The Reading Challenge

at long last

2009-03-19T05:50:00.000-07:00

I announce the winner!!! It's only four months late....woops!

Here you go:

1st place: Andrea Williams
2nd place: Buffy Garber
3rd place: Natalie Rizzieri

The prizes are: first place gets any book of their choice (at my expense); second place gets a $20 at amazon.com (or any bookstore of their choice); third place gets $10 at amazon.com (or any bookstore of their choice).

Claim your prizes!!!

I Can Haz Winner?

2009-02-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

Tamie, man... being in Africa is no excuse. Winner. Me. Now.

Luvz n kizzes,

Phoenix

Journal of a Solitude, by May Sarton

2008-12-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

I read this book over months and months, reading one or two entries a day. T'was lovely. It's a journal she kept for one year, sometime in the 70s I think. She was a solitary writer, living alone in a house on the east coast. She reminded me a lot of myself, in ways in which I did not necessarily want to be reminded!!! But I liked the book a lot, and often was inspired to write after I read something she wrote. 208 pages.

Here are the books that Natalie has read!!!

2008-12-19T06:22:00.000-08:00

“Ararat” by Louise Gluck
“The Clerk’s Tale” by Spencer Reece
“Autobiography of Red” by Anne Carson
“Traveling in the Family” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
“ABCs of Reading” by Ezra Pound
“Crush” by Richard Siken
“Women Who Run with the Wolves” by Clarissa P. Estes
“A Room of One’s Own” by Viriginia Woolf
“A companion for Owls” by Maurice Manning
“Poems of George Trakl” tr by James Wright and Robert Bly
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
“American Women Poets in the 21st Century” ed Claudia Rankine
“A History of the Only War” by Christopher Davis
“The Skin I’m In” by Sharon Flake
“Spacecraft Voyager I” by Alice Oswald
“Fragment of a Head of a Queen” by Cate Marvin
“We Weep for our Strangeness” by Dennis Schmitz
“No Greater Love” by Mother Teresa
“Eros the Bittersweet” by Anne Carson
“Here All Dwell Free” by Gertrude Mueller Nelson
“Dreamsongs” by John Berryman
“Snow Country” by Yasunari Kawabata
“Walking Across Boundaries” by Russell M Linden
“Cuttlefish Bones” by Eugenio Montale
“Embryos and Idiots” by Larissa Szporluk
“The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane”
“About Night” by Dennis Schmitz
“Learning Human” by Les Murray
“Lament for a Son” by Nicholas Wolterstorff
“Beauty and Sadness” by Yasunari Kawabata
“Steppenwolf” by Hermen Hesse
“They Are Sleeping” by Joanna Klink
“The Book of Nightmares” by Galway Kinnell
“Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert
“Certain Women” by Madeleine L’Engle
“The Solace of Fierce Landscapes” by Belden Lane
“The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver
“Til We Have Faces” by CS Lewis
Books 2-4 of the “Chronicles of Narnia”
“Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry”
“Homeric Hymns” tr by Charles Boer
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” by Victor Hugo
“Collected Poems and Prose” by Mallarme
“The Triggering Town” by Richard Hugo
“Noonday Demon” by Andrew Solomon
“As I Lay Dying” by W. Faulkner
“Decreation” by Anne Carson
“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman
“Radical Wisdom” by Beverly Lanzetta
“The Poetics of Space” by G. Bachelard
“The Seeker” by Nelly Sachs
“Collected Poems” by Czeslaw Milosz
“Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James
“News of the Universe” ed Robert Bly
“Monkey” by Wu Ch’Eng-En
“The Tree Pillars of Zen”
“Native Guard” by Natasha Tretheway
“Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg
“Collected Poems” by Rimbaud
“Worshipful Company of Fletchers” by James Tate
“Journal of a Solitude” by May Sarton
“My Alexandria” by Mark Doty
“Complete Poems” by Marianne Moore
“The Flexible Lyric” by Ellen Bryant Voigt
“Ahab’s Wife” by Sena Jeter Naslund
“Walk with Jesus” by Henri Nouwen
“Mists of Avalon” by Marion Bradley

total pages: 15,547

Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer

2008-12-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

This book certainly goes on the "Best Books I've Read" list. It's hilarious, gorgeously written, unflinchingly true. It's about....the Holocaust, if you had to just say one thing it's about....but within that, it's about friendship, love, betrayal, forgiveness, evil, death....I highly recommend it! 276 pages.

Tamie

Waking, by Matthew Sanford

2008-12-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is a memoir of a man who was in a car accident at age 13 and became paralyzed from the chest down. At the age of 25, he started practicing yoga, and eventually became a yoga teacher! It's not the best-written book on the planet, but it sure is an interesting story, and was especially fascinating to me since I want to teach yoga. 253 pgs.

Tamie

Whew -- Intense Stuff

2008-11-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

Right Behind You by Gail Giles

Man, this was good. Young adult fiction about a teenager, who, when he was 9 yo, set another child on fire. He spends several years in a juvenile ward and then had to move to another state because of how angry the community was. Really really good stuff. How do you forgive yourself? How do you define a good/bad person? What is forgiveness/redemption? Yep. I liked it. 292 pages

Buffy

The End of the Year Approaches -- Where is everybody?

2008-11-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hurry Down Sunshine: A Memoir by Michael Greenberg
Very good memoir relating the author's (then) 15yo daughter suddenly starts showing bipolar behavior. Interesting to read a parent's perspective -- we so often try to figure out what we've done wrong. Also good to read the honest accounting of his relationship with his wife.
233 pages.

December by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop
Fiction about an 11yo girl who stops speaking. Good. Very interesting to read immediately after Hurry Down Sunshine.
239 pages.

The Little Book by Selden Edwards
Such good stuff. Wheeler Burden. living in 1988 San Francisco, suddenly & unexplicably finds himself in Vienna in 1897. Enter Freud, Mahler, and all kinds of other goodness. I liked it, if you couldn't tell. So many many intersections of people and events.

405 pages

The Black Tower
What really happened to Louis-Charles, the son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI? Great first sentence: "I'm a man of a certain age -- old enough to have been every kind of fool -- and I find to my surprise that the only counsel I have to pass on is this: Never let your name be found in a dead man's trousers." Lots of real historical characters in this one, too.

352 pages

The Book of Murder by Guillermo Martinez
short. author from argentina, translated from spanish. i liked it. "a chilling crime story in which the line between reality and deception has been erased" 215 pages.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Whew. So intense. First in a new young adult series. Sadly it was just published -- I'm ready for the next installment. from the book flap:

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown. But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. There is no quiet, no privacy, no room for secrets. Or is there? Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee -- whose thoughts Todd can hear, too, whether he wants to or not-- stumble upon an area of complete silence. Which is impossible. Prentisstown has been hiding something form him, a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee are suddenly running for their lives. But how can you feel when your pursuers can hear your every thought? And where can you run when there's nowhere to go?

479 pages

Buffy

the holy longing

2008-11-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

by Ronald Rolheiser

I wanted to really like this book, but I could only sort-of like it. The premise is that we all have a crazy and wild fire inside of us; what we do with that fire is our spirituality. The rest of the book is all about what we should do with the fire.

I love the premise! The rest of the book I found myself never fully trusting. There were parts that I underlined; there were parts I rolled my eyes at. I'm glad I read it, but I wish the author had done something different with his premise.

241 pages.

-Tamie

The Post-Birthday World & Child 44

2008-11-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

Man, did I like it. I want to say it hit me like a freight train, but that's too instant -- it was more like medicine I took that I didn't know would make me dizzy.... lots to think about for me -- in some ways, really related to my own life. It reminded me of Sliding Doors -- though part of what struck me about the pbw -- the part where it was a conscious decision on the main character's part that affected the path the rest of her life took -- is not present in sliding doors --- more of a "fate/timing" kind of thing...........

517 pages

by Tom Rob Smith

A good one -- not cheery, but good.... First few pages set in 1930s Soviet Union, rest of the book takes place in 1950's S. Union. From the book flap:

Quote:

The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty ... sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov.

When Leo begins to believe that a murderer is on the loose -- an impossibility in Stalin's Soviet Union, where there is no crime -- he quickly becomes one of the suspected ones.

Knocked out my desire to trust ANYONE for a while, I think.
Another first novel.

446 pages

Buffy

the translator

2008-11-02T05:26:00.000-08:00

I just finished The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur. I really "enjoyed" reading it, if you can enjoy reading a book about genocide. I would love to meet Daoud Hari, the author, whose heart is soft and wide open. Beautiful. For more of my thoughts on the book, go here.

-204 pages....from Tamie

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

2008-10-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

A meteor hits the moon and knocks it closer in orbit, messing with the earth's climate majorly (do you like my technical terminology?). Good stuff. The entire book is 16 year old Miranda's journal entries. I liked it. Definitely made me want to stockpile way more non-perishable food than we currently have. You'll like the few veiled references to President Bush.

337 pages.

Buffy

the history of love

2008-10-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

by Nicole Krauss

Ah, such a lovely book. She's married to Jonathan Safran Foer, and her writing style is definitely more similar to his than anyone else's I've read. The book is about........friendship, death, love, the Holocaust, books, deception......yeah, it's good. 255 pages.

Tamie

no, really, that's what it's about....

2008-10-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Whew -- long and intense. Been called a modern-day Hamlet -- set in Wisconsin -- with dogs. Yep. I was telling somebody about it the other day, speaking in Spanish, which is not my first language, and I'm pretty sure they thought I was just translating poorly. :)

566 pages.

Buffy

the sun shines

2008-09-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

I read the September issue of The Sun Magazine. I really liked all the Reader's Write writings on porches. 48 pages.

-Tamie

New England Excitement

2008-09-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

America America by Ethan Cain

Interesting story about politics in New York State in the early 70s and how it affected one man's life. A little hard for me to keep track of the three different time periods in which it took place. 458 pages.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

Almost finished with this one, takes place in modern-day Salem, Mass. I liked it...... (one thing I take away from it is how interesting it would be to live there today..) from Amazon:

In Barry's captivating debut, Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan. Barry excels at capturing the feel of smalltown life, and balances action with close looks at the characters' inner worlds. Her pacing and use of different perspectives show tremendous skill and will keep readers captivated all the way through. 390 pages.

Buffy

2008-09-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted in a while, but I promise I've been reading :)

I really wanted to share this book with you all out there. I checked it out of the library Saturday afternoon and as of Sunday night am 4/5ths of the way done. Though not finished, I feel confident recommending it to you all.

The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck

What I love about it: 1) gender pronoun equality 2) community as a tangible, realistic goal 3) makes me feel normally about my obsessive desire for community 4) even though it was published in 1987, it is completely relevant to today (maybe that is sad that we have the same problems 20 years later...)

So, that's not a very good summary. Here's what the dustcover says...In his profound and powerful new book, he challenges us to take another journey in self-awareness: to achieve, through the creative experience of community, a new "connectedness" and wholeness which, in turn, can be shared by all the peoples and nations of the world.

Has anyone read it? I would love to discuss! If you haven't, go get it now. Give it to your friends.

Reading Rocks!
-Michelle "Who knew such amazing stuff has been sitting on library shelves for my entire lifetime" McMillan

the hours

2008-09-07T07:25:00.001-07:00

Last night I finished The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. I highly recommend this book. It follows three story lines, each one day of the life in a woman, and the more you read the more you realize how interwoven they are. The first woman is Virginia Woolf--the day she started writing Mrs. Dalloway. The second woman is a woman named Laura who lives in the 50s. The second woman is Clarissa, whom her best friend calls Mrs. Dalloway--she lives in New York in the 90s. It's a beautifully written book, such amazing observations about being human. 226 pages.

-tamie

North Carolina and Sherlock Holmes and Oxygen

2008-09-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Back to Wando Passo by David Payne
I really liked this one -- in fact, several of us said we wish we'd had more discussion of it at book club (maybe we should have a second meeting to actually discuss the book) This was a re-read for me and I wasn't sure if it would strike me the same way the second time -- but it did.
It's such a complex storyline in some ways, I'm going to c & p from Amazon...

In this ambitious novel, Payne ( Gravesend Light, 2000) intertwines two troubled marriages--one contemporary and one from the 1860s--for a blend of history and suspense that deals with racism, slavery, miscegenation, incest, and voodoolike practices, as foreboding builds until the two stories intersect. At 45, former rock star Ransom "Ran" Hill, bipolar and off his meds, returns to his wife, Claire Delay, who took their children and left him five months earlier for her family home of Wando Passo, a former plantation south of Charleston. Although Ran desperately loves his wife of 19 years, Claire is making a new life with a new love, a story mirrored by the account of her ancestors that resurfaces when two skeletons are found on her property. Alternating chapters tell of Harlan Delay, who married Adie Huger to save himself from the sorrow and pain that ensued after his father brought home a black Cuban woman whom he loved but kept enslaved. Despite an occasional inconsistency or unanswered question, Payne handles this novel of love, loss, and betrayal deftly.

435 pages

The Moor by Laurie R. King
Another in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. This one returns to the scene of an actual Holmes story -- The Hound of the Baskervilles. I keep enjoying them. 297 pages.

Oxygen by Carol Cassella
This was good stuff -- I kept stopping to say to DH "This is a really good book". part of it, for me, was just the fact that it centers on a career I (and I think many people) know little about -- anesthesiology. Main character is an anesthesiologist in Seattle when something goes wrong in a surgery. That is the main plot, but her relationships with her sister and aging father are also involved. Yep, really really interesting stuff -- heartbreaking at times-- and I feel like I know a bit more about what it would be like to be an anesthesiologist. 288 pages.

Buffy in Denver

so many aurelianos

2008-08-31T16:57:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What can I even say about this book? It is magical realism. It is extraordinary. I think it will become part of the mythology that I live with, understand life through. Every page has sentences that amaze. It is like reading Spanish poetry. Perhaps because it is Spanish poetry. I would love to read it again. But oh man, when 20 characters share the name Aureliano, and about 7 other characters share the name Jose Arcadio....well comrades, it does get confusing here and there. 383 pages.

two more before we move in 5 hours!

2008-08-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace

Nonfiction -- interesting. (but I kept over-using the word "vintage" in normal, un-wine related conversation. 282 pages

#105 The Rain Before It Falls by Jonathan Coe
Interesting story about 3 generations of women set largely in England. 240 pages.

Buffy in Denver

This month's Sun

2008-08-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

...made me want to find a local bank.

48 pages.

By the way, we are moving tomorrow and I'm not sure if we will have internet access anymore or not. So if you don't see me around much; that's why.

~Buffy in Denver

The Condition

2008-08-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Condition by Jennifer Haigh

Good stuff -- at the beginning it was "just a story" to me (though that phrase sort of makes me cringe as I find value in story) but still interesting and good. But at the end it was one of those books that makes me think, "Hey, I'm an okay person, life is good, embrace life, embrace others, be more loving, be more open about your love, it's okay to start over, just keep trying, other people are flawed but good, be good to them, be good to yourself. Life is both short and long, treasure both aspects." Mind, I'm not promising you that it would affect everyone this way.

I'd say more, but Fiona is desperate for a sandwich.

390 pages

Buffy in Denver

The Lady Elizabeth

2008-08-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
The author is a historian who has written several historical biographies -- I believe this is her second novel, I read the one about Jane Grey recently. I think I've finally hit the point where I've read enough novels and non-fiction about British royalty that I'm (just) starting to be able remember who they all are and how they relate to each other.... 477 pages

Buffy in Denver

girl meets god

2008-08-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

I have been reading this book for weeks. It's called Girl Meets God, and it's by Lauren Winner, whom I met at a conference in June. It's about how she converted to Orthodox Judaism, and then she converted to Christianity. It's about God and loss and sorrow and redemption. To be honest, I found the book kind of boring much of the time. But when I got to the last few chapters I was so moved that suddenly, unexpectedly, the whole book was worth reading. I'm really glad I stuck it out. 296 pages.

Yay for fun mysteries!

2008-08-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King

Another of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries -- the second in the series. I am really enjoying these -- they're quite intelligent -- and it's fun to know that there are several more before I run out. 336 pages.

Buffy

pieces & portions

2008-08-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's my reading total for the moment:

July issue of the Sun. Oh man. David James Duncan has a piece in there that cuts straight to the heart. To the soul. To the bone. 48 pages.

When God is Silent, by Barbara Brown Taylor. It's 3 essays, about the silence of God. If you are interested in God's abandonment or the silence of God, I definitely recommend this book. 121 pages.

And now: pieces. I often read one chapter/essay from a book, but don't read the whole book. So I've decided to start keeping track of that kind of reading. :)

"Homosexuality and the Bible" by Walter Wink. 16 pages.
"Her Last Hours" by Nora Gallagher. 9 pages.
"Leaving Myself Behind" by Barabara Brown Taylor. 6 pages.

Yippee, Byron's Back!

2008-07-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

Wow, some good books, Byron! I'm afraid I've been reading a lot of fluff in comparison!

Just finished:

Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey by Alison Weir
Historical fiction about the British royalty a la Philippa Gregory (apologies to the author who is probably tired of that comparison). Viewpoint shifts throughout the book. I liked it. 402 pages.

Rumors by Anna Godbersen
The second in the Luxe series. Set largely in Manhattan in 1899. I liked it and the last 100 pages or so were really engrossing -- you are pretty sure one bad thing is going to happen, but you (or at least I) thought the other was going to be okay.... young adult fiction. 423 pages.

What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
I liked this one. Set in England in the 80's and more or less now. a young girl father dies soon after giving her a book on how to be a detective. She begins to watch/shadow people in her neighborhood and at the new nearby mall. She has a friendship with a young man in her neighborhood and when she disappears, he is suspected. A first novel. 246 pages.

The Sun, July 2008.
Read this while waiting for jury duty. Now I need to get to the August one! 48 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Another post by Byron

2008-07-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

I read the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
which was great but quite a bit sad (216)

Wobegon Boy by Garrison Keillor
Which was actually much better than I was expecting. I generally get bored
listening to him ramble on the radio. I think it works much better in print (320)

The Trial by Franz Kafka,
This was great, I think it might be famous so I won't go on about what it's about,
but he really nailed that feeling where things seem to happen for no reason (at least that you know about) but profoundly affect your life, that feeling of not being in control at all (292)

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I've been wanting to read this for awhile. It's wonderful. I didn't really realize this before I read it, but it's autobiographical, which is always neet. (289)

Slaughterhous Five by Kurt Vonnegut
I've read this before, and it was just as good the second time. (215)

The Things they carried - Tim O'Brien
This is a group of stories that the author wrote about his time in Vietnam using both personal experiences and those of his friends. I liked it so much I've started on another book of his.

I hope all are doing well, take care

Byron

Anyone else going to join in this month?

2008-07-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

A Colder Kind of Death by Gail Bowen
Another of the mystery series set in Canada/Regina. I like them -- just enough actual substance that I don't feel like I'm reading total fluff, too.
217 pages

Money Changes Everything: 22 Writers Tackle the Last Taboo with Tales of Sudden Windfalls, Staggering Debts, and Other Surprising Turns of Fortune edited by Jenny Offill & Elissa Schappell
Interesting essays. Just a warning. Don't spend 4 days in a row looking on Craigslist for a apartment you can afford while also reading this book and then go to a party in an enormous two story house with a lovely finished basement where the people are talking about their iphones and how their kids have way too much stuff -- it may leave you over analyzing your place in this world. 283 pages

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
The first in a mystery series about a young girl who meets and develops a friendship with Sherlock Holmes. I liked it and the next two are waiting for me at the library. 405 pages.

Buffy in Denver

East Coast Novels

2008-07-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Palace Council by Stephen L. Carter
I like his books. This one is set over a 20 year period, give or take a few years, starting in 1952. Lots of politics.
One thing about this book (and I think it's unusual for me to think about a book this critically (in the neutral sense of the word) so it must have been a big deal) is that he kept referencing the fact that it was taken place in the past ("Harlem in those days" kind of things) -- maybe because this is his first place that doesn't take place "today"?
I'm writing this quickly as Jeremy needs the computer, so I may not be making any sense at all.....:p 514 pages

The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant
for book club tomorrow night. rich in characters. by the author of The Red Tent. Set in a tiny town in Massachusetts in the early 1800s. 263 pages

Buffy

Four more before we leave to housesit

2008-07-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Sort of a mystery. I like stories where seemingly unrelated characters are actually connected. 310 pages.

Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel
I think this has been getting a fair bit of press. Young reporter at the NY Times discovers the diary of a young woman living in Manhattan's Upper West Side in the 1930's. fairly interesting. 321 pages.

#90 Ever by Gail Carson Levine
Not nearly as compelling as it could have been. Some interesting takes on various conceptions of God. By the author of Ella Enchanted. 244 pages.

#91 The Wandering Soul Murders by Gail Bowen
another in the mystery series set in Canada I've been reading. I like them. 207 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Just you and me this month, Tam.

2008-07-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project by Dave Isay
What an interesting book. Some of you may have listened to StoryCorps interviews on NPR. This was my first experience with them and it was fascinating.
www.storycorps.net 270 pages.

Buffy in Denver

another sun down

2008-07-09T09:02:00.001-07:00

I read June's issue of The Sun. I really really appreciated the interview with Edward Tick, about how the US is failing its returning soldiers (and how it could help them, if it chose to). 48 pages.

-Tamie

Sausage Dogs and Delayed Planes

2008-07-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith
the middle book in the little trilogy by the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Very short. Funny, especially if you know at all about the world of academia (or care enough to imagine). I liked this one better than the first. There were several parts I read aloud to DH. 128 pages

Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
Another fairly short one. Author's first novel, I believe. Bennie Ford (53 years old) is on the way to his estranged daughter's commitment ceremony when his flight is delayed and he is stuck at O'Hare. An angry letter to the airline turns into a recitation of his life story interspersed with excerpts of the novel Ford is translating from the original Polish. Interesting.... 180 pages

Buffy in Denver

And the first four for July

2008-07-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Three middle grade books:

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
reminded me of Stargirl a bit -- just in the whole newcomer-who-is-so-different-from-'us' way. I liked it. Title comes from the Emily Dickinson poem about hope. 118 pages

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
I liked The Watsons Go to Birmingham (by the same author) more, but this was good. (and I still managed to cry at the end). Buxton is an actual town/community in Canada where freed and escaped slaves lived. Elijah is the first child born free in the community. A good historical novel for middle grades. 341 pages

Cicada Summer by Andrea Beatty
I think it's important for me to remember that this is juvenile literature (not young adult) and judge it on that basis. Clever writing, fun characters. Main character hasn't spoken since her brother's death, new girl comes to town.... 167 pages.

And an adult book that my library classed as sci-fi

The Man Who Turned Into Himself by David Ambrose
Loved it. I'm totally a "what if?" kind of person (as in I really like the movie Sliding Doors) and I think that is a lot of why I loved this book. It's based on the "many worlds" theory of quantum physics.
Rick Hamilton is in a middle when he suddenly feels that his wife is going to die. He arrives at the scene of the accident as she is dying. He closes his eyes in grief and when he opens them she is alive, though it's a slightly different accident and he is a slightly different person. (and they suddenly have no child.) Really good stuff, in my opinion. 197 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Five more for June

2008-06-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
by the author of Omnivore's Dilemma. His basic points -- Eat food (ie, actual food, not food product). Not too much. Mostly plants. Good stuff. 205 pages

What I Was by Meg Rosoff
meh. this was okay -- tells of the friendship between two boys in 1960's Britain, one who lives alone in a hut by the sea, one in a boarding school. Didn't really draw me in. 209 pages

The 10 Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
The story of four different women as they enter their late 30s (?). was okay. Deals quite a bit with motherhood/career/marriage issues. 351 pages.

The Translator by Daoud Hari
Author is a tribesman from Dafur. Excellent stuff, tells of his experiences living in Darfur and elsewhere and translating for reporters in the area. 204 pages.

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
This is the fourth book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I know some people are getting tired of them, but I'm still really enjoying them. Percy is a young teen (in this one it's the summer before his 15th birthday.) who is a demi-god (his father is Poseidon). I like the author's humor and just enjoy them. They are quick reads for me. 361 pages.

Buffy

Books I'm taking back to the library today...

2008-06-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Funny. Greek gods living in a London townhouse, losing their powers. 292 pages

Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason by Alfie Kohn
Love it. I think everyone should read it, whether you have children or not (it'll help you have a different perspective on children you see in public spaces. Talks about working with children instead of doing to them. 221 pages.

Buffy

sex sex sex

2008-06-16T21:14:00.001-07:00

Finally I am done with this wretched book. It's called Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity, by Lauren Winner. I picked it up because she is one of the teachers at a writers' workshop I'm attending next week. But, wow. It's a book about chastity, and how sex outside of marriage is a sin. It's been really frustrating, not to mention dry/boring, reading. But I prevailed, because I wanted to be able to count my pages on this blog. :) I think that the hard thing is that she has some really insightful things to say about sexuality, but they're mixed in with some (in my opinion) really ridiculous statements, like that it's scandalous that college-age men walk around campus with their shirts off, or that she finds it shameful that professors teach wearing jeans. Come ON. Sigh. I would like someone to write about sexuality from a Christian-progessive viewpoint. That would be rad. 161 pages.

-Tamie

changing light

2008-06-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Changing Light, by Nora Gallagher, is a book set in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the 1940s. I'm not sure what you'd say the theme of the book is, but several of the main characters are involved with building the atomic bomb. There is also a love story, interactions with indigenous people, and an Episcopal priest. I like books that are set in places I identify with--and New Mexico is Arizona's neighbor. There's really so much culture here. Also, the Episcopal stuff. It's a good book. 223 pages.

-tamie

A quick post before we leave to camp with 40 other people

2008-06-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Murder at the Mendel by Gail Bowen
another in the mystery series set in Saskatchewan fairly intelligent stuff -- not total fluff.
213 pages

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander
Wander was a survivor of more than 20 concentration camps. This is a novel that is loosely based on his experiences.
155 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Cedimus

2008-06-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

All right, folks. I read. A lot. But when one is intimately involved in a doctoral program, one's energies in cataloging and enumerating can only go so far.

I hereby bequeath my pages to the magic of the Internet, relinquish my claim to the most-read person on this blog, and encourage reading of most kinds. May the most obsessed reader win.

Jeremy, bowing out

anne lamott

2008-06-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott. This is part of her faith series, which includes Traveling Mercies and Plan B. I really like these books. They are all basically essays about her life, about her son, her deceased parents, her church, her dog...and how her plain old life interacts with her faith and with God. She has had quite the life, and she is very real and very honest, and when I read her stuff it makes me feel not-alone. 253 pages.

-Tamie

the sun and MLK

2008-06-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

what tamie said. (except June)48 pages.

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America by Michael Eric Dyson

Really good stuff. Talks about how MLK talked about death before he died. The author gives Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama each their own chapter. The afterword is the author's imagining of an interview with MLK on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Very interesting book. 273 pages.

Buffy

the sun

2008-06-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

If you do not subscribe to The Sun Magazine, you should rectify this problem immediately. May 2008 issue: 48 pages.

-Tamie

Whew, snuck back in just in time. :)

2008-06-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Last one (so far) in the Outlander series. So ya'all can stop hearing about them from me til next year, I think.... 980 pages

Resistance by Owen Sheers
Author's first novel. An alternate history of post-WWII, if Germany had won, set in the hills of Wales. 306 pages

Deadly Appearances by Gail Bowen

mystery series set in Saskatchewan. 267 pages

Welcome back Phoenix, and welcome Byron -- we like Terry Pratchett around here, too.

~Buffy in Denver

My first post ever on a blog!

2008-06-02T10:49:00.001-07:00

Well, here's my list of books that i've read so far,
I'm not sure if i'm doing this right, but here we go,

My aunt sent me some sort of fantasy books that were pretty entertaining,
they were: Sourcery (260 pages), The Light Fantastic (241 pages) and The Color of Magic (210 pages) all by Terry Pratchett

I've recently got on a John Steinbeck kick so I've read the following of his:
Travels with Charley in search of America (232 pages)
Tortilla Flat ( 198 pages)
East of Eden (625 pages) this was a great book
and Sweet Thursday (260 pages) this is a sequel to Steinbeck's great Cannery Row

Also I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, for some reason I'd been resisting reading it for awhile, but my mother in law and my brother both sent it to me to read, so I thought that I might as well, it was a lot better than I thought it would be, and I'd recommend it (207 pages)

I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (around 160 pages) It was a great novel about the life and how that life changed of an African man in West Africa at the on set of colonialism

I re-read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (272 pages) and it was still really funny.

That's all I've been reading, but I'm working on a few more, so I'll write those up later
My total number of pages so far is 2665

Byron Ripley

Absence makes the heart grow abscessed...

2008-06-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Forgive my recent and total absence from this lovely project. Just popped on to update-- mine eyes must be failing me-- I can't be in the LEAD! Probably Jeremy and Buffy haven't updated yet for this month. Yes, that must be it. I'm surprised they haven't entered their daughter into this contest yet... she'd probably be beating the pants off all of us.

Tamie, I was sad to read your review of The Unprocessed Child, a book I've been looking forward to reading for a long time. I still plan to read it, but how sad is it that people can take such good ideas and make them into such negative commentaries on Everything Else? Narrow-mindedness is the Devil's friend (Nietsche. Or, you know, Phoenix.)

Anyway, I'm sad to say I've read very few new books in the past month. I've been trying to keep my spending to a minimum, and so I haven't bought new books and I only just took out a library membership (I know, I know *slaps own hand*). And the new books I have read, well, they haven't exactly been much good, or very interesting to write about. Many have had to do with starting a nonprofit company, and all the little details thereof.

Oh, on that note and speaking of unschooling-- I might as well plug my own project here. My dear friend Bryan and I have decided to start an unschool of our own-- a community learning center in which children can learn at their own pace, in their own way, and where we act as mere facilitators to education. We won't be teachers, and we won't be police. We'll simply be there to help the kids learn in whatever way would most benefit them, and we plan on giving the students a lot of control over their own education.

This is a new idea, and a long way from being operational but the pair of us plan to move next year to a location to be named later to start our unschool. Until then, it's planning by phone and email (he lives in San Francisco and I live in New York and we both have real jobs and all that, so we're not making progress quite as quickly as I'd like, but that'll change next year when we move to our new state and really dig into this). We have started a blog (www.unschooledcenter.blogspot.com) in which to write down our thoughts and hopefully, when the time is right, spread the word. It only has two posts so far because Bryan and I have both been very busy, but I hope you'll check in from time to time!

Anyway, I can recommend a few books, if you haven't read them yet. Lately, I've been very curious about the Holocaust and some of the books we're always hearing about but that I hadn't read yet. I give you:

The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, Ellen Feldman
This is fiction, but it's a very convincing fictional account of what might have happened to Peter van Pels had he been allowed to live, come to America, and start over. Very gripping, very honest, and so authentic sounding that I had to remind myself more than once that I wasn't reading the real man's words. I think it is a very good tribute to what happened, and shows as much depth of understanding as anyone who has not been through such an obscenity could ever hope to possess.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Obviously, I also have to recommend this book. I had never read it before, not even in high school. No words, really. Just... read it.

Schindler's List
I had never seen the movie and I'm not all the way through the book so I'll let you know more of my thoughts on this one when I've finished with it. But it's very good so far. I can't imagine not recommending it when I'm through.

I hope everyone is doing well.

-Phoenix

the poisonwood bible

2008-05-30T04:29:00.001-07:00

Last night I finished The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. Goodness. Here's a quote for you, from the very end: "We constructed our lives around a misunderstanding, and if I ever tried to pull it out and fix it now I would fall down flat. Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization." The book is historical fiction, about a white Southern Baptist missionary family living in the Congo (Zaire) in the late 50s, early 60s. They came to bring salvation to the poor black natives...and they encounter a world that doesn't bend to their white, Christian ways. The story is told from the perspective of the family's four daughters. It's beautifully written, poetry through so much of it. It is sad, so much of it. But as usual with Kingsolver, once you finish the book you realize just how much redemption there was all through the story--it's just different redemption from what you expect. 543 pages.

-Tamie

more from Buffy

2008-05-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith 128 pages

Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon 979 pages

Kaline Klattermaster's Tree House by Haven Kimmel 152 pages
This was a fun, short chapter book (inside flap says ages 7-12) by the author of A Girl Named Zippy. Deals with imagination, divorce, and in a vague way, learning styles.

Sunny Nancy Drew (or, The Sun Y Nancy Drew)

2008-05-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
This was a read for book club tonight. You definitely weren't tricked into thinking you were reading fiction, if you know what I mean, but it was interesting. And there was a really broad scope of history -- especially literature/women's roles in WWI and WWII, suffrage, and the feminist movement. 317 pages

May 2008 Sun Man, I love this stuff! 48 pages.

Buffy in Denver

post #70! The Unprocessed Child

2008-05-19T17:30:00.001-07:00

Today I finished The Unprocessed Child, by Valerie Fitzenreiter. 241 pages.

As some of you will remember, this book was recommended on this very blog, so I immediately bought it, being quite interested in the subject. It's one woman's account of raising her daughter without schooling her at all. She didn't homeschool; she simply did not force any kind of curriculum or education, whatsoever, onto her child. Overall, I'm glad that I read it. It helped me think about childhood and schooling in ways I really hadn't thought about before.

Here is one really key quote: "The true aim of school seems to be conformity rather than learning." Yep, so true. She talks about how schooling coerces and manipulates and bullies children into "learning" things that they don't care about, thus ensuring that children associate learning with boredom, fear, and manipulation. Fitzenreiter believes that children are naturally curious and intelligent, and will learn whatever they need to learn, when they want and need to learn it. If you allow them to do whatever they want, they will investigate the world, they'll play and use their imaginations and experience lots of joy and peace in childhood. She uses her own daughter as an example of the truth of this theory. (Her daughter went straight from 18 years of being unschooled into college, where she earned a 4.0.)

She addresses many issues that may arise when parenting a child this way. She talks about bedtimes (they didn't have any set bedtime; her daughter simply went to sleep when she was tired, thus learning to listen to her body and natural rhythms); about discipline (there were very few rules, and certainly no discipline); about emotions, friendship, honesty, sexuality, and socialization, among a whole host of other issues. Overall, I found myself agreeing with her, and being amazed that more people haven't thought of this sort of thing earlier. It's clear that children and parents are both miserable with the way things are, but no one realizes that things truly could be different.

But, I just can't give this book a 100% favorable review. For one thing, after a couple chapters she really really starts to sound quite self-righteous. By the end of the book, I was quite turned-off by her better-parent-than-thou attitude. Parents don't want to be berated or belittled any more than children do. I think that the vast majority of parents are doing their absolute best to raise their children, and maybe they're not doing the best that could be done, but they are doing their individual best, and they need encouragement and praise for their efforts if nothing else.

Another thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was that she built up her opponents (school teachers for example) totally as strawpeople, and then burned them to the ground. Her assessment of the folks she disagreed with was totally unfair, and often inarticulate. This is truly unfortunate because she had some legitimate criticisms, but they were unsophisticated and just came off sounding uninformed. In general, in fact, she had done almost no research, and it sounded like she was basing her entire argument on her single experience with her single child. I really felt like she'd have convinced her readership SO much more if she'd have just told her story, in memoir-form perhaps, instead of preaching and haranguing. Because she was basing her argument for unschooling just on her own experience, she didn't seem to really take into account single-parent families, or impoverished families, or any number of other circumstances that I myself haven't thought of. Again, this is unfortunate because I'm sure that there are important and sophisticated arguments to be made for unschooling, that can work across the whole spectrum of cultures and socio-economic situations.

Overall what I would say is: investigate unschooling. It's an incredibly important idea. But read this book with a pinch of salt. Or whatever the expression is.

Peace! ~Tamie

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

2008-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Laura David and Janis Keyser

I liked this book a lot. There were a few things that didn't jive with me -- I think mostly sleep stuff and the fact that I don't think time outs are the absolute best tactic... But in general, it's a great read. It's sort of set up like a textbook, as far as questions for reflection at the end of each chapter, divided into smaller sections, etc. Good stuff. 415 pages.

Buffy in Denver

I promise, I've got a non-fiction one to post soon.

2008-05-13T04:07:00.000-07:00

Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark
An excellent example of where I go for my trash reading. A woman's brother disappeared 10 years ago, when he was 21, but calls their mother every year on Mother's Day. She determines to find him and in the process, the police begin to suspect that he is involved with a series of murders that have taken place during his disappearance. I wish I could make it sound more high-brow than that, but there you have it. 289 pages

The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang
the first in a new mystery series -- been billed as China's answer to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency -- maybe that's why it was just okay for me. Probably won't pursue the rest in the series, but I did get a good quote from it:

All I'm saying is that sometimes being part of something painful is in fact what helps us to survive. It helps us go on with our lives.

256 pages.

The Outcast by Sadie Jones 345 pages

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary 158 pages

Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell
interesting fiction about a teacher from Ohio who goes to the middle east after WWI and becomes acquainted with T.E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill. Part of the author's point is how much of our present comes from our past (generally of course, but specifically with regard to world history.) 249 pages

April edition of The Sun
Mentioned by Tamie previously. 48 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Cats and Kite Runners

2008-05-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (368 pages) - A hilarious young adult book about a cat and a bunch of rats who eat something that turns them into "people", that is they have thoughts and are self-aware. Includes a cat's reflection on his conscious, rat theology, and a stupid-looking boy.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (400 pages) - An intense book about a boy who grows up in Afghanistan then moves to America when his country goes to the Taliban. He packs a lot into 400 pages. Please read this one so I can talk to you about it...

-Michelle

where the red fern grows

2008-05-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

Aaron recommended this book to me. It was good, sad. I'm sure most people have read it, but I hadn't yet. Thanks for the rec., Aaron. 212 pages. -Tamie

Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss

2008-05-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss

So I'm leaving for Alaska in two days. I'll be salmon fishing from 11 May to 11 October under the lash of Tamie's uncles. In order to prepare for this ordeal, I decided to read a book about Alaska. It was recommended to me by one of my coworkers in Flagstaff. Thank-you Daniel Becker.

Joe McGinniss is an NYC journalist who decides to travel around Alaska for a year in the late 1970's. He starts in the middle of winter on a ferry sailing from Seattle up along the coast toward the Alaskan panhandle. To put it mildly, it seems like everyone on the ferry aside from the author, is a stark-craving lunatic. But they are also very vivacious people. His ferry ride sets the scene for what will become a never-ending series of meetings with very eccentric people living in a very eccentric climate. McGinniss travels via plane, boat, car, foot and train all over the Alaskan wilds, from Barrow to Nome, to Juneau, to Anchorage, to Valdez, to Fairbanks and to Mt. McKinley - the tallest peak in North America.

The book reads like a highly polished travel journal and could be picked up and started, without much loss of understanding, in the middle of the book. The writing style is similar to Michael Perry's Truck: A Love Story. for those have read or heard of this book about small-town life in northern Wisconsin. McGinniss mixes humor, description, casual conversation with locals, and irony in his writings. Perhaps it is tinged with a bit of exaggeration, but this, if it does occurr, only adds to the reading pleasure. Going to Extremes is an entertaining and informative read about what makes Alaskans tick - whether it be the search for personal freedom or a get-rick-quick mentality that so often goes hand in hand with the economy surrounding the then recently built Trans-Alaskan Oil Pipeline. The only chapter that falls short is the dragging final chapter, when McGinniss backpacks through the Brooks Mountain Range with some US Park Service employees. He is clearly awestruck by the ruggedness and beauty of this faraway land, but his attempt to translate this to prose results in him repeatedly sounding like a broken record in regards to his descriptions of his majestic surroundings. I really enjoyed this book, but the last chapter could have been both shortened and reworked. (285 pages). (Reviewed by Rob Jach).

A restful book, in some ways

2008-05-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda

An internet friend read this and said I would like it -- I did. Translated from French. Perfect combination of hard lives/struggle with hope and fun. A good message for me right now. Camille, a talented artist exhausted by ennui and anorexia, cleans offices at night and cowers in a shabby garret by day. Philibert, the fastidious scion of a titled family, peddles museum postcards while squatting in his dead grandmother's Parisian manse, waiting for her estate to be settled. Philibert's roommate, Franck, a talented (and womanizing) chef with ambition to burn, motorcycles once a week to look in on his stubborn, ailing grandmother Paulette, an "inmate" at a retirement home. (Italics from Amazon).
488 pages

Buffy in Denver

their eyes were watching god

2008-05-06T14:50:00.001-07:00

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston.

It's a book about a black woman, set in the South in the 1930s. It's about her life, her 3 marriages, her journey from object to subject. For most of her life she is owned, is the possession of her husband. But when she meets Tea Cake, her third husband, this all changes. There is great freedom and love and joy between them, and she becomes her own distinct person. Almost the whole book is written in dialect, which takes a little getting used to, but once you get used to it, you realize how necessary it is. I'm glad I read this book. 193 pages.

-Tamie

Where are all the May posters?

2008-05-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Tam, I have two Suns sitting here that I really want to read -- but I keep reading books instead --you and I have the opposite problem, it seems. :)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Interesting -- sort of a collection of short stories -- but the same person, Olive Kitteridge, appears in all of them, at various points in her own life, whether as the/a main character, or someone briefly glimpsed and discussed in the audience at a play. 270 pages

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan
Wow -- this was a pretty intense one. Set in the Jim Crow south after WWII. Main characters are two white brothers (the younger has just returned from the war, the older owns a farm and lives there with his wife), their father, the wife, a black couple who are their tenants on the farm and their son who has just returned from the war. Each chapter is told by one of these characters. 324 pages.

~Buffy in Denver

last one for april & first one for may

2008-05-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Dance of Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
I feel like this had more to say to me this time than it did 3-5 years ago, when I first read it. 228 pages.

Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani
Interesting. Canadian woman (Georgie), born on same date as Queen Elizabeth, is invited to her (their) 80th birthday party at Buckingham Palace. Georgie crashes her car into a ravine on the way to the airport to go to the party. Entire story (after first 8 pages) are Georgie's thoughts as she lies, severely injured, in the ravine. 283 pages.

Buffy in Denver

read another magazine

2008-04-28T08:58:00.001-07:00

Okay people, the thing is that I do read books, just slowly and distractedly and I have a hard time finishing them. In the meantime, I read the April issue of The Sun. My favorite part was the interview with Connie Rice, who works with cops and gangs in LA to reduce violence. It was an intriguing and inspiring interview. 48 pages.

-Tamie

Books I've Read While Housesitting

2008-04-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz second in a series. i think they are fun. (409 pages)
All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka good. (272 pages)
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah Good Story -- follows two women from the start of their friendship in 1974 (as 14 year olds) into the 21st century. I cried several times. Tam, I thought of you constantly while I was reading this -- partly simply because of the span of their relationship -- and thought how lucky you and I are.(479 pages)
Also started but didn't finish The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra (82 pages)
Buffy in Denver

These are the books I've read

2008-04-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

"Whitethorn Woods" by Maeve Binchy (449 pages)
"Vargtimmen" by Denise Mina (358)
"mig äger ingen" by Åsa Linderborg (294)
"Växa och upptäcka världen-sju utvecklingssprång under barnets första levnadsår" by Hetty van de Rijt & Frans X. Plooij (263)

For the record, these are the books I've read. :) /Anna

Catching Up

2008-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

Jeremy here. I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to post, so I wanted to at least get title, numbers, a one-sentence description, and a review up before I forget them all.

1. Queen of Dreams, Chita Divakaruni. The second-generation daughter of Indian parents struggles with her mother's apparent divinatory powers, her divorce and with her thirteen-year-old daughter, and post 9/11 reconceptions of what it means to be an American. Well-written and insightful but with an unsatisfyingly abrupt and arbitrary ending. 352 pgs.

2. Duma Key, Stephen King. After a construction accident, an ordinary middle-class guy relocates to a mysterious Florida Key and realizes the power for his art to affect reality. An interesting premise, and some heart-stopping moments around page 400 or so, but we'll say 592 pages could have been 200 easily. Once you get famous, evidently you don't need an editor anymore.

3. All Shall Be Well, All Shall Be Well, All Manner of Things Shall Be Well, Tod Wodicka. A wonderful and quirky book about a man who embraces living in the medieval period as much as possible - we learn why as the book unfolds. Hildegard von Bingen, homemade mead, ethnic identity, and freeform jazz. Read it. 272 pgs.

4. People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks. I realize that if a book has anything to do with religion in any tangential way, I can justify it as research. I've actually recommended this one to several of my textual criticism friends - the main character is a book conservator dealing with the (historically real) Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book illuminated in a curiously Christian manner and saved during World War II by a Muslim curator. As she finds relevant artifacts in the book (a bloodstain, a butterfly wing), short stories within the text reveal more of the book's history and its constant interconnection with these three monotheistic faiths. Very nice - and it can go in my bibliography somewhere. 384 pgs.

5. Capote in Kansas, Kim Powers. Buffy asked me whether she should read this book, and I didn't have an answer. It's strange in a way that invites me to sit down and think about it more so that I can answer that question meaningfully, but I'm not likely to do so. Maybe one of you should. At any rate, it explores the fact that Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Truman Capote, the author of In Cold Blood, grew up as friends in the same town, and the influence they may have had on each other's work, as well as issues of their sexuality, of death, o race, poverty and violence. All the great themes here, folks - read it and perhaps we can have a conversation. 304 pgs.

And for my theology colloquium:

1. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. Famous German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, the "father of modern theology," was hanging out with his Romantic friends (he was roommates with Schlegel for a while), and they said, "Fritz, you're a fascinating and charming, intelligent, art-loving guy. What's all this religion crap about?" Schleiermacher wrote this book in response. Nice and lyrical in a way that the later analytical Schleiermacher isn't - religion is "lying on the bosom of the earth" and being caught up in rhapsodic perception of the interconnectedness of all things. I think Schleiermacher has a lot to say to many "cultured despisers of religion" today - if you ignore most of the problematic last chapter. 200 pgs.

2. David Tracy, Analogical Imagination. It may seem strange for a Mennonite theologian to be drawing on a Roman Catholic for most of his work. But I do. Tracy outlines a method for Christian theologians to engage meaningfully in a pluralist society without giving up the very important pieces of their identity, centered around the idea of the "classic" and how it speaks to the questions of existence we all have. This guy will help me write my dissertation (not really - but through his book). 467 pgs.

Keep on goin', fellow readers!

Just Barely Staying Between Phoenix and Jeremy!

2008-04-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
Lovely story about a woman who is taken from Africa as a 12 yo, sold into slavery in S. Carolina. Throughout the book she travels to Canada, Sierra Leone, and England. Ends with her as an elderly woman living in England. Good story. 487 pages

Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things by John Holt
from the back cover: "Holt lays out the foundation for un-schooling as the vital path to self-directed learning and a creative life. . . . packed with examples of how to create learning opportunities outside the established educational structure, as well as fascinating stories of people who choose to self-educate, non-compulsory schools . . . Holt's most direct and radical challenge to the educational status quo and a dramatic appeal to parents to save their children from schools of all kind." This book was first published in 1976 (the year I was born) and I wonder if that is part of the reason I don't find it the most interesting book I've read on this subject... Still good, though. I also read it in two halves, with several weeks separating the reading, that probably didn't help....222 pages

Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days: An Almost Completely Honest Account of What Happened to Our Family When Our Youngest ... Came to Live with Us for Three Months
Meh. This was okay. I don't really recommend it. 113 pages

~buffy in denver

Welcome Aaron!

2008-04-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome Aaron -- you have a great start! (though I must ask -- is there really such a thing as a gratuitous amount of reading?)

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Place in the World by Eric Weiner
Another great non-fiction read. Author is an NPR correspondent and self-described grump. Very interesting, the discussion of what makes happiness. Each chapter describes his visit to a different country (India, Bhutan, Qatar, England, etc) Iceland is one of the happiest places on Earth -- who knew? 329 pages

The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon
This is the companion book for the Outlander series (It feels a little redundant to say that.) Some parts were more interesting to me than others -- like any good companion book, probably. I didn't read the last part, which was excerpts of books I haven't read yet. Given the chance to do over, I probably wouldn't read this one. 402 pages read.

Buffy in Denver

I Am Far Behind Dawgs!

2008-04-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Well sorry it has taken so long to post but this is Aaron. If this does not work I am sorry as I don't know how to work this confounded thing as my life philosophy is anti-myspace, anti-facebook, and anti-blog. As for those of you who have read gratuitous amounts I must encourage you to keep reading, as reading is good, but for everyone's sake stop reading. Thanks. Lets get on to business.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson- A laid back read that overall I enjoyed 256 pages Baby!!!

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah- Depressing but good 226 pages

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss- Best book on turtle stacking ever 72 pages

Open Your Eyes and Soar by Cuban Women- Great stories written by Cuban women 102 pages

Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut- Amazing, go read it now 135 pages

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver- 2nd read and still awesome 400 pages

Gig by Jon Bowe- Americans essays about their jobs from garbage collector to doctors 49 pages

The Prince by Machiavelli- Ahhh Machiavelli 71 pages

A Collection of Primary Documents by Spikard- Collection of great historical writings 133 pages

1491 By Charles Mann- Good Book on Native American's impact on the enviroment 40 pages

Total that is 1444 as of now. I may have forgotten stuff and if I did I will add them later. Also if any of my professors happen to glance at this page I have read Woodrow Wilson by Thomson, The Cuban Missile Crisis by Munton and Welch and A Concise History of Modern India by Metcalf and Metcalf along with various other writings and primary documents.

Gerald Ford, Stephanie Plum, and Gemma Doyle

2008-04-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford by Thomas M. Defrank
The author was a Newsweek correspondent for many years and interviewed Ford many times with the understanding that nothing would be published until after his (Ford's) death. Interesting stuff about Watergate, his relationship with many other former presidents, etc.
250 pages.

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich
pure fluff and very short. I feel better about posting it when it's proceeded by something slightly weightier. ;)
166 pages.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
New young adult fiction, the first in a series (a trilogy?) I liked it, but not sure if I'll read the rest or not.... 1895, English girl living in India, returns to England after her mother is killed, goes to boarding school, has supernatural visions....
403 pages.

Buffy in Denver

Reading backlog

2008-04-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's Michelle. Here's the news from the front:

During holy week, I read Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (272 pgs). It is a hilarious and inspirational read. Whenever I need a smile, I read the story about her "Aunties" that she takes to the beach.

In the fifth grade, I've been reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (144 pgs) during their silent reading time. It is a beautiful book that I wish I had read when I was younger. It is about a girl during World War II who helps protect the Jewish family next door during the Nazi occupation.

In the sixth grade, they get to choose between several novels to read. Although Wayside Stories is a good read, I choose The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis (224 pgs). Funny and has ridiculously long chapter titles.

And finally today I spent 4 hours finishing The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (543 pgs). It pokes at everything in the world that need to be poked at. Religion, food production, politics, health, school. If you haven't read it, go read it now.

Behaving Badly and Behaving Well

2008-04-04T18:31:00.001-07:00

A smorgasbord from Jeremy as spring break winds up and we spring back into comprehensive exam action. Wish me luck on the philosophy exam, friends.

1. Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories. The master of the short story - and I do mean short, some of them three pages, ranging from the existential to the absurd. As I understand, Tamie and Buffy share a high school memory from one particular story: "I am not well, and Shotwell is not himself." Recommended, especially for future fiction writing graduate school students. 480 pgs.

2. Neil Labute, Seconds of Pleasure. The question I have to ask myself after reading a book of short stories like this is, Why do I continue to seek out misanthropic fiction? There is no answer, but I know I need to stop, for my own well-being if not Mr. Labute's. 224 pgs.

3. Tyler Knox, Kockroach. All right, so this one was misanthropic too, but in a good way. Knox inverts Kafka's famous story in which Gregor Samsa wakes up as a giant cockroach, and instead tells the story of a cockroach who wakes up as a tall and creepily attractive human. He is particularly successful in crime; given this fact, you can guess in what political office he ends up. Readable and grim. 368 pgs.

4. Larry Doyle, I Love You Beth Cooper. Kind of an American Pie in novel form; each chapter begins with a caricature of the nerdy hero's increasingly bedraggled face. Nice in concept, dull in realization. 272 pgs.

5. Marie Phillips, Gods Behaving Badly. Fun, light novel about the Greek gods barely hanging on in the 20th century; Artemis walks dogs, Apollo is a TV psychic, and Dionysius owns a night club. Refresh your mythology and read semi-chick-lit at the same time! 304 pgs.

6. In a complete reversal from the previous book, Immanuel Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Final book for my comprehensives. Kant argues philosophically for the necessity of a religion based solely on obedient moral behavior. Yes, I know it's more complicated than that. 352 pgs.

First book for April

2008-04-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Secret School by Avi

short-ish chapter book about Ida, a 14 year old girl in rural Colorado in 1925. When her teacher has to leave before the school year, Ida decides to become the teacher (the school board decided to simply close the school instead of finding a new teacher). A good story, I would've like it when I was 10, certainly. 153 pages.

Buffy in Denver

So that's how you do it...

2008-04-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to post my updated numbers forever, but I haven't known how. This month, Tamie was kind enough to post instructions for morons like myself. Thanks, Tamie!

And I feel unreasonable pride at keeping pace with the out of control kids we know as B&J (not sure what your kid's name is but I hope it starts with P because than your family acronym can be a sandwich :-)). I'm kind of secretly hoping to break my leg or come down with mono so I have an excuse to lay in bed and catch up for real. Plus, you lot (speaking to the general posting public now) have been reading some good books lately! If I could read all the books you have liked lately, I'd be a happy camper.

Not a lot of new books this month, but I did reread the Chronicles of Narnia. I do that about once a year. More to the point, I did not read one single classic! Oh, it was good, my friends. I still can't talk about it. Need more time to process the relentless joy.

Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
This was a recommendation from a friend, and it's the first in a series that I initially mistook for a children's epic, but upon reading, changed my mind. It's pretty violent and intense in certain parts. It's about a young girl names Ayla who lives in prehistoric times when the world is split up between partially evolved humans (Clan, or "flatheads") and pretty much evolved humans ("Others"). Ayla is one of the Others, but when an earthquake kills her family and leaves her nearly dead, a Clan woman takes pity on her and raises her as one of their own.

The book is multilayered and quite a fascinating study of identity, family, home, humanity, love, and faith. This book, the first of three, details Ayla's life with the Clan and how she finds love there, despite never fitting in and always feeling/looking different. 495 pages.

Valley of the Horses, Jean M. Auel
Continuing the saga of Ayla, who finds herself alone once again, without her family and completely vulnerable to the elements-- though a good deal better equipped as a woman of fourteen than she was as a child of five. Much of the book deals with her solitary journey as well as that of another important character. Eventually, their paths cross.

As much as the first book was about family and love and what it means to belong to someone, this book was about self-sufficiency versus loneliness and it resonated with me right now. Ayla is fine going it alone, she can do it all herself and thrive, actually, as an independent strong woman. But she doesn't like it. She doesn't savor it, she doesn't relish it. The ability to go it alone does not the desire to go it alone make. How well I know. 544 pages.

Love Is A Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
This was a very poignant, sweet book written by a young widower about the wife of his youth. Rob is a funny guy, and obviously something of a music fanatic as was his late wife, Renee. The book tells all about their relationship, and the whole thing was written while he was wrestling with his own grief (his wife died suddenly, of a brain aneurysm, completely out of the blue).

It's not deep, it's not groundbreaking, it's not witty or smart or Nobel Prize material by any means. It's just honest, and authentic. It's very heartfelt, and a lovely tribute to a woman who must have been something wonderful. 219 pages.

I'm going to read some of the books all of you have been writing about this month. Keep up the recommendations!

-Phoenix

One last book for March

2008-04-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

What a great book -- I've discovered that I'm really interested in economics, or at least behavioral economics. I laughed out loud while reading this book -- should you really do that when reading a non-fiction econ book? The author is a prof at MIT who "explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities" (from the book flap). 254 pages

Buffy in Denver

i read another book!

2008-03-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

This one is called "Divisadero" by Michael Ondaatje. It's hard to describe. Most of it feels quite a bit like poetry. There's a lot of pathos. Characters you come to care for, although I often felt like I was reading about something, rather than really being immersed in it. I recommend the book, but not nearly as highly as The English Patient, or even Anil's Ghost. 273 pages. yay!

-Tamie

I'm glad this wasn't my high school experience

2008-03-29T08:49:00.001-07:00

The Battle of Jericho by Sharon M. Draper

Wow -- this was a pretty intense young adult book about The Warriors of Distinction, a high school "service" club that, in actuality, has brutal "initiation" and hazing rituals. Told from the point of view of Jericho, who has been invited to join the club. The author was National Teacher of the Year in 1997. 297 pages

Buffy in Denver

A wonderful book for book club, an okay (and short) book by local author

2008-03-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Mel, I think you will like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I haven't been able to bring myself to read The Road -- I'm afraid it's just going to be too dreary and pessimistic for me. (Though I'm truly not one who insists on happy endings, or happy beginnings. I do like to be able to find a glimmer of hope at some point in the text, though -- it doesn't have to be at the end. :))

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Book club book for this past Thursday. Good stuff. Several heartbreaking passages/events. From Amazon
Quote:
In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer. 405 pages.

Now You See Him by Eli Gottleib
Fiction by a local author. Okay.262 pages.

Buffy in Denver

melissa here...

2008-03-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

Wow! There's just no keeping up with Buffy and Jeremy! You put us all to shame.

I've a few to add to my list. Just short reviews this time. Will have to look at that Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book next!!

Nick Hornby
'A Long Way'
331 pages
My favourite so far of Hornby's. He's hilarious and excellent. This one looks at four totally diverse characters wrestling with suicide. Happens to be very funny, in spite of subject matter.

Cormac McCarthy
'The Road'
285 pages
Akin to Atwoods' "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake." I feel like I have written this before, so maybe I've already counted this but don't want to go thru the archives to double check. If so, I've stolen 285 extra pages in my page count--sorry!

Mary Higgins Clark
'I Heard That Song Before'
384 pages
Horrendous soap opera. Am amazed I made it to the end, but I was slightly interested in how the plot turned out. Could have read the last chapter and discovered it all.

John Grisham
'The Appeal'
358 pages
Grisham is my literary cotton candy. He's returned to the topic of the legal system. Quite cynical. Good fluff read.

Jodi Picoult
'Plain Truth'
405 pages
I've read Picoult before. She writes about interesting, controversial subject matter, has well filled out, fully living and breathing characters, beautiful settings, and irritating plot manipulations. This woman's middle name should be Deux ex Machina. And her last name should be No Thread Left Hanging. She wraps up too many loose ends at the end of her story.
Nevertheless, I liked this book. I just ignored the last 3 to 4 pages in my imagination, after I'd read them. It's about an amish teenager who gets pregnant. I am fascinated by amish life, and I think Picoult presented a pretty fair representation.

Jodi Picoult
'The Pact'
389 pages
Funny that I find her plot twists so irritating but I read two of her books in the course of four days this week. Her subject matter is so interesting! And characters worth investing in. This book had SOME irritating plot twists but not a total Deux ex Machina ending, and left some (almost too deliberate) loose ends at the end of the book. This one was about two teenagers who made a suicide pact, but one of the two survived.

total page count this time:
2152

For overall total of:
4580

Wow -- I'm the mother of a four year old.

2008-03-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

Today was our daughter's 4th birthday, and I'm wiped out -- just going to post titles -- feel free to ask if you want more details!

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen -- Fiction
269 pages

I Never Forget a Meal by Michael Tucker -- this one was a read-aloud for Jeremy and I.
242 pages

The Monster of Templeton by Lauren Groff -- James Fenimore Cooper, giant sea monster, imagined pregnancy, returning home -- a very bizarre book, in some ways. And yet not.
364 pages

Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams -- being hailed as the next Harry Potter -- it was okay...
472 pages

Buffy in Denver

Youth Redeemed

2008-03-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

1. Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels. In my opinion, superior to On the Road in both style and content. Kerouac begins with his solitary meditations on Buddhism and life while fire-watching in Washington State, travels through the illusions of fame and recklesness with Allen Ginsberg, depravity with William Burroughs in Tunisia, and comes back home to take his elderly French mother home to live with him. Profound, beautiful, and sincerely conflicted. I wish I had the courage to live like this. 409 pgs.

2. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption. A stunningly poetic and painstakingly crafted work by a Jewish mystical philosopher-theologian who sought to build bridges between Judaism and Christianity, philosophy and religion, while rejecting the excessive claims to truth of all of them. "Truth is not God; God is truth. God is not love; God loves." My new personal motto as an academic student of religion is, "Divine truth is hidden from the one who reaches for it with one hand only." 459 pgs.

3. John Crowley, Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land. Interesting epic/lyrical story-within-a-story about Byron's lost Romantic novel, his dying daughter's encryption and footnoting of it, and its modern recovery by a web programmer whose relationship with her Byronic father is just as complicated. 465 pgs.

Wayward Youth

2008-03-17T20:17:00.001-07:00

Jeremy here. (In non-literary news, Constantine was better than I thought it would be. Either this was a high point of Keanu's career or my expectations were so low I was bound to be pleased.)

1. Rebecca Godfrey, The Torn Skirt. Inputting Jesus Saves (see below) into Amazon netted me a bunch of Amazon recommendations which I got from the library, which unsurprisingly also netted me a bunch of novels about depressed druggie teens. I'm done with that now. Read Jesus Saves and then stop. 208 pgs.

2. Ann Patchett, Run. Much better. Over the course of 24 hours, a failed politician and his adopted sons deal with race, poverty, politics, and love in its infinite varieties. Patchett is a convincing and lyrical writer who is also very readable. 304 pgs.

3. Paul Auster, Moon Palace. I am now officially a Paul Auster fan after reading this and the New York Trilogy. Auster writes about storytelling and narrative within his fiction in a very different way than the in-your-face footnoted self-aware histrionics of more recent writers (which I also enjoy, don't get me wrong). The jacket cover described this as "modern sensibility in a nineteenth-century cover," which is a very nice way to say Auster deals with deep philosophical issues at the same time as writing a great story. After the painting trip into the desert, I actually gasped out loud. That's all I'll give away - read it for yourself. 320 pgs.

Nostalgic Reading

2008-03-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
Man, I loved this book when I was younger -- read it and read it. Newbery Honor in 1957. Just finished reading it aloud to my nearly four year old daughter. Main characters are cousins (Portia and Julian) who are spending the summer together and "discover" a swamp with a row of old, falling-down houses ... Don't want to spoil the plot twists. ;) 256 pages

~Buffy in Denver

The Visual Reading Explosion

2008-03-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

So my next two books are actually books that are like a combination of reading and something else:

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, ed. by Steven Jay Schneider. The entire "1001...You Must...Die" series is really quite good, despite their somewhat ominous titles. I've always thought short, to-the-point journalistic writing was some of the best writing out there. This series of descriptions of the must-see films of all times fits that particular bill. You don't even have to watch any of the movies afterward - the plot descriptions and intelligent comments make the book a beautiful (though hefty) joy to read. 960 pages.

The Gunslinger Born, the Marvel adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. To put it briefly, don't bother - read the books instead. 240 pages.

Can you tell it's spring break? I'm gonna watch Constantine soon. Darn you, Keanu Reeves, for making movies I want to watch and having the gall to act in them as well.

Yippee for The Sun

2008-03-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

Just read the March issue of The Sun. Sure enjoy it. Good, good stuff. 48 pages.
~Buffy in Denver

Michelle here...

2008-03-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

I also just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Obviously, everyone else in this challenge needs to read it too! Buffy's review pretty much sums it up; it is an excellent book! I told my dad about it and he has been making fun of me for wanting to start a garden in Febuary in the north east ever since :) 354 pgs

Concerning Faith

2008-03-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

Letter to a Godchild (Concerning Faith) by Reynolds Price
Fiona has just woken, so I'll be quick -- Price is a Professor of English at Duke University. This is the expanded version of a letter he wrote to his godson on the occasion of his baptism, intended for him to read later in life. He considers himself a Christian, but approaches faith from a broader perspective than one single religion might provide. I liked it. 95 pages.
~Buffy

Life - It's Messy

2008-03-07T09:31:00.002-08:00

Jeremy posting so that Buffy's title doesn't become a post in itself.

Books For School

It's getting toward the end of the quarter and I'm doing projects rather than reading, so only one book: McKeachie's Teaching Tips, a helpful guide for college teachers about designing syllabi, lecturing and technology in the classroom, etc. Not really something to curl up with on a winter's night, but very helpful. 407 pgs.

Books For Fun (?)

Darcey Steinke, Jesus Saves. A dark exploration of a 13-year-old pastor's daughter dealing with her spiritual and sexual longings (and how those get confused), paralleled by the account of a kidnapped schoolmate. Disturbing and harrowingly written. 224 pgs.

Tom Perrotta, The Abstinence Teacher. An interesting parallel to the Steinke novel, this one shifts back and forth between a high school health teacher who upsets the local community when she refuses to teach the school's newly adopted abstinence curriculum, and a former addict who has newly joined the evangelical church and is now coaching the soccer team on which the health teacher's daughter plays. Their relationship unfolds in complicated and unpredictable ways. Perrotta does an excellent job of being sympathetic to the motivations of both the teacher and the soccer coach - no straw men here, refreshingly. 368 pgs.

Finally, I read through The Unprocessed Child and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - see Buffy's reviews below. 595 pgs.

Growing Food, Growing Children, Growing Evil. Reading Magazines. Chocolate and Grammar.

2008-03-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
The authors' family tries to eat locally for an entire year and also try to grow/raise their own food. Lots of great info here -- I think it's a good book for anyone to read, simply to think more about where the food that you are eating comes from (and how much petroleum is used to get it to you.) I made the spinach lasagna recipe tonight and it was absolutely lovely. Yum. I've never made lasagna before, either! 354 pages

The Unprocessed Child: Living Without School by Valerie Fitzenreiter
Excellent -- obviously an unschooling book, but also (in my opinion) just an amazing parenting book. In fact, I think anyone who will interact with any child for more than 5 hours should read it. It's one of those books where just reading a paragraph gives me a fresh perspective and enables me to keep trying to be the parent I want to be (much like Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline.) The author unschooled her daughter, who is now an adult. 241 pages

Added on March 2nd:

A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII by Dan Kurzman
More non-fiction. Wasn't as compelling as it could have been, but interesting. 247 pages.

Added on March 5:

The February issue of The Sun. Man, I love this magazine. Tamie introduced us to it several years ago and Jeremy got me a subscription for Christmas -- Good gift, husband! 48 pages.

The March-April issue of Mothering. Another good magazine. If you need a introductory lesson on cloth diapers or starter foods for babies, this would be a great issue for you. At the risk of offending someone here, let me just say -- this magazine is nothing like your average magazine aimed towards parents. It's good stuff. I would say that every issue has at least one article that would be appealing even if you don't have children. 104 pages, I'll take off 50 for ads, just to be safe ~ 54 pages.

Added March 7th:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl -- Just finished reading this one aloud with my daughter. 162 pages

When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech for Better and/or Worse by Ben Yagoda
This book was really really fun to read. (It was our bathroom book for a while.) One of the highlights for me was learning that ampersand (&) was once considered the 27th letter of the alphabet and was pronounced "and". When children were saying the alphabet, they would end with "and, per se, 'and'" and from that we've gotten "ampersand". Someone out there has to be as fascinated by this as I was...Right? 241 pages.

Abort, Retry, Fail?

2008-02-28T13:57:00.000-08:00

Phoenix here-- and screw the epithet, I give up. I am not rising from the ashes of the stupid classic books I have burned this month in an act of catharsis so effective I almost had an Herbal Essence moment right there, if you catch my drift.

I mean it. No more classics for me, and that's the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it.

(Till next month, anyway.)

My reading list for the month:

Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
If you read this... then that is all you need to know about my thoughts on this here book. 136 pages, and I earned every damn one of them. I'm still having nightmares about being trapped underground with only this book for company. Egads.

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
Yes, she has a silly name which is a very bad word if you take out the middle five letters. If you let that stop you from reading this absolutely fantastic book, you are, no offense, a complete loser. A failure at life. I really mean that. You'll never get anywhere making fun of people's names that way.

Apparently because NFU (that stands for "Not For the Unmedicated," in case you were wondering) was such a traumatic experience for me, the reading gods very kindly saw fit to provide me with this lovely tale. It didn't exactly erase the really bad and terrible feelings of inadequacy, just as somebody giving you a really great haircut doesn't quite make up for the fact that you just had your arm amputated.

But it helped. That's all I can say.

I can't talk about this book... the plot is too complicated and yet simple for me to risk not doing it justice by summarizing, the characters need no explanation, and it's the best book I've read since A Thousand Splendid Suns (which is a ringing endorsement a few times over).

Read it. If you don't like it, I'll be glad to take the blame. But I won't understand. 536 pages.

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd
This was a recommendation from our very own resident Mother Earth... in fact, she provided me the book. So, I very much wanted to and expected to like it (I really liked The Secret Life of Bees and I was looking forward to seeing what she'd do with nonfictional narrative). Unfortunately, I didn't like it-- or Kidd-- until the very end, and even then I wasn't crazy about her.

Mainly, this is because she reminds me a lot of myself. You can always count on that to be annoying, especially when you don't like the person, but I found it particularly irksome in this context because Kidd seems to be trying to portray herself as this enlightened, wonderful person (I also had issues with her terrible arrogance) when in actuality, she just comes across as pretentious and dull. Worse, her actions throughout the book were very similar to mine in my most selfish years, and I'm 40 years younger than she is. In a sense I respect her journey, but I can't get behind a lot of her actions throughout it.

Unfortunately, I have to give this one a thumbs-down. 228 pages.

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Did I mention that I am so done with classics? I was looking forward to this book. I read a book of Vonnegut's once and I wasn't all that impressed, but he's one of my best friends' favorite authors so I decided to give one of his most famous books a try to see if I liked it any better.

Not so much. I've moved past the trying-to-understand phase and now I'm just flat-out wondering if anyone else struggles with this stuff nearly as much as I do, or if I'm just a dense fog of a reader. I couldn't follow what was going on during well over half the book. The first part was clear enough, but then it went into this stream-of-consciousness pattern and stayed there till the very end.

I should mention that I have a huge problem with stream-of-consciousness, generally speaking. I hate it, I just hate it. The only time I can excuse it is when the writing is out-of-this-world, wonderful prose (Lolita comes to mind). Otherwise, forget it. I need action. I need plot. I really need to know what the hell is going on if I'm not to end up bored and frustrated and, hey, ready to give up on classics and knock back some quality bourbon while I'm at it.

I was really looking forward to reading about Vonnegut's time as a prisoner of war in that biting, satiric, wonderfully witty way he has (and he really does... the few bits I could understand were some damn fine samples of writing). But the way he structured the book, I couldn't tell what was going on and it left me feeling like I'd missed the point, plus an awful lot of brilliant storytelling. In a nutshell, that's my issue with these classic books. 275 pages.

Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea
I read about Middle Eastern cultures all the time, because I find their stories, lifestyles, traditions, and laws to be nothing short of fascinating. This goes double for books about the Kingdom... Saudi Arabia. This book is actually a collection of expose emails a young Saudi woman took it upon herself to write anonymously to a group on the Internet... similar to blogging, but before it was popular. The email group grew and spread like wildfire throughout the Kingdom. Everyone began reading them, but the girl herself stayed completely anonymous. (She talks in one email of how she would print out her new posts as soon as they were available and read them to her family, just as every other girl in her age bracket was doing... no one suspected she was the writer.)

The emails chronicle four well-to-do young Saudi women and their lovers/husbands/boyfriends. The writing is only fair (not even that sometimes; she tends to ramble), but the stories are intense and well worth reading. Not to the extent I would certain other books about this country and others in the area, but I would recommend this book. 286 pages.

My new page count is around 6700. I read a lot this month, but mainly reruns because I read Time Traveler's Wife very slowly out of sheer enjoyment and most of the others found me riddled with frustration and not wanting to concentrate on them when I wasn't on the subway.

Hit or Myth

2008-02-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

Even More Books for School

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth. I loved Campbell in college, but rereading it now with a critical eye I realize some of the big problems involved - most namely a basic misunderstanding of many other people's traditions and an inherent selfishness to Campbell's whole project. 320 pgs.

J.F. Bierlein, Parallel Myths. By far the best mythology book used for the class I'm TAing for. Lays out the myths, their similarities and dissimilarities while being very careful to make sweeping (American individualist) generalizations, and has a very nice piece at the end specifically about "religious mythology" which is nuanced and sensitive. If you want to read about mythologies, drop Campbell and pick up this one. 368 pgs.

A Tiny Bit of Books For Fun

Reread Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I love this snarky too-clever-for-their-own-good kind of metafiction that really has something profound to say under all the self-conscious writerly devices (David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, I'll argue, is the greatest book of my generation). Eggers tells the story of his parents' death and his subsequent guardianship of his eight-year-old brother, all framed in a painfully self-conscious reflection on writing, life, and celebrity. 416 pgs.

Sometimes It's Just Time to Walk Away

Started and didn't finish Tim Willocks' The Religion: A Novel. Set in 16th century Malta, The Religion tells the story of the dramatic conflict between the Hospitallers and the Moslem armies. It centers around the figure of Matthias Tannhauser, a German trader conscripted as a boy by the Moslems but now weaving his self-centered intrigue among the various political factions in Malta. Now, I'm not against sex and violence per se, but do you really have to be angling for a movie deal this early, guy? Made it to 250 pgs. and put it back in the "to be returned to the library" bag.

More Diana Gabaldon (Don't worry, I'm reading lots of non-fiction now to atone)

2008-02-25T16:10:00.000-08:00

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

'nother in the Outlander series... I think it had the most twists of any in the series -- one where I really wanted to know what was going to happen next!I'm not sure how much I've talked about these -- Set in Scotland(1940-1970 and 1740's) and mid-1700's colonial America, largely. 1070 pages.

Buffy in Denver

hallelujah, i read another book!

2008-02-23T19:56:00.001-08:00

by Tamie

I just finished 44 Scotland Street, recommended to me by Buffy. What a fun read. I really enjoyed it. It's about a bunch of people who are sort of connected, who all live in Edinburgh. There's lots of observations about humanity, and it's pretty hilarious, and these two reasons are why I liked it. 585 pages (I got the large-print edition, and I don't feel bad at all for doing so, because it means more pages, and we all know that we all need as many advantages to try and beat Buffy and Jeremy as possible!)

Synchronicity Means Making Up Meaning Where There Isn't Any

2008-02-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

All right, Jeremy catching up.

Books for School

World Mythology, edited by Roy Willis. The primary text for the comparative mythology class I'm assistant teaching. Decent overview but poorly copy-edited, some factual errors, and an overall approach that I find colonialist and condescending. (Did I mention I actually cursed out loud at Joseph Campbell in the library today?) 307 pgs.

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, really should be translated something like The Will to Knowledge. Impossible to encapsulate simply, but crudely summarized Foucault brilliantly argues that the whole concept of "sexuality" is something society made up in the 17th century to enforce power over women, children, homosexuals - and eventually ourselves. Read it several times and with someone who knows what they're talking about and you'll see it has to be true. 159 pgs.

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Another brilliantly argued book that surveys the entirety of Western moral philosophy to see what's gone wrong. Why are we all shouting at each other instead of having intelligent arguments - in other words, Why in God's name did Fox News happen? MacIntyre argues that the Enlightenment project to base morality in individual reason led to the fragmentation of any possible common language of what's a good thing to do, and suggests a return to Aristotle's concept of a community guided by virtue instead. A wonderful read and easy to grasp on its own terms - and not a bad introduction to several key thinkers of philosophy as well. 278 pgs.

Books for Fun

David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk. The real reason for the title of my post (which I happen to also believe). An interesting dovetail with my philosophical reading (especially Wittgenstein and Foucault), this book is a fictional account of mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan's correspondence and contact with Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy. Much sexier than it sounds, Hardy considers his own failed attempts at romance, the mysticism of mathematics, and pacifism during the Great War. A sensitive look at complex manifestations of same-gender activity in the Disciples at Cambridge, which also features cameos by Bertrand Russell, D.H. Lawrence, and Herr Wittgenstein himself. Highly recommended - and you don't have to understand math to enjoy it. 485 pgs.

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Bad Girl. Another fascinating tangent connecting to philosophy and cultural studies. The story of a Peruvian expatriate translator in Paris and his contact over the significant decades of the 20th century with a power-and-riches hungry compatriot with whom he is still loyally in love. A look at the changing face of world politics and changing gender roles in the 1950s through 1980s centered around a good man loving the girl gone bad. No cameos, but mentions Derrida, Deleuze, and Lacan among others. Another recommended read. 276 pgs.

And finally, the book that got away - a graphic novel (that's "sequential narrative" to you skeptics). Sadly not that good. The Spectre: Tales of the Unexpected. In the DC Universe that includes Superman and Batman, the Spectre is literally the supernatural incarnation of the Wrath of God. This has been used to quite interesting and sophisticated effect in past comic book history. Not so much here - more an excuse for an adolescent gorefest. Are comics getting stupid again? (They were smart for so long there. Sigh.) 128 pgs.

Just Not That Into Hollywood, Buffy (humbly) Declares

2008-02-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger

Nonfiction about the big movie stars in the U.S. from the 1930's to the 1950's (and the "machine" that made them. Really well-written and mildly interesting but i decided I should move on after 316 pages. Should help me with crosswords and trivia games, though! ;)

Coming back to add another (Feb 20)--

Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith

The third in the 44 Scotland Street series. I really like these (not a big fan of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency). I like the little philosophical reflections the characters ponder and ... well, and I just like them. :) This is the most recent in the series, so you won't have to hear me talk about them again for a while. (though I may try his Portuguese Irregular Verbs trilogy.) 357 pages

And Feb.21 --

Crawfish Mountain by Ken Wells

Fiction -- author has been described as the "Cajun Carl Hiaasen". Deals with the decimation of Louisiana's wetlands and the politics involved. Fun characters. Read if you are interested in the subject or area, or really like Carl Hiaasen. If none of these things apply to you -- it's a fine book to skip. 364 pages

Jeremy and the Book That Disappeared

2008-02-17T07:28:00.000-08:00

A. J. Jacobs, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. It may just be my field, but I didn't like this one quite as much as The Year of Living Biblically. More neurosis and Hollywood, less personal reflection. Still cute, though - and you do gather some interesting trivia since Jacobs has done the work of reading the Encyclopedia Britannica all the way through for you. 288 pgs.

Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The collection that has the original short story "Brokeback Mountain" appears in. All right, I'm having trouble with my life. But not in the same way that a horribly injured rodeo rider does. Or a persecuted inbred adolescent. Or a gay cowboy. Don't read these if you are depressed. Or an inbred rodeo-riding teenaged bruised gay cowboy (because you know these experiences already). I did identify with waiting a long time at Denver International Airport, though. 285 pgs.

And here's the amazing thing, folks - when you read this much, sometimes it doesn't even make an impression. Between Jacobs and Brokeback Mountain I lost a book. I definitely read it and shelved it somewhere, but I have no idea what it was. I guess it wasn't good enough to make an impression.

Reading challenge update from mel

2008-02-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

Wow! You guys kick my reading ass. This is great. My only complaint about this challenge thus far is that there is no way I will be able to read all the interesting books you guys are reviewing! They all look tempting (except maybe that one about falling trees? Sorry Rob Jach, I'm sure it was good, just not my territory) and it is so great to read your reviews.

I found my 'Between Interruptions' book that I mentioned last time.
It's a compilation by 30 women, edited by Cori Howard.
AWESOME! I wish this book were three times as long. It's a collection of essay-type writings on 30 womens' experience of motherhood. I think I loved this book so much simply because it was honest in talking about the daily lives of many types of moms. Some are journalists, some editors, some novelists; all are good writers (imperative when writing for publication, I say!), and discusses some of the pertinent and unique issues for women of our generation with children.
314 pages.

'The Tent'
by Margaret Atwood
A 'melange' of fictional pieces by The Margaret
Good. I find her novels more satisfying than this particular compilation because her stories and characters are fascinating enough to want to journey with for a long time.
155 pages.

'Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters'
by Jessical Valenti, founder of feministing.com
Um...I'm VERY glad to have run across this book and blog author. I think she has a lot of very important things to say. The downside? She swears aLOT when she could really be more articulate, and it seems that if one is of a religious bent, one is not truly a feminist? Or intelligent? Or complex? Toss that garbage out, and you have yourself an extremely important feminist resource (not just for your hardcore, no-armpit-shaving, bra burning types...in fact, not really for that 'type' at all, if it even exists) and social commentary. Read it, or at least check out her website, and see what you think. Men, too, though I don't harbour much hope of that actually happening. Perhaps I should check my cynicism at the door ;-)
247 pages

Grand total: 716, which, added to my previous total of 1712, is 2428 pages.
I thought magazines didn't count? Grrr, I will have to start adding those to the fray. Do kids' books count? I read a lot of Dr Seuss. :-D

More Alexander McCall Smith and (Not) Using Reading as Escapism

2008-02-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
More in the 44 Scotland Street series. 345 pages

Then, in the midst of great emotional upheaval in my life, I chose to read two not so light-hearted books --

Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake
Fiction about a West Virginia coal-mining community. The viewpoint alters from chapter to chapter, with the story being told by various members of one family in the community. Author grew up in West Virginia. Pretty bleak (for good reason). 360 pages

The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America by Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen
Non-fiction. The authors follow 9 families in their day to day lives. Good. 229 pages.

I also read the March 2007 Atlantic magazine. I'm not ambitious enough to count ads -- do you think subtracting 50 pages is good enough (especially if I carefully perused and mocked the ads?) I'll say 82 pages.

~Buffy in Denver who will eventually read something lighter.

Handicaps

2008-02-11T22:34:00.000-08:00

I've decided that because I read slow, and some of those peope below me have already read thousands of pages, I should get a handicap. 15,000,000 pages sounds fair to me. Do your worst Jeremy and Buffy. Just try and catch me now. HA!!!!

~Rob Jach

Rob Jach's Reading List So Far.

2008-02-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

Robert Ritter Jach

D. Douglas Dent. Professional Timber Falling: A Procedural Approach.

Maybe not your typical book for this blog, but I read it, so here it is. Douglas Dent is an expert sawyer who has been involved in the timber business for over thirty years. He is known throughout the industry for his knowledge regarding timber falling. In Professional Timber Falling, Dent goes over basic terminology, equipment and general safety procedures before delving into actual felling, limbing and bucking (cutting a tree trunk into logs or blocks). A recurring theme throughout is the need to be constantly aware of one’s surroundings and the status of the tree being felled in order to saw safely. Tree size, rot, lean, compression and tension forces and nearby terrain and trees are all brought into consideration before, during and after both the face-cut and back-cut are executed. The book is loaded with diagrams and photos of actual cuts in the field. For Dent, safety is not a series of rules set by OSHA to be followed begrudgingly, but a crucial part of a specific process that not only leads to the security of the sawyer, but more efficient and, in the logging industry, more profitable cutting. Professional Timber Falling is an excellent text for anyone about to learn how to use a chainsaw; though, obviously, it does not replace hands-on-training.
175 pages. (REVIEWED BY ROB JACH)

Elizabeth Royte. Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash.

Royte, who has also contributed to the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Outside among others, takes on the sticky topic of where our trash goes when we “throw it away.” In short, the reader learns that it does not just “go away.” The book follows Royte’s personal quest to find out just how her Brooklyn, NY household’s waste is disposed of, from kitchen scraps, electronics, plastics, cans, and even what gets flushed down the toilet. Using traditional research to add to her own investigations, Royte combines both rancid humor and rotting reality to write about the epic voyages our trash takes from curbside to its final resting place. Royte rides along with garbage men on their routes, snoops around landfills after their managers fail to return her calls, tours recycling plants and starts her own compost pile – with grubby results.

Trash, we learn, is a multi-million dollar industry with private companies managing most of our refuse after municipal carriers haul it from our homes to the local sanitation garage. Landfill operators pay millions to poor communities to dump garbage in their backyards. The current limits of recycling along with the pollution risks of leaky landfills are discussed at length. Perhaps the most astonishing realization Royte makes is just how trivial the space post-consumer waste occupies when compared the waste generated by corporations extracting resources, manufacturing, packaging and transporting the goods we purchase. Further indicting those corporations shirking proper responsibility, Royte gives the example of the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign. “Keep America Beautiful” (KAB) is a program funded by the likes of the American Plastics Council and the American Can Company, among over two hundred other corporations. KAB calls on individual citizens to “pitch-it” and enlists them in volunteer beach and park cleanups. But these same entities make no effort to reduce their own waste, reduce packaging, and even vehemently lobby against recycling and state bottle deposit bills (paying a nickel deposit per beer bottle, receiving it back upon its return – states with bottle bills have seen a marked decrease in glass bottles in municipal waste).

But, Royte adds, consumers can help by refusing to buy unnecessary items. Conspicuous consumption (and with it, planned obsolesce), Royte argues, is just as complicit in our enormous garbage situation as the lack of recycling. For every item not purchased, over ten times the resources used to produce it are spared. More discussion on our oil-dependency and its connection to plastics could have been included. There is also no mention of nuclear waste or the very wasteful practices of governmental agencies. Royte delivers a sometimes depressing, yet humorous call to action.
294 pages. (REVIEWED BY ROB JACH)

Karin Muller. Along the Inca Road: A Woman’s Journey into an Ancient Empire.

I’ll be visiting my sister in South America during the month of April, so I thought I had better read up on what I might expect in our travels. Muller, also the author of Hitchhiking Vietnam, spends almost seven months traversing remote villages, bustling capitals, freezing mountain passes, dusty deserts, lush rainforests and windswept beaches. Financed in part through a National Geographic grant, Muller sets upon her journey with only a skeleton of an itinerary and a six foot two vegetarian cameraman for a sidekick. Making use of the local populace’s expertise as her guide, she finds herself in the thick of a riot, a jungle cocaine-bust, deep inside a gold mine, a dancer in a troupe, and on an unsuccessful fishing trip that leaves her stomach churning. Though she visits such sites as Machu Picchu along her three thousand mile journey, she concludes that it was not the sightseeing that left a lasting impression, but the people who helped and befriended her along the way – not too mention the dozens of old women who tried again and again to teach her the “proper” way to spin llama or vicuña fleece.

Interspersed throughout her narrative are short history lessons about the rich Inca Empire, the entity responsible for the most spectacular highway constructed prior to the twentieth-century and how this empire succumbed so easily to Francisco Pizarro’s rag tag band of conquistadors. A fun read, however, I wish she included more detail regarding weather conditions, costs, and where she stayed. Though I suppose that is what travel guidebooks are for.
295 pages. (REVIEWED BY ROB JACH.)

i read a magazine!

2008-02-11T21:20:00.001-08:00

But it sure is a good magazine. The January 2008 issue of The Sun. It was about emotion, opening to the dark and scary emotions, as an unexpected path into light.

Here are a few quotes.

"Despair can be a powerful path to the sacred and to a kind of illumination that doesn't come when we bypass the darkness." -Interview with Miriam Greenspan

"Why is it that people who cannot show feeling presume that that is a strength and not a weakness?" -May Sarton

48 pages.

(from Tamie)