Tag: Fiction

Last to Die

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Grippando, James. Last to Die. New york: Harper Collins, 2003.

What do you do when your town is rocked by a freak pre-Halloween snow storm that knocks out power for a seriously long time? In my case, read. A lot. I was able to finish Buddenbrooks, read Last to Die cover to cover and start Immortal. But, enough about the great reading opportunity. About Last to Die:

Last to Die is a suspense murder mystery with an interesting plot. It’s not your typical “Victim found murdered so who dunnit?”
Jack Swyteck has the unenviable task of defending his best friend’s brother, thug-turned-angel, Tatum Knight. Knight is suspected of killing a woman, shooting her dead in broad daylight. He admits that the deceased, Sally Fenning, did approach him to play hit man but swears he turned her down. Little brother Theo believes him. It’s when Knight is named in Sally Fenning’s 46 million dollar will that things get complicated. For this is no ordinary bequeathment. While five other individuals are named in the will they are all people Sally hated and only one of them can inherit the money; the last one standing. Soon, as one would expect, people start to die.
What makes Last To Die truly interesting is the cast of characters. Every person has a unique story to tell and a past to hide.

Author Fact: Grippando (like Grisham) was a lawyer first before turning out legal thrillers.

Book Trivia: Last to Die is actually the third Swyteck book. The series starts with The Pardon (1994).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Legal Eagles in Fiction” (p 134).

Altered Carbon

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Morgan, Richard. Altered Carbon. New York: Random House Digital, Inc., 2003.

I think this is the first book I have read that is considered cyberpunk.

In a world where you can pay off a cab driver with the swipe of your thumb, have psychosurgery to get over trauma, and go to places like Mi’s Wharfwhore Warehouse lives former UN Envoy, Takeshi Lev Kovacs. It is a world that centers on a multi-planetary society hundreds of years into the future. Earth is just one location where the plot takes place. In this futuristic environment human souls and personalities can be digitally stored and reloaded into new bodies after bodily death. The only group to not benefit from this cyber-eternity are Catholics. Since they believe in souls going to either Heaven or Hell after death they wouldn’t have anything to pass onto a new body.
To say that the plot is complicated is an understatement. Laurens Bancroft has seemingly committed suicide. All evidence points to this except Bancroft himself doesn’t believe it. He has a new body and limited memory and thinks he has been murdered. He has hired Takeshi Kovacs to solve his mystery.
This passage sums up the entire story: “You’re a lucky man, Kovacs…One hundred and eighty light years from home, wearing another man’s body on a six-week rental agreement. Freighted in to do a job that the local police wouldn’t touch with a riot prod” (p 45).

Something true, even in this world: “The human body is capable of quite remarkable regeneration if stored correctly” (p 243).

My favorite line in the whole book: “I thought I might die, but I hadn’t expected to be bored to death” (p 1,145).
Most profound sentence: “For a moment something ached in my, something so deep-rooted that I knew to tear it out would be to undo the essence of what held me together” (p 1,410).

This time, reading an e-book was a little more frustrating. There were a few spelling and punctuation mistakes and absolutely no copyright information whatsoever.

Author Fact: Morgan is crazy young, born in 1965.

Book Trivia: Altered Carbon won the Philip K. Dick award for best novel in 2003.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called  “Plots for Plotzing” (p 183).

Buddenbrooks

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Mann, Thomas. Buddenbrooks: the Decline of a Family. Translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931.

To sum up Buddenbrooks it is a four-generational story about the downfall of a middle class family. There is no storyline other than following the lives of the Buddenbrooks from 1835 to 1877. The Buddenbrooks are a typical family. They have their problems like everyone else. Faulty business deals, unstable health, failed marriages, partnerships made and broken. My favorite parts involved daughter Tony and her relationships with her family and the men who pursued her. The way her father simultaneously protects her and throws her to the wolves is eyebrow raising, but pretty typical of a father-know-best attitude. It is no secret that this saga doesn’t end well (just look at the title).

Quotes that struck a thought: “Hopes, fears, and ambitions all slumbered, while the rain fell and the autumn wind whistled around gables and street corners” (p 45), “She had never given him either great joy or great sorrow; but she had decorously played her part beside him for many a long year…” (p 68), and “Her face had the expression children wear when one tells them a fairy story about then tactlessly introduce a generalization about conduct and duty – a mixture of embarrassment and impatience, piety and boredom” (p 215).

Author Fact: Buddenbrookswas Mann’s first book, written when he was just 26 years old.

Book Trivia: An adaptation of Buddenbrooks was made into a movie in 2008.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade” (p 175).

Johnny Tremain

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Forbes, Esther. Johnny Tremain: a Story of Boston in Revolt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.

This is another one of those “reread a few times” books. I can remember having a crush on Johnny when I was 13 or 14. I’m not exactly sure why. I don’t think the idea of 18th century garb was what got me. But, there was definitely something about goody boy Johnny with his artisan ego that appealed to me.

Johnny Tremain may not be the most creative of titles for Esther Forbes’s John Newbery Medal award-winning book, but it’s most appropriate as it tells the story of two years in the life of fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain. Johnny is one of several silversmith apprentices living with the Lapham family in Boston, Massachusetts. The year is 1773 and silversmiths are in high demand. Johnny is the most gifted artisan for someone so young and he knows it. The other apprentices are jealous until one day there is an accident and Johnny’s right hand is badly maimed by molten silver. Ultimately, he loses his place with the Laphams and must find other means of employment. It isn’t long before Johnny finds a second calling. He is good with horses and becomes a dispatch rider for the Committee of Public Safety. This job brings him into the company of important men like Samuel Adams and John Hancock. It is at this point where famous events in history like the Boston Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington are woven into Johnny’s story. Fact and fiction are seamless.

Favorite lines: “Human relations never seem to stand completely still” (p 173) and “Green with spring, dreaming of the future yet wet with blood” (p 255).

Author Fact: Forbes was a Massachusetts woman.

Book Trivia: Johnny Tremain won the Newbery Medal in 1944.

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

Spy Trap

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Packard, Edward. Choose Your Own Adventure: Spy Trap. New York: Bantam Books, 1980.

These Choose Your Own Adventure books are really fun. My particular adventure, Spy Trap by Edward Packard puts you, the reader, in the story as a secret agent for the government. You are asked to follow a tremendous secret that would rock the marine biology world. Humback whales are disappearing and you think you have discovered where they are going through analyzing their song. These whales can communicate! All along the story there are choices that you must make. Make the wrong choice and you end the story (and often times, your life). Make the right choice and you continue on your adventure and get to live on. Sometimes the endings are death while others are implied with a sentence that trails off… Your choices could be as simple as a right or left at the fork in the road or as complicated as asking if you trust your superiors to tell them all (if so, turn to page 89) or do you NOT trust them and you keep quiet (turn to page 95)? Every decision is up to you and because of the number of decisions you can make throughout the story there are countless variations of the same story. In my version I took risks left and right and managed to live to see a happy ending. My second time through I wasn’t so lucky. It’s implied I died at sea. So sad.

Author Fact: Edward Packard created this second-person storytelling idea. Very cool.

BookLust Twist: While not mentioned in the index The Choose Your Own Adventure series is in Book Lust on page 190 in the chapter called “The Postmodern Condition.”

October ’11 was…

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What do you get when you add a vacation to two road trips and a freak snow storm in which I lose electricity for two days? Answer – a boat load of books read in one month; so many books that I haven’t been able to review them all.

In the first week of October I went home. As past posts can tell you I like nothing more than reading on an island, especially one on the tail end of a hurricane. There is something so book-worthy about a rain soaked afternoon or two by the raging ocean…
On Monhegan I was able to read:

  • Anil’s Ghost by Michael Onjaatje (e-book),
  • Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (stolen from my childhood bookcase),
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (stolen from my sister’s childhood bookcase)
  • Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (another e-book) and part of
  • The Stand by Stephen King

On a road trip to New York (to see Natalie Merchant ~ more on that on the Other Side) I was able to finish

  • The Stand by Stephen King and
  • Spy Trap by Edward Packard and
  • Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

I started reading Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann when I forgot Immortality by Milan Kundera at work. I finished both those books and Last to Die by James Grippando during the freak snow storm/power outage (and to think people wanted me to come out with them because they had cable!!). As long as I candles and blankets I was in heaven.
But, probably the hardest book to get through was Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (another e-book). I started Altered Carbon the first week of October and slogged through it until October 27th. Talk about a complicated story! I am struggling with the review because the plot was so intense.

So, there it is. Nearly a dozen books for the month of October. True, four of those books were for kids (Phantom Tollbooth, Johnny Tremain, Spy Trap and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) but Altered Carbon, Last To Die and Buddenbrooks were “adult” enough to offset the kiddie stuff.

What’s in store for November? Well, considering I have no trips to Monhegan (or anywhere for that matter), Thanksgiving is this month, and we have a power back, I have no idea. 🙂

Phantom Tollbooth

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Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. New York: Random House, 1972.

I loved this book as a kid. I’m glad it was on the list because I welcomed the opportunity to reread it. This book should appeal to all sorts of people. The wordsmiths, the children, the people who take puns to a whole new level…
Milo is one bored kid. He doesn’t find excitement in anything that he does. He sort of has this “oh well” attitude about his life. It isn’t until he comes across a package then his world completely changes. Milo discovers he has been sent a mysterious tollbooth. When he drives his car through it he is transported to the Kingdom of Wisdom. From there he has many adventures that allow Norton to play on English language idioms. For example, one of Milo’s companions is a watchdog named Tock. WATCHdog, get it? Also, there is a banquet where the diners eat words. But, my favorite concept is the museum of sound. Imagine being able to listen to the thunder and lightning from the night Ben Franklin flew his kite? Or the mutterings of Johann Sebastian Bach as he composed? The scritch of Edgar Allan Poe’s ink as he wrote my favorite poem, “Lenore”?

There were literally hundreds of lines I could have quoted as funny or thought provoking but here are a few of my favorites: “Expectations is the place you must always go before you get to go where you’re going: (p 19) and “…but it’s just as bad to live in a place where what you do see isn’t there as it is to live in one place where you don’t see is” (p 120).

Great scene:
”
“I didn’t know I was going to have to eat my words,” objected Milo.
“Of course, of course, everyone here does,” the king grunted. “You should have made a tastier speech”
” (p 88).

Author Fact: Norton Juster is multi-talented. He is also an architect as well as an author.
Something of a side note: Norton had Jules Feiffer illustrate The Phantom Tollbooth. In searching for what Norton has been up to I discovered he had Jules Feiffer also illustrate his most recent book, The Odious Ogre. Too cool.

Book Trivia: The Phantom Tollbooth became a movie in 1970. Interesting. I’ll have to put it on my list!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Not Only For Kids: Fantasies for Grown-Ups” (p 175). This I would definitely have to agree with. I had forgotten how much fun this book really, really was.

Anil’s Ghost

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Ondaatje, Michael. Anil’s Ghost. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. EPUB file.

Disclaimer: This was my first electronic book. I am trying very hard to trust that everything that was in the published hardcopy was present in the e-book version. I have to believe I didn’t miss out on something by reading this on an iPad.

Anil’s Ghost is the clever weaving of fact and fiction. In the mid-1980s Sri Lanka was in a state of civil unrest. It went beyond a north versus south conflict and involved illegal government activity. Anil’s Ghost is the fictional account set in the middle of a political and historical truth.
Anil Tissera is a forensic anthropologist returning to Sri Lanka after a fifteen year absence.  As part of a human rights organization her obligation to investigate and ultimately uncover the truth about ethnic and religious killings occurring during the country’s civil war. Her entire attention remains focussed on one particular skeleton she nicknames “Sailor.” His remains have been found in an ancient burial ground and yet anthropologically he is considered a contemporary.  Upon arriving in Sri Lanka she becomes paired with man she doesn’t know if she can trust. Sarath is quiet and keeps many secrets. What is amazing about Anil’s Ghost is the lush language and the intricate character development. Each chapter is dedicated to the unfolding of someone’s life, past and present. This technique brings a fullness to the storyline. In the end you feel as if every character has purpose to the plot.

Most interesting – Anil. Hands down. I don’t really understand her obsession with changing her name. She actually “buys” one of her brother’s names because he has more than one. The way she buys this name is not explicitly spelled out, but it seems ominous.

Favorite lines: “She was working with a man who was efficient in his privacy, who would never unknot himself for anyone” (p 60), “She would not step back from her fury” (p 116), and “One can die from private woes as easily as from public ones” (p 237).

Line that gave me pause: “They had both hoped for a seven-bangled night” (p 118).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 51) and more interestingly from More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in “It Was a Dark and Stormy Novel” (p 129), and again in the chapter called “Sri Lanka: Exotic and Troubled (p 213).

Sept ’11 was…

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Here I am, writing about September almost two weeks into October. That’s what I get when I run away to Maine for ten days. I feel weird about these end of month recaps because not only do they feel stranded, without proper structure, they don’t really reflect accomplishment on my part. Traditionally, I start the month with the statement This Is What I Want To Read and at the month I list everything I was and wasn’t able to get to in that 28-31 day time. Without a reading plan I feel utterly afloat and yet, free.
Anyway, enough babble. Here’s the list for September:

  • World According to Garp by John Irving. Not my favorite Irving (that would have to be Hotel New Hampshire), but this was funny and well worth the second read.
  • In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason. I couldn’t quite believe a teenager would be so completely and resolutely obsessed with the Vietnam War but she lost her father in that war, so who am I to judge?
  • Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family by Patricia Volk. This was hysterical. I found myself rereading parts just because it was so true. By the end of it I felt like I knew Patricia and her whole family. Well, maybe that was the point.
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Another reread from my younger days. Enjoyable, but not a favorite.

So. There it is. The List. Four books. This doesn’t list the books I started (and didn’t finish). Nor does it mention any Early Review books from LibraryThing. Supposedly, I have been selected to receive two books. Haven’t seen either one. Yet.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Aladdin Classics, 1999.

I don’t know why I bothered to reread this. The plot remains with me, however murky, thanks to grade school, high school and college. I’ve certainly read and reread it numerous times for numerous reasons. By the Lust Rules I could have skipped this one because I remember how it all turns out. I didn’t skip it because Huck makes me laugh. Okay, I laugh at all but one part. I’ll get to “that part” a little later.

When Mark Twain titled this Adventures of Huckleberry Finn he wasn’t kidding. Huck is a almost orphaned boy living with a widow. Dad is an abusive alcoholic who shows up occasionally to try to steal from Huck. While Huck is grateful to the widow for a roof over his head and food to eat he is of the “thanks, but no thanks” mindset and soon runs away. He would rather be sleeping out under the stars, floating down the Mississippi while trapping small game and fishing than minding his ps and qs and keeping his nose clean in school. Huck is a clever boy and he shows this time and time again (getting away after being kidnapped by his father, faking his own death, dressing like a girl, tricking thieves etc), but his immaturity often catches up to him. Huck’s partner is crime is Jim, slave of Miss Watson’s. Together they build a raft and travel down the Mississippi getting into all sorts of mayhem. One of the best things about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the descriptions of the people and places Huck and Jim encounter along their journey.

Book Trivia: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was met with a great deal of controversy thanks to Twain’s use of the word “nigger” in his story and yet, if read closely, readers will see Huck has a moral compass that grows stronger as he gets to know Jim as a person.

Author Fact: Mark Twain was staunch supporter of civil rights, including the rights of women.

So, about the part I’m not thrilled with. In this day and age of relentless child predators I was shocked by Huckleberry’s cunning to make himself look murdered. Maybe I’ve been watching too many episodes of ‘Criminal Minds’ because the lengths that Huck goes through to fake his own death are chilling to me. Killing a pig and smearing its blood along a path to the river. Yes, it’s clever, but to the people who care about Huckleberry Finn it’s devastating. It’s okay, I tell myself, it’s just a book.

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

In Country

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Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985.

In Country is deceivingly simple. The language is so straightforward and uncomplicated you think it was originally written for children. Here’s the scoop: 17-year-old Samantha Hughes acts obsessed with the Vietnam War. She lives with her vet uncle and pesters him daily about the possibility of Agent Orange reeking havoc with his health. He has bad acne on his face and strange headaches. Despite having a boyfriend her own age Sam also starts to fall in love with a local mechanic, another vet. To the average witness Sam’s fixation with all things Vietnam is borderline mania, but Sam has good reason. The father she never knew was lost in the war. He died when she was only two months old. He never came home. No one knows very much about him and if they do they aren’t saying much. As a result Sam feels her entire existence is shrouded in mystery. After being rejected by the vet and reading her father’s journal Sam decides she needs a change of pace. She loads her uncle and paternal grandmother in her clunker car and travels from Kentucky to Washington D.C., to The Wall. There the entire family finds some sort of closure.

I had to come back and modify this review because I forgot to point out the best thing about this book. Sam has another obsession – music. I love the way the hits of the 80s, especially Bruce Springsteen’s album ‘Born in the USA’ ground the reader and orient him/her to the timeframe of the story.

Author Fact: Bobbie Ann Mason wrote criticisms and short stories before writing In Country, her first novel.

Book Trivia: As a best-selling novel In Country was made into a movie in 1989 and starred Bruce Willis. In Country is even studied in high school English classes.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Maiden Voyages” (p 159). Pearl liked it enough to mention it again in another chapter called “Teenage Times” (p 216).

World According to Garp

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Irving, John. The World According to Garp. New York: Pocket Books, 1976.

I must have first read this in high school. The only reason why I say that is because I wrote “Ben is weird” on the inside cover. The language suggests I was young and bratty but more telling is the name Ben. I only know one Ben well enough to call him weird and he was a classmate in high school. I also drew my interpretation of Monhegan Island, complete with a lobster trap and buoy. I wonder what my teenage self thought of The World According to Garp? Here’s what I thought of it over 20 years later:

The World According to Garp is a best seller written by John Irving and first published in the mid 1970s. I found it to be extremely entertaining and at times downright disturbing.
The story spans the life of T.S. Garp and the people around him. There are three reoccurring themes throughout the book: sex, writing, and tragic relationships. From the very beginning sex is very prominent. Garp’s mother impregnates herself with the help of a brain-dead, dying soldier only known as Technical Sergeant Garp. She has always wanted to be a mother but not a wife. Her child, named T.S. Garp after the soldier, grows up to be very preoccupied with sex and as a result adultery also becomes a strong theme later in the book. As Garp comes of age his mother becomes a literary feminist, writing a best selling autobiography about her life called A Sexual Suspect. This influences Garp to become a writer with some success as well. He marries his childhood crush and goes on to have three children with her. Throughout the entire plot the dynamics of awkward yet tragic relationships is prominent. Among the most interesting characters are Ellen, Robert(a), and Michaal. Ellen James is a young girl who was raped and had her tongue removed. Her tragedy prompted other women to cut out their own tongues and call themselves “Ellen Jamesians.” Roberta Muldoon is a transsexual who used to be a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. Michael Milton is a love interest of Garp’s wife who has an unfortunate accident when his car meets Garp’s Volvo at a high rate of speed.

Favorite lines: “They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to know each other” (p 4), “If she is to be a whore, let her at least be clean and well shod” (p 14), and “Children…have some instinct for separating their parents when the parents ought to be separated” (p 359).

Author Fact: The World According to Garp has autobiographical elements. Irving grew up on an all-boys school campus and his father was a soldier killed in battle.

Book Trivia: The World According to Garp was made into a movie in 1982 starring Robin Williams, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. It has a Hollywood ending, happier than the book…of course.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Growing Writers” (p 107).

The Moffats

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Estes, Eleanor. The Moffats. New york: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1941.

This was a cute little story read in just a few hours during the downgraded to the tropical storm “hurricane” Irene. It focuses on the four children of a single mother living in a small Connecticut suburb. Written in 1941 before the U.S. involvement in World War II, but taking place just after World War I, it is tinged with easy innocence. The children, Jane, Sylvie, Joey and Rufus, are just old enough to begin helping mom with household chores and running small errands in town, but they are still young enough to get themselves into mischief. Running away from school and riding a freight train as a first grader wasn’t as dangerous then as it would be today.

Author Fact: Eleanor Estes was a librarian.

Book Trivia: The Moffats is only the beginning of the story. Estes goes on to write more about the family in The Middle Moffat among others.

BookLust Twist: Nancy Pearl liked The Moffats a great deal. It is mentioned once in Book Lust in the introduction and twice in More Book Lust in the chapters called “Best For Boys and Girls” (p  21) and “Libraries and Librarians” (p 138).

Confessions of a Shopaholic

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Kinsella, Sophie. Confessions of a Shopaholic.New York: Random House, 2001.

Confessions of a Shopaholic was a pain in the ass to read. I never learned to like the lead character, Rebecca Bloomwood. When we first meet Becky she is living far beyond her means, recklessly spending money she does not have. She constantly lies to family, friends, coworkers, strangers, anyone who gets in her way of a good shopping spree. She is the epitome of irresponsible. As the debt continues to pile up and the phone calls and letters from credit card agencies and banks become more frequent Becky starts to make feeble, half-witted attempts to remedy the situation. She has her pride so she cannot admit to anyone she is in financial trouble, at least not right away. She also has the ability to rationalize every extravagant purchase.
As her situation worsens she remembers something her father once said about saving money. She first tries the tactic of Cutting Back. Packing lunches instead of always eating out, going to museums instead of trendy clubs, and so on. But after one failed attempt at making dinner at home – a complicated curry – she moves onto Plan B (another of her father’s euphemisms) – Make More Money. Her scheme is to either land an eligible millionaire bachelor and learn to like him later, or get another job –  something that would allow her to get an employee discount and do minimal actual work. Needless to say neither of those schemes plan out either. She fails miserably at every halfhearted effort to straighten her life out. The smallest setback allows her to abandon the effort with great relief and, like a true addict, she is able to rationalize her continued spending. She isn’t bothered by the fact she’s a fake to her friends, a fraud at work and a farce to her family. When the truth is finally revealed to her roommate she allows her roommate (and only obvious friend) to work at a side job in Becky’s name just so that Becky can have the extra income. When really pushed at her job Becky doesn’t know what she’s talking about (ironically working as a financial journalist). She let’s her parents think she is being stalked when really it’s the bank manager’s relentless debt collection pursuit.

The problem with Rebecca Bloomwood’s plight is that it quickly loses appeal early in the story. In the beginning her situation is comical. Her justifications for spending are humorous. Yet, the longer she tells lies, the longer she disregards the seriousness of her situation the less likable she becomes. Her character development is shallow and superficial and it stays that way throughout the entire story. The final disappointment is that Becky doesn’t really change. There are no great epiphanies, no lessons learned.

Book Trivia: Confessions of a Shopaholic was published as Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic everywhere except the U.S. and India.

Author Fact: Sophie Kinsella is a pen name for Madeleine Wickham.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Chick Lit” (p 53). No brainer there.

September ’11 is…

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September 2011 will be a mess. I guarantee it.  A complete and utter debacle. For starters, the data migration I blathered about back in June didn’t happen on schedule. In fact, it hasn’t happened at all. Fingers crossed, though. It is set for October. But! But. but, that just means I continue to be without borrowing capabilities because I still to refuse to get a public library card. At least I can admit that it’s because I’m lazy. I don’t feel like driving to the public branch when many ( I need to stress many, many) of the books on my challenge list are either in my own workplace library OR sitting on my shelves at home. I don’t need to reach outside of my resources to find a read. But what this does mean (in terms of planning a list of books to read each month) is that it hasn’t been easy. I let my state of mind dictate what comes next or not. It’s chaotic and more than a little crappy. If I don’t feel like reading The Trial I won’t. It’s as simple as that.

So to spend a long time explaining a very simple thing, I don’t have an expected read list for September 2011. There. I said it. I know this much is true: I want to read something nonfiction since I neglected the didactic last month. I do know that I want to reread The World According to Garp by John Irving. I plan to Let Go of some titles I have been meaning to read; to just admit I don’t want to read them at all (The Compleat Angler being one of them). I have been selected to receive another Early Review book from LibraryThing. If it arrives in September I’ll add it to the list. I’m kind of excited because it’s about football. It would be great to read it in honor of the NFL’s 2011 season opening, but we’ll have to wait and see…

What else can I tell you about September? Hurricane season. Start of the Fall Semester for academics. Nights getting cooler. September is my suspicious month. I’m leery of perfect blue skies. I don’t trust the beauty of the day to not turn into something ugly. Fall means dying – this close to death. It means taking dares with yes and losing. The silver lining (as I must find one) is that September is also a chance to remember falling in love among the falling leaves. A chance to celebrate that love, if for only one day.