The Lacuna

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Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. Read by Barbara Kingsolver. New York: Recorded Books, 2009.

This was an anniversary gift from my beloved Kisa when it was first published. Kingsolver is my favorite author so I have been savoring it like fine wine.

Reason read: Two reasons. As I mentioned before, Kingsolver is my favorite author and March is the best time to go to Mexico. Or so they say…

Mexico, 1929. In the beginning American-born Harrison Shepard is a simple young boy just barely holding onto his Mexican mother’s apron strings as she drags him through one failed relationship to another in her never-ending quest for all-adoring lover. He is without friends or proper parenting. His closest companions are housekeepers and servant boys.
As Harrison matures he he finds work as a plaster-mixer/cook in artist Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo’s home. He befriends political figures like Lev Trotsky. He is now in a world where packing a machine gun along with food and a blanket for a picnic is nothing out of the ordinary. He writes everything down. From there, this coming of age tale turns political. America, 1941. Harrison finds his way to Asheville, North Carolina and goes on to be a successful author. Polio and Communism are the growing paranoias of the times. Harrison’s personality, unchanged since childhood, and his involvement with Rivera and Trotsky put him on a dangerous path of presumption and suspicion.
This is a tale of loyalty and love; a portrait of a quiet, unassuming man just trying to make it in the world.
Read it. Read it. Read it!

I could quote entire sections of The Lacuna but I will limit myself to just a few (while trying not to go overboard): “The ocean is the last dream in the morning before the noise from the street comes in” (p 49), “Yesterday’s heroes fall beneath the shoes of the city” (p 68), “You seemed to be excavating your soul to locate some kindness” (p 184), “Even morality is a business of supply and demand” (p 396), and – last one – “Years do not erase bereavement” (p 506).

Author fact:Kingsolver reads her own book. This is a special treat because the author knows her own story. She knows what emotion to put into a character’s mouth as the words come out. Later next month I’ll be listening to Spurlock read his own book, Don’t Eat This Book. Should be interesting.

Book Audio trivia: In addition to Kingsolver reading Lacuna there is music before each part of the book. I especially liked the instrumental before Part IV.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter “Postcards from Mexico” (p 186).

Means of Ascent

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Caro, Robert. Means of Ascent: the Years of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Reason read: to continue the series started in February for Presidents Day.

The year is 1941 and Lyndon Johnson is now 32 years old. Caro starts off this second section of the President’s biography by singing the praises of all that Johnson had accomplished at such an early age. The list is impressive, but be forewarned, there is a great deal of word for word repetition from the first book, Path to Power. To name some: Lyndon’s physical appearance as a towering young man with jet black hair; his father as the laughingstock of his town; Lyndon’s scheme to marry for money; Alice Glass teaching him which side of his face was more photogenic; even the “carrying water” note Johnson wrote to Roosevelt is repeated. Confessional: I found myself skimming the word for word parts, looking for the “new” material.
Here are the “new” parts of Lyndon Johnson’s biography. World War II brings Lyndon’s “wartime efforts” which, true to form, are grossly exaggerated. It was almost shameful how this future President of our nation lied about his active duty in combat. It left me with feelings of revulsion. At the same time, Caro’s depiction of Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson holding down the fort in Washington during this time is poignant. His interview with her is touching.
Although Caro is tighter and more focused in his narrative of Means of Ascent, as with Path to Power, he includes a great deal more information than necessary. Case in point, there are over 30 pages dedicated to LBJ’s 1948 opponent, Coke Stevenson and his upbringing. While I appreciated the detail, if I want to read a biography on Coke Stevenson I would find a biography specifically on Coke Stevenson. I feel that the only way to make LBJ the ultimate villain is to exaggerate his competition and make him his opposite in every way.

As an aside, this is an interesting time to be reading about a political campaign.

Book trivia: The photographs are extraordinary.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Presidential Biographies” (p 193).

Migrations

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Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. New York: Aperture, 2000.

Confessional: this is not on any challenge list. Less than a month ago I swore I would no longer stray from “the List” but here I am, reviewing something leisure.
Here’s why: it’s a photojournalistic account of humanity on the move. More pictures than words. I was inspired by an interview given by Natalie Merchant to look up Sebastiao Salgado’s work and I don’t regret it.I picked up two different books, the first being Migrations.

Migrations first hits you as a stark, sad and seemingly hopeless photo essay of human suffering brought on by starvation, natural disaster, religious persecution, and outright war. Scratching the surface, it is the story of people fleeing one situation straight into the arms of another. The faces are in turmoil. Fear casts a shadow over impoverished communities across Latin America, Asia and Africa. But, dear reader look closer. Amid the sick, the dying, the afraid. Look with open eyes. There is a glimmer of hope. See the sly shy smile of a child, the defiant stare of a proud mother, the hopeful grin of a gritty farmer. Salgado wants you to peer into these faces and see yourself looking back with strength and optimism. He stresses we are all one human race. Underneath it all, we all want the same things. I’m reminded of Shel Silverstein’s poem, “No Difference” for he said the very same thing.

Favorite line, “But while information is the most obvious bridge between cause and effect, it is not the only one” (p 10).

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

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White, Neil. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: a Memoir. New York: William Morrow, 2009.

Reason read: I was supposed to receive this as an Early Review for LibraryThing back in 2009. It never arrived. Out of curiosity I decided to borrow it from a library and review it. I think there was a part of me that was feeling guilty for the reading’s equivalent of a runner’s DNS (Did Not Start).

I have to admit now that I have read In the Sanctuary of Outcasts I can officially say I am bummed I didn’t receive this as an Early Review back in 2009. This would have been one of my favorites. Not just one of my favorites, but one of my all-time favorites, for sure.

Confessional: I sometimes skip the author’s note. I’ll admit it – I’m impatient to get to the heart of the story. Sometimes, if I particularly loved what an author had to say I will go back and read the author’s note afterwards. But not always. In this case, for some reason I read every word of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. I started with the copyright page and I think that’s what convinced me to spend time with every word White wanted to utter.

Leprosarium. Never heard the word before. Doubt I’ll hear it again. They’ve been trying to call it Hansen’s disease. Who know there was a place on the Mississippi River called Carville, a place under one roof for Hansen’s disease patients and prison inmates? Neil White certainly hadn’t when he entered the community of Carville on May 3rd, 1993 as a convicted felon. He left behind a wife and two small children to serve eighteen months for check kiting. There is humor to White’s arrival. His initial observations of Carville are as touching as they are naive. But, the longer he stays within the walls of Carville the more he understands the people around him. They leave a lasting impression and dare I say, change his life.

Quotes that got me, “The last thing I wanted to discuss on my first day of prison was erectile dysfunction” (p 15), and “She stood fearless in the face of change and approached her own life as if it were a thrill ride” (p 174).

Book trivia: the photograph of the aging oak trees took my breath away.

Gilead

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Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.
Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. Read by Tim Jerome. New York: Macmillan Audio, 2005.

Reason read: Maine became a state in March. This is a real stretch because Gilead doesn’t take place in Maine, it isn’t about Maine in any way, even the author isn’t even from Maine. The only real connection is that the protagonist’s grandfather was born in Maine and he’s been dead for decades by the start of the book.

This is another one of those books where I feel like I am reading the wrong book. On the back cover of Gilead is praise for another Robinson book, Housekeeping.

The first thing you need to know about Gilead is that it is an epistolary novel. Reverend John Ames has lived in Gilead, Iowa for almost his entire life and is now dying. Via a letter to his young son he reminisces about his early childhood (Kansas born in 1880), his family, and his relationship with religious scripture. He calls this reminiscing his son’s “begat story” because he tells a great many stories of his own father and grandfather. And yet, as 77 year old men are bound to do, Ames wanders in his narrative. He remembers past illnesses, wars and woes and seems to be fixated on the Boughton family, especially “young” Jack.
One regret is that Robinson never reveals Ames’s son receiving or reading the letter. That would have been an interesting epilogue.

Lines I lingered over, “I believe I’ll make an experiment with candor here” (p 6), “My grandfather told her once that if you couldn’t read with cold feet there wouldn’t be a literate soul in the state of Maine (p 17), and “It is hard to make people care about old things” (p 113).

Author fact: Marilynne Robinson won a Pulitzer and a National Book Critics Circle Award for Gilead.

Book trivia: Some say Gilead is book one in a trilogy. However, Robinson’s next book, Home does not continue the story of the Ames family.

Audio book trivia: Tim Jerome’s reading of Gilead is great. I couldn’t tell you why I think this, but he has the perfect voice for it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135). As I said before, from what I can tell the only connection to Maine is that John Ames’s grandfather was born in Maine.

Stop Drop and Reload

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Has anyone else noticed this? My reading has gotten out of control. And when I say out of control I mean Out.Of.Control. Case in point: in 2013 I only read four books off the Challenge list. Natalie Merchant, my sister, my job and a friend all made book recommendations that I took. Four books. In 2014 I read ten books off the Challenge list. Five were all about running and five were gifts or recommendations. Ten books. In 2015 I read fifteen off Challenge list books. Fifteen books! We are only 2 1/2 months into March and already I have read nine off-Challenge-list books. This has GOT to STOP. At this rate I will never, ever finish the Challenge list. I keep spending time with books I shouldn’t. I’m pulling my hair out. You just can’t see me.

As of right now I am currently reading two books that are not on the Challenge list. Both are books that should have been Early Review books. So, here is the plan: I am going to finish up those books (In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White and Why the Grateful Dead Matter by Michael Benson) and then return to reading from the list as much as possible. I need to stop reading titles not indexed in the Lust books, drop books that have nothing to do with the Challenge and reload the ones that do. The end.

The Assistant

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Malamud, Bernard. The Assistant. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985.

Reason read: Malamud died in the month of March. Sad book for a sad occasion.

Confession: I have a hard time with Malamud. He writes with a melancholy I can’t put my finger on. The Assistant is no different with its depressing tone. From page one it is laced with utter sadness. This quote from the introduction seems to sum up Malamud’s writing perfectly, “Malamud was a master of the short story, and it sometimes seems that his characters are too poor to live in longer fiction” (p viii).

Morris Bober is a Jewish grocer in poverty stricken, post-WWII Brooklyn. He can barely make ends meet but does the best he can for his wife and twenty-three year old daughter. When his meager store is robbed the dye is cast.It only gets more complicated after Frank Alpine mysteriously comes into his life to help with the store, court his daughter and change his life. One of the most beautiful elements to Malamud’s writing is that for all his sadness, there is a thin thread of hope that winds its way through the story. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the story ends with hope.

The Assistant is rich with the culture of life as an immigrant. It’s also rich with the climate of the era. Can you picture a time when people  said things like, “Say, baby, let’s drop this deep philosophy and go trap a hamburger” (p 44)?

Quotes I fell in love with: “He crawled towards sleep” (p 10), “Wisdom flew over his hard head” (p 18), “How complicated could impossible get?” (p 89), “Where there was no wit money couldn’t buy it” (p 153) and “What you did was how bad you smelled” (p 174). They are so simple yet powerful.

Book trivia: Jonathan Rosen’s introduction is unfair when he says “…finish the novel before you finish this sentence…” (p ix).

Author fact: Malamud taught at Bennington College in Vermont. Cool.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called, of course, “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 134).

Naked Lunch

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Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. New York: Grove Press, 1959.

Reason read: let’s see if this train of thought makes sense: Jack Kerouac was born in March. Burroughs hung with Kerouac. Burroughs + Kerouac = Naked Lunch in March.

I was not around during the height of the Beat Generation’s rein. Oddly enough, beat writers were avoided during my educational career. Not on purpose, though. I wasn’t assigned Kerouac or Ginsburg or Burroughs in high school or college so I didn’t read them. As a result, reading Naked Lunch made me feel sort of crazy. Like riding on a roller coaster backwards. This is brilliant, for there is no real plot to speak of; you bounce from vignette to vignette of chaotic satire and drug & sex fueled imagination. The text is punctuated by copious notes explaining different things, but do the explanations really matter? No. Not really. It’s a fun ride if you are okay with not knowing where you are going. You need to be comfortable naming body parts  like cunt, dick and asshole (those things are in use a lot). You must be okay with all things putrid, bloody, stinking, infected and/or rotting. You definitely need to be tolerant of rampant drug use, vivid homosexual/heterosexual lovemaking and rape and copious suicidal tendencies and other deliveries of violence. In other words, have an open mind and just go with it. You won’t regret the ride. Or maybe you will. I don’t know.

For the serious, need-to-know types, the semblance of a plot goes like this: Willie Lee is a drug addict who has tried every narcotic under the sun in an attempt to find his true identity. [And speaking of identity, off topic, here is a sampling of the characters in Naked Lunch: Shake Man, Paregoric Kid, Eager Beaver, and Old Bart.] But back to the plot, Willie Lee travels from New York to Tangier and ultimately to the nightmarescape of Interzone to find himself.

Another fun exercise I had was to list all the real and imaginary places Burroughs mentioned in Naked Lunch:

  • Addis Ababa
  • Amazon
  • Amsterdam
  • Andes
  • Annexia
  • Arkansas
  • Beirut
  • Brooklyn
  • Bronx
  • Butte
  • Chicago
  • Cincinnati
  • Columbia
  • Cuba
  • East River
  • Ecuador
  • Edinburgh
  • England
  • Ethiopia
  • Holland
  • Hollywood
  • Hong Kong
  • Honolulu
  • Houston
  • Illinois
  • Interzone
  • Istanbul
  • Jersey
  • Kansas City
  • Lake Charles
  • Liberia
  • Lincoln Park
  • Los Angeles
  • Louisiana
  • Madrid
  • Mecca
  • Mexico City
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Mozambique
  • New Orleans
  • New York
  • Pakistan
  • Panama
  • Paris
  • Philadelphia
  • Peru
  • Pigeon Hole
  • Shanghai
  • Sioux Falls
  • South Pacific
  • St Louis
  • Tangier
  • Tierra de Fuego
  • Texas
  • Timbuktu
  • Tripoli
  • Washington Square
  • Westminster
  • Yemen
  • Yokohama
  • Zanzibar

[Benign] quotes to make you think (or not): “Catnip smells like marijuana when it burns” (p 5), “Scalpel fight with a colleague in the operating room” (p 26), and “Traffickers in the Black Meat, flesh of the giant aquatic black centipede – sometimes attaining a length of six feet- found in a lane of ricks and iridescent, brown lagoons, exhibit paralyzed crustaceans in camouflaged pockets of the Plaza visible only to the Meat Eaters” (p 45).
Here’s something a little less safe, “The screaming skull rolls up to the back stairs to bite the cock of erring husband taking dour advantage of his wife’s earache to do that which is inconvenient” (p 110).

Author fact: If you know anything about Burroughs and his life you know I could be here all day listing interesting and horrible tidbits about him. Here are a few of the more G-rated and mundane details: Burroughs suffered from depression, he was bisexual, had a drug problem (duh), and died the day after suffering a heart attack.

Book trivia: touted as one of the most important books of the century, it is also listed as one of the 1001 books you must read before you die. It was made into a movie in 1991.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Beats and Their Generation” (p 18).

Family Man

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Krentz, Jayne Ann. Family Man. New York: Pocket Books, 1993.

Reason read: Krentz birth month is in March

Three annoying things about this book: first, the physical book was literally falling apart while I was reading it. I had to handle it like it was a centuries old manuscript. Second, this was chick-lit to the hilt and I’m just not a fan of I-hate-you-but-I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off-all-the-same kind of books. Lastly, (and this is a big one) Krentz loves the name ‘Gilchrist’ to the point of nauseation (my word). More on that last bit later – see book trivia.

In a nutshell: the Gilchrist family empire was built on high-powered real estate deals centered around restaurants. The aging matriarch of this empire now has a problem. Her restaurants are starting to fail and there is no one within her immediate family she can trust to sort it all out. She needs needs an heir. Someone to take the reins. Someone as ruthless as she has been over the years. There is someone. Her grandson, Luke Gilchrist. The only problem? She disowned his parents years ago. Now the only person she truly trusts is her personal assistant, angelic and sweet, do-no-wrong Katy Wade. And since Katy has refused to commandeer the ship herself Queen Gilchrist has ordered her to find someone who will, namely the black sheep grandson, Luke. Luke is a very reluctant heir and it’s up to Katy to convince him it is worth his while to come back. His mettle is tested early as every Gilchrist seems to get into some kind of trouble. One Gilchrist was involved in a real estate scam. Another Gilchrist was caught in a blackmail trap. Every Gilchrist comes to Luke via Katy (as the Gilchrist “guardian angel”) for help. The big hook of this story should be Luke. Why does he agree to come back to help the failing empire? Are his intentions true or is he out for revenge? Krentz could have made the storyline far more suspenseful and mysterious and tension filled had she kept Luke more in the shadows.

Author fact: Jayne Ann Krentz also writes under the pen name Amanda Quick.

Book trivia: As I mentioned earlier – You gotta love the name Gilchrist or you will be in trouble. When I am annoyed I start counting things. I got annoyed by Krentz’s (over)use of the name Gilchrist to the point where I started counting…over 200 times in the first 100 pages. Drove me NUTS!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here To Stay” (p 206).

Center of the World

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Sheehan, Jacqueline. The Center of the World. New York: Kensington Books, 2016.

Reason read: Here’s a confession. I met the author at my father-in-law’s book signing event. I was embarrassed that I didn’t recognize Sheehan (or her work) despite her being  deemed a “best selling author” by the New York Times. In my defense, I would never buy her books for the library I manage. I highly doubt it will be on anyone’s syllabus soon.
My in-laws loaned me Center of the World and since it’s a signed copy I felt obligated to read it asap!

The concept for Center of the World is interesting. Kate, a budding scientist researching water quality in third world countries, finds herself in Guatemala during a civil war. After witnessing a horrible massacre Kate discovers there was only one other survivor, a Mayan toddler by the name of Sofia. Fearing for their lives as witnesses, Kate steals the child out of the country and raises her as her own. Twelve years go by and it looks as though Kate has gotten away with this illegal adoption, thanks to all the lies she has told over the years. However, her husband decides everyone, including Kate, needs to learn the truth. Add a government cover-up, a lost love interest, and a doting grandfather to round out the plot.

Small disappointment – I wanted to get to know Kate more. There were plenty of moments for further character development. For example, Kate leaves behind a lover in Guatemala. Supposedly Will is the true love who got away but there aren’t many opportunities for Kate to really demonstrate that loss. I would have liked to been a guest at her wedding to Martin. The hesitation before marrying the man who wasn’t her Guatemalan romance would have spoken volumes.

Book trivia: Sheehan is careful about dates. Each section of the novel is dated to set the reader in the appropriate place on Kate’s timeline. But, there is one detail that has me confused. In 1990 Kate meets Will, a “Peace Corp looking” kind of guy. After this initial meeting we jump into Will’s history (albeit without a benefit of a timeline, but we can assume it’s pre-Peace Corps; pre-Kate meet up). Here’s the rub – Will has a gift for learning languages and in talking to someone the language learning software Rosetta Stone is mentioned. Rosetta Stone, the learning tool, came about in 1992. Even if the man name-dropping Rosetta Stone was in the know way before 1992 Will shouldn’t have gotten the reference. Instead, he should have been confused by it.

Half of a Yellow Sun

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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. Read by Robin Miles. New York: Recorded Books, 2008.

Reason read: Half of a Yellow Sun was made into a movie – read in honor of the Academy Awards sometimes being in February and sometimes in March.

This is the story of five individuals during the short time of Biafra’s secession from Nigeria in the early ’60s. First is Ugwu, a young village boy sent to be the servant of a university mathematics professor. He knows his situation in Professor Odenigbo’s home is very good compared to other servant boys so he is careful not to “rock the boat” but all the while he keeps his ears and eyes open. His is a coming of age story of sorts. Professor Odenigbo is passionate and outspoken about the plight of the African continent, especially when it comes to political influences. Despite his strong opinions he is easily dominated by his mother. This weakness leads to his undoing, starting with his romance with Olanna. Olanna’s relationship with Odenigbo defies her parents and their thinly veiled wish for her to be used as a pawn to marry wealth or royalty. Her strength comes from acceptance and forgiveness. Much like her twin sister, Kainene (my favorite character in the group). Kainene has defiantly fallen in love with very British and very white, Richard Churchill. While the twins appear to be very different from one another they share the same underlying vulnerabilities. Finally, there is Kainene’s Richard Churchill. He has come to Nigeria to write a book about Igbo art. Instead he finds himself caught up in the secession and hoping to immerse himself in the new Biafra as one of its new citizens. Then there is the violence of war…

Swirling around these characters are issues of race, identity, and sense of belonging. There is one poignant scene when Richard admits to never feeling danger despite being in the midst of a brutal massacre. His white skin allowed him to remain outside the violence. Even his romance with an Igbo woman did nothing to threaten his sense of being merely an innocent outsider.

Author fact: Adichie did a TED talk in July of 2009 on feminism.

Book trivia: Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Broadband Prize.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Africa, the Greenest Continent” (p 9).

 

March Musings

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What can I say about March? Personally, it’s the St. Patrick’s Day 10k road race. I’ve been injured so it’s hard to anticipate how well I will or won’t do. I went for my first outdoor run this weekend and ran 7.5 with a steady sub-10 pace. That felt strong! Happy girl! And speaking of strong, here’s what’s on deck for the books:

  1. Naked Lunch by William Burroughs – in honor of Jack Kerouac’s birth month. Jack and William were friends…
  2. Family Man by Jayne Ann Krentz – in honor of Krentz’s birth month
  3. The Brontes by Juliet Barker – in honor of March being literature month (over 1,000 pages!)
  4. Means of Ascent by Robert Caro – to continue the series started in honor of Presidents Day being in February (EB)
  5. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – in honor of Maine becoming a state in March
  6. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud – Malamud died in March.
  7. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie – in honor of the Academy Awards being in February and March (HOAYS was made into a movie)

For Fun:

  1. Confessional: still reading Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan

For LibraryThing:

  1. I am supposed to receive Why the Grateful Dead Matter by Michael Benson as a January Early Review book sometime in the month of March…As an aside, there are a few other books I haven’t received and feel bad that I never read or reviewed them. I am sure they have all been published by now and so (I can’t believe I’m saying this) I’m going to see if a library has them. If they do, I will read and review as if I got them as Early Reviews from LibraryThing. The first non-early review I am going to tackle is a book I was supposed to received in 2009 – Sanctuary of Outcasts, a memoir by Neil White.

Remembering February

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So, February was a weird month. Being sick and injured didn’t help except that both ailments gave me more time to read. Turning 47 turned out to be not a big deal. Just another number in the grand scheme of things. The groundhog didn’t see his shadow either so there are less numbers in winter… And speaking of numbers – here are the books:

  1. A.D.: After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
  2. Beautiful Place to Die by Philip Craig
  3. If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now by Sandra Loh
  4. Rocksburg Railroad Murders by K.C. Constantine
  5. As She Crawled Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem (AB)
  6. Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
  7. Her First American by Lore Segal
  8. Down Where the Moon was Small or And I Shall Sleep…Down Where the Moon was Small by Richard Llewellyn
  9. Path to Power by Robert Caro – finishing TODAY!
  10. Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder (AB)
  11. Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes (DNF)
  12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  (AB) – will finish in March
  13. The Art of Dying by Patricia Weenolsen

For Fun:

  1. Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
  2. Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
  3. The Ultimate Treadmill Workout by David Siik

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program:

  1. Liar by Rob Roberge

I also spent some time revisiting the Challenge list. Because of all the missed individual titles I wanted to redo the schedule. That took up a great deal of my time!

The Art of Dying

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Weenolsen, Patricia. The Art of Dying: How to Leave This World with Dignity and Grace, at Peace with Yourself and Your Loved Ones. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Reason read: February (in some circles) is Psychology Month.

Do you need to be terminally ill to read this book? I hope not. But, I would think having a terminal illness would help to read this book more effectively, especially when performing the “Meaning of Disease” exercise 40 pages in. It’s the first of many exercises surrounding the subject of terminal illness. It’s difficult to answer some of Weenolsen’s questions as a seemingly healthy person. But, back to my original question. It prompted another: how many healthy people have read this book and stored information away for when a life threatening illness eventually  settles in? As it stands right now, we are all terminal, but does anyone plan (beside the hypochondriac) for a terminal illness?
This book is chock full of information but probably the biggest surprise was Weenolsen’s humor. Sometimes snarky, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, there was a lightheartedness to some of her chapters; as if humor would make the subject matter easier to swallow. [Note: in my case it did, once I identified why death made me so squirmy.]

Before reading The Art of Dying I had to wonder what prompted Weenolsen to devote her life to the subject.

Quotes that put things into perspective immediately: On the subject of dying: “We can look neither into the sun nor death directly” (p 3) and “People want to name the disease” (p 48). On the subject of letting go (in this case, a neat house): “If you’re not dust-sensitive, think of the layers as mounting thick enough to hatch something – and then to keep them around as pets” (p 66).

Author fact: Weenolsen is a psychologist who specializes in death and dying and counsels people on both.

Book trivia: As I mentioned before, I didn’t expect humor from The Art of Dying. The jokes come out of nowhere. Weenolsen has this quirky sense of humor that emerges every so often.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 100s” (p 64).

Strength in What Remains

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Kidder, Tracy. Strength in What Remains. Read by the author. New York: Books on Tape, 2009.

Reason read: okay, so this is a stretch. Tracy Kidder is from Northampton, Massachusetts. In February 1995 I moved from New Jersey to Easthampton. In February 2002 I moved up to Northampton. (Again in a different February I moved to Chicopee but that is another story for another time.) So, in honor of the second move, moving to Northampton in February (2002), I’m reading Kidder.

This is the remarkable story of Deo, a man who survived the horrific violence of 1993 in not only Burundi but Rwanda as well. Trying to escape the political upheaval between Tutsi and Hutu, Deo fled into Rwanda only to find infighting and ethnic cleansing there as well. Finally, with $200 to his name he was able to escape to New York City where he found work as a grocery delivery boy. Earning only $15 a day he lived in Central Park to make ends meet. It was after he delivered groceries to a nun when Deo’s life drastically changed. Through her generosity Deo was able to meet a middle aged couple who essentially took him in as their own; a quasi-adoption, if you will (his parents had survived the genocide so he was not a legal orphan). They gave him a place to live but more importantly, once they found out he had been a medical student in Burundi they helped put him through school at Columbia, majoring in biochemistry and philosophy. Remarkable, considering he didn’t have a green card or visa of any kind. What’s even more remarkable is that Deo not only went on to become a doctor, but he found forgiveness and went back to his homeland to start a clinic.

I liked Kidder’s direct, never-wavering sense of storytelling. Compared to Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, Kidder maintains a linear language and nothing is off-topic. It’s as if he knows he is limited to only so many words to tell the story and he doesn’t want to waste a single one on superfluous detail.

Author fact: One of Kidder’s favorite poems is Wordsworth’s “Ode to Intimations of Immortality” and used a line from that poem for the title of his book.

Book trivia: this is the first audio I have listened to that is read by the author.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7).
Note: Throughout Book Lust To Go Pearl includes links to videos of interviews she conducted with certain authors. I decided to wait until I was reading the book to watch that author’s interview. Big mistake. The URL no longer works for Tracy Kidder so I thought the video no longer existed. The funny thing is, when I was first reading Book Lust To Go I questioned the practice of putting URLs in a book. First off, the link is cumbersome to type into a browser (When I couldn’t find the Kidder interview I was convinced I had typos in the URL.), and secondly links break and content often is removed.
UPDATED TO ADD: I contacted SeattleChannel and they confirmed, yes the Kidder video had been removed. Anything older than 2012 had been taken down (which would mean all Pearl interviews mentioned in Book Lust To Go). But. But! But, they graciously returned the video to the site and sent me the URL. It was a pleasure to watch. My favorite line from Kidder, “I’m jumping out a window and I don’t know what floor I’m on.” I LOVE that illustration of risk. I am grateful for the staff at SeattleChannel because they really came through for me.