Category: Fiction

Earthly Possessions

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tyler, Anne. Earthly Possessions. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977.

This is a super quick read. The fact that it was a made-for-television movie back in the 90s should tell you something: really good but without prolonged drama; couldn’t make it to the big screen. Here’s the quick and dirty of the plot: Charlotte Emory is at the bank, waiting to clean out her savings so she can run away from her married life. She’s the bored housewife of a boring preacher. While waiting to change her whole life, suddenly it is changed for her. She gets caught up in a robbery and is taken hostage. Since her captor is practically half her age she isn’t exactly afraid of him, or the gun he waves in her face. Almost willingly Charlotte finds herself on a road trip with Jake Simms, Jr – demolition derby racer, escapee from jail, and father to his teenage girlfriend’s unborn child. The three make an interesting pair. Tyler’s writing is sharp and funny. She gives us alternating time frames, bouncing between Charlotte’s escape in present day and the past – as if to explain how Charlotte’s life ended up so complicated.

Lines I liked, “I tripped over a mustard jar big enough to pickle a baby” (p 6). Who thinks like that? Another one, “That prodding black nubbin in the hand of a victim of impulse” (p 49).

Reason read: June is the most popular month to get married in…and divorced in, too. I have no idea why.

Author fact: Tyler graduated from Duke University at the age of nineteen. Are you doing the math? If there were four years spent at Duke she would have entered college at the age of fifteen.

Book trivia: Earthly Possessions was made into a television movie in 1999 and starred Susan Sarandon as the bored housewife. I can picture that completely.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Marriage Blues” (p 161).

“How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Tinti, Hannah. Animal Crackers. “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life.”New York: Dial Press, 2004.

Holy cow does this short story creep up on you! I so want to spill the beans and spoil the ending, but I can’t! I must not! Suffice it to say this story will punch you in the gut and you will like it. Our protagonist is an unnamed former medical student who starts a wayward relationship with an edgy artist. You know from the first two sentences of the story that her relationship is doomed but what you don’t realize (until it’s way too late) is that this same woman has serious issues. There is a reason why she is a former medical student. When aforementioned edgy artist abruptly vanishes from her life he leaves behind a red tailed boa constrictor in her apartment and for awhile things are good. Until they aren’t. Like medical school, there is a reason why Fred says “don’t let the snake out of the cage.” I’ll leave it at that, except to say when Fred returns for his snake three months later, things are decidedly different at the former medical student’s apartment.

A shade of warning, “Then she turned and quietly fainted” (p 134).

Reason read: June is short story month

Author fact: Animal Crackers is Tinti’s debut.

Book trivia: the short story, “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” is not mentioned on the inside flap so everything about the story was a complete surprise.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

“Huckabuck Family”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Sandburg, Carl. The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.

Super cute short story that was pulled from the Rootabaga Stories and made into a book for children with fabulous illustrations! This was a joy to read (and a little odd). The Huckabuck family grew corn for popping. Maybe they were the Reddenbocker family, I don’t know. The first name of each member of the family is repeated because if daughter “Pony” doesn’t answer when called she might answer to “Pony Pony.” Interesting concept. But, here’s the thing about the Huckabuck family, besides the double name thing, one year they had a fire and all the popping corn popped and there was too much popcorn. They had to leave town for three years! Hence the title of the book, they raised popcorn in Nebraska, quit because they grew too much and then came back when they thought all the popcorn was gone.

Reason read: June is National Short Story month.

Author fact: Carl Sandburg is known for his poetry.

Book trivia: Two things. The Huckabuck Family story (children’s version) was illustrated by David Small. The original Huckabuck Family story came from a compilation called The Rootabaga Stories published in 1922.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains (Nebraska)” (p 155).

Who’s You Daddy June List

gr4c5Leave a comment

I’m posting this early because June 1st is on a Sunday and guess what I’ll be doing on that Sunday? Finishing up a 60 mile cancer walk. I sincerely doubt I will have time (much less remember) to post this!

June is known as short story month. I have a separate list of all the shorties I want to read and each June, in honor of the genre, I try to blow through as many as I can. This year I am actually revisiting some shorts I should have read last year. Here’s the list:

  • Killer Inside Me
  • Down There
  • The Huckabuck Family
  • How to Revitalize the Snake
  • Crossing the Craton

Then, there are the real books:

  1. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  2. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  3. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  4. First Man by Albert Camus
  5. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski
  6. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  7. ADDED: Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

*Audio book

Here is how the rest of year eight should go. Of course I will be adding more books to this list:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  6. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  7. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  8. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  9. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  10. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  11. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  12. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  13. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  14. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  15. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  16. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  17. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  18. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  19. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  20. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  21. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  22. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  23. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  24. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  25. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  26. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  5. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  6. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  7. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  8. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  9. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  10. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  11. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  12. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  13. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  14. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  15. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  16. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  17. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  18. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  19. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  20. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  21. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  22. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  23. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  24. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  25. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  26. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  27. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  28. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  29. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  30. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  31. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  32. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  33. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  34. Oedipus by Sophocles
  35. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  36. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  37. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  38. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  39. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  40. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  41. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  42. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  43. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  44. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  45. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  46. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

For another year (because I screwed up):

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith. This is a huge embarrassment. For starters, this is a sequel. I have to read Travels with Tangerine first. Secondly, I don’t even know when I’m reading Tangerine.

 

 

 

 

Art Student’s War

gr4c5Leave a comment

Leithauser, Brad. The Art Student’s War. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2009.

Right off the bat I have to mention the author’s note. If you are someone who normally skims or even completely skips this part, in a word: Don’t. It’s touching. For starters, I don’t know many men who have a decent relationship with their mothers-in-law much less those who find inspiration in them, but Leithauser has done those guys one better. He goes on to say that The Art Student’s War “must serve as a tribute…” to his mother-in-law. Classy. Seriously.

I didn’t think I would like The Art Student’s War because I’m not a big fan of the overly dramatic. Within the first fifty pages Bianca Paradiso’s family is rocked by scandal: her aunt accidentally reveals a breast when her bathing suit slips. The dynamics between the two families is never the same after that. Yes, I know the times are different now and you can almost expect to see a bare breast on a beach these days, but the amount of anguish the entire family suffers at the hands of this one mistake seems a little exaggerated…until I read on. First of all, mental illness plays a part here. And. And! And, I should have known better. Bianca’s character has been melodramatic from the start. Once, she was moved to anxious tears because she regretted not talking to a soldier on a bus. She lamented he didn’t hear her say thank you.
As the story deepens, and you get to know the characters better, Bianca rounds out to be a steadfast good girl with all the dreams and aspirations of becoming a worthy artist. Those dreams are first realized when she is asked to help with the war effort: to use her talents to draw portraits of wounded soldiers in the local hospital, the very hospital where she was born. It is here that she meets Henry. The relationship that blooms is complex and sets Bianca’s Coming of age in motion.
Halfway through the book there is a weird break that is told from the perspective of Bea’s uncle. It’s a glimpse into the future and doesn’t quite fit with the flow of the story. If you are paying attention, it gives away the plot and reveals more than it should. When we come back to Bea, she is a married woman with twin six year old sons. She has remained close to a few childhood friends, but is not the artist she used to be. Life goes on. Detroit is like another character in the book, growing along with Bea.

An added benefit of the Art Student’s War is the art history lesson you get along the way.

Reason read: Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, was born in the month of May.

Author fact: Leithauser is a Detroit native who studied at Harvard. That should tell you something – street smarts and book smarts!

Book trivia: scattered throughout The Art Student’s War are illustrations. These are the illustrations his mother-in-law drew that inspired the book. Leithauser also includes a photograph of Lormina Paradise. Very nice.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Definitely Detroit” (p 74). As an aside, Pearl calls Leithauser’s writing “magical” and I couldn’t agree more.

Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg

gr4c5Leave a comment

Keating, H.R.F. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg. New York: Doubleday, 1971.

You know you are in for an interesting ride when one of the first sentences of the book reads like this, “From the moment that he had been landed with the business only the afternoon before he had raged at the lack of anything he could get his teeth into, and now that the chance was near he was going to let nothing delay him” (p 1). In a word, delicious.
It has been fifteen years since the wife of a prominent local official unexpectedly passed away. At the time, it was ruled an accident, the ingestion of bad lime pickles or something. But, suspicions have arisen about her death and Inspector Ghote is ordered to look into it a bit more closely. Only, no one wants him there. Even the local Swami is fasting until Ghote leaves town. This is a comedy in every sense of the word. Ghote arrives in town under the guise of a salesman of a new chicken feed product. He carries a carton of eggs on the back of his bicycle to “assist” with his disguise. Problem is, no one is buying it and Ghote doesn’t stick to his story all that well. Ghote comes across as a bumbling idiot at times, believing everything a suspect says, confronting the wrong witness, always one step behind his quarry. A whole lot of nothing seems to happen. Until it does. His life is threatened. He can’t trust anyone, including the people who hired him because no one is who they seem to be.

Reason read: this is going to sound strange, but I had too many titles to read for National Mystery Month (which is in January), so I searched for other reasons to read some of them. May is Egg Month. Don’t ask me how I know that. Since “egg” is in the title, I’m reading this in May.

Author fact: Keating has a website here. It’s a very clean site. Not much below the fold. I like that.

Book trivia: According to the website I am reading the sixth Ghote book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called ” I Love a Mystery” (p 120).

Oedipus the King

gr4c5Leave a comment

Sophocles. Oedipus the King. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954.

Okay. Raise your hands. Who had to read Oedipus in high school? Who had the name come up in at least one college psychology course? Better yet, who acted out the play at any time in their life? I’m guessing most people are not strangers to the story: Mythological king is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. End. Of. Story. That’s the gist of it anyway. There are many different versions out there, depending on which translation you read. MY take-away is this, if it was meant to happen, it will happen. There is no getting out of it. You can twist fate by taking someone else’s fortune cookie, but the right words are destined to find you. So, even though everyone knew the prophesy and tried to avoid the disaster, Oedipus still managed to come across his father, have an altercation, kill him and end up marrying the widow…his own mother. Like I said, you can’t sidestep what will be.

Confessional: Freud ruined this for me. Whenever I hear the name Oedipus I think “complex” and not “ancient Greek trilogy.”

Reason read: May is the best time to visit Greece.

Author fact: Sophocles was one of three Greek tragedians.

Book Play trivia: There’s a lot of music in Oedipus.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Alpha, Beta, Gammas of Greece” (p 11).

Herzog

gr4c5Leave a comment

Bellow, Saul. Herzog. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1964.

Moses Alkanan Herzog is a man experiencing a midlife crisis. His coping mechanism is to write letters in his head; if they make do it to paper, they are letters he most often does not mail. With each letter comes a flashback to a particular monumental time in Herzog’s memory. Most of his reminiscing centers on his two failed marriages and all the relationships to which he cannot commit. He is a well intentioned, extremely intelligent yet sad man. An example: sometime after the divorce from his second wife Herzog visits a friend and her husband on Martha’s Vineyard. Soon after arriving he realizes his friends are way too happy for his state of mind. He decides, moments after arriving, he he must leave immediately. Instead of facing his well-intentioned friends to explain the mistake, Herzog writes a note and slips away unnoticed. There is a singular self-satisfaction in the fact that he makes it back to New York City by 11pm. Herzog has a heart and deeply cares, despite the fact he is so misunderstood. When he suspects his daughter is being abused he travels to his ex-wife’s home to confront the abuser. His motives are good even though the end is not what he intended.

Confessional: I have this friend who passed away over a year ago. I don’t know why, but at times, Herzog reminded me of him. Maybe it was the multiple marriages and all the exotic relationships with women?

Favorite lines, “A person of irregular tendencies, he practiced the art of circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials” (p 18), and “A free foot on a summer night eases the heart” (p 194). This last line totally made me think of my husband.

Reason read (April 20th – May 4th): Mr. Bellow passed away in April of 2005 and May is National Jewish American month. In this (rare) instance I am reading one book in two different months. It just worked out that way.

Author fact: Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize for literature.

Book trivia: Herzog won the National Book Award for fiction and was a New York Times best seller (also named top 100 of all “Time” by Time Magazine).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish American Experience” (p 132).

The Transcriptionist

gr4c5Leave a comment

Rowland, Amy. The Transcriptionist. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2014.

Lena is a transcriptionist for New York’s newspaper, the Record. She sits in a lonely room transcribing stories for reporters who call in with all kinds of different stories. Lena’s personal story centers on the mystery of an unknown woman mauled to death in a lion’s den at the Bronx zoo. Three things capture Lena to the point of obsession: the woman is blind, this was an apparent suicide, and Lena thinks she met this woman before. While Lena is fascinated with the story, no one else is. She is shocked by her employer’s complacency. No one cares why this unknown woman did what she did, so Lena sets out to discover the truth. In the process Lena rattles life as she knows it. The proverbial bars of the cage have been flung open.
My one fault with the book – there were a few unbelievable scenes. I am assuming the lion didn’t maul the woman’s face and her autopsy photo is the one the newspaper used for the article. Here’s why: because if no one knew her identity they couldn’t have used a picture from an earlier time. Another bothersome moment – Once Lena learns the identity of the suicide victim, she knows where she lived and that she had a sister. Lena takes it upon herself to visit the woman’s apartment (walks right in!). There, in the decease’s apartment, is a recording of the truth. Wouldn’t the sister have found that first? Wouldn’t there have been a more thorough investigation? It’s not every day that a blind woman swims across a moat to reach a lion’s sanctuary and then lets one (a lion named Robert) devour her.
The best part of the book is the message it sends. Everyday news stories swirl around us and roll off our consciousness like beads of oil on water. Nothing sinks in or settles on our souls. That goes for the consumers of the news as well as the people who create it. We all need to rattle cages and break free from complacency.

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing

Author fact: This is Rowland’s debut novel.

Book trivia: Publish date: May 13th, 2014.

Lotus Eaters

gr4c5Leave a comment

Soli, Tatjana. The Lotus Eaters. Read by Kirsten Potter. Blackstone Audio, 2010.

In the year of 1975 North Vietnam is still pushing towards Saigon. It’s the end of the Vietnam war (or American war, depending on who you ask). The Lotus Eaters opens with the city’s demise being eminent and the panic to escape, mounting. Caught in this frenzy is Helen Adams, a seasoned American photojournalist, and her Vietnamese lover, Lihn. Stepping back in time, we learn that Helen is following in the footsteps of her soldier brother, killed in action earlier in the war. She has come to Vietnam to research his death and ultimately falls in love with the war.  As we follow Helen from her first arriving in Saigon, we witness her naivete and her desperate need to belong. Quickly, she attaches herself to Sam Darrow, a fellow photojournalist who has been around the block a few times. He is supposed to be a hard-nosed, loner of a photographer, but he and Helen soon develop a romantic relationship that defies logic and marriage vows. Sam’s assistant, Lihn complicates things when he too falls in love with Helen. In the midst of well-worn war, emerges a not-so obvious love triangle.
In other reviews I have read the complaint is Soli takes the story too far, drags it out too long. I disagree. Each phase of Helen’s time in Vietnam, as well as her time away, builds a layer of her personality and adds to the complexity of her emotions. I am of two minds about the beginning, though. Soli reveals upfront that Lihn is Helen’s lover and they are desperate to get out of Saigon. That information nagged at me throughout the rest of the telling because I knew it was coming. For example, I expected something to happen to Darrow because the shift in Helen’s relationship with Lihn. It was a matter of when this something would happen that kept me guessing.

Reason read: Saigon fell in the month of April. Confessional: this was a little longer than I anticipated so I listened to it a few days into May.

Author fact: The Lotus Eaters is Tatjana Soli’s first book.

Reader fact: Kirsten Potter graduated from Boston University.

Book trivia: The Lotus Eaters won the James Tait Black Prize in 2010.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Vietnam” (p 248). Duh.

May Day List

gr4c5Leave a comment

I don’t hold onto many books. Once I have read something I either lend it away, maybe to never see it again or I donate it somewhere, hoping to never see it again. In an effort to clean off my personal shelves I swapped out some of the titles I had been planning to borrow from other libraries for books I already have at home. This practically changes the entire list for May, but oh well. Here are the many, many books that are on the list for this May:

  1. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  2. Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
  3. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink…yes, I am STILL reading this! I can’t seem to finish it! Grrrrr
  4. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. I was going to read Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott, but I have Bury My Heart at home.
  6. Oedipus by Sophocles. Originally I was going to read Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, but like Bury My Heart, I have Oedipus at home.
  7. Finishing: The Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  8. ADDED: French Revolutions* by Tim Moore. I needed something on cd.
  9. ADDED: The transcriptionist by Amy Rowland (an Early Review title from LibraryThing)

*Audio book

Here is how the rest of year eight should go:

  1. Andorra by Peter Cameron (November)
  2. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen (November)
  3. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (July)
  4. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman (September)
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem* (November)
  6. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh (August)
  7. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks* (June)
  8. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (July)
  9. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall (September)
  10. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (October)
  11. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams (August)
  12. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney (November)
  13. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (October)
  14. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall (June)
  15. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (July)
  16. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler (June)
  17. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan* (October)
  18. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam* (July)
  19. First Man by Albert Camus (June)
  20. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin (August)
  21. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee (August)
  22. Grass Dancer by Susan Power (November)
  23. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (September)
  24. In a Strange City by Laura Lippman (October)
  25. Inside Passage by Michael Modselewski (June)
  26. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (August)
  27. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch (August)
  28. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway (September)
  29. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro* (August)
  30. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart (June)
  31. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (September)
  32. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart (November)

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED:

  1. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  2. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  3. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  4. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  5. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  6. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  7. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  8. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  9. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  10. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  11. ADDED: Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  12. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  13. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  14. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  15. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  16. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley – This finishes the Vera Wright Trilogy
  17. Herzog by Saul Bellow. Originally, I was going to read Call It Sleep by Henry Roth in May, but I read Herzog early in honor of Bellow’s passing in April of 2005.
  18. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  19. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  20. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  21. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  22. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  23. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  24. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  25. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  26. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  27. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  28. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  29. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  30. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  31. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  32. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  33. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  34. ADDED: Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril by Timothy Ferris
  35. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  36. ADDED: Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  37. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  38. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

 

 

the dancer and the thief

gr4c5Leave a comment

Skarmeta, Antonio. the dancer and the thief. Translated by Katherine Silver. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Due to overcrowding in a Chilean prison a select group of nonviolent prisoners have been granted amnesty by the President and released. From this prison come Angel Santiago and Nicholas Verga Gray. On the inside they were just criminals with numbers. On the outside they are vastly different from one another, yet nevertheless their lives are destined to intersect. Again. Twenty year old Santiago is anxious to avenge the horrible abuses he suffered in prison at the hands of other inmates as well as the warden. Sixty year old Gray wants nothing more than to put his life as a master thief behind him and reconnect with his estranged wife and son. Zealous protege meets reluctant master. Meanwhile, the prison warden, knowing that his life is in danger now that Angel Santiago has been freed, allows a violent inmate to go free for one month. While the rest of the world thinks this prisoner is in solitary confinement he is on the hunt for Angel Santiago. The mission is to kill him before he can kill the warden. If this wasn’t enough of a plot, add a teenage girl who has lofty dreams of becoming a dancer. Broke and broken Victoria meets broke and broken Angel. Now Angel needs money more than ever. Who better to get it from than a master thief? And, thanks to a dwarf, he has a plan.

Reason read: Chile gained her independence in April.

Author fact: Skarmeta is known for The Postman which I am reading…eventually.

Book trivia: The Dancer and the Thief was made into a movie in 2009 starring Ricardo Darin and Abel Ayala.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “It’s Chile Today” (p 115). Here’s the head scratcher about this chapter. The subject of Chile is not under ‘C’ for Chile but rather ‘I’ for It’s. So, let’s say someone asked me what Pearl would recommend for books that have a connection to Chile. I wouldn’t find Chile in the table of contents unless I knew to skip C and go right to I. Odd. To be fair, there are a lot of chapters like this but this is the first time I noticed it.

Winners and Losers

gr4c5Leave a comment

Quigley, Martin. Winners and Losers. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1961.

Winners and Losers is such a stoic story! In Part I: Soldier, we first follow the life of Damon Mitchell as a staff Sergeant and patrol leader in World War II. It is while he is behind enemy lines in Germany that he learns of his younger brother Johnny’s death. In Part II: Boy, we jump backward in time to Mitchell’s teenage years to when his father loses his job in the Great Depression and family dynamics start to change. Damon must go out and get a job to help support the family. It’s at this point in the story we learn how close Johnny and Damon are as brothers and how removed Damon is from friendships and other meaningful relationships. In Part III: Man, Damon is becoming more and more successful. As he moves up the corporate ladder he becomes lonelier and lonelier. He is winning and losing at the same time.

Lines to like, “Long ago Damon had learned that asking questions just got you information” (p 37). Later in the story, if you are paying attention, you will notice just when Damon learns that lesson. One more, “They were precariously alone in the room” (p 217).

Reason read: April is National Sibling Month and Winners and Losers has two brothers. The story isn’t about them as brothers, though.

Author fact: This is really depressing but my copy of Winners and Losers didn’t come with any author information. So, I guess my author fact is that Martin Quigley isn’t plastered all over the internet.

Book trivia: My copy of Winners and Losers traveled from the Florida State library. Again, not a very popular author around here…

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “My Own Private Dui” (p 165). Pearl puts this in the category of “Books that are simply treasures and ought not go unread” (p 165). Also, from More Book Lust in two chapters, “Friend Makers” (p 95) and “Oh, Brother!” (p 180).

Thrush Green

gr4c5Leave a comment

Read, Miss. Thrush Green. Read by June Barrie. Hampton, NH: BBC Audiobooks America, 2005.

High blood pressure? Stressful job? Crazy life? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, read Thrush Green for a small respite from a hectic, busy, insane world. There is no overwhelming fast paced drama in Thrush Green. Other reviewers have called it “quaint” and “pleasant” and it is both of those things and more. I personally would call it sweet. Thrush Green is a countryside community in England looking forward to their traditional May Day celebrations, especially the annual fair. Every member has a reason for wanting to go to the fair.  Young lovers looking for a chance to court. Older generations insisting on tradition. Children having fun. Miss Read uses the fair to create a focal point around which her characters circulate.

Note for the audio: June Barrie does a wonderful job with all the different voices. She had me laughing at times when she was the voice of the small boy.

Reason read: Miss Read was born in April.

Author fact: Miss Read is a pen name. Her real name was Dora.

Book trivia: Thrush Green is the first book in a whole series about the country community. I’m only reading the one.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 16). There is another Miss Read book mentioned in the chapter but it does not belong to the Thrush Green series.

“Kubla Khan”

gr4c5Leave a comment

Coleridge, Samuel. “Kubla Khan.” The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems by Samuel T. Coleridge. The Peter Pauper Press, 1950.

I remember ripping this apart line by line in a high school English class and then again in a college poetry course. We studied this so much I developed a crush on young Coleridge’s face (but, not so much after he got a little jowly). Probably my favorite detail about Kubla Khan is that it was supposedly conceived after one of Coleridge’s drug induced dreams.
I don’t feel the need to get into the meaning behind the poem or to get didactic about the symbolism. Suffice it to say, Kubla Khan is the ruler of Xanadu and the land is described like a paradise of the imagination. Each element, the river, garden, ocean, forest, and cavern are symbols for man’s existence. Tyranny and war represent a reality in direct contrast to Xanadu. If you want anything more than that (about the maiden, etc), read the poem!

My favorite line, “And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething…” (p 54).

Reason read: April is National Poetry Month. But…I’m not sure I needed to read this (see twist below).

Author fact: Samuel Taylor Coleridge is thought to have been mentally ill with a drug problem.

Poetry fact: “Kubla Khan” is not as well known as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Where in the World Do These Books Belong?” (p 259). Pearl mentions “Kubla Khan” when talking about Caroline Alexander’s book, The Way to Xanadu because it’s about the places that influenced Coleridge’s poem. Coleridge himself is not indexed in Book Lust To Go but “Kubla Khan” is. Here was my dilemma: I am not ready to read The Way to Xanadu so I’m not sure “Kubla Khan” is included…but since the poem is in the index of Book Lust To Go I have to read it. Does that make sense?