Tag: Fiction

Jan ’12 was…

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When I think about January I feel as though it was a month of waiting. Balancing between going somewhere and leaving something. Always on the verge of some destination I never could quite explain. I’m sure part of it stemmed from my uncle passing suddenly at the end of December. I knew there would be a funeral but when? Finally, when the date was set (1/27) it seemed so far away. Until it was 1/25 and I had to get on a plane to fly across the country. Then it seemed too soon. It was a push-me, pull-me month in all kinds of ways.

But, that’s for the other blog. Instead, here are the books:
For the Book Lust Challenge:

  • The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien in honor of First Month, First Chapter.
  • Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin in honor of Franklin’s birth month being in January
  • 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff in honor of January being Journal Month. Okay, 84, Charing is not exactly a journal, but it’s like one.
  • All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy in honor of Celebrate Mentors Day (January 24th). I see Cole being a mentor to Rawling.
  • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie in honor of January being a good time to visit India. To be honest, I didn’t get into it as much as I thought I would.
  • And speaking of books I didn’t get into – Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman in honor of Tuchman’s birth month. Okay, I admit it. I didn’t finish this one. Didn’t even come close.
  • Zimmerman Telegram also by Barbara W. Tuchman, because I was determined to honor her birth month with something!

For the hell of it I read The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates, a recommendation from my sister. I also read A Simple Act of Gratitude by John Kralik on the flight from CT to CA. On the return trip I’m sorry to say I also read I hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max. I don’t know how I’m going to write a review for that!

I didn’t read anything for the Early Review program for LibraryThing but I did receive notice on the last day of the month that I won a book for February.

Midnight’s Children

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Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

There are a few things you need to do when reading Midnight’s Children. First, you need to lose your logical mind. Nothing happens in chronological order so don’t even try to keep even a chaotic timeline in your head. Second, don’t try to get to know every single characters. There are so many different people, a nation of characters coming and going in the story you would need to draw up a family tree and a community profile to keep them all straight. Third, look past all the repetition. In the first 50 pages Rushdie is obsessed with a nose and a perforated bed sheet. So much so you will feel as if you have read the same sentences more than a few times. Finally, say goodbye to the real world. If you are a fan of magical realism, Midnight’s Children is the book for you. For those of us grounded in sensible reality,  my best advice is to read it as “loosely” as possible.
Despite all the seemingly negative comments above this is a book you should be reading. The language is spectacular.The journey is sublime. You won’t regret giving it a chance. So, here’s the story in a nutshell: 1,001 children are born in India at the very moment India gained its independence from British rule. All 1,001 children are born with magical powers yet those born closest to the midnight hour have the strongest powers. Two such children are Saleem Sinai and Shiva. Swapped at birth they are destined to be enemies. Saleem, born of poor Hindu parents, is raised by a wealthy Muslim family while Shiva ends up with the impoverished Hindu clan. The struggle between these children mirrors the larger issues of India: religion, culture, and of course, politics.

Favorite line, “She waxed anaemic in the summer and bronchial in the winter” (p 28). I have no idea what that means, bit I liked it.

Author Fact: Rushdie won  Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, his second book.

Book Trivia: Midnight’s Children is destined to become a movie one of these days.

BookLust Twist: Talk about redundancy! Midnight’s Children was mentioned a whopping five times in Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust. Yes, it fit into all five categories, but I think it was unnecessary to include it so many times. It is listed in the following chapters, in pagination order, the introduction (p xi), “Magical Realism” (p 149), “My Own Private Dui” (p 166), “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1980)” (p 179), and “Passage to India” (p 181).

All the Pretty Horses

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McCarthy, Cormac. The Border Trilogy. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1999.

All the Pretty Horses is the first book in a series called The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. For the sake of the Book Lust Challenge I am only reading the first book, All the Pretty Horses. When All the Pretty Horses was first published I shied away from it thinking it would be too violent for me. At the time I wasn’t really reading fiction as it was deemed “lazier” then nonfiction. Somehow I must have been sleeping when it was made into a movie. At any rate, I missed everything about this book and I’m sorry for that. All the Pretty Horses is violent, but no more so than other books I have read for this challenge.
The plot is really quite simple. After his Texas family farm is sold John Grady Cole sets out with friend Lacey Rawlins for Mexico. As teenagers they are quite mature in their knowledge of the landscape and how to survive the elements. Along their journey they meet a young boy with a horse and gun too mature to belong to him. This boy, Jimmy Blevins, only brings Cole and Rawlins trouble. I can see why All the Pretty Horses was made into a movie. It would appeal to animal lovers – Cole is an experienced horseman. He understands even the wildest beast. There will be sex – it isn’t long before he falls in love with a rancher’s older daughter and seduces her. And violence – Cole and Rawlins are thrown into prison accused of stealing horses. Americans in a Mexican prison. Nothing good can come from that. I’m sure the sweeping vistas of the southwest afforded the film some amazing scenery as well. McCarthy does such a beautiful job with description and dialog you won’t need to see the movie, just read the book. Seriously.

Quotes that throttled me: “Something imperfect and malformed lodged in the heart of being. A Thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace itself like a gorgon in an autumn pool” (p 71), “Sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh, sweeter for the betrayal” (p 141), and “There is no greater monster than reason” (p 146).

Book Trivia – All the Pretty Horses won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.

Author Fact: Cormac McCarthy is a private person and doesn’t give interviews that often.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust more than once. First from the chapter called “Boys Coming of Age” (p 45), and again in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1990)” (p 179).

Six Years

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I have to stop for a moment and catch my literary breath. For the past six years I have been reading at a break-neck speed. Between Early Reviews for LibraryThing (started in 2007), gifts and recommendations from friends and The BL Challenge I have been reading a lot. Tons. Here’s the thing. I never stop at the end of the each year to really review the progress. People ask me where I am at with “The List” and I can easily say how many Book Lust books I have read for the month but. but! But, that’s only half the story (or a third of it if you want to get down to brass tacks.)

So, it might seem crazy, but here is six years in review:

October- December 2006 – I read 19 books total. 12 for the Book Lust Challenge and 7 “for fun.” To be fair, I started really reading in late October. Interestingly enough, my first BL book was Last River by Todd Balf, reviewed on November 15th. Favorite book? Hands down, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

2007 – I read 106 books total. Two yoga books for fun, six for the Early Review program in conjunction with LibraryThing, and 98 for the Book Lust Challenge. Favorite book? Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock. I will always love this book.

2008 – 100 books total. Again, two for fun, fifteen for the Early Review program, and 83 for Book Lust. Favorite Book? Without a doubt, The Translator by Daoud Hari. His words resonate with me to this day. Read it! Read it!

2009 – 123 books total. Four for fun (gifts mostly), 11 for Early Review, and 108 for Book Lust. Favorite? And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. Astonishing.

2010 – 104 total. Again, four for fun, 14 for Early Review, and only 86 for Book Lust. Favorite has to be Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper.

2011 – 111 total. Two for fun, 11 for Early Review, and 98 for Book Lust. Favorite? It was a tie between The Long Run by Matthew Long (I am still recommending it to people, anyone who will listen) and Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream (which I will be recommended to everyone who will listen as soon as it is published in March 2012).

The grand totals for everything: 485 challenge books, 57 ER books, and 21 fun. 563 in all.

The Hobbit

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Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. New York: Ballantine Books, 1965.

The Hobbit has got to be one of the best loved, most well known fantasy-adventure stories out there. It paved the way for the Harry Potter series for sure. The Hobbit in question is one Mr. Bilbo Baggins. He has been tricked into joining a band of dwarves on an adventure to recover stolen treasure. Handpicked by Gandolf the wizard it is unclear to the rest of the group why Mr. Baggins has been designated “burglar” of the adventure, but in time Bilbo rises to the challenge as only a bumbling hobbit can do. The grumbling group encounter an impossible variety of challenges: ogres, goblins, wolves, spiders. Each obstacle brings them closer to Smaug, the treasure-hoarding dragon where they must fight their final battle to win back their rightful bounty.

This is something I didn’t discover until the rereading of The Hobbit and yet I find it subtle and very interesting. Bilbo’s last name is Baggins. Baggins sounds a lot like baggage and I have to wonder if that was intentional because until Bilbo finds the infamous ring he is more baggage than help to his traveling companions. “It is a fact that Bilbo’s reputation went up a very great deal with the dwarves after this” (p 92).

Favorite quotes, “Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a great deal of telling anyway” (p 51).

Author Fact: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were friends.

Book Trivia: The Hobbit has been made into movies, plays and award winning games. Interestingly enough, on a personal note, it was published on September 21 (my father’s date of death), 1937 (the year my father was born).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust mentioned three times – in the introduction and two different chapters. First, in the chapter called “Christmas Books for the Whole Family to Read” (p 56) and again in the more logical chapter “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213). The first chapter shouldn’t count because Pearl was only making reference to a Christmas book Tolkien had written but conceding he was better known for The Hobbit.

Somewhere out there there is a picture of me reading The Hobbit. The most interesting thing about the picture isn’t my age (I think I’m eight) but rather the fact I have folded myself into a box. I have no idea why. As an another aside: I must have loved this story because I also had the reading of The Hobbit on vinyl; a 45 that spun on a very old, cheap record player. I can still remember the “Greatest Adventure” song at the end.

Gravedigger’s Daughter

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Oates, Joyce Carol. The Gravedigger’s Daughter. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.

I was in such a mad rush to finish Losing Clementine (so that I could leave it for my sister to read) that I didn’t think about the long trip home; how I would have nothing with which to while away the miles. It was with surprised relief I accepted the loan of The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. Oddly enough, I didn’t start it until we were firmly back at Hilltop. I’m not sure why.

Normally when a book is over 500 pages I balk at it’s length. I see it as a chore I must tackle with a barely suppressed sigh. In my opinion, the best books have always been neat packages of 350 pages or less. It shouldn’t take more than that to say what you need to say. It’s a rare treat when 500+ pages goes by in the blink of a read. The Gravedigger’s Daughter is that rare treat. I read 234 pages in three days without sighing or shifting positions. I didn’t need bathroom breaks or snack interludes. For once, I was content to stay completely still, eyes glued to the page.

The Gravedigger’s Daughter is exactly that, a story about Rebecca, a gravedigger’s daughter. Her story is wrought with tragedy. Her family (father, two brothers and pregnant-with-Rebecca mother) fled Nazi Germany in 1936. After Rebecca’s birth on U.S. soil the family finds themselves in a small town in upstate New York. Rebecca’s father in his former life was a high school teacher, but in America is reduced to sole cemetery caretaker and gravedigger. With his place in society diminished he grows more and more discontent with his family and way of life. After a horrible tragedy Rebecca is left to escape; to reinvent herself; to renew her place in the world. Her story is one of terrible beauty and bittersweet courage. My only “complaint” is in the end the length did bother me; it took a long time (over 500 pages) for Rebecca to get where she’s going.

Favorite lines, “For she’d come to hate him, he had so lacerated her heart” (p 18), “Nature has provided a wondrous assortment of exits from life” (p 158), and “You live your life forward and remember only backward” (p 401).

The Reader

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Schlink, Bernard. The Reader. New York: Vintage International, 1998.

By now I am sure everyone has seen the movie of the same name (2008). After all, Kate Winslet (did I spell that right?) won an Oscar for her portrayal of Hanna Schmitz. At least I think she did. I have not seen the movie nor did I watch the Academy Awards last year, although I hear the movie deserves to be seen if for nothing else than that reason – Hanna/Kate. However, being a librarian I think the book deserves to be read first. Without a doubt.

Anyway. Bernard Schlink paints a hauntingly beautiful love story tinged with pain. The premise is simple. Michael Berg as a young boy of 15 is seduced by a woman at least twice his age. He confuses his coming-of-age feelings with falling in love with Hanna Schmitz and becomes confused and almost devastated when she disappears from his life as suddenly as she had first entered it. Michael is a burgeoning law student when his path crosses Hanna’s again. Hanna is on trial for an unspeakable war crime. As a law student Michael can only guess as to why Hanna does not defend herself, nor does she even try. He spends the duration of the trial wrestling with her apparent guilt as well as the memories of the old passion he no longer feels for her. Obviously there is a lot more to the story but I’ll leave that for you to find out. Like I said, read the book.

Favorite lines: “We did not have a world that we shared; she gave me the space in her life that she wanted me to have” (p 77), and “Illiteracy is dependence” (p 188).

Author Fact: Bernard Schlink has written detective novels as well as short stories.

Book Trivia: The Reader has been translated in over thirty different languages. The movie thing you already know.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “What a Trial That Was!” (p 244).

January ’12 is…

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Happy freakin’ New Year!

I am making the resolution to clean up the blogs from 2011. In reviewing everything I read through the year I am noticing some that didn’t get tagged properly, some that weren’t put into the right categories and, horror upon horrors, one that didn’t even get published! WTF?! By all counts I *think* I read 65 fiction titles, 25 nonfiction titles, 12 Early Review/Librarything books, 2 for-fun books and 9 poems. This is, of course, cheating because I included the “attempts” as finished. As promised, I did get at least 50 pages into each failed read.

So, what about 2012? I am still off the reading schedule but have come up with a temporary plan. Kind of like when the plane breaks down and you realize you have to drive to your destination. Think “Trains, Planes & Automobiles.” You need a new map. No, wait. That line was from “Tommy Boy.” Wrong movie. Anyway. So, here is the plan of attack for January 2012:

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or There and Back Again and finish The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. That’s it. Not a crazy ambitious reading list for such a long month, but I’m taking one road at a time and not mapping out the entire journey like I usually do. This is a different year so I’m looking forward to reading a little differently as well.

Happy New Year!

December ’11 was…

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When it comes to the reading December started out with a mistake. Actually, a double mistake or a mistake I made twice but differently each time. Confused? Last year I mistakenly read Ward Just because I thought his birthday was in January. Where I got this from I’ll never know. Then this year I read Ward Just because I thought his birthday was in December. What is wrong with me? Someone just informed me Just’s birthday is in September. Oh. (I say as the light bulb comes on.) Needless to say, I moved the rest of Ward Just’s books to the September list.

The rest of the December reading was pretty much on par for what I planned to read:
New Jersey became a state in December so I read something by New Jersey born author Philip Roth. Portnoy’s Complaint by Roth took place in New Jersey as well.
Winter is the best time to travel to the south (presumably to get out of the cold) so I read A Good Man is Hard to Find by Southern author Flannery O’Connor in honor of December being one of the best months to go to Atlanta, Georgia (where a lot of O’Connor’s short stories take place).
What else? Oh yeah, I finished Madame Bovary in honor of Gustave Flaubert’s birthday being in December.
The Supreme Court appointed its first chief justice in December (John Jay) so I struggled through The People’s History of the Supreme Court by Peter Irons, Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis, and the Reader by Bernard Schlink.

December ended up being a good month for Early Review books from LibraryThing as well (even though I never got the book about the New England Patriots I had been so looking forward to 😦 ). I received two books within the first week of the month, Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feetby Heather Poole and Solomon’s Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson. I was able to breeze through Poole’s book, Cruising Attitude, within the first week of December. Solomon’s Oak took longer because I didn’t even start it until the 15th. I received a third Early Review book right before leaving for Christmas break. Perfect timing. I was able to read it in two sittings, it was that good! It was definitely my favorite ER/LT read of the month.

As a result of going to my sister’s for the holiday I have started a sister-recommended,non-challenge, non-review book, The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. I’m only 122 pages in, but so far it’s really good!

Solomon’s Oak

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Mapson, Jo-Ann. Solomon’s Oak. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.

This was published over a year ago, in October 2010, so I feel sort of strange calling it an “Early” review for LibraryThing. It’s not exactly early in the grand scheme of things.

Here’s the quick and dirty: Glory Solomon is a newly widowed woman trying to make ends meet on her California farm. After the sudden death of her beloved husband (from pneumonia) Glory finds herself at odds with the new life she must forge without him. She struggles to keep her life exactly the same: taking in last-chance dogs, fostering children, and managing the farm all while keeping her head above water. When a new foster child unlike any other enters her life Glory realizes life will never be the same.

Everything about this book errs a little too much on the side of pleasant. I kept waiting for the trick, the edginess of each new situation to find it’s way into the story, but it never came. Mapson opens the door to many ominous opportunities to make the story a little grittier but never actually steps through it. Juniper McGuire is described as angry and troubled yet I saw more flashes of kindness and happiness than teenager angst. For all that she had been through she really wasn’t that bad of a kid. Then there’s the budding relationship with damaged ex-cop Joseph. Glory’s good friend growls to Joseph that he should “stay away” from the widow and yet that threat falls flat when he refuses to do so.

The last quirk to Solomon’s Oak is the narrative. Mapson does a great job with telling the story from a third party perspective but at the end she gives Juniper a voice allowing for an odd first person narrative. For the sake of consistency I wish Juniper had been allowed to tell her story all along.

Favorite line I feel comfortable quoting, “Glory loved her sister even if some days she had to work hard to like her” (p 74).

Madame Bovary

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Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

I should have had Madame Bovary on my list as a reread. I should have read this in high school or college or somewhere. I’m not really sure why I didn’t.

This book should have been the mister rather than the missus Bovary. In my opinion Charles Bovary is what you would call a nineteenth century sad sack. When we first meet Charles (for he starts and ends the book as you’ll soon see) he is a shy student who grows up to become a second rate doctor (more on that later). He has an overbearing mother who convinces him to marry a much older, supposedly rich, but nevertheless nagging woman who makes him miserable. oh yeah, and add insult to injury, she’s nowhere near wealthy. After the lying lady’s death Charles meets Emma Rouault (our ahem – heroine), the daughter of Charles’s patient. He falls in love and wins her heart only to have her mope about because her life soon after the wedding isn’t exciting or wealthy enough. Poor Charles! But, the sad tale of Charles Bovary doesn’t stop here. There’s more! As mentioned before he is a second rate doctor so his attempts to heal a clubfooted patient fail miserably. That failure only irritates our dear Emma even more. She soon convinces herself she deserves better in the way of the company of other more exciting and accomplished men and by spending Charles’s money. Emma convinces herself adultery isn’t a sin because it’s cloaked in beauty and romance and how can those things be bad? And isn’t she, as Charles’s wife, entitled to Charles’s money? So, Charles is in debt and his father dies. What’s left? Emma attempts suicide and our Doctor Bovary (irony of ironies) can’t save her. After her death he finds her illicit love letters and learns of her infidelity…then he dies. The end.
Nope. Not a stitch of happiness in this classic.

Early in the story there is this sense for foreshadowing: “One moment she would be gay and wide-eyed; the next, she would half shut her eyelids and seem to be drowned in boredom, her thoughts miles away” (p 22). Charles should have seen this odd behavior and run away, very far away.

Author Fact: Gustave Flaubert is expelled from school at the age of 18 for helping organize a protest.

Book Trivia: Madame Bovary is Flaubert’s first book.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust twice. First in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” (p 166), and again in the chapter called “Wayward Wives” (p 231).

Portnoy’s Complaint

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Roth, Philip. Novels, 1967-1972. New York: The Library of America, 2005.

I always garnered eyebrow raises and smirking lips whenever I mentioned reading Philip Roth. What I didn’t realize at the time was whenever I mentioned Philip Roth everyone’s minds immediately went to “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Having never read this particular novel I didn’t get the joke. Okay. I get it now.

To put it quite simply, Portnoy’s Complaint is the monologue of Alex Portnoy, a psychoanalyst’s patient, as he recounts his childhood, coming of age years and his insatiable appetite for sex (starting with masturbation) that has dominated all his life. The setting of a therapist’s office is brilliant. Where else are you allowed to be candid to the point of shocking? Where else are you encouraged to reveal your deepest and darkest, most vile desires without judgement or arrest? Roth couldn’t have his character admit these activities in any other setting without the admissions becoming pornographic and the one doing the admitting, ridiculously perverted. Alex doesn’t just admit sexual desires, though. He rants about religion, culture, World War II, education, parenting, relationships – all with comic and sarcastic ability.

There were probably over a dozen different sentences that were evocative and startling, but here are two of my favorites involving eating:
“You could even eat off her bathroom floor, if that should ever become necessary” (p 285), “But I don’t want the food from her mouth. I don’t even want the food from my plate – that is the point” (p 287).

BookLust Twist: First, from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Jewish-American Experience” (p 132), and again in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Jersey Guys and Dolls” (p 130).

A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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O’Connor, Flannery. Collected Works. Sally Fitzgerald, ed. Library of America, 1988.

A Good Man is Hard to Find is a compilation of ten short stories by Flannery O’Connor. In order they are “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “The River”, “The Life You Save might Be Your Own”, “A Stroke of Good Fortune”, “A Temple of the Holy Ghost”, “The Artificial Nigger”, “A Circle in the Fire”, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy”, “Good Country People”, and “The Displaced Person.” All ten stories have three significant things in common: a Southern twang, underlying religious tones and lots of interesting and deep characters with problems, some problems more obvious and serious than others. The title, A Good Man is Hard to Find comes from the first short story in the compilation (my favorite) and is a phrase first uttered by a restaurant owner outside of Atlanta, Georgia. He is discussing a serial killer on a rampage last seen somewhere in Florida. The rest of the stories center mostly in the rural areas surrounding the south, especially Atlanta, Georgia.

Favorite lines: From “A Good Man in Hard to Find” – “the trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled” (p 138).
From “The River” – “He seemed to be mute and patient, like an old sheepdog waiting to be let out” (p 155).
From “The Life You Save Might Be Your Own” – “She was ravenous for a son-in-law” (p 177).
From” “A Stroke of Good Fortune” – “…in a voice of sultry subdued wrath” (p 184. Okay, that wasn’t a complete sentence but I liked the wording. From “Good Country People” – “She took all his shame away and turned it into something useful” (p 276).

Author Fact: Flannery O’Connor continues to inspire people in all forms of artistry. Just Google her name and see the interesting things that pop up.

Book Trivia: A Good Man Is Hard to Find was referenced in an 1994 episode of the Simpsons.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Grit Lit” (p 106).

Nop’s Trials

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McCaig, Donald. Nop’s Trials. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1984.

Nop’s Trials was not what I expected. I was thinking since it was primarily about a Border Collie named Nop that it would be sweet and gentle, like the breed itself. Indeed, the story definitely has warm and tender moments – like when Nop is communicating with other friendly dogs – but there is definitely a harsher side to Nop’s Trials. If you know anything about Border Collies you know they are working dogs, used on farms to corral livestock like sheep or cattle. They are so agile and smart and quick to learn that people have created competitions to showcase their training abilities. These competitions are called “trials” and McCaig uses the word “trials” to steer the reader to this mode of thinking. In reality, Nop’s “trials” stem from the competition but are more of the “trials and tribulations” variety. Because Nop is a prize winner, always taking first place at the trials, a vicious man named Grady Gumm is hired to steal Nop from his owner, farmer Lewis Burkholder. This is to prevent Nop from ever competing again. Grady is an unscrupulous dog owner himself who keeps dogs for fight-to-the-death matches so pretty soon into the story there is a violent scene. I have to admit it shocked me. The good news is that Nop escapes Grady only to bounce from one trial to another. He encounters many walks of life, dog lovers and dog haters alike.
But Nop’s Trials isn’t just about Nop and his misadventures. It also delves into Lewis Burkholder’s life without Nop. It portrays a man as a farmer, a father and a husband as well as a dedicated dog owner who never gives up on Nop. The story examines the relationships between man and land, father and pregnant daughter, father and son-in-law, as well as husband and patient wife. Life’s lessons are masterfully played out while Nop’s fate remains a mystery.

Author Fact: McCaig lives pretty much the same way as Burkholder – on a farm in Virginia with Border Collies.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter obviously called “Great Dogs in Fiction” (p 105).

Mists of Avalon

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Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon. New York: Del Rey, 1982.

The first time I read The Mists of Avalon I was in high school. We were studying literature written by women; literature that made an impact one way or another. Marion Zimmer Bradley was in the company of women like Margaret Atwood, Robin McKinley and Ursula K. Le Guin. Guess my teacher liked fantasy.

The Mists of Avalon is a retelling of the story of King Arthur, only King Arthur isn’t really a major character. It’s all from the point of view of the women in his life – King Arthur’s sister, mother, grandmother and wife, among others. The battle isn’t over the throne or with warring neighbors, but rather the differing religions. Patriarchal Christianity is locked conflict with Matriarchal Druid magic. It’s an interesting twist of politics and feminist rule. But, Bradley also explores other conflicts in society like fate versus free will, and magical powers versus realism.

Probably the thing that took me by surprise was the subtle use of incest, rape and other sexual situations within the text.

Book Trivia: While The Mists of Avalon has garnered much praise it is also been criticized as being “feminist propaganda.” It is the retelling of King Authur from the perspective of the key women in the story; namely Morgaine, Gwynhefar, Igraine and Viviane.

Author Fact: Marion Zimmer is a New York woman, born in nearby Albany. She died of a heart attack in 1999.

BookLust Twist: Pearl dedicates a whole paragraph to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon in Book Lust in the chapter called “King Arthur” (p 137), although King Arthur plays a very minor part in the story.