even pretty girls need to read

What I'm doing when I'm not with you

2012-01-24T10:31:00.000-06:00

"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit."
John Steinbeck

Overdue

2012-01-23T19:11:00.004-06:00

I took a break from working on Sunday to check my library account. I had eight overdue items. Eight.

I took as a sign that I should take an elongated halftime from Stephen King. I'll be back for him.

Meanwhile, I seem to have joined another book club. And this one is not messing around. There are lawyers in it. They are very organized. There are rules. And protocols. It is almost too much for my warm and cozy English mind.

We are reading Player One: What is to Become of Us. It is kind of like the "24" of books, only it is five hours long (short?) and no Keifer Sutherland. So far everyone is lonely and fixated on time - which is appropriate since it is the apocalypse. The basic premise is: what happens when several strangers are in an airport bar and the apocalypse comes (due to astronomical oil prices).

Hijinks - of the ominous sniper kind - then ensues.

Oh, and it takes place in Canada. Shout out.

Meanwhile, if you want to know what my days are filled with when I'm not blogging, go check this out: Hey Girl Teacher.

"Listening to people tell stories is very soothing. When someone is telling you a story, they hijack the personal narrator that lives inside your head. It's the closest we come to seeing through someone else's eyes."
Douglas Coupland

Stephen King, stealer of sleep

2012-01-11T17:57:00.004-06:00

After the post about Stephen King's greatness, I read a short story that gave me nightmares and had me checking to see if my front door was locked (IT WASN'T). This made for a very fidgety night.

Apparently I'm a sucker because regardless of that short story warning, I just started his latest undertaking, 11/22/63. It deals with time travel and possibly stopping the Kennedy assassination. It was all going along beautifully until about 120 pages in and the protagonist arrives at a town...

Not just any town.

A town with a pervading feeling of...wrongness.

Oh, and people who murder each other with hammers.

Hammers.

At that point, I closed the book and haven't opened it for two days. It's like I'm afraid of the book.

It is similar to the children's book - There's a Monster at the End of this Book - only in this case the monster is 1/6 of the way in. And really, it is probably only the first of many "monsters" to be dealt with in the massive tome.

Now, unlike Joey and Rachel on Friends when they read Cujo - when a book frightens me I don't put it in the freezer.

But I'm considering it.

Right now it is on my bedside table.

Next to where I sleep.

Sitting there all night.

Who knows what could happen.

Safety first.

When reading.

Freezer.

"Take care of yourself...and say! Did you maybe leave the oven on? Or forget to turn off the gas under your patio barbecue? What about the lock on the back door? Did you remember to give it a twist? Things like that are so easy to forget, and someone could be slipping in right now. A lunatic, perhaps. One with a knife. So, OCD behavior or not...Better go check, don't you think?"
Stephen King

Memory always needs a marker

2012-01-05T06:12:00.003-06:00

I bow down to The King.

Stephen King.

Teaching is just four - relaxing - days away, which means it has crept back into my mind as careers are wont to do.

My freshman are reading short stories this quarter, so I thought I might liven up my break with some by Stephen King.

My history with Stephen King began as me being a hater for much of my life, but has come full circle to me now calling him the Jane Austen of horror.

I shouldn't - then - be surprised to find his short story collection, Just After Sunset, to be fabulous.

Writing this is filling up the halftime I'm taking in the middle of the collection because I just read a short story that was so meaningful I have to take a moment. Let it marinate. I can't let any other words mess with the ones currently floating around my head.

The story: "The Things They Left Behind"

It is about a man who didn't die in the twin towers on 9/11 because he was playing hooky from work. A little less than a year later, artifacts from his now deceased co-workers show up in his apartment. They don't talk to him really, but when they are around he begins to remember them and then - later - also knows how they died.

I won't tell you how it ends. At 29 pages you can read it for yourself. I will say that throwing the objects away does NOT get them out of his apartment for long...

I find that after reading the story, I don't want to read anything else for a bit. I just want to think for a bit. Kudos to King, because isn't wanting to pause your reading to let the words resonate with you the mark of a successful tale?

Then again, I could be touchy because I teach a group of young people to which 9/11 means barely anything. I want to yell and say, "The world changed that day; don't you understand?"

They don't. Perhaps if they read this story they could begin to.

"The things I want to tell you about - the ones they left behind - showed up in my apartment in August of 2002.I'm sure of that, because I found most of them not long after I helped Paula Robeson with her air conditioner. Memory always needs a marker, and that's mine."
Stephen King

Happy New Year (I'm still celebrating)

2012-01-04T20:27:00.003-06:00

"Another year, lots of new dreams."
Unknown

Pausing 2012 to remember 2011

2012-01-02T11:53:00.009-06:00

A year in books. 2011 marked the harrowing battle of reading vs. teaching. Even so, I managed to find time to read. The issue was never so apparent as when during one week of teaching break I read three books (completely for my enjoyment only). Oh the rapture.

Let's look back now over the entire year. It would seem this was a year of the series (Wallander, Game of Thrones, Dune, etc.) I've boiled my list down to my top three per category. It would seem, however, that I only read one happy/funny book this year. I feel pretty OK with that.

Here goes:

Favorite

Must Read

Not for Me

Page Turner

Feel Happy and Laugh

Wallow and Cry

Makes you Think

Entertaining Fluff

All the Rest
A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines
Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman: Trinity - Matt Wagner
Batman: The Long Halloween - Loeb & Sale
Batman: Year One - Miller & Mazzuchelli
Chapterhouse Dune - Frank Herbert
Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda - Stassen
Drood - Dan Simmons
Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell
Fahrenheit 451 (graphic adaptation) - Tim Hamilton
Firewall - Henning Mankell
God Emperor of Dune - Frank Herbert
Good Wives - Louisa May Alcott
Heretics of Dune - Frank Herbert
Hole in My Life - Jack Gantos
How Did You Get This Number - Sloane Crosley
I am an Emtional Creature - Eve Ensler
Inherit the Wind - Jerome Lawrence & Robert E Lee
Italian Shoes - Henning Mankell
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Mare's War - Tanita Davis
Marvel 1602 - Neil Gaiman
More Book Lust - Nancy Pearl
Murder in the Marais - Cara Black
One Step Behind - Henning Mankell
Promethea Vol. 1 - Moore, Williams & Gray
Promethea Vol. 2 - Moore, Williams & Gray
Promethea Vol. 3 - Moore, Williams & Gray
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Sidetracked - Henning Mankell
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin
Swim the Fly - Don Calame
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Books of Magic - Gaiman & Bolton et al.
The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell
The Fifth Woman - Henning Mankell
The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
The Last Wish - Andrzei Sapkowski
The Man Who Smiled - Henning Mankell
The Weight of Winter - Cathie Pelletier
The White Lioness - Henning Mankell
Touching Spirit Bear - Ben Mikaelsen
When the World Was Steady - Claire Messud
Wonder Woman - Picoult, Dodson, Johnson, & Diaz
Wonder Woman Archives Vol. 1 - DC Comics

Eve of the eve in...

2011-12-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

Christmas in the city

2011-12-21T17:05:00.000-06:00

The weight of winter

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

It's snowing. My holiday spirit was just lifted 100 percent.

Which brings us to my yearly pilgrimage into Winter Fiction. I've broadened my search from holiday fiction to simply anything with snow in it.

Enter Cathie Pelletier. I love her and her three book series about the inhabitants of up up up state Maine so much I put off reading the third and final book for almost a year. As it turns out, it is about winter.

However, the title is The Weight of Winter so I think we know that it isn't going to be sugary story telling.

My two favorite quotes actually have nothing to do with snow or winter or Christmas.

First:
"Maybe I like to remember her because I was still young myself, and things still meant something to me. After a lot of years of life go by, you get kind of like an old badger. You get a shell-like heart, and you back your way into a corner and show everyone your teeth."

Second:
"...I got more time to think, maybe that's when things seemed to sour before my eyes. It's a dangerous thing, you know, too much time to think. It can twist and turn your mind. But I got to say it now - before my mind turned, there was some awful good times."

I smile, nostalgic with a twinge of melancholy, at these words. A sigh is almost needed after you read them. An affirmation of the bittersweet truth life offers us.

Don't worry, there was snow description as well:
"You think you know about snow? Well, let me tell you about moonlight nights in the blue of January that come right out of dreams. They're too blue, too crackling with cold to be real. That's when the pines would be all crusted with snow, just like they was baked that way. And all the needles would be glistening like glass. Up overhead you could see Orion shimmering, the buckle on his belt so cold your fingers would stick to it if you could touch it."

Ahhhh winter. Makes a girl want to knit. Or read. More.

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."
Andrew Wyeth

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

2011-12-15T19:21:00.003-06:00

I didn't eat food until 7 p.m. today.

I had to reprimand students for playing a game of "let's hit each other in the junk" during class.

I paper cut my finger while grading on the bus because my skin hates winter.

I had to put pressure on the same finger for over 10 minutes before the bleeding would stop.

I traveled downtown for a free happy hour only to find out it is next Thursday.

I then traveled back up to my apartment during rush hour.

When finally home, I reopened the paper cut attempting to put my pajamas on.

That's when the crying happened. Luckily, Rocious was there to snuggle me or else the crying may have never stopped.

An hour later I realized I had put the pajamas on inside out.

I'm calling it. I forfeit today. Chalk this one up as a loss.

"I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair."
Judith Viorst

I'm having this problem...shocker

2011-12-12T08:00:00.002-06:00

I'm having this problem with reading lately and I can't tell whether the books aren't worth reading or if teaching has turned my brain.

And I'm a little worried it's the latter.

Back in the day. Way back in time when I had time - and room in my brain - for reading, I looked down my book snob nose at people who read fluffy books. My grandmother, for example - who worked two jobs and had nine kids - read a lot of romance novels. I never understood it.

With age comes stress and possibly a little wisdom.

I see that for her - and now for me - reading couldn't be something she put her full heart into. I don't have the luxury right now to run away with reading. And when I try to read books that will make me think? I find my eyes glazing over and all of a sudden I'm lesson planning instead of reading and thinking.

Example? OK.

Chad - from Fiction is So Overrated and I decided (if decided means I stalked him down, emailed him, and made him agree because I think he's cool) to read some books together. He chose our first selection: The Tiger's Wife.

While Chad is awesome, I did not find The Tiger's Wife to be as awesome. It was kind of like when my young adult book club read an adult book and I picked Claire Messud's latest because I love her and she is fabulous and then I hated the book. Sad.

Now. Get ready. I'm about to get scientific, because I really need to figure out why I didn't like this book.

Later - post reading - I found out Tiger's Wife is the new hotness book that everyone thinks people should read. We know I hate those books on priciple. However, Chad and I had a pact not to research our book selections. So I didn't know, which means I wasn't tainted by my snobbery against books Oprah and Amazon and my feminist book store tell me I should read.

It wasn't my snobbery. But was it my teaching brain?

I tried to like it. I really did. Parts were beautifully written and poignant, but I couldn't stay focused. It was the kind of book where you are reading along and all of a sudden you are on a tangent, which is followed by tangent off of the tangent, and by the time you look up you're like: I don't care in the slightest why this town only has one gun and who brought it here - shoot the stupid tiger already.

And I love tigers.

It reminded me of A. S. Byatt's The Children's Book. And I hated that book before I started teaching.

Perhaps there are remnants of my brain left intact. Perhaps I can still find joy in books that don't have fighting sequences to keep me awake.

There's hope for me yet.

"Is your heart a sponge or a fist?"
Tea Obreht

Meanwhile

2011-12-11T08:58:00.000-06:00

IT'S CHRISTMAS IT'S CHRISTMAS IT'S CHRISTMAS

Well, almost.

"These are the special times
Times we'll remember
These are the precious times
The tender times, we'll hold in our hearts forever
These are the sweetest times
These times together
And through it all one thing will always be true
The special times are the times I share with you"
Christina Aguilera (you heard me)

Guilty

2011-10-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

I have two blog posts started for books I've read, but said nothing about. Poor Witcher and Siddhartha. I feel like they're the guys you date in quick succession when you are really busy and later you are like, "Oh, what was his name again?"

I recommend both. Witcher takes a video-game-ish (it was turned into one) look at fairy tales. It is thoroughly entertaining. Similar to Disney, but with more fighting...which - if you think about it - is a lot of fighting because Disney actually doesn't shy away from a fight.

Siddhartha has no fighting unless you count fighting with your SOUL. It is a book about a man on a journey of self discovery. It is what we all go through. Sure, most of us don't become aesthetics on that journey, but it was still comforting to read that the journey is never over.

And finally, I'm going to have to figure out why my easiest book metaphor is dating. Worrisome.

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Evolution of a face

2011-10-16T14:53:00.005-05:00

While still in a high chair, I would put "make-up" on my face with markers. At 28, I still love to play with colors on my face.

*Before we get into a female beauty issues discussion, I've already had part of my say here.

Getting up at 5:25 a.m. on a daily basis has severely inhibited my fun, however. I'm lucky if I get clothes on my body and hair brushed that early. I high five myself when I successfully leave my apartment with a book to read on the bus.

In celebration of the long hours we put in, last night Kath and I got gussied up and hit the town for sushi and wine. This meant make-up. Whenever I throw a bunch of make-up at my face I find the transformation amusing. I go from Persuasion to Clockwork Orange to Vanity Fair.

Oh, and I didn't take a book with me on the bus ride down to sushi (mistake). (Un)luckily for me, a man sat next to me and proceeded to play Transformers II on his iPhone.

"Just because you want to be glamorous, don't be a sheep about your eye makeup."
Loretta Young

Swag

2011-10-15T10:13:00.004-05:00

I'm pretty sure most high school students think their teachers are robots. We do not exist outside the classroom. We eat, drink, and sleep school. This depiction is - sadly - closer to the truth than I would like.

Yesterday, during our fall pep rally, the teachers had a chance to break out and break it down flash mob style. When Ams told me her school was doing a flash mob I knew mine had to as well. Teachers need fun, silliness, and school pride too. And so I stealthily went about signing non-dancer faculty up for dancing in front of our students.

I promised no jazz hands.

When cutting the music, I knew the dance had to have several things: a repeat, the grapevine, and old school dance moves. I could make teacher jokes of how I scaffolded the teaching of the dance and differentiated for learning styles, but what's really important is it all came together and the students were thoroughly amused.

So amused that at one point we got off the beat because we couldn't hear the music through the screaming. You can watch it here.

Afterward, there were many high fives and exclamations of "you can dance" and "you've got swag." To which I humbly said "thank you" and "I know," but should have said: "and that's just the grapevine." And I might have said that had I not already been back in my robot teacher disguise.

"The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking."
Isadora Duncan

I don't know why I do this to myself

2011-10-12T18:06:00.002-05:00

As with relationships, I - on occasion - succumb to books I think I should read. I know better. I rarely agree with the hype.

First book I thought I should read

Back When You Were Easier to Love hooked me with the title. I'm a sucker for a story that sounds like there will be love hijinks.

In the book, a guy dumps the narrator for college and she drives across the country to him to get closure. Oh and she is roadtripping with his best friend. I already know what's going to happen and I haven't cracked the spine.

Amazon told me Smith's writing is "original and insightful, quirky and crushing."

Here are the first lines: "Over the summer my best friend, Mattia, and I were the token teenage patrons of Haven Public Library. I guess all the other kids figured that since we were out of school, it mean we were exempt from 'required reading' which, in their minds, meant any reading at all."

So the book is written by an obvious English major. Got it. Pass. And I was an English major.

Second book I thought I should read

You Know When the Men Are Gone appealed to me because I've watched enough The Unit to know that what goes on with military significant others is complicated and dramatic.

Unfortunately, after reading the first two pages, all I saw was gossiping about new neighbors. It was like military Desperate Housewives. No thanks.

Even The New York Times told me Fallon wrote "gripping, straight-up, no-nonsense stories about American soldiers and their families."

Lies:

"Their fate depended on whether Carla walked out of the room or stood next to her husband. She bit her lip and wondered if this was the sum of a marriage: wordless recriminations or reconciliations, every breath either striving against or toward the other person, each second a decision to exert or abdicate the self."

If I wanted husband wife drama, I'd go re-read Revolutionary Road or Madam Bovary or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or all my other favorites. They don't mess around.

“I'm only interested in stories that are about the crushing of the human heart.”
Yates

Do you have a reservation

2011-10-10T18:44:00.008-05:00

Our camping weekend began with me forgetting my wallet, and nearly all the camping sites being full.

So much for lonely cold camping.

After setting up camp and enjoying some McDonald's Dollar Coke we settled in for bed time reading.

That night I finished another Wallander mystery, One Step Behind. This time, a group of young people is missing. Nothing seems out of the ordinary until one of Wallander's coworkers is murdered for investigating the missing young adults. People continue to be murdered and no motive comes to light. Solving a growing number of murders gets added to the list of Wallander's worries (including denial about having diabetes). Wallander's usual questions concerning Sweden's decline bundle together with questions about how well we know our coworkers.

Per usual, Wallander had me up late because I can't put him down.

Saturday I read my latest guilty pleasure series. I read fantasy, but I don't usually delve into urban fantasy. However, when a fellow fantasy reading coworker brought me Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series, I had to try it.

Many times, reading books people lend you is a burden. What if you don't like it? Will you have to stop talking to them?

I was wary. The cover art includes a lion, a sexy (but tough) woman, and a giant sword. Don't stop reading.

The books are 100 percent entertainment. Kate Daniels is a mercenary with some powerfully magic blood. She goes around Atlanta kicking butt and taking names. The city goes in (no magic) and out (magic) of "tech" all the time, so sometimes she rides a donkey, others a car. There are vampires and shapeshifters and deities...oh my. Kate always gets her man, or beast, or demon. Oh, and she has a flirtatious thing with the king of the shapeshifters. Ooo la la.

Basically it is everything an overworked girl could want.

Sunday I was able to start the Witcher series (One Last Wish), which begins with scary vignettes. This morning I was reading in my tent and as the Witcher is about to battle some type of beast, Face was staring off into the woods like something was about to come kill us. He is not allowed to do that.

I never got to my final selection: Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (or as I like to call it: 1930's intellectual erotica). I have a crush on Anais Nin. I read her diaries. I think she's great. She thought Henry Miller was great. They were so influential to each other that I feel like I can't know Anais without knowing Henry. If you haven't read Miller, think of him like Kerouac but way earlier and deeper thinking and better writing and less hating of women.

Overall, I kept my reading like my mood this weekend: light.

And when I wasn't reading? I was jumping the sun:

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
Anais Nin

Camping Preview

2011-10-06T19:27:00.003-05:00

3 full days of camping

1 Wallander mystery

2 urban fantasies

1 1930's intellectual erotica (Henry Miller)

1 play for school

=

camping perfection

Storm of swords and death

2011-09-20T18:30:00.005-05:00

"You have to get through half the book before people die," is what Face told me concerning book three of the Game of Thrones series.

And he was right. All the books are blurring together (which should happen in a series where the storyline is continuous), so I can't remember if it was this book or the second one where the beginning says HEY that last book ended with a battle and you want to know if Tyrion is dead but instead, we are going to BACK UP and tell you what other peeps were doing DURING the battle.

So I don't know if I should be annoyed at this book or still at the last one. Either way, once main characters start being killed off, the action really starts. The question is: why does it take such serious demolition of the character list to keep my attention? To be fair, I'm also all attention when the dragons are around. Who wouldn't be? They are dragons.

Regardless, I'm taking a break before book four. Because it's even bigger and the last time I waited 300 pages for something to get amazing it was Dickens and Bleak House and it got crazy amazing. Storm of Swords - in the second half - was entertaining enough to warrant reading it but I'm still mad about wasting my time on the first half.

That being said, in the second half I came to love a character I once disliked (losing a hand really changes you). A character I loathed gets poisoned (take that imaginary character!). Another characte I loathed gets pushed out a window by a man she loved (ouch). A character I root for finally gets recognized. Oh, and dragons. Always dragons.

In the end, I basically should have done what my students do and SparkNoted the first half of the book and started reading around page 400.

"I am the sword in the darkness, I am the watcher on the walls, I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men."
George R. R. Martin

Why are we doing this again?

2011-09-18T20:03:00.003-05:00

Today I rode my bike 55 miles. In the rain. In the cold. In the wind. Why?

Let's think:

My bike needed to get washed?

Sweatpants are too cozy on a dreary day?

I really like wearing shorts with padding in them?

I really like the wet diaper feeling when your bike shorts get wet?

You get a better workout riding in the wind?

Who doesn't want a mud stripe all the way up your back?

Wind burn is a great blush substitute?

While riding, I made a list and it was hilarious in my head. However, now my head is all Fire Bad, Tree Pretty, so I've lost the genius. Le sigh.

"The recumbent bicycle just passed us. Noooooo!"
Me

The summer of Mankell

2011-09-05T18:06:00.004-05:00

After the hottest (and then thunder-iest) Notre Dame football game I've ever been to, Mother Nature decided to do my non-AC apartment a solid and turn cool. I'm currently sitting in my new apartment (which is officially unpacked) with a sweatshirt on, thinking about making cocoa.

Today it feels like summer is over. Which - like everything else - makes me think of reading. This summer I took on Henning Mankell and his Kurt Wallander series.

On the way to Notre Dame I finished Mankell's The Fifth Woman. The last section of the novel was so engrossing I missed my favorite landmark on the way (the Square Bridge). When I asked Ams and Face if we had passed it yet they said, "Umm, yeah, 30 minutes ago."

Wallander #6, The Fifth Woman, concerns the gruesome and escalating murders of men who have mistreated women. It is like a Law and Order episode. Only it is up to Wallander - not Benson and Stabler - to find the murderer and save the long list of not so innocent men.

The most interesting part of the novel is the undercurrent of gender issues which pervade the storyline. Is the killer a woman? Could a woman have committed this crime? Perhaps an American woman, but certainly not a Swedish one.

As with the previous novel, Sidetracked, when dealing with a serial killer, the Swedes turn to American shores for info on serious murderers. Oh, data on how serial killers act? Totally from America.

Go USA?

Since each Wallander can be distilled down to a few words to remember them by, here's a recap of those I've read so far:

Faceless Killers - old people
The Dogs of Riga - Latvia
The White Lioness - Africa
The Man Who Smiled - creepy creepy villain
Sidetracked - scalping murderer
The Fifth Woman - man killer
Firewall - computer hacking

I have three Wallanders and 17 days of summer left.

"Things are as they are."
Henning Mankell

When reading is work

2011-08-30T18:26:00.003-05:00

People say do what you love. And I agree, but I keep teacher-ing up my reading.

I have almost no time to read for myself and instead I am doing things like reading about teaching reading or reading with an eye out for how to teach the text or falling asleep when I could be reading.

Step off teaching, you are halting my reading flow!

I've been reading a Wallander novel for over a week: The Fifth Woman. All I know so far is that a guy has been impaled on bamboo spikes in Sweden and it has something to do with mercenaries in Africa...

In other news, I just moved and I'm in love with my new apartment. Even with the stacks of boxes it is already home. It has fancy things like a tiny porch and exposed brick and a full size refrigerator and a bedroom. It is like I am a real live adult.

And isn't it funny how crossing dream job and awesome apartment off my life-list makes me want to go on a date??

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book."
Austin Phelps

Life hangover

2011-08-19T18:32:00.004-05:00

Life Hangover (n.): Symptoms of a hangover caused not by alcohol, but by life.

It's a thing. Tell your friends.

The first week of school is over and I am in pajamas. Perhaps tonight I will be able to do the thing I've been missing all week: read. That is if I can read before I pass out around 8 p.m.

Fingers crossed.

"Wine is bottled poetry."
Robert Louis Stevenson

The age of failure

2011-08-08T20:00:00.003-05:00

What is happening to the world? A serial killer in Sweden? Kurt Wallander can't catch a break.

My latest Mankell mystery is full of pain and sadness and rumination and - oh yeah - ax murdering, but also family and dating and love. People are dying, but they kind of deserved it but no one should be murdered and back and forth. Wallander is busy trying to save more people from the serial killer, which inadvertently means he keeps putting off calling his foreign lady friend to say "Oh by the way, ax murderer on the loose so we might have to postpone our vacation."

At one point Wallander contemplates having a coworker tell her. Nothing like romantic shenanigans to take the dire away from ritualistic murder.

"People lived to forget, not to remember."
Henning Mankell

"Live every week like it's shark week"

2011-08-08T19:54:00.004-05:00

I visited the love of my life, Sue the T-Rex, at the field this weekend.

"Go see 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes?' I'm 67 million years old and watched when you puny humans evolved the first time. No thanks."
Sue the T-Rex

We're always being made promises

2011-08-03T21:16:00.004-05:00

Rocious is ready to move:

Meanwhile, I'm reading every Henning Mankell book I can find. I'm not even going in order. I'm savoring each book, but in that give me more more more kind of way. Hasty savoring.

Since I last mentioned my obsession, I've read The Man Who Smiled and Firewall. I think we can surmise that the smiling man is incredibly creepy and evil and that the firewalls we are talking about concern computers.

Both a charismatic villain and older-detective-struggling-with-technology are cliche murder mystery fair, but I don't even care. The brush Mankell writes with is so delicate, so knowledgeable, so real that you remember the capital T truth from which cliches come.

I'm currently underway on Sidetracked. And I know people can only translate so fast. But I just don't care. Wild abandon reading.

"Things are as they are."
Henning Mankell

Change in all things is sweet (once you stop freaking out)

2011-08-01T21:45:00.003-05:00

The last two weeks has been a whirlwind. I sometimes imagine it is not real.

Here's what's happened:

I turned 28.
I went to a casino for the first time.
I attended a wedding.
I got a teaching job.
I found a new apartment in Chicago.
I hired movers (see first bullet).

I realize I love and need change in my life, but this is even a little much for me. Luckily I have reading and family to keep me sane and oh so humble in the face of so much happiness.

"Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability."
Percy Shelley

Dead dog books

2011-07-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Directly after reading The Little Stranger, I vowed to never again read books in which dogs die. It is just too sad. TOO SAD.

And within three months I was blindsided with pain and death. I had accidentally read two more books where dogs die/are murdered.

This has to stop. I've started a list. I'm taking one for the team and ripping out my heart every time a dog (or dog adjacent) is killed in a book I read, and then documenting it here. And every time I come across another dead dog book I am re-posting this post because THAT is how upsetting dead dog books are.

Your welcome.

Dead Dog Books:
Drood - Dan Simmons: Not one. Not two. THREE dead dogs.

The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman: Don't read the last five pages. DON'T.

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters: Euthanizing a dog when you are using it as a scapegoat for an evil ghost = WRONG.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski: The dog thought the boy hated him and then he couldn't tell her he loved her...I'm gonna cry now just thinking about it.

Straight Man - Richard Russo: All you have to do is read the prologue to find a dead dog. PROLOGUE.

Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls: Crying, seriously. Best friend dogs shouldn't die.

Dead Dog Adjacent:
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin: Murdering wolves is not OK. Neither is throwing stones at them.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson: The entire book is graphic, but really? Cat murder as a warning? Not cool.

The Red Pony - John Steinbeck: When the title character bites it in the first section? Devastating

Dead Dog Books I've Been Saved From
Marley & Me - John Grogan: This story is all the worse for its being TRUE. Below the belt.

Old Yeller - Fred Gipson: As E puts it...the dead dog book that started it all

"I should do this for movies as well.
There needs to be a warning on Eight Below.
Paul Walker: save those dogs!!"
me

Winter is coming, and it isn't just because all the store windows say I should be buying boots and sweaters

2011-07-15T10:15:00.011-05:00

I'm finally riding a popular book wave.

No longer am I the book snob who is like: Twilight? I rejected that ages ago. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? You're only on the FIRST one? Hunger Games? Get with the times and the fight to the death and P.S. TEAM PETA.

Nope, I'm right in the middle of everyone else reading the Game of Thrones series. I was even snobbed at the other day on the bus. This hipster guy was all: "Isn't it so funny that you see everyone reading Game of Thrones now, snark snark snark."

In case you aren't riding the literacy wave like me, the Game of Thrones series is the fantastical Medieval tale of the Seven Kingdoms (and is also now an HBO show). The Kingdoms are made up of families who control sections. You have the heroic Stark family who rep the north and - like their name - are stoic and like to remind everyone that WINTER IS COMING. The Starks are quickly pitted against the Lannisters who are conniving and brutal, even though Tyrion Lannister is my favorite character. Then there is Daenerys who had to flee the Kingdoms and then gets some DRAGONS. So she is awesome.

There are also other castles and lords and children and wolves and don't forget the scary army and some type of shadow darkness north of The Wall.

All in all it is great fantasy that makes the wait for the next J.V. Jones book feel a little shorter.

"There are no men like me. There's only me."
Jaime Lannister via George R.R. Martin

"I could spend the rest of my life reading" - Malcolm X

2011-07-08T09:38:00.008-05:00

I've just now realized that summer is EXPENSIVE.

And fun in the city is EXPENSIVE.

And my bank account is yelling at me like: get thee to a library.

And so I did.

During my blog vacation I spent all my money I don't have, but I also read.

I re-read Plath's The Bell Jar for book club and loved every unstable braying "I am I am I am" moment of it.

I read Mitford's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald where I remembered "the faded gray romance" because who doesn't love tragic beauty and poetry and destructive lifestyles?

Then, for the Fourth of July, I read Marable's biography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention where I delved into the interesting life of a charismatic man full of contradiction.

My brain and bank account are proud of my free reading.

"It is summer time and past time - and I am very young when I didn't care...I wish I had been what I thought I was; and so debonair; and so debonair."
Zelda

Real boats rock, and other life lessons Dune taught me

2011-06-02T09:47:00.009-05:00

It's done. I've completed the Dune series. And I just realized I read the last 5 books of the series in 2011. Wow. I'm addicted.

Chapterhouse: Dune, the sixth and final chapter of Frank Herbert's Dune series, focuses in on the Bene Gesserit. The Honored Matres have been massacring Bene Gesserit controlled planets and are poised to take over everything. Or so they think. The Honored Matres are brash and violent where the Bene Gesserit are reticent and calculating. The Honored Matres crash around while the Bene Gesserit concoct plans within plans.

Did I mention they are all women? It is a war of deadly women.

In previous books, the Bene Gesserit were always around, genetically choreographing futures for people, but Chapterhouse gives the reader an intimate and multi-faceted new perspective of these complicated women. You see behind the veil of their strength and wisdom; you see the machinations (and feelings) of the puppet masters.

This is a book of sisterhood and learning. And wisdom: "Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."

So, at the end of it all, in the midst of a tumultuous final battle, after six books...how does one end such a momentous series? Herbert doesn't disappoint.

In a series that spans thousands of years, there is no tidy loose end tying finish. Instead, there is satisfaction that The Golden Path is still followed and the characters readers know and love are still out there living their (fictional) lives. Just as they will live on in my mind (and when I re-read the series because...obsessed).

Until next time Dune.

"We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff."
Frank - critical thinking - Herbert

The monolith: Drood

2011-05-25T11:31:00.009-05:00

I'm back reading books with my favorite Canadian, Jabba.

We have a problem though. We only read massive books together. Our last undertaking was Byatt's Possession.

This time: Dan Simmons' Drood.

This massive book could protect you against intruders, be used instead of hand weights while exercising, and maybe even turn into a table. At nearly 800 pages one wonders: does it have to be so long simply because it concerns Charles Dickens (writer of lengthy sentences and books)?

Drood examines the last five years of Dickens' life through the eyes of his opium addict frenemy Wilkie Collins.

I knew the book was going to be something about the making of Dickens' last and unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood (which Jabba and I will also be reading), but I didn't expect Wilkie. Reading the first page I was like: Wilkie...like The Wilkie...like The Woman in White Wilkie...really? We're doing this?

At it's worst, Drood is fan fiction for Victorian Lit nerds.

At it's best, Drood is a rousing tale of mystery and manipulation.

The question remains: Would I have liked it as much as I did if it wasn't based on real people that I have background knowledge of? The answer: I don't think so.

I think a non-Vic Lit person reading Drood would feel like I felt when I read Vivaldi and the Number 3: like you're missing all of the inside jokes. You're not in the club of esoteric knowledge and so the story is entertaining but missing a key piece.

Having said that, as an English Lit (and specifically Victorian Lit) person, reading Drood was like watching: Dickens and Wilkie, the E! True Hollywood Story.

Not only does the reader get an unreliable narrator (yay!) in Wilkie Collins, but there is also insight into the creative process (and all the manipulation and competition that goes into it) of one of history's favorite writers.

And don't forget mesmerism. What is the Victorian period without rich people engaging in dark magic?

Overall, Drood was fun...but. BUT.

As the madre would say, Simmons is no Dickens. True. But does he need to be?

I will say the first 400 pages are better than the second. Which would be the opposite of reading Dickens.

And when I finally got to the 4th anniversary of Dickens' meeting the spooky Drood (you know Dickens will die on an anniversary of meeting the death/ghost/Egyptian/spirit/phantom) and Dickens doesn't die...I had to walk away from the book for a minute because: I HAVE TO READ ABOUT ANOTHER ENTIRE YEAR.

And Wilkie's unreliable narrator gets downright whiny and annoying by the end.

And then there's the issue of the killing of three dogs.

Mixed. My feelings are mixed.

I do, however, thank Drood for making me want to go back and read Wilkie's The Moonstone and The Woman in White, and Dickens' Little Dorrit and The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

To conclude my waffling opinion: if only for the traipsing through the Victorian period looking over the shoulders of great writers, Drood was worth reading.

"His gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that was hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet - or seem likely to do it, in this state of existence - and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered."
Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

2011-05-17T09:55:00.008-05:00

I've finally read Vonnegut.

Slowly, but surely, I've been filling in the holes of my reading history. I figured I would start my Vonnegut education with Slaughterhouse-Five - the tale of a man who fought in WWII and went on to have a family and a business, and - oh yeah - an alien abduction.

In my mind:
Catch-22 + On the Road = Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse has the ironic critique of war of Catch-22 and the scattered ramblings of On the Road.

It took me 150 to start to get settled into the book and actually like it. But after that? I was kind of on board. I was like: yeah, the way we think of time as linear only is silly. We are doing everything all the time. All memories are one. Trippy, man.

Then I realized I wasn't on drugs and got back to my normal self.

I ended up enjoying the book. By the end I didn't mind that the plot of the book was NOT linear because Vonnegut took the reader on a twisty-turn-y journey through this man's life. And I liked the way Vonnegut dealt with the gruesome terror of war - stating horror straightforwardly without a huge amount of emotionally charged adjective description.

And his headstone? "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." Ironic perfection.

"As an Earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said - and calendars."
Vonnegut

"An accident rarely comes alone" and other things from Sweden

2011-05-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

Imagine a world where police detectives don't have to carry a gun. That is the world Kurt Wallander lives in. Or at least did. Until people started shooting at him.

As a detective in a small Swedish town, Wallander likes things to be quiet. Happy and quiet.

Each book of the Wallander series deals with a different social issue which is breaking up Wallander's quiet and indicates a changing Sweden. First it was immigration. Second, smuggling. This time it is KGB renegades and South African assassination plotters taking refuge in a quiet country no one would think of as an assassination training ground.

Wallander gets put on the case of a missing woman. The reader knows Law & Order SVU style (at the very beginning of the book) that the woman is dead (I won't tell you how).

Piece by piece Wallander realizes that this murder makes no sense. Then a building is blown up. Then he finds a severed finger. And he is placed in the middle of a much larger crime.

What's really going on is a plot to assassinate a key figure in South Africa. The book goes back and forth between South Africa and Sweden and the reader is left feeling like chaos is attempting a coup. On the world.

For a guy who doesn't carry a gun, Wallander gets all Old Testament (thank you Fast Five) on the bad guys in the end. Like we knew he would. However, his psyche is going to pay for his violent decisions in upcoming books.

As with each Wallander book, I can't wait to start the next one. I have a feeling this series is the perfect summertime-I-want-something-fun-and-exciting-with-a-side-of-grit reading material.

"What breaks in a moment may take years to mend."
Swedish Proverb

Ender's game is fun and I am old

2011-05-09T14:57:00.005-05:00

I had a rollicking weekend full of family and travel, so let's see if I can even remember Ender's Game, which I read last week for book club:

Little kid is chosen to save the world. Get's taken away from his family and sent to a training facility where the students/soldiers are divided into teams/units. He makes friends and enemies and sacrifices. He saves the world.

So basically: Harry Potter with video games. Only Ender was WAY before Potter so Potter is Ender but with wands and brooms.

I'm having a little bit of trouble getting excited about Ender right now, but I think that has more to do with TIRED and OLD and LIFE-HANGOVER than it does with Ender.

Because Ender has war games and bug alien things and mean kids and strategy and plans within plans and space travel and life lessons and and psychological insights and unfairness and suiting up and murder cover ups.

Basically, it's awesome.

"Sometimes lies are more dependable than the truth."
Orson Scott Card

The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks

2011-05-02T12:26:00.005-05:00

For a while I've tried to articulate the kind of fiction some of my favorite writers write. Lately I've been calling it: quiet fiction. Face - who I'm now calling Nico - would call it a story without a plot. I would call it life. Life is only sometimes plot driven. The rest of the time it is all about character development.

Cathie Pelletier not only does some mean character development, but - through Will Durant - articulates this sub-genre of fiction: History may only record the river of civilization, but there is a whole other world taking place right next to it, on the banks. And the banks are funny and heartwarming. Richard Russo says she walks on the edge of "hilarity and heartbreak." I agree.

Funeral Makers, Once Upon a Time on the Banks and The Weight of Winter make up Pelletier's trilogy concerning the inhabitants of Mattagash, Maine. The families are so real, and hilarious, that I keep Googling Mattagash, like maybe this time the internet will confirm it as a real place.

I finished Once Upon a Time on the Banks and immediately wanted more. More weddings in school gyms where everyone is wondering if the bride is pregnant. More pesky neighbors who steal the rims off cars and moon people who are in a funeral procession. More husbands cheating on their wives with women who look like Marilyn Monroe and then realize their mistake. More wives finding out who they are. More ghosts of relatives past. More eavesdropping on the phone. More gossip. More family. More love. More life.

"I'm all heart and nerve and memory."
Cathie Pelletier

Teachers who don't teach book club...pretty pictures edition

2011-04-22T07:50:00.004-05:00

Book club hasn't tackled a graphic offering...until now. We read Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia, a collection of out-there short stories.

While reading it, I thought it was fine. The stories were OK. The pictures were pretty. But it didn't stay with me. Until I started to talk about it.

We started with the poetry story, which is a poem itself. The idea being that all the poetry people write and throw away or hide gets collected in a big ball rolling around full of thoughts and feelings. We said you could use the story as an intro into writing poetry. What is poetry for? Who is it for? How do you really "do" poetry? This is one way:

Then there was the story of the exchange student who left quickly without the host family knowing if he enjoyed his time...until they found this:

And my favorite illustration, of a boy lying in the indentation a whale (yes, whale) made in his front lawn:

Turns out, even though I don't have words to quote, the stories, the images, and the feeling are still with me.

Next on the list is classic science fiction: Ender's Game.

"Pictures must not be too picturesque."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Murder in the marais

2011-04-21T08:16:00.006-05:00

I don't often read books by French authors (except Flaubert, who TOTALLY gets me) or books that take place in France. Even though France is a great location for a story. And even though my name is French, and I - on occasion - dress in a French style. And I love movies that take place in Paris, like The Tango Lesson or Before Sunset. There is something about France that is mysterious and glamorous and dangerous and elegant and classic.

So why don't I read more French stuff?

I have no idea, but after Murder in the Marais (which I don't even know how to pronounce), I might have to start.

Reading Marais was like dipping my toe in French-iness because the author is American and the protagonist is an American (who has lived in Paris most of her life).

As the title subtly hints, there is a murder, but not before a Rabbi gets private investigator Aimee on the case. The more Aimee investigates, the more she realizes that this murder has to do with another murder which took place during the WWII German occupation of France. And no one wants to talk about that.

Aimee doesn't care though.

She sneaks all over Paris, Jason Bourne style, figuring things out.

I like books that deal with mysteries of the past because you get two sides to every character. It's like the movie Now and Then, but with murder. In Marais, you get the German SS agent who fell in love with a Jewish girl back in the day, and who is now a big diplomat. You get the young Jewish girl who lost her family and then grew up to be a sad woman because...THERE WAS A BABY. There is always a baby.

And you get the murderer, then and now. But I won't say who he or she is...

And then there is the computer hacking and party crashing and news story leaking and clashing with the police and croissant eating and designer wearing.

It was a fast read - as murder mysteries usually are. I had a library return deadline and I made it. I was even almost late to book club because oh my! so exciting.

But most of all, Paris:

dancing along the Seine. le sigh.

Millennia of personal despair

2011-04-14T12:45:00.005-05:00

Last night after dinner, Ams and I stopped at the restroom on our way out. Per usual, I was carrying all of my earthly possessions with me. Improvising, I used the changing station as a stuff-receptacle saying, "I may not have babies, but I have crap."

Very eloquent.

We then decided this would be the title of my memoir. On the train we decided it was actually a horrible title for my memoir.

Then I thought of an even worse (awesome) title: millennia of personal despair.

Before you put me on suicide watch, know it is a Dune reference. Because I'm still obsessed.

I'm on book five: Heretics of Dune.

Get this:

Last book, Leto II (who turned himself into a giant worm to follow the 'Golden Path' and teach the universe a lesson) sacrificed himself and died-ish by splitting off into lots of smaller worms that would turn the planet back into the desert it should be.

So now, 1,500 years later there is this girl who can ride the worms - which is a big no-no - and she and a Reverend Mother (Bene Gesserit 'witch' aka part of a secret society of women with power) visit a secret stronghold from WAY back in the first book.

And what is there? A secret message from wormy Leto. And what does it say? Welcome to the depression party:

"I BEQUEATH TO YOU MY FEAR AND LONELINESS...WHY DID YOUR SISTERHOOD NOT BUILD THE GOLDEN PATH? YOU KNEW THE NECESSITY. YOUR FAILURE CONDEMNED ME, THE GOD EMPEROR, TO MILLENNIA OF PERSONAL DESPAIR."

Ouch. Leto bringing the etched in stone pain in ALL CAPS.

Bum. Mer.

I'm not finished yet. So I don't know if Teg is still alive or if the newest Duncan Idaho is going to get it on with the worm girl or if that old lady is a face dancer or if the Bene Gesserit are going to escape Leto's depressing edict.

What I do know is that I'm loving Heretics almost as much as the first book.

"Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing unwanted competition. The powerful want a 'safe line of investigations,' which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables does not insure such a 'safe line of investigations'."
Frank Herbert

Book club is suffocating my reading

2011-04-05T09:30:00.004-05:00

Book club is tomorrow. I've once again procrastinated reading the selection, except this time it isn't the library's fault.

It's mine. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Going Bovine is the trippy and amusing tale of a boy who gets Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and has to save the world from Dr. X (who is also the only person who can cure his disease).

It is 480 pages long. I've been trying to read it for a week and I've just now made it to page 250.

I feel like a high school student. I'm sitting in the back of the class thinking this book is lame and what does it have to do with me and why aren't there Cliffs Notes on it and do we think Chris likes me?

Only I'm also a teacher, so now I feel guilty. I have a need to be prepared for book club. But I'm not having fun. And I don't understand why.

In the book, the protagonist just got picked up by some happiness junkies who have created a Utopian community dedicated to happiness and they say hilarious things like: "Don't hurt your happiness."

So the writing is fine. And, after reading the acknowledgment section, I was convinced I AM Libba Bray.

And the plot is fine. There's even a punk rock angel. And allusions to Don Quixote. And garden gnomes who talk. And jazz musicians. And fire demons.

So why the ennui?

I guess I have 230 pages to answer that question.

"I'm just saying it's not all windmills and ninjas."
Libba Bray

Crime mysteries solidifying their place in my heart and my bookshelf

2011-03-28T20:55:00.010-05:00

Before the world became obsessed with all things dragon tattoo, I too had fallen in love with Nordic Literature. I was drawn to the mix of nonchalant depression and crime fighting - with a side of what-has-our-society-come-to.

Considering my obsessive watching of Law and Order (and cheering on of detective Stabler), I don't know how I didn't start reading crime fiction a long time ago.

Thanks to a karmic choosing of Peter Hoeg's The Quiet Girl, I was hooked (except for his book that has bestiality...). Then there was the Stieg Larsson madness.

But now things have calmed-ish, it's time for new Swedish love. I give you: Henning Mankell.

OK, so a lot of you probably already know him. Especially since Mankell's detective protagonist - Kurt Wallander - is currently being played by my boyfriend Kenneth Branagh (thank you BBC).

I sped through the first book - Faceless Killers (eek).

The plot centers around the gruesome murder of two seemingly innocuous elderly farming couple. The boss is on vacation and Wallander has to take charge of a volatile case (and subsequent murder). But don't worry, he still has time to try to patch things up with his daughter, stop missing his ex-wife, and start liking a new woman.

Overall, Wallander series - so far - is made up of quality crime mystery writing that keeps you turning the page even if you aren't happy because SERIOUSLY why would someone murder old people??

Wallander is a protagonist of the best kind: charismatic, on the verge of alcoholism, not afraid to get beat up, gets beat up a lot, and finally saves the day through brains and hard work.

Reading Mankell is like drinking a comfy cup of hot cocoa...if the cocoa was laced with crime and violence.

"Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country, reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every violent act had a meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction."
Henning Mankell

Wonder Woman takes on evil and corruption...and bakes pies!

2011-03-25T09:27:00.018-05:00

Women, ugh. Amiright?

That's what beginning iterations of Wonder Woman comics teach us. However, I wonder how effectively the message was absorbed because if you ask someone today they are all: Wonder Woman kicks butt!

They don't say: Wonder Woman did it all for love and her main fighting tactic isn't the truth lasso, it is her ability to act like a weak woman!

My hero!

Oh, and racism. Can't forget the racism.

General thought seems to say WW left her Amazonian utopia to help save people.

She actually does it to follow the man she loves (the only man she has ever seen, which seems like moving to Oregon to live with granola bars and then coming across chocolate...awkward).

Onto the action plot: operation save the world.

Now, I understand the yay USA, boo Nazis slant the first year of WW. It was during World War II. I get it. However, the propaganda is painted with such a wide brush that when the villains lose, they are always like: those pesky Americans are so courageous and loyal and determined, we can't defeat them!

That's like at a job interview, listing your main downfall as working too hard...

At least you get to see WW punch a lot of people. That is nice. But before the punching you have to make it through WW playing the role of weak woman AKA normal woman:

Also, just in case any one gets a big head with truth lasso's and bullet dodging cuffs and saving the day, let's all remember that - as women - our main concern is catching a man!

Looking back over the first year of Wonder Woman, I'm struck by the stereotypes, the racist portrayal of anyone who isn't a white American, and story lines the reinforce the fortitude of Americans - but also - Wonder Woman is NOT American. We all know that, right?

Wonder Woman is a patriotic immigrant, just trying to make her way in a new country.

She's just an amazingly strong girl standing in front of a boy with a weird angel complex, telling him she loves him.

Things I learn from reading: passion is BAD

2011-03-22T09:40:00.005-05:00

I like to intersperse my young adult and graphic reading with what some would call "real" literature. I've also been making a concerted effort to branch off from my favorite British Lit. and meander around in American Literature. I've also never read Edith Wharton.

And so I picked up Ethan Frome and Summer: two story birds with one stone (of reading?).

I have to say: WHAT A BUMMER.

No one makes it out of these small town stories happy.

And the lesson? Passion = destruction.

First up was Ethan Frome. Ethan is always taking care of people. He somehow gets bamboozled into marrying a horrible woman because...she helped him clean his house? And then she just kind of stayed and was horrible to him. Oh, and she pretends to be sick all the time. And so Ethan gets her a handmaiden (only in 20th century New England, so...companion?).

Only the handmaiden is hot. Age old problem. The wife is annoying and sucking the life out of Ethan and here comes this PYT ready to giggle and think Ethan is the man.

Enter passion. Ethan "was too young, too strong, too full of the sap of the living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes."

*SPOILER ALERT Ethan has no money so the two lovebirds can't run away from responsibility to the west together. Also, the wife kicks the girl out because she's mean but not stupid. Ethan takes PYT on one last sleigh ride and they decide to sled down a hill. Only they agree to a suicide pact via sled into tree.

Only, they just get disfigured and paralyzed and they stay and live with the wife like Three's Company all together in the farmhouse of depression and painful life lessons.

The. End.

There's no way Summer could be that depressing, right? Kind of.

So there's this girl, and she was born "on the Mountain" and was "saved" by a gentleman pillar of the community and brought to live with him in town. It's all happy and platonic until one evening he gets drunk and lonely and comes and knocks on her door. Girlfriend kicks him out and continues to hold his lewd attempted transgression over his head for years.

A new man comes into town and she falls head over heels for him.

Enter passion. She starts meeting up with him at a cabin and keeps everything on the down low. Mistake. She has no money, and hot guy has to marry someone with money and class status.

*SPOILER ALERT And then all of a sudden, she is pregnant and he has skipped town. And the reader is all - WHAT - I thought they were only kissing in that cabin. Bow chica wah wah! Realizing that her man who was never her man is not going to come do right by her, she flees to the mountain since that is what she "deserves."

Old man comes and saves her again and proposes to her. And she says yes in a haze of resignation. And so they get married and ride slowly back to their house of depression and painful life lessons.

The. End.

The writing was great, but seriously Edith, you're bummin' me out. Everyone who gives in to passion gets hit with serious, life changing punishment. I think I need to go back to Fitzgerald where - at least - the characters have a really great time prior to getting whacked with the life lesson stick.

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time."
Edith downer Wharton

Teachers who don't teach book club...little women edition

2011-03-18T12:37:00.006-05:00

Over the last few sessions, our book club has run into a conundrum: do we dislike some YA books because they aren't good or because we are too far away from the target demographic (aka OLD)?

And so, in honor of the the end of winter (and our childhoods), we read Little Women.

Full of seasonal changes, our book club has been adding members. Face and Ams rallied and spent all weekend listening to LW being read aloud. Literary bonding makes me smile.

I went away for the weekend and grabbed my copy of LW from 4th grade on my way out. Upon returning to Chicago, I video chatted Face and Ams (FAMES) because...BETH DIDN'T DIE in my book, and my book only spanned one year.

How was that possible?

After much confusion, we realized my little kid edition separated Little Women and Good Wives into two separate books whereas new editions smash them together in about 500 pages. And so, I embarked upon a 2 day, 300 page marathon finishing 2 minutes before leaving for book club and endless fish and chips...

Where I got to hear Face's philosophy that the plot is actually driven by the men of the story. He stands by it:

I almost like the book(s) more as an adult. As a child, I loved the story and feistiness of Jo. As an adult I was all: whoa, hello road map to becoming an adult.

With any book that people enjoy, the characters, themes, and plot get inserted into conversations. And so we chomped away on fish and chips and someone would chime in: that's so Laurie, you're such a Jo, at least you can make jam, or oh, the professor.

I've concluded that I can still project myself back to being young(er) because Little Women (and Good Wives) maintain their hold on my heart.

"The best of us have a spice of perversity in us, especially when we are young and in love."
Louisa May Alcott

Most of the smart ones get away

2011-03-10T08:41:00.006-06:00

I've put aside several books in the last couple days. Nothing seems to be grabbing me in. Last night (finally), in just a few short pages, Edith Wharton gave my book roaming pause.

I'm only one chapter into her novella Ethan Frome...but I'm already hooked. A small New England town during the snowy winter. An anonymous narrator. A mysterious figure. And - of course - nosy townspeople who love to talk:

"It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty..."

Comic books 101

2011-03-09T16:18:00.002-06:00

I've been sucked into comic books.

And I don't mean graphic novels. I mean straight up Wonder Woman, Batman, and X-Men (I don't really care about Superman).

After a painful reading of a new Wonder Woman saga, I knew I needed to find someone who knew what they were talking about (not me), so it wouldn't happen again.

And so, on a lovely Sunday morning, I popped into my local comic book store.

And then, my lovely female guide took me on a trip around the store and through series after series.

You know I took notes.

First, I asked for her favorites.

She led me to Batman: Year One, which I ended up buying. There was some talk of Year One being the gritty new Batman we know and love. We even discussed how the Bat is a big moody-pants.

I said blech to Superman and so she showed me Invincible which is about Superman's son and involves Superman being kind of evil. Son vs. father? Sounds a lot like The Runaways to me. Which she has read, and I started to fall in love with her because she didn't hate on my for having a guilty pleasure read which involves raptors.

She told me I have to read the Sandman series. Which, okay, Gaiman is cool, but it looked a little violent for my liking.

Also on my if-y pile was The Goon. I'm just wondering if I care about "skunk-apes," although I'm definitely on board with mad scientists.

We discussed Skim (loved it), and Asterios Polyp (she loved it, I wanted to love it but didn't), Joss Whedon (Buffy creator), and on and on into comic bliss.

Then we perused Y: The Last Man where there is only one male mammal left on the planet. Oh snap. My comic instructor let me know that it isn't man hating at all, it's an examination of what it would be like. I've tried reading The Last Man, but can never find the beginning of the series at the library.

We were getting into my territory: gender issues.

Which brings us to Wonder Woman and her truth lasso.

I said I was interested in taking a look at WW historically. You know, back in the day when it was all: Wonder Woman, get in the kitchen and save the world!

To keep me from getting righteously angry at history, my guide veered me toward Alan Moore's Promethea series (a retelling of the WW story, only not patronizing). I would have bought it on the spot, but was persuaded to use the library (as the first of the collection wasn't in the store).

I went to the library today and checked out books 1-4.

Happy.

I might start hanging out at the comic book store.

Before I head to Comic-Con, I need to read more. First up, the other half of my book club duo and I are going to read both original WW comics and Promethea (to cleanse the gender palate).

Bring it on Amazons.

Get in the wallpaper and fix me a sandwich

2011-03-04T16:15:00.005-06:00

Dear Hark, a vagrant:

You've made my Friday.

xoxo

"It dwells in my mind so!"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Only fools prefer the past

2011-03-02T17:10:00.000-06:00

At some point, I'll run out of Dune books to read and I'll stop talking about it. But that time isn't now.

I've finished book four: God Emperor of Dune. A couple thousand years have gone by and Leto (the son of the main character of the first book) is now almost completely a giant worm. He's created an empire where he is the godhead. There aren't crimes, but sins. His army is made up of only women. Computers are banned. So is interplanetary travel. Where dunes were, water and foliage now reign. Oh, and he keeps bringing Duncan Idaho back over and over and over again.

He has sacrificed and done all of this to create year after year of "Leto's Peace."

To save life as they knew it, Leto had to follow the Golden Path which meant 1. turning into a worm and 2. being a peace despot.

And in the end? Leto's fate is to be killed with water (wicked witch = worm), which will start the process of bringing sandworms (mini-Leto's) back to Dune and re-making it the Dune we all love. And both Leto and the reader know this the entire time.

So when Leto falls in love? You're all: how many sacrifices does he have to make? And...she is marrying a giant WORM. Also, his army is kind of upset because Leto has been telling them they are his only "brides." Uh oh.

But he is a god, so he can do that?

Per Dune usual, there's lots of talk about power, fate, choices, and what a god is exactly.

The reader also got to see the domestication of men at the hands of women. As Leto says, "Domestication is a thing that females know from eons of necessity...To tame, to fit into some orderly survival pattern. Women learned it at the hands of men; now men learn it at the hands of women."

I feel evil laughter coming on.

Now, wherever you fall on the is-Leto-a-divine-being-or-not debate (he dies...can you kill a god?), there is no doubt that he shaped the universe (as emperor of bunches of planets). It makes one consider how each of us has been manipulated by un-payed-attention-to sources: "...and holding people planetbound keeps them out of mischief. It does something more important that that. It fills them with a longing to travel. It creates a need to make far voyages and see strange things. Eventually, travel comes to mean freedom."

Reading the Dune series is more than just reading. It is swimming around in another world made by words that have snuck off the page and created rolling dunes as far as the eye can see.

"If we deny the need for thought...as some do, we lose the powers of reflection...if we deny the flesh, we unwheel the vehicle which bears us. But if we deny emotion, we lose all touch with our internal universe."
Frank Herbert via Leto

Woman vows to give up dead dog literature, is tricked

2011-02-23T11:59:00.004-06:00

So far, this whole making-reading-a-priority-this-winter thing has really paid off. However, sometimes I want to talk to people who have also read the books. So I've started several two person book "clubs" (partnerships?) that focus heavily on wine.

I read The Little Stranger with a friend. A book in which - among other things - a dog is put to death.

A dead animal is the sucker punch of literature (I'm looking at you The Red Pony).

After that, we agreed: no more dead dog books.

We thought we were safe going with a book about newspapers. We chose The Imperfectionists: a tale of an English newspaper in Italy told via vignettes about each employee. That can't involve dogs. Right?

Wrong.

By page 200 I was already annoyed, and that was sans dog. The highlight of each chapter was the title, wittily turned into a newspaper article title. The writing was adept and knowledgeable, but I disliked the people and what happened to them. I get the point and the metaphor of it all...but I just didn't like it.

I got to the last chapter and *SPOILER not only did a dog die, but it was murdered by a human. AND THAT WAS WHERE IT ENDED. Oh sure, there was a where-are-they-now wrap up, but all I could think was DEAD DOG DEAD DOG DEAD DOG.

I had to read a Batman comic just to lighten the mood...

"Anything that's worth anything is complicated. Don't you think? Or is that stupid?"
Tom Rachman

I'm thinking about changing my teaching philosophy title from education is life to dune is life

2011-02-07T11:59:00.005-06:00

I finished book three of the Dune series this weekend. I'd say I'm on the verge of being obsessed, but I think we're well past that now.

Children of Dune is the third book of the series and takes place 9 years after the second book. I hear a rumor that there are 1,000 years between three and four. You know what that means? The majority of the characters I know and love will be dead. DEAD. Or maybe not. Those crazy Tleilaxu like to reanimate people.

Anyways, C of D is about Paul and Chani's twins. Last we saw of Paul, he was sightlessly headed out into the desert and Chani had died in childbirth. This left the twins (who were born with all the knowledge of their ancestors) under the tutelage of Paul's sister Alia (who also has all of the ancestors in her head).

So the twins are nine, only really they are millennia old (in their heads) and so they have to go around convincing everyone that they should be given some respect. It really creeps the adults out.

P.S. Look who plays Leto (boy twin) in one of the movies:

And Paul's mom comes back to the planet, but she is wily so you don't really know why (not to mention guessing at ulterior motives). But one reason why has to do with Alia and the fact that she might be possessed by an evil ancestor baron. Her bad!

Then everyone goes around enacting their plans within plans and the reader has to wait and see who wins. But I won't tell you! I'll just say that it involves worm riding and the faking of a death and plotting and a betrothal and a fake persona and murder on neutral ground and dune jumping and mother banishment and assassination attempts and philosophical debates.

And sacrifice. Lots of sacrifice and loss and learning of hard lessons.

The Dune series is like an articulation of a world philosophy...but with plot. I see now why Face once implied that I couldn't understand him without reading Dune. I felt that way after Stranger in a Strange Land, and I find myself feeling so again.

"When I am weaker than you, I ask for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."
Frank Herbert / Harq Al-ada / Leto

Great hera...picoult takes on wonder woman

2011-01-28T07:49:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I picked up a Wonder Woman comic. I didn't look at the author, as I was transfixed by her...bracelets.

Fast forward to me heading out to the bus one morning. I'm barely awake. I need a book. I look through my stack and select Wonder Woman: Love and Murder. And what do I see taking up 1/3 of the cover...but Jodi Picoult's name. In my sleepy stupor I thought...it can't be. Surely there is another Jodi. And yet I still threw the poor book away from me like it was lava, or My Sister's Keeper.

Weeks later, I've now read it. I'm really trying to hold back my cynicism for Ms. Picoult due to several factors. 1. I've never read any Wonder Woman, so I really have no basis to judge this Wonder Woman. 2. Perhaps her gigantically noted authorship will cause more people to hear Wonder Woman's story. 3. Wonder Woman is "as beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury." Who could mess that up?

And yet.

Ms. Picoult attempts to assuage fear of her name being attached to such an iconic symbol of womanhood and power and justice and kind of answers questions like: who do you think you are and what have you done with Wonder Woman and why hasn't she lassoed you?

Of course, this is half DC Comics' fault. They approached her. She was wary, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to "flex" her "comedic muscles." Then she cited that she wanted to put her own spin on Wonder Woman (WW)...mainly if WW "continued to be the strongest, smartest female on this planet...but had some doubt in other areas of her life..."

I began to worry that this comic was going to be like an episode of Dr. Phil. Like, sure WW kicks it in battle, but can she do "real" woman stuff, like cook a roast? And who cares if she can get to the truth and save the world, why has she let her nail polish chip? And when will she find someone to love?

Blech. You know what's better than feelings and conforming to society? A freaking truth lasso, that's what.

So the story...
In previous episodes, WW had to save Superman and Batman from this evil guy who had turned them into evil robots or something. However, in order to do so she had to kill a human. That's a big no-no for WW and the Bat and Superman are kind of mad she didn't find another course of action.

So WW is wandering around, all emo, and not being WW...instead she is being an agent for the government...and attempting to act human. Which brings us to the "comedy" such as WW doesn't know how to pay for gas and WW doesn't have a credit card and WW doesn't understand how to use the subway. Ha ha ha isn't it so funny to see a super hero brought low cause she is super bummed about killing someone.

WW is going to need to step up soon, however, as evil Circe (I'm thinking that Circe) has resurrected WW's Amazon mom from the dead so that she will attack Earth since they are dissing WW by imprisoning her for killing that guy...which they did do, but only because Circe and some guy named Everyman were meddling and pretending to be people. Phew. So there is a huge battle. Which the story ends in the middle of.

Oh yeah, and a love story. Obviously. WW falls for her partner who is a wise cracking shape shifter guy (and p.s. flirts with anything that walks). There are a couple funny parts that reference former WW stuff, but then there are parts where people say things like: "Being dead makes you weird, darling. Just look at the Spice Girls, or Chicago Cubs fans."

That just feels awkward.

Aaand we're back to the whole "feelings" thing. I get it, WW is having an identity crisis cause she killed a person and the people she protects don't get her. Couldn't she just have a meal with Batman and talk through it? I don't need creepy voice-overs asking...who am I? like she's Derek Zoolander.

It doesn't help when Circe tries to tell her that the two most important parts of being human are love and murder. Say what, crazy?

Then there is the whole weird thing with her mom. Definite mommy issues and a communication breakdown. And in the end *SPOILER, WW gets all martyr-ish and gives her mom (who has just bombed out a city) a knife to kill her since the fight was about whether WW would kill her mom and now it is all turning of tables, ball's in your court mom...will you kill me?

Pretty much, I saw what the plot was trying to do. Integrate WW into society through love. Give her mom an opportunity for salvation. Deal with morality issues. But it fell short. I didn't get enough information on any facet to really feel anything.

Luckily, Picoult doesn't write the next installment. I really hope it gets things kicked off by someone punching WW's mom in the face and throwing her back to space, WW realizing the difference between love and adrenaline, and then showing the government who's boss (and oh yeah, stopping that nuclear weapon).

Then she can have dinner with Batman.

"Of all people, you know who I am...who the world needs me to be. I'm Wonder Woman."
a different WW who didn't need a pep talk (Infinite Crisis #1)

I'd give water to the dead (book) but I'm not done with the series so I'll hold off AKA why aren't you reading Dune so you know what I'm talking about

2011-01-26T13:41:00.009-06:00

Monday kind of blew...a gasket. Seriously, I don't know what else to call the corroded metal steam holder thing-y on the side of my radiator which decided to spray hot water all over my dining room. And myself. And the kitty litter. And the floor.

And so, when Tuesday came around, I needed a little me time that didn't involve bailing scalding water.

Hence a night of reading.

Just as I promised Face years ago to read Dune, this year I have promised to read the second and third books in the series.

Over the weekend, I found myself - surprisingly - book-less. I had just finished The Little Stranger and was getting through More Book Lust, but I was in need of a story. And so I went to the Face Library and said, "Bring me the book!"

After reading the first book, I was all fear is the mind killer...and I was excited to start the second. But then time and many books passed. Once again, I wonder what took me so long. Reading Dune Messiah was like breathing fresh air.

Sometimes I feel bad for perfectly fine books I read around the time I read great books. Inevitably, the perfectly fine books will lose ground in my mind. They can't possibly keep pace.

I feel bad for Little Stranger and I feel bad for the Eve Ensler book I started today. Because all I have on my mind is Dune.

Dune Messiah picks up 12 years after the first book. Paul has had time to reign and take over planets and get married for political reasons while still keeping his true love Fremem woman. Unfortunately, his enemies have also had time. Time for plans within plans. Conspiracy. Only, Paul knows the plans within plans but he keeps walking his dangerous destiny so that something worse doesn't happen. Aaaack.

I really liked this book. Really. It was almost like I had missed the desert planet. I missed the values and philosophies and statements that have to be searched around in for meaning. The second book feels like a commentary on Earth's way of life. Of the rise and fall of empires. Of the rise and fall of religion. Of the burden of perception as a god but reality as only a man. Paul's empire - which is intrinsically linked to the religion - has grown and thrived. But now it is time for worry and laziness and complacency. Not. Good.

The second book was also a giant sparring match. All the characters warily edging around each other until it was time to strike. And strike they did.

*SPOILER ALERT. The ending is bittersweet. Important people die, but an important person returns and the future is born. And you're all YAAAAAY. But then, Paul gets blinded by some crazy laser molten beam thing that explodes down into the planet, and - oh yeah - disintegrates eye balls.

But since he is Fremem, after he saves the day, he has to be put out to pasture due to this weakness. Only there isn't pasture on Dune. There is DESERT.

Blind emperor in the desert, people!

And that is where it ends!

The moment I finished the book - which was quite late - I called Face and yelled, "WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE ME THE THIRD BOOK AS WELL??"

He would answer none of my questions. All he would say was if I liked this one, my mind will be blown by the third book. Whaaa?? And so I was forced to restlessly go to bed.

Where I dreamed my family was at a library searching for the third book.

"Here lies a toppled god -
his fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal
A narrow and a tall one."
Frank Herbert

Watcher of the dead

2011-01-14T10:16:00.003-06:00

Don't be fooled. As much smack as I talk about love and emotions, I am as soft and sentimental as a Cadbury Egg on the inside.

My reading tastes have not escaped my gooey center.

Fantasy has always rated high on my rose colored memories list. Reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series out loud with the family gathered around when we were on our own great journey cemented Fantasy (and Jordan) as part of my all-time-favorite reading memories list.

Kind of like how the padre and I went to see True Grit on the same day (even though we are far apart). To pay homage to it being the first real book we read aloud together.

J. V. Jones holds a similar place. I've been reading her since high school. Her tales of clans and journeys and heroes and feisty female characters and magic and family and evil and sword fights have followed me as I've grown into my own feisty female character.

Watcher of the Dead is the fourth book in the Sword of Shadows series. Think of it like a fantastical story of good and evil and all the gray shades between. It is like the best soap opera ever.

The story is epic. Each chapter follows a different main character. Through them you see different struggles against the ever present super evil which is trying to escape and is almost succeeding. On occasion, I get annoyed by series. Like, ummm, get on with it. But with Sword of Shadows I'm liking the slow plodding towards oblivion, and I keep hoping against hope that evil doesn't win.

I could mire you down with details (like how Raif totally hates the Sull now for good reason and how I really hope Angus Lok finds his daughter and I wonder where Effie is headed and is Ash going to reach again and who is her baby daddy and I hope evil Mace dies on the field knowing Raina has taken over the chiefdom and is Bram really going to become an assassin and I hope Vaylo stays alive long enough to reunite his clan and what is the deal with Marafice), but I will just say this is a series about destiny and responsibility and growing up.

Kind of like life.

"Fantasy opens the door to experiencing the magic that is in the world around us and more importantly the magic in ourselves."
T.A. Barron

New toy, or as I will call it...my baby pen

2011-01-13T09:38:00.007-06:00

Christmas came a little late this year. Fashionably late.

I am now the proud new owner of the Olympus E-PL1 aka the Pen. It was between the Pen and the Nikon P7000, but after testing both in the store...I was in love. It's a funny thing. I like to ruminate and ruminate, but when I know...I know.

Living alone, I had to rely on Rocious to be my main subject. Which - turns out - is kind of hilarious when working a new camera because she loathes this thing some people call: sitting still.

So here is a tale of a new camera in Rocious pics...

Portrait mode. Need to work on some details, but I'm happy I can take a picture of Rocious where she doesn't look yellow. Also, please note the ears. She hasn't yet realized what she's in for...

After chasing her around the apartment, Rocious calls a truce for approximately two seconds - for which I give her kitten treats. Please note the ears. Barely tolerating me...

Then I happen upon what I will be calling Rocious Mode. Camera folks call it DIS Mode. Also, this face is called: more treats? With gravy?

Finally getting comfortable, and so is Rocious. I'm not too close and she deigns to sit still. And yes, I still have my tree and lights up...they are "winter" adornments...

"The problem with cats is they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer."
Paula Poundstone

Neverwhere

2011-01-12T15:41:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, it seems, I'm not on the same page as everyone else.

I've just read Neverwhere, a fantastical tale of lower -and upper - London and a man who gets sucked into the world because of chivalry. After hiding a girl whose family has just been assassinated, he starts to fade away from upper London (like someone rents his flat out fading away), so he proceeds to tromp around the sewers with the girl and her bodyguard and a sketchy liar guy in the hopes of 1. finding the killers and 2. getting his life back. There are also rats and bird messages and an angel and magical tube stops, oh and the girl can open doors...any doors.

Overall, it was an amazing ride which caused me to inhale the book in two sittings and then look around for more Neil Gaiman.

However, there was one problem. It took me most of the book to see the clock tower on the cover:

You know what I was seeing? The torso of a woman in a Victorian dress. Which was super confusing as it doesn't complement the plot at all. Can you see it?:

Yes? No? Am I crazy? If you still don't see it:

"Mind the gap!"

Neverwhere

From the stacks...January jackpot edition

2011-01-10T10:17:00.008-06:00

Captive Reader and Intrepid Reader host a weekly Library Loot event where bloggers share their library finds. Since I like to break rules, I participate not once a week.

I was on my way up to Evanston Saturday...but I had to stop at the library. Especially after they didn't mark my technically late book as overdue. Props.

2011 has kind of rocked so far (minus my illness, but that gave me time to read, so maybe that was cool too), and my first library trip kept my luck going.

First, I picked up some young adult lit...

Neil Gaiman is awesome. We know this. I have already finished Neverwhere since Saturday. I highly recommend. Swim the Fly is the next book for the Teachers Who Don't Teach book club. Sometimes it is nice to read about summer when it is cold and nasty out.

Next, I found two of my favorite books on the shelf...

At one point I will own both Book Lusts (plus the YA version), but right now I just have to take notes from the wise recommendations the pages hold. If you ever don't know what to read, please consult either of these volumes.

Last I picked up some books from my to-read list...

J. V. Jones somehow published the fourth offering from her Sword of Shadows series without my knowing it. I'm just starting it now and I'm sooo happy to be back ensconced in a tale that I don't want to end.

The Little Stranger keeps popping up on blogs that I like and trust, so I must read it. Sea of Poppies is one of those books that I choose because I like the cover. We'll see if I like the book as much.

My new-found treasures were heavy, but worth ever ounce.

"A library book, I imagine, is a happy book."
Cornelia Funke

Zombies vs. Unicorns

2011-01-07T08:00:00.002-06:00

Team Edward and team whatever the werewolf guy's name is...is so last year.Now it is time for a real debate. Zombies or unicorns? And specifically, which is better for use in storytelling?

Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (both YA authors) facilitate a literary battle royale. Before each essay they talk snark from their respective corners.

Of the 12, my favorite stories were:

Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in which a zombie falls in love with a living boy.

Naomi Novik's "Purity Test" which hilariously plays with the role of virginity in unicorn lore. Oh, and baby unicorns. Adorable.

Carrie Ryan's "Bougainvillea" in which the zombie masses have taken over and a small group of people flee to an island to hideout. I love this one for the hardcore heroine.

Meg Cabot's "Princess Prettypants" which, yes, the name is awful, but the story is awesome. Imagine My Little Pony comes to life, only this one hoists bullies into the air by their swim trunks.

The other stories are great too. Topics include: prom during a zombie invasion, bestiality (I said it) unicorn style, celebrities who adopt zombie babies, baby killer unicorns, zombies who just want to stop being bored, etc.

So am I team zombie or team unicorn? Usually, I definitely sway towards the mystical in literature, but this anthology has shown me the true range of the zombie. So I think zombies who love and zombies who forgo eating for love and zombies who just want to have some fun beat out a unicorn's death whinny.

I started a unicorn and ended a zombie.

Capitol Men

2011-01-05T10:22:00.019-06:00

It's strange, but I started 2011 off by reading historical nonfiction. And, even weirder, I liked it.

I read Capitol Men - the story of America's Reconstruction after the Civil War told by focusing on the first African American congressmen - due to a rave review from a stranger at a bus stop.

The closest I usually get to reading about history is through historical fiction, so this was a departure from the norm for me. I get why people read about history. Flipping pages I could feel myself becoming more concretely knowledgeable. With fiction, learning from the text is much more personal, much more about peeling back layers of the human condition. With nonfiction it is like: facts! Look at these facts!

I liked that Philip Dray interspersed the many facts with - sometimes fun, sometimes tragic - anecdotes. There is a crazy tale told of a governor and lieutenant governor racing back to Louisiana to try to enact legislation while the other is away. That was Pinchback. He could be quite grand and imposing at times. In 1867 he said, "There is a sense of security displayed by our people...They seem to think that all is done, the Great Battle has been fought and the victory won...The Great Contest has just begun."

Then there is the story of a wife of a supreme court judge whipping out the inkwell used in writing the Dred Scott decision - which she had hidden when people wanted to take it - to inspire her husband's words of dissent.

And just when I was beginning to get really perturbed about all of this talk about civil rights for men and nothing of WOmen, Dray brings up women's suffrage. Women's suffrage and civil rights used to be linked back in the day until "One of the saddest divorces in American history" due to short-sided and intemperate comments by both Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.

First Susan said some crap about why should poor uneducated black men have the vote before educated white women. Then Freddy came back and inferred that women should shut their mouths because since they aren't being murdered they have nothing to complain about. Basically neither was thinking of the feelings of the other. No one was empathizing. And no one was rethinking their words before pressing PUBLISH.

Speaking of Freddy, he kind of gets the short end of the stick in the book. Douglass, usually hoisted up on a pedestal as a paragon of excellence in high school history classes, is quite humanly depicted. Including getting crotchety as he got old (and Reconstruction was basically torn down). At the low point, he chastised African Americans in the deep south for escaping certain death and moving to Kansas to try their luck. He said they should stay and fight. Unfortunately for him (who escaped slavery by heading and staying north), his words had the bitter taste of hypocrisy.

But there were great parts too. One of my favorites is Robert Brown Elliott, who was ridiculously eloquent in 1870 when he told congress: "The rights contended for in this bill are among the sacred rights of mankind, which are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records; they are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature...and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Then there was Robert Smalls who successfully stole a confederate ship during the war and then became an important figure in South Carolinian politics. Oh, and he purchased the house his once master owned. And then, when the senile matriarch of the family returned to the house one day, he let her live there thinking it was still the antebellum days.

Of the raucous and bipolar roller coaster times, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote (alluding to Shakespeare): "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and others lived during the Reconstruction period."

Capitol Men does have a downside, however: its construction. At first, I blamed myself, as if my problem was not being used to reading historical nonfiction.

Now, I completely understand that attempting to cover a time period between two book covers accurately and in depth is like herding cats. But can a girl get a linear timeline? In one chapter Charles Sumner dies and in the next chapter he is alive and kicking missing important senatorial meetings. That just makes me feel CRAZY.

Also, if the framing of the tale of Reconstruction is African American congressmen, can the chapters deal a figure at a time? No? Because since they didn't and since the timeline of the book is all malleable, I have now finished the book and can't name all the men on the front cover. That doesn't seem right.

On the other hand, there were plenty of pictures and illustrations and engravings in the book. Something I think fiction should take note of.

All in all I feel smart and crazy having read Capitol Men. So basically, nothing has changed.

"The 'moral debt' to black Americans created by that conflict was simply 'found to be beyond the country's capacity to pay, given the undeveloped state of its moral resources at the time'."
Capitol Men

A year in books...2010 retrospective

2010-12-31T22:32:00.000-06:00

FAVORITE FAVORITE FAVORITE...
Must Read...

Not For Me...

Just OK...
Great Story...
Page Turner...
Feel Happy and Laugh...

Wallow and Cry...

Makes You Think...
Silly - But Fun - Fluff...

"I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning, molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."
Anais Nin, someone I didn't read this year, but will be reading next...

Set the night on fire

2010-12-10T10:13:00.006-06:00

Last Friday, I went to the Women and Children First book store to celebrate Libby Fischer Hellmann's latest novel: Set the Night on Fire.

I've put off writing about it because I don't know how to do so without seeming like a nervously excited 16-year-old fangirl.

Here goes.
I bought the book - regardless of my buying book ban to save my bank account - because I couldn't not. Set the Night on Fire is a stand alone novel in three parts: present - late 60's - present. I read through the sections trying to savor each one. In the present, a man gets out of prison and goes to reconnect with friends from 40 years ago. Meanwhile, those friends are being killed...but the daughter of one of the friends remains unscathed...for now.

There is a sketch guy on a fancy motorcycle that is trying to kill her and prison guy is trying to keep her safe. But why?

The second section delves into the past to answer that question. Having been born in the 80's, I really can't speak to the feeling of 1968-70, but I like the naively optimistic hubris - like almost all young people possess, but exaggerated at this time because the possibility of change was palpable - was depicted.

I wonder if it could happen now: a group of young people meeting each other and then deciding to make a go of it...together. Dropping out of college and all. There's conflict and love and growing up...and then more conflict. And pain. I'm not giving details. Just know that it is awesome.

Section three comes back around to the now, and the reader is going to get some answers. What keeps me reading Libby is not only the fast pace of her novels, but the fact that she gets you to care about her characters. By part three I was totally invested. But I'm NOT going to tell you what happens.

Overall, it was refreshingly interesting to chat with and listen to cool, accomplished, and intelligent people talk about books and writing and publishing and LIFE. I was the youngest one there, and I definitely respected my elders as their life experiences astound me. Sara Paretsky was there too. Writers writers all around.

Post wine, cheese, and book signing, I debriefed with the madre and it was decided that when we grow up she gets to be Sara and I get to be Libby.

Dibs. Now go read the book.

"We tried to change the world and the world ended up changing us."
Libby Fischer Hellmann...paraphrased

Stories in which ponies and/or babies die should come with a warning label

2010-11-30T11:37:00.006-06:00

Recently, I've overheard too many for my liking negative opinions concerning John Steinbeck and his works.

Just like most everyone, I read Of Mice and Men in high school (two times actually...thanks moving) and felt fine about it. But then, after college I read East of Eden and fell in love. Next, I picked up The Moon is Down and was equally entranced.

After these three, I just really didn't get how people could be like: Steinbeck...blech. It seemed impossible.

And so I decided to pick up a few quick Steinbeck reads to investigate further.

First up: The Red Pony - a novella in four parts. *SPOILER ALERT...The pony dies in the first part. In no way did I see that coming. I mean, the boy left the pony outside for one day (one day!) and it gets sick and dies. Steinbeck was all, you like ponies? This boy likes ponies? Let's kill the pony and show that life isn't always fair.

You know what else isn't fair? That I was on the bus when I got to the dead pony part. I can only imagine my face as I read on in horror. Reading about a little boy's pony dying before 9 a.m. just isn't right.

It was kind of downhill after the pony death. The boy goes through a dark punishing everything around him to punish himself phase, but then ends up getting another pony, but only after the mom horse is killed to save the baby...tough lessons.

Next: The Pearl. Another novella, this time concerning Native American pearl divers (fishers?).

In the first chapter (first chapter!) the only baby of a happy couple gets bitten by a scorpion and the doctor won't see them because they don't have money and aren't white. The baby gets better (thanks to the quick thinking sucking out of venom on the mom's part), and the dad goes diving and finds a gigantic pearl.

I imagined it as the hope diamond of pearls.

*SPOILER ALERT...The pearl (metaphor for greed) is pretty much evil and everyone is now out to get the man. Including priests. Including neighbors. Including the doctor who I'm pretty sure poisoned the baby to show that he could cure the baby.

And they have to run away after someone dies (or is maybe murdered by the husband) in a tussle. And the wife wants to throw the pearl into the ocean, but the husband has envisioned a bright future for his child and can't abandon it now. So they run.

And you know who dies?

THE BABY.

In the end, they return (broken) to the village and throw the pearl into the ocean: "and the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared."

In conclusion: sad.

East of Eden was sad as well, but it was also grandiose and epic and tragically beautiful. And each of these stories had beautiful, hopeful moments, but then they just really bummed me out. A lot.

Steinbeck is still an amazing writer. I still look to him to blow my mind with elegant and glorious and true statements on life. It's just that I finally closed the door on an awful month (November 10; Claire 0). And right here, right now, in this moment I want no part of heartbreaking excellence.

"And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between. If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into it."
John Steinbeck

He was the great love of her life...one always thinks that every, every time

2010-11-23T13:49:00.007-06:00

"He was the great love of her life...one always thinks that every, every time."

This is how Nancy Mitford ends her novel on love: sardonically.

Since the last quietly hilarious book I read - Excellent Women - I've kept my eye out. Because who doesn't love self effacing commentary on love and being a woman?

Mitford's The Pursuit of Love depicts - of course - the search for love, but also the search for self (sometimes through love). Luckily, the reader gets to hang out with Mitford's perfectly flawed characters, getting to know them first as children who engage in Child Hunts (it is what it sounds like...only no death) with their eccentric father and hunting dogs, but then as teenagers who yearn for social norms.

There are clashes between generations, mainly: "The argument...that young men were not very likely to propose to girls they hardly knew, was brushed aside as nonsense."

But once the ladies get out into the world, they realize some things: "...the behavior of civilized man really has nothing to do with nature, that all is artificiality and art more or less perfected."

The entire book is pulled off with an air of light seriousness. I imagine the following line being said/thought sitting on a chase wearing a silk dressing gown, martini in one hand while the other waves lazily to make her point: "She had found neither great love nor great happiness...and now she was doomed to the lonely, hunted life of a beautiful but unattached woman."

In the end, love is found, but there's a war on.

The lesson (if you are a true romantic) seems to be: die at the apex of love.

"Like all the very young we took it for granted that making love is child's play."
Nancy Mitford

Graphic digest

2010-11-22T13:41:00.010-06:00

I'm perpetually on the lookout for the next great graphic novel. Here are my thoughts on what I've read lately...

Rapunzel's Revenge - At first, this graphic interpretation of Rapunzel for elementary aged kids got me pumped. Rapunzel is feisty and saves herself. She also uses her hair (in braids) as both tool and weapon. But then it turned into a cycle of travel (to free her mother), scuffles, and Rapunzel getting herself and her traveling partner (Jack, once again of the beanstalk variety) out of trouble. It was really close to being amazing.

Skim - I. Love. This. Graphic. Novel. I find the majority of graphic novels deal with dark subject matter. Skim doesn't shy away from the shadows delving into teen suicide but also coming of age and homosexuality. The feeling of the novel is stark, but not depressing. The words and images support the stoic sentiment.

Chance in Hell - With this title, I don't know why I thought I might like this one. Set in a dystopic future, society throws out not only its unwanted garbage, but also its unwanted children. We follow a promising young girl who is saved from creepy men by another man (who used to live in the garbage). Only girlfriend befriends a local pimp and starts to learn the ropes. When it turns out that the man is going to the prostitutes the girl is now managing, she kills him. Oh and then fast forward to her being an adult and getting married but then all of her people get killed by some serial killer and she is left alone. Do not read this one.

The Living and the Dead - This one was mainly pictures with few words. Who needs words when an axe to the head speaks for itself? A man falls in love with a prostitute. Then saves his money to...buy her? But then...zombies. Attack. Guy saves prostitute. Prostitute gets turned into a zombie. Prostitute turns man into zombie. They fall in love. Oh, and insert a bunch of zombie violence. This one is obviously trying to disprove my zombies-make-everything-better theory.

Emiko Superstar - Emiko is written by the same author as Skim. I liked this one, but not as much. Still a coming of age work, this one concentrating on experimentation with risk taking behavior. There is also a weird part of the main character babysitting for a perfect seeming couple where the wife is actually a lesbian and runs away but not before the main character steals her diary and uses it as performance fodder so she can be cool.

Retreat & The Long Way Home (Buffy) - I don't expect everyone to understand - or be down with - my love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What can I say, truth telling through witty snark makes me happy. Whedon's post final season comic series gives a chance to hang out with the characters a little while longer. I truly enjoy them and am slowly adding them to my personal library.

Skim - Mariko Tamaki

Teachers who don't teach book club...manipulative man edition

2010-11-17T10:54:00.006-06:00

At book club last night, we discussed the problem of perspective. While reading YAL it is often difficult to take myself out of my shoes and put myself into my future students' shoes because I'm busy being all why-doesn't-she-dump-him-he-just-told-her-to-shut-up-man-she-is-spoiled-and precocious-in-a-bad-way-and-it-must-be-nice-to-be-so-rich.

At many points during Nancy Werlin's Extraordinary I rolled my eyes and maybe also proclaimed disbelief of shenanigans. However, I realize that while I may have been almost as sassy as a teen as I am now, not everyone intrinsically realizes their own extraordinary-ness.

I say that with trepidation because this book beat the idea of ordinary vs. extraordinary over the reader's head about a gazillion times. That's a rough estimate.

Like any Lifetime movie, it obviously takes almost all of the book for us to come to the conclusion that everyone has the potential to be extraordinary.

Puke.

But I get it. I needed to hear that when I was a teen. And I did. The madre told me all the time.

But maybe not everyone has someone to tell them. And maybe if they read this book that couches real (if exaggerated) life situations in terms of faeries and metaphors then they could see their own special-ness.

And that's not a bad thing.

Favorite part of the book: Good parents. So much of literature deals with working out daddy or mommy issues. I know the madre will be relieved to hear that at least this book depicted supportive, unconditional loving, strong parental figures.

We then decided our book club is definitely skewing towards all things fantastical and perhaps our trajectory needs to be altered. One more dystopic novel and then we'll move on to nonfiction!

We are also toying with revisiting favorites from our own teen years. So reader, what did YOU read in high school that you loved?

"Nothing that happened in the past could be taken away."
Nancy Werlin

Love funeral makers

2010-11-12T09:39:00.004-06:00

Excuse my brief-ness.

Hurt a tendon in my finger.

Apparently right hand staging a protest against the gym.

Makes typing difficult, among other things (button up pants...).

This may mean I have to live in the world, sans computer.

Silver lining: sweatpants don't have buttons.

Have to say one thing though: I LOVE CATHIE PELLETIER.

Finished Funeral Makers last night. After playing around in young ad. lit and nonfiction, it felt amazing to get back to serious fiction. Her characters are real and tragic and hilarious. I can't speak for all her books, but I can say I loved this one. LOVE.

I found that I couldn't wait to cradle my out of commission hand and read about life. Full of mess. Full of pain. Full of love.

"...will go on with its cycles of life. There will be husbands lying down in the wrong beds. Wives caught in the wrong arms at the wrong time. There will be hasty weddings. The dying will die and move aside for the living to die, and the patterns of life will continue..."
Cathie Pelletier

Teachers who don't teach book club...fairy tale edition

2010-11-10T10:48:00.004-06:00

Remember the big bad wolf who bothered little red riding hood and her grandmother?

What if the big bad wolf was your dad?

And what if you lived in a dystopia where there used to be fairies who made dreams come true, but now fairies and dreams are gone?

And then what if you have to infiltrate the synthetic fairy dust drug running operation your dad was a part of Fast and Furious style to clear his name?

And what if Eden was a real place that you could see, but weren't allowed in?

And what if the good friend you made in juvie was Jack, of the beanstalk Jacks?

Not to mention a scary creature down in the depths of the city who wants to chomp you who might be a metaphor for societal ills but is also - in real life - going to chomp you.

Oh and don't forget the falling in love part. Wolf love. With a female wolf who asks you how many times she is going to have to save you.

And a feisty female detective who loves a fight.

I'd say it would all make for a rollicking ride of a book.

*My only caution is a brief 2-3 (I'm not sure as I had to cover my eyes and flip pages) TORTURE section which I couldn't handle and left me wondering: was that really necessary?

For dealing in fairy tales, the book was entirely modern and chalk full of modern societal issues like drugs and corruption. There are some problematic logistics in the book, such as: if the different species in the book are a metaphor for our society...who are the wolves? And what is that insinuating? Not to mention, if you can see Eden, but can't get to it (we imagined a floating island in the sky??), how did they pop into Eden by accident through a tunnel system when the societal ills monster was chasing them? CONFUSED.

Book club got off track after that with discussions of other books and teacher talk and CPS talk and why doesn't our waiter understand what can we split the bill means talk and then it was time for bed.

Until next time.

"Nobody knows the real story, because nobody ever heard my side of the story."
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

I don't care about your band

2010-11-09T13:25:00.006-06:00

I Don't Care About Your Band is the great title of Julie Klausner's memoir chronicling the ups and downs and whatever is below the downs in the search for love and self.

For Klausner, the two seem intrinsically linked. And that made me sad.

Which is why I skimmed the middle of the book.

I got tired.

Another jerk guy you should have known better than to date? If I wanted a list like that I would just review my own life.

Parts are funny, but parts made me want to give a strong woman speech. Which, to be fair, Klausner kind of gives herself.

I perked up when she noted that instead of dating someone in a band...you should just start your own band.

That's when I started paying attention again. Right in time for the ending.

Which finally made me happy.

Klausner lets it slip that she is in a relationship at the time of writing the book, which I think we all saw coming. Refreshingly, however, she makes light of it: "Hey everybody, good news! Everything's fine now: I'm in a relationship! The end!"

And then she surprised me further by acknowledging that - when it comes to relationships and happiness - it is different for everyone.

And that is OK.

"...Who am I to say whether we can't be satisfied alone, or happy while we're looking, or whether the destination out-ends the means, or that it was all worth it for the sake of meeting this guy."
Julie Klausner, strong closer

From the stacks...November edition

2010-11-04T09:40:00.004-05:00

Captive Reader and Intrepid Reader host a weekly Library Loot event where bloggers share their library finds. Since I like to break rules, I participate not once a week and with my own button.

That being said, I always love seeing what they've taken out from the library since we all know what you get when you are in the midst of library euphoria is not always congruent with what you actually read once you get it all home.

After buying out Nordstrom at their semi-annual sale, and before meeting up with the ladies for teachers who don't teach book club, I made a pit stop at the library. I forked over Maria Edgeworth and picked up slightly lighter fair (although - to be fair - I think Edgeworth was the fluff of her day).

1. I Don't Care About Your Band - Julie Klausner
This is the one I decided to start this morning. Tales of hilarious love woe? Sounds great. She goes after men like men are supposed to go after women? Sounds like me. Sign me up.

2. Everything is Going to be Great - Rachel Shukert
I've been craving funny lately (as seen by choice #1). Funny + embarrassing + travel = fingers crossed chuckles.

3. The Funeral Makers - Cathie Pelletier
A dark comedy that takes place in rural Maine? Crazy family antics? This choice comes from a madre recommendation. I can only hope to one day read as many books as she has.

Two out of three books are nonfiction? Who am I becoming...

"But more than anything, as a little girl, I wanted to be exactly like Miss Piggy."
Julie Klausner

Belinda bo binda

2010-11-03T14:49:00.004-05:00

"A gentleman sometimes finds it for his interest, his honour, or his pleasure, to suggest what he would not for the world promise - I mean perform."

With saucy lines like the above, you would think I would be infatuated with Austen contemporary Maria Edgeworth's Belinda.

Alas, sigh, this is not so.

It is just that the writing feels...heavy handed.

Like, I get it, you're being satirical about how men lie to women. Or how the flighty Lady engaged in a duel with another Lady and the butt of the gun hit her in the chest as she fired and she hasn't been to the doctor about it for years and says she is dying. Dude. It is probably a bruise.

Or how everyone is at a masked ball and the young girl, who has a matchmaking aunt, overhears her prospective paramour talking crap about how she is all fluff and secrets and trickery and just out to catch a husband so then she is turned off of him which makes him really like her and he changes his mind, but then the Lady uses the naive girl to get some fancy horses from the paramour and then he is all back to thinking she is a strumpet.

WHATEVER.

I can't take 400 more pages of this.

Austen thought highly of Edgeworth, but I think she should have thought higher of herself.

Back to the library I go.

"Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget."
Maria Edgeworth

Weeeee have aaaalwaaaayssss lived in the caaaaastle

2010-11-01T11:19:00.003-05:00

Happy day after Halloween.

In honor of the holiday I not only watched Hocus Pocus (come little children I'll taaake you awaaaay...), but I read holiday appropriate literature.

You may know Shirley Jackson from reading the super creepy "The Lottery" in high school, but I try to forget that and focus on my college Jackson experience with The Haunting of Hill House.

Over the summer when I saw the spookily illustrated cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle at the Newberry bookstore...I knew I had to read it.

Castle is a tale of familial arsenic poisoning and post poisoning domestic bliss-ish of two sisters and an uncle. I mean, she was acquitted of the murders after all.

The only thing I love more than dystopia is an unreliable narrator. And Castle comes through, or does it, or is it all true, or imaginary, maybe it is...maybe it isn't.

While reading, I imagined most of the dialogue said with an eerie head tilt and scary lingering pause after the line. Try it:

"Who do you think will last longer, you or me?"

or

"Everyone else in our family is dead."

or even

"We are so happy."

...

All I'm saying is I would think twice about sending one of the sisters up to her room without dinner...

"Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar."
Shirley Jackson

Teachers who don't teach book club...merlin edition

2010-10-22T13:20:00.003-05:00

This book club we read The Lost Years of Merlin - by T.A. Barron - which chronicles Merlin's magical youth.

This book was: FUN.

Even though it was definitely meant for a younger audience (4-8th grade), that doesn't mean I didn't have a great time reading it. Sure, there were shenanigans like ummm, Merlin: when you go on a sea voyage...take water! Also, as an adult reading it, the plot trajectory was quite apparent. Even then, I still wanted to read to confirm.

This book was delightful and could easily be used as supplemental reading during a mythology unit.

The best part of the book, though, deals with perception. In our world, we name the stars and gather constellations and their stories. In the place Merlin was born, however, they make "constellations" out of the space between stars, the black space.

Did that just rock your mind?

This example lets the book begin a discussion of broadening worldviews and accepting (and welcoming) difference.

Luckily, there are two subsequent books in the series. I'll definitely be including the series in my classroom library.

"Nothing like a good read to finish off a day of good reads."
T.A. Barron

From the stacks...October edition

2010-10-19T15:09:00.003-05:00

Nothing silly happened at the library last night. My on-hold books were on the shelf where they were supposed to be. I found a fun new YA comic to read. There was only one person in front of me to check out. It was all so normal. Ho-hum.

I picked up:

1. The Lost Years of Merlin - T. A. Barron
I'm already 100 pages in. It is somuchfun because there is foreshadowing and that just makes you feel like you are in on the secrets of Merlin. Like he gets burned in a fire and then thinks it would be awesome to grow a giant beard to cover up the scars, oh and birds could live in there too. And I'm like...just you WAIT Merlin.

2. Belinda - Maria Edgeworth
Nicola over at Vintage Reads has been reading Maria Edgeworth and do you know who that is? Oh, only an author Jane Austen super loved. That makes it a must-read on my list.

3. Emiko Superstar - Mariko Tamaki
A "fantasy for awkward girls" sounds hilarious especially since it sates my need for comics/graphic novels.

"I have made up my mind to like no Novels really, but Miss Edgeworth's, Yours & my own."
Ms. Austen to her sister

The muddled, befuddled, and downright confusing history of love

2010-10-12T07:14:00.009-05:00

*SPOILER ALERT - if you went to Saint Mary's and are still reading The History of Love...stop reading.

The topic? Unrequited love.

The question? How long do you hold on?

If you listen to Jane Austin's Persuasion, women love longest when all hope is gone. However, one of the male characters in the One Book One Saint Mary's selection (The History of Love) is trying to prove that some men should share this sad title.

The History of Love is also about the art of writing and life. And it is filled with beautifully tragic words like: "When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely."

But then love walks in: "Maybe the first time you saw her...Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me."

And then love walks out: "For a long time, it [your heart] remained hollow...If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it."

And then there was this immensely sad part that wasn't even about love at all. It was about getting older. This man would purposely go out in public and make a ruckus (aka spilling milk at the coffee shop or knocking down a KY display at the grocery store) just so that people would notice him. Why? So that he wouldn't have to die on a day when no one noticed him.

...

But then, I got to the end, and it was like I was watching The Sixth Sense all over again. Because I said: huh? Wait a minute. That other guy doesn't exist? This isn't amateur hour. I'm basically a professional reader. So when I get to the end of a book and 1. am confused about who ACTUALLY wrote the book that the ENTIRE book is about and 2. didn't realize the guy has a heart attack in the last sentences (thanks for clearing that up Wikipedia)...I must call shenanigans and say that some clarifying sentences needed to be strategically placed in between the poetic ones.

I ask: why make a book confusing on purpose when the foundational story is great? You don't need all the pomp and circumstance.

I will show this by providing a short synopsis:

In The History of Love that is about a book named The History of Love, there is a first guy who wrote the book about a girl he loved and basically has dedicated his life to unrequited love, but he gave it to another guy - I'm still not sure why - but I think it has something to do with WWII and the other guy published the book under his name to get a woman to love him, but he put the first guy's self-written obituary as the last chapter like a 'sorry'. And the first guy goes his whole adult life not knowing that his great work has been published. In other news, the first guy has a friend - who turns out to be imaginary - who also used to love the girl - which is why their friendship ended - and who is also a writer and he also might simply be another version of the first guy but this is complicated by the fact that he really did used to be a guy who loved the girl and subsequently died - I think - and I thought for a minute that the first guy stole the book from the imaginary guy but turns out I don't think so and the first guy gets his book back - secretly in the mail - and the entire thing ends with him dying on a park bench next to a girl who was named after the girl in the book because her father gave the book to her mother and it turns out the mother is the one who is translating it into English for a man who turns out to be the first guy's son who the first guy thought never knew he was his father since he had to let another man raise him because the love of his life thought he was dead and gave up on him.

See? NOT NECESSARY.

"Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible."
Nicole Krauss

How does it feel to be a problem book

2010-10-05T15:46:00.003-05:00

I recently read How Does It Feels to Be a Problem by Brooklyn College professor Moustafa Bayoumi. I heard about the book due to the ruckus it was causing as required summer reading for incoming freshman.

While some are upset by the book choice, I'm here to be happy that they aren't choosing to get riled up over required summer reading. AmIright?

Anyways. Having attended a (super great) liberal arts college myself, I must say I don't see what the fuss is about. Education should be about reading/learning different perspectives and then discussing them and hopefully broadening our own world views (especially when the book in question is 1. timely 2. written by a faculty member and 3. concerns people in your geographic area).

For me personally, this book was a stretch. Not due to the content, but due to the nonfiction nature. I am here: a fiction lover trying to broaden her world view by partaking in a taste of nonfiction (because I like to learn).

At once I was struck by the readability. The portraits of the young Arab and Muslim Americans were both diverse and interesting. And most importantly - conversation inducing.

I found myself discussing the book as I read it with a friend I was visiting. We sat in her lake house under blankets reading, and I time and time again put the book down which prompted her to ask, "What did you read now?"

Agree or disagree, this book makes you want to talk.

I did have one big problem with the book: no pictures. Humans are - by nature - curious. I read about these real people, but I didn't get to see them. With fiction, that's great, because fiction is all about the imagination.

But nonfiction? I need my nonfiction with that interior section of glossy pages and candid shots.

Luckily, someone else must feel like I do, so you can see one of my favorite (I almost said characters...nonfiction...nonfiction) portraits here.

Notice I said portraits, not profiles. That's because:

"Hasn't there been enough profiling already?"
Moustafa Bayoumi

To the books I've loved before

2010-10-04T15:16:00.004-05:00

It's really hard for me to say no to a book survey. It might be a problem.

1. A book that made you cry: Brian Morton – Unbreakable You. I. Heart. Brian. Morton.

2. A book that scared you: Stephen King – The Shining. If you have only watched the movie…you don’t even KNOW. All I’m saying is: snow tunnel.

3. A book that made you laugh: Barbara Pym – Us Excellent Women.

4. A book that disgusted you: John Updike - Rabbit Run. One word: misogyny.

5. A book you loved in elementary school: Through school: The Giver and Where the Red Fern Grows. At home, Laura Ingalls Wilder and my favorite was Little House in the Big Woods (because of gratuitous and delicious food descriptions). Then, of course, True Grit: the first book my dad and I read together. Oh, and The Indian in the Cupboard – Lynne Reid Banks. Oh, AND Half Magic – Edward Eager. I could keep going…

6. A book you loved in middle school: Marion Zimmer Bradley - The Mists of Avalon. I could spend all day reading about powerful women. And then, of course, the magic (and love).

7. A book you loved in high school: Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice. I rolled into college thinking I was so cool because I totally knew I was an Elizabeth. Ha. And Great Expectations. I love an underdog (and an eccentric lady in a wedding dress).

8. A book you hated in high school: Henry David Thoreau - Walden, or Life in the Woods. Don’t get me started.

9. A book you loved in college: Banana Yoshimoto – Kitchen.

10. A book that challenged your identity or your faith: Charlotte Perkins Gilman – “The Yellow Wallpaper.” There was a time when I wouldn’t call myself a feminist (shocking…I know). This story was so terrible and awesome and typical. How could I not be changed forever? Oh, and since that is a short story, I will add Just Kids by Patti Smith because she reinvigorated my life.

11. A series that you love: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan. On the road my family read the entire series. You do the math of how many hours in the car that is.

12. Your favorite horror book: Mary Shelley – Frankenstein. Love. This. Book.

13. Your favorite science-fiction book: Frank Herbert – Dune. Face doesn’t re-read this book every year for nothing.

14. Your favorite fantasy book: J.V. Jones – The Baker’s Boy. Love.

15. Your favorite mystery book: Libby Fischer Hellman – all of them. I can’t get enough.

16. Your favorite biography: I have Zelda (Nancy Milford) sitting on my shelf and I am excited to - one day - read it.

17. Your favorite coming-of-age book: Jane Austen – Persuasion.

18. Your favorite book not on this list: There are just so many I haven’t thanked.

To Doris Lessing: The Golden Notebook will always glow in my heart. To Ana Castillo: So Far From God is a masterpiece. To Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar…snap, I love an unreliable narrator. To Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders gave me the best paper title I’ve ever come up with…Moll Flanders: Vice or Advice? To John Steinbeck: East of Eden showed me the tragic beauty of words. To Peter Hoeg: who would have thought a book I bought at an airport – The Quiet Girl – would move me so. To Christopher Rice: I will purchase all of your books as each book addresses the point of my life I’m at now, and say hi to your mom. Oh, and to Shakespeare: kisses.

Let me not to the love of good books / Admit favoritism. Love is not love / Which alters when it new hardbacks finds, / Or bends with the book borrower to remove: / O no! it is an ever-fixed folded page / That looks on coffee stains and is never shaken; / It is the quote to every wandering heart, / Whose worth's unknown, although his word count be taken. / Love's not reading's fool, though rosy covers and pages / Within his bending bookmark's compass come: / Reading alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the afterword. / If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man or woman ever read.
Shakespeare-ish

In a dark dark room...creak...crash...boo!

2010-09-29T12:17:00.004-05:00

Dear Future Claire:

Please do not sign up for volunteer activities after a full day of work, even if they are about books. You will be tired, cranky, and - most of all - hungry. When you leave the activity you will be happy you helped someone, but sad that it is dark. Also, going forward, please only sign up for opportunities with group leaders who actually help with the work as opposed to reading in a chair while you risk your fingers to paper cuts and your back to soreness.

Thanks so much,
Right Now Claire

Last night I rocked my Dewey Decimal skills and volunteered (through Chicago Cares) to re-stack an elementary school library.

The silver lining from last night - obviously - has to do with books. Re-shelving an elementary library is like walking down book memory lane. It is filled with ooo's (R.L. Stine), ahh's (Laura Ingalls Wilder) and aww's (Shel Silverstein).

Fortuitously, the absolute LAST book I shelved brought to the surface forgotten memories.

The book, In a Dark, Dark Room, is a collection of scary folklore tales. Looking at the cover, at first I only recognized the girl with the green ribbon (ooo). Then it all came flooding back. The suspenseful wide-eyed reading. I loved this book. I used to read the stories over and over again.

When I got home I couldn't wait to tell the madre what I had discovered. It was like Mousehaven Manor all over again!

But just like with Mousehaven, when I excitedly told the madre about Dark Room, she said, "Huh, I don't remember that one."

Oh reading, you can be such a solitary touchstone.

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life'."
Helen Exley

Remember that time I said that thing about that book?

2010-09-27T15:29:00.005-05:00

Last time I mentioned The Corrections, I didn't have super nice things to say...

I would like to amend my prior statement...

While 2/3 of the way through the book it might seem blah and aggravating, it picks back up enough to MAKE ME CRY.

It takes a lot for a book to make me cry (unless you are Brian Morton as everything he writes is so tragically beautiful that I just well up).

The end of The Corrections deals with how we love people and expectations and Christmas and family and it was just too much for me to take - but in that really great, sad way.

You might say: Claire, have you since learned your lesson of bringing up books before you've finished them? Nope, absolutely not, no lesson learning here.

I'm now 170 pages into the first book of Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos. It is awesome. It took me a little bit to get into the science fiction-y future world which seems a lot like our world but with giants, but now I am loving it.

I want to say I like it on par with Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land, but those are heavy, preemptive words to utter 170 pages in.

Concerning the lugging-around-a-heavy-book front, the missive is, in fact, quite heavy...BUT, I really like seeing how much of the series I still get to read. Because that is how I see it: look at all the time I get to spend in this fictional world.

Now I patiently withhold full commentary until I am finished (or at least 500 pages in)...

"An individual of middle age looks back over half of his life, of his 'allotted span,' which after such expectations of endlessness seems like a very short, vivid, but slippery dream. And he or she knows by then that all that can be expected is another short, illusive dream. That when he, or she, comes to die-and it will be soon-they will look back on experiences no more substantial that what they wake up from each morning: events and atmospheres exciting or pleasant or horrifying that have slid away and are already half-forgotten."
Doris Lessing

No make-up week (day) experiment

2010-09-22T12:49:00.007-05:00

Rachel, my editor over at The Chi Guide and authoress of the inspiring blog Rabbit Write is ensconced in an experiment.

A no-make-up experiment.

Back Story
All week I've been wondering what kind of contribution I wanted to make to the no-make-up experiment cause. Then Rachel's post got put up on Jezebel and I was shocked at the negative feedback I was reading. Aren't my fellow feminists the main readers of Jezebel? So why, when it came to make-up were they all you-can-take-my-freedom-but-you-can't-take-my-MAC-lip-gloss?

Make-up and Dating
What about make-up and dating? You can argue who the audience of your make-up is, but if you are a single woman who might want to get married sometime in her lifetime I think we have to admit that our make-up is partly intended for possibly paramours or at the very least making ourselves feel great which in turn makes possible paramours notice us.

These days I almost never go out at night without make-up, but I also almost never put make-up on for weekend errand running.

Some might think you can't get dates if you aren't depicting your most fabulous (made up) self, but that's just not true. It might even be true that my future significant other will be interested in me regardless of if I applied a facade or not (shown by the fact that in college I mainly got numbers while in sweatpants, and make-up doesn't go with sweatpants).

Although, that could be inconclusive data as I was in sweatpants for 90% of college. Regardless, I find that if you truly connect with a person, whether or not you wore designer favorite eye liner is superfluous (regardless of what Cosmo tells us).

Case Studies
One weekend, I was going to visit a new boyfriend and I forgot all of my makeup. At first I was petrified. I started asking insecure questions as I was without my security make-up blanket.

And then I told myself to get-it-together. Why would I date someone who only likes the me in make-up? I wouldn't. And even if I did, would I date them forever with a mask of powders, blushes and liner on? No (and the weekend was fine).

The opposite is also true, however.

I recently dated someone who thought I should never wear make-up. That wearing make-up marred my beauty.

At first, you might say awww, he liked you and thought you were beautiful without make-up. But what does that insinuate? That I should feel lucky I found someone who can stand to look at me when my adornments are gone (hold on to him, you don't have to wear your make-up to bed!).

At the end of the day, what I do with my face/body/hair/nails is my business. My relationship with make-up is mine and isn't to be dictated by someone I like to kiss (unless my lip gloss is too sticky...such a deal breaker).

Make-up probably hasn't gotten me any dates, but it has kicked some unworthy prospects to the curb. So here's to you make-up, it might be just me and you at the end of the night.

Documentation
Today for Rachel I went sans make-up to work which naturally occurs about once a week. I like to play with make-up, but I like sleep more.

The photography requirement of the experiment isn't a call for compliments.

Instead, I ask: why does a make-up free face seem to beg for validation that it is still pretty?

"I don't make an effort to be sloppy. I just don't consider a perfect hairdo and a perfect face to be beautiful."
Juliette Lewis

From the stacks...September edition

2010-09-21T10:08:00.005-05:00

I'm beginning to think my new neighborhood neighbor, Carls, and I are clones.

The other day, post hair appointment date with Ams, I ran into Carls randomly on the street.

Last night, I went to forage at the library and who did I find filling out a card application...but Carls.

This means she witnessed me at the library. Which means she saw me filling my arms with books on CD for nighttime listening, on hold books, and our state-certified-people-who-aren't-doing-what-they're-certified-in-not-by-choice book club selection (The House of the Scorpion...ooo), and then attempting to cram them all in my purse...

Since we are clones it means she won't judge, right?

Anyways, remember how I was all excited to read The Passage (vampire sci-fi, not sea voyage)? Well, the madre read it (first, like usual) and while she was pumped at the beginning, with 200 pages left it became underwhelming.

I feel her pain because that is how I'm feeling about The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. At first I was on the fence because I didn't like any of the characters and some of them gave me misogynistic Rabbit, Run flashbacks. But then the realness (if dislike) of the characters kept me reading. But now, with 100 pages left, I find myself skimming and only really reading what interests me every so often. And I find that I'm not missing much. This might mean that I won't read Freedom.

However, I have different criteria for books on CD (mainly that the voice lulls me to sleep), so I picked up The Passage on CD...29 CD's to be precise.

No worries on the massive book front as I still picked up a gigantic book: a collection of one of Doris Lessing's science fiction series. I am usually anti giant collection tomes that will take me months to get through when I could simply get the separate books, but the dangerous pull of having everything in one place was so tempting...so we will see how it goes.

"We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth."
John Lubbock

It's Bovary NOT Bovery

2010-09-09T12:47:00.004-05:00

I've loved books all my life, but in college I was able to devote myself to them. It was in college that I was able to fall in love with everything from Dorian Gray to Kitchen to Moll Flanders to Frankenstein to Persuasion to Let Their Spirits Dance to if I don't stop listing I never will.

In college I was almost always too busy for some wild romance to sweep me off my feet. But in my reading life? I wanted extravagance. I wanted passion. I wanted pain.

I found all three in Madame Bovary. Flaubert's masterpiece will forever rank in the top ten in my heart. Ahhh, the tragic story of a woman who also wants life to sweep her away only...it keeps...not. And then when it does it all gets ruined and then there is...death.

Lately I've been sad, experiencing ennui thanks to the inclement teaching job market. I'll get back to taking on the world shortly, but I can't help but want to sit in a comfy window seat tilting my head romantically against the window staring off into the distance while I yearn.

...So imagine my excitement when I came across the graphic novel Gemma Bovery, a modern day adaptation. Usually I dislike all things spin-off or adaptation, but P&P&Z got me all hopeful.

I was too hopeful to be true.

My first issue, regardless of the plot concerns words. Words everywhere. Small-print words. Words in French. Words attacking the pages. I love words; however, I prefer my graphic novels to be at least 80:20 (graphics to words).

I next take issue with the plot. Madame Bovary is a beautifully tragic character while Gemma Bovery is just kind of annoying. If you are going to ruin your life with poor (albeit romantic) decisions, I want to at least like you. Gemma (graphic novel) just seemed like she had low self esteem while Emma (classic) is valiantly searching for the unattainable.

SPOILER ALERT

I finally take issue with the end. Flaubert goes there. People die. Emma commits suicide. It is awful. In the graphic novel? Gemma CHOKES ON A SANDWICH. That is how she dies. And the nosy neighbor (who I adore in both novel and graphic) warns the sandwich eater's husband that he could be next because look at the similarities between the classic novel and their lives!

But don't worry, Mr. Bovery's name is Cyril - which is different from Mr. Bovary's - so he won't possibly die. Oh, haha, it is all jokes. Cyril will just sell the house and move back to England back into his old apartment like Gemma Bovery never existed.

This is what a love story is now? Shoot. She died. Well, back to business as usual.

A picture might be worth a thousand words, but not a thousand of Flaubert's words.

"So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul, toward the abyss."
Flaubert

From the stacks, August edition

2010-09-03T10:10:00.005-05:00

This isn't turning out how I wanted. From the stacks is supposed to show people how awesome the library is. Except awful/hilarious things keep happening every time I go there. It is like when you bring home a new boyfriend and your family is total shenanigans. The libs is my family and all the new patrons flocking to the libs thanks to the recession are my boy/girlfriend(s). I keep wanting to say, "Libs, get it together, people are WATCHING."

Only first I have to say it to myself.

Episode I - my fault
Having finished Mockingjay, I wanted another quick summer read. The madre has been reading both The Passage and Just Kids and let me know that The Passage has a sci-fi element. What? I didn't know that!

I'd had it on hold for ages and ages and it was finally in at the library. Excited, I made a special trip.

Only, grabbing my book from the shelf I came eye to eye with a giant ship. Are the vampires going to be making a sea voyage? That doesn't make sense. And why does this book look well-read, it is a new book. Only it wasn't. Because it wasn't the book I wanted.

But I was already at the library, the book was in my hands, and I felt ashamed that I put the COMPLETELY WRONG book on hold. So I checked it out and skulked home.

Episode II - not my fault
I've been a little distracted lately thanks to a very sickly Rocious. This means my after work time is taken up with either cleaning up vomit, cradling a Roc, or traumatically taking her to the vet. On my way to pick her up from an overnight observation, I stopped at the library to return overdue books and pay my small fine.

Please note: I don't mind paying fines. I consider them a donation to the libs; however, I do mind rudeness when I am overwhelmed with nervousness about Rocious while also trying to do right by the libs.

There was a long line when I got there. I waited patiently (although nervously because every minute that ticked by was another minute Rocious was in kitten jail) as people checked out, a woman payed a $14 (wow) fine, blah blah blah and finally it was almost my turn. The woman in front of me was checking out one book. The lib employee (not to be confused with my favorite lib man who is awesome and very speedy and I always try to brighten his day with jokes because I know people get angst-y at the libs) said to her, "I could move the line quicker if more were like you and they didn't have fines."

Then I approached 100% ready with everything to return and pay my fine. I tell him this is what I want to do and he says to the woman next to me, "See? Like this."

WHAT?

This transaction can be incredibly fast. But not when I hand over my books to return and they are slowly entered into the computer, slowly sorted, and one by one taken to three different sections behind the desk. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I am waiting with my card ready because I know it is needed to look up my fine. Then I am waiting with my money out while slowly the clipboard is brought out to mark down my transaction.

And yet it is me, the person who wants to give the library money who is in the wrong. I didn't realize I am only allowed to go to the library to check out one book.

Thanks library. After smiling and being polite to your mean employee I'm now going to go pick up my cat who hates the vet so much that she doesn't eat there, pees on herself when they try to put her in her carrier, and then is so despondent that she doesn't even cry on the way home (which I know she hates). I'll then hover around her wiping down her fur and imploring her to do anything besides morosely stare at me. Then I won't sleep because I'm constantly vigilant in case Roc decides to start eating. Because I somehow believe something I have done is killing my cat.

I got home only to realize there were two other books due that day which would be overdue the next, but I was too busy wrenching my cat's mouth open to force-feed her appetite stimulant to care that I would redo this entire experience again.

Maybe next time the libs employee will get me to cry.

"Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of the library."
Barbara Tuchman

Real or not real?

2010-08-30T14:48:00.004-05:00

Hunger Games. It's the new Twilight, only you can respect the female lead.

And yes, there is still a love triangle.

The third, and final, book came out last week. I will discuss ranging from non-spoily to super spoily. Stop when you need to.

NON-SPOILY

The Hunger Games trilogy is a dystopian (my favorite) tale which takes place in the none too distant future (but distant enough for us to have super messed up the world...more than we have already). The Capitol is in charge of 12 compartmentalized districts (there used to be 13 but ooo, we don't talk about that). To keep said districts in line, each year the Capitol puts on the hunger games where two adolescents from each district are chosen lottery style to fight each other to the death. Oh, and it's televised and everyone is forced to watch.

Sounds lovely, right?

I read the first book while camping last year. Each new shenanigans thing that came up (fire cape, fire torpedoes, etc) Face and Ams were all...seriously?

But seriously, I couldn't put the book down regardless of their taunts. After finishing the first book, I was angry. Angry that the main character - Katniss - wasn't standing up to 'the man' like I wanted her to. Angry that I probably wouldn't get revolution until the third book.

Having now finished the three books, I'm sated, and thank Suzanne. In the first book we are introduced to the horror of the Hunger Games. In the second we are introduced to horror part II. In the third we are finally introduced to revolution, and all the gray moral areas it comes with.

NOT TOO SPOILY

I appreciate Hunger Games. I like Katniss' feisty and unruly nature. Plus, I love love love dystopias.

I'm glad there were larger issues the text dealt with other than: are you team Peeta or team Gale (first book I was team Gale and by the third, team Peeta).

I loved that in the second book Katniss said IT DOESN'T MATTER if I love Peeta or Gale, I have something bigger to take care of...and then got down to business because "some walks you have to take alone."

I like that the book is cognizant of cliches. I chuckled when another feisty female character explains why she dislikes Katniss: "...you're a little hard to swallow. With all your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn't an act, which makes you more unbearable. Feel free to take this personally."

The third book made you think. Think about war. Think about death. Think about sacrifice. Think about power. Think about reality versus perception. Think about the lasting effects of war. Think about what lines each of us will cross.

SUPER SPOILY

I love/hated the moment when the new regime comes to power and their first order of business is to conduct a hunger games, but this time with the rich Capitol citizens. And you are all NOOOO, but it is all very French Revolution, and all very will-humans-never-learn. I like the shock when Katniss says yes (WHAT?) to the new games - because she is so distraught at the tragic death of her sister - because it showed her as a flawed character (just like all of us).

I was all OH SNAP when the same technology Gale came up with to kill the enemy ended up killing Katniss' sister. Because that's the point isn't it? In war everyone loses. Everyone. Even if Gale's idea hadn't killed Prim, it would've killed another's sister. Another's son. Another's wife. Another human being.

For the peeps out there who are all what the heck Katniss, why did you end up with Peeta and then have babies, what the heck was that ending...I'd like to give a defense (what? I know.).

Peeta represented the good in Katniss. Peeta was always, from the very beginning, anti-war and anti-death and anti-violence. Peeta saw the big picture. Saw the fruitlessness of war. Gale sought vengeance for unspeakable deeds. And neither of them is wrong. Katniss had parts of each viewpoint within her. Who she ends up with - although I really thought for a minute she would just hang with herself - would come down to which viewpoint she wanted to choose.

There is a part in the third book when Katniss is engulfingly lonely. She kind of makes out with Gale (what what) and he is all nope, not like this, you aren't even in your right mind. She needed someone to take away the darkness.

The end of the book supports that. Peeta is the one who comes back to her and brings her back to life, little by little.

And those kids they have? The represent our most likely doomed, but most necessary hope of a brighter future. They are "...the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again."

"You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real."
Suzanne Collins

I'm reading faster than I can discuss: Sarah Vowell edition

2010-08-30T13:59:00.005-05:00

I have an academic girl crush on Sarah Vowell. We know this. I defend her to people who can't find a way into her writing. I say: listen to her speak and then go back and read, it is way more hilarious that way.

I was all out of Vowell books to read, except for one: Radio On.

For over the last month I have slugged through Radio. I should have loved it. She chronicled a year of radio listening.

I can't really pin point my issue with it though.

Perhaps it was that I only saw spots of Vowell sardonic humor or genius pairing of history with personal experience. Perhaps it was that we have completely different tastes in music and I can't get over it.

The thing is, I really liked parts of it. I liked her discussion of the power of music. I liked her experience / relationship with radio. I liked her critique of the inordinate amount of male voices on radio.

...but still...I had to force myself to finish it before I let myself start Mockingjay (the third of the Hunger Games series).

I know I am on a new crusade of guilt free stopping of books I'm not enjoying, but that was another problem. The narration is diary style, so while I could be bored by one entry, perhaps an amazing and hilarious entry was two pages away.

It was all very taxing.

I still maintain my affection for Vowell, and will continue to read her. Just maybe not stories about the radio anymore.

"The doo-wop stalker love song on a Cincinnati oldies station -- you broke up with me because I was an obnoxious jerk and now you're dating him, so I drive by your house and stare in your window every night, thereby proving that I'm an even bigger creep than you thought."
Sarah like-we-haven't-all-been-there Vowell

Just kids

2010-08-19T11:03:00.009-05:00

"Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?" - Patti Smith keeping me grounded and reminding me that as cool as I am, I am an adult. I am separate.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about Eat Pray Love. I'm not going to jump on the hater band wagon (even though it is a super tempting one), because I'm trying to live in a zen world where I let people read what they want without judgment.

For some, EPL touches a nerve of self awakening and the book is applauded for depicting a feminine search for self. For me, this assertion makes a dangerous assumption. Why do we assume that female identity foraging should look and be like a masculine quest? Why do we need to gender label it at all? I can't think of anything more personal or individualized than figuring out who you are.

For me, EPL is a little to self-help-y. See? I'm trying really hard.

However, I came across a book that is my EPL.

Just Kids, Patti Smith's memoir of her own youth and time with Robert Mapplethorpe, is art. Patti's words mesmerized me. I feel for her yearning in life, I feel for her search for focus, I feel for her rebellion.

"Some of us are born rebellious. Reading the story of Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford, I identified with her mutinous spirit. I remember passing shopwindows with my mother and asking why people didn't just kick them in. She explained that there were unspoken rules of social behavior, and that's the way we coexist as people. I felt instantly confined by the notion that we are born into a world where everything was mapped out by those before us."

I own Milford's Zelda story, but haven't read it. I think I need to now. Patti's words of her life, hopes and dreams rejuvenated me on my own artistic path. Like her, I dabble. I always have a new project I invest my creative energy in.

Sometimes I write:
"It wasn't hard at all to write the play. We just told each other stories. The characters were ourselves, and we encoded our love, imagination, and indiscretions..."

Sometimes I dance:
"You can't make a mistake when you improvise."
"What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?"
"You can't," he said. "It's like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another."

Sometimes I read poetry:
"I wish I had tons of money. / Then I'd be free. / Free to do what? / Everything."

Her story showed me what I already know, but sometimes need to be reminded, that your path doesn't have to be conventional to be right.

"Pattie, did art get us?"
"...Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that."
Patti Smith

Camping weekend...READING edition

2010-08-17T12:05:00.006-05:00

On Friday - I believe, but don't know as space and time is irrelevant while camping - a dream I've had was realized.

It was morning. We were sitting around the fire pit.

Everyone.

Was.

Reading.

It made my heart sing. And then I stealthily got up and captured the moment.

@#&%$@#* Have you ever seen anything so wonderful? I didn't even have to make them pose.

Now. What did I read? I was supposed to start with Paradise General (memoir of a doctor who goes to Iraq), and then if there was time start Just Kids (Patti Smith's memoir of her time with Robert Mapplethorpe), and then for fun the Runaways comics (plus a couple others that I won't mention because why did I bring so many books?).

Yes. I brought six books for a four day camping trip. Don't judge.

I've never read so much nonfiction in one stint. It was...refreshing...and strange...but enjoyable. Just Kids will get it's own post because that is how much it moved me. See the last post for my RAPTOR filled enjoyment of the Runaways. And I am almost finished with Paradise General which I have been happily surprised by.

Sigh. It was a literary dream come true.

"Books are delightful society."
William Ewart Gladstone

Nick Hornby

2010-08-11T11:04:00.005-05:00

In the last month I have read two offerings of Nick Hornby's. You might say - huh - that name sounds familiar. It should. Hornby wrote both High Fidelity and About a Boy.

First, I read an adult fiction novel about suicide called A Long Way Down. I enjoyed the diary style narration, where we get the insight of each of the four people who wanted to commit suicide but then didn't.

And why didn't they commit suicide? Well, they had to go find some guy at a party. And then some other stuff happened. I don't know if I can vague that up anymore, but the stuff that happens isn't really the point. The interesting part is seeing the changes the characters go through, psychologically, from suicidal to depressed to taking it day by day.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I didn't have an insatiable urge to devour it. It was...nice. A man on the bus chatted me up while I was reading one day and let me know that while Long Way Down was fine, other Hornby books were awesome.

Thank you man on the bus, I think I'll try another.

Which is where my desire to read more Hornby and my expedition of reading more YAL intersected. Enter: Slam, Hornby's young adult book. Slam is about teenage pregnancy.

Here is the thing: I've never been suicidal, so on the one hand part of me couldn't relate to Down; however, I have been a teenager and I have been in the thralls of infatuation. I am predisposed to like Slam.

A story about a teen skater who falls in love and gets his girlfriend pregnant might not read like my own personal history, but reading about the first time you are seriously infatuated? Yes, I do know something about that.

It was smile worthy to reminisce about that younger version of myself. Remembering how I felt the way the character felt. Isn't it lovely how words on a page can make you remember hidden away parts of yourself? How relationships almost always go wrong or doesn't last or gets really messed up, but at the time it was all you could see.

It just rang true. And kept me up Monday night reading until midnight to finish it.

"There are many differences between a baby and an iPod. And one of the biggest is, no one is going to mug you for your baby."
Nick Hornby

Abe Lincoln...vampire hunter

2010-08-05T14:06:00.008-05:00

A student recommended that I read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He even preempted his selection by saying, "I know, I know...but the writing is good. Promise."

I read Seth's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and found it to be supremely enjoyable, but I was unsure if I liked it so much because I love P&P or because it so seamlessly played with one of my favorite novels while maintaining the feeling of the writing. The two cannot be separated.

So what would happen if I read a book that played with a subject matter (history) that I am less knowledgeable about?

I read the book in one weekend. And my student was right.

It was incredibly fun. When I quit blueberry picking and everyone kept going I was like - yes! I get to read Abe now!

Similar to P&P&Z, Seth takes the history of Abraham Lincoln and inserts vampires. For example, Abe chopping wood isn't just for the fire...it is strength training to kill vamps.

Playing with a fictional tale is kind of different than playing with history, though.

In Seth's version, vamps have infiltrated America due to a lack of tolerance for vamps in Europe. Poor vamps. They insert themselves into all parts of society. Similar to the function of mythology, vampires are used in this novel as an explanation for evil. Your child was sick and had a fever and died in a few days? Vampire. It makes the enemy palpable, and therefore something you can fight. It's comforting.

The one part I flinched over was the idea that 1. (most) vamps were down with slavery because of the availability of victims it produced and 2. the Civil War was caused by equal parts abhorrence of slavery...and to kick vamps out. Part of me says the Civil War isn't something you mess with. Like it might still be too soon.

Overall, however, after reading the novel I'm left content with the playful story while also harboring an urge to go out and learn more about honest Abe who - according to Seth - wasn't above lying in certain circumstances because, you know...VAMPS.

"Living men are bound by time...Thus, their lives have an urgency. This gives them ambition. Makes them choose things that are most important, hold more tightly to that which they hold dear...Their lives have seasons, and rites of passage, and consequences. And, ultimately, an end. But what of a life with no urgency? What then of ambition? What then of love?"
Seth Grahame-Smith

Reading like I'm 16 again

2010-08-04T09:33:00.005-05:00

We know I read a bunch of Young Adult Literature not only because it is fun, but in order to be a better (and more relevant) teacher. I've read three such works of late.

The Tequila Worm

At fist, I was like meh another coming of age novel broken into snippets for each chapter. However, after reading a few chapters I was struck with the heartfelt nature of the words. The book is about a young (and smart) girl from McAllen, Texas who is very close to her family. She gets an offer to attend a prestigious boarding school in Austin (aka FAR away) on scholarship. What should she do? Is leaving her family the right thing to do? What does she want her life to be like?

I may be biased as I lived in southern Texas, and the whole thing left me nostalgic. But more than that, reading this book made me remember that even at an early age (high school) we are already on the road to the adults we will become.

Amazon tells me it is for readers 5-8, but I think it is for anyone making a big decision in their life.

The Runaways

The Runaways can't be called a graphic novel. It is a straight up comic. In my mind, graphic novels are art and comics are fun. And this was. Imagine a bunch of mutant/alien/super power adults who have formed a yet to be determined if they are good or evil group. They have infiltrated every level of society with informants. Oh, and they sacrificed a person. I think I'm going to vote evil.

Only their kids walked in on the sacrifice. They obviously run away from person killing parents. Oh and guess what - the kids have similar powers to their parents and cool gadgets (including a RAPTOR).

The illustrations were fine, but what was really fun was the storyline where a group of kids ranging from 5th grade to a 17 year old try to figure out who they are, and who their parents are, and who to trust, and oh yeah how to get food for themselves.

The Chocolate War

What's funny is of the bunch, this is supposed to be the "classic" YAL book. I loathe this book. It is only a tiny little thing that should take me an hour to read, but it took me over a month. Because over and over again I was disgusted with it.

It is the usual boys prep school blah blah lots of boys being mean to one boy (which I hate). Only it is really mean. Like Lord of the Flies mean. There is a 'gang' only it is white middle class boys so they are mainly a psychological warfare gang. They hand out 'assignments' to boys in the school who must complete them due to veiled threats.

*SPOILER (but you shouldn't read this book anyways, so it is moot)

There is also this whole chocolate sale thing that one boy (who lost his mother to cancer just a couple months before...come ON) is made to say no to. There are evil teachers who don't mind boys being tortured and team up with the gang. NOT COOL. But then when the assignment is over the boy continues to say no and it ends up with him being beaten up to a gym full of boys who paid to see the spectacle.

Oh and did I forget to mention that the only insertion of females into the plot is a girl they see at the bus stop (they never speak to her) that makes them put their hand down their pants and rub liberally. First I say EW and then I say why is this book a proponent of unhealthy sexual manifestations turning teenage girls in to sexual beings only as opposed to fellow people who should be respected and - I don't know - TALKED TO.

All in all, it is Lord of the Flies without the overarching societal implications.

"There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book."
Philip Pullman

I am my own riddle...Byatt's Possession

2010-07-12T16:18:00.010-05:00

I have colluded with Jabba to read and blog about A.S. Byatt's Possession, and when I say collude I mean email stalk her until she agreed to do blog book club.

I have seen the movie Possession (which I love) and have been meaning to read the book for a while. This presents an interesting situation: reading the book after watching the movie - will the movie ruin the book?

It should be noted I recently attempted (and failed) to read Byatt's latest - The Children's Book - as she went on so many tangents (and I love a good tangent) that there were more tangents than plot.

I was optimistic, though. How could I not be? I love the premise: two modern day academics delving into the mysterious and connected history of two Victorian poets who fell in love - and the couples are falling in love foils for each other, and who doesn't love a nice foil (tangents and foils...is this math class?). And I love Victorian literature - and Byatt seems to wish she was Victorian. Especially with sentences like this: "Did you not find it as strange as I did, that we should so immediately understand each other so well? For we did understand each other uncommonly well, did we not?"

Translation: I'm feelin' you, are you feelin' me? Circle yes or no.

And then - when talking about memorizing poetry - Byatt writes, "An odd phrase, 'by heart,' he would add, as though poems were stored in the bloodstream." Because...aren't they? Perhaps only for English majors.

But then, my love of the movie and poetry (which Byatt wrote herself - props - and begins many a chapter) only took me so far.

I began skipping the tangents. One of the main characters is writing stories about faeries? Pass. Let's get back to the main story.

And then I started not to like the characters. The male academic is boring and petty and is in a dead relationship which annoys me. The female academic is almost awesome, but not quite. I might be in a different place reading the book, than the naive romantic I was when watching the movie, but I'm upset that these selfish writers (and academics - remember the love foil) are hurting the people they have devoted their lives to for a tryst. And I just want to yell at them HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR PEOPLE AND END ONE THING BEFORE YOU BEGIN ANOTHER...

That being said, some of the writing is gorgeous. My favorite is when Christabel LaMotte (female poet) says of their love affair, "I shall never forget our shining progress towards one another. Never have I felt such a concentration of my entire being. I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed...did you not flame and I catch fire?"

My favorite character in the book, however, is the wife of the poet. She is quiet but strong, and not prone to flights of fancy like the others. She - the paragon of Victorian wife-liness - says, "I wanted to be a Poet and a Poem, and now I am neither...no one wishes a man to be a Poem. That young girl in her muslin was a poem...but I now think - it might have been better, might it not, to have held on to the desire to be a Poet?"

Well well, now THIS is interesting. If the poet represents men (the hero blah blah blah) and the poem women (the muse blah blah blah), what does it indicate if a woman who once thought she could be both poet and poem and then society was all 'nope muse prison box for you,' and who has been a successful muse (woman) is lamenting giving up her poet (masculine) yearnings? AND that Byatt has this truly provocative statement - for the time - come, not from the woman who proclaimed personal freedom and yet let herself be wooed by the flame of passion, but from the housewife. Touche Byatt.

I wanted to really love Possession - I wanted to get lost in the love stories - but now, what I really want is an editor to stand up to Byatt and just-say-no to the useless tangents and yes to the beautiful words, ideas, and poetry obscured by them.

Please?

*I'm secretly hoping that Jabba finds a way to get me on board with this novel...

"Who can endure to think of greedy hands furrowing through Dickens's desk for his private papers, for these records of personal sentiment that were his and his only - not meant for public consumption - though now those who will not reread his marvelous books with true care will sup up his so-called Life in his Letters."
A. S. Byatt

You win Kerourac

2010-06-30T13:32:00.004-05:00

I made it to page 139 of On the Road - which I think is a success as I only found 2 people who have actually read the book. If I had to describe On the Road in one word it would be: INDULGENT.

I'm not arguing that this style of "novel" didn't disrupt the literary status quo at the time and that was a positive thing. However, that does not make it quality literature and it does not make it something I need to read.

I prefer to leave On the Road where it should be: the book on everyone's to-read list because it makes them seem less yuppy-ish and yet never gets read.

My feminist bias also got in the way of reading this book for similar reasons as to why I boycott reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Regardless of the drugged out writing and the ignoring of grammar and the pointless blah-tangent-blahing and the hypocritical forging out into the country (but always with the option to mooch off the aunt for money)...I have extreme issues with Kerouac's treatment and description of women.

Examples? No problem.

Banging Chicks Schedule:
"There was always a schedule in Dean's life. 'The schedule is this: I came off work a half-hour ago. In that time Dean is balling Marylou at the hotel and gives me time to change and dress. At one sharp he rushes from Marylou to Camille - of course neither one of them knows what's going on - and bangs her once, giving me time to arrive at one-thirty. Then he comes out with me...Then at six he goes back to Marylou - and he's going to spend all day tomorrow running around to get the necessary papers for their divorce. Marylou's all for it, but she insists on banging in the interim. She says she loves him - so does Camille.'"

Disappointing virgins:
"She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing. She sighed into the dark."

The ruining of the word 'in':
Lee Ann took all her clothes off and lay down to sun herself...I watched her...I wanted to jump down from a mast and land right in her..."

Summation of the novel:
"It was a complete meaningless set of circumstances that made Dean come, and similarly I went off with him for no reason."

Change of sentiment...
"The truth of the matter is we don't understand our women; we blame on them and it's all our fault."

...but not change of deeds:
"We played catch with Marylou over the couch; she was no small doll either."

...really not changing any deeds, and the ruining of the word 'work':
"We're buddies aren't we...Finally he came out with it: he wanted me to work Marylou...I knew he wanted to see what Marylou was like with another man."

...but don't worry it's because of issues - I leave you to discern the metaphor:
"Only a guy who's spent five years in jail can go to such maniacal helpless extremes; beseeching at the portals of the soft source, mad with a completely physical realization of the origins of life-bliss; blindly seeking to return the way he came."

If I want to read meandering psychobabble filled texts, I'll stick with Anais Nin. Because at least she actually has meaning to her writing and calls the work what it is: A DIARY.

"I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
Kerourac