Month: July 2012

July ’12 was…

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I am a dumbass to think I would be reading while on vacation. That may be true of a Maine vacation but certainly not of this last vacation…in Hawaii no less. We were so busy and always on the go that I barely picked up a book. Ever. The only time a book was raised before my eyes while on the island (either Oahu or Maui) was when I was searching a tour book to learn something. So, reading this month was severely limited due to my time away. But, I did manage a little:

  • Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife by Sigrid Undset ~ a continuation of a book honoring Norway in June
  • Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read on a break at work)
  • The Headless Cupid by Nora Zeale ~ in honor of July being kids month (a book read while waiting for a waxing)

For audio:

  • The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland.

For LibraryThing:

  • Waterlogged by Tim Noakes, MD (confessional – this was started in June & finished in July)
  • Sex So Great She Can’t Get Enough by Barbara Keeling (confessional – this was started in July but I will finish it in August.

For the fun of it:

  • Tattoo Adventures of Robbie Big Balls by Robert Westphal.

There you have it. Nothing too impressive. Okay, I’ll be honest. I started a lot of August books in the last week of July. Sue me.

Kristin Lavransdatter: the mistress of Husaby

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Undset, Sigrid. Kristin Lavransdatter: the Mistress of Husaby. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1939.

This is part two of the saga of Kristin Lavransdatter. As with part one I feel I am missing something with part two. I still wish I had the newer translation to refer to. Oh well.

But, wishing is the theme for part two. Kristin has now learned to be careful of what she wishes for. When we pick up the story in The Mistress of Husaby or The Wife (depending on your translation), Kristin is fat with pregnancy and miserable. She spends a fair amount of her time crying and daydreaming about how life would be back home. Her imagination fills in the gaps of what her mother would be doing or her father would be saying at that exact moment. Meanwhile Kristin’s relationship with Erlend is not the carefree wine and roses marriage she imagined it would be. Erlend is careless with his property and political actions and while Kristin’s opinion of him changes he never loses his passion for her. They are a couple out of balance. They go on to have several more children, though. In an ironic twist, Simon, Kristin’s former fiance marries Kristin’s 14 year old sister but gets Erlend out of politically trouble because he still loves Kristin.
It is in this section of the story that the relationship of Kristin’s parents receives more attention.

Favorite line: The advice given to Erlend. “But I will pray to St. Olav to cleave me in two halves with his axe the day I see you stand upon those long legs of yours, look man or woman straight in the face, and answer for the mischief you have wrought in your light-mindedness” (p 312). How many people have wanted to say that to his or her wayward friend?

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Digging Up the Past Through Fiction” (p 79) and from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Norway: The Land of the Midnight Sun” (p 162). PS~ I know I mentioned the twist in the review for part one but it made sense to say it again. Look for it in part three as well.

Forest Lover

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Vreeland, Susan. The Forest Lover.New York: Penguin Audio, 2004.

Disclaimer: This was another audio book I was fully prepared to listen to on the plane to (or from) Hawaii. I had no idea that The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim would take up some considerable time. So, this is a June book…in July. I’m not going to cry about it.

Right off the bat I have to say this is one of my favorite books for July. Susan Vreeland takes the real life character of Canadian artist Emily Carr and, while fictionalizing dialogue and relationships, does an amazing job portraying the factual history and Native American culture surrounding Carr’s life.  Art, culture and society are the three elements of importance in The Forest Lover.

Art was the vehicle Emily Carr chose in order to communicate with the world around her. She was fascinated with color and emotion and desperately wanted her art to say something through these characteristics. Whether they are Vreeland’s words or Carr’s the descriptions of the art of the time (1912 – Monet, Van Gogh, Carr herself) fairly dance off the page. Images come to life through the passion used to describe them. Early in The Forest Lover Carr was fixated on the totems of the Vancouver Island natives. She sought desperately to convey their spiritual power on the canvas so much so that she traveled to Paris with her sister to learn more about capturing color in just the right way. Being able to communicate and show passion through art excited her.
Along the way Carr was confronted with cultural differences between herself (being a white woman) and the tribes of natives she needed to befriend in order to paint their totems. Vreeland goes into deep character development for one Squamish friend, basket maker Sophie. This character development allows Vreeland to illustrate not only how crucial it was for Carr to develop a trust with the different tribes but to say something about Carr’s soothing personality and her ability to connect with people. She could put even the native most distrustful of the white man at ease.
The third and probably most important element to The Forest Lover is Emily Carr’s reaction to Victorian society through her fighting spirit. In addition to having a strong passion for art and the ability to befriend any culture Carr had a devil-may-care feminist approach to confines of her day. For example, during the early 1900s it was unbecoming for a woman to travel alone. While she took her sister as a traveling companion to France Carr was not necessarily worried about what the neighbors might think. She remained true to her spunky attitudes and rarely let anything or anyone intimidate her (although she did seem to have a weird hangup concerning intimacy). Vreeland’s writing style in The Forest Lover has made me a fan.

Author Fact: Susan Vreeland also wrote the more popular Girl in Hyacinth Blue.

Book Trivia: I think this should be a movie…if it isn’t already.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Inside the Inside Passage” (p 106).

 

100 Dresses

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Estes, Eleanor. Hundred Dresses. New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1944.

Despite being published in war-torn 1944 100 Dresses is a book that should be read over and over again. It could be taught in school today and well into the future. It is a pretty typical story of bullying no matter what the year, decade or era. Children of all ages can be cruel. Period. They don’t think about what they are saying nor do they think about the consequences of their words.

Everyone reviews 100 Dresses as a story about poor, shy, Polish-American Wanda Petronski but I see 100 Dresses as being about a girl named Maddie, torn between doing the right thing and being friends with the most popular girl in school. Wanda is a central character, I agree. With her strange name and quiet ways, she is the subject of ridicule when she announces she owns 100 dresses. This is obviously a lie when she wears the same faded, and frayed blue dress to school everyday. Right away this makes her a target. Maddie’s best friend Peggy attacks this lie by asking detailed questions about the fictional dresses intentionally making Wanda squirm. Meanwhile Maddie stands by, witness to the taunting but says nothing. She doesn’t dare stand up for Wanda for fear of putting herself in Peggy’s cross hairs. She understands her friendship with Peggy to be conditional. Maddie knows that the bullying is wrong but can’t stand up for Wanda. In the end Wanda’s father moves the family away to avoid more ridicule. While this wouldn’t happen in today’s society (I believe most parents would tell their child to “get over it”) the bullying is as real as ever.

I didn’t have a favorite passage but I loved the illustrations.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls” (p 22).

D-Day, June 6, 1944

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Ambrose, Stephen. D-Day, June 6, 1944: the Climactic Battle of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Where do I begin with a book like this? Imagine watching a scene from high above. Everything is muted and details are fuzzy. Now imagine swooping in to ground level and being able to engage all the senses. You hear, see, smell, taste and feel everything at close range. D-Day is such a book. You know all about June 6th, 1944 from your textbooks and your history classes. With D-Day, June 6th, 1944: the Climactic Battle of World War II Stephen Ambrose swoops in and takes you down the to fighting. Ground level. You get to hear (supposed) first hand accounts from the American, British and Canadian men who survived Operation Overlord: the five separate attacks from sea and air. The opening chapter is a harrowing parachute drop into enemy territory. Soldiers who fought side by side with buddies who later wouldn’t make it recall every emotion. What a strange circumstance, to be fighting for your life and watching men die around you and yet, yet have no fear. They knew they could meet death at any minute but were so moved by the leadership of commanding officers to keep surging forward. The tragic battle at Omaha Beach illustrates this most poignantly.
Probably the most interesting section of the book for me was the comparisons between Commanders Eisenhower and Rommel. They had so many different things in common they could have been friends had it not been for their opposing positions in the war.
Of note: several people have told me that I should be taking the details of D-Day with a grain of salt; that not all interviews are truthful or accurate. Well, if that’s the case, slap a “fiction” label on it and call it a riveting best seller! Regardless of its integrity I loved the book.

Favorite lines: impossible to tell you because I ended up listening to this rather than reading it.

Author Fact: Ambrose was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2000. This is the highest honor the Department of Defense can give a civilian.

Book Trivia: D-Day, June 6th 1944 is one of many books written by Ambrose that is surrounded in controversy involving inaccuracies and plagiarism.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “World War II Nonfiction” (p 253).

Calligrapher’s Daughter

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Kim, Eugenia. The Calligrapher’s Daughter.  New York: Henry Holt, 2010.

This is the story of Najin Han from childhood to womanhood in early 20th century Korea. Najin Han begins her life on Korea’s cusp of Japanese occupation as a curious child who often tests the boundaries of her small world by spying on the adult conversations of her parents. As a child she sees and experiences the beginnings of the Japanese occupation but does not completely understand it. As she matures her world changes colors and she watches the political boundaries and tests the cultural ones. From a young age she has wanted to determine her own destiny and as a result Najin grows up to be a headstrong woman, having been pulled in different directions by everyone around her. Into Korean adulthood (by age 12) her mother continues to encourage Najin to foster personal growth and even helps her pursue an education. To avoid a prearranged marriage Najin’s mother sends her to a king’s count to be a companion for the princess; a very unconventional idea for a woman in early 20th century Korea. Meanwhile, her father is a staunch believer in Old World traditions and customs. He fiercely tries to hold onto Korea while the country slowly loses independence.

As an aside, I can’t imagine growing up without a parental given name. But that is what Najin Han experiences. She is nameless until an American misunderstands an introduction. To Kim’s credit it is beautiful the way she comes full circle with Najin’s maturity concerning identity.

Author Fact: The Calligrapher’s Daughter is Eugenia Kim’s first book.

Book Trivia: The Calligrapher’s Daughter is based on the life of Eugenia Kim’s mother and most of the political aspects of the novel are true.

ps~ If you ever get the chance listen to the audio version after you read the print. It’s amazing.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Korea – North and South” (p 127).

Waterlogged

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Noakes, Tim. Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports. Campaign: Human Kinetics, 2012.

I have to start off by saying I had an acute interest in the subject of hydration in sports because I have a difficulty drinking enough fluids all the time and not just when I’m exercising. I am not an endurance athlete. I have never even run a marathon, but the question of just how much water should I be drinking has haunted me for years. You always hear the same old sermon, “drink more water.” Whatever your intake, double it. Triple it. That’s what I constantly heard. It was shocking to hear otherwise. Less is more in the world of sports. Who knew? But what Dr. Noakes has to say makes sense.

To carry around Waterlogged was a mini strength training routine in its own right. This is not a small manual on hydration rules for the ultra-marathoner. This is a extensively thought out, scrupulously researched, carefully documented and well written textbook on why over-hydration is not only a problem it is potentially deadly. Noakes outlines cases of athletes collapsing and dying from hyponatremia or water intoxication. He provides charts and graphs and scientific research to illustrate many different things including how water forces the balance of electrolytes and sodium out of balance and how this is potentially a bad thing; how is can be nearly impossible for the body to recover from. Noakes delves in to the murky world of marketing to illustrate how products like Gatorade are brainwashing our society to believe we cannot be athletes without them. While all the scientific data looks daunting readers shouldn’t be intimidated by it. Noakes uses a language that is straightforward and concise.

postscript: it took me a few weeks (and one very long flight) to read the July issue of Runners World so it wasn’t until after I wrote this review that I discovered a quote from Dr. Noakes and a mention of his book Waterlogged.

Headless Cupid

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Snyder, Zilphia Keatley. The Headless Cupid. New York: Atheneum, 1971.

I have to admit I felt kind of funny reading this while waiting for my spa appointment. Women around me were reading Cosmopolitan and Women’s Day while I was nose-deep in a story for kids (illustrated no less)!

The Headless Cupid is a really cute grade school book about a poltergeist. Sort of. After the divorce of her parents twelve year old Amanda has come to live with her mother. Only everything about Amanda’s new life is horrible. She has a new stepfather and four step-siblings to contend with, not to mention the fact she has been uprooted from her city life and transplanted in the country, an hour away from any “town.” Needless to say, Amanda comes to the Stanley household with a baggage. To compensate for her unhappiness Amanda studies witchcraft and the occult. She convinces the four Stanley children to be her “neophytes” and go through a series of “ordeals” to join her in magic making. As a Newbery Honor book, The Headless Cupid is about family dynamics. Any child going through a divorce would relate to the pain, anger and confusion Amanda in going through. I won’t tell you how she finally learns to accept her new family, but suffice it to say it’s a cute book.

I didn’t have any favorite lines or sentences that grabbed me, but I did have a favorite part. One of the “ordeals” the Stanley children must go through in order to join Amanda’s occult is to not touch metal all day. David, the oldest boy is very creative in how he is able to get dressed (zippers), open doors (handles), and eat (silverware).

Author Fact: Snyder has won three Newbery Awards (one being for The Headless Cupid. Wait. I said that already.

Book Trivia: The Headless Cupid is the first in a series of books about the Stanley family. I don’t think I read any of the other books in the series. Bummer. I liked this one.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls” (p 22).

July ’12 is….

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July started in Hawaii which is why this is so, so late. I fully intended to blog while on vacation but who has time to be stuck on a computer while in paradise? Besides, it was ME in Hawaii! Who would have thunk it? Me. In Hawaii. I’m an island girl, yet but an Atlantic ocean kind of girl. Strange days indeed. Anyway, July is a myriad of things. First the second half of the vacation. Maui. Helicopters, waterfalls, snuba, hiking, lu’aus, drinks in coconuts, toes in the sand, tattoo!! All those things were in my future and are now in my past because I did them all. Pictures coming soon. But, July is also (still and always) about books. Somehow I plan to read (or have already read):

  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the Wife by Sigrid Undset ~ a continuation of the trilogy I started in June. I’ll pick this back up when I get home.
  • The Calligrapher’s Wife by Eugenia Kim ~ in honor of the Korean War ending in July. Note: this is an audio book that I planned to “read” on the way home from Hawaii (confessional: I started this in June when I had a two hour (one way) commute to a meeting!)
  • Light in August by William Faulkner ~ in remembrance of Faulkner who died in July
  • Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett ~ because I am homesick!
  • Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis ~ in honor of July being job fair month
  • Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt ~ in honor of July being kids month  Scratch that. Just learned that Dicey’s Song should be read after Homecoming. My bad. I’ll be reading The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder instead.

June ’12 was…

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I had high hopes for June. Unreasonably so, I think. I don’t know what I was thinking when I decided the difference of a day would make everything better. What’s May 31 into June 1st other than Thursday into Friday? One day into the next? Silly me. June was a few things – a return to the run, a funeral heard around the world, a trip to an exotic island…

Here is the book list:

  • A River Runs Though It and Other Stories by Norman MacLean ~ in honor of river cleanup month. I can see why they made the first short story into a movie, but why not the other two? They were equally as good as the first. I read this in five days.
  • Death of Ivan Ilich by Leo Tolstoy ~ in honor of June being the best month to travel to Russia…that is, if you even want to travel to Russia. I guess you would need the desire before you decided the best time to go…I read this over three lunch breaks.
  • Kristin Lavransdatter: the Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset ~ again, chosen for the best time to travel somewhere. In this case, Norway. Note: this is only part one of a three part story. I will be reading the rest in July and August.
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus ~ in honor of I honestly don’t remember what. Something celebrating Algeria, I’m sure. This was deceptively simple to read. Read over five lunch breaks.
  • The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff ~ read in honor of June being family month. Some family!
  • Damage by Josephine Hart ~ in honor of Father’s Day…well, sort of.

Two Early Review books came in, courtesy of LibraryThing:

  • Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports by Tim Noakes, MD. I didn’t finish this in time to consider it an official June read, but at least I started it in June.
  • Who Should I Be? a Novel From Life by Sheila Heti ~ this was slightly delusional but I loved it.

    One audio book on cassette while I worked out:

  • D-Day by Stephen Ambrose ~ in honor of well, D-Day – June 6th 1944. Duh.

I should also note that I had an audio book for the flight to HI. I listened to July’s selection for the entire trip to and from the islands.