Tag: book lust i

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Cook, Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One 1884-1933. New York: Viking, 1191.

I think it goes without saying that Eleanor Roosevelt was a fascinating person both in and out of the political arena. What astounds me the most is how Cook could write such a thorough biography despite so much of Eleanor’s personal correspondence either lost or destroyed. I am in awe of what Cook could have done if she had everything ER had ever written or was written to her. Here’s what we do know – research has concluded that Eleanor had an unhappy childhood. She grew up shy and awkward. She a cold mother who died when Eleanor was eight and a father who was practically nonexistent. Research also supports her unhappy marriage to Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man who was clearly a mama’s boy and did nothing to hide his adulterous indiscretions. And yet, they made it work. All of Eleanor’s political and humanitarian endeavors and alliances are carefully documented. All the facts about Eleanor Roosevelt as a historical icon are there. But what Cook is able to illustrate in meticulous detail is Mrs. Roosevelt’s courageous, determined, caring personality. Once ER found independence she sought to better herself at every chance she got. She surrounded herself with men and women who would become lifelong friends. There is so much detail to Cook’s biography that you feel as though you’ve just had a conversation with Eleanor herself about her life’s work. My only complaint? As an “out” lesbian I felt Cook was trying too hard to find the lesbian angle with ER’s relationship with Lorena Hickok, among others.

Interesting line, “She knew it was possible to freeze the heart away” (p 217). An example of how little times have changed: “ER deplored the fact that Republican policies protected “big business and industry,” not the individual on the farm or in the family store” (p 403).

Reason read: Eleanor Roosevelt was born the in the month of September.

Author Fact: Cook published Volume Two of ER’s biography in 2000.

Book Trivia: Cook’s biography of Eleanor Roosevelt has been called “one of the best.”

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “People You Ought To Meet” (p 184).

Book Lust To Go and Other Lusts

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Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2010.

This was a gift from my sister; a very evil gift. Wait. I have to clarify – it was an unintended evil gift. She didn’t know it would wreak havoc with my life with books. I enjoy this kind of havoc. Really, I do. I am a glutton for punishment, to be sure.
But, back to reviewing Book Lust to Go. At first blush, Book Lust to Go appears to be better organized and with less mistakes in the index than the other Lust books. Just to give you a frame of reference I counted 60 books that were mentioned in the text of Book Lust but not included in the index. Eleven authors were missed in the same fashion.  27 Poems were missed in the index. Lastly, there were over 40 other miscellaneous mistakes (misspelled author names,  incorrect page numbers and so on and so forth) and this is just Book Lust. I haven’t counted the mistakes in More Book Lust. Book Lust To Go doesn’t have those problems…yet. To be fair I haven’t read the index yet. I’ll get to that eventually.
Another difference is there is less meandering. What do I mean by that? Basically, most of the books mentioned in a particular chapter are actually relevant to the chapter. In other Book Lust books there are quite a few “off topic” selections; books that have nothing to do with the chapter but mentioned anyway. I saw those mentions as filler. As with the other Lust books there is a fair amount of redundancy as well. Of the 540 books I have read so far 71 of them were mentioned in more than one Lust book and 69 titles received a double mention in the same book.
Two huge differences between BLTG and the other Lust books is the help Pearl receives with suggestions. Pearl admits she doesn’t travel and has asked other people for recommendations. How do I feel about this? Well, I always assumed Pearl read everything she recommends and knowing that isn’t the case is a little disappointing. The fact that it is blatantly obvious in BLTG is a letdown. The last difference I will mention is the interviews. None of the other Lust books have web interviews. I have yet to actually listen to one (too busy reading the book), but I will. This is something I am really excited about!

All Quiet on the Western Front

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Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by A.W. Wheen. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.

Do people consider this a classic? I think I have been aware of this book for the past 35 years but have never read it before now. If someone said “all quiet” I would finish with “on the western front.”

Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front there is the theme of a lost innocence. Soldiers as young as 18 or 19 reflect on a childhood lost. The main character of Paul Baumer is constantly thinking about how, if he were to survive the war, he could never relate to the peacetime world around him. He scoffs at the word “peace.” I saw All Quiet as a commentary on survival in its purest form. Doing anything and everything you can to live another day. When one soldier is obviously on death’s door another wants his boots and starts planning a strategy to get them…even before the dying man has drawn his last breath. This is not callousness personified. This is survival. He knows the boots are of no use to the dying soldier. They would be to him, if only he could get them before someone else does. Ironically, the boots are later passed along to Paul eventually.
Another aspect of Remarque’s work that bears mentioning is the detail he pays to describing death. While the images are unforgiving, violent and grotesque, it is war in its truest state and at its worst. Some of the images that stuck with me: a butterfly flitting around a field of dead men and finally settling to rest on the teeth of a corpse; a screaming horse that can’t be put out of his misery because he will reveal the hiding place of the soldiers.

Lines that moved me one way or another, “The army is based on that; one man must always have power over the other. The mischief is merely that each one has too much power” (p 44) and “At the same time he ventilated his backside” (p 83).

Book Trivia: This was made into a movie twice – once in 1930 and again almost 50 years later in 1979. It won an Academy Award in 1930.

Author Fact: Remarque served as a soldier on the western front in World War I. I can’t help but think All Quiet on the Western Front is almost autobiographical.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two chapters “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1920s” (p 176) and “World War I Fiction” (p 250).

Lives of the Saints

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Lemann, Nancy. Lives of the Saints. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

Probably the only good thing to come out of missing a cat is the long sleepless nights I spend reading. I was able to read Lives of the Saints in almost two nights.
Louise is a young woman with a great sense of sarcastic and romance. She has returned to New Orleans after college to work in a law firm. She reconnects with her long time love Claude Collier (as well as his family). Through a series of events Louise and the Colliers are changed forever. While the entire story is short (less than 150 pages) Lemann packs in a lifetime of emotion. What makes the story unique is Lemann’s writing style. She has fun playing with capitalization and repetition. Many reviews I read seem to fixate on the capitalization. I was more distracted by the insane amount of repetition. I wish I could count how many times the color green is mentioned or how many white seersucker suits are being worn. Every big event hosts and green and white striped awning.  It’s very distracting. Here’s a small sample, “Saint started talking about bridges. He was Very Interested in bridges lately. Bridges were what made his Life Worth Living. He was studying bridges. Sometimes Claude had to take Saint out for a whole day to look at different bridges in the city. The theme was definitely bridges” (p 43). The entire book is filled with this ‘Rain Man’ like writing.

Favorite lines, “Then to put it differently, he was a man who had, at some juncture, come to know himself, and therefore had come to despise himself, and therefore was deemed worthy of the name: wise” (p 26), “We only saw three races and it was so boring and decadent that I fell asleep form psychological pressure” (p 30), and “His kisses were like conducting conversations with heaven” (p 76).

Reason read: Lives of the Saints takes place in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina ripped through Cajun country in the month of August. In remembrance of that disaster I am reading Lemann’s book.

Author fact: Lives of the Saints is Lemann’s first book.

Book trivia: Walker Percy called it “nutty” and I couldn’t agree more. This is definitely an odd little book.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter simply called “New Orleans” (p 168).

Fahrenheit 451

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Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Read by Christopher Hurt. Blackstone Audio, Inc. 2005

Would someone shoot me if I said I had never read Fahrenheit 451 before? Is that something you shouldn’t admit to anyone, ever? It’s a classic. It’s probably Bradbury’s best known work. I have read I Sing the Body Electric and remember it vividly. But who doesn’t know Fahrenheit 451? I mean, come on! Who doesn’t know it? This girl. I didn’t know Fahrenheit. There. I said it. Let’s move on.

I think it goes without saying Fahrenheit 451 was, and still is, controversial. Banned even. The large misconception about Fahrenheit was that it was a commentary on censorship. Oddly enough, Bradbury’s true message is one shared by 10,000 Maniacs in their song “Candy, Everybody Wants.” Television is dulling the mind. Common courtesy and intelligent conversation is going out the window and vanishing like vapor. In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury puts the root of all evil in the form of books; books that must be burned upon discovery.  This futuristic society employs eight legged mechanical hounds who can sniff out readers and firemen who used to be firefighters but are now fire starters. They are charged with burning the houses suspected of containing books. Guy Montag is one such fire starter. He relishes everything about starting a fire. Like an arsonist he is practically gleeful using the accelerant (kerosene), joyful to be spreading the flames. He loves his job until one day two people change his life. He first meets 17 year old Clarise. Her odd views on the world teach Montag to experience his own life differently. I’m reminded of Julia Robert’s character in Pretty Woman when she teaches Richard Gere to feel the grass under his feet. But, back to Fahrenheit 451 and Montag. Then he burns the house of an elderly woman. This rebellious elderly recluse refuses to leave her home and her books. As a result Montag burns her alive. They call it “suicide” but her death has a profound “rub” on Montag. The more Montag changes the less he understands the people around him. He begins to remember other book rebels he has met in his career. Mr. Faber is one such person. Faber agrees to help Montag leave the world of firemen and enter the dangerous unknown.

The opening scene to Fahrenheit 451 sets the stage for how bizarre Montag’s world really is. The detailed description of the fire’s destruction at the hands of a fireman is surreal and disorientating. But it is a necessary introduction to the dystopia in which Montag lives. Another tactic of Bradbury is to insert a great deal of repetition. Key words are repeated almost as in a chant. To hear in as an audio book is haunting.

Favorite line, “How strange, strange to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad and then…” (p 116).

Reason read: Bradbury was born in August.

Author Fact: Ray Bradbury died in June at the age of 91. His website is fascinating however I am most excited to learn that Bradbury loved cats! Miow.

Book Trivia: Fahrenheit 451 has influenced millions becoming a radio program, several plays and an adventure game. It should be a movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1950s” (p 177).

Go Tell It On the Mountain

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Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On the Mountain. New York: Library of America, 1998.

What a simple concept. The beginning of the story takes place in a church. Fourteen year old John Grimes is praying beside his family – his Aunt Florence and parents, Gabriel and Elizabeth Grimes. It is in these prayers that an epic story emerges. Go Tell It On the Mountain is a tale told in three parts: The Seventh Day (a day in the life of the Grimes family on a Sunday), The Prayers of the Saints (starting with John’s Aunt Florence), and The Threshing-Floor (John’s “salvation”). The thread between all these parts is John Grimes in theory but the ending is all about his coming full circle. He is at a crossroads in his young life. He knows he is destined to be like the father he can barely stand, but the questions remains, how much like him? Will he become a preacher man, a servant of god? Will he carry anger and violence like his father?

Of note: in this good vs evil tale it is interesting to note the juxtaposition of good vs evil in the father, both in his actions and even his name. Gabriel Grimes is a a man of god who started his early adult years having sex with married women and drinking until he was blurry-eyed and as a married man comes home at night full of rage beat his family. Gabriel is the name of a well-known angel and yet the name Grimes suggests something dirty, something sinful.

Quotables: “And he knew again that she was not saying everything she meant; in a kind of secret language she was telling him today something that he must remember and understand tomorrow” (p 30).
“He would enter on another day, when he had read all the books uptown, an achievement that would, he felt, lend him the poise to enter any building of the world” (p 35). Yeah, books have that power, don’t they?
“The question always filled her with an ecstasy of hatred” (p 81). Pretty powerful stuff. To be sure, there are others.

Reason read: James Arthur Baldwin was born on August 2, 1924.

Author Fact: Go Tell It On the Mountain was Baldwin’s first book and is considered semi-autobiographical.

Book Trivia: Inspired by “Roots” Go Tell It On the Mountain was portrayed as a made-for-television movie in 1984.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Say” (p 10).

After You’ve Gone

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Adams, Alice. After You’ve Gone. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989.

I feel positively silly titling a blog “After You’ve Gone” because the phrase has been so overused in music, television, theater and yes, even books. This review is for the compilation of short stories by Alice Adams and not to be confused with the Nova Scotia novel of the same name by Jefferey Lent or the Scottish one by Joan Lingard. I’m sure there are others…

After You’ve Gone could be described as a compilation of stories with two central themes: relationships and change. There are fourteen short stories in all and every one of them addresses the subject of a change (mostly involving women or from the woman’s point of view). The changes range from divorce, loss, aging…It’s as if Adams rode the train to work everyday and stared at the same fourteen people. Ordinary people. Many of them with underwhelming, ordinary stories to tell. Each story is a moment in time for each passenger. My favorite one was the title story. A newly divorced woman is addressing her ex-husband. It’s the only one of its kind. Her tone takes on different emotions throughout the monologue. Regret is obvious as she recounts the things she misses about him, irritation becomes apparent when revealing his new lover has been writing to her, and a show of defiance when she talks about her new/old relationship and the trip she plans to take with him. It’s brilliant. The rest of the stories are a little redundant. The characters are either academic, artistic or medical. Most live in some part of California. I found reading more than two stories in one sitting was a little tiresome.

Reason read: Adams was born in August.

Author Fact: Adams is known for her short stories.

Book Trivia: The best way to read After You’ve Gone is a story a day. Digesting the seemingly similar stories is easier that way. There is less redundancy.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1). Simple as that.

D-Day, June 6, 1944

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

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

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

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

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

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

Damage

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Hart, Josephine. Damage. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991.

Damage was on my list as a Father’s Day read, if you can believe it. I read it over two lunch breaks. Some father! Told from the point of view of a doctor turned politician who has an affair with his son’s girlfriend-turned-fiancee. What makes this (short, only 200 or so pages) story so intoxicating is the slow descent into hell this man willingly makes. When he first introduces us to his life he had been a well-to-do man who has a seemingly perfect family.  Two smart and beautiful adult children, Martyn and Sally, a gorgeous wife Ingrid and a stable, well respected career. He does not deny that he had a good life…pre-Anna, his son’s girlfriend. Then he meets Anna and all hell breaks loose in a slow unraveling sort of way. Inexplicably there is an instant attraction between the two of them and an affair ignites abruptly. While the physical relationship is spontaneous the mental obsession builds gradually until it is all consuming…for both of them.

There is a sense of foreshadowing, a warning of sorts in the line “Can’t you sense, smell, taste disaster waiting in the corners of the house?” (p 36).
Anna’s explanation as to why she is the way she is, “I have been damaged. Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive” (p 42) is probably the most often quoted in reviews.

Book Trivia: Damage was made into a movie in 1992 starring Jeremy Irons. Yet another one I haven’t seen.

Author Fact: Josephine Hart died of cancer in 2011.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Fathers and Sons” (p 85).

River Runs Through It

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MacLean, Norman. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.

If you don’t at least know the title of this book you have been living under a rock somewhere. This has been a hit movie as well as a best selling book. It has had definite staying power since published in 1976. Comprised of three semi-autobiographical novellas the title story is the most popular and best known of the three. In fact, a lot of reviews don’t really mention the other two stories which are equally as good. Even the back of the 1992  copy I read recapped only the title story – about a family of fishermen. Father is a minister who instilled a love of fly fishing in his two sons. One son is an alcoholic while the other tries to balance a marriage with his love of the Montana wilderness. What is missing is mention of the two other stories: “Logging and Pimping and ‘Your Pal, Jim'” and “USFS 1919: The Ranger, the cook, and a Hole in the Sky.” The first is exactly what it sounds like, logging, pimping and a relationship with a logger named Jim.  The USFS story is about MacLean as a teenager working as a forest ranger. While it is a subtle detail it is interesting to note MacLean’s stories have a reverse chronology. MacLean is in his 30s in “A River Runs Through It,” in his 20s in “Logging,” and in his teens in “USFS 1919.”

What surprised me the most about MacLean’s writing was the humor that surfaced with sudden hilarity. Here are three such moments: “The light picked up his brow which was serene…as mine would have been if my mother had spent her life in making me sandwiches and protecting me from reality” (p 54) and “You have never really seen an ass until you have seen two sunburned asses on a sandbar in the middle of a river” (p 73).

Another favorite quote I just had to mention because I know people like this (don’t you?): “He was one of those who need to be caught in a lie while he is telling it” (p 36).

Author Fact: A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was MacLean’s first fiction.

Book Trivia: The movie of the same name was made in 1992 and starred Brad Pitt, among others. The third story, “USFS 1919” was made into a made-for-television movie in 1995 and starred Sam Elliot.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Montana: In Big Sky Country” as an aside when mentioning another book (p 156) and also from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gone Fishin'” (p 100).

Death of Ivan Ilich

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Tolstoy, Count Lev N. Dramatic Works: the Death of Ivan Ilich.Translated by Leo Wiener. New York: AMS Press, 1968.

Death of Ivan Ilich opens with Ilich’s death already a reality in the year of 1882.

As a person struggling with the death of a loved one there were certain parts of Death of Ivan Ilich that struck a nerve with me. Early in the story Ilich’s colleagues are standing around discussing his death, having just learned of it. One man exclaimed, “And here I have not called on him since the holidays. I was meaning to all the time” (p 4). That bears repeating. I was meaning to all the time. Exactly.
I found Death of Ivan Ilich to be extremely psychological and painful. Here is a relatively young man of 45 who dies from an unexplained illness after falling off a chair. He bruises his side and mysteriously falls ill a short time later. Even more troublesome – he never recovers from this fall. Was it cancer? Many scholars seem to think so. What I found particularly disturbing is the lack of care and sympathy his family feels for him. His wife and daughter all but cast him aside once they realize he is dying. Only his long-faithful butler remains true to him.
The actual death of Ivan goes largely unexamined. Instead we crawl into Ivan’s mind as the dying process takes its toll. In the beginning he is indignant, believing as a good man who has led a moral life he does not deserve such a fate. He questions his life’s purpose and begins to compare it to that of his butler. While he never accepts his death at the end he seems to understand it.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210).

Scared by the Numbers

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Since adding all of the books from Book Lust To Go to my challenge list (all 1,600+ of them) I have been wondering how much time this has added to the challenge. I was curious. How many years will it take me to finish reading 5,500+ books? Exactly how old will I be when it is all said and done?
First I needed to know how many books I have left to read. The grand total is 5026. This includes books of varying lengths – anything from graphic novels, children’s picture books to 1,000 page biographies. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.

Then I needed to find out my average reading “speed.” What did I accomplish in a year’s time? On average, I read 109 books a year – give or take a poem, short story or article or two. This average of 109 books included books for fun, books for LibraryThing, and the books on the challenge list. However, here is what I found out from doing the math: if I only read challenge books from here on out it would take me 45 years to finish every book indexed in Book Lust, More Book Lust and now, Book Lust To Go. Scary. I honestly don’t think I will live that long. Frightening. Seriously.
What to do? I refuse to give up reading the books from LibraryThing’s Early Review program. And, and. And! I will not ignore the gift books I receive from family or friends. So. What happens now? I either have to face facts that I will never finish reading 5026 books in my lifetime OR be a little more selective about what takes up my time. I like option #2 better.

Here are my ideas for amendments:

  • Instead of reading 50 pages before giving up on a boring book I only read one chapter or 25 pages – whichever comes first. I’m a pretty good judge of what books will bore me to death and which ones I will “book” through (pun totally intended).
  • Of the books I have read before instead of rereading them I will install the “Odd page rule.” The odd page rule is to only read the odd pages and skip the evens. (the rule right now is if I don’t remember the plot, key characters or how it ended I have to reread the entire thing. Not happening).
  • Third and final change: the movie rights rule. If a book has been made into a movie AND the book author has had a hand in writing the screenplay AND the movie has won an Academy Award I give myself permission to watch the movie instead. I am not a movie person so I doubt this last rule will really come into play that often.

I will be in my 90s when I finally finish the challenge. People have asked me why it matters. They like to point out that Nancy Pearl didn’t read every book she recommends. She had help. People made suggestions. I get it. I don’t care what Pearl has or hasn’t read. Her reading list is not my concern. The pages MY eyes fall upon are what matter and I want to read them all. If I’m lucky.

China to Me

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Hahn, Emily. China to Me: a Partial Autobiography. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1946.

I always love it when my own library has something from my Challenge list. I have to be honest. I didn’t think I would see China to Me on our shelves and I’m not sure why.

People pick up China to Me for different reasons. Some look for a travelog, something to give an accurate picture of the politics and society of mid-war China (it was published in 1944). Some look for a personal account of an outspoken feminist American living in Shanghai and Hong Kong and beyond. I picked it up because I heard Hahn was like Isabella Bird, a gutsy traveler who was not afraid to live outside the conformity of her time. After reading most of Hahn’s partial autobiography I have to disagree somewhat. Hahn’s autobiography has been criticized as being a little self-indulgent. I agree. She frequently drops the names of then-prominent Chinese society (most who mean nothing to us in the 21st century). Whereas Bird lingers over flower and fauna, Hahn belabors relationships she had. I was distracted by all the name references. I am sure in the 1940s the individuals were impressive to know but that society has long since lost its luster in the 60+ years since. Another complaint about Hahn is her apparent little regard for the welfare of her born-out-of-wedlock child. While in the Japanese prison camps she seemed more concerned with herself than the individuals around her. Despite Hahn’s apparent selfishness she writes with clever humor and keen insight. In addition her life as a concubine and mistress to a spy was interesting enough to write about!

Favorite quotes: “As long as I had a column that wasn’t news, so that our readers wouldn’t be distressed by having to think, it was all right” (p 11).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called ” Lady Travelers” (p 143). Also, from More Book Lust in the chapter called ” “Living Through War” (p 155). Mentioned a third time in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “China: The Middle Kingdom” (p 60).

Little Women

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Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York: Scholastic, 1987.

I think it goes without saying that Little Women is a classic. Who doesn’t know the story of Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth? Okay, so female readers of all ages probably know it better than men but either way there is no denying it’s a classic! Plus, they made a movie out of it!
So. To repeat the obvious: This is the story of the March women – Mrs. March and her four daughters. Too old to be drafted into service, Mr. March enlists to be a chaplain in the civil war. While he is away Mrs. March and her girls keep a modest house house in Concord, Massachusetts. The story centers around the four daughters and their four very different personalities. Alcott was ahead of her time when she created the character of Josephine (“Jo”). Jo is an ambitious tomboy who cuts her hair and wants to be a unmarried writer. She is referred to as male by herself (saying she is the man of the house while Father is away) and by her father (who calls her “son”). It’s an interesting dynamic to the plot. The rest of the March women are as Victorian as can be. I try to refrain from seeing them as prissy. They are all very pretty and wishy-washy and have talent. As a aside, the storytelling reminded me of Anne of Green Gables.

Disclaimer: Alcott intended Little Women to the first of a two volume set (with Good Wives being the second). Because Good Wives is not on my reading list I didn’t read it with Little Women.

Author Fact: Louisa May Alcott is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA. I wonder if I’ll have time to look her up while I am there in another week?

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Three-Hanky Reads” (p 236). Of course Pearl is referring to the part when Beth dies.

Carry On, Mr Bowditch

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Latham, Jean Lee. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1955.

Read this in a day. May is National History month and while that alone was a good excuse to read Carry On I also chose to read it because of Kon-Tiki. Seemed like the perfect transition.

This was reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s account about growing up in the unorganized territories of the midwest in the Little House series; better known as historical fiction. I call it biographical with a little imagination thrown in. It covers the life of Nathanial Bowditch, navigator extraordinaire. While the details of his childhood and subsequent personal adult years are somewhat abbreviated for adults, the content is perfect for children. I appreciated the way Latham didn’t minimized or sugarcoat the tragedy in Bowditch’s life. Nor did she gloss over his relationships with his first wife Elizabeth, or Polly, his second. What does come across is Bowditch’s love of mathematics and the seriousness with which he applies it to navigating the high seas. He does not suffer fools easily but his passion for teaching is enthusiastic and patient.

Favorite lines: “Sometimes women get a little upset about the sea” (p 71). Well, can you blame them? Husbands were gone for months and even years. Sometimes they didn’t come home at all. Another line I liked “You know, you’re real humanlike – in spite of your brains” (p 86). Funny.

Book Trivia: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch won Latham a Newbery Medal.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction for Kids of All Ages” (p 114).