Category: Fiction

August ’09 Is…

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August is a long awaited trip homehome. August is the trials and tribulations of hiring. August is a little Avett Brothers, drums and Sean for music. August is getting back to cooking. August is so many different things, including a goal of 84 miles. Don’t ask. Here’s what August is for books:

  • The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (the easiest way to celebrate National Language Month.)
  • The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (Marking the anniversary of hurricane Katrina later this month – The Moviegoer takes place in New Orleans.)
  • Mutual Friend by Frederick Busch (Celebrating Busch’s birth month.)
  • Turbulent Souls by Stephen J. Dubner (Blame it on someone else month. I think I’ll have to wait for the review to explain this one.)
  • These Tremendous Mountains by David Freeman Hawke (Celebrating the expedition of Lewis and Clark)
  • Wind, Sand & Stars by Antoine Du Saint (August is National Aviation Month)

And for LibraryThing it is: Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey and I really, really should reread the one Early Review book I didn’t get around to reviewing, Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni.

For fun it’s a bunch of running band vegetable books. Go figure.

July ’09 Was…

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July ’09 was yesterday, but it was also a really fun month (despite the pool letting go). First there was meeting a friend for dinner and asking her to come work for me! Then there was Rebecca Correia’s Iron Horse show. Of course I rallied the troups (all 12 of us!) and we had a great time. I really need to blog about the three-way Kisa had with the girls and who can forget the Wicked Wally?
How could I forget Boston? The trip into the city was amazing because the company couldn’t have been more perfect. They caught the mandarin fish! I have a few pictures from the day of my way, but I’m dying to see theirs!
July was also the return to running. I am proud to say I logged 35.21 miles in July.

  • The Skull Mantra by Eliott Pattison ~ this one stayed with me for awhile. I think it should be a movie.
  • The Stillmeadow Raod by Gladys Taber ~ cute.
  • Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx ~ ugly.
  • The Enemy by Lee Child ~ fascinating. Can’t wait to read the others!
  • Morningside Heights by cheryl Mendelson ~ middle class society in Manhattan.
  • The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling ~ a little tough to get into at first.
  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ~ back to a classic!

For the fun of it:

  • Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

I was supposed to read a couple of Early Review books but only one arrived in July. I will have to review it in August (I’m reading it now).

Morning Star and a confession

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Bantock, Nick. Morning Star, In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Illuminated. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003.

I was first introduced to the Griffin & Sabine stories back in 1992. The series appealed to me on so many different levels. As an avid, no rabid letter writer I relished the idea of reading someone else’s mail. As a creative, romantic type I was drawn to the amazing artwork. There was something sensual and slightly erotic about each envelope and postcard. Visually stunning, the colors and images race off the page.

Morning Star was no different. I was held captive by the gorgeous illustrations, the illicit thrill of ‘opening’ each letter and gently extracting someone else’s prose. The passion on the pages made my fingertips tremble. Being separated from that one great love was something I truly connected with. I have felt that sense of longing for someone so far away. What didn’t speak to me was the storyline. For all the “unraveling of unreliable reality” I was getting lost. It was almost as if the story had transpired into a foreign language and I somehow lost my book of translations.

I have to ask. When this book came out, did You see it? If so, did You think of me? Did You want to buy it, keep it, have it, remember me with it? Everything was so long ago. That river of time has flowed on, despite it all.
To answer my own question – Didn’t think so.

Morningside Heights

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Mendelson, Cheryl. Morningside Heights. New York: Random House, 2003.

I need to start off by saying wordy books are hard for me to get into right away. It takes me somewhat longer to “feel” the story, if that makes any sense. Mendelson has a doctorate in philosophy and she has practiced law in New York City. Teacher, philosopher, lawyer, and now writer. Morningside Heights is her first novel. Maybe it’s the combination of all these professions that creates the need for lots and lots of words to set the scene, any scene. True, there is more than enough social commentary to analyze, but, there is also more than enough description as well.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes: “The oligarchs wanted to keep all the bourgeois pleasures for themselves, along with the money, while proletarianizing everyone else, squeezing people with overwork and low pay, corrupting the liberal political forms so that they only answered to cash” (p 120).

Morningside Heightsis the first of a trilogy of novels about an area of New York City called Morningside Heights. Like Astoria is a part of Queens, Morningside Heights is a neighborhood in Manhattan. For as long as anyone can remember it has been a quiet, affordable community but lately, as older residents pass away, their apartments are being sold to upscale “suits” creating an economy the lifelong tenants ca no longer afford. The story centers around Anne and Charles Braithwaite and their circle of family and friends. As the neighborhood changes so does the social structure that the Braithwaites have come to rely on. Everything they hold sacred – their culture – is compromised until finally they are forced to consider a new life…in the suburbs.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “New York, New York” (p 170). Also, from More Book Lust in the chapters, “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 16) and “Maiden Voyages” (p 159). I disagree with this last inclusion. Maiden voyage implies first book, fiction or nonfiction. Morningside Heights is actually Mendelson’s second book. First fiction, yes. But, not first book.

Light That Failed

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Kipling, Rudyard. the Light That Failed. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914.

I have to start off by saying seeing a swastika imprinted in this book gave me a start. This hated image got me thinking. What were Kipling’s political leanings? Was he actually a Nazi sympathizer? Even though the swastika in The Light That Failed was “backwards” or counter clockwise, I still questioned the meaning behind it. After doing a little research I discovered Kipling used the Indian symbol of good luck (typically paired with an elephant and a lotus flower – although my copy did not have either of these images). The Nazis adopted the swastika symbol for themselves in the 1920s, six years after my version of The Light That Failed was published.

This book was hard for me to get into, at first. The story didn’t roll off the pages as easily as other war-time novels. The Light that Failed follows the life of Richard Heldar, a soldier turned painter. The story begins with Dick as a child with his companion, Maisie, shooting a pistol by the ocean. This opening scene lays the foundation for the competitiveness they will share later in life. It also begins Dick’s never ending love for Maisie despite the fact they will have gone their separate ways by adulthood. Dick spends some time as a soldier in Sudan and makes some lifelong friends, but it’s after the war when he returns to London, England that the story really picks up. Dick comes home to be an artisit and to paint. His depictions of war become popular and his talent is exposed. Ironically, it is that same war that brought him fame that also brings his downfall.

Favorite lines, “Dick’s soul is in the bank. He’s working for cash” (p 64), and “I’m not going to belong to anybody except myself” (p 81).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Balkan Specters” (p 31) although Bosnia is but a fraction of the plot.
ps~ Also, I should add – Because this book is out of copyright it’s available on the web.

Enemy

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Child, Lee. The Enemy.New York: Delacourte Press, 2004.

If given the entire afternoon and evening I could have finished this book in one sitting. I loved it. It had just the right balance of good guy with a bad attitude; just the right amount of law and order verses crime and chaos. I can see why Pearl was mesmerized by the writing of Lee Child because I was, too.

The Enemy opens with a heart attack. A two-star general is found dead of an apparent heart attack. Within hours his wife is murdered. Within days two special forces soldiers are murdered, one at a time. At the center of each death is Jack Reacher, a complicated military cop. Ordinarily considered one of the best, suddenly Reacher is starting to look more like a suspect instead. Normally a loner, Reacher finds himself working with a young, female partner trying to clear his name. It is obvious he is being set up and Reacher will stop at nothing to get to the truth including going AWOL and much worse. The Enemy is peppered with military jargon and violence but not overwhelmingly so. Reacher has a likable character. He is human enough to do the wrong thing from time to time. How he gets out of the trickier situations really makes the story. I was fascinated from start to finish.

One thing I was really drawn to was the fact there were four murders (teeny spoiler there) and all four murders *seemed* to be staged. The general wearing the condom, Carbone’s over-the-top sex crime, Brubaker’s drug dealing…and…now, I really would be spoiling it if I said anything about the fourth murder!

Best lines, “They don’t like you, they don’t bring you coffee. They knife you in the back instead” (p 4). I saw this as premonition of sorts.
“My brother was a man horrified by anything less than the best” (p 75).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, ” Lee Child: Too Good To Miss” (p 41). Nancy Pearl says it was Lee’s book, Persuader that sold her on reading everything else he wrote. She suggested starting with The Enemy since it’s the first Reacher book of the series. I agree.

Up the Down Staircase

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Kaufman, Bel. Up the Down Staircase. New York: Avon Books, 1964.

I admit it. I left work in a hurry. I didn’t clean up my desk and I didn’t pack my books. So, I had a weekend with nothing to read. True, I had some loose ends to finish up (Close Range turned out to be not my thing), but determining that didn’t take all weekend. Desperate for something that would be a quick read I found Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman. Funny! I was supposed to read this sometime in May. Oh well. It ended up being a July 11th read.

In the spirit of every new-to-the-business, green educator, Sylvia Barrett is no different than all the rest. Every first year teacher can claim Up the Down Staircase illustrates his or her career. When Sylvia begins her first term in New York’s Calvin Coolidge high school she has nothing short of big dreams and great expectations. Within days she discovers her classes, her students, fellow teachers and the entire school administration are nothing like she imagined. Getting through to the students is an exercise in swimming in quicksand. Getting through to the administration is like screaming into the wind. In both situations Sylvia plods through with humor and grace. What makes this book such a pleasure to read is how the story is communicated. Through “intraschool communications,” homework assignments, suggestion box missives, and letters to a friend Sylvia’s teaching triumphs and tragedies come to life.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Teachers and Teaching Tales” (p 230).

Skull Mantra

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Pattison, Eliot. The Skull Mantra. New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, 1999.

This is the first piece of fiction I have read that has covered Tibetan culture in such great detail.

Shan Tao Yun is a former veteran police inspector – the perfect person to solve a murder. The clothing of the decapitated victim suggests he was either American or Chinese, and wealthy either way. With a delegation of American tourists arriving for a visit, the district commander is anxious to find the killer as soon as possible. Shan Tao Yun is enlisted except, there is one problem – Shan is currently serving time in a Tibetan prison for offending the Party in Beijing. He has been sentenced to the same hard labor as the Tibetan priests he reveres. Shan is given an ultimatum: find the killer or the priests get brutally punished. In the course of the investigation clues lead Shan to an illegal monastery, a mystical world of demons and spells, political upheaval, and historical tragedies bestowed upon the Tibetan people at the hands of China’s government.

This book definitely opened my eyes to the Tibetan culture. I am a big fan of Tibetan music and have seen several documentaries about the Chinese invasion, but Skull Mantra not only illustrated the struggles of the Tibetan people, but their mysteries as well. My favorite scenes involved Dr. Sung, the medical examiner. Pattison created a sarcastic, funny woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Here’s a tiny example: “A soiled cardboard box was on an examining table, resting on top of a covered body. He [Shan] turned away as Dr. Sung removed the contents of the box and leaned over the body. “Amazing. It [the head] fits.” She made a gesture to Shan. “Perhaps you would like to try? I know. We’ll cut off the limbs and play mix and match.”” (p 126).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Crime is a Globetrotter: Tibet” (p 60).

Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

A classic is a classic is a classic. No doubt about it. My copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a facsimile of the first American edition so it includes the original illustrations, typeset, etc. This made reading really fun because the illustrations really add to the story. Truth be known, I had forgotten a great deal of the plot. While I remembered Tom was a troublemaker, I couldn’t remember details of his escapades. I’m glad I reread this.

Tom Sawyer is a typical Southern boy looking for adventure. I don’t think there are many young boys that would skin a cat or fake his own death so that he might attend the funeral, but the mischief of such a boy has always been there…and will always be there, too! Tom lives with his auntie and while he is well loved he is always looking for ways to run away. His sidekick, Huck Finn is eager to join him in adventures “down river.” Both are “smarties” as my grandfather would say. Showing off for their peers, and besting the adults -there is never a dull moment in Tom Sawyer’s world.

Two favorite lines: “The strangling hero sprung up with a relieving snort” (p 40), and “Huckleberry was cordially hated…” (p 63).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Literary Lives: The Americans” (p 145).

July ’09 is….

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I am feeling better about July. Much better. It’s like the sun has come out (literally and metaphorically). I think I am finding my way out of the darkness. July is social. Dinner with good friends. July is a Rebecca show at the Iron Horse with a whole host of people. July is more attention paid to Hilltop. Reconnecting with Germany. Maybe Norway and Lebanon. Wouldn’t that be cool?
For books, here is the endeavor:

  • Skull Mantra by Eliott Pattison ~ in honor of the best time (supposedly) to visit Tibet (in my dreams)
  • Stillmeadow Road by Gladys Taber ~ okay, this is a stretch: Nancy Pearl calls this book a “cozy.” I translated that to mean “happy” and July is National Ice Cream Month. Ice cream makes me happy and happy is cozy…told you it was a stretch!
  • Close Range by Annie Proulx~ on honor of Wyoming becoming a state in July
  • The Light That Failed by Lee Child~ here’s another stretch: Lee Child lives in New York. July is the month NY became a state. If anyone knows what month Lee Child was born in please let me know!
  • Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ~ to celebrate Hawthorne’s birth month
  • Morningside Heights by Cherilyn Mendelson ~ in honor of New York becoming a state.

If there is time I would like to add The Light That Failed by Rudyard Kipling or The Making of the Atom Bomb by Richard Rhodes. Also, I’m supposed to have an Early Review book from LibraryThing – something about getting along with you mother-in-law (or something like that), but I haven’t seen it. Janice Schofield Eaton’s Beyond Road’s End: Living Free in Alaska was a bonus book.

June (2009) was…

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June was an amazingly quiet yet unsettling month. I think I needed it –  all of it. I know I wanted it – depression and all. Lots and lots of reading married with work on the house (we started painting!), a lot of work at work, a little music (Rebecca’s cd release party was fun, fun, fun! Can’t wait for the Iron Horse next month!), a small charity walk (Hike for Mike, which I still need to write about)…June was mostly about staying hermitage.
Here are the books:

  • Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones by Lana Witt ~ an interesting book about small town life.
  • And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts ~ the most amazing journalism on the AIDS epidemic
  • Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum ~ a murder thriller set in Norway
  • Before the Deluge by Deidre Chethem ~ a nonfiction about the Yangtze river
  • Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers ~ three stories centered around a photograph.
  • A Bigamist’s Daughter by Alice McDermott ~ In honor of Alice’s birth month…a story about how things aren’t always what they seem.
  • The Cat Who Saw Red by Lilian Jackson Braun ~ In honor of National Cat Month…okay, so the cats don’t solve the mystery, but they are funny!
  • The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan ~ in honor of McEwan’s birth month (childrens book)
  • The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan~ In honor of McEwan’s birth month (adult – verrry adult book)!
  • This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff~ in honor of National Writing Month (families). I’ll be reading Tobias’s brother’s memoir next June.
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain ~ I had forgotten how great this classic is!
  • Lving High: an Unconventional Autobiography by June Burn ~ Homesteading on an island off Puget Sound.

For the Early Review Program:

  • Beyond Road’s End: Living Free in Alaska by Janice Schofield Eaton ~ a memoir abotu running away to Alaska.

For the fun of it:

  • The Morning Star in Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine is Illuminated by Nick Bantock. Everyone knows I love Nick Bantock. His books are sensual and fascinating. I am drawn to them all the time.

Comfort of Strangers

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McEwan, Ian. The Comfort of Strangers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

The entire time I was reading The Comfort of Strangers I felt an uneasiness – so much so that the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up from time to time. There was something sinister about nearly every scene, every page (all 127 of them). I can just imagine what the movie is like.

Colin and Mary are unmarried, unhappy lovers on vacation. Bored with each other and frustrated with their foreign holiday destination (probably Venice or Rome), they are constantly having to remind each other and themselves they are on holiday and are supposed to be relaxing and enjoying themselves. Their disdain for each other annoyed me at times. For the couple getting lost in the ancient, winding, narrow streets wasn’t supposed to be a problem because they have nowhere specific to be. Colin and Mary go on like this until suddenly, the story changes gears after a native enters their bored bubble. That chance meeting changes the course of their lives forever. It is a psychological, violent, erotic second half to the book, full of sex and selfishness. From the moment, Robert, the charismatic stranger, comes into the picture nothing seems normal again.

I didn’t find any particular lines that grabbed me. The whole story in its simplicity was enough to shock me.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Ian McEwan: Too Good To Miss” (p 149).

Daydreamer

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McEwan, Ian. The Daydreamer. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1994.

Here’s how I got around to reading this (in two hours) – I had just finished Braun’s The Cat Who Saw Red and realized I had a small dilemma. I had nothing to read for the weekend. No new books had come in from other libraries nor were they going to by the time Saturday rolled around. So. I cheated. The Daydreamer wasn’t scheduled to be read for at least a year (there is something else in honor of McEwan’s birth month already picked out), but there it was. So, on a lazy Friday afternoon I was able to get through it.

The Daydreamer is an extremely cute book about a boy named Peter Fortune. He’s a good boy except he has a wicked imagination. His ability to daydream himself out of reality gets him into trouble all the time. My favorite “dream” was when he is finally, finally allowed to ride the bus to school. His parents have decided he’s not only old enough to take himself to school (at ten years old), but he is mature enough to take his seven year old sister, who goes to the same school, as well. Everything goes according to plan until Peter starts thinking about how he would protect his sister from anything…including a pack of hungry, drooling wolves. First he would take out his hunting knife, then his pack of matches, then he would…and before Peter knows it he is in the land of imagination, fighting off wild wolves. He is no longer riding a bus with his little sister on their way to school. It’s halarious.

Favorite lines: “That night Peter did not sleep, he ran. He ran through his dreams, down echoing halls, across a desert of stones and scorpions, down ice mazes, along a sloping pink, spongy tunnel with dripping walls” (p 89).
“She was one of those rare unhappy grown-ups who are profoundly irritated by the fact that children exist” (p 118)

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter, “Ian McEwan: Too Good To Miss” (p).

Cat Who Saw Red

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Braun, Lilian Jackson. The Cat Who Saw Red. New york: Jove Books, 1986.

Only 183 pages long The Cat Who Saw Red  was a really quick, really fun read. Although it had all the elements of an on-your-toes thriller: a possible murder, intrigue, scandalous affiars, missing persons, and too many possible suspects to count, it was what I would call a “gentle” mystery. A quiet, light suspense ripples throughout the plot. There is just as much humor as danger.
James Qwilleran is an award winning journalist sent on assignment to write a food column. As a former cop Qwill, as he is known by everyone, smells as mystery sooner than a burning souffle. Sniffing out leads, it is not long before he is using his restaurant experiences to wine and dine clues out  of unsuspecting suspects.
As an aside: every chapter begins with a sentence that mentions James Qwilleran. I found that to be a weird thing to notice.

Tidbit of trivia: I find it amazing that Lilian J. Bruan first started her “The Cat Who…” series back in the 1960’s and then vanished for eighteen years. Her triumphant return was with The Cat Who Saw Red.

Funny conversation: “…’This is crummy soup.’
                                             ‘Is it canned?’
                                              ‘No, worse! It tastes like I made it.'” (p 101)

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Cat Crazy” (p 52).

Bigamist’s Daughter

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McDermott, Alice. A Bigamist’s Daughter. New York: Random House, 1982.

A Bigamist’s Daughter is Alice McDermott’s first book. Even though I read it in less than 24 hours I thought it was wildly imaginative and thought-provoking. Elizabeth is editor-in-chief for a vanity publishing house in Manhattan. while the title sounds impressive she knows she’s not fooling herself. In fact, the central theme of A Bigamist’s Daughter is all about false impressions. Her father, never home, always leaving for somewhere (or someone?) else, is perceived to be a bigamist. Even in Elizabeth’s adult life she is confused about who her father was or what he meant to her. Marriage becomes a mirage as she tries to make sense of relationships both past and present. When Elizabeth meets an author who hasn’t finished his book (about a bigamist) the questions become harder and the answers more complicated.

Favorite lines: “She’s been divorced from Brian for nearly seven years now, but his name still haunts her conversations; she seems to hold it in her mouth like a dog with a bit of coattail: the only part of the thief that didn’t get away” (p 11).
“If cancer can be said to have any compensations, surely it is in the cliche of time allowed. Time to say what can no longer wait to be discovered. Time when death is not merely a thought to put your teeth on edge, to be dismissed with a swallow, when life is marked clearly by beginnings and endings, by spoken words that mean something and change everything” (p 127).
“She could treat her vagina like a hungover roommate: I don’t care what you did last night, I’m going to the library” (p 137).
There are a ton more, but I’ll leave the discovery up to the reader.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the very first chapter called, “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).