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Monday, January 31, 2005

January reads

Books read in January:



Title (bold indicates first-time read) -- Author -- Rating (out of 5)

1. finished Mistress Pat -- L.M. Montgomery -- 4
• Most people know about Anne of Green Gables, and most girls have probably read it at some
  point. It's one of my very favorite books, one that, humble
  "kidlit" as it is, has even changed my life in many ways. What
  most people maybe don't know
  is that L.M. Montgomery wrote around 20 other novels -- seven more in
  the Anne series, an Emily series (probably her second-best-known
  books), two Pat books, two Story Girl books, a few standalone
  children's books, and two books written for adults; all these books are
  well worth reading. Mistress
  Pat is the sequel to Pat of
  Silver Bush; these novels were written late in Montgomery's
  life, and are darker than the Annes -- notably, Mistress Pat is
  possibly the darkest of Montgomery's novels and was written under the
  influence of a deep depression which clouded the second half of her
  life. I definitely recommend this pair of books, although you
  will pretty much need to read Pat of
  Silver Bush first. Pat in the first book is in close
  contention for the position of my favorite Montgomery heroine.
  Also, this short series has the distinction of containing one of
  Montgomery's two actual knowable male characters, in the young
  Hilary. He'll disappoint you by pretty much disappearing till the
  end of the last page of the second book, however, as Montgomery's
  romantic heroes were wont to do once she got out of her depth with
  them. "Write what you know", for this author, sadly didn't
  include strong men or normal romantic relationships.




2. finished Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Brontë -- 5
• I always have a very difficult time choosing a favorite
  book. However, when I am forced to make a short list (I never can
  just come up with one), style="font-style: italic;">Jane Eyre is always on it.
  Yes, it's dark and gloomy and has a very gothic feel. Yes, it has
  its preachy moments. But what a wonderful story, what style="font-weight: bold;">living characters. What
  sigh-worthy romance. (sigh).




3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
   -- Mark Haddon -- 4.5
• I was in love with this book from the first page.
  Literally. And like any love relationship, it ran into a few
  snags, but was overall a deeply enriching experience. Haddon's
  first novel is a deft handling of the story of a teenaged boy with
  Asperger's Syndrome, told from his point of view. Amazing that a
  book "told" by a person who doesn't understand humor can be so funny --
  but the humor comes in with his emotionless, dry discussion of
  situations that are sometimes, honestly, not funny at all. And
  the book isn't all laughs, either; as the mother of a person with
  Tourette Syndrome, a disorder which manifests itself in some ways that
  are similar to the autism spectrum, I found that this reading was
  peppered with insights and "YES!" moments.




4. finished A Tale of Two Cities -- Dickens -- 4
• I started listening to this on CD in December while I was
  sewing, and then I listened to it some more while I was painting my
  bedroom, and then I couldn't wait to get to the end, so I read the last
  half-dozen chapters from my copy of the book, in bed one night. I
  love Dickens, and this book is no exception; bonus points for teaching
  me more about the French Revolution than I learned in school, while
  managing to also maintain an individual human scope. Most of the
  characters are perhaps less "Dickensian" than usual, although there are
  notable exceptions (Mr. Cruncher as a messenger who "moonlights" as a
  grave robber and chides his wife for "flopping" is probably the style="font-style: italic;">most notable). Dickens
  doesn't have a 150-year-old reputation as the master of verbiage and
  characterization for nothing; what more can I say?




5. Until The Real Thing Comes Along -- Elizabeth Berg
   -- 3 for content, 5 for style
• Like I do with most Bergs, I read this in one day. Her
  poignant, feel-it-in-your-spine observations were thick on the page, as
  they are in all of her books. I was especially touched by the
  descriptions of babies as the main character struggled with singleness
  and the ticking of her biological clock. I was less thrilled with
  her solution to the problem (becoming pregnant by her gay
  ex-lover). It was an interesting idea, and the author is honest
  about the emotional difficulties involved, but it just didn't resonate
  with me, and I didn't want her to go through with it.
  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, and Ms. Berg certainly didn't miss
  her mark with her trademark raw, emotional descriptions that make you
  realize that you've thought the same thing your whole life but just
  never thought to put it exactly that way.




6. Good Grief
   -- Lolly Winston -- 4
• I had a hard time really getting into this book at first; I
  sort of got off on the wrong foot with it and it seemed amateurish and,
  I don't know, untouchable is
  a word that came to mind. I definitely felt like I was on the
  outside of the book looking in. I can't put my finger on the
  point at which that changed, but it did, and I enjoyed the second half
  of the book much more than the first. This is Winston's first
  novel, and her handling of the loss of a husband seems so skillful
  (from my position of inexperience, at least) that I found myself
  wanting to look her up and find out if she's a widow herself. As
  far as style, that was where my main problem was with the book early
  on; it seemed like something I could have written. Then I started
  to notice some phrases that sang out at me in an almost
  Elizabeth-Bergish sort of way, and then there were more and more of
  them, and before I knew it, whether it had been my mood at the
  beginning of the book causing the problem, or whether the style really
  improved so much for the second half, I found myself fully enthralled
  by the end, rooting for Sophie like she were my best friend.




7. Villette
   -- Charlotte Brontë -- 3.5
• I've had this book on my shelves for years, and I finally plowed through it this month. It took almost four weeks, which is a long time in book years, for me, anyway. I just had such a hard time getting into the protagonist's head for the first three-quarters of it or so, and I disliked most of the members of the "supporting cast", with one exception, that being Mrs. Bretton. Finally, however, Lucy Snowe really clicked for me, and the rest of the book was quite enjoyable. It wasn't Jane Eyre, but on the strength of those chapters the book was able to stand alone on its own merits for me. I was touched by the growing relationship between Lucy and the man she loved; I was glad to see some of the uselessly annoying characters come to have a raison d'être before the last page. I won't mention the one thing that really bothered me about the story, even after I really began to enjoy it, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if it weren't for that one thing I'd probably have given this book a better rating.




8. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
   -- Ann Patchett -- 2.5
• What merit I found in this book was due almost entirely to Patchett's narrative style. The author of two of my most-often-recommended books, Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant, doesn't disappoint on that score in this -- what does one call it, a memoir?
  
  And therein lies the main problem -- it's not a memoir, but it's told with too much almost-voyeuristic detail to be a respectable biography. I suppose that what it's supposed to be is a memoir of a friendship, as well as a memorial tribute of sorts, but it would have been better, in my opinion, as an essay, without spending what amounts to a large part of a book going into so many sordid personal details. If someone writes about her own (appalling, really, in this case) promiscuity and drug use, you feel that she has the right to do so and that she's given you the right to read it -- whether one is interested in that sort of thing or not, she's putting the choice in the reader's hands. But no matter how close Patchett was to Lucy Grealy, the other half of the titular friendship, I felt like she was overstepping her rights. It was like she was giving us Lucy's diary to read, without her consent. I enjoyed reading about the more innocent aspects of their shared life -- their inside jokes, for example, and their trials and successes as writers -- but it seemed like a page couldn't go by without a shot of the kind of details that I personally think would have been better kept between Ann and Lucy, especially since Lucy wasn't the one telling the story.
  
  I do realize that she was probably trying to avoid the standard "triumph of the human spirit" biography -- indeed, Ann and Lucy had a running joke about the various attempts people would make to turn Lucy into that kind of lesson. But somehow going too far in the other direction was even worse, for me, anyway.
  
  Obviously Patchett cared deeply about Lucy and had reasons for writing about her life the way she did. And not being on the inside, so to speak, I really don't have anything to say about whether this story should have been written or not. But as a reader, a looker-on, I can say that I do wish I had been able to leave Lucy some respectful privacy. Had I known how deeply private this story was, I'd not have chosen to read it.
  

Saturday, January 29, 2005

you really would not believe how ill I am

I am so, so ill.

OK, so I'm really not that sick. I'm even feeling a good bit better now than I was this afternoon (I think I was dehydrated and that didn't help). But by golly I am going to milk this for all it's worth. So what if it's just a sinus infection? I don't get lying-down-in-the-middle-of-the-day privileges very often and I'm not going to let the opportunity pass me by. And any work I do in this condition is just extra brownie points, which are always handy.

So. I am so, so ill.

Also. Did you notice the sidebar? I am done with Villette, -- just finished it before I started writing this entry -- and I found that I liked it better as I got nearer the end. Which is probably why I plowed through about 250 pages of it today. (see above re: lying down in the middle of the day. We also watched "Anne of Avonlea", and it's been so long since I read the books that I was actually able to enjoy it. I will, however, be doing a good read-through of that entire series ASAP. Watching adaptations always gives me book cravings.)

I am going to go smear myself with VapoRub and talk like the guy in the NyQuil commercials (or, at least, the guy who was in NyQuil commercials last time I saw any commercials, which was years ago), for the extra sympathy factor, before I go to sleep. Good-dight.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

much ado about... not much

Tonight I read a chapter of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh aloud to the family. One of my favorite memories from childhood is the way my brother and I would lie in bed while Mom sat in our room and read out loud to us. Both of us were old enough to read ourselves, and I had already developed the nose-in-book disease that would plague me so deliciously for the rest of my life, but somehow having Mom read to us was special. She read Charlotte's Web, and a wonderful little book called No Children, No Pets, her copy of which I later destroyed by much reading and which I tracked down and bought on Bibliofind.com (may it rest in peace) when I first had Internet access, and some of the Little House books and some of the Narnia ones. I've tried to do this with my kids over the years but it's always fizzled out after a few weeks. This time I wised up and picked a book that T really, really likes, so maybe he'll help me not slack off. ;-) Should we get through Mrs. Frisby, we'll move on to C's choice, The Wizard of Oz, and then LT's, Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I may record for my dad.

Cat update: Henry and Mary can now occupy the same couch without a single smidge of hissing or snarling or even crouching. They aren't washing each other's faces yet (oh, poor Molly, we miss you so, so much) but it's progress. They remind me of a blended family wherein a 15-year-old girl who wants to be a rebel but is good at heart just acquired a soft, skinny little 12-year-old stepbrother. Only they've never yet called each other "pizzaface" or listened in on each other's phone conversations. Give them time, I guess.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

book infatuation

(quick note: I updated the 1001 Days journal tonight as well. I won't note this here every time I do that; that site now has its own notify list; feel free to use it. Also, the link will continue to be in the blogroll on this site.)

This afternoon we went to the valley to pick up a few things, and on our way out of town we stopped by the library and I picked up the books they had waiting for me on hold. I couldn't start reading right away because I was the one driving on the way to the valley, but once we were down there T drove, and in the fifteen or so blocks between the hobby store and Wal-Mart, I discovered that I was in love with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I was reading sections out loud to T and I had a silly grin on my face and I had that twittery feeling like you get when you first start to think that maybe the person you like likes you back and you don't want to hope that you're embarking on something wonderful, so you tell yourself to expect disappointment, but under the surface you know you're totally lost and if this ship sinks you'll go down with it. (I did say that I have books instead of friends. Maybe I have books instead of affairs too.) Maybe I was just really ready to enjoy a book, I dunno. The narrator of this story is an autistic teenaged boy, and the first three pages (the first three paragraphs, really) immersed me in his world completely. I read in the car until it got too dark. I'd have done the trick where I hold the book up in the light of the headlights from the car behind us, like I used to do when I was little, but I wanted to save a little of the enjoyment for later. It couldn't last, though; as soon as the kids were in bed I just dived in, and I didn't come up until I finished the book a little after midnight. READ THIS BOOK. THIS MEANS YOU. The story is interesting, but it's the telling of it that sucked me in, and the insights into the mind of an autistic person are worth the read all by themselves. Having a son with a mild neurological disorder (Tourette Syndrome, for those of you who joined us recently; TS and autism are in the same "spectrum" of disorders), I saw several things I recognized. And not all having to do with LT; the protagonist (ahem) sees the text of a conversation in his head just like somebody else I know who may or may not be named Rachel (and also Kat!).



On the way home from the valley the twilight sky directly above us was clear (hadn't seen blue sky or stars in days) but there was a literally awesome bank of clouds built up against the mountains, and as we drove toward and then under them, there was an enormous thunderstorm going on. I think that will be one of those drives I remember when I'm eighty.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

books I want to read in 2005

I don't remember the last time I was in bed before midnight. It has reached the point where I feel like I'm wasting hours if I am asleep before two a.m. I think this is some kind of long-repressed reaction to having had a bedtime of 9:00 from birth till high school -- when my parents allowed for my extra maturity by bumping it up to 9:30. Not that it was very strictly enforced, I'll admit. But I have to blame my weird night-owl tendencies on something.


I spent some quality time with my Amazon recommendations* the other night, and between what was suggested to me and what those suggestions triggered in my memory, I came up with a really yummy list of a few books I want to read this year. This does not include re-reads, which I know I will be doing a great deal of, because I am the kind of person who has books instead of friends. Some of these books I hadn't even heard of before, which is exactly what I need right now, as I'm in a bit of a rut. I won't necessarily be buying all of these; some I'll check out of the library, and I already own some of them. I'll put a star by those. And forgive the lack of italics and authors' names; this is taken from a text file that I made up quickly as I went, just as notes for myself. Shut UP already Rachel and get to the list.

• The Jungle Book
  
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy)
  
• The Awakening*
  
• Jude the Obscure*
  
• Time Machine/Invisible Man*
  
• Vanity Fair*
  
• Dickens* [every year I promise myself a chronological Dickens excursion and every year I put it off. Maybe this year I'll actually do it.]
  
• The Importance of Being Earnest
  
• The Secret Life of Bees
  
• Middlesex
  
• The Life of Pi
  
• Frankenstein
  
• Tales from Watership Down
  
• The Three Junes
  
• The Pull of the Moon -- E. Berg
  
• Say When -- E. Berg
  
• Until the Real Thing Comes Along -- E. Berg
  
• Atonement -- McEwen
  
• Reading Lolita in Tehran
  
• Here Be Dragons -- Penman
  
• The Good Mother -- Miller
  
• Middlemarch
  
• Mill on the Floss*
  
• Fahrenheit 451
  
• more A.S. Byatt
  
• War of the Worlds -- Wells
  
• Good Grief -- Winston
  
• Little Children -- Perrotta
  
• Firefly Summer -- Binchy
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night TIme -- Haddon (this one is waiting for me at the library)
  
• The Lost World -- Doyle
  
• An Assembly Such as This (Pamela Aidan)
  
• Truth and Beauty: A Friendship -- Ann Patchett
  
• The Birth of Venus -- Sarah Dunant
  

*Amazon recommendations: WHAT A TOTALLY BRILLIANT IDEA! don't you think? I mean, isn't it, like, the perfect and purest use of computer programming, to take in data about what books I like and spit out a list of books I probably would enjoy? I feel all warm and fuzzy toward the whole computer industry every time I think of it. Well, not quite the whole computer industry, OK, but pretty close.


Oh, and the redesign. I went for a more bloggish look this time. IT WAS A LOT OF WORK so if you hate it, be nice. It won't last long anyway; you know how I am by now.


Edited to add: Valerie asked me for the URL for Amazon's recommendations. You just go to Amazon.com (I'm pretty sure the British version would have the same feature if that's what you'd rather use, Val). Sign in or create an account, and then the fun starts. :) You can search for books on Amazon that you own or have read, and rate them (down on the lower left on each item's page); you can add things to your wish list; you can make purchases. All these things will change your recommendations. After you've done some rating, buying, or wishing, click on "Your Store" (should have your name instead of "Your" if you're signed in) and there'll be recommendations for you. You can go through those, rating them, telling the beneficent Amazon computer that you're not interested, buying them, adding them to your wishlist (which is a bit of a pain because it takes you away from the recommendations page every time, but oh well, nothing's perfect), and that will continue to update your recommendations.



P.S. If somebody should happen to buy, say, a book about rebuilding MoPar muscle cars, one about the book of Revelation, and a set of Star Wars videos on your Amazon account, you will spend months weeding out the sprouts from those seeds in your recommendations list. Just thought I'd warn you. The moral of the story is: T has his own e-mail address; he needs his own darn Amazon account as well. ;-)

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

The Thursday Bookworm

I had these all answered and then I clicked "add entry" and my DSL modem spazzed and my entry was eaten by this blasted machine. And it was long and well-thought-out too. So I had to go away from the computer for a while before I had the energy to try to re-create it. No promises though.

I am a slave to surveys, as anyone who has spent three seconds reading this journal probably knows. This one is from The Thursday Bookworm. I've lifted these surveys from KiwiRia before but this is the first time I've gone to the source myself.

1. What is your favorite movie adapted from a book that you have actually read? Was it pretty true to the original author's vision, or was too much vital information left out or changed?
Pride and Prejudice -- the 5-hour A&E/BBC version. Even after repeated viewings I still do not find flaws in it.

A close second on this one is To Kill A Mockingbird.

2. What, in your opinion, is the worst movie adaptation of a book? What did you not like about it?
Possession by A.S. Byatt. The book was so rich, so fascinating -- and the movie was a hollow shell, with two Americans in the lead of what is a very British story (and one of them wasn't even pretending to be British; they wrote his character as an American, which was a travesty in this case).

3. Have you ever liked the movie version of a book despite its glaring differences from the original story?
This is going to be very shocking to people who know me. Debi, are you sitting down? Susan? Everyone else? OK. I really, really like Patricia Rozema's movie Mansfield Park. In all honesty, I rented it once (for free, from the library) because I wanted to be able to criticize it and know what I was criticizing. But wow. For once in my life I was able to separate the movie from the book (which I love) and enjoy the movie as its own work even though it deviated in staggering ways from the source material. It was an interpretation rather than a retelling, which is something I usually do not let filmmakers get away with, when defenders of movies which deviate from the original use it as their reasoning. Usually I say, if you're not going to tell the story the way the author intended it, you can write your own story with your own characters and not try to ride on the author's coattails. But maybe it was because Rozema strayed so far from the original in so many ways that I was able to forgive her for it in this case, I don't know. All I know is that I really enjoyed this pretty, emotionally rich, originally-directed film, even with its flaws (and there were a few, even apart from the adaptation thing).

And then there are movies that have been part of our lives and culture for so long, so thoroughly ingrained in our childhoods, that we can like them even though they stray wildly from the books on which they were based. Two that come ot mind are The Wizard of Oz and "Little House on the Prairie".

4. Have you ever seen a movie adaptation that actually made you go out and read that book after seeing the film?
Hmm. Pollyanna. The Man from Snowy River (a really great Australian poem is the basis for this pretty movie). The Fiddler on the Roof (Sholem Alecheim's stories are hard to get through if I read a lot of them at a time, but one at a time, they were very interesting). Bambi (didn't like the book). Forrest Gump (book was execrable). I don't remember if I read Pygmalion before I saw My Fair Lady or not. I have gone seeking autobiographies of the people depicted in The Sound of Music. And I know there are some examples I'm forgetting here.

And there are a lot of adaptations where I'm already familiar with the book, but watching the movie gives me the itch to read that particular book again. Just about any film adaptation will do that to me.

5. Have you ever seen a movie without knowing beforehand that it had first been published in book form?
Mostly when I was little -- things like Mary Poppins, etc. Well, here's a big example: Every single Disney animated feature film up until The Lion King was based on outside source material, and I had no idea about some of those -- again, when I was little. I know there are some from my adulthood too but I just can't think of them offhand.

One question that was left off here that I think is a good one is: Are there any adaptations where you like the movie better than the book? And two that come to mind here are The Black Stallion (heart-poundingly beautiful movie, just stunning, based on an average-at-best boy-and-horse book -- but let's give the author credit; from what I understand he wrote it in high school) and Forrest Gump as mentioned before. I don't love the movie of that one, but I couldn't even get five pages into the book. Oh, and Wings of the Dove. I just cannot get into Henry James -- and I'm not afraid of older literature. He is just so dry and bleak in his writing style; I can read a page and have no idea what I've just read. But the 1997 movie of this is, well, very racy, and also quite engaging.

Monday, December 06, 2004

busy days

Yesterday we drove to the Bay Area (twitch. twitch) to look at a car
we've been thinking about buying. We didn't end up getting it (although we're still thinking about it) but we had a nice long drive and a mostly-pleasant day. Except for the wretched 580/680 interchange which is everything that people who hate freeway interchanges hate about freeway interchanges. Ack. And for some strange reason, even though I always plan to have T* drive in places like that, I end up being the one with my white knuckles clamped to the wheel trying to look in four or five directions at once, so as to be able to merge without becoming part of a horrific mangled freeway accident. Because that would make the traffic even worse, with all the rubber-necking.

Then today we cut wood (and I did not skip out this time!) before
having T's birthday dinner at my parents' house. He wanted spaghetti, which is, hallelujah, something I'm good at making and I can do it reliably and it doesn't take a gazillion pots and pans or have to be kept warm in the oven while I cook it in batches or ANYTHING. Good old spaghetti. But T always gets (meaning I always make) German chocolate cake for his birthday. Eew. The cake part is bland and the frosting has (puke) coconut. Ah well, it's only once a year, and it makes the chances of my blowing my diet on leftovers virtually nonexistent. Which will not be the case after my birthday (which is in three weeks), because I am all about either a) a Costco cake, which is the be-all and end-all of cakes, or, if we can't spring for that, b) chocolate cake from a mix with chocolate frosting from a can. What other kind of cake does there really need to be, after all? And Dulce de Leche (Spanish
for "Let's Make Rachel Fat") ice cream. mmm.

I can tell that I've been reading the Little House books too much when I really start obsessing about food. Next time you read those, pay attention to how few pages can go by without a description of some kind of hearty Early American meal. Even during The Long Winter there's all that talk about grinding wheat to make nutty-tasting whole-wheat bread. And when they're not on the verge of starvation it's even worse. The roast geese! The fried chicken! The venison! Oh good Lord, the blackbird pie!! I think I maybe gained five pounds this past week just reading about it all.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

a book meme

Another book meme lifted from KiwiRia.

The idea is to recommend a few books from each genre.

01. Horror:

• The Stand by Stephen King. This is in a different vein from most of the other stuff he wrote -- at least, what he'd written up until the early 90's when I stopped reading his books.


• Edgar Allen Poe's short stories. The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell -Tale Heart -- wow. One of my junior-high friends had a tape set of Vincent Price reading some of Poe's short stories; we lay in her rec room listening to them on Halloween night and neither of us could get up afterward to
  blow out the candles we'd lit, so we just let them burn down until they were gone.

02. Suspense/Mystery: I am drawing a blank here. I know I've read some good suspense stuff in the last few years but I just can't remember any of it. So I'll shrug and say, "Trixie Belden. She was way better than Nancy Drew."

03. Science-Fiction/Fantasy:

• The Martian Chronicles -- Ray Bradbury


• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The movies are pretty well-made, but as is the case with almost all adaptations, if you've seen them, you haven't experienced the whole stories. The books are much richer, and the characters are more admirable in the original than they're portrayed to be in the movies.


• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. These are, no pun intended, an absolute staple in our household.

04. Romance/Chick Lit:

• Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series


• Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness series (both of the
  above are really deeply researched historical fiction)


• A few of Jennifer Crusie's books. Some of them are too over-the-top for me, but I really like her latest one, called Bet Me.


• Elizabeth Berg -- she writes chick lit but not romances. Read with tissues.


• Marian Keyes. So funny and yet she's not JUST funny.

05. American Classic:

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- this is an absolute, utter must-read, in my opinion.


• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Don't be turned off by having been forced to read this in high school. Read it in your twenties or beyond and you'll get a lot more out of it.


• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. They're ostensibly for kids but they're an amazing look at pioneer life.


• Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


• Of Mice and Men, and even though I disagree with its overarching political message, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

06. British/World Classic:

• Any of Jane Austen's six novels (yes, even Mansfield Park), along with her juvenilia and unpublished work.


• Dickens: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist ... I could go on.


• Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera


• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë


• L.M. Montgomery's books. Not just the Anne of Green Gables series, although that's wonderful; she wrote a dozen other novels, and they're all worth reading.

07. Drama (Play):

• Shakespeare of course, when you feel like slogging through a lot of words to get the meaning of a great story ;-) (also, reading Shakespeare is great because you realize just how many of his phrases and quotations have made their way into common speech)


• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

08. Biography/Autobiography:

• MiG Pilot by John Barron, about Viktor Belenko. This tells the story of a Russian fighter pilot who, in the late 70's, defected to the US along with his top-secret jet. His impressions of America alone make the book worth reading.


• Mover of Men and Mountains by R.G. LeTourneau.
  Autobiography of a Christian inventor who lived to see (and in great part brought about) mind-blowing changes in the mechanical and earth-moving industries. Not just a Christian testimony or a book about tractors; you get a very good picture of life in the early 20th century and beyond from this book.


• The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery in five volumes.
  There was a lot going on behind the scenes as all those tranquil "children's" books were being written.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

a book quiz

It's been a long time (in journal years anyway) since I did a survey/meme kind of thing. I was starting to have withdrawals. So here's one I lifted from KiwiRia.

Hardback or Paperback?
I like both.  If I'm buying new I get a paperback.

Highlight or Underline?
I'll occasionally do either, but not very often.  High school was a different story -- all my novels from those years are highlit wherever I read a line that really spoke to me (use of hushed awed teenaged know-it-all hyper-pseudo-sensitive-intellectual tone advised here).  In my Bible I'll highlight if I have one handy, which generally means that I underline.

Lewis or Tolkien?
I like both but I think I only love Lewis.

E.B. White or A.A. Milne?
Both!

T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings?
Honestly I'm not terribly familiar with either.  I liked cummings in high school.

Stephen King or Dean Koontz?
I used to read King in junior high.  Never read anything by Koontz.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Whichever is handiest.  B&N has the Starbucks caramel brownie advantage, while Borders has a better educator's discount and very slightly better prices.

Waldenbooks or B. Dalton?
I've never been to Waldenbooks.  There was a B. Dalton in the mall we frequent until a B&N went in down the street (they are owned by the same company).  You know my very favorite small bookstore?  The one that used to be in my little town until I was in high school.  It's been gone ten years and I still mourn its loss.

Fantasy or Science Fiction?
I really don't like either, much.  I'll read the lightest of fantasy -- Lewis and Tolkien -- but the more stereotypical fantasy stuff even in Tolkien leaves me a little cold.

Horror or Suspense?
Suspense.

Bookmark or Dog-ear?
Generally a bookmark.  I'm not above dog-earing though.  My books are for reading and enjoying, not reselling, and paper's not sacred.

Hemingway or Faulkner?
Neither, ugh.

Fitzgerald or Steinbeck?
Again with the neither.  Although I used to really like Steinbeck, in my highlighting days.

Homer or Plato?
If I'm ever in the mood for either of these I'll let you know. :D

Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser?
Chaucer

Pen or Pencil? style="font-weight: bold;">
A sharpened pencil or a fine-point pen; either's fine.  I do write
in my Bible a lot and I'll use either.

Looseleaf or Notepad?
Looseleaf.  My notepads always end up a hodgepodge of various
stuff anyway.  Which makes them more interesting when I find them
years later, but not terribly useful as an organizational tool.

Alphabetize: By Author or By Title?
Right now my books are alphabetized by author and then arranged in
chronological order by publication, except for series which are in
series order where that differs from publication order.  Sometimes
I'll reorder them all strictly by publication order, with no author
alphabetization, but that's more complicated.

Dustjacket: Leave it On or Take it Off?
Off for reading, on for storage.  For the few of my books that
have dust jackets.

Novella or Epic?
Either.  I like some of both.

John Grisham or Scott Turow?
Neither.

J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket?
Neither.  (L.M. Montgomery!  Cynthia Voigt!  Beverly Cleary!)

John Irving or John Updike?
I've tried both and liked neither.

Fiction or Non-fiction?
Usually fiction.  I'll read non-fiction when it's pertinent to something I'm interested in, and I like a biography now and then.

Historical Biography or Historical Romance?
I like a few really good historical romances -- Donati and Gabaldon mainly.  I also like a few historical biographies but I have to be in the right mood for them.

A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter?
Oh, the joy of having a choice!  Usually I just steal a few minutes to read whatever I can manage.  On my late-night reading binges I sometimes try to finish chapters before I finally stop, and sometimes don't.

Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay?
Each has its place.

"It was a dark and stormy night..." or "Once upon a time..." ?
Generally neither.

Buy or Borrow?
Both.  I usually borrow a book from the library first, and if I like it really well, I'll buy it used, and if I LOVE it or have a gift certificate to spend, I'll buy it new.  Occasionally if a book is a classic or one by an author I like, I'll buy it without ever having read it, but almost always used or at a serious discount.

Book Reviews or Word of Mouth?
Both, mostly word of mouth.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

a book review. and my codependency (I think.)

I just took a break from reading Persuasion to read The Glorious Appearing, which had come in at the library for me after about six months of being in my hold list. In case you aren't up on your Christian-ese, The Glorious Appearing is the twelfth and final volume in that bestselling Christian fiction series about the end of time. I really hate to say it, but... the book sucked. The rest of the series I read and didn't mind too much, because the subject matter was of interest to me, even though the writing style (a poor attempt to be a Christian Tom Clancy) was off-putting to me. Not my style, nothing wrong with it, different strokes for different folks, all that. But in this last book, it's like instead of trying to channel Tom Clancy, the author decided to go for a kind of love-child-of-Nicholas-Sparks-and-Stephen-King kind of thing. And the scariest thing is, he succeeded. Ugh. I made myself finish just so I could finish off the series, and honestly, the last few chapters were better than the rest of the book. But now I feel like I need to go through a ritual cleansing before I can pick up Persuasion again, in all its crystalline, witty, romantic perfection. And I need to apologize to Jane too. Or at least read some Beverly Cleary or something, to cleanse my palate.

Total topic change: T has been so ridiculously stressed out lately, what with his job and all, that he's become (I think) borderline depressed. And I am so totally one of those people who is really distressed when those around me aren't happy. When my parents fought? end of the world. And oh good Lord the one time I saw my dad cry as a child was a nightmarish event of monumental proportions. DADDY CRIED. IT IS THE APOCALYPSE. Heck, even if there was trouble with the car, I was (quietly, because I come from a long line of men whose #1 Rule of Roadside Repairs is, "EVERYONE SHUT UP") really distraught. Now when those around me are unhappy, I just get this knot in my stomach and Nameless Dread starts making regular nightly visits (hello, ulcer -- which I think is probably the technical name for Nameless Dread, although I could be wrong) and generally life is less happy than I like it to be. So tonight I thought I would at least superficially cheer T up by giving him something to look forward to all day -- namely, his favorite dinner consisting of this kind of bastard offspring of Chicken Marsala and Chicken Parmigiana that I make, along with homemade rolls and a fancy (read: something besides lettuce, croutons, parmesan cheese, and bottled caesar dressing). It went well. T had a good relaxing evening. And I am officially Every Feminist's Nightmare, also known as The Codependent Betty Crocker.

File this one under "Things that Made Mommy Happy Today":



It's time for the Summer Reading Program, which means that this is a common sight around our house as the kids work toward pool passes and free French fries and who knows what all. Bribery: the best motivational tool for 8-year-olds in the world.

Update: My college-educated friend, who are smart about them there things, just told me (when I asked) that I'm not codependent. I'm just a worry-wart. You'd think there'd be a more technical term for it than that. Oh well. ;-)

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