Tag: october

Breakfast on Pluto

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McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. New York: HarperFlamingo, 1998.

Reason read: October is the best time to visit Ireland and this time, I have it from a reliable source. According to a born and raised Dubliner, October is the best month and Breakfast on Pluto was written by an Irishman.

Confessional: I had to read the Prelude a second time to make sure I wasn’t confusing Patrick Braden with Patrick McCabe.

This story will unhinge you a little. Patrick Braden starts his life as a babe left on the doorsteps of a church where he is taken in by Father Bernard McIvor, who just so happens to be Patrick’s real father. Not knowing what else to do with the child, the pastor takes Patrick to an abusive and alcoholic foster home. It is around this time that Patrick decides he is a transvestite and starts calling himself “Pussy”. While Pussy shares his life story in lighthearted, sometimes amusing, sometimes matter of fact anecdotes, there is always a dark and violent undercurrent. That can’t be helped when the protagonist’s boyfriend is murdered, Pussy becomes a prostitute and gets involved in terrorism. Need I say more?

A cool thing about Breakfast on Pluto: it references a lot of music. It prompted me to take a journey to YouTube to look up the song “Breakfast on Pluto” by Don Partridge as well as the music of Vic Damone and the theme song to A Summer Place.

Author fact: McCabe has written thirteen books but I am only reading this one for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Breakfast on Pluto was made into a movie starring Cillian Murphy in 2005. Patrick McCabe was one of the writers on the project. I, of course, have not seen it.
Another piece of trivia: Breakfast on Pluto was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1998.

Nancy said: Breakfast on Pluto was a “good novel” set in Ireland.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Irish Fiction” (p 126).

Aristotle Detective

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Doody, Margaret Anne. Aristotle Detective. Great Britain: The Bodley Head, Ltd., 1978.

Reason read: October in Greece; in honor of Ochi (Ochi/Ohi = no, it’s not okay!) Day. It is Greece’s response to Mussolini’s demand to occupy Greece during WWII. Their refusal to give in to Axis power is celebrated every October 28th. Very cool.

Picture this. The year is 332 B.C. and Athens is under the thumb of Alexander the Great. Closer to home, an Athenian citizen is found with an arrow clean through his jugular. A clear case of murder for no one stabs themselves to death with an arrow, so deduces the citizen public. What is not so clear is how Philemon, a young man already in exile for an accidental death in a barroom brawl, is fingered for the crime. Just how can an absent man commit such a heinous act? The task to prove his innocence falls to Philemon’s cousin, Stephanos. Under Athenian law, inexperienced and naive Stephanos must defend the family name in Philemon’s absence. Here’s where Aristotle comes in. Once Stephanos’s mentor, Stephanos knows he can trust Aristotle to guide him to the truth. Like all gripping suspense stories, all evidence points to Philemon’s guilt and clearing his name becomes a Herculean task. It’s the proverbial David and Goliath story with Stephanos the clear underdog. Stephanos is impetuous, emotional and faced with never-ending bad luck. Like the unrelenting surf, he is pounded with one set back after another. Of course this makes for a great mystery! How will Stephanos clear his family name?

Confessional: can I just say how much I loved seeing Pheidippides as a character in Aristotle Detective? And how is this for tongue-in-cheek? “Pheidippides must have been something of a runner” (p 278). I’ll say!

Quote I could relate to very well, “I turned over clothes in the press, and looked into jars and under furniture – into well-swept and barren corners, in the stupid manner of all personal looking for a lost object” (p 83). Been there!

Author fact: It is rare to not see an “about the author” blurb somewhere on a book: back cover, inside flap, somewhere usually with a smiling photograph to accompany it. Aristotle Detective does not give any clues as to Doody’s personal life except for the dedication. She has a sister named Mary Elizabeth Howell-Jones whom Doody considers a “real” classicist.

Book trivia: Aristotle Detective is the first in a series and is Doody’s first fiction. It’s the only Doody book I am reading.

Nancy said: Nancy called Doody a “classicist” and described the Aristotle plot.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Classical World” (p 59).

All Hallows’ Eve

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Williams, Charles. All Hallows’ Eve. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948.

Reason read: This is a spooky story so I’m reading this for Halloween, of course.

This is a love story that thrives beyond the grave. Lester and Richard were married only the day before when Lester is killed by a falling airplane. What are the chances? Now Lester is caught between two very different worlds – the living world where Richard still walks about grieving and Lester’s dead and silent world in limbo. She hasn’t made it into either heaven nor hell. Some people can sense her and some can even see her outright. Still others, she can walk clean through and they wouldn’t feel even the slightest whisper. Lester feels alone but she is not. Not really. Also killed in the bizarre crash was her living best friend, Evelyn. Both seek the afterlife forgiveness of a third girl, Betty, who Lester and Evelyn were cruel to in school. Betty is under the spell of evil in the form of her mother, Lady Wallingford, and religious and biological Father Simon Leclerc. Father Simon, better known as The Clerk, is seen as a prophet, a religious leader, a powerful orator able to sway large masses with his preaching…a devil in disguise who practices magic. He has Evelyn under his power as well. She turns out to be the evil one.

Williams is a strange author. His storytelling is dense and sometimes confusing. I likened it to hacking through a thick and oppressive jungle with a dull machete. You spend a lot of time slogging through the narrative and sometimes miss the finer nuances of the story. I found myself frequently rereading passages if only to orient myself to time and place.

Quotes (or imagery) I liked, “The two dead girls went together slowly out of the park” (p 22), and “She did not dichotomize; mechanics were not separate from spirit, nor from imagination, nor that from passion” (p 225).

Confessional: I had to look up two words from this book: sacerdotalism and susurration. Learn something new everyday.

Author fact: Williams wrote All Hallows’ Eve as part of a series called “The Aspects of Power.” It is #7 in the series and is the only one I’m reading for the challenge. for once, I am glad to be missing out.
Second author fact: Williams died following an operation.

Book trivia: All Hallows’ Eve has been compared to James’s Turn of the Screw. Second piece of trivia: T.S. Eliot wrote the introduction to All Hallows’ Eve.

Nancy said: Nancy called All Hallows’ Eve a “lost classic” (p 99); “Williams’s own spiritual beliefs lend a spellbinding conviction to the ensuing struggle between good and evil, magic and art” (p 100).

BookLust: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ghost Stories” (p 99). True enough.

Beautiful Children

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Bock, Charles. Beautiful Children. Read by Mark Deakins. New York: Random House Audio, 2008.

Reason read: As some of you know, my cousin was homeless and lived under the neon in Las Vegas. In October of a certain year he was found dead. Beautiful Children was read in his honor, but now I have a new event to memorialize: the Las Vegas concert massacre earlier this month. October is a cruel, cruel month and Beautiful Children is a cruel, cruel book.

I don’t know how to review this book. I was not expecting to dislike every character, even the missing kid, Newell. I hated that I liked him least of all. The premise of the story is twelve year old Newell goes missing on the streets of Las Vegas. Vegas gives Bock a huge canvas to work with. Think about it: the seedy and spectacular people, the gritty and shiny atmosphere, the ever-lurking potential for danger around every corner. It’s Sin City, after all! Bock does take advantage of the expanse of his canvas but not in a good way. It’s almost like he had too much space so he overfilled it with garbage. Story lines are jumbled and discombobulated. Like marbles scattering in a hallway, Bock careens from one time and place to another. Yes, there are criminals, strippers, homeless kids, drug addicts, pawnshop owners, gamblers, sex addicts, comic book illustrators, beggars, liars, thieves…all of them sad and pitiful. The center of this story is supposed to be focused on a missing kid. Yes, the parents are grief stricken and the marriage suffers, but not enough attention is paid to the here and now of that intense drama. Instead, Bock delves into what intense sadness does to to a sex life. There are no FBI agents anxiously hovering over wire-tapped telephones while hand wringing, pale faced parents look on. There are no episodes of pounding the streets, littering them with Have You Seen Me? fliers. Instead, Bock focuses on the underbelly of the beast; a world where pedophiles and pornographers feel at home.

Maybe it’s because I listened to this on audio. Maybe it’s because the sex scenes were practically pornographic. Maybe it’s because the story couldn’t stay linear for two minutes. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t find a character to love or even like. I suspect, if I look for the truth closer to home, I didn’t like Beautiful Children because, for all of his over the top, down and dirty descriptions of Las Vegas, when it came right down to it, he was describing my cousin’s last home. My cousin could have been that homeless kid on page 122.

Author fact: Charles Bock is a native of Las Vegas.

Narrator fact: Mark Deakins has appeared on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Never saw an episode.

Book trivia: Beautiful Children was Charles Bock’s first novel.

Nancy said: Nancy described the plot but also mentioned the sins in Beautiful Children are not the ones you would expect of Vegas.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple and obvious chapter called (drum roll) “Las Vegas” (p 129).

Henry James: the Treacherous Years

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Edel, Leon. Henry James: the Treacherous Years (1895 – 1901), Vol. 4. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1969.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April, in honor of James’s birth month.

The “treacherous” years, as Edel calls them cover 1895 to 1901. In the beginning of this installment Edel pays special attention to James’s playwright period. My favorite piece of history from this time is of H.G. Wells as a theater critic. I had no idea. Because of James’s limited success in the theater his plays are all but forgotten when one thinks of the works of Henry James, which is a pity since he cared about them a great deal. The failure stays with him for a long time and is referred to often. It is also during this time that James writes the well-known piece, “Turn of the Screw” and he settles down enough to buy Lamb House in Rye, East Sussex, England. First, as a long-term rental agreement and then as an outright purchase (the biggest of his life). He ends up spending nearly twenty years in this house; a sure sign the bachelor is finally starting to slow down. During this time he surrounds himself with youth, preferably talented, sensitive young men.

Favorite confessional line, “Memory has a way of telescoping fact, and Sir Edmund’s reminiscences must be retouched by documentary evidence” (p 84).

Favorite fact about James: Dictating James and writing James were two different artists using two different voices. I find that really interesting.

Book trivia: Edel goes back in time and recounts details previously outlined in the Middle Years. While researching the Treacherous Years he found new details about the previous portion of James’s life.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Literary Lives: the Americans” (p 144). I have to ask. Can someone who has spent nearly his entire adult life residing in Europe really truly call himself an American?

Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

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Gilman, Dorothy. The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970.

Reason read: to continue the series started in September in honor of Grandparents Day.

Once you get beyond Mrs. Pollifax’s naivete: her willingness to go anywhere on a moment’s notice, for example, you can’t help but fall in love with the retired widow. Never mind the fact that the last time she agreed to go somewhere (spur of the moment) on such an unknown trip she almost died several times over. When you catch up with Miss Emily Pollifax in The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax you learn she is now taking karate lessons. Small reveal (and big bummer for me), Mrs. Pollifax doesn’t use her newfound martial arts skills but she does fly a helicopter! See what I mean? Most of Mrs. Pollifax’s feats in Turkey are nothing short of incredible, but the overall story is fun. Can’t wait for the next one!

Confessional: there is a small part of me that thinks Gilman is poking fun at the CIA. More than once, the agency is two steps behind the enemy and seem more concerned with trivial things like how did Mrs. Pollifax lose her garden hat?

One of the best lines comes from Colin when he says, “…these men stole my uncle’s jeep, dumped a dead man in our garage and kidnapped your friend” as if it’s the most normal day in his young life (p 72).
Another funny quote, “But we must stay alive a little longer to annoy him, yes?” By all means, survive long enough to annoy someone!

Author fact: Gilman was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey same as her heroine, Mrs. Pollifax.

Book trivia: I am reading five of the Mrs. Pollifax series. There are fourteen total.

Nancy said: The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax is just the ticket if you are “looking for something a lot lighter in tone and mood that still gives you a sense of Turkish life and customs” (p 240).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Turkish Delights: Fiction” (p 239).

We Are Betrayed

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Fisher, Vardis. We Are Betrayed. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935.

Reason read: to continue the series started in August in honor of Idaho.

We started the story of Vridar (Vreed) Hunter as a young boy in In Tragic Life. In Passions Spin the Plot Vreed is college age and still obsessed with his childhood love, Neloa. By the time we catch up with him in We Are Betrayed Vreed has married Neloa and she has given him a child without fanfare. Much was made of his virginity and his preoccupation with sex in the previous installments, so it was a surprise fatherhood was treated so nonchalantly. New also to Vridar’s character is his commitment to fight in the war. He develops a new sense of courage at the thought of fighting for his country in France. His desire to be a writer and scholar also takes hold. Fisher does a great job of maturing Vridar before our eyes. His attitude towards fraternities was the first admirable demonstration for me, but there is no doubt Vridar is a tortured  and obsessed soul. The terrible games he played to test Neloa’s love for him are despicable. In fact, it’s Neloa and Vridar’s relationship I found the most disturbing. I won’t give away the ending, but I found myself not wanting to finish the series because of it.

My personal gripe has been how depressing Fisher is with Vridar’s life. True to form, Fisher starts We Are Betrayed with, the sentence “When Vridar married Neloa Doole he was ashamed of her…” (p 5). Vreed can’t be happy about anything.

As an aside, there was one section which confused me the most. Vridar and Neloa have their first child and Vridar leaves for war shortly thereafter. In a letter to Vridar, Neloa talks about Agnes singing about daddy being somewhere in France and she tells Vreed, “your daddy has been preaching to Agnes…trying to make a Mormon of her” (p 93). Who is Agnes? Lincoln is Vreed and Neloa’s first child, a boy. Did I miss something?

Author fact: Fisher was married three times. Will Vridar marry three times?

Book trivia: this is the penultimate book in the Vridar series.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Idaho: and Nary a Potato to be Seen” (p 121).

Whatever You Do, Don’t Run

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Allison, Peter. Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide. Read by Antony Ferguson. Tantor Media, 2012.

Allison, Peter. Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2008.

Reason read: in honor of October being the death month of the first supposed for-hire safari leader, Major Sir William Wallis Cornwallis Harris (April 1807 – October 1948). Despite his young age and occupation, Harris did not die by wild animal attack. According to the interwebs, he died of a fever. What probably brought him down was the mini but mighty mosquito.

This is a super fast read. Only 245 pages long (and faster if you read at the same time as listen to the audio like I did), you’ll get through this in no time. Which is good because that will give you time to read it again and again. I know I wanted to! Allison can be hilarious but he can also be extremely poignant. What comes through the strongest, though, is his love for the wildlife in Botswana. Whether its wild cats or beautiful birds, Allison has a deep respect for all creatures he may take a tourist to see.

Two of my favorite quotes were close together, “No matter how many elephants I have stood up to, I am easily bullied by people” (p 173) and “I tend to give human characteristics to inanimate objects…” (p 176). I could relate to both of these statements. Some of you know the story of the Christmas cookies I couldn’t leave in a deserted parking lot.

Author fact: Allison was only supposed to stay in Africa for one year. He ended up staying more than a decade. Her may still be there for all I know. His bio at the time of publication said he split his time between Australia, Africa and the United States.
Extremely trivial trivia: according to the photographs in Whatever You Do… Allison is kinda good looking: boyish grin revealing big white teeth on a cute face…

Narrator fact: Antony Ferguson does a great job mimicking Allison’s Australian accent.

Book trivia: I’m pretty sure Whatever You Do, Don’t Run is Peter’s first published book. The print version has great color photos of Allison’s world.

Nancy said: Nancy called Whatever You Do… “awfully funny collection of essays about trying to herd human animals to safe viewing of herds of nonhuman animals” (p 43).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very straightforward chapter simply called “Botswana” (p 42).

The Ape and the Sushi Master

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de Waal, Frans. The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Reason read: October is gorilla month.

Frans de Waal believes in the possibility that animals have culture. In the beginning of his book he spends some time talking about how we, as humans, apply human emotion to animals. He uses the example of Binti Jua, the ape at the Chicago zoo who “saved” and protected the little boy back in 1996. He couldn’t comment on the incident at the Cincinnati zoo when Harambe was shot dead for fear of purposefully drowning a child. What would he have said about that? As an aside, I admit I am guilty of applying emotion to animal behavior. When my cat Cassidy went missing I swore her “brother” missed her. Do I know that for fact? No. But, he did act strangely for the duration of her absence so I would like to think he did.
But, back to the point. Do animals have cultural instinct that they follow? Do they learn by copying others? Is habit passed down from one generation to another?

My only pet peeve? I felt as if part of The Ape and the Sushi Master was a plug for Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape, another book written by de Waal. He spent a great deal of time in Ape/Sushi referring back to the sexuality of bonobos discussed in Bonobo. As they say, sex sells so I have to wonder how many people looked up this other book after reading Ape.

Lines to grab my attention: “As someone who occasionally forgets where he has parked an item as large and as significant as his car, I am impressed by these peanut-brained birds” (p 58).

Author fact: At the time of publication, Frans de Waal was a professor at Emory University.

Book trivia: The Ape and the Sushi Master has great illustrations as well as photographs.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Our Primates, Ourselves” (p ). As an aside, I think Pearl took the chapter title, “Our Primates, Ourselves” straight from a Ape and the Sushi Master quote. Early on de Waal says his book is “about how we see animals, how we see ourselves, and the nature of culture” (p 6).

Hush

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Woodson, Jacqueline. Hush. Read by Sisi Aisha Johnson. New York: Recorded Books, 2002.

Reason read: October is Teenage Hero Month somewhere in the world. This is a book best for teens.

Hush began with a question in Jacqueline Woodson’s head. After hearing about a story about someone entering the witness protection program she asked herself what if that happened to me? She began to imagine how someone’s entire world would be turned upside down. And what if what that someone was a pubescent child with a best friend, a family and school? Someone just barely starting to find her own identity? Meet Evie Thomas. She was born to a policeman father and a school teacher mother and with her sister started her young life in Denver, Colorado. Her name used to be Toswia Green. She had a best friend. She had a nice house to live in. She used to have security in every sense of the word. Now all of that is gone. She has to start all over with friends, with school, with a new (and tiny) apartment, with her family and herself. Evie has no idea who she is anymore.

Book trivia: Hush is appropriate for children aged 11 and up. Confessional: I was getting pretty annoyed with Evie when she kept mentioning all the material things she used to have in her old life. Gone was the spacious house and nice clothes. Her mother even became a Jehovah’s Witness so they ceased to celebrate holidays. Gone were the presents and festivities. As an adult, I understand the gravity of the situation, but had to remind myself as a child, these changes would be hard to take.

Author fact: Woodson has a website here.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teenagers” (p 24).

Drink to Yesterday

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Coles, Manning. Drink to Yesterday. Boulder: Rue Lyons Press, 1940.

Drink to Yesterday is based on the life of Cyril Henry Coles. Like his character, Michael Kingston (given name)/William Saunders (alias when he signed up in the military)/Dirk Brandt (spy name), Coles lied about his age and enlisted at 16 in the British army during World War I. His actions remind me a lot of my father. He too, left home and joined the service at 16.
William Saunders proves to be invaluable to the Foreign Intelligence Office when his fluency in conversational German is discovered. He goes on to have some harrowing and exciting experiences with his mentor, Tommy Hambledon. As Dirk Brandt, Saunders spends so much time behind enemy lines that he develops an entirely dual life for himself. After the war is over he has a hard time separating the two. His relationship with two separate women is heartbreaking. The end of Drink to Yesterday leaves the door open for its sequel, Toast to Tomorrow.

Reason read: Germany plays a big part in this story & October is Oktoberfest.

Quote that caught my eye, “Bill soon acquired the knack of moving quietly since it is wonderful how quickly you can learn when your life depends on it” (p 43).

Author fact: Cyril Coles was the youngest member of the Foreign Intelligence Office.

Book trivia: Drink to Yesterday opens with a list of cast of characters, much like a script for a play.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Intriguing Novels” (p 124).

Aeneid

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Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.

Reason read: Great Britain celebrates poetry in the month of October. Virgil’s birth month is in October as well.

This is another one of those stories that has been reviewed a thousand and one, maybe two, times in this year alone. What could I possibly add that hasn’t already been said? Nothing! But, here are my observations: The Aeneid is a true adventure – a look towards the future and the promises made. There are twelve books in the epic poem. The first six cover Aeneas and his wanderings after surviving the Trojan war. The second half of the poem are the Trojan War.
And having said that, Aeneas reminds me of Dorothy Dunnett’s character, Francis, from the Lymond series. He is that deeply flawed hero that everyone loves. Much like how Gregory Maguire chose to tell the story of the wicked witch of the west, Virgil tells the other side of the Trojan War story. Instead of following Odysseus, we focus on Aeneas, the defeated Trojan.

All the usual suspects are there: Neptune, Venus, Achilles, Cupid, Pygmalion, Juno, Dido…

Quote I liked, “I sing of warfare and a man at war” (p 4 – the opening line). What promise that line brings!

Author fact: The Aeneid was the last thing Virgil was working on before his death.

Book trivia: The first edit of The Aeneid happens on the anniversary of my father’s passing, September 21st.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry: a Novel Idea” (p 186).

texaco

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Chamoisseau, Patrick. Texaco. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997.

Reason read: October is the month for magical realism.

Disclaimer: I usually have a hard time with magical realism and I had already tried to read this book once before.

This sweeping saga traces one hundred and fifty years of Martinique history. Mostly told from the point of view of Marie-Sophie Laborieux, the daughter of a former slave, texaco is the story of a shantytown of the same name besieged from every angle. From within, the society is wrathful and distrusting. From without everyone is a stranger. The language is mystical but I found my mind wandering as a result.
As I mentioned earlier, I tried reading this once before and failed. No different this time around.

Lines I liked, “The answers to this question were so abundant that the real truth forever slipped through our fingers” (p 10) and “It didn’t take them two centuries to decide what to do” (p 55).

Author Fact: Chamoisseau also wrote Chronicle of the Seven Sorrows which is on my list.

Book Trivia: Texaco is a Prix Goncourt winner.

BookLust Twist: from two places. First, in Book Lust in the chapter called, “Magical Realism” (p 148) and second, in More Book Lust in the chapter called, “The Contradictory Caribbean: Pleasure and Pain” (p 56).

Blessing on the Moon

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Skibell, Joseph. A Blessing on the Moon. Read by Allen Rickman. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2010.

Reason read: Halloween is a-coming and this is scary in a tickle your funny bone kind of way.

This is a startling Holocaust story. Right from the beginning the language grips you and grips you hard. Chaim Skibelski, a 60 year old Polish man, is shot along with hundreds of fellow Jews. He has been left to bleed out in a stinking heap. Murder doesn’t turn out to be very peaceful for Chaim. As a ghost-like entity caught between Life and The World to Come, he is condemned to roam with his former rabbi-turned-talking-crow, Rebbe. Together they are in an alternate afterlife trying to find purpose. That is the burning question. Why were they left behind? When Skibelski returns to his small Polish village he finds it overrun with non-Jews. They have moved into his house dragging their prejudices behind them.
Dear readers beware: while Skibell’s writing sometimes evokes magical imagery, the time frame is dark and tragic so definitely expect violence, destruction and decay. It is at once gory and gorgeous. The worms crawl in. The worms crawl out. Skibelski continuously bleeds from the bullet holes. His face is half missing. Corpses and his family and friends rot and stink and fall apart like a zombie movie. While listening to this on cd I was taken aback when Skibelski started to bleed from his anus. Fear not, dear readers. You get used to it. You will even learn to laugh at it.
In all honesty, I could see this as a Tim Burton film. There is sex and even humor amid the putrid. One of my favorite scenes was when Skibelski comes across a decapitated German soldier trying to kill him again. Yes, you read that right. Skibelski kicks the soldier’s head down a hill all the while arguing with the soldier about why he doesn’t need to die again. The dialogue is to die for (pun totally intended).

Author fact: Skibell has his own website here.

Book trivia: The audio version is read by Allen Rickman and he does a fabulous job. His comedic timing is perfect and I loved the voice of the crow.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obviously called “Magical Realism” (p 148).

The Saturdays

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Enright, Elizabeth. The Melendy Family: the Saturdays. New York: Rhinehart and Company, Inc., 1941.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Enright’s birth month (September). As mentioned before, I read them a little out of order. I should have started with The Saturdays.

This is such a cute book! Four siblings are bored, bored, bored on a Saturday. While they all receive an allowance, it’s not enough for them to each do something every weekend. They decide to form the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club. Every Saturday they pool their allowances and one Melendy child gets to spend the entire day doing something adventurous of his or her choosing. Ten and half year old Randy goes to the museum to look at art and meets Mrs. Oliphant on the first Saturday. Twelve year old Rush goes to the opera and finds a dog (who he names Isaac, get it?) on the second Saturday. Mona, the only teenager in the bunch, gets her hair cut. Even young Oliver at six years old sneaks to the circus when it is his turn.
One of the best thing about Enright’s books is that she introduces me to a world I will never meet (unless someone really does invent a time machine that works): the 1950s. Because of her writing I learned about Lucrezia Borgia, Jules Clairon, Jane Cowl, and Katharine Cornell. My only panic was when Enright had Rush feed chocolate to his dog. I was taught to think chocolate is poison for a dog!

Quotes, “Fast, with her feet churning and her arms reaching until she had left the knowledge of her advancing age far behind” (p 169).

Author fact: Enright illustrated all of the Melendy books & they are really, really cute!

Book trivia: The Melendy Family is comprised of three of the quartet. Spiderweb for Two hadn’t been published yet.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Boys and Girls (p 21).