Shelf Life

Booking Through Thursday--In Public

2011-09-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you carry books with you when you’re out and about in the world?

And, do you ever try to hide the covers?

I do carry books with me, in my voluminous, Hermione Granger-style purse. Either that or I carry my iPad, which always has a book or two on it. I hate to be without reading material in case I get stuck somewhere, in a doctor's office, waiting for someone to show up, on a runway, whatever.

I never try to hide the covers. I used to hide the covers of Harlequin Romances when I read them as a young teenager. Embarrassing! But if anything, I'm usually happy to share the title of whatever I'm reading at the moment with whoever might want to know. Probably a little too willing to share my thoughts, as well.

How about you? Do you carry books with you?

Back To School

2011-09-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

The end of our summer was a little nuts. We sailed past Lady Liberty on our way out of New York Harbor on a cruise to Nova Scotia. It was a lovely trip, but...

...the last night of our cruise was a race with a hurricane into port. With the airports closed by the storm and Mayor Bloomberg, we were unable to return home to California on schedule. Stuck at my father-in-law's house, which is a lovely place to be, was still stuck.

Evacuated to a hotel because of the hurricane, but never in any danger, we returned to find a very large tree had fallen onto my father-in-law's garage roof.

We were on generator power for about a day while power was restored in the neighborhood, but other neighborhoods nearby lacked power for days, and others had flooded.

Four days later, we finally left for the west coast. By then the boys had missed almost the whole first week of school.

But now we're back in the swing of things, the rhythm of the school year reestablished.

I found I didn't read as much as I would have liked while cruising. But to be honest, I didn't really expect to finish all the books I downloaded onto the Kindle.

There was just too much to eat.

Now I'm back to reading. I've gotten about 100 pages into Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall, and I'm enjoying the voice. I love me a historical novel, and I'm liking the new angle on what I already know about Henry VIII and his cronies.

Just picked up Tom Perrotta's new one, The Leftovers, on the recommendation of a well-read cousin. It's about suburbia after the rapture, and what happens to those who are left behind. Sounds quirky and entertaining--I'll let you know.

Vacation Travel Reading: The East Coast

2011-08-11T21:48:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm finally back to blogging after a summer off. It was unplanned, but it turned out that my kids were so busy this summer, I spent my time driving them around Los Angeles (even during "Carmageddon"!) instead of blogging.

My summer reading this summer has suffered from a general lack of time to laze at the beach or by the pool, but next week my family is taking it's first-ever cruise, and I'm loading up the suitcase with books! We are sailing out of Brooklyn, New York (who knew?) up to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then down the east coast, stopping in St. John, Bar Harbor, Portland, Boston, and Newport before heading back to New York. When I travel, I like to immerse myself in the literature of the place, so I have found some New England literature to read while sailing down its coast.

On my very first visit to Maine, I'm planning to read Sarah Orne Jewett’s classic novel, The Country of the Pointed Firs, first published in 1896, for a look at what life in coastal Maine was like at the turn of the twentieth century. People praise Jewett as one of the great American writers that nobody reads any more, and I'm eager to take in her characters and the atmosphere of the rocky coast of Maine.

One of my favorite books in recent years, Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, is also set in Maine, but the Maine of the present, not the past. A set of interconnected stories that make up a novel, it's about ornery Maine woman Olive who looks back on her life and relationships in her small town, and it has an amazing sense of place.

There's so much good writing set in Boston that it's hard to choose one book. For non-fiction, I'd like to read David Hackett Fischer's book Paul Revere's Ride, which I've heard is an amazing piece of narrative history, and a compelling read.

I've also had a Boston novel, John P. Marquand's The Late George Apley, which won the author a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1938, on my to-read list for a long time. It is supposed to be another hidden gem by an author who fell out of favor in the 1960s, which satirizes the life and manners of the "Boston Brahmins" in pre-World War II Beacon Hill.

But when we round Cape Cod, I'm going to get out my old copy of Henry David Thoreau's book Cape Cod, an account of his meditative, beach-combing walking trips to Cape Cod in the 1850s, told with his trademark reverence for nature. The Cape is a wondrous place, and Thoreau's travelogue is satisfying a mixture of its folklore and natural history.

Another of my favorite books of all time is set on Cape Cod, Annie Dillard's The Maytrees. It is the chronicle of the ups and downs of a marriage over many years, set in the parabolic dunes of the very tip of the Cape, at Provincetown. I read it while sitting on a Cape beach one summer, and was captivated by Dillard's lyrical language and quirky characters.

We won't be visiting Providence, Rhode Island, this year, but it's a great city, and I was intrigued when I heard that its former mayor wrote a book about his exploits there. Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale is a memoir by former Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy’’ Cianci, and I hear it's as colorful and controversial as the man himself.

When we hit the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, I plan to pick up Thornton Wilder’s fictionalized memoir, Theophilus North. It tells the tale of a young man who spends the summer of 1926 in Newport, teaching tennis to the rich, and getting caught up in their travails, narrated by the elderly North from a distance of 50 years.

I've heard good things about John Casey’s book Spartina, winner of the National Book Award in 1989. It's about Rhode Island fisherman and boat-builder Dick Pierce, his difficult family problems, and his life among the salt marshes and crab fishermen of South County, RI.

What vacation reading have you done this summer? Has any of it reflected the places you visited? What was your favorite summer read?

Sunday Salon--and the list grows...

2011-05-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

I've been slowly making my way through Andre Dubus III's memoir Townie. It's admirably honest about his dysfunctional family and what it was like to grow up in poverty-stricken eastern mill towns in the 1970s. Dubus is a little older than I am, but the stuff about childhood in the 1970s struck a chord with me, and the details he provides about life in that time and place are fascinating to me. I loved the writing in House of Sand and Fog, so when I heard from my cousin that this memoir was really great, that and curiosity about Dubus's childhood made me pick this up. I'm happy to say that I'm again enjoying Dubus's style.

And I'm about to start a different kind of memoir for my book group, Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton. This is another kind of memoir that I like--one that immerses you in a world you know very little about. It tells the story of owner and chef of New York's popular Prune restaurant, and her unusual path to becoming a chef. She tells of her childhood on a farm, her eccentric parents' divorce, and her struggles working in the food world. My book group once read (and enjoyed) Bill Buford's book Heat, about a journalist who immerses himself in the food and restaurant worlds. So I'm interested to read a memoir from a chef who came to it reluctantly.

What have you been reading this weekend?

Booking Through Thursday--Age Inappropriate

2011-05-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Here are last week's and this week's Booking Through Thursday questions, because they go hand in hand, and I didn't answer last week:

Do you read books “meant” for other age groups? Adult books when you were a child; Young-Adult books now that you’re grown; Picture books just for kicks … You know … books not “meant” for you. Or do you pretty much stick to what’s written for people your age?

In contrast to last week’s question–What do you think of censoring books BECAUSE of their intended age? Say, books too “old” for your kids to read?

Last week's answer: When I was a kid, I reveled in reading things that were too "old" for me. I liked reading things that I thought were mature, that might teach me something I didn't already know about the adult world, that might unlock some adult secrets.

Now that I'm grown, I will sometimes read a young adult book, because I've heard it's fantastic, or because it reminds me of the very satisfying reading I did as a kid. I read picture books because I've got kids, and I've got no choice.

For this week's answer: I don't really censor books in my house. I figure that if you're going to learn something that's too "old" for you, the gentlest and most forgiving way to learn it is in the pages of a book. Not, say, in the graphic imagery of a movie or even a video game. And we don't have anything on our shelves that I think would be too shocking or would scar my kids for life. Except there might be an old copy of The Joy of Sex lurking somewhere around here, with those hilarious 1970s drawn illustrations. That might freak out the kids a little.

But I have a soft spot for the idea of a kid sneaking off to read Lolita or something she's heard is titillating. I think it's a rite of passage for readers.

What do you think?

Poetry: Spread the Word

2011-05-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

My good friend Greg Pincus, whose poetry blog GottaBook was one of the first I ever followed, has a great new project where he is bringing poetry into schools. I've supported him, and I'm hoping others will do the same. Check it out:

Super Sad I Won't Be Able To Go To This...

2011-04-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

I love our public library here in Los Angeles. The downtown branch is huge, historic, and really lovely. It's only a ten-minute drive from my house (sans traffic, of course), and the parking is easy. Plus they have ALOUD, a great lecture series that gets really good writers and other cultural figures to speak, and they're often interviewed by other really good writers and cultural figures. Plus the lectures are usually free.

On May 12, Gary Shteyngart is speaking, but the event was already full by the time I got the email. Somehow that always seems to happen to me--I'm not sure how these things fill up before I even hear about them. Clearly I'm getting some sort of second-class email notification.

It's too bad, because I just finished Shteyngart's book Super Sad True Love Story, and I'd love to hear him speak about it. If anyone goes, you'll have to let me know how it is.

Spring Break Is Almost Over

2011-04-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

Blogging has gone by the wayside again around here. It's springtime, and I've been gardening, traveling and keeping my kids entertained through two back-to-back, two-week-long spring breaks instead. So happy school starts up again Monday!

Spring comes mighty early in the southland. Strawberries are almost ripe already.

I've managed to fit some reading in. For my book group, I finished The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht. I wanted to dislike this book merely because the writer is young, good-looking and accomplished. But I'm bigger than that, really. So I allowed myself to enjoy it quite a bit.

I've never read anything set in the Balkans before, and I found the setting rich and the novel an interesting mix of modern life and folklore. I was a little disappointed that the modern tale wasn't more filled out, but enjoyed the writer's weaving together of mythic elements and modern ones, and would happily read her next book.

Blackberries are getting there, too.

I'm almost finished reading Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, which I'm enjoying as a romp through a dystopian America in the near future. I'm entertained but not mesmerized; however, I'm a tough audience for dystopia, as it almost never grabs me emotionally.

And here are some future lemons. I have no idea when these guys will be ripe. But it's my first fruit from this young tree, so I can't wait!

Sunday Salon--Donating, and reading

2011-03-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Living here in earthquake country, we've all been following the story of last week's horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Here's a link to the Red Cross donation page, to donate directly to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief, if you're so inclined. And here's a link to the Red Cross web page about disaster preparedness for your home and family. If it's not earthquakes, there's always some sort of natural disaster lurking, so best to be prepared!

I'm definitely reading up on this, and we are replenishing what we call our "earthquake supplies." One of the hard things is to store the one gallon of water per person, for three days, that is recommended to keep handy. The Red Cross list is a good one, and reminds me of the things we're missing in our family's personal disaster preparedness.

This weekend, when not glued to the internet looking at news out of Japan, I've read some of The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman, and I made a batch of blood orange marmalade. Yum. The Imperfectionists has been a roller-coaster ride of characters, some that I like and others I dislike, some I respect and others I don't, some I want to give a good talking-to, and others I'd like to hug. Another book made up of linked stories, each from a different character's point of view, I'm finding it a pretty compelling read.

Hope you have a peaceful, disaster-free weekend, and that you find some time to read.

Booking Through Thursday--Multi-tasking

2011-03-10T08:26:00.000-08:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you multi-task when you read? Do other things like stirring things on the stove, brushing your teeth, watching television, knitting, walking, et cetera?

Or is it just me, and you sit and do nothing but focus on what you’re reading?

(Or, if you do both, why, when, and which do you prefer?)

I don't truly multi-task when I read. I can't watch TV and read at the same time, because I find myself focusing on only one thing, either the book or the TV. Every time I've tried to walk and read, I bump into something. I do, however, take a book everywhere, so that in every spare minute in the doctor's waiting room or carpool line, I read.

I can't imagine knitting and reading--I can barely knit, so I'm either squinting at the yarn and the needles, or at the knitting pattern. Watching TV while knitting is hard enough, I can't imagine reading and knitting.

For me, books shut everything else out. That's why I started reading in the first place, to be carried away from real life. Even if I try to do something else while reading, I can't really focus, and most often find myself only reading.

How about you?

Next Up In Group

2011-03-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

My book group is reading Frederick Reiken's novel Day for Night for our next meeting. I hadn't heard of the book before the group picked it, but reviews call Reiken's prose "elegant"--always a plus--and mentions that the novel is like a group of linked stories. Our last book, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, was also a group of linked stories, each featuring a different character. Thinking about it, I realize I like this construction. Olive Kitteridge was also linked stories, and I liked it very much. And Joan Silber's Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories was (obviously, from the subtitle) constructed that way, and I enjoyed that, too.

Reviews of Day For Night also mention the underwater imagery employed by the writer. Makes sense, looking at the cover. One of the great things about belonging to a book group is the exposure to books you might not have found otherwise. This wasn't on my radar, but reading about it, I'm happy I've been pushed to pick it up.

What is your book group reading now? Did your book group ever find a gem you might not have found otherwise?

I'm Hooked

2011-03-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

Watch the full episode. See more Masterpiece.

Thanks, Liz and Alysoun, for getting me hooked on Downton Abbey. I know, I missed the bandwagon on this, as it was initially broadcast in January on Masterpiece Classic, but on your recommendation I bought it on iTunes. (Then, of course, it came out on Netflix--grrr.)

I am one happy British-drama-watching camper. I am totally hooked. Someone, please unplug my Netflix so I can get something done around here...

And guess what's up next on Masterpiece Classic? A remake of Upstairs, Downstairs, coming in April.

Anybody else a fan?

Sunday Salon--Oscar day in LA

2011-02-27T09:08:00.000-08:00

Here in Hollywood, the Academy Awards takes over for almost a week. The Kodak Theater, where the award ceremony is held, is really close to my kids' school. They block off the streets nearby for days beforehand, for security reasons I suppose, and also because they have to build red carpet and bleachers and all sorts of temporary structures for the event. So my kid carpooling is messed up for about a week, grrrr.

This year they put up all sorts of extra tents around the theater, as we have been having really cold and rainy weather, for LA. Gotta protect those celebs from the rain. Last night, there were actual flakes of snow falling in the hillier areas around town. This prompted a flurry of Facebook posts about the snow, if you'll excuse the pun--there were probably more pictures of hail and snow on Facebook than there were actual snowflakes.

I sound like a curmudgeon about it, but I actually really enjoy watching the Oscars on TV. It's the only award show I like--most of the others seem like johnny-come-latelys to me. I like to throw popcorn at the dresses I don't like, and at the bad plastic surgery. I love it when someone rambles on in an acceptance speech, or even better, when they cry, and I hate it when the powers that be cut them off with that annoying music. Ah, the Oscars. TV doesn't get much better than that.

This morning, while picking up two kids from sleepovers, I saw three limos, one a Hummer. Prepping for tonight, I suppose.

My prep for tonight includes getting the snacks ready, and reading. It's a wonderful day to stay inside and read. I don't need to get stuck in all that limo traffic anyway.

I'm almost finished with Dave Eggers' novel What Is the What, about a Sudanese "lost boy" caught up in the violence of a civil war. I've enjoyed the voice of the novel, and admire Eggers' talent. Reviewers have come down on the book because it is a fictionalized memoir, but I haven't been bothered by that--I think it's a well-told and powerful story, and it has made me want to read more on the subject.

What are you reading this weekend?

Booking Through Thursday--Something Old, Something New

2011-02-24T12:51:00.001-08:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?

Hmmm...I guess if I'm honest with myself, I prefer new books--and pristine, leather-bound copies--to battered used books. But that being said, I really don't have anything against used books.

I like cracking open a brand new book, but there is also something to be said for reading someone else's much-loved used book, and wondering where else it has been. And there is also something wonderful about beautiful old books, the aforementioned pristine, leather-bound copies, especially of favorite classics.

The only kind of used book I really don't like is one where the condition renders it difficult to read--the binding is cracking and pages are falling out, or where it's clear the whole book has been submerged in water at some point, and it's now warped and brittle. I don't mind a used book, as long as it's in good condition.

How about you? Would you rather have a new book or used?

Post Valentine's Day Reading Update

2011-02-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day much around here. I gave my husband a funny card, and he brought me a beautiful bunch of tulips. I gave the kids chocolate, and forced them to share.

I finished the anti-Valentine book on Valentine's day. I bought The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, by Brian Moore, because I was looking through the recent releases of NYRB classics and the description was intriguing--and the NYRB Classics catalogue is a great resource for interesting books. This is a novel about a spinster in 1950 Belfast, and her sad and steady decline, and while I enjoyed the writing, the book was a little depressing for the traditional day of love. So I ate some chocolate.

I also recently finished Jennifer Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, for my book group, which meets next week. This is the first of Egan's work that I've read, though I've been meaning to read The Keep forever. I really enjoyed her writing. This book is a linked group of short stories that make up a novel, centered around two characters, record producer Benny Salazar, and his assistant Sasha. The book skips around in time and place, among loosely-linked characters, and the writer deftly switches up styles and voices. The big theme here is growing up, getting old, facing mortality--as time is the goon mentioned in the title. I wish I liked the characters better, or rather, was more able to immerse myself in their lives, but I found the book to be an enjoyable read. I'm looking forward to discussing this one with my book group. And eating more chocolate.

Did you read anything special for Valentine's Day? Did you eat any chocolate?

Room, by Emma Donoghue--a review

2011-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

Room, by Emma Donoghue, was one of those books I was afraid to pick up because I had heard just a tidbit about it: the book was about a five-year-old boy locked up in a single room, and it was from the boy's point of view. I have a rule about not reading books or seeing movies that feature children in peril. The subject is just too disturbing for me, so that's my rule.

However, I kept hearing about Room--that it was a wonderful book, that it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and that it was really original. So I broke my rule and bought it (on the iPad--the first book I've read in that format, by the way).

I'm happy I broke my rule, because I really enjoyed reading Room. The novel tells the story of 5-year-old Jack, who lives in one room with his mother, Ma. The reason they live there is that Ma was kidnapped when she was nineteen, and has been held prisoner in a specially-designed 12-foot-square back-yard shed by her captor, Old Nick.

I was wowed by Donoghue’s ability to effectively communicate the feelings, language and world of a five-year-old who was born and raised in captivity, cut off from society. I was drawn in, not just by the tension I felt about the danger Ma and Jack were in, but also by the intricacies of their world.

Spoiler alert—I’m sorry, I found I just couldn’t talk about this book without revealing some major plot points. If you really don't want to know what happens in the book, read no further. But I don't think knowing what happens spoils the book, so...

The first part of the book is about Jack and Ma’s captivity, and the tension and sense of dread builds really well as Ma realizes, and we realize, that there is no way mother and child will continue to survive in this situation as it is, and they have to attempt a daring escape plan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a major portion of the story takes place after their dramatic escape, when they have to adjust to “Outside”.

While I was fascinated by the way Ma had created a routine that kept her sane and her son safe and healthy inside Room, I was even more interested in their life after captivity. I was so happy that Donoghue didn’t end the book when Jack and Ma escaped, but rather went on to explore what it meant for Jack to enter a huge, frenetic, bewildering world at the age of five, and how hard it was for Ma to reenter that world after seven years of being held prisoner.

Donoghue is spot on with the voices—obviously of Jack and the immensely sympathetic Ma, but also with Ma’s doctor, nurse, mother, brother, sister-in-law, father, and new stepfather. Each of these minor characters adds layers to the complexity of Jack’s adaptation to the big world outside, and to Ma’s difficulty dealing with her feelings of guilt and sadness.

I was pleasantly surprised by Room. I'm glad I got over my difficulties with the subject matter and went ahead and read it. It was an intense read, but very rewarding. It was one of those books I just couldn't put down--I know I stayed up far past my bedtime to finish it, and that's a rare thing for me these days. I'm looking forward to reading more of Emma Donoghue's work.

Virginia Woolf's birthday...

2011-01-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hello again! It's been months, I know. I've been busy with...just everything, and I neglected this poor blog. I guess I needed a vacation from something, so blogging took a backseat.

But it's Virginia Woolf's birthday, so I thought I'd post a link to the 59 Things You Didn't Know About Virginia Woolf on flavorwire. I didn't know any of these facts, and many are disturbing or just plain sad. But I can relate to number 14: "Woolf delighted in the physical act of writing words on paper. From the age of 11, she was continually experimenting with different kinds of pens in hope of finding one that would provide the perfect sensation." Also, number 27 made me laugh: "After getting married, Woolf thought she should learn some domestic skills, so she enrolled in a school of cookery. Shortly after, she accidentally baked her wedding ring in a suet pudding." Poor Virginia!

I'm also rushing to finish Room, by Emma Donoghue (which is short-listed for the Booker Prize, I believe). I was scared to pick this one up, due to the subject matter, but it's not hard to read--just the opposite, in fact. It's a riveting page-turner, and I'm almost finished...

Anybody else reading any page-turners?

On Vacation

2010-11-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Paris for my first real vacation in quite some time (not a trip to visit family or some other obligation). I'm planning to read as much as possible, probably in cafes, while enjoying wine or hot chocolate or macarons.

I'll be back in two weeks, unless I find some free internet access somewhere, in which case I will try to post some pictures!

Booking Through Thursday--Skeletons

2010-10-28T07:38:00.002-07:00

Here is this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

In honor of Halloween this weekend:

What reading skeletons do you have in your closet? Books you’d be ashamed to let people know you love? Addiction to the worst kind of (fill in cheesy genre here)? Your old collection of Bobbsey Twin Mysteries lovingly stored behind your “grown-up” books? You get the picture … come on, confess!

Hmmm...skeletons in my reading closet? The first thing that comes to mind are all those Georgette Heyer novels I've read over the years. They're really a guilty pleasure. I have enjoyed her historical novels but her Regency books are the true skeletons in my reading closet.

Other than that, I may read the occasional chick-lit novel, or cheesy bestseller, but other than Georgette Heyer, I don't have anything else that approaches true secret addiction.

How about you, anything you don't readily admit to reading? Any secret book addictions?

Sunday Salon--Halloween season

2010-10-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

We are pumpkin-y and leafy around here, and the kids insisted that we decorate for Halloween early. We get so many trick-or-treaters, it's insane. We live one street away from a street where everyone decorates the heck out of their houses at Halloween, and trick-or-treaters come from all over. We only get the spillover from that street, and I have to buy 1200 pieces of candy. Isn't that crazy?

But we actually love it. The kids enjoy giving out candy more than they care about trick-or-treating themselves.

My husband and I are getting ready for our trip to Paris, sans children. I cannot wait! I pulled out my copy of A Moveable Feast, to re-read Hemingway's memories of his time in Paris in the 1920s. Apparently he lived there on 5$ a day...ha! Wouldn't that be nice? I often forget how good a writer Hemingway actually was...this book is reminding me of that.

When I threw it out there that I'm looking for something to read while I'm in Paris, a commenter recommended Mavis Gallant stories. I've been meaning to read Gallant for years. So of course I bought a copy of her Paris Stories (published by one of my favorites, New York Review of Books Classics), so I'll have that to bring along.

And I'm still making my own slow way through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, though I'm almost finished now. I swing wildly between identifying with the characters and being disgusted with them. I can't wait to hear what my fellow book-groupers think next week.

What are you reading on this lovely fall weekend? And do you have any good recommendations for things to do, eat, read in Paris? I'm loving everyone's advice!

Lazy blogger

2010-10-21T16:37:00.001-07:00

I've been such a lazy blogger lately, it's pathetic. But at least I haven't been a lazy reader. I've been working my way through Jonathan Franzen's Freedom: A Novel for my book group, which meets in early November. I'm hooked. It's as I remember from The Corrections: A Novel--the man can write.

I ran across an interview with Emma Donoghue, whose novel Room: A Novel s nominated for the Booker Prize. I generally avoid books in which children are in serious peril, but this book sounds fascinating. It's written from the point of view of a five-year-old, which must have been pretty tough to pull off. It's been getting good reviews, so onto my list it goes.

The real reason I've been distracted from blogging is that I'm planning a trip to Paris. My husband and I are going on a sort of second honeymoon to the city of light, a place I've yearned to explore.

I've been obsessed with figuring out where to eat and what to do and where to walk. Of course, we're going in early November, so there is the distinct possibility of rain and rather colder temperatures than I'm used to here in L.A., so I may not be able to do all the things I'd like to do while I'm there. But I'm going to cram a lot in, I promise!

Of course I'm going to make a pilgrimage to Shakespeare and Co., but I'm not sure about other bookish things. I'm going to try to take a chocolate tour of Paris, though. And there's always the question of how many books to bring, and which ones!

So all you fab folks out there who have been to Paris, please leave me some recommendations! What should I see, do, eat, read?

Booking Through Thursday--Current

2010-09-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

What are you reading right now? What made you choose it? Are you enjoying it? Would you recommend it? (And, by all means, discuss everything, if you’re reading more than one thing!)

(I’ve asked this one before, but, well, it’s not like the answers stay the same, and darn it, it’s an interesting question!)

It's a simple question, but always interesting--a snapshot of what people are reading right now. I always ask it at cocktail parties, and when I meet someone interesting, and when I email my cousin...

My answer is, I'm reading a bunch of stuff right now. I'm reading My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson, which makes me cringe because of its resemblance to my own life. I chose it because my good friend recommended it, and because it's about my town. I've also just started Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those books I just can't put down, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. I chose it because I loved his The Corrections, and I have been waiting (forever) for this one to come out, and because I'm planning to force my book group to read it. And I'm also reading, slowly, Ten Poems to Change Your Life, by Roger Housden, because I love poetry and I don't read enough of it.

What are you reading right now? Why did you choose it?

Sunday Salon

2010-09-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

This morning I finished a really interesting book, Ideas of Heaven, by Joan Silber. It was recommended to me by someone (a lovely woman who works with my husband) who had studied with Ms. Silber. The book's cover says the book is "a ring of stories", which is an apt description. It's one of those books of stories that are connected, a construct I am coming to really appreciate. This book is really cleverly done. The stories are all linked in some way, and the last story connects to the first, making it a "ring", as the cover says. I loved the writing, and the way the writer takes us all over the world and all through time with these stories, yet keeps them accessible. I'll have to write up a review soon.

I am planning to read Mona Simpson's My Hollywood next--I'll crack it open tonight after the kids go to bed. I probably wouldn't have picked this one up on my own, but a friend I trust recommended it, and said it was a quick and enjoyable read. I have to see what Simpson's Hollywood is like, as I live very near Hollywood myself(my neighborhood is sort of south of Hollywood and west of Koreatown). I'm betting my Hollywood is nothing like her My Hollywood, but I'll let you know.

And then on to Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, Oprah's choice (ah, the symmetry) for her book club, which will most likely be the choice for my book group as well. One of my go-to bookish friends really loved it, so I'm really looking forward to starting it soon.

What are you reading this weekend?

Booking Through Thursday--Day and Night

2010-09-16T16:26:00.001-07:00

Today’s Booking Through Thursday question is suggested by Mae.

“I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I just read and read, day and night … it was there I began to divide books into day books and night books,” she went on. “Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night.”
- ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, p. 103.

Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?

Wow. When I read this, I realized this was one question about reading I had never considered before. I love The Unbearable Lightness of Being, where the quote is from, by the way.

While I've never categorized books into day books and night books before, there are certainly books I have read far into the night. There are also books that I put down at night because they are too scary to contemplate alone late at night. They might not be traditionally "scary", but they might prompt me to think about uncomfortable things, things I don't want to think about at night, like our insignificance in the universe--stuff like that.

On the other hand, because it was a page-turner that sucked me in, I read one scary book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, until far into the night, because even though the subject matter wasn't something I want to think about at night, I just couldn't put the book down. So there are definitely those books that transcend day and night, because you just keep reading them, through night and day and night again.

While I can see why people might want to read "safe", comforting sort of books at night, and read books that take them out of their comfort zone during the day, I don't think I am truly one of those people.

What is the difference between your day reading and your night reading?

Sunday Salon--Back in the Saddle Again

2010-09-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

I'm finally ready to blog again, after a crazy-long unintended vacation from the whole thing. It's not that I haven't been reading, it's just that I didn't have much time to spare to think about what I had read. But now that all three kids are back in school and I've had about five minutes to myself, I find myself finally reflecting on what I read over the summer.

When I was a kid we used to travel to the UK to visit my relatives, every other year or so, and while I was young I developed a soft spot for British literature. This summer I did a bit of a British literary tour, sort of by accident. I just got on a roll, you know how it goes.

I read Nick Hornby's novel Juliet, Naked. I always love Hornby's sense of humor and his style, and this novel did not disappoint. This one is about an aging rock star who has gone incognito, the obsessed fans who write about him on the internet, and the girlfriend of one of those fans, who doesn't see what all the fuss is about. Hornby creates really accessible and sympathetic characters, and the budding friendship/love relationship between retired rocker Tucker Crowe and Annie, girlfriend/ex-girlfriend of obsessed fan Duncan is subtle and really satisfying to read. The whole thing is tinged with sadness, but it's the understandable sadness of people who look back on their lives and have some regrets, but who are also trying to be true to themselves now.

Then my sister-in-law lent me another British novel, One Day, by David Nicholls, which I had never heard of before. Like Hornby's book, it was a page-turner. The book has a gimmick--it checks in with the characters on one particular day each year, over a period of twenty or so years, so it's a snapshot of their evolving relationship on that day. I so enjoyed the book's sense of humor, the snappy dialogue, and I'm a sucker for books about star-crossed relationships, so it was a lot of fun. I wasn't a huge fan of the book's (perhaps gratuitously sad) ending, but I'm not going to spoil it for you, and it didn't spoil the book for me, so...I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Then I hopped over to Ireland and read two books by Patrick Taylor in the "Irish Country Doctor" series. I read An Irish Country Doctor, and An Irish Country Village, the first and second books in a series that includes several more novels about a country doctor set in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Now, when I was a kid I was a big fan of James Herriott's books about being a vet in Yorkshire, so I knew I would probably like these books. I don't think they are quite as good as the Herriott books, but I enjoyed their gentle humor, the medical anecdotes and the evocation of the atmosphere of that particular time and place in Irish history.

So this next book was set in France, Britain and mostly America, and it was written by Australian superstar Peter Carey, so it sort of qualifies as a continuation of my British theme. My book group chose Parrot and Olivier in America as one of our summer reads, so I took it on vacation with me. It was a fascinating book, and talk about atmosphere--Carey is a brilliant stylist, and his descriptions of late 18th century America, as perceived by a French aristocrat (a la de Tocqueville) and his down-to-earth British sidekick Parrot, are amazing. All the books I read this summer had humor as a hallmark, and this was no exception--I love Carey's eye for the absurd, and his fabulously unreliable narrators, both definitely on display here. I'm really looking forward to discussing this with my book group in a couple of weeks.

I'm hoping to convince the ol' book group to read Jonathan Franzen's new book, Freedom. While on vacation in Cape Cod last month, my sister-in-law and I tried to get a copy of Freedom from a local bookstore, only to be told that it wasn't out yet. We had both heard that President Obama had taken the book on vacation with him, and we found out from the bookseller that he had an advance copy! I was so annoyed because I thought I was going to be able to read it on the beach.

Okay, I'm ending with a weird picture of my new running shoes. There's a book out there called Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, by Christopher McDougall, that tells the story of Mexico's Tarahumara indians, and of the joys and benefits of barefoot running. Friends tell me the book is really inspiring and very entertaining, so I plan to get a copy. But just talking about it with friends inspired me to buy some running shoes that approximate barefoot running. So far I have only used them once, and I've been advised not to run too far in them at first. After the first day, my calves are a little sore, so we'll see how it goes next time...

But aren't they funny looking?

Booking Through Thursday--Beach Buddies

2010-07-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

This week's Booking Through Thursday question (suggested by Joy) made me think, and then it made me laugh:

Which fictional character (or group of characters) would you like to spend a day at the beach with? Why would he/she/they make good beach buddies?

There are quite a few fictional characters I've imagined having dinner with, but I've never thought about going to the beach with any of them! And imagining Persuasion's Anne Elliot, or Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennett on the beach in sunglasses and a tankini made me giggle. Though maybe they'd be up for a beachside margarita...

That said, there are plenty of fictional characters I would be interested to meet--including Albus Dumbledore, Jeeves and Wooster, Dorothea Brooke, and Lisbeth Salander--because they are wise or witty or amusing or mysterious, but I think I'll keep bathing suits out of the imaginary equation.

Which fictional characters would you most like to meet, and why?

Booking Through Thursday--Discussion

2010-07-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

(Personally, I almost can’t remember the last time I was able to really TALK about a book I’d read with someone else who’d read it, and haven’t really been able to since my best friend and I devoured the same books in high school. Thank God for the internet.)

It's a timely question, as I just posted about trying to share my son's (required) summer reading, and trying to get him to talk about it with me. This will be a challenge, as he's so deep into teenage-ness at the moment that he barely speaks. But a mother can dream, right?

In general, though, most of my book discussion happens at my book group. We're a group of ten women, we've been going strong for six years, and it's my most consistent arena for discussing books (in person, obviously, since I have wonderful online discussions with all of you!). I always look forward to our book discussions, and our wine, cheese, and desserts!

Besides the book group, I have a sister-in-law and a cousin-in-law I tend to discuss books with, when we're together--which is not that often, since they live on the other side of the country. But we email about books occasionally, which I love.

My mom and I share books, and we discuss them too. We have similar taste in fiction, and I always save my favorite reads to pass along to her.

My dad reads mostly non-fiction, but I'm always on the lookout for things I think he'll like to read. We don't discuss books that often, but when our tastes overlap, we do talk about the books we have in common.

Overall, though, I have fewer in person conversations about books than I'd like. But I do find that when people hear I like to read, they corner me and ask me about what I've read recently, and can recommend!

Who do you discuss books with in person?

Summer Reading for my son and me

2010-07-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

My eldest son enters 9th grade in the fall. That's high school, people! Ack! How did this happen so fast? I'm not old enough to have a child in high school!

In middle school, he finally started to read books for school that were exciting to me. I was thrilled to read along with old favorites (The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird), and to have him experience serious books (Night, by Elie Wiesel, Romeo and Juliet).

And this summer he's required to read two books that I haven't read, but I'm interested in. For English he's reading William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and for History he's reading Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons, about Thomas More and Henry VIII. My son likes history, so this should be interesting to him (I hope).

How great, I can kill two birds with one stone--I can read two things that I somehow missed along the way, and I can help my son prepare for the school year. I'm a little optimistic thinking we're going to make a cozy little book group of two, and have lovely discussions about the book. But I will force him to talk about them, if it kills me!

I was happy (and surprised) when he asked me the other day if he could get a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Perfect, I think, for the teenager that he is. I can't wait to hear what he thinks.

Impromptu vacation

2010-06-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Sorry for the unexplained absence. I kept meaning to get to the computer, but I just couldn't seem to. This is what I was doing over the last few weeks instead of blogging:

I took my unplanned blogging break because I planted a huge vegetable garden in my back yard, and then our family took an impromptu trip to Vancouver, where my husband sometimes has to work. He's been going there every once in a while for the last several years and I hadn't ever been, so we packed up the kids and had a wonderful week exploring the city.

And now there's just the craziness of three kids not in school. I feel like a chauffeur. I have yearly amnesia about just how difficult the "unstructured" time of summer is. It's harder to get the kids to their various fun things during the summer than it is to get them to and from school every day.

While in Vancouver, I managed to read Laurie Colwin's book of essays, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen. I love her fiction, and her food writing is just as good. Her voice is wonderfully confiding, and self-deprecating, and funny. Some of the recipes are dated (which doesn't actually take away from their charm) and some are timeless, but there are quite a few dog-eared pages where I marked recipes I'd like to try.

While I was away, Jose Saramago died, at age 87. I have only read his novel Blindness, but I really liked it (and wrote about it here). It was a singular reading experience. I will definitely read more of his work in the future. Here's an appreciation of Jose Saramago and his NY Times obituary.

Here's a picture of downtown Vancouver from our hotel room balcony, taken with my iPhone:
I had never been to Vancouver before, and I really, really liked it. Breathtakingly beautiful, clean, and lots of good food. I'll go back!

Where is everyone going this summer, and what are you taking to read?

Booking Through Thursday--Signature

2010-06-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

Do signed copies excite you? Tempt you? Delight you? Or does it not matter to you?

Signed copies don't really excite me or tempt me, but I guess they occasionally delight me. I don't spend any time chasing signatures, but every once in awhile I'll attend a book-signing, and the combination of hearing the author read, meeting the author, and having the author sign my book makes the signature in my copy of a book special.

My husband also mentioned something I hadn't ever thought of--he appreciates the historical significance of some signed copies of books. I guess it would be pretty great to see a signed copy of a favorite book by a long-dead author, or see a book signed by someone famous TO someone famous. The only way I'll ever see anything like that is in a museum, but I would go out of my way to see certain signatures! There was a Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York that I really wish I had seen...

How about you? Do you value signed books higher than unsigned? Who would you really go out of your way to have sign a book?

Sunday Salon--this week's reading

2010-06-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've spent the week immersed in Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters. I love Tanizaki's style, and the wonderful detail about pre-war Osaka life, and how the traditional Japanese culture deteriorates as the country modernizes and prepares for war. I am fascinated by how Tanizaki crafts a plot out of countless small moments in this family's life. It is one of those books that sort of sneaks up on you, and all its layers come together to create a delicate and complete picture.

I also had time to zip through another book, a memoir called If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, a Daughter, a Reporter's Notebook, by Katherine Rosman, the sister of someone I know. It is the examination of a mother's life by her reporter daughter, after the mother has died of cancer. The daughter sets out to interview people who knew her mother, and in the process create a clearer picture of the mother, unclouded by their complicated relationship. It's an interesting idea for a memoir, and though the descriptions of the mother's illness and death were painful to read, it was thought-provoking on the subject of mother-daughter relationships, and how we as daughters see and don't see our mothers.

I've also started Laurie Colwin's book of essays, Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen. I've loved Colwin's writing for twenty years--I've read all of her fiction, but this is the first time I'm reading her essays on food and cooking, which she wrote for Gourmet and other magazines. I love Colwin's easy, accessible, charming and very funny style. I'm looking forward to getting deeper into this one!

What have you been reading this week?

Booking Through Thursday--The Long and Short of it

2010-06-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is:

Which do you prefer? Short stories? Or full-length novels?

Ah, a question where I don't have to be waffle-y. While I enjoy reading short stories every once in awhile, I prefer full length novels. I enjoy losing myself in the world that a novel creates, and I like the fact that it takes me awhile to get through a novel.

Everything else in life these days seems to occur in short, staccato bursts--texting, emails, even the way movies and TV are edited has changed to accommodate those with short attention spans. I like the pace of a novel--maybe because it's a pace I dictate!

How about you?

Reading Habits Meme

2010-05-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this meme about reading habits at Letters From a Hill Farm, and thought it would be a fun one for this holiday weekend. You should do it, too!

Do you snack while reading?
Yes, but not habitually. It depends on if there's something worth eating in the house.

What is your favourite drink while reading?
Coffee. Or possibly water.

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I sometimes dog-ear a page, if I don't have a 3x5 notecard near. That's my preferred method--to make notes as I go on a notecard that I also use as a bookmark.

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat?
Bookmark, or aforementioned 3x5 card. If I can't find anything else, I'll dog-ear a page.

Fiction, non-fiction or both?
Both, but mostly fiction.

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere?
I can stop anywhere. Sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of the page.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?
I never throw books! It hurts me to think about it. I might put it down, but would never, never throw it.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?
I wish I did. I intend to. Sometimes I'll write down the word and plan to look it up later...

What are you currently reading?
The Makioka Sisters, by Junichiro Tanizaki. It has really drawn me into its world.

What is the last book you bought?
Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin.

Do you have a favourite time/place to read?
I will read any time and any place. But I tend to read in bed lately, because bedtime is the only reliable reading time I have.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones?
I don't really have a preference.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?
Jane Austen. Over and over!

How do you organise your books?
I have big plans to organize my library one day, but right now it's pretty disorganized.

Barbara's additional question: background noise or silence?
Silence is preferable, but with three kids, I can tune out almost anything!

Booking Through Thursday--Bedside

2010-05-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is:

What books do you have next to your bed right now? How about other places in the house? What are you reading?

Next to my bed is a precarious pile of books. On top is Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters, which I am reading for my book group, and which I read once before, maybe fifteen years ago. I like it!

Under that are several other books that I plan to read next, including Chang-Rae Lee's A Gesture Life, and a novel called Bone Worship, by Elizabeth Eslami. Underneath that is a copy of Walter Mosley's book This Year You Write Your Novel--all I can say to that is "Ha!".

Around the house are so many other books I don't have the space to mention them. Next to the TV is a copy of Kim Boyce's new book on whole grain baking, called Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours. Yes, I flip through it while watching TV. Yes, I have a rich baking fantasy life.

What books are next to your bed, or lying around your house right now?

Sunday Salon: old favorites?

2010-05-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

My book group is reading The Makioka Sisters, by Junichiro Tanizaki, this month. It's a book I read probably 20 years ago, and I remember really liking it. I've kept it on my "good" book shelf, the one where I keep classics or nice hardbacks, books I connected with in some way. How strange it was to open it up again and start reading, and find that I remember virtually nothing about this book.

It's like reading it for the first time. It's very disconcerting to me, because I usually remember something about a book I've read, other than just that I liked it.

I am enjoying the book, however. As usual, I find the marker for this is how late I am willing to stay up reading the book, even though I know I have to get up at 6 the next morning as usual. I've definitely sacrificed some sleep reading this book.

It's the tale of four sisters, part of an aristocratic Japanese family that has seen better days, in the years leading up to World War II. It is one of those novels that concerns itself with the details of everyday private life, rather than the grand, sweeping events of public life. And not only do the details give a picture of a bygone life in Japan, which I find fascinating, they also accumulate slowly to create a kind of realism that is really engaging.

The result is a delicately beautiful novel, a book that transports you to another world. I love the descriptions of the natural world around them, of the women's clothing, of their daily habits, of their intricate relationships with each other. This is a great example of a novel that does not have a traditionally strong plot that nevertheless keeps me engaged, turning the pages, reading past my bedtime!

So has anyone else had that experience--re-reading a book and not remembering anything about it? Or should I be consulting a memory specialist?

Booking Through Thursday--Influence

2010-05-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, first of all, you might be wondering where the heck I've been the last few weeks. And the answer would be, "right here." But obviously not blogging. Oh no, not that. It's just been a crazy few weeks of kid stuff, including this:

And this kind of stuff:

And yes, even this:

But there has been little blogging. Fortunately, there has still been some reading, which I will get to some time soon. But now, a little Booking Through Thursday question for you on a Friday:

Are your book choices influenced by friends and family? Do their recommendations carry weight for you? Or do you choose your books solely by what you want to read?

And my answer is that my book choices are influenced by the friends and family I know have good taste! I have a few go-to book-loving friends and family members whose taste I trust and whose recommendations I really treasure. There are a couple of family members in particular who seem to read everything before I do, and I love hearing what they have to recommend, and what they tell me I can steer clear of.

What about you?

The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee--a review

2010-04-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Chang-rae Lee's new novel The Surrendered tells the tales of the intertwined lives of several characters, all of whom are profoundly affected by their experiences during the Korean War. First of all, there is June, orphaned while fleeing the Communist army. She meets American soldier Hector on the road, and together they end up the orphanage run by Sylvie Tanner and her husband, a minister. Both June and Hector fall in love with Sylvie, who is also emotionally damaged, after watching her missionary parents murdered by the Chinese in Manchuria.

I was fascinated to read that Chang-rae Lee got the idea for this novel more than twenty years ago, after interviewing his father about his experiences during the Korean War. Lee writes that his father had only spoken about the war years in the vaguest way before Lee interviewed him for a college project. The traumatic details of Lee's father's brother's death came out in the interview, and the story became the inspiration for one of the most powerful scenes in The Surrendered.

The anecdote Lee relates reminds me of many stories I have heard from the children of Holocaust survivors, of parents who shelter their children from the horrors of their pasts, and then at some point, maybe when the children are adults, finally tell them their stories--and it is shocking for the children on many levels. Lee explores this theme in the novel, too--he creates a character in June who has hidden some part of herself from her son, and that separation, that hiding, has colored their whole relationship, and made it dysfunctional.

This relationship—or rather, non-relationship—between June and her son leads to their estrangement, and then to June’s dying quest to find him in Europe. Lee is sparing in the details he provides about the characters’ motivations and inner emotional lives, and here it was sometimes maddening and sometimes haunting, as I watched June in her self-delusion, hoping for a reconciliation with a son who cannot acknowledge her, perhaps because he never knew her. There’s a twist at the end that makes the story even more poignant, but I won’t spoil it here.

I felt I understood Hector better than I understood June. Hector, like his namesake in Greek mythology, is a talented warrior and, because of the myths his hard-drinking Irish father spins, believes he may be physically invincible. But while bodily strong (and beautiful, which turns out to be a curse), Hector is emotionally damaged, and feels that he is a curse to others if they get involved with him. While June is more of a cipher, because she is so emotionally self-contained and defended, Hector is more openly wounded, and therefore easier to see into.

But overall, while Lee’s characters were very compelling, there were times when I felt I didn’t truly understand them. The writing is clean, steady, and often beautiful. I really enjoyed Lee’s prose style. However, the story is relentlessly tragic, and just about everything bad that you can imagine happening to these characters does happen. So while I recommend Lee’s writing, I feel this book is definitely for the stout of heart.

Booking Through Thursday--Plotting

2010-04-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question:

Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Which would you rather read?

Both, is my wishy washy answer. There is a time and a place for stream-of-consciousness, and a time and a place for plot. I enjoy getting lost in the stream-of-consciousness of Joyce, Faulkner, and Woolf, but I also enjoy a rip-roaring plot.

I guess it really depends on how good the novel is. I'm happy with either as long as the writing is strong!

How about you?

Sunday Salon--Book Group Reading

2010-04-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

At our last meeting, my book group discussed Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids. I was planning to write a review, but after my group's discussion of the book, I must admit my thoughts grew muddled. I really enjoyed the book for several reasons. I liked Smith's voice, and I liked the way she was able to tell the story of her youth without judging herself in hindsight. I also liked the window she made for me into the New York art scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Smith lived at the Chelsea Hotel and frequented Max's Kansas City, and she got to know William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Allen Ginsberg, among others. It was a colorful time, to say the least, and I enjoyed the anecdotes about the city and the scene at this time.

But I also came away with more questions than answers after reading this. It's clear that there was much that Smith didn't want to say. The book is a labor of love, a eulogy and love letter to her lover and best friend, Robert Mapplethorpe. At the beginning of the story, Smith is a naive girl who comes to the city to live a life about art. Some of my book group found her naivete surprising, if not suspect, but maybe it was this naivete, mixed with a certain kind of fearlessness, that allowed Smith to become an artist after all. Mapplethorpe seemed even more devoted than Smith to the idea of art for art's sake, and Smith makes it clear that they both truly believed in each other as artists, even when neither was entirely sure what direction their art might take. Again, Smith chronicles their development as artists, and people, without judging with the benefit of hindsight, and she has a lyrical, impressionistic storytelling style, so there isn't a lot of self-reflection here.

Maybe because as a society we are used to post-Freudian, post-Oprah gut-spilling self-reflection to the point of narcissism, this book seems unusual to me. It feels like, perhaps because she is being respectful of her dead friend's secrets, Smith doesn't tell the whole story about Mapplethorpe and her relationship with him. She does, however, treat him and her younger self with an admirable empathy. I go back and forth, both wanting to know more about how Smith felt (for example, upon learning her lover and trusted friend was homosexual, and having their relationship necessarily change because of it), and recognizing that maybe there are no words for much of what was going on, and because it was a different time (and only nascently feminist) place, and because Smith and Mapplethorpe were making up their own rules as they went along.

Smith has an appealing sense of humor and self-deprecation. One of the best anecdotes in the book is about how Allen Ginsberg once hit on Smith, thinking she was a particularly good-looking boy. I would recommend the book for anyone interested in the New York art scene of the late 60s and early 70s--plus the photos alone are worth the price of the book. My book group discussion about the book was pretty wide-ranging--we touched on misogyny in the art world, feminism, the spectrum of sexuality, poetry and rock and roll, the allure of Paris, obsessiveness about Baudelaire--so even though there was disagreement about the book, it sparked some interesting talk.

We agreed to read a novel next time, and we picked Chang-rae Lee's new book, The Surrendered. One of my good friends really loved Lee's A Gesture Life, so I got hold of a copy of that, too, and I hope to read both before our next meeting.

Lee is one of those novelists that has popped up out of nowhere for me. I'd love to hear what you all think of Lee, if you've read him...

BTT--Break

2010-03-25T06:28:00.000-07:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)

I do take reading breaks. It depends on the book. Sometimes you just can't put a book down. Love those compelling reads that keep you up until 3 a.m., even though you have to be up and functioning the next day.

But that doesn't happen to me as much as it used to, mostly because life gets in the way. I'm so tired most of the time that I can fall asleep on the most compelling book. So now I do take reading breaks. If something doesn't really grab me, I find I put it down and forget about it for awhile, maybe read something else in the meantime, and then I might pick it back up again. But I also occasionally give up on a book entirely--something I never used to do when I was younger.

I'm really much more compassionate with myself these days. I've relaxed the reading rules. I don't beat myself up if I don't finish a book, or if I want to take a break from it.

Sunday Salon--British reading and Spring!

2010-03-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's officially spring now, according to the calendar, but the season arrived here in Los Angeles about a month ago. My backyard wisteria is insane, and I'm enjoying all sorts of blooming around the neighborhood--tulip magnolias, lilac vines, cherry and plum blossoms.

I've managed to do a little bit of reading this weekend, moved the bookmarks forward in two different books. First off, I started Gervase Phinn's memoir of his career as a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales, called The Other Side of the Dale. The cover copy calls Phinn "the James Herriott of schools." I read and loved James Herriott's books about being a veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales when I was a kid, so this sounded like a good bet. And while the stories don't have the drama of Herriott's, the writing does have a gentle wit that I'm enjoying.

I also (finally) started Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith, set in Victorian England. It's been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, and I know it's one of those books so many have recommended to me. So far it's really compelling, drawing me into the story of a Victorian con game, and promising some interesting twists and turns in the future.

YA for A

2010-03-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've always felt that the best young adult fiction is worth reading again and again, no matter what age you are. The Los Angeles Times recently published an article about how adults are reading more and more young adult fiction, and that young adult fiction sales are up 30.7%, in an otherwise sluggish book market.

It doesn't surprise me a bit, considering the obvious success of crossover hits like the Twilight
and Harry Potter series, and the perennial appeal of books like The Witch of Blackbird Pond

After the LA Times article came out, cultural website Flavorwire published its list of top 10 Young Adult novels, and I liked the list--it has a few of my favorites on it, including The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, as well as two of my husband's favorites, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, which was also a sweet independent movie. Also on their list are a couple of books I've been wanting to read for quite some time, The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin, and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

The list didn't include some YA books I've heard a lot about lately, The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins, What I Saw And How I Lied, by Judy Blundell, and Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief series.

And then there are those books out there, like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, and Black Swan Green: A Novel, by David Mitchell, that have young adult protagonists but aren't necessarily categorized in young adult fiction...

What are your favorite Young Adult titles? Do you feel they have crossover appeal? If so, why?

Booking Through Thursday--Illustrious

2010-03-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is:

How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

I don't have a strong opinion about illustrations in my books. I guess it really depends on the book.

As a child, I loved the illustrations in my copies of Alice in Wonderland (the originals by Sir John Tenniel), and in The Borrowers (illustrations done by Beth and Joe Krush), because they were really beautiful drawings, and I looked forward to coming across them while reading. It was like getting a wonderful little surprise every few pages. So I remember the magic of illustrations very well.

I just finished Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids, about her life in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe, which had photos sprinkled throughout. It reminded me of those reading experiences I had had as a child, enchanted by the illustrations I would come across. That's because the pictures were so great in this book--allowing a glimpse into a life, and perfectly illustrating the text. They also felt necessary, because they were often mentioned in the text, and were part of the story itself.

But generally speaking, I don't want or need illustrations for a novel. The language paints enough of a picture for me.

Some British reading, and a whiff of Spring

2010-03-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

I wish I could post smells on this blog, to give you all a whiff of the jasmine that is blooming in my back yard. It almost overwhelms me when I walk out onto my back deck. I know my friends on the east coast could use a little of the beginnings of spring we are experiencing here in Los Angeles...

I won't blame the spring-like blooming (though it could be my allergies...), but for some reason I haven't been in the mood to read anything heavy lately. I've been testing the heft of Wolf Hall before I dive in, and I think it might need a little leavening, so I used up the last of my holiday gift cards to buy a couple of other English books, but in a lighter vein.

The lovely Litlove recently posted about Gervase Phinn's The Other Side of the Dale, and it sounded interesting to me, because I almost always like stories about British country or village life, and because Litlove said it was a "delightful and soothing sort of book", soothing being something I look for when I'm not in the mood for heavy. Phinn was a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales, so he's called (on the front cover) "the James Herriott of schools"--and since I have such fond memories of reading James Herriott's books when I was a child, this sounds like it's right up my alley.

Another lovely blogger, The Indextrious Reader, posted about an English novel called Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942, by Joyce Dennys, a re-issue done by the Bloomsbury Group, which sounded intriguing. It wasn't available until later in the month, so I picked out another of their reissues--one with a whimsical title: The Brontes Went to Woolworths, by Rachel Ferguson. It's about three sisters growing up in London in the 1930s, and that's about all I know about it, except that I like the purple cover, so I'll let you know if I actually like the book or not.

There are several other British books I've been meaning to get to, like Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked, Muriel Spark's Loitering with Intent, and Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower. More for the list!

One more photo for you, of the view from our front balcony, at sunrise:

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann--a review

2010-02-24T16:25:00.000-08:00

It is August, 1974, in New York City, and daredevil wirewalker Philippe Petit makes an amazing, and illegal, walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This event is the cornerstone of Colum McCann's novel Let the Great World Spin, the strange and wonderful event that connects the story's characters. But the story is not about Petit at all, it is about the lives of a seemingly disparate group of New Yorkers whose brief contact with his wire-walk sets off a chain of events that changes or touches them all.

An Irish monk, John Corrigan, lives in the Bronx and concentrates his saintly impulses on improving the lives of hookers and nursing home patients. Despite his vow of chastity, he falls in love with a Guatemalan nurse.

Judge Solomon Soderberg sees Petit's wire-walk and wants him prosecuted in his courtroom. In order to hurry to Petit's case, he gives short shrift to the case of two prostitutes, friends of John Corrigan's, mother Tillie and her daughter Jazzlyn. Soderberg lets Jazzlyn off but sends Tillie to jail. As Corrigan drives Jazzlyn back to the Bronx, they get in a terrible car accident, their van clipped by a car driven by a wannabe artist, Blaine. Blaine's wife Lara is in the car, too. Lara feels terribly guilty, and later seeks out Corrigan's brother Ciaran to make amends.

Other characters include Judge Soderberg's wife Claire, who mourns their son, killed in Viet Nam. And in Claire's grief group is Gloria, an African-American woman who also mourns her two sons, and who lives in the same building in the Bronx where Corrigan lived.
I won't go further into the plot, except to say that McCann elegantly weaves together the stories of his characters and has the mysterious forces of fate bring them together to experience both grief and redemption.

I was charmed at the outset by McCann's lyrical writing style in the very first few pages of the story--a beautiful description of the setting of Petit's wire-walk. Beautiful writing goes a long way with me, but this book has more. It has an elegant plot, woven together out of the stories of several characters. Some of the characters interested me more than others, but I found most of them engaging, and was always drawn in by putting the puzzle pieces of their relationships together.

I love the novel's atmosphere, and the vibrant images McCann conjures. I also enjoyed exploring the novel's themes of fate and whether or not things happen for a reason, and guilt and redemption. New York City is a character itself, and McCann captures its mysteries, both the pleasure and the pain of the city, very well. Maybe because this novel was written after 9/11, but set before it, there was something eerie about thinking of the Twin Towers as the center of this amazing but benign event that topples the dominos of the characters' lives, and rearranges them so completely.

My book group really enjoyed this novel, too. I'll look out for more of McCann's work.

To read next, and BTT snuck up on me--Encouragement

2010-02-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

For our next read, my book group chose the book I was coveting last week--Just Kids, by Patti Smith. It's the memoir of her romance and lifelong friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, and how they spurred each other to become artists. I had to laugh--a bunch of my book groupers had the same idea I did, so I didn't have to persuade anyone--they even brought the New York Times Book Review from that week, which featured Just Kids.

I also have a copy of the Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, on my nightstand. It's pretty hefty (um, 560 pages), and it's historical, but I think I'm up for the challenge. It's about Henry VIII, through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, his close advisor. I know it mixes fiction with fact, but I'm looking forward to learning more about this era of history by diving into this novel.

Is it really Thursday already? I don't know where the time goes. My book group friend told me her husband woke her in the middle of the night recently, to say he'd solved all their problems--he was just going to add another hour to the day between 3 and 4 in the morning. Sounds good to me! Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Suggested by Barbara H:

How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do you just accept that your child is a non-reader?

In the book Gifted Hands by brilliant surgeon Ben Carson, one of the things that turned his life around was his mother’s requirement that he and his brother read books and write book reports for her. That approach worked with him, but I have been afraid to try it. My children don’t need to “turn their lives around,” but they would gain so much from reading and I think they would enjoy it so much if they would just stop telling themselves, “I just don’t like to read.”

This is a tough question. Right now, I have two kids who don't read enough for my liking (and one who doesn't read yet!). My 13-year-old and his younger brother (10) both like to read, but both feel like they don't have enough time to read for pleasure, because they have reading to do for school. I don't get it, because when I was a kid, I was always trying to sneak more reading in.

I think my eldest really likes reading, but is seduced by social networking, video games, and other stuff that we didn't even have when I was a kid. My younger one doesn't like reading quite as much as his brother did at this age, but he does love a good story, and really gets into the books they read at school. For his "free reading" (reading he has to do for school, but he gets to pick the book), he most recently finished Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, which his older brother also loved, and he just had to read the last page aloud to me, because it had a surprise ending--gotta love that. But I wish he would pick up a book on his own more often. I'm not sure how to encourage it, other than getting more books for them from the library, and trying to provide them with some down time when they can read. I limit the "screen time" anyway, so that helps create time for reading. But I don't like to push reading too hard, for fear that they will just resist.

If anyone has any good tips to get kids to read more, I'm all ears.

Booking Through Thursday--Winter Reading

2010-02-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is:

The northern hemisphere, at least, is socked in by winter right now… So, on a cold, wintry day, when you want nothing more than to curl up with a good book on the couch … what kind of reading do you want to do?

Interesting--winter reading as distinguished from summer reading? I equate the phrase "summer reading" with vacation reading--easy-to-tote, easy-to-concentrate on beach reads. But my actual summer reading is more or less the same as my reading the rest of the year.

I can see how winter reading, defined here as the reading you want to do when it's cold outside and you're curled up with a book someplace warm, would be about comfort. I just posted about my comfort reads when I have a short attention span, like when I'm sick--cookbooks!

But on a typical cold, winter day (which we've been having more than usual this winter--cold and rainy days interspersed with our normal 70-degree winter wonders), I might curl up with something comforting, or something that really transports me to another time and place.

I have two favorite comfort reads, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, both by Jane Austen. I'd curl up with either, any day, blustery or otherwise.

I just finished Sally Gunning's historical novel Bound, which took me to colonial Cape Cod, and gave me a thorough yet entertaining picture of the life of an indentured servant then and there.

And I'm almost through Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, which transported me to 1974 New York. This book, with it's poetic language and wonderful descriptions, is an immersive experience, and definitely worth curling up with.

But lately I have had so little time for reading, that any time with any book is an absolute pleasure.

Do you have any favorite books for a wintery day?

Sunday Salon--Cookbook Reading in Bed

2010-01-30T12:51:00.000-08:00

Over the last week, my daughter caught a cold, and then my husband got it, and then I got it. I have been recovering slowly, but haven't had any time to blog.

I have had a chance to read, but I haven't been able to concentrate on anything for any length of time. So one thing I like to read in short bursts is cookbooks. Often I take them up to bed with me. I don't often eat in bed, but I'll read about cooking and eating there. I love to fantasize about cooking, probably more than I like to actually cook.

I received some really good cookbooks this holiday season. I've been leafing through them quite a bit while sniffling and using up whole boxes of tissues, and tossing them without making it into the wastebasket.

One of my lovely sisters-in-law sent me Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking, which has all kinds of good cooking tips, and recipes, and like all of Julia Child's books, is really fun to read. I challenge you, however, to read her writing without imagining her voice. Or without imagining Dan Aykroyd doing Julia, "I've cut the dickens out of my finger!"

Reading Julia's Kitchen Wisdom inspired me to finally get a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which, of course, has become a bestseller again since the movie "Julie and Julia" came out, and which also makes for interesting reading.

I also read food blogs fairly religiously. I've been reading Heidi Swanson's blog 101 Cookbooks, which inspired me to get a copy of her book, Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Foods into Your Cooking. This has recipes, but it's also a sort of primer on natural foods and has a section called "Build a Natural Foods Pantry", which I found informative.

I also reacquainted myself with Mark Bittman, and his tenth anniversary edition of How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food I always enjoy his writing style, when I read him in the New York Times, or here in this book. And this book is a great cooking reference.

And for dessert, I decided to lighten up, while still feeding my chocolate habit, so I've been drooling over Camilla Saulsbury's book Enlightened Chocolate: More Than 200 Decadently Light, Lowfat, and Inspired Recipes Using Dark Chocolate and Unsweetened Cocoa Powder. A girl after my own heart, she adds chocolate to almost everything. Chocolate for breakfast? Why not?

And as for coveting non-cookbooks, this Sunday's New York Times Book Review features a review of Patti Smith's memoir about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids, which sounds fascinating, and which I'm really looking forward to reading at some point.

How's your reading going this week? Any new books you're coveting?

Booking Through Thursday--Favorite Unknown

2010-01-22T13:43:00.001-08:00

This week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Who’s your favorite author that other people are NOT reading? The one you want to evangelize for, the one you would run popularity campaigns for? The author that, so far as you’re concerned, everyone should be reading–but that nobody seems to have heard of. You know, not JK Rowling, not Jane Austen, not Hemingway–everybody’s heard of them. The author that you think should be that famous and can’t understand why they’re not…

I guess I don't read that many authors that nobody has heard of, because I can't truly answer this question the way it's phrased. However, I do have a pretty long list of authors who are not unknown or unread, but who I think are underappreciated. My list includes the book I've read that puts them on my list...

Elizabeth Bowen (The Death of the Heart)
Dawn Powell (Dance Night)
Elizabeth Hardwick (Sleepless Nights)
J.L. Carr (A Month in the Country)
May Sarton (Kinds of Love)
Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Rough Strife)

It doesn't surprise me that a couple of these books are published by NYRB Classics. I'm sure I could go on. Who is your favorite underappreciated author?

Sunday Salon--Books I read a little bit of today

2010-01-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

This week I've been slowly making my way through several books, and this weekend I've dipped into all of them.

I've been reading Alejandro Junger, M.D.'s book Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself. I've always been intrigued by doing a "cleanse", and according to a holistic doctor I know, and to Gwyneth Paltrow (!), whose website I actually like, this is one of the safest cleanses out there. Junger gives reasonable reasons why, in this modern world of pollutants and stresses, our bodies need a rest from toxins every once in awhile. He also sets forth a program, with recipes, that actually seems doable. I'll let you know how it goes if I ever give it a try.

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin is the novel my book group chose for its next discussion. I just started reading it, and I found the beginning section to be beautifully lyrical. It is a novel about New York, and it takes place in August of 1974, when high-wire walker Philippe Petit walked on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Last year, I saw the documentary about Philippe Petit, the high-wire walker, and found it fascinating. And although Petit's exploits only provide background for the novel, I was intrigued by the scope of the story McCann is telling.

I also began the fruit of Francine Prose's close reading of Anne Frank's diary, Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. I love how Prose describes her first reading of Anne Frank's diary, at an age younger than Anne was when she began to write it--it mirrors my reading experience at the same age. She immediately goes on, however, to say that on rereading the novel, feels she originally misread it as the "innocent and spontaneous outpourings" of a teenager, but now sees it as a consciously crafted work of literature. Intriguing...

I'm looking forward to sneaking in as much reading as possible this week. What's on your reading agenda for the week?

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver--a review

2010-01-13T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, is a rich novel chronicling the life of a novelist: Harrison Shepherd, a man one might characterize as the ultimate outsider. As someone who straddles two worlds, that of his divorced Mexican mother and that of his estranged American father, he doesn’t truly feel at home in either one. Shepherd’s whole history makes him an outsider. Shepherd’s mother abruptly leaves his father and takes her son to live on an island in Mexico with her lover, and her narcissism, benign neglect, and man-chasing start her son on the path to being an internal person who observes life, and writes it down, rather than fully participating. Shepherd is truly an outcast at a Washington D.C. boarding school, where he is ignored by his father, and where he realizes he’s gay.

Later, back in Mexico, he works as a cook in the household of the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. It’s a wonderful place for a would-be novelist to hone his craft, watching but not quite participating in their colorful lives. Shepherd meets, and then works as secretary to, Lev Trotsky, who comes to use the Kahlo-Riveras’ house as a sanctuary from Stalin’s assassins.

Without going into detail that will give away the story entirely, Shepherd’s experiences in Mexico both contribute to his development as a novelist, and to his development of an anxiety disorder that keeps him away from the public eye, and brings him to a small, neat, orderly existence in North Carolina. There he becomes a famous novelist and a target of the American government’s anti-communist purges in the late 1940s.

I truly enjoyed this as a historical novel, and as a novel of ideas. Kingsolver successfully uses many formats to tell her story—diary entries, memoir, the notes of the main character’s secretary-turned archivist/biographer, book reviews, newspaper articles, letters, and even congressional transcripts.

For me, there are three fascinating relationships in the book—the relationship between Shepherd and his mother, the relationship between Shepherd and the painter Frida Kahlo, and the relationship between Shepherd and his assistant, Violet Brown. Shepherd was a gay man, but he never had a really successful affair of the heart, and his most important relationships were with women. His mother taught him to be wary of human relationships, Frida Kahlo taught him to be an artist, and Violet Brown taught him the meaning of loyalty.

The time Shepherd spends in Mexico in the Kahlo-Rivera household and the Trotsky household is the most compelling and colorfully drawn segment of the novel. Kingsolver’s imagining of Kahlo’s character is captivating. She is difficult, capricious, mysterious, and narcissistic, yet she recognizes a kindred spirit in Shepherd and encourages him to become a writer.

Also fascinating is the section of the novel that has to do with Shepherd’s persecution by the U.S. government as a potential communist sympathizer. Kingsolver deftly explores the American obsession with communists, and its hypocrisies, and paints a portrait of a man who just wants to have a private life, who is driven away from the country that should be his sanctuary.

Booking Through Thursday: Gifts

2010-01-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

Barbara wants to know:

What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)?

Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?

I didn't receive as many books as I usually do this holiday season. My husband doesn't like to buy me books as much as he used to, because he fears that I will have already read what he's chosen! So he has to ask me what I want, which isn't our gift-giving style, as we like to surprise each other. So my love of books has ultimately resulted in me receiving less books as gifts. Hmmm...

However, this doesn't cut down on the volume of books I actually attain. I do receive some bookstore gift certificates, usually, so I get to choose a few things for myself every year. This year I bought Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories, by Wells Tower, Let the Great World Spin: A Novel, by Colum McCann, and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy.

My book group will be reading Let The Great World Spin next, so I'm set!

What did Santa or Chanuklaus bring you this year?

Reading Resolutions

2010-01-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big New Year's resolution maker. That's because I usually break those resolutions so darned quickly, it's just not worth it. Last year, I remember putting a moratorium on book-buying that lasted maybe a couple of months--and looking back, I can now say that even that was a minor miracle.

This year I have some reading resolutions I need to say out loud, so that maybe they'll stick.

1. Keep better track of the books I've read. I belong to LibraryThing, Shelfari, and goodreads; all great services, but I don't put them to good use. I don't use them nearly enough to really track what I've read. I used to keep a physical notebook, but was pretty sporadic about that, so I went digital. Which somehow was my excuse to just stop keeping track altogether. Hmm...must remedy this.

2. Review books directly after reading. Obviously. Because then reviews have a better chance of actually being written. Right.

3. Write something every day. For me, reading, writing, journaling, blogging and even meditation all go hand in hand, and if one suffers, they all suffer. Also, I have a wee problem with consistency, and I think I need to train myself to do a little bit every day. I'm working on it.

I have some non-reading-related resolutions, too (The Game On! Diet, anyone?), but they tend to be the same stale ones every year, and I don't even kid myself about keeping them for very long.

Any resolutions, reading-related or not, you'd like to share?

Year-End Wrap-Up 2009

2009-12-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

We are back in town after a little Christmas jaunt up to my parents' house in Northern California. We had a lovely time. I took my daughter to see the San Francisco Ballet's production of The Nutcracker, which was magical. I'm not sure which I enjoyed more, watching the dancing, or seeing the scores of little girls in the audience, all dressed up in their holiday finery. My daughter loved it all!

I always hesitate to do a year-end reading wrap-up, because I usually haven't read that many books actually published in the year I'm wrapping up. This year I have a few books from 2009 to recommend, so I will. I'll also throw in my cousin's favorites of the year, since he's a voracious reader, he reads mostly new fiction and non-fiction, has good taste, and his favorites include a bunch of things I want to read!

Some of my favorite reads of 2009, published in 2009:

Fiction:
The Anthologist: A Novel, by Nicholson Baker
The Lacuna: A Novel, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Believers: A Novel, by Zoe Heller
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Memoir:
Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr
Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman's Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker by Gesine Bullock Prado

My cousin's 2009 favorites include:

Fiction:
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories-Wells Tower
The Believers-Zoe Heller
Sag Harbor: A Novel-Colson Whitehead
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It-Maile Meloy
Juliet, Naked: a novel-Nick Hornby
A Gate at the Stairs-Lorrie Moore
A Good Fall: Stories-Ha Jin

Non-fiction:
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon-David Grann
Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir-Christopher Buckley
The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter-Jason Kersten
True Compass: A Memoir-Ted Kennedy
Lit-Mary Karr
The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambition-John DeLucie
Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"-David Bianculli

What does your year-end wrap up look like this year? Do you make an accounting of what you've read in the year?

Still on the jury...

2009-12-14T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm on a jury. The trial is supposed to last two weeks, but we hear it might go a day or two longer. Which means it will get dangerously close to Christmas.

We celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas in our family. At home, we've been lighting our candles nightly, and it is quite beautiful. Then next week we plan to head to my parents' house, a six-hour drive away, to enjoy their Christmas tree and lots of presents and food. I was hoping to drive north on the 22nd, but...I could still be in court. I'm thinking the judge won't like it if I skip town...

I've barely cracked a book during the trial, because I've had no time to do any of my part-time work, regular errands, Christmas shopping, or kid stuff during the day. Due to the trial, I'm missing one child's family history presentation at school, and another's teacher-appreciation party. My third is in the middle of finals week, so in honor of that, I thought I'd post a little list of vocabulary words for y'all to ponder.

My eighth-grader (13-year-old) read To Kill a Mockingbird this semester in his English class. This is the list of vocabulary words, mostly gleaned from that book, that he has to know the definition of for tomorrow's exam. I thought it was a pretty good list for a 13-year-old to know. You can quiz yourself on how many you know :)

morbid
prowess
expound
nebulous
rue
articulate
fractious
furtive
perpetrate
temerity
mitigate
indolent
affable
deplorable
solicitous
amenity
distraught
urbane
truculence
terse
righteous
reconcile
conjecture
patronize
lurid
dexterity
discourse
protract
restive
indiscriminate
countenance
cultivated
uncanny
duress
repose
inordinate
assuage
venerable
ingenuous
intricate
exuberant
vehement
disposition

Doing my Civic Duty--which means a Blogging Break

2009-12-11T07:59:00.001-08:00

I am on a jury, for the first time in my life. I've had jury duty before, but have never been picked for a jury, until now. I was hoping that I would have time to blog while being in court all day, but that was a fantasy.

So I'm going to take a blogging break for the next week, and get back to it after the 18th.

Every day I take two books to the courthouse with me, both of which were birthday gifts from my sweet husband: Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna: A Novel or Francine Prose's Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. However I try to parcel out the minutes, I have no time to actually read them.

And then I'm too tired to read when I get home at night. I'll let you know if I've made progress once I'm back! In the meantime, I'll try to check in with all my blogging friends, but doubt I'll have time to write much. We'll see!

Book Bloggers Unite...

2009-12-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

...and have lunch!

The antidote for a crappy week: getting together with book blogging friends in real life at the charming Aroma Cafe (which houses the cute Portrait of a Bookstore) and having a lovely lunch and book gift exchange.

It's been one of those weeks. I had jury duty, and got on a trial. And it will be a long two weeks in court. If I'm lucky.

So I was cheered to meet up with Ti from Book Chatter, Florinda from 3 Rs Blog, Jill from Fizzy Thoughts, and Amy from My Friend Amy.

Sweet Jill drove the farthest, and brought us special CDs of Christmas music. And we each brought a wrapped book for a holiday book exchange. Lamebrain that I am, I forgot my gift, but fortunately we were right next to the lovely little bookstore, so I quickly picked a favorite and had it wrapped. We ate, drank, chatted about books and life, and browsed in the tiny but cute bookstore at the back of the cafe. All in all, a very nice day.

Here's Florinda with her book exchange book.

And here's Ti with her new book.

Amy (left) and Jill (right)
I'm looking forward to seeing them all again at this year's LA Times Festival of Books in April, if not before.

Sunday Salon: In my head

2009-11-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

The front page of the New York Times Book Review has a really nice review of Alice Munro's new story collection, Too Much Happiness. It's a book that I covet. And now that my birthday has come and gone, I have a couple of book store gift certificates that I can use to buy it!

The review, by Leah Hager Cohen, starts out saying something that I often talk about in relation to my favorite books--that sense that the author is speaking words you might speak, or at least is writing about things you've thought about. It's a wonderful feeling when it happens, and it happened to this reviewer when she read this book of Munro's. Cohen writes, "...the sensation, when reading, that your own mind is giving birth to the words as they appear on the page. Such is the ego that in these rare instances you wonder, 'How could the author have known what I was thinking?' Of course, what has happened isn't this at all, though it's no less astonishing. Rather, you've been drawn so deftly into another world that you're breathing with someone else's rhythms, seeing someone else's visions as your own."

I love when this happens. It doesn't happen for me with many authors, but with some. For me, it happens with Lorrie Moore, and Laurie Colwin, and Alice Munro. Raymond Carver, every once in awhile. Less so with authors who wrote before the 20th century, because their language is so different than that which I use myself, even though I may get caught up in the poetry of it.

Which, if any, authors do that to you?

I'm in the middle of Nicholson Baker's novel The Anthologist, which I'm really liking. There is a similar sensation reading this book. I think it's because it's a stream-of-consciousness novel to begin with, and Baker has been able to really draw me into his main character's head. He doesn't think exactly the way I do, but I like the way he thinks, and it makes the reading experience very enjoyable.

I would imagine that being inside the head of a character you don't like or relate to would be excruciating. I can't remember any reading experiences like that. Do you have any painful stream-of-consciousness reading experiences?

The world's worst library books

2009-11-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law sent me a link to a website appropriately named Awful Library Books, which rounds up the worst library books out there, most of which are hopelessly and hilariously outdated. Made me giggle.

An update to my wish list for new books:

Too Much Happiness: Stories, by Alice Munro. I almost always love Munro. Her stories are often little gems. I'm looking forward to savoring these.

Wolf Hall: A Novel, by Hilary Mantel. I'm interested in learning about Thomas Cromwell, and this won the Booker this year, and the buzz is good. It's on my list.

My Wish List Grows Longer...

2009-11-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

All of a sudden there are so many new books out that I want to read. I'm coveting them. Good thing my birthday is coming up, maybe I can convince the hubby to spring for some of these.

Here's a partial list of the books I'm drooling over:

The Lacuna: A Novel, by Barbara Kingsolver. Here's the review in the New York Times Book Review, by Liesl Schillinger, which ends with this nice bit: "The Lacuna can be enjoyed sheerly for the music of its passages on nature, archaeology, food and friendship; or for its portraits of real and invented people; or for its harmonious choir of voices. But the fuller value of Kingsolver's novel lies in its call to conscience and connection."

The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt. Here's a review and interview with A. S. Byatt from NPR station WBUR in Boston. In it, Byatt calls this novel, "the one I find easiest to love." It is said to be long and rambly with lots of characters, but I'm in. I'm definitely going to get a copy of this one.

Invisible, by Paul Auster. The review in the New York Times Book Review, by Clancy Martin, ends with the superlative, "It is the finest novel Paul Auster has ever written." I have liked some of Auster's novels, and not responded to others, but certainly want to read his finest. Onto the list!

Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr. This is a new memoir by Karr, who was mesmerizing in her first memoir, The Liar's Club. I didn't read her second book, but I hear this one is really amazing. Susan Cheever says it is a serious book about motherhood, faith, alcoholism, and more in a NY Times Book Review podcast.

Hello husband? You listening? Book store gift cards are nice, too.

Sunday Salon: The Anthologist

2009-11-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

Well, this was meant to be a Sunday Salon post, but the day got away from me. My three kids were going in three different directions today. But as my littlest one was drifting off to sleep, and I was rubbing her back, I managed to sneak in a few pages of Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist.

I am finding this book very entertaining, so far. Main character Paul Chowder is a poet who just can't seem to write the introduction to a poetry anthology that he has edited. He's just the kind of character I can relate to right now--a procrastinator who seems to spend a lot of time inside his own head. And he's making me think about poetry, which feels both pleasant and good for me.

I had some hesitation about reading this book, though I had heard good things and thought the subject matter sounded interesting, because I couldn't get through an earlier book of Baker's, The Mezzanine. It was a slim little book, and also a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing, but somehow seemed much less accessible than The Anthologist. Maybe it just wasn't the right time for me to read it, but I could not get into it, and I put it down fairly soon after picking it up. And then I felt terribly guilty. Because it was a book that someone had loaned me--someone who thought I would like it. And I have to admit, I still haven't returned it to her. And now I'm not sure I could even find it on my shelf if I tried. Guilt, guilt, guilt, shame, shame, shame. I am usually such a good book borrower, and I abhor this sort of behavior in others.

So all of that created a little barrier between me and Nicholson Baker's work, so I was nervous when my book group picked The Anthologist for its next read. But I'm so glad I pushed past my anxiety about it and started to read. I like the way Paul Chowder's mind works.

Looking forward to sneaking in a few more pages.

Booking Through Thursday--It’s All About Me

2009-11-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is:

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

And it's actually a tough question for me. I guess I don't have a general preference. It all depends on the writing. There are some biographers I always like, like Judith Thurman and Hermione Lee. But if someone writing their own story has a unique voice, then that may be the best way to read about that person. Of course, reading an autobiography is a completely different thing. The writer is less likely to be objective, obviously, and may have an axe to grind that you don't know about ahead of time. It's also hard to know, if there's a ghost-writer, whose voice is whose.

One of my favorite things to do is read an autobiography or memoir back-to-back with a good biography of the person. For example, I read Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, and then I read Judith Thurman's biography, Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller.

And on a similar adventurous African theme, I read and enjoyed Beryl Markham's memoir, West with the Night, and then read Straight on Till Morning: A Biography of Beryl Markham, by Mary S. Lovell.

Some of my favorite biographies and autobiographies:

Mary Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
The Brontes, by Juliet Barker
Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

On my shelf, but haven't read yet:

Dawn Powell: A Biography, by Tim Page
Edith Wharton, by Hermione Lee
Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser
Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived, by Penelope Lively

So, which do you like better, autobiography or biography? And do you have any good biographies or autobiographies to recommend?

Back home again

2009-10-27T13:12:00.001-07:00

Settling back in after another weekend away. These are champagne problems, I know. My hubby and I had a wonderful weekend in San Francisco to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Some foodie friends recommended more restaurants than we could have possibly visited, but we chose to dine at Quince and Delfina, both of which were wonderful.

We also took a long walk from the Marina to Fort Point, just under the Golden Gate Bridge. The photo at left is of the bridge from inside the fort. I didn't have my camera, just my phone, so this is the only picture really worth posting. The rest are fuzzy or lopsided or both.

The weather was gorgeous, and so was the city. And the kids had fun staying with my parents, so everyone was happy.

I'm still full from all of the eating.

I did a little reading, too. I downloaded a couple of the Fairacre series of books on my Kindle, which I started. I got through Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis (The Fairacre Series 4 & 8). The Fairacre series chronicles life in a rural English village from the late 1800s through the middle of the next century. Not a lot actually happens in most of the books, but they are full of atmosphere, and I'm enjoying them.

I also started The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan, which I'm reading for my book group. It's a memoir about her battle with cancer, and her father's battle with cancer at the same time. I'm enjoying Corrigan's voice, and somehow, despite the obviously difficult subject matter, it's not really a depressing book. It's not just about cancer; it's about being a daughter and a mother, and so far, I like it.

A Weekend in New York

2009-10-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend in New York, visiting a friend who recently moved there. It was freezing by Los Angeles standards, in the 40s and raining, but that didn't stop us from walking all over the West Village, Soho and Chelsea, exploring, shopping, and eating. It was a rare weekend away from the kids, in a city I love to visit.

I didn't have much time to read, except on the plane rides. But I did finish David Lebovitz's food memoir, The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City. I really enjoyed his conversational style, his funny anecdotes about living among Parisians, and especially his recipes. Lebovitz learned the pastry chef trade at Chez Panisse, and writes wonderful cookbooks and a blog that I love to check for recipes. I love how he writes about chocolate, because chocolate is something I can't live without.

So when my friend gave a dinner party for me in New York, I pulled out the book and made David Lebovitz's Mocha Creme Fraiche cake for dessert. It's a dense, chocolate-y, flourless wonder, and it was a big hit, and the recipe is definitely a keeper. I'll be pulling it out the next time I'm entertaining any chocolate lovers.

Now I'm back in good ol' 80-degree Los Angeles weather, kind of missing my New York gloves, boots, scarf and wool coat. Maybe I'll get to pull them out again when we all head up north to San Francisco next weekend...

Book Group Madness!

2009-10-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

After a summer's hiatus, and a September's worth of back-to-school events, my book group finally got back together to discuss the passle o' books we've read over the last couple of months. Mocha chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pie bars, Guatemalan chocolate chip bread, baba ghanoush, stilton with apricots, pinot noir--all big hits. The books were less consistent.

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. This was probably the most successful book with the group overall. Most everyone really liked it, though some had trouble connecting with the present-day main character. I particularly enjoyed how Brooks brought history to life with involving characters and vivid historical details.

Lush Life, by Richard Price. Most everyone enjoyed this novel for its atmosphere. Set among the world of cops and crooks in Manhattan's Lower East Side, it's a novel to be enjoyed for its ear for dialect and attention to detail rather than its plot.

Darling Jim, by Christian Moerk. A horror fairy tale, with a lyrical Irish lilt. I didn't finish this one, but the others in my book group found it to be either page-turning mind candy or really yucky, because of the gory subject matter.

Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks. Okay, I admit it, I did not read this book. I meant to, but I kept forgetting to get a copy. I really enjoyed Sebastian Faulks's book Birdsong, many years back, but the idea of this book, a sort of psychological thriller/whodunit with a remorseless main character, didn't grab me. It didn't grab many of my fellow book-groupers, either. I would say it generally got a thumbs down.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. For me, this was a page turner. Almost everyone in the group loved this book. The main character was really appealing to most, and the subject matter really engaging. There was only one dissenting voice--one reader who didn't think the book covered any new territory. I liked it because the writer created some real tension for me--I was actually afraid of what might happen to the main characters.

As usual, great discussion, good friends, good food, lots of wine, and many laughs made for a successful book group evening.

Booking Through Thursday--Would You Lie?

2009-10-01T11:51:00.001-07:00

Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

Saw this article (from March) and thought it would make a good BTT confessional question:

Two-thirds of Brits have lied about reading books they haven’t. Have you? Why? What book?

My answer is an ashamed yes. I have lied about reading books I haven't. It's been years since I did it, because at this point in my life I really couldn't care less what books people think I have or haven't read. But at one point it I felt like I hadn't read enough of the classics, and I would just nod my way through conversations about some of those books, not really committing to the fact that I hadn't read them. I couldn't pinpoint a particular book, but I seem to recall pretending to have read War and Peace. And guess what, I haven't read War and Peace. And I don't have any plans to read it at the moment, though I'm sure it's a wonderful book.

What about you, have you lied about reading any thing in particular?

Sunday Salon--quotable Moore

2009-09-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

This time of year always challenges my time management skills. I have three children who attend three different schools. That means three "Back-To-School" nights, on three different nights, among many other things. I've been thinking a lot about blogging this week, but haven't actually done any!

And my reading has suffered, too. I had big plans to start some of the books crowding my night table, but didn't start anything new. However, I did finish Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs last night. It was a bittersweet read, and it left me a little sad. It also left me impressed with Moore's skill with language. Her writing is clever, yet still emotionally full and affecting.

I'll leave you with a few quotes:

"Thanks, maybe later?" I said with the question mark our generation believed meant politeness but which baffled our parents.

Waning light rouged and bronzed the clouds so they looked like a mountain range.

"Awesome," I said, in that peculiar way, I knew, our generation had of finding everything either "sucked" or was "awesome." We used awesome the way the British used brilliant: for anything at all. Perhaps, as with the British, it was a kind of antidepressant: inflated rhetoric to keep the sorry truth at bay.

When I went to bed at night I suffered my first bout of insomnia. This is what death would be like, I feared: not sleep but insomnia. To sleep no more, as I had learned in Pre-1700 British Drama. I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read? I'd always been able to sleep. But now I lay there, fretful as a Bartok quartet.

Alone at dusk I was quiet; I sang nothing.

Enjoy your Sunday reading!

Sunday Salon--Something I've Been Looking Forward To

2009-09-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I started reading Lorrie Moore's new novel, A Gate at the Stairs. I've been looking forward to it, and so far, I'm enjoying it immensely.

Moore is an amazing stylist, and I'm loving her wordplay, letting her adroit use of language wash over me. For me, it's like being inside the brain of a person who thinks like I do, only is much more clever than I am.

I'm trying not to gulp this one down, but to savor it. (I have to admit I have a little trouble with that, in general!)

Moore's descriptions of life as a college student are taking me back. I love the main character's wry sense of humor. So far, it's not a book I'm getting lost in, but I am enjoying the world Moore has created. I'm looking forward to spending Sunday night reading it...

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Enjoyable

2009-09-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

What’s the most enjoyable, most fun, most just-darn-entertaining book you’ve read recently?

(Mind you, this doesn’t necessarily mean funny, since we covered that already. Just … GOOD.)

This is one in a series of Booking Through Thursdays about your recent "most" books--today it's most enjoyable recent book.

It's an easy one, since I'm right in the middle of a page-turner that I'm having trouble putting down at night.

I'm reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help, and it's very enjoyable. When I'm not reading it, I want to get back to it. For me, that's the sign of a good book.

And it's also one of those books I knew nothing about, except that everybody was reading it. Sometimes, for me, that's the kiss of death--but this book has not been a disappointment. I'll review it soon...

What's your most enjoyable recent book?

Sunday Salon: The Help

2009-09-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

Whoops, had some crazy posting issues, but now I'm ready to Sunday Salon.

I am staring at my new copy of Lorrie Moore's new novel A Gate at the Stairs, which I'm dying to dive into. But I have been restraining myself, because I have another book to read for my book group first, Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

So far I'm enjoying The Help immensely. It is a story set during the early part of the Civil Rights Movement in Jackson, Mississippi, about the black maids who raised the white children of their employers, but who weren't trusted with the family silver. Stockett's characters are nuanced and appealing, and her reproduction of the African American vernacular feels authentic without being stilted or otherwise annoying.

I'm very interested to discuss this with my book group. Whenever we read something historical like this, it's nice to try to find background material to bring to group to deepen the discussion. So I'll probably do a little research on the Civil Rights Movement, an era in this country's history that I would like to know more about anyway.

Does anyone have any suggestions for good background reading?

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Big

2009-09-03T06:27:00.000-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

I like the freedom to interpret, here. The biggest book I've read recently in terms of popularity is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. It was all over the blogs and everywhere else, and I really enjoyed it, but I believe there was also a lot of hype over it because the author died before the book came out.

The biggest physical book I've read recently, hmm...I have not been reading chunksters lately. But I am in the middle (okay, still somewhere near the beginning) of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, which weighs in at a not inconsiderable 768 pages, and which I was supposed to finish over the summer. When does summer end, technically, anyway? I think I have a couple more weeks. I'd better get reading...

Sunday Salon--Book coveting

2009-08-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday here in Los Angeles is bathed in an eerie light, from the sun struggling through the smoke from several wildfires burning nearby. For me, weird light makes for a weird mood, and I never quite know what to make of a day that is strangely lit. Perhaps I'll read...

I had some time to read the New York Times Book Review, and right on the front page was Jonathan Lethem's review of Lorrie Moore's new book, A Gate at the Stairs. I've been waiting for this book without even knowing it. I've loved Moore's writing since I read her first collection of short stories, Self-Help, some twenty years ago. I went on to read and also love Like Life and Birds of America. I'm not quite as big a fan of her novels as her short stories, but I hear this one is good. And though I knew she hadn't published anything in awhile (11 years--who knew?), once I heard that she had a new book coming out, I realized I couldn't wait to read it.

The review is good, good enough to make me want to order this book now, hardback price be damned. Lethem mentions that he only knows one person who doesn't like Moore's writing, calling it too "punny". And then he goes on to say, "As for the puns, they seem to me less an eagerness to entertain than a true writerly obsession. Moore is an equal-opportunity japester: heroes and villains both crack wise with Chandleresque vivacity, so you can't use cleverness as a moral index. The wrinkly recursiveness of her language seems lodged at the layer of consciousness itself, where Moore demands readers' attention to the innate thingliness of words. "

He also says, "On finishing A Gate at the Stairs I turned to the reader nearest to me and made her swear to read it immediately (well, the dog was between us, but she doesn't read much, and none of what I recommend). I might even urge it on my dissenting friend." That's a good enough recommendation for me!

Maybe I can convince my book group to read this one with me.

Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey--a review, and TLC Book Tour stop

2009-08-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

When Darko Dawson was a young boy, his mother travelled from his family's home in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, to visit her sister in the small village of Ketanu where she lived. While on this visit, Darko's mother vanished without a trace. This left Darko, his disabled brother, and his often volatile father to fend for themselves.

Darko's father reported his mother missing, and police detective Daniel Armah investigated the case. Armah persisted in the investigation, but Darko's mother was never found. But Armah forged a relationship with young Darko, who was inspired by the respect he felt for Armah to become a police detective himself when he grew up.

Now Darko is a detective inspector with the CID in Accra, and he has a wife who is a teacher, and a young son who suffers from a heart defect.

Darko is called to Ketanu once again, to investigate a murder. Young medical student and AIDS educator and activist Grace Mensah's strangled body is found in the forest by a young "trokosi", or wife of the gods, essentially a concubine of the local fetish priest.

In her zeal to educate the local people about AIDS, and in chastising the local fetish priest for following the practice of keeping these trokosi, Grace has made some enemies among the locals. One of these enemies is the fetish priest, Togbe Adzima. Grace may also have angered local healer Isaac Kuto. And young Samuel Boateng had a crush on Grace, and may have killed her out of anger at her rejection.

Local inspector Fiti suspects only ne'er-do-well Samuel, but Darko chooses to investigate more thoroughly. Darko is aided in his investigation by his special talent of understanding people's true natures by listening to the quality of their voice. But the case proves to be very challenging, as he is drawn in by the village's secrets, and secrets held by his own family, and he comes face to face with the clash between traditional and modern Ghana.

I am not always a fan of crime fiction, but I find a well-written mystery very satisfying. And this is just such a satisfying read. Darko Dawson is a fascinating and complex character, and very relatable. The writer really lets us get inside his detective's head, and we get to fully explore his strengths and weaknesses. He is a conflicted man, and a wonderfully flawed hero. And it is very interesting to watch him struggle not only with his inner conflicts, but with the contradictions between traditional and modern life in Ghana.

I also love the atmosphere that author Quartey creates in the book. His portraits of both urban and rural Ghana are very rich and I was very happy to immerse myself in Ghanaian society, customs, and culture. Though many have compared this book to those in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, I would say that the books are not really alike. Like McCall Smith, Quartey does a wonderful job evoking a time and place, and his descriptions of Ghana sing, as do McCall Smith's of Botswana. But Quartey's book has a much harder edge than the Ladies Detective Agency books, and his murder mystery is a stronger, more plot-driven story.

I enjoyed how the murdery mystery is woven with a tale of a family's tangled emotional web, and I found the characters memorable and the story engrossing. And I loved reading about the culture and practices of Ghana. I'll be on the lookout for more from Kwei Quartey about his flawed yet appealing detective hero, Darko Dawson.

Visit Kwei Quartey's really great website, and read his blog.

More stops for Wife of the Gods on TLC Book Tours.

Watch the book trailer:

Tomorrow--Kwei Quartey's Wife of the Gods

2009-08-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm happy to be hosting a book tour stop for TLC Book Tours. I'll be posting my review of Kwei Quartey's novel Wife of the Gods, so please stop by.

Click here to check out Kwei Quartey's complete blog book tour.

Also check out author Kwei Quartey's website here. Since he lives in Pasadena, he qualifies as a local author, for me. He's also a doctor, which I find very cool.

Vacation reading

2009-08-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

My family and I just returned from a week's vacation at a guest ranch in Central California, where we had a lovely time. This ranch was all about horseback riding, which is not one of my hobbies or interests, but was really appealing to my kids. They also fished, kayaked, swam, and otherwise ran around in the great outdoors.

I, of course, read. I did have the good sense to read outdoors, but I did spend most of my free time reading. I finished The Story of a Marriage, by Andrew Sean Greer, which I enjoyed very much for the quality of the writing and the twists and turns of the story, as well as the descriptions of post-war San Francisco. I also finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, which I also enjoyed--essentially for the same reasons, but of course it was a very different kind of book. I am not usually into thrillers or mysteries, but this was atmospheric and smart, and a real page-turner.

I also started and finished Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book. It was one of my book group's picks for summer reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's the imagined history of a book, the Sarajevo Haggadah, a 14th century illuminated manuscript which actually exists, and has survived many attempts at its destruction. I loved Brooks' way of making history come alive with wonderful characters and vivid descriptions of historical events. I know a fair amount about Jewish history, but it was so interesting to have the history come alive with a good story--to have examples of, say, how it felt when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 by Isabella and Ferdinand, rather than to just know that dry fact.

If I can find my camera in all the unpacking chaos, I'll post some pictures of the vacation...

Sunday Salon--Starting a few new books

2009-08-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

I've started a few new books this weekend, despite my best efforts to focus my reading. But it's okay, at least I've had some time to actually pick up a book!

I'm really enjoying the writing so far in Andrew Sean Greer's novel, The Story of a Marriage. I'm not very far into it, but I like it so far. I like the cover art, too, so for some reason this make it easy for me to pick it up--does this make me a shallow reader? I had heard so many good things about this book on so many blogs--I'm glad it's something I'm liking, it makes me feel like I'm on the same page as many of my blogging buddies.

I also picked up Aleksandar Hemon's Love and Obstacles, which was sent to me by the publisher. I had also heard quite a bit about this book of short stories on the book blogs, and I agree with those who are impressed by Hemon's use of language, especially for someone who has been writing in English for less than fifteen years.

It's been a relaxing weekend so far, because the kids aren't going in as many directions as usual. I have a little breathing time, which means I can make that into some reading time. I wish I had bigger blocks of reading time, but at least I always have that little bit of time for reading in bed, before exhaustion takes over and the book slips out of my hand and onto the floor (that is really not a good thing when I'm reading on the Kindle!).

I also have to admit that I haven't been reading quite as much as usual because I've been using our treadmill more regularly, and when I'm on the treadmill, I indulge my addiction to Battlestar Galactica, and watch an episode while exercising. If I'm not reading, at least I'm trying to get into shape...

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Serious

2009-08-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?
(I figure it’s easier than asking your most serious boook ever, because, well, it’s recent!)

I am currently reading Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot, on my Kindle. It's slow going only because I keep toting my Kindle around with me, and then not having it nearby when I'm going to bed, which is my favorite time to get a little reading done. But I'm enjoying the book immensely!

For me, the classics are serious, which is why I mention Daniel Deronda, but I put modern literary fiction in the category of "serious", too. There are all kinds of serious books, I guess.

What is your most recent serious book? And for you, what constitutes a "serious" book, anyway?

Summer of My English Reading

2009-07-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

My summer has been more chaotic than I am comfortable with, so in an unconscious response, I read several books about life in the English countryside, which calmed me down, as it always has in the past. I read two of Miss Read's books, Village Diary and Storm in the Village, which transported me to the middle of the last century and a rural village called Fairacre. I chuckled along with Miss Read, teacher in the village school, about the inhabitants' foibles. They are not plot-heavy books, but there is a rhythm to them that you get used to, and a structure that pays off in the end. I enjoyed their subtlety, and I'm sure I'll read more in the series.

I also read Beverley Nichols' Down the Garden Path, another chronicle of English country life, but through the lens of a city dweller who comes to the country to create the garden of his dreams. Nichols' dry wit and sharp eye for the ridiculous made me laugh out loud at times. Nichols' satire is impressively all-encompassing--he skewers his fellow villagers, his city visitors, and himself with equal vigor.

I'm moving away from rural England to Scandinavia now, to begin The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, to bring a little northern chill into my hot Los Angeles August. Hope it works! I hear so many good things about this book, so I'm really looking forward to starting it.

Booking Through Thursday--Preferences

2009-07-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question. Answer with me, won't you?

Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)

Reading something frivolous? Or something serious?
Paperbacks? Or hardcovers?
Fiction? Or Nonfiction?
Poetry? Or Prose?
Biographies? Or Autobiographies?
History? Or Historical Fiction?
Series? Or Stand-alones?
Classics? Or best-sellers?
Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose?
Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness?
Long books? Or Short?
Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated?
Borrowed? Or Owned?
New? Or Used?

Okay, since they asked for quickly, I will answer quickly, off the top of my head:

Serious
Paperbacks
Fiction
Prose
Autobiographies
Historical fiction
Stand-alones
Classics
Straightforward, basic prose
Long books
Not illustrated
Owned
New

Do all my book prejudices show through? Given more thought, I'm sure I would change some answers, so I'm sure my prejudices are there for all to see!

What are your quick answers?

Sunday Salon--Scattered

2009-07-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

I've been really scattered in my reading lately. Sometimes it happens that I start a whole bunch of books at once, and then I'm pulled in too many directions in my reading. That's what's happening to me this weekend.

I started Christian Moerk's Darling Jim, which I'm reading for my book group. I'm reading it on my Kindle. It's a suspenseful novel, written with a lovely, lilting style, about obsession and storytelling, and some gruesome murders in a small Irish town, and of course I was just getting up a good head of steam when I realized the Kindle battery was low. So I had to interrupt my reading to rummage through my big box of electrical cords to find the Kindle charger. And then I couldn't find the charger, because I realized it was still packed in a bag I had taken on my last trip, and had already put away, up high, in the garage. So, that book got sidetracked by my short attention span, my bad organizational skills, and my inability to manage technology.

I am also reading Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, which won the Booker Prize last year. I love the narrator's voice, and I'm really enjoying the story. I also love the details about life in India. But I brought the paperback with me to a doctor's appointment a few days ago, and then I left it in the car. So I know I'll pick it back up again on Monday, when I start the week's round of carpooling and errand-running again, but today I'm trying to stay out of any four-wheeled vehicles. I'm just like that on Sundays.

I'm also reading Beverley Nichols' gardening memoir, Down the Garden Path. My sister-in-law and I first saw Nichols' books in a little bookstore when we were on vacation, and were intrigued--but neither of us could remember the author or titles later, when we wanted to buy them. But between us, we mustered up the brain cells to recall the title, and I immediately ordered the first book online. I like Nichols' 1930s-style wit, and being a haphazard gardener myself, I'm enjoying living vicariously through this book, as Nichols gets put through his gardening paces while putting his cottage garden in order. By the way, I love the covers of his books, they're so wonderfully old-fashioned.

I got distracted from the book on gardening by another passion of mine, food. I was trolling through my favorite food blogs, and I saw noted pastry chef David Lebovitz's book, The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City, mentioned. It's about his expatriate adventures living and cooking in Paris--with recipes!!--so of course I bought a copy of the book. So far I'm enjoying Lebovitz's sense of humor, too. There's a David Sedaris-style, self-deprecating, fish-out-of-water quality to the memoir so far, and I love books about life in Paris. Since I love dessert, and Lebovitz is a famed pastry chef who worked at Alice Waters's Chez Panisse, that's a plus.

Oh yes, and I'm obsessed with Masterpiece Theater's production of Little Dorrit. I'm watching it piecemeal, while I walk on the treadmill, but I've never looked forward to exercising more!

What are your Sunday reads this week?

I love my book group

2009-07-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

My book group has been meeting for five and a half years. I know this because we conceived of the idea of the group at the bris of the youngest son of one of the members, and he's now five and a half years old. If you know what a bris is, you'll be amazed, like I was, that the woman had the presence of mind to know she wanted to join a book group that day. I've only gotten through every bris I've ever attended by drinking plenty of sweet ceremonial red wine.

At our last meeting, one of the members brought a list she's been keeping of the books we've read so far. It made for a half a meeting full of reminiscing, and I must admit it was such fun to go back over the list of books. It's amazing how much more fondly I remember some of the books now, as opposed to when I read them, when I might have been a tad more critical...

Here's the list. I think it's a darn good one. I'm sort of proud of us for getting through so many books. If you've read any of the books, let me know what you think. If you have suggestions for good book group reads, I'd like to hear those too!

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Saturday, by Ian McEwan
The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
13 Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell
Heat, by Bill Buford
The Post-Birthday World, by Lionel Shriver
Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Gathering, by Anne Enright
Anagrams, by Lorrie Moore
The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy
Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan
Dirt Music, by Tim Winton
Theft, by Peter Carey
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
Silk, by Alessandro Baricco
The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory
The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud
The Starter Wife, by Gigi Levangie Grazer
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
The Believers, by Zoe Heller
Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth
Niagara, by Richard Watson
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, by Vendela Vida
The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Foreskin’s Lament, by Shalom Auslander
Platform, by Michel Houellebecq
Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan
Slouching Toward Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
Everyman, by Philip Roth
The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Dias

Oh, and the books we're reading over the summer are:
Darling Jim, by Christian Moerk
Lush Life, by Richard Price,
The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
Engleby, by Sebastian Faulks

I have started Darling Jim, and it's a page-turner...

Booking Through Thursday: Unread

2009-07-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

This week's Booking Through Thursday question spoke to me, so though it's almost Friday, I realized I had to participate this week.

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ "

Ack! I have so many books on this pile, I don't think they'll fit in a picture. But I have gathered together a representative sampling. Here they are:

I guess the challenge is to get working on this pile...

Do any of your piles of unread books haunt you?

A Surprise Encounter

2009-07-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

After posting about my encounter with Sir Ken Robinson in the airport, I remembered that I had another surprise encounter with an author recently.

I went to a charity lunch to benefit a wonderful women's shelter where I occasionally volunteer, and one of the speakers was a very charming author I didn't know was going to be speaking.

Her name is Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, and she is the author most recently of Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a young adult novel about a young middle school teacher in Brooklyn. I had never heard of the book, but after hearing Ms. Bynum speak, I'm going to get myself a copy.

Hearing Ms. Bynum speak was such a pleasant surprise. She talked of how this novel grew out of her own experiences as a middle school English teacher in Brooklyn, and she told some very entertaining anecdotes about the mistakes she made as a teacher, and funny things her students did. It was clear that she had been very enthusiastic about teaching English, and that her students probably loved her.

She also talked about the transformative power of reading--for her students and for everyone. She said that in her experience both writing and reading give one the unique opportunity of becoming deeply immersed in someone else's consciousness, and this teaches empathy.

Ms. Bynum also talked about the writing process, and studying writing with Michael Cunningham (whose writing I also admire). She talked about figuring out what story you want to tell. She quoted Cunningham, who said that you should be able to imagine that the last sentence of your (or anyone's) book could be, "And after that nothing was ever the same again." I thought that was a great point. In screenwriting, they often talk about how the two hours that comprise a movie should tell a story about the pivotal point in the main character's life. You should be able to say the same thing, that nothing was ever the same afterward, at the end of a movie, too--at the end of any good story.

It was nice to hear Ms. Bynum talk about writing about one's experiences, good storytelling, and the power of reading.

I have also been reading the Fairacre Series of novels by Miss Read, about a teacher in a village school in rural England in the middle of the last century, and have been enjoying reading about teaching and marveling that I recognize so many of the issues that Miss Read writes about, even though she wrote about them something like 69 years ago. So perhaps after finishing my reading about English country schools, I'll move ahead in time and across the ocean, and read about teaching in Brooklyn a few years ago, in Ms. Hempel Chronicles.

I'd love to hear about everyone else's favorite books about teachers and teaching--do you have any titles to share with me?

Airport Serendipity

2009-07-03T07:28:00.001-07:00

As you probably know, I live in Los Angeles. Among other things, this means that celebrity sightings are a fairly regular part of life. Half the time a trip to the supermarket means seeing someone you think you know, but then you realize he or she was not someone you went to high school with, he or she was actually some bit part actor from a B movie that you caught late one night on cable. (Less often you might nearly get knocked over by a paparazzo trying to get a shot of Heidi Klum in her sweatpants, while she tries to buy some orange juice in peace...true story, but I digress...)

A week ago, the family and I were heading out on our trip to the east coast, and we were stuck in the airport waiting for our plane's air conditioning system to be fixed, when I saw a man who looked familiar, waiting for the same flight.

After scouring my sieve-like memory, I realized that I did not actually know the man, but had seen him online, giving a talk about education. Not just a talk about education, a really entertaining, informative and very funny talk about education. A friend had forwarded me a link to one of the TED talks.

(Do you know the TED talks? They're really great, and you should check them out here. TED is an annual conference that bills itself as "ideas worth spreading". The lectures at the TED conferences are really great, and range in subject far beyond the "Technology, Entertainment, and Design" of their acronym. The keynote speaker at their conference this year was Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame. Other speakers have included Al Gore and Jane Goodall. But I re-digress...)

So after I heard the man speaking with an English accent, I decided that he really was Sir Ken Robinson, the education and creativity expert I'd heard speak about how today's education is killing our kids' creativity. It's a great lecture--but more than that, it's very funny--and you can watch it here.

So I went up and said hello! Okay, except at appropriate venues like the LA Times Festival of Books, I've only once approached a total stranger in to tell him I enjoyed his work. (That was Michael Moore, while we were in line at a movie theater). And granted, I doubt Sir Ken Robinson gets recognized all the time and has to dodge fans to have a restaurant meal in peace--but still, I actually approached the man. And he was really nice! And we chatted about his book. He was charming in person, too. And he gave me his card. Which I will frame. Just kidding!

Once I was in shooting distance of a bookstore, I bought his book, which is called The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. Reviews tell me that not only does the book tell the stories of a wide range of people who found the place where their natural talent met their personal passion--people like Paul McCartney, Vidal Sassoon, Matt Groening and Meg Ryan--it also gives practical advice to the reader for finding one's passion and quieting the naysayers who might keep you from it.

Sounds like something I could really use. I will let you know if I find it educational, entertaining, useful, or all of the above!

The 19th Wife giveaway: and the winner is...

2009-06-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

The names of the entrants were in the hat (okay, the colander), and I had my middle child pull one out. So the winner of a lovely, brand-new paperback copy of The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, is:

Litlove!!!!!

Yay! Congratulations! Enjoy the read!

And now I'm off to the east coast to visit my father-in-law and to see the Tony Award winner for best musical this year, Billy Elliott, on Broadway. Yahoo!

I'll see you all in a week!

Balancing on the Edge of the World, by Elizabeth Baines--a review

2009-06-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Baines' collection of short stories, Balancing on the Edge of the World, is a slim volume, but what it lacks in heft it makes up for in emotional power. The stories themselves are often quite short--some might even be considered micro-fiction--but there is nothing small about what they have to say.

Here are some of the stories in a nutshell:

A group of young people, drunk, go out for a pizza, and realize they are not much better off than the beggar they meet outside the pizza shop.

A struggling writer realizes she is being conned by a flashy film producer, and a power struggle ensues between them.

A privileged teenaged boy grows up perhaps more quickly than expected when he is held up at knifepoint.

A child experiments with her "powers" as she watches her father leave their family.

One of the most touching stories, called "Compass and Torch", is about a boy who lives with his mother and stepfather who goes camping with his dad. The boy's vulnerability and the father's inability to relate to the boy are so true, and so heart-breaking.

"Going Back" shows the mix of exhaustion and hysteria that characterizes new motherhood.

"Into the Night" is about a man and a woman who meet at a reception, and have sex--and afterward, the woman debates leaving before he wakes, leaving the experience unadulterated; a perfect thing.

I also particularly enjoyed "The Way to Behave". In the ironic opening sentence, the narrator says, "Sisterhood, it's just a wonderful thing," and then goes on to tell the story of meeting her husband's mistress and taking revenge. I found this by turns biting, funny, mean and satisfying.

I agree with the copy on the back of the book that says that the stories are about power and powerlessness. The power Baines writes about is the power in regular, everyday relationships. She writes about the power struggles that occur during domestic disturbances. The stories are about the power struggles that happen in love relationships, relationships between parents and children, especially when these relationships are broken.

Some of the most powerful of the stories are the ones told from a child's eye view. And all of these stories pushed many of my emotional buttons, especially the stories about children who feel abandoned by parents who are separated or just emotionally distant.

Overall, I really enjoyed this writer's voice. Every story is meticulously crafted, and I loved how the stories are told with such a compact grace. Baines takes life's mundane moments and invests them with meaning, power, and a sort of magic. I also loved how the stories all made me feel something. I am not someone who cries while reading, but I definitely wiped away a few tears while reading some of these stories. There is an emotional honesty to them that is really raw and intense, and I found them very affecting.

I was really impressed with Baines, and how she gets to the heart of the matter. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

Click here to read Dovegreyreader's review of this book.

The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff--TLC Book Tour, review and GIVEAWAY!

2009-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Today I'm hosting David Ebershoff on a TLC Book Tour stop for his wonderful novel The 19th Wife. Besides this virtual book tour, David has also been on an IRL book tour, at some of the great independent book stores around the west. He will be at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena on June 22, and several book bloggers I know are planning to attend, so--meet ya there!

Also, the lovely and talented Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? met David at the book signing he did at her local independent bookstore--check out her post about it here.

My Review:

The 19th Wife
by David Ebershoff
Random House, 2008
Fiction (historical), 514 pages

In his novel The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff weaves two seemingly disparate stories together to form a satisfying and cohesive whole. He tells the story of Ann Eliza Young, 19th wife of Brigham Young, whose own past illustrates the history of the LDS church's founding, and whose married life becomes the stuff of legend when she divorces Brigham to protest--and escape--a life under polygamy.

Ebershoff also tells the story of a modern son of polygamy, Jordan Scott, a "lost boy", kicked out of the FLDS, or Firsts' polygamous cult when he was a teenager. Evidently the "lost boys" are a perceived a threat to the cult's old men, who want to keep all the young women to themselves, so they eject them from the cult, and these boys have to figure out how to live in the modern world completely alone. Jordan has survived being a lost boy, though it has been a rocky road, and now he has created a life for himself and has found a sort of peace.

However, that peace is soon shattered when Jordan's mother is accused of murdering his father. Jordan's mother, who, like Ann Eliza Young, has the dubious title of wife number nineteen, is the prime suspect when her husband is found dead of a gunshot wound, but she vehemently denies her guilt. And so Jordan gets pulled back into the world of the FLDS, as he investigates his father's death, and tries to exonerate his mother.

So Jordan's story is in some ways a murder mystery, but it is also a journey of self-discovery. And Ann Eliza's story is in some ways a history of the LDS church, but it, too, is a journey of self-discovery. Thus these stories complement each other so well. You understand Jordan's story so much better knowing Ann Eliza's story as background, and Jordan's story, which serves as an example of the legacy of the early polygamists, really completes Ann Eliza's tale.

Ebershoff effortlessly blends fact and fiction in the book, and uses many wonderful devices, including letters and even a Wikipedia entry, to tell his tale. This artful blend of past and present, fact and fiction, is what really drew me into the story. I found Ebershoff's juxtaposition of the historical and the present fascinating, and his command of the history very impressive. Ann Eliza Young's story was enhanced not only by Jordan's modern story, but also by the story of Kelly Dee, the young Mormon scholar who is studying Ann Eliza, her ancestor, in the present. And some of my favorite parts of the story were the letters from Ann Eliza's son Lorenzo--his point of view was a really interesting addition.

I found both main characters, Jordan Scott and Ann Eliza Young, to be spunky, charismatic and ultimately very compelling. Their stories add up to a unique and very readable historical novel.

When my book group read Jon Krakauer's non-fiction book about modern polygamy, Under The Banner of Heaven, I wish we had known about The 19th Wife, and read it, too. It would have made for a wonderful addition to our discussion--a thought-provoking fictional complement.

This novel was the rare combination of entertaining and enlightening, and I found it to be a very satisfying read.

About the Author:

David Ebershoff is the author of two other novels, Pasadena and The Danish Girl, and a collection of stories, The Rose City. He currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. He also is an editor-at-large for Random House.

Please check out the impressive website about The 19th Wife, which includes links to the full text of Ann Eliza Young's memoir, Wife Number 19, newspaper articles from the time about the divorce of Brigham and Ann Eliza Young, and other great resources.

Here is a link to the schedule of David Ebershoff's readings and signings of The 19th Wife. As I mentioned above, I'm hoping to attend the event at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena on June 22--so I hope to see any of you locals there!

Also check out the TLC Book Tour for The 19th Wife:

Monday, May 18: Hey, Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
Wednesday, May 20th: A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook
Thursday, May 21st: Becky’s Book Reviews
Tuesday, May 26th: Book Nut
Tuesday, June 2nd: Biblioaddict
Thursday, June 4th: A Life in Books
Friday, June 5th: Bookgirl’s Nightstand
Monday, June 8th: Live and Let Di
Tuesday, June 9th: Ramya’s Bookshelf
Wednesday, June 10th: As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves
Thursday, June 11th: A Novel Menagerie
Tuesday, June 16th: The Book Faery Reviews
Wednesday, June 17th: Shelf Life
Friday, June 19th: In the Shadow of Mt. TBR

And now for the fun part of the post--a giveaway!

If you would like to put your name in the hat to win a brand new paperback copy of The 19th Wife, please leave me a comment about why you're interested in the book! Please leave me your email address, too. And thanks for playing!

Entries will be accepted until Tuesday, 6/23 at 8pm (Pacific time). Good luck!

Sunday Salon: Cleaning and Reading

2009-06-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

We've been doing a big clear-out at our house. When did we acquire all these plastic kids' toys? Yikes! Getting rid of years of accumulated junk (and believe me, it is junk!) is so cathartic, I feel great!

The only thing I haven't given away to charity or sent to the dump are my extra books. I am paralyzed when it comes to giving away books. I guess I think I'll get around to reading it, or will possibly read it one more time, so I just can't give it away. But I am getting ruthless here, so I will be giving some books away soon. Which might mean some benefits for my blogging friends--methinks there's a giveaway brewing...

As far as reading goes, I'm still under the spell of Elizabeth Baines's short story collection Balancing on the Edge of the World, which I finished last night. These stories are very short, but hypnotic--I found they definitely transported me to another world. Sometimes that other world was the world of a child's mind--those stories were particularly good. I'll post a review some time soon.

I cannot believe the book luck I had last month, either! I was the recipient of a lovely stack of books, gratis. At last month's BEA "twitty party" (a pity party for those of us who couldn't attend BEA--waahh!), I won a book giveaway (thanks, Book Lady! You're the best!).

I also won a copy of Sally Gunning's book Bound from my blogging friend Booklogged at A Reader's Journal (yay, thanks, Booklogged!). I've been wanting to read this since I heard about it, as I really enjoyed Gunning's earlier book The Widow's War (my review here).

So my summer reading is set! (Okay, set except for all the books that I come upon as the summer progresses...) How's your summer reading shaping up?

Two Awards!

2009-06-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

Having three kids at three different schools is really difficult this time of the year. Everything is theoretically winding down, but there are way too many open houses, performances, awards ceremonies, graduation ceremonies and parties to deal with. I feel more like a chauffeur than a parent at this point.

So that's why it was so nice to find out I had been given two blogging awards. At least someone out there appreciates me for more than my driving skills :)

Not long ago, Leah from The Octogon gave me the sweetest award: the Lemonade Stand Award, an award for bloggers who show “attitude and gratitude." Maybe it's also because when life gives me lemons, I make lemonade. Yum! Lemonade with vodka and fresh mint is particularly nice this time of year...

So thank you, Leah. I love my award.

And now, according to the rules, I need to pass it along to other bloggers. Really, all my blogging friends deserve an award. But I will choose some of my favorite bloggers with attitude:

J.S. Peyton at Biblioaddict

Florinda at 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting and Randomness

Matt at A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Jill at Fizzy Thoughts

Wendy at Musings of a Bookish Kitty

Bybee at Naked Without Books!

The smile had not even faded from receiving the Lemonade Award, when I found I'd won another award from another lovely blogger. J.S. Peyton, my Biblioaddict blogging friend, gave me this Literary Blogger Award:

The acceptance rules are:

1. Put the logo on your blog/post.

2. Nominate up to 9 blogs that make you feel comfy or warm inside.

3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

4. Let them know by commenting on their blog.

5. Remember to link to the person from whom you received your award.

Okay, I can do that. I nominate some fabulous bloggers who always make me feel comfy and warm:

Ti at Book Chatter

Bookfool at Bookfoolery and Babble

Jeane at Dog Ear Diary

Iliana at Bookgirl's Nightstand

Amy at My Friend Amy

You know, any of you that I visit regularly deserves an award, so consider yourself awarded! You're all wonderful, and I am thankful to have made your blogging acquaintance.

Booking Through Thursday: Sticky

2009-06-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here's this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

There's no way this will really be a quick one. I won't take too long to think about it, but coming up with fifteen will require some thinking, no matter what. And then I have to second guess myself, so that should take some time, also. But I'll try to stick with the asked-for 15 minutes.

Hmmm...here goes:

1. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I remember being completely enchanted by this book when I was around nine or ten years old. The main character, Mary, goes through an amazing transformation, from a selfish and sickly child to one who learns to love, becomes robust, and helps another child go through a similar transformation. And Burnett so beautifully describes life on the moors, and what the change of seasons brings to the animals and plants of an English garden. One of my first experiences being completely transported by a book.

2. Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. I read this in college for a class on power relationships, and was enthralled by this allegory about the history of modern India, about two boys, born at the stroke of midnight on the eve of India's independence, one Muslim and one Hindu, who are switched and given to the wrong families. It was also my introduction to magical realism, and it was an amazing reading experience.

3. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Another story of a girl's transformation that I loved reading as a girl. Poor Jane--a smart, honest, blunt girl who is plain and has no money up against the rich, empty-headed, pretty, cruel, arrogant, abusive characters who try to ruin her life--a perfect character for me to root for.

4. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. When I read this for the first time, as a young teen, I read it as a simple love story, and loved it. I've read it many times since, and subsequently found the humor and subtlety of Austen's skewering of English society just as entertaining as the love story. But it's still a really satisfying love story, and still a favorite comfort read.

5. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens. I read this as a youngster. Dickens, the great manipulator, not only manipulated my emotions by sucking me into this crazy story, but taught me how people manipulated each other in love--and I remember being fascinated. How can Pip not see that Estella is not worth his love? How can Estella not realize she is being manipulated by Miss Havisham? How will it all turn out--can any of them find happiness? Great stuff!

6. Silas Marner, by George Eliot. Another book I read as a child, and found very satisfying. Even as a kid I could see the symbolism of the miser having his material gold replaced by the gold-haired child who changes his life for the better.

7. The World According to Garp, by John Irving. The first modern "grown-up" novel I remember reading. I was taken with Irving's style, and it made me seek out more contemporary fiction.

8. Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon. Vineland is the only Pynchon I've ever read, and people say it's not nearly his best. But Pynchon's wild use of language was eye-opening to me, and his twisted view of California was devastating. The book made a big impression on me when it came out.

9. The French Lieutenant's Woman, by John Fowles. One of my first forays into postmodern literature, I loved how Fowles twists up the Victorian novel, and himself steps into the book to suggest alternate endings. Something I've been meaning to re-read for years.

10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. One of the first serious novels I ever read, I found it warm and accessible, and yet about such chilling subjects--it was the first book about racism that I had ever read, and profoundly affecting. Also, one of the best novel-to-movie adaptations I've ever seen.

11. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. Science fiction wedded to comedy, something I didn't know was possible before I read this.

12. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. My first Russian realist. Really loved Levin and Kitty, and loved to wallow with Anna and Vronsky. And who can resist such a first line, "All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

13. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. Another book I read in college, for a history course. Stegner made the history of the western United States come alive in this novel, and the characters were fascinating. This portrait of a marriage, and a woman's compromises in marriage, is still one of the saddest I can recall reading.

14. A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster. One of the first novels I ever read really closely, for an AP English class--and somehow that didn't ruin it for me. I learned to love the symbols in the novel, and fell in love with Forster's prose.

15. The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank. I read this as a child and it not only stuck with me, but haunted me then, and haunts me still.

Review: A Mercy, by Toni Morrison

2009-05-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

I finished A Mercy a few weeks ago, but haven't been able to corral my thoughts about the book until now. This is the first of Toni Morrison's books that I've read since Beloved, a book I was mesmerized by as a younger woman. And I'm glad I read this, which feels somewhat like a companion piece to Beloved, to reintroduce myself to Morrison's work after some years.

A Mercy takes place at the end of the 17th century, when America was a very wild and new place. It is the story of a household, a farm, on the edge of the wilderness in the New World. Jacob Vaark is the farmer, but it is less his story than that of the women who reside with him.

First there is Lina, a young Native American woman Jacob brings into his home to help him with the house and farmwork. Lina was the sole survivor of her village's massacre, and then survived the Protestant proselytizing of the stern white folks who first took her in.

Then Jacob buys a bride from England, and Rebekka shows up. She is happy to exchange the squalor of English city life and her valueless place as daughter of the family for the hard work of a New England farm, and the relative autonomy of being a wife. Rebekka and Lina achieve a mutual respect and good working relationship on the farm, but Rebekka's life is scarred by the loss of several children.

Jacob also takes in a young woman named Sorrow, who was raised on a ship and rescued from it when all others aboard had perished. Sorrow is an enigmatic character who seems to live inside her own head and carry untold secrets. Finally, Jacob reluctantly accepts slave girl Florens in payment for a debt from a slave trader.

When Jacob dies of smallpox, the four women's lives become insecure, as women alone in this harsh new world are never fully safe. And when Rebekka sickens with the disease, Florens takes to the road to find help in the form of a free black man, an artisan who worked for Jacob, and who may be able to cure Rebekka. This man also happens to be Florens's lover, and she goes to him with hope in her heart for a new and different life.

Like Beloved, A Mercy examines the psychological and moral intricacies of slavery. While Beloved takes place in the aftermath of slavery, A Mercy is there at slavery's birth in this country. A Mercy's characters demonstrate the more fluid state of slavery at that time, as the novel depicts slave traders, a reluctant slave owner, a free black man, and people of every color in various states of servitude, including a pair of white male indentured servants who almost (but perhaps not quite) provide the novel with comic relief. The subtlety of their relationships is brilliant; nobody is wholly innocent or wholly guilty, power can shift, and all are slaves to something.

The women in the story not only represent different races and social positions, they also represent the many different points on the spectrum of womanhood at the time: mother, sister, daughter, mistress, servant, slave, lover, wife, friend. And Morrison digs into the subtleties of all these relationships, showing their fluidity, too.

Morrison, whom I consider a magician with words, writes gorgeous, elliptical, poetic prose that evokes a waking dream. I enter the characters' consciousnesses, and end up in my own dream-like state as I read. It is easy to be swept up in Morrison's writing. The plot is non-linear, and the writing is impressionistic, but, maybe through Morrison's magic, or maybe just because the human brain works this way, the non-linear bits and pieces of the story and all of the impressions I've gathered coalesce into a whole that I see with more clarity than I ever expected.

Book Gluttony: Summer Reading Begins

2009-05-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

My budget-imposed moratorium on book buying has ended, as I thought it would, in a furious spending spree on books, most at nearly full price. I held back for months and months longer than I thought I would be able to, however, [pats self on the back] so I feel okay about it all.

The first two books on the stack are my 13-year-old son's summer reading for school. Sorry, bub, but I paid for the books, so I'm reading them first.

I have never read any Tony Hillerman, so I'm looking forward to A Thief of Time, and yay! my son's also been assigned to read Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever 1793. All my blogging buddies have read and loved her book Speak, so I've been dying to read something by Anderson. Plus now I follow her on Twitter, and I like her style. And I happen to love books like this--historical and young adult and all about a plague--excellent!

I'm finally getting down to business and reading The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, for my own self-imposed summer reading project. Thank you Matt (at A Guy's Moleskine Notebook), for kicking my butt to read this one.

No Great Mischief, by Alistair McLeod is one of those books that I happened upon in the blogosphere, and sadly, can't remember exactly which blog, so can't give credit where credit is due. Has this ever happened to you? I can only remember it happening to me once before, but it's very annoying. If you are the blogger who turned me onto this book, could you please let me know in the comments? Thanks. I appreciate it. My sieve-like brain thanks you, too.

Next up, The White Tiger: A Novel, by Aravind Adiga. Recommendation by my book-loving cousin-by-marriage. Man Booker Prize-winning book, too, which I'm always interested in.

Wandering Stars, by Sholem Aleichem, is my book group's next pick. We're trying to squeeze in one last meeting before we take a break over the summer. So I really had to buy this one (she says, with a guilty wince). It's newly reissued, and I think the cover is beautiful.

People of the Book: A Novel, by Geraldine Brooks, has been on my list for a really long time. Actually, it's been on my BookMooch list, and finally I successfully mooched it! Yes! So it's the only book I didn't pay for. And a beautiful hardcover copy, too, so I'm thrilled.

So, tell me, what are your summer reading plans?

Sunday Salon: Reading update and PBS Videos

2009-05-24T09:33:00.001-07:00

It's Memorial Day Weekend here in the US, a three-day weekend, so that means a barbecue, an extra day of kid duty, and if you're lucky, an extra day for reading. I'm trying to catch up on reviews, but I keep getting distracted by my reading...

Last week I finished Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan, and we discussed it at my book group. It was a great discussion, as usual. It was also probably more personal than usual as the book is about women's issues: duty to one's self vs. duty to one's marriage and children, infidelity, a woman who leaves her children in order to follow the man she loves. Heavy stuff, and we probably could have discussed for hours more...

Now I'm reading David Ebershoff's novel The 19th Wife, which contains some twists on some of the same themes; it concerns early Mormon polygamy, and modern polygamy, and it's proving a very interesting read. I'm hosting a TLC book tour for this book on June 17th, so come back by for a review and more.

My husband is a member of the Television Academy, so we get "screeners" every year of almost all of the TV shows out there. Usually there are two or three episodes of the current season of a show on the DVD, and I almost never watch them unless there is something I've heard great things about. For someone whose husband works in television, I watch very little of it.

But last year we got the screener of Cranford, with Judi Dench in it, and I was thrilled. It was really good!

But this year I was extremely happy to receive the PBS/Masterpiece screener, because it not only has Little Dorrit on it, it also has the Kenneth Branagh Masterpiece Mystery series Wallander. I've heard such good things about both programs, I can't wait to watch!

So I'm hoping I'll be able to make some time to watch these today. Maybe tonight, after the kids go to bed...

Has anyone seen Little Dorrit? Is it a good adaptation?

How about Wallander? I keep hearing it's very good, and they may make it into a series. Or maybe they already have...

Weekly Geeks 2009-18: Home Sweet Literary Home

2009-05-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

This week's Weekly Geeks topic, posted by the lovely softdrink, is:

"Take us on a literary tour of your home town!"

Hmmm...interesting one. I grew up in northern California, in a town called Danville, which is part of the "East Bay" area, outside of San Francisco. Danville is a commuter town, a "bedroom community" for San Francisco, and though it has its own history as a railroad stop on the Southern Pacific railroad, and is a lovely place, I wouldn't call it a literary town.

However, the San Francisco Bay Area has a rich literary history. Jack London was born in San Francisco and lived in the Bay Area and of course Mark Twain famously lived in San Francisco where he worked as a journalist, and described the weather to a T ("The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"). The literary history continues on through the beat poets and expands to a wide group of writers who make San Francisco their home, including Dave Eggers and the McSweeney's crew.

But my little home town of Danville did have its own literary star, at least for awhile, in the late playwright Eugene O'Neill.

Eugene O'Neill and his wife Carlotta built Tao House, a beautiful Spanish-style house, on a hillside in Danville, and they lived there from 1937 to 1944. He wrote his final and most famous plays there, including “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” O'Neill garnered four Pulitzer prizes for his plays, and is the only American playwright to have received the Nobel Prize for literature.

Now the home is a National Historic Site, and you can visit and take a tour if you wish, but you have to make a reservation first. And evidently the Eugene O'Neill Foundation hosts an International Eugene O'Neill conference in Danville--who knew?

Booking Through Thursday--A Second First Time?

2009-05-21T06:32:00.001-07:00

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday question:

What book would you love to be able to read again for the first time?

(Interestingly, I thought that I had thought this one up myself, but when I started scrolling through the Suggestions, found that Rebecca had suggested almost exactly this question a couple months ago. So, we both get credit!)

Good question. I guess books that made a big impression on me would be the one's I'd like to have a clean slate "do-over" for, so I could have the thrill again. I don't think I could narrow that down to just one, so here's a (fairly short) list:

1. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

3. Middlemarch, by George Eliot

4. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

5. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

6. Beloved, by Toni Morrison

7. Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie

8. Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner

I'm sure I'll think of others later--there are so many books that made a big impact that I'd like to read for the first time again. Thinking about them makes me want to read them again, period.

What's on your list of best "first time" reads?

Night Navigation by Ginnah Howard, a review

2009-05-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

Ginnah Howard's novel Night Navigation was sent to me by the publisher, and I didn't know what to expect. What I got was a needle-sharp look into the life of a mentally ill drug addict, and his relationship with a loving but frustrated mother, who can't help but give him one more chance, over and over again.

Howard's novel alternates focus between the viewpoint of Del Merrick, a mother in late middle age, who would like to be focusing on her art and living a normal life, and the viewpoint of Del's deeply troubled adult son Mark, who has fallen back into drug addiction, and therefore back into Del's life. Both Del and Mark also have to contend with the ghosts of Mark's father and brother (Del's late husband and her other son), and guilt over their deaths. Through the course of the story, mother and son come together, and come apart, and find out more about themselves and each other in the process.

Howard writes matter-of-factly about the horrendous life of a drug addict; the desperation, the manipulation of everyone around them, the physical pain of addiction, the casual way violence enters the lives of those who cannot manage their own lives and become slaves to drugs. It's compelling to watch, kind of like a train wreck--and it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

Bleak, yes, but I really enjoyed the poetic imagery Howard employs to tell her grim tale. And there is some hope infused here, too. Del is a relatable character, even if you aren't a mother. But if you are, it is oh so painful to imagine yourself in her situation. She has been bound to these men she has loved, and they have either died or are in the process of killing themselves. It is a hard thing to read about, and yet Del's life, in the every day, is quite beautiful. She is an artist, she lives surrounded by rural beauty, and when writing about Del's life, Howard's writing showcases the beauty that exists in the mundane, if we only open our eyes to see it.

Mother's Day and crazy bloomin' stuff

2009-05-11T16:09:00.001-07:00

I had the nicest Mother's Day on Sunday. This was partly because I had such low expectations, I think. I've never been a big fan of these types of holidays, the ones that seem like they were made up by marketing departments to sell us more stuff. But that doesn't stop me from drinking in a little appreciation for all I do as a mother, if anyone is willing to give it.

So my husband stayed with our little girl while I took the boys to the Star Trek movie. I really enjoyed the movie, and my lunch of popcorn, candy and soda. Yum! The movie was good enough that I'm going to take my husband later in the week. He shouldn't miss out just because he sacrificed on Mother's Day!

I also got a little reading time in over the weekend. I started reading Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan, which my book group is reading this month. So far, I am enjoying the story, which, I was surprised to find, includes a lot about the role of women in society at the time. It is making me want to do a little research on Frank Lloyd Wright, however--I know his work, but don't know the first thing about him, other than that his personal life was "colorful". And of course, Loving Frank is a novel, so I'll probably look around for some non-fiction on the subject.

The photo above is from my front garden. Last fall I got a bee in my bonnet, so to speak, about gardening with native plants. I did a little research, joined my local native plant and wildflower foundation, and planted the front garden with natives. This spring it has paid off, as I've got loads of beautiful purple blossoms, and I don't have to water nearly as much as I used to.

The photo below is what my husband calls our "hundred-dollar blackberry". That's because he thinks that's probably how much it costs in labor and water to produce the few fruits and vegetables we grow in our back yard. But isn't it crazy that fruit is already ripening here in Southern California?

Reader's Diary

2009-05-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed our whirlwind trip back to the rainy east coast, and, to my amazement, I actually got some reading done. I finished Vanina Marsot's Foreign Tongue: A Novel of Life and Love in Paris, and Ginnah Howard's novel Night Navigation. The two novels couldn't be more different, but both were enjoyable in their own ways. Now I'm really, really behind in my reviews...oh, well, c'est la vie.

I had fun talking books with my husband's sister and his cousin, both voracious readers whose tastes generally mesh with mine. Our cousin mentioned Aravind Adiga's Booker-prize-winning novel The White Tiger as a must-read. It's now more firmly on my list!

My BookMooched copy of Nick Hornby's Housekeeping vs. the Dirt arrived this afternoon, which absolutely made my day. I love when something on my BookMooch wishlist pops up in my email, and I'm quick enough to get it! I was lucky enough to snag this copy, and I'm really looking forward to starting it.

Must start organizing my thoughts about all these books I want to write about. Maybe this weekend. But I want to see the Star Trek movie, and then there's Mother's Day...I'm guessing I'll be just as far behind on reviews on Monday.

What do you all have planned for this weekend?

Shelf Life

Booking Through Thursday--In Public

Back To School

Vacation Travel Reading: The East Coast

Sunday Salon--and the list grows...

Booking Through Thursday--Age Inappropriate

Poetry: Spread the Word

Super Sad I Won't Be Able To Go To This...

Spring Break Is Almost Over

Sunday Salon--Donating, and reading

Booking Through Thursday--Multi-tasking

Next Up In Group

I'm Hooked

Sunday Salon--Oscar day in LA

Booking Through Thursday--Something Old, Something New

Post Valentine's Day Reading Update

Room, by Emma Donoghue--a review

Virginia Woolf's birthday...

On Vacation

Booking Through Thursday--Skeletons

Sunday Salon--Halloween season

Lazy blogger

Booking Through Thursday--Current

Sunday Salon

Booking Through Thursday--Day and Night

Sunday Salon--Back in the Saddle Again

Booking Through Thursday--Beach Buddies

Booking Through Thursday--Discussion

Summer Reading for my son and me

Impromptu vacation

Booking Through Thursday--Signature

Sunday Salon--this week's reading

Booking Through Thursday--The Long and Short of it

Reading Habits Meme

Booking Through Thursday--Bedside

Sunday Salon: old favorites?

Booking Through Thursday--Influence

The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee--a review

Booking Through Thursday--Plotting

Sunday Salon--Book Group Reading

BTT--Break

Sunday Salon--British reading and Spring!

YA for A

Booking Through Thursday--Illustrious

Some British reading, and a whiff of Spring

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann--a review

To read next, and BTT snuck up on me--Encouragement

Booking Through Thursday--Winter Reading

Sunday Salon--Cookbook Reading in Bed

Booking Through Thursday--Favorite Unknown

Sunday Salon--Books I read a little bit of today

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver--a review

Booking Through Thursday: Gifts

Reading Resolutions

Year-End Wrap-Up 2009

Still on the jury...

Doing my Civic Duty--which means a Blogging Break

Book Bloggers Unite...

Sunday Salon: In my head

The world's worst library books

My Wish List Grows Longer...

Sunday Salon: The Anthologist

Booking Through Thursday--It’s All About Me

Back home again

A Weekend in New York

Book Group Madness!

Booking Through Thursday--Would You Lie?

Sunday Salon--quotable Moore

Sunday Salon--Something I've Been Looking Forward To

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Enjoyable

Sunday Salon: The Help

More Vacation Reading

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Big

Sunday Salon--Book coveting

Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey--a review, and TLC Book Tour stop

Tomorrow--Kwei Quartey's Wife of the Gods

Vacation reading

Sunday Salon--Starting a few new books

Booking Through Thursday--Recent Serious

Summer of My English Reading