everyone is making lists nowadays. i though i'd join in the fun with a recap of the last 3 months
junior fiction - tally: 5
dark hills divide by patrick carman
had to read this for the mother/daughter bookclub and started it relunctantly... one page in, i predicted pepper would not like it (rob asked why? i answered she wouldn't care for a 'lord of the rings' type fantasy tale) but really i was just betraying my own bias against the fantasy genre.
by the end of the first chapter - i was hooked. great tale. great setting. great allegory. and there's at least another 4 books in the series. so plenty more for pepper to read.
and hey - the author is/was a dad that told this tale to his daughters at bedtime... maybe there's a future career there for my imaginative rob.
johnny tremain by esther forbes
i read this aloud to fiece for history
i remember my early days of homeschooling and how the many mothers who followed charlotte mason's ways praised this non-twaddle title. i guess it's greatest strength came from the main character who, due to a physical limitation, is forced to sit-out and observe the events leading to the american revolution. and he uses that same honest evaluation when looking at his own past and how we grow up, and things that once meant so much to us - now mean little. an honest account of an examined life. maybe a little over the heads of it's intended audience? but the great thing about reading it together meant i could sharpen those observations for fierce.
eggs by jerry spinelli
sweet and easy read for the mother/daugher bookclub this friday. i like how eggs can embody good if they are painted and hidden in the grass (easter), but can embody meaness if thrown in an act of vandalism . it's all in the intention. aren't all human interactions the same?
pepper's read this one before, twice, and was bursting to tell me details. i finally had to stick my fingers in the ears and sing la-la-la to drown her out :)
red badge of courage by stephen crane
good grief! what a load of crap -
i only got through it b/c it was an audiobook - but it was slow torture. it was like the author had taken some writing course like IEW and was set to add all the 'dress-ups' - it was SO unnecessarily wordy. but by the same token, the same writing course should have added some new 'banned' words for this particular author: tremendous, and ironical, and presently, were used continually, and the same phrases kept coming up: the corpes were twisted into tremendous shapes, later: the corpses were twisted into fantastic shapes, and again: the corpses were twisted into impossible shapes. do corpses ever just lie there?
plus, i think the author may have made up words as he went along: anyone think catapultian is a real word?
where the red fern grows by wilson rawls
i always meant to read this book, but - being so well known - it was hard to escape the (also well known) plot point of the dogs dying.... even the children knew this before they heard the story...
the beginning of the tale was beautifully written - drawing the reader in with nostalgia and foreshadow. before long, i was immersed in the story, and forgot to steel myself for the tragedy.
my favorite part was this boy's determination to get those pups - the odd jobs, the saving of every single penny, never losing sight of his goal for a full 2 years. and then he walks for 2 days to get them. this is not a boy - this is a man who is inside the body of a boy. this is someone worthy of aspiration & immitation. This is a tangible hero for children.
YA - tally: 5
the uglies by scott westerfeld
just a - hmm.
future times and everyone gets to be pretty once they turn 16. i would have rated it higher if the author didn't spin it into an necessary trilogy.
i liked the theme of exploring what is beauty and why do we pursue it... a worthy novel for the YA crowd being force fed a diet of celebrity mags
the silent boy by lois lowry
ever since i read the giver a few years back, i've been meaning to read more of this author. this novel wasn't as powerful as the giver; but i think her strongest asset is how simply stated her books are, and how open to interpretation.
meant to be a YA novel, the reader decides how to take the information in, and where their own judgement lies. there is sadness all around, but maybe that's just me. maybe others are galvanized to action, to justice
after ever after by jordan sonnenblick
convincingly told from an eighth grade boy, this YA novel is about cancer diagnosis survival, 'late effects', and standardized testing. hope it's not too much a spoiler alert when i say: it had me in tears by the end...
dope sick by walter dean myers
this novel is way too dark and ghetto for me to pass on to pepper.
the ending was so fanastical - sort of weird in a book that was utterly grounded in the reality of poverty, depression, drugs and crime. as a YA novel, i assumed there would be a happy ending, but i was still thrown by its resolution.
in the end, i come away with one strong conviction: this author does teenagers a good turn by pounding into them the responsibility of their own actions; stop saying it's somebody else's fault your life is like this and make your life all your own fault. i think i'll try this author again and hope he tackles this same theme in a setting that avoids drugs & crime.
hunger games by suzanne collins
everywhere i turn, i keep hearing about this book/series. it lived up to the hype: a hard-to-put-down gallop through a futuristic time when a modern 'minotaur & the labyrith' - except the monster(s) are fellow tributes - plays out on TV.
in that way, it reminded me of the running man, and maybe - with such familiarity of the genre - the author could just jump in to the violence. but i would have liked the main character to grapple with the immortality of killing another human being... she takes one life in reaction to witnessing the murder of a young girl (impulse), and another as an act of mercy. so she never gives into the impulse of survival: the 'it's me or you' that would fuel the majority of the conflicts.
i certainly will read the rest of this trilogy. i can't believe, after all these years of making fun of rob, i'm turning into a sci-fi / fantasy fan!
graphic novels - tally: 5
walking dead: book 1
the whole thing was sort of gross, and gory, and probably only palatable b/c it was in black & white. i've read some really wonderfully touching graphic novels last year (like blanket) but this was just a testosterone blast. that said, i do like a good zombie movie, and the last 2 pages make me want to pick up book two...
the alcoholic by jonathan ames
reviews on the back called the author 'wrenching and hillarious', but i found his (seemingly autobiographical) tale to be whiny navel gazing. so your best friend ditched you in highschool, so you love a girl who doesn't love you back but wants you to keep loving her, so you're losing your hair in a weird pattern - is this really the list of reasonable excuses to lose yourself to drugs and alcohol? seriously? get your head out of your ass.
Y, the last man: volume 1 by brian vaughan
now this was a worthy graphic novel!
there were multiple plot levels, a moving chronology, some campy humor, and even a different graphic style at the chapter breaks. it's a series, so i've got something to look forward to.
Y, the last man: volume 2 by brian vaughan
this volume got a bit kinky in spots, but the author seems to know his stuff - shakespeare, politics, classic literature... it doesn't feel like 'just' a comic book. the library's collection stops here so maybe i'll try for an inter-library loan to get the rest.
walking dead: book 2
not nearly as scary as the first volume - now that you know that the undead will pop up all the time - but just as gruesome. it's a bit like the tv show 'lost' - new characters showing up so there's room for more carnage while keeping the core group alive.
novels & short stories - tally: 7
both ways is the only way i want it by maile meloy
this collections of short stories was wonderful. each story so vivid and on the edge of your seat with dramas that play in your head. it was absolutely, utterly fantastic.
as an aside, i felt sure the author was a man (i mean, maile must be pronounced 'male') - particulary in a few of the stories due to language choice & attitudes, but it's actually a woman! it's a credit to her writing ability that i felt 'male' channeled throughout those male pieces. other than that, it felt as good - if not better - than an alice munroe collection.
when will there be good news? by kate atkinson
the librarian handed this book to me and said probably the worst 3 words i could imagine: "it's a mystery"
i hate mysteries!(or so i think. aren't they formulaic and rather boring in their singlemindedness to find out Who Dunnit?)
well, this well crafted novel had me hooked from the begining. so many interesting characters, so many surprising ties. and where was the mystery - was it gonna be with her? with him? or all of them?
terrible things could and DID befall the characters. i had a real sense of worry, and in numerous directions.
the chapters alternated between the 4 main characters and it would leave you hanging before dropping you into the next, and you just HAD to keep reading to see what was going to happen... i stayed up late to finish it and it was well worth it. already found a 'best of' book for 2011.
squirrel seeks chipmunk by david sedaris
i always love david sedaris, and he did not disappoint! it's a quick read, but take it slow. enjoy it. read it aloud to your partner when the children are in bed (sedaris likes his characters to swear, and dang if it isn't hillarious when the animals do)
it's sort of an aesop's fable, complete with illustrations (reminds me of margaret atwood's rift on fairy tales: another one to take slow). find out which animal you are - you're in there
red plaid shirt by diane schoemperlen
i first happened upon diane schoemperlen back in my UofG days with The Man of my Dreams, a collection of short stories. i loved it. she broke the form of fiction long before it became in vogue (or a marketing ploy) to do so.
reading her latest collection of short stories is a tiny bit like visiting the suck fairy (you'd have to read the girl detective blog to understand that term)... i can see where critics may have been harsh - some repetitive metaphors, some constant themes. but i defend her to the end: they are good metaphors, real ones...and don't our own lives revolve around 2 or 3 pivotal moments that we keep going back to - how are authors any different?
in particular, i've retold the following analogy of love for decades: a horse running headlong down a track while a train barrels towards it - which would you rather be? the one being crushed, or one doing the crushing? i'd forgotten where that image - that story - came from. i rediscovered it this book :) it was from The Man of my Dreams - and to think i've carried it for some 20 years..
atonement by ian mc ewan
would you believe my 3rd time reading it?! my bookclub choose it, and it's such a fine piece of work, i didn't want to simply remember it when we discussed it - i wanted it to be fresh.
i've not always enjoyed this author - but this book has virutally no throwaway lines or plot points. even the most off-handed comment is so true and bears a moment's wondering. cecilia is home from college - entirely transformed - but her family doesn't see her so, with their former expectations of her so habitual and strong.
briony is a whirlwind of drama at the age of 13, envisioning of the world removed from herself - like the novellas she writes - one moment, and impetutously throwing herself into the fray, the next.
you aren't supposed to love the story - it's a tragedy layered on tragedy. but the masterful telling of it, the utterly real characters and motivations for their actions makes it one of my alltime favorites.
the elegance of the hedgehog by muriel barbery
strange combination on a couple of levels: it's a novel and an exploration of philosophy, the 2 narrators are on opposite spectrums of age and class, and an appreciation of 'art' extends past opera and paintings and meets hollywood blockbusters and eminem. in short, it made me confront alot of my own preformed/prejudiced ideas
one character keeps a journal of movement and that's what i felt mostly shift within the plot - not a huge movement from despair to hope, but a slight shift of the pendulum from resignation to tentative purpose.
as for the philosophy - it has the ability to change your life if you so choose. afterall, if we actually answer what the meaning of life is - we would act and react in an entirely different way
the best laid plans by terry fallis
first of all, i loved the background to this book: self published AND with the (un-canadian) audacity to enter himself for the stephen leacock award for humor. then, he wins! so presto, a publisher.
but you can't really fault the powers that be: this is a very canadian book that would never gain traction outside the country. and even IN the country, there's a narrow bad that will read about canadian politics/government.
anyhow - kudos for getting chosen as this year's winer for 'canada reads' - and what great timing with an election around the corner.
sure, the main character's easy solutions to complex problems would NEVER happen in real life, but it was painless learning about parliamentary procedure along side the satire... in fact, this book - and a field trip to ottawa - could cure the apathy of the average canadian high school student.
non-fiction - tally: 3
for better: the science of a good marriage by tara parker-pope
i cannot say enough good things about this non-fiction book! it's informative, mostly non-anecdotal (the author does veer into her own marriage towards the end of the book), full of verified data, and has just the right mix of quizzes to keep you participating in the evidence you are uncovering.
so here's just a few of the many things i learned:
* the belief that the chance of divorce is 50-50 influences people's choice to throw the towel in. yet the actual data supports that marriages are much stronger. in fact, divorce rates between college graduates who marry after the age of 25 is only 20%.
* marriage today has higher expectations than the traditional marriage of the past where couple united to have children - men requiring someone to wash their clothes and make their dinner, while women required financial support. (the advent of tv dinners made the life of a single person much easuer) nowadays, men and women expect their mate to be their social and emotional centre. this is why parenting, such a non-issue in the past - has become such a strain to marriage. children take time: time that was once devoted to their mate.
* money. this no surprise - number 1 reason couples fight is money. but children bring in debt (a mortgage for a house, education savings) and LOTS of extra chores around the house. the number 2 reason couples fight :)
* did i mention the riskiest time for a fight? the first 15 minutes of re-entry: when one half of the couple comes home after home or whatever. tred lightly then, and the rest of your evening will sail by much smoother. but don't stop fighting. fighting is good. couples that fight like hellcats the first 2 years even out in the persuant years as issues have been dealt with. by this time, couples that avoided conflict are heading toward divorce
* one of my fav pieces of research was the reaction of attached males and females to temptation (a good looking actor flirting with them). the females were defensive and tried to protect their relationship - to the point of forgiving their partner when revealed they had told a lie. meanwhile, the males saw the flirting as proof they were desirable and were less likely to forgive a lie from their partner since, as they saw it, there were other women available to him.
* remember that swedish study where blindfolded women smelled the armpits of men to determine which phermones attracted them? well, turns out women on the pill cannot correctly idenfity an ideal (genetic) scent of a man. in fact, they are more likely to be attracted to the worst genetic-compatibility.
why we suck: a feel good guide to staying fat, loud, lazy and stupid by denis leary
yes, that's the title, obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
actually this audiobook was at time almost too crass to listen to, and yet, laugh out loud at other times (really, not the lame LOL but real laugh-out-loud-even-though-i'm-alone-in-the-grocery-store) (and speaking of lame texting acronyms - who really ever rolls on the floor laughing? sure, a knee slapper i've seen, a chest grabber, a bend over, even a pee-your-pants laughter - but rolling, on the floor?)
most of this humor came from his irish background so if your mom doesn't speak in politically-incorrect short hand to her sisters, and you didn't grow-up with dozens of cousins who never, collectively, shut up, and your mom didn't beat you with a wooden spoon - you may not find it as hillarious as i did.
even my auntie patricia wants to read it now.
because i said so by camille peri & kate moses(editors)
with a subtitle of 33 mothers write about children, sex, men, aging, faith, race & themselves, i thought would be a great read. sadly, it was simply so-so.
perhaps this duo's (the editors) used the best work for the preceding book - Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenting. anyhow, many of these essays could have been found in a magazine (they were that short, plus i think these 2 are editiors of a magaize too) and most had very little to do with my own life. in fact, some were downrights grating to me - like the mom who defended her choice to leave not only her husband, but her children as well (she can name it whatever she wishes - i call it abandonment), and the guilt-filled bourgeois mom who kept her nanny even after said nanny refused to hand over her child (in distress she ran to the nanny for an alternative result). or the riches-to-rags mother, complaining about welfare while her children are in private school, who bent more than a few rules to get what she wanted.
i most enjoyed the 2 pieces about race and how today's children truly believe the world is colour blind and that mom's reluctant reminders that those invisible barriers can crash down at anytime (contrast a shopkeeper's reaction to the local private schoolgirls spring ritual of 'harmless' shoplifting - is the reaction the same if the girl is black?)
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