More Tillermans--guaranteed good

Sons From Afar

Must be read if you've read the first five books in the series and have become enamored of all things Tillerman.  It doesn't stand on its own, which was okay by me.  It doesn't really start and it doesn't really end, which, also, was okay by me.  It's like reading a diary of a good friend who is still alive--you don't want or expect an ending.  It's a...how did you get that way? novel.

Cynthia Voigt demonstrates amazing skill at portraying the adolescent mind.  You absolutely know these kids and, because you know them, you love them.  Love them the same way you do Frodo Baggins or Sam Gamgee--you've been with them to Mordor and back--you've been in their heads as they fight orcs, cower in the shadows, shiver in the cold under the stars.

I have one small quibble--with all Ms. Voigt's skill and understanding, why does she totally skip sexuality?  I'm told that the adolescent male spends a lot of time and energy on it--when I once suggested to a friend that the primary thoughts in a young man's mind concerned, "girls, sports, school," in that order, his correction was: "girls, girls, girls..." with sports maybe on the list at number 39 and school totally absent.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not wanting Cynthia Voigt to change her writing.  I'm just a little puzzled that she leaves out such a huge slice of the adolescent psyche.

One day left on the calendar and that day is today.

Old in a new way

         

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
            by Francine Prose

Consider this: what's the difference between a diary and a memoir?  Answer: The Diary of a Young Girl.
Huh?

It's both.  The originally published version--the one I read a a child--was a diary.  Anne wrote the diary but later revised it, taking out some of the personal storms of adolescence and adding in pieces of universal interest.  Anne's father took the original and revised versions and (if I understood this correctly) restored much of the original content but sometimes kept the revised words and phrases that were superior to the original.

Anne's revisions were aimed at producing a book for publication after the war--a memoir.  I never knew any of this, nor did I ever consider that the content had undergone extensive revision by Anne, herself, as she advanced as a writer.  I don't have a copy of "the critical edition", to compare the copies, but maybe I'll get one someday.

This book by Francine Prose made me look at a childhood classic from an adult perspective and I thank her for that. Ms. Prose's work is not, as I expected from the title, a 3-part volume with an artificial boundary between the three topics of book, life and afterlife.  It's an adventure in mind, space and time, simultaneously explaining who wrote what, what it meant, and what it has come to mean now.  Good work!

Long on the list and short on content

It's Kind Of A Funny Story
by Ned Vizzini




I committed the unpardonable sin of watching the movie before I read the book.  That kind of takes away the freshness, you know?  If I'd read the book first, I might have liked it better.


This book gets top ratings for the description of "cycling"--the unending circle of painful thoughts in the mind of the depressed.  Also top ratings for the ending.  For the stuff that comes in between--well, it just happens.  There wasn't enough in the middle--dialog, description, action, anything. 

Thor: The Dark World

Nothing like those machine gun-equipped space alien dark elf space ships, huh?

Quick review (because I don't know what to say)

                              Big Machine
                              by Victor LaValle

Blown away.  Flabbergasted.  Confused as heck.

I think I get the message, but I don't understand one thing in particular--what was Solomon Clay trying to do?  Or maybe I do understand, sort of.

Victor LaValle is probably the equal of Neil Gaimon in coming up with mind-altering literature. And I sense there's a whole lot of meaning in here.  Since I'm not literary or even all that perceptive, I'm not sure exactly what that meaning is. Other people might even find other meaning.  It's that kind of deep, you know?

The calendar is looking good.

The cold front is heading this way

...and I have a headache.  (An actual twinge, not a thinly veiled reference to a teenage daughter.  I have one of those, too, but it's not giving me a headache at the moment)

Too bad I didn't get home before dark.  I could have taken autumn foliage pictures before it all falls off and turns into soggy mush.




So I will read books.  I finished the audiotape of Speak a few days ago.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

It's simultaneously a humorous expose of the insane world of high school and a deeply personal journey from betrayal to recovery.  To tell more would be telling.  I'll just say that it touched me where it hurts.  High school has got to be the hardest time in the average person's life--you're full of hormones and haven't yet learned to recognize them; you desperately need to grow up but still want to be a kid sometimes; and you sometimes have a very painful secret that threatens to destroy you....

Well, some of you do.  I didn't, but it was still a hard four years.

The parents in the story are so unbearably clueless, it hurts to hear them talk.  They remind me of a lot of parents I've met in books--they do fine with babies and children but can't seem to recognize they have an emerging adult in the family. They try avoidance, denial, control and anger, but never compassion, patience, friendship and support.   I hope I'm not like that--I miss my fun little kids, but it's kind of nice to have someone that I can take to grownup movies.

For my listening pleasure

Saffy's Angel
by Hilary McKay

On the surface, this is the story of a hilariously eccentric family and a misfit's search to find her place in it.  Underneath, it's more.  And it works well on both levels.

Saffron is a girl of thirteen, living with older sister Cadmium, younger brother Indigo and little sister Rose.  Only they're not her real family, as she became painfully aware at age eight when she studied the color chart and found her name wasn't there.

People often describe a book or movie as "deeply satisfying." Well, this book most definitely isn't "deeply satisfying"--and I still say it's a great story. Other reviews say that it ends too quickly, but I don't agree--it makes a nice conclusion.  But like many works of great fiction, you find yourself wanting more.  I did.  In particular I wanted to see the father wake up to discover that he really wanted the family that he so happily rode away from every Sunday evening.

It's also funny enough to contend in the category for best YA humor.  Cadmium (Caddy's) driving lessons, with or without hamsters, are ticklish.

Book #90 was a bit of a bummer

I picked up the wrong book at the library--it was supposed to be All Of A Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, but instead I got All Of A Kind Family Uptown. A sequel, one of many.  I don't think I'm going to finish it.  The reading level is about fourth grade and I could knock it off in an hour, but why?

I don't mean anything negative by this, it's simply lack of interest.  At this point in my reading life, the book has nothing to offer me.  If I were an eight-year-old girl I'd be happy with it--maybe not as much as with Harriet The Spy or one of the Danny Dunn series, but happy enough to search out the rest of the series.  They're sweet little books about a family of kids growing up in New York in the years after World War II...oh, shoot!  I do need to read them for historical data.  This one was published in 1958.

Erase that!  The time period for the book was during the war, not after it.  It turned out to be pretty good--for an eight-year-old audience.

Book #89 and major spoilers

The False Prince
            by Jennifer A. Nielsen


I hate stupid author tricks.  Like hiding the main character's history and revealing it suddenly, for shock value.  Should I call it schtick value?  Characters should stand up for themselves and draw me into the story so deeply that I forget there even is an author.  The author shouldn't suddenly shove himself into the story and jerk it around, just to see how badly he can mess with my mind.  I want him to create a world for me--not play silly games.  Blah.

I tried to explain this reaction to my daughter and she said that every author hides part of the protagonist's backstory, revealing it slowly as the plot progresses or "big bang" to make an impact.  She may be right, but in that case the author usually drops hints and suggestions that something is coming.  This makes us pay more attention to our characters, wondering...wondering....then BLAM!  So that was the point!  Suddenly you understand everything.

Not this book.  It was more like, BLOOP!  Do I feel like an idiot, or what?  And incidentally, the main character is an idiot, too, and the plot is suddenly revealed to be as holey as Huck Finn's breeches.

Oddly enough, I liked the characters enough to want to finish reading the trilogy.  But not with the same excitement I had when I started it.

Everyone else liked this better than me

Not much reading got done this weekend, but I did manage to finish The Botany Of Desire.  I have mixed feelings--parts I liked very, very much, but other parts I disliked, almost enough to poison the whole book for me.   The parts that deal with history and culture are fascinating and revealing.  The Johnny Appleseed chapter was a true eye opener.  You know about apple seeds?  Well, I didn't either--but I do now.

Mr. Pollan's remaining three sections deal with tulipmania in Holland, the genesis of modern-day cannabis production, and the contribution of the humble potato to agricultural knowledge.  Great subjects.

But I don't the way he writes whimsical speculations as if they were facts.  The apple and the tulip sections are full of statements that aren't fact or even scientific theories undergoing serious consideration.   Some of his statements (a.k.a. speculations) read more like flights of lively fancy.

"When lack of food killed people, people judged body fat to be a thing of beauty."  "Try as they might, people have never been able to domesticate the oak tree, whose highly nutritious acorns remain far too bitter for humans to eat."  "...a well-developed culture of flowers is a luxury that most of Africa historically has not been able to support."

 Not that they're not interesting speculations--sometimes they're good jumping-off points for lively debate.  At other times, just beautifully drawn fantasy.  You might even say, poetry.

So...good book but be careful what you quote.

Good cat, bad picture.  She apparently knows how to use a bed.

Audiobook ambrosia

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

I wish I could give this four-and-one-half stars because it's just so darn delicious. I should read it on paper to see if has the same kick.  The audiobook was narrated by four voices, each taking on multiple characters as they read the letters back and forth between Juliet, her publisher Sidney, and the friendly people on the Isle of Guernsey, off the coast of France.  It takes place immediately after World War II and gives a vivid glimpse into people's experiences during and after the war.


As Juliet gets to know the people, and herself, and they get to know her, and themselves, the magic unfolds as gently and delightfully as a time-elapsed blossom.  Don't expect high drama, scandal, murder or mayhem in these pages--but be prepared for someone to get a smart slap in the face when needed.

Great book. Want more.

                 Come A Stranger
                 by Cynthia Voigt

This fifth book in the Tillerman Cycle was a little hard to get into.  The main character wasn't as interesting as previous ones have been--her challenges seemed trivial; her worries manufactured; her personality undeveloped.  I shouldn't have worried--she grew into still another of the marvelously complex Cynthia Voigt creations that I've learned to expect.

It's amazing that the five books in the series have all been interconnected despite the difference in time and perspective.  She must have planned this in advance, but I don't see how.  I don't dare read an interview with the author--not until I've finished all seven books in the series.  An interview might contain spoilers.

I must read the next two books, but unfortunately there was a wreck right at the entrance into the library parking lot.  Tomorrow....



Changing the subject, about a year ago I made a list of the "recently added, unread" books on my bookshelves.  There were 21 of them.  I put them on a to-read list and added the Shelf Discovery books and came up with 100 books.  I've been working off this list, in order (mostly), all year.

A few of the 21 original books have since gone to the Half-Price Books buying area; a few more to the library donation stack.  I also got rid of six or seven books from a mystery series that I didn't expect to ever read again.  And now...my bookshelves are fuller than they were before!

This is a sad state of affairs.  IMHO, a bookshelf should only hold books in the categories below:
    plan to read,
    intend to read again someday,
    useful for reference material, and
    may never read again but can't bear to part with.

So there is my goal for 2014--trim the shelves.
Step 1 of my goal is to identify the problem, and this I have done.  I have made a list of 53 books that are currently occupying space on the shelves.  A very few of those are books I read many years ago and need to re-read, but most have never been opened.

So, here are my rules.  (Last year's rules with slight modifications)
1. Must read the first two chapters of a book before giving up on it.
2. Any books that are given up on must be blogged about, explaining my delinquency in full.
3. An occasional swap is okay but don't make a habit of it.
4. New books can only be added at the list's indicated insertion points. (no matter how appealing they are.) 
5. Exceptions to #4 are only allowed if the new book is a library book or some other sort of temporary loan.
6. No more than 20% of reading can be done during my lunch break.

Slogging through to prove a point?

America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation by David R. Goldfield


I shouldn't make too much a big deal out of this, but I can't help myself. For all that the book is and isn't, it is not a demonstration of "How the Civil War created a Nation."  Maybe it should have been subtitled, "How the Civil War almost prevented America from becoming a nation."  Occasionally--very occasionally--the title was illustrated in the text--but not enough to justify the subtitle.

The nation-building that occurred during the period was only incidentally a consequence of the war.  When the southern states succeeded, the departure of their Democratic Party forces from congress left a republican majority.  That, plus a strong president, allowed our government to get things done in a hurry--the  Homestead Act passed, granting 160 acres of public land to farmers; a Department of Agriculture was established; land grants were made to finance the transcontinental railroad; government bonds were issued to pay for the war.  The National Bank Act of 1863 established a national currency.  The North was becoming a nation--the South didn't rejoin until long after the war and reconstruction were over.

The book was full of fascinating facts about a fascinating time in history.  For example:

- Jeff Davis' inaugural address described the constitutional basis for succession and how it "preserved the founding principles of the American nation." It was an admirable speech; convincing even to modern sensibilities. A month later, his vice president Stephens made a speech that declared, "Our new government is founded on [...] the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery; subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."

- The actual percentage of successionists in the south was nowhere near a majority.  Only in Texas was the ordinance of succession submitted to popular vote--the other states were afraid it wouldn't pass.

- The northerners' desire to prohibit slavery in the territories was not based on moral abhorrence but rather on fear of competition for jobs.  They were, on average, just as prejudiced against the negro as southerners.  "We did not enlist to fight for the negro and I can tell you that we neer shall..."

- I never realized how much Walt Whitman, in his poetry, captured the events and sentiment of his time.  If it weren't for my self-imposed ban on reading poetry, I might be tempted to take up an anthology.  Provided it was cross-referenced with the events on which he was waxing poetic, so I'd know what he was writing about.

That last note pretty much captures my reaction to the book.  I wanted more primary sources and less commentary.  We have transcripts of the speeches; we have Whitman's poetry; we have newspapers and letters from the front.  Those could have been arranged to tell the story better than the book's endless words--words that were frequently hard to read.  His description of the soldier' experiences at the battle of Shiloh was vivid--fascinating--depressing.  But a lot of the exposulatory text was disjointed and confusing--several times I'd get halfway through a paragraph only to look up and think, what the heck is he talking about?

So, if you're a history student wanting an introduction to the era, this book is an excellent jumping-off point.  If you're a casual but knowledgable reader, skip it.  The scope is too large; the focus alternates between macro precision and wide-angle blur.

Nonfiction that's better than fiction

               Dani's Story: A Journey from Neglect to Love
                by Diane Lierow, Bernie Lierow and Kay West



Deeply involving--impossible to put down--and not enough.  More!  I wanted more!

Okay, I admit that a life story of a living person has to end somewhere and this was published in 2011.  She was probably about 10 years old at the time.  The website it refers you to hasn't been updated since 2010.  But I just wanted to know more.

Darn.  I guess people have a right to a little privacy.

So I brought this thing home.yesteday

What am I going to do with it?
The thing has consumed most of my morning and is now taking a nap on Winston's chair.  Do cats truly have no noses, like dogs think, or does he find Winston's smell comforting, like a big brother's?

I also finished reading

                        I Think I Love You
                        by Allison Pearson

Don't read reviews of this.  Even the most careful review will give away too much of the story.  I didn't know anything about it when I plugged it into my car speakers and started Chapter 1.  And  I was delighted by everywhere it went. 

Let's just say that it starts in 1974, in Wales, with a pair of teenage girls who were--like most teenage girls--madly in love with David Cassidy.   And it starts in London with a man who takes a writing job for The Essential David Cassidy Magazine.  Two sides of the same teen craze--two people trying to figure out where they fit into the world--two could-have-been-true stories.

For all of my love of the printed word, I don't recommend you read this book.  If you're not Welsh--or even British--you won't be able to pronounce the delicious dialect and have it flow trippingly off the tongue.  British accents are so adorable!  Get the CD sound recording and plug in for three hours of auditory delight.

Yesterday Edward and I ventured to the Angelika to see
Twelve Years A Slave

I was under-impressed.  I think a good director could have made a really good movie out of this material.  Sigh.

Makes me want to read the book.

The Runner by Cynthia Voigt

I thought Cynthia Voigt's other Tillerman books--The Homecoming and Dicey's Song and A Solitary Blue--were the most painful and joyful young adult literature I would ever read.  Guess I'm still reading.

major spoiler follows:
Suggestion: do as I did, wait a few months after you read Homecoming before you read this book.  Assuming your memory is as weak as mine, you'll be halfway through before you realize who the main character is.  And if your memory is really bad, you'll have forgotten how it's going to end.

I wonder if nowadays, when people can freely choose to have or not have a child, if there are fewer atrociously bad parents in the world?  Probably not.  Who really knows what they're getting into when they choose to have "a baby"?  We're going to have "a baby."  "Some kids."  "My daughter."  "My son."
In the phrases above, prospective parents should replace "have" with "make."  Replace "my" with "a."  And replace "we" with "I".

They should say: I'm going to make a unique individual with likes and dislikes and needs and demands that aren't the same as mine.  Someone who's just as likely to inherit my faults as my virtues, and sure to invent a few new faults all their own.  If I try to make them be like me, I'll fail, every time. 

I read science fiction--my daughter reads yaoi manga.  I love making things--my son loves playing video games.  I say potato--they say po-tah-to.

Babies are kittens, so adorable, so wondering, so curious...and so doomed to become cats.  Cats shred the furniture.  Cats kill small animals and eat them and come back in the house to puke on your carpet.  Cats wake you up in middle of the night, yowling to be fed.  They kill and fight and mate and make more cats.  Cats will be cats.

But I like cats. And sometimes, if you're patient, they'll sit on your lap and purr.

Book #88 and only one more "old fashioned" to go

A Little Princess

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

1905


Somewhere in my sobbingly sentimental heart there's a deeply buried yearning for works like this.  Yeah, the story is contrived; dated; a little short in the action department; and not something I'd recommend to anyone who hadn't bawled her eyes out when Beth died.  But it's got that certain timeless something.  The secret in the attic.  The games of let's pretend that lighten the day-to-day toil.  The certain reward for true virtue.

All of the books in this chapter of Shelf Discovery  are kids' books, and that, I believe, is the first fatal flaw in my whole "teen classic" project.  The subtitle of the book was wrong--it should have been young adult classics, not teen classics--but I've already complained about that.  It was my fault that I didn't catch what Lizzie Skurnick was saying in her reviews.  A year ago when I first read Shelf Discovery, phrases like "eight-year-old brain" and "fourth grader" didn't register with me.  They do now--now that I'm looking for them.

The second fatal flaw in my project is that the booklist is so very jumpy.  It hops from a coming of age novel (Forever) to a young adult thriller of the seventies (Happy Endings Are All Alike) to a childrens' classic from 1905.  Both books can live in my mind, but they can't coexist on my bookshelf.

Lying Awake by Mark Salzman

Warning: spoilers below.
This quote that seems to define the book,

If I serve Thee in hopes of Paradise,
    Deny me Paradise.
If I serve Thee in fear of hell,
    Condemn me to hell.
But if I love Thee for love of Thyself,
    Then grant me Thyself.

I think this quote sums up the basic conflict in the hearts of all those who seek to know God.   But even if I'm wrong, it still makes you think.  The whole book does.

I came to the book as someone who'd read a great deal about the orders of contemplative nuns and The Rule, so nothing in the text shocked me or puzzled me--but I doubt if that would be true of many readers.  I wonder how strongly he borrowed from other works of fiction, especially In This House of Brede and The Nun's Story. But it's okay if he did.  It is NOT a rehash of the same questions they ask, not at all.  It asks a much more serious question.

(not telling what!)

You don't say

What You Wear Can Change Your Life
Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine

They nearly had me convinced on that.  Fun, funny book by a pair of fashion favored Brits; full of tips on what to wear and, more importantly, what not to wear.  It also includes makeup and miscellany, such as how to shape your eyebrows and pose for photographs.

I enjoyed it thoroughly and probably won't take one wink of their advice.
But it's worth reading for the chapter on vacation photography alone.  Bad vacation photos can sour a memory, they say--do what you must to ensure good ones.  Their tips may not change the positions in which I, myself, might pose, but they'll certainly be considered when I photograph my friends.

Catching up on books

Last week I finished Belles On Their Toes by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.  87 on my list of 100.

It was much better than Cheaper By The Dozen and I almost liked it.  I might even recommend it...maybe.  It's like a newspaper article--a lively recitation of who, what, when, where, and how--but never why.  There's no depth in it.

Apparently the two books were semi-biographical, written by two of the children of the family of a dozen.  I wonder if they were written while their mother was still alive?  If not, then I don't fault them for lack of depth; but if so, I wish they'd asked more questions of her.  She's a woman who had so much to tell--did she never get a chance to tell it?

Me give up

I'm struggling with my current book,   
                 America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation.
 It's hard to read--either
(a) the writing style is inconsistent, or
(b) my brain is too old and decrepit to follow such an erudite discussion.

I think the correct answer is (a).  Sometimes his sentences flow smoothly along, but other times they run on and I get halfway through one of his huge, fat paragraphs and realize I've gotten lost in stuff that doesn't fit together.

Half of good history writing is research--getting the facts.  But the other half is reporting the facts, with a flowing narrative or a convincing argument.

I'll stick it out.  It only has 22 chapters, so if I manage 5 chapters a week it will be done with one renewal.

In other news, I pulled a stupid yesterday. After airing up two of the three flat tires on the lawnmower, I decided to start it, then back it up a couple of feet and air the third (front) tire.  The front tires don't carry much weight, so that would be a safe maneuver. 

Since I'd had to jump start it the last twenty times I'd used it, so I wasn't surprised to find the battery dead.  I hooked up the jumper cables and...

And nothing. It thumped a little, clicked a little, then went silent and stayed that way. I reseated the jumper cables four or five times.  Continued silence.

Enough.  It was high time to buy a new battery.

I put the jumper cables away.  I put back the car I was using for a power source, got out a socket wrench and started to remove the battery. Immediately I noticed that the nut on the negative terminal was very loose, barely making a connection.

So that was that.  I'd been applying current to the battery but not to the starter.  Too late--I was halfway done removing the battery by then.  Bah!  I quit.  The battery is in the garage, the lawnmower in the shed, and the sopping wet grass is drooping in place.  It's going to rain all night and all day tomorrow.

Current Conditions.

Movies and books, what a life?

("semi-spoiler alert--skip this if you haven't seen it.)


Ender's Game was a movie I had to see because I'd liked the book so much.  Although they left out the brother/sister subplot, they put everything else in...or at least, they tried to.  As hard as they tried, they didn't quite get it across.

I was sorry not to see it, but there it wasn't.  It takes true genius to draw in pictures what can best be told in words.  It's nearly impossible to show--by face and words and even dreams--the tortured, twisted mind of a abused kid who fought only when he had to...and fought with the goal of making sure that the enemy was never able to hurt him again.

On a lighter note, I'm still stuck on Fables.  The library seems to have them up through volume 15 or so, so it's easy enough to pick up a couple each time I stop by.  This one,

Fables vol. 8 Wolves

...was sweet.  You might even say syrupy.  I didn't mind, but I did have to cover up an, "Ahhh" or two.

She captures the castle; I do housework

I capture the castle
by Dodie Smith

Hard to describe, this is.  it's whimsical and poetic and it curls, ever-so-slowly in wispy rings, unfolding in the mind of a young woman growing up.  She doesn't know she's growing up, but you do--you watch in delight as she slowly gains understanding of her world, her family, and her place in it all.  Slow as it is, the story never drags--you're as excited by the events of her tiny little world as she is.  It's a masterpiece in a wide-open mind.

I listened to this instead of reading it and I believe that heightened my appreciation of it.  Since I only listen to books when driving, jogging, walking dogs or doing housework, I was forced to stretch it out over four or five days.  The slower pace was maddening, at times--I wanted to gulp it down in a sitting.

(Especially maddening when driving, because if a CD image on my IPod comes to an end, I can't switch to the next one until I hit a long stoplight.  And there were 12 CDs in this audiobook.  And the last one didn't show up in the playlist.)

So if you have a tendency to gulp books (binge, overindulge, or stay up all night reading with a flashlight under the covers), listen to the audiobook for this.  You'll enjoy it more.

One question--would very many men enjoy this story as much as I have?