with her mother's growing dementia. Really, what I've read so far sounds like a bit of an Oprah book (which would be fine; I like a lot of Oprah books), but it's kind of dry, and I think someone's going to get murdered.
Oh, also the main character's name is Kate Cypher. I certainly hope they explain that in a way that makes it okay that her name is so on the nose.
Charmed Thirds, Megan McCafferty. Not quite as densely smart and angsty as and Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings (why is high school angst so much less annoying than college angst?), but still smart and angsty, and I'm loving it. (Aside: why does blogger say I'm spelling "angsty" wrong two of these times, but not the first one? Is it accusing me of overusing a word that quite possibly doesn't legitimately exist? Guilty as charged.)
To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'm really enjoying this, but I have to force myself not to rush it, because it's not that kind of book.
Library school starts in just a couple of weeks, and I've managed to convince myself that I'm not going to be scared out of my mind until the week after next. Really I'm scared out of my mind right now, but I'm letting all those feelings float away....like a leaf in a stream....a very, very anxious leaf....
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Becky, I'm So Sorry
...but I just can't read Exodus. I've tried, I really have, but I just can't get drawn in--jumping from story to story, the writing style is so matter-of-fact, and the details are so familiar, I just can't get my head in it. I'm so sorry; I don't think it's a bad book, I'm just not in a place to read it.
I'm almost 100 pages in--with another book, I'd stick it out another 200 pages or so to the end, but knowing that the end is over 500 pages away from me....I just can't do it.
You get to slap me good next time you see me, okay?
My light reading this week is The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker. It's light because I've read it before--I'm skimming it in a reread, because it's such an interesting book. I love nonfiction with a lot of concrete facts in it. Have I mentioned that lately?
I'm probably going to be reading To Say Nothing of the Dog for a very long time--it's not really a "plow through" kind of book. (Aside: is plough a British spelling? Because blogger doesn't recognize it.) Mike and I are also reading A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill. It's a nice book for reading out loud to each other, in the car or while one of us is doing something like cooking dinner or drawing.
I also have a total of about 14 other library books out. Something really needs to be done about that; possibly I need to start reading The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, but more likely I should pick up Charmed Thirds, which will be both quick and trashy. Delish.
I'm almost 100 pages in--with another book, I'd stick it out another 200 pages or so to the end, but knowing that the end is over 500 pages away from me....I just can't do it.
You get to slap me good next time you see me, okay?
My light reading this week is The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker. It's light because I've read it before--I'm skimming it in a reread, because it's such an interesting book. I love nonfiction with a lot of concrete facts in it. Have I mentioned that lately?
I'm probably going to be reading To Say Nothing of the Dog for a very long time--it's not really a "plow through" kind of book. (Aside: is plough a British spelling? Because blogger doesn't recognize it.) Mike and I are also reading A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill. It's a nice book for reading out loud to each other, in the car or while one of us is doing something like cooking dinner or drawing.
I also have a total of about 14 other library books out. Something really needs to be done about that; possibly I need to start reading The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, but more likely I should pick up Charmed Thirds, which will be both quick and trashy. Delish.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
That Jim Carrey Book
I had read the first three books in the Series of Unfortunate Events series. They're clever and charmingly written, but they are, in many respects, all alike, and there is a frustrating and recurring theme of nobody listening to the kids. So I basically decided to stop reading them. And then, of course, I got access to the books of the middle school library, and suddenly I'm carrying around The Miserable Mill. It's good, like they're all good, but this is book 4 of 11, and I think after this I'm going to skip to the end. Unless this one has something very different going on, which I doubt.
We watched the movie this weekend, though. All three children were marvelous, and I loved how they subtitled Sunny's coos. But...ah, Jim Carrey. There were long moments in the movie where it's clear that they just let him riff, told the kids to look stiff and incredulous, and then looped the background music to cover the right amount of time. Not, not good. Long riffs, repetitive, hammy...everything you expect from Jim Carrey. I think I only ever liked him in two movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and, believe it or not, Liar Liar. This is not a movie blog, so I don't feel the need to explain myself there.
Next up, To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is a preposterous title, but the subtitle, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump At Last, is even worse. The book, though, is by Connie Willis, and is very good, even on page 20 or so. I think it helps to have read her Doomsday Book, because it has the same setting, but I don't think it's necessary.
Final note: they made a movie of Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. It's animated in her comic style and in French. But the movie is black and white (not grayscale) and the English subtitles are, inexplicably, all in white. Good luck to you there.
We watched the movie this weekend, though. All three children were marvelous, and I loved how they subtitled Sunny's coos. But...ah, Jim Carrey. There were long moments in the movie where it's clear that they just let him riff, told the kids to look stiff and incredulous, and then looped the background music to cover the right amount of time. Not, not good. Long riffs, repetitive, hammy...everything you expect from Jim Carrey. I think I only ever liked him in two movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and, believe it or not, Liar Liar. This is not a movie blog, so I don't feel the need to explain myself there.
Next up, To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is a preposterous title, but the subtitle, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump At Last, is even worse. The book, though, is by Connie Willis, and is very good, even on page 20 or so. I think it helps to have read her Doomsday Book, because it has the same setting, but I don't think it's necessary.
Final note: they made a movie of Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. It's animated in her comic style and in French. But the movie is black and white (not grayscale) and the English subtitles are, inexplicably, all in white. Good luck to you there.
Friday, January 04, 2008
More on God
Read that title out loud. No heresy intended. I promise this will be the last religious book entry for a while--I'll head straight into thrillers and chick lit, possibly some sci fi.
I just read Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren F. Winner. This is the woman who wrote Girl Meets God, which I read a while back, and really didn't like. And yet somehow, I keep reading all her books. I actively seek them out, and I actually enjoyed this one, and I'm struggling with that, but I think I've figured out why.
First, Girl Meets God was a personal story of being Jewish, converting to Orthodox, and then converting to Christianity. That's a convoluted journey to take, and, in my opinion, requires some justification, which the author does not give. Not only does she fail to seem at all sheepish for having such a tangled path, but she narrates the book with such conviction and authority, as though it was silly how much confusion she went through to arrive at such an obvious spiritual place. But she's writing only a couple of years after her conversion. She acts like someone with perspective and some secret knowledge, without earning either of those things.
So why do I keep coming back to her? I think this is quite simple, and it's the same reason I love Sarah Vowell--I love it when someone takes a complicated and esoteric subject and does all the research for me, so I can just show up and be showered with the interesting tidbits. (It's a cheap way of being intellectual, but it's better than nothing.) And when she's not talking about herself, Winner is excellent. She's at her best when she's synthesizing the work of academics and priests and rabbis and the Bible and the Talmud, and telling me what obscure mystic writers say about some of the things that she's discussing, and then telling me about how her friend Molly put this theory into practice.
So I really enjoyed Mudhouse Sabbath, which was about some of the things that Christianity (with its focus on faith at the path to salvation) could learn from Judaism (with its focus on the practice of worship). I love learning about esoteric Jewish traditions, and I love how she claims to have tried a lot of them, in the charming, random way young people wander into trying things.
I wonder if it seems silly to people, how much I like nun books and C.S. Lewis and Lauren Winner, when I'm not even remotely a Christian, not even at all.
I just read Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren F. Winner. This is the woman who wrote Girl Meets God, which I read a while back, and really didn't like. And yet somehow, I keep reading all her books. I actively seek them out, and I actually enjoyed this one, and I'm struggling with that, but I think I've figured out why.
First, Girl Meets God was a personal story of being Jewish, converting to Orthodox, and then converting to Christianity. That's a convoluted journey to take, and, in my opinion, requires some justification, which the author does not give. Not only does she fail to seem at all sheepish for having such a tangled path, but she narrates the book with such conviction and authority, as though it was silly how much confusion she went through to arrive at such an obvious spiritual place. But she's writing only a couple of years after her conversion. She acts like someone with perspective and some secret knowledge, without earning either of those things.
So why do I keep coming back to her? I think this is quite simple, and it's the same reason I love Sarah Vowell--I love it when someone takes a complicated and esoteric subject and does all the research for me, so I can just show up and be showered with the interesting tidbits. (It's a cheap way of being intellectual, but it's better than nothing.) And when she's not talking about herself, Winner is excellent. She's at her best when she's synthesizing the work of academics and priests and rabbis and the Bible and the Talmud, and telling me what obscure mystic writers say about some of the things that she's discussing, and then telling me about how her friend Molly put this theory into practice.
So I really enjoyed Mudhouse Sabbath, which was about some of the things that Christianity (with its focus on faith at the path to salvation) could learn from Judaism (with its focus on the practice of worship). I love learning about esoteric Jewish traditions, and I love how she claims to have tried a lot of them, in the charming, random way young people wander into trying things.
I wonder if it seems silly to people, how much I like nun books and C.S. Lewis and Lauren Winner, when I'm not even remotely a Christian, not even at all.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Preached At
Anyone reading this is probably tired of hearing about Till We Have Faces, but I like it and am annoyed by it and am thinking about it, so that's what I'm writing about.
The ending of this book is really irritating to me, in the same way that a lot of proselytizing is irritating to people who aren't already sold. He sets up this great story of a woman who is angry at the gods, and telling her life story as an indictment of them. The big issue it comes down to is that, as she (Oruel) puts it, she was faced with a riddle and made the best answer she could with the information she had, and, when she was proven wrong, she and her sister Psyche were punished for it. What happens, in essence, is that she is told that something exists that she cannot see or perceive in any way. She believes that her sister is wrong--mad or deceived--and acts on this, attempting to bring her sister home and save her.
Based on this, her claim seems like a pretty fair indictment to me. The book supports it all the way through, until the last part. At the end, it is revealed to Oruel and to us, that her real motivation was not compassion for her sister but jealousy of her sister's love. And that all her urge to save her sister before, all her standing by the evidence of her senses, was just stubborn denial of what she must have known in her heart to be true.
I hate this. It's like that old, irritating psychoanalytical issue, where if you deny that you have had a trauma, you're repressing it, or resisting the therapeutic process or something. No, honey, sometimes not being traumatized is just based on bad things not having happened to you.
So the whole book just dismisses the fact that, given the information she had, Orual was right to try to save her sister--that she had no earthly reason to believe that Psyche wasn't living on an exposed mountainside in the winter--in favor of the idea that if you don't grasp what the gods want, then it's because YOU are wrong and stubborn and have not yet overcome what is bad in your heart. Good people believe, it's as simple as that, I guess.
The ending of this book is really irritating to me, in the same way that a lot of proselytizing is irritating to people who aren't already sold. He sets up this great story of a woman who is angry at the gods, and telling her life story as an indictment of them. The big issue it comes down to is that, as she (Oruel) puts it, she was faced with a riddle and made the best answer she could with the information she had, and, when she was proven wrong, she and her sister Psyche were punished for it. What happens, in essence, is that she is told that something exists that she cannot see or perceive in any way. She believes that her sister is wrong--mad or deceived--and acts on this, attempting to bring her sister home and save her.
Based on this, her claim seems like a pretty fair indictment to me. The book supports it all the way through, until the last part. At the end, it is revealed to Oruel and to us, that her real motivation was not compassion for her sister but jealousy of her sister's love. And that all her urge to save her sister before, all her standing by the evidence of her senses, was just stubborn denial of what she must have known in her heart to be true.
I hate this. It's like that old, irritating psychoanalytical issue, where if you deny that you have had a trauma, you're repressing it, or resisting the therapeutic process or something. No, honey, sometimes not being traumatized is just based on bad things not having happened to you.
So the whole book just dismisses the fact that, given the information she had, Orual was right to try to save her sister--that she had no earthly reason to believe that Psyche wasn't living on an exposed mountainside in the winter--in favor of the idea that if you don't grasp what the gods want, then it's because YOU are wrong and stubborn and have not yet overcome what is bad in your heart. Good people believe, it's as simple as that, I guess.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Various and Sundry Miscellanea
For the record, I read over my list from 2007, and I read a total of 122 books last year. These are the books I logged in my journal; not all of them made it up here--I don't blog everything I read, it would get draggy. That number does include audiobooks that I listened to. And for the record, one of those was an abridged version--I know, I know, I hated to do it. But in the end I'm glad I did, because five more minutes of that book would have been a hard thing to deal with. But now that I know there are authors out there who have internet access, for crying out loud, I'm feeling cautious. Oh, hell, it was Darwin's Radio, by Greg Bear. Which was intriguing in concept, and good as far as it went, as sciencey political dramas go, but which reminded me of Michael Crichton in how it dealt with a lot of minutia and then danced away from the interesting reveal at the end that is the whole point of the book.
Anyway, there's that. Also, I went to the library today. Jenny McCarthy--yes, the hot chick in the baby tee from Singled Out who got famous for belching--has written a memoir about raising a son with autism, and I can't even wait to read it. Based on a limited amount of information about her (see previous sentence), there are a lot of places where I wouldn't feel comfortable following Jenny McCarthy. But there are so many moments to laugh at in autism, even while you're crying--I'm really curious to see where she goes with this, and what kind of a writer she is, and what kind of observer and humorist.
I got a big book of Mark Twain essays, for which I can blame no one but Lynne (I will draw the line, though, at reading about Irish dance halls). I liked Huck Finn in high school, but lately have found myself unable to get into his novels for various reasons. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is so offhand as to be boring, and so clever as to cease being clever. The Prince and the Pauper just couldn't hold me. And I've seen a copy of Life on the Mississippi from a distance, and that's plenty for me, thank you. I hope the essays will be more consumable.
I got a bunch of other stuff that I'm excited about, too, but I'm also exhausted and going to bed soon. But I will close with this: Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I've gotten past the preachy part and am loving it again. But I'm coming into the home stretch and I have a strong feeling he's going to start preaching again. I hope he can hold it together anyway.
So we plunge into 2008 with a fresh round of stuff to read. I need to get a lot done in January, because I get much, much busier at the end of the month, and my reading time will be sadly shortened!
Anyway, there's that. Also, I went to the library today. Jenny McCarthy--yes, the hot chick in the baby tee from Singled Out who got famous for belching--has written a memoir about raising a son with autism, and I can't even wait to read it. Based on a limited amount of information about her (see previous sentence), there are a lot of places where I wouldn't feel comfortable following Jenny McCarthy. But there are so many moments to laugh at in autism, even while you're crying--I'm really curious to see where she goes with this, and what kind of a writer she is, and what kind of observer and humorist.
I got a big book of Mark Twain essays, for which I can blame no one but Lynne (I will draw the line, though, at reading about Irish dance halls). I liked Huck Finn in high school, but lately have found myself unable to get into his novels for various reasons. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is so offhand as to be boring, and so clever as to cease being clever. The Prince and the Pauper just couldn't hold me. And I've seen a copy of Life on the Mississippi from a distance, and that's plenty for me, thank you. I hope the essays will be more consumable.
I got a bunch of other stuff that I'm excited about, too, but I'm also exhausted and going to bed soon. But I will close with this: Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I've gotten past the preachy part and am loving it again. But I'm coming into the home stretch and I have a strong feeling he's going to start preaching again. I hope he can hold it together anyway.
So we plunge into 2008 with a fresh round of stuff to read. I need to get a lot done in January, because I get much, much busier at the end of the month, and my reading time will be sadly shortened!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Why Is There Always a Sequel?
Ellen Emerson White wrote The President's Daughter, which was a classic sixth grade read, about a teenager whose mother is elected as the first female president. Sort of a classic that mostly flies under the radar.
Life Without Friends is not something I'd heard of till recently, but I've been hearing some buzz; apparently, this is one of those books that is a huge favorite of anyone who has actually read it. So I read it today.
What was really exciting about this book is how it took a standard "teenager in over head" type plot that could have been a thriller or a deep drama and set that up as the backstory, proceeding to tell a more overlooked story. In the first chapter we learn how the main character fell in with a dangerous crowd after her mother died and she came to Boston to live with her father and his new wife. Her new boyfriend becomes a drug dealer, beats her up, and eventually kills some people. The story starts after his hearing, and it's not about any of those things. It's about someone who's messed everything up and been through the wringer, and now has to show up at school every day, where every single person despises her. It's about having no friends, not knowing your family, and kind of hating yourself. It's a story about healing, and there are no easy outs here.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it did something difficult--gave you a surly, angry, messed-up character, and made you like her, sympathize with her, and root for her.
So now I'm eying Friends for Life, which appears to be a sequel to this book. I'm torn about sequels--well, mostly I love them. When I find a book I like, I'm excited to hear there are more out there by the same author with some of the same elements. The only problem is that they sometimes become a burden (because they make my damned list longer!).
Looking more carefully at Friends for Life, though, I think it's more of a companion book--it's the story of the boyfriend-murderer and the girl who was looking too closely at his drug habits, and basically how everything went down that eventually led to Beverly's experiences in the book I just finished. And I think, if this is going to be some sort of murder-thriller, that I don't really need to put it on my list.
So this is part of what I hope will be a good New Year's process for me; allowing myself to lay things aside, relax, set aside anxiety at a lack of completion. We'll see how long this lasts.
Life Without Friends is not something I'd heard of till recently, but I've been hearing some buzz; apparently, this is one of those books that is a huge favorite of anyone who has actually read it. So I read it today.
What was really exciting about this book is how it took a standard "teenager in over head" type plot that could have been a thriller or a deep drama and set that up as the backstory, proceeding to tell a more overlooked story. In the first chapter we learn how the main character fell in with a dangerous crowd after her mother died and she came to Boston to live with her father and his new wife. Her new boyfriend becomes a drug dealer, beats her up, and eventually kills some people. The story starts after his hearing, and it's not about any of those things. It's about someone who's messed everything up and been through the wringer, and now has to show up at school every day, where every single person despises her. It's about having no friends, not knowing your family, and kind of hating yourself. It's a story about healing, and there are no easy outs here.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it did something difficult--gave you a surly, angry, messed-up character, and made you like her, sympathize with her, and root for her.
So now I'm eying Friends for Life, which appears to be a sequel to this book. I'm torn about sequels--well, mostly I love them. When I find a book I like, I'm excited to hear there are more out there by the same author with some of the same elements. The only problem is that they sometimes become a burden (because they make my damned list longer!).
Looking more carefully at Friends for Life, though, I think it's more of a companion book--it's the story of the boyfriend-murderer and the girl who was looking too closely at his drug habits, and basically how everything went down that eventually led to Beverly's experiences in the book I just finished. And I think, if this is going to be some sort of murder-thriller, that I don't really need to put it on my list.
So this is part of what I hope will be a good New Year's process for me; allowing myself to lay things aside, relax, set aside anxiety at a lack of completion. We'll see how long this lasts.
Monday, December 31, 2007
C.S. Lewis and Christian Parables: Who Knew?
Till We Have Faces. I'm only about halfway through it, and it's quite lovely--a leisurely written story of the princess of a mediocre country whose beloved younger sister is given in sacrifice to their God, and who tries to rescue her. The first third or so of the book was an interesting story, and very much a character study. But then the plot really got underway, and the two sisters are having a long conversation about gods that is such a Christian parable that it almost ceases to function as fiction.
Actually, I'm not sure if that's true. I think it feels heavy handed, but I also thing Lewis is quite an expert at exploring the issues surrounding religious faith in a way that is generous to the agnostic. He's not antagonistic, as I find so many other apologists to be. But you can tell that's because he really feels like he's going to win you over. The girl in the story (I can't remember her name, because it's strange and she's a first person narrator; the sacrificed sister is Psyche) clearly doesn't want to believe, and even as she's making very reasonable arguments (I think my sister is crazy because she says we're sitting inside when we're clearly outdoors getting rained on), it's clear that I'm supposed to find her suspect because of her lack of faith (in her sister's claim that no, really, we're indoors and dry as a bone). And then her arguments that really, if the gods want us to believe things, they should make them less contradictory with the evidence of our senses--insert C.S. Lewis eye roll. But, I'm sorry, that makes total sense to me as an argument. You can't dismiss the evidence of my senses as a spurious argument.
I don't want to argue religion with anyone--I am without any sort of conviction. And I really enjoy reading more explicit religious discussion, because I want to home in on the place where I part company from believers, because I really can't find it for myself; I only know we're on different paths. But I do hope that the book becomes less of a parable and goes back to being more of a story.
I also want to put in a plug here for the YA novel Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale. Hale has apparently written Goose Girl, which a bunch of people I know have raved about, as well as a bunch of other things. I just found her, and I can say that I enjoyed Princess Academy a lot. I thought it dealt very well with the main character being strongly of two minds, and really not knowing which way to go.
Okay, I'm off to ring in the new year. Happy 2008, everyone!
Actually, I'm not sure if that's true. I think it feels heavy handed, but I also thing Lewis is quite an expert at exploring the issues surrounding religious faith in a way that is generous to the agnostic. He's not antagonistic, as I find so many other apologists to be. But you can tell that's because he really feels like he's going to win you over. The girl in the story (I can't remember her name, because it's strange and she's a first person narrator; the sacrificed sister is Psyche) clearly doesn't want to believe, and even as she's making very reasonable arguments (I think my sister is crazy because she says we're sitting inside when we're clearly outdoors getting rained on), it's clear that I'm supposed to find her suspect because of her lack of faith (in her sister's claim that no, really, we're indoors and dry as a bone). And then her arguments that really, if the gods want us to believe things, they should make them less contradictory with the evidence of our senses--insert C.S. Lewis eye roll. But, I'm sorry, that makes total sense to me as an argument. You can't dismiss the evidence of my senses as a spurious argument.
I don't want to argue religion with anyone--I am without any sort of conviction. And I really enjoy reading more explicit religious discussion, because I want to home in on the place where I part company from believers, because I really can't find it for myself; I only know we're on different paths. But I do hope that the book becomes less of a parable and goes back to being more of a story.
I also want to put in a plug here for the YA novel Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale. Hale has apparently written Goose Girl, which a bunch of people I know have raved about, as well as a bunch of other things. I just found her, and I can say that I enjoyed Princess Academy a lot. I thought it dealt very well with the main character being strongly of two minds, and really not knowing which way to go.
Okay, I'm off to ring in the new year. Happy 2008, everyone!
Friday, December 28, 2007
Wait, Are You Telling Me The Internet Is Interactive?
So. Well. Huh.
Apparently my recent post about Ha'penny, by Jo Walton, was read by the author herself. And then blogged. I noticed because of an insane bump in my blog stats on December 26. You don't go from the loyal 5-8 readers I have (hi, Linden! hi, Lynne!) to the 102 who came to visit me without wondering how exactly THAT happens.
So after I stopped screaming and crawled out from under the kitchen table, I started to think about what was in the post and pray that, even if I disappointed Ms. Walton, that at least I hadn't embarrassed myself. I mean, on the off chance that Stephen King finds his way here someday, I stand by my declaration that he needs a more aggressive editor. But I have been known to say things that are rather less thoughtful and more impassioned than is truly necessary.
I'm not going to backpedal, because I said what I think about the book. The ending depressed me--I was invested in the conspiracy, and who wouldn't be invested in killing Hitler? The ending depressed me so much, I woke up the next morning and felt depressed when I thought of the book again. I even felt extra-depressed when reading Exodus later, because I kept forgetting that we won World War II. But I don't think I can claim that writing a depressing book is a failure, even if I am a five-year-old child when it comes to happy endings.
I'd like to reiterate how much I adored Farthing. You should really read it, and I'm not saying this because Jo Walton knows my URL. Tooth and Claw was fabulous, too--a spot-on perfect, excellent, marvelous novel--practically Jane Austen with dragons. And, even more, I am indescribably excited to learn that there is going to be a third book in the Small Change series (her name for it, also called Still Life with Fascists), in which I absolutely insist that Carmichael be redeemed. It is possible that, after reading the third book, I'll be okay with Ha'penny as a second act.
I hope it doesn't sound wishy-washy coming back to this. I throw this blog out into the void (Hi, Kris! Hi, Becky!), and I feel like this situation calls for more precision. And for a big shout-out to Jo Walton, who's going to be the Guest of Honor at the 2009 annual meeting of the New England Science Fiction Association here in Boston. Maybe I'll show up to shake her hand--if she'll have me.
Apparently my recent post about Ha'penny, by Jo Walton, was read by the author herself. And then blogged. I noticed because of an insane bump in my blog stats on December 26. You don't go from the loyal 5-8 readers I have (hi, Linden! hi, Lynne!) to the 102 who came to visit me without wondering how exactly THAT happens.
So after I stopped screaming and crawled out from under the kitchen table, I started to think about what was in the post and pray that, even if I disappointed Ms. Walton, that at least I hadn't embarrassed myself. I mean, on the off chance that Stephen King finds his way here someday, I stand by my declaration that he needs a more aggressive editor. But I have been known to say things that are rather less thoughtful and more impassioned than is truly necessary.
I'm not going to backpedal, because I said what I think about the book. The ending depressed me--I was invested in the conspiracy, and who wouldn't be invested in killing Hitler? The ending depressed me so much, I woke up the next morning and felt depressed when I thought of the book again. I even felt extra-depressed when reading Exodus later, because I kept forgetting that we won World War II. But I don't think I can claim that writing a depressing book is a failure, even if I am a five-year-old child when it comes to happy endings.
I'd like to reiterate how much I adored Farthing. You should really read it, and I'm not saying this because Jo Walton knows my URL. Tooth and Claw was fabulous, too--a spot-on perfect, excellent, marvelous novel--practically Jane Austen with dragons. And, even more, I am indescribably excited to learn that there is going to be a third book in the Small Change series (her name for it, also called Still Life with Fascists), in which I absolutely insist that Carmichael be redeemed. It is possible that, after reading the third book, I'll be okay with Ha'penny as a second act.
I hope it doesn't sound wishy-washy coming back to this. I throw this blog out into the void (Hi, Kris! Hi, Becky!), and I feel like this situation calls for more precision. And for a big shout-out to Jo Walton, who's going to be the Guest of Honor at the 2009 annual meeting of the New England Science Fiction Association here in Boston. Maybe I'll show up to shake her hand--if she'll have me.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
The Brick Wall of My Bougeois Taste
As in, once again I've run up against the brick wall of the fact that there's a quality of good "literary" fiction that I just can't take.
So I'm not going to be reading Giraffe. I'm quitting after the requisite 10%, plus a few more pages, and I would normally not be bothered by finding out, this early in the process, that a particular book is not my cup o' tea. But I had been SO excited about this book. Also, I have to say, I'm still really curious about the plot. What did happen to the giraffes? Why were they shot? But I think that finding out how it ends is a good enough reason to plow through, say, the last quarter of a book, not getting into the first 50 pages.
So what don't I like about it? Well, so far, it's the atmospheric nature of the book. So far the only things that have actually happened were 1) giraffes are caught and sorted, and 2) guy who studies giraffe circulatory systems is called to the government office, told he'd be fetching the giraffes from the ship and brining them to the zoo, and then goes home. We also have elaborate descriptions of the office he sits in, his route home, and his house. This is something like 40 pages in. Literally, nothing else happens. There are a lot of poetic moments--vignettes of things like him walking along the river and imagining an elderly couple watching him from the window of their apartment, and a flashback to how his architect mother designed the high dive of an important municipal pool and how the family went annually to view said pool and high dive.
Also, there's the pervasive misery of every book that takes place in a communist country, as though (and I think I've said this before) the sun never shone in Czechoslovakia.
So I am done. Stick a fork in me. Kris, next time we have lunch you will tell me how the book ends, and I will be done. I'm sorry; I feel like a bit of a failure, but it's over between me and this book. I'm reading Princess Academy, a young adult book by Shannon Hale, and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, as well as Exodus. Speaking of Till We Have Faces and Exodus in the same sentence, Becky, if you're out there, you should read The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. It's a strange little slip of a book, but I think you'd really like it.
Next time: goodreads.com, library arrivals, and a meditation on whether it's really completely respectable to read this much YA.
So I'm not going to be reading Giraffe. I'm quitting after the requisite 10%, plus a few more pages, and I would normally not be bothered by finding out, this early in the process, that a particular book is not my cup o' tea. But I had been SO excited about this book. Also, I have to say, I'm still really curious about the plot. What did happen to the giraffes? Why were they shot? But I think that finding out how it ends is a good enough reason to plow through, say, the last quarter of a book, not getting into the first 50 pages.
So what don't I like about it? Well, so far, it's the atmospheric nature of the book. So far the only things that have actually happened were 1) giraffes are caught and sorted, and 2) guy who studies giraffe circulatory systems is called to the government office, told he'd be fetching the giraffes from the ship and brining them to the zoo, and then goes home. We also have elaborate descriptions of the office he sits in, his route home, and his house. This is something like 40 pages in. Literally, nothing else happens. There are a lot of poetic moments--vignettes of things like him walking along the river and imagining an elderly couple watching him from the window of their apartment, and a flashback to how his architect mother designed the high dive of an important municipal pool and how the family went annually to view said pool and high dive.
Also, there's the pervasive misery of every book that takes place in a communist country, as though (and I think I've said this before) the sun never shone in Czechoslovakia.
So I am done. Stick a fork in me. Kris, next time we have lunch you will tell me how the book ends, and I will be done. I'm sorry; I feel like a bit of a failure, but it's over between me and this book. I'm reading Princess Academy, a young adult book by Shannon Hale, and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, as well as Exodus. Speaking of Till We Have Faces and Exodus in the same sentence, Becky, if you're out there, you should read The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. It's a strange little slip of a book, but I think you'd really like it.
Next time: goodreads.com, library arrivals, and a meditation on whether it's really completely respectable to read this much YA.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Major Letdown Season
This is not a holiday-themed post. Christmas so far is not at all let-downy. I was disappointed in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, but that's neither Christmas nor literature, so we're not going to talk about that.
But Ha'penny. Jo Walton. Sequel to Farthing. Sigh.
So I loved Farthing. You can't pretend that the ending was a happy one--the book is, from start to finish, about fascism winning the race--it's a world in which Lindburgh defeated Roosevelt and America is mired in Depression and isolationism, and in which Churchill was ousted early on in favor of a treaty with the Nazis. This is the world the book takes place in, and there is only the slightest hint that there is hope for anything or anyone.
The sequel, Ha'penny, has all these issues, but without the even tiny sense of uplift that you get at the end of Farthing. I'm almost sorry she wrote it. There were a few bits that didn't fly as well throughout--the main character's sex/love relationship and how it influences her actions, for example--but her voice and the police procedural guided me painlessly through those parts. Ah, but the end...I won't spoil it, except to say that the only sliver of hopeful sentiment it leaves you is pale and false. There is no hope here, only Zool.
And as for Pirates of the Caribbean, if there's another sequel, I'll forgive it, but if this is the end of the series, I'm taking my business elsewhere. Also, I hate movies where everything is monochromatic. Different scenes had their own color, but each one was just the one color. Blech.
Merry Christmas Eve!
But Ha'penny. Jo Walton. Sequel to Farthing. Sigh.
So I loved Farthing. You can't pretend that the ending was a happy one--the book is, from start to finish, about fascism winning the race--it's a world in which Lindburgh defeated Roosevelt and America is mired in Depression and isolationism, and in which Churchill was ousted early on in favor of a treaty with the Nazis. This is the world the book takes place in, and there is only the slightest hint that there is hope for anything or anyone.
The sequel, Ha'penny, has all these issues, but without the even tiny sense of uplift that you get at the end of Farthing. I'm almost sorry she wrote it. There were a few bits that didn't fly as well throughout--the main character's sex/love relationship and how it influences her actions, for example--but her voice and the police procedural guided me painlessly through those parts. Ah, but the end...I won't spoil it, except to say that the only sliver of hopeful sentiment it leaves you is pale and false. There is no hope here, only Zool.
And as for Pirates of the Caribbean, if there's another sequel, I'll forgive it, but if this is the end of the series, I'm taking my business elsewhere. Also, I hate movies where everything is monochromatic. Different scenes had their own color, but each one was just the one color. Blech.
Merry Christmas Eve!
Friday, December 21, 2007
Starting a Meme
I don't know if it's a meme until someone else picks it up, but here's a list of all the Newbery Award winners so far. Bold are the ones I've read; red are the ones I'm pretty sure I want to read. Not that I won't read others; there are a lot I don't know anything about. But this is a list of my intentions.
Now that I look at it, I've read a lot more than I'm planning to read. And to be honest, I've only selected the ones to read that look like I might really enjoy them--there's no duty-reading on this list. I have enough of that in my life. I'm going to have to think about this a little more, process it and think about the procedure.
There are in reverse order by year--the last one on the list is from 1922.
:The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illus. by Matt Phelan
:Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins
:Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
:The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo
:Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
:A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
:A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
:Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
:Holes by Louis Sachar
:Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
:The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
:The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
:Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
:The Giver by Lois Lowry
:Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
:Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
:Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
:Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
:Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
:Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
:The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
:Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
:The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
:Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
:Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
:A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard
:Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
:A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832 by Joan W. Blos
:The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
:Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
:Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
:The Grey King by Susan Cooper
:M. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton
:The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
:Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
:Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
:Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
:Sounder by William H. Armstrong
:The High King by Lloyd Alexander
:From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
:Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt
:I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
:Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska
:It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
:A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
:The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
: Onion John by Joseph Krumgold
: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
: Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
: Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen
: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
: The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
: ...And Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold
: Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark
: Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
: Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
: The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
: King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
: The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois
: Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
: Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
: Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
: Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
: The Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmonds
: Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry
: Daniel Boone by James Daugherty
: Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
: The White Stag by Kate Seredy
: Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer
: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
: Dobry by Monica Shannon
: Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women by Cornelia Meigs
: Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Lewis
: Waterless Mountain by Laura Adams Armer
: The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth
: Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field
: The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly
: Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
: Smoky, the Cowhorse by Will James
: Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman
: Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger
: The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes
: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon
Now that I look at it, I've read a lot more than I'm planning to read. And to be honest, I've only selected the ones to read that look like I might really enjoy them--there's no duty-reading on this list. I have enough of that in my life. I'm going to have to think about this a little more, process it and think about the procedure.
There are in reverse order by year--the last one on the list is from 1922.
:The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illus. by Matt Phelan
:Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins
:Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
:The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo
:Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
:A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
:A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
:Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
:Holes by Louis Sachar
:Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
:The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
:The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
:Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
:The Giver by Lois Lowry
:Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
:Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
:Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
:Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
:Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
:Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
:The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
:Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
:The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
:Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
:Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
:A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard
:Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
:A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832 by Joan W. Blos
:The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
:Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
:Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
:The Grey King by Susan Cooper
:M. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton
:The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
:Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
:Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
:Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars
:Sounder by William H. Armstrong
:The High King by Lloyd Alexander
:From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
:Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt
:I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
:Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska
:It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
:A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
:The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
: Onion John by Joseph Krumgold
: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
: Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
: Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen
: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
: The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
: ...And Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold
: Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark
: Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
: Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
: The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
: King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
: The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois
: Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
: Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
: Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
: Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
: The Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmonds
: Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry
: Daniel Boone by James Daugherty
: Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
: The White Stag by Kate Seredy
: Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer
: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
: Dobry by Monica Shannon
: Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women by Cornelia Meigs
: Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Lewis
: Waterless Mountain by Laura Adams Armer
: The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth
: Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field
: The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly
: Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
: Smoky, the Cowhorse by Will James
: Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman
: Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger
: The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes
: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon
Czechoslovakia and My Quest
Well, I just got back from an evening in the Balkans at Revels, which was fabulous. Who knew that Bulgarian music would sound so Eastern in flavor--almost Southeast Asian, with Indian-like twang. And looking at the program with all those words that contain letter combinations like "jro" and "dse" reminds me yet again how much trouble I have reading books about places that I can't even try to begin to fathom how to pronounce.
I know the author of Giraffe is trying to create a clear image of the country in my mind, but when the narrator talks about riding his bike down Jroklavske Street, through the roundabout and up Skvlinsiljrka Hill, I am not being made to feel like I know this place. I am being made to feel like I'm visiting the natives of Jupiter, and perhaps the sky here is maroon--I have no way of knowing.
It's such a petty complaint; I feel shame. Here's a more profound one--stories set in Communist countries are depressing. Especially the Eastern European ones (Colin Cotterill's Laotian mysteries are rather upbeat; but then, communism is young in The Coroner's Lunch). This isn't petty, just trite--why are the Reds always such a downer? It's like the sun never shone in Eastern Europe, when I'm sure there was, at some point between 1950 and 1990, a clear day.
In other news, I have begun my quest into the Newbury books. I will probably post the list here sometime, along with what I plan to do with it. Stay tuned!
I know the author of Giraffe is trying to create a clear image of the country in my mind, but when the narrator talks about riding his bike down Jroklavske Street, through the roundabout and up Skvlinsiljrka Hill, I am not being made to feel like I know this place. I am being made to feel like I'm visiting the natives of Jupiter, and perhaps the sky here is maroon--I have no way of knowing.
It's such a petty complaint; I feel shame. Here's a more profound one--stories set in Communist countries are depressing. Especially the Eastern European ones (Colin Cotterill's Laotian mysteries are rather upbeat; but then, communism is young in The Coroner's Lunch). This isn't petty, just trite--why are the Reds always such a downer? It's like the sun never shone in Eastern Europe, when I'm sure there was, at some point between 1950 and 1990, a clear day.
In other news, I have begun my quest into the Newbury books. I will probably post the list here sometime, along with what I plan to do with it. Stay tuned!
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