Transparency

Today, my friends, I am really taking this book club seriously. I'm sometimes envious of the non-virtual book clubs. (Their hair is done nicely! They're out of the house! They're drinking wine from glasses with stems!) This book club is just as real as the pretty ones, though, because I think about you as I read. What will I say about this book? Do I like it? Do my friends like it? Where does this intersect with me? You deepen my reading and share the experience with me. Sometimes, however, I must admit that I hold back a little when I write to you. Sometimes I don't want to offend someone who recommended a book. Sometimes my thoughts aren't 100% shareable, with you or with the rest of the internet reading world. Tonight is different. I don't have any big secrets to reveal, just a commitment to write what I'm thinking, unfiltered. A friend of mine has a blog about surviving with twin babies and she is modeling real transparency for me. She is not holding back and I love her for it. Transparency is where real connection happens. Yes, even over the internet.

The Rosie Project

Novel by Graeme Simsion

The main character of this book (whose name I can't remember: keeping it real) has Asperger's. That's like having a mild form of autism, in which people struggle to understand other people's emotions and social cues, and have rigid adherence to schedules and rules. I have had several students with Asperger's and I have failed to love and understand them as well as I wish I had. This character is written in the first person with an amazingly specific voice, such as using few contractions, words like "correct," and a great deal of analytical language. Because we hear his thoughts, he's also lovable, in that he doubts himself and struggles to identify his feelings. He may identify people by their BMI but he is searching for love. That's the premise of the story, his use of a survey to try to find the perfect spouse, which is hilarious and heartwarming. Mostly, though, it makes me wish I could see more people's real intentions and therefore love them better. In that way, I'm like a person with Asperger's, I guess. 

Still Alice

Novel by Lisa Genova

I'm late to the party again, this time so late that the book cover is the same as the movie poster. I thought I had read this one but I looked again and I guess not. Then I accidentally stayed up until midnight finishing it. Alice has early onset Alzheimer's, a devastating diagnosis to anyone but especially to this Harvard professor of psychology. As soon as she learns about her diagnosis, she knows exactly how her mind will decay, she just doesn't know how soon. Or what she is going to do with the information. The end of this book came fast, which was a relief in more ways than one. It's unnerving to read about someone who is losing her memory, as we all have memory slips (Didn't I read this book already? What's that character's name? How many continents are there again?) that make us feel crazy. I also have had a recent diagnosis with degenerative disease, rheumatoid arthritis, that is infinitely more treatable than Alzheimer's but terrifying in my worst moments. Can I not open this jar because of RA? Can I keep doing yoga? Will I be able to pick up my nieces, nephews, grandkids? The crazy train keeps coming back to the station, and most of the time I don't get on board, but reading this book punched my ticket a few times. 

Late to the party

In recent years, I have come to admire that expression: late to the party. As in, "I know I'm late to this party, but I really love the new Adele song." I actually haven't even heard the new Adele song yet, but when I do, I know that I WILL love it and I'll be able to sing right along and still take as much joy as everyone else in its apparent wonderfulness. That's the party; you can be late but still jump right in and have an amazing, memorable experience.

I often feel late to the party with books and authors. I think it's because I rarely buy books, or even choose them for myself, but just sort of stumble upon them on library shelves, or have them pressed on me by family who likes the same authors and styles. I also blame my children. I can find a way to blame them for most things, in this case for not letting me read as much as I want (all the time). Either way, those bestsellers at Costco take a while to find their way into my hands, sometimes a decade. Here are two not-so-new books (both published in 2010) that I crossed paths with recently.

How Did You Get This Number

Essays by Sloane Crosley

I didn't understand the bear on this cover and thought I was too late to the party, until A) I read the essay about Alaska and B) I understood that Crosley practices a level of satire and irreverence that makes her the spirit animal of 30 something women everywhere. If you are not a 30 something woman, maybe don't read this book. If you are, read it soon, if only for the essay featuring the board games Girl Talk and Mall Madness, to which I was mouthing "Yes" because Crosley nails on the head our mid 90's adolescent girl culture. It was as if she had been in the rec room of my family's home, sitting on a leaking bean bag chair and applying zit stickers to her forehead with my own friends. There's also her take on living in New York City, which I don't relate to at all but enjoyed hearing about from her bright, acidic, self-deprecating view. I look forward to discussing this with my irreverent friends everywhere. Message me.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Novel by Helen Simonson

I feel like everyone read this book before me. Yes? Did you? So did you like the Major at first? I did, and then I didn't, and then I really did again.

Major Pettigrew is a very classic Englishman living in a rapidly  modernizing England. His wife is dead, his son is a greedy corporate yuppy, his village is changing all around him, and he's sometimes stiff as a board about it all. But he also is falling in love with the local shopkeeper, a Pakistani widow. He seems simple, but as you get to know him, you learn the depth of his humorous side and his good heart. He's what English teachers would call an unreliable narrator, because you realize part way through that he's lying to himself about something. I think I fell in love with him at the same time Mrs. Ali does. I also relate very much to his frequent crises of indecision and decorum. He is often "in horror" because he thinks he has offended someone. Me too, Major, me too. It's amazing, really, that I should relate to this man as much as to Sloane Crosley, since she is so much more like me in reality. But I think the traces of Jane Austen, James Herriot, and Maeve Binchy that appear in this novel point to how much my reading has made me who I am.

By the way, if anyone is wondering, there ARE a few books I have my eye on and would consider buying IF no one gives them to me for Christmas. I mean, I don't completely rely on the vagaries of the library book club choices to determine my own reading list. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks still sounds promising, and I always love books by Kate Morton, even if her newest is boringly titled The Lake House. Just in case you were wondering (wink, nod, knowwhatimean).

Reading What I'd Like to Have Written

Friends, I am struggling. It's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I'm feeling a little more than the usual self-imposed pressure to write. It's my civic duty to write this month! Ok, I don't really care that much, but I would like to be cracking along a little faster on my new manuscript. I'm having philosophical issues with what I've learned recently about writing, both in large and small scale. I heard some great advice at a writing conference and some of it is inspiring, but some is weighing me down. I can take out most of the adverbs in my writing easily and gladly, but can I change something fundamental about what I want to say and how I want to say it? I'm not sure I want to, and thanks to these books, I'm not sure I need to.

The Ice Queen

Novel by Alice Hoffman

First of all, look at that cover image. Now look at the title again. Cover. Title. See what I'm seeing? While this novel has several different covers, this is the one that I read from (was given by a thoughtful friend, actually), and I like to include the image here that I saw when I picked up the book each time I read. Do you see it? The incongruity? There's a butterfly on the cover of a book about ice.

This unexpected juxtaposition is actually congruous with the book. This is a story that is brimming with images and motifs--the ice and the butterflies, and also lightning, fairy tales, oranges, and moles (yes, moles). It almost doesn't leave room for the story. Definitely, the plot is slower and more subtle because of it. It's mostly about a woman and her brother. Their mother dies young, they grow up and move apart, and then the suddenly the woman moves from New England to Florida to live near her brother again. There she is struck by lightning and then her life truly begins to change. It's all told in a dreamy, ethereal tone that contributes to the fairy tale motif, but leaves room for the science of weather and math of chaos theory (famously described by butterflies). What it doesn't leave room for is the fast pace and snappy dialogue expected by so many readers, and publishers, today.

It's true that the leisurely, dense story telling style was a little discomfiting to me at first. I didn't rush back to this book every spare minute I had. Eventually, however, I was engaged and entertained and also enriched by reading it. I was also given hope that my writing, described by an editor as "a quiet story" can be just what someone is looking for, even without a gasp of suspense per page.

The Truth According to Us
Novel by Annie Barrows

If the previous book gave me pause about grand writing ideals, this one made me laugh and forgive all the adverbs again.

Let me explain. Some quick and seemingly excellent advice I received was how to tighten up dialogue. Specifically, I learned to cut out adverbs, slashing juvenile words like "retort" and "snap," reduce "said" altogether, and NEVER EVER write "replied" or "asked." Basically, I should use fewer stupid words for talking and use more actions showing what the characters do as they talk. That seems reasonable and I'm enjoying putting it into practice.

This book, however, completely ignores that advice and still has some of the best dialogue I've read. It's all about the characters. They are witty, true, and they love each other, even though they also lie, kick each other out of the house, and sneak food out of the kitchen. I love them and I want to visit them in real life.

The Romeyns are a formerly grand family in a small, genteel but Depression-shabby town in West Virginia. They take in a boarder who was hired to write the town's history. Hilarious anecdotes pop up, along with all the family's secret yearnings and secret doings. It's just the kind of story I love, and I will work hard to include many of its elements in m own book. I'll also continue to leave out "replied," since an awake reader can tell the character is replying. Unless, of course, a character must reply snappily as the Romeyns do.

Confession: I quit March by Geraldine Brooks. I guess I didn't want to know the story of the dad from Little Women. There's nobody like those sisters. And now I'm reading How'd You Get This Number, the most bizarre and spit-laugh inducing collection of essays from a New York twenty something. It's good for a change.

I Heart Memoir

I just wrote several pages in the journal I keep for my youngest son. I have done this for all three of my kids: kept a baby book for a year and then a monthly journal for as long as there's room in the blank book I buy (usually another year or two). Before you get all impressed, this is it. I don't do hand print art, I don't scrapbook pictures, I don't make treasure boxes of art from each of their school years. I don't craft. I just write. I enjoy the act of writing and the reflection on my children's growth each month. The process, however, gives me great respect for memoirists. I try to find a common thread, a uniting element, or at least some natural transitions, for one month of experiences, for only a few pages. Writers of memoir take years of their lives and hundreds of pages and not only tell what they remember, but tie it all together and make it into a good story. Because the story is really what it's all about, isn't it?

Post Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing

Memoir by Reba Riley

Think this sounds, well, traumatic? Take a look at the peacock on the cover. It's not. True, Riley experienced a bit of a break down and left the conservative church/school/job/life she was in. True, she is suffering from an unknown physical ailment for most of the book. She also meets some people who have been truly abused at the hands of the church. But as Riley takes a year of her life to explore other religions and church denominations, she does so with humor (see subtitle), self deprecation, and a huge amount of grace. This reads more like the blog that was its first incarnation, than like a treatise on what's wrong with church today. It's more Glennon Doyle Melton than Rachel Held Evans (bloggers I love). And though I have not left the church I grew up in, I did explore many different churches while in college, and I do have many unanswered questions today about the role and future of the American church. So I resonated with many of her forays into different church groups, especially when she visits an all African American congregation (bless you, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and your hats and your ban on bathroom breaks).

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Memoir by Ruth Reichl

Today I am making homemade applesauce, which makes me a little proud of myself, and chicken cooked in Campbell's soup, which makes me a little ashamed of myself. Especially considering the amazing recipes and tales of culinary adventures in this book. Reichl was the restaurant critic for the New York Times for a number of years in the 1990's. Early on in her career, she was "made" and ended up wearing a series of disguises in order to eat at restaurants without receiving special treatment. This world, a world of four star restaurants and cutthroat competition and fur wearing patrons and snooty maitre d's, was all new to me but made very real by Reichl's honest take on it. Through the book, she struggles with what her disguises reveal about her own character, as well as a career centered on excess. The amount of seafood and truffles and foie gras she eats is both attractive and appalling (I mean, I'm guessing here. I've never eaten most of those things.) It's a window into both this other world and this woman's soul.

A is for Autumn

Teachers love fall, and I may be staying home with kids, but the teacher in me hasn't diminished. Fall feels like more a rebirth kind of season to me than spring, with all new opportunities for learning: learning new people, new ways of doing things, and of course, new ideas. That may have been in my mind on a very subconscious level when I picked my three most recent books. I have learned a great deal from the first two and am really enjoying the third already. And two of them are (gasp) nonfiction.

The Secrets of Mary Bowser

Historical Fiction by Lois Leveen

Did you know that some free African Americans posed as slaves during the Civil War in order to spy in the South for the North? This amazing fact seems like it should be common knowledge. More importantly, this amazing story should be told to children and taught in schools. Mary Bowser was a slave in Virginia, freed by her mistress and sent to school in Philadelphia, helped with the Underground Railroad, and then returned to Virginia during the war to act as a hired out slave in Jefferson Davis's presidential mansion. Mary was an amazing person, portrayed here honestly, with doubts and selfish moments, but ultimately as an unknown hero.

It gets my ire up a bit that so many women with big roles in American history have very little known about them. It reminds me of the book The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd and how little I knew about the women involved in the abolition movement. Women indeed hold up half the sky.

As novels go, this is true historical fiction in that it is based on the lives of real people during significant moments in history, but with fictionalized dialogue and minor characters. The result is not stilted but flows evenly as a story should. Leveen's research seems both deep and wide in her understanding and portrayal of the times and their issues.

If you ask me, Mary Bowser should have been on the ballot for the new face of the $20 bill.

The End of Your Life Book Club
Memoir by Will Schwalbe

This is it, folks. This is a book ABOUT BOOKS! And there is a LIST of books at the back. Shudder of ecstasy.

I probably shouldn't admit to such enthusiasm, because this book is actually about the books the author read with his mother in the last two years of her life. When Mary Anne Schwalbe is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Will brings books along as he sits with her through chemo treatments, and they end up reading and discussing the books together. They become intentional about reading the same books and call it a book club, sometimes reading about her cancer but more often reading a great variety of classics and contemporary books.

Their discussions bring the books deeply into their current experiences, as well as providing an escape from those same situations. I relate completely to this dual role of literature in my life, as I hope you can see through this blog. I can't pretend to be as deeply insightful or as well read as the Schwalbes, though. Mary Anne's vast life experiences and sense of urgency due to illness, and Will's years in publishing and insomnia, lead both to read and understand far beyond me.

Two books I wrote down from their list of reads are Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book , which is not at our library and I may need to actually buy, and the Jeeves series, which I coincidentally picked up from my grandma's "little library," the shelf of free books she has in her yard for neighbors to exchange. I guess I'll be reading Jeeves first. But after my last non-fiction foray, Post Tramautic Church Syndrome by Reba Riley. Don't worry--so far it reads a lot lighter than it sounds. I mean, there's a peacock on the cover. How serious can you take a peacock.

A New Purpose

I'm at an interesting juncture in my life. I'm taking a year off from teaching, just to take care of my family. I say JUST not because it won't fill my days (and nights, and weekends) or because it's not hard (stay at home parents, I feel ya) but because I'm not ALSO responsible for 70-90 other humans during the average day. My hours are no less full but my brain is just a little more relaxed. And my heart rate.

I'm looking forward to filling this time with many things (mostly things aged 9, 4 and 2), but one of them is reading for the purpose of becoming a better writer. I'm probably not going to read more, because I hope to write more, but I am going to read with a new lens. I find myself thinking about the pacing, the timelines, the character introductions, the continuity, the adverbs, rather than just enjoying the characters and story. And I compare. How is this like my writing, and how should mine be more like this, or is this not at all what I'm aiming for? I know I need to find a writing group to ping with questions like this, but for now, dear book club, I have you. So here goes.

Letters to the Lost
Novel by Iona Grey

Just as I both liked and disliked this book, I gleaned insights about what I do and don't want for my own writing. With a two part story line, set in contemporary and WW II era England, and the converging lives of a 1940's pastor's wife and an abused bar singer on the run from her ex-boyfriend, this seems to be right up my alley. I love that kind of story, for the quickness of the pacing and the variety of settings and different types of characters allowed by switching time periods. I do strive to do this in my own writing and saw some clever ways of making the story arcs cross over each other. I also admired the descriptions of the various spaces in the story: beautiful, sacred, neglected, impoverished, elaborate...the rendering of the settings lent itself well to the story, and I want to work on that. What dissatisfied me, and makes me eager to avoid in my own writing, is the convenience of certain plot conventions and character traits. The characters changed too quickly to reflect real relationships and the way we learn from mistakes, and the coincidences that ironed out kinks in the plot were too easily plopped in the characters' paths. I'm all for a happy ending but it doesn't have to be a Hollywood happy ending, you know? Lesson learned

Language Arts

Novel by Stephanie Kallos

Kallos is a Seattle author and I really enjoyed her first novel, Broken for You. She writes very realistic, rounded characters who are chipped in places but resilient. This one is about an English teacher, divorced and lonely, with an autistic son, who seems sort of in a midlife crisis but is really more asking and answering why his life is what it is. It's a convoluted story line, mostly about one year of the main character's childhood and present time, but with other voices and even some technical writing mixed in. I think because of the journalistic tone of some of the writing, it was off-putting to me. I almost quit this one but I had to have some questions answered. Yes, I skimmed the ending when I was about halfway through, like I often do, but this time it wasn't because I needed reassurance about characters I love. I needed to know it was going someplace. And it was, and it was a good place, so I'm glad I finished it. Is it something I want to write? No. I like Kallos's thoughtfulness and want someday to write more serious, yet still entertaining, literature like her. But it's maybe a bit too staid for me. I found myself drawn to the scenes of real places, though, and want to emulate that sense of place, as well as her obvious writing from what she knows, which is Seattle and teaching and a hint of loneliness.

Vacation Grab Bag

It's that time of year...vacation reads! My family takes an annual trip to a lake house and my favorite part of the week, aside from the eating, drinking, and sunning, is reading. Even better, my sisters and cousin and mama and grandma and I share books. It's like an actual book club, but we never have to go home and we wear our pj's most of the time. Love. Here, in a nutshell, are the books I read just before, during, and after vacation (Because, you know, I was packing and unpacking a family of five for a week at a lake. Who has time to blog amidst such hot chaos?)

Everything I Never Told You

Novel by Celeste Ng

At the end of the school year, one of my (favorite) students asked me why we didn't read more books or articles by women of color. I blinked and said, "Good question." So together we selected some books from a list of recommendations a friend found, and this was one of them. I hope I see this student again (she may be moving) so we can talk about it. It's kind of dark, which is right up her alley and also her chosen hair color. A blended Asian American-Caucasian family loses their teenage daughter to drowning, and, true to the title, eventually spills everything they've been keeping from each other. The secrets are varied and decades old, some small and some shocking. It's how they forgive each other that made the book readable for someone who doesn't love darkness.

The Marriage Game: A Novel of Queen Elizabeth
Historical Fiction by Alison Weir

Researched to a the finest detail (most of the dialogue is quotes from primary sources) but eloquently rendered, this book is true historical fiction (which is kind of a loose term most of the time). The book encompasses Elizabeth's entire adulthood, with hints of her childhood, but focuses mainly on Elizabeth's continual ploys to stay single and rule on her own. I love English history and literature, but I think I may have read too many books about the Tudors, because I was hoping for some revelations or new theories, but if you've read or seen much about Elizabeth, there's nothing new. I was a little bored. In fact, I made myself finish it the day before leaving for the lake so I didn't have to read it there (or lug it along--it's heavy).

Orhan's Inheritance

Sort of historical fiction by Aline Ohanesian

I chose this one at random from the library shelf, and to be honest I thought it was called "Orphan's Inheritance." Adoption and finding one's roots is a theme of the novel I'm writing, so I was intrigued. Those themes are in this book, but in a subtle way. It's actually a beautiful but disturbing book about the genocide of Armenian Christians in Turkey during World War I, including a quest by one man to find out more about his grandfather's life during that time. It was not what I expected and sometimes that's the best kind of book. I also gleaned a few ideas for my own writing. One thing I'm thinking about now is the balance between sorrow and joy in a novel. Sorrow makes the story and joy completes it, but how much to have of each, and where?

800 Grapes
Chick Lit by Laura Dave

See what I mean about playing it loose with genres? Technically this is a novel or women's fiction, but to me, this was the epitome of a vacation read. It was fun, it was fast, it was easy. I could so easily picture the kind of flat characters, and predict the plot, that it seemed like a movie more than a book. The main character (I can't even remember her name) finds out a secret about her fiance, her parents, and their family vineyard all in the same day. Whirlwind week before wedding ensues. I expect to see it in the theaters soon (although I'll only rent it when my sister comes over for a girls night).

The Grace Keepers

Futuristic folktale by Kirsty Logan

The jacket of this mentions Scottish folk tales, and I was in a hurry with two boys tugging on my legs as I chose it at the library, so I was surprised to enter Water World. Remember that weird Kevin Costner movie? Seriously, this is a more thoughtful version of that. Two women's lives both fall apart and collide, and there's also a floating circus. The way that sentence is composed is how this book feels, oddly tangential. During and after reading, I always felt like I was on a boat, literally rocking with the waves, even when I wasn't floating on the lake. All around, a weird experience.

The Lost Concerto
Mystery by Helaine Mario

I finished The Grace Keepers just after arriving home from vacation and was eager to start a new story. Reading is my escape and nothing requires escape quite like a the post-vacation aftermath of laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping. Fail. I do not do mysteries. There is something off putting to me about the description of a sinister man sitting in a cafe, watching a woman come and go across the street. Maybe this could have improved--there was almost a Dan Brown quality to it--but I didn't stick around to find out. Life is too short to read bad books.


The Girl You Left Behind

Novel by Jojo Moyes

If this was a contest, this book would win. I may have go get everything Jojo Moyes has ever written now. In fact, I thought this was one of her books written prior to Me Before You, but it's brand new, so that means I have some other good reading ahead. This one is starkly different, too. There's a parallel story of a woman during WWI whose husband is a painter, and the woman in current day who owns the painting, connected by a bitter struggle over who should own the painting. Moyes writing is deceptively simple and I think that's what makes it great. I gobbled this one up and I hope to one day write like her. That is all.

My Life in Books

At The Water's Edge

Novel by Sara Gruen

My best-friend-who-shares-my-name (so-called to be distinguished from my other best friends, in case anyone is reading this) asked me for book recommendations today. I mention this because 1) I couldn't remember the last book I'd read. Not just the title, but ANYTHING about it. My memory is that bad these days. And 2) This is one of my favorite books that I've read recently but I wasn't sure she'd like it as much as I did, which led me to thinking about why we like the books we do.

So after I'd looked up my reading history on my library's webpage (thanks, NCRL, for keeping me in books and jogging my memory), I remembered I hadn't written about this! And I thought it was so so good! It wasn't as well written as recent reads (All the Light We Cannot See) or as trendy as others (The Orphan Train) but it had all MY things, my book must-haves. It was written by an author I know (she wrote Water for Elephants), so there's less chance of some unpleasant surprise lurking within; it was set in another time or place, specifically 1940's Scotland; it contains likable main characters and a few unexpectedly endearing supporting characters; above all else, there is a satisfying and hopeful ending, in this case with a little romance as an added bonus.

But in reflecting, I was surprised to notice there is a hint of weirdness to my taste these days. The main plot of this book is, oddly, a group of American socialites searching for the Loch Ness Monster. It doesn't look like it will go that way from the cover or the beginning, but I'm glad it does; that's the best part of the book, the fantastical mystery of a misty lake and the encounters of the locals and adventurers. It reminded me a bit of Outlander, actually, and made me realize that the last few books I've really enjoyed (here and here) have some magic in them. Interesting...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Nonfiction by Rebecca Skloot

And here's the reason why I couldn't remember the book I finished last. I feel like I've been reading this FOREVER. It is a GOOD book, don't get me wrong, and I'll sing its praises in a minute. But I just do not get into non-fiction. At all. I think this book is the reason I've gotten almost all of my summer house projects done in the last two weeks: I don't have a book pulling me into my chair. That, and mild OCD, but that's another story.

THIS story is of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman whose cancer cells were harvested without her knowledge and used after her death for countless medical research projects. It's the story of her family, who didn't know about the HeLa cells (named after their unwitting donor) and their struggle with poverty despite the millions of dollars earned by their matriarch's cells. It's a story of research, racism, religion, and reconciliation. It's incredibly interesting, completely comprehensible, and a bit unsettling. I'm glad I read it. I'm glad I'm done with it. I'm on to novels with pictures of faraway places on their covers. Happy summer, everyone!

What's in a Genre?

I am trying to span all the genres in my recent readings. Not really but it feels like that. I just read what can only be called chick lit, followed by middle grade fiction, and am now halfway through a book that is labeled Religion/Christian Life/Spiritual Growth, although I think the author may protest.

First Frost

Novel by Sarah Addison Allen

I picked this book completely by the author. I didn't even glance at what it was about. Sarah Addison Allen is almost a Maeve Binchy, though not quite as classy or maybe just not as British Isles, so it's an easy choice for me. I really enjoyed her first book, Garden Spells, but not as much her second book, Lost Lake (which I think I wrote about here but can't find) so I was excited to find that this is a sequel to Garden Spells. It's the sweet story of four generations of Southern women with a variety of mystical gifts, mostly connected to cooking and their mysterious garden. As is often true, the sequel is a bit of a let down when you find the characters changed too much or not enough, or the glamour or surprise of the first book is missing. But for the most part, this is another sweet study of human nature with some interesting bits of magic and a little suspense thrown in. Again, a lot like my friend Maeve.

The Honest Truth
Middle Grade Fiction by Dan Gemeinhart

This is exciting to me because the author is a local school librarian! Teachers can write books, and even get published! Yay! It's so encouraging. It took me a few pages to get into the book and I think that's a result of switching genres as rapidly as I have been. I have readers' whiplash. But once I got into it, I whipped right through this story of a young cancer patient who runs away to climb a mountain on his own. I liked all the characters, especially his chance encounters along the way. I LOVED that this is very real story that shows how full of hurt kids' lives can be and the realities our children face today, but without anything that I couldn't recommend to my own daughter or students. No swearing, sex, or scary stuff. Just real hardship and real hope. I also like that it's set in Wenatchee. It got me thinking about the settings of my two manuscripts.


Searching for Sunday

Religious Memoir by Rachel Held Evans

I'm not actually done with this book but since it's non-fiction and therefore won't devastate me with a terrible ending, I think it's fair to say I will keep liking it.  There was more of the genre-confusion at the beginning and again it took me a while to get into it, but now that I am, I'm really interested. This more than the others on this page makes me want to talk to other people about it (in person, I mean, not just in my head here). I've said before that I don't read many self help books or religious books because they make me feel more guilty than helped. That is so not the case here. That's why I said I think Rachel would question the genre label on this book, and why I re-assigned it in my sub-title. I think this is more a memoir, a kind of story that Rachel is telling about how she came to question the church and question God and BE OK WITH THE QUESTIONS. She also wrote her story in Faith Unraveled, but this time there is more a bent on why other young Christians are leaving church, and why some are coming back but in a different way. At a time when church is coming to mean many different things, I'm finding a lot of "me toos" in the book. And I think that's what it's meant to be about. Having a conversation about how we understand God today and being able to find someone to say "me too" with.

Mother's Day Twofer

I, like most modern moms, have a choice to make every day. After my MUSTS are done-- going to work, taking care of my family, keeping the laundry and dishes from piling up and flowing out the windows--I have a choice. I am very blessed to have this choice, considering so many moms or dads or grandmas don't have any free time at all. But every day I choose what to do with my approximate hour and a half of time to myself. 

My choices generally include: 

1) Writing. I love to write. This blog, my novel, diaries of my kids' antics, funny facebook posts; most are not a chore for me . 

2) Exercise. A chore, definitely a chore. I know some people who love to exercise and I know they are not crazy, but the day I say I love to exercise, you might want to check which vitamins I've been taking and which country they were made in. 

3) Spending time with friends. This is a rare choice since my friends are all as busy with above mentioned things as I am, so this takes months of planning and happens maybe once a month. 

4) Spending time with my husband. See #3. Ok, this happens more often than once a month, because we live in the same house, but since we're tired, it usually includes #5

5) Watch TV. This happens often. We binge-watch Netflix series. Right now we're on Season 7 of Friends. I miss those guys. 

And we come to number 6, the big winner, which usually happens above all else: reading. It's just the best. I love my friends and my husband (many of whom are reading this, I hope) but, sorry guys, my book is more available than you are. And the people in my book understand when I fall asleep on them in the middle of a sentence. So yes, most of what I've been doing these days is reading. These books, as a matter of fact. 

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

Novel by Alice Hoffman

If you don't recognize this book, try looking at the second image. It seems that it's the more common book cover based on a Google search. I'm not sure which I prefer, just like I'm not sure what I think of this book. I wish someone would tell me what to think. It's by the author of The Dovekeepers, which is why I read it (I actually think I gave it to my mom and she gave it back to me and then I may have accidentally turned it in to the library. Sorry, Mom.)

I loved the history in The Dovekeepers and I love in this one the historical look at New York in the Industrial Age, but I don't love any of the characters until near the end. It's a boy meets girl story set against a background of a human wonders museum/freak show, a factory fire and the ensuing 

political and social fall out, the development of old New York, and the coming of age of a lonely girl and an Orthodox Jewish boy. It has all the elements that made Dovekeepers so great, except the female relationships, but is a little slower moving and somehow, even though you don't know the end like you do with the historical Masada in Dovekeepers, it's less climactic. I don't know. Read it and tell me what you think.

Chesnut Street

Short Stories by Maeve Binchy

 

I know what I think of Dame Maeve, though. I adore her. Here is a girl that I would get out of my pj's to spend time with, and that's high praise. I don't think I've read everything by Maeve but only because she's written so very much. When I saw this on the new books list of the library mail service, I was surprised and pleased, because I thought Maeve was dead. Turns out she is, and I am so sad, but I am so glad that her husband scraped the bottoms of her desk drawers for these short stories and collected them into a book for us, her grieving readers. 

I just get so much comfort from her writing. It's earthy and real, with twists you come to expect and characters you come to love. Even though the short stories don't always have happy endings, they leave you thinking the world is an ok place to be. I need that kind of story when so many of my students' lives are terrible and the news is terrible and apparently most of our favorite foods are terrible. This is about people, with faults, who eventually make good or bad decisions but they turn out more or less okay, told with a sense of humor. It's my go-to, feel good, kind of book. 

Please tell me, what do you read when you need to feel good? Because Dame Maeve is gone and I can re-read her forever but I may need a new go-to now and then. Thanks!

All the Light We Cannot See

Novel by Anthony Doerr

I feel a little inadequate here. I'm not sure I even need to be writing about this book, which it seems everyone has read, and loved, and already talked about with their real book clubs.

But I'll just put in my little piece anyway.

Yes. Yes to all of it. I loved this book. I actually don't really want to have loved it as much as I did, because it was emotionally exhausting, and a little slow at times, and not a happy-happy ending, but Doerr won me over anyway, and in a big way.

This is a tale of two intersecting lives on opposite sides of World War II. A German boy and a French girl both have extreme obstacles in their childhood: he is a poor but brilliant orphan and she is the blind but cherished daughter of a museum locksmith. Interspersed with the stories of their early lives is the narrative of the day they meet, a day of battle between Allied and German forces in a small town in France.

I'm usually a character girl; it's the people of a book that usually grab me and keep me coming back and then make me miss them when it's over. Case in point: I watched the last Harry Potter movie with my daughter tonight and cried when it was over because I was sad to say goodbye again to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny (Ginny's my favorite). But anyway, strangely enough, I didn't truly love any of the characters in All the Light. They are too real, too flawed as humans. I also didn't love the ending, but I respect it greatly because it's also real. Doerr gave a very honest treatment to everything in the world that he created. What I did love about the book are the intersections, of the two parallel timelines and of the characters's experiences and development. Marie-Laure and Werner are on opposite sides of a war but are so very similar in their ideas and both so broken and fragile that when they come together, it's as if they save each other. It feels magical and other worldly to me. I could almost hear the music that would be playing if it were a movie.

Isn't it interesting, why we love certain books and stories? I think it's amazing that so many different people love the same books, that books can reach us in many different ways and for a variety of reasons, but they do reach us all the same.

Book Mash Up

All Joy and No Fun
Nonfiction by Jennifer Senior

Remember that book I said I was probably going to quit? Well, I didn't. As infrequently as I read non-fiction, I find that the ones I have read recently are better than I expected. Maybe I'm getting smarter. Or older. Either way, this book turned out to be super interesting, so much so that I keep bringing it up in conversation (ok, maybe that's partly because I want credit for reading smart people books).

The premise of this book is that while innumerable studies have been done on the effects of parenting on children, none have ever been conducted on the effect of parenting on parents. Senior set out to conduct her own interviews and research about that idea, as well as including tons of other relevant studies and a great deal of history of parenting and childhood experience.

At first I was put off by what seemed to be just a retelling of my own experiences: I don't need a book to tell me that parenting is hard! Senior's interviews seemed to be the same as reading facebook or mommy blogs: crumbs on the couch, middle of the night wake ups, struggling marriages. When she got to the research and history, though, I got interested. By citing certain studies, Senior suggests that the intense and exhausting thing that is parenting today is a product of our recent history of protecting children rather than viewing them as partners in work. It is taken to the extreme, certainly, in the helicopter-Pinterest style of parenting that is popular on social media, but it is necessary based on our changing view of children's roles in the world.

I felt personally relieved to learn that there is a reason why we modern parents are the way we are. The fact that I even think as much as I do about HOW and WHY I parent a certain why (and Senior would also add my use of "parent" as a verb) indicates that I am truly a modern parent, super involved and possibly too reflective. But at least I am not alone! So I guess I did need that re-telling of parenting experiences after all...

Orphan Train

Historical fiction by Christina Baker Kline

Following right on the heels of a book about parents...is a book about two girls who grow up without the benefit of parents. This novel throws into stark relief the differences between historical and modern parenting and childhood.  Two girls in this book become orphans, Vivian in the late 1920's as a recent Irish immigrant, and Molly in contemporary times after the death of her father and breakdown and incarceration of her mother. Neither girl's family was safe and healthy for her before, but their situations after are equally hard or harder. The two meet with Molly is in foster care and needs to do a community service project and Vivian is a ninety year old woman who needs her attic cleaned out. As you can imagine, their relationship develops and Vivian shares her history with Molly eventually.

Vivian's experiences on and after the orphan train and Molly's experiences in foster care have many mirrored events. While this makes the characters seem similar and share connections, it showed to me, just after reading All Joy and No Fun, just why we protect children so very much today. The orphan trains were run from New York to the mid-west under the assumption that families would need these children to work for them. While the adoptive families were expected to put the orphans in school, blind eyes were turned as long as the orphans were not returned to the welfare society. It was also a short step from expecting a child to work for room and board, to over-working and under-feeding and clothing for the child. Vivian's story, while fictional, is evidence of that.

I did find all the characters in this book a little two-dimensional. The orphans are too perfect and innocent, even the one on probation; the foster families are too evil or angelic in turn. They didn't need to be characterized as so completely one-sided to convince me who to sympathize with. Or to make me grateful that I am raising my children in the decades that I am. As much as I may have to worry about, at least it's not child labor or orphanages.

For the young, or young at heart

There's a lazy Susan full of medicines on my kitchen counter, a mountain of laundry in my closet, and a stack of finished books on my nightstand. Yep, I've been sick. For four days, to be exact. With bronchitis. So during all the doctor-prescribed naps and while my kids are watching movies and even while taking my breathing treatments, I've been reading. Sounds ALMOST like a vacation (except I can't breathe, so not so much).

I've been reading along a theme, actually--young adult books. My students just finished performing book talks, which were AWESOME. I loved hearing the kids get excited about their books and seeing their classmates go check out books they'd heard about. I did the same and came up with three to read right away.

Paper Towns
by John Green

This is by far the most adult-y of this list. I would not recommend it for most middle school kids. In fact, it's about high school seniors in Florida who are weeks from graduation. The main character is a boy with a crush on his neighbor, who used to be his best friend but then she got too popular for him. One night senior year she shows up at his window (they're neighbors) and takes him on a wild night of pranking her friends. The next day she disappears. And he spends the rest of the book looking for her. It's a bit of a coming of age story, with some smart literary allusions and a lot of crude boy humor. I didn't love it like I did The Fault in Our Stars, probably because it's just more boyish. I do think John Green does a great job appealing to teenagers and where their hearts are.

The Maze Runner
by James Dashner

This book makes me sad. It's PERFECT for middle school boys --action packed, full of that dystopian stuff that's so popular, even has some swearing but since it's a different civilization they make up the swear words. It's perfect. Except it's not. I skim-read most of it because it was full of little cracks that my attention span would trip over. I don't think most middle school boys would notice, and the ones in my class sure don't seem to, but the writing just isn't good. The descriptions of what could be amazing scenes are kind of blurry. The figurative language is off kilter, leaving me less clear on what something looks like. And the characters truly all seemed the same. That fact bothered me the most and I couldn't put my finger on it until the one girl in the story gets introduced A LONG way in, and she seemed just the same as all the boys. Needless to say, I won't be reading the rest of the series. But your nephew/son/grandson/postal carrier's kid might like it!


Wildwood

by Colin Meloy

This one is just too sweet. In a good way! Maybe another reader won't have the same delicious reaction to this book, but it was recommended by a really sweet student and I kept picturing her as the main character. Prue, a thirteen year old girl from Portland, goes on a wild adventure in a mystical wood after her baby brother is kidnapped by crows. The land Prue discovers reminds me of Narnia in many ways, and the girl she is reminds me of myself, my daughter, my mother, all my favorite girls ever. I love Prue. The book is full of allegory for current social, political, and environmental issues, which may make it over the head of the average middle schooler, or may make it the perfect book for all ages. I will definitely read the rest of the series and may have to buy they all for myself. Love.

My current book could not be further from this list. All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting by Jennifer Senior is a research based non fiction treatise on how parenting is different today and in many ways harder and yet more wonderful than it ever has been. It reads like every mommy blog but without the humor. I find myself agreeing with every paragraph and then looking up to see my one year old crawling out the dog door. I'm not sure I need a book to tell me about modern parenting.

A Monster Game of Catch Up

Hello again! I have missed our conversations, even though they're mostly one sided. It's okay, I know this blog is mostly me talking to myself, but in a socially appropriate way. I knew I was also missing the writing part of the blog when I started carefully crafting my facebook posts, considering my word choice and leads. Yikes.

Without you all to talk to, I've had some fairly spectacular runaway trains of thought about the books I've read. I end up just milling over the stories and characters until they seem a bit more real to me than the actual children playing in front of me. So let me just empty my head a little here.

Eleanor and Park
Young Adult Fiction by Rainbow Rowell

OMG, this book is amazing. The teenagers featured in it might mock me for using the term "OMG," because they are both very snide and pretty sophisticated for teenagers. But they might also be confused, because they are from the 1980's, before anyone said "OMG." I loved both of these things: snide teenagers and the 1980's cultural references. If you like neither, don't worry, this book could still be for you, because the kids are also heartbreakingly tender and awkward and messed up, and because the story proves that kids are kids no matter when or where, which really appealed to me as a teacher. There's also the Romeo and Juliet element that shines clearly through, a timeless story that makes the band names and clothing choices irrelevant. Love wins and love hurts, in Verona and in the mid-west.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
Novel by Jonathan Evison

I quit this book. You know my trigger: violence against children. I can't say this had violence because I didn't finish, but for sure some kids were going to die, so I just up and quit. All I learned was that it was about a guy in a second career, as a home caregiver to a teenager with a disability, and the guy was not happy. I wasn't finding many redeeming qualities there.

My mom said she liked, so maybe you did or will, too, but my reading hours are too precious to spend them tense and nervous.







Boys in the Boat

Non-fiction by Daniel James Brown

LOOOOOOOOVVVVVVE this book. Is this one a movie yet? I am even more behind on movies than I am on books, so I'm not sure. I know Unbroken, which seems similar and is on my nightstand stack of to-reads, is a movie now. Anyway, non-fiction is definitely not usually high on my list but this read more like a memoir. The author must have practically lived with the families of the boys who rowed in the 1930's UW and Olympic crew, in order to get as much detail as he did. It was riveting in its action and descriptive in its characterization and informative in its non-fictionalness. (Yes, I know that's not a word, but it seemed fitting.) I wanted to call my friends who rowed in college and say, "I get it now!" I really felt like I was IN the boat at times. So maybe I don't need to see the movie. Books are almost always better anyway.

The Dovekeepers
Historical Fiction by Alice Hoffman

Have you read Alice Hoffman? She has an impressively long list of works at the beginning of this one, but none of them seemed familiar. Either I read her and she wasn't memorable until now, or I need to check out some of her other books. This was outstanding. It's historical fiction that comes to life, so like Brown (above), she must have absolutely lived and breathed this book for years. The story of the Jewish fortress Masada holding out against the early AD Romans is apparently well known, but it wasn't to me before now. The culture and history was fascinating to me, but even better was the way Hoffman wove together the lives of five different women before, during, and after the event. The women are the heroes, both as warriors and peace makers, as they hate and love each other and ultimately make the decision about whether their own lives or the lives of those they love are more important. It's harsh and violent and lush and arid and beautiful and all the adjectives.


Leaving Time
Novel by Jodi Picoult

I am an early Jodi Picoult fan, but after a while her stories all seemed the same to me. Take a controversial issue (organ donation, school shooting, autism, pick your headline) and look at the story from the point of view of five or so characters, with super well written voices and an intricate plot, and then bam, add a twist ending. Despite the twist, it got a little predictable. So I took a break, but coming back to her with "Leaving Time" was kind of nice. Same type of story and characters, but actually with a bit of a throw back in topic. Remember when it was all about elephants for a while? "Water for Elephants" and "Hannah's Dream" and so on. They were all the rage and then it died down, but Picoult seems to be bringing them back. Throw in a troubled adolescent seeking her missing mother, a PI, and a psychic and that's this book, plus the twist ending. The charm (other than its comfortable familiarity to me) is the elephants. As my three year old likes to point out, elephants are my favorite animal and the elephant characters in this book made me love them more. In fact, my only complaint is that some baby elephants die (not a plot spoiler) and it was super close to violence against children for me. I couldn't read it at night for a while without having nightmares. I'm a softie.

The Freedom Writer's Diary

Memoir-ish kind of book

Compiled by Erin Gruell

This has been on my to-read list for years. I haven't seen the movie, either. So in a dearth of much else to read, I picked it up and gave it a try. It was interesting for a while to think about my own students and classes as I read about the struggles that these students, who wrote most of the journal entries in the diary, had in their lives. It made me contemplate how I can better understand and connect with my kids. But it was also frustrating because the teacher featured in it gives time and resources to her students that I don't have. So after gleaning several insights, I stopped about half way through in favor of something that gives me more of a break after grading papers on a Saturday night.

What's next? I'm currently reading "Paper Towns" by John Green (of "The Fault in our Stars" fame) and I also have "All the Light We Cannot See" and "Unbroken" and something else I can't remember). Cheers!